Your letter dated from Cologne, and which was forwarded to me here
according to my instructions, has alone disturbed my beatitude. I console
myself with some difficulty for having left Paris almost on the eve of
your return. May Heaven confound your whims and your want of decision! All
I can do now, is to hurry my work; but where shall I find the historical
documents I still need? I am seriously anxious to save these ruins. There
is here a rare landscape, a valuable picture, which it would be sheer
vandalism to allow to perish.

And then, I admire the old monks! I wish to offer up to their departed
shades this homage of my sympathy. Yes, had I lived some thousand years
ago, I would certainly have sought among them the repose of the cloister
while waiting for the peace of heaven. What existence could have suited me
better? Free from the cares of this world, and assured of the other, free
from any agitations of the heart or the mind, I would have placidly
written simple legends which I would have been credulous enough to
believe; I would have unraveled with intense curiosity some unknown
manuscripts, and discovered with tears of joy the Iliad or the Æneid; I
would have sketched imaginary cathedrals; I would have heated
alembics--and perhaps have invented gunpowder; which is by no means the
best thing I might have done.

Come! 'tis midnight; brother, we must sleep!

_Postscriptum._--There are ghosts! I was closing this letter, my dear
friend, in the midst of a solemn silence, when suddenly my ears were
filled with mysterious and confused sounds that seemed to come from
the outside, and among which I thought I could distinguish the buzzing
murmur of a large crowd. I approached, quite surprised, the window of my
cell, and I could not exactly tell you the nature of the emotion I felt on