je vous remercie ma tres chere sA"ur de l’interest que vous prenez a mon fils, tout le monde dit qu’il ressemble a L’empereur. cela me Charme il est bien portant a present, et j’espere qu’il sera digne de servir sous les drapeaux de son auguste oncle.—­adieu ma chere sA"ur soyA(C)s assA(C)s bonne pour Conserver un souvenir a une sA"ur qui vous est tendrement attachee.  Napoleon ne cesse de lire la lettre pleine de bonte que V.M. a daigne lui ecrire, cela lui a fait sentir le plaisir qu’il y avait a savoir lire, et l’encourage dans ses etudes—­je vous embrasse et suis,

Madame et tres chere SA"ur

de V.M.

La plus attachee

[Illustration:  Autograph of the Princess Borghese]

Pitti le 18 janvier 1811

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 66:  See Magazin Encyclopedique, for 1802, III. p. 504.]

[Footnote 67:  This transaction appears to have been peculiarly flagrant:  a long detail of the circumstances, accompanied by several letters, very characteristic of the feeling and church-government of the times, is preserved in the Concilia Normannica, p. 520.—­The account concludes in the following words:—­“Exhorruit ad facinus, non Normannia solum et Anglia, quibus maledicta progenies notissima erat, sed et universa Gallia, et a singulis ad Apostolicum Paschalem delatum est.  Nec tamen utrique simul ante quinquienniuin sordes de domo Dei propulsare praevaluerunt.  Ceteris ferventius institit Yvo Carnotensis Antistes, conculcatae disciplinae ecclesiasticae zelo succensus; in tantum ut Neustriacos Praesules quasi desides ac pusillanimes coarguere veritus non sit:  sed ea erat Ecclesiae sub ignavo Principe sors per omnia lamentabilis, ut ipsemet postmodum cum laude non invitus agnovit.”]

[Footnote 68:  Sandford, in his Genealogical History of the Kings of England, says, that this marriage was solemnized at Luxseul, in the county of Burgundy; but he refers for his authority to Ordericus Vitalis, by whom it is stated to have been at Luxovium, the name by which he always calls Lisieux; and he, in the same page, mentions the assembly of the nobles also held there.]

[Footnote 69:  Annal, IV. p. 599.]

LETTER XXIII.

FRENCH POLICE—­RIDE FROM LISIEUX TO CAEN—­CIDER—­GENERAL APPEARANCE AND TRADE OF CAEN—­ENGLISH RESIDENT THERE.

(Caen, August, 1818.)

Our reception at Caen has been somewhat inauspicious:  we had scarcely made the few necessary arrangements at the hotel, and seated ourselves quietly before the caffe au lait, when two gens-d’armes, in military costume, stalked without ceremony into the room, and, taking chairs at the table, began the conversation rather abruptly, with “Monsieur, vous etes sous arret.”—­My companions were appalled by such a salutation, and apprehended