Madame de Berry has her chamber council in Paris, as Charles X. has his: paltry sums were collected in her name to succour the poorer of the Royalists. I proposed to distribute among the cholera patients a sum of twelve thousand francs on behalf of the mother of Henry V. We wrote to Massa, and not only did the Princess approve of the disposition of the funds, but she would have liked us to apportion a more considerable sum: her approval arrived on the day on which I sent the money to the mayors' offices. Thus, everything is strictly true in my explanations concerning the gift of the exile. On the 14th of April, I sent the whole sum to the Prefect of the Seine to be distributed among the indigent class of the cholera-stricken population of Paris. M. de Bondy was not at the Hôtel de Ville when my letter was taken there. The Secretary-general opened my missive, and did not consider himself authorized to receive the money. Three days elapsed; M. de Bondy replied at last that he could not accept the twelve thousand francs, because people would see in it, beneath an apparent benevolence, "a political combination against which the entire population of Paris would protest by its refusal[385]." Then my secretary went to the twelve mayors' offices. Of five mayors who were present, four accepted the gift of a thousand francs; one refused it. Of the seven mayors who were absent, five kept silence; two refused[386]. I was forthwith besieged by an army of paupers: benevolent and charitable societies, workmen of all kinds, women and children. Polish and Italian exiles, men of letters, artists, soldiers, all wrote, all demanded a share in the bounty. If I had had a million, it would have been distributed in a few hours. M. de Bondy was wrong in saying that "the entire population of Paris would protest by its refusal:" the population of Paris will always take money from everybody. The scared attitude of the Government was enough to make one die of laughing: one would have thought that this perfidious legitimist money was going to stir up the cholera patients, to excite an insurrection among the men dying in the hospitals to march to the assault of the Tuileries, with coffins rolling, with tolling of funeral knells, with winding-sheet unfurled under the command of Death. My correspondence with the mayors was prolonged through the complication of the refusal of the Prefect of Paris. Some of them wrote to me to send me back my money or to ask for the return of their receipts for the gifts of Madame la Duchesse de Berry. I sent these back loyally, and I handed the following receipt to the office of the Mayor of the 12th Ward: [Sidenote: Attitude of the Mayors.] "I have received from the Mayor's office of the 12th Ward the sum of one thousand francs which it had at first accepted and which it has returned to me by order of M. the Prefect of the Seine. PARIS, 22 _April_ 1832."