_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.
_From the Same to Alexis, her eldest Son_,
_the 27th Messidor._
I charge you, my dear child, to give your father a detailed account of
the obligations we are under to the citizen Grelet. I rely upon your
heart to make him understand all he has been to you and to me. Do not
forget to say that he wished to share his purse with us, and that we
have lived entirely at his expense.