"Your husband is a very extraordinary man. I can well understand, my dear cousin, all you must be suffering on account of his incredible apathy. To be reduced at the age of sixty-five, or sixty-six at the outside, to a fortune of 40,000 livres income, to bury himself in the depth of a château, and to renounce all chance of an ambitious career, as though a father had no duty towards his children, as though a gentleman ought not to die fighting! "I am sorry your brother-in-law should have laid claim to the Cross of Saint-Louis before it had been granted to him; for it may happen that the king will not readily part with the right to confer this decoration himself, and that he will not approve of the honour certain persons are anxious to have conferred upon them. You will realise that it would be less awkward not to have had the Cross of Saint-Louis than to find oneself obliged to give it up. "I did not forget to put forward the claims of your son, the chevalier, and I do not despair of getting him entered for the examination of officers for the Royal Marines. We will then do our utmost to get him passed into the staff of one hundred officers, who are far too conscious of their worth, of the names they bear and of the devotion they profess to have shown at Quiberon. "Your grandson Auguste is entered for a page; I cannot tell you exactly when he will be taken into the palace, my dear cousin, as your request followed upon three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five other requests, made on behalf of the sons of noblemen or officers slain on the field of battle, though they cannot show the slightest claim on account of services rendered to the State or to the princes. "You are well advised in wishing to place your daughter at Court, and it will not be difficult when you have found a husband for her whose rank and fortune will entitle her to a position there. If this is not arranged, I do not quite see what she would do there, or what suitable post she could occupy there, however able she may be: maids of honour are not yet reinstated. "I have presented a petition in favour of F, to which I annexed the pretty song he composed for you; but they have become so exacting that such claims no longer suffice to obtain a post as prefect. I will even go so far as to tell you that they do not think much of your protégé's conversion and of the sacrifices he is prepared to make; his enemies persist in saying that he is not a man who can be relied upon.