France was closed to me. A year after my arrival in Nice, in the summer
of 1851, I wrote a letter to Léon Faucher, then Minister of the Interior,
and asked his permission to visit Paris for a few days. ‘I have a house
in Paris and I must look after it,’ I said. A genuine economist could not
but yield to this argument, and I received permission to stay in Paris
‘for a very brief time.’
In 1852 I asked for the privilege of travelling through France to
England: it was refused. In 1856 I wanted to return from England to
Switzerland, and again asked for a _visa_; it was refused. I wrote to the
Freiburg _Conseil d’État_ that I was cut off from Switzerland, and should
have to travel by stealth, or come through the Straits of Gibraltar,
or across Germany, which would most likely land me in the Peter-Paul
Fortress and not in Freiburg. On which grounds I begged the _Conseil
d’État_ to apply to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and ask for
leave for me to pass through France. The Consul answered me on the 19th
of October 1856 with the following letter:—
‘DEAR SIR,—In accordance with your desire, we charged the Swiss
Minister in Paris to take the necessary steps to obtain for
you an authorisation to pass through France on your way back
to Switzerland. We forward you a copy of the answer received
by the Swiss Minister: “M. Walewski has been obliged upon this
subject to consult his colleague, the Minister of the Interior;
considerations of _special importance_, so the Minister of the
Interior has informed him, compelled the latter to refuse M.
Herzen the right of passing through France last August, and he
cannot revise his decision, etc., etc.”’
I had nothing in common with the French exiles except simple
acquaintanceship; I had not taken part in any conspiracy or any society,
and was at the time exclusively engaged in Russian propaganda. All this
the French police—the one omniscient, the one national, and therefore the
one infinitely powerful police—knew perfectly. They were angry with me
for my articles and my connections.
Of this anger it cannot but be said that it went beyond all bounds. In
1859 I went for a few days to Brussels with my son. Neither at Ostend
nor at Brussels was my passport asked for on arrival. Six days later,
when I came back in the evening to the hotel, the waiter as he handed me
a candle said to me that they had sent from the police for my passport.
‘They have thought of it in time,’ I observed. The man went with me to
my room and took the passport. I had no sooner got into bed, between
twelve and one, when there was a knock at the door; the same waiter
appeared again with a big envelope. ‘The Minister of Justice begs that M.
Herzen will present himself at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning at the
_Département de la Sûreté Publique_.’
‘And you come and wake people up at night for that?’
‘They are waiting for an answer.’
‘Who?’
‘Some one from the police.’
‘Well, say that I will come, but say, too, that it is stupid to bring
invitations after midnight.’
Then like Nulin[66] I put out my candle.
At eight o’clock next morning a knock at the door again. It was not
difficult to guess that this was all the foolery of Belgian justice.
‘_Entrez!_’
In walked a gentleman, excessively spick and span, in a very new hat and
a fresh-looking black coat, with a long watch-chain, thick and apparently
gold, and so on.
Not fully dressed—indeed, only partially clad—I presented the strangest
contrast to a man who was obliged to be dressed so scrupulously from
seven o’clock in the morning that he might be mistaken for an honest man.
The advantage was certainly on his side.
‘I have the honour to be speaking _avec M. Herzen père_?’
‘_C’est selon_; as you look at it. On the one hand I am a father, on the
other I am a son.’
That greatly diverted the spy.
‘I have come to you....’
‘Excuse me—to tell me that the Minister of Justice summons me at eleven
o’clock to his department?’
‘Just so.’
‘Why does the Minister trouble you, and so early in the morning too?
Is not it enough for him to disturb me so late at night, sending that
envelope?’
‘So you will be there?’
‘Without fail.’
‘You know the way?’
‘Why? Have you been told to accompany me?’
‘Upon my word, _quelle idée_!’
‘And so....’
‘I wish you good day.’
‘Good morning.’
At eleven o’clock I was sitting with the head of the Belgian Public
Security Department.
He was holding some sort of a manuscript book and my passport.
‘You must excuse me for our having troubled you, but you see there are
two little circumstances here: in the first place, your passport is
Swiss, while ...’ with police penetration, to test me, he fixed his eyes
upon me.
‘While I am a Russian,’ I added.
‘Yes. I must confess that has struck us as strange.’
‘Why? Have you no law of naturalisation in Belgium?’
‘And you...?’
‘I was naturalised ten years ago at Morat of the Canton of Freiburg in
the village of Châtel.’
‘Of course, _if that is so_, in that case I do not venture to doubt ...
we will pass to the second difficulty. Three years ago you asked for
permission to visit Brussels and received a refusal....’
‘_Mille pardons_, that did not happen and could not have happened. What
should I have thought of _free_ Belgium, if, though never banished from
her, I could doubt my right to visit Brussels?’
The head of the Department of Public Security was a little embarrassed.
‘However, here it is ...’ and he opened the manuscript book.
‘It seems that not everything in it is correct. Here you did not know,
for instance, that I was naturalised in Switzerland.’
‘To be sure. The Consul, M. Delpierre....’
‘Don’t disturb yourself, I will tell you the rest. I asked your Consul in
London whether I could move the Russian printing-press to Brussels—that
is, whether the press would be left alone if I did not interfere in
Belgian affairs, which I had no inclination whatever to do, _as you
will readily believe_. M. Delpierre asked the Minister. The Minister
asked him to dissuade me from my plan of moving the printing-press. Your
Consul was ashamed to communicate the Minister’s answer by letter, and
he asked Louis Blanc, as an acquaintance of both of us, to give me this
message. Thanking Louis Blanc, I asked him to reassure M. Delpierre
and to tell him that I had with great fortitude received the news that
my printing-press would not be allowed to enter Brussels, but “if,”
I added, “the Consul had had to inform me of the opposite—that is,
that my printing-press and I would never to all eternity be allowed to
leave Brussels—I might not have had the courage to bear it.” You see, I
remember all the circumstances very well.’
The guardian of public security cleared his throat a little, and reading
the manuscript book observed: ‘It really is so; I had not noticed the
mention of the printing-press. However, I imagine that you must in any
case obtain permission from the Minister; otherwise, much as we shall
regret it, we shall be forced to ask you....’
‘I am going to-morrow.’
‘Oh dear no, no one insists on such haste; you may remain a week, a
fortnight. We are speaking of permanent residence.... I am almost certain
that the Minister will sanction it.’
‘I may ask his sanction for some future occasion, but now I have not the
slightest desire to remain longer in Brussels.’
There the affair ended. ‘I forgot one thing in the confusion of our
explanation,’ the apprehensive guardian of public security said to me,
‘we are a small people, we are a small people, that’s our trouble, _il y
a des égards_....’ He was ashamed.
Two years later my younger daughter, who was living in Paris, was taken
ill. Again I asked for a _visa_, and again Persigny refused it. Just at
that time Count Branicki was in London. Dining with him, I told him of
the refusal. ‘Write a letter to Prince Napoleon,’ said Branicki, ‘I’ll
see that he gets it.’
‘I have no grounds for writing to the Prince.’
‘That is true. Write to the Emperor. To-morrow I am going, and the day
after to-morrow your letter shall be in his hands.’
‘That is very soon, let me consider it.’