CAPTAIN ALFRED DREYFUS

Lettres d’un Innocent

THE LETTERS
OF
CAPTAIN DREYFUS
TO HIS WIFE

TRANSLATED
BY L. G. MOREAU
WITH PORTRAITS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1899

Copyright, 1899, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

DREYFUS, THE MAN
BY WALTER LITTLEFIELD
Author of “The Truth About Dreyfus”

In cases of high treason no less than in violations of the criminal code the personal character of the accused has always had great weight with French judges. In attempting to prove that Captain Alfred Dreyfus carried on treasonable negotiations with a foreign power, M. d’Ormescheville, in his Acte d’Accusation or indictment, laid great stress on the information collected from the municipal police tending to show that the prisoner was an habitual wrong-doer. The supposition that as an Alsatian he might have entered the French army and remained there with the patriotic and unselfish desire to serve Germany is treated with secondary importance. It was the intention of the officer who served as Juge d’Instruction to show that Dreyfus was criminally corrupt, and hence was quite capable of being a traitor. Not only did the semi-official press of Paris, in the winter of 1894-95, dwell upon those acts that seemed intimately connected with the alleged treason, but they delved into his domestic life. With diabolical frankness and in a network of specious details they branded him profligate as well as traitor. The Acte d’Accusation charges him with being a gambler and libertine, unmindful of the well-being of his family, faithless to his wife.

For many weeks this most infamous campaign was kept up in the columns of L’Echo de Paris, Le Petit Journal, Le Gaulois, La Libre Parole, and L’Intransigeant. So varied in character and so ingenious in conception were these libellous tales, that it became impossible for the friends of the condemned man to make an adequate defense. Dreyfus’s counsel, Maître Demange, heard the stories, and could do nothing. The verdict of the court-martial closed the door to legal redress. The devoted wife of Dreyfus at first attempted to reply to them in Le Figaro. Parisians laughed at her naïveté. She was not the only deceived wife in the world, they said. At length, wearied of the unequal combat—one woman against a horde of anti-Semitic vilifiers—she gave to the world a volume of letters written by her husband to herself. It was her desire simply to show him as he was, to rehabilitate the prisoner as a husband and a father in the eyes of Frenchmen. But “Les Lettres d’un Innocent” have done more than this. To the women of France, at least, they have established the innocence of the man. No one can read these letters without being struck by the absolute sincerity of the writer; by his love for his wife and his family, and for his country; by his devotion to duty and to the traditions of the army whose heads had so remorselessly sacrificed him; by the utter hopelessness of his position. When, in the papers of January 6, 1895, the story of his dramatic degradation was published to the world, the French people pretended to see in his proud, fearless demeanor, as his uniform was stripped of insignia and his sword broken before him, a criminal stoicism that would have been impossible in an innocent man. Many English and American readers recognized simply the final desperate appeal of an entirely innocent man. The sentiment that was then aroused outside of France will be emphasized by “Les Lettres d’un Innocent.” Although not destined to have the judicial and logical weight of the testimony before the Cour de Cassation, they have a sympathetic and persuasive significance that is eminently human. The evidence before the Court proves that Dreyfus did not write the bordereau. The letters convince one that he was incapable of treason.

The reader who expects to find in the epistles before us arguments tending to prove the innocence of the writer will be disappointed. Even if the prisoner actually attempted defense it was not allowed to pass the censor. Only a persistent declaration of innocence will be found here—a declaration that is repeated with awful and tragic monotony until it smites the ear like the wail of an innocent soul in Dante’s “Inferno.”

As has been said, the conditions under which these letters were written forbade the author to indulge in details concerning the circumstances of his awful fate. Hence, for a fuller appreciation and a better understanding of the emotions that moved the writer at given periods, the following data must constantly be borne in mind: Dreyfus was arrested October 15, 1894; his trial by court-martial began December 19 of the same year and ended December 23. The condemned man was publicly degraded January 5, 1895, and on the 9th day of the following February the Chamber passed a law decreeing his place of confinement to be French Guiana, in South America; in March he was transported thither.

The prisoner wrote regularly to his wife until the spring of 1898, when he became a victim of the conditions of his solitary position. In September, 1898, he bade a final adieu to his wife and children and declared that he would write no more.[A] He was beset with unconquerable sadness. He complained to his physician, Dr. Veugnon, of Cayenne, of mental exhaustion and insomnia. He was haunted by the “fixed idea” to exculpate himself from the charge of treason. Yet he could only deny and deny.

He knew nothing of what was passing in Paris and in the world at large.

On November 15, 1898, M. Darius, the Procureur Général of Cayenne, entered the room occupied by the prisoner on the Ile du Diable and said to him, “Dreyfus, the Cour de Cassation has decided to revise your case. What have you to say?” Dreyfus seemed like one dazed. The day for which he had so fervently prayed had come at last. Yet, according to his inquisitor, this is what he replied: “I shall say nothing until I am confronted by my accusers in Paris.” No further facts were revealed to him, but, under the direction of the authorities in Paris, he was interrogated at given periods. In the mean time he was left a prey to strange conjectures concerning his ultimate fate. On July 3, 1899, he was told that he was to be taken immediately to France to stand trial before a new court-martial at Rennes. He had been a prisoner on the Ile du Diable for more than fifty months.

Alfred Dreyfus, captain in the 14th Artillery, was appointed to the General Staff of the French Army in 1893. He was the first Jew to be so honored. His record at the Chaptal College, at Sainte-Barbe, at the Ecole Polytechnique, at the Ecole d’Application, at the Ecole de Guerre, no less than his service in the 31st Regiment of Artillery, in the 4th Mounted Battery, and in the 21st Regiment of Artillery, shows that he deserved the distinction. The words of praise that his chiefs then wrote of him are in strange contrast with their later reflections.

For years the Dreyfus family had been identified with large manufacturing interests in Mulhouse, in Alsace. Alfred was one of four brothers. When Germany took possession of the province as one of the results of the Franco-Prussian War, the three younger brothers declared for France, and were obliged to quit German territory; the eldest, who had passed the age of military service, remained behind to look after the business from which the brothers derived their income. It was natural that they should have wished to remain Frenchmen. Had not France emancipated the Jews forty years before they had the privileges of Gentiles under the English law? Since disgrace has fallen upon their family their enduring and emphasized patriotism is somewhat remarkable.

It must not be supposed, on the one hand, that a long period of suspicion was attached to Dreyfus before his melodramatic arrest in the office of du Paty de Clam, or, on the other, that the unfortunate man was the victim of an anti-Semitic plot created for the purpose of ruining him. He was the victim of mistake before he became the martyr of crime. The facts are simply these:

In August, 1894, Commandant Comte Walsin-Esterhazy, who was carrying on treasonable negotiations with the German Embassy in Paris, sent to Lieutenant-Colonel von Schwarzkoppen some notes of information together with a memorandum. This memorandum, or bordereau, fell into the hands of a French spy. It was taken to the Secret Intelligence Department. Its importance as revealing the presence of a traitor who had access to the secrets of the War Office was at once recognized. General Mercier, then Minister of War, placed the investigation in the hands of Commandant du Paty de Clam. Owing to the similarity between the handwriting in the bordereau and that of Dreyfus, this officer was suspected of being its author. He was arrested and taken to the military prison of Cherche Midi. In the mean time, du Paty de Clam exhausted every resource to find confirmatory evidence. In this he signally failed. Nevertheless the indictment was drawn up.

Commandant Forzinetti was in charge of Cherche Midi. His first impression of the prisoner as deposed before the Cour de Cassation was as follows:

“I went to Captain Dreyfus. He was terribly excited. I had before me a man bereft of reason, with bloodshot eyes. He had upset everything in his room. I succeeded, after some trouble, in quieting him. I had an intuition that this officer was innocent. He begged me to allow him writing materials, so that he might ask the Minister of War to be heard by him or by one of the general officers of the Ministry. He described to me the details of his arrest, which were neither dignified nor soldierly.”

On October 24 Mercier asked Forzinetti what he thought of the prisoner’s guilt. This was the reply: “They are evidently on a false scent. This officer is not guilty.”

Nearly every day du Paty de Clam visited Dreyfus and tried in every way to force a confession from him.[B]

This was the position of Minister of War Mercier: For months a campaign had been carried on against him in the radical press. One fortunate act would vindicate him—the conviction of a traitor. It is impossible that he could have long entertained a belief in the guilt of the prisoner. Yet, having in the first flush of seeming success publicly accused him, he dare not draw back. Already his enemies of the radical and clerical press were accusing him of selling himself to the Jews. “To-morrow,” wrote Drumont in La Libre Parole, “no doubt they will applaud the Minister of War, when he comes and boasts of the measures which he has taken to save Dreyfus.”

Thus the reputation of Mercier, and very possibly the existence of the Cabinet, became staked on the conviction of Dreyfus. Dreyfus was convicted. Space will not permit me to state the exact circumstances by which this most stupendous miscarriage of justice was brought about. Suffice to say, that during a secret deliberation of the court-martial forged evidence was introduced unknown to the prisoner or to his counsel. The criminal code as well as article 101 of the Code de Justice Militaire was grossly violated. It was to cover this illegality and to perpetuate its result that the conspiracy in the General Staff gradually grew into being.

The victim was publicly degraded in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire, in Paris. The morning was clear and cold. The sunlight shimmered from the gaudy trappings of the Garde Républicaine. “On the stroke of nine from the clock of the Ecole Militaire,” wrote a reporter of L’Autorité, “General Darras draws his sword and commands, ‘Shoulder arms!’ The order is repeated before each company. The troops execute the order. Silence follows.

“Hearts cease to beat; all eyes are fixed upon the right-hand corner of the square, where Dreyfus is imprisoned in a low building on the terrace.

“In a moment a small group is seen; it is Alfred Dreyfus in the midst of four artillerymen, accompanied by a lieutenant of the Garde Républicaine and by the commander of the escort....

“Dreyfus walks with a quiet, firm step.”

The reporter continues to describe the march across the square to the point in front of the troops where the degradation is to take place. Dreyfus listens in silence while a clerk reads the sentence. General Darras then says, “Dreyfus, you are unworthy to bear arms. In the name of the French people we degrade you.”

“Then,” continues L’Autorité, “Dreyfus is seen to raise both arms, and, head erect, he cries out in a strong voice, in which no tremor is noticed:

“‘I am innocent, I swear that I am innocent. Vive la France!’

“And the vast crowd outside answers with a cry of, ‘Death to him!’”

The adjutant then begins his work. First cutting from the condemned man’s uniform his galloons, cuffs, buttons, all insignia of rank, ending by breaking the sword. During the ceremony Dreyfus several times raises his voice:

“On the heads of my wife and children I swear that I am innocent. I swear it. Vive la France!”

The reporter of L’Autorité seems deeply moved, for he adds:

“It is over at last, but the seconds have been as centuries. We had never before felt pangs of anguish so keen. And afresh, clear, and without any touch of emotion, is heard the voice of the condemned man in a loud tone, crying:

“‘You degrade an innocent man!’”

The prisoner is then obliged to pass before the line of soldiers. As he approaches the railing the civilian crowd gets a better view of him and yells, “Death to him!”

When he arrives before a group of reporters he pauses and says, “Tell the people of France that I am innocent.”

They mock him, however, crying, “Dastard! Traitor! Judas! Vile Jew!”

He passes on and comes to a group of officers of the General Staff, his late colleagues. Here again he pauses, and says, “Gentlemen, you know I am innocent.”

But they yell at him as did the reporters. He surveys them closely through his pincenez and says calmly, “You’re a set of cowards.” There is utter contempt in his voice. At length the direful march is ended. Dreyfus enters a van and is driven to the Prison de la Santé.

For nearly four years the world was a blank to him. Of the efforts made to rehabilitate him he knew nothing. He knew not that the real traitor had been discovered. He knew nothing of the heroic Picquart’s unselfish martyrdom in the cause of truth and justice. He knew nothing of Zola’s melodramatic entrance upon the scene. He knew nothing of the crimes that were committed in the name of l’honneur de l’armée. Was it to be wondered at that he should have been overwhelmed when these things were told him at Rennes?

The story of the indignities that he endured, the tortures that he suffered at the Ile du Diable, has been given to the world by his counsels, Maîtres Labori and Demange. It is like a chapter from the dark ages. Once, when it was reported that an attempt would be made to rescue him, this man, consumed with fever and almost bereft of reason, was, by the order of M. Lebon, Minister of the Colonies, chained to his couch, while the lamp that was kept burning over his head attracted hordes of tropical insects. He was told that his wife sought to forget him and desired to marry again. In his despair his jailers thought he might say something that would incriminate him. They were mistaken. He made no confession. There was none to make. He could only yell in their ears, “I am innocent! I am innocent!” When, in early autumn of 1898, he was believed to be dying this message was cabled from Paris to Cayenne: “Embalm him if he dies, and send us his corpse.”

But he lived. And he may still live to see in his appalling experience the cause of social revolution in France—a revolution that shall make the rights of the individual paramount to the traditions of the army, to the subtle cravings of the clericals, to the fantastic schemers of the Faubourg St. Germain.

THE LETTERS
LETTERS
OF
AN INNOCENT MAN

PRISON OF CHERCHE-MIDI

Tuesday, 5 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

At last I can write a word to you; they have just told me that my trial is set for the 19th of this month. I am refused the right to see you.

I will not tell you all that I have suffered; there are not in the world words strong enough to express it. Do you remember when I used to tell you how happy we were? Everything in life smiled on us. Then all at once a fearful thunderbolt; my brain still is reeling with the shock. For me to be accused of the most monstrous crime that a soldier can commit! Even to-day I feel that I must be the victim of an awful nightmare.

But I hope in God and in justice. In the end the truth must come to light. My conscience is calm and tranquil. It reproaches me with nothing. I have done my duty, never have I turned from it. I have been crushed to the earth, buried in my dark prison; alone with my reeling brain. There have been moments when I have been nearly crazed, ferocious, beside myself, but even in those moments my conscience was on guard—“Hold up thy head!” it said to me. “Look the world in the face! Strong in thy conscience go straight onward! Rise! The trial is bitter, but it must be undergone!”

I cannot write any longer, for I want this letter to leave to-night.

I embrace you a thousand times, as I love you, as I adore you, my darling Lucie.

A thousand kisses to the children. I dare not say more to you; the tears come to my eyes when I think of them. Write to me soon.

Alfred.

Give my love to all the family. Tell them that I am to-day what I was yesterday, having but one care, to do my duty.

The Commissary of the Government has informed me that Me. Demange will defend me. I think that I shall see him to-morrow. Write to me to the prison. Your letters, like mine, will pass through the hands of the government commissioner.

Thursday morning, 7 December, 1894.

I am waiting with impatience for a letter from you. You are my hope; you are my consolation; were it not for you life would be a burden. At the bare thought that they could accuse me of a crime so frightful, so monstrous, my whole being trembles; my body revolts against it. To have worked all my life for one thing alone, to avenge my country, to struggle for her against the infamous ravisher who has snatched from us our dear Alsace, and then to be accused of treason against that country—no, my loved one, my mind refuses to comprehend it! Do you remember my telling you how, when I was in Mulhouse, ten years ago, in September, I heard a German band under our windows celebrating the anniversary of Sedan? My grief was such that I wept; I bit the sheets of my bed with rage, and I swore an oath to consecrate all my strength, all my intelligence, to the service of my country against those who thus offered insult to the grief of Alsace.

No, no. I will not speak of it, for I shall go mad, and I must preserve all my reason. Moreover my life has henceforth but one aim: to find the wretch who has betrayed his country; to find the traitor for whom no punishment could be too severe. Oh, dear France, thou that I love with all my soul, with all my heart! thou to whom I have consecrated all my strength, all my intelligence, how couldst thou accuse me of a crime so horrible! I will not write upon this subject, my darling; for spasms take me by the throat. No man has ever borne the martyrdom that I endure. No physical suffering can be compared to the mental agony that I feel when my thoughts turn to this accusation. If I had not my honor to defend, I assure you that I should prefer death; at least, death would be forgetfulness. Write to me soon. My love to all.

December, 1894.

