The routine that began when the door of this room opened so unexpectedly to admit Lafayette's wife and daughters continued for almost two years. Madame Lafayette described it in a letter to her [Pg 241]aunt, Madame de Tessé, an exile in Holstein, with whom she and her girls spent a few days after leaving the ship at Hamburg. "At last, my dear aunt, I can write you secretly. Friends risk their liberty, their life, to transmit our letters and will charge themselves with this one for you.... Thanks to your good advice, dear aunt, I took the sole means of reaching here. If I had been announced I would never have succeeded in entering the domains of the emperor.... Do you wish details of our present life? They bring our breakfast at eight o'clock in the morning, after which I am locked with the girls until noon. We are reunited for dinner, and though our jailers enter twice to remove the dishes and bring in our supper, we remain together until they come at eight o'clock to take my daughters back to their cage. The keys are carried each time to the commandant and shut up with absurd precautions. They pay, with my money, the expenses of all three, and we have enough to eat, but it is inexpressibly dirty. "The physician, who does not understand a word of French, is brought to us by an officer when we have need of him. We like him. M. de Lafayette, in the presence of the officer, who understands Latin, speaks with him in that language and translates for us. When this officer, a huge corporal of a jailer, who does not dare to speak to us himself without witnesses, comes with his great trousseau of keys in his hand to unpadlock our doors, while the whole guard is drawn up outside in the corridor and the entrance to our rooms is half opened [Pg 242]by two sentinels, you would laugh to see our two girls, one blushing to her ears, the other with a manner now proud, now comic, passing under their crossed sabers; after which the doors of our cells at once close. What is not pleasant is that the little court on the same level with the corridor is the scene of frequent punishment of the soldiers, who are there beaten with whips, and we hear the horrible music. It is a great cause of thankfulness to us that our children up to the present time have borne up well under this unhealthy regime. As for myself, I admit that my health is not good."