Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/146

 lived, if I continue to live, it is because I desire my honor, yours, that of our children. May your spirit, your energy, rise equal to such tragic conditions, for this must come to an end.

This is why I told you in my letter of the 7th of September that if when you receive these letters the mystery is not made entirely clear, it is for you, for you personally, to go to the public authorities, so that light may at last be thrown on this tragic story.

You have the right to present yourself everywhere, with your head erect, for you have come not to beg for mercy, not to beg for favors, not even for moral convictions, however legitimate they may be. You have come to demand the search for the discovery of the wretches who have committed the infamous and cowardly crime. The Government has all the means by which this may be done.

Letters can do nothing, dear Lucie. It is you yourself who must act. What you have to say will receive from your lips a power, a force, that paper and writing cannot give.

Then, my dear Lucie, strong in your conscience, in your quality of wife and mother, go on your way, tireless until justice is done to us. And this justice, which you must demand energetically, resolutely, with all your soul, is that light may be thrown, full and unshadowed, upon this machination of which we are the wretched victims.

But you know what you have to say, and you must say it squarely, proudly.

Yes, my dear Lucie, that was what I thought from the first. I should, without making any noise about it, without any go-between except the person introducing