“I received your letter of the 27th. I still hear your voice; I am a witness to your resolutions; I share the sentiments which animate you. I am proud of loving you and of being loved by you.... My friend, let us not so forget ourselves as to say evil of that virtue which is bought by great sacrifice, it is true, but which pays in its turn by priceless compensations. Tell me, do you know sweeter moments than those passed in the innocence and the charm of an affection that nature recognizes and that delicacy regulates; which honors duty for the privations that she imposes upon it and gathers strength in enduring them? Do you know a greater advantage than that of being superior to adversity and to death; of finding in the heart something to enjoy and to sweeten life up to the last sigh? Have you ever experienced better these effects than in the attachment which binds us, in spite of the contradictions of society and the horrors of oppression? I have told you that to it I owe my joy in my captivity. Proud of being persecuted in these times when character and honesty are proscribed, I would have supported it with dignity, even without you, but you make it sweet and dear to me. The wretches think to overwhelm me by putting irons upon me—senseless! What does it matter to me if I am here or there? Is not my heart always with me? To confine me in a prison—is it not to deliver me entirely to it? My company, it is my love! My occupation, it is to think of it!... If I must die, very well. I know what is best in life, and its duration would perhaps only force new sacrifices upon me. The most glorified instant of my existence, that in which I felt most deeply that exaltation of soul which rejoices in braving all clangers, was when I entered the Bastille that my jailers had chosen for me. I will not say that I went before them, but it is true that I did not flee them. I had not calculated on their fury reaching me, but I believed that if it did, it would give me an opportunity to serve Roland by my testimony, my constancy, and my firmness. I would be glad to sacrifice my life for him in order to win the right to give you my last sigh.” She sent for his picture, and writes, July 7th: “It is on my heart, concealed from all eyes, felt at every moment, and often bathed in my tears. Oh, I am filled with your courage, honored by your affection, and glorying in all that both can inspire in your proud and sensitive soul. I cannot believe that Heaven reserves nothing but trials for sentiments so pure and so worthy of its favor. This sort of confidence makes me endure life and face death calmly. Let us enjoy with gratitude the goods given us. He who knows how to love as we do, carries within himself the principle of the greatest and best actions, the price of the most painful sacrifices, the compensation for all evils. Farewell, my beloved, farewell.”