“As it is a maxim with me not to ask what, under similar circumstances, I would not grant, your Majesty will do me the justice to believe that this request appears to me to correspond to those great principles of magnanimity and wisdom which form the basis of sound policy and durable glory. “May the Almighty and Merciful Sovereign of the universe keep your Majesty under his protection and guidance.” To Gouverneur Morris, who had superseded Mr. Monroe as minister to France, Madame de Staël wrote urgently in behalf of La Fayette. She says in one of her letters to Mr. Morris:— “You are travelling through Germany, and, whether on a public mission or not, you have influence, for they are not so stupid as not to consult a man like you. Open the prison doors of M. de La Fayette. Pay the debt of your country. What greater service can any one render to his native land than to discharge her obligations of gratitude? Is there any severer calamity than that which has befallen La Fayette? Does any more glaring injustice attract the attention of Europe?” Mr. Morris not only spared no sacrifice for the marquis, but aided his suffering family, and was chiefly instrumental in securing the liberation of Madame La Fayette. But for five long years Prussia and Austria defended their infamous conduct by declaring “that La Fayette’s freedom was incompatible with the safety of the present governments of Europe.” General Latour-Maubourg, in a letter written during their imprisonment at Olmütz, thus graphically describes their prison life:— “Do not suppose that I have made a mistake in lodging the domestic from Paris in two chambers which are large, handsome, and the best in the enclosure, whilst General and Madame La Fayette have but two small cells, their daughters but a narrow kennel, with a single wretched bed; and whilst Pusy and myself, in addition to the common inconveniences, have those attached to the neighborhood of the guard-house and out-houses, the dampness of which is such, that the wall touching them is covered with saltpetre. The genius of the imperial administration has thought of everything that can render our seclusion complete, and harass us in the slightest matters. “The waters with which we are surrounded furnish, in addition to a multitude of flies that are extremely troublesome, frequent fogs, which occasion dangerous fevers, and to which the town of Olmütz owes its reputation for unwholesomeness. “Besides, the gutters passing beneath our windows always emit an insufferable stench, and exhale a mephitic vapor that is absolutely pestilential. Our prisons, without excepting even that of the ladies, are furnished with a sorry bed without curtains, two deal tables, two chairs, a range of wooden pegs, a wardrobe, and a stove which is lighted from the outside.