[London,] 31 December 1866 

Dear Frep, 

Happy New Year! Ditto for Madame Lizzy’! May the devil take 
Russians, Prussians, Bonaparte and the British Juryman in the 
coming year! 

Apropos. The French government had confiscated papers and 
documents intended for us which were being brought across the 
frontier by French members after the Geneva Congress, and 
attached them for the police archives. We claimed the things back 
through Lord Stanley, Foreign Minister, as ‘Britis property’. And in 
fact poor Bonaparte had to surrender everything to us via the 
Foreign Office.* Is that not priceless! He has been outwitted but 
himself does not know how. 

I received some very sad news today—my uncle‘ has died, he 
was an excellent man. However, he made a good death, quick, 

a William I ~ > Lizzy Burns - © Lion Philips 

surrounded by all his children, fully conscious and dispensing 
subtle Voltairean irony over the priest. 

The whole family sends you New Year greetings. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.