"Alas, that pride costs dear. My fear is that our poor John will be crippled all his life. Ah, war, war," sighed Madam Desmarais, her eyes moistening with tears. "Poor Victoria—what a terrible end was hers!"
"Valiant sister! She lived a martyr, and died a heroine. Never was I so moved as when reading the letter John wrote us from Weissenburg the day after Victoria expired in his arms prophecying the Universal Republic, the Federation of the Nations." Then smiling faintly and indicating to her mother the papers scattered over the table Charlotte added: "And that brings us back to the surprise I am getting ready for our dear John. Read the title of this page."
Madam Desmarais took the sheet which her daughter held out to her, and read upon it, traced in large characters, "To my child!"
"So!" began Madam Desmarais, much moved, "these pages you have been at work on so many days—"
"Are addressed, in thought, to my child. The babe will see the light during a terrible period. If it is a boy, I can not hold before him a better example than that of his own father; if it is a girl—" and Charlotte's voice changed slightly, "I shall offer her as a model that courageous woman whom chance gave me to know, to love, and to admire for a short while before her martyrdom."
"Lucile!" cried Madam Desmarais, shuddering at the recollection. "The unfortunate wife of Camille Desmoulins! Poor Lucile! So beautiful, so modest, so good—and a young mother, too! Nothing could soften the monsters who sat upon the revolutionary tribunal; they sent that innocent young woman of twenty to the scaffold!"
"Alas, the eve of her death, she sent to Madam Duplessis, her mother, this letter of two lines:
"Good mother; a tear escapes my eye; it is for you. I go to sleep in the calmness of innocence.
"LUCILE.[16]
"Touching farewell!" continued Charlotte. "I also, shall know how to die."