When he was allowed to return to Moscow, in 1840, he found the literary circles entirely under the influence of German philosophy, losing themselves in metaphysical abstractions. “The absolute” of Hegel, his triad-scheme of human progress, and his assertion to the effect that “all that exists is reasonable” were eagerly discussed. This last had brought the Hegelians to maintain that even the despotism of Nicholas I. was “reasonable,” and even the great critic Byelínskiy had been smitten with that recognition of the “historical necessity” of absolutism. Hérzen too had, of course, to study Hegel; but this study brought him, as well as his friend MIKHAIL BAKÚNIN (1824-1876), to quite different conclusions. They both acquired a great influence in the circles, and directed their studies toward the history of the struggles for liberty in Western Europe, and to a careful knowledge of the French Socialists, especially Fourier and Pierre Leroux. They then constituted the left wing of “the Westerners,” to which Turguéneff, Kavélin and so many of our writers belonged; while the Slavophiles constituted the right wing which has already been mentioned on a preceding page. In 1842 Hérzen was exiled once more--this time to Nóvgorod, and only with great difficulties could he obtain permission to go abroad. He left Russia in 1847, never more to return. Bakúnin and Ogaryóff were already abroad, and after a journey to Italy, which was then making heroic efforts to free itself from the Austrian yoke, he soon joined his friends in Paris, which was then on the eve of the Revolution of 1848. He lived through the youthful enthusiasm of the movement which embraced all Europe in the spring of 1848, and he also lived through all the subsequent disappointments and the massacre of the Paris proletarians during the terrible days of June. The quarter where he and Turguéneff stayed at that time was surrounded by a chain of police-agents who knew them both personally, and they could only rage in their rooms as they heard the volleys of rifle-shots, announcing that the vanquished workingmen who had been taken prisoners were being shot in batches by the triumphing _bourgeoisie_. Both have left most striking descriptions of those days--Hérzen’s _June Days_ being one of the best pieces of Russian literature. Deep despair took hold of Hérzen when all the hopes raised by the revolution had so rapidly come to nought and a fearful reaction had spread all over Europe, re-establishing Austrian rule over Italy and Hungary, paving the way for Napoleon III. at Paris, and sweeping away everywhere the very traces of a wide-spread Socialistic movement. Hérzen then felt a deep despair as regards Western civilisation altogether, and expressed it in most moving pages, in his book _From the other Shore_. It is a cry of despair--the cry of a prophetic politician in the voice of a great poet.