My neighbor, Mr. le Veillard, assures me, my dear papa, that he has a reliable way of getting our news to you, and he gave me yours from last December. You can imagine the extreme pleasure I had in learning that you were in good health at that time; I have thanked Providence who, so as to deserve the justice attributed to it, should leave you on Earth as an example to mankind and as a model of wisdom, at least as long as the patriarch Methuselah, who was surely not your equal, and who, according to tradition, lived 900 years. You would see your country of which you are the restorer, the legislator, grow in population and in wealth. You might see ours regenerate as well. We are in a moment of crisis; evil has reached such a peak that it should (at least one must hope so) bring us finally some good if the new régime that they propose comes into being. We shall need your so very pure prayers (for only those of the just please the Supreme Being). Pray for us, my good papa, you love France and the French, be our saint, if our leaders resembled you I would become very devout! I am that to you, my dear papa; I revere you, honor you, love you; not a day goes by that my heart does not come close to you in thought, or that I do not think of your most precious friendship from which nothing will ever divert me. My memory of the times when I had more direct and personal pleasure from it is one of the happy points of my life.

My neighbor tells me that as you want to retire from public affairs (perhaps being tired of too much glory) and finally enjoy some rest, you are going to retreat to the country to your amiable grandson's home; oh how I congratulate him on the happiness he will feel so intensely! Tell him, my amiable papa, something kind on my behalf and that of my daughters. We often speak about him together, about his wit, his good cheer, his attachment to you which speaks very highly of him. Tell him that if business or pleasure someday bring him back to our country, he can be certain of finding friends again who have not forgotten him and who shall forever be truly attached to him. Say a sweet word as well to amiable Benjamin whom one loves just by looking at him because he looks like his grandfather. I daren't say anything to your daughter who does not know me. She has my sympathies regarding the decision you have made! Perhaps our similar feelings will earn me some benevolence from her.

You will be interested to know that my older daughter gave birth in October to a boy whom she is nursing, that he is strong, that he is handsome, and that the care she lavishes on him as well as on a very nice little girl twenty months old, while not consoling her completely over the loss of her first two children, softens day by day her regrets. My younger daughter has not become with child since her miscarriage. I daren't tell her that I don't mind. She is so delicate that I would prefer that she have no children than several; her health is not strong enough. She lives in her own house now; her husband, after living with me for three years, wanted them to live on their own. It was a normal sort of thing; we see each other every day and our feelings for each other are very strong, but I do not love my daughters the way most people do and our hearts have suffered from this separation. My older daughter and her husband will never leave me; it's a great deal to have kept one at my side and to have a special friend in one of my sons-in-law, but is the heart, especially when it is very sensitive, ever completely happy?

I am planning, not like you, my good papa who are completely retiring to the countryside, to spend half the year there at least. The region where I shall live is solitary; nature is grand and beautiful there. You know that I have always been a bit of a recluse; age has increased this tendency in me. My children, my old friends, that's all I need. Adding to the pleasures of friendship the many tasks I have always enjoyed performing, with no need to attend to business matters, and being able to see from time to time those of my friends who could not come to see me fifty leagues away, I would gladly do as you do and stay in the country for the rest of my life where there is a smaller range of pleasures but purer ones, where thought is less expansive but sweeter, where one can do much good with little money, where man is, in short, what he is, what he should be. Farewell, my good papa, if in your memories mine retraces itself at times, remember then that I am of all your women friends the one who loves you the most. My children send their respects and affection, my granddaughter to console me, if it is possible, over the loss of her sister, recognizes and already blows kisses to your portrait.

Messrs Sanson, Pagin, my brother, Madame de Deux Ponts, whom I see often when she is in Paris because her daughter is married to the close friend of my older son-in-law, all ask me not to forget to mention them to you.

Especially send me news of yourself; it is so dear to me!

My neighbor showed me your music engraved in America. I was very pleased with the engraving, which is clear, but the paper is too thin. There are, among them, one or two tunes that I would have played for my good papa who is fond of them, says Monsieur le Veillard. What sweet regrets, what sweet memories!