CLXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND.
Saturday, 1870
Dear master,
Here we are in the depths of the abyss! A shameful peace will
perhaps not be accepted! The Prussians intend to destroy Paris! That
is their dream.
I don't think the siege of Paris is very imminent. But in order to
force Paris to yield, they are going to (1) terrify her by the sight
of cannon, and (2) ravage the surrounding country.
We expect the visit of these gentlemen at Rouen, and as I have been
(since Sunday) lieutenant of my company, I drill my men and I am
going to Rouen to take lessons in military tactics.
The most deplorable thing is that opinions are divided, some for
defence to the utmost, and others for peace at any price.
I AM DYING OF HUMILIATION. What a house mine is! Fourteen persons
who sigh and unnerve me! I curse women! It is because of them that
we perish.
I expect that Paris will have the fate of Warsaw, and you distress
me, you with your enthusiasm for the Republic. At the moment when we
are overcome by the plainest positivism, how can you still believe
in phantoms? Whatever happens, the people who are now in power will
be sacrificed, and the Republic will follow their fate. Observe that
I defend that poor Republic; but I do not believe in it.
That is all that I have to say to you. Now I should have many more
things to say, but my head is not clear. It is as if cataracts,
floods, oceans of sadness, were breaking over me. It is not possible
to suffer more. Sometimes I am afraid of going mad. The face of my
mother, when I turn my eyes toward her, takes away all my strength.
This is where our passion for not wanting to see the truth has taken
us! Love of pretence and of flap-doodle. We are going to become a
Poland, then a Spain. Then it will be the turn of Prussia who will
be devoured by Russia.
As for me, I consider myself a man whose career is ended. My brain
is not going to recover. One can write no longer when one does not
think well of oneself. I demand only one thing, that is to die, so
to be at rest.
CLXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday evening
I am still alive, dear master, but I am hardly any better, for I am
so sad! I didn't write you any sooner, for I was waiting, for news
from you. I didn't know where you were.
Here it is six weeks that we have been expecting the coming of the
Prussians from day to day. We strain our ears, thinking we can hear
the sound of the cannon from a distance. They are surrounding Seine-
Inferieure in a radius of from fourteen to twenty leagues. They are
even nearer, since they are occupying Vexin, which they have
completely destroyed. What horrors! It makes one blush for being a
man!
If we have had a success on the Loire, their appearance will be
delayed. But shall we have it? When the hope comes to me, I try to
repel it, and yet, in the very depths of myself, in spite of all, I
cannot keep myself from hoping a little, a very little bit.
I don't think that there is in all France a sadder man than I am!
(It all depends on the sensitiveness of people.) I am dying of
grief. That is the truth, and consolations irritate me. What
distresses me is: (1) the ferocity of men; (2) the conviction that
we are going to enter upon a stupid era. People will be utilitarian,
military, American and Catholic! Very Catholic! You will see! The
Prussian War ends the French Revolution and destroys it.
But supposing we were conquerors? you will say to me. That
hypothesis is contrary to all historical precedents. Where did you
ever see the south conquer the north, and the Catholics dominate the
Protestants? The Latin race is agonizing. France is going to follow
Spain and Italy, and boorishness (pignouflism) begins!
What a cataclysm! What a collapse! What misery! What abominations!
Can one believe in progress and in civilization in the face of all
that is going on? What use, pray, is science, since this people
abounding in scholars commits abominations worthy of the Huns and
worse than theirs, because they are systematic, cold-blooded,
voluntary, and have for an excuse, neither passion nor hunger?
Why do they abhor us so fiercely? Don't you feel overwhelmed by the
hatred of forty millions of men? This immense infernal chasm makes
me giddy.
Ready-made phrases are not wanting: France will rise again! One must
not despair! It is a salutary punishment! We were really too
immoral! etc. Oh! eternal poppycock! No! one does not recover from
such a blow! As for me, I feel myself struck to my very marrow!
If I were twenty years younger, I should perhaps not think all that,
and if I were twenty years older I should be resigned.
Poor Paris! I think it is heroic. But if we do find it again, it
will not be our Paris any more! All the friends that I had there are
dead or have disappeared. I have no longer any center. Literature
seems to me to be a vain and useless thing! Shall I ever be in a
condition to write again?
Oh! if I could flee into a country where one does not see uniforms,
where one does not hear the drum, where one does not talk of
massacres, where one is not obliged to be a citizen! But the earth
is no longer habitable for the poor mandarins.
CLXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday
I am sad no longer. I took up my Saint-Antoine yesterday. So much
the worse, one has to get accustomed to it! One must accustom
oneself to what is the natural condition of man, that is to say, to
evil.
The Greeks at the time of Pericles made art without knowing if they
should have anything to eat the next day. Let us be Greeks. I shall
confess to you, however, dear master, that I feel rather a savage.
The blood of my ancesters, the Natchez or the Hurons, boils in my
educated veins, and I seriously, like a beast, like an animal, want
to fight!
Explain that to me! The idea of making peace now exasperates me, and
I would rather that Paris were burned (like Moscow), than see the
Prussians enter it. But we have not gotten to that; I think the wind
is turning.
I have read some soldiers' letters, which are models. One can't
swallow up a country where people write like that. France is a
resourceful jade, and will be up again.
Whatever happens, another world is going to begin, and I feel that I
am very old to adapt myself to new customs.
Oh! how I miss you, how I want to see you!
We have decided here to all march on Paris if the compatriots of
Hegel lay siege to it. Try to get your Berrichons to buck up. Call
to them: "Come to help me prevent the enemy from drinking and eating
in a country which is foreign to them!"