My good Darling:

Thanks for your long letter of yesterday. I have never doubted your adorable devotion, your great heart. It is most of all of you that I think in these dark days; I think of your sadness, the grief that you must feel; and in this thought lies my only weakness.

As for me, fear nothing. If I have suffered deeply I have never wavered nor bowed my head. The moments of my deepest anguish have been those in which I have thought of you, my good darling, of all our family. I realised your sorrow when you were without news of me. I had time to think of you all, in the long days, in the sleepless nights, alone with my own thoughts. In those hours I had nothing to read; no way to write! I turned like a lion in its cage, trying to work out an enigma that escaped me. But everything in this world is conquered by perseverance and by energy. I swear to you that I shall discover the wretch who committed the act of infamy. Keep up your courage, my good darling, and look the world in the face. You have the right to do so.

Thank every one for the admirable devotion shown in my cause. Embrace our dear children and all the family for me.

A thousand kisses for your own self, from your devoted

Alfred.

December, 1894.

My good Darling:

Your letter, which I had impatiently awaited, gave me great consolation and at the same time it made me weep, for it brought me the vivid memory of you, my darling.

I am not perfect; what man can boast of perfection? But I can assure you truthfully that I have always gone straight forward in the way marked out by duty and by honor.

There has been no compromise between me and my conscience. If I have suffered deeply, if I have undergone the most horrible agony that can be imagined, I have at all times been sustained in this awful struggle by my conscience, which stands on guard, rigid, upright, inflexible. My natural reserve, perhaps a haughty reserve, the freedom of my speech and judgment to-day militate against me. I am not supple, nor a trimmer, nor a flatterer. We never visited the people of the world who might be useful to us now; we shut ourselves up in our own home, we were contented to be happy in ourselves.

And to-day I am accused of the most monstrous crime a soldier can commit!

Oh, if I could but hold the wretch who not only has betrayed his country, but who, besides, has tried to make me bear the burden of his infamy, I do not know what suffering I could not invent to make him expiate the agony which he has forced me to undergo! But we must not despair—they must at last find the guilty one. Without that hope we should have to believe that there is no justice in the world.

Bend all your efforts to reveal the truth; and bring to bear upon them all your intellect, if need be all my fortune.

Money is nothing. Our Honor is All! Tell M[athieu Dreyfus] that I count upon him for this work. It is not beyond his power. He must find the wretch who has dishonored us, even though he should move Heaven and Earth. I embrace you a thousand times, as I love you.

Your devoted

Alfred.

A thousand kisses for the children.

All my love to all the members of our families; thank them for their devotion to the cause of an innocent man.

Monday, 11 December.

My good Darling:

I have received your letter of yesterday; also the letters from your sister and from Henri. Let us hope that soon justice will be done me and that I shall once more be with you all. With you and with our dear children I shall find the calm that now I need so much.

My heart is deeply wounded; you know that it must be so. To have consecrated all my strength, all my intelligence, to the service of my country, and then to be accused of the most monstrous crime that a soldier can commit—it is fearful!

At the very thought of it my whole being revolts; I tremble with indignation. I ask myself by what miracle I have been kept from going mad. How has my brain resisted such a shock!

I supplicate you, my darling, do not go to my trial. It can do no good for you to impose new sufferings upon yourself; those that you have already borne, with a grandeur of soul and with a heroism of which I am proud, are more than sufficient. Save your strength for our children. We shall need all our united strength to care for each other, to help each other to forget this terrible trial—the most terrible that human strength can bear. Kiss all our good, dear ones for me, until the time comes when I can embrace them for myself. Remember me fondly to all.

I embrace you as I love you.

Your devoted

Alfred.

Tuesday, 12 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

Will you be my interpreter to all the members of our two families, to all who have been thoughtful of me at this time? Will you tell them how much I have been touched by their good letters and by the sympathy they have shown me?

I cannot answer them; for what could I tell them? My sufferings? They understand them, and I do not like to complain. Besides that, my brain reels, and my thoughts are at times confused. My soul alone remains unshaken, as steadfast as on that awful day before the monstrous accusation was thrown in my face. My whole being still revolts at the thought of it.

But in the end the truth must be known in spite of everything. We are not living in a century when the light can be hidden. It must be that the whole truth will be known, that my voice will be heard throughout the length and breadth of our dear France—just as my accusation has been heard. It is not only my own honor which I have to defend; it is the honor of all the corps of officers of which I am a part, and a worthy part.

I have received the clothes that you sent me. If you should have a chance, please send me my tippet. I do not need the pelisse. My tippet is in the wardrobe in the antechamber.

Embrace our darlings tenderly for me. I wept over the good letter written by our dear Pierrot. How long the time seems to me until I can embrace him and you all once more!

A thousand kisses for yourself.

Your devoted

Alfred.

Thursday, 14 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

I have received your good letter; also new letters from the family. Thank them all for me. All these proofs of affection and esteem touch me more than I know how to tell you. As for me, I am always the same. When a man’s conscience is pure and calm he can bear everything. I am convinced that eventually the truth will be known; that the assurance of my innocence will finally be borne in upon all minds.

At my trial I shall be judged by soldiers as loyal and as honest as myself. They will recognize—I am sure of it—the error that has been committed.

Error, unhappily, is a human thing. Who can say that he never has been deceived?

I am happy over the good news you give me regarding the children. You were right to begin to give P[ierrot] cod-liver oil; the time is propitious. Kiss the little fellow for me. How I long to hold the dear children in my arms!

I hope, with you, that they will end by letting me once more embrace you. It will be one of the happiest days of my life; it will be a consolation for all the pain I have endured.

Alfred.

Friday, 15 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

I have received your good letter, also mamma’s. I am grateful for the sentiment she expresses—sentiments I never have doubted, and which, I can say it proudly, I have merited always.

At last the day of my appearance before justice draws near. I am to come to the end of all this moral torture. My confidence is absolute; when the conscience is pure and tranquil then can we present ourselves everywhere, our heads high. I shall be tried by soldiers who will listen to me and understand me. The certainty that I am innocent will enter their hearts as it has always entered the hearts of my friends, of those who have known me intimately.

My whole life has been the best guarantee of my innocence. I will not speak of the infamous and anonymous calumnies that have been circulated against me. They have not touched me; I scorn them. Kiss all our darlings for me and receive for yourself the tender kisses of your devoted husband,

Alfred.

Sunday, 17 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

I do not know that this letter will reach you to-day, for the post-offices are closed, but I will not let the day pass without writing you one word. I am happy to know that you are surrounded by all the family; your grief must be less great, for nothing is more sustaining than such love as is being shown to you.

As to me, my darling, do not give way to any feeling of anxiety.

I am ready to appear before my judges; my mind is tranquil. I am ready to face them as I shall one day stand before God, my head high, my conscience pure.

I am happy to know that you are all well; the children also.

Continue to take good care of yourself, my darling; and keep all your courage. It is true that the trial is great, but my courage is not less great.

If I have had moments of horrible depression, if I have borne the weight of the frightful mental torture, of the suspicion which they have cast upon me, my head has never bent beneath it. To-day, as yesterday, I can look the world in the face; I am worthy to command my soldiers. Embrace the dear ones for me; affectionate kisses from your devoted

Alfred.

Monday, 18 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

I received to-day only your good letter of Saturday. I could not send my letter yesterday; the offices were closed and my letter could not have passed out.

How you must suffer, my poor darling! I can imagine it by comparing your suffering to my own, because I cannot see you. But we must know how to bear up, to hold our own against suffering; we must be resigned; we must preserve all dignity of conduct.

Let us show that we are worthy of one another; that trials, even the most cruel, even the most undeserved, cannot beat us down.

When the conscience is clear we can, as you say so truly, bear everything; suffer everything. It is my conscience alone that has enabled me to resist; had it not been for that I should have died of sorrow, or I should be shut up in a mad-house.

Even now I cannot look back to those first days without a shiver of horror. My brain was like a boiling cauldron; at each instant I feared that my reason would leave me.

Do not be worried by the irregularity of my letters; you know that I cannot write as I would like to; but be strong and brave; be careful of your health.

Thanks for all the news you give me of our friends. Tell them that I have often thought of them; of the grief they must feel. It must bind us in a union that nothing can ever break. Our pure, honorable life, all the past of all our kindred, our devotion to France, are the best guarantees of what we are.

I have received two good letters from J. and R.; they have given me great pleasure.

I thank you also for the news you give me of the children. Ah, the poor darlings! What joy it will be to me to be able to embrace them and you, my good darling! But I will not allow myself to think of it; for then everything seems to melt within me.

The bitterness of my heart rises to my lips—and I must preserve all my strength.

Thank M. and my brothers and my sisters and all the family for what they have done for me. Embrace them for me.

I will stop, for every memory of the happiness I have known among you all revives my grief.

To have sacrificed everything for my Country, to have served her with entire devotion, with all my strength, with all my intelligence, and then to be accused of such a frightful crime—no, no!

Write to me often; write long letters. My best moments are those when I receive news of you all.

A thousand kisses for you and for the children.

Your devoted

Alfred.

Tuesday, 18 December, 1894.

My good, dear one:

At last I am coming to the end of my sufferings, to the end of my agony. To-morrow I shall appear before my judges, my head high, my soul tranquil. The trial I have undergone, terrible as it has been, has purified my soul. I shall return to you better than I was before. I want to consecrate to you, to my children, to our dear families, all the time I have yet to live.

As I have told you, I have passed through awful crises. I have had moments of furious, actual madness at the thought of being accused of a crime so monstrous.

I am ready to appear before the soldiers as a soldier who has nothing for which to reproach himself. They will see it in my face; they will read my soul; they will know that I am innocent; as all will who know me.

Devoted to my country, to whom I have consecrated all my strength, all my intellect, I have nothing to fear.

Sleep tranquilly then, my darling, and do not give way to any care; think only of our joy when we are once more in each other’s arms—to forget so quickly these sad, dark days!

Until we meet—soon, my darling! soon shall I have the joy of embracing you and our good, dear ones.

A thousand kisses while I wait for that happy moment.

Alfred.

23 December, 1894.

My Darling:

I suffer much, but I pity you still more than myself. I know how much you love me. Your heart must bleed. On my side, my adored one, my thought has always been of you night and day.

To be innocent, to have lived a life without a stain, and to be condemned for the most monstrous crime that a soldier can commit! What could be more terrible? It seems to me at times that I am the victim of an awful nightmare.

It is for you alone that I have resisted until to-day; it is for you alone, my adored one, that I have borne my long agony. Will my strength hold out to the end? I cannot tell. No one but you can give me courage. It is only from your love that I can draw it.

At times I hope that God, who has not abandoned me thus far, will end this martyrdom of an innocent man; that He will bring to light the Guilty One.

But shall I be strong enough to hold out until that time?

I have signed my appeal for a revision. I dare not speak to you of the children; their memory rends my heart. Speak to them of me. May they be your consolation.

My bitterness is such, my heart is so bruised, that I should, already have got rid of this sad life if memory of you had not hindered me; if the fear of augmenting your grief had not stayed my arm.

To have had to hear all they said to me, when I knew in my soul and conscience that I had never failed, never committed even the most trivial imprudence, that was the most horrible of mental torture.

I shall try to live for your sake, but I have need of your aid.

Above all else, no matter what may become of me, search for the truth; move Earth and Heaven to discover it; sink in the effort, if need be, all our fortune, to rehabilitate my name, which now is dragged through the mud. No matter what may be the cost, we must wash out the unmerited stain.

I have not the courage to write more. Embrace our dear relations, our children, everyone, for me.

A thousand, thousand kisses.

Alfred.

Try to obtain permission to see me. It seems to me that they cannot refuse it now.

Monday evening, 24 December, 1894.

My Darling:

It is still to you that I write, for you are the only cord that binds me to life. I know well that all my family, all your family, love me and esteem me; but, after all, if I were to disappear, their grief, however great, would fade with the years.

It is for you alone, my poor darling, that I gather strength to struggle. It is the thought of you that stays my arm. How I feel in this hour my love for you! Never has it been so great—so all absorbing. And then a feeble hope sustains me yet a little; it is that we shall be able some day to have my good name restored to me. But, above all, believe me, if I should have strength to struggle to the end of this calvary, it will be for your sake alone, my poor darling; it will be to avoid adding a new chagrin to all those you have already borne. Do all that is humanly possible to get to see me.

I embrace you a thousand times, as I love you.

Alfred.

In the night between Monday and Tuesday, 24 December,
1894.

My dear Adored one:

I have just received your letter; I hope that you have received mine. Poor darling, how you must suffer, how I pity you! I have wept many tears over your letter. I cannot accept your sacrifice. You must stay there; you must live for the children. Think of them first, before you think of me; it is the poor, little ones who absolutely need you.

My thoughts always lead me back to you.

Me. Demange, who has just been here, has told me how wonderful you are. He has spoken words in your praise to which my heart gave back the echo.

Yes, my darling, you are sublime in your courage and devotion. You are worth more than I. I loved you before with all my heart and soul; to-day I do more—I marvel at you. You are truly one of the noblest women upon the earth. My admiration for you is so great that if I live to drink my cup to the dregs it will be because I have aspired to be worthy of your heroism.

But it will be terrible to submit to that shameful humiliation! I should rather stand before an execution squad. I do not fear death, but the thought of contempt is terrible.

However it may be, I pray you tell them all to life their heads as I lift mine; to look the world in the face without flinching. Never bow your heads—proclaim my innocence aloud.

Now, my darling, I am going anew to lay my head upon my pillow to think of you.

I kiss you; I press you to my heart.

Alfred.

Embrace the little ones tenderly for me.

Will you please deposit two hundred francs with the clerk of the prison?

25 December, 1894.

My Darling:

I cannot date this letter, for I do not even know what day it is. Is it Tuesday? Is it Wednesday? I do not know. It is always night. As sleep flies my eyelids I arise to write to you.

Sometimes it seems to me that all this has not happened; that I have never left you.

In my hallucinations all that has happened to us seems to me a bad nightmare; but the awakening is terrible.

I cannot believe in anything but your love and the affection of all of ours.

We must continually search for the guilty one. All means are good. Chance alone will not suffice.

Perhaps I shall succeed in surmounting the horrible terror with which the infamous sentence I am going to bear inspires me. To be an honorable man, to be innocent, and to see my honor torn from me and trampled under foot—oh, it is fearful! it is the worst of sufferings! worse than death!

Oh, if I go to the end it will be for your sake, my dear, adored one, for you are the only thread that binds me to life!

How we loved each other!

To-day more than ever before I know what place you hold in my heart. But, above all, be careful of your own self; think of your health. You must, at all costs, for the sake of my children, who have need of you.

Then search in Paris as you did down there for the guilty one. We must try everything; we must leave nothing undone. There are people surely, there must be people, who know the name of the guilty man.

I embrace you.

Alfred.

Wednesday, 2 P. M., 26 December, 1894.

My Darling:

I have just received your two letters and Marie’s.

You are sublime, my adored one, and I am amazed at your courage and your heroism. I loved you before. To-day I kneel before you, for you are a sublime woman. But do not allow yourself to be beaten down, I supplicate you. Think of our children, who have need of you.

It may be that in my desire to be worthy of you, to reach the heights on which you stand, I shall be able to hold out to the end. It is not physical suffering that I fear—that has never been strong enough to break me down; its blows glance off—but the torture of soul, the knowledge that my name is dragged in the mire, the name of a man who is innocent, the name of a man of honor. Cry it aloud, my darling; cry to every one that I am innocent—the victim of terrible fatality.

Shall we ever succeed in discovering the real guilty one? Let us hope it; to lose that hope would be to despair of everything.

I hope to see you soon, and that is my consolation. All the day, all the night, my thoughts fly to you—to you all. I think of the happiness we enjoyed, and I ask myself, even now, by what inexplicable fatality that happiness was broken.

It is the most awful tragedy that it has ever been given me to read, and instead of reading it, I must live it out, alas! Finally, be careful of your own self, my darling. You need all your health, all your physical vigor, if you are to bring to a successful end the task you have so nobly undertaken.

I embrace you and our poor darlings, of whom I dare not think.

A thousand kisses.

Alfred.

Wednesday, 4 o’clock, 26 December, 1894.

My Darling:

You ask me what I do all day long.

