This is why I told you in my letter of the 7th of September that if when you receive these letters the mystery is not made entirely clear, it is for you, for you personally, to go to the public authorities, so that light may at last be thrown on this tragic story.
You have the right to present yourself everywhere, with your head erect, for you have come not to beg for mercy, not to beg for favors, not even for moral convictions, however legitimate they may be. You have come to demand the search for the discovery of the wretches who have committed the infamous and cowardly crime. The Government has all the means by which this may be done.
Letters can do nothing, dear Lucie. It is you yourself who must act. What you have to say will receive from your lips a power, a force, that paper and writing cannot give.
Then, my dear Lucie, strong in your conscience, in your quality of wife and mother, go on your way, tireless until justice is done to us. And this justice, which you must demand energetically, resolutely, with all your soul, is that light may be thrown, full and unshadowed, upon this machination of which we are the wretched victims.
But you know what you have to say, and you must say it squarely, proudly.
Yes, my dear Lucie, that was what I thought from the first. I should, without making any noise about it, without any go-between except the person introducing me, have taken a child by each hand, and I should have gone to demand justice everywhere, without resting until the guilty wretches should have been unmasked. These means are “heroic,” but they are the best means, for they come from the heart, and they appeal to the heart, to that sense of justice that is innate in each one of us, unless he is carried away by passion. They proceed from the strength given by innocence, from a duty to be fulfilled; and they know no obstacle. They are means worthy of a woman who asks only for justice for her husband, for her children.
It must not be said that in our century a wretch can with impunity crush the lives of two families.
Courage, then, dear Lucie, and act with resolution. Kisses to all. I embrace you with all my strength, and our dear, adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.