3150. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 282–283.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 21 December 1852]
I am afraid of overloading your postage, my dearest Sarianna, yet I must send you a scrap of writing today if it were only to add my testimony to Robert’s about Wiedeman’s satisfactory state of health. He eats to an alarming extent now, & has grown much fatter—his very hair seems to crisp into curl more vigorously– Oh I should like you & Nonno to hear the child talk—he has acquired such an increase of fluency & power of expression. His admiration of “Peone” continues, & he is enraged when I venture to hint that the soldiers here dont belong to the empire. The other day I told him that Napoleon had had a crown given to him– [1] After a moment’s consideration he observed that he, Penini, should like a “twown” too. Could’nt Papa get him a “twown”– I said that it would be difficult because of the quantity of officers & trumpets & horses & cities that would have to go with a crown– He looked very pensive at this, and then suddenly clasping his hands together exclaimed with cheerful resignation—“Well! nemmer mind!” (never mind!). Are the other pretenders as philosophical, do you think? The darling’s sweetness & goodness seem to grow with his growth & he grows frightfully dear, accordingly. He drew the picture of an angel with wings a few days since– “Did you ever see an angel” said I. “Oh no”—he answered,—“but when Penini dead, I fly away to God, just lite tis” .. (like this!) Then suddenly pausing– “Mama! I not lite to go to gentle Jesus’s home now”– “Why not?” said I, thrilled through with the supposition– “Betause I sint, ’haps” (I think, perhaps) “God tate me all to pieces to mate me over again, and I not lite it .. I tuite enough made”– He was quite enough made & did’nt like to be taken to pieces to be made over again. What an idea for a child’s head!——
Dearest Sarianna I do hope you will get a piano & subscribe to a library & make the most of your advantages. It seems to me that you are living with great cheapness—and two people are forced to spend as much as three would—we spend now just as much as we spent with another servant in family. Don’t mind what the Byrnes [2] say about housekeeping—they are in the clouds I assure you, & I have heard them speak black & white on the same subject over & over. They thought Desirée “a treasure” at one time—also, I must in justice say that till she fell into a scrape & floundered to get out of it, her bills were very moderate even in comparison with our Italian bills. As to servants, people abuse them in all countries,—yet I for my own part, believe that in no country, is one class of humanity worse on an average than another. Suffering more from the defects of domestic servants, we naturally complain more of them, .. are more alive to them, .. than to the defects of Mrs & Miss Simpson over the way. Is not that it?– Will you ask Mrs Corkran for Mrs Chapman’s direction [3] as I want to send her something– Mrs Corkran will know– You shd give only ten francs a month for your piano—just what we pay here. I am very well indeed, & the oil agrees with me perfectly & has done me good in many ways & made me fatter– We had merely a nominal winter. It’s rather wet, as it seems to be everywhere, but it is better than a winter in England. God bless you both.
Your affectionate sister.
Best of loves to your father. Robert is looking admirably well just now. No news from England.
Address, in RB’s hand: Madlle Browning / chez Made Thomas, / Rue des Ecuries d’Artois, 63. / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. On the morning of 2 December 1852 at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, Louis Napoleon was proclaimed “Emperor of the French by the Grace of God and the will of the French people” (The Daily News, 4 December 1852, p. 5). A plebiscite had been held on 21 and 22 November in which French voters were asked to vote yes or no to the following: “The nation wishes the re-establishment of the imperial dignity in the person of Louis Napoleon, with hereditary succession in his direct legitimate or adoptive line, and gives him the right to regulate the order of succession to the throne in the Bonaparte family” (The Daily News, 9 November 1852, p. 5). When the ballots were counted, there were over 7,500,000 yes votes and fewer than 250,000 no votes. On the evening of 1 December, “the Senate and Corps Legislatif went … to St. Cloud, to present the Empire to Louis Napoleon. Having presented the result of the voting, they were thus addressed by the Emperor … ‘From this day forward I take, with the crown, the name of ”Napoleon III.,“ because it is that which the logic of the people have bestowed upon me in their acclamations; because the senate has legally proposed it; and because the whole nation has ratified it’” (The Daily News, 3 December 1852, p. 5).
2. i.e., Miles Byrne and his wife; see letter 3029, note 3. Evidently, Desirée was at one time in the Byrnes’ service.
3. Maria Weston Chapman was at this time residing at 53 Rue de Verneuil, St. Germain, Paris (see her letter dated 18 November 1853 to Caroline Weston, ms at Boston PL). According to the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3), Mrs. Chapman had previously lived at Place Vendome; she would later move to 21 Rue de Varennes.
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