I think of you; I think of you all. If this consoling thought did not sustain me, if I could not feel through the thick walls of my prison the strengthening breath of your sympathy, I believe that I should lose my hold on reason and that despair would enter my soul. It is your love, it is the affection of you all, that gives me the courage to live on.

Me. Demange has just been here. He stayed some minutes with me. His faith in me is absolute; that also gives me courage.

It is not physical suffering that affrights me—I am able to bear that—but this continual torture of soul, this contempt that is to pursue me everywhere. I, so proud, so sure of my honor, it is that that I find so terrible; that that I shrink from.

Well, my darling, I will not torture your heart any longer; your grief is already great enough.

I embrace you fondly.

Alfred.

Wednesday, 10 P. M.

I do not sleep, and it is to you that I return. Am I then marked by a fatal seal, that I must drink this cup of bitterness! At this moment I am calm. My soul is strong, and it rises in the silence of the night. How happy we were, my darling! Life smiled on us; fortune, love, adorable children, a united family—Everything! Then came this thunderbolt, fearful, terrible. Buy, I pray of you, playthings for the children, for their New Year’s day; tell them that their father sends them. It must not be that these poor souls, just entering upon life, should suffer through our pain.

Oh, my darling, had not I you how gladly would I die! Your love holds me back; it is your love only that makes me strong enough to bear the hatred of a nation.

And the people are right to hate me: they have been told that I am a traitor. Ah, traitor, the horrible word! It breaks my heart.

I ... traitor! Is it possible that they could accuse me and condemn me for a crime so monstrous!

Cry aloud my innocence; cry it with all the strength of your lungs; cry it upon the house-tops, till the very walls fall.

And hunt out the guilty one. It is he whom we must find.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Thursday, 10 o’clock in the evening, 27 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

Your heroism has conquered me. Strong in your love, strong in my conscience and in the immovable support I find in our two families, I feel my courage born again.

I shall struggle therefore to my last breath. I shall struggle to my last drop of blood.

It is not possible that light shall not be some day let in upon this crime. With the feeling that your heart is beating close to mine I shall bear all the martyrdoms, all the humiliations, without bowing my head. The thought of you, my darling, will give me the strength needful. My dear, adored one, women certainly are superior to us; and among women you are of the most beautiful and the most noble!

I always loved you deeply; you know it. To-day I do more—I marvel at and venerate you. You are a holy, a noble, woman. I am proud of you, and I will try to be worthy of you.

Yes, it would be cowardice to desert life. It would be to taint my name—the name of my dear children—to sully that name forever. I realize that to-day; but how could it be otherwise? The blow was cruel; it broke down my courage; it is you who have lifted me up.

Your soul makes mine tremble.

So, leaning one on the other, proud of one another, we shall succeed, by force of will, in clearing our name from dishonor. We shall remove the stain from that honor that has never failed us.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Thursday, 11 o’clock in the evening.

I almost hoped to receive one more word from you this evening. If you could only know with what happiness I receive your letters, with what intoxication I read and re-read them all day long!

Good-night; sleep well, my darling. We will live still for each other.

Friday, 10 o’clock in the morning, 28 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

I have received your good letter dated yesterday at noon. You are right. I must live. I must live for you—for our dear children, whose name I must restore to honor. Whatever may be the terrible tortures of soul I endure, I must resist. I have no right to desert my post.

If I were alone, I should not hesitate; but your name, the name of my family—everything, all we have, is attacked. We must arm with all our courage for the struggle. By the force of our energy, our will, we shall triumph. In the end they shall speak out. Supported, sustained by your unfailing courage, we shall conquer.

Write to me often. You must relieve each other in writing; write to me in turn. Each one of your letters soothes me. It seems to me that I hear you speak—that I hear your dear parents speak.

I embrace you and all your dear family.

A thousand tender kisses to the children.

Alfred.

Friday, noon.

I received your letter dated Thursday evening, also the good words from Pierrot. Embrace the darling tenderly for me. Give Jeanne a kiss for me. Yes, I must live. I must summon all my energy to wash out the stain which sullies the name of my children. I should be cowardly should I desert my post. I will live; I will!

I embrace you.

Alfred.

Monday, 31 December, 1894.

My dear Lucie:

I thought a long time last night of my father, of all my family. I do not hide from you that I wept long. But the tears comforted me. Our consolation is the deep affection that unites us all; it is the affection which I find in your family as in my own.

It is impossible, when we are so bound together, when we are upheld by the wonderful devotion shown us by Me. Demange, that we shall not sooner or later discover the truth. I was wrong to wish to desert life. I had not the right to. I will struggle as long as I have a breath of life. In these long days, in these sad nights, my soul is purified and strengthened. My duty is clearly traced. I must leave my children a name pure and stainless.

Let us strive for that, my darling, without a truce, without rest. Let us not be rebuffed by the difficulty of any step, of any attempt. We must try everything.

The books of M. Bayles, which you sent me, are enough for the moment; later I shall need a work with exercises, with corrections on the opposite page; so that I can work by myself.

For the moment I must gather all my strength to meet the horrible humiliation that awaits me. But do not relax a single instant. You may, perhaps, enter upon a course of which I have spoken to Me. Demange this evening. Nothing must be neglected; everything must be tried.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Good kisses to the darlings. I dare not wish you “A Happy New Year;” this feast does not accord with our present sorrow.

I have even forgotten to wish your mother a happy birthday. I pray you to repair this forgetfulness; it is excusable under the sad circumstances.

I suppose you have given the children the toys from their father. We must not let these young souls suffer through our sorrows.

I have received the inkstand. I thank you for it.

5 o’clock in the evening.

The appeal is rejected, as I might have expected it would be. They have just told me. Ask immediately for permission to see me.

Send me what I asked you for; that is to say, my sabre, my belt, and the valise with my belongings. The cruel and horrible anguish is approaching; I am going to meet it with the dignity of a pure and tranquil conscience. To tell you that I do not suffer would be to lie; but I shall not weaken. I shall be strong. Keep on, for your part, without truce, without rest.

1 January, 1895.

My Darling:

It is no longer Sunday. It is the beginning of Monday. The stroke of midnight has just sounded at this moment, as I lighted my candle. I cannot sleep. I would rather rise than toss upon my bed, and what more delicious occupation than to talk with you! When I write it seems that you are near me, as it used to be in those good evenings of my happy memories, when, as I sat at my desk, you would work by my side.

Let us hope—let us hope that happiness shall shine again for us. It is impossible that some day the light of truth shall not make all clear. I know the energetic character of Mathieu; I have learned to appreciate your energy, your profound devotion, I will say your heroism; and I do not doubt the success of your investigations.

You are right to act with calmness, with method. Your progress will be surer.

But I hope that soon I can speak of all this face to face with you.

From this hour the agony is to become still more bitter. First, the humiliating ceremony, then the sufferings which will follow it. I shall bear them calmly, with dignity—be sure of it.

To say that I have not at times moments of violent revolt would be to lie. The injustice is by far too cruel; but I have faith in the future; and I hope to have my recompense.

So I try to think that the time will come when my only care will be to ensure my happiness—the happiness of our dear children.

I have received a charming letter from Marie, which I shall answer one of these days.

Be of good courage always, my darling. Take good care of your health, for you will have need of all your strength; your courage must not betray you in the crucial moment. Good-night and good rest.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Tuesday, 1 January, 1895.

I have not received a letter from you this morning. I miss it. I have received several others, it is true; but dare I tell you that it is not the same thing? Yesterday, when he left me, Me. Demange hoped to come back and pass some hours with me to-day; but alas! not long after his departure they told me that my appeal had been rejected; this closes my prison door to him; he will not be permitted to visit me any more. He must have been warned this morning. So I shall pass my day alone. What a sad New Year, my darling! But do not let us dwell upon this subject. It will do us no good to weep and groan; that will not open the doors of my prison. On the contrary, we must guard all our physical strength and all our mental energy; we must not relax our struggle for one instant. Let nothing beat you down; do not lose hope. Throw your nets out on all sides; the guilty one will be caught in them at last.

Have you received an answer to your application? I am waiting now with impatience for the moment when I shall hold you in my arms.

Have you bought the toys for the children? Were they pleased? I am thinking always of you and of them. I live only in the thought that some day this frightful nightmare will vanish. It seems impossible that it can be otherwise. We will help overcome it, I promise it to you. I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Monday, 2 January, 1895, 11 o’clock in the evening.

My Darling:

A new year is beginning. What has it in store for us? Let us hope that it will be better than the year that is just ended. Should it be otherwise, death would be preferable. In this calm, deep night which surrounds me, I think of you all, of you, of our dear children. What a fearful stroke of fate, undeserved and cruel!

Let me give way a little, weep without restraint in your arms. Do not believe because I weep that my courage weakens. I have promised you to live; I shall keep my word. But I must always feel your heart beating close to mine. I must be sustained by your love.

We must have courage. We must have an almost superhuman energy. As for me, I can only summon my whole strength to bear all the tortures which await me.

Good-night and kisses.

Alfred.

Thursday, noon.

My Darling:

They have informed me that the supreme humiliation is set for the day after to-morrow. I expected it; I was prepared for it; but in spite of that the blow was terrible. I shall stand fast, as I promised you I would. I shall draw the force I still need for that awful day from the deep well of your love, from the affection of you all; from the memory of our dear children; from the supreme hope that some day the truth will come to light; but on every side I must feel the warmth of the affection that you all bear me. I must feel that you are struggling with me. Search always; let there be no truce, no rest.

I hope to see you soon, to gather strength from your loving eyes. Let us sustain each other through everything and against everything.

Your love is necessary to my life; without it the mainspring of my being would be broken.

When I am gone persuade them all that they must not stop their efforts.

Take measures at once, so that you may be able to come to see me on Saturday and the following days at the prison of la Santé. It is there, above all, that I must feel that I am sustained.

Find out also what I asked you yesterday—when I am to leave, how I am to go, etc.

We must be prepared for everything; we must not let ourselves be surprised.

Until the blessed moment, soon to come, when I shall see you, I embrace you.

Alfred.

4:15 P. M.

Since four o’clock my heart has been beating to bursting. You are not yet here, my darling. The seconds seem hours to me. My ear is listening—perhaps they come to call me. I cannot hear; I am waiting.

5 o’clock.

I am more calm; the sight of you has helped me. The rapture of having held you in my arms has done me immense good. I could not wait for the moment. I thank you for the joy that you have given me. How I love you, my good darling! Let us hope that some time all this sorrow is to end.

I must husband all my energy.

A thousand kisses more, my darling.

Alfred.

Thursday, 11 o’clock in the evening.

My Darling:

The nights are long; it is to you that I turn again and again; it is in your eyes that I look for all my strength. It is in your profound love that I find the courage to live. Not that the struggle makes me afraid, but truly fate is too cruel to me. Could one imagine a situation more awful, more tragic, for an innocent man? Could there be a martyrdom more fraught with sorrow?

Happy is it for me that I have the deep affection with which both our families surround me—that above everything I have your love, which pays me for all my sufferings.

Forgive me if sometimes I complain; do not think that my soul is less valiant because a groan escapes my lips; these cries relieve my heart; and to whom could I cry if not to you, my dear wife?

A thousand kisses for you and for the little ones.

Alfred.

Wednesday, 5 o’clock.

My Darling:

I wish to write these few words more, so that you may find them to-morrow morning when you awake. Our conversation, even through the bars of the prison, has done me good. My limbs trembled under me when I went down to met you, but I gathered all my strength, so that I should not fall from my emotion. Even now my hand is still trembling; our interview has violently shaken me. If I did not insist that you should stay still longer it was because I was at the end of my strength. I had to hide myself, so that I might weep a little; do not believe because I weep that my soul is less brave or less strong; but my body is somewhat weakened by three months of the prison, without a breath of the outer air. I must have had a robust constitution to have been able to resist all these tortures.

What has done me the most good is that I felt that you were so brave, so valiant, so full of love for me. Let us, my dear wife, continue to command the respect of the world by our attitude and by our courage. As for me, you must have felt that I am decided to face everything. I want my honor, and I shall have it. No obstacle shall stop me.

Kiss the babies for me. A thousand kisses.

Alfred.

The parlor is to be occupied to-morrow, Thursday, from 1 until 4 o’clock. So you must come either in the morning between 10 and 11 o’clock, or in the afternoon at 4 o’clock. This takes place only Thursdays and Sundays.

IN THE PRISON OF LA SANTE.

5 January, 1895.

I will not tell you what I have suffered to-day. Your grief is great enough already. I will not augment it.

In promising you to live, in promising you to resist until my name is rehabilitated, I have made the greatest sacrifice that a man of deep feeling of heart, an upright man, from whom his honor has been taken, can make. My God, let not my physical strength abandon me! My spirit is unshaken; a conscience that has nothing with which to reproach me upholds me, but I am coming to the end of patience and of my physical strength. After having consecrated all my life to honor, never having deserved reproach, to be here, to have borne the most wounding affront that can be inflicted upon a soldier!

Oh, my darling, do everything in the world to find the guilty one; do not relax your efforts for one instant. That is my only hope in the terrible misfortune which pursues me.

If only I may soon be with you there, and if we may soon be united, you will give me back my strength and my courage. I have need of both. This day’s emotions have broken my heart; my cell offers me no consolation.

Picture a little room all bare—four yards and a half long, perhaps—closed by a grated garret window; a pallet standing against the wall—no, I will not tear your heart, my poor darling.

I will tell you later, when we are happy again, what I have suffered to-day, in all my wanderings, surrounded by men who are truly guilty, how my heart has bled. I have asked myself why I was there; what I was doing there. I seemed the victim of an hallucination; but alas! my garments, torn, sullied, brought me back roughly to the truth. The looks of scorn they cast on me told me too well why I was there. Oh, why could not my heart have been opened by a surgeon’s knife, so that they might have read the truth! All the brave, good people along my way could have read it: “This is a man of honor!” But how easy it is to understand them! In their place I could not have contained my contempt for an officer who I had been told was a traitor. But alas! there is the tragedy. There is a traitor, but it is not I!

Write to me soon; do everything in your power so that I may see you, for my strength is giving way. I need to be upheld; come, so that we may be together once again, that I may find in your heart all the strength I need in this awful hour.

I embrace you as I love you.

Saturday afternoon.

Alfred.

Saturday, 6 o’clock, January, 1895.

In my dark cell, in the tortures of my soul, which refuses to understand why I suffer so, why God so punishes me, it is always to you that I turn, my dear wife, who, in these sad and terrible moments, have shown for me a devotion without boundaries, a love illimitable.

You have been and you are sublime; in my moments of weakness I have been ashamed not to be at the height of your heroism. But this grief must gnaw the best disciplined soul; the grief of seeing so many efforts, so many years of honor, of devotion to one’s country, lost because of a machination that seems to belong to the realms of the grotesque, rather than to real life. Sometimes I cannot believe it; but these moments, alas! are rare here, for subjected to the strictest discipline of the prison cell, everything reminds me of the dark reality. Continue to sustain me with your profound love, my darling; aid me in this awful struggle for my honor; let me feel your beautiful soul throbbing close to mine.

When can I see you?

I need affection and consolation in my sorrow.

Alas! I may have the courage of a soldier, but I ask myself have I the heroic soul of the martyr!

A thousand good kisses for you, for our darlings. May these children be your consolation.

A. Dreyfus.

Write to me often and at length. Think that I am here alone from morning until evening, and from evening until morning. Not one sympathetic soul comes to lighten my dark sorrow. I long to be there with you, where I can wait in peace and tranquillity, until they rehabilitate me—until they give me back my honor.

7 o’clock, evening, 5 January, 1895.

I have just had a moment of terrible weakness; of tears mingled with sobs; all my body shaken by the fever. It was the reaction from the awful tortures of the day. It had to be—I knew it. But alas! instead of being allowed to sob in your arms, to lean my head upon your breast, my sobs have resounded in the emptiness of my prison. It is finished. Be lifted up, my heart; I concentrate all my energy. Strong in my conscience, pure and unstained, I owe myself to my family, I owe myself to my name. I have not the right to desert. While there remains in me a breath of life I will struggle, hoping that light soon may be let in upon the truth. And do you continue your searches. As for me, the only thing that I ask is to leave here as soon as possible; to find you there; to settle down to our life there, while our friends, our families, are busy here searching for the guilty one, so that we may come back to our dear country, martyrs who have borne the most terrible, the most harrowing, of trials.

