Alas! Perhaps I must blame myself for the death of my son. I neglected to fortify his mind against suicide by teaching him that it is not allowed to us to forestall the hour of our deliverance, and that those who endeavor to escape the trials of this life are punished by God either by separating them, if they expected to be united after death, or by condemning them to reincarnation on earth. Alas! my expiation of the negligence has continued during these many years of exile. May the trials that I underwent disarm the just anger of God, and soften the punishment reserved for my son, before his final union in the spirit world with her who loved him to the point of dying with him. We are now in the year 1715, and I in the ninety-first year of my life, after having resided here in Holland since the year 1675, and where, in 1680, I married Wilhelmina Vandael, the widow of the shipowner in whose employ I was. In this year Louis XIV, the execrable King of France, died. His reign continued to the end a veritable scourge to the nation. Insurrections followed insurrections, and were smothered in their own blood. Religious persecutions followed upon religious persecutions. The Edict of Nantes by which Henry IV put an end to the religious wars that lasted half a century, was revoked, and the country was again a prey to desolating religious intolerance. The death of Louis XIV will certainly put an end to the religious persecutions; at least will mitigate them. Thousands of Protestants, banished from France by the reign of terror, will, no doubt, now return to their own country. That pleasure will not be mine. I am too feeble with years to undertake such a voyage. But if, happier than myself, you, my son Alain, should ever return to the cradle of your race, never lose sight of the fact that our family has everything to fear from the Society of Jesus, whose influence seems to be on the ascendant in almost every country. To you, my son Alain--the son of my old age and my exile--I now bequeath these legends and relics of our family. I bequeath them to you, the younger brother of my son Nominoë, ever lamented, ever wept. Even now my eyes are blurred with tears when I recollect the double suicide of himself and Bertha of Plouernel. May you, my son Alain, be able to transmit these legends and relics to your descendants! May you soon be able to leave the Republic of Holland, the asylum and refuge of exiles, and return to France. May you witness the realization of the prophecy of Victoria the Great--the downfall of the monarchy, the liberation of Gaul! May you, son of Joel, live to see the dawn of the day when our country, casting off the foreign name imposed upon her by the Frankish conquest, will re-assume her old name--the _Republic of the Gauls_, and will shelter herself under the glorious folds of her own ancient red flag, surmounted by the Gallic cock!--Commune and Federation!