Balthasar St Michel ('Balty', brother-in-law)

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N Pauline on Fri 4 Apr 2003, 09:57pm. Flag this

Balty enters the diary on February 8:
“At home my wife’s brother brought her a pretty black dog which I liked very well, and went away again.”

Claire Tomalin notes in her biography of Pepys that this going away again without asking Sam for something was unusual.
N Phil Gyford on Mon 5 Dec 2005, 10:33am. Flag this

Husband of Esther: http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/5735.php
N Pauline on Mon 19 Dec 2005, 02:19am. Flag this

L&M Companion states that his letters to Sam “perfectly reflect the man” in “their comic extravagance of language and feeling.”

Richard Ollard wrote:
“If Balthasar St Michel had not existed. only Dickens could have invented him.”
N in Aqua Scripto on Mon 19 Dec 2005, 03:57am. Flag this

Known as my wife’s brother or Her Brother, sums up the relationship.
N in Aqua Scripto on Fri 2 Jun 2006, 04:44am. Flag this

How old be this brother in LAW, older or younger, only found two refs: one 18 mths younger, the other 1 yr older, his behaviour suggests younger?
N jeannine on Tue 6 Jun 2006, 10:42pm. Flag this

Additional background information about Balty, including his much quoted and “famous” letter to Sam can be found in the article on Elizabeth at

http://www.pepysdiary.com/indepth/archive/2006/05/31/a_voice_for_elizabe.php

A graph of all the references in the diary

1660: Feb: 8
Apr: 6, 8, 9
Jun: 18
Nov: 7
1661: Aug: 27
Sep: 11
1662: Jan: 12
May: 11
Jun: 15
Jul: 27
Oct: 22
Nov: 12, 14, 17, 20, 29
Dec: 7, 8, 10, 16, 18
1663: Jan: 9, 14, 17, 22
Feb: 12, 17
Jun: 12, 13
Nov: 20
Dec: 21, 31
1664: Jan: 28
Feb: 3, 10, 22
1665: Jun: 26
Jul: 25
Sep: 6, 12
Oct: 19
Dec: 4, 18
1666: Mar: 25
Apr: 1, 3, 13, 17, 23, 25, 27, 28
May: 21, 22
Jun: 3, 8, 13
Jul: 16, 17, 19
Aug: 2, 3, 10
Sep: 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 24, 30
Oct: 15, 24
Nov: 1, 2, 7, 14, 19, 21, 29
Dec: 7, 8, 20, 29
1667: Jan: 7, 16, 18, 26
Feb: 20, 26, 27