I await the answer to my letters with all the strength that is left to me. I count the hours, I almost count the minutes.
I do not know if his answer will reach me soon; I know still less how I keep alive, so extreme is my cerebral and nervous exhaustion; but if I should succumb before that time comes, if I should faint under the atrocious burden that I have borne so long, I leave it to you, as your absolute duty, to go yourself to General de Boisdeffre, and, after the letters which I wrote to him, the desire which, I am sure of it, is in the bottom of his heart to grant us rehabilitation, when you (sic) will have realized that the discovery of the truth is a task that will take a long time, that it is impossible to foresee when it will be accomplished, I have no doubt that he will grant you, immediately, a new trial; that he will at once put an end to a situation as atrocious for you as it is for our children. I hope, too, that over my grave he will bear witness not only to the loyalty of my past conduct, but to the absolute loyalty of my conduct for the last three years, when, under all my sufferings, under all my tortures, I have never forgotten what I have been—a soldier, loyal and devoted to his country. I have accepted all, I have undergone all with closed lips. I do not boast of it, for I have done only my duty, nothing but my duty.
I leave you with regret, for my thoughts are with you, with our children, night and day; for this thought of you is all that keeps me yet alive, and I should like to come and talk like this at every instant of my long days and my long, sleepless nights.
I can only repeat this wish: it is that all this sorrow may have at last an end, that this infernal torture of all the minutes may soon be over; but if you do as I have told you, as it is your duty to do, since I command it, I have no doubt that you shall come to see the end of your appalling martyrdom, the martyrdom of our children.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love; I embrace also our dear and adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
Kisses to your dear parents, to all.
4 February, 1898.