Your letter, giving me your reasons for leaving Sedan, was forwarded to me by a messenger, with others from my brother and his wife.

He speaks in high terms of you, and regretted your leaving them; but the reason you gave for so doing in your letter to me more than justified the course you took, and showed that you were thoughtful in other than military matters.

You served me better by leaving Sedan than you could have done in any other way.

In these unhappy disputes with my brother, the cardinal has never permitted my relationship to Bouillon to shake his confidence in me.

But after being engaged for many years in combating plots against him, he cannot but be suspicious of all, and that an officer of my staff should be staying at Sedan when the dispute was going to end in open warfare might well have excited a doubt of me while, had you traveled direct here at that moment, it might, as you said, have been considered that you were the bearer of important communications between my brother and myself.
"Now, I hope that you are completely restored to health; you are looking well, and have grown a good deal, the consequence, no doubt, of your being so long in bed.