[Note: exact date unknown but John Gray’s diary entries strongly suggest that this would have been sent sometime around the time of his visit to Paris in March of 1919.]

Paris. France.

My Dear Olive

I sent a Post Card to Alex yesterday now I will send you some in an envelope and if you keep them nice and clean till I come home I will tell you more about them. I have seen all these places to day. They are pictures of some of the rooms in the great royal palace of Fontainebleau where Napoleon lived. He was a great king or Emperor and the greatest soldier the world has ever known.

The palace is a tremendous big place and it took us 5 hours just to walk through some of the rooms and then we didnt see them all but the ones we did see are the prettiest I have ever seen The colours of the furniture and curtains and paintings are really far prettier than these post cards show. The palace is 37 miles from Paris so we had a long train journey. It is in a forest which is 225 square miles.

Yesterday I went to the place where Napoleon was buried and tomorrow I think I will go to another of his great palaces called Versailles It must have cost an awful lot of money to build these fine places. If you look at the picture of “The Council Chamber” you will see half of the centre chandelier. It cost 4,000 pounds, that is about $20,000 to make.

Now I can’t begin to tell you all the things I have seen to-day. I am sending some pictures to Chicksands and then they will send them to you or I will bring them when I come home which I hope will not be long now. Doesn’t it seem a long time since I went away and I am getting very tired of being so far away and not seeing Mama and my oldest daughter and Alex and Harvey and baby Jean. Oh no she is not baby any more is she? Ill have to send Harvey and Jean a Post Card next time

Well my dear Olive I must go to bed and get up early tomorrow.

Your loving Daddy.