Letters from France and Italy (1847-1852)

To believe in Russia is not surprising now that Nicholas is buried in the fortress of Petropavlovsk and his successor is emancipating the peasants. It was not so then. But in the darkest hour of a cold and gloomy night, in the middle of a demoralized world that was collapsing, and lending an ear to the horrors committed at home, an inner voice told me louder and louder that all is not yet lost for us, and I repeated again the lines of Goethe that we recited so often in adolescence:

For this faith in her, for this healing through her, I thank my homeland. Will I see her or not? But love for her will accompany me to the grave.

The reception of these letters, partly published in Le Contemporain (Letters from the Avenue Marigny) and partly in the German edition (Letters from France and Italy, Hoffmann and Kampe) and then in Russian in our printing house, was very different; alongside a keen interest, they encountered great detractors. The Russian objections and reproaches can be summarized in three main points: How can one speak of Europe jokingly, why destroy the faith one has in it, why preach socialism, which frightens people and with which, for the moment, Russia has nothing to do?