«Mylord,
«Permit me to assure your Lordship that I am not guilty of the presumption of intending to inflict an annual letter upon you; and sincerely do I regret that my thoughts cannot be open to your view instead of these lines; as, could you know them, I venture to believe, you would readily forgive what otherwise may appear intrusive. Once, since I left Paris, I have presumed to trouble your Lordship with a few lines, requesting that the manuscript I had so cherished during twenty seven years might be returned to me. But as it has not been your pleasure to comply with this request, I suppose I ought to forbear a repetition of it.
«Mylord, I may perhaps not again intrude on you, never perhaps I see you more on this side of the grave; forgive me then this once, if I avail myself of the opportunity afforded by admiral Sutton, who is going to Paris with the intention of leaving my eldest son there, in order that he may attain some facility in speaking the French language, an acquirement which will perhaps be useful to him whatever may be his future destiny. When I had the honor of seeing you at Paris, I felt the impropriety of trespassing upon your Lordship's occupied time, and therefore could not venture to explain myself on some points, in which I saw by your glance (which language it is impossible to misunderstand) what your politeness would kindly have concealed.
«But if, in the endeavour to promote the welfare of her child, a mother should say a few words too much, it is, I trust, an error that in some measure pleads its own excuse, particularly in time like the present, when interest is every thing, and scarcely any situation in which a young man may struggle through life can be obtained, even by purchase, unless patronage smooth the way.
«But I will not presume further to detain your attention. Let it be permitted me only to say, Mylord, that feelings too keen to be controled rendered the first few minutes I passed under your roof most acutely painful. The events of seven and twenty previous years all rushed to my recollection; from the early period when you crossed my path like a meteor, to leave me in darkness, when you disappeared, to that inexpressibly bitter moment, when I stood in your house an uninvited stranger, and in a character as new to myself as perhaps unwelcome to you.
«Farewell, Mylord. May you be happy! is the deeply felt, the earnest wish of Your Lordship's devoted and obedient servant,
«CHARLOTTE SUTTON.»
LADY CHARLOTTE SUTTON À M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.
«14 juin 1825.
«Mylord,