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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13333-0.txt b/13333-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1908335 --- /dev/null +++ b/13333-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8696 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13333 *** + +_CORRESPONDENCE & CONVERSATIONS OF_ ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE + +WITH NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR + +FROM 1834 TO 1859 + + +EDITED BY + +M.C.M. SIMPSON + + +_IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II_ + + +LONDON: HENRY S. KING & Co., 65 CORNHILL 1872 + + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME + +_Journal_ 1851-2. + +The army master of France +Comparison with the 18th Brumaire +Aggressive acts of the President +Coup d'État planned for March 1852 +Socialism leads to despotism +War necessary to maintain Louis Napoleon +State prisoners on December 2 +Louis Napoleon's devotion to the Pope +Latent Bonapartism of the French +President's reception at Notre Dame +Frank hypocrites +Mischievous public men +Extradition of Kossuth +January 29, 1849 +Stunner's account of it contradicted +The Second Napoleon a copy of the First +Relies on Russian support +Compulsory voting +Life of a cavalry officer +Victims of the Coup d'État + + +_Letters in_ 1852-3. + +Effect of the Orleans confiscation on the English +Firmness of Prussia +Mr. Greg's writings +Communication from Schwartzenberg +New Reform Bill +Democracy or aristocracy +Reform Bill not wanted +Twenty-five thousand men at Cherbourg +Easier to understand Lord Derby than Lord John +Preparations at Cherbourg a delusion +Conversation with King Leopold +No symptoms of aristocratic re-action in England +England's democratic tendencies +Idleness of young aristocrats +Death of Protection +Revolutions leading to masquerades +Tory reforms +Imperial marriage +New Reform Bill a blunder + +_Journal in_ 1853. + +Prosperity in Paris +Dangers incurred by overbuilding +Discharged workmen effect Revolutions +Probable monetary panic +Empire can be firmly established only by a successful war +Agents undermining the Empire +Violence and corruption of the Government +Growing unpopularity of Louis Napoleon +Consequences of his death +He probably will try the resource of war +Conquest would establish his power +War must produce humiliation or slavery to France +Corruption is destroying the army and navy +Emperor cannot tolerate opposition +Will try a plebiscite + +_Letters in_ 1853. + +Blackstone a mere lawyer +Feudal institutions in France and England +Gentleman and Gentilhomme +Life of seclusion +Interference of police with letters +Mrs. Crete's conversations at St. Cyr +Great writers of the eighteenth century +Political torpor unfavourable to intellectual product +English not fond of generalities +Curious archives at Tours +Frightful picture they present +Sufficient to account for the Revolution of 1789 +La Marck's memoir of Mirabeau +Court would not trust Mirabeau +The elder Mirabeau influenced by Revolution +Revolution could not have been averted +Works of David Hume +Effect of intolerance of the press +Honesty and shortsightedness of La Fayette +Laws must be originated by philosophers +Carried into effect by practical men +Napoleon carried out laws +Too fond of centralisation +Country life destroyed by it +Royer Collard +Danton +Madame Tallien +Tocqueville independent of society +Studious and regular life +Influence of writers as compared with active politicians + +_Journal in_ 1854. + +Criticism of the Journals +The speakers generally recognised +Aware that they were being reported +The Legitimists +Necessity of Crimean War +Probable management of it +English view of the Fusion +Bourbons desire Constitutional Government +Socialists would prefer the Empire +They rejoiced in the Orleans confiscation +Empire might be secured by liberal institutions +Policy of G. +English new Reform Bill +Dangers of universal suffrage +Baraguay d'Hilliers and Randon +Lent in the Provinces +Chenonceaux +Montalembert's speech +Cinq Mars +Appearance of prosperity +_Petite culture_ in Touraine +Tyranny more mischievous than civil war +Centralisation of Louis XIV. a means of taxation +Under Louis Napoleon, centralisation more powerful than ever +Power of the Préfet +Courts of Law tools of the Executive +Préfet's candidate must succeed +Empire could not sustain a defeat +Loss of aristocracy in France +Napoleon estranged Legitimists by the murder of the Duc d'Enghien +Louis Philippe attempted to govern through the middle classes +Temporary restoration of aristocratic power under the republic +Overthrown by the second Empire +Legitimists inferior to their ancestors +Dulness of modern society and books +Effects of competition + +_Letters in_ 1854-5. + +Tocqueville attends the Academy +Proposed visit to Germany +Return to France +English adulation of Louis Napoleon +Mismanagement of Crimean War +Continental disparagement of England +Necessity for a conscription in England +Disastrous effects of the war for English aristocracy +Peace premature + +_Journals in_ 1855. + +Effects of the Emperor going to the Crimea +Prince Napoleon +Discontent in England +Disparagement of England +Austria alone profited by Crimean War +Despotism of Louis Napoleon consolidated by it +Centralisation in Algeria +Criticism of Mr. Senior's Article +Places Louis Napoleon too high +English alliances not dependent on the Empire +Louis Napoleon will covet the Rhine +Childish admiration of Emperor by British public +Real friends of England are the friends of her institutions + + +_Extracts from Mr. Senior's Article_. + +Description of political parties +Imperialists +Legitimists +Orleanists +Orleanist-Fusionists form the bulk of the Royalists +Legitimists unfit for public life +Republican party not to be despised +Parliamentarians +Desire only free institutions +No public opinion expressed in the Provinces +Power of Centralisation +Increased under Louis Philippe +Power of the Préfet +Foreign policy of Louis Napoleon +Of former French Sovereigns +Invasion of Rome prepared in 1847 +Eastern question, a legacy from Louis Philippe +Fault as an administrator +Mismanagement of the war +His Ministers mere clerks +Free institutions may secure his throne +English Alliance +Russian influence +Revolutions followed by despotism +Lessons taught by history + + +_Letters in_ 1855-6. + +Tocqueville burns his letter +Conversation of May 28 +Amusing letters from the Army +Enjoyment of home +Fall of Sebastopol +Cost of the war +Russia dangerous to Europe +How to restrain her +Progress in the East +No public excitement in France + + +_Journal in 1856_. + +The 'Ancien Régime' +Master of Paris, Master of France +Opposition to Suez Canal +Mischievous effect of English Opposition +Expenditure under the Empire +Effect of Opposition to the Suez Canal +Tripartite Treaty +'Friponnerie' of the Government +Tripartite Treaty +Suez Canal +French floating batteries +Fortifications of Malta +Emperor's orders to Canrobert +A campaign must be managed on the spot + + +_Letters in_ 1856-7. + +The 'Ancien Régime' +King 'Bomba' +American Rebellion +Lord Aberdeen on the Crimean War +Eccentricities of English public men +Remedy for rise in house-rent +The rise produced by excessive public works +Dulness of Paris +Mr. Senior's Journal in Egypt +Chinese war + + +_Journal in_ 1857. + +Flatness of society in Paris +Dexterity of Louis Napoleon +Is maintained by the fear of the 'Rouges' +Due de Nemours' letter +Tocqueville disapproves of contingent promises +Empire rests on the army and the people +Slavery of the Press +Public speaking in France +English and French speakers +American speakers +Length of speeches +French public men +Lamartine +Falloux +Foreign French +Narvaez and Kossuth +French conversers +Montalembert +Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle +Tu and vous +Feeling respecting heretics +Prejudices of the Ancien Régime +French poetry +Fashion in Literature +Montalembert's changes of opinion +Increasing population of Paris +Its dangerous character +No right to relief +Sudden influx of workmen +Soldiers likely to side with the people +Lamoricière's heroism +June 1848 +French army +National characteristics +Change in French only apparent +Martin's History of France +He is a centraliser and an absolutist +Secret police + +_Letters in_ 1857-8. + +Reception in England +Indian Mutiny +Financial question +Unpopularity of England +Law of Public Safety + +_Journal in_ 1858. + +Talleyrand as a writer +English ignorance of French affairs +Change of feeling respecting Louis Napoleon +'Loi de sureté publique' +Manner in which it has been carried out +Deportation a slow death +Influence of 'hommes de lettres' +French army +Russian army +French navy +Napoleon indifferent to the navy +Mr. Senior's Athens journal +Otho and Louis Napoleon +Qualities which obtain influence +Character of Louis Napoleon +Tocqueville's comments on the above conversation +Tocqueville on Novels +Intellectual and moral inferiority of the age +Education of French women +'Messe d'une heure' +Influence of Madame Récamier +Duchesse de Dino + +_Letters in_ 1858-9. + +Failing health +Mr. Senior's visit to Sir John Boileau +Promise of Lord Stanley +Character of Guizot +Spectacle afforded by English Politics +Tocqueville at Cannes +Louis Napoleon's loss of popularity +Death of Alexis de Tocqueville +Grief it occasioned in England + +_Journal at Tocqueville in_ 1861. + +Madame de Tocqueville house at Valognes +Chateau de Tocqueville +Beaumont on Italian affairs +Piedmontese unpopular with the lower classes +Popular with the higher classes in Naples +Influence of Orsini +Subjection of the French +Effect of Universal Suffrage +Causes which may overthrow Louis Napoleon +Popularity of a war with England +Condition of the Roman people +Different sorts of courage in different nations +Destructiveness of war not found out at first +Effect of service on conscript +Expenditure of Louis Napoleon +Forebodings of the Empress +Prince Napoleon +Ampère on Roman affairs +Inquisition +Infidelity +Mortara affair +Torpor of Roman Government +Interference with marriages +Ampère expects Piedmont to take possession of Rome +Does not think that Naples will submit to Piedmont +Wishes of Naples only negative +Ampère's reading +Execution of three generations +Familiarity with death in 1793 +Sanson +Public executioners +The 'Chambre noire' +Violation of correspondence +Toleration of Ennui +Prisoners of State +M. and Madame de La Fayette +Mirabeau and La Fayette +Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette +Evils of Democratic despotism +Ignorance and indolence of 'La jeune France' +Algeria a God-send +Family life in France +Moral effect of Primogeniture +Descent of Title +Shipwreck off Gatteville +Ampère reads 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' +The modern Nouveau Riche +Society under the Republic +Madame Récamier +Chateaubriand and Madame Mohl +Ballanche +Extensiveness of French literature +French and English poetry +The 'Misanthrope' +Tocqueville's political career +Under Louis Philippe in 1835 +Independence +In 1839 and 1840 +Opposition to Guizot +Inaction of Louis Philippe +Tocqueville would not submit to be a minister without power +Mistaken independence of party +Could not court popularity +Reform came too late +Faults in the Constitution +Defence of the Constitution +Tocqueville wished for a double election of the President +Centralisation useful to a usurper +England in the American War +Defence of England +Politics of a farmer +Wages in Normandy +Evils of Universal Suffrage +Influence of the clergy +Prince Napoleon +Constitutional monarchy preferable to a republic +Republic preferable to a despotism +Probable gross faults of a republic +Evils of socialist opinions +Mischievous effects of strikes +Mistaken tolerance of them in England +Tocqueville's tomb + + * * * * * + +APPENDIX. + +Mr. Senior's report of M. de Montalembert's speech in 1854 + + + +TOCQUEVILLE DURING THE EMPIRE + +FROM DECEMBER 23, 1851 TO APRIL 20, 1858. + + +CONVERSATIONS + +PARIS, 1851-2. + +[The _coup d'état_ took place on the 2nd, and Mr. Senior reached Paris on +the 21st of December.--ED.] + + +_Paris, December_ 23, 1851.--I dined with Mrs. Grot and drank tea with +the Tocquevilles. + +[1]'This,' said Tocqueville, 'is a new phase in our history. Every +previous revolution has been made by a political party. This is the first +time that the army has seized France, bound and gagged her, and laid her +at the feet of its ruler.' + +'Was not the 18th fructidor,' I said, 'almost a parallel case? Then, as +now, there was a quarrel between the executive and the legislature. The +Directory, like Louis Napoleon, dismissed the ministers, in whom the +legislature had confidence, and appointed its own tools in their places, +denounced the legislature to the country, and flattered and corrupted the +army. The legislature tried the usual tactics of parliamentary +opposition, censured the Government, and refused the supplies. The +Directory prepared a _coup d'état._ The legislature tried to obtain a +military force, and failed; they planned an impeachment of the Directory, +and found the existing law insufficient. They brought forward a new law +defining the responsibility of the executive, and the night after they +had begun to discuss it, their halls were occupied by a military force, +and the members of the opposition were seized in the room in which they +had met to denounce the treason of the Directory.' + +'So far,' he answered, 'the two events resemble one another. Each was a +military attack on the legislature by the executive. But the Directors +were the representatives of a party. The Councils and the greater part of +the aristocracy, and the _bourgeoisie_, were Bonapartists; the lower +orders were Republican, the army was merely an instrument; it conquered, +not for itself, but for the Republican party. + +'The 18th brumaire was nearer to this--for that ended, as this has begun, +in a military tyranny. But the 18th brumaire was almost as much a civil +as a military revolution. A majority in the Councils was with Bonaparte. +Louis Napoleon had not a real friend in the Assembly. All the educated +classes supported the 18th brumaire; all the educated classes repudiate +the 2nd of December. Bonaparte's Consular Chair was sustained by all the +_élite_ of France. This man cannot obtain a decent supporter. +Montalembert, Baroche, and Fould--an Ultramontane, a country lawyer, and +a Jewish banker--are his most respectable associates. For a real parallel +you must go back 1,800 years.' + +I said that some persons, for whose judgment I had the highest respect, +seemed to treat it as a contest between two conspirators, the Assembly +and the President, and to think the difference between his conduct and +theirs to be that he struck first. + +'This,' said Tocqueville, 'I utterly deny. He, indeed, began to conspire +from November 10, 1848. His direct instructions to Oudinot, and his +letter to Ney, only a few months after his election, showed his +determination not to submit to Parliamentary Government. Then followed +his dismissal of Ministry after Ministry, until he had degraded +the·office to a clerkship. Then came the semi-regal progress, then the +reviews of Satory, the encouragement of treasonable cries, the selection +for all the high appointments in the army of Paris of men whose infamous +characters fitted them to be tools. Then he publicly insulted the +Assembly at Dijon, and at last, in October, we knew that his plans were +laid. It was then only that we began to think what were our means of +defence, but that was no more a conspiracy than it is a conspiracy in +travellers to look for their pistols when they see a band of robbers +advancing. + +'M. Baze's proposition was absurd only because it was impracticable. It +was a precaution against immediate danger, but if it had been voted, it +could not have been executed. The army had already been so corrupted, +that it would have disregarded the orders of the Assembly. I have often +talked over our situation with Lamoricière and my other military friends. +We saw what was coming as clearly as we now look back to it; but we had +no means of preventing it.' + +'But was not your intended law of responsibility,' I said, 'an attack on +your part?' + +'That law,' he said, 'was not ours. It was sent up to us by the _Conseil +d'État_ which had been two years and a half employed on it, and ought to +have sent it to us much sooner. We thought it dangerous--that is to say, +we thought that, though quite right in itself, it would irritate the +President, and that in our defenceless state it was unwise to do so. The +_bureau_, therefore, to which it was referred refused to declare it +urgent: a proof that it would not have passed with the clauses which, +though reasonable, the President thought fit to disapprove. Our +conspiracy was that of the lambs against the wolf. + +'Though I have said,' he continued, 'that he has been conspiring ever +since his election, I do not believe that he intended to strike so soon. +His plan was to wait till next March when the fears of May 1852 would be +most intense. Two circumstances forced him on more rapidly. One was the +candidature of the Prince de Joinville. He thought him the only dangerous +competitor. The other was an agitation set on foot by the Legitimists in +the _Conseils généraux_ for the repeal of the law of May 31. That law was +his moral weapon against the Assembly, and he feared that if he delayed, +it might be abolished without him.' + +'And how long,' I asked, 'will this tyranny last?' + +'It will last,' he answered, 'until it is unpopular with the mass of the +people. At present the disapprobation is confined to the educated +classes. We cannot bear to be deprived of the power of speaking or of +writing. We cannot bear that the fate of France should depend on the +selfishness, or the vanity, or the fears, or the caprice of one man, a +foreigner by race and by education, and of a set of military ruffians and +of infamous civilians, fit only to have formed the staff and the privy +council of Catiline. We cannot bear that the people which carried the +torch of Liberty through Europe should now be employed in quenching all +its lights. But these are not the feelings of the multitude. Their insane +fear of Socialism throws them headlong into the arms of despotism. As in +Prussia, as in Hungary, as in Austria, as in Italy, so in France, the +democrats have served the cause of the absolutists. May 1852 was a +spectre constantly swelling as it drew nearer. But now that the weakness +of the Red party has been proved, now that 10,000 of those who are +supposed to be its most active members are to be sent to die of hunger +and marsh fever in Cayenne, the people will regret the price at which +their visionary enemy has been put down. Thirty-seven years of liberty +have made a free press and free parliamentary discussion necessaries to +us. If Louis Napoleon refuses them, he will be execrated as a tyrant. If +he grants them, they must destroy him. We always criticise our rulers +severely, often unjustly. It is impossible that so rash and wrong-headed +a man surrounded, and always wishing to be surrounded, by men whose +infamous character is their recommendation to him, should not commit +blunders and follies without end. They will be exposed, perhaps +exaggerated by the press, and from the tribune. As soon as he is +discredited the army will turn against him. It sympathises with the +people from which it has recently been separated and to which it is soon +to return. It will never support an unpopular despot. I have no fears +therefore for the ultimate destinies of my country. It seems to me that +the Revolution of the 2nd of December is more dangerous to the rest of +Europe than it is to us. That it ought to alarm England much more than +France. _We_ shall get rid of Louis Napoleon in a few years, perhaps in a +few months, but there is no saying how much mischief he may do in those +years, or even in those months, to his neighbours.' + +'Surely,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'he will wish to remain at peace +with England.' + +'I am not sure at all of that,' said Tocqueville. 'He cannot sit down a +mere quiet administrator. He must do something to distract public +attention; he must give us a substitute for the political excitement +which has amused us during the last forty years. Great social +improvements are uncertain, difficult, and slow; but glory may be +obtained in a week. A war with England, at its beginning, is always +popular. How many thousand volunteers would he have for a "pointe" on +London? + +'The best that can happen to you is to be excluded from the councils of +the great family of despots. Besides, what is to be done to amuse these +400,000 bayonets, _his_ masters as well as ours? Crosses, promotions, +honours, gratuities, are already showered on the army of Paris. It has +already received a thing unheard of in our history--the honours and +recompenses of a campaign for the butchery on the Boulevards. Will not +the other armies demand their share of work and reward? As long as the +civil war in the Provinces lasts they may be employed there. But it will +soon be over. What is then to be done with them? Are they to be marched +on Switzerland, or on Piedmont, or on Belgium? And will England quietly +look on?' + +Our conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the Abbé +Gioberti, and of Sieur Capponi, a Sicilian. + +_Paris, December_ 31, 1851.--I dined with the Tocquevilles and met Mrs. +Grote, Rivet, and Corcelle. + +'The gayest time,' said Tocqueville, 'that I ever passed was in the Quai +d'Orsay. The _élite_ of France in education, in birth, and in talents, +particularly in the talents of society, was collected within the walls of +that barrack. + +'A long struggle was over, in which our part had not been timidly played; +we had done our duty, we had gone through some perils, and we had some to +encounter, and we were all in the high spirits which excitement and +dangers shared with others, when not too formidable, create. From the +courtyard in which we had been penned for a couple of hours, where the +Duc de Broglie and I tore our chicken with our hands and teeth, we were +transferred to a long sort of gallery, or garret, running along through +the higher part of the building, a spare dormitory for the soldiers when +the better rooms are filled. Those who chose to take the trouble went +below, hired palliasses from the soldiers, and carried them up for +themselves. I was too idle and lay on the floor in my cloak. Instead of +sleeping we spent the night in shooting from palliasse to palliasse +anecdotes, repartees, jokes, and pleasantries. "C'était un feu roulant, +une pluie de bons mots." Things amused us in that state of excitement +which sound flat when repeated. + +'I remember Kerrel, a man of great humour, exciting shouts of laughter by +exclaiming, with great solemnity, as he looked round on the floor, +strewed with mattresses and statesmen, and lighted by a couple of tallow +candles, "Voilà donc où en est réduit ce fameux parti de l'ordre." Those +who were kept _au secret_, deprived of mutual support, were in a very +different state of mind; some were depressed, others were enraged. Bédeau +was left alone for twenty-four hours; at last a man came and offered him +some sugar. He flew at his throat and the poor turnkey ran off, fancying +his prisoner was mad.' + +We talked of Louis Napoleon's devotion to the Pope. + +'It is of recent date,' said Corcelle. 'In January and February 1849 he +was inclined to interfere in support of the Roman Republic against the +Austrians. And when in April he resolved to move on Rome, it was not out +of any love for the Pope. In fact, the Pope did not then wish for us. He +told Corcelle that he hoped to be restored by General Zucchi, who +commanded a body of Roman troops in the neighbourhood of Bologna. No +one at that time believed the Republican party in Rome to be capable of a +serious defence. Probably they would not have made one if they had not +admitted Garibaldi and his band two days before we appeared before their +gates.' + +I mentioned to Tocqueville Beaumont's opinion that France will again +become a republic. + +'I will not venture,' he answered, 'to affirm, with respect to any form +whatever of government, that we shall never adopt it; but I own that I +see no prospect of a French republic within any assignable period. We +are, indeed, less opposed to a republic now than we were in 1848. We have +found that it does not imply war, or bankruptcy, or tyranny; but we still +feel that it is not the government that suits us. This was apparent from +the beginning. Louis Napoleon had the merit, or the luck, to discover, +what few suspected, the latent Bonapartism of the nation. The 10th of +December showed that the memory of the Emperor, vague and indefinite, but +therefore the more imposing, still dwelt like an heroic legend in the +imaginations of the peasantry. When Louis Napoleon's violence and folly +have destroyed the charm with which he has worked, all eyes will turn, +not towards a republic, but to Henri V.' + +'Was much money,' I asked, 'spent at his election?' + +'Very little,' answered Tocqueville. 'The ex-Duke of Brunswick lent him +300,000 francs on a promise of assistance as soon as he should be able to +afford it; and I suppose that we shall have to perform the promise, and +to interfere to restore him to his duchy; but that was all that was +spent. In fact he had no money of his own, and scarcely anyone, except +the Duke, thought well enough of his prospects to lend him any. He used +to sit in the Assembly silent and alone, pitied by some members and +neglected by all. Silence, indeed, was necessary to his success. + +_Paris, January 2nd_, 1852.--I dined with Mrs. Grote and drank tea with +the Tocquevilles. + +'What is your report,' they asked, 'of the President's reception in Notre +Dame. We hear that it was cold.' + +'So,' I answered, 'it seemed to me.' + +'I am told,' said Tocqueville, 'that it was still colder on his road. He +does not shine in public exhibitions. He does not belong to the highest +class of hypocrites, who cheat by frankness and cordiality.' + +'Such,' I said, 'as Iago. It is a class of villains of which the +specimens are not common.' + +'They are common enough with us,' said Tocqueville. 'We call them _faux +bonshommes_. H. was an instance. He had passed a longish life with the +character of a frank, open-hearted soldier. When he became Minister, the +facts which he stated from the tribune appeared often strange, but coming +from so honest a man we accepted them. One falsehood, however, after +another was exposed, and at last we discovered that H. himself, with all +his military bluntness and sincerity, was a most intrepid, unscrupulous +liar. + +'What is the explanation,' he continued, 'of Kossuth's reception in +England? I can understand enthusiasm for a democrat in America, but what +claim had he to the sympathy of aristocratic England?' + +'Our aristocracy,' I answered, 'expressed no sympathy, and as to the +mayors, and corporations, and public meetings, they looked upon him +merely as an oppressed man, the champion of an oppressed country.' + +'I think,' said Tocqueville, 'that he has been the most mischievous man +in Europe.' + +'More so,' I said, 'than Mazzini? More so than Lamartine?' + +At this instant Corcelle came in. + +'We are adjusting,' said Tocqueville, 'the palm of mischievousness.' + +'I am all for Lamartine,' answered Corcelle; 'without him the others +would have been powerless.' + +'But,' I said, 'if Lamartine had never existed, would not the revolution +of 1848 still have occurred?' + +'It would have certainly occurred' said Tocqueville; 'that is to say, the +oligarchy of Louis Philippe would have come to an end, probably to a +violent one, but it would have been something to have delayed it; and it +cannot be denied that Lamartine's eloquence and courage saved us from +great dangers during the Provisional Government. Kossuth's influence was +purely mischievous. But for him, Austria might now be a constitutional +empire, with Hungary for its most powerful member, a barrier against +Russia instead of her slave.' + +'I must put in a word,' said Corcelle,[2] 'for Lord Palmerston. If +Lamartine produced Kossuth, Lord Palmerston produced Lamartine and +Mazzini and Charles Albert--in short, all the incendiaries whose folly +and wickedness have ended in producing Louis Napoleon.' + +'Notwithstanding,' I said, 'your disapprobation of Kossuth, you joined us +in preventing his extradition.' + +'We did,' answered Tocqueville. 'It was owing to the influence of Lord +Normanby over the President. It was a fine _succès de tribune_. It gave +your Government and ours an occasion to boast of their courage and of +their generosity, but a more dangerous experiment was never made. You +reckoned on the prudence and forbearance of Austria and Russia. Luckily, +Nicholas and Nesselrode are prudent men, and luckily the Turks sent to +St. Petersburg Fuad Effendi, an excellent diplomatist, a much better than +Lamoricière or Lord Bloomfield. He refused to see either of them, +disclaimed their advice or assistance, and addressed himself solely to +the justice and generosity of the Emperor. He admitted that Russia was +powerful enough to seize the refugees, but implored him not to set such +an example, and--he committed nothing to paper. He left nothing, and took +away nothing which could wound the pride of Nicholas; and thus he +succeeded. + +'Two days after, came a long remonstrance from Lord Palmerston, which +Lord Bloomfield was desired to read to Nesselrode, and leave with him. A +man of the world, seeing that the thing was done, would have withheld an +irritating document. But Bloomfield went with it to Nesselrode. +Nesselrode would have nothing to say to it. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "we +have given up all our demands; why tease us by trying to prove that we +ought not to have made them?" Bloomfield said that his orders were +precise. "Lisez donc," cried Nesselrode, "mais il sera très-ennuyeux." +Before he had got half through Nesselrode interrupted him. "I have heard +all this," he said, "from Lamoricière, only in half the number of words. +Cannot you consider it as read?" Bloomfield, however, was inexorable.' + +I recurred to a subject on which I had talked to both of them before--the +tumult of January 29, 1849. + +'George Sumner,' I said, 'assures me that it was a plot, concocted by +Faucher and the President, to force the Assembly to fix a day for its +dissolution, instead of continuing to sit until it should have completed +the Constitution by framing the organic laws which, even on December 2 +last, were incomplete. He affirms that it was the model which was +followed on December 2; that during the night the Palais Bourbon was +surrounded by troops; that the members were allowed to enter, but were +informed, not publicly, but one by one, that they were not to be allowed +to separate until they had fixed, or agreed to fix, the day of their +dissolution; and that under the pressure of military intimidation, the +majority, which was opposed to such a dissolution, gave way and consented +to the vote, which was actually carried two days after.' + +'No such proposition was made to me,' said Tocqueville, 'nor, as far as I +know, to anybody else; but I own that I never understood January 29. It +is certain that the Palais Bourbon, or at least its avenues, were taken +possession of during the night; that there was a vast display of military +force, and also of democratic force; that the two bodies remained _en +face_ for some time, and that the crowd dispersed under the influence of +a cold rain.' + +'I too,' said Corcelle, 'disbelieve Sumner's story. The question as to +the time of dissolution depended on only a few votes, and though it is +true that it was voted two days after, I never heard that the military +demonstration of January 29 accelerated the vote. The explanation which +has been made to me is one which I mentioned the other day, namely, that +the President complained to Changarnier, who at that time commanded the +army of Paris, that due weight seemed not to be given to his 6,000,000 +votes, and that the Assembly appeared inclined to consider him a +subordinate power, instead of the _Chef d'État_, to whom, not to the +Assembly, the nation had confided its destinies. In short, that the +President indicated an intention to make a _coup d'etat_, and that the +troops were assembled by Changarnier for the purpose of resisting it, if +attempted, and at all events of intimidating the President by showing him +how quickly a force could be collected for the defence of the Assembly.' + +_Sunday, January_ 4.--I dined with the Tocquevilles alone. The only +guest, Mrs. Grote, who was to have accompanied me, being unwell. + +'So enormous,' said Tocqueville, 'are the advantages of Louis Napoleon's +situation, that he may defy any ordinary enemy. He has, however, a most +formidable one in himself. He is essentially a copyist. He can originate +nothing; his opinions, his theories, his maxims, even his plots, all are +borrowed, and from the most dangerous of models--from a man who, though +he possessed genius and industry such as are not seen coupled, or indeed +single, once in a thousand years, yet ruined himself by the extravagance +of his attempts. It would be well for him if he would utterly forget all +his uncle's history. He might then trust to his own sense, and to that of +his advisers. It is true that neither the one nor the other would be a +good guide, but either would probably lead him into fewer dangers than a +blind imitation of what was done fifty years ago by a man very unlike +himself, and in a state of society both in France and in the rest of +Europe, very unlike that which now exists.' + +Lanjuinais and Madame B., a relation of the family, came in. + +Lanjuinais had been dining with Kissileff the Russian Minister. Louis +Napoleon builds on Russian support, in consequence of the marriage of his +cousin, the Prince de Lichtenstein, to the Emperor's daughter. He calls +it an _alliance de famille_, and his organs the 'Constitutionnel' and the +'Patrie' announced a fortnight ago that the Emperor had sent to him the +Order of St. Andrew, which is given only to members of the Imperial +family, and an autograph letter of congratulation on the _coup d'état_. + +Kissileff says that all this is false, that neither Order nor letter has +been sent, but he has been trying in vain to get a newspaper to insert a +denial. It will be denied, he is told, when the proper moment comes. + +'It is charming,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'to see the Emperor of +Russia, like ourselves, forced to see his name usurped without redress.' + +Madame B. had just seen a friend who left his country-house, and came to +Paris without voting, and told those who consulted him that, in the +difficulties of the case, he thought abstaining was the safest course. +Immediately after the poll was over the Prefect sent to arrest him for +_malveillance_, and he congratulated himself upon being out of the way. + +One of Edward de Tocqueville's sons came in soon after; his brother, who +is about seventeen, does duty as a private, has no servant, and cleans +his own horse; and is delighted with his new life. That of our young +cavalry officers is somewhat different. He did not hear of the _coup +d'état_ till a week after it had happened. + +'Our regiments,' said Lanjuinais, 'are a kind of convents. The young men +who enter them are as dead to the world, as indifferent to the events +which interest the society which they have left, as if they were monks. +This is what makes them such fit tools for a despot.' + + +_Thursday, January 8, 1852_.--From Sir Henry Ellis's I went to +Tocqueville's. + +[3]'In this darkness,' he said, 'when no one dares to print, and few to +speak, though we know generally that atrocious acts of tyranny are +perpetrated everyday, it is difficult to ascertain precise facts, so I +will give you one. A young man named Hypolite Magin, a gentleman by birth +and education, the author of a tragedy eminently successful called +"Spartacus," was arrested on the 2nd of December. His friends were told +not to be alarmed, that no harm was intended to him, but rather a +kindness; that as his liberal opinions were known, he was shut up to +prevent his compromising himself by some rash expression. He was sent to +Fort Bicêtre, where the casemates, miserable damp vaults, have been used +as a prison, into which about 3,000 political prisoners have been +crammed. His friends became uneasy, not only at the sufferings which he +must undergo in five weeks of such an imprisonment in such weather as +this, but lest his health should be permanently injured. At length they +found that he was there no longer: and how do you suppose that his +imprisonment has ended? He is at this instant at sea in a convict ship on +his way to Cayenne--untried, indeed unaccused--to die of fever, if he +escape the horrors of the passage. Who can say how many similar cases +there may be in this wholesale transportation? How many of those who are +missing and are supposed to have died at the barricades, or on the +Boulevards, may be among the transports, reserved for a more lingering +death!' + +A proclamation to-day from the Prefect de Police orders all persons to +erase from their houses the words 'Liberté,' 'Êgalité,' and 'Fraternité' +on pain of being proceeded against _administrativement_. + +'There are,' said Tocqueville, 'now three forms of procedure: +_judiciairement, militairement_ and _administrativement._ Under the first +a man is tried before a court of law, and, if his crime be grave, is +sentenced to one or two years' imprisonment. Under the second he is tried +before a drumhead court-martial, and shot. Under the third, without any +trial at all, he is transported to Cayenne or Algiers.' + +I left Paris next day. + + +[Footnote 1: I was not able to resist retaining this conversation in the +_Journals in France_.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: It must be remembered that M. de Corcelle is an ardent Roman +Catholic.--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: This conversation was also retained in the _Journals in +France_.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + + + +Kensington, January 5, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A private messenger has just offered himself to me, +a Mr. Esmeade, who will return in about a fortnight. + +The debate on Tuesday night on the Palmerston question was very +satisfactory to the Government. Lord John's speech was very well +received--Lord Palmerston's very ill; and though the constitution of the +present Ministry is so decidedly unhealthy that it is dangerous to +predict any length of life to it, yet it looks healthier than people +expected. It may last out the Session. + +The feeling with respect to Louis Napoleon is stronger, and it tends more +to unanimity every day. The Orleans confiscation has, I think, almost too +much weight given to it. After his other crimes the mere robbery of a +single family, ruffian-like as it is, is a slight addition. + +I breakfasted with V. yesterday. He assures me that it is false that a +demand of twenty millions, or any other pecuniary demand whatever, has +been made in Belgium. Nor has anything been said as to the demolition of +any fortresses, except those which were agreed to be dismantled in 1832, +and which are unimportant. + +The feeling of the people in Belgium is excellent. + +Mr. Banfield, who has just returned from the Prussian provinces, says the +same with respect to them--and Bunsen assures me that his Government will +perish rather than give up a foot of ground. I feel better hopes of the +preservation of peace. + +Thiers and Duvergier de Hauranne are much _fêtés_, as will be the case +with all the exiles. + +I have been reading Fiquelmont. He is deeply steeped in all the _bêtises_ +of the commercial, or rather the anti-commercial school; and holds that +the benefit of commerce consists not, as might have been supposed, in the +things which are imported, but in those which are exported. + +These follies, however, are not worth reading; but his constitutional +theories--his belief, for instance, that Parliamentary Government is the +curse of Europe--are curious. + +The last number of the 'Edinburgh Review' contains an article on Reform +well worth reading. It is by Greg. He wrote an admirable article in, I +think, the April number, on Alton Locke and the English Socialists, and +has also written a book, which I began to-day, on the Creed of +Christendom. I have long been anxious to get somebody to do what I have +not time to do, to look impartially into the evidences of Christianity, +and report the result. This book does it. + +Lord Normanby does not return to Paris, as you probably know. No +explanation is given, but it is supposed to be in compliance with the +President's wishes. + +I have just sent to the press for the 'Edinburgh Review,' an article on +Tronson du Coudray[1] and the 18th fructidor, which you will see in the +April number. The greater part of it was written this time last year at +Sorrento. + +Gladstone has published a new Neapolitan pamphlet, which I will try to +send you. It is said to demolish King Ferdinand. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. We hope that you will come to +us as soon as it is safe. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + +P.S. and very private.--I have seen a communication from Schwartzenberg +to Russia and Prussia, of the 19th December, the doctrine of which is +that Louis Napoleon has done a great service by putting down +parliamentaryism. That in many respects he is less dangerous than the +Orleans, or elder branch, because they have parliamentary leanings. That +no alteration of the existing parties must be permitted--and that an +attempt to assume an hereditary crown should be discouraged--but that +while it shows no aggressive propensities the policy of the Continent +ought to be to countenance him, and _isoler_ l'Angleterre, as a _foyer_ +of constitutional, that is to say, anarchical, principles. + +Bunsen tells me that in October his King was privately asked whether he +was ready to destroy the Prussian Constitution--and that he peremptorily +refused. + +Look at an article on the personal character of Louis Napoleon in the +'Times' of Monday. It is by R----, much built out of my conversation and +Z.'s letters. + +I have begged Mr. Esmeade to call on you--you will like him. He is a +nephew of Sir John Moore. + + + +[2]Kensington, March 19, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I was very glad to see your hand again--though +there is little in French affairs on which liberals can write with +pleasure. + +Ours are become very interesting. Lord John's declaration, at the meeting +the other day in Chesham Place, that he shall introduce a larger reform, +and surround himself with more advanced adherents, and Lord Derby's, on +Monday, that he is opposed to all democratic innovation, appear to me to +have changed the position of parties. The question at issue is no longer +Free-trade or Protection. Protection is abandoned. It is dead, never to +revive. Instead of it we are to fight for Democracy, or Aristocracy. I +own that my sympathies are with Aristocracy: I prefer it to either +Monarchy or Democracy. I know that it is incident to an aristocratic +government that the highest places shall be filled by persons chosen not +for their fitness but for their birth and connections, but I am ready to +submit to this inconvenience for the sake of its freedom and stability. +I had rather have Malmesbury at the Foreign Office, and Lord Derby first +Lord of the Treasury, than Nesselrode or Metternich, appointed by a +monarch, or Cobden or Bright, whom I suppose we should have under a +republic. But above all, I am for the winning horse. If Democracy is to +prevail I shall join its ranks, in the hope of making its victory less +mischievous. + +I wish, however, that the contest had not been forced on. We were very +well, before Lord John brought in his Reform Bill, which nobody called +for, and I am not at all sure that we shall be as well after it has +passed. + +As to the immediate prospects of the Ministry, the next three weeks may +change much, but it seems probable that they will be forced to dissolve +in April, or the beginning of May, that the new Parliament will meet in +July, and that they will be turned out about the end of August. And that +this time next year we shall be discussing Lord John's new Reform Bill. + +I doubt whether our fears of invasion are exaggerated. At this instant, +without doubt, Louis Napoleon is thinking of nothing but the Empire; and +is kind to Belgium, and pacific to Switzerland in the hope of our +recognition. + +But I heard yesterday from Lord Hardinge that 25,000 men are at +Cherbourg, and that 25,000 more are going there--and that a large sum is +devoted to the navy. We know that he governs _en conspirateur_, and this +is likely to extend to his foreign as well as his civil relations. + +I see a great deal of Thiers, who is very agreeable and very _triste_. +'L'exil,' he says, 'est très-dur.' Rémusat seems to bear it more +patiently. We hear that we are to have Cousin. + +What are your studies in the Bibliothèque Royale? I have begun to read +Bastide, and intend to make the publication of my lectures on Political +Economy my principal literary pursuit. I delivered the last on Monday. + +I shall pass the first fifteen days of April in Brussels, with my old +friend Count Arrivabene, 7 Boulevard du Régent. + + * * * * * + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +March 25, 1852. + +I send you, my dear Senior, an introduction to Lamoricière. This letter +will be short: you know that I do not write at any length by the post. + +It will contain nothing but thanks for your long and interesting letter +brought by Rivet, who returned delighted with the English in general, and +with you in particular. + +I see that the disturbed state of politics occasioned by Sir Robert +Peel's policy, is passing away, and that your political world is again +dividing itself into the two great sects, one of which tries to narrow, +the other to extend, the area of political power--one of which tries +to lift you into aristocracy, the other to depress you into democracy. + +The political game will be simpler. I can understand better the +conservative policy of Lord Derby than the democratic one of Lord John +Russell. As the friends of free-trade are more numerous than those of +democracy, I think that it would have been easier to attack the +Government on its commercial than on its political illiberality. + +Then in this great nation, called Europe, similar currents of opinions +and feelings prevail, different as may be the institutions and characters +of its different populations. We see over the whole continent so general +and so irresistible a reaction against democracy, and even against +liberty, that I cannot believe that it will stop short on our side of the +Channel; and if the Whigs become Radical, I shall not be surprised at the +permanence in England of a Tory Government allied to foreign despots. + +But I ought not to talk on such matters, for I live at the bottom of a +well, seeing nothing, and regretting that it is not sufficiently closed +above to prevent my hearing anything. Your visions of 25,000 troops at +Cherbourg, to be followed by 25,000 more, are mere phantoms. There is +nothing of the kind, and there will be nothing. I speak with knowledge, +for I come from Cherbourg. I have been attending an extraordinary meeting +of our _Conseil général_ on the subject of a projected railway. My +reception touched and delighted me. I was unanimously, and certainly +freely, elected president. + + * * * * * + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Friday evening, April 17, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--My letter is not likely to be a very amusing one, +for I begin it on the dullest occasion and in the dullest of towns, +namely at Ostend, while waiting for the packet-boat which is to take me +to London. + +A thousand thanks for your letter to Lamoricière. He was very kind to me, +and I hope hereafter, in Paris or in London, to improve the acquaintance. + +I saw no other French in Brussels. The most interesting conversation that +I had was with the King. + +I found him convinced that the decree annexing Belgium to France had been +drawn up, and that it was the interference of Nicholas, and his +expression of a determination not to suffer the existing temporal limits +to be altered, that had occasioned it to be withdrawn. I am happy, +however, to think, as you also appear to think, that your great man is +now intent on peaceful triumphs. + +He would scarcely have created such a mass of speculative activity in +France if he intended suddenly to check it by war. I hope that by the +time Masters in Chancery are abolished, I shall find France intersected +by a network of railroads and run from Paris to Marseilles in a day. + +I venture to differ from you as to the probable progress of reaction in +England. I see no symptom of it; on the contrary, democracy seems to me +to continue its triumphant march without a check. The Protectionists are +in power, they take for their leader in the House of Commons a man +without birth or connection, merely because he is a good speaker. This +could not have been done even ten years ago. They bow to the popular will +as to free-trade, and acknowledge that, even if they have a majority in +the Houses of Lords and Commons, they will not venture to re-impose a +Corn-law if the people do not ask for it. Never was such a homage paid to +the world 'without doors.' + +Then Lord John says that he objects to the Ballot, because those who have +no votes have a right to know how those who have votes use them. + +The example of the Continent will not affect us, or if it do affect us, +will rather strengthen our democracy. We are not accustomed to copy, and +shall treat the reaction in France, Austria, and Prussia rather as a +warning than as a model. + +I suspect that Lord John, who, though not, I think, a very wise +statesman, is a clever tactician, takes the same view that I do, and has +selected Reform for his platform, believing it to be a strong one. + +We were delighted with Rivet, and hope that he will soon come again. +Lamoricière tells me that he is going to take the waters of +_Aix-la-Chapelle_, but, if his exile continues, will probably come to +England next year. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +Kensington, April 30, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A thousand thanks for your letter.[3] I saw M. de +Lamoricière three times, and had a glimpse of Madame de L. who seemed +very pleasing. I was delighted with his spirit and intelligence, but +understand the criticism that he is _soldatesque_. + +I had a long and very interesting conversation with the King, and saw +much of my excellent friends Arrivabene and Quetelet. But after all +Brussels is not Paris. I was more than ever struck by the ugliness of the +country and the provincialness of the society. + +I returned on April 18, sprained my ancle on the 19th, and have been on +my back ever since. I have spent the time in looking through Fonfrède, +who is a remarkable writer, and makes some remarkable prophecies, in +finishing Grote's ninth and tenth volumes, in reading Kenrick's 'Ancient +Egypt,' which is worth studying, and in reading through Horace, whom I +find that I understand much better after my Roman experience. + +I differ from you as to the chances of reaction in this country. I +believe that we are still travelling the road which you have so well +mapped out, which leads to democracy. Our extreme _gauche_, which we call +the Manchester School, employs its whole efforts in that direction. It +has great energy, activity, and combination. The duties of Parliament and +of Government have become so onerous, and the facing our democratic +constituencies is so disagreeable, and an idle life of society, +literature, art, and travelling has become so pleasant, that our younger +aristocracy seem to be giving up politics, and hence you hear the +universal complaint that there are no young men of promise in public +life. + +The House of Commons is full of middle-aged lawyers, merchants, +manufacturers, and country-gentlemen, who take to politics late in life, +without the early special training which fitted for it the last +generation. + +I fear that the time may come when to be in the House of Commons may be +thought a bore, a somewhat vulgar spouting club, like the Marylebone +Vestry, or the City of London Common Council. + +I do not know whether Lord Derby has gained much in the last four months, +but Lord John has certainly lost. His Reform Bill was a very crude +_gâchis,_ without principle, and I think very mischievous. I ventured to +say nearly as much to Lord Lansdowne, who sat by my sofa for an hour on +Sunday, and he did not take up its defence. Then his opposition to the +present Ministry has been factious, and to punish him, he was left the +other day in a minority of fifty per cent. People begin now to speculate +on the possibility of Lord Derby's reconstructing his minority on rather +a larger basis, and maintaining himself for three or four years; which, +in these times, is a good old age for a Minister. One admirable result of +these changes is the death of Protection. Those who defended it in +opposition are found to abandon it now they are in power. So it has not a +friend left. + +Pray send me word, by yourself or by Mrs. Grote, when you leave Paris. My +vacation begins on May 8, but I shall not move unless I recover the use +of my legs, nor then I think, if I find that you will be absent. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +Paris, November 13, 1852. + +I am unlucky, my dear Senior, about your letters of introduction. You +know how much I have wished and tried to make the acquaintance of Lord +and Lady Ashburton, but without success. I should also, I am sure, have +had great pleasure in meeting Mr. Greg. + +This time I was prevented by ill health. + + * * * * * + +Two or three months ago, I wrote to you from the country a letter which +was addressed to Kensington. Did you receive it? and if so, why have you +not answered it? + +I wrote upon politics, but especially I asked you about yourselves, your +occupations and projects, some questions to which I was very anxious to +have answers. At any rate, do now what you ought to have done then--write +to me. + +I do not now write about politics, because we do not talk, or at least +write about them in France any more than in Naples; besides, such +subjects are not suitable to an invalid. + +I will only tell you, as important and authentic pieces of information, +that the new court ladies have taken to trains and little pages, and that +the new courtiers hunt the stag with their master in the Forest of +Fontainebleau in dresses of the time of Louis XIV. and cocked hats. + +Good-bye! Heaven preserve you from the mistakes which lead to +revolutions, and from the revolutions which lead to masquerades. A +thousand kind regards. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +London, December 4, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter of November 13 is, I think, the first +that I have received from you since March. + +That which you addressed to me at Kensington, two months ago, did not +reach me. I have written to you one or two; I do not know with what +success. + +I grieve to hear of rheumatism and pleurisy. You say nothing of Madame de +Tocqueville, whence I hope that I may infer that she, at least, is well. + +We have all been flourishing. We passed the vacation in Wales and +Ireland, and brought back a curious journal,[4] which I hope to send or +bring to you. + +I do not think that I shall venture to Paris at Christmas, though Ellice +and Thiers are trying to persuade me. I have too vivid a recollection of +the fog, cold, and dirt of last year; but I fully resolve to be with you +at Easter--that is, about March 24. + +The present Government, with all its want of principle and truth, and +with all its want of experience, is doing much better than I expected. + +The law reforms are far bolder than any that _my_ friends ever proposed, +and the budget, which was brought forward last night, contains more that +is good, and less that is bad, than was hoped or feared. + +Its worst portion is the abolition of half the malt tax, which leaves all +the expense of collection undiminished, besides being a removal of a tax +on a luxury which I do not wish to see cheaper. It is probable, however, +that the doubling of the house tax will be rejected, in which case +Disraeli will probably retain the malt tax, and the budget will sink into +a commonplace one. + +The removal of certain burdens on navigation and the change in the income +tax are thought good, and generally the Government has gained by the +budget. I am now inclined to think that it may last for some months +longer--perhaps for some years. + +In the meantime we are in a state of great prosperity: high wages, great +accumulation of capital, low prices of consumable articles, and high +prices of stocks and land. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +February 27, 1853. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I profit by Sir H. Ellis's visit to write, not +venturing to trust the post. + +We are grieved to hear that both you and Madame de Tocqueville have been +suffering. _We_ have borne this disagreeable winter better than perhaps +we had a right to expect; but still we have suffered. + +Mrs. Grote tells me that you rather complain that the English newspapers +approve of the marriage;[5] a marriage which you all disapprove. + +The fact is that we like the marriage precisely because you dislike it. +We are above all things desirous that the present tyranny should end as +quickly as possible. It can end only by the general alienation of the +French people from the tyrant; and every fault that he commits delights +us, because it is a step towards his fall. To say the truth, I wonder +that you do not take the same view, and rejoice over his follies as +leading to his destruction. + +Our new Government is going on well as yet. As the Opposition has turned +law reformers, we expect law reform to go on as rapidly as is consistent +with the slowly-innovating temper of the English. Large measures +respecting charities, education, secondary punishments, and the transfer +of land are in preparation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is at +work on the difficult--I suspect the insoluble--problem of an equitable +income tax. I foresee, however, a rock ahead. + +This is reform of the constituencies. Lord John Russell, very sillily, +promised two years ago a new Reform Bill. + +Still more sillily he introduced one last year, and was deservedly turned +out for it. + +Still more sillily the present Government has accepted his +responsibility, and is pledged to bring in a measure of reform next year. + +I have been trying to persuade them to pave the way by a Commission of +Inquiry, being certain that the facts on which we ought to agitate are +imperfectly known. But Lord John is unfavourable, and the other Ministers +do not venture to control the leader of the House of Commons. There will, +therefore, be no previous inquiry; at least only the indirect one which +the Government can make for itself. The measure will be concocted in +secrecy, will be found open to unforeseen objections; it will be thrown +out in the House, and will excite no enthusiasm in the country. If the +Government dissolve, the new Parliament will probably be still more +opposed to it than the present Parliament will be; and the Government, +being beaten again, will resign. + +Such is my prophecy. + +_Prenez en acte_, and we will talk it over in May 1854. + +I hope to be in Paris either for the Easter or for the Whitsun +vacation--that is, either about the 24th of March or the 5th of May +next--and I trust to find you and Madame de Tocqueville, if not quite +flourishing, at least quite convalescent. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +[Footnote 1: Republished in the _Biographical Sketches_. Longmans: +1863.--ED.] + + +[Footnote 2: The letter to which this is an answer is not to be +found,--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: This letter is not to be found.--ED.] + +[Footnote 4: Published in 1868.--ED.] + +[Footnote 5: That of the Emperor.--ED.] + + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, May_ 9,1853.--I drank tea with the Tocquevilles. Neither of them +is well. + +In February they were caught, on their journey from Tocqueville to Paris, +by the bitter weather of the beginning of that month. It produced +rheumatism and then pleurisy with him, and inflammation of the bowels +with her; and both are still suffering from the effects either of the +disorder or of the remedies. + +In the summer Paris will be too hot and Tocqueville too damp. So they +have taken a small house at St. Cyr, about a mile from Tours, where they +hope for a tolerable climate, easy access to Paris, and the use of the +fine library of the cathedral. He entered eagerly on the Eastern +question, and agreed on all points with Faucher; admitted the folly and +rashness of the French, but deplored the over-caution which had led us to +refuse interference, at least effectual interference, and to allow +Turkey to sink into virtual subservience to Russia. + +_Paris, Tuesday, May_ 17.--Tocqueville and I stood on my balcony, and +looked along the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de la Concorde, swarming +with equipages, and on the well-dressed crowds in the gardens below. From +the height in which we were placed all those apparently small objects, in +incessant movement, looked like a gigantic ant-hill disturbed. + +'I never,' said Tocqueville, 'have known Paris so animated or apparently +so prosperous. Much is to be attributed to the saving of the four +previous years. The parsimony of the Parisians ended in 1850; but the +parsimony of the provinces, always great, and in unsettled times carried +to actual avarice, lasted during the whole of the Republic. Commercial +persons tell me that the arrival of capital which comes up for investment +from the provinces deranges all their calculations. It is like the sudden +burst of vegetation which you have seen during the last week. We have +passed suddenly from winter to summer. + +'I own,' he continued, 'that it fills me with alarm. Among the +innumerable schemes that are afloat, some must be ill-founded, some must +be swelled beyond their proper dimensions, and some may be mere swindles. +The city of Paris and the Government are spending 150,000,000_l_. in +building in Paris. This is almost as much as the fortifications cost. It +has always been said, and I believe with truth, that the revolutionary +army of 1848 was mainly recruited from the 40,000 additional workmen whom +the fortifications attracted from the country, and left without +employment when they were finished. When this enormous extra-expenditure +is over, when the Louvre, and the new rue de Rivoli, and the Halles, and +the street that is to run from the Hôtel de Ville to the northern +boundary of Paris, are completed--that is to say, when a city has been +built out of public money in two or three years--what will become of the +mass of discharged workmen? + +'What will become of those on the railways if they are suddenly stopped, +as yours were in 1846? What will be the shock if the Crédit Foncier or +the Crédit Mobilier fail, after having borrowed each its milliard? +Everything seems to me to be preparing for one of your panics, and the +Government has so identified itself with the state of prosperity and +state of credit of the country that a panic must produce a revolution. +The Government claims the merit of all that is good, and of course is +held responsible for all that is bad. If we were to have a bad harvest, +it would be laid to the charge of the Emperor. + +'Of course,' he continued, 'I do not desire the perpetuation of the +present tyranny. Its duration as a dynasty I believe to be absolutely +impossible, except in one improbable contingency--a successful war. + +'But though, I repeat, I do not desire or expect the permanence of the +Empire, I do not wish for its immediate destruction, before we are +prepared with a substitute. The agents which are undermining it are +sufficiently powerful and sufficiently active to occasion its fall quite +as soon as we ought to wish for that fall.' + +'And what,' I said, 'are those agents?' + +'The principal agents,' he answered, 'are violence in the provinces and +corruption in Paris. Since the first outbreak there has not been much +violence in Paris. You must have observed that freedom of speech is +universal. In every private society, and even in every _café_ hatred or +contempt of the Government are the main topics of conversation. We are +too numerous to be attacked. But in the provinces you will find perfect +silence. Anyone who whispers a word against the Emperor may be +imprisoned, or perhaps transported. The prefects are empowered by one of +the decrees made immediately after the _coup d'état_ to dissolve any +Conseil communal in which there is the least appearance of disaffection, +and to nominate three persons to administer the commune. In many cases +this has been done, and I could point out to you several communes +governed by the prefect's nominees who cannot read. In time, of course, +tyranny will produce corruption; but it has not yet prevailed extensively +in the country, and the cause which now tends to depopularise him _there_ +is arbitrary violence exercised against those whom his agents suppose to +be their enemies. + +'On the other hand, what is ruining him in Paris is not violence, but +corruption. + +'The French are not like the Americans; they have no sympathy with +smartness. Nothing so much excites their disgust as _friponnerie_. The +main cause that overthrew Louis Philippe was the belief that he and his +were _fripons_--that the representatives bought the electors, that the +Minister bought the representatives, and that the King bought the +Minister. + +'Now, no corruption that ever prevailed in the worst periods of Louis +XV., nothing that was done by La Pompadour or the Du Barry resembles what +is going on now. Duchâtel, whose organs are not over-acute, tells me that +he shudders at what is forced on his notice. The perfect absence of +publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the +bar--for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to +be reported--give full room for conversational exaggeration. Bad as +things are, they are made still worse. Now this we cannot bear. It hurts +our strongest passion--our vanity. We feel that we are _exploités_ by +Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers. The +injury might be tolerated, but not the disgrace. + +'Every Government in France has a tendency to become unpopular as it +continues. If you were to go down into the street, and inquire into the +politics of the first hundred persons whom you met, you would find some +Socialists, some Republicans, some Orleanists, &c., but you would find no +Louis Napoleonists. Not a voice would utter his name without some +expression of contempt or detestation, but principally of contempt. + +'If then things take their course--if no accident, such as a fever or a +pistol-shot, cut him off--public indignation will spread from Paris to +the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army, +and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.' + +'And what power,' I said, 'will start up in his place?' + +'I trust,' answered Tocqueville, 'that the reins will be seized by the +Senate. Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying, +"A time may come when we shall be wanted." Probably the Corps Législatif +will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such +bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.' + +'But what,' I said, 'would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the +fever?' + +'The immediate consequence,' answered Tocqueville, 'would be the +installation of his successor. Jérôme would go to the Tuileries as easily +as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end. We might bear Louis +Napoleon for four or five years, or Jérôme for four or five months.' + +'It has been thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jérôme +dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a +military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.' + +'That,' said Tocqueville, 'is one of the few things which I hold to be +impossible. Nero may be followed by another attempt at a Republic, but if +any individual is to succeed him it must be a prince. _Mere_ personal +distinction, at least such as is within the bounds of real possibility, +will not give the sceptre of France. It will be seized by no one who +cannot pretend to an hereditary claim. + +'What I fear,' continued Tocqueville, 'is that when this man feels the +ground crumbling under him, he will try the resource of war. It will be a +most dangerous experiment. Defeat, or even the alternation of success and +failure, which is the ordinary course of war, would be fatal to him; but +brilliant success might, as I have said before, establish him. It would +be playing double or quits. He is by nature a gambler. His +self-confidence, his reliance, not only on himself, but on his fortune, +exceeds even that of his uncle. He believes himself to have a great +military genius. He certainly planned war a year ago. I do not believe +that he has abandoned it now, though the general feeling of the country +forces him to suspend it. That feeling, however, he might overcome; he +might so contrive as to appear to be forced into hostilities; and such is +the intoxicating effect of military glory, that the Government which +would give us _that_ would be pardoned, whatever were its defects or its +crimes. + +'It is your business, and that of Belgium, to put yourselves into such a +state of defence as to force him to make his spring on Italy. There he +can do you little harm. But to us Frenchmen the consequences of war +_must_ be calamitous. If we fail, they are national loss and humiliation. +If we succeed, they are slavery.' + +'Of course,' I said, 'the corruption that infects the civil service must +in time extend to the army, and make it less fit for service. + +'Of course it must,' answered Tocqueville. 'It will extend still sooner +to the navy? The _matériel_ of a force is more easily injured by jobbing +than the _personnel_. And in the navy the _matériel_ is the principal. + +'Our naval strength has never been in proportion to our naval +expenditure, and is likely to be less and less so every year, at least +during every year of the _règne des fripons_.' + +_Tuesday, May_ 24.--I breakfasted with Sir Henry Ellis and then went to +Tocqueville's. + +I found there an elderly man, who did not remain long. + +When he went, Tocqueville said, 'That is one of our provincial prefects. +He has been describing to us the state of public feeling in the South. +Contempt for the present Government, he tells us, is spreading there from +its headquarters, Paris. + +'If the Corps Législatif is dissolved, he expects the Opposition to +obtain a majority in the new House. + +'This,' continued Tocqueville, 'is a state of things with which Louis +Napoleon is not fit to cope. Opposition makes him furious, particularly +Parliamentary opposition. His first impulse will be to go a step further +in imitation of his uncle, and abolish the Corps Législatif, as Napoleon +did the Tribunat. + +'But nearly half a century of Parliamentary life has made the French of +1853 as different from those of 1803 as the nephew is from his uncle. + +'He will scarcely risk another _coup d'état_; and the only legal mode of +abolishing, or even modifying, the Corps Législatif is by a plébiscite +submitted by ballot to universal suffrage. + +'Will he venture on this? And if he do venture, will he succeed? If he +fail, will he not sink into a constitutional sovereign, controlled by an +Assembly far more unmanageable than we deputies were, as the Ministers +are excluded from it?' + +'Will he not rather,' I said, 'sink into an exile?' + +'That is my hope,' said Tocqueville, 'but I do not expect it quite so +soon as Thiers does,' + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +St. Cyr, July 2, 1853. + +I am not going to talk to you, my dear Senior, about the Emperor, or the +Empress, or any of the august members of the Imperial Family; nor of the +Ministers, nor of any other public functionaries, because I am a +well-disposed subject who does not wish that the perusal of his letters +should give pain to his Government. I shall write to you upon an +historical problem, and discuss with you events which happened five +hundred years ago. There could not be a more innocent subject. + +I have followed your advice, and I have read, or rather re-read, +Blackstone. I studied him twenty years ago. Each time he has made upon me +the same impression. Now, as then, I have ventured to consider him (if +one may say so without blasphemy) an inferior writer, without liberality +of mind or depth of judgment; in short, a commentator and a lawyer, not +what _we_ understand by the words _jurisconsulte_ and _publiciste_. He +has, too, in a degree which is sometimes amusing, a mania for admiring +all that was done in ancient times, and for attributing to them all that +is good in his own. I am inclined to think that, if he had had to write, +not on the institutions, but on the products of England, he would have +discovered that beer was first made from grapes, and that the hop is a +fruit of the vine--rather a degenerate product, it is true, of the wisdom +of our ancestors, but as such worthy of respect. It is impossible to +imagine an excess more opposite to that of his contemporaries in France, +for whom it was enough that a thing was old for it to be bad. But enough +of Blackstone; he must make way for what I really want to say to you. + +In comparing the feudal institutions in England in the period immediately +after the conquest with those of France, you find between them, not only +an analogy, but a perfect resemblance, much greater than Blackstone seems +to think, or, at any rate, chooses to say. In reality, the system in the +two countries is identical. In France, and over the whole Continent, this +system produced a caste; in England, an aristocracy. How is it that the +word _gentleman_, which in our language denotes a mere superiority of +blood, with you is now used to express a certain social position, and +amount of education, independent of birth; so that in two countries the +same word, though the sound remains the same, has entirely changed its +meaning? When did this revolution take place? How, and through what +transitions? Have no books ever treated of this subject in England? Have +none of your great writers, philosophers, politicians, or historians, +ever noticed this characteristic and pregnant fact, tried to account for +it, and to explain it? + +If I had the honour of a personal acquaintance with Mr. Macaulay, I +should venture to write to ask him these questions. In the excellent +history which he is now publishing he alludes to this fact, but he does +not try to explain it. And yet, as I have said before, there is none more +pregnant, nor containing within it so good an explanation of the +difference between the history of England and that of the other feudal +nations in Europe. If you should meet Mr. Macaulay, I beg you to ask him, +with much respect, to solve these questions for me. But tell me what you +yourself think, and if any other eminent writers have treated this +subject. + +You must think me, my dear friend, very tiresome with all these questions +and dissertations; but of what else can I speak? I pass here the life of +a Benedictine monk, seeing absolutely no one, and writing whenever I am +not walking. I expect this cloistered life to do a great deal of good +both to my mind and body. Do not think that in my convent I forget my +friends. My wife and I constantly talk of them, and especially of you and +of our dear Mrs. Grote. I am reading your MSS.,[1] which interest and +amuse me extremely. They are my relaxation. I have promised Beaumont to +send them to him as soon as I have finished them. + + +St. Cyr, December 8, 1853. + +I must absolutely write to you to-day, my dear Senior. I have long been +wishing to do so, but have been deterred by the annoyance I feel at not +being able to discuss with you a thousand subjects as interesting to you +as they are to me, but which one cannot mention in a letter; for letters +are now less secret than ever, and to insist upon writing politics to our +friends is equivalent to their not hearing from us at all. But I may, at +any rate, without making the police uneasy, assure you of the great +pleasure with which we heard that you intended paying us a little visit +next month. + +There is an excellent hotel at Tours, where you will find good +apartments; for the rest, I hope that you will make our house your inn. +We are near enough to Tours for me to walk there and back, and we +regulate our clocks by the striking of theirs; so you see that it is +difficult to be nearer. + +I think that it is a capital idea of yours to visit French Africa. The +country is curious in itself, also on account of the contrasts afforded +by the different populations which spread over the land without ever +mixing. + +You will find them materials for some of those excellent and interesting +articles which you write so well. When you come I shall be able to give +you some useful information, for I have devoted much attention to +Algiers. I have here a long report which I drew up for the Chamber in +1846, which may give you some valuable ideas, though things have +considerably changed since that time. + +Kind remembrances, &c., + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +[The following are some more of Mrs. Grote's interesting notes. She +preceded Mr. Senior at St. Cyr.--ED.] + +The notes relating to St. Cyr are memoranda of various conversations +which I enjoyed during a stay of some ten days or so at Tours, in +February 1854, with Monsieur Alexis de Tocqueville. I occupied an +apartment in the hotel at Tours, and on almost every day passed some +hours in the company of this interesting friend, who at this time lived +at St. Cyr, in a commodious country-house having its garden, &c, which he +rented. I drove out to dine there frequently, and M. de Tocqueville +walked over on the intervening days and stayed an hour or two at the +hotel with me talking incessantly.--H.G. + +_St. Cyr, February_ 13, 1854,--The French allow no author to have a claim +to the highest rank unless he joins the perfection of style with the +instructiveness of his matter. Only four first-rate writers in the +eighteenth century--_grands écrivains, comme grands penseurs originaux;_ +these being Montesquieu, Voltaire, J.J. Rousseau, and Buffon. Helvetius +not _en première ligne_, because his _forme_ was not up to the mark. +Alexis himself is often hung up for days together, having the thoughts, +yet not hitting off the 'phrases' in a way to satisfy his critical ear as +to style. + +Thinks that when a man is capable of originating a _belle pensée_, he +ought to be also capable of clothing that thought in felicitous language. + +Thinks that a torpid state of political life is unfavourable to +intellectual product in general. + +I instanced the case of Louis XIV. as contradicting this. Not admitted by +Tocqueville. The civil wars of Louis XIV.'s reign had engendered +considerable activity in the minds of the educated class. This activity +generated speculation and scientific inquiry in all the departments of +human thoughts. Abstract ideas became the field on which thinkers +occupied themselves. No _practical_ outlet under despotism, but a certain +social fermentation nevertheless existing, and the want of making itself +a vent impelled intellectual life and writings. I instanced Louis XV. 