From “Cazin” to M.B.

11/17/1818

Dear sir:

Please rest assured that if I had your address, as you indicated, I would not have waited so long to reply to you, as you complain about, and I would have taken the liberty of asking for you when I was with Mr. Demerson at the hotel where Mr. Preur was staying, and which he left more than six months ago. 

I do not remember having received one of your letters attached to another from this young ma. The last time I saw him, he left the church when I was saying mass ther,e and has disappeared from me since then, without returning. I stayed at the Quinze-Vingts for six months after his departure, and have not been able to meet him since. True, I have heard a lot about you from him. 

The rest of this letter, which I am not transcribing, suggests that Mr. Prieur was deceiving Mr. Cazin, just as he was deceiving me.  

If your health permits you to carry out the errands I have taken the liberty of giving you, it would be very much appreciated. There is no reason to repeat them here, you have them in writing in my letter of the 4th of this month. 

I am very sorry not to have seen you when you were at your hotel. You must believe that during the six months I stayed at the Hotel Pelletier, near Saint-Sulpice, If I had your address as you said that I did I would have made it my duty to ask for news of you, as well as of the young Mr.  Prieur. 

I am very sorry not to have seen you when we were at your hotel. You must believe that during the six months that I have lived at the Hôtel Pelletier, near Saint-Sulpice, if I had had your address, as you tell me, I would have made it my duty to ask for news of you, as well as that of the young Prior.

I would like to have news of my package, which I left at Vrilly, at the Mayor’s, on returning from Gardon.

By asking for it from the chantor of Saint-Sulpice, who wrote me about this, you would be kind enough to let him know I had not heard from him. After writing to the business director in Amiens, I went to every dispatch office in Paris, and could not get any nes. The chantor of Picquigny in Saint-Sulpice had entrusted it to his brother-in-law, who wrote to him, and forwarded his letter to me in Belleau after writing to Amiens. 

I have the honor to greet you and to be with esteem and consideration, your very humble and very obedient servant, 

Cazin

Priest-servant of the Church of Belleau.

P.S.: If you have news of Etienne Prieur, and you see him, I beg you to let me know and greet him for me, as well as Mr. Demerson and the very reverend Father Humbert, without forgetting Brother Miche, sacristan of the Ladies of the Legion of Honor, rue Barbette, at hte Mere de Famille. 

N.B. When I go to Paris for my great-niece’s wedding, if I am invited, I would like to be offered lodging, not wanting to stay at Picpus for two weeks, inconveniencing the people who lived there and who are indebted to me. Then I will have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Demerson. [1]

[M.B. notes: “I could clearly see from these letters that these worthy ministers of the altar had no knowledge whatever of my ills, and that his replies were fabrications, my letters never having reached a man as respectable as the Rev. Cazin. Nothing can excuse such a deception, which truly shows the measure of his character. That, I leave to my readers to assess.” [2]

[1] N.B., “nota bene” or “note well,” used to draw attention to something important, particularly in legal/academic writing. 

[2] Language here is a bit obscure for me, “I have to assume his letters were supposed,” given the context I’m assuming this meant “were created by Etienne.”