“You do not know what exile is.  I do know it.  It is terrible.  Assuredly, I would not begin it again.  Death is a bourne whence no one comes back, exile is a place whither no one returns.”

“If necessary,” I said to him, “I will go, and I will return to it.”

“Better die.  To quit life is nothing, but to quit one’s country—­”

“Alas!” said I, “that is every thing.”

“Well, then, why accept exile when it is in your power to avoid it?  What do you place above your country?”

“Conscience.”

This answer made him thoughtful.  However, he resumed.

“But on reflection your conscience will approve of what you will have done.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I have told you.  Because my conscience is so constituted that it puts nothing above itself.  I feel it upon me as the headland can feel the lighthouse which is upon it.  All life is an abyss, and conscience illuminates it around me.”

“And I also,” he exclaimed—­and I affirm that nothing could be more sincere or more loyal than his tone—­“and I also feel and see my conscience.  It approves of what I am doing.  I appear to be betraying Louis; but I am really doing him a service.  To save him from a crime is to save him.  I have tried every means.  There only remains this one, to arrest him.  In coming to you, in acting as I do, I conspire at the same time against him and for him, against his power, and for his honor.  What I am doing is right.”

“It is true,” I said to him.  “You have a generous and a lofty aim.”

And I resumed,—­

“But our two duties are different.  I could not hinder Louis Bonaparte from committing a crime unless I committed one myself.  I wish neither for an Eighteenth Brumaire for him, nor for an Eighteenth Fructidor for myself.  I would rather be proscribed than be a proscriber.  I have the choice between two crimes, my crime and the crime of Louis Bonaparte.  I will not choose my crime.”

“But then you will have to endure his.”

“I would rather endure a crime than commit one.”

He remained thoughtful, and said to me,—­

“Let it be so.”

And he added,—­

“Perhaps we are both in the right.”

“I think so,” I said.

And I pressed his hand.

He took his mother’s manuscript and went away.  It was three o’clock in the morning.  The conversation had lasted more than two hours.  I did not go to bed until I had written it out.

[32] 14th of June, 1847.  Chamber of Peers.  See the work “Avant l’Exile.”

CHAPTER XI.

THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL BEGINS

I did not know where to go.

On the afternoon of the 7th I determined to go back once more to 19, Rue
Richelieu.  Under the gateway some one seized my arm.  It was Madame D.
She was waiting for me.