"If the sentiments of respect and esteem with which I regard you were not so sincere, I should not so deeply feel your conduct in respect to me; for I venture to say that public opinion can never admit that there is any alienation between us. No person can comprehend that you disavow your nephew because he has exposed himself in your cause. No one can comprehend that men who have perilled their lives and their fortune to replace the eagle upon our banners can be regarded by you as enemies, any more than they could comprehend that Louis XVIII. would repel the Prince of Conde or the Duc d'Enghien because they had been unfortunate in their enterprises. "I know you too well, my dear uncle, to doubt the goodness of your heart, and not to hope that you will return to sentiments more just in respect to me, and in respect to those who have compromised themselves for your cause. As for myself, whatever may be your procedure in reference to me, my line of conduct will be ever the same. The sympathy of which so many persons have given me proofs; my conscience, which does in nothing reproach me; in fine, the conviction that if the Emperor beholds me from his elevation in the skies, he would approve my conduct, are so many compensations for all the mortifications and injustice which I have experienced. My enterprise has failed; that is true. But it has announced to France that the family of the Emperor is not yet dead; that it still numbers many devoted friends; in fine, that their pretensions are not limited to the demand of a few pence from the Government, but to the re-establishment, in favor of the people, of those rights of which foreigners and the Bourbons have deprived them. This is what I have done. Is it for you to condemn me? "I send you with this a recital of my removement from the prison of Strasbourg, that you may be fully informed of all my proceedings, and that you may know that I have done nothing unworthy of the name which I bear. I beg you to present my respects to my uncle Lucien. I rely upon his judgment and affection to be my advocate with you. I entreat you, my dear uncle, not to be displeased with the laconic manner in which I represent these facts, such as they are. Never doubt my unalterable attachment to you. "Your tender and respectful nephew, "NAPOLEON LOUIS."[AN] [Footnote AN: For a short time after the death of his elder brother, Louis Napoleon, in accordance with the understood wish of the Emperor, adopted the signature of Napoleon Louis. Soon, however, he again resumed his original name.]