L E T T E R S

279Letter Nr. 30December 2, 1832[To Burgaud des Marets]My dear Burgaud,How happy to have found in you so much kindness and indulgence!Yes, I accept with greatest joy the favour that I no longer dared ask you andnevertheless a favour I wanted to obtain more than anyone, and I thank youagain as a friend. I promise to give you no more cause to doubt my attachment.But you reproach me for the error I committed in assuming that you weretaking revenge on my indifference (which I did not use) its ordinary sense andapply it to my sentiments as well as to my acts, that I protest. For yourfriednship formed the sweetest memory, that most ardent wish of my heart,and if I could today quite efface from my life the last two years, I would do sojust for the reason alone that they made my conduct to you so contradictory, Iwould do so heartily. That contradiction was due to my mental state whichthen was only a contradiction with my weak past life, with my roofs withmyself, such as that past formed me, such as I was and am.You know that before you left Paris two and a half years ago I wasdrawing close to St. Simonism which formed then only a small philosophicalschool almost unknown. Well, shortly after I entered it completely. Why? youguess it. The generosity and grandure of the views of that society had blindedme, as many others, to all that was incomplete, false or impossible in it. Full offaith and ardour for the work which I regarded as most useful for humanity,exalted by the events at Paris of which I was a witness, I went to London andspent six months as a very zealous missionary, which only served to increasemy illusions. Having returned to Paris and being able to judge our doctrines inthe men who were its highest representatives, my apostolic enchantment soon