FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

sad, as did I, just a passerby on the way to Parame. I had a traveling companion, with
urgent business, and did not stop, but came back immediately to Caen, from whence I had
set out.
<strong>The</strong> Duaults are well. <strong>The</strong>y are very worthy people whom I love tenderly. Mr. and
Madame Boullan [she is the sister of Jean-Baptiste], whom I saw also in Paris, spoke to
me about all of you, and of the affection of good parents.
I believe that Boullan will pay your husband. Having learned at Dal [Bal?] – what a
hole! – that Amiens was not far, I intended to sleep there, and I sent by express this
evening to announce that if he wished to make an appointment for me next day, in the
morning, I would be pleased to be there. He was charming and promised to pay Florian.
I asked him to send me the letters of credit [de charges] for 1000 [7000?] francs, for this
purpose. It is agreed to pay this sum. As to delivery, that is something to work out with
the _______ who is at the Isle of France. He cannot, he says, take that upon himself. He
cultivates tobacco at his place near Dal, and makes a good income. I am quite pleased
that he is giving us some [money?]. For a long while I believed that he would do nothing
but talk about it, but there is nothing like speaking to people [in person], playing upon
their sensibilities, their scruples, etc., etc.
Would you believe it, that it is only a week that I have known of your arrival in New
Orleans? I ________ to be sympathetic in my letter to there, to describe how I was very
uneasy and distressed, but the pleasure of getting news of you through Joseph, then by
C__pin has made me forget it all.
So I would talk to you, my dear Gogo (speaking to your own person and not to your
“namesake”) [the latter in English] you understand. I tell you now that if you do not
reply, I will cease all relations with you. It is shameful that neither you nor your husband
have written me a line for a year and a half. But indeed you are too far away to scold
you, and especially for me to beat or pinch you, which would settle you down. But I will
tell you in confidence that I am in a good way to do some deals, and that I already have a
small fortune, like a gentleman of Lower Brittany, and that with a few more little strokes
of luck like that, and I will be able to offer you a nice little farm in the country, if you
wish to come back. What would you say to La Barre, for example? But all that, I do not
hide it from you, is a bit uncertain.
While waiting for better [times], I am sending you a beautiful grand piano. <strong>The</strong>n the
same to Florian; not as pretty at 80 pounds, and a pretty little one at 40 pounds. I had
ordered from Jones eight months ago two grand pianos and one small piano. But since he
would have made me wait too long, and since I am going to have an “occasion” in a few
days from now, yesterday while dining at his house with Ciriclon [?], I bought his finest
one, which I wish you to keep for yourself while waiting for the others. I was tempted to
send you some harps, also, but Pianos, Pianos first of all.
I owe a lot of money here and in France, which must be paid primo.
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