Complex sentence: So that the young Louis could send letters back home, Simon-Rene provided him with an alphabet fashioned from bits of thick leather: it was slow and cumbersome, but the boy could trace the letters' outlines and write his first sentences.
Split into simpler sentences: So that the young Louis could send letters back home, Simon-René provided him with an alphabet fashioned from bits of thick leather. It was a slow and cumbersome process, but the boy could at least trace the letters' outlines and write his first sentences.