What We Will See
Suddenly, — delicious surprise! — a servant appeared with a basket whose appearance unmistakably betrayed its contents; I thought that some friend had remembered me while I was at lunch... I opened it and inside I found a letter: it was from Princess Isabel, Baron Rotschild's neighbor, who told me she knew I was working until that hour, without any meal, and sent me a small lunch; she also thought about the anguish that my mother would suffer, who followed my peripecies from afar, and declared to have at my disposal a small medal, hoping to give confidence to my mother knowing that I would bring it with me in my dangerous ascents.
This medal never left me again.
⁂
About these experiences, "L'Illustration" published the following notes:
"The first fortnight of July 1901 was marked by two events which seem to mark two great dates in the history of humanity, and which seem in any case to promise that the twentieth century will not be inferior to the nineteenth in the matter of scientific conquests.
— 33 —
