SD1543. Mary Russell Mitford to Charles Boner
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 278–279 (in part).
Swallowfield,
January 21, 1852.
I have escaped, through urgent business, seeing Edward Lytton’s play. …
Mrs. Browning says that Paris was with him [Louis Napoleon] from the first to the last, so say three or four other friends of mine, who have been there since the autumn. Mrs. Browning says that the courage and activity shown in the coup d’état have never been surpassed. She tells some capital stories of Emile de Girardin, and says that the Prince says of himself, that his life will have had four phases—one all rashness and inprudence, necessary to make his name known, and to make his own faults known to himself; the next the combat with, and triumph over, anarchy; the third the consolidation of France and pacification of Europe; the last un coup de pistolet. The passion of parties is so excited, that the only thing which renders the last improbable is the sort of fate by which men of that very high and calm courage often escape dangers by braving them. …
Mrs. Browning says it is certain that Dumas’ four hundred or five hundred volumes are all written by his own hand, like the Prince President’s decrees. I always thought they were, by the odour of Dumas sprinkled over them. …
Text: Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle (London, 1871), I, 221–224.
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