Saturday, 7:30 P. M.

It is the hour when we are obliged to go to bed. What will become of me? What am I going to do when I am in my bed, a straw mattress supported on iron rods. Physical sufferings are nothing—you know that I do not fear them—but my moral tortures are far from being ended. Oh, my darling, what did I do the day I promised you to live! I thought then that my soul was stronger. It is easy to talk of being resigned because the heart is innocent, but it is hard to be so.

Write to me soon, my darling; try to see me. I need to draw new strength from your dear eyes.

A thousand kisses.

Alfred.

Sunday, 5 o’clock, 6 January, 1895.

Forgive me, my adored one, if in my letters yesterday I poured out my grief and made a parade of my torture. I must confide them to some one. What heart is better prepared than yours to receive the overflowing grief of mine? It is your love that gives me courage to live; I must feel the thrill of your love close to my heart. Let us show that we are worthy of each other; that you are a noble, a sublime wife.

Courage, then, my darling. Do not think too much of me; you have other duties to fulfil. You owe yourself to our dear children, to our name, which must be restored to honor. Think, then, of all the noble duties incumbent upon you. They are heavy, but I know that you will be capable of undertaking, of accomplishing them all, if you do not let yourself be beaten down—if you preserve your strength.

You must struggle, therefore, against yourself. Summon all your energy; think only of your duties.

As to me, my darling, your know that I suffered yesterday even more than you can imagine. I shall tell you how much some day, when we are once more happy and united. For the present I hope but one thing. Since I am useless to you here, and since, on the other hand, the search for the guilty man will, I fear, be a long one, I hope to be sent down there soon, and under the best conditions possible to wait there with you until the combined efforts of all our relations shall have been successful. The life of the prison cell is wearing me out, and I ask but one thing, to be sent down there as soon as possible. I was heart-broken this morning because I did not get any letters. Happily, at 2 o’clock, the director of the prison brought me a package of good letters, which gave me much pleasure. They have been the one ray of joy in my wretched cell. Will you please send me my travelling rug, for it is very cold in our cells.

Try to obtain permission to see me as soon as possible.

I embrace you a thousand times.

Alfred.

Good kisses to the poor darlings.

7 o’clock in the evening.

My God, how sorrowful is my soul! What in all my life have I done that I should be thus punished? The wretch who has committed the crime of betraying me, the wretch through whom I am lost, deserves, if there is a God, a terrible chastisement. He deserves to be punished through all he loves. In the name of my poor children I curse him.

Monday, 5 P. M., 7 January, 1895.

My Darling:

I have borne for your sake, my adored one, for the name which my dear children bear, the most agonizing, the most appalling, of calvaries for a heart that is pure and honorable. I ask myself how I am yet alive. That which sustained me is, above all else, the hope that I shall soon be united to you down there. Then, though innocent as I am, but sustained as I shall be by your profound love, I shall have the patience to await in exile the vindication of my name. There, too, I shall work, I shall be busy. I shall impose silence upon my heart and my brain by force of physical fatigue. But in my prison it would be difficult to live, for my thought always brings me fatally back to my condition.

They have not given me any letter from you to-day; do not be anxious, my darling, if my letters do not reach you regularly. I will write to you every day as long as I am permitted to.

I have been told that I can see you Monday and Friday. Alas! Monday has passed, and I am obliged to wait until Friday. I wait with extreme joy for the moment when I can kiss you; when I can throw myself into your arms. It is in your eyes, in your noble heart, that I find the strength needful to enable me to bear my fearful tortures of soul. I should almost like it better had I some sin upon my conscience; then I should, at least, have something to expiate. But alas! you know, my darling, how honest, how upright, my life has always been.

I will do all I can to live. I will do all I can to resist until the supreme moment when they give back to me the honor of my name.

But I shall bear the waiting better when you are there, in exile, with me. So, together, proud and worthy of one another, we will, in exile, give proof of the calm of two pure, honest hearts; of two hearts whose thoughts have always all been given to our dear country—France.

Good kisses to our poor darlings. Kisses to all our friends.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

8 January, 1895.

My Darling:

They have given to me to-day your letters of Sunday, also those sent to me by R., H. and A.

Thank them all. Give them news of me. Pray them to write to me, but tell them that it is impossible for me to answer them all. Not that the time is lacking, alas! but I cannot abuse the time and the kindness of the director of the prison, who is obliged to read all my letters. I am relatively strong in this sense: that I live by hope. But I feel that this situation cannot be prolonged. I have, and this is easy to understand, moments of violent revolt against the injustice of my fate. It is truly terrible to suffer as I have suffered through these long months for a crime of which I am innocent. My brain, after all these shocks, has moments of wandering.

I hope to see Me. Demange this evening and to beg of him to take steps with those who have the power to grant my prayer, so that they will, under conditions which I shall indicate, arrange to have me sent into exile with you, to wait until light is let in upon this crime. As to this last, I have great hope. My efforts must eventually have their reward. But I must have air, hard physical work, your dear society, to steady my brain, which has been shaken by so many shocks. Great God, how little I expected them!

Pray Me. Demange, who has obtained permission to see me, to come as soon as he can, so that I may explain to him the favor asked by an innocent man waiting until complete justice shall be done him.

You ask me also, my darling, what I do from morning until night. I do not want to tell you all my sad reflections. Your grief is great enough, and it is useless to add to it. What I have said above will tell you what at this moment I desire, exile with you in the free air, while I await my vindication.

As to the rest I will tell it all to you by and by, when we are together again and happy.

I will confide one thing to you, however—in the moments of my deepest sadness, in my moments of violent crisis, a star shines all at once, lighting up my brain and beaming upon me. It is your image, my darling, it is your adored image that I hope soon to behold face to face. And with that before me I can wait patiently until they give me back that which I hold dearest in this world—my honor, my honor that has never failed me.

Embrace them all for me. Kisses to the darlings.

I embrace you a thousand times.

Alfred.

How impatiently I wait for Friday! What a pity that you came to-day at the hour of the director’s luncheon; had you come at some other time perhaps they might have permitted you to embrace me.

Tuesday, 7 o’clock in the evening.

They have just given me a whole package of letters—from Jeanmaire, from your father, from Louise, and from you. Thank them all for writing to me. The letters have made me weep, but they have eased my wounded soul. Answer every one for me.

9 January, 1895, Wednesday, 5 o’clock.

My good Darling:

I, also, receive my letters only after a long delay. They have only now given me your letter of Tuesday morning. With it were numerous letters from all the family. What can we do, my darling? We must bow our heads, we must suffer without complaining. Truly, even now, when I think it over, I wonder how I could have had the courage to promise you to live on after my condemnation. That day, that Saturday, is burned into my mind in letters of fire. I have the courage of the soldier who goes forward gladly to meet death face to face: but alas! shall I have the soul of the martyr?

But be tranquil, my darling. I shall force myself to live and to resist until the day of my vindication. I have borne without flinching the anguish of the most wounding affront that can be imposed upon a man of heart who is innocent, whose conscience is pure. My heart has bled; it bleeds still. I live only by the hope that they will give me back my place in the army, the place I won by gallant and meritorious conduct—the galons that no act of mine had ever sullied!

And moreover, whatever sufferings may still await me, my heart commands me to live. I must resist; I must resist for the name that is borne by my dear children, for the name of all the family.

But duty is sometimes hard to follow. You speak of my life in this prison—what good can it do to increase your sadness, my darling? Your grief is great enough without my augmenting it by my complaining.

I live by hope, my good darling. I live, because I believe that it is impossible that the truth shall not some day be made clear, because it cannot be that my innocence shall not be some day recognised and proclaimed by this dear France—my country, to whom I have always brought my intelligence and my strength—to whom I would have consecrated all the blood that is in my veins.

I must have patience; I must draw it from the deep well of your love, from the affection of all those who love us, and from the conviction that I shall ultimately be rehabilitated.

A thousand kisses to the darlings.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Your letter tells me that they have refused to permit Me. Demange to see me; I hope, notwithstanding this, that they will soon accord him the permission.

I count the hours until Friday, when I shall see you. Thanks for the good letters I receive from all. Thank them all for me and tell them that one of the best hours in my day is that which I pass in reading my letters. But I am incapable of answering all of them. I can say nothing except that I am resigned and that I expect that the truth will be discovered.

10 January, 1895, 9 A. M.

Since two o’clock this morning I could not sleep for thinking that to-day I should see you. It seems that even now I hear your sweet voice speaking to me of my dear children, of our dear families, and if I weep I am not ashamed of it, for the martyrdom that I endure is truly cruel for a man who is innocent.

Who is the monster who has thrown the brand of evil, of dishonor, into a brave and honorable family?

If there is such a thing as justice on this earth, there is no punishment too great to be reserved for him, no torture that should not some day be inflicted on him.

But my courage is not weakening. I have painful moments, when my eyes are veiled by the mournful darkness of the present; but I comfort myself by looking forward to the future.

Your devotion is so heroic—you are all making such powerful efforts, it is impossible that the truth shall be forever hidden. Besides that, the truth must be made plain, it must be; the will is a powerful lever.

Now, at once, my darling, I am to have the joy of embracing you, of clasping you in my arms. I count the seconds which separate me from that happy moment.

Half-past 3 o’clock, P. M., 10 January, 1895.

The moment is passed, my darling; so quick, so short, that it seems to me I have not told you the twentieth part of what I had to say. How heroic you are, my adored one! How sublime is your self-forgetfulness, your devotion! I can do nothing but wonder at you.

Under the combined influence of your loving sympathy and of your heroic efforts I have not the right to hesitate.

I will suffer, then, I will not murmur, but let me when my heart overflows weep out my anguish on your breast.

The cruelest of all is this—I cannot repeat it too often—it is not the physical suffering that I endure; it is this atmosphere of contempt which surrounds my name—your name, my adored Lucie. You know that I have always been proud, dignified. You know that I have held duty above all else. You can therefore appreciate all that I suffer now. And that is why I wish to live; that is why I cry my innocence to all the world. I will cry it each day until my last breath, while in my body there is one drop of blood.

I shall find in your dear eyes the courage needful for my martyrdom. I shall draw from the memory of my children the strength to resist to the end of my agony.

Bring me your portrait, too. I will place it between the pictures of our darlings, and contemplating those faces, I shall each day, each instant, read my duty.

Embrace all for me.

Alfred Dreyfus.

Thank your sister Alice for her excellent letter, which has given me a great deal of pleasure. Also give me news of all the members of the family, to whom I cannot write. Tell them that their letters are always welcome.

I embrace you tenderly.

Alfred.

Half-past 7 in the evening.

I have to-day received no letter from you—no letter from any one. Have they been stopped on the way? However that may be, I have to-day been deprived of the only ray of sunlight which can lighten the darkness of my prison.

P. S. Just now, as I was about to go to bed, they brought me a package of letters, which I am going to devour with delight.

Thursday, 5 o’clock in the evening, 11 January,
1895.

My Darling:

I thank you for your two last letters (one written Tuesday and the other written, I think, Wednesday morning). They have just given them to me. Write to me morning and evening. Although I receive the two letters at the same time, nevertheless I can follow you in my thoughts. I see you in all you do. It seems to me that I am living near to you.

I occupy my time in reading and in writing; in that way I try to calm the fever of my brain; to think no more of my situation, so sad, so undeserved.

Forgive me, my darling, if sometimes I complain. What would you, at times memory is so bitter! I need to throw myself upon your breast, there to pour out my overburdened heart. We have always understood each other’s thoughts so well, my darling, that I am sure that your strong and generous heart beats with the indignation of my own.

We were so happy—everything in life smiled upon us. Do you remember when I told you that we had nothing for which to envy any one; that all was ours? Position, fortune, the love we bore each other, our adorable little children—we had everything.

There was not a cloud on the horizon; then came the awful thunderbolt, so unexpected, so unbelievable! Even now it seems sometimes that I must be the victim of a horrible nightmare.

I do not complain of physical sufferings, you know that I despise them; but to know that an accusation of infamy stains my name, when I am innocent—oh, no! no! This is why I have borne all my torment, all the anguish, all the insults. I am convinced that soon or late the truth will come to light, and then they will do me justice.

I can easily excuse this anger, this rage of all the people—the noble people, who have been taught to believe that there is a traitor; but I want to live so that they may know that the traitor is not I.

Upheld by your love, by the boundless love of all of ours, I shall overcome fatality. I do not say that I shall not still have moments of despondency, even of despair. Truly not to complain of an error so monstrous would require a grandeur of soul to which I cannot pretend. But my heart will remain strong and valiant.

Then courage and energy, my darling. We must all be brave and strong. Let us lift up our heads all of us, carry them high and proudly. We are martyrs. I will live, my adored one, because I will that you shall bear my name, as you have borne it until now, with honor, with joy, and with love; and because I will to transmit it to our children without a stain.

Therefore do not allow yourselves to be beaten down by adversity—neither you nor the others. Search for the truth without parleying, without a truce.

As to me, I shall wait with the strength born of a pure and tranquil conscience until this mysterious and tragical affair is dragged into the light.

You know, moreover, my darling, that the only mercy I have ever asked for is the truth; I hope that my countrymen will not fail in the duty which they owe to a fellow-man, who asks one right only—that the search for the truth may be kept up.

And when the light shines in on my vindication; when they give me back my galons that I won, and that I am as worthy to wear now as when I won them by my own might; when I am once more in my own place, at the head of my troopers, oh, then, my darling, I shall forget everything—the sufferings, the torture, the insults, the bleeding wounds.

May God and human justice grant that the day break soon!

Until to-morrow, my adored Lucie! Then shall I have the pleasure of embracing you again. Now I am counting the hours; to-morrow I shall count the minutes.

I embrace you fondly.

Alfred.

Good, long kisses to our two darlings. I dare not think of them. Talk to them about me. Let not these young souls suffer from our sadness. Embrace every one at home for me.

12 January, 1895, Saturday, 4 o’clock.

How short was that half hour yesterday! I arrange in my mind in advance just how I shall employ every minute, so that I may not forget what I want to say. Then the time goes by as in a dream; and all at once the interview is over, and again I have said almost nothing.

How can two beings like you and me be so cruelly tried?

Do you remember the charming plans that we had sketched out for this very winter? We ought to profit a little by our liberty when we are together to go back to those days when, two young lovers, we wandered together in the land of the sun. Ah, it cannot be possible! All this anguish, all that is passing now, is inhuman. If there is a God, if there is any justice in this world, we must believe that the truth must declare itself soon; that we shall be recompensed for all that we have suffered.

I have put the children’s photographs before me on the little table of my cell. When I look at them the tears rush to my eyes, my heart bursts—but at the same time it does me good, it strengthens my courage. Bring me your photograph, too. Your three faces before my eyes will be the companions of my mournful solitude.

Ah, my darling wife, you have a noble mission to fulfil, and for it you need all your energy. That is why I am always begging of you to care for your health. Your physical strength is more necessary than ever before. You owe yourself to your children first, then to the name they bear. It must be proven to the whole world that that name is pure and stainless.

Oh, for light upon my tragic situation! How I long for it! How I wait for it! How I would buy it if I could, not only with all my fortune—that would be nothing—but with my very blood!

If only I could put my brain to sleep! If I could prevent it from thinking always of this unexplainable mystery! I long to pierce the shadows; I long to tear up the earth that the daylight may burst through.

You will answer, and with justice, that I must be patient; that time is necessary to discover the truth. Alas! I know it. But what would you? The minutes to me seem hours. It always seems to me that some one will come to me in another minute and say:

“Forgive us, we were deceived; the mistake has been discovered.”

Now I am waiting for Monday. Henceforth the weeks for me are composed but of the two days when you come to visit me. You cannot know how I marvel at your self-sacrifice, your heroism, how I draw courage from your love, so profound, so devoted.

Thank your sister Alice for her excellent letter, which has given me great pleasure. Give news of me to all the members of the family to whom I cannot write. Tell them that their letters are always most welcome.

I embrace you tenderly, fondly.

