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!).