nationale_ would sound like this: "La gur de 1815 (in English) etait
une demonstration (in English) de la liberty national." It is almost
impossible to understand him; but he will read for hours unabashed, not
only to us, the drowsy and inattentive members of his family, but to the
most fastidious and illustrious Frenchmen. There are two brothers and a
sweet little sister. I shall have a beautiful home, or rather homes,
because they have not only a handsome hotel in Paris, but an ideal country
place (Petit Val) and a villa in Dinard.

Good-by. Greet all the united family from me, and tell them not to worry
over my future, as you wrote they were doing. I have renounced forever the
pomps and allurements of the stage, and I trust the leaves on the
genealogical tree will cease their trembling, and that the Fays, my
ancestors, will not trouble themselves to turn in their graves, as you
threatened they would if I did anything to disgrace them.


CHATEAU DE PETIT VAL, _June, 1862._

DEAREST A.,--I wish I could give you an idea of Petit Val and our life as
lived by me. Petit Val is about twelve miles from Paris, and was built for
the Marquis de Marigny, whose portrait still hangs in the salon--the
brother of Madame de Pompadour--by the same architect who built and laid
out the park of Petit Trianon.

There is an avenue of tall poplar-trees leading from Petit Val straight to
Choisy-le-Roi, where Madame de Pompadour lived, a distance of ten miles.

Like Petit Trianon, Petit Val has little lakes with shady trees bordering
them; it has grottos, waterfalls, winding paths, magnificent greenhouses,