A great and new sorrow surprised me at Villeneuve. To tell it you, I must go back to a few months before my Swiss journey. I was still occupying the house in the Rue Miromesnil when, in the autumn of 1804, Madame de Caud came to Paris. The death of Madame de Beaumont had finished the affecting of my sister's reason; she was very near refusing to believe in the death, suspecting some mystery in the disappearance, or including Heaven in the number of the enemies who mocked at her misfortunes. She had nothing; I had chosen an apartment in the Rue Caumartin for her, deceiving her as to the rent and as to the arrangements which I told her to make with the keeper of an eating-house. Like a flame ready to expire, her genius shed the brightest light; she was all illumined with it. She would write a few lines which she threw into the fire, or else copy from books some thoughts in harmony with the disposition of her soul. She did not remain long in the Rue Caumartin; she went to live with the Dames Saint-Michel, in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques: Madame de Navarre was the superior of the convent. Lucile had a little cell overlooking the garden: I noticed that she followed with her eyes, with I know not what gloomy longing, the nuns who walked in the enclosure around the vegetable beds. One could guess that she envied the saints and, going further, aspired to the angels. I will sanctify these Memoirs by deposing in them, as relics, the following letters of Madame de Caud, written before she had taken flight for her eternal country: "17 _January._ "I had placed all my happiness in you and in Madame de Beaumont; I fled from my cares and my sorrows in the thought of you two: my whole occupation was to love you. Last night I made long reflections upon your character and your ways. As you and I are always near each other, it needs some time, I think, to know me, such is the variety of ideas in my head! Such is the opposition of my timidity and my peculiar external weakness to my real inner strength! Too much about myself. My illustrious brother, accept my fondest thanks for all the favours and all the marks of friendship which you have never ceased to show me. This is the last letter you will receive from me in the morning. Albeit I communicate my ideas to you, they nevertheless remain quite completely within myself." (_No date._)