Very private. Extract to be made for the Directoire and Police; name of Colleville to be kept secret. (14th Prairial) Altona. This 1st Prairial, Year IV. of the French Republic, Citizen Giraudet one and undivisible. To be sent at once to (May 20th, 1796). the Minister of Police. “CITIZEN MINISTER, “I hasten to reply to your despatch, dated the 20th floréal, which accords remarkably with one I sent you from here on the 21st. It even seems that we have had the same sources of inspiration, and I shall not be surprised to find that the same Baron d’Auerweck, whom I denounced to you, had been in his turn the denouncer of Le Cormier. From the impressions I have been given of his character and principles, it is quite possible. However that may be, I have lost no time in having an interview with Colleville, who had already told me of the arrival of the Bishop of Arras, and who then further informed me (before he knew what my business with him was) that this person had written to him yesterday that his arrival was postponed, and that perhaps it would not take place at all, on account of the prolonged stay of the King of Verona with Condé’s army. The King (Colleville assured me) would not leave this army, as it had been averred that he would. “I began by telling Colleville that I had had a favourable reply from you about his affairs. He assured me of his gratitude, and at once spoke to me of his favourite idea of obtaining permission to serve you elsewhere than at Hamburg--a very natural desire, whether one explains it by his conviction that he would play a more active part somewhere else, or by his possible apprehension that his relations with us may be in the end discovered.