We thank you for your good news. We are overjoyed for you and for ourselves about the good state of your health, and the tribute rendered you by your fellow citizens; we congratulate them on your consenting to join the Council. How happy you are! All your past life is but a series of good deeds, and you perceive many more of them yet to do; you have made your country free, and you find it most capably disposed to give you the means to complete such happiness.

As for us, we are unworthy of anything to tell you about; we do not have, and will not have soon, any worthy news. The Cardinal de Rohan is still in the Bastille. He was arraigned Thursday, and so was M. the Comte de Cagliostro, M. and Mme. la Motte, and a certain Mlle. Oliva, who, it is said, made the cardinal believe that she was the queen and that the queen was behaving in a very strange manner, all of which would be far from justifying the cardinal. You may perhaps have known this de la Motte woman, she was a protégée of M. de Boullainvillier. Her maiden name is de Valois, and she is an illegitimate descendant of Henry II or Henry III, of the Valois Kings of France. This affair will most likely go badly for the prelate, the Queen is gravely offended. Without the slightest reason, her signature has been forged for the most condemnable uses; she is justly indignant, and must want this trial to be carried out with the most rigorous exactitude. The result will be that, for the public good, the story of M. le Comte de Cagliostro will be known by livres, sols and deniers down to the last detail. It is very fortunate that from time to time the people learn the details of the life of a person of this kind. He has surpassed the celebrity of Mesmer; this latter charlatan has lost almost all consideration in Paris. He was in England, where he did not succeed at all, and now he is in Italy, where he will perhaps be adored but where he will not be given a sol.

A M. Le Maitre, secretary of the Council, has just been arrested and delivered to justice; this man had an income of 50 to 60 thousand livres and amused himself by secretly printing the most injurious pamphlets against the ministers and notably against the Keeper of the Seals, to whom he owed all his fortune. They caught him at the border carrying his printing machine himself.

Madame de Chaumont has been here a month, in a worse state than you have ever seen her, but with the same heart and loving you always as tenderly.

M. de la Motte came to see me recently, he is still without a position. He asked me to mention him to you, he is quite upset not to have followed you.

The entire family of the Duchesse d'Enville does not stop thinking and talking about you; she is particularly attached to you. I am sending you a letter from the Duc de la Rochefoucauld; he is one of the most excellent men I know.

An innumerable quantity of friends entrust me with compliments for you. But above all, my wife and my daughter embrace you, and ask you to continue to love them. Not a day goes by that they don't miss you, and I, ah my friend, if you had expressed two months earlier that you wanted so much for me to accompany you, I would be with you at present, in your arms.