is possible in a house which I believe to be devastated by commissioners who have exhausted on it their rage at not finding you there.  Render, I beg of you, to M. Delaitre all that I owe him.  You will know him as a relation of our poor Raoul.  He is inspired with the same sentiments and begs you to let him serve you, not wishing to remain idle in such a good cause and at such a great moment.  This letter bears the marks of our imprisonment.  Accept, my dear Vicomte, my sentiments of attachment and veneration.

“I have the honour to be,

“Your very humble servant,

“De Combray.

“I shall go to your mother’s to await the King’s passing, if I obtain my liberty before his arrival, and I shall have to go to Tournebut in order to have everything repaired and made ready if I am to enjoy this favour.  You will write, and wait impatiently.”

The most heartrending of the letters despatched by the duped old royalist in her joy, is the one destined for the King himself.  Proud of his stratagem, Licquet forwarded it to the police authorities, who retained it.  It is written in a thick, masculine hand on large paper—­studied, almost solemn at the beginning, then, with the outpouring of her thoughts, ending in an almost illegible scribble.  One feels that the poor woman wanted to say everything, to empty her heart, to free herself of eighteen years of mortification, mourning and suppressed indignation.  The following is the text of the letter, almost complete: 

     “To His Majesty Louis XVIII.

“Sire:—­From my prison, where at the age of sixty-six, I as well as my son, have been thrust for the last four months, we have the happiness of offering you our respects and congratulations on your happy accession to your throne.  All our wishes are fulfilled, sire....

“The few resources still at our command were devoted to supporting your faithful servants of every class, and in saving them from execution.  I have to regret the loss of the Chevalier de Margadelle, Raoulle, Tamerlan and the young Tellier, all of whom were carried away by their zeal for your Majesty’s cause and fell victims to it at Paris and Versailles.  I had hired a house, which I gave up to them with all the hiding-places necessary for their safety.  My son had the good fortune to be under the orders of Messieurs de Frotte and Ingant de St. Maur.

“I am sending my letter to M. le Vicomte d’Ache, in order that he may present it to your Majesty and solicit a favour very dear to my heart—­that you will condescend to stay at my house on your way to Paris.  Sire, you will find my house open, and, they say, surrounded with barricades, consequences of the ill-usage it has received during their different investigations, another of which has recently occurred in the hope of finding M. le Vicomte d’Ache and my daughter, as well as repeated sojourns made by order