These letters were always full of good counsel and tender advice; she admonished the general not to be dazzled by his good fortune, and to remain the same Charlot that he had always been at home; she urged him to economy, not for her sake, but for that of his parents. She, God be thanked, could take care of herself; she had made six dresses for the wife of a representative, and was to make six more for the wife of a general. She had in addition three pieces of gold, which represented fifteen or sixteen hundred francs in paper money. Pichegru, whatever his occupation, always read these letters as soon as he received them, and put them away in his portfolio carefully, saying: "Poor dear girl, I myself taught her how to spell." We crave permission to enlarge upon these details. We are about to bring actively upon the stage men who, for a long time, have been more or less prominently before the eyes of Europe, who have been praised or blamed as the different parties wished to elevate or abase them. Historians themselves have judged these men more or less superficially, thanks to their habit of accepting ready-made opinions; but it is different with the novelist, constrained as he is to descend to the veriest details, since in the most insignificant he may sometimes find the thread that will guide him through the most inextricable labyrinth--that of the human heart. We therefore dare to affirm that in showing them in their private life, which historians altogether neglect to do, as well as in their public life, to which too much attention is often paid, although it is sometimes but the mask of the other, we shall bring these illustrious dead before the reader's eyes, for the first time as they really were--these dead whom political passions have cast into the hands of calumny to be buried and forgotten. Thus history tells us that Pichegru betrayed France, for the sake of the government of Alsace, the red ribbon, the Château of Chambord, its park, and its dependencies, together with twelve pieces of cannon, a million, in ready money, two thousand francs of income, half of which was revertible at his death to his wife, and five thousand to each of his children; and finally the territory of Arbois, which was to bear the title of Pichegru, and was to be exempt from taxes for ten years. The material reply to this accusation is that, as Pichegru was never married, he had neither wife nor children to provide for; the moral reply is, to show him in his private life that we may know what his needs and ambitions really were. Rose, as we have seen, gave two pieces of advice to her lover: One was to practice economy for his parents' sake, and the other was to remain the same good and simple Charlot that he had always been.