But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a livelihood, and a man, moreover, whom there was only too much reason to mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him. What did this mean--_if_ he had any property, _if_ he could find sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: "My dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together." And he speaks to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of police, and what more did he want? Latude's new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter to the notary. "The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, doubtless." What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; how is he to find the remnant of his scattered family? Happily there remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already strong, in which he places his whole confidence. "Chevalier, it would only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother to write to M. Lenoir." The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not only the Chevalier's mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the queen's household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. "On June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my pocket the warrant under his own hand!" * * * * *