Letter from Pierre Jean de Béranger, Paris, to Catherine Grace Frances Gore, 1851 February 20 : autograph manuscript signed.

Explaining why he will not be coming to visit her during the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations; writing that although he would like to see her and her children, he has no desire to travel and could not tolerate the crowds in London or the company of all the luminaries whom she has promised to invite. He's not curious, fears having to be in competition with them, and is worried that the voyage across the English Channel will provoke migraines. Béranger senses from Gore's letter that she is feeling happy and asks if that is the case. He goes on to write of the poverty in which he lives, although he says he, too, is happy. He has had to move out of his little house in Passy and now lives in a boarding house. The change did not bother him much because he began being accustomed to living in poverty at an early age. He rarely sings anymore but is in good health. He still has a few clients (he was elected to the Constituent Assembly after the Revolution of 1848) but is not much in favor with the present government, nor was he with the previous one. His reputation has suffered, and he has mostly isolated himself from others in order to maintain his independence.