savages, what will become of them? They will no doubt be turned out and pushed back anew, farther into the sterile regions, where they will find only misery and death.
* * * * * * * * * I will write you again early in the month, at the time set for my departure-provided, as I hope, nothing comes up to prevent my starting. Once more I must beg you not to speak of my journey to Europe to any one in Belgium whomsoever, unless to our brother Charles.
In the sweet expectation of seeing and embracing you, believe me for life, etc.
St. Louis University, Dec. 4, 1861.
My very dear FRANCIS."
I am on the eve of a rather-long journey and very busy, and as the winter besides is very severe, I have little time for writing letters. I am still without replies to several of mine, but I feel sure that you have written me and I attribute their failure to reach me to the unhappy circumstances in which we find ourselves since my return to America in April. Your letters may have gone astray, or been suppressed, which is the more probable; or perhaps mine have been held up. Who knows? I have received letters from Felix and Elmire, with ample news of the family, which have given me the utmost pleasure and consolation amid the sad and confused spectacles that surround us. The American newspapers are placed under the strictest police supervision, for good motives, doubtless, and can give only false or mutilated reports, from which you will obtain but a faint idea of the state of the war. I will say nothing in regard to this, you will easily guess why. But I will give some details concerning what is happening in Missouri, where the horrors of civil war seem deeper than else-
e From the French.