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July 4 Wednesday – At the Grand Hotel in La Bourboule, France

July 2 Monday – At the Grand Hotel in La Bourboule, France, Sam wrote a short note of request to Chatto & Windus. He announced he would sail the next Saturday July 7 from Southampton on the Paris. As there was no bank there and no way to use a letter of credit, he asked them to send their royalty cheque directly to Livy. If not possible would they please telegraph the hotel, and Sam would stop in Paris “long enough to fix things at the bank” [MTP].

July – The North American Review published the essay, “In Defense of Harriet Shelley” in July–Sept. 

Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam, setting forth a proposed contract for serialization of JA, and the book rights [MTP].

June 30 Saturday – In La Bourboule, France Sam completed the June 29 letter to H.H. Rogers. News had come about the steamer New York having a collision at sea and needing some repairs, and Sam noted it would be unable to sail today. Susy still had the fever in the morning and the only doctor in town said she had no fever, even though Sam took it and found it 102 degrees.

June 29 Friday – In La Bourboule, France Sam cabled H.H. Rogers: “Unavoidably Detained,” then wrote him a long letter explaining the delay (see June 27 and 28 for events leading up to the cable and letter). He added to the letter on June 30. The soldiers were gone from the hotel and most of the policemen.

June 28 Thursday – Susy Clemens went to bed with a fever of 102; she’d had some fever before this day. This was Sam’s departure day, but the rioters and Susy’s condition forced a postponement:

June 27 Wednesday – Frenchmen were rioting throughout the country, angry over the assassination of President Sadi Carnot on June 24. Sam wrote of a crisis situation at the Grand Hotel in La Bourboule, which had several Italians in their employ.

June 25 Monday – In La Bourboule-les-Bains, France Sam wrote to Susan Crane:

Sue, dear, this is a hurried line, just to say howdy & tell you the family news — hurried, for it must try to catch the steamer of day after to-morrow, & in France the mails — well, I don’t know what the system is — the shackly arrangement which the French regard as a postal “system” — I only know it is not swift & not certain — I think it travels by jackass & that the jackass is drunk.

June 24 Sunday – The President of the Third French Republic, Sadi Carnot (1837-1894) was stabbed by an Italian anarchist, Sante Geronimo Caserio, and died shortly after midnight, June 25. Ironically, Carnot had just implied in a banquet speech that he would not seek reelection. Sam noted the assassination in his June 25 letter to Rogers, as well as one to an unidentified person, so undoubtedly the news quickly reached La Bourboule where the Clemens family was staying.

June 23 Saturday – The Clemens family left Paris and “traveled all day & it was hot” and arrived at La Bourboule, France. On June 25 Sam wrote to Susan Crane about the trip and the fatigue resulting from two-weeks’ trunk-packing.