I have, as you know, been for about a year, the depositary of a large packet confided to me by M. de Tocqueville last spring.  About six months ago he begged me to return it to him, in Paris, when I had a safe opportunity.  No such opportunity offered itself, so that the packet remains in my library awaiting your orders.

Since I began this letter I have been informed by M. de Corcelle that you are likely to be soon in Paris.  I shall not venture to send it by the post, lest it should cross you on the road.

I shall anxiously inquire as to your arrival, in the hope that you will allow one who most sincerely loved and admired your husband, morally and intellectually, to see you as soon as you feel yourself equal to it.

Believe me, my dear Madame de Tocqueville, with the truest sympathy, yours most truly,

NASSAU W. SENIOR.

[Mr. Senior continued an active correspondence with Madame de Tocqueville, and we saw her whenever we were in Paris.  Our long-promised visit to Tocqueville took place in 1861.—­ED.]

JOURNAL.

Tocqueville, Sunday, August 11, 1861.—­We left Paris on Saturday evening, got to Valognes by the Cherbourg railway by six the next morning, and were furnished there with a good carriage and horses, which took us, and our servants and luggage, in three hours to Tocqueville.

Valognes has been immortalised by Le Sage in Turcaret.  It is a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, built of granite, and therefore little altered from what it was 200 years ago.  Over many of the doors are the armorial bearings of the provincial nobility who made it a small winter capital:  the practice is not wholly extinct.  I asked who was the inhabitant of an imposing old house.  ‘M. de Neridoze,’ answered our landlady, ’d’une tres-haute noblesse.’  I went over one in which Madame de Tocqueville thinks of passing the winter.  It is of two stories.  The ground floor given up to kitchen, laundry, and damp-looking servants’ rooms; the first floor in this form:—­

[Illustration:]

Bedroom. 
Door
Stairs Bedroom.

Bedroom.  Drawing-room.  Dining-room.  Hall.  Bedroom.

The longer side looks into the street, the shorter, which is to be Madame de Tocqueville’s bedroom, into a small garden.

August 11.—­At Tocqueville we find M. and Madame de Beaumont, their second son—­a charming boy of ten years old, and Ampere.

It is eleven years since I was here.  Nothing has been done to the interior of the house.  This is about the plan of ground floor.

[Illustration:]

Offices
Tower
staircase Offices.

Drawing-room.  Billiard-room.  Dining-room. 
                                  Hall. 
          
                                                     Tower