onged my existence up to to-day."

The councillors withdrew; Sand stood up a second time to greet them
on their departure, as he had done on their entrance; then he sat
down again pensively in his chair, by which Mr. G, the governor of the
prison, was standing. After a moment of silence, a tear appeared at each
of the condemned man's eyelids, and ran down his cheeks; then, turning
suddenly to Mr. G----, whom he liked very much, he said, "I hope that my
parents would rather see me die by this violent death than of some slow
and shameful disease. As for me, I am glad that I shall soon hear the
hour strike in which my death will satisfy those who hate me, and those
wham, according to my principles, I ought to hate."

Then he wrote to his family.

"MANNHEIM.

"17th of the month of spring, 1820.

"DEAR PARENTS, BROTHERS, AND SISTERS,--You should have received my last
letters through the grand-duke's commission; in them I answered yours,
and tried to console you for my position by describing the state of
my soul as it is, the contempt to which I have attained for everything
fragile and earthly, and by which one must necessarily be overcome when
such matters are weighed against the fulfilment of an idea, or that
intellectual liberty which alone can nourish the soul; in a word, I
tried to console you by the assurance that the feelings, principles, and
convictions of which I formerly spoke are faithfully preserved in me
and have remained exactly the same; but I am sure all this was an
unnecessary precaution on my part, for there was never a time when you
asked anything else of me than to have God before my eyes and in my
heart; and you have seen how, under your guidance, this precept so
passed into my soul that it became my sole object of happiness for this
world and the next; no doubt, as He was in and near me, God will be in
and near you at the moment when this letter brings you the news of my
sentence. I die willingly, and the Lord will give me strength to die as
one ought to die.

"I write to you perfectly quiet and calm about all things, and I hope
that your lives too will pass calmly and tranquilly until the moment
when our souls meet again full of fresh force to love one another and to
share eternal happiness together.

"As for me, such as I have lived as long as I have known myself--that
is to say, in a serenity full of celestial desires and a courageous and
indefatigable love of liberty, such I am about to die.