So we have come back to the friends who lived the nearest to our abandoned hearth; and we are awaiting events. To speak of all the peril and trouble there is in establishing the Republic in the interior of our provinces would be quite useless. There can be no illusion: everything is at stake, and the end will perhaps be ORLEANISM. But we are pushed into the unforeseen to such an extent that it seems to me puerile to have anticipations; the thing to do is to escape the next catastrophe.
Don't let's say that it is impossible; don't let's think it. Don't let's despair about France. She is going through expiation for her madness, she will be reborn no matter what happens. We shall perhaps be carried away, the rest of us. To die of pneumonia or of a bullet is dying just the same. Let's die without cursing our race!
We still love you, and we all embrace you.
G. Sand
CLXXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Nohant, 4 February, 1871.
Don't you receive my letters, then? Write to me I beg you, one word only: I AM WELL. We are so worried!
They are all well in Paris.
We embrace you.
G. Sand
CLXXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.
Nohant, 22 February, 1871