“In the middle of the month I was told that the petition for the revision of my judgment had been declared acceptable by the Court of Cassation, and was invited to produce my means of defence. I took the necessary measures immediately. My requests were at once transmitted to Paris, and you must have been informed of this some days ago. Events must therefore be moving rapidly. In thought I am night and day, as always, with you, with our children, with all, sharing our joy at seeing the end of this fearful drama approaching rapidly. Words become powerless to describe such deep emotions.... According to information which I sent you in the last mail, all will be over in the course of December. Therefore, when these lines reach you I shall be almost on the point of starting for France.” Here are touching passages from his letter of December 26. After telling his “_chère et bonne_ Lucie”--he almost invariably addresses her thus--that, with the exception of the telegram, to which he at once replied, he had not heard from her for two months until he got a letter a few days ago, he went on to explain that if he had for a moment closed his correspondence, this was because he was awaiting the reply to his petition for the revision of his judgment, and should only have repeated himself: “If my voice had ceased to make itself heard, this would have been because it had forever died away. If I have lived, it has been for my honor, which is my property and the patrimony of our children; it has been for my duty, which I have done everywhere and always; and as it must ever be accomplished when a man has right and justice on his side, without fear of anything or of anybody. When one has behind one a past devoted to duty, a life devoted to honor, when one has never known but one language, that of truth, one is strong, I assure you, and atrocious though fate may have been, one must have a soul lofty enough to dominate it until it bows before one. Let us, therefore, await with confidence the decision of the Supreme Court, as we await with confidence the decision of the new judges before whom this decision will send me. At the same time as your letter I have received a copy of the petition for revision, and of the decree of the Court of Cassation, declaring it acceptable. I read with wonderful emotion the terms of your petition, in which you expressed admirably, as I had already done in mine, the feelings by which I am animated in asking that an end shall be put to the punishment of an innocent man--I may add to that, of a noble woman, of her children, of two families, of an innocent man who had always been a loyal soldier, who has not ceased, even in the midst of the horrible sufferings of unmerited chastisement, to declare his love for his native land.”