No 8 Rue de l’Orient

Montmartre

Paris April 24/77

My dear chummeke: --

I haven’t written for some time because I have been moving. And indeed I have be so everlastingly mixed up that I am not sure whether I have described to you my celebrated hotel – you know that everybody who owns a whole house or occupies one calls it a hotel. Well it is in the top of Montmartre near the old windmills which you have probably seen. We have a fine little garden, two rooms on the ground floor where I have my carpenter’s shop and on the first floor a kitchen, salon and dining room. The second story has three chambers where sleep Mrs. Merrill, the two girls and William.[1] The third story has a fine studio and the nicest little box of a chamber adjoining

[page 3] with W.C. and everything handy. My bed is very narrow but you can manage to occupy it I hope. If not we can fix things in the studio when I shall have a divan when I get time to make it. I have made all the furniture for the Salon and there is the greatest gauming place there you ever saw – a great Turkish divan extends around the end of the room under the window and lots of cushions etc. make it comfortable enough. I have my own particular corner where I sit and smoke and over it is a shelf with pipes etc. Come and sit there.

By the way the greatest charm of the house is a splendid terrace on top when you can overlook all Paris like from the Arc de Triomphe. I am about to pose my models there and paint them in full sunlight.

Donny Adams writes me that she is going to America and will pass through Paris. I have invited her to stop here and I hope she will. I saw Bloomer the other day, he said he was writing you. I like the boy very [page 3] much but he lives as far away that he is not use trying to trace him after. There is nothing new to write you except that Anderson has gone to Spain. He is painting it like what they paste on the walls near churches ould you get him one. An old one torn etc. would make no difference.

There must be an end to your waiting, before long and then I hope to see you. Paris will soon be delightful and I hope to have leisure enough to enjoy some of it. It has cost me so much to fix the family here that probably I shall not be able to go way [to stay--crossed out] this summer. However I hope to go for a short trip to the island of Sark and Normandy. If you could come along I should be happy. But all depends of course on my expected remittances.

Do write me.

Yours in haste and with all my heart

F.D.M.

No 8 Rue de l'Orient

(Montmartre) Paris

Notes

1. The two Merrill girls were Lily, his future wife, and Kate, who Millet thought should be an opera star.