"The same.... Well, on the evening of Christmas Day 1789, M. de Favras was arrested; all the papers he had upon him were seized and, as I was commander-in-chief of the National Guard, they brought them to me. Among those papers was this letter. Read it."
I unfolded the paper which I supposed, after what the general had told me, had been taken from the pocket of a man who had been tried, condemned to death, executed and been dust for forty years past, with a shudder of aversion. I might have spared my feelings, for the paper was only a copy, not the original. This was the contents:—
"1 November 1790
"I do not know, monsieur, to what purpose you will employ the time and money I am sending you. The evil gets worse and worse; the Assembly keeps on taking away something or other from the royal power—what will be left if you put it off? I have told you often, and in writing, too, that it is not by means of lampoons, paid tribunes and by bribing a few wretched political parties that you will succeed in getting Bailly and La Fayette out of the way; they have incited the people to insurrection; it wants another insurrection to correct them and to prevent them from relapsing. This plan has, moreover, the advantage of intimidating the new Court and of causing the removal of a king of straw; when he is at Metz or at Péronne, he must abdicate. All these things that we desire are for his welfare; since he loves the nation, he will be delighted to see it properly governed. Send a receipt at the foot of this letter for two hundred thousand francs.
"LOUIS-STANISLAS XAVIER"
"Ah! indeed," I said. "I begin to understand. But why have you only the copy and not the original?"
"Because the original, to the possession of which I attribute my impunity, is in London in the hands of one of my friends, a great collector of autographs, who looks upon it as extremely precious, and who, I am very sure, will not lose it; whilst in France," the general added, smiling, "you understand ... it might be lost."
I understood perfectly. I was burning with the desire to ask leave to take a copy of the duplicate. But I did not dare to.
In due course I will relate how it is I am now able to give the reader a copy.
The general folded up the letter again, put it back in the portfolio and consigned both to his desk. Then he took a pen and paper and wrote:—
"M. Alexandre Dumas is authorised to travel through the departments of la Vendée, the Loire-Inférieure, Morbihan and Maine-et-Loire, as Special Commissioner, to confer with the local authorities of these various departments on the question of the formation of a National Guard.
"We commend M. Alexandre Dumas, an excellent patriot from Paris, to our brother-patriots in the West.—All good wishes.
LA FAYETTE
"6 August 1830"