'At +least,' I said, 'the torpor of political life was become yet more a +habit,' 'Yes,' said Alexis, 'but then there was the principle of +discontent very widely diffused, which was the germ of the revolution of +1789. This restless, disaffected state of the national mind gave birth to +some new forms of intellectual product, tending to rather more distinct +practical results, which filtered down among the middle classes, and +became the objects of their desires and projects.' Rousseau and Voltaire +eminently serviceable in leading the public sentiment towards the middle +of the eighteenth century. + +English writers and statesmen having always enjoyed the power of applying +their minds to actual circumstances, and of appealing through a free +press and free speech also to the public of their day, have never +addressed themselves, as French philosophers did, to the cultivation of +abstract speculations and general theories. Here and there a writer has +been thrown, by his individual tastes and turn of thought, upon the study +of political philosophy; but the Englishman, taken as a public writer, +commonly addresses himself to practical legislation rather than to +recondite studies or logical analysis and investigation of the relations +between mankind and their regulations under authorised powers. Since Lord +Bacon there have been few, excepting in our later times Mill, Bentham, +and his disciples, who have explored the metaphysics of jurisprudence and +moral science in England. Hume dealt in the philosophic treatment of +political subjects, but did not work them up into anything like a +coherent system. English are not fond of generalities, but get on by +their instincts, bit by bit, as need arises. + +Alexis thinks that the writers of the period antecedent to the revolution +of 1789 were quite as much _thrown up by_ the condition of public +sentiment as they were the exciters of it. Nothing _comprehensive_, in +matters of social arrangement, can be effected under a state of things +like that of England; so easy there for a peculiar grievance to get +heard, so easy for a local or class interest to obtain redress against +any form of injustice, that legislation _must_ be 'patching.' Next to +impossible to reorganise a community without a revolution. + +Alexis has been at work for about a year in _rummaging_ amid archives, +partly in those of the capital, partly in those of the Touraine. In this +last town a complete collection is contained of the records of the old +'Intendance,' under which several provinces were governed. Nothing short +of a continuous and laborious poring over the details of Government +furnished by these invaluable _paperasses_ could possibly enable a +student of the past century to frame to himself any clear conception of +the working of the social relations and authorities in old France. There +exists no such tableau. The manners of the higher classes and their daily +life and habits are well portrayed in heaps of memoirs, and even pretty +well understood by our contemporaries. But the whole structure of +society, in its relations with the authorised agents of supreme power, +including the pressure of those secondary obligations arising out of +_coutumes du pays_, is so little understood as to be scarcely available +to a general comprehension of the old French world before 1789. + +Alexis says that the reason why the great upheaving of that period has +never been to this day sufficiently appreciated, never sufficiently +explained, is because the actual living hideousness of the social details +and relations of that period, seen from the points of view of a +penetrating contemporary looker-on, has never yet been depicted in +true colours and with minute particulars. After having dived into the +social history of that century, as I have stated, his conviction is that +it was impossible that the revolution of 1789 should _not_ burst out. +Cause and effect were never more irrevocably associated than in this +terrible case. Nothing but the compulsory idleness and obscurity into +which Alexis has been thrown since December 1851 would have put even him +upon the researches in question. Few perhaps could have addressed +themselves to the task with such remarkable powers of interpretation, and +with such talents for exploring the connection between thought and action +as he is endowed with. Also he is singularly exempt from aristocratical +prejudices, and quite capable of sympathising with popular feeling, +though naturally not partial to democracy. + +_February_ 15.--De Tocqueville came down in close carriage and sat an +hour and a half by fireside. Weather horrible. Talked of La Marck's book +on Mirabeau;[2] said that the line Mirabeau pursued was perfectly well +known to Frenchmen prior to the appearance of La Marck's book; but that +the actual details were of course a new revelation, and highly valued +accordingly. Asked what we thought of it in England. I told him the +leading impression made by the book was the clear perception of the +impossibility of effecting any good or coming to terms in any manner of +way of the revolutionary leaders with such a Court. That we also had long +suspected Mirabeau of being what he was now proved to have been--a man +who, imbued though he was with the spirit of revolutionary action and the +conviction of the rightfulness of demanding prodigious changes, yet who +would willingly have directed the monarch in a method of warding off the +terrible consequences of the storm, and who would, if the Court had +confided to his hands the task of conciliating the popular feelings, have +perhaps preserved the forms of monarchy while affording the requisite +concessions to the national demands. But the Court was so steeped in the +old sentiment of divine right, and moreover so distrustful of Mirabeau's +honour and sagacity (the more so as he was insatiable in his pecuniary +requisitions), that they would never place their cause frankly in his +hands, nor indeed in anyone else's who was capable of discerning their +best interests. Lafayette was regarded as an enemy almost (and was +'jaloused' by Mirabeau as being so popular) on account of his popular +sympathies. De Tocqueville said that so diffused was the spirit of +revolution at the period preceding the convocation of the États-généraux, +that the elder Mirabeau, who was a very clever and original-minded man, +though strongly tinctured with the old feudal prejudices, nevertheless +let the fact be seen in the clearest manner in his own writings. He wrote +many tracts on public topics, and De Tocqueville says that the tone in +which Mirabeau (_père_) handles these proves that he was perfectly +cognisant of the universal spread of revolutionary opinions, and even in +some degree influenced by them in his own person. Mirabeau (the son) was +so aware of the absolute necessity of proclaiming himself emancipated +from the old feudalities, that, among other extravagances of his conduct, +he started as a shopkeeper at Marseilles for some time, by way of +fraternizing with the _bourgeoisie; affichéing_ his liberalism. De +Tocqueville quoted Napoleon as saying in one of his conversations at St. +Helena that he had been a spectator _from a window_ of the scene at the +Tuileries, on the famous August 10, 1792, and that it was his conviction +(Napoleon's) that, even at that stage, the revolution might have been +averted--at least, the furious character of it might have been turned +aside--by judicious modes of negotiation on the part of the King's +advisers. De Tocqueville does not concur in Napoleon's opinion. +'Cahiers,' published 1789, contain the whole body of instructions +supplied to their respective delegates by the _trois états (clergé, +noblesse, et Tiers État_), on assembling in convocation. Of this entire +and voluminous collection (which is deposited in the archives of France) +three volumes of extracts are to be bought which were a kind of _rédigé_ +of the larger body of documents. In these three volumes De Tocqueville +mentioned, one may trace the course of the public sentiment with perfect +clearness. Each class demanded a large instalment of constitutional +securities; the nobles perhaps demanded the largest amount of all the +three. Nothing could be more thoroughgoing than the requisitions which +the body of the _noblesse_ charged their delegates to enforce in the +Assembly of the États-généraux--'égalisations des charges (taxation), +responsabilité des ministres, indépendance des tribunaux, liberté de la +personne, garantie de la propriété contre la couronne,' a balance-sheet +annually of the public expenses and public revenue, and, in fact, all the +salient privileges necessary in order to enfranchise a community weary of +despotism. The clergy asked for what they wanted with equal resolution, +and the _bourgeoisie_ likewise; but what the nobles were instructed to +demand was the boldest of all. We talked of the letters of the writers of +the eighteenth century, and of the correspondence of various eminent men +and women with David Hume, which Mr. Hill Burton has published in a +supplementary volume in addition to those comprised in his life of David +Hume, and which I have with me. I said that the works of Hume being +freely printed and circulated caused great pleasure to the French men of +letters, mingled with envy at the facility enjoyed by the Englishman of +publishing anything he chose; the French writers being debarred, owing to +the importunity of the clergy with Louis XV., from publishing freely +their works in France, and only managing to get themselves printed by +employing printers at the Hague, Amsterdam, and other towns beyond the +limits of the kingdom. To my surprise, De Tocqueville replied that this +disability, so far from proving disadvantageous to the _esprits forts_ of +the period, and the encyclopaedic school, was a source of gain to them in +every respect. Every book or tract which bore the stamp of being printed +at the Hague or elsewhere, _out of France_, was speedily caught up and +devoured. It was a passport to success. Everyone knowing that, since it +was printed there, it must be of a nature to give offence to the ruling +powers, and especially to the priesthood, and as such, all who were +imbued with the new opinions were sure to run after books bearing this +certificate of merit. De Tocqueville said that the _savans_ of 1760-1789 +would not have printed in France, had they been free to do so, at the +period immediately preceding the accession of Louis XVI. + +Talked of Lafayette: said he was as great as pure, good intentions and +noble instincts could make a man; but that he was _d'un esprit médiocre_, +and utterly at a loss how to turn affairs to profit at critical +junctures--never knew what was coming, no political foresight. Mistake in +putting Louis Philippe on the throne _sans garantie_ in 1830; misled by +his own disinterested character to think better of public men than he +ought to have done. Great personal integrity shown by Lafayette during +the Empire, and under the Restoration: not to be cajoled by any monarch. + +_February_ 16.--The current fallacy of Napoleon having made the important +alterations in the laws of France. All the eminent new enactments +originated in the Constituent Assembly, only that they set to work in +such sledgehammer fashion, that the carrying out their work became +extremely troublesome and difficult. Too abstract in their notions to +estimate difficulties of detail in changing the framework of +jurisprudence. De Tocqueville said philosophers must always originate +laws, but men used to active practical life ought to undertake to direct +the transition from old to new arrangements. The Constituent Assembly did +prodigious things in the way of clearing the ground of past abominations. +Napoleon had the talent of making their work take effect; understood +administrative science, but rendered the centralising principle far too +predominant, in the view to consolidate his own power afterwards. France +has felt this, to her cost, ever since. + +Habit formerly (i.e. 300 years back) as prevalent in France as it is in +England of gentlemen of moderate fortune residing wholly or by far the +greater part of the year on their estates. They ceased to do so from +the time when the sovereign took from them all local authority, from the +fifteenth century or so. The French country-houses were excessively +thickly dotted over the land even up to the year 1600; quantities pulled +down after that period. Country life becoming flat after the gentlemen +ceased to be of importance in their political relations with their +districts, they gave up rural habits and took to living in the provincial +towns. + +De Tocqueville had many conversations with M. Royer Collard respecting +the events of 1789. Difficult to get much out of men of our period +relative to their own early manhood. His own father (now 82) much less +capable of communicating details of former _régime_ than might have been +supposed. Because, says De Tocqueville, youths of eighteen to twenty +hardly ever possess the faculty or the inclination to note social +peculiarities. They accept what they find going, and scarcely give a +thought to the contemplation of what is familiar to them and of every +day's experience. Royer Collard was a man of superior mind: had a great +deal to relate. De Tocqueville used to pump him whenever an opportunity +occurred. Knew Danton well, used to discuss political affairs with him. +When revolution was fairly launched, saw him occasionally. Danton was +venal to the last degree; received money from the Court over and over +again; 'agitated,' and was again sopped by the agents of Marie +Antoinette. When matters grew formidable (in 1791) Royer Collard was +himself induced to become an agent or go-between of the Court for buying +up Danton. He sought an opportunity, and after some prefatory +conversations Royer Collard led Danton to the point. 'No,' said Danton, +'I cannot listen to any such suggestions now. Times are altered. It is +too late. 'Nous le détrônerons et puis nous le tuerons,' added he in an +emphatic tone. Royer Collard of course gave up the hope of succeeding. + +Danton's passion for a young girl, whom he married, became his ruin. +While he was honeymooning it by some river's margin, Robespierre got the +upper hand in the Assembly, and caused him to be seized--_mis en +jugement_--and soon afterwards guillotined. The woman did not know, it is +affirmed, that it was Danton who set the massacres of 1792 agoing; she +thought him a good-hearted man. He set all his personal enemies free out +of their prisons prior to the commencement of the massacres; wishing to +be able to boast of having spared his enemies, as a proof that he was +actuated by no ignoble vengeance, but only by a patriotic impulse. He +was a low, mean-souled fanatic, who had no clear conception of what he +was aiming at, but who delighted in the horrid excitement prevailing +around him. It was Tallien who had the chief share in the deposition of +Robespierre and the transactions of the 9th thermidor. Madame Tallien was +then in prison, and going to be executed in a few days (she was not yet +married to Tallien then). She wrote, by stealth of course, a few emphatic +words, with a toothpick and soot wetted, to Tallien which nerved him to +the conflict, and she was saved. Talleyrand told De Tocqueville she was +beyond everything captivating, beautiful, and interesting. She afterwards +became the mistress of Barras, and finally married the Prince de Chimay. + +De Tocqueville has been at Voré, Helvetius' château in La Perche--a fine +place, and Helvetius lived _en seigneur_ there. A grand-daughter of +Helvetius married M. de Rochambeau, uncle, by mother's side, of Alexis: +so that the great-grandchildren are De Tocqueville's first cousins. + +In the 'Souvenirs' of M. Berryer (_père_) he describes the scene of the +9th thermidor, in which he was actively concerned in the interest of the +Convention, and saw Robespierre borne past him with his shattered jaw +along the Quai Pelletier. Also went to the terrace of the Tuileries +gardens to assure himself that Robespierre was really executed the next +day; heard the execrations and shouts which attended his last moments, +but did not stay to witness them. Release of the Duchess of St. Aignan, +under sentence of death, by his father. + +_February_ 18.--A. de Tocqueville came to see me, and we walked out for +half-an-hour. He said he had now spent over eight months in a seclusion +such as he had never experienced in his whole life. That, partly his +own debilitated health, partly the impaired state of his wife's general +powers (nervous system inclusive), partly the extreme aversion he felt +for public affairs and the topics of the day connected with politics; all +these considerations had determined him upon withdrawing himself from +society for a certain space, and _that_ to a considerable distance from +all his friends and relations. A physician, also of widely extended fame +(Dr. Brittonneau), happening to reside close to where they have lodged +themselves, formed an additional link in the chain of motives for +settling themselves at Tours. M. de Tocqueville had some misgivings at +first as to whether, after passing twenty years in active public life, +and in the frequent society of men who occupied the most distinguished +position in the political world, as well as of others not less eminent in +that of letters; whether, he said, the monotony and stillness of his new +mode of life would not be too much for his spirits and render his mind +indolent and depressed. 'But,' said he, 'I have been agreeably reassured. +I have come to regard society as a thing which I can perfectly well do +without. I desire nothing better than to occupy myself, as I have been +doing, with the composition of a work which I am in hopes will travel +over somewhat other than beaten ground. I have found many materials for +my purpose in this spot, and the pursuit has got hold of me to a degree +which renders intellectual labour a source of pleasure; and I prosecute +it steadily, unless when my health is out of order; which, happily, does +not occur so frequently since the last three or four months. My wife's +company serves to encourage me in my work, and to cheer me in every +respect, since an entire sympathy subsists between us, as you know; we +seem to require no addition, and our lives revolve in the most inflexible +routine possible. I rise at half-past five, and work seriously till +half-past nine; then dress for _déjeûner_ at ten. I commonly walk +half-an-hour afterwards, and then set to on some other study--usually of +late in the German language--till two P.M., when I go out again and walk +for two hours, if weather allows. In the evenings I read to amuse myself, +often reading aloud to Madame de Tocqueville, and go to bed at ten P.M. +regularly every night.' + +'Sometimes,' said De Tocqueville, 'I reflect on the difference which may +be discerned between the amount of what a man can effect by even the most +strenuous and well-directed efforts, whether as a public servant or as a +leading man in political life, and what a writer of impressive books has +it in his power to effect. It is true that a man of talent and courage +may acquire a creditable position, may exercise great influence over +other individuals engaged in the same career, and may enjoy a certain +measure of triumphant success in cases where he can put out his strength. +At the same time it strikes me that the best of these exaggerates +immensely the amount of good which he has been able to effect. I look +back upon prodigiously vivid passages in various public men's lives, in +this century, with a melancholy reflection of how little influence their +magnificent efforts have really exercised over the march of human +affairs. A man is apt to believe he has done great things when his +hearers and contemporaries are strongly affected, either by a powerful +speech, or an animated address, or an act of opportune courage, or the +like. But, if we investigate the positive amount of what the individual +has effected in the way of bettering or advancing the general interests +of mankind, by personal exertion on the public stage, I regret to say I +can find hardly an instance of more than a transient, though beneficial, +flash of excitement produced on the public mind. I do not here speak of +men invested with great power--princes, prime ministers, popes, generals +and the like. Of course _they_ produce lasting traces of their _power_, +whether it be for good or evil; and, indeed, _individuals_ have on their +side considerable power to work _mischief_, though not often to work +good. I begin to think that a man not invested with a considerable amount +of political _power_ can do but little good by slaving at the oar of +independent political action. Now, on the contrary, what a vast effect a +_writer_ can produce, when he possesses the requisite knowledge and +endowments! In his cabinet, his thoughts collected, his ideas well +arranged, he may hope to imprint indelible traces on the line of human +progress. What orator, what brilliant patriot at the tribune, could ever +effect the extensive fermentation in a whole nation's sentiments achieved +by Voltaire and Jean Jacques? + +'I have certainly seen reason to change some of my views on social facts, +as well as some reasonings founded on imperfect observation. But the +_fond_ of my opinions can never undergo a change--certain irrevocable +maxims and propositions _must_ constitute the basis of thinking minds. +How such changes can come about as I have lived to see in some men's +states of opinion is to me incomprehensible. Lafayette was foolish enough +to give his support to certain conspiracies--certainly to that of +Béfort's, in Alsace. What folly! to seek to upset a despotism by the +agency of the _soldiery_, in the nineteenth century!' + +H. GROTE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior's Journals.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: See _Royal and Republican France_, by H. Reeve Esq. vol. +i.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. SENIOR. + +_St. Cyr, Tuesday, February_ 21, 1854.[1]--On the 20th I left Paris for +Le Trésorier, a country-house in the village of St. Cyr, near Tours, +which the Tocquevilles have been inhabiting for some months. It stands in +a large enclosure of about fifteen acres, of which about ten are orchard +and vineyard, and the remainder are occupied by the house, stables, and a +large garden. The house has a great deal of accommodation, and they pay +for it, imperfectly furnished, 3,000 francs a year, and keep up the +garden, which costs about 500 francs more, being one man at one and +a-half francs a day. + +This is considered dear; but the sheltered position of the house, looking +south, and protected by a hill to the north-east, induced the +Tocquevilles to pay for it about 1,000 francs more than its market value. + +I will throw together the conversations of February 22 and 23. They began +by my giving to him a general account of the opinions of my friends in +Paris. + +'I believe,' said Tocqueville, 'that I should have found out many of your +interlocutors without your naming them. I am sure that I should Thiers, +Duvergier, Broglie, and Rivet; perhaps Faucher--certainly Cousin. I +translate into French what you make them say, and hear them speak. I +recognise Dumon and Lavergne, but I should not have discovered them. The +conversation of neither of them has the marked, peculiar flavour that +distinguishes that of the others. You must recollect, however, that some +of your friends knew, and most of the others must have suspected, that +you were taking notes. Thiers speaks evidently for the purpose of being +reported. To be sure that shows what are the opinions that men wish to be +supposed to entertain, and they often betray what they think that they +conceal. Still it must be admitted that you had not always the natural +man.' 'I am sorry,' he added, 'that you have not penetrated more into the +salons of the Legitimists. You have never got further than a Fusionist. +The Legitimists are not the Russians that Thiers describes them. Still +less do they desire to see Henri V. restored by foreign intervention. +They and their cause have suffered too bitterly for having committed +that crime, or that fault, for them to be capable of repeating it. They +are anti-national so far as not to rejoice in any victories obtained by +France under this man's guidance. But I cannot believe that they would +rejoice in her defeat. They have been so injured in their fortunes and +their influence, have been so long an oppressed caste--excluded from +power, and even from sympathy--that they have acquired the faults of +slaves--have become timid and frivolous, or bitter. + +'They have ceased to be anxious about anything but to be let alone. But +they are a large, a rich, and comparatively well-educated body. Your +picture is incomplete without them, _et il sera toujours très-difficile +de gouverner sans eux._[2] + +I quite agree,' he continued, 'with Thiers as to the necessity of this +war. Your interests may be more immediate and greater, but ours are very +great. When I say ours, I mean those of France as a country that is +resolved to enjoy constitutional government. I am not sure that if Russia +were to become mistress of the Continent she would not allow France to +continue a quasi-independent despotism under her protectorate. But she +will never willingly allow us to lie powerful and free. + +'I sympathise, too, with Thiers's fears as to the result. I do not +believe that Napoleon himself, with all his energy, and all his +diligence, and all his intelligence, would have thought it possible to +conduct a great war to which his Minister of War was opposed. A man who +has no heart in his business will neglect it, or do it imperfectly. His +first step would have been to dismiss St.-Arnaud. Then, look at the other +two on whose skill and energy we have to depend. One is Ducos, Minister +of Marine, a man of mere commonplace talents and character. The other is +Binneau, Minister of Finance, somewhat inferior to Ducos. Binneau ought +to provide resources. He ought to check the preposterous waste of the +Court. He has not intelligence enough to do the one, or courage enough to +attempt the other. The real Prime Minister is without doubt Louis +Napoleon himself. But he is not a man of business. He does not understand +details. He may order certain things to be done, but he will not be able +to ascertain whether the proper means have been taken. He does not know +indeed what these means are. He does not trust those who do. A war which +would have tasked all the powers of Napoleon, and of Napoleon's Ministers +and generals, is to be carried on without any master-mind to direct it, +or any good instruments to execute it. I fear some great disaster. + +'Such a disaster might throw,' he continued, 'this man from the eminence +on which he is balanced, not rooted. It might produce a popular outbreak, +of which the anarchical party might take advantage. Or, what is perhaps +more to be feared, it might frighten Louis Napoleon into a change of +policy. He is quite capable of turning short round--giving up +everything--key of the Grotto, protectorate of the orthodox, even the +Dardanelles and the Bosphorus--to Nicholas, and asking to be repaid by +the Rhine. + +'I cannot escape from the _cauchemar_ that a couple of years hence France +and England may be at war. Nicholas's expectations have been deceived, +but his plan was not unskilfully laid. He had a fair right to conjecture +that you would think the dangers of this alliance such as to be even +greater than those of allowing him to obtain his protectorate. + +'In deciding otherwise, you have taken the brave and the magnanimous +course. I hope that it may prove the successful one. + +'I am sorry,' continued Tocqueville, 'to see the language of your +newspapers as to the fusion. I did not choose to take part in it. I hate +to have anything to do with pretenders. But as a mere measure of +precaution it is a wise one. It decides what shall be the conduct of the +Royalist party in the event--not an improbable one--of France being +suddenly left without a ruler. + +'Your unmeasured praise of Louis Napoleon and your unmeasured abuse of +the Bourbons are, to a certain degree, the interference in our politics +which you professedly disclaim. I admit the anti-English prejudices +of the Bourbons, and I admit that they are not likely to be abated by +your alliance with a Bonaparte. But the opinions of a constitutional +sovereign do not, like those of a despot, decide the conduct of his +country. The country is anxious for peace, and, above all, peace with +you--for more than peace, for mutual good-feeling. The Bourbons cannot +return except with a constitution. It has become the tradition of the +family, it is their title to the throne. There is not a _vieille +marquise_ in the Faubourg St.-Germain who believes in divine right. + +'The higher classes in France are Bourbonists because they are +Constitutionalists, because they believe that constitutional monarchy is +the government best suited to France, and that the Bourbons offer us the +fairest chance of it. + +'Among the middle classes there is without doubt much inclination for the +social equality of a Republic. But they are alarmed at its instability; +they have never known one live for more than a year or two, or die except +in convulsions. + +'As for the lower classes, the country people think little about +politics, the sensible portion of the artizans care about nothing but +cheap and regular work; the others are Socialists, and, next to the +government of a Rouge Assembly, wish for that of a Rouge despot.' + +'In London,' I said, 'a few weeks ago I came across a French Socialist, +not indeed of the lower orders--for he was a Professor of +Mathematics--but participating in their feelings. "I prefer," he said, "a +Bonaparte to a Bourbon--a Bonaparte must rely on the people, one can +always get something out of him." "What have you got," I asked, "from +this man?" "A great deal," he answered. "We got the Orleans +confiscation--that was a great step. _Il portait attente à la propriété_. +Then he represents the power and majesty of the people. He is like the +people, above all law. _Les Bourbons nous chicanaient._"' + +'That was the true faith of a Rouge,' said Tocqueville 'If this man,' he +added, 'had any self-control, if he would allow us a very moderate degree +of liberty, he might enjoy a reign--probably found a dynasty. He had +everything in his favour; the prestige of his name, the acquiescence of +Europe, the dread of the Socialists, and the contempt felt for the +Republicans. We were tired of Louis Philippe. We remembered the _branche +aînée_ only to dislike it, and the Assembly only to despise it. We never +shall be loyal subjects, but we might have been discontented ones, with +as much moderation as is in our nature.' + +'What is the _nuance_,' I said, 'of G----?' + +'G----,' answered Tocqueville, 'is an honest man, uncorrupt and +public-spirited; he is a clear, logical, but bitter speaker; his words +fall from the tribune like drops of gall. He has great perspicacity, but +rather a narrow range. His vision is neither distant nor comprehensive. +He wears a pair of blinkers, which allow him to see only what he looks +straight at--and that is the English Constitution. For what is to the +right and to the left he has no eyes, and unhappily what is to the right +and to the left is France. + +'Then he has a strong will, perfect self-reliance, and the most restless +activity. All these qualities give him great influence. He led the +_centre gauche_ into most of its errors. H---- used to say, "If you +want to know what I shall do, ask G----." + +'Among the secondary causes of February 1848 he stands prominent. He +planned the banquets. Such demonstrations are safe in England. He +inferred, according to his usual mode of reasoning, that they would not +be dangerous in France. He forgot that in England there is an aristocracy +that leads, and even controls, the people. + +'I am alarmed,' he continued, 'by your Reform Bill. Your new six-pound +franchise must, I suppose, double the constituencies; it is a further +step to universal suffrage, the most fatal and the least remediable of +institutions.[3] + +'While you preserve your aristocracy, you will preserve your freedom; if +that goes, you will fall into the worst of tyrannies, that of a despot, +appointed and controlled, so far as he is controlled at all, by a +mob.'[4] + +Madame de Tocqueville asked me if I had seen the Empress. + +'No,' I said, 'but Mrs. Senior has, and thinks her beautiful.' + +'She is much more so,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'than her portraits. +Her face in perfect repose gets long, and there is a little drooping +about the corners of the mouth. This has a bad effect when she is +serious, as everyone is when sitting for a picture, but disappears as +soon as she speaks. I remember dining in company with her at the +President's--I sat next to him--she was nearly opposite, and close to her +a lady who was much admired. I said to the President, looking towards +Mademoiselle de Montigo, "Really I think that she is far the prettier of +the two." He gazed at her for an instant, and said, "I quite agree with +you; she is charming." It may be a _bon ménage_' + +'To come back,' I said, 'to our Eastern question. What is Baraguay +d'Hilliers?' + +'A _brouillon_,' said Tocqueville. 'He is the most impracticable man in +France. His vanity, his ill-temper, and his jealousy make him quarrel +with everybody with whom he comes in contact. In the interest of our +alliance you should get him recalled.' + +'What sort of man,' I asked, 'shall I find General Randon?' + +'Very intelligent,' said Tocqueville. 'He was to have had the command of +the Roman army when Oudinot gave it up; but, just as he was going, it was +discovered that he was a Protestant. He was not so accommodating as one +of our generals during the Restoration. He also was a Protestant. The Duc +d'Angoulême one day said to him, "Vous êtes protestant, général?" The +poor man answered in some alarm, for he knew the Duke's +ultra-Catholicism, "Tout ce que vous voulez, monseigneur."' + + + +[Footnote 1: My conversations with M. de Tocqueville during this visit +were written out after my return from Paris and sent to him. He returned +them with the remarks which I have inserted.--N.W. SENIOR.] + +[Footnote 2: Le portrait va plus loin que ma pensée.--_A. de +Tocqueville_. The picture expresses more than my idea.] + +[Footnote 3: Cela va plus loin que ma pensée. Je crois que le vote +universel peut se concilier avec d'autres institutions, qui diminuerait +le danger.--_A. de Tocqueville._ + +This goes farther than my idea. I think that universal suffrage may be +combined with other institutions, which would diminish the danger.] + +[Footnote 4: Cela aussi va plus loin que ma pensée. Je crois +très-désirable le maintien des institutions aristocratiques en +Angleterre. Mais je suis loÃn de dire que leur abolition mènerait +nécessairement au despotisme, surtout si elles s'affaiblissaient peu à +peu et n'étaient pas renversées par une révolution.--_A. de Tocqueville_. + +This also goes farther than my idea. I think the maintenance in England +of aristocratic institutions very desirable. But I am far from saying +that their abolition would necessarily lead to despotism, especially if +their power were diminished gradually and without the shock of a +revolution.] + + + + +_To N.W. Senior, Esq._ + +St. Cyr, March 18, 1854. + +Your letter was a real joy to us, my dear Senior. As you consent to be +ill lodged, we offer to you with all our hearts the bachelor's room which +you saw. You will find there only a bed, without curtains, and some very +shabby furniture. But you will find hosts who will be charmed to have you +and your MSS. I beg you not to forget the latter. + +My wife, as housekeeper, desires me to give you an important piece of +advice. In the provinces, especially during Lent, it is difficult to get +good meat on Fridays and Saturdays, and though you are a great sinner, +she has no wish to force you to do penance, especially against your will, +as that would take away all the merit. She advises you, therefore, to +arrange to spend with us Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and +Thursday, and to avoid Friday and Saturday, and especially the whole of +the Holy Week. + +Now you are provided with the necessary instructions. Choose your own +day, and give us twenty-four hours' warning. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +St. Cyr, March 31, 1854. + +My dear Senior,--As you are willing to encounter hard meat and river +fish, I have no objection to your new plan. I see in it even this +advantage, that you will be able to tell us _de visu_ what went on in the +Corps Législatif, which will greatly interest us. + +The condemnation of Montalembert seems to me to be certain; but I am no +less curious to know how that honourable assembly will contrive to +condemn a private letter which appeared in a foreign country, and which +was probably published without the authorisation and against the will of +the writer. + +It is a servile trick, which I should like to see played. + +Do not hesitate to postpone your visit if the sitting of the Corps +Législatif should not take place on Monday. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +I passed the 3rd and 4th of April in the Corps Législatif listening to +the debate on the demand by the Government of permission to prosecute M. +de Montalembert, a member of the Corps Législatif, for the publication of +a letter to M. Dupin, which it treated as libellous. As it was supposed +that M. de Montalembert's speech would be suppressed, I wrote as +much of it as I could carry in my recollection; the only other +vehicle--notes--not being allowed to be taken.[1] On the evening of the +5th of April I left Paris for St. Cyr. + +[Footnote 1: See Appendix.] + +_St. Cyr, Thursday, April 6_, 1854.--I drove with Tocqueville to +Chenonceaux, a château of the sixteenth century, about sixteen miles from +Tours, on the Cher. I say _on_ the Cher, for such is literally its +position. It is a habitable bridge, stretching across the water. + +The two first arches, which spring from the right bank of the river, and +the piers which form their abutments, are about one hundred feet wide, +and support a considerable house. The others support merely a gallery, +called by our guide the ballroom of Catherine de Médicis, ending in a +small theatre. The view from the windows of the river flowing through +wooded meadows is beautiful and peculiar. Every window looks on the +river; many rooms, as is the case with the gallery, look both up and down +it. It must be a charming summer residence. The rooms still retain the +furniture which was put into them by Diane de Poictiers and Catherine de +Médicis; very curious and very uncomfortable; high narrow chairs, short +sofas, many-footed tables, and diminutive mirrors. The sculptured +pilasters, scrolls, bas-reliefs and tracery of the outside are not of +fine workmanship, but are graceful and picturesque. The associations are +interesting, beginning with Francis I. and ending with Rousseau, who +spent there the autumn of 1746, as the guest of Madame Dupin, and wrote a +comedy for its little theatre. The present proprietor, the Marquis de +Villeneuve, is Madame Dupin's grandson. + +In the evening we read my report of the debate on Montalembert. + +'It is difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to wish that so great a speech had +been suppressed. But I am inclined to think that Montalembert's wiser +course was to remain silent. What good will his speech do? It will not be +published. Yours is probably the only report of it. So far as the public +hears anything of it, the versions coming through an unfavourable medium +will be misrepresentations. In a letter which I received from Paris +this morning it is called virulent. It was of great importance that the +minority against granting the consent should be large, and I have no +doubt that this speech diminished it by twenty or thirty. It must have +wounded many, frightened many, and afforded a pretext to many. Perhaps, +however, it was not in human nature for such a speaker as Montalembert to +resist the last opportunity of uttering bold truths in a French +Assembly.' + +_Friday, April_ 7.--We drove to-day along the Loire to Langrais, about +twelve miles below Tours. + +Here is a castle of the thirteenth century, consisting of two centre and +two corner towers, and a curtain between them, terminating in a rocky +promontory. Nothing can be more perfect than the masonry, or more elegant +than the few ornaments. The outside is covered with marks of bullets, +which appear to have rattled against it with little effect. + +On our return we visited the castles of Cinq Mars and Luynes. Langrais, +Cinq Mars, and Luynes were all the property of Effiat, Marquis of Cinq +Mars, who with De Thou conspired against Richelieu in the latter part of +Louis XIII.'s reign, and was beheaded. The towers of Cinq Mars were, in +the words of his sentence, 'rasées à la hauteur de l'infamie,' and remain +now cut down to half their original height. Luynes stands finely, +crowning a knoll overlooking the Loire. It is square, with twelve towers, +two on each side and four in the corners, and a vast ditch, and must have +been strong. Nearly a mile from it are the remains of a Roman aqueduct, +of which about thirty piers and six perfect arches remain. It is of +stone, except the arches, which have a mixture of brick. The peasants, by +digging under the foundations, are rapidly destroying it. An old man told +us that he had seen six or seven piers tumble. A little nearer to Tours +is the Pile de Cinq Mars, a solid, nearly square tower of Roman brickwork +more than ninety feet high, and about twelve feet by fourteen feet thick. +On one side there appear to have been inscriptions or bas-reliefs. Ampère +believes it to have been a Roman tomb; but the antiquaries are divided +and perplexed. Being absolutely solid, it could not have been built for +any use. + +I am struck during my walks and drives by the appearance of prosperity. +The country about Tours is dotted with country-houses, quite as numerous +as in any part of England. In St. Cyr alone there must be between twenty +and thirty, and the houses of the peasants are far better than the best +cottages of English labourers. Everyone seems to have attached to it a +considerable piece of land, from ten acres to two, cultivated in vines, +vegetables and fruit. These and green crops are nearly the only produce; +there is very little grain. All the persons whom I met appeared to be +healthy and well-clad. The soil and climate are good, and the proximity +to Tours insures a market; but physical advantages are not enough to +insure prosperity. The neighbourhood of Cork enjoys a good climate, soil, +and market, but the inhabitants are not prosperous. + +After some discussion Tocqueville agreed with me in attributing the +comfort of the Tourainese to the slowness with which population +increases. In the commune of Tocqueville the births are only three to a +marriage, but both Monsieur and Madame de Tocqueville think that the +number of children here is still less. I scarcely meet any. + +Marriages are late, and very seldom take place until a house and a bit of +ground and some capital have been inherited or accumulated. Touraine is +the best specimen of the _petite culture_ that I have seen. The want of +wood makes it objectionable as a summer residence. + +We are now suffering from heat. After eight in the morning it is too hot +to walk along the naked glaring roads, yet this is only the first week in +April. + +_Saturday, April_ 8.--The sun has been so scorching during our two last +drives that we have given ourselves a holiday to-day, and only dawdled +about Tours. + +We went first to the cathedral, which I never see without increased +pleasure. Though nearly four hundred years passed from its commencement +in the twelfth century to its completion in the fifteenth, the whole +interior is as harmonious as if it had been finished by the artist who +began it. I know nothing in Gothic architecture superior to the grandeur, +richness, and yet lightness of the choir and eastern apse. Thence we +went to St. Julien's, a fine old church of the thirteenth century, +desecrated in the Revolution, but now under restoration. + +Thence to the Hôtel Gouin, a specimen of the purely domestic architecture +of the fifteenth century, covered with elegant tracery and scroll-work in +white marble. We ended with Plessis-les-Tours, Louis XI.'s castle, which +stands on a flat, somewhat marshy, tongue of land stretching between the +Loire and the Cher. All that remains is a small portion of one of the +inner courts, probably a guard-room, and a cellar pointed out to us as +the prison in which Louis XI kept Cardinal de la Balue for several years. +The cellar itself is not bad for a prison of those days, but he is said +to have passed his first year or two in a grated vault under the +staircase, in which he could neither stand up nor lie at full length. + +'It is remarkable,' said Tocqueville, 'that the glorious reigns in French +history, such as those of Louis Onze, Louis Quatorze, and Napoleon ended +in the utmost misery and exhaustion, while the periods at which we are +accustomed to look as those of disturbance and insecurity were those of +comparative prosperity and progress. It seems as if tyranny were worse +than civil war.' + +'And yet,' I said, 'the amount of revenue which these despots managed to +squeeze out of France was never large. The taxation under Napoleon was +much less than under Louis Philippe.' + +'Yes,' said Tocqueville, 'but it was the want of power to tax avowedly +that led them into indirect modes of raising money, which were far more +mischievous; just as our servants put us to more expense by their jobs +than they would do if they simply robbed us to twice the amount of their +indirect gains. + +'Louis XIV. destroyed all the municipal franchises of France, and paved +the way for this centralized tyranny, not from any dislike of municipal +elections, but merely in order to be able himself to sell the places +which the citizens had been accustomed to grant.' + +_Sunday, April_ 9.--Another sultry day. I waited till the sun was low, +and then sauntered by the side of the river with Tocqueville. + +'The worst faults of this Government,' said Tocqueville, 'are those which +do not alarm the public. + +'It is depriving us of the local franchises and local self-government +which we have extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty +years. The Restoration and the Government of July were as absolute +centralizers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced +to surrender they made over to the narrow pays légal, the privileged +ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic +gave the name of Conseils-généraux to the people, and thus dethroned the +notaires who had governed those assemblies when they represented only the +_bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the maires elective. The Republic placed +education in the hands of local authorities. Under its influence, the +communes, the cantons, and the departments were becoming real +administrative bodies. They are now mere geographical divisions. The +préfet appoints the maires. The préfet appoints in every canton a +commissaire de police--seldom a respectable man, as the office is not +honourable. The gardes champêtres, who are our local police, are put +under his control. The recteur, who was a sort of local Minister of +Education in every department, is suppressed. His powers are transferred +to the préfet. The préfet appoints, promotes, and dismisses all the +masters of the _écoles primaires._ He has the power to convert the +commune into a mere unorganised aggregation of individuals, by dismissing +every communal functionary, and placing its concerns in the hands of his +own nominees. There are many hundreds of communes that have been thus +treated, and whose masters now are uneducated peasants. The préfet can +dissolve the Conseil-général of his department and, although he cannot +directly name its successors, he does so virtually. + +'No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless he is supported +by the Government. The préfet can destroy the prosperity of every commune +that displeases him. He can dismiss its functionaries, close its schools, +obstruct its improvements, and withhold the assistance in money which the +Government habitually gives to forward the public purposes of a commune. + +'The Courts of Law, both criminal and civil, are the tools of the +Executive. The Government appoints the judges, the préfet provides the +jury, and _la haute police_ acts without either. + +'All power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from +mouth to mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, +the printers are the slaves of the préfet, as they lose their privilege +if they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly +violated; there are spies to watch and report conversation. + +'Every individual stands defenceless and insulated in the face of this +unscrupulous Executive with its thousands of armed hands and its +thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the +abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, whatever be the man, the +candidate of the préfet comes in; but if he is a man who would have been +universally rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show +their indignation by their absence. I do not believe that, even with +peace, and with the prosperity which usually accompanies peace, such a +Government could long keep down such a country as France. Whether its +existence would be prolonged by a successful war I will not decide. +Perhaps it might be. + +'That it cannot carry on a war only moderately successful, or a war which +from its difficulties and its distance may be generally believed to be +ill managed, still less a war stained by some real disaster, seems to me +certain--if anything in the future of France can be called certain. + +'The vast democratic sea on which the Empire floats is governed by +currents and agitated by ground-swells, which the Government discovers +only by their effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence +these great, apparently slumbering, masses; indeed it takes care, by +stifling their expression, to prevent their being known. Universal +suffrage is a detestable element of government, but it is a powerful +revolutionary instrument' + +'But,' I said, 'the people will not have an opportunity of using that +instrument. All the great elective bodies have some years before them.' + +'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'and therefore their rage will break +out in a more direct, and perhaps more formidable, form. Depend on it, +this Government can exist, even for a time, only on the condition of +brilliant, successful war, or prosperous peace. It is bound to be rapidly +and clearly victorious. If it fail in this, it will sink--or perhaps, in +its terrors and its struggles, it will catch at the other alternative, +peace. + +'The French public is too ignorant to care much about Russian +aggrandisement. So far as it fancies that the strength of Russia is the +weakness of England, it is pleased with it. I am not sure that the most +dishonourable peace with Nicholas would not give to Louis Napoleon an +immediate popularity. I am sure that it would, if it were accompanied by +any baits to the national vanity and cupidity; by the offer of Savoy for +instance, or the Balearic Islands. And if you were to quarrel with us for +accepting them, it would be easy to turn against you our old feelings of +jealousy and hatred.' + +We saw vast columns of smoke on the other side of the river. Those whom +we questioned believed them to arise from an intentional fire. Such fires +are symptoms of popular discontent. They preceded the revolution of 1830. +They have become frequent of late in this country. + +_Monday, April_ 10.--Tocqueville and I drove this morning to +Azy-le-Rideau, another Francis I. château, on an island formed by the +Indre. It is less beautifully situated than Chenonceaux; the river Indre +is smaller and more sluggish than the Cher; the site of the castle is in +a hollow, and the trees round it approach too near, and are the tall and +closely planted poles which the French seem to admire. But the +architecture, both in its outlines and in its details, is charming. +It is of white stone, in this form, with two curtains and four +towers. The whole outside and the ceilings and cornices within are +covered with delicate arabesques. + + O ______________ 0 + | |______________| | + 0 \ | | + \ | | + \| | + | | + 0 + +Like Chenonceaux, it escaped the revolution, and is now, with its +furniture of the sixteenth century, the residence of the Marquis de +Biancourt, descended from its ancient proprietors. + +As we sauntered over the gardens, our conversation turned on the old +aristocracy of France. + +'The loss of our aristocracy,' said Tocqueville, 'is a misfortune from +which we have not even begun to recover. The Legitimists are their +territorial successors; they are the successors in their manners, in +their loyalty, and in their prejudices of _caste_; but they are not their +successors in cultivation, or intelligence, or energy, or, therefore, in +influence. Between them and the _bourgeoisie_ is a chasm, which shows no +tendency to close. Nothing but a common interest and a common pursuit +will bring them together. + +'If the murder of the Duc d'Enghien had not made them recoil in terror +and disgust from Napoleon, they might have perhaps been welded into one +mass with his new aristocracy of services, talents, and wealth. They were +ready to adhere to him during the Consulate. During the Restoration they +were always at war with the _bourgeoisie_, and therefore with the +constitution, on which the power of their enemies depended. When the +result of that war was the defeat and expulsion of their leader, Charles +X., their hostility extended from the _bourgeoisie_ and the constitution +up to the Crown. Louis Philippe tried to govern by means of the middle +classes alone. Perhaps it was inevitable that he should make the attempt. +It certainly was inevitable that he should fail. The higher classes, and +the lower classes, all equally offended, combined to overthrow him. Under +the Republic they again took, to a certain extent, their place in the +State. They led the country people, who came to the assistance of the +Assembly in June 1848. The Republic was wise enough to impose no oaths. +It did not require those who were willing to serve it to begin by openly +disavowing their traditionary opinions and principles. The Legitimists +took their places in the Conseils-généraux. They joined with the +_bourgeoisie_ in local administration, the only means by which men of +different classes can coalesce. + +'The socialist tendencies which are imputed to this Second Empire, the +oath which it most imprudently imposes, its pretensions to form a dynasty +and its assertion of the principle most abhorrent to them, elective +monarchy, have thrown them back into disaffection. And I believe their +disaffection to be one of our great dangers--a danger certainly increased +by the Fusion. The principal object of the Fusion is to influence the +army. The great terror of the army is division in itself. It will accept +anything, give up anything, dare anything, to avoid civil war. Rather +than be divided between the two branches, it would have adhered to the +Empire. Now it can throw off the Bonapartes without occasioning a +disputed succession.' + +'When you say,' I asked, 'that the Legitimists are not the successors of +the old aristocracy in cultivation, intelligence, or energy, do you mean +to ascribe to them positive or relative inferiority in these qualities?' + +'In energy,' answered Tocqueville, 'their deficiency is positive. They +are ready to suffer for their cause, they are not ready to exert +themselves for it. In intelligence and cultivation they are superior to +any other class in France; but they are inferior to the English +aristocracy, and they are inferior, as I said before, to their ancestors +of the eighteenth century. There existed in the highest Parisian society +towards the end of that century a comprehensiveness of curiosity and +inquiry, a freedom of opinion, an independence, and soundness of +judgment, never seen before or since. Its pursuits, its pleasures, its +admirations, its vanities, were all intellectual. Look at the success of +Hume. His manners were awkward; he was a heavy, though an instructive, +converser; he spoke bad French; he would pass now for an intelligent +bore. But such was the worship then paid to talents and +knowledge--especially to knowledge, and talents employed on the +destruction of prejudices--that Hume was, for years, the lion of all the +salons of Paris. The fashionable beauties quarrelled for the fat +philosopher. Nor was their admiration or affection put on, or even +transitory. He retained some of them as intimate friends for life. +If the brilliant talkers and writers of that time were to return to life, +I do not believe that gas, or steam, or chloroform, or the electric +telegraph, would so much astonish them as the dulness of modern society, +and the mediocrity of modern books.' + +In the evening we discussed the new scheme of throwing open the service +of India and of the Government offices to public competition. + +'We have followed,' said Tocqueville, 'that system to a great extent for +many years. Our object was twofold. One was to depress the aristocracy of +wealth, birth, and connexions. In this we have succeeded. + +The École Polytechnique, and the other schools in which the vacancies are +given to those who pass the best examinations, are filled by youths +belonging to the middle classes, who, undistracted by society, or +amusement, or by any literary or scientific pursuits, except those +immediately bearing on their examinations, beat their better-born +competitors, who will not degrade themselves into the mere slaves of +success in the _concours_. Our other object was to obtain the best public +servants. In that we have failed. We have brought knowledge and ability +to an average; diminished the number of incompetent _employés_, and +reduced, almost to nothing, the number of distinguished ones. Continued +application to a small number of subjects, and those always the same, not +selected by the student, but imposed on him by the inflexible rule of the +establishment, without reference to his tastes or to his powers, is as +bad for the mind as the constant exercise of one set of muscles would be +for the body. + +'We have a name for those who have been thus educated. They are called +"polytechnisés." If you follow our example, you will increase your +second-rates, and extinguish your first-rates; and what is perhaps a more +important result, whether you consider it a good or an evil, you will +make a large stride in the direction in which you have lately made so +many--the removing the government and the administration of England from +the hands of the higher classes into those of the middle and lower ones.' + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + + +Paris, Sunday, May 14, 1854. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I write to you _in meditatione fugæ_. We start for +England in an hour's time. The last news that I heard of you was the day +before yesterday from Cousin. He read me your letter, which sounded to me +like that of a man in not very bad health or hopes. I trust that the +attack of which Madame de Tocqueville wrote to us has quite passed off. + +Thiers, who asked very anxiously after you to-day, is earnest that you +should be present at the election on the 18th. The Academy, he said, is +very jealous. _Vous serez très-mal vu_, if you do not come. + +You are at last going seriously to work in the war. By the end of the +year you will have, military and naval, 700,000 men in arms. + +I wish that they were nearer to the enemy. + +Pray remember us most kindly to Madame de Tocqueville, and let us know +where you go as soon as you are decided. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. Senior. + + +St. Cyr, May 21, 1854. + +I followed the advice which you were commissioned to give me, my dear +Senior. I have just been to Paris, but as I stayed there only twenty-four +hours I have not brought back any distinct impressions. + +I saw only Academicians who talked about the Academy, and--who knew +nothing of politics. It is true that such is now the case with everyone. +Politics, which used to be transacted in open day, have now become a +secret process into which none can penetrate except the two or three +alchemists who are engaged in its preparation. + +You heard of course that after your little visit, which we enjoyed so +much, I became very unwell, and my mind was only less affected than my +body. I spent a month very much out of spirits and very much tired of +myself. During the last eight or ten days I have felt much better. My +visit to our friends the Beaumonts did me a great deal of good, and I owe +a grudge to the Academy for forcing me to shorten it. + +I still intend to visit Germany, but the plan depends on the state of my +health. When it is bad I am inclined to give up the journey, when I am +better I take it up again and look forward to it with pleasure. On the +whole I think that I shall go. But it is impossible for me to settle my +route beforehand. Even if I were stronger it would be difficult, for such +an expedition must always be uncertain. + +I am not going to Germany to see any place in particular, but intend to +go hither and thither wherever I can find certain documents and people. + +I received yesterday a letter from our friend Ampère. He is still in +Rome, still more and more enchanted with the place, and using every +argument to induce us to spend there with him the winter of 1856. His +descriptions are so attractive that we may very likely be persuaded, +especially if we had any chance of meeting you there, for you are one of +the people whose society always increases the happiness of life. However, +we have plenty of time for talking over this plan. + +Adieu, dear Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Wildbad, September 19, 1854. + +You gave me great pleasure, my dear Senior, by making me acquainted with +Sir George and Lady Theresa Lewis. + +I must really thank you sincerely for it, for the time passed with them +has been the most agreeable part of our journey. + +You have no doubt heard of the mischance which has put a stop to our +peregrinations: my wife was seized two months ago at Bonn by a violent +attack of rheumatism. The waters of Wildbad were recommended to her, and +she has been taking them for more than twenty-five days without +experiencing any relief. We are promised that the effects will be felt +afterwards; but these fine promises only half reassure us, and we shall +set out again on our travels in very bad spirits. + +Our original intention was to spend the autumn in the North of Germany, +but in Madame de Tocqueville's condition it is evident that there is +nothing else to be done but to return home as fast as we can. + +We are somewhat consoled by the arrival of our common friend Ampère. He +was returning from Italy, through Germany, and, hearing of our +misfortune, he has come to look after us in these wild mountains of the +Black Forest amidst which Wildbad is situated. He has been with us a +week, and I hope that he will accompany us home. + +Our intention is to spend a month or six weeks with my father near +Compiègne. Towards the first week in November we shall establish +ourselves in Paris for the winter. We hope to see you there at the end of +this year or the beginning of next. + +Ampère, my wife, and I constantly talk of you. If you could overhear us I +think you would not be very much dissatisfied. They insist upon being +very particularly remembered to you, and as for me I beg you to believe +in my most sincere attachment. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Compiègne, January 22, 1855. + +It was a long time since I had seen your handwriting, my dear Senior, and +I was beginning to complain of you; your letter therefore was a double +pleasure. + +I see that you have resumed your intention of visiting Algiers, and I am +anxious that you should carry it into effect. + +I hope that we shall be in Paris when you pass through. We put off our +departure from day to day; not that we are kept by the charms of our +present abode; the house is too small for us and scantily furnished, but +I find it such a favourable retreat for study, that I have great +difficulty in tearing myself away from it. + +I hear, as you do, with great satisfaction of the mutual good feeling of +our armies in the Crimea. It far exceeds my expectations. + +But I am not equally pleased with your management of the war. The English +ought to know that what has passed and is passing there has sensibly +diminished their moral force in Europe. It is an unpleasant truth, but I +ought not to conceal it from you. I see proofs of it every day, and I +have been struck by it peculiarly in a late visit to Paris, where I saw +persons of every rank and of every shade of political opinion. The heroic +courage of your soldiers was everywhere and unreservedly praised, but I +found also a general belief that the importance of England as a military +Power had been greatly exaggerated; that she is utterly devoid of +military talent, which is shown as much in administration as in fighting; +and that even in the most pressing circumstances she cannot raise a large +army. + +Since I was a child I never heard such language. You are believed to be +absolutely dependent on us; and in the midst of our intimacy I see rising +a friendly contempt for you, which if our Governments quarrel, will make +a war with you much easier than it has been since the fall of Napoleon. + +I grieve at all this, not only as endangering the English alliance, +which, as you well know, I cherish, but as injuring the cause of liberty. + +I can pardon you for discrediting it by your adulation of our despotism, +but I wish that you would not serve despotism more efficaciously by your +own faults, and by the comparisons which they suggest. + +It seems also difficult to say what may not be the results of your long +intimacy with such a Government as ours, and of the contact of the two +armies. I doubt whether they will be useful to your aristocracy. + +Remember me to Lord Lansdowne and to the Lewises, who added such pleasure +to our German tour. + + + +Compiègne, February 15, 1855. + +I conclude that this frightful weather is still keeping you in London, my +dear Senior. I am comforted by the fact that I myself shall not reach +Paris before the 28th. + +I do not wish to act the part of the pedagogue in the fable who preaches +to people when his sermon can no longer be of any possible use, but I +cannot help telling you that it is a great imprudence on your part to +allow yourself to be caught in this way by the winter in England. What +you now suffer from is only a trifling malady, but it may become a real +illness if you persist in preferring pleasure to health. Pray think of +this in the future and do not tempt the devil. + +I have not read the article to which you refer.[1] + +I can perfectly understand the reserve which was imposed upon you, and +which you were forced to impose on yourself. + +I confess that I saw with great grief the sudden change in the +expressions of the majority of the English, a year ago, respecting our +Government. It was then ill consolidated, and in want of the splendid +alliance which you offered to it. It was unnecessary that you should +praise it, in order to keep it your friend. By doing so you sacrificed +honourable opinions and tastes without a motive. + +Now things are changed. After you have lost your only army, and our +master has made an alliance with Austria, which suits his feelings much +better than yours did, he does not depend on you; you, to a certain +extent, depend on him. Such being now the case, I can understand the +English thinking it their duty to their country to say nothing that can +offend the master of France. I can understand even their praising him; I +reproach them only for having done so too soon, before it was necessary. + +I agree with you that England ought to be satisfied with being the +greatest maritime Power, and ought not to aim at being also one of the +greatest military Powers. + +But the feelings which I described to you as prevalent in France and in +Germany, arose not from your want of an army of 500,000 men. They were +excited by these two facts. + +First, by what was supposed (perhaps falsely) to be the bad military +administration of your only army. Secondly, and much more, by your +apparent inability to raise another army. + +According to continental notions, a nation which cannot raise as many +troops as its wants require, loses our respect. It ceases, according to +our notions, to be great or even to be patriotic. And I must confess +that, considering how difficult it is to procure soldiers by voluntary +enlistment, and how easily every nation can obtain them by other means, I +do not see how you will be able to hold your high rank, unless your +people will consent to something resembling a conscription. + +Dangerous as it is to speak of a foreign country, I venture to say that +England is mistaken if she thinks that she can continue separated from +the rest of the world, and preserve all her peculiar institutions +uninfluenced by those which prevail over the whole of the Continent. + +In the period in which we live, and, still more, in the period which is +approaching, no European nation can long remain absolutely dissimilar to +all the others. I believe that a law existing over the whole Continent +must in time influence the laws of Great Britain, notwithstanding the +sea, and notwithstanding the habits and institutions, which, still more +than the sea, have separated you from us, up to the present time. + +My prophecies may not be accomplished in our time; but I should not be +sorry to deposit this letter with a notary, to be opened, and their truth +or falsehood proved, fifty years hence. + + + +Compiègne, February 23, 1855. + + ... My object in my last letter was not by any means, as you seem to +think, to accuse _your aristocracy_ of having mismanaged the Crimean war. +It has certainly been mismanaged, but who has been in fault? + +Indeed I know not, and if I did I should think at the same time that it +would not be becoming in a foreigner to set himself up as a judge of the +blunders of any other Government than his own. + +I thought that I had expressed myself clearly. At any rate what I wanted +to say, if I did not say it, is, that the present events created in my +opinion a new and great danger for your aristocracy, and that it will +suffer severely from the rebound, if it does not make enormous efforts to +show itself capable of repairing the past; and that it would be wrong to +suppose that by fighting bravely on the field of battle it could retain +the direction of the Government. + +I did not intend to say more than this. + +I will now add that if it persuades itself that it will easily get out of +the difficulty by making peace, I think that it will find itself +mistaken. + +Peace, after what has happened, may be a good thing for England in +general, and useful to us, but I doubt whether it will be a gain for your +aristocracy. I think that if Chatham could return to life he would agree +with me, and would say that under the circumstances the remedy would not +be peace but a more successful war. + +Kind regards, &c. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: An article in the _North British Review_, see p. 107.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, Hôtel Bedford.--Friday, March_ 2, 1855.--We slept on the 27th at +Calais, on the 28th at Amiens, and reached this place last night. + +Tocqueville called on us this morning. We talked of the probability of +Louis Napoleon's going to the Crimea. + +I said, 'that the report made by Lord John Russell, who talked the matter +over with him, was, that he certainly had once intended to go, and had +not given it up.' + +'I do not value,' said Tocqueville, 'Lord John's inferences from anything +that he heard or saw in his audiences. All Louis Napoleon's words and +looks, are, whether intentionally or not, misleading. Now that his having +direct issue seems out of the question, and that the deeper and deeper +discredit into which the heir presumptive is falling, seems to put _him_ +out of the question too, we are looking to this journey with great alarm. +We feel that, for the present, his life is necessary to us, and we feel +that it would be exposed to many hazards. He ought to incur some military +risks, if he is present at a battle or an assault, and his courage and +his fatalism, will lead him to many which he ought to avoid. But it is +disease rather than bullets that we fear. He will have to travel hard, +and to be exposed, under exciting circumstances, to a climate which is +not a safe one even to the strong.' + +'But,' I said, 'he will not be exposed to it long. I have heard thirty, +or at most forty, days proposed as the length of his absence.' + +'Who can say that?' answered Tocqueville. 'If he goes there, he must stay +there until Sebastopol falls. It will not do for him to leave Paris in +order merely to look at the works, pat the generals on the back, +compliment the army, and leave it in the trenches. Unless his journey +produces some great success--in short, unless it gives us Sebastopol--it +will be considered a failure; and a failure he cannot afford. I repeat +that he must stay there till Sebastopol falls. But that may be months. +And what may months bring forth in such a country as France? In such a +city as Paris? In such times as these? Then he cannot safely leave his +cousin--Jérôme Plon swears that he will not go, and I do not see how he +can be taken by force.' + +'I do not understand,' I said, 'Jerôme's conduct. It seemed as if he had +the ball at his feet. The _rôle_ of an heir is the easiest in the world. +He has only to behave decently in order to be popular.' + +'Jérôme's chances,' answered Tocqueville, 'of the popularity which is to +be obtained by decent behaviour were over long before he became an heir. +His talents are considerable, but he has no principles, and no good +sense. He is Corsican to the bone. I watched him among his Montagnards in +the Constituent. + +'Nothing could be more perverse than his votes, nor more offensive than +his speeches. He is unfit to conciliate the sensible portion of society, +and naturally throws himself into the arms of those who are waiting to +receive him--the violent, the rapacious, and the anarchical: this gives +him at least some adherents.' + +'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of his conduct in the East?' + +'I hear,' said Tocqueville, 'that he showed want, not so much of courage, +as of temper and of subordination. He would not obey orders; he would not +even transmit them, so that Canrobert was forced to communicate directly +with the officers of Napoleon's division, and at last required him to +take sick leave, or to submit to a court-martial.' + +'I thought,' I said, 'that he was really ill.' + +'That is not the general opinion,' said Tocqueville. 'He showed himself +at a ball directly after his return, with no outward symptoms of ill +health.' + +The conversation turned on English politics. + +'So many of my friendships,' said Tocqueville, 'and so many of my +sympathies, are English, that what is passing _in_ your country, and +_respecting_ your country, gives me great pain, and greater anxiety. To +us, whom unhappily experience has rendered sensitive of approaching +storms, your last six months have a frightfully revolutionary appearance. + +'There is with you, as there was with us in 1847, a general _malaise_ in +the midst of general prosperity. Your people seem, as was the case with +ours, to have become tired of their public men, and to be losing faith in +their institutions. What else do these complaints of what is called "the +system" mean? When you complain that the Government patronage is bartered +for political support, that the dunces of a family are selected for the +public service, and selected expressly because they could not get on in +an open profession; that as their places are a sort of property, they are +promoted only by seniority, and never dismissed for any, except for some +moral, delinquency; that therefore the seniors in all your departments +are old men, whose original dulness has been cherished by a life without +the stimulus of hope or fear, you describe a vessel which seems to have +become too crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most +favourable winds. You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department, +your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to +pieces. You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only +seven miles from its base. The next storm may attack your Colonial +Administration. Will that stand any better? Altogether your machinery +seems throughout out of gear. If you set to work actively and fearlessly, +without reference to private interests, or to private expectations, or to +private feelings, to repair, remove and replace, you may escape our +misfortunes; but I see no proofs that you are sufficiently bold, or +indeed that you are sufficiently alarmed. Then as to what is passing +here. A year ago we probably overrated your military power. I believe +that now we most mischievously underrate it. A year ago nothing alarmed +us more than a whisper of the chance of a war with England. We talk of +one now with great composure. We believe that it would not be difficult +to throw 100,000 men upon your shores, and we believe that half that +number would walk over England or Ireland. You are mistaken if you think +that these opinions will die away of themselves, or will be eradicated by +anything but some decisive military success. I do not agree with those +who think that it is your interest that Russia should submit while +Sebastopol stands. You might save money and men by a speedy peace, but +you would not regain your reputation. If you are caught by a peace before +you have an opportunity of doing so, I advise you to let it be on your +part an armed peace. Prepare yourselves for a new struggle with a new +enemy, and let your preparations be, not only as effective as you can +make them, but also as notorious.'[1] + +[Footnote 1: Note inserted by M de Tocqueville in my Journal, after +reading the preceding conversation. + +'J'ai entendu universellement louer sans restriction le courage héroïque +de vos soldats, mais en même temps j'ai trouvé répandu cette croyance, +qu'on s'était trompé de l'importance de l'Angleterre dans le monde, comme +puissance militaire proprement dite, qui consiste autant à _administrer_ +la guerre qu'à combattre, et surtout qu'il lui était impossible, ce qu'on +ne croyait pas jusque là , d'élever de grandes armées, même dans les cas +les plus pressants. Je n'avais rien entendu de pareil depuis mon enfance. +On vous croit absolument dans notre dépendance, et du sein de la grande +inimité qui règne entre les deux peuples, je vois naître des idées qui, +le jour où nos deux gouvernements cesseront d'être d'accord, nous +précipiteront dans la guerre contre vous, beaucoup plus facilement que +cela n'eut pu avoir lieu depuis la chute du premier Empire. Cela +m'afflige, et pour l'avenir de Alliance anglaise (dont vous savez que j'ai +toujours été un grand partisan), et non moins aussi, je l'avoue, pour la +cause de vos institutions libres. Ce qui se passe n'est pas de nature à +la relever dans notre esprit. Je vous pardonnerais de déconsidérer vos +principes par les louanges dont vous accablez le gouvernement absolu qui +règne en France, mais je voudrais du moins que vous ne le fissiez pas +d'une manière encore plus efficace par vos propres fautes, et par la +comparaison qu'elles suggèrent. Il me semble, du reste, bien difficile +de dire ce qui résultera pour vous même du contact intime et prolongé +avec notre gouvernement, et surtout de l'action commune et du mélange +des deux armées. J'en doute, je vous l'avouerai, que l'aristocratie +anglaise s'en trouve bien, et quoique A B ait entonné l'autre jour une +véritable hymne en l'honneur de celle ci, je ne crois pas que ce qui +passe soit de nature à rendre ces chances plus grandes dans l'avenir'--_A +de Tocqueville_. + +'I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic courage of your +soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the persuasion that +the importance of England had been overrated as a military Power properly +so called--a Power which consists in administering as much as in +fighting; and above all, that it was impossible (and this had never +before been believed), for her to raise large armies, even under the most +pressing circumstances. I never heard anything like it since my +childhood. You are supposed to be entirely dependent upon us, and from +the midst of the great intimacy which subsists between the two countries, +I see springing up ideas which, on the day when our two Governments cease +to be of one mind, will precipitate our country into a war against you, +much more easily than has been possible since the fall of the first +Empire. This grieves me, both on account of the duration of the English +Alliance (of which you know that I have always been a great partisan), +and no less, I own, for the sake of your free institutions. Passing +events are not calculated to raise them in our estimation. I forgive you +for discrediting your principles by the praise which you lavish on the +absolute government which reigns in France, but I would have you at least +not to do so in a still more efficacious manner by your own blunders and +by the comparisons which they suggest. It seems to me, however, very +difficult to predict the result to yourselves of the long and intimate +contact with, our Government, and, above all, of the united action and +amalgamation of the two armies. I own that I doubt its having a good +effect on the future of the English aristocracy, and although A.B. struck +up the other day a real hymn in its praise, I do not think that present +events are of a nature to increase its chance in the future.'] + + + +_Paris, Saturday, March_ 3.