ABSTRACT
Viotti wrote to Pierre Baillot, mooting the possibility of his visiting Paris at some stage during their stay in Holland. On the eve of his departure for England Viotti wrote a fond farewell letter to Baillot from St Omer, thanking Baillot's brother for some violin strings, for which he insisted on paying. The three Viotti manuscript quartets mentioned by Baillot in the letters to Montbeillard were almost certainly those he had composed in London in 1812, which he said he would dedicate to the Duke of Cambridge. Viotti probably also renewed his friendship with Jean-Louis Duport, who had returned from the Berlin court to take up an appointment at the Conservatoire in 1814. In 1814 and on each successive yearly visit to the Continent Margaret and Viotti renewed old friendships and made new ones, especially among the diplomats, whose society Margaret preferred almost above all other.
