He had 'much discourse of chymical matters' with Sir Kenelm Digby; 'but the truth is, Sir Kenelm was an arrant mountebank.' Here, too, he wrote his second literary composition, _The State of France, as it stood in the IXth yeer of this present monarch Lewis XIIII_, which was published in England in 1652.

Apart from these occupations, his time was chiefly spent in the pleasures and amusements common to the court of France and to the throng of exiles from Britain who formed the Court of the uncrowned monarch, Charles II.
Evelyn longed for settlement in England, because he saw that the Royalist cause was hopelessly lost for the time being.

His father-in-law's estate of Sayes Court had been seized and sold by the rebels, but 'by the advice and endeavour of my friends I was advis'd to reside in it, and compound with the soldiers.

This I was besides authoriz'd by his Majesty to do, and encourag'd with promise that what was in lease from the Crowne, if ever it pleased God to restore him, he would secure to us in fee-ferme.{xxxi:1} I had also addresses and cyfers to correspond with his Majesty and Ministers abroad: upon all which inducements I was persuaded to settle henceforth in England, having now run about the world, most part out of my owne country, neere ten yeares.
I therefore now likewise meditated sending over for my Wife, whom as yet I had left at Paris.' She arrived on 11th.

June with her Mother; and as small-pox was then raging in and about London they sojourned for some time at Tunbridge Wells, drinking the waters.