Alfred.

14 January, 1895, Monday, 9 o’clock in the morning.

At last the happy day has come again when I can have the happiness of seeing you, of kissing you, of receiving news by word of mouth of you all. I have so many things to tell you; but when I see you shall not I again, in the emotion which will seize me, forget everything? Last night again I could not sleep until two o’clock. I was thinking of you, of you all, of this fearful enigma which I long to decipher. I have turned over in my mind a thousand ways, each more violent, more extravagant than the other, by which to rend the veil which shields the monster.

How can I help it, my darling? Night and day I think only of that. My mind is always straining to reach that end, and I cannot help you in any way. It is the feeling of my utter helplessness which hurts me most.

I try hard to read, but while my eyes follow the lines my thoughts wander.

And now, immediately, my darling, I am to have the joy of seeing you!

Waiting for that moment, I pace my cell like a lion in its cage.

14 January, 1895, 1 o’clock.

The time drags slowly; the minutes are hours. How can I use up my energy! How can I restrain my heart! Sometimes I lose my patience. It is not the courage, the energy that I lack—you know it well—and my conscience gives me superhuman force, but it is this terrible idleness, this longing to be able to help you to pursue the only object of my life, to discover the wretch who has stolen my honor; this is what burns in my blood. Ah, I would rather mount alone to the assault of ten redoubts than be here powerless, inactive, waiting passively for the truth to be revealed! I envy the man who breaks stones on the highway, absorbed in his mechanical labor. But, my darling, I shall soon see you now, and you will give me back my patience.

3 o’clock.

Already the time has passed as in a dream, ... and I had so many things to tell you, ... and then when I am

CAPTAIN ALFRED DREYFUS

This portrait is enlarged from a photograph taken on the occasion of his degradation.

in your presence I look at you, I no longer can remember anything. All that happens to me then appears a dream; it seems to me that never again shall we be separated—that I am awaking from my horrible nightmare. But alas! then comes reality—our parting.

Ah, the wretch who committed the crime—who stole our honor! It is no ordinary punishment that he deserves. When the day comes and his guilt is known I hope that public opinion may nail his name to the pillory of history, that his punishment may be beyond all that we can imagine.

I ask you to forgive me for my weakness, for my impatience. But think, my darling, what these long hours are to me—these long days.

But I am calmer after each interview. I draw new strength, a new store of patience from your looks, from your love.

Ah, the truth! We must reveal it, it must shine forth clear and luminous. I live only for that; I live only by that hope.

And this truth, as you have so truly said, must be entire, absolute—there must be left no doubt in the mind of any one. My innocence must burst forth. Everybody—all must recognize it—they must know that my honor stands as high as that of any man on the earth.

And it is to this end that I must be patient.... I realize it as you do, ... but the heart has reasons that reason knows not! If I could only put my brain to sleep until the day when they find the guilty one I should bear physical torments valiantly, I should not waver. And then think of the atmosphere that is to envelop me on the path I have yet to follow!

But my heart must be silent. I gain each time new strength, new patience, from your dear eyes.

Do not think any longer of my sufferings. You can comfort me only in doing as you have done—in searching for the guilty one, without a thought of truce—without an hour of rest.

I have read Pierrot’s few lines in Marie’s letter. Thank them both, particularly the hand that directed the hand of Pierrot.

Make of our dear children vigorous and healthy beings.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Tuesday, 15 January, 1895, 9 o’clock in the morning.

My Darling:

I was thinking a great deal last night of what you said yesterday when you urged me to be patient; when you explained to me that nothing is done in a day. Alas! I know it well; but I suffer precisely because of my good qualities, which are defects situated as we are now. I am an active man, and I am impatient to have it deciphered—this enigma that is torturing my brain.

But you understand, my darling, since you know me so well. It is useless for me to tell each day of the fevers of impatience which at times overcome me; the paroxysms of crazy anger which at times carry me away....

Yesterday I received good news. They told me that I am to see your mother to-day. I am rejoicing over it in advance.

Half-past 5 o’clock.

I have seen Me. Demange for a few minutes; afterward I had the pleasure of seeing your mother.

I was so enervated to-day that I almost fainted before her. I could not help it. Sometimes I become again a man, with all man’s weakness, with all man’s passions. You must admit that there is in my situation enough to break down the strongest.

Ah, believe that were it not for you—for our dear children—it would be far easier for me to die! But I must bear up and face my sorrow. I must tell myself that I will bear all the agony, all the martyrdom, until the time when my innocence shall burst forth in the light of day.

It is impossible that it can be otherwise.

I shall hold out to the end, be sure of it; but at times I will give way to cries of wrath—to cries of anguish.

Embrace them all, our darlings, for me.

Your devoted

Alfred.

7 o’clock.

My moment of weakness is past. I see and I live in the future. Courage, then, all of us. Sooner or later innocence will triumph.

Go forward without flinching on the path you have marked out, as I shall go forward without weakening on my dolorous journey.

Wednesday, 16 January, 1895,
10 o’clock in the morning.

My Darling:

I have succeeded in conquering my nerves. I have silenced the tumult of my soul. It does no good to be impatient, since I am resolved to live to see my innocence proclaimed.

I know that it will require time—yes, a long time—but I shall wait, as I promised you that I would, with calmness and with dignity until the truth is known. My conscience will give me the necessary strength.

I will prepare my soul to bear without a murmur the suffering which yet awaits me. I will stifle the sobs of my bleeding heart.

Yesterday I lost for some minutes the sense of my existence; remember that it is now three months that I have been shut up in this room, a prey to the most appalling mental tortures that can be inflicted upon a man of heart; but by a violent effort of my whole being I regained possession of myself.

It is, above all, my nerves that are weak; my spirit is what it was in the beginning.

But you all are united in will, in intelligence, and in devotion; therefore I have the conviction that soon or late the day will dawn. I shall not belie your efforts.

Let us speak no more of it.

What shall I tell you? My daily life? You know it! I have described it to you in its smallest details. My thoughts? They are all of you, of our dear children, of our dear families. Still two more days to wait before I can see you and embrace you. How long the interval is that separates our interviews, and how short the time of our meetings! I would make the time run by when you are far from me. I would make it an eternity when you are with me.

What courage you give me to live, my darling; what patience I draw from the deep well of your eyes, from the memories you recall to me, from my duty to our darlings.

1 o’clock.

I have just received your two dear letters of Tuesday. You are right to speak to me of our dear ones. Though every thought of them rends my heart, their chatter, which you repeat to me, awakes in me happy and touching memories, and faith comes back to me—a faith in better days.

I agree absolutely with you as to the work in which you are engaged. Calmness, time, and perseverance are needful if we would go on to the end. I know it well; I should do just as you are doing were I in your place, preferring to advance slowly but surely rather than lose all by thoughtless haste. But I, alas! I am shut up between four walls, idle, my blood on fire and my point of view is necessarily different from yours.

They have just told me that my two sisters will come to see me at two o’clock. What a happiness it is to see those who belong to one!

5 o’clock.

I have seen Louise and Rachel. I have felt that their hearts beat with mine, that they share my sufferings. Their faith in the future is absolute. I hope as they do.

What devotion I meet in our wonderful families, in our friends! It consoles me, moreover, for the weakness of humanity. Truly we can judge of people only when we are in trouble.

I embrace you a thousand times, as I love you.

Your devoted

Alfred.

Dear Jeanne must be changing in her appearance. Is she becoming as handsome as a girl as her brother is handsome as a boy?

Thursday, 17 January, 1895, 9 o’clock.

What a part these accursed nerves play in human life! Why cannot we entirely disengage our material being from our moral personality, so that one shall not influence the other?

My moral personality is always salient, always strong, as ever resolved to go on to the end; it is determined to face all. I must get back my honor that they tore from me, although I had never faltered. But my material personality is subjected to rude shocks. My nerves, which have been too tensely strung during nearly three months, make me suffer horribly at times, and I have not even the resource of violent physical exercise by which to subdue them. I am to be given some medicine to-day to relax their tension.

Ah, when I think of those who have accused me and caused my condemnation! May remorse pursue them and make them bear the anguish that I am bearing. But let us talk of other things.

How are you, my darling? How are the children? I hope that you all may continue to be well. Be careful of yourself; you have not the right to allow yourself to be broken down. You have need of all your courage and of all your energy; and therefore you need all your physical strength.

At last the time has come. To-morrow will be Friday. How long that day is in coming! Happily the time seemed a little less long this week; for yesterday and the day before I heard of you from those who came to see me.

After all, why should not I, too, have confidence, when I feel around me all this friendship, all this affection, all this devotion!

But that which I must have above all things is patience.

2 o’clock.

They have given me your letter of yesterday. I find that I moan enough of my own accord without encouragement from you to do so still more. Ah, how terrible this helplessness is, when I long to cry aloud my innocence, proclaim it, prove it! Well, all this will do no good. It is necessary, as I cannot reiterate too often, as every one must have told you for me—it is necessary to search on without truce, without rest.

The will is a lever which pries up and breaks in pieces all obstacles.

Yesterday I received a good letter from your sister; to-day one from your mother. I have, alas! nothing in particular to tell them. My life, you know it hour by hour. You can describe it to them as completely as I could. Tell your mother that she must not fear anything. I have nervous weakness, which is easily explained, but my mind remains strong. My soul needs the truth, it demands its honor, and it shall have it. I shall not belie your efforts.

Sooner or later, my darling, our happiness will return to us. I have the firm conviction of this. The hardest of all is to have the patience that is absolutely necessary. Happy is it for you that you have a powerful diversion—action.

Until to-morrow, my darling, when I shall have the pleasure of seeing you, of talking with you, of kissing you!

A thousand kisses.

Your devoted

Alfred.

Good kisses to the dear ones.

JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, 1895.

THE PRISON OF SAINT-MARTIN DE RE.

19 January, 1895.

My Darling:

Thursday evening, toward ten o’clock, they came to wake me to bring me here, where I arrived only last night. I do not want to speak of my journey, it would break your heart. Know only that I have heard the legitimate cries of a brave and generous people against him whom they believe to be a traitor, the lowest of wretches. I am no longer sure if I have a heart.

Oh, what a sacrifice I made the day of my condemnation, when I promised you that I should not kill myself! What a sacrifice I made to the name of my poor, dear, little children, in bearing what I am undergoing! If there is a divine justice, we must hope that I shall be recompensed for this long and fearful torture, for this suffering of every minute and every instant. The other day your father told me that he would have preferred death. And I—I would rather, a hundred thousand times rather, be dead. But this right to die belongs to none of us; the more I suffer the more must it impel your courage and your resolution to find the truth. Look on for the truth, do not waver, do not rest. Let your efforts be in proportion to the sufferings which I have imposed upon myself.

Will you please ask, or have some one ask, at the Ministry for the following authorizations; the Minister alone can accord them:

1. The right to write to all the members of my family—father, mother, brothers, and sisters.

2. The right to write and to work in my cell. At present I have neither paper, nor pen, nor ink. I am given only the sheet of paper on which I write to you; then they take away my pen and ink.

3. Permission to smoke.

I beg you not to come before you are completely cured.

The climate here is very rigorous, and you need all your health, first for our dear children, then for the end for which you are working. As to my régime here, I am forbidden to speak to you of it.

And now I must remind you that before you come here you must provide yourself with all the authorizations necessary to see me; do not forget to ask permission to kiss me, etc., etc.

When shall we be reunited, my darling? I live in the hope of that, and in the still greater hope of my restoration to honor. But oh, how my soul suffers! Tell all our family that they must work on without weakening, without resting; for all that comes to us now is appalling, tragic. Write to me soon. I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Tuesday, 21 January, 1895, 9 o’clock in the morning.

How you must suffer!... The tragedy of which we are the victims is certainly the most terrible of the century. To have everything—happiness, the future, a charming home—and then, all at once, to be accused and condemned for a crime so monstrous!

Ah, the monster who has cast dishonor in our family might better have killed me; at least there would then have been only me to suffer! This is what tortures me the most; it is the thought of the infamy that is coupled with my name. If I had only physical sufferings to bear, it would be nothing. Sufferings borne for a noble cause are elevating; but to suffer because I am condemned for an infamous crime—ah, no! Cannot you see that it is too much, even for energy like mine?

Oh, why am I not dead? I have not even the right to leave this life of my own will; it would be an act of cowardice. I have not the right to die, to look for oblivion, until I shall have regained my honor. The other day when they insulted me at La Rochelle, I wished that I might escape from the hands of my guards and present myself with naked breast to those to whom I was a just object of indignation and say to them: “Do not insult me; my heart that you cannot know is pure and free from all defilement; but if you believe me guilty, here, take my body; I give it up to you without regret.”

At least then, when under the sharp sting of physical suffering, I should still have cried, “Vive la France!” Perhaps then they would have believed in my innocence.

After all, what do I beg for night and day? Justice, justice! Are we in the nineteenth century, or must we turn back for centuries? Is it possible that innocence can be unrecognized in a century of light and truth? They must search for the truth. I do not ask for mercy, but I demand the justice due to every human creature. They must search. Let those who possess powerful means of investigation use them to this end; it is a sacred duty which they owe to humanity and justice. It is impossible that light shall not be thrown upon my mysterious and tragic fate.

O God! who will give me back my honor that has been stolen from me, basely stolen from me? Oh, what a dark drama, my poor darling! As you have so truly said, it surpasses anything that can be imagined.

I have but two happy moments in my days, but so short. The first is when they bring me this sheet of paper so that I can write to you—I pass a few moments in talking with you. The second is when they bring me your daily letter. The rest of the time I am alone with my thoughts; and God knows that they are sad and dark.

When is this horrible drama to end? When will the truth at last be known? Oh, my fortune, all of it, to the one who is adroit, able enough, to solve this sad enigma!

Tell me about all our friends.

Embrace them all for me.

I dare not speak of our darlings. When I look at their photographs, when I see their eyes so good, so sweet, the sobs rise from my heart to my lips. When we suffer for some thing or for some one it is easy to understand.... But why and, above all, for whom am I suffering this odious martyrdom?

I press you to my heart.

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.

And I, my darling, what can I say to you? That my heart is broken; at least they will have accomplished that. But be tranquil; until my last breath I shall stand firm. I will not weaken, nor bow my head.

My honor is equal to that of any man on the earth. I demand justice; you also must demand it. This is all the mercy that I beg for. I ask for nothing but the truth—the whole truth.

And this truth, if we pursue it steadfastly, we shall have at last; it is impossible that such an error can rest unexposed.

When I look back, my sufferings are so appalling that I am seized by terrible nervous shocks. I look forward always with the hope that soon all will be made clear and that they will give me back my honor—the thing I hold dearest in this world.

May God and justice grant that it may be soon! Truly I have suffered enough. We all have suffered enough.

I hope that you always take good care of your health. You need, my darling, all your physical strength to be able to bear the moral tortures that are inflicted upon you.

How are all the members of our two families? Give me news of them, since I cannot hear directly from them.

Kiss our two darlings for me—my love to all the family.

I embrace you with all my strength.

Alfred.

24 January, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

I see by your letter dated Tuesday, that as yet you have not heard from me. How you must suffer, my poor darling! What horrible martyrdom for us both! Are we unfortunate enough? Oh, what have we done that we must bear such misfortune! It is this that makes it so appalling that we must ask ourselves of what crime we have been culpable, what sin we are expiating.

Ah, the monster who has cast shame and dishonor into the midst of an honorable family! Such a one deserves absolutely no mercy. His crime is so terrible that reason refuses to comprehend such infamy joined to such cowardice. To me it seems impossible that such machinations shall not soon or late be discovered, that such a crime can rest unpunished.

Last night there was a moment when the reality of my position seemed to me a dream, horrible, strange, supernatural, from which I tried to arouse myself, to awake. But, alas! it was not a dream. I tried to escape from this awful nightmare, to find myself again in my own real life, such as it ought to be, among you all, in your arms, my darling, with my dear children by our side.

Ah, when shall this blessed day arrive? To that end spare neither time nor effort nor money. Even if I am ruined as far as my fortune goes, I do not care for that; but I want my honor; it is for that that I bear these cruel tortures. Alas! I bear them as best I can. There are times when I have moments of crushing despondency; when it seems to me that death would be a thousand times preferable to the torture of soul that I endure; but by a violent effort of the will I regain possession of myself. What would you? I must at times give my grief free course; I can bear it with more firmness afterward.

