“I thought it better not to tell the man all I knew. I told him that before leaving Hamburg he would have to throw some light upon the things that were going on in that town; and I said enough to him to explain what I meant and to put him on his mettle. He replied that he knew nothing whatever of the meeting I had mentioned; that he was sure that if there was a question of it, Le Cormier, whom he saw every day, would have told him; and that the latter had been thinking for some days past of going into the country with M. de Bloom (who was formerly Danish Minister in Paris), but that it seemed that he would not now go. He added that he knew enough of the emigrants at Hamburg to be certain that, with the exception of Le Cormier, there was not an enterprising man in the ‘Ancien Régime’ section; that if such a plan had existed, he thought it was more than likely that the King of Verona’s change of position would have caused another to be substituted for it; and that, in any case, he would investigate and explain, and might depend on his giving me all the information he could get. He further said that the Prince of Carawey, whom he knew privately, was expected at Hamburg from Lucerne within the fortnight, and if there was anything to be learnt from him, he (Colleville) would make it his business to learn it. I asked him what Lord Mc. Cartally had come here for. He did not know. I hope that I shall have found out whether he has left or not before the courier goes. “In fact, Citizen Minister, Colleville’s absolute ignorance of the meeting you speak of leads me to have some doubt of its reality. But I shall not leave it at that. I have already taken measures to get hold of my man, and also to have the plotters whom you indicate to me well watched from other quarters. I am aware that with men of Colleville’s stamp there is always the evil, if not of being spied on in our turn--which is easily avoided with a little prudence--at any rate of being given information with a double purpose. It was as such that I regarded what he told me of a general plan of the _émigrés_, which was to operate in the very heart of the Republic, and to re-establish the Monarchy by the organs of the Law itself. He thought himself sure of a man in the Legislative body (he told me his name was Madier). He knew all the details of the system they were to follow, and the details of the prosecution of the 2nd of September were actually to enter into it. As to the 2nd of September, I answered, every Frenchman regards it with horror, and the scoundrel ought to be punished. The Government will certainly take care that an act of justice does not become an anti-revolutionary instrument.