I am writing the history of a bandit Cossack of the seventeenth century, named Stenka Razine, who was killed in Moscow with horrible tortures, after he had hanged and drowned a great number of boyards, and had maltreated their women in true Cossack fashion. I will let you read it when it is finished, if I ever reach the end of it. Good-bye, dear friend. Give me news of yourself....
I am leading a most disquieting and uncomfortable life, thanks to the Institute affairs and the petition of Madame Libri....
CCXXXVII
Paris, May 15, 1861 (The Senate).
Dear Friend: For several days I have been so busy that I have delayed writing to you. I wished to ask you to return my visit. I am a prey at the present moment of the herrings which the seals of Boulogne have stirred up to torment us, and I am expecting the Maronites to finish us. This means that we, in this establishment,[27] are in the midst of a bitter discussion about herrings, and that we are threatened with daily sessions. However, it can not last much longer, I hope.
I am working every night, and am happy to have reached the tortures which my hero was made to suffer, so you see I am near the end. It is a long work, not very interesting, and most horrible. I will let you read it when it is published. What do you think of Macaulay? Is he as interesting as in the beginning?
Is it true that all the herring fishermen of Boulogne are thieves, who buy herrings caught by the English and pretend to have caught them themselves? Is it true, also, that the herrings have been seduced by the English, and that they no longer pass near our coasts?
CCXXXVIII
Château de Fontainebleau, Thursday, June 13, 1861.
Dear Friend: For two days I have been here, recuperating, with great enjoyment, among the trees, after my tribulations of the last week.[28] I suppose you read of the affair in the Moniteur. I have never in my life seen people so wild, so senseless as magistrates. For my consolation, I say to myself that twenty years from now, when some antiquarian shall poke his nose into the Moniteur of this week, he will say that he has discovered in 1861, in an assembly of young fools, a philosopher full of moderation and calmness. This philosopher is myself, and I say it without vanity.