Despite Mary Shelley's attempts to assist Gatteschi financially, he tried to blackmail her one year later in 1845 using indiscreet letters she had written.[30] After not hearing from Gatteschi for months, she received threatening letters, which claimed that she had promised him financial success and even possibly marriage. He claimed that her letters would demonstrate this.[31] The contents of Mary Shelley's letters are unknown as they were later destroyed, but she must have felt some danger, for she took great pains to recover the letters and wrote agonised letters to her friends: "[The letters] were written with an open heart – & contain details with regard to my past history, which it [would] destroy me for ever if they ever saw light."[32] Shelley turned to Alexander Knox for help. After obtaining help from the British government, he travelled to Paris and had the Paris police seize Gatteschi's correspondence.[25] Implying that Gatteschi was a danger to the state, Knox and the Paris police called upon the cabinet noir system in order to retrieve the letters.[33] On 11 October, Le National and Le Constitutionnel reported in outrage that Gatteschi's personal papers were seized because he was a suspected revolutionary.