[16] “After having loved and served the unhappy Marie-Antoinette with a love that was almost idolatry.”--_Mémoires manuscrits de Frotté_; La Sicotière, _Louis de Frotté_, etc., vol. i. p. 49. “O exquisite woman, let our Revolution end as it may, and even if you should have no part in it, you will still and for ever be to me the tender and devoted friend of Antoinette ... and she to whom I hope some day to owe all my happiness.”--Letter from de Frotté to Lady Atkyns, November, 1794. V. Delaporte, _Centenaire de la mort de Marie-Antoinette. Études religieuses_, October, 1893, p. 265. [17] _National Archives_, D. XXIX. 36. [18] Unpublished letter to Frotté, May 7, 1790. _National Archives_, D. XXIX. 36. [19] In the course of a search made at Dunkirk, in Frotté’s dwelling-place (in circumstances of which we shall speak directly), the greater part of the articles seized were sent to the Committee of Research of the National Assembly, and it was in the Archives of this Committee that we discovered them. _National Archives_, D. XXIX. 36. [20] The entire text will be found, published by M. A. Savine, in the _Nouvelle Revue Retrospective_, 1900, vol. xiii. pp. 217-233. [21] “You will have got a letter from me, explaining my apparent neglect; I wrote it the day before I went to Vaux, as well as I remember. Your father, who may have told you in a moment of irritation that you were a burden to him (it was only a letter after all), charged me then to send you his love. My sister has often spoken of you with the most sincere and tender affection. You would be most unkind if you did not write to her; she would have every reason to be angry with you; you would pain her, and that would pain your father.... Dear fellow, don’t, _don’t_ despair; you make me very uneasy by the way you write.”--Letter from Lamberville to Frotté. April 5, 1791. _National Archives_, D. XXIX. 36. [22] To Fours, in the Eure district, whence the letter comes. [23] Letter from Vallière to Frotté, November 13, 1790. _National Archives_, D. XXIX. 36. [24] Letter dated “Lille, December 14” (1790). The address runs: “To M. le Vicomte de Frotté, officer in the Regiment Colonel-General of infantry at Dunkirk.” _National Archives_, D. XXIX. 36. [25] _Municipal Archives of Dunkirk_, p. 60. [26] _Municipal Archives of Dunkirk_, p. 60. [27] It was from that place that they addressed, on July 3, 1791, a petition for the restoration of their effects left in the garrison, and also asked for the liberation of their regimental chaplain, whom the Corporation had had arrested, on the charge of having aided the plot.--_Archives of Dunkirk_, p. 60. [28] _Moniteur_, June 30, 1791. CHAPTER II LONDON