Note 481 — BOOK II[407] (continued 2)
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
The text of the letter of the 12th November ran as follows:
"Madame,
"You will think me very daring to come to importune you at such a moment to beg you to grant me a favour, the last ambition of my life: I desire ardently to be chosen by you as one of your defenders. I have no personal claim to the high favour which I solicit of your new grandeurs; but I dare to ask it in memory of a Prince of whom you deigned to name me the historian, and I hope for it again as the price of the blood of my family. My brother had the honour to die with his illustrious grandfather, M. de Malesherbes, on the same day, at the same hour, for the same cause and on the same scaffold.
"I am, etc.
"Chateaubriand."