Meanwhile I had begun, in the intervals between social engagements, to recast my addresses, with a view, as I have said already, to transforming them into a connected book. The first stage in this process was the preparation of an intermediate version of them, which was to be issued as a series of articles in an important monthly journal, these serving as the foundation of the book in its complete form, which was by and by to be issued in America and England simultaneously.
I had arranged to return by the French steamer _Provence_--a magnificent vessel--the largest that the harbor of Havre could accommodate. The restaurant was decorated like a _Salon_ of the time of Louis Quinze. The cooking was admirable, the tables were bright with flowers. I was asked to sit at a table reserved for a charming lady, who was bringing with her her own champagne and butter, with both of which she insisted on providing her friends also. My cabin, though small, was perfect in the way of decoration. An ormolu reading lamp stood by the silken curtains of the bed. The washing basin was of pink marble.
Before returning to England I had settled on spending some solitary months in Brittany, during which it was my object to bring my forthcoming work to completion. I spent a week in Paris, where my French servant rejoined me, whom I had left to enjoy during my absence a holiday, with his family near Grenoble. I never in my life met anyone with more satisfaction.
Paris is notoriously congenial to the upper classes of America; and yet between Paris and New York there is one subtle and pervading difference. Paris has behind it in its buildings and the ways of its people what New York has not--a thousand years of history. The influence of the past is even more apparent in Brittany; and New York became something hardly credible when I found myself in a little hotel--at which I had engaged rooms--an hotel girdled by the ramparts and medieval towers of Dinan. I remained there for six weeks, during which time my book, to which I gave the name _A Critical Examination of Socialism_, was very nearly completed. In spite, however, of my labor, I from time to time found leisure for pilgrimages to moated châteaux, which seemed still to be enjoying a siesta of social and religious peace, unbroken by revolutions and even undisturbed by republics. Of these châteaux one was the home of Chateaubriand. Another, which I traveled a hundred miles to see, was the Château de Kerjaen, its gray gates approached by three huge converging avenues, and the outer walls by which the château itself is sheltered measuring seven hundred by four hundred feet. Though parts of it are habitable and inhabited, Kerjaen is partly ruinous, but its ruin was not due to violence. It was due to an accidental fire which took place when Robespierre was still in his cradle and even in his dreams was "guiltless of his country's blood." Coming, as I did, fresh from the New World, there was for me in Brittany something of the magic of Hungary.