Arrived at the consular house, we were, as on the first occasion, very cordially welcomed.  We received a visit from a dragoman sent by the Dey, who asked whether we persisted in maintaining that Bougie had been our point of departure, and not Cape Matifou, or some neighbouring port.  We again affirmed the truth of our recital; it was confirmed, the next day, on the arrival of the proprietors of our mules.

At Palamos, during the various interviews which I had with the dowager Duchess of Orleans, one circumstance had particularly affected me.  The Princess spoke to me unceasingly of the wish she had to go and rejoin one of her sons, whom she believed to be alive, but of whose death I had been informed by a person belonging to her household.  Hence I was anxious to do all that lay in my power to mitigate a sorrow which she must experience before long.

At the moment when I quitted Spain for Marseilles, the Duchess confided to me two letters which I was to forward in safety to their addresses.  One was destined for the Empress-mother of Russia, the other for the Empress of Austria.

Scarcely had I arrived at Algiers, when I mentioned these two letters to M. Dubois Thainville, and begged him to send them to France by the first opportunity.  “I shall do nothing of the sort,” he at once answered me.  “Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer?  I am surprised that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit, might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the exiled family of the Bourbons.”  Thus the paternal advice of the French Consul taught me that in all that regards politics, however nearly or remotely, one cannot give himself up without danger to the dictates of the heart and the reason.

I enclosed my two letters in an envelope bearing the address of a trustworthy person, and gave them into the hands of a corsair, who, after touching at Algiers, would proceed to France.  I have never known whether they reached their destination.

The reigning Dey, successor to the beheaded Dey, had formerly filled the humble office of “epileur"[5] of dead bodies in the mosques.  He governed the Regency with much gentleness, occupying himself with little but his harem.  This disgusted those who had raised him to this eminent post, and they resolved upon getting rid of him.  We became aware of the danger which menaced him, by seeing the courts and vestibules of the consular house full, according to the custom under such circumstances, of Jews, carrying with them whatever they had of most value.  It was a rule at Algiers, that all that happened in the interval comprised between the death of a Dey and the installation of his successor, could not be followed up by justice, and must remain unpunished.  One can imagine, then, why the children of Moses should seek safety in the consular houses, the European inhabitants of which had the courage to arm themselves for self-defence as soon as the danger was apparent, and who, moreover, had a janissary to guard them.