He never again saw his native
land, all the remaining years of life being spent in exile. After a tour of
Italy, Herzen arrived in Paris on the eve of the Revolution of 1848,
joining there his friends, Bakunin and Turgeniev, and many other
revolutionary leaders. It was impossible for him to participate actively in
the 1848 uprising, owing to the activity of the Paris police, but he
watched the Revolution with the profoundest sympathy. And when it failed
and was followed by the terrible reaction his distress was almost
unbounded. For a brief period he was the victim of the most appalling
pessimism, but after a time his faith returned and he joined with Proudhon
in issuing a radical revolutionary paper, _L'Ami du Peuple_, of which,
Kropotkin tells us in his admirable study of Russian literature, "almost
every number was confiscated by the police of Napoleon the Third." The
paper had a very brief life, and Herzen himself was soon expelled from
France, going to Switzerland, of which country he became a citizen.
In 1857 Herzen settled in London, where he published for some years a
remarkable paper, called _Kolokol (The Bell)_, in which he exposed the
iniquities and shortcomings of Czarism and inspired the youth of Russia
with his revolutionary ideals.
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