“Madame,” he opened, with a flourish of his hand towards the group of reprobates, “I ask you to remember of your husband, and also beg you to remind the fair companions of my nephew and these other gentlemen, that they are young, these boys, and therefore capable of progress. It is a proof that they possess some germ of sense, which later may develop into mind, that, being terrified at last, they sent to me. I found them in a most equivocal position⁠—in fact, dear madame, at the Conciergerie. Thanks to my relations with important people in this city, I had no difficulty in procuring their release, since they were not precisely guilty, only imbecile. I am glad to have been able to assist them, for the love I bear their parents and our common Faith. But they will allow me to remark that vicious boys should travel only with a tutor, who should have a whip. It disgusts me even to conceive that any man could be so foolish as to quit the side of one so lovely and so virtuous as you, madame, to follow beastliness. Dear madame, your servant!”