The streets of Paris, blocked with people night and day, were no longer suited to my lounging inclinations. To recover the desert, I took refuge in the theatre: I ensconced myself at the back of a box and allowed my thoughts to wander to the sound of Racine's[408] verses, Sacchini's[409] music, or the Opera ballets. I must have had the courage to see Barbe-bleue[410] and the Sabot perdu[411] twenty times in succession at the Italiens, courting tedium in order to dispel it, like an owl in a hole in a wall; while the monarchy fell, I heard neither the cracking of the venerable vaults nor the screeching of the vaudeville, neither Mirabeau's voice thundering in the tribune nor Colin's singing to Babet on the stage:
Qu'il pleuve, qu'il vente ou qu'il neige,
Quand la nuit est longue, ou l'abrège[412].
Madame Ginguené sometimes sent M. Monet, the director of mines, and his young daughter to disturb my unsociable mood: Mademoiselle Monet took her seat in the front of the box; I sat, half pleased, half grumbling, behind her. I do not know whether she attracted me, whether I liked her; but I was very much afraid of her. When she was gone, I regretted her, while rejoicing at no longer seeing her. Still, I sometimes went, with the perspiration standing on my brow, to fetch her for a walk: I gave her my arm, and I believe I pressed hers a little.
One idea governed me, the idea of going to the United States: a useful object was wanting for my voyage; I proposed, as I have said in the Memoirs and in several of my works, to discover the North-West Passage. This plan was not out of keeping with my poetic nature. No one troubled himself about me; I was at that time, like Bonaparte, a slim sub-lieutenant, entirely unknown; both of us emerged from obscurity at the same period, I to seek renown in solitude, he to seek glory among mankind. I had not attached myself to any woman, and my sylph still possessed my imagination. I placed before myself the bliss of realizing my fantastic wanderings in her company in the forests of the New World. Through the influence of a new manifestation of nature, my flower of love, my nameless phantom of the woods of Armorica, grew into Atala beneath the shady groves of Florida.
The North-West passage.
M. de Malesherbes excited me on the subject of this voyage. I went to see him in the mornings: we sat, with our noses glued to maps; we compared the different plans of the Arctic Circle; we calculated the distances between Behring's Straits and the furthermost part of Hudson's Bay; we read the different narratives of the travellers and navigators, English, Dutch, French, Russian, Swedish, Danish; we enquired into the roads to be followed on land to reach the shores of the Polar Sea; we discussed the difficulties to be overcome, the precautions to be taken against the rigours of the climate, the attacks of wild animals, the scarcity of food. This illustrious man said to me:
"If I were younger, I would go with you, I would spare myself the sight of all the crimes, meannesses and madnesses which I see about me. But, at my age, a man must die where he stands. Do not fail to write to me by every ship, to keep me informed of your progress and your discoveries: I will commend them to the ministers. It is a great pity that you know no botany."
After these conversations, I would peruse Tournefort[413], Duhamel[414], Bernard de Jussieu[415], Grew[416], Jacquin, Rousseau's[417] Dictionary, the Flores élementaires; I ran to the Jardin du Roi, and before long thought myself a very Linnæus[418].
At last, in January 1791, I seriously made up my mind. The chaos was increasing: it was sufficient to bear an "aristocratic" name to be exposed to persecution: the more moderate and conscientious your opinions the more were you liable to suspicion and annoyance. I therefore resolved to strike my tents: I left my brother and my sisters in Paris, and made for Brittany.