--Tocqueville called on us soon after +breakfast. + +We talked of the loss and gain of Europe by the war. We agreed that +Russia and England have both lost by it. Russia probably the most in +power, England in reputation. That Prussia, though commercially a gainer, +is humiliated and irritated by the superiority claimed by Austria and +conceded to her. + +'You cannot,' said Tocqueville, 'estimate the opinions of Germany without +going there. There is a general feeling among the smaller Powers of +internal insecurity and external weakness, and Austria is looked up to as +the supporter of order against the revolutionists, and of Germany against +Russia. Austria alone has profited by the general calamities. Without +actually drawing the sword she has possession of the Principalities, she +has thrust down Prussia into the second rank, she has emancipated herself +from Russia, she has become the ally of France and of England, and even +of her old enemy Piedmont, she is safe in Italy. Poland and Hungary are +still her difficulties, and very great ones, but as her general strength +increases, she can better deal with them.' + +'Has not France, I said, 'been also a gainer, by becoming head of the +coalition against Russia?' + +'Whatever we have gained,' answered Tocqueville, 'has been dearly +purchased, so far as it has consolidated this despotism. For a whole year +we have felt that the life, and even the reign, of Louis Napoleon was +necessary to us. They will continue necessary to us during the remainder +of the war. We are acquiring habits of obedience, almost of resignation. +His popularity has not increased. He and his court are as much shunned by +the educated classes as they were three years ago; we still repeat "que +ça ne peut pas durer," but we repeat it with less conviction.' + +We passed the spring in Algeria, and returned to Paris the latter part of +May. + +_Paris, May 26,_1855.--After breakfast I went to the Institut. + +M. Passy read to us a long paper on the Art of Government. He spoke so +low and so monotonously that no one attended. I sat next to Tocqueville, +and, as it was not decent to talk, we conversed a little in writing. He +had been reading my Algiers Journal, and thus commented upon it:-- + +'Il y a tout un côté, particulièrement curieux, de l'Algérie, qui vous a +échappé parce que vous n'avez pu ou voulu vous imposer l'ennui de causer +souvent avec les colons, et que ce côté-là ne se voit pas en parlant +avec les gouvernants; c'est l'abus de la centralisation. L'Afrique peut +être considérée comme le tableau le plus complet et le plus +extraordinaire des vices de ce système. + +'Je suis convaincu que seul, sans les Arabes, le soleil, le désert, et la +fièvre, il suffirait pour nous empêcher de coloniser. Tout ce que la +centralisation laisse entrevoir de défauts, de ridicules et absurdités, +d'oppression, de paperasseries en France, est grossi en Afrique au +centuple. C'est comme un pou vu dans un microscope.' + +'J'ai causé,' I answered, 'avec Vialar et avec mon hôte aux eaux +ferrugineuses. Mais ils ne se sont pas plaints de la centralisation.' + +'Ils ne se sont pas plaints,' he answered, 'du mot que, peut-être, ils ne +connaissaient pas. Mais si vous les aviez fait entrer dans les détails de +l'administration publique, ou même de leurs affaires privées, vous auriez +vu que le colon est plus gêné dans tous ses mouvements, et plus _gouverné +pour son plus grand bien_ que vous ne l'avez été quand il s'est agi de +votre passeport. + +'Violar faisait allusion à cela quand il vous a dit que les chemins +manquaient parce que le Gouvernement ne voulait pas laisser les gouvernés +s'en mêler.'[1] + +[Footnote 1: 'One whole side, and that a very curious one, of Algeria, +has escaped you, because you could not, or would not, inflict on yourself +the bore of talking frequently with the colonists, and this side cannot +be seen in conversing with officials--it is the abuse of centralisation. +Africa may be considered as the most complete and most extraordinary +picture of the vices of this system. I am convinced that it alone, +without the Arabs, the sun, the desert and the fever, would be enough to +prevent us from colonising. All the defects of centralisation, its +oppressions, its faults, its absurdities, its endless documents, which +are dimly perceived in France, become one hundred times bigger in Africa. +It is like a louse in a microscope.' + +'I conversed,' I answered, 'with Violar and with my landlord at the +mineral waters, and they did not complain of centralisation.' 'They did +not complain,' he answered, 'of the word, which perhaps is unknown to +them. But if you had made them enter into the details of the public +administration, or even of their own private affairs, you would have seen +that the colonist is more confined in all his movements, and more +_governed, for his good_, than you were with regard to your passport. + +'This is what Violar meant when he told you that roads were wanting, +because the Government would not permit its subjects to interfere in +making them.'] + + + +_Monday, May_ 28.--Tocqueville called on me. + +I asked him for criticisms on my article on the State of the Continent in +the 'North British Review' of February 1855.[1] + +[Footnote 1: See p. 107.] + +'Of course,' I said, 'it must be full of blunders. No one who writes on +the politics of a foreign country can avoid them. I want your help to +correct a few of them.' + +'Since you ask me,' he answered, 'for a candid criticism, I will give you +one. I accuse you rather of misappreciation than of misstatement. First +with respect to Louis Napoleon. After having described accurately, in the +beginning of your paper, his unscrupulous, systematic oppression, you end +by saying that, after all, you place him high among our sovereigns.' + +'You must recollect,' I answered, 'that the article was written for the +"Edinburgh Review," the organ of our Government, edited by Lord +Clarendon's brother-in-law--and that the editor thought its criticisms of +Louis Napoleon so severe, that after having printed it, he was afraid to +publish it. I went quite as far as I prudently could. I accused him, as +you admit, of unscrupulous oppression, of ignorance of the feelings of +the people, of being an idle administrator, of being unacquainted with +business himself, and not employing those who understand it, of being +impatient of contradiction, of refusing advice and punishing censure--in +short, I have praised nothing but his foreign policy--and I have +mentioned two errors in that.' + +'But I have a graver accusation to bring against you,' replied +Tocqueville. 'You couple as events mutually dependent the continuance of +the Imperial Government and the continuance of the Anglo-Gallic Alliance. +I believe this opinion not only to be untrue, but to be the reverse of +the truth. I believe the Empire and the Alliance to be not merely, not +mutually dependent, but to be incompatible, except upon terms which you +are resolved never to grant The Empire is essentially warlike--and war in +the mind of a Bonaparte, and of the friends of a Bonaparte, means the +Rhine. This war is merely a stepping stone. It is carried on for purposes +in which the mass of the people of France take no interest. Up to the +present time its burthens have been little felt, as it has been supported +by loans, and the limits of the legal conscription have not been +exceeded. But when the necessity comes for increased taxation and +anticipated conscriptions, Louis Napoleon must have recourse to the real +passions of the French _bourgeoisie_ and peasantry--the love of conquest, +_et la haine de l'Anglais_. Don't fancy that such feelings are dead, they +are scarcely asleep. They might be roused in a week, in a day, and they +_will_ be roused as soon as he thinks that they are wanted. + +'What do you suppose was the effect in France of Louis Napoleon's triumph +in England? + +'Those who know England attributed it to the ignorance and childishness +of the multitude. Those who thought that the shouts of the mob had any +real meaning either hung down their heads in shame at the +self-degradation of a great nation, or attributed them to fear. The +latter was the general feeling. "Il faut," said all our lower classes, +"que ces gens-là aient grande peur de nous." + +'You accuse, in the second place, all the Royalist parties of dislike of +England. + +'Do you suppose that you are more popular with the others? That the +Republicans love your aristocracy, or the Imperialists your freedom? The +real friends of England are the friends of her institutions. They are +the body, small perhaps numerically, and now beaten down, of those who +adore Constitutional Liberty. They have maintained the mutual good +feeling between France and England against the passions of the +Republicans and the prejudices of the Legitimists. I trust, as you trust, +that this good feeling is to continue, but it is on precisely opposite +grounds. My hopes are founded, not on the permanence, but on the want of +permanence, of the Empire. I do not believe that a great nation will be +long led by its tail instead of by its head. My only fear is, that the +overthrow of this tyranny may not take place early enough to save us from +war with England, which I believe to be the inevitable consequence of its +duration.' + +We left Paris soon after this conversation. + +[The following are a few extracts from the article in the 'North British +Review.'--ED.] + +'The principal parties into which the educated society of Paris is +divided, are the Imperialists, Royalists, Republicans, and +Parliamentarians. + +'The Royalists maybe again subdivided into Orleanists, Legitimists, and +Fusionists; and the Fusionists into Orleanist-Fusionists, and +Legitimist-Fusionists. + +'The Imperialists do not require to be described. They form a small party +in the salons of Paris, and much the largest party in the provinces. + +'Those who are Royalists without being Fusionists are also comparatively +insignificant in numbers. There are a very few Legitimists who pay to the +elder branch the unreasoning worship of superstition; who adore Henri +V. not as a means but as an end; who pray for his reign, not for their +own interests, not for the interests of France, but for his own sake; who +believe that he derives his title from God, and that when the proper time +comes God will restore him; and that to subject his claims to the +smallest compromise--to admit, for instance, as the Fusionists do, that +Louis Philippe was really a king, and that the reign of Henri V. did not +begin the instant that Charles X. expired--would be a sinful contempt +of Divine right, which might deprive his cause of Divine assistance. + +'There are also a very few Orleanists who, with a strange confusion of +ideas, do not perceive that a title founded solely on a revolution was +destroyed by a revolution; that if the will of the people was sufficient +to exclude the descendants of Charles X., it also could exclude the +descendants of Louis Philippe; and that the hereditary claims of the +Comte de Paris cannot be urged except on the condition of admitting the +preferable claims of the Comte de Chambord. + +'The bulk, then, of the Royalists are Fusionists; but though all the +Fusionists agree in believing that the only government that can be +permanent in France is a monarchy, and that the only monarchy that can be +permanent is one depending on hereditary succession; though they agree in +believing that neither of the Bourbon branches is strong enough to seize +the throne, and that each of them is strong enough to exclude the other, +yet between the Orleanist-Fusionists and the Legitimist-Fusionists the +separation is as marked and the mutual hatred as bitter, as those which +divide the most hostile parties in England. + +'The Orleanist-Fusionists are generally _roturiers_. They feel towards +the _noblesse_ the hatred which has accumulated during twelve centuries +of past oppression and the resentment excited by present insolence. Of +all the noble families of France the most noble is that of Bourbon. The +head of that house has always called himself _le premier gentilhomme de +France_. The Bourbons therefore suffer, and in an exaggerated degree, +the odium which weighs down the caste to which they belong. It was this +odium, this detestation of privilege and precedence and exclusiveness, +or, as it is sometimes called, this love of equality, which raised the +barricades of 1830. It was to flatter these feelings that Louis Philippe +sent his sons to the public schools and to the National Guard, and tried +to establish his Government on the narrow foundation of the +_bourgeoisie_. Louis Philippe and one or two of the members of his +family, succeeded in obtaining some personal popularity, but it was only +in the comparatively small class, the _pays légal_, with which they +shared the emoluments of Government, and it was not sufficient to raise a +single hand in their defence when the masses, whom the Court could not +bribe or caress, rose against it. The Orleanist-Fusionists are +Bourbonists only from calculation. They wish for the Comte de Paris for +their king, not from any affection for him or for his family, but because +they think that such an arrangement offers to France the best chance of +a stable Government in some degree under popular control: and they are +ready to tolerate the intermediate reign of Henri V. as an evil, but one +which must be endured as a means of obtaining something else, not very +good in itself but less objectionable to them than a Bonapartist dynasty +or a Republic. + + * * * * * + +'The Legitimists have been so injured in fortune and in influence, they +have been so long an oppressed caste, excluded from power, and even from +sympathy, that they have acquired the faults of slaves, have become +timid, or frivolous, or bitter. Their long retirement from public life +has made them unfit for it. The older members of the party have forgotten +its habits and its duties, the younger ones have never learnt them. Their +long absence from the Chambers and from the departmental and municipal +councils, from the central and from the local government of France, has +deprived them of all aptitude for business. The bulk of them are +worshippers of wealth, or ease, or pleasure, or safety. The only +unselfish feeling which they cherish is attachment to their hereditary +sovereign. They revere Henri V. as the ruler pointed out to them by +Providence: they love him as the representative of Charles X. the +champion of their order, who died in exile for having attempted to +restore to them the Government of France. They hope that on his +restoration the _canaille_ of lawyers, and _littérateurs_, and +adventurers, who have trampled on the _gentilshommes_ ever since 1830, +will be turned down to their proper places, and that ancient descent will +again be the passport to the high offices of the State and to the society +of the Sovereign. The advent of Henri V., which to the Orleanist branch +of the Fusionists is a painful means, is to the Legitimist branch a +desirable end. The succession of the Comte de Paris, to which the +Orleanists look with hope, is foreseen by the Legitimists with +misgivings. The Fusionist party is in fact kept together not by common +sympathies but by common antipathies; each branch of it hates or +distrusts the idol of the other, but they co-operate because each +branch hates still more bitterly, and distrusts still more deeply, the +Imperialists and the Republicans. + +'Among the educated classes there are few Republicans, using that word to +designate those who actually wish to see France a republic. There are +indeed, many who regret the social equality of the republic, the times +when plebeian birth was an aid in the struggle for power, and a +journeyman mason could be a serious candidate for the Presidentship, but +they are alarmed at its instability. They have never known a republic +live for more than a few years, or die except in convulsions. The +Republican party, however, though small, is not to be despised. It is +skilful, determined, and united. And the Socialists and the Communists, +whom we have omitted in our enumeration as not belonging to the educated +classes, would supply the Republican leaders with an army which has more +than once become master of Paris. + +'The only party that remains to be described is that to which we have +given the name of Parliamentarians. Under this designation--a designation +that we must admit that we have invented ourselves--we include those who +are distinguished from the Imperialists by their desire for a +parliamentary form of government; and from the Republicans, by their +willingness that that government should be regal; and from the Royalists, +by their willingness that it should be republican. In this class are +included many of the wisest and of the honestest men in France. The only +species of rule to which they are irreconcilably opposed is despotism. No +conduct on the part of Louis Napoleon would conciliate a sincere +Orleanist, or Legitimist, or Fusionist, or Republican. The anti-regal +prejudices of the last, and the loyalty of the other three, must force +them to oppose a Bonapartist dynasty, whatever might be the conduct of +the reigning emperor. But if Louis Napoleon should ever think the time, +to which he professes to look forward, arrived--if he should ever grant +to France, or accept from her, institutions really constitutional; +institutions, under which the will of the nation, freely expressed by a +free press and by freely chosen representatives, should control and +direct the conduct of her governor--the Parliamentarians would eagerly +rally round him. On the same conditions they would support with equal +readiness Henri V. or the Comte de Paris, a president elected by the +people, or a president nominated by an Assembly. They are the friends of +liberty, whatever be the form in which she may present herself.' + + * * * * * + +'Although our author visits the Provinces, his work contains no report of +their political feelings. The explanation probably is, that he found no +expression of it The despotism under which France is now suffering is +little felt in the capital. It shows itself principally in the subdued +tone of the debates, if debates they can be called, of the Corps +Législatif, and the inanity of the newspapers. Conversation is as free in +Paris as it was under the Republic. Public opinion would not support the +Government in an attempt to silence the salons of Paris. But Paris +possesses a public opinion, because it possesses one or two thousand +highly educated men whose great amusement, we might say whose great +business, is to converse, to criticise the acts of their rulers, and to +pronounce decisions which float from circle to circle, till they reach +the workshop, and even the barrack. In the provinces there are no such +centres of intelligence and discussion, and, therefore, on political +subjects, there is no public opinion. The consequence is, that the action +of the Government is there really despotic; and it employs its +irresistible power in tearing from the departmental and communal +authorities all the local franchises and local self-government which they +had extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty years. + +'Centralisation, though it is generally disclaimed by every party that is +in opposition, is so powerful an instrument that every Monarchical +Government which has ruled France since 1789 has maintained, and even +tried to extend it. + +'The Restoration, and the Government of July, were as absolute +centralisers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced +to surrender they made over to the narrow _pays légal_, the privileged +ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic +gave the election of the _Conseils généraux_ to the people, and thus +dethroned the notaries who governed those assemblies when they +represented only the _bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the Maires +elective; the Republic placed education in the hands of the local +authorities. Under its influence the communes, the cantons, and the +departments were becoming real administrative bodies. They are now +geographical divisions. The Préfet appoints the Maires; the Préfet +appoints in every canton a Commissaire de Police, seldom a respectable +man, as the office is not honourable; the Gardes champêtres, who are the +local police, are put under his control; the Recteur, who was a sort of +local Minister of Education in every department, is suppressed; his +powers are transferred to the Préfet; the Préfet appoints, promotes, and +dismisses all the masters of the _écoles primaires_. The Préfet can +destroy the prosperity of every commune that displeases him. He can +displace the functionaries, close its schools, obstruct its public works, +and withhold the money which the Government habitually gives in aid of +local improvement. He can convert it, indeed, into a mere unorganised +aggregation of individuals, by dismissing every communal functionary, and +placing its concerns in the hands of his own nominees. There are many +hundreds of communes that have been thus treated, and whose masters are +now uneducated peasants. The Préfet can dissolve the _Conseil général_ of +his department, and although he cannot actually name their successors, he +does so virtually. No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless +he is supported by the Government. The Courts of law, criminal and civil, +are the tools of the executive. The Government appoints the judges, the +Préfet provides the jury, and _la Haute Police_ acts without either. All +power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from mouth to +mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, the +printers are the slaves of the Préfet, as they lose their privilege if +they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly violated; +there are spies in every country town to watch and report conversation; +every individual stands defenceless and insulated, in the face of this +unscrupulous executive, with its thousands of armed hands and its +thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the +abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, and whatever be the man, +the candidate of the Préfet comes in; but if he is a man who would have +been unanimously rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show +their indignation by their absence. + +'In such a state of society the traveller can learn little. Even those +who rule it, know little of the feelings of their subjects. The vast +democratic sea on which the Empire floats is influenced by currents, and +agitated by ground swells which the Government discovers only by their +effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence these great +apparently slumbering masses. Indeed, it takes care, by stifling their +expression, to prevent their being known. + +'We disapprove in many respects of the manner in which Louis Napoleon +employs his power, as we disapprove in all respects of the means by which +he seized it; but, on the whole, we place him high among the sovereigns +of France. As respects his foreign policy we put him at the very top. The +foreign policy of the rulers of mankind, whether they be kings, or +ministers, or senates, or demagogues, is generally so hateful, and at the +same time so contemptible, so grasping, so irritable, so unscrupulous, +and so oppressive--so much dictated by ambition, by antipathy and by +vanity, so selfish, often so petty in its objects, and so regardless of +human misery in its means, that a sovereign who behaves to other nations +with merely the honesty and justice and forbearance which are usual +between man and man, deserves the praise of exalted virtue. The +sovereigns of France have probably been as good as the average of +sovereigns. Placed indeed at the head of the first nation of the +Continent, they have probably been better; but how atrocious has been +their conduct towards their neighbour! If we go back no further than to +the Restoration, we find Louis XVIII. forming the Holy Alliance, and +attacking Spain without a shadow of provocation, for the avowed purpose +of crushing her liberties and giving absolute power to the most +detestable of modern tyrants. We find Charles X. invading a dependence +of his ally, the Sultan, and confiscating a province to revenge a tap on +the face given by the Bey of Algiers to a French consul. We find Louis +Philippe breaking the most solemn engagements with almost wanton +faithlessness; renouncing all extension of territory in Africa and then +conquering a country larger than France--a country occupied by tribes who +never were the subjects of the Sultan or of the Bey, and who could be +robbed of their independence only by wholesale and systematic massacre; +we find him joining England, Spain, and Portugal in the Quadruple +Alliance, and deserting them as soon as the time of action had arrived; +joining Russia, Prussia, Austria and England, in the arrangement of the +Eastern question, on the avowed basis that the integrity of the Ottoman +empire should be preserved, and then attempting to rob it of Egypt. We +find him running the risk of a war with America, because she demanded, +too unceremoniously, the payment of a just debt, and with England because +she complained of the ill-treatment of a missionary. We find him trying +to ruin the commerce of Switzerland because the Diet arrested a French +spy, and deposing Queen Pomare because she interfered with the sale of +French brandies; and, as his last act, eluding an express promise by a +miserable verbal equivocation, and sowing the seeds of a future war of +succession in order to get for one of his sons an advantageous +establishment in Spain. + +'The greatest blot in the foreign policy of Louis Napoleon is the +invasion of Rome, and for that he is scarcely responsible. It was +originally planned by Louis Philippe and Rossi. The expedition which +sailed from Toulon in 1849 was prepared in 1847. It was despatched in the +first six months of his presidency, in obedience to a vote of the +Assembly, when the Assembly was still the ruler of France; and Louis +Napoleon's celebrated letter to Ney was an attempt, not, perhaps +constitutional or prudent, but well-intentioned, to obtain for the Roman +people liberal and secular institutions instead of ecclesiastical +tyranny. + +'His other mistake was the attempt to enforce on Turkey the capitulations +of 1740, and to revive pretentions of the Latins in Jerusalem which had +slept for more than a century. This, again, was a legacy from Louis +Philippe. It was Louis Philippe who claimed a right to restore the dome, +or the portico, we forget which, of the Holy Sepulchre, and to insult the +Greeks by rebuilding it in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form. Louis +Napoleon has the merit, rare in private life, and almost unknown among +princes, of having frankly and unreservedly withdrawn his demands, though +supported by treaty, as soon as he found that they could not be conceded +without danger to the conceding party. + +'With these exceptions, his management of the foreign relations of France +has been faultless. To England he has been honest and confiding, to +Russia conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and he has +treated Prussia with, perhaps, more consideration than that semi-Russian +Court and childishly false and cunning king deserved. He has been +assailed by every form of temptation, through his hopes and through his +fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested. Such conduct deserves +the admiration with which England has repaid it. + +'We cannot praise him as an administrator. He is indolent and +procrastinating. He hates details, and therefore does not understand +them. When he has given an order he does not see to its execution; +indeed, he cannot, for he does not know how it ought to be executed. He +directed a fleet to be prepared to co-operate with us in the Baltic in +the spring. Ducos, his Minister of Marine, assured him that it was ready. +The time came, and not a ship was rigged or manned. He asked us to +suspend the expedition for a couple of months. We refused, and sailed +without the French squadron. If the Russians had ventured out, and we +either had beaten them single-handed, or been repulsed for want of the +promised assistance, the effect on France would have been frightful. We +have reason to believe that it was only in the middle of February that he +made up his mind to send an army to Bulgaria. They arrived by driblets, +without any plan of operations, and it was not until August that their +battering train left Toulon. It ought to have reached Sebastopol in May. +In time, however, he must see the necessity of either becoming an active +man of business himself, or of ministering, like other sovereigns, +through his Ministers. Up to the present time many causes have concurred +to occasion him to endeavour to be his own Minister, and to treat those +to whom he gives that name as mere clerks. He is jealous and suspicious, +fond of power, and impatient of contradiction. With the exception of +Drouyn de l'Huys, the eminent men of France, her statesmen and her +generals, stand aloof from him. Those who are not in exile have retired +from public life, and offer neither assistance nor advice. Advice, +indeed, he refuses, and, what is still more useful than advice, censure, +he punishes. + +'But the war, though it must last longer, and cost, more in men and in +money than it would have done if it were managed with more intelligence +and activity, must end favourably. Ill managed as it has been by +France, it has been worse managed by Russia. It is impossible that that +semi-barbarous empire, with its scarcely sane autocrat, its corrupt +administration, its disordered finances, and its heterogeneous +populations, should ultimately triumph over the two most powerful nations +of Europe, flanked by Austria, and disposing of the fanatical valour of +Turkey. If Louis Napoleon pleases the vanity of France by military glory, +and rewards her exertions by a triumphant peace; if he employs his +absolute power in promoting her prosperity by further relaxing the +fetters which encumber her industry; if he takes advantage of the +popularity which a successful war, an honourable peace, and internal +prosperity must confer on him, to give to her a little real liberty and a +little real self-government; if he gradually subsides from a [Greek: +_Týrannos_] to a [Greek: _Basileús_]; if he allows some liberty of the +press, some liberty of election, some liberty of discussion, and some +liberty of decision; he may pass the remainder of his agitated life in +the tranquil exercise of limited, but great and secure power, the ally of +England, and the benefactor of France. + +'If this expectation should be realised--and we repeat, that among many +contingencies it appears to us to be the least improbable--it affords to +Europe the best hope of undisturbed peace and progressive civilisation +and prosperity. An alliance with England was one of the favourite dreams +of the first Napoleon. He believed, and with reason, that England and +France united could dictate to all Europe. But in this respect, as indeed +in all others, his purposes were selfish. Being master of France, he +wished France to be mistress of the world. All that he gave to France was +power, all that he required from Europe was submission. The objects for +which he desired our co-operation were precisely those which we wished to +defeat. The friendship from which we recoiled in disgust, almost in +terror, was turned into unrelenting hatred; and in the long struggle +which followed, each party felt that its safety depended on the total +ruin of the other. + +'The alliance which the uncle desired as a means of oppressing Europe, +the nephew seeks for the purpose of setting her free. The heavy continued +weight of Russia has, ever since the death of Alexander, kept down all +energy and independence of action, and even of thought, on the Continent. +She has been the patron of every tyrant, the protector of every abuse, +the enemy of every improvement. It was at her instigation that the +Congress of Verona decreed the enslavement of Spain, and that in the +conferences of Leybach it was determined to stifle liberty in Italy. +Every court on the Continent is cursed with a Russian party; and woe be +to the Sovereign and to the Minister who is not at its head: all the +resources of Russian influence and of Russian corruption are lavished to +render his people rebellious and his administration unsuccessful. From +this _peine forte et dure_ we believe that Europe will now be relieved; +and if the people or the sovereigns of the Continent, particularly those +of Germany and Italy, make a tolerable use of the freedom from foreign +dictation which the weakness of Russia will give to them, we look forward +to an indefinite course of prosperity and improvement. Unhappily, +experience, however, forbids us to be sanguine. Forty years ago, an +event, such as we are now contemplating, occurred. A Power which had +deprived the Continent of the power of independent action fell, and for +several years had no successor. Germany and Italy recalled or +re-established their sovereigns, and entrusted them with power such as +they had never possessed before. How they used it may be inferred from +the general outbreak of 1848. A popular indignation, such as could have +been excited only by long years of folly, stupidity, and tyranny, swept +away or shook every throne from Berlin to Palermo. The people was +everywhere for some months triumphant; and its abuse of power produced a +reaction which restored or introduced despotism in every kingdom except +Prussia and Piedmont, and even in Prussia gave to the King power +sufficient to enable him, up to the present moment, to maintain a policy, +mischievous to the interests, disgusting to the sympathies, and injurious +to the honour of his people. But while the Anglo-Gallic alliance +continues, the Continent will be defended from the worst of all evils, +the prevention of domestic improvement, and the aggravation of domestic +disturbance, by foreign intervention. That alliance has already preserved +the liberty of Piedmont. If it had been established sooner, it might have +preserved that of Hesse, and have saved Europe from the revolting +spectacle of the constitutional resistance of a whole people against an +usurping tyrant and a profligate minister crushed by brutal, undisguised +violence. + +'We repeat that we are not sanguine, that we do not expect the tranquil, +uninterrupted progress which would be the result of the timely concession +on the part of the sovereigns, and of the forbearance and moderation on +the part of their subjects, which, if they could profit by the lessons of +history, would be adopted by both parties. The only lesson, indeed, which +history teaches is, that she teaches none either to subjects or to +sovereigns. But we do trust that when the ruler and his people are +allowed to settle their own affairs between one another, they will come +from time to time to coarse and imperfect, but useful arrangements of +their differences. Rational liberty may advance slowly and unequally; it +may sometimes be arrested, it may sometimes be forced back, but its march +in every decennial period will be perceptible. Like an oak which has +grown up among storms, its durability will be in proportion to the +slowness of its progress.' + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Tocqueville, June 30, 1855. + +I have only just arrived here, my dear Senior, after wandering for nearly +a month from friend to friend all through the Touraine and the Maine. As +you may think, I am, on returning home after so long an absence, +overpowered with trifling business. I cannot, therefore, comply to-day +with your request and write to you the letter you ask for: I will write +it after much thought and at length. The subject is well worthy of the +trouble. Shall I at the same time send back to you the conversation which +I have corrected, and in what way? The post would be very unsafe and +expensive. Give me, therefore, your instructions on this point. But above +all, give us news of yourselves and of all our friends. + +My wife has borne the journey better than I expected, and the delight we +feel in finding ourselves here once more will completely restore her. + +This delight is really very great and in proportion to the annoyance of +wandering about as we have done for three years without ever finding a +place which entirely suited us. + +As to public news, I have heard none since I left Paris. The only spot +which a single ray of light can ever reach is Paris. All the rest is in +profound darkness. If you hear anything important, pray tell me. + +Adieu, dear Senior. Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and believe in +our long and very sincere affection, + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, July 25, 1855. + +I wrote to you yesterday, my dear Senior, a long letter according to my +promise. + +But when I read it over I felt that it was absurd to send such a letter +by the post, especially to a foreigner, and I burnt it. + +Since the assault of the 18th,[1] the interference of the police in +private correspondence has become more active. Many of my friends as well +as I myself have perceived it. More letters have been kept back and more +have been stopped. Two of mine have been lost. You may remember that two +letters from me failed to reach you, three years ago. The danger is +greater in the country, where handwritings are known, than in Paris. You +advise me to put my letters into a cover directed to your Embassy, which +will forward them. But this is no security. If a letter be suspected, it +is easy to open and re-seal it, and still easier simply to suppress it. + +And, in fact, after all, you have lost little. I wrote to you only what I +have a hundred times said to you. We have lived so much together, and +with such perfect mutual confidence, that it is difficult for either of +us to say anything new to the other. + +Besides, on reading over again, with attention, your note of our last +conversation,[2] I have nothing to alter. All that I could do would be to +develope a little more my opinions, and to support them by additional +arguments. I feel more and more their truth, and that the progress +of events will confirm them much more than any reasonings of mine can do. + +We are annoyed and disturbed, having the house full of workmen. I am +trying to warm it by hot air, and am forced to bore through very old and +very thick walls; but we shall be repaid by being able to live here +during the winter. + +I am amusing myself with the letters which our young soldiers in the +East, peasants from this parish, write home to their families, and which +are brought to me. This correspondence should be read in order to +understand the singular character of the French peasant. It is strange to +see the ease with which these men become accustomed to the risks of +military life, to danger and to death, and yet how their hearts cling to +their fields and to the occupations of country life. The horrors of war +are described with simplicity, and almost with enjoyment. But in the +midst of these accounts one finds such phrases as these: "What crop do +you intend to sow in such a field next year?" "How is the mare?" "Has +the cow a fine calf?" &c. No minds can be more versatile, and at the same +time more constant. I have always thought that, after all, the peasantry +were superior to all other classes in France. But these men are +deplorably in want of knowledge and education, or rather the education to +which they have been subjected for centuries past has taught them to make +a bad use of their natural good qualities. + +It seems to me that Lord John's resignation will enable your Cabinet to +stand, at least for some time. All that has passed in England since the +beginning of the war grieves me deeply. Seen from a distance, your +Constitution appears to me an admirable machine which is getting out of +order, partly from the wearing out of its works, partly from the +unskilfulness of its workers. Such a spectacle is useful to our +Government. + +I asked you some questions, which you have not answered. Is Mrs. Grote +returned from Germany? Is she well? Has she received my letter addressed +to her at Heidelberg? The last question is always doubtful when one +writes from France. + +I send you a letter from the Count de Fénelon, which I think will +interest you. You will give it me back when we meet. + +I am very curious to know what you will think of Egypt; and I hope that +we shall be established in Paris when you return. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: On the 18th June, 1855, the French and English made an +unsuccessful assault on Sebastopol.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: That of the 28th May, 1855.--ED.] + + + +Tocqueville, September 19, 1855. + + +Your letter, my dear Senior, of the 26th of August, has much interested +me. I see that you are resolved on your great journey. I could say like +Alexander, if the comparison were not too ambitious, that I should wish +to be in your place if I were not in my own; but I cannot get satiated +with the pleasure of being at home after so long an absence. Everything +is pleasure in this country life, among my own fields. Even the solitude +is charming; but were I anywhere else, I should envy you your tour. + +Everything in Egypt is curious: the past, the present, and the future. I +hope to learn much from your Journal, which I trust that I shall have. We +shall certainly meet you in Paris. + +The noise made by the fall of Sebastopol has echoed even to this distant +corner of France. It is a glorious event, and has delighted every +Frenchman of every party and of every opinion, for in these matters we +are one man. + +I fear that the victory has been bought dearly. There is not a +neighbouring village to which the war has not cost some of its children. +But they bear it admirably. You know, that in war we show the best side +of our character. If our civilians resembled our soldiers we should long +ago have been masters of Europe. + +This war has never been popular, nor is it popular, yet we bear all its +cost with a cheerfulness admirable when you consider the sorrows which it +occasions, aggravated by the distress produced by the dearness of bread. +If, instead of the Crimea, the seat of war had been the Rhine, with a +definite purpose, the whole nation would have risen, as it has done +before. + +But the object of the war is unintelligible to the people. They only know +that France is at war, and must be made, at any price, to triumph. + +I must confess, that I myself, who understand the object for which all +this blood is shed, and who approve that object, do not feel the interest +which such great events ought to excite; for I do not expect a result +equal to the sacrifice. + +I think, with you, that Russia is a great danger to Europe. I think so +more strongly, because I have had peculiar opportunities of studying the +real sources of her power, and because I believe these sources to be +permanent, and entirely beyond the reach of foreign attack. (I have not +time now to tell you why.) But I am deeply convinced that it is not by +taking from her a town, or even a province, nor by diplomatic +precautions, still less by placing sentinels along her frontier, that the +Western Powers will permanently stop her progress. + +A temporary bulwark may be raised against her, but a mere accident may +destroy it, or a change of alliances or a domestic policy may render it +useless. + +I am convinced that Russia can be stopped only by raising before her +powers created by the hatred which she inspires, whose vital and constant +interest it shall be to keep themselves united and to keep her in. In +other words, by the resurrection of Poland, and by the re-animation of +Turkey. + +I do not believe that either of these means can now be adopted. The +detestable jealousies and ambitions of the European nations resemble, as +you say in your letter, nothing better than the quarrels of the Greeks in +the face of Philip. Not one will sacrifice her passions or her objects. + +About a month ago I read some remarkable articles, which you perhaps have +seen, in the German papers, on the progress which Russia is making in the +extreme East. The writer seems to be a man of sense and well informed. + +It appears that during the last five years, Russia, profiting by the +Chinese disturbances, has seized, not only the mouth of the Amoor, but a +large territory in Mongolia, and has also gained a considerable portion +of the tribes which inhabit it. You know that these tribes once overran +all Asia, and have twice conquered China. The means have always been the +same--some accident which, for an instant, has united these tribes in +submission to the will of one man. Now, says the writer, very plausibly, +the Czar may bring this about, and do what has been done by Genghis Khan, +and, indeed, by others. + +If these designs are carried out, all Upper Asia will be at the mercy of +a man, who, though the seat of his power be in Europe, can unite and +close on one point the Mongols. + +I know more about Sir G. Lewis's book[1] than you do. I have read it +through, and I do not say, as you do, that it must be a good book, but +that it _is_ a good book. Pray say as much to Sir George when you see +him, as a letter of mine to Lady Theresa on the subject may have +miscarried. + +It is as necessary now for friends to write in duplicate from town to +town, as it is if they are separated by the ocean and fear that the ship +which carries their letters may be lost. I hear that our friend John Mill +has lately published an excellent book. Is it true? at all events +remember me to him. + +Adieu, my dear Senior. Do not forget us any more than we forget you. +Kindest regards to Mrs. Senior, and Miss Senior, and Mrs. Grote. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: The work referred to was probably that on the _Early History +of Rome_.--ED.] + + + +Paris, April 1, 1856. + +I write a few lines to you at Marseilles, my dear Senior, as you +wished.[1] I hope that you will terminate your great journey as +felicitously as you seem to me to have carried it on from the beginning. +The undertaking appears to have been a complete success. I wish that it +might induce you next year to cross over the ocean to America. I should +be much interested in hearing and reading your remarks upon that society. +But perhaps Mrs. Senior will not be so ready to start off again; so, that +I may not involve myself in a quarrel with her, I will say no more on the +subject. + +I am longing to see you, for beside our old and intimate friendship I +shall be delighted to talk with such an interesting converser, and, above +all, to find myself again in the company of (as Mrs. Grote calls you) +'the boy.' You will find me, however, in all the vexations of correcting +proofs and the other worries connected with bringing out a book.[2] It +will not appear till the end of this month. + +I can tell you no more about politics than you may learn from the +newspapers. Peace, though much desired has caused no public excitement +The truth is that just now we are not _excitable_. As long as she remains +in this condition France will not strike one of those blows by which she +sometimes shakes Europe and overturns herself. + +Reeve has been and Milnes still is here. We have talked much of you with +these two old friends. Good bye, or rather, thank God, _à bientôt_. + +A thousand kind remembrances to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was on his return from Egypt.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: The _Ancien Régime_.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, May_ 16.--M. de Tocqueville has scarcely been visible since my +return to Paris. Madame de Tocqueville has been absent. She returned +yesterday, and they spent this evening with us. + +Tocqueville is full of his book, which is to appear in about a week. His +days and nights are devoted to correcting the press and to writing +notes--which he thought would be trifling, but which grow in length and +importance. + +The object of the work is to account for the rapid progress of the +Revolution, to point out the principal causes which enabled a few +comparatively obscure men to overthrow in six weeks a Monarchy of many +centuries. + +'I am inclined,' I said, 'to attribute the rapidity with which the old +institutions of France fell, to the fact that there was no _lex loci_ in +France. That the laws, or rather the customs, of the different provinces +were dissimilar, and that nothing was defined. That as soon as the +foundations or the limits of any power were examined, it crumbled to +pieces; so that the Assembly became omnipotent in the absence of any +authority with ascertained rights and jurisdiction.' + +'There is much truth in that,' answered Tocqueville, 'but there is also +much truth in what looks like an opposite theory--namely, that the +Monarchy fell because its power was too extensive and too absolute. +Nothing is so favourable to revolution as centralisation, because whoever +can seize the central point is obeyed down to the extremities. Now the +centralisation of France under the old Monarchy, though not so complete +as its Democratic and Imperial tyrants afterwards made it, was great. +Power was concentrated in Paris and in the provincial capitals. The +smaller towns and the agricultural population were unorganised and +defenceless. The 14th of July revealed the terrible secret that the +Master of Paris is the Master of France.' + +_Paris, May_ 18.--I spent the day at Athy, the country-seat of M. +Lafosse,[1] who had been my companion in our Egyptian journey. + +'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of the Empress?' + +'Nothing,' he answered, 'but what is favourable; all her instincts and +prejudices are good. Lesseps, who is nearly related to her, has many of +her letters, written during the courtship, in which she speaks of her +dear Louis with the utmost affection, and dwells on the hope that if ever +she should become his wife, she may be able to induce him to liberalise +his Government.' + +'And now,' he said, 'tell me what you heard in England about our Canal?' + +'I heard nothing,' I answered, 'except from Maclean. He told me that he +thought that the Maritime Canal, if supplied from the sea, would become +stagnant and unwholesome, and gradually fill. That that plan was formed +when the levels of the two seas were supposed to differ, so that there +would be a constant current. + +'"Now that the equality of their levels has been ascertained," he said to +me, "the only mode of obtaining a current is to employ the Nile instead +of the sea." "But can the Nile spare the water?" I asked. "Certainly," +he answered. "An hour a day of the water from the Nile, even when at its +lowest, would be ample." "And what do the other engineers say?" I asked. +"Randall," he replied, "agrees with me. The others are at present for the +salt water. But we are to meet in time and discuss it thoroughly."' + +'It is not the opinion of the engineers,' answered Lafosse, 'that I want, +but that of the politicians. + +'We are told that Lord Palmerston threatens to prevent it as long as he +is Minister. This makes us very angry. We think that we perceive in his +opposition his old hatred of France and of everything that France +supports or even favours--feelings which we hoped the Alliance had cured. + +'The matter,' he continued, 'was to have been brought before the +Congress. Buol had promised to Nigrelli to do so, and Cavour to Lesseps +and Paleocapa. But after the occupation of Italy, and the Belgian press, +and the rights of Neutrals had been introduced, the Congress got +impatient, and it was thought inexpedient to ask them to attend to +another episodical matter. The Emperor, however, did something. He asked +Ali Pasha, the Turkish Minister, what were the Sultan's views. "They +will be governed," said Ali Pasha, "in a great measure by those of his +allies." "As one of them," said the Emperor, "I am most anxious for its +success." "In that case," replied Ali Pasha, "the Sultan can have no +objection to it in principle, though he may wish to annex to his firman +some conditions--for instance, as to the occupation of the forts at each +end by a mixed garrison of Turks and Egyptians." The Emperor then turned +to Lord Clarendon. "What are your views," he asked, "as to the Suez +Canal?" "It is a grave matter," answered Lord Clarendon, "and one on +which I have no instructions. But I believe it to be impracticable." +"Well," replied the Emperor, "but supposing for the sake of the argument, +that it is practicable, what are your intentions?" "I cannot but think," +answered Lord Clarendon, "that any new channel of commerce must be +beneficial to England. The real difficulty is the influence which the +Canal may have in the relations of Egypt and Turkey." "If that be the +only obstacle," replied the Emperor, "there is not much in it, for Ali +Pasha has just told me that if _we_ make no objection the Sultan makes +none. We cannot be more Turkish than the Turk."' + +'I am most anxious,' added Lafosse, 'that this stupid opposition of yours +should come to an end. Trifling as the matter may seem, it endangers the +cordiality of the Alliance. The people of England, who do not know how +jealous and _passionnés_ we are, cannot estimate the mistrust and the +irritation which it excites. That an enterprise on which the French, +wisely or foolishly, have set their hearts, should be stopped by the +caprice of a wrong-headed Englishman, hurts our vanity; and everything +that hurts our vanity offends us much more than what injures our serious +interests. + +'If the engineers and the capitalists decide in favour of the scheme, you +will have to yield at last. You had much better do so now, when you can +do it with a good grace. Do not let your acquiescence be extorted.' + + +[Footnote 1: M. Lafosse died many years ago. He was a friend of M. de +Lesseps, by whom he and Mr. Senior were invited to join the expedition to +Egypt--ED.] + + +_Paris, May_ 19.--After breakfast I spent a couple of hours with Cousin. + +'You have been in England,' he said, 'since you left Egypt. What is the +news as to our Canal? Will Palmerston let us have it? You must stay a few +weeks in Paris to estimate the effect of your opposition to it. We +consider Palmerston's conduct as a proof that his hatred of France is +unabated, and the acquiescence of the rest of your Cabinet as a proof +that, now we are no longer necessary to you, now that we have destroyed +for you the maritime power of Russia, you are indifferent to our +friendship. + +'I know nothing myself as to the merits of the Canal. I distrust Lesseps +and everything that he undertakes. He has much talent and too much +activity, but they only lead him and his friends into scrapes. I daresay +that the Canal is one, and that it will ruin its shareholders; but as I +am anxious we should not quarrel with England, I am most anxious that +this silly subject of dispute should be removed.' + +'Louis Napoleon,' he continued, 'professed to wish that you should allow +the Sultan to give his consent; but I doubt whether he is sincere. I am +not sure that he is not pleased at seeing the Parisians occupied by +something besides his own doings, especially as it promotes the national +dislike of England. Now that the war is over we want an object. He tries +to give us one by launching us into enormous speculations. He is trying +to make us English; to give us a taste for great and hazardous +undertakings, leading to great gains, great losses, profuse expenditure, +and sudden fortunes and failures. Such things suit _you_; they do not +suit _us_. Our habits are economical and prudent, perhaps timid. We like +the petty commerce of commission and detail, we prefer domestic +manufactures to factories, we like to grow moderately rich by small +profits, small expenditure, and constant accumulation. We hate the +_nouveaux riches_, and scarcely wish to be among them. The progress for +which we wish is political progress--not within, for there we are +satisfied to oscillate, and shall be most happy if in 1860 we find +ourselves where we were in 1820--but without. I believe that our master's +_sortie_ against Belgium was a pilot balloon. He wished to see what +amount of opposition he had to fear from you, and from Belgium, and how +far we should support him. He has found the two former greater than he +expected. I am not sure that he is dissatisfied with the last.' + +I spent the morning at H.'s. He too attacked me about the Canal. + +'Do entreat,' he said, 'your public men to overrule their ill-conditioned +colleague. I told you a year ago, the mischief that you were doing, but I +do not think that you believed me. You may find too late that I was +right.' + +I repeated to him Ellice's opinion that the commerce of England would not +use the canal. + +'I have heard that,' he said, 'from Ellice himself, but I differ from +him. I agree with him, indeed, that your sailing vessels will not use the +canal, but I believe that a few years hence you will have no purely +sailing vessels, except for the small coasting trade. Every large ship +will have a propeller; and with propellers, to be employed occasionally, +and sails for ordinary use, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea are very +manageable. I believe that the canal will be useful, and particularly +to you. But whatever be the real merits of the scheme, for God's sake let +it be tried. Do not treat us like children, and say, "We know better what +is good for you than you do yourselves. You shall not make your canal +because you would lose money by it."' + +'What did you hear,' I said, 'about the Congress?' + +'I heard,' he answered, 'that Clarendon was very good, and was the best, +and that Walewski was very bad, and was the worst.' + +'Can you tell me,' I said, 'the real history of the Tripartite Treaty?' + +'I can,' he answered. 'There was an old engagement between the three +Powers, entered into last spring, that if they succeeded in the war, they +would unite to force Russia to perform any conditions to which she might +submit. + +'This engagement had been allowed to sleep; I will not say that it was +forgotten, but no one seemed disposed to revert to it. But after the +twenty-second Protocol, when Piedmont was allowed to threaten Austria, +and neither England nor France defended her, Buol got alarmed. He feared +that Austria might be left exposed to the vengeance of Russia on the +north and east, and to that of the Italian Liberals on the South. An +alliance with France and England, though only for a specified purpose, at +least would relieve Austria from the appearance of insulation. She would +be able to talk of the two greatest Powers in Europe as her allies, and +would thus acquire a moral force which might save her from attack. He +recalled, therefore, the old engagement to the recollection of Clarendon +and Louis Napoleon, and summoned them to fulfil it. I do not believe that +either of them was pleased. But the engagement was formal, and its +performance, though open to misconstruction, and intended by Austria to +be misconstrued, was attended by some advantages, though different ones, +to France and to England. So both your Government and ours complied.' + +_Tuesday, May 20_.--The Tocquevilles and Rivet drank tea with us. + +I mentioned to Tocqueville the subject of my conversations with Cousin +and H. + +'I agree with Cousin,' he said. 'The attempt to turn our national +activity into speculation and commerce has often been made, but has never +had any permanent success. The men who make these sudden fortunes are not +happy, for they are always suspected of _friponnerie_, and the Government +to which they belong is suspected of _friponnerie_. Still less happy are +those who have attempted to make them, and have failed. And those who +have not been able even to make the attempt are envious and sulky. So +that the whole world becomes suspicious and dissatisfied. + +'And even if it were universal, mere material prosperity is not enough +for us. Our Government must give us something more: must gratify our +ambition, or, at least, our vanity.' + +'The Government,' said Rivet, 'has been making a desperate plunge in +order to escape from the accusation of _friponnerie_. It has denounced in +the "Moniteur" the _faiseurs_; it has dismissed a poor _aide-de-camp_ of +Jérôme's for doing what everybody has been doing ever since the _coup +d'état_. When Ponsard's comedy, which was known to be a furious satire on +the _agioteurs_, was first played, Louis Napoleon took the whole +orchestra and pit stalls, and filled them with people instructed to +applaud every allusion to the _faiseurs_. And he himself stood in his +box, his body almost out of it, clapping most energetically every attack +on them.' + +'At the same time,' I said, 'has he not forced the Orleans Company and +the Lyons Company to buy the Grand Central at much more than its worth? +And was not that done in order to enable certain _faiseurs_ to realise +their gains?' + +'He has forced the Orleans Company,' said Rivet, 'to buy up, or rather to +amalgamate the Grand Central; but I will not say at more than its value. +The amount to be paid is to depend on the comparative earnings of the +different lines, for two years before and two years after the purchase.' + +'But,' I said, 'is it not true, first, that the Orleans Company was +unwilling to make the purchase? and, secondly, that thereupon the Grand +Central shares rose much in the market?' + +'Both these facts,' answered Rivet, 'are true.' + +'Do you believe,' I said to Tocqueville, 'H.'s history of the Tripartite +Treaty?' + +'I do,' he answered. 'I do not think that at the time when it was made we +liked it. It suited you, who wish to preserve the _statu quo_ in Europe, +which keeps us your inferiors, or, at least, not your superiors. _You_ +have nothing to gain by a change. We have. The _statu quo_ does not suit +us. The Tripartite Treaty is a sort of chain--not a heavy one, or a +strong one--but one which we should not have put on if we could have +avoided it.' + +'Do you agree,' I asked Tocqueville, 'with Lafosse, Cousin, and H. as to +the effect in Paris of our opposition to the Suez Canal?' + +'I agree,' he answered, 'in every word that they have said. There is +nothing that has done you so much mischief in France, and indeed in +Europe. + +'I am no engineer; I should be sorry to pronounce a decided opinion as to +the feasibility or the utility of the canal; but your opposition makes us +believe that it is practicable.' + +'Those among us,' I answered, 'who fear it, sometimes found their fear on +grounds unconnected with its practicability. They say that it is a +political, not a commercial, scheme. That the object is to give to French +engineers and French shareholders a strip of land separating Egypt from +Syria, and increasing the French interest in Egypt.' + +'What is the value,' answered Tocqueville, 'of a strip of land in the +desert where no one can live? And why are the shareholders to be French? +The Greeks, the Syrians, the Dalmatians, the Italians, and the Sicilians +are the people who will use the canal, if anybody uses it. They will form +the bulk of the shareholders, if shareholders there are. + +'My strong suspicion is, that if you had not opposed it, there never +would have been any shareholders, and that if you now withdraw your +opposition, and let the scheme go on until calls are made, the +subscribers, who are ready enough with their names as patriotic +manifestations against you as long as no money is to be paid, will +withdraw _en masse_ from an undertaking which, at the very best, is a +most hazardous one. + +'As to our influence in Egypt, your journal shows that it is a pet +project of the Viceroy. He hopes to get money and fame from it. You +_imitate_ both his covetousness and his vanity, and throw him for support +upon us.' + + +_Paris, May_ 21--The Tocquevilles and Chrzanowski[1] drank tea with us. + +We talked of the French iron floating batteries. + +'I saw one at Cherbourg,' said Tocqueville, 'and talked much with her +commander. He was not in good spirits about his vessel, and feared some +great disaster. However, she did well at Kinburn.' + +'She suffered little at Kinburn,' said Chrzanowski, 'because she ventured +little. She did not approach the batteries nearer than 600 metres. At +that distance there is little risk and little service. To knock down a +wall two metres thick from a distance of 600 metres would require at +least 300 blows. How far her own iron sides would have withstood at that +distance the fire of heavy guns I will not attempt to say, as I never saw +her. The best material to resist shot is lead. It contracts over the ball +and crushes it.' + +'Kinburn, however,' said Tocqueville, 'surrendered to our floating +batteries.' + +'Kinburn surrendered,' said Chrzanowski, 'because you landed 10,000 men, +and occupied the isthmus which connects Kinburn with the main land. The +garrison saw that they were invested, and had no hope of relief. They +were not Quixotic enough, or heroic enough, to prolong a hopeless +resistance. Scarcely any garrison does so.' + +We talked of Malta; and I said that Malta was the only great +fortification which I had seen totally unprovided with earth-works. + +'The stone,' said Chrzanowski, 'is soft and will not splinter.' + +'I was struck,' I said, 'with the lightness of the armament; the largest +guns that I saw, except some recently placed in Fort St. Elmo, were +twenty-four pounders.' + +'For land defence,' he answered, 'twenty-four pounders are serviceable +guns. They are manageable and act with great effect within the short +distance within which they are generally used. It is against ships that +large guns are wanted. A very large ball or shell is wasted on the +trenches, but may sink a ship. The great strength of the land defences of +Malta arises from the nature of the ground on which Valetta and Floriana +are built, indeed of which the whole island consists. It is a rock +generally bare or covered with only a few inches of earth. Approaches +could not be dug in it. It would be necessary to bring earth or sand in +ships, and to make the trenches with sand-bags or gabions.' + +I asked him if he had read Louis Napoleon's orders to Canrobert, +published in Bazancourt's book? + +'I have,' he answered. 'They show a depth of ignorance and a depth of +conceit, compared to which even Thiers is modest and skilful. Canrobert +is not a great general, but he is not a man to whom a civilian, who +never saw a shot fired, ought to give lectures on what he calls "the +great principles" or "the absolute principles of war." He seems to have +taken the correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph for his model, +forgetting that Canrobert is to him what Napoleon was to Joseph. Then he +applies his principles as absurdly as he enunciates them. Thus he orders +Canrobert to send a fleet carrying 25,000 men to the breach at Aboutcha, +to land 3,000 of them, to send them three leagues up the country, and not +to land any more, until those first sent have established themselves +beyond the defile of Agen. Of course those 3,000 men would be useless if +the enemy were _not_ in force, or destroyed if they _were_ in force. To +send on a small body and not to support them is the grossest of faults. +It is the fault which you committed at the Redan, when the men who had +got on to the works were left by you for an hour unsupported, instead of +reinforcements being poured in after them as quickly as they could be +sent. + +'In fact,' he continued, 'the horrible and mutual blunders of that +campaign arose from its being managed by the two Emperors from Paris and +from St. Petersburg, Nicholas and Alexander were our best friends. Louis +Napoleon was our worst enemy. + +'There is nothing which ought to be so much left to the discretion of +those on the spot as war. Even a commander-in-chief actually present in a +field of battle can do little after the action, if it be really a great +one, has once begun. + +'If we suppose 80,000 men to be engaged on each side, each line will +extend at least three miles. Supposing the general to be in the centre, +it will take an _aide-de-camp_ ten minutes to gallop to him from one of +the wings, and ten minutes to gallop back. But in twenty minutes all may +be altered.' + + +[Footnote 1: 'Chrzanowski has passed thirty years fighting against or for +the Russians. He began military life in 1811 as a sous lieutenant of +artillery in the Polish corps which was attached to the French army. With +that army he served during the march to Moscow, and the retreat. At the +peace, what remained of his corps became a part of the army of the +kingdom of Poland. He had attained the rank of major in that army when +the insurrection on the accession of Nicholas broke out. About one +hundred officers belonging to the staff of the properly Russian army were +implicated, or supposed to be implicated, in that insurrection, and were +dismissed, and their places were supplied from the army of the kingdom of +Poland. Among those so transferred to the Russian army was Chrzanowski. +He was attached to the staff of Wittgenstein, and afterwards of Marshal +Diebitsch, in the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 1829. In 1830 he took +part with his countrymen in the insurrection against the Muscovites, and +quitted Poland when it was finally absorbed in the Russian Empire. A few +years after a quarrel was brewing between England and Russia. Muscovite +agents were stirring up Persia and Affghanistan against us, and it was +thought that we might have to oppose them on the shores of the Black Sea. +Chrzanowski was attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople and was +employed for some years in ascertaining what assistance Turkey, both in +Europe and in Asia, could afford to us. In 1849 he was selected by +Charles Albert to command the army of the kingdom of Sardinia. + +'That army was constituted on the Prussian system, which makes every man +serve, and no man a soldier. It was, in fact, a militia. The men were +enlisted for only fourteen months, at the end of that time they were sent +home, and were recalled when they were wanted, having forgotten their +military training and acquired the habits of cottiers and artisans. They +had scarcely any officers, or even _sous_ officers, that knew anything of +their business. The drill sergeants required to be drilled. The generals, +and indeed the greater part of the officers, were divided into hostile +factions--Absolutists, Rouges, Constitutional Liberals, and even +Austrians--for at that time, in the exaggerated terror occasioned by the +revolutions of 1848, Austria and Russia were looked up to by the greater +part of the noblesse of the Continent as the supporters of order against +Mazzini, Kossuth, Ledru Rollin, and Palmerston. The Absolutists and the +Austrians made common cause, whereas the Rouges or Mazzinists were +bitterest against the Constitutional Liberals. Such an army, even if +there had been no treason, could not have withstood a disciplined enemy. +When it fell a victim to its own defects, and to the treachery of +Ramorino, Chrzanowski retired to Paris.'--(_Extracted from Mr. Senior's +article in the 'North British Review.'_) + +Chrzanowski died several years ago.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Kensington, August 20, 1856. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A few weeks after my return to London your book +reached me--of course from the time that I got it, I employed all my +leisure in reading it. + +Nothing, even of yours, has, I think, so much instructed and delighted +me. Much of it, perhaps, was not quite so new to me as to many others; as +I had had the privilege of hearing it from you--but even the views which +were familiar to me in their outline were made almost new by their +details. + +It is painful to think how difficult it is to create a Constitutional +Government, and how difficult to preserve one, and, what is the same, how +easy to destroy one. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Senior is going to Wales and to Ireland, where I join her, after +having paid a long-promised visit to Lord Aberdeen. + +I like the conversation of retired statesmen, and he is one of our +wisest. Thiers has just left us. I spent two evenings with him, but on +the first he was engrossed by Lord Clarendon, and on the second by the +Duc d'Aumale and by Lord Palmerston. They were curious _rapprochements_, +at least the first and third. It was the first meeting of Palmerston and +Duc d'Aumale. I am very much pleased with the latter. He is sensible, +well informed, and unaffected. + +Kindest regards, &c. + +A.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, September 4, 1856. + +I have read, my dear Senior, your letter with great pleasure. Your +criticism delights me, for I rely on your judgment and on your sincerity. +I am charmed that you have found in my book more than you had learned +from our conversations, on my view of our history. We have known one +another so long, we have conversed so much and so unreservedly, that it +is difficult for either of us to write anything that the other will think +new. I was afraid that what may appear original to the public might seem +trite to you. + +The Reeves have been with us; we have passed together an agreeable +fortnight. I had charged Reeve to bring you, whether you would or not. +Did he make the attempt? I am sure that you would have enjoyed your +visit, and we should have rejoiced to have under our roof two such old +friends as you and Reeve. + +I am glad that you have printed your article; pray try to send it to me. + +It seems that you intend this winter to anchor in Rome. It increases my +regret that I cannot be there. It is out of the question. My wife's +health and mine are so much improved that the journey is not necessary, +and business of all kinds keeps us at home. If you push on to Naples, you +will, perhaps, enjoy the absence of the rascally king whom you and I +found there five years ago. I applaud the virtuous indignation of the +English against this little despot, and their sympathy with the unhappy +wretches whom he detains arbitrarily to die slowly in his prisons, which, +though not placed in the African deserts or the marshes of Cayenne, are +bad enough. The interest which your great nation takes in the cause of +humanity and liberty, even when that cause suffers in another country, +delights me. What I regret is that your generous indignation is directed +against so petty a tyrant. + +I must say that America is a _puer robustus_. Yet I cannot desire, as +many persons do, its dismemberment. Such an event would inflict a great +wound on the whole human race; for it would introduce war into a great +continent from whence it has been banished for more than a century. + +The breaking up of the American Union will be a solemn moment in the +history of the world. I never met an American who did not feel this, and +I believe that it will not be rashly or easily undertaken. There will, +before actual rupture, be always a last interval, in which one or both +parties will draw back. Has not this occurred twice? + +Adieu, dear Senior. Do not be long without letting us hear from you, and +remember us affectionately to Mrs. Senior and to your daughter. + + + +Ashton House, near Phoenix Park, Dublin, September 26, 1856. + +My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter found me at Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, +where we have been spending a fortnight with Lord Aberdeen. + +It has been very interesting. Lord Aberdeen is one of our wisest +statesmen. + + * * * * * + +I found Lord Aberdeen deprecating the war, notwithstanding its success, +utterly incredulous as to the aggressive intentions attributed to +Nicholas, and in fact throwing the blame of the war on Lord Stratford +and, to a certain degree, on Louis Napoleon. + +I found him also much disturbed by our Naples demonstration, believing it +to be an unwarranted interference with an independent Government. + + * * * * * + +Ever yours, + +A.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, November 2, 1856. + +I am grateful to you, my dear Senior, for your kindness in telling me +what I most wished to hear. The judgments of such men as those with whom +you have been living, while they delight me, impose on me the duty of +unrelaxed efforts. + +Your fortnight at Lord Aberdeen's amused me exceedingly, and not the +least amusing part were the eccentricities of A.B. + +There is one point in which the English seem to me to differ from +ourselves, and, indeed, from all other nations, so widely that they form +almost a distinct species of men. There is often scarcely any connection +between what they say and what they do. + +No people carry so far, especially when speaking in public, violence of +language, outrageousness of theories, and extravagance in the inference +drawn from those theories. Thus your A.B. says that the Irish have not +shot half enough landlords. Yet no people act with more moderation. A +quarter of what is said in England at a public meeting, or even round a +dinner-table, without anything being done or intended to be done, would +in France announce violence, which would almost always be more furious +than the language had been. + +We Frenchmen are not so different from our antipodes as we are from a +nation, partly our own progeny, which is separated from us by only a +large ditch. + +I wonder whether you have heard how our illustrious master is relieving +the working-people from the constant rise of house-rent. When they are +turned out of their lodgings he re-establishes them by force; if they are +distrained on for non-payment of rent, he will not allow the tribunals to +treat the distress as legal. What think you, as a political economist, of +this form of outdoor relief? + +What makes the thing amusing is, that the Government which uses this +violent mode of lodging the working classes, is the very same Government +which, by its mad public works, by drawing to Paris suddenly a hundred +thousand workmen, and by destroying suddenly ten thousand houses, has +created the deficiency of habitations. It seems, however, that the +systematic intimidation and oppression of the rich in favour of the poor, +is every day becoming more and more one of the principles of our +Government. + +I read yesterday a circular from the prefect of La Sarthe, a public +document, stuck up on the church-doors and in the market-places, which, +after urging the landed proprietors of the department to assess +themselves for the relief of the poor, adds, that their insensibility +becomes more odious when it is remembered that for many years they have +been growing rich by the rise of prices, which is spreading misery among +the lower orders. + +The real character of our Government, its frightful mixture of socialism +and despotism, was never better shown. + +I have said enough to prevent your getting my letter. If it _should_ +escape the rogue who manages our post-office, let me know as soon as you +can. + +Kindest remembrances, + +A. DE. TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, February 11, 1857. + +I must ask you, my dear Senior, to tell me yourself how you have borne +this long winter. I suppose that it has been the same in England as in +Normandy, for the two climates are alike. + +Here we have been buried for ten or twelve days under a foot of snow, and +it froze hard during the whole time. How has your larynx endured this +trial? I assure you that we take great interest in that larynx of yours. +Give us therefore some news of it. + +Your letter gave us fresh pleasure by announcing your intention of +passing April and May in Paris. We shall certainly be there at the same +time, and perhaps before. I hope that we shall see you continually. We +are, you know, among the very many people who delight in your society; +besides, we have an excellent right to your friendship. + +I am looking forward with great pleasure to your Egypt. What I already +know of that country leads me to think that of all your reminiscences it +will afford the most novelty and interest. + +I do not think that your visit to Paris will be a very valuable addition +to your journals. If I may judge by the letters which I receive thence, +society there has never been flatter, nor more insipid, nor more entirely +without any dominant idea. I need not tell you that your opinion of our +statesmen is the same as that which prevails in Paris, but it is of such +an ancient date, and is so obvious, that it cannot give rise to +interesting discussions. + +A-propos of statesmen, we cannot understand how a man who made, _inter +pocula_, the speech of ---- on his travels can remain in a government. I +think that even ours, though so long-suffering towards its agents, could +not tolerate anything similar even if it should secretly approve. +Absolute power has its limits. The Prince de Ligne, in a discourse which +you have doubtless read, seems to me to have described it in one word by +saying that it was the speech of a _gamin_. + +I am, however, ungrateful to criticise it, for I own that it amused me +extremely, and that I thought that Morny especially was drawn from life; +but I think that if I had the honour of being Her Britannic Majesty's +Prime Minister, I should not have laughed so heartily. How could so +clever a man be guilty of such eccentricities? + +In my last letter to our excellent friend Mrs. Grote, I ventured to say +that there was one person who wrote even worse than I did, and that it +was you. Your last letter has filled me with remorse, for I could +actually read it, and even without trouble. I beg, therefore, to make an +_amende honorable_, and envy you your power of advancing towards +perfection. + + * * * * * + +I still think of paying a little visit to England in June. Adieu, dear +Senior. Do not be angry with me for not writing on politics. Indeed I +could tell you nothing, for I know nothing, and besides, just now +politics are not to be treated by Frenchmen, _in letters_. