I’m writing this message to ask you to send me strength. I’ve been sentenced to deportation because of Louis XVIII, and I would like you to give me advice to help me face this ordeal. This is not the first difficult trial we’ve gone through—mother was denounced in Year VII, arrested in 1801, and in 1807 there was a warrant out for me, while she was summoned by the police to explain herself. But this time, I don’t think I’ll make it through. They did not appreciate my Bonapartist convictions nor the role I played during the Hundred Days.
Farewell, my dear father—I seek only to make you proud.
My son, my little fanfinot, my dear comrade,
I suffer as much as you do upon hearing this news. So, you’ve been sentenced to deportation. I wish you had sent me this letter before your trial—I could have advised you on how to defend yourself. After all, I managed to survive several imprisonments and interrogations, all the way up to that final trial in Vendôme. I could have given you some advice, even though I spent more time teaching politics than practicing law.
You should not have recognized the authority of that court, filled as it was with vile lackeys—though my friend Buonarroti might have suggested a different approach. I hear that you were sentenced along with Le Franc. He is a good patriot, and he will know how to advise you. You can trust him.
I know that before you're actually deported, you’ll go through several prison transfers. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to do what I did during my many stays in prison: inform yourself thoroughly on politics, and prepare strategies to delay your deportation as long as possible.
I hope your mother will be able to visit you. She used to walk miles to see me, so I believe she will do the same for you. Be strong for her, and pass along my encouragement: she must be strong too.
When I was alive, you know very well that I never hesitated to draw attention to our cause and to the stakes of our trials. I would display calculated defiance and bursts of rage—very effective ones. Don’t hesitate to do the same, especially during these prison phases. You must turn public opinion in your favor, no matter how viciously they slander you. Do everything in your power to expose what is happening. That’s how, in my case, many of my comrades were acquitted.
Still, I know that sometimes a different method is needed: you could try to appear like a simpleton, easily manipulated, pretending to sympathize with those scoundrels who are leading the repression against you. But honestly, from the toxic atmosphere you've described, I doubt such a tactic would work for you. You may try to play the fool, but I don't think it will change anything.
All that’s left is to call upon the fiery blood of your father—while keeping it well under control. Do not give up.
I see you mention that an arrest warrant was issued against you in 1807. Yet I heard it was in 1808. Are you, like your father, sometimes mixing up dates—while still telling the truth—in order to better serve your cause? I wouldn’t be surprised. You learned well.
But my fanfinot, there is something in your message that truly troubles me. You say you’ve become a Bonapartist? But haven’t you listened to the political lessons I taught you? You saw, just as I did, what kind of man he was when he shut down the Panthéon Club after I gave a speech attacking the vile agents who had imprisoned your mother. In prison, before I was sentenced to death, I explained to you—using newspapers and Buonarroti’s testimony—the proof that this man would become a destroyer of liberty. And from what I now hear, it turned out to be true. This man has become a military dictator, one who has done terrible harm to our people.
And despite what he did to your mother and to you, you have chosen to side with him? My son, what madness has overtaken you? I always taught you never to admire tyrants, but to defend only revolutionary ideals—not to follow the very man who struck the final blow to the Revolution! After all the harm he did to your mother, to you, and to so many of our friends—some of whom died because of him? No, my fanfinot. There is no sympathy to be shown to such a man, only contempt. He harmed France, and he harmed you.
As for what you have suffered—I knew, sadly, that the risk remained high even despite the sacrifice I made for you. I wish it had not turned out this way, but I still hope that one day, you and your mother will be able to rebuild the ideals for which so many like me died, when the persecution finally subsides.
My fanfinot, your father will always be proud of you. Never forget that. And if I managed to survive so many trials until Vendôme, I know you can survive this too.
Your little beggar of a father,
