Almighty. The existence which was given me
without my having asked for it has been a beneficent one for me. Were
it offered to me, I would gladly accept it over again. The age in
which I have lived will not probably count as the greatest, but it
will doubtless be regarded as the most amusing. Unless my closing
years have some very cruel trials in store, I shall have, in bidding
farewell to life, to thank the cause of all good for the delightful
excursion through reality which I have been enabled to make.

APPENDIX.

This volume was already in the press, when Abbe Cognat published in
the _Correspondant_ (January 25th, 1883) the letters which I wrote to
him in 1845 and 1846.[1] As several of my friends told me that they
had found them very interesting, I reproduce them here just as they
were published.

Treguier, _August 14th, 1845._

My dear friend,

Few events of importance have occurred, but many thoughts and feelings
have crowded in upon me since the day we parted. I am all the more
glad to impart them to you because there is no one else to whom I can
confide them. I am not alone, it is true, when I am with my mother;
but there are many things that my tender regard for her compels me
to keep back, and which, for the matter of that, she would not
understand.

Nothing has occurred to advance the solution of the important problem of
which, as is only natural, my mind is full. I have learnt nothing more,
unless it be the immensity of the sacrifice which God required of me. A
thousand painful details which I had never thought of have cropped up,
with the effect of complicating the situation, and of showing me that
the course dictated me by my conscience opened up a future of endless
trouble. I should have to enter into long and painful details to make
you understand exactly what I mean; and it must suffice if I tell you
that the obstacles of which we have on various occasions spoken are as
nothing by comparison with those which have suddenly started up before
me. It was no small thing to brave an opinion which would, one knew, be
very hard upon one, and to live on for long years an arduous life
leading to one knew not what; but the sacrifice was not then
consummated. God enjoins me to pierce with my own hand a heart upon
which all the affection there is in my own has been poured out. Filial
love had absorbed in me all the other affections of which I was capable,
and which God did not bring into play withi