After all, let us hope that this horrible agony may end—that is my only reason for living, that is my only hope.

The days and the nights are long. My brain is always searching for the answer to this appalling riddle that it cannot solve.

Oh, if only I might, with the sharp blade of my sword, tear aside the impenetrable veil that surrounds my tragic fate! It is impossible that in the end this shall not be done.

Tell me everything that concerns you all, because yours are the only letters I receive. Tell me of our dear children, of your own health.

I embrace you as I love you.
Alfred.

Friday, 25 January, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

Your letter of yesterday wrung my heart. The sorrow transpierced every word.

Never, surely, have two unfortunate creatures suffered as we suffer. If I had not faith in the future, if my conscience, clean and pure, did not tell me that such an error cannot exist eternally, I should, of a truth, give way to the darkest thoughts. I should despair. Once, as you know, I determined to kill myself; I yielded to your remonstrances; I have promised you to live, for you have made me realize that I have not the right to desert my post; because I am innocent I must live. But alas! if you could know how, sometimes, it is more difficult to live than to die!

But be tranquil, my darling; no matter how I am tortured I shall not belie your generous efforts. I will live ... as long as my physical strength and, above all, my moral strength hold out.

All night long I thought of you, my darling; I suffered with you. I have written to you every day since last Saturday. I hope that by this time you have received all my letters.

I do not know either on whom or on what to fix my ideas. When I look back to the past anger rises to my brain, so impossible it seems to me that everything has been thus wrested from me. When I look to the present, my plight is so wretched that my thoughts turn toward death, in which I might forget all my misery. It is only when I look forward to the future that I have a moment of consolation, for, as I have just told you, hope is all that gives me life.

Just now I gazed for several minutes at the pictures of our dear children; but I could not bear to look at them longer; my sobs strangled me. Yes, my darling, I must live. I must bear my martyrdom to the end, for the name borne by these dear little ones. Some day they must learn that this name is worthy to be honored, to be respected; they must be sure that if I hold the honor of many men below my own, there is none that I hold above it.

Ah, surely it is full time that this horrible suffering to which we are all subjected should end! I dare not think of it. Everything within me swells my heart to bursting.

I embrace you a thousand, thousand times, and our good darlings.

Alfred.

Friday, 4 o’clock.

They have given me your letter of Friday, in which you tell me that you have received my last letter. You are asked to abstain from making any reflections upon the measures taken in regard to us. Henceforth I shall no longer have the right to write to you more than twice a week. You can write to me every day. Do it, my darling, for that is the only thing that gives me courage to live. If I could not feel your warm affection, the love of all of ours, struggling with me for my honor, I should not have the courage to pursue this almost superhuman task. They still give me no letters from any of the family, and I am not permitted to write to them. The Minister is the only one who can modify this state of things.

You cannot imagine, my poor child, how unhappy I am. Night and day I think of the horrible word that is coupled with my name; there are times when my brain refuses to admit such a thing. I ask myself, in my agitated nights, if I am awake or if I sleep. Added to everything else I have no occupation by which to distract my sombre thoughts.

I kiss you a thousand times, and also all the others.

Alfred.

28 January, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

This is one of the happy days of my sad existence, because I can come to pass half an hour with you, talking to you and telling you of my life. You know that I am permitted to write to you but twice a week. I have received your two letters, of Friday and Saturday. Each time that they bring me a letter from you a ray of joy pierces to my wounded heart. What you told me in your letter of Saturday is perfectly true. Like you, I have the absolute conviction that all will be discovered, but when? You know that in the end everything is blunted, even the most heroic courage. And, then, between the courage that makes a man confront danger—no matter what danger it may be—and the courage that enables him to bear, without fainting, the worst of outrages, scorn and shame, there is a great difference. I have never lowered my head, believe it; my conscience forbade that. I have a right to look all the world in the face. But, alas! all the world cannot look into my soul, into my conscience. The fact is there, brutal and terrible. That is why each time that I receive one of your dear letters I have a ray of hope; I hope at last to hear some good news. If the Léons have come back to Paris, their impatience not letting them wait, only think how it is with me. I know that you all suffer as I do, that you partake of my anguish and my tortures, but you have your activity to distract you, a little, from this awful sorrow; while I am here, impatient, shut up alone night and day with my thoughts.

I ask myself even now how my brain has been strong enough to resist so many and so oft-repeated blows; how is it that I have not gone mad.

It is certain, my darling, that it is only your profound love which can make me still hold on to life. To have consecrated all my strength, all my intelligence, to the service of my country, and then suddenly to be accused of the greatest, the most monstrous, crime a soldier can commit—condemned for it—that is enough to disgust one with life! When my honor is given back to me—oh, may that day come soon!—then I will consecrate myself entirely to you and to our dear children.

And then think of the terrible way I have still to traverse before I shall arrive at the end of my journey—crossing the seas for sixty or eighty days under conditions so appalling. I do not speak—you know it—of the material conditions of the passage; you know that my body has never worried me much; but the moral conditions! To be during all that time before sailors, the officers of the navy—that is, before honest and loyal soldiers—who will see in me a traitor, the most abject of criminals! At the bare thought of it my heart shrinks.

I think that no innocent man in this world has ever endured the mental torments that I have already borne, that I have still to bear. So you can think that in each of your letters I search for that word of hope, so long waited for, so ardently desired.

Write to me, each day, long letters. Give me news of all the members of the family, since I do not hear from them and cannot write to them. Your letters give me, as I have already said, my only moments of happiness. You only, you alone, bind me to life.

Look backward I cannot. The tears blind me when I think of our lost happiness. I can look forward only in the supreme hope that soon the day will break, illumined with the light of truth.

Kiss them all for me; kiss our dear children. A thousand kisses for you.

Alfred.

Thursday, 31 January, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

At last the happy day is here! I can write to you. I count them, alas! my happy days.

I have not, indeed, received any letters from you since the one they gave me last Sunday. What terrible suffering! Until now I have had each day a moment of happiness in receiving your letter. It was an echo from you all—an echo of the sympathy of you all, that warmed my poor frozen heart. I used to read and re-read your letters. I absorbed each word. Little by little the written words were transformed and given a voice—it seemed to me that I could hear you speaking; that you were by my side. Oh, the delicious music that whispered to my soul! Now, for four days nothing but my dreary sorrow, the appalling solitude.

Truly I ask myself how I live. Night and day my sole companion is my brain. I have nothing to do except to weep over our misfortunes.

Last night when I thought of all my past life, of all my labor, of all that I have done in order to acquire an honorable position, ... then when I compared that with my present lot, sobs seized my throat; it seemed that my heart was being torn asunder; and, so that my guards should not hear me—I was so ashamed of my weakness—I stifled my sobs with the coverings of my bed.

Oh, it is too cruel!

How I prove to-day by my own experience that it is sometimes harder to live than to die!

To die would be to pass a moment of suffering; but it would be to forget all my woes, all my tortures.

On the other hand, to carry each day the weight of suffering, to feel the heart bleed, and to endure this torment in every nerve, to feel every fibre of my being tremble, to suffer the undying martyrdom of the heart, this is terrible.

But I have not the right to die. We have none of us that right. We shall have it only after the truth shall have been brought to light; only when my honor shall have been given back to me. Until then we must live. I bend every effort to this task, to live. I try to annihilate in me all my intellectual part, all that is sensible of suffering, so that I may live, like a beast, preoccupied with the satisfying of its material needs.

When shall this martyrdom come to an end? When will men recognize the truth?

How are our poor darlings? When I think of them it is a torrent of tears. And you, I hope that you are well. You must take care of your health, my darling. The children first of all, and then the mission which you have to fulfill, impose upon you duties which you cannot neglect.

Forgive the disconnected and wandering style of my writing. I no longer know how to write; the words will not come to me, my brain is shattered. There is but one fixed idea in my mind—the hope of some day knowing the truth, of seeing my innocence recognized and proclaimed. That is what I mutter night and day, in my dreams as in my waking hours.

When shall I be able to embrace you and recover in your deep love the strength I need to carry me to the end of my calvary?

Embrace every one for me.

Kisses for the darlings.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

Sunday, 3 February, 1895.

My Darling:

I have passed an atrocious week. I have been without a word from you since last Sunday—that is to say, for eight days. I thought that you must be sick, then that one of the children was sick, then, in my reeling brain, I conjured up all kinds of suppositions—I imagined everything.

You can realize, my darling, all that I have suffered, all that I still suffer. In my horrible solitude, in the tragic situation in which events as unnatural as they are incomprehensible have placed me, I had at least one consolation; it was to feel that you were near me, your heart beating in unison with mine and sharing all my tortures.

The night between Thursday and Friday, above all, was appalling. I will not tell you about it; it would rend your heart. All that I can tell you is that my mind kept going over and over the accusation they had brought against me. I told myself that the thing was impossible.... Then I aroused myself, and I realized the sad truth of it all.

Oh, why cannot they open my heart and read there as one reads in an open book; there, at least, they would see the sentiments which I have always professed and which I still hold. No, no, it seems to me impossible that all this is to endure eternally. Some day the truth must come to light. By an unheard-of effort of the will I regained my self-control; I told myself that I could neither go down into my grave nor go mad with a dishonored name. I must live then, whatever may be the torture of soul to which I am a prey.

Oh, this opprobrium, this infamy covering my name! When will they be taken away?

May it come, the blessed day when my innocence is recognized! when they give me back that honor that never failed me! I am tired of suffering.

Let them take my blood, let them do what they will with my body, ... you know that I do not care a straw for that; ... but let them give me back my honor.

Will no one hear this cry of despair, this cry of an innocent wretch who begs only for justice—only justice?

Each day I hope that the hour is at hand, that men are now to recognize what I have been, what I am—a loyal soldier, worthy to lead the soldiers of France under fire. Then the night comes, and nothing, still nothing.

Add to this that I received no letter from you; that I am absolutely alone with my torture of soul, and you can judge of my condition. But be reassured, I am strong again. I have called myself a coward; I have told myself all that you yourself could have told me were you at my side; an innocent man has never the right to despair. Then, though I have no news of you, I feel that all your hearts, all your souls, are throbbing in unison with my heart and with my soul; that you suffer with me the infamy that covers my name and that you are endeavoring to wipe it out. When can you come to pass some hours with me? How happy I should be could I but draw new strength from your heart!

Shall I have a letter from you to-day? I dare not hope too much, since each day my hope is deferred, and at each disappointment the suffering is too great.

Well, my darling, what can I tell you? I live by hope. Night and day I see before me, like a brilliant star, the moment when all shall be forgotten, when my honor shall be given back to me.

Kiss my darlings tenderly, most tenderly, for me.

I send kisses for all the members of our families.

As for you, I embrace you, as I love you, with all my strength.

Alfred.

Thursday, 7 February, 1895.

My good Lucie:

On Sunday I received a package of fifteen letters all dated before Sunday, January 27. Thank all the members of the family for their warm affection, which I have never doubted. I am still without news of you for more than ten days. To tell you my tortures is impossible.

To find myself thus confronted by soldiers whom yesterday I was so proud to command, whom I am as worthy to command to-day, and who see in me the lowest of wretches—oh, it is appalling! At the very thought my heart stops its beating.

My story is too horrible, my brain can bear no more.

I have been able to resist thus far because my heart, honest and pure, told me that it was my duty; that my innocence, so complete and so absolute, must soon be made manifest; but this long-continued outrage is heart-breaking.

I would rather have stood before the execution squad; at least then there could have been no possible discussion, and you could afterward have rehabilitated my memory.

But do not fear that I shall ever attempt to take my life. I have promised you never to do it, and you know that I have but one word. Therefore do not be anxious in regard to that. But how far will my strength carry me, how long will my heart continue to beat in this atmosphere of scorn, I, so proud of my stainless honor, I, so haughty, that is what I cannot tell!

Ah, if there were nothing worse than bodily torture to be borne, if it were only that I must suffer, waiting for the truth, I should be strong enough to bear this appalling martyrdom. But to bear scorn, ... and for so long, ... it is horrible!

I do not believe that there has ever been an innocent man who has endured tortures to be compared to mine.

As for you, my poor and well-beloved wife, you must keep all your courage and all your energy. It is in the name of our profound love that I beg you to do this, for you must be there to wash away from my name the stain with which it has been sullied. You must be there to bring up our children to be brave and honorable. You must be there to tell them, one day, what their father was—a brave and loyal soldier, crushed by an appalling fatality.

Shall I have news of you to-day? When shall I be told that I may have the pleasure and the joy of embracing you? Each day I hope it, and nothing comes to lighten the burden of my horrible agony.

Courage, my darling, you need so much of it—so much! You all need it, all of our two families. You have not the right to let yourself break down, for you have a great mission to fulfill, no matter what may become of me. Give them all my love; embrace our two poor darlings tenderly for me, and receive for yourself the tenderest kisses of him who loves you so dearly.

Alfred.

Sunday, 10 February, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

I received, Friday evening, your letters up to and including that of the 2d of February. I saw with pleasure that you are all well. I hope that you have received my letters. I shall not speak to you of myself; you must understand the slow agony of my heart. But it will serve no purpose to complain. What you need, what you must all have, is steadfast courage. You must not allow yourself to be beaten down by adversity, however terrible it may be.

You must succeed in proving throughout the length and breadth of France that I was a worthy and a loyal soldier, who loved his country above everything, who served it with devotion always.

That is the principal, the essential object, far above my own being, my personal fate. There is a name that must be washed free from the stain with which it has been sullied, a name, until now pure and spotless, that must shine again as pure as in former days. It is the name that our dear children bear, and that in itself should give you all the necessary courage.

I thank you for all the news you give me of our friends. I, too, regret that I cannot write to them. You know how dearly I love them all. Kiss my relations tenderly for me, your dear family and mine. Tell them what I think, what I would convince you of; it is that I personally am only the secondary consideration, that there is a name to be cleansed from dishonor.

No one must falter until this supreme task has been accomplished. To speak to you of the condition I am in is useless. As I said above, your heart tells you far better than my pen could tell. I will go on as long as my heart still beats, having before me night and day the supreme hope that the place that I deserve will be restored to me.

You see, darling, a man of honor cannot live without his honor. It does no good to tell himself that he is innocent; it is an unceasing gnawing of the heart. In solitude the hours are long, and my mind cannot comprehend all that has come upon me. Never could a romancer, however rich his imagination, have written a story more tragic.

I am convinced, as you are, that sooner or later the truth will come to light. The just cause always triumphs; but when that day comes what shall my condition be? It is that that I cannot tell.... There is always my aching heart, which from morning till night, and from night till morning, beats as if to burst.

I hope that they will let me kiss you at least before I set out upon my journey.

I thank you for all you tell me about the children. You must bring them up seriously and give them a thorough education; be as careful of their bodies as you are of their minds and hearts. I know what you are; I have no uneasiness on this score. Indeed, I know that you will bring them up to be generous and noble souls, eager for all that is good and beautiful, marching forward always in the way of duty.

Kiss the good darlings for me a thousand, thousand times.

I pray you give every one my love. Receive the most ardent kisses of your husband, who loves you, who lives only in the thought of you.

Alfred.

14 February, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

The few minutes that I passed with you were very sweet to me, although it was impossible for me to tell you all that I had within my heart.

My time passed while I looked at you, trying to impress your image upon my very being, asking myself by what inconceivable fatality I was separated from you.

Some day when they will tell my story it will seem unbelievable. But what we must tell ourselves now is that I must be rehabilitated. My name must shine anew with all the lustre it should never have lost. I would rather see my children dead than think that the name which they bear is a dishonored one.

This is a vital question for us all. It is not possible to live without honor. I cannot tell you this often enough.

I shall soon come to a new station on my dolorous way.

I do not fear bodily suffering; but oh, my God, that I might be spared the torture of my soul! I am tired of feeling that my name is scorned—I, so proud, so uplifted, just because my name was above reproach; I, who had the right to look the whole world in the face. I live only in the hope of seeing my name soon cleansed from this horrible stain. You have again given me back my courage. Your noble abnegation, your heroic devotion, give me renewed strength to bear my terrible martyrdom.

