Your passage about fidelity, understood, after the Wronski manner, as intuitive truth, made my heart bound with joy. We love to find our own ideas expressed by a friend and to know that the moral sensations of both are of equal purity. Is not this the sentiment that a fine passage of Beethoven makes us feel, by representing to us, in its purest expression, a whole sentiment, a whole nature? For myself, I am convinced that in carrying very high our sentiments we multiply a thousand-fold our pleasures; a little lower, and all would be suffering; but in the heaven above us all is infinite. This is what your "Séraphita" shows. How is it you have not received February 24 (old style) a book published here in December? It is no longer even spoken of in France. What grief that I cannot obtain a permit for a single parcel to Wierzchownia. I'll go myself to Saint Petersburg and ask one of the Emperor! What! you, to whom the statue belongs, you have not seen it! It is not in the temple for which it was made! Everybody here has wondered over the dedication, and you have not read it printed, when the author is your devoted moujik. The world is upside down!
You are always talking to me of that detestable "Lys" which is not my "Lys." Wait, in order to know "Le Lys dans la Vallée," for Werdet's edition.
Your poor moujik will never be impertinent or defiant. But, writing in great haste, from heart to heart, and never reading over a letter, there may have been, apropos of Roger, a little too hearty a laugh—which was not right. No, cara, Nature gave me a trustfulness unbounded, a soul that is proof against everything. I have always had in me a something, I don't know what, which leads me to do quite otherwise than other people, and it may be that in me fidelity is pride. Having no other point of support but myself, I have been forced to magnify it, to reinforce the myself. All my life is there; a life without vulgar pleasures. None of those who are near me would live it "at the price of Napoleon's and Byron's fame united," de Belloy said to me. But de Belloy saw only the hermit on his rock with his cruse and his loaf not bestowing a glance on the siren tempters. He did not see the ecstasy in the heavens, he did not know the revery, the evenings, the chimney-corner, the poems of Hope! I am a gambler, poor to the eyes of all; but I play my whole fortune once a year, when I gather in that which others squander!
My lawsuit has been postponed for a fortnight. Chaix d'Estange, who pleads against me, had to plead a case in the provinces. There's the "Lys" delayed!
You ask for details about the "Chronique de Paris." I have not given you any because it was a paper both political and literary—Bedouck!—I forget nothing that I ought to do. Did I not tell you in Geneva that within three years I should begin to build the scaffolding for my political preponderance? Did I not repeat it in Vienna? Well, the "Chronique" is the old "Globe" (same idea) but placed to the Right instead of being to the Left; it is the new doctrine of the Royalist party. We make the Opposition, and we preach autocratic power; that means that on arriving at the management of affairs we shall not be found in contradiction with what we have said. I am the supreme director of this journal, which appears twice a week, in a monstrous quarto form. It gives the amount of four feuilles of the "Revue de Paris," which makes eight a week; and we cost only sixty francs a year, whereas the "Revue" costs eighty, and gives only four feuilles a week. The higher criticism of politics, literature, art, sciences, administration, and a portion devoted to individual work, novels, etc., that is the scheme of the paper.
We have obtained Gustave Planche, an immense and grand critic. We are going to have Sainte-Beuve, and, perhaps, Victor Hugo. Capefigue is charged with domestic politics, and does it pretty well. I have an interest which is equivalent to thirty-two thousand francs capital, and if the "Chronique" goes beyond two thousand subscribers it may bring me in twenty thousand francs income, not counting my work, very dearly paid, and my salary as director. We have enough funds to go on for two years. We are between the "Gazette de France," the "Quotidienne," and the Right Centre. These two newspapers are so placed that they can make no concessions to the present régime, whereas we can, ourselves, compromise. We are going to ask to be allowed to enter Russia, because we are in favour of an alliance with Russia against an English alliance, and for autocracy in the matter of government. Our doctrines as to criticism of art and literature are in favour of the highest moral expression. Is there not something grandiose in this enterprise? So, for the three months that I have now directed it, it has gained daily in respect and authority; only, the costs do crush us. Each feuille pays ten centimes tax to the treasury, and we have to go into bonds for seventy-five thousand francs in specie.
Extraordinary thing! It is this very operation that will financially save me. I hope to-morrow to sell sixteen of my shares (without cutting into the thirty-two). Besides which, the affair of the "Cent Contes Drolatiques," published in numbers and illustrated, appears on the point of being concluded. Louis Boulanger will do the drawings, and Perret the wood-cuts. Six thousand copies are to be struck off, which will give me thirty thousand francs of author's rights. So, in a few days from now, I shall have before me forty-five thousand francs, without counting the twenty-four thousand awaiting me on the day when Madame Bêchet gets her last Part. In all, seventy thousand francs. Now, as I only owe fifty thousand (not counting the debt to my mother), I shall see the end of my miseries.
But let me paint to you one of the thousand dramas of my life as artist and soldier. On my return from Vienna (you know what disasters that absence caused me), my silver-plate was pawned. I have never yet been able to redeem it. I have to pay three thousand francs to do so, and I have never had three thousand francs. I owe on the 31st about eight thousand four hundred. In order to live honourably until now, and meet all my obligations, I have used up my resources; all are exhausted. I am, as it were, at Marengo. Desaix must come and Kellermann must charge; then all is said. But, the men who are to give me sixteen thousand francs for my sixteen shares in the "Chronique" are coming to dine with me. You know that people lend and show confidence to none but the rich. All about me breathes opulence, ease, the wealth of a lucky artist. If at the dinner my silver is hired, all will fail; the man who is arranging the affair is a painter,—an observing race, satirical, deep, like Henri Monnier, in its coup d'œil; he will see the weak spot in the cuirass, he will guess the Mont-de-Piété—which he knows better than any one. Adieu, my affair. All my future lies in redeeming that silver, which is worth five thousand francs and is pledged for three thousand. I must have it to-morrow, or perish. Isn't it curious? This is the 27th; on the 31st of March I must pay six thousand francs, and I haven't a farthing. But on the 5th of April the signing of the "Drolatiques" affair may give me fifteen thousand francs!
I cannot ask a single person in Paris to lend me money, for I am thought rich and my prestige would fall, would vanish away. The affair of the "Chronique" is due to the credit I enjoy. I was able to speak en maître. Put oil on this flame by representing to yourself the perpetual fire, the ardour of a soul that is consuming itself, and tell me if that is not a drama. One ought to be a great financier, a cold, wise, prudent man; one must be!—I say no more, for yesterday one of my friends said truly: "When your statue is made it ought to be in bronze, to rightly picture the man."