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Tocqueville, March 8, 1857. + +I still write to you, my dear Senior, from hence. We cannot tear +ourselves away from the charms of our retreat, or from a thousand little +employments. We shall scarcely reach Paris, therefore, before you. You +will, therefore, yourself bring me the remainder of your curious journal. +What I have already seen makes me most anxious to read the rest. I have +never read anything which gave me more valuable information on Egypt +and Oriental politics in general. As soon as I possibly can, I look +forward to continuing its perusal. + +The papers tell us that your Ministry has been beaten on the Chinese War. +It seems to me to have been an ill-chosen battle-field. The war was, +perhaps, somewhat wantonly begun, and very roughly managed; but the +fault lay with distant and subordinate agents. Now that it has begun, no +Cabinet can avoid carrying it on vigorously. The existing Ministry will +do as well for this as any other. As there is no line of policy to be +changed, the upsetting is merely to put in the people who are now +out. + +If the Ministry falls, the man least to be pitied will be our friend +Lewis. He will go out after having obtained a brilliant triumph on his +own ground, and he will enjoy the good fortune, rare to public men, of +quitting power greater than he was when he took it, and with the enviable +reputation of owing his greatness, not merely to his talents, but also to +the respect and the confidence which he has universally inspired. + +All this delights me; for I feel towards him, and towards all his family, +a true friendship. + +To return to China. + +It seems to me that the relations between that country and Europe are +changed, and dangerously changed. + +Till now, Europe has had to deal only with a Chinese government--the most +wretched of governments. Now you will find opposed to you a people; and a +people, however miserable and corrupt, is invincible on its own +territory, if it be supported and impelled by common and violent +passions. + +Yet I should be sorry to die before I have seen China open to the eyes as +well as to the arms of Europe. + +Do you believe in a dissolution? If so, when? + +A thousand regards to Mrs. Grote, to the great historian, to the Reeves, +and generally to all who are kind enough to remember my existence. + +I delight in the prospect of meeting you in Paris; yet I fear that you +will find it dull. All that I hear from the great town shows me that +never, at least during the last two hundred years, has intellectual life +been less active. + +If there be talent in the official circles, it is not the talent of +conversation, and among those who formerly possessed that talent, there +is so much torpidity, such want of interest on public affairs, such +ignorance as to what is passing, and so little wish to hear about it, +that no one, I am told, knows what to talk about or to take interest in. +Your conversation, however, is so agreeable and stimulating that it is +capable of reanimating the dead. Come and try to work this miracle. + +A thousand remembrances. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + + +_Paris, Hotel Bedford, April_ 9, 1857.--We reached this place last night. + +The Tocquevilles are in our hotel. I went to them in the evening. + +Tocqueville asked me how long I intended to remain. + +'Four weeks,' I answered. + +'I do not think,' he replied, 'that you will be able to do so. Paris has +become so dull that no one will voluntarily spend a month here. The +change which five years have produced is marvellous. + +'We have lost our interest not only in public affairs, but in all serious +matters.' + +'You will return then to the social habits of Louis Quinze,' I said. 'You +were as despotically governed then as you are now; and yet the _salons_ +of Madame Geoffrin were amusing.' + +'We may do so in time,' he answered, 'but that time is to come. At +present we talk of nothing but the Bourse. The conversation of our +_salons_ resembles more that of the time of Law, than that of the time of +Marmontel.' + +I spent the evening at Lamartine's. There were few people there, and the +conversation was certainly dull enough to justify Tocqueville's fears. + + +_April_ 10.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. + +We talked of the Empress, and of the possibility of her being Regent of +France. + +'That supposes,' I said, 'first, that _Celui-ci_ holds his power until +his death; and, secondly, that his son will succeed him.' + +'I expect both events,' answered Tocqueville. 'It is impossible to deny +that Louis Napoleon has shown great dexterity and tact. His system of +government is detestable if we suppose the welfare of France to be his +object; but skilful if its aim be merely the preservation of his own +power. + +'Such being his purpose, he has committed no great faults. Wonderful, +almost incredible, as his elevation is, it has not intoxicated him.' + +'It has not intoxicated him,' I answered, 'because he was prepared for +it--he always expected it.' + +'He could scarcely,' replied Tocqueville, 'have really and soberly +expected it until 1848. + +'Boulogne and Strasbourg were the struggles of a desperate man, who +staked merely a life of poverty, obscurity, and exile. Even if either of +them had succeeded, the success could not have been permanent. A +surprise, if it had thrown him upon the throne, could not have kept him +there. Even after 1848, though the Bourbons were discredited, we should +not have tolerated a Bonaparte if we had not lost all our self-possession +in our terror of the Rouges. That terror created him, that terror +supports him; and habit, and the dread of the bloodshed and distress, and +the unknown chances of a revolution, will, I think, maintain him during +his life. + +'The same feelings will give the succession to his heir. Whether the heir +will keep it, is a different question.' + +_Sunday, April_ 12.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. I asked him if he had +seen the Due de Nemours' letter. + +'I have not seen it,' he answered. 'In fact, I have not wished to see it. +I disapprove of the Fusionists, and the anti-Fusionists, and the +Legitimists, and the Orleanists-in short, of all the parties who are +forming plans of action in events which may not happen, or may not +happen in my time, or may be accompanied by circumstances rendering those +plans absurd, or mischievous, or impracticable,' + +'But though you have not read the letter,' I said, 'you know generally +what are its contents.' + +'Of course I do,' he replied. 'And I cannot blame the Comte de Chambord +for doing what I do myself--for refusing to bind himself in +contingencies, and to disgust his friends in the hope of conciliating his +enemies.' + +'Do you believe,' I asked, 'that the mere promise of a Constitution would +offend the Legitimists?' + +'I do not think,' he answered, 'that they would object to a Constitution +giving them what they would consider their fair share of power and +influence. + +'Under Louis Philippe they had neither, but it was in a great measure +their own fault. + +'They have neither under this Government, for its principle is to rest on +the army and on the people, and to ignore the existence of the educated +classes. + +'You see _that_ in its management of the press. 'Montalembert, or Guizot, +or Falloux, or I may publish what we like. We are not read by the soldier +or by the _proletaire_.[1] But the newspaper press is subject to a +slavery to which it was never reduced before. The system was first +elaborated in Austria, and I daresay will be copied by all the +Continental autocrats, for no inventions travel so quickly as despotic +ones. + +'The public _avertissements_ are comparatively unimportant. Before a +journal gets one of those its suppression has probably been decided on. +Every day there are communications between the literary police and the +different editors. Such or such a line of argument is altogether +forbidden, another is allowed to be used to a certain extent. Some +subjects are tabooed, others are to be treated partially. + +'As the mental food of the lower orders is supplied by the newspapers, +this paternal Government takes care that it shall not be too exciting.' + +[Footnote 1: The lowest class.--ED.] + + +_Paris, Monday, April_ 13.--Tocqueville, Jobez, Marcet, St.-Hilaire,[1] +Charles Sumner, and Lord Granville breakfasted with us. + +The conversation turned on public speaking. + +'Very few indeed of our speakers,' said Tocqueville, 'have ever ventured +to improvise: Barrot could do it. We have told him sometimes that a +speech must be answered immediately; and when he objected that he had +nothing to say, we used to insist, and to assure him that as soon as he +was in the tribune, the ideas and the words would come; and so they did. +I have known him go on under such circumstances for an hour; of course +neither the matter nor the form could be first rate, but they were +sufficient.' + +'In fact,' said Lord Granville, 'much of what is called improvisation is +mere recollection. A man who has to speak night after night, gets on most +subjects a set of thoughts, and even of expressions, which naturally pour +in on him as soon as his argument touches the train which leads to them. + +'One of our eminent speakers,' he continued, 'Lord Grey, is perhaps best +when he has not had time to prepare himself. He is so full of knowledge +and of inferences, that he has always enough ready to make an excellent +speech. When he prepares himself, there is _too_ much; he gives the House +more facts and more deductions than it can digest.' + +'Do you agree with me,' I asked, 'in thinking that Lord Melbourne was +best when he improvised?' + +'I agree with you,' answered Lord Granville, 'that his set speeches were +cold and affected. He was natural only when he was quite careless, or +when he was much excited, and then he was admirable.' + +'Did not Thiers improvise?' I asked. + +'Never,' answered Tocqueville. 'He prepared himself most carefully. So +did Guizot. We see from the "Revue rétrospective" that he even prepared +his replies. His long experience enabled him to foresee what he should +have to answer. Pasquier used to bring his speech ready written. It lay +on the desk before him, but he never looked at it.' + +'That seems to me,' I said, 'very difficult. It is like swimming with +corks. One would be always tempted to look down on the paper.' + +'It is almost equally difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to make a speech of +which the words are prepared. There is a struggle between the invention +and the memory. You trust thoroughly to neither, and therefore are not +served thoroughly by either.' + +'Yet that,' said Marcet, 'is what our Swiss pastors are required to do. +They are forbidden to read, and forbidden to extemporise, and by practice +they speak from memory--some well, all tolerably.' + +'Brougham,' said Lord Granville, 'used to introduce his most elaborately +prepared passages by a slight hesitation. When he seemed to pause in +search of thoughts, or of words, we knew that he had a sentence ready cut +and dried.' + +'Who,' I asked Sumner, 'are your best speakers in America?' + +'The best,' he said, 'is Seward; after him perhaps comes Winthrop.' + +'I should have thought it difficult,' I said, 'to speak well in the +Senate, to only fifty or at most sixty members.' + +'You do not speak,' answered Sumner, 'to the Senators. You do not think +of them. You know that their minds are made up. Except as to mere +executive questions, such as the approval of a public functionary, or the +acceptance or modification of a treaty, every senator comes in pledged to +a given, or to an assumed, set of opinions and measures. You speak to the +public. You speak in order that 500,000 copies of what you say, as was +the case with my last speech, may be scattered over the whole Union.' + +'That,' I said, 'must much affect the character of your oratory. A speech +meant to be read must be a different thing from one meant to be heard. +Your speeches must in fact be pamphlets, and that I suppose accounts for +their length.' + +'That is true,' replied Sumner. 'But when you hear that we speak for a +day, or for two days, or, as I have sometimes done, for three days, you +must remember that our days are days of only three hours each.' + +'How long,' I asked, 'was your last speech?' + +'About five hours,' he answered. 'Three hours the first day and two hours +the second.' + +'That,' I said, 'is not beyond our remotest limit. Brougham indeed, on +the amendment of the law, spoke for six hours, during the greater part of +the time to an audience of three. The House was filled with fog, and +there is an H.B. which represents him gesticulating in the obscurity and +the solitude.' + +'He,' said Lord Granville, 'put his speech on the Reform Bill at the +top.' + +'The speech,' I said, 'at the end of which he knelt to implore the Peers +to pass the bill, and found it difficult to rise.' + +[Footnote 1: Barthélemy de St-Hilaire is now Thiers' private secretary +and right hand.--ED.] + + +_Tuesday, April_ 14.--Z., Sumner, Lord Granville, Tocqueville, M. +Circourt, St.-Hilaire, and Corcelle breakfasted with us. + +The conversation took the same turn as yesterday. + +'May I venture,' said Lord Granville to Z., 'to ask whom of your +opponents you feared the most?' + +'Beyond all comparison,' answered Z., 'Thiers.' + +'Was not D.' I asked, 'very formidable?' + +'Certainly,' said Z. 'But he had not the wit, or the _entraînement_ of +Thiers. His sentences were like his action. He had only one gesture, +raising and sinking his right arm, and every time that right arm fell, it +accompanied a sentence adding a link to a chain of argument, massive and +well tempered, without a particle of dross, which coiled round his +adversary like a boa constrictor.' + +'And yet,' said M., 'he was always languid and embarrassed at starting; +it took him ten minutes to get _en train_.' + +'That defect,' said Lord Granville, 'belonged to many of our good +speakers--to Charles Fox--to Lord Holland. Indeed Fox required the +excitement of serious business to become fluent. He never made a +tolerable after-dinner speech.' + +'Among the peculiarities of D.,' said M., 'are his perfect tact and +discretion in the tribune, and his awkwardness in ordinary life. In +public and in private he is two different men.' + +'It is impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'to deny that D. was great in a +deliberative body, but his real scene of action is the bar. He was only +_among_ the best speakers in the Constituent Assembly. He is _the_ +greatest advocate at the bar.' + +'Although,' said M----, 'at the bar, where he represents only his client, +one of the elements of his parliamentary success, his high moral +character, does not assist him. Do you remember how, on the debate of +the Roman expedition, he annihilated by one sentence Jules Favre who had +ventured to assail him? "Les injures," he said, "sont comme les corps +pesants, dont la force dépend de la hauteur d'où ils tombent."' + +'One man,' said Z., 'who enjoys a great European reputation, I could +never think of as a serious adversary, that is Lamartine. + +'He appeared to me to treat the sad realities of political life as +materials out of which he could compose strange and picturesque scenes, +or draw food for his imagination and his vanity. He seemed always to be +saying to himself: "How will the future dramatist or poet, or painter, +represent this event, and what will be my part in the picture, or in the +poem, or on the stage?" + +'_Il cherchait toujours à poser_.--He could give pleasure, he could give +pain--he could amuse, and he could irritate,--but he seldom could +persuade, and he never could convince. Even before the gate of the Hôtel +de Ville, the most brilliant hour of his life, he owed his success rather +to his tall figure, his fine features, attractive as well as commanding, +his voice, his action--in short, to the assemblage of qualities which the +Greeks called [Greek: hupokrisis] than to his eloquence.' + +'Was not,' I said, 'his contrast between the red flag and the tricolor +eloquent?' + +'It was a fine bit of imagery,' said Z., 'and admirably adapted to the +occasion. I do not deny to him the power of saying fine things--perhaps +fine speeches, but he never made a _good_ speech--a speech which it was +difficult to answer.' + +'If anyone,' he continued, 'ever takes the trouble to look into our +Parliamentary debates, Lamartine will hold a higher comparative rank than +he is really entitled to. Most of us were too busy to correct the reports +for the "Moniteur." Lamartine not only corrected them but inserted whole +passages.' + +'He inserted,' said M, 'not only passages but facts. Such as +"_applaudissements_," "_vive émotion," "hilarité_," often when the speech +had been received in silence, or unattended to.' + +'I remember,' said Corcelle, 'an insertion of that kind in the report of +a speech which was never delivered. It was during the Restoration, when +written speeches were read, and sometimes were sent to the "Moniteur" in +anticipation of their being read. Such had been the case with respect to +the speech in question. The intended orator had inserted, like Lamartine, +"_vifs applaudissements," "profonde sensation_," and other notices of the +effect of his speech. The House adjourned unexpectedly before it was +delivered, and he forgot to withdraw the report.' + +'Could a man like Lord Althorp,' I asked, 'whom it was painful to hear, +hold his place as leader of a French Assembly?' + +'Impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'unless he were a soldier. We tolerate +from a man who has almost necessarily been deprived of a careful +education much clumsiness and awkwardness of elocution. Soult did not +speak much better than the Duke of Wellington, but he was listened to. He +had, like the Duke, an air of command which imposed.' + +'Was there,' I said, 'any personal quarrel between Soult and Thiers?' + +'Certainly there was,' said Z., 'a little one. I will not say that Soult +was in Spain a successful commander, or an agreeable colleague, or an +obedient subordinate, but whenever things went wrong there, Soult was the +man whom the Emperor sent thither to put them to rights. Great as Thiers +may be as a military critic, I venture to put him below Napoleon.' + +'I have been reading,' I said, 'Falloux's reception speech, and was +disappointed by it.' + +'In his speech and Brifault's,' said Circourt, 'you may compare the +present declamatory style and that of thirty years ago. Brifault has, or +attempts to have, the _légèreté_ and the prettiness of the Restoration. +Falloux is _grandiose_ and emphatic, as we all are now.' + +'Falloux,' said Z., 'made an excellent speech the first time that he +addressed the Chamber of Deputies. The next time he was not so +successful, and after that he ceased to be listened to. + +'But in the Constituent Assembly, and indeed in the Legislative, he +acquired an ascendency. In those Assemblies, great moral qualities and a +high social position were rarer than they were among the Deputies, and in +the dangers of the country they were more wanted. Falloux possesses them +all. He is honest and brave, and in his province employs liberally and +usefully a large fortune.' + +'Were those the merits,' I asked, 'which opened to him the doors of the +Academy?' + +'Certainly,' answered Z. 'As a man of letters he is nothing, as a +statesman not much. We elected him in honour of his courage and his +honesty, and perhaps with some regard to his fortune. We are the only +independent body left, and we value in a candidate no quality more than +independence.' + +'I am told,' I said, 'that Falloux is now an ultra-Legitimist.' + +'That is not true,' said Z. 'He is a Legitimist, but a liberal one. He +would tolerate no Government, whatever were its other claims, that was +not constitutional.' + +'Your Academic ceremonies,' I said 'seem to me not very well imagined. +There is something _fade_, almost ridiculous, in the literary minuet in +which the _récipiendaire_ and the receiver are trotted out to show their +paces to each other and to the Academy. The new member extolling the +predecessor of whom he is the unworthy successor, the old member lauding +his new colleague to his face, and assuring him that he, too, is one of +the ornaments of the Society.' + +'Particularly,' said ----, 'when, as was the case the other day, it is +notorious that neither of them has any real respect for the idol which he +is forced to crown. Then the political innuendoes, the under-currents of +censure of the present conveyed in praise of the past, become tiresome +after we have listened to them for five years. We long to hear people +talk frankly and directly, instead of saying one thing for the mere +purpose of showing that they are thinking of another thing. The Emperor +revenged himself on Falloux by his antithesis: "_que le désordre les +avait uni, et que l'ordre les avait séparé_.'" + +'How did Falloux reply to it?' I asked. + +'Feebly,' said ----. 'He muttered something about _l'ordre_ having no +firmer adherent than himself. In these formal audiences our great man has +the advantage. He has his _mot_ ready prepared, and you cannot discuss +with him.' + +We talked of the French spoken by foreigners. 'The best,' said Circourt, +'is that of the Swedes and Russians, the worst that of the Germans.' + +'Louis Philippe,' said Z., 'used to maintain that the best test of a +man's general talents was his power of speaking foreign languages. It was +an opinion that flattered his vanity, for he spoke like a native French, +Italian, English, and German.' + +'It is scarcely possible,' said Tocqueville, 'for a man to be original in +any language but his own; in all others he is forced to say what he can, +and that is generally something that he recollects.' + +'I was much struck by that,' said Z., 'when conversing with Narvaez. He +had been talking sensibly but rather dully in French, I begged him to +talk Spanish, which I understand though I cannot speak. The whole man was +changed. It was as if a curtain had been drawn up from between us. +Instead of hammering at commonplaces, he became pointed, and spirited, +and eloquent.' + +'Is he an educated man?' I asked. + +'For a Spaniard,' answered Z., 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, +and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The +want of book-learning contributes to his originality.' + +'The most wonderful speaker in a foreign language,' said Sumner, 'was +Kossuth. He must have been between forty and fifty before he heard an +English word. Yet he spoke it fluently, eloquently, and even +idiomatically. He would have made his fortune among us as a stump-orator.' + + + +_Tuesday, April_ 28.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. + +We talked rather of people than of things. + +'Circourt,' said Tocqueville, 'is my dictionary. When I wish to know what +has been done or what has been said on any occasion, I go to Circourt. He +draws out one of the drawers in his capacious head, and finds there all +that I want arranged and ticketed. + +'One of the merits of his talk, as it is of his character, is its +conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and +his affections are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would +sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man +of whom that can be said?' + +'What think you of Mrs. T-----?' I inquired. + +'I like her too,' he replied, 'but less than I do Circourt. She has +considerable talent, but she thinks and reads only to converse. She has +no originality, no convictions. She says what she thinks that she can say +well; like a person writing a dialogue or an exercise. Whether the +opinion which she expresses be right or wrong, or the story that she +tells be true or false, is no concern of hers, provided it be _bien +dit_.' + +'The fault of her conversation,' I said, 'seems to me to be, that while +she is repeating one sentence she is thinking of the next, and that while +you are speaking to her, she is considering what is to be her next topic. +I have noticed this fault in other very fluent conversers. They are so +intent on the future that they neglect the present.' + +'It is rather a French than an English fault,' said Tocqueville. 'The +English have more curiosity and less vanity, than we have; more desire to +hear and less anxiety to shine. They are often, therefore, better +_causeurs_ than we are. _Le grand talent pour le silence_, or, in other +words, the power of listening which has been imputed to them, is a great +conversational virtue. I do not believe that it was said ironically or +epigrammatically. The man who bestowed that praise knew how rare a merit +silence is.' + +'May we not owe that merit,' I asked, 'to our bad French? We shine most +when we listen.' + +'A great talker,' I continued, 'Montalembert, is to breakfast with us. +Whom shall I ask to meet him?' + +'Not me,' said Tocqueville, 'unless you will accept me as one of the +chorus. I will not take a _premier rôle_, or any prominent _rôle_, in a +piece in which he is to act. I like his society; that is, I like to sit +silent and hear him talk, and I admire his talents; and we have the +strong bond of common hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different, or +even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of +which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger. If we differed on only +one subject, instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would +pick out that single subject to attack me on. I am not sure that even as +host you will be safe. He is more acute in detecting points of opposition +than most men are in finding subjects of agreement. He avoids meeting you +on friendly or even on neutral ground. He chooses to have a combat _en +champ clos_. + +'Take care,' he added, 'and do not have too many _sommités._ They watch +one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps +over the table.' + +'We had two pleasant breakfasts,' I said, 'a fortnight ago. You were +leader of the band at one, Z. at the other, and the rest left the stage +free to the great actor.' + +'As for me,' he answered, 'I often shut myself up, particularly after +dinner, or during dinner if it be long. The process of digestion, little, +as I can eat, seems to oppress me. + +'Z. is always charming. He has an _aplomb_, an ease, a _verve_ arising +from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse. He is a +perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, _homme de lettres_, and _père de +famille_, falling back on literature and the domestic affections. As for +me, I have intervals of _sauvagerie_, or rather the times when I am not +_sauvage_ are the intervals. I have many, perhaps too many, acquaintances +whom I like, and a very few friends whom I love, and a host of relations. +I easily tire of Paris, and long to fly to the fields and woods and +seashore of my province.' + +We passed to the language of conversation. + +'There are three words,' said Tocqueville, 'which you have lost, and +which I wonder how you do without,--Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle. +You are forced always to substitute the name. They are so mixed in all +our forms that half of what we say would appear abrupt or blunt without +them. + +'Then the _tutoyer_ is a _nuance_ that you want. When husband and wife +are talking together they pass insensibly, twenty times perhaps in an +hour, from the _vous_ to the _tu_. When matters of business or of serious +discussion are introduced, indeed whenever the affections are not +concerned, it is _vous_. With the least _soupçon_ of tenderness the _tu_ +returns.' + +'Yet,' I said, 'you never use the _tu_ before a third person.' + +'Never,' he answered, 'in good company. Among the _bourgeoisie_ always. +It is odd that an aristocratic form, so easily learned, should not have +been adopted by all who pretend to be gentry. I remember being present +when an Englishman and his wife, much accustomed to good French society, +but unacquainted with this _nuance_, were laboriously _tutoyering_ each +other. I relieved them much by assuring them that it was not merely +unnecessary, but objectionable.' + + +_May_ 2.--Tocqueville dined with us. + +A lady at the _table d'hôte_ was full of a sermon which she had heard at +the Madeleine. The preacher said, sinking his voice to an audible +whisper, 'I will tell you a secret, but it must go no farther. There is +more religion among the Protestants than with us, they are better +acquainted with the Bible, and make more use of their reading: we have +much to learn from them.' + +I asked Tocqueville, when we were in our own room, as to the feelings of +the religious world in France with respect to heretics. + +'The religious laity,' he answered, 'have probably little opinion on the +subject. They suppose the heretic to be less favourably situated than +themselves, but do not waste much thought upon him. The ignorant priests +of course consign him to perdition. The better instructed think, like +Protestants, that error is dangerous only so far as it influences +practice. + +'Dr. Bretonneau, at Tours, was one of the best men that I have known, but +an unbeliever. The archbishop tried in his last illness to reconcile him +to the Church: Bretonneau died as he had lived. But the archbishop, when +lamenting to me his death, expressed his own conviction that so excellent +a soul could not perish. + +'You recollect the duchesse in St.-Simon, who, on the death of a sinner +of illustrious race, said, "On me dira ce qu'on voudra, on ne me +persuadera pas que Dieu n'y regarde deux fois avant de damner un homme de +sa qualité." The archbishop's feeling was the same, only changing +_qualité_ into virtue. + +'There is something amusing,' he continued, 'when, separated as we are +from it by such a chasm, we look back on the prejudices of the _Ancien +Régime_. An old lady once said to me, "I have been reading with great +satisfaction the genealogies which prove that Jesus Christ descended from +David. Ça montre que notre Seigneur était Gentilhomme."' + +'We are somewhat ashamed,' I said, 'in general of Jewish blood, yet the +Lévis boast of their descent from the Hebrew Levi.' + +'They are proud of it,' said Tocqueville, 'because they make themselves +out to be cousins of the Blessed Virgin. They have a picture in which a +Duc de Lévi stands bareheaded before the Virgin. "Couvrez-vous donc, mon +cousin," she says. "C'est pour ma commodité," he answers.' + +The conversation passed to literature. + +'I am glad,' said Tocqueville, 'to find that, imperfect as my knowledge +of English is, I can feel the difference in styles.' + +'I feel strongly,' I said, 'the difference in French styles in prose, but +little in poetry.' + +'The fact is,' said Tocqueville, 'that the only French poetry, except +that of Racine, that is worth reading is the light poetry. I do not think +that I could now read Lamartine, though thirty years ago he delighted +me.' + +'The French taste,' I said, 'in English poetry differs from ours. You +read Ossian and the "Night Thoughts."' + +'As for Ossian,' he answered, 'he does not seem to have been ever popular +in England. But the frequent reference to the "Night Thoughts," in the +books and letters of the last century, shows that the poem was then in +everybody's memory. Foreigners are in fact provincials. They take up +fashions of literature as country people do fashions of dress, when the +capital has left them off. When I was young you probably had ceased to be +familiar with Richardson. We knew him by heart. We used to weep over the +Lady Clementina, whom I dare say Miss Senior never heard of. + +'During the first Empire, we of the old _régime_ abandoned Paris, as we +do now, and for the same reasons. We used to live in our châteaux, where +I remember as a boy hearing Sir Charles Grandison and Fielding read +aloud. A new novel was then an event. Madame Cottin was much more +celebrated than George Sand is now. For all her books were read, and by +everybody. Notwithstanding the great merits of George Sand's style, her +plots and her characters are so exaggerated and so unnatural, and her +morality is so perverted, that we have ceased to read her.' + +We talked of Montalembert, and I mentioned his _sortie_ the other day +against the clergy. + +'I can guess pretty well,' said Tocqueville, 'what he said to you, for it +probably was a _résumé_ of his article in the "Correspondant." Like most +men accustomed to public speaking, he repeats himself. He is as honest +perhaps as a man who is very _passionné_ can be; but his oscillations are +from one extreme to another. Immediately after the _coup d'état,_ when he +believed Louis Napoleon to be Ultramontane, he was as servile as his +great enemy the "Univers" is now. "Ce sont les nuances qui se querellent, +non les couleurs;" and between him and the "Univers" there is only a +_nuance_. The Bishop of Agen has oscillated like him, but began at the +other end. The other day the Bishop made a most servile address to the +Emperor. He had formerly been a furious anti-Bonapartist. "How is it +possible," said Montalembert, "that a man can rush so completely from one +opinion to another? On the 4th of December in 1851 this same Bishop +denounced the _coup d'état_ with such violence that the President sent me +to the Nuncio to request his interference. Now he is on his knees before +him. Such changes can scarcely be honest." Montalembert does not see that +the only difference between them is that they have trod in opposite +directions the very same path.' + + +_Thursday, May_ 5.--Tocqueville and I dined with M. and Madame de Bourke, +and met there General Dumas and Ary Scheffer. + +We talked of Delaroche's pictures, and Scheffer agreed with me in +preferring the smaller ones. He thought that Delaroche improved up to the +time of his death, and preferred his Moses, and Drowned Martyr, painted +in 1853 and 1855, to the other large ones, and his Girondins, finished in +1856, to the earlier small ones. + +We passed on to the increased and increasing population of Paris. + +'The population of Paris,' I said, 'is only half that of London, while +that of the British Islands is not three-fourths that of France. If you +were to double the population of Paris, therefore, it would still be +proportionally less than that of London.' + +'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'but yet there are many circumstances +connected with the Parisian population each of which renders it more +dangerous than the London one. In the first place, there is the absence +of any right to relief. The English workman knows that neither he nor his +family can starve. The Frenchman becomes anxious as soon as his +employment is irregular, and desperate when it fails. The English workmen +are unacquainted with arms, and have no leaders with military experience. +The bulk of the Frenchmen have served, many of them are veterans in civil +war, and they have commanders skilled in street-fighting. The English +workmen have been gradually attracted to London by a real and permanent +demand for their labour. They have wives and children. At least 100,000 +men have been added to the working population of Paris since the _coup +d'état._ They are young men in the vigour of their strength and passions, +unrestrained by wives or families. They have been drawn hither suddenly +and artificially by the demolition and reconstruction of half the town, +by the enormous local expenditure of the Government, and by the fifty +millions spent in keeping the price of bread in Paris unnaturally low. +The 40,000 men collected in Paris by the construction of the +fortifications are supposed to have mainly contributed to the revolution +of 1848. What is to be expected from this addition of 100,000? Then the +repressive force is differently constituted and differently animated. In +England you have an army which has chosen arms as a profession, which +never thinks of any other employment, and indeed is fit for no other, and +never expects any provision except its pay and its pension. The French +soldier, ever since 1789, is a citizen. He serves his six years because +the law and the colonel force him to do so, but he counts the days until +he can return to his province, his cottage, and his field. He sympathises +with the passions of the people. In the terrible days of June, the army +withstood the cries, the blessings, the imprecations and the seductions +of the mob, only because they had the National Guards by their side. +Their presence was a guarantee that the cause was just. The National +Guards never fought before as they did in those days. Yet at the Château +d'Eau, the miraculous heroism and the miraculous good luck of Lamoricière +were necessary to keep them together. If he had not exposed himself as no +man ever did, and escaped as no man ever did, they would have been +broken.' + +'I was there,' said Scheffer, 'when his fourth horse was killed under +him. As the horse was sinking he drew his feet out of the stirrups and +came to the ground without falling; but his cigar dropped from his mouth. +He picked it up, and went on with the order which he was giving to an +_aide-de-camp._ + +'I saw that,' said Tocqueville. 'He had placed himself immediately behind +a cannon in front of the Château d'Eau which fired down the Boulevard du +Temple. A murderous fire from the windows in a corner of the Rue du +Temple killed all the artillerymen. The instant that Lamoricière placed +himself behind it, I thought that I saw what would happen. I implored him +to get behind some shelter, or at least not to pose as a mark. +"Recollect," I said, "that if you go on in this way you must be killed +before the day is over-and where shall we all be?"' + +'"I see the danger of what I am doing," he answered, "and I dislike it as +much as you can do; but it is necessary. The National Guards are shaking; +if they break, the Line follows. I must set an example that everyone can +see and can understand. This is not a time for taking precautions. If _I_ +were to shelter myself, _they_ would run."' + +'How does Lamoricière,' I asked, 'bear exile and inactivity in Brussels?' + +'Very ill,' said Scheffer. 'He feels that he has compromised the +happiness of his wife, whom he married not long before the _coup +d'état._' + +'Changarnier at Malins, who lives alone and has only himself to care for, +supports it much better.' + +Tocqueville and I walked home together. + +'Scheffer,' he said, 'did not tell all that happened at the Château +d'Eau. Men seldom do when they fight over their battles.' + +'The insurgents by burrowing through walls had got into a house in the +rear of our position. They manned the windows, and suddenly fired down on +us from a point whence no danger had been feared. This caused a panic +among the National Guards, a force of course peculiarly subject to +panics. They turned and ran back 250 yards along the Boulevard St. +Martin, carrying with them the Line and Lamoricière himself. He +endeavoured to stop them by outcries, and by gesticulations, and indeed +by force. He gave to one man who was trying to run by him a blow with his +fist, so well meant and well directed that it broke his collar bone.' + +'At length he stopped them, re-formed them, and said: "Now you shall +march, I at your head, and the drummer beating the charge, as if you were +on parade, up to that house." They did so. After a few discharges, which +miraculously missed Lamoricière, the men in the house deserted it.' + +'What were you doing at the Château d'Eau?' I asked. + +'We were marching,' he said, 'with infantry and artillery on the +Boulevard du Temple, across which there was a succession of barricades, +which it was necessary to take one by one. + +'As we advanced in the middle, our sappers and miners got into the houses +on each side, broke through the party walls, and killed the men at the +windows.' + +'Those three days,' he continued, 'impress strongly on my mind the +dangers of our present state.' + +'It is of no use to take up pavements and straighten streets, and pierce +Paris by long military roads, and loop-hole the barracks, if the +Executive cannot depend on the army. Ditches and bastions are of no use +if the garrison will not man them.' + +'The new law of recruitment, however, may produce a great change. Instead +of 80,000 conscripts, 120,000 are to be taken each year. This is about +all that are fit for service. They are required to serve for only two +years. If the change ended there our army would be still more a militia +than it is now. It would be the Prussian Landwehr. But those entitled to +their discharge are to be enticed by higher pay, promotions, bounties, +and retiring pensions--in short, by all means of seduction, to re-enter +for long periods, for ten, or fifteen, or perhaps twenty years. It is +hoped that thus a permanent regular army may be formed, with an _esprit +de corps_ of its own, unsympathising with the people, and ready to keep +it down; and such will, I believe, be the result. But it will take nine +or ten years to produce such an army--and the dangers that I fear are +immediate.' + +'What are the motives,' I asked, 'for the changes as to the conscription, +the increase of numbers, and the diminution of the time of service?' + +'They are parts,' he answered, 'of the system. The French peasant, and +indeed the _ouvrier_, dislikes the service. The proportion of conscripts +who will re-enlist is small. Therefore the whole number must be large. +The country must be bribed to submit to this by the shortness of the +term. The conscript army will be sacrificed to what is to be the regular +army. It will be young and ill-trained.' + +'But your new regular army,' I said, 'will be more formidable to the +enemy than your present force.' + +'I am not sure of that,' he answered. 'The merit of the French army was +the impetuosity of its attack, the "furia Francese," as the Italians +called it. Young troops have more of this quality than veterans. The +Maison du Roi, whose charge at Steenkirk Macaulay has so well described, +consisted of boys of eighteen.' + +'I am re-editing,' I said, 'my old articles. Among them is one written in +1841 on the National Character of France, England, and America,[1] as +displayed towards foreign nations. I have not much to change in what I +have said of England or of America. As they have increased in strength +they have both become still more arrogant, unjust, and shameless. + +'England has perhaps become a little more prudent America a little less +so. But France seems to me to be altered. I described her as a soldier +with all the faults of that unsocial character. As ambitious, rapacious, +eager for nothing but military glory and territorial aggrandisement. She +seems now to have become moderate and pacific, and to be devoted rather +to the arts of peace than to those of war.' + +'France _is_ changed,' answered Tocqueville, 'and when compared with the +France of Louis XIV., or of Napoleon, was already changed when you wrote, +though the war-cry raised for political purposes in 1840 deceived +you. At the same time, I will not deny that military glory would, more +than any other merit, even _now_ strengthen a Government, and that +military humiliation would inevitably destroy one. Nor must you overrate +the unpopularity of the last war. Only a few even of the higher classes +understood its motives. "Que diable veut cette guerre?" said my country +neighbour to me; "si c'était contre les Anglais--mais _avec_ les Anglais, +et pour le Grand Turc, qu'est-ce que cela peut signifier?" But when they +saw that it cost only men, that they were not invaded or overtaxed, and +that prices rose, they got reconciled to it. + +'It was only the speculators of Paris that were tired of it. And if, +instead of the Crimea, we had fought near our own frontiers, or for some +visible purpose, all our military passions, bad and good, would have +broken out.' + +[Footnote 1: This article is republished in the _Historical and +Philosophical Essays_. Longmans: 1865.--ED.] + + +_Wednesday, May_ 13.--Tocqueville came in after breakfast, and I walked +with him in the shade of the green walls or arcades of the Tuileries +chestnuts. + +We talked of the Montijos, which led our conversation to Mérimée and V. + +'Both of them,' said Tocqueville, 'were the friends of +Countess Montijo, the mother. + +'V. was among the last persons who knew Eugénie as Countess Théba. He +escorted her to the Tuileries the very evening of her marriage. There he +took his leave of her. "You are now," he said, "placed so high that I can +only admire you from below." And I do not believe that they have met +since. + +'Mérimée took a less sentimental view of the change. He acknowledged his +Empress in his former plaything, subsided from a sort of stepfather into +a courtier, and so rose to honour and wealth, while V. is satisfied to +remain an ex-professor and _un homme de lettres_.' + + * * * * * + +We met Henri Martin, and I asked Tocqueville what he thought of his +History. + +'It has the merit of selling,' he said, 'which cannot be said of any +other History of France. Martin is laborious and conscientious, and does +not tell a story ill; but he is a partisan and is always biassed by his +own likings and dislikings. He belongs to the class of theorists, +unfortunately not a small one, whose political _beau idéal_ is the +absence of all control over the will of the people-who are opposed +therefore to an hereditary monarchy-to a permanent President--to a +permanent magistracy-to an established Church--in short, to all +privileged classes, bodies, or institutions. Equality, not liberty or +security, is their object. They are centralisers and absolutists. A +despotic Assembly elected by universal suffrage, sitting at most for a +year, governing, like the Convention, through its committees, or a single +despot, appointed for a week, and not re-eligible, is the sort of ruler +that they would prefer. The last five years have perhaps disgusted Martin +with his Asiatic democracy, but his earlier volumes are coloured +throughout by his prejudices against all systems implying a division of +power, and independent authorities controlling and balancing one +another.' + +We talked of the Secret Police. + +'It has lately,' said Tocqueville, 'been unusually troublesome, or rather +it has been troublesome to a class of persons whom it seldom ventures to +molest. A friend of mine, M. Sauvaire Barthélemy, one of Louis Philippe's +peers, was standing at the door of his hotel reading a letter. A +gentleman in plain clothes addressed him, announced himself as an _agent +de police_, and asked him if the letter which he was reading was +political. "No," said Barthélemy, "you may see it. It is a _billet de +mariage." "I am directed," said the agent, "to request you to get into +this carriage." They got in and drove to Mazas. There Barthélemy was +shown into a neat room with iron bars to the windows, and ordered to +wait. After some time Louis Pietri, the Préfet de Police, arrived. + +'"I am grieved," he said, "at giving you so much trouble, but I have been +commanded to see you in this place, and to inform you that the Emperor +cannot bear that a man in your high position should systematically +misrepresent him. + +'"L'Empereur fait tout ce qu'il peut pour le bonheur de la France, et il +n'entend pas supporter une opposition aussi constante et aussi violente. +Effectivement il ne veut pas d'opposition. Voulez-vous le tenir pour +dit, Monsieur, et recevoir de nouveau mes excuses du dérangement que j'ai +dû vous causer? Pour le présent vous êtes libre."' + + +[Mr. Senior left Paris on the next day. + +M. de Tocqueville paid his promised visit to England in June, and was +received with a perfect ovation.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +London, July 10, 1857. + +I was too ill, my dear friend, to go to you yesterday. Dr. Ferguson tells +me that I have been doing too much, and prescribes perfect rest. + +I have already read half your journal of 1857. It is very curious; but I +am glad that you have disguised me. + +It is terrible to be in London, and to see so little of you; but the +force of circumstances is greater than the force of wishes. + +Ever yours, + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, August 6, 1857. + +You may already have had news of me through some of our common friends, +my dear Senior, but I wish, besides, to give you some myself, and to +thank you again for the kind welcome I received from you and in your +house during my stay in London. + +I regret only that I was unable to be more with you, and that, in spite +of myself, I was drawn into a whirlpool which carried me away and +prevented me from following my inclinations. + +I have returned, however, full of gratitude for the marks of +consideration and affection showered upon me in England. I shall never +forget them. + +I found my wife already installed here, and in good health; and I have +resumed my busy and peaceful life with a delight which does honour to my +wisdom. For I had been so spoiled in England that I might have been +afraid of finding my retreat too much out of the way and too quiet. But +nothing of the sort has happened. The excitement of the past month +appears to have added charms to the present. + +Nevertheless, I have not yet set to work again, but I am full of good +resolutions, which I hope to execute as soon as I have completely +returned to my usual habits. These first days have been devoted to +putting everything into its regular order. + +In France we are almost as much interested as you in England in the +affairs of India. Everyone, even in the country, asks me for news of what +is going on there. + +There is a natural disposition to exaggerate the evil and to believe that +your dominion is overturned. For my part, I am waiting with the utmost +and most painful anxiety for the development of the drama, for no good +can possibly result from it; and there is not one civilised nation in the +world that ought to rejoice in seeing India escape from the hands of +Europeans in order to fall back into a state of anarchy and barbarism +worse than before its conquest. + +I am quite sure that you will conquer. But it is a serious business. + +A military insurrection is the worst of all insurrections, at least in +the beginning. You have to deal with barbarians, but they possess the +arms of civilised people given to them by yourselves. + +My wife, who has preserved her English heart, is particularly affected by +the spectacle which Bengal at present affords. + +If you have any more particular news than is to be found in the +newspapers, you will give us great pleasure by communicating them. + +Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and to your daughter-in-law. + +My wife sends many kind regards to them, as well as to you. + +Adieu, dear Senior. Believe in my sincere affection. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +P.S.--I fancy that the first effect of the Indian affair will be to draw +still closer the alliance between England and France. + + +Tocqueville, November 15, 1857. + +I am somewhat angry with you, my dear Senior, for not having yet given us +your news.[1] It is treating our friendship unfairly, I have not written +to you because I doubted your following exactly your intended route, but +I will write to you at Athens, as I think that you must now be there. If +you have followed your itinerary your travels must have been most +interesting to you, and they will be equally curious to us. I conclude +that you only passed quickly through the Principalities in following the +course of the Danube. I, however, had depended on you for furnishing me +with clear ideas of a country which is at present so interesting to +Europe, and which I think is destined to play an important part in the +future. And what say you of our friends the Turks? Was it worth while to +spend so much money and to shed so much blood in order to retain in +Europe savages who are ill disguised as civilised men? I am impatient to +talk to you, and almost equally so to read you. + +I shall have little to tell you. I have not stirred from home since I +left England, and am leading the life of a gentleman-farmer; a life which +pleases me more and more every day, and would really make me happy, if my +wife were not suffering from an obstinate neuralgic affection in the +face. I fear that she may have to go to some mineral waters, which she +would be sorry to do; for, as you know, she hates travelling, and does no +justice to the reputation for wandering possessed by the English race. + +I can tell you nothing on politics which you will not find in the +newspapers. The great question at present for all civilised Governments +seems to be the financial. The crisis from which America and England are +suffering will probably extend everywhere. As for India, you are out, not +perhaps of your difficulties, but of your greatest dangers. This affair, +and that of the Crimea, show how little sympathy there is for England +abroad. There was everything to interest us in your success--similarity +of race, of religion, and of civilisation. Your loss of India could have +served no cause but that of barbarism. Yet I venture to affirm that the +whole Continent, though it detested the cruelties of your enemies, did +not wish you to triumph. + +Much of this is, without doubt, to be attributed to the evil passions +which make men always desire the fall of the prosperous and the strong. +But much belongs to a less dishonourable cause--to the conviction of all +nations that England considers them only with reference to her own +greatness; that she has less sympathy than any other modern nation; that +she never notices what passes among foreigners, what they think, feel, +suffer, or do, but with relation to the use which England can make of +their actions, their sufferings, their feelings, or their thoughts; and +that when she seems most to care for them she really cares only for +herself. All this is exaggerated, but not without truth. + +Kindest regards from us both to you and to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was at this time in the East.--ED.] + + + +Tocqueville, February 10, 1858. + +I was delighted, my dear Senior, to receive a letter from you dated +Marseilles. You are right in remaining till the spring in the South. We +trust to meet you in Paris in March. + +I say no more, for I cannot write to you on what would most interest +you--French politics. Much is to be said on them; but you will understand +my silence if you study our new Law of Public Safety, and remember who is +the new Home Minister.[1] For the first time in French history has such a +post been filled by a general--and what a general! + +I defer, therefore, until we meet, the expression of feelings and +opinions which cannot be safely transmitted through the post, and only +repeat how eager I am for our meeting. + +Kind regards to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: General Espinasse.] + + +Tocqueville, February 21, 1858. + +I received your letters with great pleasure, my dear Senior, and I think +with still greater satisfaction that I shall soon be able to see you. + +I shall probably arrive in Paris, with my wife, at about the same time as +you will, that is to say, about the 19th of next month. I should have +gone earlier if I were not occupied in planting and sowing, for I am +doing a little farming to my great amusement. + +I am delighted that you intend again to take up your quarters at the +Hôtel Bedford, as I intend also to stay there if I can find apartments. + +I hope that we shall be good neighbours and see each other as frequently +as such old friends ought to do. _A bientôt!_ + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Mr. Senior ran over to England for a few weeks instead of remaining in +Paris. The meeting between the two friends did not, therefore, take place +till April.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, Saturday, April_ 17, 1858.--We had a discussion at the Institut +to-day as to a bust to fill a niche in the anteroom. Rossi was proposed. +His political merits were admitted, but he was placed low as to his +literary claims as an economist and a jurist. Dupin suggested Talleyrand, +which was received with a universal groan, and failed for want of a +seconder. Ultimately the choice fell on Dumont. + +'Nothing that is published of Talleyrand's,' said Tocqueville to me as we +walked home, 'has very great merit, nor indeed is much of it his own. He +hated writing, let his reports and other state papers be drawn up by +others, and merely retouched them. But in the archives of the _Affaires +étrangères_ there is a large quarto volume containing his correspondence +with Louis XVIII during the Congress of Vienna. Nothing can be more +charming. The great European questions which were then in debate, the +diplomatic and social gossip of Vienna, the contemporary literature--in +short, all that one clever _homme du monde_ could find to interest and +amuse another, are treated with wit, brilliancy, and gaiety, supported by +profound good sense. When that volume is published his bust will be +placed here by acclamation.' + +_Monday, April_ 19.--I dined with Lanjuinais, and met Tocqueville, Rivet, +Dufaure, Corcelle, Freslon, and one or two others. + +They attacked me about the change of sentiment in England with respect to +Louis Napoleon. + +'While he was useful to you,' they said, 'you steadily refused to admit +that he was a tyrant, or even an usurper. You chose to disbelieve in the +3,000 men, women, and children massacred on the Boulevards of Paris--in +the 20,000 poisoned by jungle fever in Cayenne--in the 25,000 who have +died of malaria, exposure, and bad food, working in gangs on the roads +and in the marshes of the Metidja and Lambressa.' + +'We did not _choose_', I answered, 'to disbelieve any thing. We were +simply ignorant. _I_ knew all these facts, because I have passed a part +of every year since 1847 in Paris; because I walked along the Boulevards +on the 20th of December 1851, and saw the walls of every house, from the +Bastille to the Madeleine, covered with the marks of musket-balls; +because I heard in every society of the thousands who had been massacred, +and of the tens of thousands who had been _déportés_; but the untravelled +English, and even the travelled English, except the few who live in +France among the French, knew nothing of all this. Your press tells +nothing. The nine millions of votes given to Louis Napoleon seemed to +prove his popularity, and therefore the improbability of the tyranny of +which he was accused by his enemies. _I_ knew that those nine millions of +votes were extorted, or stolen by violence or fraud. But the English +people did not know it. They accepted his election as the will of the +nation, and though they might wonder at your choice, did not presume to +blame it.' + +'The time,' they answered, 'at which light broke in upon you is +suspicious. Up to the 14th of January 1858 the oppression under which +thirty-four millions of people within twenty-four miles of your coast, +with whom you are in constant intercourse, was unknown to you. Their +ruler insults you, and you instantly discover that he is an usurper and a +tyrant. This looks as if the insult, and the insult alone, opened your +eyes.' + +'What opened our eyes,' I answered, 'was not the insult but the _loi de +sûreté publique_. It was the first public act which showed to England the +nature of your Government. + +'When we found, erected in every department, a revolutionary tribunal, +empowered to banish and transport without trial; when we found a rude +soldier made Home Minister, and the country divided into five districts +to be each governed by a marshal, we saw at once that France was under a +violent military despotism. Until that law was passed the surface was +smooth. There was nothing in the appearance of France to show to a +stranger that she was not governed by a Monarch, practically, indeed, +absolute, but governing as many absolute Monarchs have done, mildly and +usefully. + +'Of course we might have found out the truth sooner if we had inquired. +And perhaps we ought to have inquired. We busy ourselves about our own +affairs, and neglect too much those of other countries. In that sense +you have a right to say that we chose to be ignorant, since our conduct +was such as necessarily to make us ignorant. But it was not because Louis +Napoleon was our ally that we chose to be ignorant, but because we +habitually turn our eyes from the domestic affairs of the Continent, as +things in which we have seldom a right to interfere, and in which, when +we do interfere, we do more harm than good.' + +We talked of the manner in which the _loi de sûreté publique_ has been +carried out. And I mentioned 600 as the number of those who had suffered +under it, as acknowledged to me by Blanchard in the beginning of March. + +'It is much greater now,' said Lanjuinais. 'Berryer on his return from +Italy, a week ago, slept in Marseilles. He was informed that more than +900 persons had passed through Marseilles, _déportés_ under the new law +to Algeria. They were of all classes: artisans and labourers mixed with +men of the higher and middle classes. To these must be added those +transported to Cayenne, who were sent by way of Havre. As for the number +_expulsés_ and _internés_ there are no data.' + +'In the Department of Var, a man was found guilty in 1848 of joining in +one of the revolutionary movements of that time. His complete innocence +was soon proved; he was released, and has lived quietly on his little +estate ever since. He was arrested under the new law and ordered to be +_déporté_ to Algeria. His friends, in fact all his neighbours, +remonstrated, and sent to Paris the proof that the original conviction +was a mistake. "Qu'il aille tout de même," was Espinasse's answer. + +'In Calvados the Préfet, finding no one whom he could conscientiously +arrest, took hold of one of the most respectable men in the department. +"If," he said, "I had arrested a man against whom there was plausible +ground for suspicion, he might have been transported. This man _must_ be +released."' + +'Has he been released?' I asked. + +'I have not heard,' was the answer. 'In all probability he has been.' + +'In my department,' said Tocqueville, 'the _sous-préfet_, ordered by the +Préfet to arrest somebody in the arrondissement, was in the same +perplexity as the Préfet of Calvados. "I can find no fit person," he said +to me. I believe that he reported the difficulty to the Préfet, and that +the vacancy was supplied from some other arrondissement. + +'What makes this frightful,' he added, 'is that we now know that +deportation is merely a slow death. Scarcely any of the victims of 1851 +and 1852 are living.' + +'I foretold that,' I said, 'at the time, as you will find if you look at +my article on Lamartine, published in the "Edinburgh Review."'[1] + +[Footnote 1: See _Journals in France and Italy_.--ED.] + + +_April_ 20.--We talked of the political influence in France of the +_hommes de lettres_. + +'It began,' said Tocqueville, 'with the Restoration. Until that time we +had sometimes, though very rarely, statesmen who became writers, but +never writers who became statesmen,' + +'You had _hommes de lettres_,' I said, 'in the early Revolutionary +Assemblies--Mirabeau for instance.' + +'Mirabeau,' he answered, 'is your best example, for Mirabeau, until he +became a statesman, lived by his pen. Still I should scarcely call a man +of his high birth and great expectations _un homme de lettres_. That +appellation seems to belong to a man who owes his position in early life +to literature. Such a man is Thiers, or Guizot, as opposed to such men as +Gladstone, Lord John Russell, or Montalembert.' + + +_Wednesday, April_ 21.--I dined with D. and met, among several others, +Admiral Matthieu the Imperial Hydrographer, and a general whose name I +did not catch. I talked to the general about the army. + +'We are increasing it,' he said, 'but not very materially. We are rather +giving ourselves the means of a future rapid increase, than making an +immediate augmentation. We are raising the number of men from 354,000 to +392,400, in round numbers to 400,000; but the principal increase is in +the _cadres_, the officers attached to each battalion. We have increased +them by more than one third. So that if a war should break out we can +instantly--that is to say in three months, increase our army to 600,000 +or even 700,000 men. Soldiers are never wanting in France, the difficulty +always is to find officers.' + +'I hear,' I said, 'that you are making great improvements in your +artillery.' + +'We are,' he answered. 'We are applying to it the principle of the Minié +musket, and we are improving the material. We hope to make our guns as +capable of resisting rapid and continued firing as well and as long as +the English and the Swedish guns, which are the best in Europe, can do. +And we find that we can throw a ball on the Minié principle with equal +precision twice as far. This will double the force of all our batteries.' + +'Are _you_,' he asked me, 'among those who have taken shares in the +Russian railways?' + +'No,' I said. 'They are the last that I wish to encourage.' + +'Englishmen or Frenchmen,' he answered, 'who help Russia to make +railways, put me in mind of the Dutch who sold powder to their besiegers. + +'The thinness of her population--that is, the vast space over which it is +scattered--alone prevents Russia from being the mistress of Europe. If +her 64,000,000 were as concentrated as our 34,000,000 are, she would be +irresistible. She loses always far more men in marching than in +fighting.' + +'The events of the war,' I said, 'lead me to believe that the goodness of +the Russian soldier is exaggerated. They were always beaten, often by +inferior numbers.' + +'In the first place,' he answered, 'those who were beaten at Sebastopol +were not the best Russian soldiers. They were short small men, generally +drawn from the neighbouring provinces. The Russian Imperial Guards and +the Russian Army in Poland are far superior to any that we encountered in +the Crimea. In the second place, they were ill commanded. The +improvements of weapons, of science and of discipline, have raised the +privates of all the great military nations to about the same level. +Success now depends on numbers and on generalship. With railways Russia +will be able to bring quickly a preponderating force to any point on her +frontier. Her officers are already good, and for money she can import the +best generals; indeed, I do not see why she should not breed them. Russia +is civilised enough to produce men of the highest military qualities.' + +I asked Admiral Matthieu about the naval preparations of France. + +'The "Moniteur,"' I said, 'denies that you are making any.' + +'The "Moniteur,"' he answered, 'does not tell the truth. We are +augmenting largely, both the number and the efficacy of our fleet. + +'Four years ago, at the beginning of the Russian war, we resolved to +build a steam fleet of 150 steam ships of different sizes for fighting, +and 74 steam ships for the transfer service, and to carry fuel and +stores. Though we set about this in the beginning, as we thought, of a +long war, we have not allowed the peace to interrupt it. We are devoting +to it sixty-five millions a year (2,600,000_l_.) of which from fifteen to +seventeen millions are employed every year in building new ships, and +from forty to forty-two in adding steam power to the old ones. We hope to +finish this great work in fourteen years.' + +'What,' I asked, 'is the amount of your present fleet of steamers?' + +'We have thirty-three screws,' he answered, 'fifty-seven paddles, and +sixty-two sailing vessels in commission, and seventy-three, mostly +steamers, _en réserve_, as you would say, in ordinary.' + +'Manned by how many men?' I asked. + +'By twenty-five thousand sailors,' he answered, 'and eleven thousand +marines. But our _inscription maritime_ would give us in a few months or +less one hundred thousand more. Since the times of Louis XVI. the French +Navy has never been so formidable, positively or relatively.' + +'How,' I asked, 'has your "Napoleon" succeeded?' + +'Admirably,' he answered. 'I have not seen the "Wellington," but she is a +much finer ship than the Agamemnon. Her speed is wonderful. A month ago +she left Toulon at seven in the morning, and reached Ajaccio by four in +the evening. But the great improvement is in our men. Napoleon knew +nothing and cared nothing about sailors. He took no care about their +training, and often wasted them in land operations, for which landsmen +would have done as well. + +'In 1814 he left Toulon absolutely unguarded, and sent all the sailors to +join Augereau. You might have walked into it. + +'In 1810 or 1811 I was on board a French corvette which fought an action +with an English vessel, the "Lively." We passed three times under her +stern, and raked her each time. We ought to have cleared her decks. Not a +shot touched her. The other day at Cherbourg I saw a broadside fired at a +floating mark three cables off, the usual distance at which ships engage. +Ten balls hit it, and we could see that all the others passed near enough +to shake it by their wind. + +'A ship of eighty guns has now forty _canonniers_ and forty _maîtres de +pièces_. All practical artillerymen, and even the able seamen, can point +a gun. Nelson's manoeuvre of breaking the line could not be used against +a French fleet, such as a French fleet is now. The leading ships would be +destroyed one after another, by the concentrated fire. Formerly our +officers dreaded a maritime war. They knew that defeat awaited them, +possibly death. Now they are confident, and eager to try their hands.' + +In the evening L. took me into a corner, and we had a long conversation. + +He had been reading my 'Athens Journal.' + +'What struck me,' he said, 'in every page of it, was the resemblance of +King Otho to Louis Napoleon.' + +'I see the resemblance,' I answered, 'but it is the resemblance of a +dwarf to a giant.' + +'No,' he replied. 'Of a man five feet seven inches high to one five feet +eleven inches. There are not more than four inches between them. There is +the same cunning, the same coldness, the same vindictiveness, the same +silence, the same perseverance, the same unscrupulousness, the same +selfishness, the same anxiety to appear to do everything that is done, +and above all, the same determination to destroy, or to seduce by +corruption or by violence, every man and every institution favourable to +liberty, independence, or self-government. In one respect Otho had the +more difficult task. He found himself, in 1843, subject to a Constitution +carefully framed under the advice of England for the express purpose of +controlling him. He did not attempt to get rid of it by a _coup d'état_, +or even to alter it, but cunningly and skilfully perverted it into an +instrument of despotism. Louis Napoleon destroyed the Constitution which +he found, and made a new one, copied from that which had been gradually +elaborated by his uncle, which as a restraint is intentionally powerless +and fraudulent. + +'A man,' he continued, 'may acquire influence either by possessing in a +higher degree the qualities which belong to his country and to his time, +or by possessing those in which they are deficient. + +'Wellington is an example of this first sort. His excellences were those +of an Englishman carried almost to perfection. + +'Louis Napoleon belongs to the second. If his merits had been impetuous +courage, rapidity of ideas, quickness of decision, frankness, versatility +and resource, he would have been surrounded by his equals or his +superiors. He predominated over those with whom he came in contact +because he differed from them. Because he was calm, slow, reserved, +silent, and persevering. Because he is a Dutchman, not a Frenchman.' + +'He seems,' I said, 'to have lost his calmness.' + +'Yes,' answered L. 'But under what a shock! And observe that though the +greatest risk was encountered by _him_, the terror was greatest among his +_entourage_. I do not believe that if he had been left to himself he +would have lost his prudence or his self-possession. He did not for the +first day. Passions are contagious. Everyone who approached him was +agitated by terror and anger. His intrepidity and self-reliance, great as +they are, were disturbed by the hubbub all round him. His great defects +are three. First, his habit of self-contemplation. He belongs to the men +whom the Germans call subjective, whose eye is always turned inwardly; +who think only of themselves, of their own character, and of their own +fortunes. Secondly, his jealousy of able men. He wishes to be what you +called him, a giant, and as Nature has not made him positively tall, he +tries to be comparatively so, by surrounding himself with dwarfs. His +third defect is the disproportion of his wishes to his means. His desires +are enormous. No power, no wealth, no expenditure would satisfy them. +Even if he had his uncle's genius and his uncle's indefatigability, he +would sink, as his uncle did, under the exorbitance of his attempts. As +he is not a man of genius, or even a man of remarkable ability, as he is +ignorant, uninventive and idle, you will see him flounder and fall from +one failure to another. + +'During the three years that Drouyn de L'Huys was his minister he was +intent on home affairs--on his marriage, on the Louvre, on the artillery, +on his _bonnes fortunes_, and on the new delights of unbounded +expenditure. He left foreign affairs altogether to his minister. When +Drouyn de L'Huys left him, the road before him was plain--he had only to +carry on the war. But when the war was over, the road ended; neither +he nor Walewski nor any of his _entourage_ know anything of the country +in which they are travelling. You see them wandering at hazard. Sometimes +trying to find their way to Russia, sometimes to England. Making a treaty +with Austria, then attempting to injure her, and failing; attempting to +injure Turkey, and failing; bullying Naples, and failing; threatening +Switzerland, threatening Belgium, and at last demanding from England an +Alien Bill, which they ought to know to be incompatible with the laws and +hateful to the feelings of the people. + +'He is not satisfied with seeing the country prosperous and respected +abroad. He wants to dazzle. His policy, domestic and foreign, is a policy +of vanity and ostentation--motives which mislead everyone both in private +and in public life. + +'His great moral merits are kindness and sympathy. He is a faithful +attached friend, and wishes to serve all who come near him. + +'His greatest moral fault is his ignorance of the difference between +right and wrong; perhaps his natural insensibility to it, his want of the +organs by which that difference is perceived--a defect which he inherits +from his uncle.' + +'The uncle,' I said, 'had at least one moral sense--he could understand +the difference between pecuniary honesty and dishonesty, a difference +which this man seems not to see, or not to value.' + +'I agree with you,' said L. 'He cannot value it, or he would not look +complacently on the peculation which surrounds him. Every six months some +magnificent hotel rises in the Champs Élysées, built by a man who had +nothing, and has been a minister for a year or two.' + +On my return I found Tocqueville with the ladies. I gave him an outline +of what L. had said. + +'No one,' he said, 'knows Louis Napoleon better than L.' + +'My opportunities of judging him have been much fewer, but as far as they +have gone, they lead to the same conclusions. L. perhaps has not dwelt +enough on his indolence. Probably as he grows older, and the effects of +his early habits tell on him, it increases. I am told that it is +difficult to make him attend to business, that he prolongs audiences +apparently to kill time. + +'One of the few of my acquaintances who go near him, was detained by him +for an hour to answer questions about the members of the _Corps +législatif_. Louis Napoleon inquired about their families, their +fortunes, their previous histories. Nothing about their personal +qualities. These are things that do not interest him. He supposes that +men differ only in externals. "That the _fond_ is the same in everyone."' + + +_April 26_.