I shall not tell you that I love you yet more; you know how profound my love is for you. It is that love that enables me to bear my tortures of mind. It is the love of all of you for me.

Embrace them all tenderly for me, the members of our two families, your dear parents, our children, and, for yourself, receive the best, the tenderest kisses of your devoted husband.

Alfred.

21 February, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

When I see you the time is so short, I am so distracted at seeing the hour slipping away with a rapidity that I cannot realize—the hours at other times seem so horribly long to me—that I forget to tell you half of all that I had prepared in my imagination.

I wanted to ask you if the journey had not fatigued you, if the sea had been kind to you. I wanted to tell you all the admiration I feel for your noble character, for your incomparable devotion. More than one woman must have lost her mind amidst the repeated shocks of a lot so cruel, so undeserved.

I wanted to speak to you a long time of our children, of their health, their daily life. I wanted also to beg of you to thank all our families for their devotion to my cause—the cause of an innocent man—to ask you about their health. It would take a long day to exhaust all these subjects, and our minutes are numbered. Well, we must hope that the happy days are coming back to us, for it is impossible, it is contrary to human reason, to believe that they will not in the end put their hands upon the one who is really guilty.

As I have told you, I will do all in my power to conquer the beating of my sick heart, to bear this horrible and long martyrdom, so that I may live to see with you the happy light of the day of rehabilitation.

I will bear without a groan the natural scorn rightly inspired by the sight of the creature I represent. I will suppress the convulsions of my being against a lot so terrible, so appalling.

Oh, this scorn that shrouds my name, how it tortures me! My pen cannot express such suffering.

I ask myself how a man who has really forfeited his honor can continue to live. But I live only because my conscience is clear, because I hope that soon all is to be discovered; that the true criminal will be punished for his odious crime, that they will at last give me back my honor.

When I am gone write me long letters. I am thinking of the moment when you all can write to me and when I shall receive news from all the members of our families.

The first time you are sending me anything, will you please send me the Ollendorf method which I have had a chance to try here, and which I think preferable to that of your teacher? Send with it the corrected exercises, which form a separate volume, and which will also be my teacher.

Embrace our darlings tenderly for me, your parents, all whom you see, and receive the affectionate kisses of your devoted

Alfred.

1895—1896—1897—1898.

ILES DU SALUT.

Tuesday, 12 March, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

Thursday, the 21st of February, some hours after your departure, I was taken to Rochefort and put on shipboard.

I shall not speak to you of my voyage; I was transported in the manner in which the vile scoundrel whom I represent deserved to be transported. It was only just. They could not accord any pity to a traitor, the lowest of blackguards; and as long as I represent this wretch I can only approve their conduct.

My life here must drag itself out under the same conditions.

But your heart can tell you all that I have suffered—all that I suffer. I live only through the hope in my soul of soon seeing the triumphant light of my rehabilitation. That is the only thing that gives me strength to live. Without honor a man is not worthy of life.

On the day of my departure you assured me that the truth would surely come soon to light. I have lived during that awful voyage, I am living now, only on that word of yours—remember it well. I have been disembarked but a few minutes, and I have obtained permission to send you a cablegram.

I write in haste these few words, which will leave on the 15th by the English mail. It solaces me to have a talk with you, whom I love so profoundly. There are two mails a month for France—the 15th the English, and the 3d the French mail.

And in the same way there are two mails a month for the Isles—the English mail and the French mail. Find out the days of their departure and write to me by both of them.

All that I can tell you more is that if you want me to live have my honor given back to me. Convictions, whatever they may be, do nothing for me; they do not change my lot. What is necessary is a decision which will reinstate me.

I made for your sake the greatest sacrifice a man can make in resigning myself to live after my tragic fate was decided. I did this because you had inculcated in me the conviction that the truth must always come to light. In your turn, my darling, do all that is humanly possible to discover the truth. A wife and a mother yourself, try to move the hearts of wives and mothers, so that they may give up to you the key of this dreadful mystery. I must have my honor if you want me to live. I must have it for our dear children. Do not reason with your heart; that does no good. I have been convicted. Nothing can be changed in our tragic situation until the decision shall have been reversed. Reflect, then, and pursue the solution of this enigma. That will be worth more than coming here to share my horrible life. It will be the best, the only means of saving my life. Say to yourself that it is a question of life or death for me, for our children.

I am incapable of writing to you all. My brain will bear no more; my despair is too great. My nervous system is in a deplorable condition, and it is full time that this horrible tragedy should end.

Now my spirit alone is above water.

Oh, for God’s sake, hurry, work with all your might!

Tell them all to write to me.

Embrace them all for me; our poor darlings, too.

And for you a thousand tender kisses from your devoted husband,

Alfred.

When you have some good news to announce to me send me a dispatch. I am waiting for it day by day as for the Messiah.

15 March, 1895.

My Darling:

As I cannot send this letter until to-day I hasten to talk to you a little longer. I shall not speak of my appalling tortures; you know them and you share them with me.

My situation here is what it was before; be sure that I shall not be able to endure it long; it seems impracticable for you to come to join me. Moreover, as I told you yesterday, if you wish to save my life there is something better for you to do; have my honor given back to me—the honor of my name, the honor of the name of our poor children.

In my horrible distress I pass my time in mentally repeating the words you spoke the day of my departure—your absolute certainty of arriving at the truth. Otherwise it would be death for me, and that soon; for without my honor I could not live. I have surmounted everything only because of my conscience alone, and because of the hope you have given me that the truth will be discovered. Were this hope dead I, too, should die.

Say to yourself, therefore, my darling, that you must succeed, and that as soon as possible, in giving me back my honor. I cannot bear much longer this atmosphere of scorn, legitimate enough, which is all around me.

Upon your efforts depends my honor, and that is to say my life—the honor of our poor children, too. You must then attempt everything, try everything, to reach the truth, whether I live or die, for your mission has a higher object than my fate.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

20 March, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

My letter will be short, for I do not wish to rend your soul; moreover, my sufferings are yours.

I cannot do more than repeat what I said in the letter that I wrote to you the 13th of this month. The more you hasten my rehabilitation the more you will abridge my martyrdom.

I have done for you more than the deepest love can inspire. I have endured the worst tortures to which a man of spirit can be subjected. Now it is your turn to do the impossible, to restore to me my honor, if you wish me to live.

My condition here is not yet definite; I am still in close confinement.

I will not speak to you of my material life, that is indifferent to me; physical miseries are nothing, whatever they may be. I wish for but one thing, and of that I dream night and day; with that my brain is always haunted; it is that they shall give me back the honor that never failed me.

As yet they have not given me the books that I brought; they are awaiting orders.

Always send me the reviews by the first post. Then, my darling, if you want me to live, have my honor given back to me as soon as possible; my martyrdom cannot be borne indefinitely. I think that I ought to tell you the truth rather than to calm you with deceitful illusions. We must look the situation in the face. I have been persuaded to live only because you have inculcated in my mind the conviction that innocence always makes itself known. My innocence must be made manifest not only for my sake, but for the children’s, for you all.

Embrace the darlings, embrace every one for me, and a thousand kisses for yourself.

Alfred.

As letters will be very long in reaching me, send me a dispatch when you have good news to announce to me. My life hangs upon this expectation. Think of all that I am suffering.

28 March, 1895.

I was hoping to receive news of you at about this time; as yet I have heard nothing. I have already written you two letters.

I know nothing as yet beyond the four walls of my chamber. As for my health, it could not be very brilliant. Aside from my physical miseries, of which I speak only to cite them, the cause of this condition of my health lies chiefly in the disorder of my nervous system, produced by an uninterrupted succession of moral shocks.

You know that no matter how severe they might be at times, physical sufferings never wrung a groan from me, and that I could look death coolly in the face if only my mental sufferings did not darken my thoughts.

My mind cannot extricate itself for an instant from the horrible drama of which I am the victim, a tragedy which has struck a blow not only at my life—that is the least of evils, and truly it would have been better had the wretch who committed the crime killed me instead of wounding me as he has—but at my honor, the honor of my children, the honor of you all.

This piercing thought of my honor torn from me leaves me no rest either by day or by night. My nights, alas! you can imagine what they are! Formerly it was only sleeplessness, now the greater part of the night is passed in such a state of hallucination and of fever that I ask myself each morning how my brain still resists. This is one of the most cruel of all my sufferings. Add to this the long hours of the day passed in solitary communion with my thoughts, in the most absolute isolation.

Is it possible to rise above such preoccupation of the mind? Is it possible to force the mind to turn aside to other subjects of thought? I do not believe it; at least I cannot. When one is in this, the most agitating, the most tragic, plight that can possibly be conceived for a man whose honor has never failed him, nothing can turn the mind from the idea which dominates it.

Then when I think of you, of our dear children, my grief is unutterable; for the weight of the crime which some wretch has committed weighs heavily upon you also. You must, therefore, for our children’s sake, pursue without truce, without rest, the work you have undertaken, and you must make my innocence burst forth in such a way that no doubt can be left in the mind of any human being. Whoever may be the persons who are convinced of my innocence, tell yourself that they will change nothing in our position; we often pay ourselves in words and nourish ourselves on illusions; nothing but my rehabilitation can save us.

You see, then, what I cannot cease reiterating to you, that it is a matter of life or of death, not only for me, but for our children. For myself I never will accept life without my honor. To say that an innocent man ought to live, that he always can live, is a commonplace whose triteness drives me to despair.

I used to say it and I used to believe it. Now that I have suffered all this myself, I declare that if a man has any spirit he cannot live under such circumstances. Life is admissible only when he can lift his head and look the world in the face; otherwise, there is nothing left for him but to die. To live for the sake of living is simply low and cowardly.

I am sure that in this you think as I do; any other opinion would be unworthy of us.

The situation, already so tragic, becomes each day more tense. You have not to weep, not to groan, but to face it with all your energy and with all your soul. To make clear this situation, we must not wait for a happy chance, but we must display all-absorbing activity. Knock at all doors. We must employ all means to make the light burst forth. All forms of investigation must be tried; the object we have in view is my life, the life of every one of us.

Here is a very clear bulletin of my state, moral and physical. I will sum it up:

A pitiable nervous and cervical condition, but extreme moral energy, outstretched toward the one object, which, no matter what the price, no matter by what means, we must attain—vindication. I will leave you to judge from this what struggles I am each day forced to make to keep myself from choosing death rather than this slow agony in every fibre of my being, rather than this torture of every instinct, in which physical suffering is added to agony of soul. You see that I am holding to my promise that I made you to struggle to live until the day of my rehabilitation. It remains for you to do the rest if you would have me reach that day.

Then away with weakness. Tell yourself that I am suffering martyrdom, that each day my brain is growing weaker; tell yourself that it is a question of my honor—that is to say, of my life, of the honor of your children. Let these thoughts inspire you, and then act accordingly.

Embrace every one, the children, for me.

A thousand kisses from your husband, who loves you.

Alfred.

How are the children? Give me news of them. I cannot think of you and of them without throbs of pain through my whole being. I would breathe into your soul all the fire that is in my own, to march forward to the assault that is to liberate the truth. I would convince you of the absolute necessity of unmasking the one who is guilty by every means, whatever it may be, and above all without delay.

Send me a few books.

27 April, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

A few more lines so that you may know that I am still living, and to send you the echo of my immense affection.

However great may be our grief, your grief and mine, I can only tell you always to surmount it in order to pursue the rehabilitation with indomitable perseverance.

Preserve at all times the calmness and the dignity which befit our misfortune, so great and so undeserved; but keep on working to restore to me my honor, the honor of the name which my dear children bear.

Let no setback rebuff you or discourage you; search out, if you think it useful, the members of the government, move their hearts, as fathers and as Frenchmen. Tell them that you ask for me no mercy, no pity, but only that the investigations may be absolutely thorough.

In spite of a combination of sufferings, physical as well as mental, which are at times terrible, I feel that my duty to you, to our dear children, is to resist to the limit of my strength and to protest my innocence with my last breath.

But if there is such a thing as justice in this world, it seems impossible to me, my reason refuses to believe, that we shall not recover the happiness which ought never to have been torn from us.

Truly, under the influence of extreme nervous excitement, or of a great physical depression, at times I write you feverish, excited letters; but who would not yield sometimes to such attacks of mental aberration, such revolts of the heart and soul, in a situation as tragic, as narrowing as ours? And if I urge you to hasten, it is because I long to be with you on that day of triumph when my innocence shall be recognized; and then when I am always alone, in solitude, given over to my sad thoughts, without news for more than two months of you, of the children, of all those who are dear to me, to whom should I confide the sufferings of my heart if not to you, the confidant of all my thoughts?

I suffer not for myself only, but yet more deeply for you, for our dear children. It is from them, my darling, that you must draw the moral strength, the superhuman energy which you need to succeed in making our honor appear again to every one, no matter at what price, what it has always been, pure and spotless.

But I know you. I know the greatness of your soul. I have confidence in you.

I am still without letters from you; as for me, this is the fifth letter that I have written. Kiss every one for me. A thousand fond kisses for you, for our dear children.

Tell me all about them.

Alfred.

Wednesday, 8 May, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

Though I cannot send this letter before the 18th, I begin it to-day, so much do I feel the unconquerable need of talking with you.

It seems to me when I write to you that the distance is lessened. I see before me your beloved face and I feel that you are near me. It is a weakness. I know it; for in spite of myself the echo of my sufferings shows itself sometimes in my letters, and your sufferings are great enough without my continuing to tell you of mine. But I should like to see in my place the philosophers and psychologists who sit tranquilly in their chimney corners, offering their opinions upon the calmness and the serenity which should be shown by an innocent man.

A profound silence reigns around me, interrupted only by the roaring of the sea; and my thoughts, crossing the distance which separates us, carry me to your midst, among all those who are dear to me, whose thoughts must of a truth be often turned toward me. Often I ask at such an hour, “What is my dear Lucie doing?” and I send you by my thoughts the echo of my immense affection. Then I close my eyes, and it seems to me that I see your face and the faces of my dear children. I am still without letters from you, with the exception of those of the 16th and 17th of February, still addressed to the Ile de Ré. For three months now I have been without news of you, of the children, of our families.

I believe that I have already told you that I advised you to ask permission to leave your letters at the Ministry eight or ten days before the departure of the mails; perhaps in that way I shall receive them sooner. But, my good darling, forget all my sufferings, overcome your own, and think of our children. Say to yourself that you have a sacred mission to fulfill, that of having my honor given back to me, the honor of the name borne by our dear little ones. Moreover, I recall to my mind what you told me before my departure. I know, as you repeated to me in your letter of the 17th of February, what the words of your mouth are worth. I have an absolute confidence in you.

Then do not weep any more, my good darling; I will struggle until the last minute for you, for our dear children.

The body may give way under such a burden of grief, but the soul should remain firm and valiant, to protest against a lot that we have not deserved. When my honor is given back to me, then only, my good darling, we shall have the right to withdraw from the field. We will live for each other, far from the noise of the world; we will take refuge in our mutual affection, in our love, grown still stronger in these tragical events. We will sustain each other, that we may bind up the wounds of our hearts; we will live in our children, to whom we will consecrate the remainder of our days. We will try to make them good, simple beings, strong in body and mind. We will elevate their souls so that they may always find in them a refuge from the realities of life.

May this day come soon, for we have all paid our tribute of sufferings upon this earth! Courage, then, my darling; be strong and valiant; carry on your work without weakness, with dignity, but with the conviction of your rights. I am going to lie down, to close my eyes and think of you. Good night and a thousand kisses.

12 May, 1895.

I continue this letter, for I wish to share with you all my thoughts as fast as they come into my mind. In my solitude I have the time to reflect deeply.

Indeed, the mothers who watch at the bedside of their sick children, for whom with ferocious energy they wrestle with death, have not so much need of a brave heart as have you; for it is more than the life of your children which you have to defend, it is their honor. But I know that you are fitted for this noble task.

