I wrote to you upon the receipt of the July mail. The nervous strain has been too strong, too violent. I have an irresistible longing to come to talk to you, after this long, agonized silence of a whole month.
Yes, sometimes my pen falls from my hands, and I ask myself what I gain by writing so much. I am dazed by all my suffering, my poor and dear Lucie.
Yes, often, also, I ask myself what I have done that you, whom I love so much, that my poor children, that all of us, should be called to suffer thus; and, truly, I have moments of ferocious despair, of anger also, for I am not a saint. But then I call up, as I have always called up, the thought of you, of the poor little ones, and I evoke that feeling with which I have wished to inspire you, to inspire you all, since the beginning of this sad tragedy—that is, that there is above all our anguish something higher, more exalted. My letter is like a howl of pain, for we are like sorely wounded men whose minds are so worn out with pain, whose bodies are so maddened by long suffering, that the least thing causes their cups, full, too full, of sorrow, to overflow.
But, dear Lucie, to speak forever of our grief is not a remedy for it, it only exasperates it. We must look at things as they are, and we all are horribly unhappy.
Truly the end dominates everything—sufferings, life. I have told you this often and often, for it concerns the honor of our name, the life of our children. This object must be pursued without weakness until it is attained. But the human spirit is formed in such a way that it lives in the impressions of each day, and each day is composed of too many appalling minutes; we have been waiting for so long a time for a happier to-morrow.
It is not with anger, it is not with lamentations, that you must hasten the moment when the truth shall be revealed. Concentrate your courage—and it ought to be great—strong in your conscience, strong in the duty you have to fulfill; look only to your object; look only into your heart of a wife, of a mother, the heart that for so many months has been so horribly crushed and ground.
Oh, dear Lucie, listen to me well, for I have suffered so much, I have borne so many things, that life is profoundly indifferent to me, and I speak to you as from the tomb, from the deep, eternal silence which raises man above all the anxieties of earth. I speak to you as a father, in the name of the duty to your children that you must fulfill. Go to the President of the Republic, to the Ministers, even to those who had me condemned; for if passions, excitements, at times lead astray the most upright minds, the hearts remain always generous and are ready to forget what carried them away before the appalling grief of a wife, of a mother, who wants but one thing—the only thing we ask—the discovery of the truth, the honor of our dear little ones. Speak simply, forget all the little miseries—of what importance are they when compared with the object to be attained?—and I am sure that you will find an army of generous, ardent souls, who will help you to escape from a situation so atrocious, and borne so long that I am yet asking myself how our brains have been able to resist its attacks.
I am speaking to you in perfect calmness in this deep silence, a painful silence, it is true, but it lifts the soul above it all.... Act as I beg you to....
See but one thing, my dear and good Lucie, the end which we must attain—the truth—and appeal to all who are just and devoted.... Oh, for that! I wish it with all the fibres of my being—to see the day when honor shall be again restored to us!
Courage, then, dear Lucie; I ask it of you with all my heart, with all my soul.