My friends did not find it a simple task to accomplish my rescue. A new wave of public ferocity seemed imminent. To bribe my custodians, themselves under unceasing surveillance, was most difficult. The Municipal Council had agents stationed at the entrance and exit of the tower. Had it been a question of heroic sacrifice only, there would have lacked not noble partisans of our House to dash themselves against even invincible obstacles. Would that I had died within those walls, permeated with the atmosphere of our immolated mother. I should have perished, as you have expressed my supposed fate, 'like a blighted flower.' For my greater sorrow, generous abnegation and political malevolence combined to remove me from this living tomb. The account of my flight is an incoherent one. I myself can scarcely co-ordinate its episodes, for I was too feeble to comprehend them clearly. My true history will never be historically known, for an oligarchy, such as once existed in Venice, suppressed what suited its purpose. No corroborating documents exist to verify even my fragmentary recital. The Revolution smouldered and the fall of the government was predicted. Astute ambitions of various kinds combined to effect my freedom. Unbridled lust for power grew rank. Our uncle, your present protector, Thérèse, rallied around him, by employing my name as a summons, the elements of the Restoration, meanwhile secretly paralyzing the efforts directed toward my liberation. This he accomplished by procrastination and discouragement. He was trusting to my prison life to attain the desired consummation. But notwithstanding his efforts to double-bar my cell, and even tho he would have thrown the weight of his body against the door to insure its security, he was thwarted by a man who had temporarily seized the reins of authority,--a voluptuary, destitute of genuine energy--who realized that the possession of my person would constitute an imposing arm. He planned to place me in concealment from which to produce me when it should suit him to declare me among the living. By this subtlety he might dominate even our uncle with whom he maintained (as did other revolutionists who were deemed incorruptible) a secret intercourse, avowedly with the end of establishing a moderate Restoration,--which should concede what had been already acquired by the Revolution. I, kept in hiding, would be a double-edged sword, a menace to the arrogance of my uncle in his claim to the regency and a guarantee to the loyal troops who were giving battle in the far East. Behold the stratagem forced by the ingenious and base-born Barras. As instruments, he selected the charming creole (wife of the adventurer who later subjugated Europe) and two military men attached to the royal cause.