foolish to make merry on a set date, by Government decree. People
are like a flock of sheep, now steadily patient, now in ferocious
revolt. Say to it: "Amuse yourself," and it amuses itself. Say to
it: "Go and fight with your neighbor," and it goes and fights.
Say to it: "Vote for the Emperor," and it votes for the Emperor;
then say to it: "Vote for the Republic," and it votes for the
Republic.

Those who direct it are stupid, too; but instead of obeying men
they obey principles, a course which can only be foolish,
ineffective, and false, for the very reason that principles are
ideas which are considered as certain and unchangeable, whereas
in this world one is certain of nothing, since light is an
illusion and noise is deception.

July 16. I saw some things yesterday that troubled me very much.
I was dining at my cousin's, Madame Sable, whose husband is
colonel of the Seventy-sixth Chasseurs at Limoges. There were two
young women there, one of whom had married a medical man, Dr.
Parent, who devotes himself a great deal to nervous diseases and
to the extraordinary manifestations which just now experiments in
hypnotism and suggestion are producing.

He related to us at some length the enormous results obtained by
English scientists and the doctors of the medical school at
Nancy, and the facts which he adduced appeared to me so strange,
that I declared that I was altogether incredulous.

"We are," he declared, "on the point of discovering one of the
most important secrets of nature, I mean to say, one of its most