--Tocqueville spent the evening with us. + +We talked of Novels. + +'I read none,' he said, 'that end ill. Why should one voluntarily subject +oneself to painful emotions? To emotions created by an imaginary cause +and therefore impelling you to no action. I like vivid emotions, but I +seek them in real life, in society, in travelling, in business, but above +all in political business. There is no happiness comparable to political +success, when your own excitement is justified by the magnitude of the +questions at issue, and is doubled and redoubled by the sympathy of your +supporters. Having enjoyed that, I am ashamed of being excited by the +visionary sorrows of heroes and heroines. + +'I had a friend,' he continued, 'a Benedictine, who is now ninety-seven. +He was, therefore, about thirteen when Louis XVI. began to reign. He is a +man of talents and knowledge, has always lived in the world, has attended +to all that he has seen and heard, and is still unimpaired in mind, and +so strong in body that when I leave him he goes down to embrace me, after +the fashion of the eighteenth century, at the bottom of his staircase.' + +'And what effect,' I asked, 'has the contemplation of seventy years of +revolution produced in him? Does he look back, like Talleyrand, to the +_ancien régime_ as a golden age?' + +'He admits,' said Tocqueville, 'the material superiority of our own age, +but he believes that, intellectually and morally, we are far inferior to +our grandfathers. And I agree with him. Those seventy years of revolution +have destroyed our courage, our hopefulness, our self-reliance, our +public spirit, and, as respects by far the majority of the higher +classes, our passions, except the vulgarest and most selfish ones--vanity +and covetousness. Even ambition seems extinct. The men who seek power, +seek it not for itself, not as the means of doing good to their country, +but as a means of getting money and flatterers. + +'It is remarkable,' he continued, 'that women whose influence is +generally greatest under despotisms, have none now. They have lost it, +partly in consequence of the gross vulgarity of our dominant passions, +and partly from their own nullity. They are like London houses, all built +and furnished on exactly the same model, and that a most uninteresting +one. Whether a girl is bred up at home or in a convent, she has the same +masters, gets a smattering of the same accomplishments, reads the same +dull books, and contributes to society the same little contingent of +superficial information. + +'When a young lady comes out I know beforehand how her mother and her +aunts will describe her. "Elle a les goûts simples. Elle est pieuse. Elle +aime la campagne. Elle aime la lecture. Elle n'aime pas le bal. Elle +n'aime pas le monde, elle y ira seulement pour plaire à sa mère." I try +sometimes to escape from these generalities, but there is nothing behind +them.' + +'And how long,' I asked, 'does this simple, pious, retiring character +last?' + +'Till the orange flowers of her wedding chaplet are withered,' he +answered. 'In three months she goes to the _messe d'une heure_.' + +'What is the "messe d'une heure?"' I asked. + +'A priest,' he answered, 'must celebrate Mass fasting; and in strictness +ought to do so before noon. But to accommodate fashionable ladies who +cannot rise by noon, priests are found who will starve all the morning, +and say Mass in the afternoon. It is an irregular proceeding, though +winked at by the ecclesiastical authorities. Still to attend it is rather +discreditable; it is a middle term between the highly meritorious +practice of going to early Mass, and the scandalous one of never going at +all.' + +'What was the education,' I asked, 'of women under the _ancien régime_?' + +'The convent,' he answered. + +'It must have been better,' I said, 'than the present education, since +the women of that time were superior to ours.' + +'It was so far better,' he answered, 'that it did no harm. A girl at that +time was taught nothing. She came from the convent a sheet of white +paper. _Now_ her mind is a paper scribbled over with trash. The women of +that time were thrown into a world far superior to ours, and with the +sagacity, curiosity, and flexibility of French women, caught knowledge +and tact and expression from the men. + +'I knew well,' he continued, 'Madame Récamier. Few traces of her former +beauty then remained, but we were all her lovers and her slaves. The +talent, labour, and skill which she wasted in her _salon_, would have +gained and governed an empire. She was virtuous, if it be virtuous to +persuade every one of a dozen men that you wish to favour him, though +some circumstance always occurs to prevent your doing so. Every friend +thought himself preferred. She governed us by little distinctions, by +letting one man come five minutes before the others, or stay five minutes +after. Just as Louis XIV. raised one courtier to the seventh heaven by +giving him the _bougeoir_, and another by leaning on his arm, or taking +his shirt from him. + +'She said little, but knew what each man's _fort_ was, and placed from +time to time a _mot_ which led him to it. If anything were peculiarly +well said, her face brightened. You saw that her attention was always +active and always intelligent. + +'And yet I doubt whether she really enjoyed conversation. _Tenir salon_ +was to her a game, which she played well, and almost always successfully, +but she must sometimes have been exhausted by the effort. Her _salon_ was +perhaps pleasanter to us than it was to herself. + +'One of the last,' he continued, 'of that class of potentates was the +Duchesse de Dino. Her early married life was active and brilliant, but +not intellectually. It was not till about forty, when she had exhausted +other excitements, that she took to _bel esprit._ But she performed her +part as if she had been bred to it.' + +This was our last conversation. I left Paris the next day, and we never +met again. + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Tocqueville, June 30, 1858. + +I must complain, a little of your silence, my dear Senior. I hear that +before you left Paris you suffered a great deal from your throat. Is it +true, or have you recovered? + +I have not either much to boast of on the score of health since we +parted. The illness which I had in Paris became still worse, and when I +got a little better in that way I had a violent bronchial attack. I even +began to spit blood, which had not happened to me for many years, and I +am still almost reduced to silence. Still I am beginning to mend, and I +hope, please God, to be able to _speak_ to my friends when they visit me. + +You are aware that I wished to induce my wife to accompany me to the +South; but the length of the journey, the difficulties of transport, the +heat, and indeed the state of my health, were reasons which she brought +forward with so much force that we have remained here, and shall not +leave till the end of September. We still hope that you and Miss Senior +will join us the first week in that month. We shall be very happy to have +you both with us. This is no compliment ... I hope soon to be able to +enjoy more frequent communication with my English friends. A steamboat is +about to run from Cherbourg to the coast of England. We shall then be +able to visit each other as neighbours (_voisiner_). + +Between ourselves, I do not think that the events in England during the +last six months are of a nature to raise the reputation of Parliamentary +Government in the rest of the world. _A bientôt!_ + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Kensington, July 5, 1858. + +My dear Tocqueville,--If I had written to you three days ago, I should +have talked of the pleasure which my daughter and I expected from our +visit to Tocqueville. But our plans are changed. Edward Ellice is going +to pay a last visit to America, and has begged me to accompany him. He is +a great proprietor in both America and Canada--knows everybody in both +countries, and is besides a most able and interesting companion. So I +have accepted the proposal, and start on the 30th of this month for +Boston. We shall return in the beginning of November. + +I am _very_ sorry to lose the visit to Normandy, but I trust that it is +only deferred. + +We are grieved to hear that neither you nor Madame de Tocqueville are as +well as your friends could wish you to be. + +My _grippe_, after lasting for three months, has gradually subsided, and +I look to the voyage to America as a cure for all remains of it. + +I have most punctually carried your remembrances to all the persons +honoured by being inscribed on your card. + +Though I have often seen Gladstone, it has always been among many other +persons, and he has been so full of talk, that I have never been able to +allude to your subject. I mentioned it to Mrs. Gladstone on Saturday +last: she said that there was not a person in all France whom her husband +so much admired and venerated as you--therefore, if there was any +appearance of neglect, it could have arisen only from hurry or mistake. I +shall see him again on Thursday, when we are going all together to a +rehearsal of Ristori's, and I will talk to him: we shall there be quiet. + +Things here are in a very odd state. The Government is supported by the +Tories because it calls itself Tory, and by the Whigs and Radicals +because it obeys them. On such terms it may last for an indefinite time. + +Kindest regards from us all to you both. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +9 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, August 2, 1858. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I ought, as you know, to be on the Atlantic by this +time; but I was attacked, ten days ago, with lumbar neuralgia, which they +are trying, literally, to rub away. If I am quite well on the 13th, I +shall go on the 14th to America. + +I was attacked at Sir John Boileau's, where I spent some days with the +Guizots, Mrs. Austin, and Stanley and Lord John Russell. + +Guizot is in excellent spirits, and, what is rare in an ex-premier, +dwells more on the present and the future than on the past. Mrs. Austin +is placid and discursive. + +Lord John seems to me well pleased with the present state of +affairs--which he thinks, I believe with reason, will bring him back to +power. He thinks that Malmesbury and Disraeli are doing well, and praises +much the subordinates of the Government. Considering that no one believes +Lord Derby to be wise, or Disraeli to be either wise or honest, it is +marvellous that they get on as well as they do. The man who has risen +most is Lord Stanley, and, as he has the inestimable advantage of youth, +I believe him to be predestined to influence our fortunes long. + +The world, I think, is gradually coming over to an opinion, which, when I +maintained it thirty years ago, was treated as a ridiculous paradox--that +India is and always has been a great misfortune to us; and, that if it +were possible to get quit of it, we should be richer and stronger. + +But it is clear that we are to keep it, at least for my life. + +Kindest regards from us all to you and Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, August 21, 1858. + +My dear Senior,--I hear indirectly that you are extremely ill. Your +letter told me only that you were suffering from neuralgia which you +hoped to be rid of in a few days, but Mrs. Grote informs me that the +malady continues and has even assumed a more serious character. + +If you could write or dictate a few lines to me, you would please me +much. + +I am inconsolable for the failure of your American journey. I expected +the most curious results from it I hoped that your journal would enable +me once more to understand the present state of a country which has +so changed since I saw it that I feel that I now know nothing of it. What +a blessing, however, that you had not started! What would have become of +you if the painful attack from which you are suffering had seized you +2,000 miles away from home, and in the midst of that agitated society +where no one has time to be ill or to think of those who are ill? It must +be owned that Fortune has favoured you by sending you this illness just +at the moment of your departure instead of ten days later. + +I have been much interested by your visit to Sir John Boileau. You saw +there M. Guizot in one of his best lights. The energy with which he +stands up under the pressure of age and of ill-fortune, and is not only +resigned in his new situation, but as vigorous, as animated, and as +cheerful as ever, shows a character admirably tempered and a pride which +nothing will bend. + +I do not so well understand the cheerfulness of Lord John Russell. For +the spectacle now exhibited by England, in which a party finds no +difficulty in maintaining itself in power by carrying into practice ideas +which it has always opposed, and by relying for support on its natural +enemies, is not of a nature to raise the reputation of your institutions, +or of your public men. I should have a great deal more to say to you on +this and other subjects if I were not afraid of tiring you. I leave off, +therefore, by assuring you that we are longing to hear of your recovery. +Remembrances, &c. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Cannes, December 12, 1858. + +I wish, my dear friend, to reassure you myself on the false reports which +have been spread regarding my health. Far from finding myself worse than +when we arrived, I am already much better. + +I am just now an invalid who takes his daily walks of two hours in the +mountains after eating an excellent breakfast. I am not, however, well. +If I were I should not long remain a citizen of Cannes. + +I have almost renounced the use of speech, and consequently the society +of human beings; which is all the more sad as my wife, my sole companion, +is herself very unwell, not dangerously, but enough to make me +anxious. When I say my sole companion, I am wrong, for my eldest brother +has had the kindness to shut himself up with us for a month. + +Adieu, dear Senior. A thousand kind remembrances from us to all your +party. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Cannes, March 15, 1859. + +You say, my dear Senior, in the letter which I have just received, that I +like to hear from my friends, not to write to them. It is true that I +delight in the letters of my friends, especially of my English friends; +but it is a calumny to say that I do not like to answer them. It is true +that I am in your debt: one great cause is, that a man who lives at +Cannes knows nothing of what is passing. My solitary confinement, which +is bad enough in every way, makes me a bad correspondent, by depressing +my spirits and rendering every exertion painful. + +Mrs. Grote, in a very kind and interesting letter, which I received from +her yesterday, says, that Lord Brougham, on his late arrival in London, +gave a lamentable description of my health. If he confined himself to +January, he was right. It is impossible to exaggerate my sufferings +during that month. But, since that time, all has changed, as if from day +to night, or rather from night to day. To talk now of what I was in +January is like making a speech about the Spanish marriages. + +I am grieved to find that you have suffered so much this year from +bronchitis. I fear that your larynx can scarcely endure an English +winter. But it is very hard to be obliged to expatriate oneself every +year. I fear, however, that such must be my fate for some winters to +come, and the pain with which I anticipate it makes me sympathise more +acutely with you. + +We know not, as yet, whether we are to have peace or war. Whichever it +be, a mortal blow has struck the popularity of Louis Napoleon. What +maintained him was the belief that he was the protector of our material +interests: interests to which we now sacrifice all others. The events of +the last month show, with the utmost vividness, that these very interests +may be endangered by the arbitrary and irrational will of a despot. The +feelings, therefore, which were his real support are now bitterly hostile +to him. + +I feel, in short, that a considerable change in our Government is +approaching. + +Even our poor _Corps législatif_, a week ago, refused to take into +consideration the Budget, until it was informed whether it were to be a +war budget or a peace budget. Great was the fury of those who represented +the Government. They exclaimed that the Chamber misapprehended its +jurisdiction, and that it had nothing to do with political questions. The +Chamber, however, or rather its committee on the Budget, held its ground, +and extorted from the Government some explanations. + +Adieu, my dear Senior. Say everything that is kind to the Grotes, the +Reeves, the Lewises--in short, to all our common friends, and believe in +the sincerity of my friendship. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[This was M. de Tocqueville's last letter to Mr. Senior. He died on the +16th of April.--ED.] + + + +Hotel Westminster, Rue de la Paix, April 25, 1859. + +My dear Madame de Tocqueville,--I was in the country, and it was only +last Friday, as I was passing through London on my way to Paris, that I +heard of the irreparable loss that we, indeed that France and Europe, +have suffered. + +It cannot alleviate your distress to be told how universal and deep is +the sympathy with it--quite as much in England as in France. + +It has thrown a gloom over society, not only over that portion which had +the happiness and the honour of intimacy with M.A. de Tocqueville, but +even of his acquaintances, and of those too whose acquaintance was only +with his works. + +I have, as you know, been for about a year, the depositary of a large +packet confided to me by M. de Tocqueville last spring. About six months +ago he begged me to return it to him, in Paris, when I had a safe +opportunity. No such opportunity offered itself, so that the packet +remains in my library awaiting your orders. + +Since I began this letter I have been informed by M. de Corcelle that you +are likely to be soon in Paris. I shall not venture to send it by the +post, lest it should cross you on the road. + +I shall anxiously inquire as to your arrival, in the hope that you will +allow one who most sincerely loved and admired your husband, morally and +intellectually, to see you as soon as you feel yourself equal to it. + +Believe me, my dear Madame de Tocqueville, with the truest sympathy, +yours most truly, + +NASSAU W. SENIOR. + +[Mr. Senior continued an active correspondence with Madame de +Tocqueville, and we saw her whenever we were in Paris. Our long-promised +visit to Tocqueville took place in 1861.--ED.] + + + + + +JOURNAL. + +_Tocqueville, Sunday, August_ 11, 1861.--We left Paris on Saturday +evening, got to Valognes by the Cherbourg railway by six the next +morning, and were furnished there with a good carriage and horses, which +took us, and our servants and luggage, in three hours to Tocqueville. + +Valognes has been immortalised by Le Sage in Turcaret. It is a town of +about 6,000 inhabitants, built of granite, and therefore little altered +from what it was 200 years ago. Over many of the doors are the armorial +bearings of the provincial nobility who made it a small winter capital: +the practice is not wholly extinct. I asked who was the inhabitant of an +imposing old house. 'M. de Néridoze,' answered our landlady, 'd'une +très-haute noblesse.' I went over one in which Madame de Tocqueville +thinks of passing the winter. It is of two stories. The ground floor +given up to kitchen, laundry, and damp-looking servants' rooms; the first +floor in this form:-- + +[Illustration:] + + Bedroom. + Door + Stairs Bedroom. + +Bedroom. Drawing-room. Dining-room. Hall. Bedroom. + + +The longer side looks into the street, the shorter, which is to be Madame +de Tocqueville's bedroom, into a small garden. + +_August_ 11.--At Tocqueville we find M. and Madame de Beaumont, their +second son--a charming boy of ten years old, and Ampère. + +It is eleven years since I was here. Nothing has been done to the +interior of the house. This is about the plan of ground floor. + +[Illustration:] + + Offices + Tower + staircase Offices. + +Drawing-room. Billiard-room. Dining-room. + Hall. + Tower + +The first floor corresponds to the ground floor, except that on the +western sides a passage runs, into which the library, which is over the +drawing-room, and the bedrooms open. The second consists of garrets. My +room is on the first floor of the eastern tower, with deep windows +looking south and east. The room dedicated by Tocqueville to Ampère is +above me. Creepers in great luxuriance cover the walls up to the first +floor windows. The little park consists of from thirty to forty acres, +well wooded and traversed by an avenue in this form, leading from the +road to the front of the house. + + +* * * * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * * * + + * * + + * * + + * * + + * * + +To the west the ground rises to a wild common commanding the sea, the +lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, La Hogue, and a green plain covered +with woods and hedgerow trees, and studded with church towers and spires +of the picturesque forms of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth +centuries. It has no grand features, except the sea and the rocky coast +of the Cherbourg peninsula, but it is full of variety and beauty. I can +understand Tocqueville's delight in the house and in the country. The +weather is perfect; the thermometer in my bedroom, the walls of which are +about six feet thick, is 71°, in the sun it is 80°; but there is a strong +breeze. + +_August 12th._--Madame de Beaumont, my daughter, and Ampère drove, and +Beaumont and I walked, to the coast about three miles and a half off. Our +road ran through the gay wooded plain which I have described. + +We talked of Italian affairs. + +'Up to the annexation of Tuscany,' said Beaumont, 'I fully approve of all +that has been done. Parma, Modena, and Tuscany were eager to join +Piedmont. During the anxious interval of six months, while the decision +of Louis Napoleon was doubtful, the conduct of the Tuscans was above all +praise. Perhaps the general wish of the people of Romagna justified the +Piedmontese in seizing it. Though there the difficult question as to the +expediency of stripping the Pope of his temporal power rises. + +'Perhaps, too, the facility with which Sicily submitted was a +justification. But I cannot pardon the seizure of Naples. It is clear to +me that if the Neapolitans had been left to themselves they would have +driven out the Garibaldians. Garibaldi himself felt this: nothing but a +conviction of its necessity would have induced him to call for the +assistance of the Piedmontese. I do not believe that in defiance of all +international law-indeed in defiance of all international +morality--Cavour would have given that assistance if the public opinion +of Piedmont had allowed him to refuse it. And what is the consequence? A +civil war which is laying waste the country. The Piedmontese call their +adversaries brigands. There are without doubt among them men whose motive +is plunder, but the great majority are in arms in defence of the +independence of their country. They are no more brigands now than they +were when they resisted King Joseph. The Piedmontese are as much +foreigners to them as the French were: as much hated and as lawfully +resisted. They may be conquered, they probably will be conquered. An +ignorant corrupt population, inhabiting a small country, unsupported by +its higher classes--its fleet, its fortresses, and all the machinery of +its government, in the hands of its enemies--cannot permanently resist; +but the war will be atrocious, and the more cruel on the part of Piedmont +because it is unjust.' + +'You admit,' I said, 'that the higher classes side with Piedmont?' + +'I admit that,' he answered; 'but you must recollect how few they are in +number, and how small is the influence which they exercise. In general, I +detest universal suffrage, I detest democracy and everything belonging to +it, but if it were possible to obtain honestly and truly the opinion of +the people, I would ask it and obey it. I believe that it would be better +to allow the Neapolitans, ignorant and debased as they are, to choose +their own sovereign and their own form of government, than to let them be +forced by years of violence to become the unwilling subjects of +Piedmont.' + +'Do you believe,' I said, 'that it is possible to obtain through +universal suffrage the honest and true opinion of a people?' + +'Not,' he answered, 'if the Government interferes. I believe that in +Savoy not one person in fifty was in favour of annexation to France. But +this is an extreme case. + +'The Bourbons are deservedly hated and despised by the Neapolitans, the +Piedmontese are not despised, but are hated still more intensely. There +is no native royal stock. The people are obviously unfit for a Republic. +It would be as well, I think, to let them select a King as to impose one +on them. The King whom Piedmont, without a shadow of right, is imposing +on them is the one whom they most detest.' + +'If I go to Rome,' I asked, 'in the winter, whom shall I find there?' + +'I think,' he answered, 'that it will be the Piedmontese. The present +state of things is full of personal danger to Louis Napoleon. As his +policy is purely selfish, he will, at any sacrifice, put an end to it. +That sacrifice may be the unity of Catholicism. The Pope, no longer a +sovereign, will be under the influence of the Government in whose +territory he resides, and the other Catholic Powers may follow the +example of Greece and of Russia, and create each an independent Spiritual +Government. It would be a new excitement for _Celui-ci_ to make himself +Head of the Church.' + +'Assassinations,' I said, 'even when successful have seldom produced +important and permanent effects, but Orsini's failure has influenced and +is influencing the destinies of Europe.' + +'If I were an Italian liberal,' said Beaumont, 'I would erect a statue to +him. The policy and almost the disposition of Louis Napoleon have been +changed by the _attentat_. He has become as timid as he once was +intrepid. He began by courting the Pope and the clergy. He despised the +French assassins, who were few in number and unconnected, and who had +proved their unskilfulness on Louis Philippe; but Orsini showed him that +he had to elect between the Pope and the Austrians on one side, and the +Carbonari on the other. He has chosen the alliance of the Carbonari. He +has made himself their tool, and will continue to do so. + +'They are the only enemies whom he fears, at least for the present. + +'France is absolutely passive. The uneducated masses from whom he holds +his power are utterly indifferent to liberty, and he has too much sense +to irritate them by wanton oppression. They do not know that he is +degrading the French character, they do not even feel that he is wasting +the capital of France, they do not know that he is adding twenty millions +every year to the national debt. They think of his loans merely as +investments, and the more profligately extravagant are the terms and the +amount, the better they like them.' + +'Ten years ago,' I said, 'the cry that I heard was, "Ça ne durera pas."' + +'That was my opinion,' he answered; 'indeed, it was the opinion of +everybody. I thought the Duc de Broglie desponding when he gave it three +years. We none of us believed that the love of liberty was dead in +France.' + +'It is not,' I said, 'dead, for among the higher classes it still lives, +and among the lower it never existed.' + +'Perhaps,' he answered, 'our great mistakes were that we miscalculated +the courage of the educated classes, and the degree in which universal +suffrage would throw power into the hands of the uneducated. Not a human +being in my commune reads a newspaper or indeed reads anything: yet it +contains 300 electors. In the towns there is some knowledge and some +political feeling, but for political purposes they are carefully swamped +by being joined to uneducated agricultural districts. + +'Still I think I might enter the _Corps législatif_ for our capital Le +Mans. Perhaps at a general election twenty liberals might come in. But +what good could they do? The opposition in the last session strengthened +Louis Napoleon. It gave him the prestige of liberality and success.' + +'You think him, then,' I said, 'safe for the rest of his life?' + +'Nothing,' he answered, 'is safe in France, and the thing most unsafe is +a Government. Our caprices are as violent as they are sudden. They +resemble those of a half-tamed beast of prey, which licks its keeper's +hand to-day, and may tear him to-morrow. But if his life be not so long +as to enable the fruits of his follies to show themselves in their +natural consequences--unsuccessful war, or defeated diplomacy, or +bankruptcy, or heavily increased taxation--he may die in the Tuileries. + +'But I infer from his conduct that he thinks an insurrection against his +tyranny possible, and that he is preparing to meet it by a popular war-- +that is to say, by a war with England. + +'I found my opinion not so much on the enormous maritime preparations, as +on the long-continued systematic attempts to raise against England our +old national enmity. All the provincial papers are in the hands of the +Government. The constantly recurring topic of every one of them is, the +perfidy and the malignity of England. She is described as opposing all +our diplomacy, as resisting all our aggrandisement, as snarling and +growling at our acquisition of Savoy, as threatening us if we accept +Sardinia, as trying to drive the Pope from Rome because we protect him, +as trying to separate the Danubian provinces because we wish to unite +them, as preventing the Suez Canal because we proposed it--in short, on +every occasion and in every part of the world as putting herself in our +way. To these complaints, which are not without foundation, are added +others of which our ignorant people do not see the absurdity. They are +told that the enormous conscription, and the great naval expenditure, are +rendered necessary by the aggressive armaments of England. That you are +preparing to lay waste all our coasts, to burn our arsenals, to subsidise +against us a new Coalition, and perhaps lead its armies again to Paris. + +'The Emperor's moderation, his love of England, and his love of peace, +are said to be the only obstacles to, a violent rupture. But they are +prepared for these obstacles at length giving way. "The Emperor," they +are told, "is getting tired of his insolent, and hostile, and quarrelsome +allies. He is getting tired of a peace which is more expensive than a +war. Some day the cup will flow over. 'Il en finira avec eux,' will +dictate a peace in London, will free the oppressed Irish nationality, +will make England pay the expense of the war, and then having conquered +the only enemy that France can fear, will let her enjoy, for the first +time, real peace, a reduced conscription, and low taxation." + +'Such is the language of all the provincial papers and of all the +provincial authorities, and it has its effect. There never was a time +when a war with England would be so popular. He does not wish for one, he +knows that it would be extremely dangerous, but he is accustomed to play +for great stakes, and if submitting to any loss of his popularity, or to +any limitation of his power is the alternative, he will run the risk. He +keeps it, as his last card, in reserve, to be played only in extremity, +but to be ready when that extremity has arrived.' + +_Tuesday, August_ 13.--We drove to La Prenelle, a church at the point of +a high table-land running from Tocqueville towards the bay of La Hogue, +and commanding nearly all the Cherbourg peninsula. On three sides of us +was the sea, separated from us by a wooded, well-inhabited plain, whose +churches rose among the trees, and containing the towns and lofty +lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, Vast, and La Hogue. We sat on the +point from whence James II. saw the battle of La Hogue, and admired the +courage of his English rebels. + +Ampère has spent much of his life in Rome, and is engaged on a work in +which its history is to be illustrated by its monuments. + +We talked of the Roman people. + +'Nothing,' said Ampère, 'can be more degraded than the higher classes. +With the exception of Antonelli, who is charming, full of knowledge, +intelligence, and grace, and of the Duke of Sermoneta, who is almost +equally distinguished, there is scarcely a noble of my acquaintance who +has any merits, moral or intellectual. + +'They are surrounded by the finest ancient and modern art, and care +nothing for it. The eminent men of every country visit Rome--the Romans +avoid them for they have nothing to talk to them about. + +'Politics are of course unsafe, literature they have none. They never +read. A cardinal told me something which I doubted, and I asked him where +he had found it. "In certi libri," he answered. + +'Another, who has a fine old library, begged me to use it. "You will do +the room good," he said. "No one has been there for years." Even scandal +and gossip must be avoided under an Ecclesiastical Government. + +'They never ride, they never shoot, they never visit their estates, they +give no parties; if it were not for the theatre and for their lawsuits +they would sink into vegetable life.' + +'Sermoneta,' I said, 'told me that many of his lawsuits were hereditary, +and would probably descend to his son.' + +'If Sermoneta,' said Ampère, 'with his positive intelligence and his +comparative vigour, cannot get through them, what is to be expected from +others? They have, however, one merit, one point of contact with the rest +of the world--their hatred of their Government. They seem to perceive, +not clearly, for they perceive nothing clearly, but they dimly see, that +the want of liberty is a still greater misfortune to the higher classes +than to the lower. + +'But the people are a fine race. Well led they will make excellent +soldiers. They have the cruelty of their ancestors, perhaps I ought to +say of their predecessors, but they have also their courage.' + +'They showed,' said Beaumont, 'courage in the defence of Rome, but +courage behind walls is the commonest of all courages. No training could +make the Spaniards stand against us in the open field, but they were +heroes in Saragossa. The caprices of courage and cowardice are +innumerable. The French have no moral courage, they cannot stand +ridicule, they cannot encounter disapprobation, they bow before +oppression; a French soldier condemned by a court-martial cries for mercy +like a child. The same man in battle appears indifferent to death. The +Spaniard runs away without shame, but submits to death when it is +inevitable without terror. None of the prisoners taken on either side in +the Spanish civil war asked for pardon.' + +'Indifference to life,' I said, 'and indifference to danger have little +in common. General Fénelon told me that in Algeria he had more than once +to preside at an execution. No Arab showed any fear. Once there were two +men, one of whom was to be flogged, the other to be shot. A mistake was +made and they were going to shoot the wrong man. It was found out in +time, but neither of the men seemed to care about it; yet they +would probably have run away in battle. The Chinese are not brave, but +you can hire a man to be beheaded in your place.' + +'So,' said Ampère, 'you could always hire a substitute in our most +murderous wars, when in the course of a year a regiment was killed twice +over. It was hiring a man, not indeed to be beheaded, but to be shot for +you.' + +'The destructiveness,' said Beaumont, 'of a war is only gradually known. +It is found out soonest in the villages when the deaths of the conscripts +are heard of, or are suspected from their never returning; but in the +towns, from which the substitutes chiefly come, it may be long +undiscovered. Nothing is known but what is officially published, and the +Government lies with an audacity which seems always to succeed. If it +stated the loss of men in a battle at one half of the real number, people +would fancy that it ought to be doubled, and so come near to the truth; +but it avows only one-tenth or only one-twentieth, and then the amount of +falsehood is underestimated.' + +'Marshal Randon,' I said, 'told me that the whole loss in the Italian +campaign was under 7,000 men.' + +'That is a good instance,' said Beaumont. 'It certainly was 50,000, +perhaps 70,000. But I am guilty of a _délit_ in saying so, and you will +be guilty of a _délit_ if you repeat what I have said. I remember the +case of a man in a barber's shop in Tours, to whom the barber said that +the harvest was bad. He repeated the information, and was punished by +fine and imprisonment for having spread _des nouvelles alarmantes_. Truth +is no excuse; in fact it is an aggravation, for the truer the news the +more alarming.' + +'In time of peace,' I asked, 'what proportion of the conscripts return +after their six years of service?' + +'About three-quarters,' answered Beaumont. + +'Then,' I said, 'as you take 100,000 conscripts every year even in peace, +you lose 25,000 of your best young men every year?' + +'Certainly,' said Beaumont. + +'And are the 75,000 who return improved or deteriorated?' I asked. + +'Improved,' said Ampère; 'they are _dégourdis_, they are educated, they +submit to authority, they know how to shift for themselves.' + +'Deteriorated,' said Beaumont. 'A garrison life destroys the habits of +steady industry, it impairs skill. The returned conscript is more vicious +and less honest than the peasant who has not left his village.' + +'And what was the loss,' I asked, 'in the late war?' + +'At least twice as great,' said Beaumont, 'as it is in peace. Half of +those who were taken perished. The country would not have borne the +prolongation of the Crimean War.' + +'These wars,' I said, 'were short and successful. A war with England can +scarcely be short, and yet you think that he plans one?' + +'I think,' said Beaumont, 'that he plans one, but only in the event of +his encountering any serious difficulty at home. You must not infer from +the magnitude of his naval expenditure that he expects one. + +'You look at the expense of those preparations, and suppose that so great +a sacrifice would not be made in order to meet an improbable emergency. +But expense is no sacrifice to him. He likes it. He has the morbid +taste for it which some tyrants have had for blood, which his uncle had +for war. Then he is incapable of counting. When he lived at Arenenburg he +used to give every old soldier who visited him an order on Viellard his +treasurer for money. In general the chest was empty. Viellard used to +remonstrate but without effect. The day perhaps after his orders had been +dishonoured he gave new ones.' + +'Is it true,' I asked, 'that the civil list is a couple of years' income +in debt?' + +I know nothing about it,' said Beaumont; 'in fact, nobody knows anything +about anything, but it is highly probable. Everybody who asks for +anything gets it, everybody is allowed to waste, everybody is allowed to +rob, every folly of the Empress is complied with. Fould raised +objections, and was dismissed. + +'She is said to have a room full of revolutionary relics: there is the +bust of Marie Antoinette, the nose broken at one of the sacks of the +Tuileries. There is a picture of Simon beating Louis XVII. Her poor child +has been frightened by it, and she is always dwelling on the dangers of +her position.' + +'So,' I said, 'did Queen Adelaide--William IV.'s Queen. From the passing +of the Reform Bill she fully expected to die on the scaffold.' + +'There is more reason,' he answered, 'for the Empress's fears.' + +'Not,' I said, 'if she fears the scaffold. Judicial murder, at least in +that form, is out of fashion. Cayenne and Lambressa are your guillotines, +and the Empress is safe from them.' + +'But there are other modes of violent death,' he answered; 'from one of +which she escaped almost by miracle.' + +'How did she behave,' I asked, 'at the _attentat?_' + +'Little is known,' he answered, 'except that the Emperor said to her, as +he led her upstairs to her box: "Allons, il faut faire notre métier."' + +'Then she is disturbed by religious fears. The little prince has been +taught to say to his father every morning: "Papa, ne faites pas de mal à +mon parrain." The Pope was his godfather.' + +'If the Emperor dies, the real power will pass into the hands of Prince +Napoleon. And very dangerous hands they will be. He has more talent than +the Emperor, and longer views. Louis Napoleon is a revolutionist from +selfishness. Prince Napoleon is selfish enough, but he has also passion. +He detests everything that is venerable, everything that is established +or legal. + +'There is little value now for property or for law, though the Government +professes to respect them. What, will it be when the Government professes +to hate them?' + +_Wednesday, August_ 14.--We talked at breakfast of Rome. + +'Is there,' said Beaumont to Ampère, 'still an Inquisition at Rome?' + +'There is,' said Ampère, 'but it is torpid. It punishes bad priests, but +does little else.' + +'If a Roman,' I asked, 'were an avowed infidel, would it take notice of +him?' + +'Probably not,' said Ampère, 'but his _curé_ might--not for his +infidelity, but for his avowing it. The _curé_ who has always the powers +of a _commissaire de police,_ might put him in prison if he went into a +_café_ and publicly denied the Immaculate Conception, or if he neglected +going to church or to confession: but the Inquisition no longer cares +about opinions.' + +'Is there much infidelity,' I asked, 'in Rome?' + +'Much,' said Ampère, 'among the laity. The clergy do not actively +disbelieve. They go through their functions without ever seriously +inquiring whether what they have to teach be true or false. No persons +were more annoyed by the Mortara[1] business than the clergy, with the +exception of Antonelli. He hates and fears the man who set it on foot, +the Archbishop of Bologna, and therefore was glad to see him expose +himself, and lose all hope of the Secretaryship, but he took care to +prevent the recurrence of such a scandal. He revived an old law +prohibiting Jews from keeping Christian nurses. But he could scarcely +order restitution. According to the Church it would have been giving the +child to the Devil, and, what is worse, robbing God of him. The Pope's +piety is selfish. His great object is his own salvation. He would not +endanger that, to confer any benefit upon, or to avert any evil from +Rome; or indeed from the whole world. This makes him difficult to +negotiate with. If anything is proposed to him which his confessor +affirms to be dangerous to his soul, he listens to no arguments. As for +Mortara himself, he is a poor creature. A friend of mine went to see him +in his convent. All that he could get from him was: + +'"Sono venuti i Carabinieri." + +'"And what did they do to you?" + +'"M' hanno portato quì." + +'"What more?" + +'"M' hanno dato pasticci; erano molto buoni." + +'What is most teasing,' continued Ampère, 'in the Roman Government is not +so much its active oppression as its torpidity. It hates to act. An +Englishman had with great difficulty obtained permission to light Rome +with gas. He went to the Government in December, and told them that +everything was ready, and that the gas would be lighted on the 1st of +January. + +'"Could you not," they answered, "put it off till April?" + +'"But it is in winter," he replied; "that it is wanted. Every thing is +ready. Why should we wait?" + +'"It is a new thing," they replied; "people will be frightened. It may +have consequences. At least put it off till March." + +'"But they will be as much frightened in March," he replied. + +'"If it must be done," they said, "as a kindness to His Holiness and to +us put it off till February." + +'There is, however, one sort of oppression which even we should find it +difficult to tolerate. + +'A Monsignore has a young friend without money, but an excellent Catholic +and an excellent politician, a fervid believer in the Immaculate +Conception and in the excellence of the Papal Government. He wishes to +reward such admirable opinions: but the Pope has little to give. +Monsignore looks out for some young heiress, sends for her father, +describes his pious and loyal _protégé_, and proposes marriage. Her +father objects--says that his daughter cannot afford to marry a poor man, +or that she does not wish to marry at all--or that he or she has some +other preference. + +'Monsignore insists. He assures the father that what he is proposing is +most favourable to the salvation of his daughter, that he suggests it +principally for the benefit of her soul, and that the father's objections +are inspired by the Evil One. The father breaks off the conversation and +goes home. He finds that his daughter has disappeared. He returns furious +to Monsignore, is received with the utmost politeness and is informed +that his daughter is perfectly safe under the protection of a cardinal +who himself did her the honour of fetching her in his gilded coach. "You +have only," the Monsignore says, "to be reasonable, and she shall be +returned to you." + +'The father flies to the cardinal. + +'The same politeness and the same answer. + +'"Do not oppose," he is told, "the will of the Pope, who, in this matter, +seeks only your daughter's happiness here and hereafter. She is now with +me. If you will give up your sinful obstinacy she shall be restored to +you to-day. If not, it will be our duty to place her in a convent, where +she will be taken the utmost care of, but she will not leave it except to +marry the person whom His Holiness thinks most fitted to promote the +welfare of her soul." + +'I have known several cases in which this attempt has been made. With +such timid slaves as the Roman nobility it always succeeds.' + +[Footnote 1: The Jewish child who was taken away from his parents and +converted.--ED.] + + +_Thursday, August_ 15.--This is the fête of St. Louis--the great fête of +Tocqueville. Madame de Tocqueville and Madame de Beaumont spent much of +the morning in church. + +Beaumont and his son walked to the coast to bathe. Minnie, Ampère, and I +strolled among the deep shady lanes of the plateau above the castle. +Throughout Normandy the fields are small and are divided by mounds +planted with trees. The farmhouses, and even the cottages, are built of +primitive rock, granite, or old red sandstone. At a distance, peeping out +of the trees that surround them, they look pretty, but they, have more +than the usual French untidiness. The outhouses are roofless, the +farmyards are full of pools and dung heaps, which often extend into the +road; and the byroads themselves are quagmires when they do not consist +of pointed stones. I was struck by the paucity of the children and the +absence of new houses. The population of Normandy is diminishing. + +We conversed on the subject of Italy. + +'If we are in Rome next winter,' I asked, 'shall we find the French +there?' + +'I think not,' said Ampère; 'I think that you will find only the +Piedmontese. + +'Every day that Louis Napoleon holds Rome is a day of danger to him, a +danger slight perhaps now, but serious if the occupation be prolonged. +The Anti-papal party, and it includes almost all that are liberal and all +that are energetic, are willing to give him time, but not an indefinite +time. They are quiet only because they trust him. He is a magician who +has sold himself to the Devil. The Devil is patient, but he will not be +cheated. The Carbonari will support Louis Napoleon as long as he is doing +their work, and will allow him to do it in his own way and to take his +own time, as long as they believe he is doing it. But woe to him if they +believe that he is deceiving them. I suspect that they are becoming +impatient, and I suspect too, that he is becoming impatient. This quarrel +between Mérode and Goyon is significative. I do not believe that Goyon +used the words imputed to him. We shall probably keep Civita Vecchia, but +we shall give up Rome to the Piedmontese.' + +'And will the Pope,' I asked, 'remain?' + +'Not this Pope,' said Ampère, 'but his successor. Nor do I see the great +evil of the absence of the Pope from Rome. Popes have often been absent +before, sometimes for long periods.' + +'Most of my French friends,' I said, 'are opposed to Italian Unity as +mischievous to France.' + +'I do not believe,' he answered, 'in the submission of Naples to this +Piedmontese dynasty, but I shall be delighted to see all Italy north of +the Neapolitan territory united. + +'I do not think that we have anything to fear from the kingdom of Italy. +It is as likely to be our friend as to be our enemy. But the Neapolitans, +even if left to themselves, would not willingly give up their +independence, and _Celui-ci_ is trying to prevent their doing so.' + +'What do _they_ wish,' I asked, 'and what does _he_ wish?' + +'I believe,' he answered, 'that _their_ wishes are only negative. + +'They do not wish to recall the Bourbons, and they are resolved not to +keep the Piedmontese. _His_ wish I believe to be to put his cousin there. +Prince Napoleon himself refused Tuscany. It is too small, but he would +like Naples, and Louis Napoleon would be glad to get rid of him. What +would England say?' + +'If we believed,' I said, 'in the duration of a Bonaparte dynasty in +France, we should, of course, object to the creation of one in Naples. +But if, as we think it probable, the Bonapartists have to quit France, I +do not see few we should be injured by their occupying the throne of +Naples. + +'I should object to them if I were a Neapolitan. All their instincts are +despotic, democratic, and revolutionary. But even they are better than +the late king was. What chance have the Murats?' + +'None,' said Ampère. 'They have spoiled their game, if they had a game, +by their precipitation. The Emperor has disavowed them, the Neapolitans +do not care for them. The Prince de Leuchtenberg, grandson of Eugène +Beauharnais, has been talked of. He is well connected, related to many of +the reigning families of the Continent, and is said to be intelligent and +well educated.' + +'If Naples,' I said, 'is to be detached from the kingdom of Italy, Sicily +ought to be detached from Naples. There is quite as much mutual +antipathy.' + +'Would you like to take it?' he asked. + +'Heaven forbid!' I answered. 'It would be another Corfu on a larger +scale. The better we governed them, the more they would hate us. The only +chance for them is to have a king of their own.' + +_August_ 15.--In the evening Ampère read to us a comedy called 'Beatrix,' +by a writer of some reputation, and a member of the Institut. + +It was very bad, full of exaggerated sentiments, forced situations, and +the cant of philanthropic despotism. + +An actress visits the court of a German grand duke. He is absent. His +mother, the duchess, receives her as an equal. The second son falls in +love with her at first sight and wishes to marry her. She is inclined to +consent, when another duchy falls in, the elder duke resigns to his +brother, he becomes king, presses their marriage, his mother does not +oppose, and thereupon Beatrix makes a speech, orders her horses, and +drives off to act somewhere else. + +Ampère reads admirably, but no excellence of reading could make such +absurdities endurable. It was written for Ristori, who acted Beatrix in +French with success. + + +_Friday, August_ 16.--We talked at breakfast of 1793. + +'It is difficult,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'to believe that the French +of that day were our ancestors.' + +'They resembled you,' I said, 'only in two things: in military courage, +and in political cowardice.' + +'They had,' she replied, 'perhaps more passive courage than we have.[1] +My great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my great-aunt, were +guillotined on the same day. My great-great-grandmother was ninety years +old. When interrogated, she begged them to speak loud, as she was deaf. +'Écrivez,' said Fouquier Tinville, 'que la citoyenne Noailles a conspiré +sourdement contre la République.' They were dragged to the Place de la +République in the same _tombereau_, and sat waiting their turn on the +same bench. + +'My great-aunt was young and beautiful. The executioner, while fastening +her to the plank, had a rose in his mouth. The Abbé de Noailles, who was +below the scaffold, disguised, to give them, at the risk of his life, a +sign of benediction, was asked how they looked. + +'"Comme si,' he said, 'elles allaient à la messe."' + +'The habit,' said Ampère, 'of seeing people die produces indifference +even to one's own death. You see that among soldiers. You see it in +epidemics. But this indifference, or, to use a more proper word, this +resignation, helped to prolong the Reign of Terror. If the victims had +resisted, if, like Madame du Barry, they had struggled with the +executioner, it would have excited horror.' + +'The cries of even a pig,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'make it disagreeable +to kill it.' + +'Sanson,' I said, 'long survived the Revolution; he made a fortune and +lived in retirement at Versailles. A lady was run away with between +Versailles and Paris. An elderly man, at considerable risk, stopped her +horse. She was very grateful, but could not get from him his name. At +last she traced him, and found that it was Sanson.' + +'Sanson,' said Beaumont, 'may have been an honest man. Whenever a place +of _bourreau_ is vacant, there are thirty or forty candidates, and they +always produce certificates of their extraordinary kindness and humanity. +It seems to be the post most coveted by men eminent for their +benevolence.' + +'How many have you?' I asked. + +'Eighty-six,' he answered. 'One for each department.' + +'And how many executions?' + +'About one hundred a year in all France.' + +'And what is the salary?' + +'Perhaps a couple of thousand francs a year.' + +'Really,' said Ampère, 'it is one of the best parts of the patronage of +the Minister of the Interior. _M. le Bourreau_ gets more than a thousand +francs for each operation.' + +'We pay by the piece,' I said, 'and find one operator enough for all +England.' + +'A friend of mine,' said Beaumont, had a remarkably good Swiss servant. +His education was far above his station, and we could not find what had +been his birth or his canton. + +'Suddenly he became agitated and melancholy, and at last told my friend +that he must leave him, and why. His father was the hereditary _bourreau_ +of a Swiss canton. To the office was attached an estate, to be forfeited +if the office were refused. He had resolved to take neither, and, to +avoid being solicited, had left his country and changed his name. But his +family had traced him, had informed him of his father's death, and had +implored him to accept the succession. He was the only son, and his +mother and sisters would be ruined, if he allowed it to pass to the next +in order of inheritance, a distant cousin. He had not been able to +persist in his refusal.' + +'The husband of an acquaintance of mine,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'used +to disappear for two or three hours every day. He would not tell her for +what purpose. At last she found out that he was employed in the _chambre +noire_, the department of the police by which letters passing through the +post are opened. The duties were well paid, and she could not persuade +him to give them up. They were on uneasy terms, when an accident threw a +list of all the names of the _employés_ in the _chambre noire_, into the +hands of an opposition editor, who published them in his newspaper. + +'She then separated from him.' + +'If the Post-office,' I said, 'were not a Government monopoly, if +everyone had a right to send his letters in the way that he liked best, +there would be some excuse. But the State compels you, under severe +penalties, to use its couriers, undertaking, not tacitly but expressly, +to respect the secrecy of your correspondence, and then systematically +violates it.' + +'I should have said,' answered Ampère, 'not expressly but tacitly.' + +'No,' I replied; 'expressly. Guizot, when Minister for Foreign Affairs, +proclaimed from the tribune, that in France the secrecy of correspondence +was, under all circumstances, inviolable. This has never been officially +contradicted. + +'The English Post-office enters into no such engagements. Any letters may +be legally opened, under an order from a Secretary of State.' + +'Are prisoners in England,' asked Beaumont, 'allowed to correspond with +their friends?' + +'I believe,' I answered, 'that their letters pass through the Governor's +hands, and that he opens them, or not, at his discretion.' + +'Among the tortures,' said Ampère, 'which Continental despots delight to +inflict on their state prisoners the privation of correspondence is one.' + +'In ordinary life,' I said, 'the educated endure inaction worse than the +ignorant. A coachman sits for hours on his box without feeling _ennui_. +If his master had to sit quiet all that time, inside the carriage, he +would tear his hair from impatience. + +'But the educated seem to tolerate the inactivity of imprisonment better +than their inferiors. We find that our ordinary malefactors cannot endure +solitary imprisonment for more than a year--seldom indeed so long. The +Italian prisoners whom I have known, Zucchi, Borsieri, Poerio, +Gonfalonieri, and Pellico, endured imprisonment lasting from ten to +seventeen years without much injury to mind or body.' + +'The spirit of Pellico,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'was broken. When +released, he gave himself up to devotion and works of charity. Perhaps +the humility, resignation, and submission of his book made it still +more mischievous to the Austrian Government. The reader's indignation +against those who could so trample on so unresisting a victim becomes +fierce.' + +'If the Austrians,' I said, 'had been wise, they would have shot instead +of imprisoning them. Their deaths would have been forgotten--their +imprisonment has contributed much to the general odium which is +destroying the Austrian Empire.' + +'It would have been wiser,' said Beaumont, 'but it would have been more +merciful, and therefore it was not done. But you talk of all these men as +solitarily imprisoned. Some of them had companions.' + +'Yes,' I said, 'but they complained that one permanent companion was +worse than solitude. Gonfalonieri said, that one could not be in the same +room, with the same man, a year without hating him. + +'One of the Neapolitan prisoners was chained for some time to a brigand. +Afterwards the brigand was replaced by a gentleman. He complained +bitterly of the change. + +'The brigand,' said Minnie, 'was his slave, the gentleman had a will of +his own.' + +'How did M. de La Fayette,'[2] I asked Madame de Beaumont, 'bear his five +years' imprisonment at Olmutz?' + +'His health,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'was good, but the miseries of his +country and the sufferings of his wife made him very unhappy. When my +grandmother came to him, it was two days before she had strength to tell +him that all his and her family had perished. I was once at Olmutz, and +saw the one room which they had inhabited. It was damp and dark. She +asked to be allowed to leave it for a time for better medical treatment +and change of air. It was granted only on the condition that she should +never return. She refused. The rheumatic attacks which the state of the +prison had produced, continued and increased: she was hopelessly ill when +they were released--and died soon afterwards. The sense of wrong +aggravated their sufferings, for their imprisonment was a gross and +wanton violation of all law, international and municipal. My grandfather +was not an Austrian subject; he had committed no offence against Austria. +She seized him simply because he was a liberal, because his principles +had made him the enemy of tyranny in America and in France; and because +his birth and talents and reputation gave him influence. It was one of +the brutal stupid acts of individual cruelty which characterise the +Austrian despotism, and have done more to ruin it than a wider +oppression--such a one, for instance, as ours, more mischievous, but more +intelligent,--would have done.' + +'Freedom,' said Ampère, 'was offered to him on the mere condition of his +not serving in the French army. At that time the Jacobins would have +guillotined him, the Royalists would have forced duel after duel on him +till they had killed him. It seemed impossible that he should ever be +able to draw his sword for France. In fact he never _was_ able. America +offered him an asylum, honours, land, everything that could console an +exile. But he refused to give up the chance, remote as it was, of being +useful to his country, and remained a prisoner till he was delivered by +Napoleon.' + +'He firmly believed,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'that if the Royal Family +would have taken refuge with his army in 1791 he could have saved them, +and probably the Monarchy. His army was then in his hands, a few months +after the Jacobins had corrupted it.' + +'Two men,' said Ampère, 'Mirabeau and La Fayette, could have saved the +Monarchy, and were anxious to do so. But neither the King nor the Queen +would trust them. + +'Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette are among the historical personages who +have most influenced the destinies of the world. His dulness, torpidity +and indecision, and her frivolity, narrow-minded prejudices and +suspiciousness, are among the causes of our present calamities. They are +among the causes of a state of things which has inflicted on +us, and threatens to inflict on all Europe, the worst of all +Governments--democratic despotism. A Government in which two wills only +prevail--that of the ignorant, envious, ambitious, aggressive multitude, +and that of the despot who, whatever be his natural disposition, is soon +turned, by the intoxication of flattery and of universal power, into a +capricious, fantastic, selfish participator in the worst passions of the +worst portion of his subjects.' + +'Such a Government,' I said, 'may be called an anti-aristocracy. It +excludes from power all those who are fit to exercise it.' + +'The consequence,' said Beaumont, 'is, that the qualities which fit men +for power not being demanded, are not supplied. Our young men have no +political knowledge or public spirit. Those who have a taste for the +sciences cultivated in the military schools enter the army. The rest +learn nothing.' + +'What do they do?' I asked. + +'How they pass their time,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'is a puzzle to me. +They do not read, they do not go into society--I believe that they smoke +and play at dominos, and ride and bet at steeple-chases. + +'Those who are on home service in the army are not much better. The time +not spent in the routine of their profession is sluggishly and viciously +wasted. Algeria has been a God-send to us. There our young men have real +duties to perform, and real dangers to provide against and to encounter. +My son, who left St. Cyr only eighteen months ago, is stationed at +Thebessa, 300 miles in the interior. He belongs to a _bureau arabe_, +consisting of a captain, a lieutenant, and himself, and about forty +spahis. He has to act as a judge, as an engineer, to settle the frontier +between the province of Constantine and Tunis--in short, to be one of a +small ruling aristocracy. This is the school which has furnished, and is +furnishing, our best generals and administrators.' + +We talked of the interior of French families. + +'The ties of relationship,' I said, 'seem to be stronger with you than +they are with us. Cousinship with you is a strong bond, with us it is a +weak one.' + +'The habit of living together,' said Beaumont, 'has perhaps much to do +with the strength of our feelings of consanguinity. Our life is +patriarchal. Grandfather, father, and grandson are often under the same +roof. At the Grange[3] thirty of the family were sometimes assembled at +dinner. With you, the sons go off, form separate establishments, see +little of their parents, still less of their cousins, and become +comparatively indifferent to them.' + +'I remember,' I said, 'the case of an heir apparent of seventy; his +father was ninety-five. One day the young man was very grumpy. They tried +to find out what was the matter with him; at last he broke out, +"Everybody's father dies except mine."' + +'An acquaintance of mine,' said Beaumont, 'not a son, but a son-in-law, +complained equally of the pertinacious longevity of his father-in-law. +"Je n'ai pas cru," he said, "en me mariant, que j'épousais la fille du +Père Éternel." Your primogeniture,' he continued, 'must be a great source +of unfilial feelings. The eldest son of one of your great families is in +the position of the heir apparent to a throne. His father's death is to +give him suddenly rank, power, and wealth; and we know that royal heirs +apparent are seldom affectionate sons. With us the fortunes are much +smaller, they are equally divided, and the rank that descends to the son +is nothing.' + +'What regulates,' I asked, 'the descent of titles?' + +'It is ill regulated,' said Beaumont 'Titles are now of such little value +that scarcely anyone troubles himself to lay down rules about them. + +'In general, however, it is said, that all the sons of dukes and of +marquises are counts. The sons of counts in some families all take the +title of Count. There are, perhaps, thirty Beaumonts. Some call +themselves marquises, some counts, some barons. I am, I believe, the only +one of the family who has assumed no title. Alexis de Tocqueville took +none, but his elder brother, during his father's life, called himself +vicomte and his younger brother baron. Probably Alexis ought then to have +called himself chevalier, and, on his father's death, baron. But, I +repeat, the matter is too unimportant to be subject to any settled rules. +Ancient descent is, with us, of great value, of far more than it is with +you, but titles are worth nothing.' + +[Footnote 1: This incident is described in a little book published last +year, the _Memoirs of Madame de Montaign_.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: M. de La Fayette was Madame de Beaumont's grandfather.--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: The château of M. de La Fayette.--ED.] + + +_Saturday, August_ 17.--We drove to the coast and ascended the lighthouse +of Gatteville, 85 metres, or about 280 feet high. It stands in the middle +of a coast fringed with frightful reefs, just enough under water to +create no breakers, and a flat plain a couple of miles wide behind, so +that the coast is not seen till you come close to it. In spite of many +lighthouses and buoys, wrecks are frequent. A mysterious one occurred +last February: the lighthouse watchman showed us the spot--a reef just +below the lighthouse about two hundred yards from the shore. + +It was at noon--there was a heavy sea, but not a gale. He saw a large +ship steer full on the reef. She struck, fell over on one side till her +yards were in the water, righted herself, fell over on the other, parted +in the middle, and broke up. It did not take five minutes, but during +those five minutes there was the appearance of a violent struggle on +board, and several shots were fired. From the papers which were washed +ashore it appeared that she was from New York, bound for Havre, with a +large cargo and eighty-seven passengers, principally returning emigrants. +No passenger escaped, and only two of the crew: one was an Italian +speaking no French, from whom they could get nothing; the other was an +Englishman from Cardiff, speaking French, but almost obstinately +uncommunicative. He said that he was below when the ship struck, that the +captain had locked the passengers in the cabin, and that he knew nothing +of the causes which had led the ship to go out of her course to run on +this rock. + +The captain may have been drunk or mad. Or there may have been a mutiny +on board, and those who got possession of the ship may have driven her on +the coast, supposing that they could beach her, and ignorant of the +interposed reefs, which, as I have said, are not betrayed by breakers. + +Our informant accounted for the loss of all, except two persons, by the +heavy sea, the sharp reefs, and the blows received by those who tried to +swim from the floating cargo. The two who escaped were much bruised. + +A man and woman were found tied to one another and tied to a spar. They +seemed to have been killed by blows received from the rocks or from the +floating wreck. + +In the evening Ampère read to us the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' His reading +is equal to any acting. It kept us all, for the first two acts, which are +the most comic, in one constant roar of laughter. + +'The modern _nouveau riche,_ said Beaumont, 'has little resemblance to M. +Jourdain. He talks of his horses and his carriages, builds a great hotel, +and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives +four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage +one day, and another the next. His jockey stands behind his cabriolet in +top-boots, and his coachman wears a grand fur coat in summer. His own +clothes are always new, sometimes in the most accurate type of a groom, +sometimes in that of a dandy. His talk is of steeple-chases.' + +'And does he get on?' I asked. + +'Not in the least,' answered Beaumont. 'In England a _nouveau riche_ can +get into Parliament, or help somebody else to get in, and political power +levels all distinctions. Here, wealth gives no power: nothing, indeed, +but office gives power. The only great men in the provinces are the +_préfet_, the _sous-préfet_, and the _maire_. The only great man in Paris +is a minister or a general. Wealth, therefore, unless accompanied by the +social talents, which those who have made their fortunes have seldom had +the leisure or the opportunity to acquire, leads to nothing. The women, +too, of the _parvenus_ always drag them down. They seem to acquire +the _tournure_ of society less easily than the men. Bastide, when +Minister, did pretty well, but his wife used to sign her invitations +"Femme Bastide." + +'Society,' he continued, 'under the Republic was animated. We had great +interests to discuss, and strong feelings to express, but perhaps the +excitement was too great. People seemed to be almost ashamed to amuse +or to be amused when the welfare of France, her glory or her degradation, +her freedom or her slavery, were, as the event has proved, at stake.' + +'I suppose,' I said to Ampère, 'that nothing has ever been better than +the _salon_ of Madame Récamier?' + +'We must distinguish,' said Ampère. 'As great painters have many manners, +so Madame Récamier had many _salons_. When I first knew her, in 1820, her +habitual dinner-party consisted of her father, her husband, Ballanche, +and myself. Both her father, M. Bernard, and her husband were agreeable +men. Ballanche was charming.' + +'You believe,' I said, 'that Bernard was her father?' 'Certainly I do,' +he replied. 'The suspicion that Récamier might be was founded chiefly on +the strangeness of their conjugal relations. To this, I oppose her +apparent love for M. Bernard, and I explain Récamier's conduct by his +tastes. They were coarse, though he was a man of good manners. He never +spent his evenings at home. He went where he could find more license. + +'Perhaps the most agreeable period was at that time of Chateaubriand's +reign when he had ceased to exact a _tête-à -tête_, and Ballanche and I +were admitted at four o'clock. The most illustrious of the _partie +carrée_ was Chateaubriand, the most amusing Ballanche. My merit was that +I was the youngest. Later in the evening Madame Mohl, Miss Clarke as she +then was, was a great resource. She is a charming mixture of French +vivacity and English originality, but I think that the French element +predominates. Chateaubriand, always subject to _ennui_, delighted in her. +He has adopted in his books some of the words which she coined. Her +French is as original as the character of her mind, very good, but more +of the last than of the present century.' + +'Was Chateaubriand himself,' I said, 'agreeable?' + +'Delightful,' said Ampère; 'très-entrain, très-facile à vivre, beaucoup +d'imagination et de connaissances.' + +'Facile à vivre?' I said. 'I thought that his vanity had been _difficile +et exigeante?_' + +'As a public man,' said Ampère, 'yes; and to a certain degree in general +society. But in intimate society, when he was no longer "posing," he was +charming. The charm, however, was rather intellectual than moral. + +'I remember his reading to us a part of his memoirs, in which he +describes his early attachment to an English girl, his separation from +her, and their meeting many years after when she asked his protection for +her son. Miss Clarke was absorbed by the story. She wanted to know what +became of the young man, what Chateaubriand had been able to do for him. +Chateaubriand could answer only in generals: that he had done all that he +could, that he had spoken to the Minister, and that he had no doubt that +the young man got what he wanted. But it was evident that even if he had +really attempted to do anything for the son of his old love, he had +totally forgotten the result. I do not think that he was pleased at Miss +Clarke's attention and sympathy being diverted from himself. Later still +in Madame Récamier's life, when she had become blind, and Chateaubriand +deaf, and Ballanche very infirm, the evenings were sad. I had to try to +amuse persons who had become almost unamusable.' + +'How did Madame de Chateaubriand,' I asked, 'take the devotion of her +husband to Madame Récamier?' + +'Philosophically,' answered Ampère. 'He would not have spent with her the +hours that he passed at the Abbaye au bois. She was glad, probably, to +know that they were not more dangerously employed.' + +'Could I read Chateaubriand?' I asked. + +'I doubt it,' said Ampère. 'His taste is not English.' + +'I _have_ read,' I said, 'and liked, his narrative of the manner in which +he forced on the Spanish war of 1822. I thought it well written.' + +'It is, perhaps,' said Ampère, 'the best thing which he has written, as +the intervention to restore Ferdinand, which he effected in spite of +almost everybody, was perhaps the most important passage in his political +life. + +'There is something revolting in an interference to crush the liberties +of a foreign nation. But the expedition tended to maintain the Bourbons +on the French throne, and, according to Chateaubriand's ideas, it was +more important to support the principle of legitimacy than that of +liberty. He expected, too, sillily enough, that Ferdinand would give a +Constitution. It is certain, that, bad as the effects of that expedition +were, Chateaubriand was always proud of it.' + +'What has Ballanche written?' I asked. + +'A dozen volumes,' he answered. 'Poetry, metaphysics, on all sorts of +subjects, with pages of remarkable vigour and _finesse_, containing some +of the best writing in the language, but too unequal and too desultory to +be worth going through.' + +'How wonderfully extensive,' I said, 'is French literature! Here is a +voluminous author, some of whose writings, you say, are among the best in +the French language, yet his name, at least as an author, is scarcely +known. He shines only by reflected light, and will live only because he +attached himself to a remarkable man and to a remarkable woman.' + +'French literature,' said Ampère, 'is extensive, but yet inferior to +yours. If I were forced to select a single literature and to read nothing +else, I would take the English. In one of the most important departments, +the only one which cannot be re-produced by translation--poetry--you +beat us hollow. We are great only in the drama, and even there you are +perhaps our superiors. We have no short poems comparable to the "Allegro" +or to the "Penseroso," or to the "Country Churchyard."' + +'Tocqueville,' I said, 'told me that he did not think that he could +now read Lamartine.' + +'Tocqueville,' said Ampère, 'could taste, like every man of genius, the +very finest poetry, but he was not a lover of poetry. He could not read a +hundred bad lines and think himself repaid by finding mixed with them ten +good ones.' + +'Ingres,' said Beaumont, 'perhaps our greatest living painter, is one of +the clever cultivated men who do not read. Somebody put the "Misanthrope" +into his hands, "It is wonderfully clever," he said, when he returned it; +"how odd it is that it should be so totally unknown."' + +'Let us read it to-night,' I said. + +'By all means,' said Madame de Tocqueville; 'though we know it by heart +it will be new when read by M. Ampère.' Accordingly Ampère read it to us +after dinner. + +'The tradition of the stage,' he said, 'is that Célimène was Molière's +wife.' + +'She is made too young,' said Minnie. 'A girl of twenty has not her wit, +or her knowledge of the world.' + +'The change of a word,' said Ampère, 'in two or three places would alter +that. The feeblest characters are as usual the good ones. Philinte and +Eliante. + +'Alceste is a grand mixture, perhaps the only one on the French stage, of +the comic and the tragic; for in many of the scenes he rises far above +comedy. His love is real impetuous passion. Talma delighted in playing +him.' + +'The desert,' I said, 'into which he retires, was, I suppose, a distant +country-house. Just such a place as Tocqueville.' + +'As Tocqueville,' said Beaumont, 'fifty years ago, without roads, ten +days' journey from Paris, and depending for society on Valognes.' + +'As Tocqueville,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'when my mother-in-law +first married. She spent in it a month and could never be induced to see +it again.' + +'Whom,' I asked, 'did Célimène marry?' + +'Of course,' said Ampère, 'Alceste. Probably five years afterwards. By +that time he must have got tired of his desert and she of her coquetry.' + +'We know,' I said, 'that Molière was always in love with his wife, +notwithstanding her _légèrété_. What makes me think the tradition that +Célimène was Mademoiselle[1] Molière true, is that Molière was certainly +in love with Célimène. She is made as engaging as possible, and her worst +faults do not rise above foibles. Her satire is good-natured. Arsinoé is +her foil, introduced to show what real evil-speaking is.' + +'All the women,' said Ampère, 'are in love with Alceste, and they care +about no one else. Célimène's satire of the others is scarcely +good-natured. It is clear, at least, that they did not think so.' + +'If Célimène,' said Minnie, 'became Madame Alceste, he probably made her +life a burthen with his jealousy.' + +'Of course he was jealous,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'for he was +violently in love. There can scarcely be violent love without jealousy.' + +'At least,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'till people are married. + +'If a lover is cool enough to be without jealousy, he ought to pretend +it.' + + +[Footnote 1: Under the _ancien régime_ even the married actresses were +called Mademoiselle.--ED.] + + +_Sunday, August_ 18.