of some plate in order to pay the debt.  To this I objected, and told her that I would wait until she could pay me at her convenience, and previous to the breaking out of the revolution I believe it was not in her power to fulfil her wish of discharging the debt.

I am sorry, General, to be obliged to trouble yon about such a trifle.  But such is my unfortunate situation that even this trifle is of some importance to me.  Driven from my country, and obliged to take refuge in this island, where everything is exceedingly expensive, the little sum I have mentioned, which was formerly a matter of indifference, would now be of great service to me.

You will understand, General, that at the age of eighty-six, after serving served my country well for sixty years, without the least interruption, not counting the time of emigration, chased from every place, I have been obliged to take refuge here, to subsist on the scanty succour given by the English Government to the French emigrant.  I say emigrant because I have been forced to be one.  I had no intention of being one, but a horde of brigands, who came from Caen to my house to assassinate me, considered I had committed the great crime in being the senior general of the canton and in having the Grand Cross of St. Louis:  this was too much for them; if it had not been for the cries of my neighbours, my door would have been broken open, and I should have been assassinated; and I had but time to fly by a door at the back, only carrying away what I had on me.  At first I retired to Paris, but there they told me that I could do nothing but go into a foreign country, so great was the hate entertained for me by my fellow-citizens, although I lived in retirement, never having any discussion with any one.  Thus, General; I have abandoned all I possessed, money and goods, leaving them at the mercy of what they call the nation, which has profited a good deal by this, as I have nothing left in the world, not even a spot to put my foot on.  If even a horse had been reserved for me, General, I could ask for what depends on you, for I have heard it said that some emigrants have been allowed to return home.  I do not even ask this favour, not having a place to rest my foot.  And, besides, I have with me here an exiled brother, older than I am, very ill and in perfect second childhood, whom I could not abandon.  I am resigned to my own unhappy fate, but my sole and great grief is that not only I myself have been ill-treated, but that my fate has, contrary to the law, injured relations whom I love and respect.  I have a mother-in-law, eighty years old, who has been refused the dower I had given her from my property, and this will make me die a bankrupt if nothing is changed, which makes me miserable.

     I acknowledge, General, that I know little of the new style, but,
     according to the old form, I am your humble servant,

DuroselBeaumanoir.