He was suffering from one of his native attacks of gloom, when he inserted an article on myself, in the National, to which I replied by the following note:
"Paris, 5 May 1834.
"Your article, monsieur, is full of that exquisite feeling for situations and proprieties which places you above all the political writers of the day. I say nothing to you of your exceptional talent; you know that I did it ample justice before I had the honour of knowing you. I do not thank you for your praises: I like to owe them to what I look upon now as an old friendship. You are rising very high, monsieur; you are beginning to stand alone, like all men made for a great fame: gradually the crowd, unable to follow them, leaves them, and we see them the better because they hold themselves aloof.
"Chateaubriand."
I tried to console him by another letter, on the 31st of August, when he was condemned for a newspaper offense. I received the following reply from him; it shows forth the opinions of the man, his regrets and his hopes:
To Monsieur le Vicomte le Chateaubriand
"Monsieur,
"Your letter of the 31st of August was handed to me only on my arrival in Paris. I would come to thank you for it, at once, if I were not obliged to devote the short time which can still be left to me by the police, who are informed of my return, to a few preparations for entering prison. Yes, monsieur, here am I condemned by the bench to six months' imprisonment for a fanciful offense and by virtue of an equally fanciful piece of legislation; for the jury wittingly let me go unpunished upon the best-founded charge, and that in spite of a defense which, so far from extenuating my crime of telling the truth to the person of King Louis-Philippe, had aggravated that crime by setting it up as an established right for the whole of the opposition press. I am glad that the difficulties of so bold a thesis, as times go, appeared to you to be almost surmounted by the defense which you read and in which it was so great an advantage to me to be able to invoke the authority of the book in which, eighteen years ago, you instructed your own party in the principles of constitutional responsibility.
"I often ask myself with a heavy heart what purpose will have been served by writings such as yours, monsieur, such as those of the most eminent men of the opinion to which I myself belong, if, from this agreement between the highest intellects of the country for the constant defense of the rights of discussion, there did not at last result, for the bulk of French minds, a resolve thenceforth to insist upon, under every form of government, to exact from all victorious systems, whatever they may be, liberty of thought, speech and writing, as the first condition of all lawfully exercised authority. Is it not true, monsieur, that when, under the last government, you asked for the most complete liberty of discussion, it was not for the momentary service which your political friends might derive from it in opposition to adversaries who had forced their way into power by intrigue? There were some who made use of the press in this way, as they have since proved; but you, monsieur, asked for liberty of discussion as essential to the public welfare, as the weapon and general protection of all ideas, young or old; that is what earned for you, monsieur, the gratitude and respect of opinions to which the Revolution of July has opened the lists again. That is why our work is incident on yours, and, when we quote your writings, we do so less from admiration of the incomparable talent which produced them than as aspiring to continue the same task at a great distance, young soldiers as we are of a cause of which you are the most glorious veteran.
"What you have wished for thirty years, monsieur, what I would wish, if I be permitted to mention myself after you, is to secure to the interests that divide our beautiful France a law of combat that shall be more humane, more civilized, more brotherly, more conclusive than civil war. When shall we succeed in bringing ideas face to face, instead of parties, and lawful and avowable interests, instead of disguises, egoism and cupidity? When shall we see speech and persuasion cause those inevitable transactions which the contest of parties and the shedding of blood also bring to pass by exhaustion, but too late for the dead in both camps and, too often, without profit for the wounded and survivors? As you so sorrowfully say, monsieur, it seems that many lessons have been wasted and that men no longer know in France what it costs to take refuge in a despotism that promises silence and repose. We must none the less continue to speak, write and print; resources most unforeseen sometimes issue from constancy. And so, of all the splendid examples which you, monsieur, have set, that which I have most constantly before my eyes is expressed in one word: Persevere.
"Accept, monsieur, the sentiments of unalterable affection with which I am glad to call myself
"Your most devoted servant,
"A. Carrel.
"Puteaux, near Neuilly, 4 October 1834."
Armand Carrel in prison.
M. Carrel was locked up at Sainte-Pélagie; I used to go to see him two or three times a week: I found him standing behind his window-grating. He reminded me of his neighbour, a young African lion in the Jardin des Plantes: motionless at the bars of its cage, the son of the desert turned its vague and sad look upon the objects outside; one could see that he would not live. Then M. Carrel and I used to go down the stairs; the servant of Henry V. walked with the enemy of the Kings in a damp, dark, narrow yard, surrounded by high walls, like a well. There were other Republicans also taking exercise in this yard: those young and ardent Revolutionaries, with their mustachios, beards, long hairs, Greek or German caps, pale faces, fierce looks, threatening aspect, were like those pre-existent souls in Tartarus that had not yet reached the light; they were preparing to break into life. Their dress acted upon them as the uniform upon the soldier, as Nessus' blood-stained shirt upon Hercules: they were an avenging world, which lay hidden behind the society of the present and which made one shudder.
In the evening, they met in the room of their leader, Armand Carrel; they spoke of what would have to be accomplished when they came into power and of the necessity for bloodshed. Discussions arose on the "great citizens of the Terror:" some, who were partisans of Marat, were atheists and materialists; others, who admired Robespierre, adored that new Christ. Had not St. Robespierre said, in his speech on the Supreme Being, that belief in God "gives strength to defy misfortune" and that "innocence on the scaffold made the tyrant turn pale in his triumphal car?" The hocus-pocus of an executioner who talks meltingly of God, misfortune, tyranny, scaffolds, in order to persuade men that he kills only the guilty, and even then in consequence of virtue; the foresight of evil-doers who, feeling the punishment draw nigh, pose in advance as Socrates before the judge and try to frighten the blade by threatening it with their innocence!
The stay at Sainte-Pélagie did M. Carrel harm: shut up with hot-heads, he fought against their ideas, blamed them, defied them, nobly refusing to illuminate his room on the 21st of January; but, at the same time, he chafed at his sufferings, and his reason was disturbed by the murderous sophistry that resounded in his ears.
The mothers, sisters and wives of those young men came to look after them in the mornings and to do their rooms. One day, as I was passing along the dark corridor which led to M. Carrel's room, I heard a bewitching voice issue from a neighbouring den: a beautiful woman, hatless, with her hair hanging loose, was sitting on the edge of a pallet-bed, mending the tattered clothes of a kneeling prisoner, who seemed less the captive of Philip than of the woman at whose feet he was chained.