2 August, 1895.
My dear Lucie:
The mail from Cayenne arrived yesterday. I hoped to receive your letters as I did last month. This hope has been deferred. What shall I tell you, my dear and good Lucie, that I have not already said and repeated many times? If I have undergone the most shocking tortures, if I have borne up to this day a moral situation in which every instant is for me a wound, it has been because, innocent of that horrible treachery, I long for my honor—the honor of the name borne by our dear children.
Had I been alone in the world, probably, unable to have regained my honor for myself, I should have acted in another way.
Oh, in that case, I swear to you that I should have had the secret of this infernal machination. I should have left to the future the care of rehabilitating my memory. However incomprehensible to me this drama, in the end all would have been discovered—discovered naturally.
But there you were, there were our children, who bear my name, there was my family. I had to live to reclaim my honor, to sustain you by my presence, by all the ardor of my soul, for—and this thought is before all else—our children must enter life with heads erect. This patience of soul which is not mine, which I never can possess, I impose it upon myself, for it is my duty.
It is true, indeed, that I have had moments of horrible despair. All this mask of infamy that I wear for the wretch who is guilty burns my face, it crushes my heart; everything, in truth, all my being, revolts against a moral situation so absolutely opposed to what I am.
I do not know, my dear Lucie, what is the situation at the present hour, since your last letters were written more than two months ago; but no matter how the case now stands, say to yourself that a woman has all rights—sacred rights, if any are sacred, when she has to fulfill the highest mission which misfortune can force upon a wife and a mother.
As I have also often told you, you have to ask only for a thorough search for the truth. You ought certainly to find among those who direct the affairs of our country men of heart who will be moved by this bitter anguish of a wife and a mother, who will understand this awful martyrdom of a soldier for whom honor is everything. I cannot believe that everything will not be put in motion to help you in bringing the truth to light, to help you in unmasking the wretch, or the wretches, creatures unworthy of pity, who have committed this horrible treachery.