My prophecy is fulfilled; My friend X----has gained only ridicule
with his candidacy. That serves him right. When a man of style
debases himself to practical life, he loses caste and should be
punished. And then, is it a question of politics, now! The citizens
who are excited for or against the Empire or the Republic seem to me
as useful as those who discuss efficacious or efficient grace.
Politics are as dead as theology! They have had three hundred years
of existence, that is quite enough.
Just now I am lost in the Church Fathers. As for my novel
l'Education sentimentale, I am paying no more attention to it, God
be thanked! It is recopied. Other hands have gone over it. So, the
thing is no longer mine. It does not exist any longer, good night. I
have taken up again my old hobby of Saint Antoine. I have reread my
notes, I am making another new plan and I am devouring the
ecclesiastical memoirs of the Nain de Tillemont. I hope to succeed
in finding a logical connection (and therefore a dramatic interest)
between the different hallucinations of the Saint. This extravagant
setting pleases me and I am absorbed in it, there you are!
My poor Bouilhet bothers me. He is in such a nervous state that they
have advised him to take a little trip to the south of France. He is
overwhelmed by an unconquerable melancholy. Isn't it queer! He who
was so gay, formerly!
My Heavens! What a beautiful and farcical thing is the life of the
desert Fathers! But without doubt they were all Buddhists. That is a
stylish problem to work at, and its solution would be more important
than the election of an academician. Oh! ye men of little faith!
Long live Saint Polycarp!
Fangeat, who has reappeared recently, is the citizen who, on the
25th day of February, 1848, demanded the death of Louis-Philippe
"without a trial." That is the way one serves the cause of progress.