SD2527. Joseph Milsand to Laure Milsand
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 317 (in part).
Dijon
4 Octobre [1861] [1]
provisoirement
Ma bonne Laure
Je ne t’ai pas écrit d’abord parce que je voulais attendre ton retour à Montgeron et depuis mercredi j’ai été trop en l’air pour le faire. … Le pauvre Browning a manqué se trouver dans l’accident du chemin de fer du Nord. On avait d’abord refusé de lui prendre le cheval de son fils dans le train express et s’il n’était pas venu à bout de cette résistance il aurait été dans le convoi culbuté. À Londres, lors de l’ouverture des malles par la douane cela lui faisait si mal au cœur de penser qu’on allait fouiller dans les effets de sa femme qu’il demanda à passer le dernier et son tour venu, il dit à l’employé: j’ai fait une perte, il me serait odieux de voir ouvrir ces malles. Je crois que je les ferais vérifier à l’hôtel même de la douane: mais dès que l’employé eut entendu son nom: il lui dit de suite: Mr Browning oh vous ne devez rien avoir: vous pouvez faire enlever vos malles.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.
Translation:
Dijon
4 October [1861] [1]
temporarily
My good Laure
I had not written you firstly because I wanted to wait until you returned to Montgeron and since Wednesday I have been too much up in the air to do it. … Poor Browning narrowly missed being in a train accident in the North. At first they would not allow him to take his son’s horse on the express train and if he had not overcome that resistance he would have been on the train which was involved in the collision. In London, when customs opened the luggage, he felt so sad at the thought that they would rummage through his wife’s belongings that he asked to go last and when his turn came, he said to the agent: I have suffered a loss, it would be odious to me to open these bags. I think that I will have them checked at the customs building: but as soon as the agent heard his name, he immediately said: Mr Browning, Oh, you must not have anything. You may have your bags taken away.
1. Year provided by Milsand’s reference to RB’s journey to London from Paris following the death of EBB.
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