Paris, Rue d'Enfer, end of July 1832.

One of my old friends, Mr. Frisell[408], an Englishman, had just lost, at Passy, his only daughter, aged seventeen years. I had gone, on the 19th of June, to the funeral of poor Eliza, whose portrait the pretty Madame Delessert was completing when Death put the finishing touch to it. Returning to my solitude in the Rue d'Enfer, I had hardly gone to bed, full of the melancholy thoughts that arise from the association of youth, beauty and the grave, when, at four o'clock in the morning, on the 20th of June[409], Baptiste, who had long been in my service, entered my room, came up to the bed and said:

"Sir, the court-yard is full of men who have placed themselves at all the doors, after compelling Desbrosses to open the carriage-entrance; and there are three gentlemen asking to speak to you."

As he finished these words, the "gentlemen" entered, and the chief of them, very politely approaching my bed, told me that he had an order to arrest me and take me to the Prefecture of Police. I asked him if the sun had risen, as the law demanded, and if he was the bearer of a legal warrant; he did not answer for the sun, but he showed me the following judicial notice:

"Copy

"Prefecture of Police

"In the King's name.

"We, counsellor of State, Prefect of Police[410],

"In view of information in our possession,

"By virtue of Article X. of the Code of Criminal Instruction,

"Call upon the commissary or, if he be prevented, another to repair to the house of M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, or elsewhere if need be, he being accused of plotting against the safety of the State, in order there to seek for and seize all papers, correspondence and writings containing provocations to crimes and offenses against the public peace or liable to examination, as well as any seditious objects or arms which may be in his possession."

While I perused the declaration of the great "plotting against the safety of the State," of which I, poor I was accused, the captain of the police-spies said to his subordinates:

"Gentlemen, do your duty!"

The duty of those gentlemen consisted in opening every cupboard, fumbling in every pocket, seizing all papers, letters and documents, reading the same, where possible, and discovering all arms, as appears from the warrant aforesaid.

I am arrested.

After reading over the document, addressing the worthy leader of those thieves of men and liberties: