PARIS, _March, 1848_.
I think you are too easily alarmed. Affairs are no worse than they were
yesterday, which does not mean that they are right, and that there is no
danger. As to your proposition to go away, it is exceedingly difficult
to advise you, or to see distinctly through this dense fog veiling our
future. There are people who think that, everything considered, Paris is
a safer place than the provinces. I myself share this opinion.
I do not believe there will be any fighting in the city, because, in the
first place, there is not yet a sufficient motive, and, again, because
courage and intrepidity are on one side, while on the other I see only
bombast and poltroonery. If civil war were to break out, it is in the
provinces, I think, that it would be first declared. There exists
already a deep-seated objection to the dictatorship of the capital, and
it may be that manœuvres which can not now be foreseen will lead to
this result in the west or elsewhere. As to riots and their
consequences, remember what they accomplished in Paris during the first
revolution, and what they amounted to more recently in the provinces.
The Department of Indre, where you wish to go, passed through one two
years ago at Buzançais, more deplorable in its results than any of ‘93.
Understand that I am not advising you, and that I am reasoning only
theoretically. I do not believe there is any immediate danger, and,
moreover, even in the event that conditions should become more serious,
Paris would still be the safest refuge. Anyway, between Indre and
Boulogne, I should choose the latter place, which has the advantage of
proximity to the sea. I should be deeply distressed, however, to have
you leave without seeing me. Could you not delay your departure a few
days? You see that everything passed quietly yesterday. We shall have
such parades for a long time to come before any shots are fired, even if
this timid country ever comes to such a point. Good-bye.