December 10 Monday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to Henry M. Alden of Harper & Brothers asking to see his proofs of JA, after discovering he’d made “two or three mistakes.” 

One is important: I have charged her assassination upon the “Holy Roman Church” — too broad a statement, & not true. It was an ecclesiastical political court, carefully packed in the English interest, & sitting within walls which had flown the English flag for three centuries. It was a lynch-court with a definite function to perform & no way to get around it.

If proofs could not be sent, he might be able to make the corrections by letter. He’d been in bed a month and was just now getting around the house. After his signature, he wrote, “P.S. Sho! I can make that correction now. Thus:” and enclosed a sheet which is lost [MTP].

Sam’s gout disappeared “all of a sudden” about this day [Dec. 16 to Rogers].