So, my dear Lucie, I ask you to forgive me if at times I have added to your grief by my complainings, by showing a feverish impatience to see at last the light shining in upon this mystery, against which my reason battles in vain. But you know my nervous temperament, my hasty, passionate disposition. It seemed to me that all must be immediately discovered, that it was impossible that the truth should not be at once fully revealed. Each morning I arose with that hope and each night I went to my bed again a victim of the same deception. I thought only of my own tortures, and I forgot that you must suffer as much as I.

And this awful crime of some unknown wretch strikes not only at me, but it strikes also, and more than all, our two dear children. This is why we must conquer all our sufferings. It is not enough to give our children life; we must dower them with honor, without which life is not possible. I know your sentiments; I know that you think as I do. Courage, then, dear wife. I will struggle as you are struggling and sustain you with all my energy, because in the face of such an absolute necessity all else should be forgotten. We must, for the sake of our dear little Pierre, for the sake of our dear little Jeanne.

I know how marvellous you have been in your devotion, your grandeur of soul, in the tragic events just past.

Fight on, then, my dear Lucie. My confidence in you is absolute. My deep affection will recompense you some day for all the pains you are enduring so nobly.

18 May, 1895.

I am ending to-day this letter which will carry you a part of myself and the expression of the thoughts over which I have pondered deeply in the sepulchral silence that surrounds me.

I have thought too often of myself; not enough of you, of the children. Your suffering, that of our families, is as great as mine. Our hearts must be lifted high above it all, so that we shall see only the end which we must attain—our honor!

I will stand upright as long as my strength permits, to sustain you with all my ardor, with all the depth of my love.

Courage, then, dear Lucie—courage and perseverance. We have our little ones to defend.

Embrace our brothers and sisters for me; tell them that I have received the letters addressed to the Ile de Ré, and that I shall write to them soon.

For you my fondest kisses.

Alfred.

I forgot to tell you that I received yesterday the two reviews of March 15, but nothing else.

Dear little Pierre:

Papa sends good big kisses to you, also to little Jeanne. Papa thinks often of both of you. You must show little Jeanne how to make beautiful towers with the wooden blocks, very high, such as I made for you, and which toppled down so well. Be very good. Give good caresses to your mamma when she is sorrowful. Be very gentle and kind also to grandmother and grandfather. Set good, little traps for your aunts. When papa comes back from his journey you will come to the railway station to meet him, with little Jeanne, with mamma, with every one.

More good big kisses for you and for Jeanne. Your

Papa.

27 May, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

I profit by each mail to Cayenne to write to you, because I want to give you news of me as often as possible. During the month I wrote you a long letter. I sent it on the 18th.

Although I have not heard from you since my departure—all the letters having been dated earlier than our last interview—I am hoping that by the time that you receive this letter the denouement of our tragic story will be at hand.

However that may be, I cry to you always with all the strength of my soul: Courage and perseverance!

My nerves often get the better of me, but my moral energy remains unshaken; it is to-day greater than ever.

Let us, then, arm our hearts against every feeling of anxiety or grief; let us conquer our sufferings and our miseries, so that we may see nothing before us but the supreme object—our honor, the honor of our children! Everything should be effaced by that.

Then, still, courage, my dear Lucie. I will sustain you with all my energy, with all the strength that my innocence gives me, with all the longing that I have, to see the light shine out, full, perfect, absolute, as it must shine, for our sakes, for that of our children, of our two families.

Good kisses for the dear little ones.

I embrace you as I love you.

Alfred.

3 June, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

Still no letters from you, nor from any one. Since my departure I have had no tidings of you, of our children, nor of any of the family.

You may have seen by my letters the successive crises through which I have passed. But for the moment let us forget the past. We will speak of our sufferings when we are happy again.

I do not know anything of what is passing around me, I live as in a tomb. I am incapable of deciphering in my brain this appalling enigma. All that I can do, then, and I shall not fail in this duty, is to sustain you to my last breath—is to continue to fan in your heart the flame which glows in mine, so that you may march straight forward to the conquest of the truth, so that you may get me back my honor, the honor of my children. You remember those lines of Shakespeare, in Othello. I found them again not long since among my English books. I send them to you translated (you will know why!).

“Celui qui me vole ma bourse,[C]
Me vole une bagatelle
C’est quelque chose, mais ce n’est rien.
Elle était a moi, elle est à lui et,
A était I’esclave de mille autres.
Mais celui qui me vole ma bonne renommée,
Me vole une chose qui ni l’enrichit pas,
Et qui me rend vraiment pauvre.”

Ah, yes! he has rendered me “vraiment pauvre, “the wretch who has stolen my honor! He has made us more miserable than the meanest of human creatures. But to each one his hour. Courage, then, dear Lucie; preserve the unconquerable will that you have shown until now; draw from your children the superhuman energy that triumphs over everything. Indeed, I have no doubt whatever that you will succeed, and I hope that this sinister tragedy is soon to end and that my innocence is at last to be recognized. What more can I tell you, my dear Lucie—what can I say that I have not told you in each one of my letters? My profound admiration for the courage, the heart, the character, that you have shown in such tragic circumstances; the absolute necessity, which supersedes everything, all interests, even our lives, of proving my innocence in such a way that not a doubt can remain in the mind of any one—the necessity of doing everything noiselessly, but with a determination that nothing can check.

I hope that you receive my letters; this is the ninth that I have written to you.

Embrace all the family; embrace our dear children for me, and receive for yourself the fondest kisses of your devoted

Alfred.

As you see, my dear Lucie, I hope that when you receive these last letters the truth shall not be far from being known and that we shall enjoy again the happiness that was our lot until now.

11 June, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

Yesterday I received all your letters up to the 7th of March—that is to say the first which you addressed to me here—also the letter of your mother and the letters of your brothers and sisters, dating from the same time.

I wish to answer you while I am still under the spell of them. First of all I must speak to you of the immense joy I felt in reading the words written by your hand. It was something of yourself, a part of you, which had sought me out; it was your good, noble heart come to warm and revive mine.

I saw also in your letters what I had already felt—how you all have suffered in this horrible tragedy which has come upon us, surprising us in our happiness and tearing from us our honor. This one word tells everything, it sums up all our tortures—mine and yours.

I know that from the day when I promised you to live, to wait for the truth to be revealed, for justice to be done me, I ought not to have faltered. I ought to have silenced the voice of my heart; I ought to have waited patiently, but how could I? I had not the strength of soul.

The blow was too heavy. All within me revolted at the thought of the odious crime for which I had been condemned. My heart will bleed as long as this mantle of infamy weighs upon my shoulders.

But I ask you to forgive me if I have sometimes written you excited or complaining letters, that must have augmented your immense grief. Your heart and mine beat as one.

Be sure, then, my dear and good Lucie, that I shall resist with all my strength, so that I may reach the day when my happiness shall be given back to me. I hope that that day may come soon; until then we must look straight before us.

The news, too, you give me of our dear children has given me pleasure. Make them spend a great deal of time in the open air. Just now you must think only of giving them health and strength.

Courage then, still, dear Lucie; be strong and valiant. May my profound love sustain and guide you. My thoughts do not leave you for an instant, night or day.

Give news of me to all the family; thank them all for their good and affectionate letters. I have not the courage to answer them, and of what could I speak to them? I have but one thought, always the same—that of seeing the day when my honor shall be given back to me. I am always hoping that that day is near.

Embrace all your dear relations, the children, all our family, for me.

As for you, I embrace you with all the strength of my heart.

Alfred.

It is useless to send me anything in the way either of linen or of food. I received some preserves from Cayenne yesterday and I also asked for some linen which I need. They have given me the Revue des Deux Mondes, the Revue de Paris, and the Revue Rose. Continue to send them to me; you may also send a few light novels.

15 June, 1895, Saturday evening.

My dear Lucie:

I have already written to you, some days ago, on the receipt of your letters of the beginning of March, and my intention had been to send you, by this mail, only a few words of deep affection, for what can I tell you that I have not already told you again and again in all my letters? But in reading your dear letters, in re-reading them every day, I have felt each time I read them, for a moment, a lightening of my load of sorrow. It seemed to me that you were all near me and that I felt your hearts beating in sympathy with mine.

Sure that you have this same feeling, I yield to the impulse of my heart, which longs to do everything to bring some relief to your horrible sorrow. It is contrary to reason; I know it, for reason tells me to be calm and patient, that the light of truth will shine out, that it is impossible that it should be otherwise in the age in which we live; but yet when I write to you it is my heart that speaks, and then in spite of myself everything within me revolts against the appalling accusation so opposed to every feeling of our hearts, for to us honor is everything. I feel within me such a fever of combat, such power of energy to rend the impenetrable mantle that weighs me down, that still envelops this whole affair, that I am always longing to instill them into your souls, although I realize that the sentiments of you all are the same as my own. It is a useless outbreak, and I know it; but you know equally well that all my feelings are violent and deep. My heart bleeds for all that it holds most dear; it bleeds for you and it bleeds for our dear children, and that is to reiterate to you, my dear Lucie, that it is the longing I have to see the name you bear, that our dear children bear, once more as it has always been, pure, without a stain—it is this longing that gives me the strength to overcome all.

I live absorbed in myself. I neither see nor hear what passes around me. My brain alone still lives and all my thoughts are concentrated on you, on our dear children, on waiting until my honor is given back to me.

Then still hold to your splendid courage, my dear Lucie. I hope that we shall soon find the happiness which we used to enjoy and which we shall enjoy even more after this appalling trial, the most awful that a man can bear.

I embrace you with all my strength.

Alfred.

16 June, 1895, Sunday.

I continue my letter, always to the same end. Then, too, it is a happy moment for me when I come to talk with you; not that I have anything of interest to tell you, since I am living alone with my thoughts, but because, then, I feel that I am near to you. I can only tell you my thoughts just as they present themselves to me.

To-day a more peculiarly intimate sadness invades my soul, because on this day, Sunday, we used to be together all day and we used to end it with your dear parents. But my heart, my conscience, and my reason, too, tell me that these happy days will return to us. I cannot admit that an innocent man can be left to expiate indefinitely, for a guilty wretch, a crime as abominable as it is odious; and then, to sum it up in one word, what must give you, as it gives me, unconquerable energy, is the thought of our children, as I have already told you before, for ideas which emanate from such a subject must, from their nature, repeat themselves. We must have our honor, and we have not the right to be weak; without it, it would be better to see our children die.

As for our sufferings, we all suffer alike. Do you think that I do not feel what you suffer—you, who are struck doubly, in your honor and in your love? Do you believe that I do not feel how your parents suffer, your brothers and your sisters, for whom honor is not an empty word? But I hope that our anguish is to have an end, and that that end is near. Until that day we must guard all our courage, all our energy.

Thank Mathieu for those few words he wrote to me. How the poor boy must suffer; he who is honor incarnate! But tell him that I am with him in thought—that our two hearts suffer together. There are moments when I think that I am the plaything of a horrible nightmare; that all this is unreal; that it is only a bad dream; but it is, alas! the truth. But for the moment we ought to put aside every weakening thought. We ought to fix our eyes upon one single object: our honor. When that is returned to me, and when I know the meaning of what is now for me an unsolvable problem, perhaps I shall understand this enigma which baffles my reason, which leaves my brain panting.

I will wait, then, for that moment, sure that it will come. I wish for us all that it may come soon; I even hope it, so immovable is my faith in justice. Mystery has no place in our century. Everything is brought to light, and must be brought to light.

My Sunday has seemed less long to me, my dear Lucie, because in this way I have been able to talk with you. As for our children, I have no advice to give you. I know you; our ideas on this subject are alike, both in regard to their bringing up and in regard to their education. Courage always, dear Lucie, and a thousand kisses. Do not forget that I am answering letters dated three months ago, and that my replies may therefore seem out of date to you.

Alfred.

Friday, 21 June. 1895.

Dear Lucie:

I will continue our conversation, since it is now the only ray of happiness that we can enjoy. It is probable, and I hope it, that these reflections have nothing in common with the present state of affairs. Between the time when you will receive this letter and the date on which you wrote yours, there will be an interval of more than five months; in such a length of time the truth might well make great strides.

Like you, like you all, I am, I have been always, convinced that in time all will be discovered.

If I have wavered at times, it has been under the burden of atrocious moral suffering while anxiously waiting to know, at last, the solution of the riddle which absolutely baffles me.

You must understand through the feeling of reserve that keeps me from speaking to you on any aspect of my life here. Moreover, the only thoughts that agitate me are those that I tell to you; for the rest I live like a machine, unconscious of its movement.

It happens to me at times—and you, too, must feel this—when I am wide awake, and in spite of all that surrounds me, I stand bewildered, repeating to myself: “No, all that did not happen; it cannot be possible; it is a fiction; it is not reality!” I cannot explain to myself this passing inertia of the brain in any way other than by the impassable distance that lies between the innocence in my conscience and my present life. Nor can you picture to yourself what relief this long conversation with you brings to me. I dare not even read over my letter, so afraid am I to find in it repeatedly the same ideas expressed perhaps in exactly the same way; but for you, as for me, true pleasure consists in reading what the other has written.

When my heart is overburdened, when I am seized by the deep horror of it all, I draw new energy from your eyes, from the faces of our dear children. Your portrait, the portraits of the children here on my table, are always before my eyes. And then, you see, when a man has lost his fortune, when he has been subjected to some disappointment in his career, to a certain point he may indulge in weakness; he may say, “Well, my children will straighten all that out; perhaps it will be better for them than if they should have had nothing to do but be amiable idlers!” But in our case it is our honor which is at stake—their honor. To give way to weakness would be, for us, an unpardonable crime. We must, therefore, my dear and good Lucie, accept all our sufferings and overcome them, until the day when my innocence shall be recognized. On that day only we shall have the right to give free course to our tears, to unburden our hearts.

I am hoping, always, that that day may come soon. Each morning I awake with a new hope, and each night I lie down with a new disappointment.

I do not need to tell you that we can speak freely to each other of our grief—the fullest heart must sometimes overflow, but we must keep our outbursts to ourselves. I know, indeed, that you are sincere and single-hearted, without art of any kind. The fine qualities of your nature, those qualities which I, so to speak, only caught a fleeting glimpse of through our happiness, now stand out clear and distinct in the light of our adversity.

26 June, 1895.

I will to-day bring this long talk to an end, so that I may send off my letter. I should like to talk to you in this way morning and evening; but were I to write volumes, the same ideas would flow from my pen. Naturally active, in my solitude I am reduced to the necessity of coming constantly back to the same subject. The form alone might vary, according to the feeling of the moment, but the idea would remain the same because it dominates everything.

Give our dear children a fond embrace for me. I suppose that you will not keep them in Paris during the hot season. Let them take the initiative in a great part of their life; let them develop themselves freely and without constraint. In that way you will make virile beings of them. Finally, draw from them at the same time both consolation and strength.

Now I have only to tell you that I wish, that I am hoping always, that this sad drama is soon to end. That would be such a blessing for all, for us, as for our dear families.

Your poor, dear mother, even now so delicate; your dear father—they both will need rest and calm, after such appalling, such unimaginable tortures. We may well call them that.

Often and often I ask myself how you all are, when news of you is so rare, and comes from so far.

And how often I scan the horizon, my eyes turned toward France, hoping that this may be the day on which my country is to call me back to her. While we wait for that day let us stand firm, dear Lucie; let us draw from our consciences and from our duty, the fresh stores of the strength we need so much.

Embrace all our family for me, and for yourself the tenderest kisses of your devoted husband.

Alfred.

2 July, 1895.

My dear Lucie:

When this letter reaches you your birthday will be at hand. The only hope that I can form, and which is in your heart as it is in mine, is that I shall soon be told that our honor is given back to us and with it our former happiness.

My conscience and my reason give me faith; the supernatural is not of this world. In the end everything is made clear. But the hours of waiting are long and cruel when the situation is so appalling as well for us as for our families.

Your dear letters of the beginning of March—you see how they are delayed—are my daily reading. I succeed thus, though far from you, in talking with you. My thoughts, indeed, never leave you, nor our dear children.

I await tidings of your health and that of our children with impatience. I am also anxious to know what date your letters will bear. My health is good. My heart beats with your own, and envelops you with all its tenderness. I have written you two long letters during the last half of June; I could only keep on repeating myself. Let me end this letter by embracing you with all the strength of our souls, and our dear children also.

Your devoted