FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

arranged. I will try to get his protection to get one into France. However, do not count
on it.
I told you, my beloved, that I had received several letters from our dear Eugenie, and that
she had given me some money, her share, and what was hidden. She was waiting for my
certified receipt of that, [before] sending me her share and that of Madelon for what
remains for you from the successions. 80 I hope that you received the full details that I
sent you on that, in a timely manner.
You have never acknowledged receiving any of my letters except one. You have never
written to Joseph, he was really hurt by that, and with reason. He deserved different
treatment from you. Excuse, I beg you, my beloved, the reproaches that I am casting at
you. <strong>The</strong>y are dictated by the gratitude I owe to this worthy young man. I do not know
what I would have done without him.
In your last letter, you said nothing to me about Emmanuel. You told me in your first
letter from New Orleans that he was confined to bed with rheumatism. I am uneasy at
your silence. I fear that you are no longer on good terms with him.
I fear that you will not be able to read what I write. I wanted to send Eliza’s letter and
avoid the double postage. You see by what she says that she is happy. I keep trying to
find an occasion to have her return. I leave it to the children to give the details on the
new friends we have made.
I hope to profit by [our acquaintance with] the Pio family. <strong>The</strong>y have promised me to
give some harp lessons to Laura, and I will teach geography in exchange. I am now
giving lessons to the Spurier [?] girls, cousins of the Rangers. I go there twice a week an
they pay me 14 shillings a lesson. It is not much, but I have been so depressed at doing
nothing but spending without making anything, that I am quite happy. It really is too bad
that I did not know them sooner, they are so satisfied with my way of teaching that I am
sure they would have recommended me to others.
If I could leave my bad luck in England, I would gladly bequeath it, with pleasure, to our
former partners at [of?] Woodford.
When shall we all be re-united on our little spot of land, for I no longer dare to call it a
home? I will no longer think about all our former griefs. A few months more, and my
heart will be at ease. Until then, I can only be unhappy at being separated from you, and
you will judge the worries I have experienced since your departure by the color of my
80 From this poorly translated sentence it appears that someone, likely Jean-Baptiste’s sister Magdaleine
(mis-transcribed as “Madelon”?) is trying to send funds – during wartime! – across the Channel to pay for
the liquidation of parts of the estate, and perhaps to send funds for the “succession” of the estate to Jean-
Baptiste, after the death of his father on 25 April 1803, six years earlier. <strong>The</strong> “hidden” reference may be to
money hidden during the French Revolution and Terror, when assets were being seized by the new
authorities and the mob.
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