am about to commit. I believe that my child's heart
is great enough to understand me, and to forgive me. I have
suffered my whole life long. I was married out of calculation, then
despised, misunderstood, oppressed and constantly deceived by my
husband.

"'I forgive him, but I owe him nothing.

"'My eldest sons never loved me, never spoilt me, scarcely treated
me as a mother, but during my whole life I was everything that I
ought to have been, and I owe them nothing more after my death. The
ties of blood cannot exist without daily and constant affection. An
ungrateful son is less than a stranger; he is a culprit, for he has
no right to be indifferent towards his mother.

"'I have always trembled before men, before their unjust laws,
their inhuman customs, their shameful prejudices. Before God, I
have no longer any fear. Dead, I fling aside disgraceful hypocrisy;
I dare to speak my thoughts, and to avow and to sign the secret of
my heart.

"'I therefore leave that part of my fortune of which the law allows
me to dispose, as a deposit with my dear lover Pierre-Gennes-Simon
de Bourneval, to revert afterwards to our dear son, Rene.

"'(This wish is, moreover, formulated more precisely in a notarial
deed).

"'And I declare before the Supreme Judge who hears me, that I
should have cursed heaven and my own existence, if I had not met my
lover's deep, devoted, tender, unshaken affection, if I had not
felt in his arms that the Creator made His creatures to love,
sustain and console each other, and to weep together in the hours
of sadness.

"'Monsieur de Courcils is the father of my two eldest sons; Rene
alone owes his life to Monsieur de Bourneval. I pray to the Master
of men and of their destinies, to place father and son above social
prejudices, to make them love each other until they die, and to
love me also in my coffin.

"'These are my last thoughts, and my last wish.

"'MATHILDE DE CROIXLUCE.'"

"'Monsieur de Courcils had arisen and he cried:

"'It is the will of a mad woman.'

"Then Monsieur de Bourneval stepped forward and said in a loud and
penetrating voice: 'I, Simon de Bourneval, solemnly declare that this
writing contains nothing but the strict truth, and I am ready to prove
it by letters which I possess.'

"On hearing that, Mons