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_5 October, 1896._
Dear and good Lucie:
I have just received you dear letters of August, as well as letters from
all the family, and it is under the profound impression not only of all
the sufferings that we all endure, but of the pain that I have caused
you by my letter of the 6th of July, that I write to you.
Ah, dear Lucie, how weak the human being is, how he is at times cowardly
and egotistical! When I wrote as I did, I was, as I think I told you, at
that time a prey to fevers that burned me, body and brain--I whose
spirit was already so beaten down, whose tortures were already so great.
And then in the profound distress of all my being, when I had need of a
friendly hand, of a gentle face, delirious from the fever and from pain,
when I did not receive your letter, I had to cry out to you in my
misery, for I could cry to no one else.
Afterward I regained possession of myself, and I became again what I had
been, what I shall remain to my last breath.
As I told you in my letter of the day before yesterday, strong in our
consciences, we must raise ourselves above everything; but with that
firm, inflexible determination which will make my innocence shine out
before the eyes of all France. Our name must come out of this horrible
adventure what it was when they made us enter into it. Our children must
enter upon life with heads proudly raised.
As for the advice that I can give you, that I have developed in my
preceding letters; you must understand that the only counsels I can give
you are those that are suggested by my heart. You are, you all are,
better placed, you have better advisers, and you must know better than I
could tell you what you have to do.
I wish with you that it may not be long before this atrocious situation
is elucidated, that our sufferings, the sufferings of us all, may soon
be ended. However that may be, we must have the faith that diminishes
all sufferings, surmounts all sorrows, so that in the end we may render
to our children a stainless name, a name that is respected.
I embrace you as I love you, with all my strength, with all my heart,
and also our dear and adored children.