the greatest need of you.  At once!  Your consolations may perhaps give me the courage to live.  If you arrive too late—­why, forgive me—­and think sometimes of him who will be yours to the last.’  Judge of my grief and fear on receipt of the above.  I seat instantly for post-horses.  My old foreman, whom I esteem and revere (the father of General Simon), hearing that I was going to the south, begged me to take him with me, and to leave him for some days in the department of the Creuse, to examine some ironworks recently founded there.  I consented willingly to this proposition, as I should thus at least have some one to whom I could pour out the grief and anxiety which had been caused by this letter from Bressac.  I arrive at Toulouse; they tell me that he left the evening before, taking arms with him, a prey to the most violent despair.  It was impossible at first to tell whither he had gone; after two days, some indications, collected with great trouble, put me upon his track.  At last, after a thousand adventures, I found him in a miserable village.  Never—­no, never, have I seen despair like this.  No violence, but a dreadful dejection, a savage silence.  At first, he almost repulsed me; then, this horrible agony having reached its height, he softened by degrees, and, in about a quarter of an hour, threw himself into my arms, bathed in tears.  Beside him were his loaded pistols:  one day later, and all would have been over.  I cannot tell you the reason of his despair; I am not at liberty to do so; but it did not greatly astonish me.  Now there is a complete cure to effect.  We must calm, and soothe, and heal this poor soul, which has been cruelly wounded.  The hand of friendship is alone equal to this delicate task, and I have good hope of success.  I have therefore persuaded him to travel for some time; movement and change of scene will be favorable to him.  I shall take him first to Nice; we set out tomorrow.  If he wishes to prolong this excursion.  I shall do so too, for my affairs do not imperiously demand my presence in Paris before the end of March.  As for the service I have to ask of you, it is conditional.  These are the facts.  According to some family papers that belonged to my mother, it seems I have a certain interest to present myself at No. 3, Rue Saint-Francois, in Paris, on the 13th of February.  I had inquired about it, and could learn nothing, except that this house of very antique appearance, has been shut up for the last hundred and fifty years, through a whim of one of my maternal ancestors, and that it is to be opened on the 13th of this month, in presence of the co-heirs who, if I have any, are quite unknown to me.  Not being able to attend myself, I have written to my foreman, the father of General Simon, in whom I have the greatest confidence, and whom I had left behind in the department of the Creuse, to set out for Paris, and to be present at the opening of this house, not as an agent (which would be useless), but as a spectator, and inform