He predicts terrible retribution for the ministers, the magistrates, and Madame de Pompadour. To her he writes: "You will see yourself one day like that owl in the park of Versailles; all the birds cast water upon him to choke him, to drown him; if the king chanced to die, before two hours were past someone would set five or six persons at your heels, and you would yourself pack to the Bastille." The accused by degrees becomes transformed into the accuser; he writes to Sartine: "I am neither a dog nor a criminal, but a man like yourself." And the lieutenant of police, taking pity on him, writes on one of these letters sent to the minister of Paris: "When Danry writes thus, it is not that he is mad, but frantic from long imprisonment." The magistrate counsels the prisoner "to keep out of his letters all bitterness, which can only do him harm." Bertin corrected with his own hand the petitions Danry sent to the Marquise de Pompadour; in the margin of one of them we read, "I should think I was prejudicing him and his interests if I sent on to Madame de Pompadour a letter in which he ventures to reproach her with having _abused his good faith and confidence_." Having amended the letter, the lieutenant of police himself carried it to Versailles. The years of captivity, far from humbling the prisoner and abasing his pride, only made him the more arrogant; his audacity grew from day to day, and he was not afraid of speaking to the lieutenants of police themselves, who knew his history, about his fortune which had been ruined, his brilliant career which had been cut short, his whole family plunged into despair. At first the magistrate would shrug his shoulders; insensibly he would be won over by these unwavering assertions, by this accent of conviction; and he ends actually by believing in this high birth, this fortune, this genius, in all which Danry had perhaps come to believe himself. Then Danry takes a still higher tone: he claims not only his freedom, but compensation, large sums of money, honours. But one must not think that this sprang from a sordid sentiment unworthy of him: "If I propose compensation, my lord, it is not for the sake of getting money, it is only so that I may smooth away all the obstacles which may delay the end of my long suffering." In return, he is very ready to give the lieutenant of police some good advice--to indicate the means of advancement in his career, to show him how to set about getting appointed secretary of state, to compose for him the speech he is to make to the king at his first audience. He adds: "This very time is extremely favourable to you; it is the auspicious hour: profit by it. Before they take horse on the day of rejoicing for the conclusion of peace, you ought to be a counsellor of state."