Then all hearts, all energies, will converge toward the supreme object, running toward it with blind, irresistible force. Cheer up until the beast is run to earth, the author or the authors of this infamous crime. But, alas! as I have already told you, if my confidence is absolute, the energies of the heart, of the brain, have limits when the situation is so appalling, when it has been borne so long. I know, also, what you suffer, and it is horrible. [Illustration: MADAME ALFRED DREYFUS AND HER CHILDREN Drawn from life by Paul Renouard] Now, it is not in your power to abridge my martyrdom, our martyrdom. 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. I am hoping, then, that the Government will lend you its co-operation. Whatever may become of me, I can only repeat to you with all the strength of my soul to have confidence, to be always brave and strong, and embrace you with all my strength, as I love you, as I embrace also our dear, our adored children. Your devoted ALFRED. * * * * * _6 January, 1897._ My dear Lucie: Again I feel the need of coming to talk with you, of letting my pen run on a little. The unstable equilibrium that with great difficulty I maintain through a whole month of unheard-of sufferings is broken when I receive your dear letters, always so impatiently awaited; they awake in me a world of sensations, of feelings, that I had kept under during thirty long days, and I ask myself vainly what is the meaning of life when so many human beings are called to suffer thus. And then I have suffered so much in the last months that have just passed, that it is only when I am near you that I can warm my freezing heart. I know, too, my darling, as well as you, that I repeat myself always since the very first day of this sad tragedy; for my thought is like your own, like the thought of you all, like the will that must sustain and inspire us.