• June 15, 1879 Sunday

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    June 15 Sunday  Sam wrote from Paris to Frank Bliss. “I think I wouldn’t use the picture which represents me lying on my back drinking from a bottle” [MTLE 4: 79].

  • June 17, 1879 Tuesday 

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    June 17 Tuesday  Sam wrote from Paris to Frank Bliss.

    “Please ‘process’ that waiter with the bottle, & a few other of the pictures & send proofs for Brown to judge by” [MTLE 4: 80].

    Sam also wrote to his brother-in-law, Charles Langdon, encouraging him to come to Paris. Evidently, Charley wrote he could not come. Sam added that their “present plan is to leave her for London in the first fortnight of July…” [MTLE 4: 81].

  • June 23, 1879 Monday

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    June 23 Monday  From Lucius Fairchild’s diary:

    “Up in the balloon with Mark Twain – Mrs. Twain, Miss Spaulding & Guilwoodford” [Rees 8].

    Mr. & Mrs. Fairchild were also in the balloon, which could accommodate 38 people [MTJ&N 2: 315n50]. See also May 3 entry.

  • June 26, 1879 Thursday 

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    June 26 Thursday – Francis D. Millet wrote on the yacht Sea Belle to Clemens about past good intentions by himself and Lily to write. They were on a “lark” for two weeks as there’d been “too many dinners and late hours.” He praised the yacht and the crew, and discussed their travel plans [MTP].

  • July 1879

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    July  Sometime during July Sam wrote from an unknown place to Charles Perkins, his attorney and financial advisor, asking him to “pile in some securities at Bissell’s—enough to run us till we return home, Oct. 25th ” [MTLE 4: 84]. He wrote in his notebook “Get copy of L’Assomoir [sic] illustrated— ” [MTNJ 2: 326] referring to Emile Zola’s L’Assommoir (187?) [Gribben 796].

  • July 1–9, 1879 Wednesday

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    July 19 Wednesday – Between these dates Sam wrote from Paris sending a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to Lucius Fairchild, inscribed: ”Read this book, General Fairchild, & learn how to be a good boy” [MTLE 4: 83].

  • July 8, 1879 Tuesday 

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    July 8 Tuesday – The Clemenses hired Joseph Verey at $2 per day to be their courier from “Paris through Holland to London.” Sam wrote in his notebook that Verey’s wages “to begin July 8” [MTNJ 2: 327]. Verey was the “young Polander” who “spoke eight languages and seemed to be equally at home in all of them; he was very shrewd, bright, and punctual” [A Tramp Abroad, ch 32].

  • July 10, 1879 Thursday

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    July 10 Thursday  The Clemens family left Paris at 7:20 AM for Brussels, which Sam called “a dirty, beautiful (architecturally), interesting town” [MTNJ 2: 328].

    July 10 to 12 Saturday – The Clemens family spent two days in Brussels, then left in the afternoon of July 12 [MTNJ 2: 328]. Sam’s notebook: