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To François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
Elderfield Otterbourn Winchester England
June 29th 1863

MS Archives Nationales

Sir,

Some time ago you were kind enough to mention, in a letter to Mrs Austin,1 the life of Madam de Montagu2 as one that would be very desirable among the ‘biographies of good women’ that I have been attempting to collect for the improvement of young girls; I have ventured to desire my publisher to send you a copy of the first series that you may see at what I have aimed; I am now attempting a second collection to which the life of Madame du Mornay has already been contributed and it is also promised the life of Margaret Roper by one of her descendants, as well as those of several other bright lights, both English and French as well as German. I am thus induced to ask you whether there is any chance of my being able to obtain a sight of the memoir and permission to translate and perhaps abridge it, since I suppose there can be few if any survivors of those members of the family on whose account it was only privately printed. If you could kindly put me in the way of obtaining the memoir and leave to make use of it, or inform me to whom to apply on the subject, I should be under great obligations to you.

I remain respectfully yours

Charlotte M Yonge

1Sarah Austin (1793–1867) had translated several of Guizot’s books into English.
2The second series of Biographies of Good Women (1865) included CMY’s own account of the lives of Anne-Paule-Dominique (de Noailles), marquise de Montagu (1766-1839), Marie-Adrienne-Françoise, marquise de La Fayette (1759-1807) and their three sisters. The introduction acknowledges the permission of the Duc de Noailles to extract the biographies from Anne-Paule-Dominique de Noailles, marquise de Montagu (Paris: Laine et Havard 1864). This privately printed work, anonymously edited by Auguste Callet, was published in 1865 and became the subject of litigation between him and the duke over the credit of the authorship.

Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/1894/to-francois-pierre-guillaume-guizot-2

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