Having made these complaints, Charles delivered into Mouthion’s hands a formal protest, declaring that the decree of abdication was compulsory, and therefore invalid. He charged him also with a letter for the Emperor. “Sir, my brother,” he said, “you will not without some interest behold a King, who having been forced to resign his crown, throws himself into the arms of a great monarch his ally, placing every thing at the disposal of him who alone can make his happiness and that of all his family, and of his faithful and beloved subjects. I abdicated in favour of my son only under the pressure of circumstances, when the noise of arms and the clamours of a rebellious guard made me sufficiently understand that my choice was between life and death, and that my death would have been followed by the Queen’s. ♦1808. APRIL.♦ I have been compelled to resign; but taking hope this day, and full of confidence in the magnanimity and genius of the great man who has already shown himself my friend, I have resolved to remit myself in every thing to him, that he may dispose as he thinks good both of us and our fate, that of the Queen and of the Prince of the Peace.” Having consigned this letter to Mouthion, who may be suspected of having dictated the latter expressions, he renewed his complaints. His situation, he said, was one of the most deplorable. They had seized the Prince of the Peace and would put him to death, for no other crime than that of having been at all times attached to his sovereign. There were no solicitations which he had not made to save the life of his unhappy friend, but he found every one deaf to his prayers and bent upon vengeance; and the death of Godoy would draw after it his own, for he should not survive him. ♦LETTERS OF THE QUEEN TO MURAT.♦