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1827]

ACHILLE MURAT

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another world shall disclose for me, it is very pleasant to retire with these views into my shell, and salute the comers as they pass in procession with a very majestic indifference— much as I would behold so many ingenious puppets which another hand is guiding. Nevertheless, I shall not deny that there are some who take such a strong hold of my attention that I am fain to quit my stoic fur, and fairly go out of my circle and shake hands and converse with them. Now I know, my kind Aunt with all her electrical imagination, will think I am talking of women. Alack-a-day! it surely is not so. Wo is me! with all the chivalry that is in my soul, backed by all the muse, I pass in cold selfishness from Maine to Florida and tremble lest I be destined for a monk. No, I was speaking of men, and another time I will give you an account of one whom it was my good fortune to meet in East Florida, a man of splendid birth and proud advantages, but a humble disciple in the school of truth.

[As the foregoing is the last place but one in the journal in which Murat is mentioned, and the friends never met again, it seems best to say a last word about him here in connection

with the letter he wrote to his Northern friend in the autumn, here introduced. Although the young Murat is not mentioned by name in Mr. Emerson's works, their pleasant companionship is thus recalled in the essay "Society and Solitude" in the volume of that name. "If we recall the rare hours when we encountered the best persons, we there found ourselves, and then first society seemed to exist. That was society, though in the transom of a brig, or on the Florida Keys."

Achille Murat went abroad a few years later, and his military instincts led him to take a commission in a Belgian cavalry regiment, but the

Holy Alliance" did not approve of a brilliant nephew of the dreaded Emperor (who was said, too, to have borne a strong resemblance to his uncle) receiving a military training from a friendly power bordering on France, and for this reason the regiment is said to have been disbanded. Murat then lived for a time in England, he and his wife befriending Louis Napoleon, then an impoverished exile, who, when emperor, showed his gratitude to his "Cousin Kate" when she was a widow after the Civil War. The Murats returned to their plantation in West Florida, where they spent the rest of their lives.

1827]

MURAT'S LETTER

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Achille Murat, returning from the Old World, with all its attractions, enjoyed keenly plantation life with his brave wife in the frontier territory. He served in the Seminole War. An entertaining account of the Murats appeared in Munsey's Magazine a few years ago, entitled "An American Princess." They were childless. Prince Murat died in 1847. His remains and those of his wife lie in the graveyard of Tallahassee.

As to his agnosticism, the widow of Governor Long of Florida told me that her husband was Murat's second in a duel. As he took his pistol he said quietly, "You know I expect nothing hereafter," and stood up to give and receive fire, which happily was without fatal results to either combatant.]

LETTER FROM ACHILLE MURAT TO R. W.

EMERSON

Point Breeze,1 September 3, 1827.

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MY DEAR SIR, I have received nearly one month ago, your very polite letter, which I

I Point Breeze, near Bordentown, New Jersey, was the home of Joseph Bonaparte who, forced by his brother, the Emperor, to be successively King of Naples and King of Spain, was thankful to spend his later days in quiet in America. In the letter the spelling of the original is preserved.

would have answered sooner but for my ill health. I have not left my bed since the middle of July, and since three weeks I have been afflicted with a Paralisis in my hands and arms which prevents me using my pen. This, as you may well think has entirely put a stop to my plans, study and literary pursuits. I had here lost sight of the discussions which we intended to have together, but I intended as well as yourself to be able to continue it without interruption, before engageing in it. I must tell you, however, candidly, that the state of my mind has been altered since our meeting. Your system has acquired as much in proberbility as mine has lost in certainty, both seem to me now nearly equally proberable. I have accordingly one only test left that of expediency. On this subject I still lean on my side, in a refined state of society, although in barbarous time of obscurity and ignorance your theory may be more useful. A necessary prelimanary, however, is to assertain how far we can have an absolute notion of truth. This is paramount to all subsequent indigations. As soon as I shall be home (about the beginning of November) and I shall be able to do anything, I shall employ myself in writing a monography of truth,

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