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If he had preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could

be no doubt that he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille,

when he had found no mention of it among the relics of prisoners

which the populace had discovered there, and which had been

described to all the world. He besought her--though he added that

he knew it was needless--to console her father, by impressing him

through every tender means she could think of, with the truth

that he had done nothing for which he could justly reproach

himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint

sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and

blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to

their dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven,

to comfort her father.