Alfred.
Do not come until you are completely recovered and in excellent health. Our children have need of you.
23 January, 1895.
My Darling:
I receive your letters every day. As yet they have given me none from any member of the family, and, on my side, I have not yet received the authorization to write to them. I have written to you every day since Saturday. I hope that you have received all my letters.
You must not be astonished, my darling, at the scene of La Rochelle. I find it perfectly natural. What astonishes me is that no one has yet been found to come forward and tell what our families really are—families whose names are synonymous with loyalty and honor. Ah, human cowardice, I have measured its length and breadth in these sad, dark days!
When I think of what I was but a few months ago, and when I compare it with my miserable situation to-day, I confess that my heart faints, that I give way to ferocious outbreaks against the injustice of my lot. Truly I am the victim of the most hideous error of our century. At times my reason refuses to believe it; it seems to me that I am the dupe of a terrible hallucination, that it will all vanish; ... but, alas! the reality is all around me.
Why did not we all die before the beginning of this tragedy? Truly it would have been preferable. And now we have not the right to die, not one of us has that right. We must live to cleanse our name of the stain with which it has been sullied. My conviction is absolute; I am sure that sooner or later the light will shine out. It is impossible in an age like ours that search shall not result in the discovery of the one who is really guilty; but what shall I be, mentally and physically, at that time? I believe that life will have no more attraction for me, and if I cling to it, it will be for your sake, my dear heart, whose devotion has been heroic through all these terrible hours—for you and for my dear children, to whom I wish to restore their honorable name.
But whatever may come, I am sure that history will place things in their true position. There will be in our dear country of France, so easily excited, but so generous to innocent sufferers, some man honest and courageous enough to try to find the truth.