3048. Joseph Milsand to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 141.

[?Florence]

[early June 1852] [1]

Mon cher Browning

Votre cordiale et bonne lettre (dont je ne vous dirai rien de plus, tant j’ai peur des manifestations) m’est arrivée tout juste à point la veille de mon départ. [2] Au moment de la recevoir, je me disposais précisément à vous écrire, dans la crainte qu’un envoi de vous n’eût été égaré et beaucoup aussi dans l’intention de vous demander votre adresse à Londres, je veux dire l’adresse immuable à la quelle je pourrais vous écrire dans tous les cas

Publication: None traced.

Source: Author’s draft [3] at Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.

Translation:

My dear Browning

Your good and friendly letter (of which I will say no more, so afraid am I of expressions of sentiment) reached me exactly on the day before my departure. [2] Precisely at the time I received it, I was preparing to write to you, for fear that a dispatch from you may have got lost, and also very much with the intention of asking you for your address in London, I mean the permanent address where I could write to you under any circumstances

1. Dating based on Milsand’s mention of a departure (he had planned to leave for Italy in mid-May) and by reference to a letter from Milsand to his brother Philibert (see note 2), written at Florence where he had been staying for the last nine days. Considering the city and the length of time Milsand was there, it seems a likely place from which to write RB.

2. In letter 3039 Milsand declared that he intended to leave for Italy in “the middle of May” and that he hoped to visit the Abruzzi Apennines and the “coast of Dalmatia.” However, a 14 June letter to his brother Philibert (ms at ABL/JMA), written from Florence, indicates that a lack of money forced Milsand to limit his itinerary to the following: La Spezia, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, after which he would return home.

3. In transcribing this letter, the editors have supplied missing accents, hyphens, and apostrophes.

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