HD1:047-48

Fr J Darnand(?) to ??,Sainte Foy-en-Lyon, 28 July YEAR?

Unknown translator

HD1/47-48

Sainte Foy-en-Lyon 28 July

My dear friend

I thank you for your good letter. Although, according to your sentiments, I am completely immersed in studying the good Father Rodriguez, I am still not completely dead to the world, and especially to the world of Capucinière. Dear Capucinière! I would be hurrying to get there, if I didn’t have to leave Sainte Foy.

It seems that we are going to leave here on the 25th of [Date unclear - translator’s note]: indeed it will be necessary to leave room for our successors who promise to be numerous, it seems. They are counting on about forty novices for next year. Will you still be at Belley when we arrive there? And my old friend Fr Roncez? [Name uncertain - translator’s note]. I hope to have the time to shake your hand before you go to put on the uniform. I hope also that you will take me for some good walks in the area of Belley, which is supposed to be so good. If you have a story about headquarters, please keep it for me, because I am indeed a little native, but I am far from knowing everything.

I see that you are ..[words unclear - translator’s note] during these holidays. I am waiting for the story of your time off. We have also been on holiday since the day before yesterday; you know what noviciate holidays are, but in the end you make the best of it. Besides on the 16th or 17th of August we are going to spend ten days a La Neylière, and that will be interesting. They are no longer speaking about the trip to Cuet, so I think that the plan has fallen by the wayside.

Have you any news about Montluçon? This poor college is being well tested; there have been two epidemics of typhoid fever during the year. The pupils were sent home on the 14th of July. There are still some pupils who are very sick now; all the same they don’t think that there will be any deaths. I don’t know the result of the examinations: Fr Aubuzac [name uncertain - translator’s note] is giving no sign of life. Fr Hinault has returned from Bretagne yesterday morning; nothing very new. He didn’t go to either Senlis or Montluçon.

Tell Fr Roncet that he will probably receive a visit soon from Fr Dubois who has returned from America on the 15th of this month. I saw him one day at Lyon. He is still as good a man as he was before. His holidays are not very long since he is leaving again on the 26th of August.

Goodbye, dear friend. Don’t forget your promise. Your letter of the first of August. Say hullo to the old ones.

J Darnand [name uncertain - translator’s note]