Alfred Dreyfus

“ But then I call up, as I have always called up, the thought of you, of the poor little ones, and I evoke that feeling with which I have wished to inspire you, to inspire you all, since the beginning of this sad tragedy—that is, that there is above all our anguish something higher, more exalted. My letter is like a howl of pain, for we are like sorely wounded men whose minds are so worn out with pain, whose bodies are so maddened by long suffering, that the least thing causes their cups, full, too full, of sorrow, to overflow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All these months I have written you many long letters, in which my oppressed heart has unburdened itself of all our too long-endured common sorrow. It is impossible to disengage the mind from its ego at all times; to rise above the sufferings of every instant. It is impossible that all my being should not quiver, should not cry aloud with anguish at the thought of all you suffer, at the thought of our dear children; and if when I fall I again and again raise myself up, it is to send forth the thrilling appeal for you, for them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My hands are wrung with grief for you, for our children, for us all; an immense cry rises to my throat and stifles me. Ah, why am I not alone in the world! What happiness it would be could I lie down in my grave, to think no more, to see no more, to suffer no more! But the moment of weakness, of the derangement of all my being, of awful anguish, has passed, and now I come to tell you, dear Lucie, that above all deaths—for what agony do not I know, as well that of the soul as that of the body, of the brain?—there is honor ”

“ Truly, this wound sometimes bleeds too hard, and the heart rises in revolt. Truly, worn out as I am, I often fall under the blows of the sledge-hammer, and then I am no more than a poor human being, full of agony and suffering; but my indomitable soul lifts me up quivering with pain, with energy, with implacable desire for that that is most precious in this world—our honor, the honor of our children, the honor of us all. And then I brace myself anew to cry out to all men the thrilling appeal of a man who asks, who wants, only justice. ”

“ I have just re-read your dear letters, and I need not tell you that I shall read them often until the next mail brings me others. The days are long when one is alone, face to face with one’s thoughts, never speaking a word.
May my soul inspire you, my dear Lucie, for I feel that for the sake of your dear parents, for the sake of all of us, this tragedy must end. Even if you should have to knock at all doors, we must find the clue to this enigma, this infernal machination, which has torn from us that which makes life itself, and that we must have—our honor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My dear Lucie:
I have not yet received your dear letters of January. A few lines only to send you the echo of my immense affection. Write to you at length? I cannot. My days, my hours, slip by monotonously, in this agonizing, enervating waiting for the discovery of the truth, the discovery of the wretch who committed this infamous crime. Speak to you of myself? What good can that do us? My sufferings, you know them, you share them. They, like yours, like those of all who love us, can only have an end when the broad, full light shall appear, when honor is returned to us. ”

“ The Government alone possesses means of investigation powerful enough, decisive enough, to do it if it does not wish to see a Frenchman—who asks from his country nothing but justice, the full light, the whole truth of the sad tragedy, who has but one thing more to ask of life—that he may yet see for his dear little ones the day when their honor is restored to them—succumb under the weight of so crushing a fate for an abominable crime that he did not commit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You ought certainly to find among those who direct the affairs of our country men of heart who will be moved by this bitter anguish of a wife and a mother, who will understand this awful martyrdom of a soldier for whom honor is everything. I cannot believe that everything will not be put in motion to help you in bringing the truth to light, to help you in unmasking the wretch, or the wretches, creatures unworthy of pity, who have committed this horrible treachery. ”

“ I do not pretend to be stronger than I am. If I do succeed in holding out I have told you why. I do not want to return to it. But if I am reduced to mere groaning, if I must stand with folded arms before the most appalling sorrow that the honest and ardent heart of a soldier can feel when he is struck not only in himself, but in his wife, his children, in those he loves, I say to you yourself, as I say to you all, “Courage, individual energy!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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{7} can bear. Kiss all our good, dear ones for me, until the time comes when I can embrace them for myself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What a cry of suffering escapes from all your letters and echoes in my own! Yes, dear Lucie, never have human beings suffered as have you, as have I, and every one of us. The sweat starts from my forehead when I think of it. I have lived only by straining every nerve, by the most powerful effort of the will, by gripping, compressing all my being in a supreme struggle; but emotions break us down; they make every fibre of the being quiver. ”

“ Under the worst sufferings, under the most atrocious abuse and insult, when the human beast awakes ferocious, making reason vacillate under the torrents of blood that burn the eyes, the temples, the whole being, I have thought of death, I have longed for it, often I called to it with all my spirit; but my lips are ever hermetically sealed, because I want to die not only an innocent man, but a good and loyal Frenchman, who never for one single instant has forgotten his duty to his country. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Now, we have had enough of all this, haven’t we, darling? Leave their fears, their suspicions, with those who have them. If my soul is always valiant and will remain so to my last breath, everything within me is worn out; my heart swells to bursting not only for past tortures, but to see that you misunderstand me on this point. My brain reels and totters, at the mercy of the least shock, the most petty of events. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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{96} sinister tragedy is soon to end and that my innocence is at last to be recognized. ”

“ I believe that General de Boisdeffre has never been averse to rendering us justice. We, deeply wounded, ask him to give us light upon this mystery. It has been no more in his power to give us light than it was in ours to procure it for ourselves; it will shine out in a future that no one can foresee.
Some minds have probably been soured; it may be that awkwardnesses have been committed, I cannot tell; all this has envenomed a situation already so atrocious. We must go back to the beginning, and raise ourselves above all our sufferings in order that we may look clearly into our situation. ”

“ Then, dear and good Lucie, do your duty bravely, pitilessly, as a good and valiant Frenchwoman who is suffering martyrdom, but who is resolved that the name she bears, the name that her children bear, shall be cleansed from this horrible stain. The light must break out, it must shine in all its brilliancy. The limitations of time should no longer be anything to you. ”

“ As I told you in my letter of the day before yesterday, strong in our consciences, we must raise ourselves above everything; but with that firm, inflexible determination which will make my innocence shine out before the eyes of all France. Our name must come out of this horrible adventure what it was when they made us enter into it. Our children must enter upon life with heads proudly raised. ”