24 August, 1896.
Dear Lucie:
I replied at the beginning of the month in a few lines only to your dear letters of May and June. The impression they made upon me after I had waited so long for them was such that I could not write at length. I read and re-read them each day, and it seems to me that thus for a few moments I am near you, that I feel the beating of your heart close to mine; and when I look at this bit of paper on which I write to you, I wish that I could put in it all my soul, all my heart contains for you, for our children, for you all; I wish that I might imprint upon it all the ardor of my soul, all my courage, all my determination.
Believe, dear Lucie, that I have never had a moment of discouragement as to the end to be attained. But yet what impatience devours me to see the end of our atrocious torture!
There are for those who have hearts sorrows so bitter that the pen is powerless to express them. And this grief, equally poignant for us all, I hide it in my breast day and night, and not one complaint escapes from my lips. I accept everything, stifling my heart, my whole being, seeing only our goal.
I wrote to you in the first days of July a letter which must have troubled you, my dear Lucie; I was then a prey to fever; I had not received your letter. Everything came together! And then the human beast in me awakened, and I cried out in my distress and anguish, as if you were not suffering enough already. But I reacted against my own lower nature, I overcame everything, I surmounted my physical as well as my moral being. Since then I have learned that your letters arrived at Cayenne without delay; in consequence of a mistake made in forwarding them, I received them only with your letters of June.
I can only repeat my words, dear Lucie, for you must, as we all must, fix our eager, unswerving gaze upon the supreme object; we must not indulge in one moment of lassitude until the end shall have been attained! The whole truth must be revealed over all France, all the honor of our name, the patrimony of our children.
Embrace the S——s and their dear children for me. Be sure to tell Mathieu that if I do not write to him oftener, it is because I know him too well; I know that his determination will remain as inflexible as ever, until the day when the light shall burst forth. Thanks for the good news of the dear, little ones; thank your dear parents and all the members of our families for their good letters. As for you, my dear Lucie, strong in your conscience, be invincibly energetic and brave. May my profound love, our children, and your duty sustain and reanimate you.
Again I embrace you as I love you, with all my strength, as I embrace also our dear children. Now I am waiting for your good letters of July.