"I left at Blaye a few lines which must be known to-day; they expect more from me; they want to know the sad story of my detention during seven months in that impenetrable fortress. It ought to be made known in its fullest details; let the cause be seen, in this story, of all the tears and griefs that have broken my heart. Men will learn from it the moral tortures which I have been made to suffer. Justice must be done in it to them to whom it belongs; but also it must reveal the atrocious measures taken against a defenseless woman, defenseless because she was always refused a council, by a Government having her kinsman at its head, in order to tear from me a secret which, in any case, could not concern politics and the discovery of which ought not to change my situation if I was an object of dread to the French Government, which had the power of guarding me, but not the right, without a trial which I claimed more than once. "But my kinsman, the husband of my aunt, the head of a family which, in spite of the general and so justly wide-spread opinion against it, I had allowed to hope for the hand of my daughter, Louis-Philippe in short, thinking me to be with child and unmarried (which would have decided any other family to open the doors of my prison), had every form of moral torture inflicted on me to force me to take steps by means of which he expected to be able to establish his niece's dishonour. For the rest, if I am bound to explain myself positively as to my declarations and their motives, without entering into any details as to my private life, for which I am accountable to no one, I will say in all truth that they were torn from me by my vexations, my moral tortures and the hope of recovering my liberty. "The bearer will give you details and tell you of the forced uncertainty as to the moment of my journey and its destination, which interfered with my wish to avail myself of your obliging offer by inviting you to join me before I went to Prague, as I have great need of your advice. To-day it would be too late, as I wish to be with my children as soon as possible. But, as nothing is certain in this world and as I am used to disappointments, if my arrival in Prague should, _against my wish_, be delayed, I rely surely upon seeing you at the place where I shall be obliged to stop and will write to you from there; if, on the contrary, I reach my son as soon as I hope, you know better than I if you ought to come there. I can only assure you of the pleasure it would give me to see you at all times and places. "MARIE CAROLINE." NAPLES, 18 _August_ 1833.