The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To M. PITRE-CHEVALIER,1 17 JANUARY 1863

Text from manuscript, Bloomsbury Auctions July 2010.

Paris, Saturday Seventeenth January | 1863.

My Dear Sir

By a mistake of my servant’s,2 I find (only this morning) that a letter I wrote to you on Thursday to acknowledge your obliging and amiable invitation, was never delivered. I entreat you to accept my excuses. If I had been here on Tuesday last, it would have afforded me great pleasure to have [ ]3 assisted at your interesting reunion. But I did not arrive in Paris until Wednesday night. Accept, my Dear Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration and most cordial regard.

à Monsieur Pitre-Chevalier

Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Pitre Chevalier, pseudonym of Pierre Michel François Chevalier (1812-63), French poet, critic and novelist; edited the Musées des Familles from 1849; published essays and poems in l’Artiste and the Revue de Paris; transl. Schiller’s works 1838. Despite CD’s expression of regret, he was intent on avoiding the “oyster-eyed” Chevalier (To Olliffe, 18 Jan 63; Pilgrim Letters 10, p. 196).
• 2. John Thompson, CD’s servant since the 1830s and with CD in Paris.
• 3. Several illegible words scored out by CD.