Here are some extracts from a still longer letter written to my mother much about the same time: "I hear Lady S---- has committed another novel, called _The Three Peers_, no doubt _l'un pire que l'autre_!... I have a great many kind messages to you from that very charming person Madame Récamier, who fully intends meeting you at Venice with Chateaubriand in October, for so she told me on Sunday. I met her at Miss Clarke's some time ago, and as I am a bad _pusher_ I am happy to say she asked to be introduced to me, and was, thanks to you, my kind friend! She pressed me to go and see her, which I have done two or three times, and am going to do again at her amiable request on Thursday. I think that her fault is that she flatters a little too much. And flattery to one whose ears have so long been excoriated by abuse does not sound safe. However, all is right when she speaks of you. And the point she most eulogised in you is that which I have heard many a servile coward who could never go and do likewise" [no indication is to be found either in this letter or elsewhere to whom she alludes], "select for the same purpose, namely, your straightforward, unflinching, courageous integrity.... Balzac is furious at having his new play suppressed by Thiers, in which Arnauld acted Louis Philippe, wig and all, to the life; but, as I said to M. Dupin, '_Cest tout naturel que M. Thiers ne permetterait à personne de jouer Louis Philippe que lui-même._' ... There is a wonderful pointer here that has been advertised for sale for twelve hundred francs. A friend of mine went to see him, and after mounting up to a little garret about the size of a chessboard, _au vingt-septième_, he interrogated the owner as to the dog's education and acquirements, to which the man replied, '_Pour ca, monsieur, c'est un chien parfait. Je lui ai tout appris moi-même dans ma chambre_'[1] After this my friend did not sing 'Together let us range the fields!' ... Last week I met Colonel Potter M'Queen, who was warm in his praises of you, and the great good your _Michael Armstrong_" (the factory story) "had done.... Last Thursday despatches arrived and Lord Granville had to start for London at a moment's notice. I was in hopes this beastly ministry were out! But no such luck! For they are a compound of glue, sticking-plaister, wax, and vice--the most adhesive of all known mixtures." [Footnote 1: "As for that, sir, the dog is perfect. I have myself taught him everything _in my own room_!"]