This request was too just not to be granted, and Joseph wrote the following letter:—­

“Do not be uneasy, dear mother; the mistake of which I am a victim can easily be rectified; I have already given them the means of doing so.  To-morrow, or perhaps this evening, I shall be at liberty.  I kiss you, and beg you to say to Monsieur and Madame Hochon how grieved I am at this affair; in which, however, I have had no hand,—­it is the result of some chance which, as yet, I do not understand.”

When the note reached Madame Bridau, she was suffering from a nervous attack, and the potions which Monsieur Goddet was trying to make her swallow were powerless to soothe her.  The reading of the letter acted like balm; after a few quiverings, Agathe subsided into the depression which always follows such attacks.  Later, when Monsieur Goddet returned to his patient he found her regretting that she had ever quitted Paris.

“Well,” said Madame Hochon to Monsieur Goddet, “how is Monsieur Gilet?”

“His wound, though serious, is not mortal,” replied the doctor.  “With a month’s nursing he will be all right.  I left him writing to Monsieur Mouilleron to request him to set your son at liberty, madame,” he added, turning to Agathe.  “Oh!  Max is a fine fellow.  I told him what a state you were in, and he then remembered a circumstance which goes to prove that the assassin was not your son; the man wore list shoes, whereas it is certain that Monsieur Joseph left the house in his boots—­”

“Ah!  God forgive him the harm he has done me—­”

The fact was, a man had left a note for Max, after dark, written in type-letters, which ran as follows:—­

“Captain Gilet ought not to let an innocent man suffer.  He who struck the blow promises not to strike again if Monsieur Gilet will have Monsieur Joseph Bridau set at liberty, without naming the man who did it.”

After reading this letter and burning it, Max wrote to Monsieur Mouilleron stating the circumstance of the list shoes, as reported by Monsieur Goddet, begging him to set Joseph at liberty, and to come and see him that he might explain the matter more at length.

By the time this letter was received, Monsieur Lousteau-Prangin had verified, by the testimony of the bell-ringer, the market-women and washerwomen, and the miller’s men, the truth of Joseph’s explanation.  Max’s letter made his innocence only the more certain, and Monsieur Mouilleron himself escorted him back to the Hochons’.  Joseph was greeted with such overflowing tenderness by his mother that the poor misunderstood son gave thanks to ill-luck—­like the husband to the thief, in La Fontaine’s fable—­for a mishap which brought him such proofs of affection.

“Oh,” said Monsieur Mouilleron, with a self-satisfied air, “I knew at once by the way you looked at the angry crowd that you were innocent; but whatever I may have thought, any one who knows Issoudun must also know that the only way to protect you was to make the arrest as we did.  Ah! you carried your head high.”