return--His letter to his father--Alexis delivers himself up

When Alexis received the letter from his father at Copenhagen, ordering
him to proceed at once to that city and join his father there, or else
to come to a definite and final conclusion in respect to the convent
that he would join, he at once determined, as intimated in the last
chapter, that he would avail himself of the opportunity to escape from
his father's control altogether. Under pretense of obeying his
father's orders that he should go to Copenhagen, he could make all the
necessary preparations for leaving the country without suspicion, and
then, when once across the frontier, he could go where he pleased. He
determined to make his escape to a foreign court, with a view of
putting himself under the protection there of some prince or potentate
who, from feelings of rivalry toward his father, or from some other
motive, might be disposed, he thought, to espouse his cause.

He immediately began to make arrangements for his flight. What the
exact truth is in respect to the arrangements which he made could never
be fully ascertained, for the chief source of information in respect to
them is from confessions which Alexis made himself after he was brought
back. But in these confessions he made such confusion, first
confessing a little, then a little more, then contradicting himself,
then admitting, when the thing had been proved against him, what he had
before denied, that it was almost impossible to disentangle the truth
from his confused and contradictory declarations. The substance of the
case was, however, as follows:

In the first place, he determined carefully to conceal his design from
all except the two or three intimate friends and advisers who
originally counseled him to adopt it. He intended to take with him his
concubine Afrosinia, and also a number of domestic servants and other
attendants, but he did not allow any of them to know where he was
going. He gave them to understand that he was going to Copenhagen to
join his father. He was afraid that, if any of those persons were to
know his real design, it would, in some way or other, be divulged.

As to Afrosinia, he was well aware that she would know that he could
not intend to take her to Copenhagen into his father's presence, and so
he deceived her as to his real design, and induced her to set out with
him, without suspicion, by telling her that he was only going to take
her with hi