My dear and good Lucie:
I wrote to you at length on the arrival of your letters. When a man has borne such suffering and for so long there are times when all that boils within him must escape, as the steam lifts the safety-valve in an over-heated boiler.
I have told you that I had an equal confidence in the efforts of one and all. I will not go back to that.
But I have told you, too, that even if my heart never felt one moment of discouragement any more than should yours, or the hearts of any of our family, yet the energies of the heart, of the brain, have their limits in a situation as atrocious as it is incredible; the hours become heavier and heavier, and the very minutes no longer pass by.
I know what you are suffering, too, what you are all suffering, and the thought is horrible.
Truly, you know all this, but if I tell it to you again it is because we must now arise to face the situation; because we must face it bravely, frankly. For on the one hand there can be but one end to our atrocious tortures—the discovery of the truth, all the truth, full and entire rehabilitation. And, then, it is precisely because the task is a laudable one, because we all are suffering from the most cruel pangs that have ever tortured human beings, because, also, in this horrible affair there is a double interest at stake—our personal interest and the interest of our country—it is just because of this, dear Lucie, that it is your duty to appeal to all the forces that the Government has at its command to put an end as soon as possible to this appalling martyrdom. It is a martyrdom that no creature having a human heart, a human brain, could resist indefinitely.
I should like to sum up my thoughts in a few words, ... but, alas! all that I have borne so long in the vain hope, ever renewed, of a better to-morrow, is at last passing the bounds of human strength.
And then what you have to ask—what they ought certainly to understand—is this, that because human strength has limits, and because the only thing that I ask of my country is the discovery of the truth, the full light, to see, for the sake of my little ones, the day when honor is given back to them, they must set everything in motion, to hasten the moment when the end shall be attained. I am absolutely convinced that they will listen to you, that their hearts will be moved by our immense grief, by this prayer of a Frenchman, a father.
Whatever may become of me, let me repeat to you with all the forces of my soul, Courage and Faith! Let me say again that my thoughts do not leave you for a single moment; that it is the thought of you, of our children, that gives me strength to live through these long and atrocious days; that I embrace you with all my heart, with all my strength, as I love you, as I embrace also our dear and adored children, while I wait for your dear letters, the only ray of happiness that comes to warm my crushed and broken heart.
Your devoted