"Sire:--From my prison, where at the age of sixty-six, I as well as my son, have been thrust for the last four months, we have the happiness of offering you our respects and congratulations on your happy accession to your throne. All our wishes are fulfilled, sire.... "The few resources still at our command were devoted to supporting your faithful servants of every class, and in saving them from execution. I have to regret the loss of the Chevalier de Margadelle, Raoulle, Tamerlan and the young Tellier, all of whom were carried away by their zeal for your Majesty's cause and fell victims to it at Paris and Versailles. I had hired a house, which I gave up to them with all the hiding-places necessary for their safety. My son had the good fortune to be under the orders of Messieurs de Frotte and Ingant de St. Maur. "I am sending my letter to M. le Vicomte d'Ache, in order that he may present it to your Majesty and solicit a favour very dear to my heart--that you will condescend to stay at my house on your way to Paris. Sire, you will find my house open, and, they say, surrounded with barricades, consequences of the ill-usage it has received during their different investigations, another of which has recently occurred in the hope of finding M. le Vicomte d'Ache and my daughter, as well as repeated sojourns made by order of the prefect, and an interrogation by his secretary, after having been subjected to an examination lasting eleven hours in this so-called Court of Justice, in order that I might inform them of my correspondence with M. de Ache as well as of a letter I received from him on the 17th of last March. The worst threats have been used such as being confronted with Le Chevalier, and my being sent to Paris to be guillotined, but nothing terrified me, I did not tell them anything about my relations with him or where he was living. I had just left him ten days previously. My reply to this persecution was that M. de Ache was in London, and I concluded by assuring them that I did not fear death, that I would fervently perform my last act of contrition, and that my head would fall without my disclosing this interesting mystery.