My dear Lucie:
A few moments before I received your dear letters I was subjected to an outrage—only a mean, shabby trick—but such things hurt one whose heart has been already so deeply wounded. I have not, alas! the soul of a martyr. To tell you that there are not times when I would be glad to die and end this atrocious life would be to lie. Do not see in this any trace of discouragement. The goal is immutable, it must be attained, and it shall be. But I am a human being as well, undergoing the most appalling of martyrdoms for a man of heart and a sense of honor, bearing it only for you and for our children.
Each time they turn the knife in the wound my heart cries with grief. I wept after this last outrage ... but enough of that. As I was saying, I have just received your dear letters of March, the letters of all the family, and with all the joy of reading the words you have written, I have always as well that sense of bitter disappointment, which you can well realize, that comes from not yet seeing the end of our tortures. How you must suffer, Lucie! how you all must suffer when you cannot hasten the moment our honor will be restored to us, when the wretches who committed the infamous crime shall be unmasked! I wish that this moment may be near and that it may not be too late.
Thanks for the good news that you give me of the children. It is from the thought of them, from the thought of you, that I draw the strength to resist. You must expect that sufferings, the climate, the situation, have done their work. I have left only my skin, my bones, and my moral energy. I hope that this last will carry me through to the end of our trials. You spoke to me of some supplies that I might ask you for. You know that my material life has always been indifferent to me, to-day more so than ever. I have only asked for books, and unhappily I have still only those you sent me in November.
Please do not send me any more provisions. The sentiment which inspires me to beg this favor may be puerile, but everything you send me is, by regulations, subjected to a most minute examination, and it seems to me each time that they give you a slap in the face, ... and my heart bleeds and I tremble with pain of it.
No; let us accept the atrocious situation that has been made for us. Do not let us try to alleviate it by any care for the material order, but let us repeat to ourselves that we must find the guilty wretch, that we must get back our honor! March on, then, toward this goal; march on, moved by one common, unchangeable will; try to attain it as quickly as possible and give no care to anything else. I, for my part, shall resist as long as I can, for I want to be there, present on that day of supreme happiness when our honor is given back to us.
Say to yourself, that while the head may bow before some misfortunes, that while commonplace condolences may be received in some situations, when it is a question of honor there can be no consolations, but only a goal to be struggled for so long as we can keep up to have that honor restored to us.
Then, for you, as for all of us, I can only cry from the depths of my soul, Lift up your hearts! There must be no recrimination, no complaint, nothing but the unswerving march onward to our end—the wretch or the wretches who are really guilty—and we must attain our end as soon as possible.
As I have already told you, there must not remain one single Frenchman who can doubt our honor.
Kiss our dear children with all your heart for me, and yourself a thousand kisses the most tender, the most affectionate kisses of your devoted