December 15th.
It is all settled. We leave to-morrow. I say “we,” because Goudeloup has returned. He came back yesterday in the dusk, more emaciated, more terrible than before. The wretched man is now at his twenty-first! . . . Nevertheless the thirst for blood is beginning to be satiated; moreover, he is closely pursued, and the nightly ambush has become most difficult. I therefore had little trouble in deciding him to attempt an expedition to Paris with me. We shall start to-morrow in my boat, which is lying out on the Seine, moored under the willows on the banks. It is Goudeloup’s idea. He thinks that on a very dark night we shall be able to get by to the Port-à-l’Anglais, and then, by creeping along the towing-path, reach the first French barricade. We shall see . . . I have prepared my revolver, some rugs, two or three loaves, and a large flask of brandy.
The enterprise is certainly full of danger; but since I have made up my mind to attempt it, I feel calmer. Instead of making me anxious, the sound of the cannon round Paris electrifies me. I feel as if it were calling me; and each time it thunders, I am inclined to answer, “We are coming.” I fancy the portrait in the summer-house smiles at me from its gilt frame, and wears again its calm and placid aspect . . . I have but one regret in quitting the Hermitage: what will become of my poor Colaquet? I leave the stable-door open for him to seek his subsistence in the forest. I pile up near him my last bundles of straw, and while I make these preparations I avoid meeting his astonished, kind eyes, which seem to say reproachfully, “Where are you going?”
. . . And now, on my table, opened at this unfinished page, I abandon my diary with these last words, which will probably end it: We are off to Paris!
Written groping in the dark.