“Madame la Baronne,
“I have the honour of returning you the papers you committed to my care.
“I have had an opportunity of tracing the truth to its source, and have ascertained that M. le Duc and Mme. la Duchesse d’Orléans did not quit Paris or the Court in the year 1773.”[16]
“Therefore I cannot permit the Quotidienne to print a single line concerning the extraordinary and mysterious event spoken of in these papers.
“I have the honour to be, Madame la Baronne,
“Your very humble and obedient servant,
“Laurentie.”
To astonishment succeeded just indignation when in the numbers for the 2nd and 3rd of November I read what follows—
“The public may have remarked, some time ago, a notice in the Quotidienne in which there was mention of a Comte and Comtesse de Joinville, who, in 1773, when in Italy, had a child of the female sex for which a male child was substituted, and information was asked as to this mysterious substitution.