I shall withhold this information from you no longer. I really do think of marrying, though I am not yet absolutely determined on matrimony. I made the acquaintance of this very amiable woman in Paris, who, I believe, would have no objection in having me for a husband, and who in all respects would be a proper match for me. She is a widow, without children, never having had any, is about my own age, enjoys good health, is very pleasant in society, has a handsome fortune at her own disposal, enjoys a most respectable reputation, keeps a good house, which is frequented by all the first philosophers and men of eminence in the science and literature of the age, or rather of Paris, and, what is more than all the rest, is goodness itself.... She is very clever (according to the English signification of the word); in short, she is another Lady Palmerston. She has been very handsome in her day, and even now, at forty-six or forty-eight, is not bad-looking; of a middling size, but rather _en bon point_ than thin. She has a great deal of vivacity and writes incomparably well. He soon after writes again of the lady: ‘She is fond of travelling, and wishes to make the tour of Italy with me. She appears to be most sincerely attached to me, and I esteem and love her very much.’ On February 7, 1804, the Count writes again from Paris. He and Madame Lavoisier were then making preparations for their marriage. She deposited in his name one hundred and twenty thousand _livres_ in the five per cent. French funds, which was to go to the survivor of the three--herself, himself, or his daughter. An income of six thousand a year out of her own property was secured to Madame Lavoisier. Her house in Paris, as well as the Count’s at Brompton, was to revert to the survivor of the two. On July 2 he said: MY DEAR SALLY,--This letter, which will be entirely devoted to very serious and important business, will, no doubt, obtain your serious attention. In order to be able to complete in a _legal manner_ some domestic arrangements of great importance to me and to you, I have lately found, to my no small surprise, that certificates of my birth and of the death of my former wife are indispensably necessary. You can, no doubt, very easily procure them--the one from the town clerk of Woburn, the other from the town clerk of Concord. And I request that you would do it without loss of time, and send them to me under cover, or rather in a letter addressed to me and sent to the care of my bankers in London. As an accident may possibly happen to that letter, I beg you would at the same time send another set of these certificates directly to Paris, addressed to me, rue de Clichy, No. 356. On July 3 he wrote to Mr. Savage, the clerk of the Royal Institution: