Translation:Third letter to Le Révolté
COMMUNICATIONS AND CORRESPONDENCE
Our friends have already been able to appreciate companion Duval’s character, both through his attitude before the court and through the two letters we have published. But since the bourgeois press saw fit to portray him as a ferocious bandit and attributed to him, upon his commutation of sentence, a phrase worthy of Jean Hiroux, we believe it our duty to reproduce the following letter he sent us.
La Santé Prison – 5 march 1877
Having written to you immediately after my sentencing, I was surprised not to receive a reply. I recently learned that you never got my letter, and I have just now received yours confirming this.
You know the outcome: the tragedy has turned into a drama; the living death of the penal colony replaces the scaffold. Which is worse? The future will tell me. Still, I received this news with pleasure, especially for my dear companion, knowing what a terrible blow it would have been for her. Without fear or bravado, knowing that in nature, everything dies, everything transforms.
As I will be at La Santé for only a very short time and will soon depart on the great travel, this letter is a farewell. But as I leave for the dungeons where they will entomb me, I take with me one consolation: leaving a good memory among my friends. For since my captivity, I have received countless tokens of esteem and sympathy—one can desire nothing more when one has the respect and friendship of good-hearted people.
I ask you, dear companion, to speak for me to our friends and to bid them farewell on my behalf. Tell them plainly that I regret being forced to abandon my comrades in struggle. But no matter how far away I am, my thoughts will always be with them, and I cry out to them from the depths of my heart: Courage—the future is ours!
Clément duval.