What surprised me most in Renan's bearing was that there was nothing
solemn about it and absolutely nothing sentimental. He impressed one as
being exceptionally clever and a man that the opposition he had met with
had left as it found him. He enquired about the state of things in the
North. When I spoke, without reserve, of the slight prospect that
existed of my coming to the front with my opinions, he maintained that
victory was sure. (_Vous l'emporterez! vous l'emporterez_!) Like
all foreigners, he marvelled that the three Scandinavian countries did
not try to unite, or at any rate to form an indissoluble Union. In the
time of Gustavus Adolphus, he said, they had been of some political
importance; since then they had retired completely from the historical
stage. The reason for it must very probably be sought for in their
insane internecine feuds.
Renan used to live, at that time, from the Spring onwards, at his house
in the country, at Sevres. So utterly unaffected was the world-renowned
man, then already forty-seven years of age, that he often walked from
his house to the station with me, and wandered up and down the platform
till the train came.
His wife, who shared his thoughts and worshipped him, had chosen her
husband herself, and, being of German family, had not been married after
the French manner; still, she did not criticise it, as she thought it
was perhaps adapted to the French people, and she had seen among her
intimate acquaintances many happy marriages entered into for reasons of
convenience.
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