--After breakfast when the ladies were gone to +church, I talked over with Ampère and Beaumont Tocqueville's political +career. + +'Why,' I asked, 'did he refuse the support of M. Molé in 1835? Why would +he never take office under Louis Philippe? Why did he associate himself +with the Gauche whom he despised, and oppose the Droit with whom he +sympathised? Is the answer given by M. Guizot to a friend of mine who +asked a nearly similar question, "Parce qu'il voulait être où je suis," +the true one?' + +'The answers to your first question,' said Beaumont, 'are two. In 1835 +Tocqueville was young and inexperienced. Like most young politicians, he +thought that he ought to be an independent member, and to vote, on every +occasion, according to his conscience, untrammelled by party connections. +He afterwards found his mistake. + +'And, secondly, if he had chosen to submit to a leader, it would not have +been Molé. + +'Molé represented a principle to which Guizot was then vehemently +opposed, though he was afterwards its incarnation--the subservience of +the Ministry and of the Parliament to the King. In that house of 450 +members, there were 220 placemen; 200 were the slaves of the King. They +received from him their orders; from time to time, in obedience to those +orders, they even opposed his Ministers. + +'This, however, seldom occurred, for the King contrived always to have a +devoted majority in his Cabinet. + +'It was this that drove the Duc de Broglie from the Government and +prevented his ever resuming office. + +'"I could not bear," he said to me, "to hear Sebastiani repeat, in every +council and on every occasion, 'Ce que le Roi vient de dire est +parfaitement juste.'" The only Ministers that ventured to have an opinion +of their own were those of the 12th of May 1839, of which Dufaure, +Villemain, and Passy were members, and that of the 1st of March 1840, of +which Thiers was the leader; and Tocqueville supported them both. + +'When Guizot, who had maintained the principle of Ministerial and +Parliamentary, in opposition to that of Monarchical Governments, with +unequalled eloquence, vigour, and I may add violence, suddenly turned +round and became the most servile member of the King's servile majority, +Tocqueville fell back into opposition. + +'In general it is difficult to act with an opposition systematically and, +at the same time, honestly. For the measures proposed by a Government +are, for the most part, good. But, during the latter part of Louis +Philippe's reign, it was easy, for the Government proposed merely to do +nothing--either abroad or at home. I do not complain of the essence of M. +Guizot's foreign policy, though there was a want of dignity in its forms. + +'There was nothing useful to be done, and, under such circumstances, all +action would have been mischievous. + +'But at home _every_ thing was to be done. Our code required to be +amended, our commerce and our industry, and our agriculture required to +be freed, our municipal and commercial institutions were to be created, +our taxation was to be revised, and, above all, our parliamentary +system--under which, out of 36,000,000 of French, only 200,000 had votes, +under which the Deputies bought a majority of the 200,000 electors, and +the King bought a majority of the 450 deputies--required absolute +reconstruction. + +'Louis Philippe would allow nothing to be done. If he could have +prevented it we should not have had a railroad. He would not allow the +most important of all, that to Marseilles, to be finished. He would not +allow our monstrous centralisation, or our monstrous protective system, +to be touched. The owners of forests were permitted to deprive us of +cheap fuel, the owners of forges of cheap iron, the owners of factories +of cheap clothing. + +'In some of this stupid inaction Guizot supported him conscientiously, +for, like Thiers, he is ignorant of the first principles of political +economy, but he knows too much the philosophy of Government not to have +felt, on every other point, that the King was wrong. + +'If he supposed that Tocqueville wished to be in his place, on the +conditions on which he held office, he was utterly mistaken. + +'Tocqueville was ambitious; he wished for power. So did I. We would +gladly have been real Ministers, but nothing would have tempted us to be +the slaves of the _pensée immuable_, or to sit in a Cabinet in which we +were constantly out-voted, or to defend, as Guizot had to do in the +Chamber, conduct which we had disapproved in the Council. + +'You ask why Tocqueville joined the Gauche whom he despised, against the +Droit with whom he sympathised? + +'He voted with the Gauche only where he thought their votes right. Where +he thought them wrong, as, for instance, in all that respected Algeria, +he left them. They would have abandoned the country, and, when that +could not be obtained, they tried to prevent the creation of the port. + +'Very early, however, in his parliamentary life, he had found that an +independent member--a member who supporting no party is supported by no +party---is useless. He allowed himself therefore to be considered a +member of the Gauche; but I never could persuade him to be tolerably +civil to them. Once, after I had been abusing him for his coldness to +them, he shook hands with Romorantin, then looked towards me for my +applause, but I doubt whether he ever shook hands with him again. In +fact almost his only point of contact with them was their disapprobation +of the inactivity of Louis Philippe. Many of them were Bonapartists like +Abbatucci and Romorantin. Some were Socialists, some were Republicans; +the majority of them wished to overthrow the Monarchy, and the minority +looked forward with indifference to its fall. + +'They hated him as much as he did them, much more indeed, for his mind +was not formed for hatred. They excluded him from almost all committees.' + +'Would it not have been wise in him,' I asked, 'to retire from the +Chamber during the King's life, or at least until it contained a party +with whom he could cordially act?' + +'Perhaps,' said Beaumont, 'that would have been the wisest course for +him--and indeed for me. I entered the Chamber reluctantly. All my family +were convinced that a political man not in the Chamber was nothing. So +I let myself be persuaded. Tocqueville required no persuasion, he was +anxious to get in, and when in it was difficult to persuade oneself to go +out. We always hoped for a change. The King might die, or he might be +forced--as he had been forced before--to submit to a liberal Ministry +which might have been a temporary cure, or even to a Parliamentary reform +which might have been a complete cure. Duchâtel, who is a better +politician than Guizot, was superseding him in the confidence of the King +and of the Chamber. + +'In fact, the liberal Ministry and Parliamentary reform did come at last, +though not until it was too late to save the Monarchy. + +'If Tocqueville had retired in disgust from the Chamber of Deputies, he +might not have been a member of the Constituent, or of the Legislative +Assembly. This would have been a misfortune--though the shortness of the +duration of the first, and the hostility of the President during the +second, and also the state of his health, prevented his influencing the +destinies of the Republic as much as his friends expected him to do, and +indeed as he expected himself.' + +'I have often,' I said, 'wondered how you and Tocqueville, and the other +eminent men who composed the committee for preparing the Constitution, +could have made one incapable of duration, and also incapable of change.' + +'What,' he asked, 'are the principal faults which you find in the +Constitution?' + +'First,' I said, 'that you gave to your President absolute authority over +the army, the whole patronage of the most centralised and the most +place-hunting country in the world, so that there was not one of your +population of 36,000,000 whose interests he could not seriously affect; +and, having thus armed him with irresistible power, you gave him the +strongest possible motives to employ it against the Constitution by +turning him out at the end of his four years, incapable of re-election, +unpensioned and unprovided for, so that he must have gone from the Élysée +Bourbon to a debtor's prison. + +'Next, that, intending your President to be the subordinate Minister of +the Assembly, you gave him the same origin, and enabled him to say, "I +represent the people as much as you do, indeed much more. They _all_ +voted for me, only a fraction of them voted for any one of you." Then +that origin was the very worst that could possibly be selected, the votes +of the uneducated multitude; you must have foreseen that they would give +you a demagogue or a charlatan. The absence of a second Chamber, and the +absence of a power of dissolution, are minor faults, but still serious +ones. When the President and the Assembly differed, they were shut up +together to fight it out without an umpire.' + +'That we gave the President too much power,' said Beaumont, 'the event +has proved. But I do not see how, in the existing state of feeling in +France, we could have given him less. The French have no self-reliance. +They depend for everything on their administrators. The first revolution +and the first empire destroyed all their local authorities and also their +aristocracy. Local authorities may be gradually re-created, and an +aristocracy may gradually arise, but till these things have been done the +Executive must be strong. + +'If he had been re-eligible, our first President would virtually have +been President for life. Having decided that his office should be +temporary, we were forced to forbid his immediate re-election. + +'With respect to his being left unprovided for, no man who had filled the +office decently would have been refused an ample provision on quitting +it. As for this man, no provision that we could have made for him, if we +had given him three or four millions a year, would have induced him to +give up what he considered a throne which was his by descent. He swore to +the Constitution with an _idée fixe _to destroy it. He attempted to do so +on the 29th of January 1849, not two months after his election. + +'I agree with you that the fault of the Constitution was that it allowed +the President to be chosen by universal suffrage; and that the fault of +the people was that they elected a pretender to the throne, whose +ambition, rashness, and faithlessness had been proved. + +'No new Constitution can work if the Executive conspires against it. But +deliberating and acting in the midst of _émeutes_, with a Chamber and a +population divided into half a dozen hostile factions, the two Royalist +parties hating one another, the Bonapartists bent on destroying all +freedom, and the Socialists all individual property, what could we do? My +wish and Tocqueville's was to give the election to the Chamber. We found +that out of 650 members we could not hope that our proposition would be +supported by more than 200. You think that we ought to have proposed two +Chambers. The great use of two Chambers is to strengthen the Executive +by enabling it to play one against the other; but we felt that our +Executive was dangerously strong, and we believed, I think truly, that a +single Chamber would resist him better than two could do. The provision +which required more than a bare majority for the revision of the +Constitution was one of those which we borrowed from America. It had +worked well there. In the general instability we wished to have one +anchor, one mooring ring fixed. We did not choose that the whole +framework of our Government should be capable of being suddenly destroyed +by a majority of one, in a moment of excitement and perhaps by a +parliamentary surprise. + +'With respect to your complaint that, there being no power of +dissolution, there was no means of taking the opinion of the people, the +answer is, that to give the President power of dissolution would have +been to invite him to a _coup d'état._ With no Chamber to watch him, he +would have been omnipotent. + +'I agree with you that the Constitution was a detestable one. But even +now, looking back to the times, and to the conditions under which we made +it, I do not think that it was in our power to make a good one.' + +'Tocqueville,' I said, 'told me that Cormenin was your Solon, that he +brought a bit of constitution to you every morning, and that it was +usually adopted.'[1] + +'Tocqueville's memory,' answered Beaumont, 'deceived him. Cormenin was +our president. It is true that he brought a bit of constitution every +morning. But it scarcely ever was adopted or capable of being adopted. +It was in general bad in itself, or certain to be rejected by the +Assembly. He wished to make the President a puppet. But he exercised over +us a mischievous influence. He tried to revenge himself for our refusal +of all his proposals by rendering our deliberations fruitless. And as +the power of a president over a deliberative body is great, he often +succeeded. + +'Many of our members were unaccustomed to public business and lost their +tempers or their courage when opposed. The Abbé Lamennais proposed a +double election of the president. But of thirty members, only four, among +whom were Tocqueville and I, supported him. He left the committee and +never returned to it. Tocqueville and I were anxious to introduce double +election everywhere. It is the best palliative of universal suffrage.' + +'The double election,' I said, 'of the American President is nugatory. +Every elector is chosen under a pledge to nominate a specified +candidate.' + +'That is true,' said Beaumont, 'as to the President, but not as to the +other functionaries thus elected. The senators chosen by double election +are far superior to the representatives chosen by direct voting. + +'We proposed, too, to begin by establishing municipal institutions. We +were utterly defeated. The love of centralisation is almost inherent in +French politicians. They see the evil of local government--its stupidity, +its corruption, its jobbing. They see the convenience of +centralisation--the ease with which a centralised administration works. +Feelings which are really democratic have reached those who fancy +themselves aristocrats. We had scarcely a supporter. + +'We should perhaps have a few now, when experience has shown that +centralisation is still more useful to an usurper than it is to a regular +Government.' + +[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. p. 212.--ED.] + + +_August_ 18.--We drove in the afternoon to the coast, and sat in the +shade of the little ricks of sea-weed, gazing on an open sea as blue as +the Mediterranean. + +We talked of America. + +'I can understand,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'the indignation of the +North against you. It is, of course, excessive, but they had a right to +expect you to be on their side in an anti-slavery war.' + +'They had no right,' I said, 'to expect from our Government anything but +absolute neutrality.' + +'But you need not,' she replied, 'have been so eager to put the South on +the footing of belligerents.' + +'On what other footing,' I asked, 'could we put them? On what other +footing does the North put them? Have they ventured, or will they +venture, to hang a single seceder?' + +'At least,' she said, 'you might have expressed more sympathy with the +North?' + +'I think,' I answered, 'that we have expressed as much sympathy as it was +possible to feel. We deplore the combat, we hold the South responsible +for it, we think their capricious separation one of the most foolish and +one of the most wicked acts that have ever been committed; we hope that +the North will beat them, and we should bitterly regret their forcing +themselves back into the Union on terms making slavery worse, if +possible, than it is now. We wish the contest to end as quickly as +possible: but we do not think that it can end by the North subjugating +the Southerns and forcing them to be its subjects. + +'The best termination to which we look forward as possible, is that the +North should beat the South, and then dictate its own terms of +separation. + +'If they wish to go farther than this, if they wish us to love or to +admire our Northern cousins in their political capacity, they wish for +what is impossible. + +'We cannot forget that the Abolitionists have been always a small and +discredited party; that the Cuba slave trade is mainly carried on from +New York; that they have neglected the obligations formally entered +into by them with us to co-operate in the suppression of the slave trade; +that they have pertinaciously refused to allow us even to inquire into +the right of slavers to use the American flag; that it is the capital of +the North which feeds the slavery of the South; that the first act of the +North, as soon as the secession of the South from Congress allowed it to +do what it liked, was to enact a selfish protective tariff; that their +treatment of us, from the time that they have felt strong enough to +insult us, has been one unvaried series of threats, bullying, and injury; +that they have refused to submit their claims on us to arbitration, +driven out our ambassadors, seized by force on disputed territory, and +threatened war on every pretence.' + +'It is true,' said Beaumont, 'that during the last twenty years American +diplomacy has not been such as to inspire affection or respect But you +must recollect that during all that time America has been governed by the +South.' + +'It is true,' I said, 'that the presidents have generally been Southerns, +but I am not aware that the North has ever disavowed their treatment of +us. This is certain, that throughout the Union, insolence to England has +been an American statesman's road to popularity.' + + +_Monday., August _19.--We walked in the afternoon over the commons +overlooking the sea, and among the shady lanes of this well-wooded +country. + +We came on a group of about twelve or thirteen reapers taking their +evening meal of enormous loaves of brown bread, basins of butter, and +kegs of cider. + +M. Roussell, the farmer in whose service they were, was sitting among +them. He was an old friend and constituent of Tocqueville, and for thirty +years was Maire of Tocqueville. He has recently resigned. He rose and +walked with us to his house. + +'I was required,' he said, 'to support the prefect's candidate for the +_Conseil général_. No such proposition was ever made to me before. I +could not submit to it. The prefect has been unusually busy of late. The +schoolmaster has been required to send in a list of the peasants whose +children, on the plea of poverty, receive gratuitous education. The +children of those who do not vote with the prefect are to have it no +longer.' + +I asked what were the wages of labour. + +'Three francs and half a day,' he said, 'during the harvest, with +food--which includes cider. In ordinary times one franc a day with food, +or a franc and a half without food.' + +'It seems then,' I said, 'that you can feed a man for half a franc a +day?' + +'He can feed himself,' said M. Roussell, 'for that, but I cannot, or for +double that money.' + +The day labourer is generally hired only for one day. A new bargain is +made every day. + +The house was not uncomfortable, but very untidy. There are no ricks, +everything is stored in large barns, where it is safe from weather, but +terribly exposed to vermin. + +A bright-complexioned servant-girl was in the kitchen preparing an +enormous bowl of soup, of which bread, potatoes, and onions were the +chief solid ingredients. + +'Roussell,' said Beaumont, 'is superior to his class. In general they are +bad politicians. It is seldom difficult to get their votes for the +nominee of the prefect. They dislike to vote for anyone whom they know, +especially if he be a gentleman, or be supported by the gentry. Such a +candidate excites their democratic envy and suspicion. But the prefect is +an abstraction. They have never seen him, they have seldom heard of his +name or of that of his candidate, and therefore they vote for him. + +'Lately, however, in some of my communes, the peasants have adapted a new +practice, that of electing peasants. I suspect that the Government is not +displeased. + +'The presence of such members will throw discredit on the _Conseils +généraux_, and, if they get there, on the _Corps législatif,_ much to the +pleasure of our democratic master, and they will be easily bribed or +frightened. Besides which the fifteen francs a day will be a fortune to +them, and they will be terrified by the threat of a dissolution. I do not +think that even yet we have seen the worst of universal suffrage.' + +'What influence,' I asked, 'have the priests?' + +'In some parts of France,' said Beaumont, 'where the people are +religious, as is the case here, much. Not much in the north-east, where +there is little religion; and in the towns, where there is generally no +religion, their patronage of a candidate would ruin him. I believe that +nothing has so much contributed to Louis Napoleon's popularity with the +_ouvriers_ as his quarrel with the Pope. You may infer the feelings of +the lower classes in Paris from his cousin's conduct.' + +'I study Prince Napoleon,' said Ampère, 'with interest, for I believe +that he will be the successor.' + +'If Louis Napoleon,' I said, 'were to be shot tomorrow, would not the +little prince be proclaimed?' + +'Probably,' said Ampere, 'but with Jérôme for regent, and I doubt whether +the regency would end by the little Napoleon IV. assuming the sceptre. + +'Louis Napoleon himself does not expect it. He often says that, in +France, it is more than two hundred years since a sovereign has been +succeeded by his son. + +'On the whole,' continued Ampère, 'I had rather have Jérôme than Louis +Napoleon. He has more talent and less prudence. He would bring on the +crisis sooner. + +'On the 31st of October, 1849,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'I was in +Louis Napoleon's company, and he mentioned some matter on which he wished +to know my husband's opinion. I could not give it. "It does not much +signify," he answered, "for as I see M. de Tocqueville every day, I will +talk to him about it myself." At that very time, the _ordonnance_ +dismissing M. de Tocqueville had been signed, and Louis Napoleon knew +that he would probably never see him again.' + +'I do not,' said Ampere, 'give up the chance of a republic. I do not wish +for one. It must be a very bad constitutional monarchy which I should not +prefer to the best republic. My democratic illusions are gone. France and +America have dispelled them: but it must be a very bad republic which I +should not prefer to the best despotism. A republic is like a fever, +violent and frightful, but not necessarily productive of organic +mischief. A despotism is a consumption: it degrades and weakens, and +perverts all the vital functions. + +'What is there now in France worth living for? I find people proud of our +Italian campaign. Why should the French be proud that their master's +soldiers have been successful in a war as to which they were not +consulted; which, in fact, they disapproved, which was not made for their +benefit, which was the most glaring proof of their servility and +degradation? We knew before that our troops were better than the +Austrians. What have we gained by the additional example of their +superiority? + +'I fear,' I said, 'that a republic, at least such a republic as you are +likely to have, would begin by some gross economical enormities--by the +_droit au travail_, by the _impôt progressif sur la fortune présumtée_, +by a paper currency made a legal tender without limitation of its +amount.' + +'The last republic,' said Ampere, 'did some of these things, but very +timidly and moderately. It gave to its paper a forced currency, but was +so cautious in its issue, that it was not depreciated. It created the +_ateliers nationaux,_ but it soon dissolved them, though at the expense +of a civil war. Its worst fault was more political than economical: it +was the 45 centimes, that is to say, the sudden increase by 45 per cent, +of the direct taxes. It never recovered that blow. Of all its acts it +is the one which is best recollected. The Provisional Government is known +in the provinces as "ces gredins des quarante-cinq centimes." The +business of a revolutionary government is to be popular. It ought to +reduce taxation, meet its expenditure by loans, abolish octrois and +prohibitions, and defer taxation until it has lasted long enough to be +submitted to as a _fait accompli_.' + +'I fear,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'that our working classes are in a +much worse frame of mind than they were in 1848. Socialist opinions--the +doctrine that the profits of capitalists are so much taken fraudulently +or oppressively from the wages of labourers, and that it is unjust that +one man should have more of the means of happiness than another--are +extending every day. The workpeople believe that the rich are their +enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he will join them +in an attempt to get their fair share, that is, an equal share, of the +property of the country--and I am not sure that they are mistaken.' + +'Nor am I,' said Beaumont '_Celui-ci_ fully sympathises with their +feelings, and I do not think that he has intelligence enough to see the +absurdity of their theories.' + +'You do not deny him,' I said, 'intelligence?' + +'Not,' said Beaumont, 'for some purposes, and to some extent, practical +intelligence. His ends are bad, but he is often skilful in inventing and +pertinacious in employing means for effecting those bad ends. But I +deny him theoretic intelligence. I do not think that he has comprehension +or patience to work out, or even to follow, a long train of reasoning; +such a train as that by which economical errors and fallacies are +detected.' + +'Are there strikes,' I asked, 'among your workmen?' + +'They are beginning,' said Beaumont. 'We have had one near us, and the +authorities were afraid to interfere.' + +'I suppose,' I said, that they are illegal?' + +'They are illegal,' he answered, 'and I think that they ought to be so. +They are always oppressive and tyrannical. The workman who does not join +in a strike is made miserable. They are generally mischievous to +the combined workmen themselves, and always to those of other trades. +Your toleration of them appears to me one of the worst symptoms of your +political state of health. It shows among your public men an ignorance or +a cowardice, or a desire of ill-earned popularity, which is generally a +precursor of a democratic revolution.' + +'It is certain,' said Ampère, 'that the masters are becoming afraid of +their workmen. Péreire brings his from their residences to the Barrière +Malesherbes in carriages. You are not actually insulted in the streets +of Paris, but you are treated with rude neglect. A _fiacre_ likes to +splash you, a _paveur_ to scatter you with mud. Louis Napoleon began with +Chauvinism. He excited all the bad international passions of the +multitude. He has now taken up Sansculotteism. Repulsed with scorn and +disgust by the rich and the educated, he has thrown himself on the poor +and ignorant The passions with which he likes to work are envy, +malignity, and rapacity. + +'I do not believe that he feels them. He is what is called a good-natured +man. That is to say, he likes to please everyone that he sees. But his +selfishness is indescribable. + +'No public interest stands in the way of his slightest caprice. He often +puts me in mind of Nero. With the same indifference to the welfare of +others with which Nero amused himself by burning down Rome, he is amusing +himself by pulling down Paris.' + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + * * * * * * + +[We left Tocqueville on the following day with great regret The same +party was never to meet again--the only survivors are Madame de Beaumont +and myself and the Beaumonts' son, then a very intelligent boy of ten +years old. + +One day my father and I visited the little green churchyard on a cliff +near the sea where Tocqueville is buried. The tomb is a plain grey stone +slab--on it a cross is cut in bas-relief, with these words only:-- + +ICI REPOSE + +ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +NÉ 24 FEVRIER 1805. MORT 16 AVRIL 1859. + +My father laid a wreath of _immortelles_ on the tomb.--ED.] + + +APPENDIX. + +MONTALEMBERT'S speech was afterwards published in the _Moniteur_ but with +considerable alterations. In Mr. Senior's journal in 1854 (which has not +been published), he says, under the date of April 26, I called on +Montalembert and took him my report of his speech. He has promised to add +to it any notes that it may require. "The printed report," he said, "is +intentionally falsified. Before it was struck off I asked to see the +proofs. I was told that, as such an application was new, the President of +the Bureau would meet and decide on its admissibility. They decided that +it could not be granted."' + +[The following is Mr. Senior's report, with M. de Montalembert's own +corrections and additions in French.--ED.] + +At length Montalembert rose. He stood near the extreme right, with his +side towards the tribune, and his face towards the centre gallery, in +which I sat. His voice and delivery are so good, and the house was so +silent, that I did not lose a word. I believe that the following report +is a tolerably accurate abridgment of his speech. + +'Gentlemen, I must begin by expressing to you my deep gratitude for the +attention which you have paid to this unhappy business. I am grieved at +having occasioned the waste of so much public time. I am still more +grieved at having been the occasion of division among my colleagues.' + +[_Note by Montalember_.--'J'aurais voulu faire plus qu'exprimer le +regret: j'aurais voulu me prêter à tous les arrangements qui m'ont été +suggérés par des voix amies pour mettre un terme à cette discussion. Je +n'aurais reculé devant aucun sacrifice qui eût été compatible avec +l'honneur. Mais vous comprenez tous que sous le coup d'une poursuite, +d'un danger, je ne puis rien désavouer, rien rétracter, rien retirer de +ce que j'ai écrit, de ce que j'ai pensé. Si j'agissais autrement il vous +resterait un collègue absous, mais déshonoré et dont vous ne sauriez que +faire.'] + +'More than all I am grieved when I think of the time at which this has +occurred. A time when we are engaged in an honourable and serious war--a +war in which, with the great and faithful ally whom I have always +desired, and the sympathy of all Europe, we are defending civilisation +against an enemy, barbarous indeed, but so formidable as to require our +undivided energy and our undivided attention. + +But you must recollect _when_ that letter was written. It was in last +September, in profound peace, when our whole thoughts were employed, and +were properly employed, on our internal affairs. + +'Aujourd'hui il en est autrement; l'état de guerre impose à tous les +citoyens des devoirs spéciaux: il doit aussi imposer un certain frein à +l'esprit de critique. Aucun Français, quel que soit sa foi politique, ne +peut vouloir discréditer le pouvoir des dissidents, des mécontents, mais +il n'y a plus d'émigrés, ni à l'intérieur, ni à l'extérieur.' + +[_Note by N.W. Senior._--This seems to be an allusion to a passage in +Thiers's celebrated speech of the 17th of February, 1851. 'I1 ne faut +émigrer, ni au dehors, ni au dedans.'] + +['J'aurais su contenir les sentiments les plus passionés de mon âme, +plutôt que de paraître affaiblir en quoi que ce soit la main qui porte +l'épée et le drapeau de la France. Ce n'est pas toutefois que j'admette +que toute liberté de parole ou de presse soit incompatible avec l'état de +guerre. L'Angleterre a conservé toutes ses libertés en faisant la guerre +aux plus redoutables ennemis: aujourd'hui encore l'opposition, d'accord +avec le gouvernement sur la question extérieure, maintient les +résistances et les critiques à l'intérieur. Et certes personne ne dira +que l'Angleterre, pour avoir conservé la liberté de discussion la plus +entière, n'ait pas déployé pour le moins autant de prévoyance et +d'énergie que nous dans la conduite de la guerre où nous entrons. Il n'y +a que les nations où la vie publique circule dans toutes les veines du +corps social, qui sachent résister aux épreuves et aux chances d'une +guerre prolongée. La liberté de la contradiction centuple le prix d'une +libre adhésion; et à force de mettre une sourdine à toutes les émotions +du pays, il faut prendre garde qu'on ne se trouve un jour dans +l'impossibilité de faire vibrer les cordes les plus essentielles quand le +moment des dangers et des sacrifices sera arrivé.'] + +'I deeply regret the publication of that letter. But with that +publication I repeat that I am utterly unconnected. I never sanctioned +it, I never wished for it, I never even thought it possible. There are +passages in the letter itself which I might modify if I were to re-write +it, but it would rather be by adding to them than by taking from them. +Two accusations have been directed against its substance. One that it is +hostile to the Emperor; the other that it is hostile to this assembly. No +one who knows my character, and knows my history, will believe that I can +have intended to injure the Emperor. Our relations have been such as to +make it impossible. + +['J'ai eu l'occasion de défendre le chef actuel de l'État dans des +circonstances infiniment difficiles, et où rien n'était plus douteux que +le succès. Je ne prétends pas l'avoir constitué par cela mon débiteur, +car en le défendant, je ne voulais servir, comme toujours, que la +justice, l'intérêt du pays, la liberté modérée qui se personnifiaient en +lui à mes yeux, mais enfin, aux yeux du public il est mon obligé, et je +ne suis pas le sien. Si j'avais eu la pensée d'offenser publiquement +l'Empereur, et si j'y avais cédé, nous serions _quittes_. Or, je tiens +beaucoup à ce que nous ne le soyons pas. Il n'y aurait pour moi ni +honneur ni avantage à ce changement de position. Tous les hommes de bon +goût, tous les coeurs délicats, me comprendront.'] + +'It is equally impossible that I should have wished to offend this +assembly. It contains men by whose sides I have fought the great battles +of property and law. I love many of its members. I respect almost all. If +I have offended any, it was done unconsciously. Again, it is said that +the tone of my letter is violent. Expressions may be called violent by +some which would be only called _passionnés_ by others. Now I admit that +I am _passionné_. It is in my nature. I owe to that quality much of my +merit, whatever that merit may be. Were I not _passionné_, I should not +have been, during all my life, _la sentinelle perdue de la liberté_. I +should not have thrown myself into every breach: sometimes braving the +attacks of anarchy, sometimes heading the assault on tyranny, and +sometimes fighting against the worst of all despotisms, the despotism +that is based on democracy.' + +['Allons plus au fond, et vous reconnaîtrez que les opinions énoncées +dans la lettre ne sont autres que celles toujours professées par moi. +Elles peuvent toutes se ramener à une seule, à mon éloignement pour le +pouvoir absolu. Je ne l'aime pas: je ne l'ai jamais aimé. Si j'ai tant +combattu l'anarchie avant et après 1848, si j'ai suscité contre moi dans +le parti démagogique ces haines virulentes qui durent encore et qui ne +perdent jamais une occasion d'éclater contre moi, c'est parce que j'ai +compris de bonne heure les affinités naturelles du despotisme et de la +démocratie; c'est parce que j'ai prévu et prédit que la démocratie nous +conduirait au pouvoir absolu. Oui, je crois, comme je l'ai dit, que le +despotisme abaisse les caractères, les intelligences, les consciences. +Oui, je déplore le système qui rend un seul homme tout-puissant et seul +responsable des destinées d'une nation de 36 millions d'hommes; et trouve +que cela ressemble trop au gouvernement russe, contre lequel nous allons +en guerre, et trop peu au gouvernement anglais, dont nous prisons si haut +l'alliance.'] + +'I am told again, and the accusation is sanctioned by the _réquisitoire_ +of the Procureur-Général, that my letter is inconsistent with the +fidelity which I have sworn to the Emperor and to the constitution. When +a man swears fidelity to a sovereign and to a constitution, his oath +engages him only as to matters within his own power. He swears not to +conspire against them. He swears not to attempt to subvert them. He +cannot swear to approve the acts of the sovereign, or the working of the +constitution, for he cannot foresee what either of them will be. I have +kept, and I shall keep, my oath to the Emperor and my oath to the +constitution. I have not attempted, and I shall not attempt, to overthrow +either of them. But my approbation of either of them does not depend on +me. I accepted the _coup d'état_, comme vous l'avez tous fait, comme +notre seule chance de salut dans les circonstances d'alors. I expected +a Government _honnête et modéré_. I have been disappointed.' + +Here a violent exclamation ran through the assembly. Baroche rose and +cried out, 'You hear him, gentlemen. He says that he expected honesty and +moderation from the Government, and that he has been disappointed. I +appeal to you, Mr. President, to decide whether we are to sit and listen +to such infamies.' + +[Voix diverses:--'Expliquez vos paroles.' 'Retirez vos paroles.' M. de +Montalembert.--'Je les maintiens et je les explique.'] + +'I expected _un gouvernement honnête et modéré_. I have been +disappointed. Its _honnêté_ may be judged by the confiscation of the +Orleans property.' + +Here was another hubbub, and another protest of Baroche's. + +'What is going on before you,' continued Montalembert, 'is a sample of +its moderation. It is now attempting in my person to introduce into our +criminal law a new _délit_, "communication." Until now it was supposed +that nothing was criminal until it was published. It was believed that a +man might write his opinions and his reflections, and might exchange them +with his friends; that nothing was libellous that was confidential. _Now_ +this Government holds a man responsible for every thought that an +indiscreet or an incautious friend, or a concealed enemy, or a tool of +power reveals. If it succeeds in this attempt, it will not rest satisfied +with this victory over the remnant of our freedom. It is not in the +nature of things that it should. A Government that will not tolerate +censure must forbid discussion. You are now asked to put down writing. +When that has been done, conversation will be attacked. Paris will +resemble Rome under the successors of Augustus. Already this prosecution +has produced a _malaise_ which I never felt or observed before. What will +be the feelings of the nation when all that is around it is concealed, +when every avenue by which light could penetrate is stopped; when we are +exposed to all the undefined terrors and exaggerated dangers that +accompany utter darkness? The misfortune of France, a national defect +which makes the happiness enjoyed by England unattainable by us, is, that +she is always oscillating between extremes; that she is constantly +swinging from universal conquest to _la paix à tout prix_, from the +desire of nothing but glory to the desire of nothing but wealth, from the +wildest democracy to the most abject servility. Every new Government +starts with a new principle. Every Government in a few years perishes by +carrying that principle to an extreme. The First Republic was destroyed +by the intemperance with which it trampled on every sort of tradition and +authority, the First Empire by its abuse of victory and war, the +Restoration by its exaggerated belief in divine right and legitimacy, the +Royalty of July by its exaggerated reliance on purchased voters and +Parliamentary majorities, the Second Republic by the conduct of its own +Republicans. The danger to the Second Empire--its only internal danger, +but I fear a fatal one--is its abuse of authority. With every phase of +our sixty years' long revolution, we have a new superstition, a new +_culte_. We are now required to become the worshippers of authority. I +lament that with the new religion we have not new priests. Our public men +would not be discredited by instantaneous apostasy from one political +faith to another. I am grieved, gentlemen, if I offend you; though many +of you are older in years than I am, not one probably is so old in public +life. I may be addressing you for the last time, and I feel that my last +words ought to contain all the warnings that I think will be useful to +you. This assembly will soon end, as all its predecessors have ended. Its +acts, its legislation, may perish with it, but its reputation, its fame, +for good or for evil, will survive. Within a few minutes you will do an +act by which that reputation will be seriously affected; by which it may +be raised, by which it may be deeply, perhaps irrevocably, sunk. Your +vote to-night will show whether you possess freedom, and whether you +deserve it. As for myself, I care but little. A few months, or even +years, of imprisonment are among the risks which every public man who +does his duty in revolutionary times must encounter, and which the first +men of the country have incurred, _soit en sortant des affaires, soit +avant d'y entrer_. But whatever may be the effect of your vote on _my_ +person, whatever it may be on _your_ reputation, I trust that it is not +in your power to inflict permanent injury on my country. Among you are +some who lived through the Empire. They must remember that the soldiers +of our glorious army cherished as fondly the recollection of its defeats +as of its victories. They must see that the lessons which those defeats +taught, and the feelings which they inspired, are now among the sources +of our military strength. Your Emperor himself, in one of his earlier +addresses, talked hopefully of the period when France would be capable of +more liberty than he now thinks good for her, "Un jour," he exclaimed, +"mon oeuvre sera couronnée par la liberté." I join in that hope. I look +sanguinely towards the time when she will be worthy of the English +constitution, and she will obtain it. Vous tenez le corps de la France, +mais vous ne tenez pas son âme. Cette âme, aujourd'hui effrayée, +engourdie, endormie, cette âme c'est la liberté. Elle se réveillera un +jour et vous échappera. La certitude de ce réveil suffit pour consoler et +fortifier ses vieux et fidèles soldats à traverser la nuit de l'épreuve. +Cette liberté honnête et modérée, sage et sainte, j'y ai toujours cru, et +j'y crois encore. Je l'ai toujours servie, toujours aimée, toujours +invoquée, tantôt pour la religion, tantôt pour le pays; hier contre le +socialisme, aujourd'hui contre un commencement de despotisme; et, quelle +que soit votre décision, je me féliciterai toujours d'avoir eu cette +occasion solennelle de la confesser encore une fois devant vous, et, s'il +le faut, de souffrir un peu pour elle.' + +These concluding words were drowned in universal murmurs. + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Correspondence & Conversations of +Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2, by Alexis de Tocqueville + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13333 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 + +Author: Alexis de Tocqueville + +Release Date: August 30, 2004 [EBook #13333] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOCQUEVILLE, VOL 2 *** + + + + +Produced by G. Graustein and PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced +from images provided by the Million Book Project. + + + + + + + +_CORRESPONDENCE & CONVERSATIONS OF_ ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE + +WITH NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR + +FROM 1834 TO 1859 + + +EDITED BY + +M.C.M. SIMPSON + + +_IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II_ + + +LONDON: HENRY S. KING & Co., 65 CORNHILL 1872 + + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME + +_Journal_ 1851-2. + +The army master of France +Comparison with the 18th Brumaire +Aggressive acts of the President +Coup d'État planned for March 1852 +Socialism leads to despotism +War necessary to maintain Louis Napoleon +State prisoners on December 2 +Louis Napoleon's devotion to the Pope +Latent Bonapartism of the French +President's reception at Notre Dame +Frank hypocrites +Mischievous public men +Extradition of Kossuth +January 29, 1849 +Stunner's account of it contradicted +The Second Napoleon a copy of the First +Relies on Russian support +Compulsory voting +Life of a cavalry officer +Victims of the Coup d'État + + +_Letters in_ 1852-3. + +Effect of the Orleans confiscation on the English +Firmness of Prussia +Mr. Greg's writings +Communication from Schwartzenberg +New Reform Bill +Democracy or aristocracy +Reform Bill not wanted +Twenty-five thousand men at Cherbourg +Easier to understand Lord Derby than Lord John +Preparations at Cherbourg a delusion +Conversation with King Leopold +No symptoms of aristocratic re-action in England +England's democratic tendencies +Idleness of young aristocrats +Death of Protection +Revolutions leading to masquerades +Tory reforms +Imperial marriage +New Reform Bill a blunder + +_Journal in_ 1853. + +Prosperity in Paris +Dangers incurred by overbuilding +Discharged workmen effect Revolutions +Probable monetary panic +Empire can be firmly established only by a successful war +Agents undermining the Empire +Violence and corruption of the Government +Growing unpopularity of Louis Napoleon +Consequences of his death +He probably will try the resource of war +Conquest would establish his power +War must produce humiliation or slavery to France +Corruption is destroying the army and navy +Emperor cannot tolerate opposition +Will try a plebiscite + +_Letters in_ 1853. + +Blackstone a mere lawyer +Feudal institutions in France and England +Gentleman and Gentilhomme +Life of seclusion +Interference of police with letters +Mrs. Crete's conversations at St. Cyr +Great writers of the eighteenth century +Political torpor unfavourable to intellectual product +English not fond of generalities +Curious archives at Tours +Frightful picture they present +Sufficient to account for the Revolution of 1789 +La Marck's memoir of Mirabeau +Court would not trust Mirabeau +The elder Mirabeau influenced by Revolution +Revolution could not have been averted +Works of David Hume +Effect of intolerance of the press +Honesty and shortsightedness of La Fayette +Laws must be originated by philosophers +Carried into effect by practical men +Napoleon carried out laws +Too fond of centralisation +Country life destroyed by it +Royer Collard +Danton +Madame Tallien +Tocqueville independent of society +Studious and regular life +Influence of writers as compared with active politicians + +_Journal in_ 1854. + +Criticism of the Journals +The speakers generally recognised +Aware that they were being reported +The Legitimists +Necessity of Crimean War +Probable management of it +English view of the Fusion +Bourbons desire Constitutional Government +Socialists would prefer the Empire +They rejoiced in the Orleans confiscation +Empire might be secured by liberal institutions +Policy of G. +English new Reform Bill +Dangers of universal suffrage +Baraguay d'Hilliers and Randon +Lent in the Provinces +Chenonceaux +Montalembert's speech +Cinq Mars +Appearance of prosperity +_Petite culture_ in Touraine +Tyranny more mischievous than civil war +Centralisation of Louis XIV. a means of taxation +Under Louis Napoleon, centralisation more powerful than ever +Power of the Préfet +Courts of Law tools of the Executive +Préfet's candidate must succeed +Empire could not sustain a defeat +Loss of aristocracy in France +Napoleon estranged Legitimists by the murder of the Duc d'Enghien +Louis Philippe attempted to govern through the middle classes +Temporary restoration of aristocratic power under the republic +Overthrown by the second Empire +Legitimists inferior to their ancestors +Dulness of modern society and books +Effects of competition + +_Letters in_ 1854-5. + +Tocqueville attends the Academy +Proposed visit to Germany +Return to France +English adulation of Louis Napoleon +Mismanagement of Crimean War +Continental disparagement of England +Necessity for a conscription in England +Disastrous effects of the war for English aristocracy +Peace premature + +_Journals in_ 1855. + +Effects of the Emperor going to the Crimea +Prince Napoleon +Discontent in England +Disparagement of England +Austria alone profited by Crimean War +Despotism of Louis Napoleon consolidated by it +Centralisation in Algeria +Criticism of Mr. Senior's Article +Places Louis Napoleon too high +English alliances not dependent on the Empire +Louis Napoleon will covet the Rhine +Childish admiration of Emperor by British public +Real friends of England are the friends of her institutions + + +_Extracts from Mr. Senior's Article_. + +Description of political parties +Imperialists +Legitimists +Orleanists +Orleanist-Fusionists form the bulk of the Royalists +Legitimists unfit for public life +Republican party not to be despised +Parliamentarians +Desire only free institutions +No public opinion expressed in the Provinces +Power of Centralisation +Increased under Louis Philippe +Power of the Préfet +Foreign policy of Louis Napoleon +Of former French Sovereigns +Invasion of Rome prepared in 1847 +Eastern question, a legacy from Louis Philippe +Fault as an administrator +Mismanagement of the war +His Ministers mere clerks +Free institutions may secure his throne +English Alliance +Russian influence +Revolutions followed by despotism +Lessons taught by history + + +_Letters in_ 1855-6. + +Tocqueville burns his letter +Conversation of May 28 +Amusing letters from the Army +Enjoyment of home +Fall of Sebastopol +Cost of the war +Russia dangerous to Europe +How to restrain her +Progress in the East +No public excitement in France + + +_Journal in 1856_. + +The 'Ancien Régime' +Master of Paris, Master of France +Opposition to Suez Canal +Mischievous effect of English Opposition +Expenditure under the Empire +Effect of Opposition to the Suez Canal +Tripartite Treaty +'Friponnerie' of the Government +Tripartite Treaty +Suez Canal +French floating batteries +Fortifications of Malta +Emperor's orders to Canrobert +A campaign must be managed on the spot + + +_Letters in_ 1856-7. + +The 'Ancien Régime' +King 'Bomba' +American Rebellion +Lord Aberdeen on the Crimean War +Eccentricities of English public men +Remedy for rise in house-rent +The rise produced by excessive public works +Dulness of Paris +Mr. Senior's Journal in Egypt +Chinese war + + +_Journal in_ 1857. + +Flatness of society in Paris +Dexterity of Louis Napoleon +Is maintained by the fear of the 'Rouges' +Due de Nemours' letter +Tocqueville disapproves of contingent promises +Empire rests on the army and the people +Slavery of the Press +Public speaking in France +English and French speakers +American speakers +Length of speeches +French public men +Lamartine +Falloux +Foreign French +Narvaez and Kossuth +French conversers +Montalembert +Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle +Tu and vous +Feeling respecting heretics +Prejudices of the Ancien Régime +French poetry +Fashion in Literature +Montalembert's changes of opinion +Increasing population of Paris +Its dangerous character +No right to relief +Sudden influx of workmen +Soldiers likely to side with the people +Lamoricière's heroism +June 1848 +French army +National characteristics +Change in French only apparent +Martin's History of France +He is a centraliser and an absolutist +Secret police + +_Letters in_ 1857-8. + +Reception in England +Indian Mutiny +Financial question +Unpopularity of England +Law of Public Safety + +_Journal in_ 1858. + +Talleyrand as a writer +English ignorance of French affairs +Change of feeling respecting Louis Napoleon +'Loi de sureté publique' +Manner in which it has been carried out +Deportation a slow death +Influence of 'hommes de lettres' +French army +Russian army +French navy +Napoleon indifferent to the navy +Mr. Senior's Athens journal +Otho and Louis Napoleon +Qualities which obtain influence +Character of Louis Napoleon +Tocqueville's comments on the above conversation +Tocqueville on Novels +Intellectual and moral inferiority of the age +Education of French women +'Messe d'une heure' +Influence of Madame Récamier +Duchesse de Dino + +_Letters in_ 1858-9. + +Failing health +Mr. Senior's visit to Sir John Boileau +Promise of Lord Stanley +Character of Guizot +Spectacle afforded by English Politics +Tocqueville at Cannes +Louis Napoleon's loss of popularity +Death of Alexis de Tocqueville +Grief it occasioned in England + +_Journal at Tocqueville in_ 1861. + +Madame de Tocqueville house at Valognes +Chateau de Tocqueville +Beaumont on Italian affairs +Piedmontese unpopular with the lower classes +Popular with the higher classes in Naples +Influence of Orsini +Subjection of the French +Effect of Universal Suffrage +Causes which may overthrow Louis Napoleon +Popularity of a war with England +Condition of the Roman people +Different sorts of courage in different nations +Destructiveness of war not found out at first +Effect of service on conscript +Expenditure of Louis Napoleon +Forebodings of the Empress +Prince Napoleon +Ampère on Roman affairs +Inquisition +Infidelity +Mortara affair +Torpor of Roman Government +Interference with marriages +Ampère expects Piedmont to take possession of Rome +Does not think that Naples will submit to Piedmont +Wishes of Naples only negative +Ampère's reading +Execution of three generations +Familiarity with death in 1793 +Sanson +Public executioners +The 'Chambre noire' +Violation of correspondence +Toleration of Ennui +Prisoners of State +M. and Madame de La Fayette +Mirabeau and La Fayette +Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette +Evils of Democratic despotism +Ignorance and indolence of 'La jeune France' +Algeria a God-send +Family life in France +Moral effect of Primogeniture +Descent of Title +Shipwreck off Gatteville +Ampère reads 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' +The modern Nouveau Riche +Society under the Republic +Madame Récamier +Chateaubriand and Madame Mohl +Ballanche +Extensiveness of French literature +French and English poetry +The 'Misanthrope' +Tocqueville's political career +Under Louis Philippe in 1835 +Independence +In 1839 and 1840 +Opposition to Guizot +Inaction of Louis Philippe +Tocqueville would not submit to be a minister without power +Mistaken independence of party +Could not court popularity +Reform came too late +Faults in the Constitution +Defence of the Constitution +Tocqueville wished for a double election of the President +Centralisation useful to a usurper +England in the American War +Defence of England +Politics of a farmer +Wages in Normandy +Evils of Universal Suffrage +Influence of the clergy +Prince Napoleon +Constitutional monarchy preferable to a republic +Republic preferable to a despotism +Probable gross faults of a republic +Evils of socialist opinions +Mischievous effects of strikes +Mistaken tolerance of them in England +Tocqueville's tomb + + * * * * * + +APPENDIX. + +Mr. Senior's report of M. de Montalembert's speech in 1854 + + + +TOCQUEVILLE DURING THE EMPIRE + +FROM DECEMBER 23, 1851 TO APRIL 20, 1858. + + +CONVERSATIONS + +PARIS, 1851-2. + +[The _coup d'état_ took place on the 2nd, and Mr. Senior reached Paris on +the 21st of December.--ED.] + + +_Paris, December_ 23, 1851.--I dined with Mrs. Grot and drank tea with +the Tocquevilles. + +[1]'This,' said Tocqueville, 'is a new phase in our history. Every +previous revolution has been made by a political party. This is the first +time that the army has seized France, bound and gagged her, and laid her +at the feet of its ruler.' + +'Was not the 18th fructidor,' I said, 'almost a parallel case? Then, as +now, there was a quarrel between the executive and the legislature. The +Directory, like Louis Napoleon, dismissed the ministers, in whom the +legislature had confidence, and appointed its own tools in their places, +denounced the legislature to the country, and flattered and corrupted the +army. The legislature tried the usual tactics of parliamentary +opposition, censured the Government, and refused the supplies. The +Directory prepared a _coup d'état._ The legislature tried to obtain a +military force, and failed; they planned an impeachment of the Directory, +and found the existing law insufficient. They brought forward a new law +defining the responsibility of the executive, and the night after they +had begun to discuss it, their halls were occupied by a military force, +and the members of the opposition were seized in the room in which they +had met to denounce the treason of the Directory.' + +'So far,' he answered, 'the two events resemble one another. Each was a +military attack on the legislature by the executive. But the Directors +were the representatives of a party. The Councils and the greater part of +the aristocracy, and the _bourgeoisie_, were Bonapartists; the lower +orders were Republican, the army was merely an instrument; it conquered, +not for itself, but for the Republican party. + +'The 18th brumaire was nearer to this--for that ended, as this has begun, +in a military tyranny. But the 18th brumaire was almost as much a civil +as a military revolution. A majority in the Councils was with Bonaparte. +Louis Napoleon had not a real friend in the Assembly. All the educated +classes supported the 18th brumaire; all the educated classes repudiate +the 2nd of December. Bonaparte's Consular Chair was sustained by all the +_élite_ of France. This man cannot obtain a decent supporter. +Montalembert, Baroche, and Fould--an Ultramontane, a country lawyer, and +a Jewish banker--are his most respectable associates. For a real parallel +you must go back 1,800 years.' + +I said that some persons, for whose judgment I had the highest respect, +seemed to treat it as a contest between two conspirators, the Assembly +and the President, and to think the difference between his conduct and +theirs to be that he struck first. + +'This,' said Tocqueville, 'I utterly deny. He, indeed, began to conspire +from November 10, 1848. His direct instructions to Oudinot, and his +letter to Ney, only a few months after his election, showed his +determination not to submit to Parliamentary Government. Then followed +his dismissal of Ministry after Ministry, until he had degraded +the·office to a clerkship. Then came the semi-regal progress, then the +reviews of Satory, the encouragement of treasonable cries, the selection +for all the high appointments in the army of Paris of men whose infamous +characters fitted them to be tools. Then he publicly insulted the +Assembly at Dijon, and at last, in October, we knew that his plans were +laid. It was then only that we began to think what were our means of +defence, but that was no more a conspiracy than it is a conspiracy in +travellers to look for their pistols when they see a band of robbers +advancing. + +'M. Baze's proposition was absurd only because it was impracticable. It +was a precaution against immediate danger, but if it had been voted, it +could not have been executed. The army had already been so corrupted, +that it would have disregarded the orders of the Assembly. I have often +talked over our situation with Lamoricière and my other military friends. +We saw what was coming as clearly as we now look back to it; but we had +no means of preventing it.' + +'But was not your intended law of responsibility,' I said, 'an attack on +your part?' + +'That law,' he said, 'was not ours. It was sent up to us by the _Conseil +d'État_ which had been two years and a half employed on it, and ought to +have sent it to us much sooner. We thought it dangerous--that is to say, +we thought that, though quite right in itself, it would irritate the +President, and that in our defenceless state it was unwise to do so. The +_bureau_, therefore, to which it was referred refused to declare it +urgent: a proof that it would not have passed with the clauses which, +though reasonable, the President thought fit to disapprove. Our +conspiracy was that of the lambs against the wolf. + +'Though I have said,' he continued, 'that he has been conspiring ever +since his election, I do not believe that he intended to strike so soon. +His plan was to wait till next March when the fears of May 1852 would be +most intense. Two circumstances forced him on more rapidly. One was the +candidature of the Prince de Joinville. He thought him the only dangerous +competitor. The other was an agitation set on foot by the Legitimists in +the _Conseils généraux_ for the repeal of the law of May 31. That law was +his moral weapon against the Assembly, and he feared that if he delayed, +it might be abolished without him.' + +'And how long,' I asked, 'will this tyranny last?' + +'It will last,' he answered, 'until it is unpopular with the mass of the +people. At present the disapprobation is confined to the educated +classes. We cannot bear to be deprived of the power of speaking or of +writing. We cannot bear that the fate of France should depend on the +selfishness, or the vanity, or the fears, or the caprice of one man, a +foreigner by race and by education, and of a set of military ruffians and +of infamous civilians, fit only to have formed the staff and the privy +council of Catiline. We cannot bear that the people which carried the +torch of Liberty through Europe should now be employed in quenching all +its lights. But these are not the feelings of the multitude. Their insane +fear of Socialism throws them headlong into the arms of despotism. As in +Prussia, as in Hungary, as in Austria, as in Italy, so in France, the +democrats have served the cause of the absolutists. May 1852 was a +spectre constantly swelling as it drew nearer. But now that the weakness +of the Red party has been proved, now that 10,000 of those who are +supposed to be its most active members are to be sent to die of hunger +and marsh fever in Cayenne, the people will regret the price at which +their visionary enemy has been put down. Thirty-seven years of liberty +have made a free press and free parliamentary discussion necessaries to +us. If Louis Napoleon refuses them, he will be execrated as a tyrant. If +he grants them, they must destroy him. We always criticise our rulers +severely, often unjustly. It is impossible that so rash and wrong-headed +a man surrounded, and always wishing to be surrounded, by men whose +infamous character is their recommendation to him, should not commit +blunders and follies without end. They will be exposed, perhaps +exaggerated by the press, and from the tribune. As soon as he is +discredited the army will turn against him. It sympathises with the +people from which it has recently been separated and to which it is soon +to return. It will never support an unpopular despot. I have no fears +therefore for the ultimate destinies of my country. It seems to me that +the Revolution of the 2nd of December is more dangerous to the rest of +Europe than it is to us. That it ought to alarm England much more than +France. _We_ shall get rid of Louis Napoleon in a few years, perhaps in a +few months, but there is no saying how much mischief he may do in those +years, or even in those months, to his neighbours.' + +'Surely,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'he will wish to remain at peace +with England.' + +'I am not sure at all of that,' said Tocqueville. 'He cannot sit down a +mere quiet administrator. He must do something to distract public +attention; he must give us a substitute for the political excitement +which has amused us during the last forty years. Great social +improvements are uncertain, difficult, and slow; but glory may be +obtained in a week. A war with England, at its beginning, is always +popular. How many thousand volunteers would he have for a "pointe" on +London? + +'The best that can happen to you is to be excluded from the councils of +the great family of despots. Besides, what is to be done to amuse these +400,000 bayonets, _his_ masters as well as ours? Crosses, promotions, +honours, gratuities, are already showered on the army of Paris. It has +already received a thing unheard of in our history--the honours and +recompenses of a campaign for the butchery on the Boulevards. Will not +the other armies demand their share of work and reward? As long as the +civil war in the Provinces lasts they may be employed there. But it will +soon be over. What is then to be done with them? Are they to be marched +on Switzerland, or on Piedmont, or on Belgium? And will England quietly +look on?' + +Our conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the Abbé +Gioberti, and of Sieur Capponi, a Sicilian. + +_Paris, December_ 31, 1851.--I dined with the Tocquevilles and met Mrs. +Grote, Rivet, and Corcelle. + +'The gayest time,' said Tocqueville, 'that I ever passed was in the Quai +d'Orsay. The _élite_ of France in education, in birth, and in talents, +particularly in the talents of society, was collected within the walls of +that barrack. + +'A long struggle was over, in which our part had not been timidly played; +we had done our duty, we had gone through some perils, and we had some to +encounter, and we were all in the high spirits which excitement and +dangers shared with others, when not too formidable, create. From the +courtyard in which we had been penned for a couple of hours, where the +Duc de Broglie and I tore our chicken with our hands and teeth, we were +transferred to a long sort of gallery, or garret, running along through +the higher part of the building, a spare dormitory for the soldiers when +the better rooms are filled. Those who chose to take the trouble went +below, hired palliasses from the soldiers, and carried them up for +themselves. I was too idle and lay on the floor in my cloak. Instead of +sleeping we spent the night in shooting from palliasse to palliasse +anecdotes, repartees, jokes, and pleasantries. "C'était un feu roulant, +une pluie de bons mots." Things amused us in that state of excitement +which sound flat when repeated. + +'I remember Kerrel, a man of great humour, exciting shouts of laughter by +exclaiming, with great solemnity, as he looked round on the floor, +strewed with mattresses and statesmen, and lighted by a couple of tallow +candles, "Voilà donc où en est réduit ce fameux parti de l'ordre." Those +who were kept _au secret_, deprived of mutual support, were in a very +different state of mind; some were depressed, others were enraged. Bédeau +was left alone for twenty-four hours; at last a man came and offered him +some sugar. He flew at his throat and the poor turnkey ran off, fancying +his prisoner was mad.' + +We talked of Louis Napoleon's devotion to the Pope. + +'It is of recent date,' said Corcelle. 'In January and February 1849 he +was inclined to interfere in support of the Roman Republic against the +Austrians. And when in April he resolved to move on Rome, it was not out +of any love for the Pope. In fact, the Pope did not then wish for us. He +told Corcelle that he hoped to be restored by General Zucchi, who +commanded a body of Roman troops in the neighbourhood of Bologna. No +one at that time believed the Republican party in Rome to be capable of a +serious defence. Probably they would not have made one if they had not +admitted Garibaldi and his band two days before we appeared before their +gates.' + +I mentioned to Tocqueville Beaumont's opinion that France will again +become a republic. + +'I will not venture,' he answered, 'to affirm, with respect to any form +whatever of government, that we shall never adopt it; but I own that I +see no prospect of a French republic within any assignable period. We +are, indeed, less opposed to a republic now than we were in 1848. We have +found that it does not imply war, or bankruptcy, or tyranny; but we still +feel that it is not the government that suits us. This was apparent from +the beginning. Louis Napoleon had the merit, or the luck, to discover, +what few suspected, the latent Bonapartism of the nation. The 10th of +December showed that the memory of the Emperor, vague and indefinite, but +therefore the more imposing, still dwelt like an heroic legend in the +imaginations of the peasantry. When Louis Napoleon's violence and folly +have destroyed the charm with which he has worked, all eyes will turn, +not towards a republic, but to Henri V.' + +'Was much money,' I asked, 'spent at his election?' + +'Very little,' answered Tocqueville. 'The ex-Duke of Brunswick lent him +300,000 francs on a promise of assistance as soon as he should be able to +afford it; and I suppose that we shall have to perform the promise, and +to interfere to restore him to his duchy; but that was all that was +spent. In fact he had no money of his own, and scarcely anyone, except +the Duke, thought well enough of his prospects to lend him any. He used +to sit in the Assembly silent and alone, pitied by some members and +neglected by all. Silence, indeed, was necessary to his success. + +_Paris, January 2nd_, 1852.--I dined with Mrs. Grote and drank tea with +the Tocquevilles. + +'What is your report,' they asked, 'of the President's reception in Notre +Dame. We hear that it was cold.' + +'So,' I answered, 'it seemed to me.' + +'I am told,' said Tocqueville, 'that it was still colder on his road. He +does not shine in public exhibitions. He does not belong to the highest +class of hypocrites, who cheat by frankness and cordiality.' + +'Such,' I said, 'as Iago. It is a class of villains of which the +specimens are not common.' + +'They are common enough with us,' said Tocqueville. 'We call them _faux +bonshommes_. H. was an instance. He had passed a longish life with the +character of a frank, open-hearted soldier. When he became Minister, the +facts which he stated from the tribune appeared often strange, but coming +from so honest a man we accepted them. One falsehood, however, after +another was exposed, and at last we discovered that H. himself, with all +his military bluntness and sincerity, was a most intrepid, unscrupulous +liar. + +'What is the explanation,' he continued, 'of Kossuth's reception in +England? I can understand enthusiasm for a democrat in America, but what +claim had he to the sympathy of aristocratic England?' + +'Our aristocracy,' I answered, 'expressed no sympathy, and as to the +mayors, and corporations, and public meetings, they looked upon him +merely as an oppressed man, the champion of an oppressed country.' + +'I think,' said Tocqueville, 'that he has been the most mischievous man +in Europe.' + +'More so,' I said, 'than Mazzini? More so than Lamartine?' + +At this instant Corcelle came in. + +'We are adjusting,' said Tocqueville, 'the palm of mischievousness.' + +'I am all for Lamartine,' answered Corcelle; 'without him the others +would have been powerless.' + +'But,' I said, 'if Lamartine had never existed, would not the revolution +of 1848 still have occurred?' + +'It would have certainly occurred' said Tocqueville; 'that is to say, the +oligarchy of Louis Philippe would have come to an end, probably to a +violent one, but it would have been something to have delayed it; and it +cannot be denied that Lamartine's eloquence and courage saved us from +great dangers during the Provisional Government. Kossuth's influence was +purely mischievous. But for him, Austria might now be a constitutional +empire, with Hungary for its most powerful member, a barrier against +Russia instead of her slave.' + +'I must put in a word,' said Corcelle,[2] 'for Lord Palmerston. If +Lamartine produced Kossuth, Lord Palmerston produced Lamartine and +Mazzini and Charles Albert--in short, all the incendiaries whose folly +and wickedness have ended in producing Louis Napoleon.' + +'Notwithstanding,' I said, 'your disapprobation of Kossuth, you joined us +in preventing his extradition.' + +'We did,' answered Tocqueville. 'It was owing to the influence of Lord +Normanby over the President. It was a fine _succès de tribune_. It gave +your Government and ours an occasion to boast of their courage and of +their generosity, but a more dangerous experiment was never made. You +reckoned on the prudence and forbearance of Austria and Russia. Luckily, +Nicholas and Nesselrode are prudent men, and luckily the Turks sent to +St. Petersburg Fuad Effendi, an excellent diplomatist, a much better than +Lamoricière or Lord Bloomfield. He refused to see either of them, +disclaimed their advice or assistance, and addressed himself solely to +the justice and generosity of the Emperor. He admitted that Russia was +powerful enough to seize the refugees, but implored him not to set such +an example, and--he committed nothing to paper. He left nothing, and took +away nothing which could wound the pride of Nicholas; and thus he +succeeded. + +'Two days after, came a long remonstrance from Lord Palmerston, which +Lord Bloomfield was desired to read to Nesselrode, and leave with him. A +man of the world, seeing that the thing was done, would have withheld an +irritating document. But Bloomfield went with it to Nesselrode. +Nesselrode would have nothing to say to it. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "we +have given up all our demands; why tease us by trying to prove that we +ought not to have made them?" Bloomfield said that his orders were +precise. "Lisez donc," cried Nesselrode, "mais il sera très-ennuyeux." +Before he had got half through Nesselrode interrupted him. "I have heard +all this," he said, "from Lamoricière, only in half the number of words. +Cannot you consider it as read?" Bloomfield, however, was inexorable.' + +I recurred to a subject on which I had talked to both of them before--the +tumult of January 29, 1849. + +'George Sumner,' I said, 'assures me that it was a plot, concocted by +Faucher and the President, to force the Assembly to fix a day for its +dissolution, instead of continuing to sit until it should have completed +the Constitution by framing the organic laws which, even on December 2 +last, were incomplete. He affirms that it was the model which was +followed on December 2; that during the night the Palais Bourbon was +surrounded by troops; that the members were allowed to enter, but were +informed, not publicly, but one by one, that they were not to be allowed +to separate until they had fixed, or agreed to fix, the day of their +dissolution; and that under the pressure of military intimidation, the +majority, which was opposed to such a dissolution, gave way and consented +to the vote, which was actually carried two days after.' + +'No such proposition was made to me,' said Tocqueville, 'nor, as far as I +know, to anybody else; but I own that I never understood January 29. It +is certain that the Palais Bourbon, or at least its avenues, were taken +possession of during the night; that there was a vast display of military +force, and also of democratic force; that the two bodies remained _en +face_ for some time, and that the crowd dispersed under the influence of +a cold rain.' + +'I too,' said Corcelle, 'disbelieve Sumner's story. The question as to +the time of dissolution depended on only a few votes, and though it is +true that it was voted two days after, I never heard that the military +demonstration of January 29 accelerated the vote. The explanation which +has been made to me is one which I mentioned the other day, namely, that +the President complained to Changarnier, who at that time commanded the +army of Paris, that due weight seemed not to be given to his 6,000,000 +votes, and that the Assembly appeared inclined to consider him a +subordinate power, instead of the _Chef d'État_, to whom, not to the +Assembly, the nation had confided its destinies. In short, that the +President indicated an intention to make a _coup d'etat_, and that the +troops were assembled by Changarnier for the purpose of resisting it, if +attempted, and at all events of intimidating the President by showing him +how quickly a force could be collected for the defence of the Assembly.' + +_Sunday, January_ 4.--I dined with the Tocquevilles alone. The only +guest, Mrs. Grote, who was to have accompanied me, being unwell. + +'So enormous,' said Tocqueville, 'are the advantages of Louis Napoleon's +situation, that he may defy any ordinary enemy. He has, however, a most +formidable one in himself. He is essentially a copyist. He can originate +nothing; his opinions, his theories, his maxims, even his plots, all are +borrowed, and from the most dangerous of models--from a man who, though +he possessed genius and industry such as are not seen coupled, or indeed +single, once in a thousand years, yet ruined himself by the extravagance +of his attempts. It would be well for him if he would utterly forget all +his uncle's history. He might then trust to his own sense, and to that of +his advisers. It is true that neither the one nor the other would be a +good guide, but either would probably lead him into fewer dangers than a +blind imitation of what was done fifty years ago by a man very unlike +himself, and in a state of society both in France and in the rest of +Europe, very unlike that which now exists.' + +Lanjuinais and Madame B., a relation of the family, came in. + +Lanjuinais had been dining with Kissileff the Russian Minister. Louis +Napoleon builds on Russian support, in consequence of the marriage of his +cousin, the Prince de Lichtenstein, to the Emperor's daughter. He calls +it an _alliance de famille_, and his organs the 'Constitutionnel' and the +'Patrie' announced a fortnight ago that the Emperor had sent to him the +Order of St. Andrew, which is given only to members of the Imperial +family, and an autograph letter of congratulation on the _coup d'état_. + +Kissileff says that all this is false, that neither Order nor letter has +been sent, but he has been trying in vain to get a newspaper to insert a +denial. It will be denied, he is told, when the proper moment comes. + +'It is charming,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'to see the Emperor of +Russia, like ourselves, forced to see his name usurped without redress.' + +Madame B. had just seen a friend who left his country-house, and came to +Paris without voting, and told those who consulted him that, in the +difficulties of the case, he thought abstaining was the safest course. +Immediately after the poll was over the Prefect sent to arrest him for +_malveillance_, and he congratulated himself upon being out of the way. + +One of Edward de Tocqueville's sons came in soon after; his brother, who +is about seventeen, does duty as a private, has no servant, and cleans +his own horse; and is delighted with his new life. That of our young +cavalry officers is somewhat different. He did not hear of the _coup +d'état_ till a week after it had happened. + +'Our regiments,' said Lanjuinais, 'are a kind of convents. The young men +who enter them are as dead to the world, as indifferent to the events +which interest the society which they have left, as if they were monks. +This is what makes them such fit tools for a despot.' + + +_Thursday, January 8, 1852_.--From Sir Henry Ellis's I went to +Tocqueville's. + +[3]'In this darkness,' he said, 'when no one dares to print, and few to +speak, though we know generally that atrocious acts of tyranny are +perpetrated everyday, it is difficult to ascertain precise facts, so I +will give you one. A young man named Hypolite Magin, a gentleman by birth +and education, the author of a tragedy eminently successful called +"Spartacus," was arrested on the 2nd of December. His friends were told +not to be alarmed, that no harm was intended to him, but rather a +kindness; that as his liberal opinions were known, he was shut up to +prevent his compromising himself by some rash expression. He was sent to +Fort Bicêtre, where the casemates, miserable damp vaults, have been used +as a prison, into which about 3,000 political prisoners have been +crammed. His friends became uneasy, not only at the sufferings which he +must undergo in five weeks of such an imprisonment in such weather as +this, but lest his health should be permanently injured. At length they +found that he was there no longer: and how do you suppose that his +imprisonment has ended? He is at this instant at sea in a convict ship on +his way to Cayenne--untried, indeed unaccused--to die of fever, if he +escape the horrors of the passage. Who can say how many similar cases +there may be in this wholesale transportation? How many of those who are +missing and are supposed to have died at the barricades, or on the +Boulevards, may be among the transports, reserved for a more lingering +death!' + +A proclamation to-day from the Prefect de Police orders all persons to +erase from their houses the words 'Liberté,' 'Êgalité,' and 'Fraternité' +on pain of being proceeded against _administrativement_. + +'There are,' said Tocqueville, 'now three forms of procedure: +_judiciairement, militairement_ and _administrativement._ Under the first +a man is tried before a court of law, and, if his crime be grave, is +sentenced to one or two years' imprisonment. Under the second he is tried +before a drumhead court-martial, and shot. Under the third, without any +trial at all, he is transported to Cayenne or Algiers.' + +I left Paris next day. + + +[Footnote 1: I was not able to resist retaining this conversation in the +_Journals in France_.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: It must be remembered that M. de Corcelle is an ardent Roman +Catholic.--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: This conversation was also retained in the _Journals in +France_.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + + + +Kensington, January 5, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A private messenger has just offered himself to me, +a Mr. Esmeade, who will return in about a fortnight. + +The debate on Tuesday night on the Palmerston question was very +satisfactory to the Government. Lord John's speech was very well +received--Lord Palmerston's very ill; and though the constitution of the +present Ministry is so decidedly unhealthy that it is dangerous to +predict any length of life to it, yet it looks healthier than people +expected. It may last out the Session. + +The feeling with respect to Louis Napoleon is stronger, and it tends more +to unanimity every day. The Orleans confiscation has, I think, almost too +much weight given to it. After his other crimes the mere robbery of a +single family, ruffian-like as it is, is a slight addition. + +I breakfasted with V. yesterday. He assures me that it is false that a +demand of twenty millions, or any other pecuniary demand whatever, has +been made in Belgium. Nor has anything been said as to the demolition of +any fortresses, except those which were agreed to be dismantled in 1832, +and which are unimportant. + +The feeling of the people in Belgium is excellent. + +Mr. Banfield, who has just returned from the Prussian provinces, says the +same with respect to them--and Bunsen assures me that his Government will +perish rather than give up a foot of ground. I feel better hopes of the +preservation of peace. + +Thiers and Duvergier de Hauranne are much _fêtés_, as will be the case +with all the exiles. + +I have been reading Fiquelmont. He is deeply steeped in all the _bêtises_ +of the commercial, or rather the anti-commercial school; and holds that +the benefit of commerce consists not, as might have been supposed, in the +things which are imported, but in those which are exported. + +These follies, however, are not worth reading; but his constitutional +theories--his belief, for instance, that Parliamentary Government is the +curse of Europe--are curious. + +The last number of the 'Edinburgh Review' contains an article on Reform +well worth reading. It is by Greg. He wrote an admirable article in, I +think, the April number, on Alton Locke and the English Socialists, and +has also written a book, which I began to-day, on the Creed of +Christendom. I have long been anxious to get somebody to do what I have +not time to do, to look impartially into the evidences of Christianity, +and report the result. This book does it. + +Lord Normanby does not return to Paris, as you probably know. No +explanation is given, but it is supposed to be in compliance with the +President's wishes. + +I have just sent to the press for the 'Edinburgh Review,' an article on +Tronson du Coudray[1] and the 18th fructidor, which you will see in the +April number. The greater part of it was written this time last year at +Sorrento. + +Gladstone has published a new Neapolitan pamphlet, which I will try to +send you. It is said to demolish King Ferdinand. