By this reply, M. Barthe graciously reserved to himself the right to institute a new prosecution against me. I remember the proud disdain of the great men of the juste-milieu when I allowed a glimpse to pass of the possibility of any violence exercised upon my person or my writings. What! Good Heavens! Why deck myself with an imaginary danger? Who troubled about my opinion? Who thought of touching a hair of my head? Trusty and well-beloved friends of the stew-pan, dauntless heroes of peace at any price, you have nevertheless had your Terror of the counting-house and the police, your martial law in Paris, your thousand press trials, your military commissions to condemn the author of the Cancans[432] to death; you nevertheless flung me into your gaols: the punishment applicable to my "crime" was nothing less than capital punishment With what pleasure would I yield you my head, if, thrown into the scales of justice, it made them lean on the side of the honour, the glory and the liberty of my country! [Sidenote: I prepare to depart.] I was more than ever determined to resume my exile; Madame de Chateaubriand, terrified at my adventure, would already have wished to be very far away; the only question was to seek the spot where we should pitch our tents. The great difficulty was to find some money with which to live on foreign soil and pay a debt which was drawing down upon me threats of law-suits and distress. The first year of an embassy always ruins the ambassador: that is what happened to me in Rome. I resigned on the succession of the Polignac Ministry, and I went away adding to my ordinary afflictions sixty thousand francs of borrowed money. I had applied to all the royalist purses; none was opened to me: I was advised to ask Laffitte. M. Laffitte advanced me ten thousand francs, which I at once gave to the more pressing creditors. I recovered the sum on the proceeds of my pamphlets and repaid it to him with gratitude; but there still remained some thirty thousand francs to be paid, over and above my old debts, for I have some that have grown a beard, so aged are they: unfortunately that beard is a golden beard which has to be cut upon my chin once a year. M. le Duc de Lévis, on his return from a journey to Scotland, had told me, on behalf of Charles X., that that Prince wished to continue to pay me my peer's pension: I thought it my duty to refuse the offer. The Duc de Lévis returned to the charge when he saw me, on leaving prison, in the most cruel difficulties, finding nothing left of my house and garden in the Rue d'Enfer, and harassed by a swarm of creditors. I had already sold my plate. The Duc de Lévis brought me twenty thousand francs, nobly saying that these were not the two years' peerage pension which the King admitted owing me and that my debts in Rome were simply a debt of the Crown. This sum set me free; I accepted it as a temporary loan and wrote the King the following letter[433]: "SIRE,