Anne Lister in Paris

Anne Lister in Paris is now on bluesky 🎩👇 bsky.app/profile/anneli…

“Taking the air as far as the Etoile and then listening to vulgar music and singing – for the sake of having a table to sit at (no beer, no table) [...] had one bottle for which paid 10 sols and called on valet de place to drink it.” 🔹AL, 10 June 1838, Champs Elysées, Paris

“Do as you say – If I survive you, give orders for me to have your papers, – your thoughts that you have thought when things of earth looked darkest – I will do all you wish.” ✒️ Anne Lister to Sibella Maclean, 28 May 1827

“I had the expectation of succeeding my uncle – ‘Ah! then’, said [Miss Ponsonby] ‘you will soon be the master and there will be an end of romance’ – Never! never! said I – I envied their place [Llangollen] and the happiness they had had there.” 🔹Anne Lister, 23 July 1822

“She said she was amused to see [Mrs. Barlow] always walking with me now after all she said of me at first, that she could not be seen with me etc. people would think she was with a man in women’s clothes [...] I neither wondered at nor blamed Mrs. Barlow.” 🔹AL, 18 Nov. 1824

“[My aunt] well inclined for me to take [the apartment in Paris] – it would be at any rate a place for me to come to, so that I should be quite as I said the other night and which she never forgets ‘a vagabond on the face of the earth’.” 🔹Anne Lister, 9 May 1831

“You know not how you have touched a chord that will vibrate forever.” 🔹Anne Lister (to Mrs. Barlow), 6 Dec. 1824

“I am not sorry that reflection rather dissatisfied you with your manner of welcoming me [...] I found it quite impossible to feel convinced at heart that it was either such a proof of affection as I should have thought to give, or wished to receive.” ✒️AL to Mariana, 25 Aug 1823

“You know my Fred I love you very dearly [...] and though the tongue may sometimes at unawares speak unpalatable truths, the heart never wrongs you [...] I was really distressed on reflection at what I had said on our first meeting .” ✒️Mariana to Anne Lister, Aug. 1823 👇👇

“The day may come when you will think with less severity of her (Mariana) and more of your friend – it is your friend who deserves so ill of you.” ✒️ Anne Lister to Mrs. Barlow, 19 Oct. 1825

“Speaking of French men last night, said I hated them but liked the women very well.” 🔹Anne Lister, 17 Aug 1830

“Adney think that perhaps my French plate went like the dozen of English silver forks and like the pelerine I had of Mrs. Barlow etc. etc. viz per Mademoiselle Eugenie Pierre !” 🔹Anne Lister, 6 June 1838

“Very affectionate [letter from Mrs. Barlow] ‘a diversity of objects and scenery saved you from the intense misery I have suffered’ and she goes on to describe feelings much more intense than I had ever dreampt of her experiencing for me.” 🔹Anne Lister, 23 March 1825

“wrote 1 1/2 page of a letter to Mariana – so long about it because I am obliged to be so guarded - so particular as to what I say and how I say it, lest any more mischief should be made that it is sometimes quite a labour to me to write at all.” 🔹Anne Lister, 26 April 1818

“[Ann] said we had been unhappy of late. No said I, not we. I know nothing about it and you have been more unhappy in your stomach than in your heart.” 🔹Anne Lister, 4 July 1837

“the Louvre. Observations my favourite picture Vernet’s view of Cette.” 🔹Anne Lister’s Diary Index, 26 Sept 1822  🖼️ La Vue du port de Cette [Sète] en Languedoc (XVIlle siècle), Claude-Joseph Vernet

“[Miss Walker] longs to see me again – thinks it longer than all the time in Scotland – talks of coming over for 2 or 3 days on the 8th or 10th if I will let her.” 🔹Anne Lister, 4 Feb 1834

“I should have been better out of her way, yet it cannot be helped now and I must make the best I can of it. [Mrs. Barlow] excited me this evening, I fear I cannot resist her.” 🔹Anne Lister, 31 Oct. 1826

« Letter also 2 1/2 ppages from Dr. Belcombe [...] ‘I replied [to Mr. Priestley] that Miss Walker was here in lodgings highly respectable chosen by herself, and that her wish was to be more completely under my care than she had yet been.’ [...] Well answered. » 🔹4 Feb. 1834

“Nose, mouth, ears etc. searched – they have been known to escape by means of watch springs which they could hide under nails [...] they are indeed and absolutely stript yet crowds men women, and children, assemble to see the spectacle.” 🗞️ Anne Lister, 27 Oct. 1826

“Reading the whole [...] of the Journal des Débats – curious account at the end of the journal of the ‘Chaîne des forçats’ proceeding on their journey to the galleys – how they are examined lest they should have anything about them to liberate themselves from their chains.”