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. We hope that you will come to +us as soon as it is safe. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + +P.S. and very private.--I have seen a communication from Schwartzenberg +to Russia and Prussia, of the 19th December, the doctrine of which is +that Louis Napoleon has done a great service by putting down +parliamentaryism. That in many respects he is less dangerous than the +Orleans, or elder branch, because they have parliamentary leanings. That +no alteration of the existing parties must be permitted--and that an +attempt to assume an hereditary crown should be discouraged--but that +while it shows no aggressive propensities the policy of the Continent +ought to be to countenance him, and _isoler_ l'Angleterre, as a _foyer_ +of constitutional, that is to say, anarchical, principles. + +Bunsen tells me that in October his King was privately asked whether he +was ready to destroy the Prussian Constitution--and that he peremptorily +refused. + +Look at an article on the personal character of Louis Napoleon in the +'Times' of Monday. It is by R----, much built out of my conversation and +Z.'s letters. + +I have begged Mr. Esmeade to call on you--you will like him. He is a +nephew of Sir John Moore. + + + +[2]Kensington, March 19, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I was very glad to see your hand again--though +there is little in French affairs on which liberals can write with +pleasure. + +Ours are become very interesting. Lord John's declaration, at the meeting +the other day in Chesham Place, that he shall introduce a larger reform, +and surround himself with more advanced adherents, and Lord Derby's, on +Monday, that he is opposed to all democratic innovation, appear to me to +have changed the position of parties. The question at issue is no longer +Free-trade or Protection. Protection is abandoned. It is dead, never to +revive. Instead of it we are to fight for Democracy, or Aristocracy. I +own that my sympathies are with Aristocracy: I prefer it to either +Monarchy or Democracy. I know that it is incident to an aristocratic +government that the highest places shall be filled by persons chosen not +for their fitness but for their birth and connections, but I am ready to +submit to this inconvenience for the sake of its freedom and stability. +I had rather have Malmesbury at the Foreign Office, and Lord Derby first +Lord of the Treasury, than Nesselrode or Metternich, appointed by a +monarch, or Cobden or Bright, whom I suppose we should have under a +republic. But above all, I am for the winning horse. If Democracy is to +prevail I shall join its ranks, in the hope of making its victory less +mischievous. + +I wish, however, that the contest had not been forced on. We were very +well, before Lord John brought in his Reform Bill, which nobody called +for, and I am not at all sure that we shall be as well after it has +passed. + +As to the immediate prospects of the Ministry, the next three weeks may +change much, but it seems probable that they will be forced to dissolve +in April, or the beginning of May, that the new Parliament will meet in +July, and that they will be turned out about the end of August. And that +this time next year we shall be discussing Lord John's new Reform Bill. + +I doubt whether our fears of invasion are exaggerated. At this instant, +without doubt, Louis Napoleon is thinking of nothing but the Empire; and +is kind to Belgium, and pacific to Switzerland in the hope of our +recognition. + +But I heard yesterday from Lord Hardinge that 25,000 men are at +Cherbourg, and that 25,000 more are going there--and that a large sum is +devoted to the navy. We know that he governs _en conspirateur_, and this +is likely to extend to his foreign as well as his civil relations. + +I see a great deal of Thiers, who is very agreeable and very _triste_. +'L'exil,' he says, 'est très-dur.' Rémusat seems to bear it more +patiently. We hear that we are to have Cousin. + +What are your studies in the Bibliothèque Royale? I have begun to read +Bastide, and intend to make the publication of my lectures on Political +Economy my principal literary pursuit. I delivered the last on Monday. + +I shall pass the first fifteen days of April in Brussels, with my old +friend Count Arrivabene, 7 Boulevard du Régent. + + * * * * * + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +March 25, 1852. + +I send you, my dear Senior, an introduction to Lamoricière. This letter +will be short: you know that I do not write at any length by the post. + +It will contain nothing but thanks for your long and interesting letter +brought by Rivet, who returned delighted with the English in general, and +with you in particular. + +I see that the disturbed state of politics occasioned by Sir Robert +Peel's policy, is passing away, and that your political world is again +dividing itself into the two great sects, one of which tries to narrow, +the other to extend, the area of political power--one of which tries +to lift you into aristocracy, the other to depress you into democracy. + +The political game will be simpler. I can understand better the +conservative policy of Lord Derby than the democratic one of Lord John +Russell. As the friends of free-trade are more numerous than those of +democracy, I think that it would have been easier to attack the +Government on its commercial than on its political illiberality. + +Then in this great nation, called Europe, similar currents of opinions +and feelings prevail, different as may be the institutions and characters +of its different populations. We see over the whole continent so general +and so irresistible a reaction against democracy, and even against +liberty, that I cannot believe that it will stop short on our side of the +Channel; and if the Whigs become Radical, I shall not be surprised at the +permanence in England of a Tory Government allied to foreign despots. + +But I ought not to talk on such matters, for I live at the bottom of a +well, seeing nothing, and regretting that it is not sufficiently closed +above to prevent my hearing anything. Your visions of 25,000 troops at +Cherbourg, to be followed by 25,000 more, are mere phantoms. There is +nothing of the kind, and there will be nothing. I speak with knowledge, +for I come from Cherbourg. I have been attending an extraordinary meeting +of our _Conseil général_ on the subject of a projected railway. My +reception touched and delighted me. I was unanimously, and certainly +freely, elected president. + + * * * * * + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Friday evening, April 17, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--My letter is not likely to be a very amusing one, +for I begin it on the dullest occasion and in the dullest of towns, +namely at Ostend, while waiting for the packet-boat which is to take me +to London. + +A thousand thanks for your letter to Lamoricière. He was very kind to me, +and I hope hereafter, in Paris or in London, to improve the acquaintance. + +I saw no other French in Brussels. The most interesting conversation that +I had was with the King. + +I found him convinced that the decree annexing Belgium to France had been +drawn up, and that it was the interference of Nicholas, and his +expression of a determination not to suffer the existing temporal limits +to be altered, that had occasioned it to be withdrawn. I am happy, +however, to think, as you also appear to think, that your great man is +now intent on peaceful triumphs. + +He would scarcely have created such a mass of speculative activity in +France if he intended suddenly to check it by war. I hope that by the +time Masters in Chancery are abolished, I shall find France intersected +by a network of railroads and run from Paris to Marseilles in a day. + +I venture to differ from you as to the probable progress of reaction in +England. I see no symptom of it; on the contrary, democracy seems to me +to continue its triumphant march without a check. The Protectionists are +in power, they take for their leader in the House of Commons a man +without birth or connection, merely because he is a good speaker. This +could not have been done even ten years ago. They bow to the popular will +as to free-trade, and acknowledge that, even if they have a majority in +the Houses of Lords and Commons, they will not venture to re-impose a +Corn-law if the people do not ask for it. Never was such a homage paid to +the world 'without doors.' + +Then Lord John says that he objects to the Ballot, because those who have +no votes have a right to know how those who have votes use them. + +The example of the Continent will not affect us, or if it do affect us, +will rather strengthen our democracy. We are not accustomed to copy, and +shall treat the reaction in France, Austria, and Prussia rather as a +warning than as a model. + +I suspect that Lord John, who, though not, I think, a very wise +statesman, is a clever tactician, takes the same view that I do, and has +selected Reform for his platform, believing it to be a strong one. + +We were delighted with Rivet, and hope that he will soon come again. +Lamoricière tells me that he is going to take the waters of +_Aix-la-Chapelle_, but, if his exile continues, will probably come to +England next year. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +Kensington, April 30, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A thousand thanks for your letter.[3] I saw M. de +Lamoricière three times, and had a glimpse of Madame de L. who seemed +very pleasing. I was delighted with his spirit and intelligence, but +understand the criticism that he is _soldatesque_. + +I had a long and very interesting conversation with the King, and saw +much of my excellent friends Arrivabene and Quetelet. But after all +Brussels is not Paris. I was more than ever struck by the ugliness of the +country and the provincialness of the society. + +I returned on April 18, sprained my ancle on the 19th, and have been on +my back ever since. I have spent the time in looking through Fonfrède, +who is a remarkable writer, and makes some remarkable prophecies, in +finishing Grote's ninth and tenth volumes, in reading Kenrick's 'Ancient +Egypt,' which is worth studying, and in reading through Horace, whom I +find that I understand much better after my Roman experience. + +I differ from you as to the chances of reaction in this country. I +believe that we are still travelling the road which you have so well +mapped out, which leads to democracy. Our extreme _gauche_, which we call +the Manchester School, employs its whole efforts in that direction. It +has great energy, activity, and combination. The duties of Parliament and +of Government have become so onerous, and the facing our democratic +constituencies is so disagreeable, and an idle life of society, +literature, art, and travelling has become so pleasant, that our younger +aristocracy seem to be giving up politics, and hence you hear the +universal complaint that there are no young men of promise in public +life. + +The House of Commons is full of middle-aged lawyers, merchants, +manufacturers, and country-gentlemen, who take to politics late in life, +without the early special training which fitted for it the last +generation. + +I fear that the time may come when to be in the House of Commons may be +thought a bore, a somewhat vulgar spouting club, like the Marylebone +Vestry, or the City of London Common Council. + +I do not know whether Lord Derby has gained much in the last four months, +but Lord John has certainly lost. His Reform Bill was a very crude +_gâchis,_ without principle, and I think very mischievous. I ventured to +say nearly as much to Lord Lansdowne, who sat by my sofa for an hour on +Sunday, and he did not take up its defence. Then his opposition to the +present Ministry has been factious, and to punish him, he was left the +other day in a minority of fifty per cent. People begin now to speculate +on the possibility of Lord Derby's reconstructing his minority on rather +a larger basis, and maintaining himself for three or four years; which, +in these times, is a good old age for a Minister. One admirable result of +these changes is the death of Protection. Those who defended it in +opposition are found to abandon it now they are in power. So it has not a +friend left. + +Pray send me word, by yourself or by Mrs. Grote, when you leave Paris. My +vacation begins on May 8, but I shall not move unless I recover the use +of my legs, nor then I think, if I find that you will be absent. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +Paris, November 13, 1852. + +I am unlucky, my dear Senior, about your letters of introduction. You +know how much I have wished and tried to make the acquaintance of Lord +and Lady Ashburton, but without success. I should also, I am sure, have +had great pleasure in meeting Mr. Greg. + +This time I was prevented by ill health. + + * * * * * + +Two or three months ago, I wrote to you from the country a letter which +was addressed to Kensington. Did you receive it? and if so, why have you +not answered it? + +I wrote upon politics, but especially I asked you about yourselves, your +occupations and projects, some questions to which I was very anxious to +have answers. At any rate, do now what you ought to have done then--write +to me. + +I do not now write about politics, because we do not talk, or at least +write about them in France any more than in Naples; besides, such +subjects are not suitable to an invalid. + +I will only tell you, as important and authentic pieces of information, +that the new court ladies have taken to trains and little pages, and that +the new courtiers hunt the stag with their master in the Forest of +Fontainebleau in dresses of the time of Louis XIV. and cocked hats. + +Good-bye! Heaven preserve you from the mistakes which lead to +revolutions, and from the revolutions which lead to masquerades. A +thousand kind regards. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +London, December 4, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter of November 13 is, I think, the first +that I have received from you since March. + +That which you addressed to me at Kensington, two months ago, did not +reach me. I have written to you one or two; I do not know with what +success. + +I grieve to hear of rheumatism and pleurisy. You say nothing of Madame de +Tocqueville, whence I hope that I may infer that she, at least, is well. + +We have all been flourishing. We passed the vacation in Wales and +Ireland, and brought back a curious journal,[4] which I hope to send or +bring to you. + +I do not think that I shall venture to Paris at Christmas, though Ellice +and Thiers are trying to persuade me. I have too vivid a recollection of +the fog, cold, and dirt of last year; but I fully resolve to be with you +at Easter--that is, about March 24. + +The present Government, with all its want of principle and truth, and +with all its want of experience, is doing much better than I expected. + +The law reforms are far bolder than any that _my_ friends ever proposed, +and the budget, which was brought forward last night, contains more that +is good, and less that is bad, than was hoped or feared. + +Its worst portion is the abolition of half the malt tax, which leaves all +the expense of collection undiminished, besides being a removal of a tax +on a luxury which I do not wish to see cheaper. It is probable, however, +that the doubling of the house tax will be rejected, in which case +Disraeli will probably retain the malt tax, and the budget will sink into +a commonplace one. + +The removal of certain burdens on navigation and the change in the income +tax are thought good, and generally the Government has gained by the +budget. I am now inclined to think that it may last for some months +longer--perhaps for some years. + +In the meantime we are in a state of great prosperity: high wages, great +accumulation of capital, low prices of consumable articles, and high +prices of stocks and land. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +February 27, 1853. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I profit by Sir H. Ellis's visit to write, not +venturing to trust the post. + +We are grieved to hear that both you and Madame de Tocqueville have been +suffering. _We_ have borne this disagreeable winter better than perhaps +we had a right to expect; but still we have suffered. + +Mrs. Grote tells me that you rather complain that the English newspapers +approve of the marriage;[5] a marriage which you all disapprove. + +The fact is that we like the marriage precisely because you dislike it. +We are above all things desirous that the present tyranny should end as +quickly as possible. It can end only by the general alienation of the +French people from the tyrant; and every fault that he commits delights +us, because it is a step towards his fall. To say the truth, I wonder +that you do not take the same view, and rejoice over his follies as +leading to his destruction. + +Our new Government is going on well as yet. As the Opposition has turned +law reformers, we expect law reform to go on as rapidly as is consistent +with the slowly-innovating temper of the English. Large measures +respecting charities, education, secondary punishments, and the transfer +of land are in preparation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is at +work on the difficult--I suspect the insoluble--problem of an equitable +income tax. I foresee, however, a rock ahead. + +This is reform of the constituencies. Lord John Russell, very sillily, +promised two years ago a new Reform Bill. + +Still more sillily he introduced one last year, and was deservedly turned +out for it. + +Still more sillily the present Government has accepted his +responsibility, and is pledged to bring in a measure of reform next year. + +I have been trying to persuade them to pave the way by a Commission of +Inquiry, being certain that the facts on which we ought to agitate are +imperfectly known. But Lord John is unfavourable, and the other Ministers +do not venture to control the leader of the House of Commons. There will, +therefore, be no previous inquiry; at least only the indirect one which +the Government can make for itself. The measure will be concocted in +secrecy, will be found open to unforeseen objections; it will be thrown +out in the House, and will excite no enthusiasm in the country. If the +Government dissolve, the new Parliament will probably be still more +opposed to it than the present Parliament will be; and the Government, +being beaten again, will resign. + +Such is my prophecy. + +_Prenez en acte_, and we will talk it over in May 1854. + +I hope to be in Paris either for the Easter or for the Whitsun +vacation--that is, either about the 24th of March or the 5th of May +next--and I trust to find you and Madame de Tocqueville, if not quite +flourishing, at least quite convalescent. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +[Footnote 1: Republished in the _Biographical Sketches_. Longmans: +1863.--ED.] + + +[Footnote 2: The letter to which this is an answer is not to be +found,--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: This letter is not to be found.--ED.] + +[Footnote 4: Published in 1868.--ED.] + +[Footnote 5: That of the Emperor.--ED.] + + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, May_ 9,1853.--I drank tea with the Tocquevilles. Neither of them +is well. + +In February they were caught, on their journey from Tocqueville to Paris, +by the bitter weather of the beginning of that month. It produced +rheumatism and then pleurisy with him, and inflammation of the bowels +with her; and both are still suffering from the effects either of the +disorder or of the remedies. + +In the summer Paris will be too hot and Tocqueville too damp. So they +have taken a small house at St. Cyr, about a mile from Tours, where they +hope for a tolerable climate, easy access to Paris, and the use of the +fine library of the cathedral. He entered eagerly on the Eastern +question, and agreed on all points with Faucher; admitted the folly and +rashness of the French, but deplored the over-caution which had led us to +refuse interference, at least effectual interference, and to allow +Turkey to sink into virtual subservience to Russia. + +_Paris, Tuesday, May_ 17.--Tocqueville and I stood on my balcony, and +looked along the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de la Concorde, swarming +with equipages, and on the well-dressed crowds in the gardens below. From +the height in which we were placed all those apparently small objects, in +incessant movement, looked like a gigantic ant-hill disturbed. + +'I never,' said Tocqueville, 'have known Paris so animated or apparently +so prosperous. Much is to be attributed to the saving of the four +previous years. The parsimony of the Parisians ended in 1850; but the +parsimony of the provinces, always great, and in unsettled times carried +to actual avarice, lasted during the whole of the Republic. Commercial +persons tell me that the arrival of capital which comes up for investment +from the provinces deranges all their calculations. It is like the sudden +burst of vegetation which you have seen during the last week. We have +passed suddenly from winter to summer. + +'I own,' he continued, 'that it fills me with alarm. Among the +innumerable schemes that are afloat, some must be ill-founded, some must +be swelled beyond their proper dimensions, and some may be mere swindles. +The city of Paris and the Government are spending 150,000,000_l_. in +building in Paris. This is almost as much as the fortifications cost. It +has always been said, and I believe with truth, that the revolutionary +army of 1848 was mainly recruited from the 40,000 additional workmen whom +the fortifications attracted from the country, and left without +employment when they were finished. When this enormous extra-expenditure +is over, when the Louvre, and the new rue de Rivoli, and the Halles, and +the street that is to run from the Hôtel de Ville to the northern +boundary of Paris, are completed--that is to say, when a city has been +built out of public money in two or three years--what will become of the +mass of discharged workmen? + +'What will become of those on the railways if they are suddenly stopped, +as yours were in 1846? What will be the shock if the Crédit Foncier or +the Crédit Mobilier fail, after having borrowed each its milliard? +Everything seems to me to be preparing for one of your panics, and the +Government has so identified itself with the state of prosperity and +state of credit of the country that a panic must produce a revolution. +The Government claims the merit of all that is good, and of course is +held responsible for all that is bad. If we were to have a bad harvest, +it would be laid to the charge of the Emperor. + +'Of course,' he continued, 'I do not desire the perpetuation of the +present tyranny. Its duration as a dynasty I believe to be absolutely +impossible, except in one improbable contingency--a successful war. + +'But though, I repeat, I do not desire or expect the permanence of the +Empire, I do not wish for its immediate destruction, before we are +prepared with a substitute. The agents which are undermining it are +sufficiently powerful and sufficiently active to occasion its fall quite +as soon as we ought to wish for that fall.' + +'And what,' I said, 'are those agents?' + +'The principal agents,' he answered, 'are violence in the provinces and +corruption in Paris. Since the first outbreak there has not been much +violence in Paris. You must have observed that freedom of speech is +universal. In every private society, and even in every _café_ hatred or +contempt of the Government are the main topics of conversation. We are +too numerous to be attacked. But in the provinces you will find perfect +silence. Anyone who whispers a word against the Emperor may be +imprisoned, or perhaps transported. The prefects are empowered by one of +the decrees made immediately after the _coup d'état_ to dissolve any +Conseil communal in which there is the least appearance of disaffection, +and to nominate three persons to administer the commune. In many cases +this has been done, and I could point out to you several communes +governed by the prefect's nominees who cannot read. In time, of course, +tyranny will produce corruption; but it has not yet prevailed extensively +in the country, and the cause which now tends to depopularise him _there_ +is arbitrary violence exercised against those whom his agents suppose to +be their enemies. + +'On the other hand, what is ruining him in Paris is not violence, but +corruption. + +'The French are not like the Americans; they have no sympathy with +smartness. Nothing so much excites their disgust as _friponnerie_. The +main cause that overthrew Louis Philippe was the belief that he and his +were _fripons_--that the representatives bought the electors, that the +Minister bought the representatives, and that the King bought the +Minister. + +'Now, no corruption that ever prevailed in the worst periods of Louis +XV., nothing that was done by La Pompadour or the Du Barry resembles what +is going on now. Duchâtel, whose organs are not over-acute, tells me that +he shudders at what is forced on his notice. The perfect absence of +publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the +bar--for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to +be reported--give full room for conversational exaggeration. Bad as +things are, they are made still worse. Now this we cannot bear. It hurts +our strongest passion--our vanity. We feel that we are _exploités_ by +Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers. The +injury might be tolerated, but not the disgrace. + +'Every Government in France has a tendency to become unpopular as it +continues. If you were to go down into the street, and inquire into the +politics of the first hundred persons whom you met, you would find some +Socialists, some Republicans, some Orleanists, &c., but you would find no +Louis Napoleonists. Not a voice would utter his name without some +expression of contempt or detestation, but principally of contempt. + +'If then things take their course--if no accident, such as a fever or a +pistol-shot, cut him off--public indignation will spread from Paris to +the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army, +and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.' + +'And what power,' I said, 'will start up in his place?' + +'I trust,' answered Tocqueville, 'that the reins will be seized by the +Senate. Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying, +"A time may come when we shall be wanted." Probably the Corps Législatif +will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such +bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.' + +'But what,' I said, 'would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the +fever?' + +'The immediate consequence,' answered Tocqueville, 'would be the +installation of his successor. Jérôme would go to the Tuileries as easily +as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end. We might bear Louis +Napoleon for four or five years, or Jérôme for four or five months.' + +'It has been thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jérôme +dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a +military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.' + +'That,' said Tocqueville, 'is one of the few things which I hold to be +impossible. Nero may be followed by another attempt at a Republic, but if +any individual is to succeed him it must be a prince. _Mere_ personal +distinction, at least such as is within the bounds of real possibility, +will not give the sceptre of France. It will be seized by no one who +cannot pretend to an hereditary claim. + +'What I fear,' continued Tocqueville, 'is that when this man feels the +ground crumbling under him, he will try the resource of war. It will be a +most dangerous experiment. Defeat, or even the alternation of success and +failure, which is the ordinary course of war, would be fatal to him; but +brilliant success might, as I have said before, establish him. It would +be playing double or quits. He is by nature a gambler. His +self-confidence, his reliance, not only on himself, but on his fortune, +exceeds even that of his uncle. He believes himself to have a great +military genius. He certainly planned war a year ago. I do not believe +that he has abandoned it now, though the general feeling of the country +forces him to suspend it. That feeling, however, he might overcome; he +might so contrive as to appear to be forced into hostilities; and such is +the intoxicating effect of military glory, that the Government which +would give us _that_ would be pardoned, whatever were its defects or its +crimes. + +'It is your business, and that of Belgium, to put yourselves into such a +state of defence as to force him to make his spring on Italy. There he +can do you little harm. But to us Frenchmen the consequences of war +_must_ be calamitous. If we fail, they are national loss and humiliation. +If we succeed, they are slavery.' + +'Of course,' I said, 'the corruption that infects the civil service must +in time extend to the army, and make it less fit for service. + +'Of course it must,' answered Tocqueville. 'It will extend still sooner +to the navy? The _matériel_ of a force is more easily injured by jobbing +than the _personnel_. And in the navy the _matériel_ is the principal. + +'Our naval strength has never been in proportion to our naval +expenditure, and is likely to be less and less so every year, at least +during every year of the _règne des fripons_.' + +_Tuesday, May_ 24.--I breakfasted with Sir Henry Ellis and then went to +Tocqueville's. + +I found there an elderly man, who did not remain long. + +When he went, Tocqueville said, 'That is one of our provincial prefects. +He has been describing to us the state of public feeling in the South. +Contempt for the present Government, he tells us, is spreading there from +its headquarters, Paris. + +'If the Corps Législatif is dissolved, he expects the Opposition to +obtain a majority in the new House. + +'This,' continued Tocqueville, 'is a state of things with which Louis +Napoleon is not fit to cope. Opposition makes him furious, particularly +Parliamentary opposition. His first impulse will be to go a step further +in imitation of his uncle, and abolish the Corps Législatif, as Napoleon +did the Tribunat. + +'But nearly half a century of Parliamentary life has made the French of +1853 as different from those of 1803 as the nephew is from his uncle. + +'He will scarcely risk another _coup d'état_; and the only legal mode of +abolishing, or even modifying, the Corps Législatif is by a plébiscite +submitted by ballot to universal suffrage. + +'Will he venture on this? And if he do venture, will he succeed? If he +fail, will he not sink into a constitutional sovereign, controlled by an +Assembly far more unmanageable than we deputies were, as the Ministers +are excluded from it?' + +'Will he not rather,' I said, 'sink into an exile?' + +'That is my hope,' said Tocqueville, 'but I do not expect it quite so +soon as Thiers does,' + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +St. Cyr, July 2, 1853. + +I am not going to talk to you, my dear Senior, about the Emperor, or the +Empress, or any of the august members of the Imperial Family; nor of the +Ministers, nor of any other public functionaries, because I am a +well-disposed subject who does not wish that the perusal of his letters +should give pain to his Government. I shall write to you upon an +historical problem, and discuss with you events which happened five +hundred years ago. There could not be a more innocent subject. + +I have followed your advice, and I have read, or rather re-read, +Blackstone. I studied him twenty years ago. Each time he has made upon me +the same impression. Now, as then, I have ventured to consider him (if +one may say so without blasphemy) an inferior writer, without liberality +of mind or depth of judgment; in short, a commentator and a lawyer, not +what _we_ understand by the words _jurisconsulte_ and _publiciste_. He +has, too, in a degree which is sometimes amusing, a mania for admiring +all that was done in ancient times, and for attributing to them all that +is good in his own. I am inclined to think that, if he had had to write, +not on the institutions, but on the products of England, he would have +discovered that beer was first made from grapes, and that the hop is a +fruit of the vine--rather a degenerate product, it is true, of the wisdom +of our ancestors, but as such worthy of respect. It is impossible to +imagine an excess more opposite to that of his contemporaries in France, +for whom it was enough that a thing was old for it to be bad. But enough +of Blackstone; he must make way for what I really want to say to you. + +In comparing the feudal institutions in England in the period immediately +after the conquest with those of France, you find between them, not only +an analogy, but a perfect resemblance, much greater than Blackstone seems +to think, or, at any rate, chooses to say. In reality, the system in the +two countries is identical. In France, and over the whole Continent, this +system produced a caste; in England, an aristocracy. How is it that the +word _gentleman_, which in our language denotes a mere superiority of +blood, with you is now used to express a certain social position, and +amount of education, independent of birth; so that in two countries the +same word, though the sound remains the same, has entirely changed its +meaning? When did this revolution take place? How, and through what +transitions? Have no books ever treated of this subject in England? Have +none of your great writers, philosophers, politicians, or historians, +ever noticed this characteristic and pregnant fact, tried to account for +it, and to explain it? + +If I had the honour of a personal acquaintance with Mr. Macaulay, I +should venture to write to ask him these questions. In the excellent +history which he is now publishing he alludes to this fact, but he does +not try to explain it. And yet, as I have said before, there is none more +pregnant, nor containing within it so good an explanation of the +difference between the history of England and that of the other feudal +nations in Europe. If you should meet Mr. Macaulay, I beg you to ask him, +with much respect, to solve these questions for me. But tell me what you +yourself think, and if any other eminent writers have treated this +subject. + +You must think me, my dear friend, very tiresome with all these questions +and dissertations; but of what else can I speak? I pass here the life of +a Benedictine monk, seeing absolutely no one, and writing whenever I am +not walking. I expect this cloistered life to do a great deal of good +both to my mind and body. Do not think that in my convent I forget my +friends. My wife and I constantly talk of them, and especially of you and +of our dear Mrs. Grote. I am reading your MSS.,[1] which interest and +amuse me extremely. They are my relaxation. I have promised Beaumont to +send them to him as soon as I have finished them. + + +St. Cyr, December 8, 1853. + +I must absolutely write to you to-day, my dear Senior. I have long been +wishing to do so, but have been deterred by the annoyance I feel at not +being able to discuss with you a thousand subjects as interesting to you +as they are to me, but which one cannot mention in a letter; for letters +are now less secret than ever, and to insist upon writing politics to our +friends is equivalent to their not hearing from us at all. But I may, at +any rate, without making the police uneasy, assure you of the great +pleasure with which we heard that you intended paying us a little visit +next month. + +There is an excellent hotel at Tours, where you will find good +apartments; for the rest, I hope that you will make our house your inn. +We are near enough to Tours for me to walk there and back, and we +regulate our clocks by the striking of theirs; so you see that it is +difficult to be nearer. + +I think that it is a capital idea of yours to visit French Africa. The +country is curious in itself, also on account of the contrasts afforded +by the different populations which spread over the land without ever +mixing. + +You will find them materials for some of those excellent and interesting +articles which you write so well. When you come I shall be able to give +you some useful information, for I have devoted much attention to +Algiers. I have here a long report which I drew up for the Chamber in +1846, which may give you some valuable ideas, though things have +considerably changed since that time. + +Kind remembrances, &c., + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +[The following are some more of Mrs. Grote's interesting notes. She +preceded Mr. Senior at St. Cyr.--ED.] + +The notes relating to St. Cyr are memoranda of various conversations +which I enjoyed during a stay of some ten days or so at Tours, in +February 1854, with Monsieur Alexis de Tocqueville. I occupied an +apartment in the hotel at Tours, and on almost every day passed some +hours in the company of this interesting friend, who at this time lived +at St. Cyr, in a commodious country-house having its garden, &c, which he +rented. I drove out to dine there frequently, and M. de Tocqueville +walked over on the intervening days and stayed an hour or two at the +hotel with me talking incessantly.--H.G. + +_St. Cyr, February_ 13, 1854,--The French allow no author to have a claim +to the highest rank unless he joins the perfection of style with the +instructiveness of his matter. Only four first-rate writers in the +eighteenth century--_grands écrivains, comme grands penseurs originaux;_ +these being Montesquieu, Voltaire, J.J. Rousseau, and Buffon. Helvetius +not _en première ligne_, because his _forme_ was not up to the mark. +Alexis himself is often hung up for days together, having the thoughts, +yet not hitting off the 'phrases' in a way to satisfy his critical ear as +to style. + +Thinks that when a man is capable of originating a _belle pensée_, he +ought to be also capable of clothing that thought in felicitous language. + +Thinks that a torpid state of political life is unfavourable to +intellectual product in general. + +I instanced the case of Louis XIV. as contradicting this. Not admitted by +Tocqueville. The civil wars of Louis XIV.'s reign had engendered +considerable activity in the minds of the educated class. This activity +generated speculation and scientific inquiry in all the departments of +human thoughts. Abstract ideas became the field on which thinkers +occupied themselves. No _practical_ outlet under despotism, but a certain +social fermentation nevertheless existing, and the want of making itself +a vent impelled intellectual life and writings. I instanced Louis XV. 'At +least,' I said, 'the torpor of political life was become yet more a +habit,' 'Yes,' said Alexis, 'but then there was the principle of +discontent very widely diffused, which was the germ of the revolution of +1789. This restless, disaffected state of the national mind gave birth to +some new forms of intellectual product, tending to rather more distinct +practical results, which filtered down among the middle classes, and +became the objects of their desires and projects.' Rousseau and Voltaire +eminently serviceable in leading the public sentiment towards the middle +of the eighteenth century. + +English writers and statesmen having always enjoyed the power of applying +their minds to actual circumstances, and of appealing through a free +press and free speech also to the public of their day, have never +addressed themselves, as French philosophers did, to the cultivation of +abstract speculations and general theories. Here and there a writer has +been thrown, by his individual tastes and turn of thought, upon the study +of political philosophy; but the Englishman, taken as a public writer, +commonly addresses himself to practical legislation rather than to +recondite studies or logical analysis and investigation of the relations +between mankind and their regulations under authorised powers. Since Lord +Bacon there have been few, excepting in our later times Mill, Bentham, +and his disciples, who have explored the metaphysics of jurisprudence and +moral science in England. Hume dealt in the philosophic treatment of +political subjects, but did not work them up into anything like a +coherent system. English are not fond of generalities, but get on by +their instincts, bit by bit, as need arises. + +Alexis thinks that the writers of the period antecedent to the revolution +of 1789 were quite as much _thrown up by_ the condition of public +sentiment as they were the exciters of it. Nothing _comprehensive_, in +matters of social arrangement, can be effected under a state of things +like that of England; so easy there for a peculiar grievance to get +heard, so easy for a local or class interest to obtain redress against +any form of injustice, that legislation _must_ be 'patching.' Next to +impossible to reorganise a community without a revolution. + +Alexis has been at work for about a year in _rummaging_ amid archives, +partly in those of the capital, partly in those of the Touraine. In this +last town a complete collection is contained of the records of the old +'Intendance,' under which several provinces were governed. Nothing short +of a continuous and laborious poring over the details of Government +furnished by these invaluable _paperasses_ could possibly enable a +student of the past century to frame to himself any clear conception of +the working of the social relations and authorities in old France. There +exists no such tableau. The manners of the higher classes and their daily +life and habits are well portrayed in heaps of memoirs, and even pretty +well understood by our contemporaries. But the whole structure of +society, in its relations with the authorised agents of supreme power, +including the pressure of those secondary obligations arising out of +_coutumes du pays_, is so little understood as to be scarcely available +to a general comprehension of the old French world before 1789. + +Alexis says that the reason why the great upheaving of that period has +never been to this day sufficiently appreciated, never sufficiently +explained, is because the actual living hideousness of the social details +and relations of that period, seen from the points of view of a +penetrating contemporary looker-on, has never yet been depicted in +true colours and with minute particulars. After having dived into the +social history of that century, as I have stated, his conviction is that +it was impossible that the revolution of 1789 should _not_ burst out. +Cause and effect were never more irrevocably associated than in this +terrible case. Nothing but the compulsory idleness and obscurity into +which Alexis has been thrown since December 1851 would have put even him +upon the researches in question. Few perhaps could have addressed +themselves to the task with such remarkable powers of interpretation, and +with such talents for exploring the connection between thought and action +as he is endowed with. Also he is singularly exempt from aristocratical +prejudices, and quite capable of sympathising with popular feeling, +though naturally not partial to democracy. + +_February_ 15.--De Tocqueville came down in close carriage and sat an +hour and a half by fireside. Weather horrible. Talked of La Marck's book +on Mirabeau;[2] said that the line Mirabeau pursued was perfectly well +known to Frenchmen prior to the appearance of La Marck's book; but that +the actual details were of course a new revelation, and highly valued +accordingly. Asked what we thought of it in England. I told him the +leading impression made by the book was the clear perception of the +impossibility of effecting any good or coming to terms in any manner of +way of the revolutionary leaders with such a Court. That we also had long +suspected Mirabeau of being what he was now proved to have been--a man +who, imbued though he was with the spirit of revolutionary action and the +conviction of the rightfulness of demanding prodigious changes, yet who +would willingly have directed the monarch in a method of warding off the +terrible consequences of the storm, and who would, if the Court had +confided to his hands the task of conciliating the popular feelings, have +perhaps preserved the forms of monarchy while affording the requisite +concessions to the national demands. But the Court was so steeped in the +old sentiment of divine right, and moreover so distrustful of Mirabeau's +honour and sagacity (the more so as he was insatiable in his pecuniary +requisitions), that they would never place their cause frankly in his +hands, nor indeed in anyone else's who was capable of discerning their +best interests. Lafayette was regarded as an enemy almost (and was +'jaloused' by Mirabeau as being so popular) on account of his popular +sympathies. De Tocqueville said that so diffused was the spirit of +revolution at the period preceding the convocation of the États-généraux, +that the elder Mirabeau, who was a very clever and original-minded man, +though strongly tinctured with the old feudal prejudices, nevertheless +let the fact be seen in the clearest manner in his own writings. He wrote +many tracts on public topics, and De Tocqueville says that the tone in +which Mirabeau (_père_) handles these proves that he was perfectly +cognisant of the universal spread of revolutionary opinions, and even in +some degree influenced by them in his own person. Mirabeau (the son) was +so aware of the absolute necessity of proclaiming himself emancipated +from the old feudalities, that, among other extravagances of his conduct, +he started as a shopkeeper at Marseilles for some time, by way of +fraternizing with the _bourgeoisie; affichéing_ his liberalism. De +Tocqueville quoted Napoleon as saying in one of his conversations at St. +Helena that he had been a spectator _from a window_ of the scene at the +Tuileries, on the famous August 10, 1792, and that it was his conviction +(Napoleon's) that, even at that stage, the revolution might have been +averted--at least, the furious character of it might have been turned +aside--by judicious modes of negotiation on the part of the King's +advisers. De Tocqueville does not concur in Napoleon's opinion. +'Cahiers,' published 1789, contain the whole body of instructions +supplied to their respective delegates by the _trois états (clergé, +noblesse, et Tiers État_), on assembling in convocation. Of this entire +and voluminous collection (which is deposited in the archives of France) +three volumes of extracts are to be bought which were a kind of _rédigé_ +of the larger body of documents. In these three volumes De Tocqueville +mentioned, one may trace the course of the public sentiment with perfect +clearness. Each class demanded a large instalment of constitutional +securities; the nobles perhaps demanded the largest amount of all the +three. Nothing could be more thoroughgoing than the requisitions which +the body of the _noblesse_ charged their delegates to enforce in the +Assembly of the États-généraux--'égalisations des charges (taxation), +responsabilité des ministres, indépendance des tribunaux, liberté de la +personne, garantie de la propriété contre la couronne,' a balance-sheet +annually of the public expenses and public revenue, and, in fact, all the +salient privileges necessary in order to enfranchise a community weary of +despotism. The clergy asked for what they wanted with equal resolution, +and the _bourgeoisie_ likewise; but what the nobles were instructed to +demand was the boldest of all. We talked of the letters of the writers of +the eighteenth century, and of the correspondence of various eminent men +and women with David Hume, which Mr. Hill Burton has published in a +supplementary volume in addition to those comprised in his life of David +Hume, and which I have with me. I said that the works of Hume being +freely printed and circulated caused great pleasure to the French men of +letters, mingled with envy at the facility enjoyed by the Englishman of +publishing anything he chose; the French writers being debarred, owing to +the importunity of the clergy with Louis XV., from publishing freely +their works in France, and only managing to get themselves printed by +employing printers at the Hague, Amsterdam, and other towns beyond the +limits of the kingdom. To my surprise, De Tocqueville replied that this +disability, so far from proving disadvantageous to the _esprits forts_ of +the period, and the encyclopaedic school, was a source of gain to them in +every respect. Every book or tract which bore the stamp of being printed +at the Hague or elsewhere, _out of France_, was speedily caught up and +devoured. It was a passport to success. Everyone knowing that, since it +was printed there, it must be of a nature to give offence to the ruling +powers, and especially to the priesthood, and as such, all who were +imbued with the new opinions were sure to run after books bearing this +certificate of merit. De Tocqueville said that the _savans_ of 1760-1789 +would not have printed in France, had they been free to do so, at the +period immediately preceding the accession of Louis XVI. + +Talked of Lafayette: said he was as great as pure, good intentions and +noble instincts could make a man; but that he was _d'un esprit médiocre_, +and utterly at a loss how to turn affairs to profit at critical +junctures--never knew what was coming, no political foresight. Mistake in +putting Louis Philippe on the throne _sans garantie_ in 1830; misled by +his own disinterested character to think better of public men than he +ought to have done. Great personal integrity shown by Lafayette during +the Empire, and under the Restoration: not to be cajoled by any monarch. + +_February_ 16.--The current fallacy of Napoleon having made the important +alterations in the laws of France. All the eminent new enactments +originated in the Constituent Assembly, only that they set to work in +such sledgehammer fashion, that the carrying out their work became +extremely troublesome and difficult. Too abstract in their notions to +estimate difficulties of detail in changing the framework of +jurisprudence. De Tocqueville said philosophers must always originate +laws, but men used to active practical life ought to undertake to direct +the transition from old to new arrangements. The Constituent Assembly did +prodigious things in the way of clearing the ground of past abominations. +Napoleon had the talent of making their work take effect; understood +administrative science, but rendered the centralising principle far too +predominant, in the view to consolidate his own power afterwards. France +has felt this, to her cost, ever since. + +Habit formerly (i.e. 300 years back) as prevalent in France as it is in +England of gentlemen of moderate fortune residing wholly or by far the +greater part of the year on their estates. They ceased to do so from +the time when the sovereign took from them all local authority, from the +fifteenth century or so. The French country-houses were excessively +thickly dotted over the land even up to the year 1600; quantities pulled +down after that period. Country life becoming flat after the gentlemen +ceased to be of importance in their political relations with their +districts, they gave up rural habits and took to living in the provincial +towns. + +De Tocqueville had many conversations with M. Royer Collard respecting +the events of 1789. Difficult to get much out of men of our period +relative to their own early manhood. His own father (now 82) much less +capable of communicating details of former _régime_ than might have been +supposed. Because, says De Tocqueville, youths of eighteen to twenty +hardly ever possess the faculty or the inclination to note social +peculiarities. They accept what they find going, and scarcely give a +thought to the contemplation of what is familiar to them and of every +day's experience. Royer Collard was a man of superior mind: had a great +deal to relate. De Tocqueville used to pump him whenever an opportunity +occurred. Knew Danton well, used to discuss political affairs with him. +When revolution was fairly launched, saw him occasionally. Danton was +venal to the last degree; received money from the Court over and over +again; 'agitated,' and was again sopped by the agents of Marie +Antoinette. When matters grew formidable (in 1791) Royer Collard was +himself induced to become an agent or go-between of the Court for buying +up Danton. He sought an opportunity, and after some prefatory +conversations Royer Collard led Danton to the point. 'No,' said Danton, +'I cannot listen to any such suggestions now. Times are altered. It is +too late. 'Nous le détrônerons et puis nous le tuerons,' added he in an +emphatic tone. Royer Collard of course gave up the hope of succeeding. + +Danton's passion for a young girl, whom he married, became his ruin. +While he was honeymooning it by some river's margin, Robespierre got the +upper hand in the Assembly, and caused him to be seized--_mis en +jugement_--and soon afterwards guillotined. The woman did not know, it is +affirmed, that it was Danton who set the massacres of 1792 agoing; she +thought him a good-hearted man. He set all his personal enemies free out +of their prisons prior to the commencement of the massacres; wishing to +be able to boast of having spared his enemies, as a proof that he was +actuated by no ignoble vengeance, but only by a patriotic impulse. He +was a low, mean-souled fanatic, who had no clear conception of what he +was aiming at, but who delighted in the horrid excitement prevailing +around him. It was Tallien who had the chief share in the deposition of +Robespierre and the transactions of the 9th thermidor. Madame Tallien was +then in prison, and going to be executed in a few days (she was not yet +married to Tallien then). She wrote, by stealth of course, a few emphatic +words, with a toothpick and soot wetted, to Tallien which nerved him to +the conflict, and she was saved. Talleyrand told De Tocqueville she was +beyond everything captivating, beautiful, and interesting. She afterwards +became the mistress of Barras, and finally married the Prince de Chimay. + +De Tocqueville has been at Voré, Helvetius' château in La Perche--a fine +place, and Helvetius lived _en seigneur_ there. A grand-daughter of +Helvetius married M. de Rochambeau, uncle, by mother's side, of Alexis: +so that the great-grandchildren are De Tocqueville's first cousins. + +In the 'Souvenirs' of M. Berryer (_père_) he describes the scene of the +9th thermidor, in which he was actively concerned in the interest of the +Convention, and saw Robespierre borne past him with his shattered jaw +along the Quai Pelletier. Also went to the terrace of the Tuileries +gardens to assure himself that Robespierre was really executed the next +day; heard the execrations and shouts which attended his last moments, +but did not stay to witness them. Release of the Duchess of St. Aignan, +under sentence of death, by his father. + +_February_ 18.--A. de Tocqueville came to see me, and we walked out for +half-an-hour. He said he had now spent over eight months in a seclusion +such as he had never experienced in his whole life. That, partly his +own debilitated health, partly the impaired state of his wife's general +powers (nervous system inclusive), partly the extreme aversion he felt +for public affairs and the topics of the day connected with politics; all +these considerations had determined him upon withdrawing himself from +society for a certain space, and _that_ to a considerable distance from +all his friends and relations. A physician, also of widely extended fame +(Dr. Brittonneau), happening to reside close to where they have lodged +themselves, formed an additional link in the chain of motives for +settling themselves at Tours. M. de Tocqueville had some misgivings at +first as to whether, after passing twenty years in active public life, +and in the frequent society of men who occupied the most distinguished +position in the political world, as well as of others not less eminent in +that of letters; whether, he said, the monotony and stillness of his new +mode of life would not be too much for his spirits and render his mind +indolent and depressed. 'But,' said he, 'I have been agreeably reassured. +I have come to regard society as a thing which I can perfectly well do +without. I desire nothing better than to occupy myself, as I have been +doing, with the composition of a work which I am in hopes will travel +over somewhat other than beaten ground. I have found many materials for +my purpose in this spot, and the pursuit has got hold of me to a degree +which renders intellectual labour a source of pleasure; and I prosecute +it steadily, unless when my health is out of order; which, happily, does +not occur so frequently since the last three or four months. My wife's +company serves to encourage me in my work, and to cheer me in every +respect, since an entire sympathy subsists between us, as you know; we +seem to require no addition, and our lives revolve in the most inflexible +routine possible. I rise at half-past five, and work seriously till +half-past nine; then dress for _déjeûner_ at ten. I commonly walk +half-an-hour afterwards, and then set to on some other study--usually of +late in the German language--till two P.M., when I go out again and walk +for two hours, if weather allows. In the evenings I read to amuse myself, +often reading aloud to Madame de Tocqueville, and go to bed at ten P.M. +regularly every night.' + +'Sometimes,' said De Tocqueville, 'I reflect on the difference which may +be discerned between the amount of what a man can effect by even the most +strenuous and well-directed efforts, whether as a public servant or as a +leading man in political life, and what a writer of impressive books has +it in his power to effect. It is true that a man of talent and courage +may acquire a creditable position, may exercise great influence over +other individuals engaged in the same career, and may enjoy a certain +measure of triumphant success in cases where he can put out his strength. +At the same time it strikes me that the best of these exaggerates +immensely the amount of good which he has been able to effect. I look +back upon prodigiously vivid passages in various public men's lives, in +this century, with a melancholy reflection of how little influence their +magnificent efforts have really exercised over the march of human +affairs. A man is apt to believe he has done great things when his +hearers and contemporaries are strongly affected, either by a powerful +speech, or an animated address, or an act of opportune courage, or the +like. But, if we investigate the positive amount of what the individual +has effected in the way of bettering or advancing the general interests +of mankind, by personal exertion on the public stage, I regret to say I +can find hardly an instance of more than a transient, though beneficial, +flash of excitement produced on the public mind. I do not here speak of +men invested with great power--princes, prime ministers, popes, generals +and the like. Of course _they_ produce lasting traces of their _power_, +whether it be for good or evil; and, indeed, _individuals_ have on their +side considerable power to work _mischief_, though not often to work +good. I begin to think that a man not invested with a considerable amount +of political _power_ can do but little good by slaving at the oar of +independent political action. Now, on the contrary, what a vast effect a +_writer_ can produce, when he possesses the requisite knowledge and +endowments! In his cabinet, his thoughts collected, his ideas well +arranged, he may hope to imprint indelible traces on the line of human +progress. What orator, what brilliant patriot at the tribune, could ever +effect the extensive fermentation in a whole nation's sentiments achieved +by Voltaire and Jean Jacques? + +'I have certainly seen reason to change some of my views on social facts, +as well as some reasonings founded on imperfect observation. But the +_fond_ of my opinions can never undergo a change--certain irrevocable +maxims and propositions _must_ constitute the basis of thinking minds. +How such changes can come about as I have lived to see in some men's +states of opinion is to me incomprehensible. Lafayette was foolish enough +to give his support to certain conspiracies--certainly to that of +Béfort's, in Alsace. What folly! to seek to upset a despotism by the +agency of the _soldiery_, in the nineteenth century!' + +H. GROTE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior's Journals.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: See _Royal and Republican France_, by H. Reeve Esq. vol. +i.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. SENIOR. + +_St. Cyr, Tuesday, February_ 21, 1854.[1]--On the 20th I left Paris for +Le Trésorier, a country-house in the village of St. Cyr, near Tours, +which the Tocquevilles have been inhabiting for some months. It stands in +a large enclosure of about fifteen acres, of which about ten are orchard +and vineyard, and the remainder are occupied by the house, stables, and a +large garden. The house has a great deal of accommodation, and they pay +for it, imperfectly furnished, 3,000 francs a year, and keep up the +garden, which costs about 500 francs more, being one man at one and +a-half francs a day. + +This is considered dear; but the sheltered position of the house, looking +south, and protected by a hill to the north-east, induced the +Tocquevilles to pay for it about 1,000 francs more than its market value. + +I will throw together the conversations of February 22 and 23. They began +by my giving to him a general account of the opinions of my friends in +Paris. + +'I believe,' said Tocqueville, 'that I should have found out many of your +interlocutors without your naming them. I am sure that I should Thiers, +Duvergier, Broglie, and Rivet; perhaps Faucher--certainly Cousin. I +translate into French what you make them say, and hear them speak. I +recognise Dumon and Lavergne, but I should not have discovered them. The +conversation of neither of them has the marked, peculiar flavour that +distinguishes that of the others. You must recollect, however, that some +of your friends knew, and most of the others must have suspected, that +you were taking notes. Thiers speaks evidently for the purpose of being +reported. To be sure that shows what are the opinions that men wish to be +supposed to entertain, and they often betray what they think that they +conceal. Still it must be admitted that you had not always the natural +man.' 'I am sorry,' he added, 'that you have not penetrated more into the +salons of the Legitimists. You have never got further than a Fusionist. +The Legitimists are not the Russians that Thiers describes them. Still +less do they desire to see Henri V. restored by foreign intervention. +They and their cause have suffered too bitterly for having committed +that crime, or that fault, for them to be capable of repeating it. They +are anti-national so far as not to rejoice in any victories obtained by +France under this man's guidance. But I cannot believe that they would +rejoice in her defeat. They have been so injured in their fortunes and +their influence, have been so long an oppressed caste--excluded from +power, and even from sympathy--that they have acquired the faults of +slaves--have become timid and frivolous, or bitter. + +'They have ceased to be anxious about anything but to be let alone. But +they are a large, a rich, and comparatively well-educated body. Your +picture is incomplete without them, _et il sera toujours très-difficile +de gouverner sans eux._[2] + +I quite agree,' he continued, 'with Thiers as to the necessity of this +war. Your interests may be more immediate and greater, but ours are very +great. When I say ours, I mean those of France as a country that is +resolved to enjoy constitutional government. I am not sure that if Russia +were to become mistress of the Continent she would not allow France to +continue a quasi-independent despotism under her protectorate. But she +will never willingly allow us to lie powerful and free. + +'I sympathise, too, with Thiers's fears as to the result. I do not +believe that Napoleon himself, with all his energy, and all his +diligence, and all his intelligence, would have thought it possible to +conduct a great war to which his Minister of War was opposed. A man who +has no heart in his business will neglect it, or do it imperfectly. His +first step would have been to dismiss St.-Arnaud. Then, look at the other +two on whose skill and energy we have to depend. One is Ducos, Minister +of Marine, a man of mere commonplace talents and character. The other is +Binneau, Minister of Finance, somewhat inferior to Ducos. Binneau ought +to provide resources. He ought to check the preposterous waste of the +Court. He has not intelligence enough to do the one, or courage enough to +attempt the other. The real Prime Minister is without doubt Louis +Napoleon himself. But he is not a man of business. He does not understand +details. He may order certain things to be done, but he will not be able +to ascertain whether the proper means have been taken. He does not know +indeed what these means are. He does not trust those who do. A war which +would have tasked all the powers of Napoleon, and of Napoleon's Ministers +and generals, is to be carried on without any master-mind to direct it, +or any good instruments to execute it. I fear some great disaster. + +'Such a disaster might throw,' he continued, 'this man from the eminence +on which he is balanced, not rooted. It might produce a popular outbreak, +of which the anarchical party might take advantage. Or, what is perhaps +more to be feared, it might frighten Louis Napoleon into a change of +policy. He is quite capable of turning short round--giving up +everything--key of the Grotto, protectorate of the orthodox, even the +Dardanelles and the Bosphorus--to Nicholas, and asking to be repaid by +the Rhine. + +'I cannot escape from the _cauchemar_ that a couple of years hence France +and England may be at war. Nicholas's expectations have been deceived, +but his plan was not unskilfully laid. He had a fair right to conjecture +that you would think the dangers of this alliance such as to be even +greater than those of allowing him to obtain his protectorate. + +'In deciding otherwise, you have taken the brave and the magnanimous +course. I hope that it may prove the successful one. + +'I am sorry,' continued Tocqueville, 'to see the language of your +newspapers as to the fusion. I did not choose to take part in it. I hate +to have anything to do with pretenders. But as a mere measure of +precaution it is a wise one. It decides what shall be the conduct of the +Royalist party in the event--not an improbable one--of France being +suddenly left without a ruler. + +'Your unmeasured praise of Louis Napoleon and your unmeasured abuse of +the Bourbons are, to a certain degree, the interference in our politics +which you professedly disclaim. I admit the anti-English prejudices +of the Bourbons, and I admit that they are not likely to be abated by +your alliance with a Bonaparte. But the opinions of a constitutional +sovereign do not, like those of a despot, decide the conduct of his +country. The country is anxious for peace, and, above all, peace with +you--for more than peace, for mutual good-feeling. The Bourbons cannot +return except with a constitution. It has become the tradition of the +family, it is their title to the throne. There is not a _vieille +marquise_ in the Faubourg St.-Germain who believes in divine right. + +'The higher classes in France are Bourbonists because they are +Constitutionalists, because they believe that constitutional monarchy is +the government best suited to France, and that the Bourbons offer us the +fairest chance of it. + +'Among the middle classes there is without doubt much inclination for the +social equality of a Republic. But they are alarmed at its instability; +they have never known one live for more than a year or two, or die except +in convulsions. + +'As for the lower classes, the country people think little about +politics, the sensible portion of the artizans care about nothing but +cheap and regular work; the others are Socialists, and, next to the +government of a Rouge Assembly, wish for that of a Rouge despot.' + +'In London,' I said, 'a few weeks ago I came across a French Socialist, +not indeed of the lower orders--for he was a Professor of +Mathematics--but participating in their feelings. "I prefer," he said, "a +Bonaparte to a Bourbon--a Bonaparte must rely on the people, one can +always get something out of him." "What have you got," I asked, "from +this man?" "A great deal," he answered. "We got the Orleans +confiscation--that was a great step. _Il portait attente à la propriété_. +Then he represents the power and majesty of the people. He is like the +people, above all law. _Les Bourbons nous chicanaient._"' + +'That was the true faith of a Rouge,' said Tocqueville 'If this man,' he +added, 'had any self-control, if he would allow us a very moderate degree +of liberty, he might enjoy a reign--probably found a dynasty. He had +everything in his favour; the prestige of his name, the acquiescence of +Europe, the dread of the Socialists, and the contempt felt for the +Republicans. We were tired of Louis Philippe. We remembered the _branche +aînée_ only to dislike it, and the Assembly only to despise it. We never +shall be loyal subjects, but we might have been discontented ones, with +as much moderation as is in our nature.' + +'What is the _nuance_,' I said, 'of G----?' + +'G----,' answered Tocqueville, 'is an honest man, uncorrupt and +public-spirited; he is a clear, logical, but bitter speaker; his words +fall from the tribune like drops of gall. He has great perspicacity, but +rather a narrow range. His vision is neither distant nor comprehensive. +He wears a pair of blinkers, which allow him to see only what he looks +straight at--and that is the English Constitution. For what is to the +right and to the left he has no eyes, and unhappily what is to the right +and to the left is France. + +'Then he has a strong will, perfect self-reliance, and the most restless +activity. All these qualities give him great influence. He led the +_centre gauche_ into most of its errors. H---- used to say, "If you +want to know what I shall do, ask G----." + +'Among the secondary causes of February 1848 he stands prominent. He +planned the banquets. Such demonstrations are safe in England. He +inferred, according to his usual mode of reasoning, that they would not +be dangerous in France. He forgot that in England there is an aristocracy +that leads, and even controls, the people. + +'I am alarmed,' he continued, 'by your Reform Bill. Your new six-pound +franchise must, I suppose, double the constituencies; it is a further +step to universal suffrage, the most fatal and the least remediable of +institutions.[3] + +'While you preserve your aristocracy, you will preserve your freedom; if +that goes, you will fall into the worst of tyrannies, that of a despot, +appointed and controlled, so far as he is controlled at all, by a +mob.'[4] + +Madame de Tocqueville asked me if I had seen the Empress. + +'No,' I said, 'but Mrs. Senior has, and thinks her beautiful.' + +'She is much more so,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'than her portraits. +Her face in perfect repose gets long, and there is a little drooping +about the corners of the mouth. This has a bad effect when she is +serious, as everyone is when sitting for a picture, but disappears as +soon as she speaks. I remember dining in company with her at the +President's--I sat next to him--she was nearly opposite, and close to her +a lady who was much admired. I said to the President, looking towards +Mademoiselle de Montigo, "Really I think that she is far the prettier of +the two." He gazed at her for an instant, and said, "I quite agree with +you; she is charming." It may be a _bon ménage_' + +'To come back,' I said, 'to our Eastern question. What is Baraguay +d'Hilliers?' + +'A _brouillon_,' said Tocqueville. 'He is the most impracticable man in +France. His vanity, his ill-temper, and his jealousy make him quarrel +with everybody with whom he comes in contact. In the interest of our +alliance you should get him recalled.' + +'What sort of man,' I asked, 'shall I find General Randon?' + +'Very intelligent,' said Tocqueville. 'He was to have had the command of +the Roman army when Oudinot gave it up; but, just as he was going, it was +discovered that he was a Protestant. He was not so accommodating as one +of our generals during the Restoration. He also was a Protestant. The Duc +d'Angoulême one day said to him, "Vous êtes protestant, général?" The +poor man answered in some alarm, for he knew the Duke's +ultra-Catholicism, "Tout ce que vous voulez, monseigneur."' + + + +[Footnote 1: My conversations with M. de Tocqueville during this visit +were written out after my return from Paris and sent to him. He returned +them with the remarks which I have inserted.--N.W. SENIOR.] + +[Footnote 2: Le portrait va plus loin que ma pensée.--_A. de +Tocqueville_. The picture expresses more than my idea.] + +[Footnote 3: Cela va plus loin que ma pensée. Je crois que le vote +universel peut se concilier avec d'autres institutions, qui diminuerait +le danger.--_A. de Tocqueville._ + +This goes farther than my idea. I think that universal suffrage may be +combined with other institutions, which would diminish the danger.] + +[Footnote 4: Cela aussi va plus loin que ma pensée. Je crois +très-désirable le maintien des institutions aristocratiques en +Angleterre. Mais je suis loín de dire que leur abolition mènerait +nécessairement au despotisme, surtout si elles s'affaiblissaient peu à +peu et n'étaient pas renversées par une révolution.--_A. de Tocqueville_. + +This also goes farther than my idea. I think the maintenance in England +of aristocratic institutions very desirable. But I am far from saying +that their abolition would necessarily lead to despotism, especially if +their power were diminished gradually and without the shock of a +revolution.] + + + + +_To N.W. Senior, Esq._ + +St. Cyr, March 18, 1854. + +Your letter was a real joy to us, my dear Senior. As you consent to be +ill lodged, we offer to you with all our hearts the bachelor's room which +you saw. You will find there only a bed, without curtains, and some very +shabby furniture. But you will find hosts who will be charmed to have you +and your MSS. I beg you not to forget the latter. + +My wife, as housekeeper, desires me to give you an important piece of +advice. In the provinces, especially during Lent, it is difficult to get +good meat on Fridays and Saturdays, and though you are a great sinner, +she has no wish to force you to do penance, especially against your will, +as that would take away all the merit. She advises you, therefore, to +arrange to spend with us Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and +Thursday, and to avoid Friday and Saturday, and especially the whole of +the Holy Week. + +Now you are provided with the necessary instructions. Choose your own +day, and give us twenty-four hours' warning. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +St. Cyr, March 31, 1854. + +My dear Senior,--As you are willing to encounter hard meat and river +fish, I have no objection to your new plan. I see in it even this +advantage, that you will be able to tell us _de visu_ what went on in the +Corps Législatif, which will greatly interest us. + +The condemnation of Montalembert seems to me to be certain; but I am no +less curious to know how that honourable assembly will contrive to +condemn a private letter which appeared in a foreign country, and which +was probably published without the authorisation and against the will of +the writer. + +It is a servile trick, which I should like to see played. + +Do not hesitate to postpone your visit if the sitting of the Corps +Législatif should not take place on Monday. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +I passed the 3rd and 4th of April in the Corps Législatif listening to +the debate on the demand by the Government of permission to prosecute M. +de Montalembert, a member of the Corps Législatif, for the publication of +a letter to M. Dupin, which it treated as libellous. As it was supposed +that M. de Montalembert's speech would be suppressed, I wrote as +much of it as I could carry in my recollection; the only other +vehicle--notes--not being allowed to be taken.[1] On the evening of the +5th of April I left Paris for St. Cyr. + +[Footnote 1: See Appendix.] + +_St. Cyr, Thursday, April 6_, 1854.--I drove with Tocqueville to +Chenonceaux, a château of the sixteenth century, about sixteen miles from +Tours, on the Cher. I say _on_ the Cher, for such is literally its +position. It is a habitable bridge, stretching across the water. + +The two first arches, which spring from the right bank of the river, and +the piers which form their abutments, are about one hundred feet wide, +and support a considerable house. The others support merely a gallery, +called by our guide the ballroom of Catherine de Médicis, ending in a +small theatre. The view from the windows of the river flowing through +wooded meadows is beautiful and peculiar. Every window looks on the +river; many rooms, as is the case with the gallery, look both up and down +it. It must be a charming summer residence. The rooms still retain the +furniture which was put into them by Diane de Poictiers and Catherine de +Médicis; very curious and very uncomfortable; high narrow chairs, short +sofas, many-footed tables, and diminutive mirrors. The sculptured +pilasters, scrolls, bas-reliefs and tracery of the outside are not of +fine workmanship, but are graceful and picturesque. The associations are +interesting, beginning with Francis I. and ending with Rousseau, who +spent there the autumn of 1746, as the guest of Madame Dupin, and wrote a +comedy for its little theatre. The present proprietor, the Marquis de +Villeneuve, is Madame Dupin's grandson. + +In the evening we read my report of the debate on Montalembert. + +'It is difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to wish that so great a speech had +been suppressed. But I am inclined to think that Montalembert's wiser +course was to remain silent. What good will his speech do? It will not be +published. Yours is probably the only report of it. So far as the public +hears anything of it, the versions coming through an unfavourable medium +will be misrepresentations. In a letter which I received from Paris +this morning it is called virulent. It was of great importance that the +minority against granting the consent should be large, and I have no +doubt that this speech diminished it by twenty or thirty. It must have +wounded many, frightened many, and afforded a pretext to many. Perhaps, +however, it was not in human nature for such a speaker as Montalembert to +resist the last opportunity of uttering bold truths in a French +Assembly.' + +_Friday, April_ 7.