too small--the haste I write in, too great.

God bless you, and good bye. Robert bids me give you his love (of the
earnestest), and I have leave from you (have I not?) to be always
affectionately yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *


The journey to Paris was effected at the end of September, and for about
nine months they pitched their tent at No. 138 Avenue des
Champs-Elysées. It was a fortunate time to be in Paris for those who had
no personal nervousness, and liked to be near the scene of great
events--a most anxious time for any who were alarmed at disturbances, or
took keenly to heart the horrors of street fighting. Fortunately for the
Brownings, they, whether by temperament or through their Italian
experiences, were not unduly disturbed at revolutions, while the horrors
of Louis Napoleon's _coup d'état_ were, no doubt, only partly known to
Mrs. Browning at the time, and were palliated to her by the view she
took of Napoleon's character. She had not, it is true, raised him as yet
to the pinnacle on which his intervention on behalf of Italy
subsequently caused her to place him, but (perhaps owing to what Mr.
Kenyon called her 'immoral sympathy with power') she was always disposed
to put a favourable construction on his actions, and the _coup d'état_
was finally whitewashed for her by the approbation which the
_plébiscite_ of December 20 gave to his assumption of supreme power. Her
views are, however, so fully set forth in her own letters that they need
not be detailed here. For her husband's opinion of the character of