PEACE AT LAST, 1814 LAFORCADE (Anne, English wife of the mayor of Lauzerville, south-east of Toulouse)

Long Autograph Letter Signed to 'My dearest friend', in English, written just after the first Restoration of Louis XVIII, thankful for "this miraculous Peace", she has "suffer'd a great deal, from not having any intercourse with England, for so many years", she explains that on arriving in France, she was "so truly Wretched that ... I lost all my flesh in about two months ... Laforcade is an excellent Husband & my Children are dutiful, & free from vice ... but our income is so small", she talks of the immense taxes and conscription imposed by "the Tyranny of the Usurper Bonaparte; we cou'd call nothing our own, not even our Children, after the Age of Eighteen", her husband, "being Mayor, ... at the peril of his life withheld [their sons] from the List" and "in such seclusion ... nobody inform'd against us", she talks of what little, tragic, news reached her from her brother's letters that got through, she rejoices that her friend's family is doing well, and that her own eldest son Charles, who had been sent to her brother in England [perhaps at the Peace of Amiens, 1802-1803], is reckoned "an excellent young Man, & much belov'd", Edwin is now to join him, with hope of catching up on his education, she talks also of Henry, and of Caroline who was "well grounded in England" before the war, while her sons of 10 and 7 are beginning to understand "almost every thing" in English, "but they dont speak a word", finally she talks of an expectation of 110,000 livres from an aunt of Laforcade's, aged 86, frustrated by the aunt's husband, who "from Ostentation, bequeathed 50 thousand to the Town of Toulouse, to erect a Fountain", and the aunt's parting with the rest to a nephew for a life annuity after Laforcade had managed the property for two years, they dare not go to law, "it is a most difficult thing to prove a person childish", ending "Laforcade unites with me in every kind wish", 4 sides folio, Lauzerville, 20th June



Item Date:  1814

Stock No:  52694      £250

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