I continued to be persuaded, despite the near approach of the battle-fields, that the Allies would not enter Paris and that a national insurrection would put an end to our fears. The obsession of this idea prevented me from feeling the presence of the foreign armies as keenly as I might have done: but I could not keep myself from reflecting upon the calamities to which we had subjected Europe, when I saw Europe bring them back to us.
I never ceased working at my pamphlet; I was preparing it as a remedy when the moment of anarchy should come to burst forth. It is not thus that we write nowadays, when we live at our ease, with only a war of broadsheets to fear: at night, I turned the key in my lock; I placed my papers under my pillow, with two loaded revolvers on my table: I slept between these two muses. My text was in duplicate: I had written it in the form of a pamphlet, which it retained, and in the shape of a speech, differing in some respects from the pamphlet; I thought that, when France rose, they might assemble at the Hôtel de Ville, and I had prepared myself on two topics.
Madame de Chateaubriand wrote a few notes at various periods of our common life; among those notes I find the following paragraph:
"M. de Chateaubriand was writing his pamphlet De Bonaparte et des Bourbons. If that pamphlet had been seized, the result was not doubtful: the sentence was the scaffold. Nevertheless the author displayed incredible negligence in concealing it. Often he would go out and leave it on the table; his prudence never went beyond placing it under his pillow, which he used to do before his valet, a very honest fellow, but liable to temptation. As for me, I was in a mortal fright: and, so soon as M. de Chateaubriand had gone out, I used to take the manuscript and place it about my person. One day, while crossing the Tuileries, I noticed that I no longer had it, and, being sure that I had felt it on leaving the house, I had no doubt that I had lost it on the way. Already I saw the fatal work in the hands of the police and M. de Chateaubriand arrested: I fell unconscious in the middle of the garden; some kind people assisted me, and afterwards took me home, which was not far off. What torture when, on climbing the stairs, I hovered between a fear which was almost a certainty and a slight hope that I had forgotten to take the pamphlet! As I approached my husband's bedroom, I felt myself fainting once more; I went in at last; nothing on the table; I went up to the bed; I first felt the pillow, I perceived nothing; I lifted it up, and saw the roll of papers! My heart beats whenever I think of it. I have never experienced such a moment of joy in my life. Certainly, I can truthfully say that it would not have been so great had I seen myself released at the foot of the scaffold; for, after all, it was some one dearer to me than myself whom I saw released from it."
How unhappy should I be if I could have caused a moment of trouble to Madame de Chateaubriand!
I had nevertheless been obliged to entrust a printer[118] with my secret: he had consented to risk the business; according to the news of the hour, he used to return the half-composed proofs to me, or come to fetch them back, as the sound of the cannon approached or drew farther from Paris: I played pitch-and-toss with my life, in this way, for nearly a fortnight.
*
War at the gates of Paris.
The circle was drawing closer around the capital: at every moment we heard of some progress on the part of the enemy. Russian prisoners and French wounded entered promiscuously through the barriers, drawn in carts: some, half-dead, fell beneath the wheels, which they stained with their blood. Conscripts called up from the interior crossed the capital in a long file on their way to the armies. At night, one heard trains of artillery pass along the outer boulevards, and one did not know whether the distant detonations announced the decisive victory or the final defeat.