"Your friends are under the impression that you are travelling in France for your own diversion. If you wish it, I will consign my _début_ to all the devils and set out at once to join you. Let me know your wishes, and I will follow them implicitly.... The house is always crowded on the nights on which I appear. I have been playing the part of the dancer in _Je ne sais quoi_, and of Fanchon in _La Triomphe de l'intérêt_. The ballet of _La Marmotte_ is still being played with success. Your couplets are always received with applause. The duet which I sing with Richard is also your work; the mere fact that it is yours ensures my singing it well. I am threatened with much evil, but I laugh at it; I will come with all my heart to beg with you. "I have just learned from your mother and sister that the Marshal wishes to replace the little Rivière;[139] and, for that purpose, has sent word to me that he loves me more than ever. Henceforth, it will be no longer advisable for me to go and pay my court to him. "If it be not possible for us to remain here, we will go away and end our days tranquilly in some foreign country. I am for ever your wife and sweetheart." * * * * * When this letter was written, Justine had been for some weeks under strict surveillance. "On July 16, 1749," writes Meusnier, "I received orders to keep her under observation, in such a way as to be able to render an account of all her actions and movements, while the Marshal, on his side, worked to thwart all her plans." He then relates how he bribed a servant of the Favarts, named Jacques, to keep watch and ward over his mistress within doors, while he himself followed her when she left the house. This kind of thing went on until the beginning of September, apparently without much result, and then the Marshal "brought another battery into action." We have mentioned that Justine's father, M. Duronceray, had not been present at her marriage with Favart, but had given his consent in writing. For the past two years he had been confined as a dipsomaniac in the convent of the Frères de la Charité, at Senlis, apparently on the application of his daughter, against whom he was, in consequence, much incensed. The Marshal now determined to make use of this unfortunate man for his own ends, and, accordingly, obtained his release from the convent at Sens and had him brought to Paris, where he lost no time in seeking an interview with the Lieutenant of Police and formally accusing his daughter of having contracted an illegal marriage, inasmuch as he had never given his consent to her union with Favart, and the document purporting to contain it had been a barefaced forgery. This, of course, was a very serious offence indeed, and, supported by the Marshal, the worthy M. Duronceray had no difficulty in obtaining a _lettre de cachet_ for the arrest and imprisonment of Justine, whose fate was now entirely in the hands of her terrible admirer.