Saturday, 30 August 1879

I am ashamed to call myself a Republican.
I am accustomed to the flaws and vices of others... I am ashamed to be so vile... If only it served some purpose...
My God, I beg you, have pity on me.
And to think that if they had guessed I was seventeen, none of this would have happened. I live, it is ignoble.
Hecht has known Gambetta for more than ten years, it was he who put him in touch with Thiers and he told me curious things that I am not in the mood to recount. During the period preceding the 16th of May, it was de Lesseps who went to see the Marshal as Gambetta's proxy...
Good night, pray to God for me.