have told you already, my long letters are too clearly the equally intimate and heartfelt expression of my sentiments and of my immutable will for it to be necessary for me to return to it. They are my moral will and testament.
Therefore, my dear Lucie, for your own sake, for us all, you must always do your duty, be resolved to gain your right—the right of justice and of truth—until the full light shines out; until all France is convinced—and she must be—whether I should live or die; for, like Banquo's ghost, I should come out of my tomb to cry to you all with all my soul, always and again, "Courage, courage!" to remind my country, who thus tortures me, who sacrifices me—I dare to say it, for no human brain could resist so long such an appalling situation, and it is only by a miracle that I have been able to resist until now—to remind my country that she has a duty to fulfill, and that that duty is to throw a refulgent light upon this sad tragedy, to repair this frightful error that has endured for so long.
Therefore, darling, be sure of it, you are to have your day of refulgent glory, of supreme joy; be it by your own efforts, be it by the efforts of our country, who will fulfill all her duty; and if I am not to be there, what would you have, darling? There are victims of state—and truly the situation is too hard to bear—by far too heavy for the length of time that I have borne it—and, well, Pierre will represent me!
I shall not speak of the children; indeed, I already did so at length in my letters of August; and then I know you too well to have any anxiety in regard to them. You will embrace them with all my strength, with all my soul. I must leave you, although it always is
