(Signed)
Louise Noailles, wife of Noailles.
Letter of the Same to the Same.
I send you, my dear friend, a short will which I am told will be valid; I keep a copy of it in my pocket. Make the best use you can of it as well as that of my mother, communicating it to the proper persons when the time comes. God has sustained and will sustain me; I have the strongest faith in Him. Farewell, my dear friend; I shall feel grateful to you even in Heaven. Be sure of this. Farewell, Alexis, Alfred, Euphémie. Love God all your lives; cling to Him always. Pray for your father and live for his happiness. Remember your mother, and that her dearest wish for you was that you should be the children of God. I give you all my last blessing. I hope to find you again in the bosom of your Father. I shall not forget our friends, and I hope they will not forget me.
The note enclosed is for Louis. (So she called her husband.) Put it with the one you already have.
(Signed)
L. Noailles.
Louise Noailles to her Husband.
You will find a letter from me, my husband, written at different times and very disconnectedly. I should have liked to rewrite it, and to add many things; but that is impossible now. I can therefore only renew the assurance of the love which you already know I bear to you, and which I shall bear with me to my grave. You know what terrible circumstances surround me, and you will be glad to learn that God has cared for me; that he has sustained my strength and my courage; that the hope of gaining, by the sacrifice of my life, the eternal welfare of you and my children will continue to encourage me through the moments most terrible to the flesh. May it please God that this thought may decide you to live for eternity, and to strive in unison with me. I confide to you my dear children, who have been the comfort of my life, and will be, I hope, the comfort of yours. I am sure you will seek to strengthen in them the principles I have inculcated; they are the only source of true happiness and the only means of obtaining it. I have now, my husband, one last request to make,—one which I am sure you will think superfluous when you know what it is. I implore you with my last breath never to separate my dear children from Monsieur Grelet, in whose charge I have left them. I charge my dear Alexis to tell you all we owe to him. There are no kind cares and attentions which he has not shown me, particularly since I have been in prison. He has been both father and mother to these poor children; he has sacrificed himself for them and for me under the most trying circumstances with a tenderness and courage for which we can never be sufficiently grateful. The only comfort I can have is to know that my children are in his charge. You will not disturb this arrangement, my husband; and I am sure you will have a sacred regard for this wish of mine. I do not know what will become of my poor Euphémie, but I declare to you that for a thousand reasons I desire that the Citizeness Thibaut should no longer have the care of her.
My husband, I bid you a last farewell. May we be once more reunited in Eternity.