P.S. In order to give you, at one view, a complete idea of the collections of the _Dépôt de la guerre_, and of what they have furnished during the war for the service of the government and of the armies, I shall end my letter by stating that, independently of eight thousand chosen volumes, among which is a valuable collection of atlases, of two thousand seven hundred volumes of old archives, and of upwards of nine hundred _cartons_ or pasteboard boxes of modern original documents, the _Dépôt_ possesses one hundred and thirty-one volumes and seventy-eight _cartons_ of descriptive memoirs, composed at least of fifty memoirs each, four thousand seven hundred engraved maps, of each of which there are from two to twenty-five copies, exclusively of those printed at the _Dépôt_, and upwards of seven thousand four hundred valuable manuscript maps, plans, or drawings of marches, battles, sieges, &c. By order of the government, it has furnished, in the course of the war, seven thousand two hundred and seventy-eight engraved maps, two hundred and seven manuscript maps or plans, sixty-one atlases of various parts of the globe, and upwards of six hundred descriptive memoirs. [Footnote 1: FRANÇOIS ANDREOSSY; who was the great great grandfather of the present French ambassador at our court.] [Footnote 2: On the 25th of April, 1792, was published a regulation, decreed by the king, respecting the general direction of the _Dépôt de la guerre_. The annual expense of the establishment, at that time amounted to 68,000 francs, but the geographical and historical departments were not filled. _Note of the Author._] [Footnote 3: An _Agence des cartes_ was appointed, by the National Assembly, to class these materials, and arrange them in useful order.] [Footnote 4: At the juncture alluded to (1793), the want of geographical engineers having been felt as soon as the armies took the field, three brigades were formed, each consisting of twelve persons. The composition of the _Dépôt de la guerre_, was increased in proportion to its importance: intelligent officers were placed there; and no less than thirty-eight persons were employed in the interior labour, that is, in drawing plans of campaigns, sieges, &c. _Note of the Author_.] [Footnote 5: That tempestuous period having dispersed the then director and his assistants, the _Dépôt de la guerre_ remained, for some time, without officers capable of conducting it in a manner useful to the country. In the mean while, wants were increasing, and military operations daily becoming more important, when, in 1793, CARNOT, then a member of the Committee of Public Welfare, formed a private cabinet of topography, the elements of which he drew from the _Dépôt de la guerre_. This was a first impulse given to these valuable collections. _Note of the Author_.]