I have given Lirette the money you gave me for her. I went to the convent myself, though still ill. Here's a strange thing! She has been requested by Abbé L... to send to Petersburg an affidavit declaring that neither he, the abbé, nor you had endeavoured to dissuade her from entering a convent, and affirming that she did not possess forty roubles and consequently had never given that sum to the convent. What does all that mean? I hope they will permit her to write, and that I shall bring you a long letter from her.
Take care of yourself, and do not forget to let me know where you are in Rome, addressing your letter to "M. Lysimaque, at the French Consulate, Civita-Vecchia, for M. de Balzac;" and try to find me a niche not far from you, if it is only a kennel. I hope my preceding letter has reached you through the Rothschilds.
What do you think of M. de Custine, who offered me a letter of introduction to Prince George (Michel Angelo)? He did not remember the prince's relationship to you! I take such part in your interests and those of your dear child that I tremble every morning as I open the newspapers. Mon Dieu! what anxiety when I think of the state in which your affairs are! You must not think of returning there till all is quiet once more.
Without adieu this time, but à bientôt.[2]
[1] To Madame Hanska, at Naples.
[2] Balzac started for Rome March 20, and returned to Paris May 1, 1846.
To Madame Laure Surville, Paris.
Rome, the Eternal City, April, 1846.
My dear Laure, I feel in advance the pleasure you will enjoy in thinking that your brother has put his hand to the pen in the city of the Cæsars, popes, and others. Give you a description of it?—I could not do it. Read Lamennais ("Affaires de Rome") and you will know nearly as much as he or I. I have been received with distinction by our Holy Father; and you must tell my mother that in prostrating myself at the feet of the father of all faithful people, whose hierarchical slipper was kissed by me in company with a podestat d'Avignone (a hideous mayor from the Vaucluse district, who claimed to be his former subject), I thought of her, and I am bringing her back a little chaplet prepared by Leo XII. much shorter to recite than the old one. It is called La Corona, and is blessed by his present Holiness.