!--

I must start for Paris immediately.

_July 12th._ Paris. I must have lost my head during the last few days! I
must be the plaything of my enervated imagination, unless I am really a
somnambulist, or that I have been brought under the power of one of
those influences which have been proved to exist, but which have
hitherto been inexplicable, which are called suggestions. In any case,
my mental state bordered on madness, and twenty-four hours of Paris
sufficed to restore me to my equilibrium.

Yesterday after doing some business and paying some visits which
instilled fresh and invigorating mental air into me, I wound up my
evening at the _Theatre Francais_. A play by Alexandre Dumas the
Younger was being acted, and his active and powerful mind completed my
cure. Certainly solitude is dangerous for active minds. We require men
who can think and can talk, around us. When we are alone for a long time
we people space with phantoms.

I returned along the boulevards to my hotel in excellent spirits. Amid
the jostling of the crowd I thought, not without irony, of my terrors
and surmises of the previous week, because I believed, yes, I believed,
that an invisible being lived beneath my roof. How weak our head is, and
how quickly it is terrified and goes astray, as soon as we are struck by
a small, incomprehensible fact.

Instead of concluding with these simple words: "I do not understand
because the cause escapes me," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries
and supernatural powers.

_July 14th._ Fete of the Republic. I walked through the streets, and the
crackers and flags amused me like a child. Still it is very foolish to
be merry on a fixed date, by a Government decree. The populace is an
imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious
revolt. Say to it: "Amuse yourself," and it amuses itself. Say to it:
"Go and fight with your neighbour," and it goes and fights. Say to it:
"Vote for the Emperor," and it votes for the Emperor, and then say to
it: "Vote for the Republic," and it votes for the Republic.

Those who direct it are also stupid; but instead of obeying men they
obey principles, which can only be stupid, sterile, and false, for the
very reason that they are principles, that is to say, ideas which are
considered as certain and unchangeable, in this world where one is
certain of nothing, since light is an illusion and noise is an illusion.

_July 16th._ I saw some things yesterday that