--We drove to-day along the Loire to Langrais, about +twelve miles below Tours. + +Here is a castle of the thirteenth century, consisting of two centre and +two corner towers, and a curtain between them, terminating in a rocky +promontory. Nothing can be more perfect than the masonry, or more elegant +than the few ornaments. The outside is covered with marks of bullets, +which appear to have rattled against it with little effect. + +On our return we visited the castles of Cinq Mars and Luynes. Langrais, +Cinq Mars, and Luynes were all the property of Effiat, Marquis of Cinq +Mars, who with De Thou conspired against Richelieu in the latter part of +Louis XIII.'s reign, and was beheaded. The towers of Cinq Mars were, in +the words of his sentence, 'rasées à la hauteur de l'infamie,' and remain +now cut down to half their original height. Luynes stands finely, +crowning a knoll overlooking the Loire. It is square, with twelve towers, +two on each side and four in the corners, and a vast ditch, and must have +been strong. Nearly a mile from it are the remains of a Roman aqueduct, +of which about thirty piers and six perfect arches remain. It is of +stone, except the arches, which have a mixture of brick. The peasants, by +digging under the foundations, are rapidly destroying it. An old man told +us that he had seen six or seven piers tumble. A little nearer to Tours +is the Pile de Cinq Mars, a solid, nearly square tower of Roman brickwork +more than ninety feet high, and about twelve feet by fourteen feet thick. +On one side there appear to have been inscriptions or bas-reliefs. Ampère +believes it to have been a Roman tomb; but the antiquaries are divided +and perplexed. Being absolutely solid, it could not have been built for +any use. + +I am struck during my walks and drives by the appearance of prosperity. +The country about Tours is dotted with country-houses, quite as numerous +as in any part of England. In St. Cyr alone there must be between twenty +and thirty, and the houses of the peasants are far better than the best +cottages of English labourers. Everyone seems to have attached to it a +considerable piece of land, from ten acres to two, cultivated in vines, +vegetables and fruit. These and green crops are nearly the only produce; +there is very little grain. All the persons whom I met appeared to be +healthy and well-clad. The soil and climate are good, and the proximity +to Tours insures a market; but physical advantages are not enough to +insure prosperity. The neighbourhood of Cork enjoys a good climate, soil, +and market, but the inhabitants are not prosperous. + +After some discussion Tocqueville agreed with me in attributing the +comfort of the Tourainese to the slowness with which population +increases. In the commune of Tocqueville the births are only three to a +marriage, but both Monsieur and Madame de Tocqueville think that the +number of children here is still less. I scarcely meet any. + +Marriages are late, and very seldom take place until a house and a bit of +ground and some capital have been inherited or accumulated. Touraine is +the best specimen of the _petite culture_ that I have seen. The want of +wood makes it objectionable as a summer residence. + +We are now suffering from heat. After eight in the morning it is too hot +to walk along the naked glaring roads, yet this is only the first week in +April. + +_Saturday, April_ 8.--The sun has been so scorching during our two last +drives that we have given ourselves a holiday to-day, and only dawdled +about Tours. + +We went first to the cathedral, which I never see without increased +pleasure. Though nearly four hundred years passed from its commencement +in the twelfth century to its completion in the fifteenth, the whole +interior is as harmonious as if it had been finished by the artist who +began it. I know nothing in Gothic architecture superior to the grandeur, +richness, and yet lightness of the choir and eastern apse. Thence we +went to St. Julien's, a fine old church of the thirteenth century, +desecrated in the Revolution, but now under restoration. + +Thence to the Hôtel Gouin, a specimen of the purely domestic architecture +of the fifteenth century, covered with elegant tracery and scroll-work in +white marble. We ended with Plessis-les-Tours, Louis XI.'s castle, which +stands on a flat, somewhat marshy, tongue of land stretching between the +Loire and the Cher. All that remains is a small portion of one of the +inner courts, probably a guard-room, and a cellar pointed out to us as +the prison in which Louis XI kept Cardinal de la Balue for several years. +The cellar itself is not bad for a prison of those days, but he is said +to have passed his first year or two in a grated vault under the +staircase, in which he could neither stand up nor lie at full length. + +'It is remarkable,' said Tocqueville, 'that the glorious reigns in French +history, such as those of Louis Onze, Louis Quatorze, and Napoleon ended +in the utmost misery and exhaustion, while the periods at which we are +accustomed to look as those of disturbance and insecurity were those of +comparative prosperity and progress. It seems as if tyranny were worse +than civil war.' + +'And yet,' I said, 'the amount of revenue which these despots managed to +squeeze out of France was never large. The taxation under Napoleon was +much less than under Louis Philippe.' + +'Yes,' said Tocqueville, 'but it was the want of power to tax avowedly +that led them into indirect modes of raising money, which were far more +mischievous; just as our servants put us to more expense by their jobs +than they would do if they simply robbed us to twice the amount of their +indirect gains. + +'Louis XIV. destroyed all the municipal franchises of France, and paved +the way for this centralized tyranny, not from any dislike of municipal +elections, but merely in order to be able himself to sell the places +which the citizens had been accustomed to grant.' + +_Sunday, April_ 9.--Another sultry day. I waited till the sun was low, +and then sauntered by the side of the river with Tocqueville. + +'The worst faults of this Government,' said Tocqueville, 'are those which +do not alarm the public. + +'It is depriving us of the local franchises and local self-government +which we have extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty +years. The Restoration and the Government of July were as absolute +centralizers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced +to surrender they made over to the narrow pays légal, the privileged +ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic +gave the name of Conseils-généraux to the people, and thus dethroned the +notaires who had governed those assemblies when they represented only the +_bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the maires elective. The Republic placed +education in the hands of local authorities. Under its influence, the +communes, the cantons, and the departments were becoming real +administrative bodies. They are now mere geographical divisions. The +préfet appoints the maires. The préfet appoints in every canton a +commissaire de police--seldom a respectable man, as the office is not +honourable. The gardes champêtres, who are our local police, are put +under his control. The recteur, who was a sort of local Minister of +Education in every department, is suppressed. His powers are transferred +to the préfet. The préfet appoints, promotes, and dismisses all the +masters of the _écoles primaires._ He has the power to convert the +commune into a mere unorganised aggregation of individuals, by dismissing +every communal functionary, and placing its concerns in the hands of his +own nominees. There are many hundreds of communes that have been thus +treated, and whose masters now are uneducated peasants. The préfet can +dissolve the Conseil-général of his department and, although he cannot +directly name its successors, he does so virtually. + +'No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless he is supported +by the Government. The préfet can destroy the prosperity of every commune +that displeases him. He can dismiss its functionaries, close its schools, +obstruct its improvements, and withhold the assistance in money which the +Government habitually gives to forward the public purposes of a commune. + +'The Courts of Law, both criminal and civil, are the tools of the +Executive. The Government appoints the judges, the préfet provides the +jury, and _la haute police_ acts without either. + +'All power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from +mouth to mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, +the printers are the slaves of the préfet, as they lose their privilege +if they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly +violated; there are spies to watch and report conversation. + +'Every individual stands defenceless and insulated in the face of this +unscrupulous Executive with its thousands of armed hands and its +thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the +abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, whatever be the man, the +candidate of the préfet comes in; but if he is a man who would have been +universally rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show +their indignation by their absence. I do not believe that, even with +peace, and with the prosperity which usually accompanies peace, such a +Government could long keep down such a country as France. Whether its +existence would be prolonged by a successful war I will not decide. +Perhaps it might be. + +'That it cannot carry on a war only moderately successful, or a war which +from its difficulties and its distance may be generally believed to be +ill managed, still less a war stained by some real disaster, seems to me +certain--if anything in the future of France can be called certain. + +'The vast democratic sea on which the Empire floats is governed by +currents and agitated by ground-swells, which the Government discovers +only by their effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence +these great, apparently slumbering, masses; indeed it takes care, by +stifling their expression, to prevent their being known. Universal +suffrage is a detestable element of government, but it is a powerful +revolutionary instrument' + +'But,' I said, 'the people will not have an opportunity of using that +instrument. All the great elective bodies have some years before them.' + +'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'and therefore their rage will break +out in a more direct, and perhaps more formidable, form. Depend on it, +this Government can exist, even for a time, only on the condition of +brilliant, successful war, or prosperous peace. It is bound to be rapidly +and clearly victorious. If it fail in this, it will sink--or perhaps, in +its terrors and its struggles, it will catch at the other alternative, +peace. + +'The French public is too ignorant to care much about Russian +aggrandisement. So far as it fancies that the strength of Russia is the +weakness of England, it is pleased with it. I am not sure that the most +dishonourable peace with Nicholas would not give to Louis Napoleon an +immediate popularity. I am sure that it would, if it were accompanied by +any baits to the national vanity and cupidity; by the offer of Savoy for +instance, or the Balearic Islands. And if you were to quarrel with us for +accepting them, it would be easy to turn against you our old feelings of +jealousy and hatred.' + +We saw vast columns of smoke on the other side of the river. Those whom +we questioned believed them to arise from an intentional fire. Such fires +are symptoms of popular discontent. They preceded the revolution of 1830. +They have become frequent of late in this country. + +_Monday, April_ 10.--Tocqueville and I drove this morning to +Azy-le-Rideau, another Francis I. château, on an island formed by the +Indre. It is less beautifully situated than Chenonceaux; the river Indre +is smaller and more sluggish than the Cher; the site of the castle is in +a hollow, and the trees round it approach too near, and are the tall and +closely planted poles which the French seem to admire. But the +architecture, both in its outlines and in its details, is charming. +It is of white stone, in this form, with two curtains and four +towers. The whole outside and the ceilings and cornices within are +covered with delicate arabesques. + + O ______________ 0 + | |______________| | + 0 \ | | + \ | | + \| | + | | + 0 + +Like Chenonceaux, it escaped the revolution, and is now, with its +furniture of the sixteenth century, the residence of the Marquis de +Biancourt, descended from its ancient proprietors. + +As we sauntered over the gardens, our conversation turned on the old +aristocracy of France. + +'The loss of our aristocracy,' said Tocqueville, 'is a misfortune from +which we have not even begun to recover. The Legitimists are their +territorial successors; they are the successors in their manners, in +their loyalty, and in their prejudices of _caste_; but they are not their +successors in cultivation, or intelligence, or energy, or, therefore, in +influence. Between them and the _bourgeoisie_ is a chasm, which shows no +tendency to close. Nothing but a common interest and a common pursuit +will bring them together. + +'If the murder of the Duc d'Enghien had not made them recoil in terror +and disgust from Napoleon, they might have perhaps been welded into one +mass with his new aristocracy of services, talents, and wealth. They were +ready to adhere to him during the Consulate. During the Restoration they +were always at war with the _bourgeoisie_, and therefore with the +constitution, on which the power of their enemies depended. When the +result of that war was the defeat and expulsion of their leader, Charles +X., their hostility extended from the _bourgeoisie_ and the constitution +up to the Crown. Louis Philippe tried to govern by means of the middle +classes alone. Perhaps it was inevitable that he should make the attempt. +It certainly was inevitable that he should fail. The higher classes, and +the lower classes, all equally offended, combined to overthrow him. Under +the Republic they again took, to a certain extent, their place in the +State. They led the country people, who came to the assistance of the +Assembly in June 1848. The Republic was wise enough to impose no oaths. +It did not require those who were willing to serve it to begin by openly +disavowing their traditionary opinions and principles. The Legitimists +took their places in the Conseils-généraux. They joined with the +_bourgeoisie_ in local administration, the only means by which men of +different classes can coalesce. + +'The socialist tendencies which are imputed to this Second Empire, the +oath which it most imprudently imposes, its pretensions to form a dynasty +and its assertion of the principle most abhorrent to them, elective +monarchy, have thrown them back into disaffection. And I believe their +disaffection to be one of our great dangers--a danger certainly increased +by the Fusion. The principal object of the Fusion is to influence the +army. The great terror of the army is division in itself. It will accept +anything, give up anything, dare anything, to avoid civil war. Rather +than be divided between the two branches, it would have adhered to the +Empire. Now it can throw off the Bonapartes without occasioning a +disputed succession.' + +'When you say,' I asked, 'that the Legitimists are not the successors of +the old aristocracy in cultivation, intelligence, or energy, do you mean +to ascribe to them positive or relative inferiority in these qualities?' + +'In energy,' answered Tocqueville, 'their deficiency is positive. They +are ready to suffer for their cause, they are not ready to exert +themselves for it. In intelligence and cultivation they are superior to +any other class in France; but they are inferior to the English +aristocracy, and they are inferior, as I said before, to their ancestors +of the eighteenth century. There existed in the highest Parisian society +towards the end of that century a comprehensiveness of curiosity and +inquiry, a freedom of opinion, an independence, and soundness of +judgment, never seen before or since. Its pursuits, its pleasures, its +admirations, its vanities, were all intellectual. Look at the success of +Hume. His manners were awkward; he was a heavy, though an instructive, +converser; he spoke bad French; he would pass now for an intelligent +bore. But such was the worship then paid to talents and +knowledge--especially to knowledge, and talents employed on the +destruction of prejudices--that Hume was, for years, the lion of all the +salons of Paris. The fashionable beauties quarrelled for the fat +philosopher. Nor was their admiration or affection put on, or even +transitory. He retained some of them as intimate friends for life. +If the brilliant talkers and writers of that time were to return to life, +I do not believe that gas, or steam, or chloroform, or the electric +telegraph, would so much astonish them as the dulness of modern society, +and the mediocrity of modern books.' + +In the evening we discussed the new scheme of throwing open the service +of India and of the Government offices to public competition. + +'We have followed,' said Tocqueville, 'that system to a great extent for +many years. Our object was twofold. One was to depress the aristocracy of +wealth, birth, and connexions. In this we have succeeded. + +The École Polytechnique, and the other schools in which the vacancies are +given to those who pass the best examinations, are filled by youths +belonging to the middle classes, who, undistracted by society, or +amusement, or by any literary or scientific pursuits, except those +immediately bearing on their examinations, beat their better-born +competitors, who will not degrade themselves into the mere slaves of +success in the _concours_. Our other object was to obtain the best public +servants. In that we have failed. We have brought knowledge and ability +to an average; diminished the number of incompetent _employés_, and +reduced, almost to nothing, the number of distinguished ones. Continued +application to a small number of subjects, and those always the same, not +selected by the student, but imposed on him by the inflexible rule of the +establishment, without reference to his tastes or to his powers, is as +bad for the mind as the constant exercise of one set of muscles would be +for the body. + +'We have a name for those who have been thus educated. They are called +"polytechnisés." If you follow our example, you will increase your +second-rates, and extinguish your first-rates; and what is perhaps a more +important result, whether you consider it a good or an evil, you will +make a large stride in the direction in which you have lately made so +many--the removing the government and the administration of England from +the hands of the higher classes into those of the middle and lower ones.' + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + + +Paris, Sunday, May 14, 1854. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I write to you _in meditatione fugæ_. We start for +England in an hour's time. The last news that I heard of you was the day +before yesterday from Cousin. He read me your letter, which sounded to me +like that of a man in not very bad health or hopes. I trust that the +attack of which Madame de Tocqueville wrote to us has quite passed off. + +Thiers, who asked very anxiously after you to-day, is earnest that you +should be present at the election on the 18th. The Academy, he said, is +very jealous. _Vous serez très-mal vu_, if you do not come. + +You are at last going seriously to work in the war. By the end of the +year you will have, military and naval, 700,000 men in arms. + +I wish that they were nearer to the enemy. + +Pray remember us most kindly to Madame de Tocqueville, and let us know +where you go as soon as you are decided. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. Senior. + + +St. Cyr, May 21, 1854. + +I followed the advice which you were commissioned to give me, my dear +Senior. I have just been to Paris, but as I stayed there only twenty-four +hours I have not brought back any distinct impressions. + +I saw only Academicians who talked about the Academy, and--who knew +nothing of politics. It is true that such is now the case with everyone. +Politics, which used to be transacted in open day, have now become a +secret process into which none can penetrate except the two or three +alchemists who are engaged in its preparation. + +You heard of course that after your little visit, which we enjoyed so +much, I became very unwell, and my mind was only less affected than my +body. I spent a month very much out of spirits and very much tired of +myself. During the last eight or ten days I have felt much better. My +visit to our friends the Beaumonts did me a great deal of good, and I owe +a grudge to the Academy for forcing me to shorten it. + +I still intend to visit Germany, but the plan depends on the state of my +health. When it is bad I am inclined to give up the journey, when I am +better I take it up again and look forward to it with pleasure. On the +whole I think that I shall go. But it is impossible for me to settle my +route beforehand. Even if I were stronger it would be difficult, for such +an expedition must always be uncertain. + +I am not going to Germany to see any place in particular, but intend to +go hither and thither wherever I can find certain documents and people. + +I received yesterday a letter from our friend Ampère. He is still in +Rome, still more and more enchanted with the place, and using every +argument to induce us to spend there with him the winter of 1856. His +descriptions are so attractive that we may very likely be persuaded, +especially if we had any chance of meeting you there, for you are one of +the people whose society always increases the happiness of life. However, +we have plenty of time for talking over this plan. + +Adieu, dear Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Wildbad, September 19, 1854. + +You gave me great pleasure, my dear Senior, by making me acquainted with +Sir George and Lady Theresa Lewis. + +I must really thank you sincerely for it, for the time passed with them +has been the most agreeable part of our journey. + +You have no doubt heard of the mischance which has put a stop to our +peregrinations: my wife was seized two months ago at Bonn by a violent +attack of rheumatism. The waters of Wildbad were recommended to her, and +she has been taking them for more than twenty-five days without +experiencing any relief. We are promised that the effects will be felt +afterwards; but these fine promises only half reassure us, and we shall +set out again on our travels in very bad spirits. + +Our original intention was to spend the autumn in the North of Germany, +but in Madame de Tocqueville's condition it is evident that there is +nothing else to be done but to return home as fast as we can. + +We are somewhat consoled by the arrival of our common friend Ampère. He +was returning from Italy, through Germany, and, hearing of our +misfortune, he has come to look after us in these wild mountains of the +Black Forest amidst which Wildbad is situated. He has been with us a +week, and I hope that he will accompany us home. + +Our intention is to spend a month or six weeks with my father near +Compiègne. Towards the first week in November we shall establish +ourselves in Paris for the winter. We hope to see you there at the end of +this year or the beginning of next. + +Ampère, my wife, and I constantly talk of you. If you could overhear us I +think you would not be very much dissatisfied. They insist upon being +very particularly remembered to you, and as for me I beg you to believe +in my most sincere attachment. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Compiègne, January 22, 1855. + +It was a long time since I had seen your handwriting, my dear Senior, and +I was beginning to complain of you; your letter therefore was a double +pleasure. + +I see that you have resumed your intention of visiting Algiers, and I am +anxious that you should carry it into effect. + +I hope that we shall be in Paris when you pass through. We put off our +departure from day to day; not that we are kept by the charms of our +present abode; the house is too small for us and scantily furnished, but +I find it such a favourable retreat for study, that I have great +difficulty in tearing myself away from it. + +I hear, as you do, with great satisfaction of the mutual good feeling of +our armies in the Crimea. It far exceeds my expectations. + +But I am not equally pleased with your management of the war. The English +ought to know that what has passed and is passing there has sensibly +diminished their moral force in Europe. It is an unpleasant truth, but I +ought not to conceal it from you. I see proofs of it every day, and I +have been struck by it peculiarly in a late visit to Paris, where I saw +persons of every rank and of every shade of political opinion. The heroic +courage of your soldiers was everywhere and unreservedly praised, but I +found also a general belief that the importance of England as a military +Power had been greatly exaggerated; that she is utterly devoid of +military talent, which is shown as much in administration as in fighting; +and that even in the most pressing circumstances she cannot raise a large +army. + +Since I was a child I never heard such language. You are believed to be +absolutely dependent on us; and in the midst of our intimacy I see rising +a friendly contempt for you, which if our Governments quarrel, will make +a war with you much easier than it has been since the fall of Napoleon. + +I grieve at all this, not only as endangering the English alliance, +which, as you well know, I cherish, but as injuring the cause of liberty. + +I can pardon you for discrediting it by your adulation of our despotism, +but I wish that you would not serve despotism more efficaciously by your +own faults, and by the comparisons which they suggest. + +It seems also difficult to say what may not be the results of your long +intimacy with such a Government as ours, and of the contact of the two +armies. I doubt whether they will be useful to your aristocracy. + +Remember me to Lord Lansdowne and to the Lewises, who added such pleasure +to our German tour. + + + +Compiègne, February 15, 1855. + +I conclude that this frightful weather is still keeping you in London, my +dear Senior. I am comforted by the fact that I myself shall not reach +Paris before the 28th. + +I do not wish to act the part of the pedagogue in the fable who preaches +to people when his sermon can no longer be of any possible use, but I +cannot help telling you that it is a great imprudence on your part to +allow yourself to be caught in this way by the winter in England. What +you now suffer from is only a trifling malady, but it may become a real +illness if you persist in preferring pleasure to health. Pray think of +this in the future and do not tempt the devil. + +I have not read the article to which you refer.[1] + +I can perfectly understand the reserve which was imposed upon you, and +which you were forced to impose on yourself. + +I confess that I saw with great grief the sudden change in the +expressions of the majority of the English, a year ago, respecting our +Government. It was then ill consolidated, and in want of the splendid +alliance which you offered to it. It was unnecessary that you should +praise it, in order to keep it your friend. By doing so you sacrificed +honourable opinions and tastes without a motive. + +Now things are changed. After you have lost your only army, and our +master has made an alliance with Austria, which suits his feelings much +better than yours did, he does not depend on you; you, to a certain +extent, depend on him. Such being now the case, I can understand the +English thinking it their duty to their country to say nothing that can +offend the master of France. I can understand even their praising him; I +reproach them only for having done so too soon, before it was necessary. + +I agree with you that England ought to be satisfied with being the +greatest maritime Power, and ought not to aim at being also one of the +greatest military Powers. + +But the feelings which I described to you as prevalent in France and in +Germany, arose not from your want of an army of 500,000 men. They were +excited by these two facts. + +First, by what was supposed (perhaps falsely) to be the bad military +administration of your only army. Secondly, and much more, by your +apparent inability to raise another army. + +According to continental notions, a nation which cannot raise as many +troops as its wants require, loses our respect. It ceases, according to +our notions, to be great or even to be patriotic. And I must confess +that, considering how difficult it is to procure soldiers by voluntary +enlistment, and how easily every nation can obtain them by other means, I +do not see how you will be able to hold your high rank, unless your +people will consent to something resembling a conscription. + +Dangerous as it is to speak of a foreign country, I venture to say that +England is mistaken if she thinks that she can continue separated from +the rest of the world, and preserve all her peculiar institutions +uninfluenced by those which prevail over the whole of the Continent. + +In the period in which we live, and, still more, in the period which is +approaching, no European nation can long remain absolutely dissimilar to +all the others. I believe that a law existing over the whole Continent +must in time influence the laws of Great Britain, notwithstanding the +sea, and notwithstanding the habits and institutions, which, still more +than the sea, have separated you from us, up to the present time. + +My prophecies may not be accomplished in our time; but I should not be +sorry to deposit this letter with a notary, to be opened, and their truth +or falsehood proved, fifty years hence. + + + +Compiègne, February 23, 1855. + + ... My object in my last letter was not by any means, as you seem to +think, to accuse _your aristocracy_ of having mismanaged the Crimean war. +It has certainly been mismanaged, but who has been in fault? + +Indeed I know not, and if I did I should think at the same time that it +would not be becoming in a foreigner to set himself up as a judge of the +blunders of any other Government than his own. + +I thought that I had expressed myself clearly. At any rate what I wanted +to say, if I did not say it, is, that the present events created in my +opinion a new and great danger for your aristocracy, and that it will +suffer severely from the rebound, if it does not make enormous efforts to +show itself capable of repairing the past; and that it would be wrong to +suppose that by fighting bravely on the field of battle it could retain +the direction of the Government. + +I did not intend to say more than this. + +I will now add that if it persuades itself that it will easily get out of +the difficulty by making peace, I think that it will find itself +mistaken. + +Peace, after what has happened, may be a good thing for England in +general, and useful to us, but I doubt whether it will be a gain for your +aristocracy. I think that if Chatham could return to life he would agree +with me, and would say that under the circumstances the remedy would not +be peace but a more successful war. + +Kind regards, &c. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: An article in the _North British Review_, see p. 107.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, Hôtel Bedford.--Friday, March_ 2, 1855.--We slept on the 27th at +Calais, on the 28th at Amiens, and reached this place last night. + +Tocqueville called on us this morning. We talked of the probability of +Louis Napoleon's going to the Crimea. + +I said, 'that the report made by Lord John Russell, who talked the matter +over with him, was, that he certainly had once intended to go, and had +not given it up.' + +'I do not value,' said Tocqueville, 'Lord John's inferences from anything +that he heard or saw in his audiences. All Louis Napoleon's words and +looks, are, whether intentionally or not, misleading. Now that his having +direct issue seems out of the question, and that the deeper and deeper +discredit into which the heir presumptive is falling, seems to put _him_ +out of the question too, we are looking to this journey with great alarm. +We feel that, for the present, his life is necessary to us, and we feel +that it would be exposed to many hazards. He ought to incur some military +risks, if he is present at a battle or an assault, and his courage and +his fatalism, will lead him to many which he ought to avoid. But it is +disease rather than bullets that we fear. He will have to travel hard, +and to be exposed, under exciting circumstances, to a climate which is +not a safe one even to the strong.' + +'But,' I said, 'he will not be exposed to it long. I have heard thirty, +or at most forty, days proposed as the length of his absence.' + +'Who can say that?' answered Tocqueville. 'If he goes there, he must stay +there until Sebastopol falls. It will not do for him to leave Paris in +order merely to look at the works, pat the generals on the back, +compliment the army, and leave it in the trenches. Unless his journey +produces some great success--in short, unless it gives us Sebastopol--it +will be considered a failure; and a failure he cannot afford. I repeat +that he must stay there till Sebastopol falls. But that may be months. +And what may months bring forth in such a country as France? In such a +city as Paris? In such times as these? Then he cannot safely leave his +cousin--Jérôme Plon swears that he will not go, and I do not see how he +can be taken by force.' + +'I do not understand,' I said, 'Jerôme's conduct. It seemed as if he had +the ball at his feet. The _rôle_ of an heir is the easiest in the world. +He has only to behave decently in order to be popular.' + +'Jérôme's chances,' answered Tocqueville, 'of the popularity which is to +be obtained by decent behaviour were over long before he became an heir. +His talents are considerable, but he has no principles, and no good +sense. He is Corsican to the bone. I watched him among his Montagnards in +the Constituent. + +'Nothing could be more perverse than his votes, nor more offensive than +his speeches. He is unfit to conciliate the sensible portion of society, +and naturally throws himself into the arms of those who are waiting to +receive him--the violent, the rapacious, and the anarchical: this gives +him at least some adherents.' + +'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of his conduct in the East?' + +'I hear,' said Tocqueville, 'that he showed want, not so much of courage, +as of temper and of subordination. He would not obey orders; he would not +even transmit them, so that Canrobert was forced to communicate directly +with the officers of Napoleon's division, and at last required him to +take sick leave, or to submit to a court-martial.' + +'I thought,' I said, 'that he was really ill.' + +'That is not the general opinion,' said Tocqueville. 'He showed himself +at a ball directly after his return, with no outward symptoms of ill +health.' + +The conversation turned on English politics. + +'So many of my friendships,' said Tocqueville, 'and so many of my +sympathies, are English, that what is passing _in_ your country, and +_respecting_ your country, gives me great pain, and greater anxiety. To +us, whom unhappily experience has rendered sensitive of approaching +storms, your last six months have a frightfully revolutionary appearance. + +'There is with you, as there was with us in 1847, a general _malaise_ in +the midst of general prosperity. Your people seem, as was the case with +ours, to have become tired of their public men, and to be losing faith in +their institutions. What else do these complaints of what is called "the +system" mean? When you complain that the Government patronage is bartered +for political support, that the dunces of a family are selected for the +public service, and selected expressly because they could not get on in +an open profession; that as their places are a sort of property, they are +promoted only by seniority, and never dismissed for any, except for some +moral, delinquency; that therefore the seniors in all your departments +are old men, whose original dulness has been cherished by a life without +the stimulus of hope or fear, you describe a vessel which seems to have +become too crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most +favourable winds. You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department, +your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to +pieces. You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only +seven miles from its base. The next storm may attack your Colonial +Administration. Will that stand any better? Altogether your machinery +seems throughout out of gear. If you set to work actively and fearlessly, +without reference to private interests, or to private expectations, or to +private feelings, to repair, remove and replace, you may escape our +misfortunes; but I see no proofs that you are sufficiently bold, or +indeed that you are sufficiently alarmed. Then as to what is passing +here. A year ago we probably overrated your military power. I believe +that now we most mischievously underrate it. A year ago nothing alarmed +us more than a whisper of the chance of a war with England. We talk of +one now with great composure. We believe that it would not be difficult +to throw 100,000 men upon your shores, and we believe that half that +number would walk over England or Ireland. You are mistaken if you think +that these opinions will die away of themselves, or will be eradicated by +anything but some decisive military success. I do not agree with those +who think that it is your interest that Russia should submit while +Sebastopol stands. You might save money and men by a speedy peace, but +you would not regain your reputation. If you are caught by a peace before +you have an opportunity of doing so, I advise you to let it be on your +part an armed peace. Prepare yourselves for a new struggle with a new +enemy, and let your preparations be, not only as effective as you can +make them, but also as notorious.'[1] + +[Footnote 1: Note inserted by M de Tocqueville in my Journal, after +reading the preceding conversation. + +'J'ai entendu universellement louer sans restriction le courage héroïque +de vos soldats, mais en même temps j'ai trouvé répandu cette croyance, +qu'on s'était trompé de l'importance de l'Angleterre dans le monde, comme +puissance militaire proprement dite, qui consiste autant à _administrer_ +la guerre qu'à combattre, et surtout qu'il lui était impossible, ce qu'on +ne croyait pas jusque là, d'élever de grandes armées, même dans les cas +les plus pressants. Je n'avais rien entendu de pareil depuis mon enfance. +On vous croit absolument dans notre dépendance, et du sein de la grande +inimité qui règne entre les deux peuples, je vois naître des idées qui, +le jour où nos deux gouvernements cesseront d'être d'accord, nous +précipiteront dans la guerre contre vous, beaucoup plus facilement que +cela n'eut pu avoir lieu depuis la chute du premier Empire. Cela +m'afflige, et pour l'avenir de Alliance anglaise (dont vous savez que j'ai +toujours été un grand partisan), et non moins aussi, je l'avoue, pour la +cause de vos institutions libres. Ce qui se passe n'est pas de nature à +la relever dans notre esprit. Je vous pardonnerais de déconsidérer vos +principes par les louanges dont vous accablez le gouvernement absolu qui +règne en France, mais je voudrais du moins que vous ne le fissiez pas +d'une manière encore plus efficace par vos propres fautes, et par la +comparaison qu'elles suggèrent. Il me semble, du reste, bien difficile +de dire ce qui résultera pour vous même du contact intime et prolongé +avec notre gouvernement, et surtout de l'action commune et du mélange +des deux armées. J'en doute, je vous l'avouerai, que l'aristocratie +anglaise s'en trouve bien, et quoique A B ait entonné l'autre jour une +véritable hymne en l'honneur de celle ci, je ne crois pas que ce qui +passe soit de nature à rendre ces chances plus grandes dans l'avenir'--_A +de Tocqueville_. + +'I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic courage of your +soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the persuasion that +the importance of England had been overrated as a military Power properly +so called--a Power which consists in administering as much as in +fighting; and above all, that it was impossible (and this had never +before been believed), for her to raise large armies, even under the most +pressing circumstances. I never heard anything like it since my +childhood. You are supposed to be entirely dependent upon us, and from +the midst of the great intimacy which subsists between the two countries, +I see springing up ideas which, on the day when our two Governments cease +to be of one mind, will precipitate our country into a war against you, +much more easily than has been possible since the fall of the first +Empire. This grieves me, both on account of the duration of the English +Alliance (of which you know that I have always been a great partisan), +and no less, I own, for the sake of your free institutions. Passing +events are not calculated to raise them in our estimation. I forgive you +for discrediting your principles by the praise which you lavish on the +absolute government which reigns in France, but I would have you at least +not to do so in a still more efficacious manner by your own blunders and +by the comparisons which they suggest. It seems to me, however, very +difficult to predict the result to yourselves of the long and intimate +contact with, our Government, and, above all, of the united action and +amalgamation of the two armies. I own that I doubt its having a good +effect on the future of the English aristocracy, and although A.B. struck +up the other day a real hymn in its praise, I do not think that present +events are of a nature to increase its chance in the future.'] + + + +_Paris, Saturday, March_ 3.--Tocqueville called on us soon after +breakfast. + +We talked of the loss and gain of Europe by the war. We agreed that +Russia and England have both lost by it. Russia probably the most in +power, England in reputation. That Prussia, though commercially a gainer, +is humiliated and irritated by the superiority claimed by Austria and +conceded to her. + +'You cannot,' said Tocqueville, 'estimate the opinions of Germany without +going there. There is a general feeling among the smaller Powers of +internal insecurity and external weakness, and Austria is looked up to as +the supporter of order against the revolutionists, and of Germany against +Russia. Austria alone has profited by the general calamities. Without +actually drawing the sword she has possession of the Principalities, she +has thrust down Prussia into the second rank, she has emancipated herself +from Russia, she has become the ally of France and of England, and even +of her old enemy Piedmont, she is safe in Italy. Poland and Hungary are +still her difficulties, and very great ones, but as her general strength +increases, she can better deal with them.' + +'Has not France, I said, 'been also a gainer, by becoming head of the +coalition against Russia?' + +'Whatever we have gained,' answered Tocqueville, 'has been dearly +purchased, so far as it has consolidated this despotism. For a whole year +we have felt that the life, and even the reign, of Louis Napoleon was +necessary to us. They will continue necessary to us during the remainder +of the war. We are acquiring habits of obedience, almost of resignation. +His popularity has not increased. He and his court are as much shunned by +the educated classes as they were three years ago; we still repeat "que +ça ne peut pas durer," but we repeat it with less conviction.' + +We passed the spring in Algeria, and returned to Paris the latter part of +May. + +_Paris, May 26,_1855.--After breakfast I went to the Institut. + +M. Passy read to us a long paper on the Art of Government. He spoke so +low and so monotonously that no one attended. I sat next to Tocqueville, +and, as it was not decent to talk, we conversed a little in writing. He +had been reading my Algiers Journal, and thus commented upon it:-- + +'Il y a tout un côté, particulièrement curieux, de l'Algérie, qui vous a +échappé parce que vous n'avez pu ou voulu vous imposer l'ennui de causer +souvent avec les colons, et que ce côté-là ne se voit pas en parlant +avec les gouvernants; c'est l'abus de la centralisation. L'Afrique peut +être considérée comme le tableau le plus complet et le plus +extraordinaire des vices de ce système. + +'Je suis convaincu que seul, sans les Arabes, le soleil, le désert, et la +fièvre, il suffirait pour nous empêcher de coloniser. Tout ce que la +centralisation laisse entrevoir de défauts, de ridicules et absurdités, +d'oppression, de paperasseries en France, est grossi en Afrique au +centuple. C'est comme un pou vu dans un microscope.' + +'J'ai causé,' I answered, 'avec Vialar et avec mon hôte aux eaux +ferrugineuses. Mais ils ne se sont pas plaints de la centralisation.' + +'Ils ne se sont pas plaints,' he answered, 'du mot que, peut-être, ils ne +connaissaient pas. Mais si vous les aviez fait entrer dans les détails de +l'administration publique, ou même de leurs affaires privées, vous auriez +vu que le colon est plus gêné dans tous ses mouvements, et plus _gouverné +pour son plus grand bien_ que vous ne l'avez été quand il s'est agi de +votre passeport. + +'Violar faisait allusion à cela quand il vous a dit que les chemins +manquaient parce que le Gouvernement ne voulait pas laisser les gouvernés +s'en mêler.'[1] + +[Footnote 1: 'One whole side, and that a very curious one, of Algeria, +has escaped you, because you could not, or would not, inflict on yourself +the bore of talking frequently with the colonists, and this side cannot +be seen in conversing with officials--it is the abuse of centralisation. +Africa may be considered as the most complete and most extraordinary +picture of the vices of this system. I am convinced that it alone, +without the Arabs, the sun, the desert and the fever, would be enough to +prevent us from colonising. All the defects of centralisation, its +oppressions, its faults, its absurdities, its endless documents, which +are dimly perceived in France, become one hundred times bigger in Africa. +It is like a louse in a microscope.' + +'I conversed,' I answered, 'with Violar and with my landlord at the +mineral waters, and they did not complain of centralisation.' 'They did +not complain,' he answered, 'of the word, which perhaps is unknown to +them. But if you had made them enter into the details of the public +administration, or even of their own private affairs, you would have seen +that the colonist is more confined in all his movements, and more +_governed, for his good_, than you were with regard to your passport. + +'This is what Violar meant when he told you that roads were wanting, +because the Government would not permit its subjects to interfere in +making them.'] + + + +_Monday, May_ 28.--Tocqueville called on me. + +I asked him for criticisms on my article on the State of the Continent in +the 'North British Review' of February 1855.[1] + +[Footnote 1: See p. 107.] + +'Of course,' I said, 'it must be full of blunders. No one who writes on +the politics of a foreign country can avoid them. I want your help to +correct a few of them.' + +'Since you ask me,' he answered, 'for a candid criticism, I will give you +one. I accuse you rather of misappreciation than of misstatement. First +with respect to Louis Napoleon. After having described accurately, in the +beginning of your paper, his unscrupulous, systematic oppression, you end +by saying that, after all, you place him high among our sovereigns.' + +'You must recollect,' I answered, 'that the article was written for the +"Edinburgh Review," the organ of our Government, edited by Lord +Clarendon's brother-in-law--and that the editor thought its criticisms of +Louis Napoleon so severe, that after having printed it, he was afraid to +publish it. I went quite as far as I prudently could. I accused him, as +you admit, of unscrupulous oppression, of ignorance of the feelings of +the people, of being an idle administrator, of being unacquainted with +business himself, and not employing those who understand it, of being +impatient of contradiction, of refusing advice and punishing censure--in +short, I have praised nothing but his foreign policy--and I have +mentioned two errors in that.' + +'But I have a graver accusation to bring against you,' replied +Tocqueville. 'You couple as events mutually dependent the continuance of +the Imperial Government and the continuance of the Anglo-Gallic Alliance. +I believe this opinion not only to be untrue, but to be the reverse of +the truth. I believe the Empire and the Alliance to be not merely, not +mutually dependent, but to be incompatible, except upon terms which you +are resolved never to grant The Empire is essentially warlike--and war in +the mind of a Bonaparte, and of the friends of a Bonaparte, means the +Rhine. This war is merely a stepping stone. It is carried on for purposes +in which the mass of the people of France take no interest. Up to the +present time its burthens have been little felt, as it has been supported +by loans, and the limits of the legal conscription have not been +exceeded. But when the necessity comes for increased taxation and +anticipated conscriptions, Louis Napoleon must have recourse to the real +passions of the French _bourgeoisie_ and peasantry--the love of conquest, +_et la haine de l'Anglais_. Don't fancy that such feelings are dead, they +are scarcely asleep. They might be roused in a week, in a day, and they +_will_ be roused as soon as he thinks that they are wanted. + +'What do you suppose was the effect in France of Louis Napoleon's triumph +in England? + +'Those who know England attributed it to the ignorance and childishness +of the multitude. Those who thought that the shouts of the mob had any +real meaning either hung down their heads in shame at the +self-degradation of a great nation, or attributed them to fear. The +latter was the general feeling. "Il faut," said all our lower classes, +"que ces gens-là aient grande peur de nous." + +'You accuse, in the second place, all the Royalist parties of dislike of +England. + +'Do you suppose that you are more popular with the others? That the +Republicans love your aristocracy, or the Imperialists your freedom? The +real friends of England are the friends of her institutions. They are +the body, small perhaps numerically, and now beaten down, of those who +adore Constitutional Liberty. They have maintained the mutual good +feeling between France and England against the passions of the +Republicans and the prejudices of the Legitimists. I trust, as you trust, +that this good feeling is to continue, but it is on precisely opposite +grounds. My hopes are founded, not on the permanence, but on the want of +permanence, of the Empire. I do not believe that a great nation will be +long led by its tail instead of by its head. My only fear is, that the +overthrow of this tyranny may not take place early enough to save us from +war with England, which I believe to be the inevitable consequence of its +duration.' + +We left Paris soon after this conversation. + +[The following are a few extracts from the article in the 'North British +Review.'--ED.] + +'The principal parties into which the educated society of Paris is +divided, are the Imperialists, Royalists, Republicans, and +Parliamentarians. + +'The Royalists maybe again subdivided into Orleanists, Legitimists, and +Fusionists; and the Fusionists into Orleanist-Fusionists, and +Legitimist-Fusionists. + +'The Imperialists do not require to be described. They form a small party +in the salons of Paris, and much the largest party in the provinces. + +'Those who are Royalists without being Fusionists are also comparatively +insignificant in numbers. There are a very few Legitimists who pay to the +elder branch the unreasoning worship of superstition; who adore Henri +V. not as a means but as an end; who pray for his reign, not for their +own interests, not for the interests of France, but for his own sake; who +believe that he derives his title from God, and that when the proper time +comes God will restore him; and that to subject his claims to the +smallest compromise--to admit, for instance, as the Fusionists do, that +Louis Philippe was really a king, and that the reign of Henri V. did not +begin the instant that Charles X. expired--would be a sinful contempt +of Divine right, which might deprive his cause of Divine assistance. + +'There are also a very few Orleanists who, with a strange confusion of +ideas, do not perceive that a title founded solely on a revolution was +destroyed by a revolution; that if the will of the people was sufficient +to exclude the descendants of Charles X., it also could exclude the +descendants of Louis Philippe; and that the hereditary claims of the +Comte de Paris cannot be urged except on the condition of admitting the +preferable claims of the Comte de Chambord. + +'The bulk, then, of the Royalists are Fusionists; but though all the +Fusionists agree in believing that the only government that can be +permanent in France is a monarchy, and that the only monarchy that can be +permanent is one depending on hereditary succession; though they agree in +believing that neither of the Bourbon branches is strong enough to seize +the throne, and that each of them is strong enough to exclude the other, +yet between the Orleanist-Fusionists and the Legitimist-Fusionists the +separation is as marked and the mutual hatred as bitter, as those which +divide the most hostile parties in England. + +'The Orleanist-Fusionists are generally _roturiers_. They feel towards +the _noblesse_ the hatred which has accumulated during twelve centuries +of past oppression and the resentment excited by present insolence. Of +all the noble families of France the most noble is that of Bourbon. The +head of that house has always called himself _le premier gentilhomme de +France_. The Bourbons therefore suffer, and in an exaggerated degree, +the odium which weighs down the caste to which they belong. It was this +odium, this detestation of privilege and precedence and exclusiveness, +or, as it is sometimes called, this love of equality, which raised the +barricades of 1830. It was to flatter these feelings that Louis Philippe +sent his sons to the public schools and to the National Guard, and tried +to establish his Government on the narrow foundation of the +_bourgeoisie_. Louis Philippe and one or two of the members of his +family, succeeded in obtaining some personal popularity, but it was only +in the comparatively small class, the _pays légal_, with which they +shared the emoluments of Government, and it was not sufficient to raise a +single hand in their defence when the masses, whom the Court could not +bribe or caress, rose against it. The Orleanist-Fusionists are +Bourbonists only from calculation. They wish for the Comte de Paris for +their king, not from any affection for him or for his family, but because +they think that such an arrangement offers to France the best chance of +a stable Government in some degree under popular control: and they are +ready to tolerate the intermediate reign of Henri V. as an evil, but one +which must be endured as a means of obtaining something else, not very +good in itself but less objectionable to them than a Bonapartist dynasty +or a Republic. + + * * * * * + +'The Legitimists have been so injured in fortune and in influence, they +have been so long an oppressed caste, excluded from power, and even from +sympathy, that they have acquired the faults of slaves, have become +timid, or frivolous, or bitter. Their long retirement from public life +has made them unfit for it. The older members of the party have forgotten +its habits and its duties, the younger ones have never learnt them. Their +long absence from the Chambers and from the departmental and municipal +councils, from the central and from the local government of France, has +deprived them of all aptitude for business. The bulk of them are +worshippers of wealth, or ease, or pleasure, or safety. The only +unselfish feeling which they cherish is attachment to their hereditary +sovereign. They revere Henri V. as the ruler pointed out to them by +Providence: they love him as the representative of Charles X. the +champion of their order, who died in exile for having attempted to +restore to them the Government of France. They hope that on his +restoration the _canaille_ of lawyers, and _littérateurs_, and +adventurers, who have trampled on the _gentilshommes_ ever since 1830, +will be turned down to their proper places, and that ancient descent will +again be the passport to the high offices of the State and to the society +of the Sovereign. The advent of Henri V., which to the Orleanist branch +of the Fusionists is a painful means, is to the Legitimist branch a +desirable end. The succession of the Comte de Paris, to which the +Orleanists look with hope, is foreseen by the Legitimists with +misgivings. The Fusionist party is in fact kept together not by common +sympathies but by common antipathies; each branch of it hates or +distrusts the idol of the other, but they co-operate because each +branch hates still more bitterly, and distrusts still more deeply, the +Imperialists and the Republicans. + +'Among the educated classes there are few Republicans, using that word to +designate those who actually wish to see France a republic. There are +indeed, many who regret the social equality of the republic, the times +when plebeian birth was an aid in the struggle for power, and a +journeyman mason could be a serious candidate for the Presidentship, but +they are alarmed at its instability. They have never known a republic +live for more than a few years, or die except in convulsions. The +Republican party, however, though small, is not to be despised. It is +skilful, determined, and united. And the Socialists and the Communists, +whom we have omitted in our enumeration as not belonging to the educated +classes, would supply the Republican leaders with an army which has more +than once become master of Paris. + +'The only party that remains to be described is that to which we have +given the name of Parliamentarians. Under this designation--a designation +that we must admit that we have invented ourselves--we include those who +are distinguished from the Imperialists by their desire for a +parliamentary form of government; and from the Republicans, by their +willingness that that government should be regal; and from the Royalists, +by their willingness that it should be republican. In this class are +included many of the wisest and of the honestest men in France. The only +species of rule to which they are irreconcilably opposed is despotism. No +conduct on the part of Louis Napoleon would conciliate a sincere +Orleanist, or Legitimist, or Fusionist, or Republican. The anti-regal +prejudices of the last, and the loyalty of the other three, must force +them to oppose a Bonapartist dynasty, whatever might be the conduct of +the reigning emperor. But if Louis Napoleon should ever think the time, +to which he professes to look forward, arrived--if he should ever grant +to France, or accept from her, institutions really constitutional; +institutions, under which the will of the nation, freely expressed by a +free press and by freely chosen representatives, should control and +direct the conduct of her governor--the Parliamentarians would eagerly +rally round him. On the same conditions they would support with equal +readiness Henri V. or the Comte de Paris, a president elected by the +people, or a president nominated by an Assembly. They are the friends of +liberty, whatever be the form in which she may present herself.' + + * * * * * + +'Although our author visits the Provinces, his work contains no report of +their political feelings. The explanation probably is, that he found no +expression of it The despotism under which France is now suffering is +little felt in the capital. It shows itself principally in the subdued +tone of the debates, if debates they can be called, of the Corps +Législatif, and the inanity of the newspapers. Conversation is as free in +Paris as it was under the Republic. Public opinion would not support the +Government in an attempt to silence the salons of Paris. But Paris +possesses a public opinion, because it possesses one or two thousand +highly educated men whose great amusement, we might say whose great +business, is to converse, to criticise the acts of their rulers, and to +pronounce decisions which float from circle to circle, till they reach +the workshop, and even the barrack. In the provinces there are no such +centres of intelligence and discussion, and, therefore, on political +subjects, there is no public opinion. The consequence is, that the action +of the Government is there really despotic; and it employs its +irresistible power in tearing from the departmental and communal +authorities all the local franchises and local self-government which they +had extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty years. + +'Centralisation, though it is generally disclaimed by every party that is +in opposition, is so powerful an instrument that every Monarchical +Government which has ruled France since 1789 has maintained, and even +tried to extend it. + +'The Restoration, and the Government of July, were as absolute +centralisers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced +to surrender they made over to the narrow _pays légal_, the privileged +ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic +gave the election of the _Conseils généraux_ to the people, and thus +dethroned the notaries who governed those assemblies when they +represented only the _bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the Maires +elective; the Republic placed education in the hands of the local +authorities. Under its influence the communes, the cantons, and the +departments were becoming real administrative bodies. They are now +geographical divisions. The Préfet appoints the Maires; the Préfet +appoints in every canton a Commissaire de Police, seldom a respectable +man, as the office is not honourable; the Gardes champêtres, who are the +local police, are put under his control; the Recteur, who was a sort of +local Minister of Education in every department, is suppressed; his +powers are transferred to the Préfet; the Préfet appoints, promotes, and +dismisses all the masters of the _écoles primaires_. The Préfet can +destroy the prosperity of every commune that displeases him. He can +displace the functionaries, close its schools, obstruct its public works, +and withhold the money which the Government habitually gives in aid of +local improvement. He can convert it, indeed, into a mere unorganised +aggregation of individuals, by dismissing every communal functionary, and +placing its concerns in the hands of his own nominees. There are many +hundreds of communes that have been thus treated, and whose masters are +now uneducated peasants. The Préfet can dissolve the _Conseil général_ of +his department, and although he cannot actually name their successors, he +does so virtually. No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless +he is supported by the Government. The Courts of law, criminal and civil, +are the tools of the executive. The Government appoints the judges, the +Préfet provides the jury, and _la Haute Police_ acts without either. All +power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from mouth to +mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, the +printers are the slaves of the Préfet, as they lose their privilege if +they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly violated; +there are spies in every country town to watch and report conversation; +every individual stands defenceless and insulated, in the face of this +unscrupulous executive, with its thousands of armed hands and its +thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the +abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, and whatever be the man, +the candidate of the Préfet comes in; but if he is a man who would have +been unanimously rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show +their indignation by their absence. + +'In such a state of society the traveller can learn little. Even those +who rule it, know little of the feelings of their subjects. The vast +democratic sea on which the Empire floats is influenced by currents, and +agitated by ground swells which the Government discovers only by their +effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence these great +apparently slumbering masses. Indeed, it takes care, by stifling their +expression, to prevent their being known. + +'We disapprove in many respects of the manner in which Louis Napoleon +employs his power, as we disapprove in all respects of the means by which +he seized it; but, on the whole, we place him high among the sovereigns +of France. As respects his foreign policy we put him at the very top. The +foreign policy of the rulers of mankind, whether they be kings, or +ministers, or senates, or demagogues, is generally so hateful, and at the +same time so contemptible, so grasping, so irritable, so unscrupulous, +and so oppressive--so much dictated by ambition, by antipathy and by +vanity, so selfish, often so petty in its objects, and so regardless of +human misery in its means, that a sovereign who behaves to other nations +with merely the honesty and justice and forbearance which are usual +between man and man, deserves the praise of exalted virtue. The +sovereigns of France have probably been as good as the average of +sovereigns. Placed indeed at the head of the first nation of the +Continent, they have probably been better; but how atrocious has been +their conduct towards their neighbour! If we go back no further than to +the Restoration, we find Louis XVIII. forming the Holy Alliance, and +attacking Spain without a shadow of provocation, for the avowed purpose +of crushing her liberties and giving absolute power to the most +detestable of modern tyrants. We find Charles X. invading a dependence +of his ally, the Sultan, and confiscating a province to revenge a tap on +the face given by the Bey of Algiers to a French consul. We find Louis +Philippe breaking the most solemn engagements with almost wanton +faithlessness; renouncing all extension of territory in Africa and then +conquering a country larger than France--a country occupied by tribes who +never were the subjects of the Sultan or of the Bey, and who could be +robbed of their independence only by wholesale and systematic massacre; +we find him joining England, Spain, and Portugal in the Quadruple +Alliance, and deserting them as soon as the time of action had arrived; +joining Russia, Prussia, Austria and England, in the arrangement of the +Eastern question, on the avowed basis that the integrity of the Ottoman +empire should be preserved, and then attempting to rob it of Egypt. We +find him running the risk of a war with America, because she demanded, +too unceremoniously, the payment of a just debt, and with England because +she complained of the ill-treatment of a missionary. We find him trying +to ruin the commerce of Switzerland because the Diet arrested a French +spy, and deposing Queen Pomare because she interfered with the sale of +French brandies; and, as his last act, eluding an express promise by a +miserable verbal equivocation, and sowing the seeds of a future war of +succession in order to get for one of his sons an advantageous +establishment in Spain. + +'The greatest blot in the foreign policy of Louis Napoleon is the +invasion of Rome, and for that he is scarcely responsible. It was +originally planned by Louis Philippe and Rossi. The expedition which +sailed from Toulon in 1849 was prepared in 1847. It was despatched in the +first six months of his presidency, in obedience to a vote of the +Assembly, when the Assembly was still the ruler of France; and Louis +Napoleon's celebrated letter to Ney was an attempt, not, perhaps +constitutional or prudent, but well-intentioned, to obtain for the Roman +people liberal and secular institutions instead of ecclesiastical +tyranny. + +'His other mistake was the attempt to enforce on Turkey the capitulations +of 1740, and to revive pretentions of the Latins in Jerusalem which had +slept for more than a century. This, again, was a legacy from Louis +Philippe. It was Louis Philippe who claimed a right to restore the dome, +or the portico, we forget which, of the Holy Sepulchre, and to insult the +Greeks by rebuilding it in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form. Louis +Napoleon has the merit, rare in private life, and almost unknown among +princes, of having frankly and unreservedly withdrawn his demands, though +supported by treaty, as soon as he found that they could not be conceded +without danger to the conceding party. + +'With these exceptions, his management of the foreign relations of France +has been faultless. To England he has been honest and confiding, to +Russia conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and he has +treated Prussia with, perhaps, more consideration than that semi-Russian +Court and childishly false and cunning king deserved. He has been +assailed by every form of temptation, through his hopes and through his +fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested. Such conduct deserves +the admiration with which England has repaid it. + +'We cannot praise him as an administrator. He is indolent and +procrastinating. He hates details, and therefore does not understand +them. When he has given an order he does not see to its execution; +indeed, he cannot, for he does not know how it ought to be executed. He +directed a fleet to be prepared to co-operate with us in the Baltic in +the spring. Ducos, his Minister of Marine, assured him that it was ready. +The time came, and not a ship was rigged or manned. He asked us to +suspend the expedition for a couple of months. We refused, and sailed +without the French squadron. If the Russians had ventured out, and we +either had beaten them single-handed, or been repulsed for want of the +promised assistance, the effect on France would have been frightful. We +have reason to believe that it was only in the middle of February that he +made up his mind to send an army to Bulgaria. They arrived by driblets, +without any plan of operations, and it was not until August that their +battering train left Toulon. It ought to have reached Sebastopol in May. +In time, however, he must see the necessity of either becoming an active +man of business himself, or of ministering, like other sovereigns, +through his Ministers. Up to the present time many causes have concurred +to occasion him to endeavour to be his own Minister, and to treat those +to whom he gives that name as mere clerks. He is jealous and suspicious, +fond of power, and impatient of contradiction. With the exception of +Drouyn de l'Huys, the eminent men of France, her statesmen and her +generals, stand aloof from him. Those who are not in exile have retired +from public life, and offer neither assistance nor advice. Advice, +indeed, he refuses, and, what is still more useful than advice, censure, +he punishes. + +'But the war, though it must last longer, and cost, more in men and in +money than it would have done if it were managed with more intelligence +and activity, must end favourably. Ill managed as it has been by +France, it has been worse managed by Russia. It is impossible that that +semi-barbarous empire, with its scarcely sane autocrat, its corrupt +administration, its disordered finances, and its heterogeneous +populations, should ultimately triumph over the two most powerful nations +of Europe, flanked by Austria, and disposing of the fanatical valour of +Turkey. If Louis Napoleon pleases the vanity of France by military glory, +and rewards her exertions by a triumphant peace; if he employs his +absolute power in promoting her prosperity by further relaxing the +fetters which encumber her industry; if he takes advantage of the +popularity which a successful war, an honourable peace, and internal +prosperity must confer on him, to give to her a little real liberty and a +little real self-government; if he gradually subsides from a [Greek: +_Týrannos_] to a [Greek: _Basileús_]; if he allows some liberty of the +press, some liberty of election, some liberty of discussion, and some +liberty of decision; he may pass the remainder of his agitated life in +the tranquil exercise of limited, but great and secure power, the ally of +England, and the benefactor of France. + +'If this expectation should be realised--and we repeat, that among many +contingencies it appears to us to be the least improbable--it affords to +Europe the best hope of undisturbed peace and progressive civilisation +and prosperity. An alliance with England was one of the favourite dreams +of the first Napoleon. He believed, and with reason, that England and +France united could dictate to all Europe. But in this respect, as indeed +in all others, his purposes were selfish. Being master of France, he +wished France to be mistress of the world. All that he gave to France was +power, all that he required from Europe was submission. The objects for +which he desired our co-operation were precisely those which we wished to +defeat. The friendship from which we recoiled in disgust, almost in +terror, was turned into unrelenting hatred; and in the long struggle +which followed, each party felt that its safety depended on the total +ruin of the other. + +'The alliance which the uncle desired as a means of oppressing Europe, +the nephew seeks for the purpose of setting her free. The heavy continued +weight of Russia has, ever since the death of Alexander, kept down all +energy and independence of action, and even of thought, on the Continent. +She has been the patron of every tyrant, the protector of every abuse, +the enemy of every improvement. It was at her instigation that the +Congress of Verona decreed the enslavement of Spain, and that in the +conferences of Leybach it was determined to stifle liberty in Italy. +Every court on the Continent is cursed with a Russian party; and woe be +to the Sovereign and to the Minister who is not at its head: all the +resources of Russian influence and of Russian corruption are lavished to +render his people rebellious and his administration unsuccessful. From +this _peine forte et dure_ we believe that Europe will now be relieved; +and if the people or the sovereigns of the Continent, particularly those +of Germany and Italy, make a tolerable use of the freedom from foreign +dictation which the weakness of Russia will give to them, we look forward +to an indefinite course of prosperity and improvement. Unhappily, +experience, however, forbids us to be sanguine. Forty years ago, an +event, such as we are now contemplating, occurred. A Power which had +deprived the Continent of the power of independent action fell, and for +several years had no successor. Germany and Italy recalled or +re-established their sovereigns, and entrusted them with power such as +they had never possessed before. How they used it may be inferred from +the general outbreak of 1848. A popular indignation, such as could have +been excited only by long years of folly, stupidity, and tyranny, swept +away or shook every throne from Berlin to Palermo. The people was +everywhere for some months triumphant; and its abuse of power produced a +reaction which restored or introduced despotism in every kingdom except +Prussia and Piedmont, and even in Prussia gave to the King power +sufficient to enable him, up to the present moment, to maintain a policy, +mischievous to the interests, disgusting to the sympathies, and injurious +to the honour of his people. But while the Anglo-Gallic alliance +continues, the Continent will be defended from the worst of all evils, +the prevention of domestic improvement, and the aggravation of domestic +disturbance, by foreign intervention. That alliance has already preserved +the liberty of Piedmont. If it had been established sooner, it might have +preserved that of Hesse, and have saved Europe from the revolting +spectacle of the constitutional resistance of a whole people against an +usurping tyrant and a profligate minister crushed by brutal, undisguised +violence. + +'We repeat that we are not sanguine, that we do not expect the tranquil, +uninterrupted progress which would be the result of the timely concession +on the part of the sovereigns, and of the forbearance and moderation on +the part of their subjects, which, if they could profit by the lessons of +history, would be adopted by both parties. The only lesson, indeed, which +history teaches is, that she teaches none either to subjects or to +sovereigns. But we do trust that when the ruler and his people are +allowed to settle their own affairs between one another, they will come +from time to time to coarse and imperfect, but useful arrangements of +their differences. Rational liberty may advance slowly and unequally; it +may sometimes be arrested, it may sometimes be forced back, but its march +in every decennial period will be perceptible. Like an oak which has +grown up among storms, its durability will be in proportion to the +slowness of its progress.' + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Tocqueville, June 30, 1855. + +I have only just arrived here, my dear Senior, after wandering for nearly +a month from friend to friend all through the Touraine and the Maine. As +you may think, I am, on returning home after so long an absence, +overpowered with trifling business. I cannot, therefore, comply to-day +with your request and write to you the letter you ask for: I will write +it after much thought and at length. The subject is well worthy of the +trouble. Shall I at the same time send back to you the conversation which +I have corrected, and in what way? The post would be very unsafe and +expensive. Give me, therefore, your instructions on this point. But above +all, give us news of yourselves and of all our friends. + +My wife has borne the journey better than I expected, and the delight we +feel in finding ourselves here once more will completely restore her. + +This delight is really very great and in proportion to the annoyance of +wandering about as we have done for three years without ever finding a +place which entirely suited us. + +As to public news, I have heard none since I left Paris. The only spot +which a single ray of light can ever reach is Paris. All the rest is in +profound darkness. If you hear anything important, pray tell me. + +Adieu, dear Senior. Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and believe in +our long and very sincere affection, + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, July 25, 1855. + +I wrote to you yesterday, my dear Senior, a long letter according to my +promise. + +But when I read it over I felt that it was absurd to send such a letter +by the post, especially to a foreigner, and I burnt it. + +Since the assault of the 18th,[1] the interference of the police in +private correspondence has become more active. Many of my friends as well +as I myself have perceived it. More letters have been kept back and more +have been stopped. Two of mine have been lost. You may remember that two +letters from me failed to reach you, three years ago. The danger is +greater in the country, where handwritings are known, than in Paris. You +advise me to put my letters into a cover directed to your Embassy, which +will forward them. But this is no security. If a letter be suspected, it +is easy to open and re-seal it, and still easier simply to suppress it. + +And, in fact, after all, you have lost little. I wrote to you only what I +have a hundred times said to you. We have lived so much together, and +with such perfect mutual confidence, that it is difficult for either of +us to say anything new to the other. + +Besides, on reading over again, with attention, your note of our last +conversation,[2] I have nothing to alter. All that I could do would be to +develope a little more my opinions, and to support them by additional +arguments. I feel more and more their truth, and that the progress +of events will confirm them much more than any reasonings of mine can do. + +We are annoyed and disturbed, having the house full of workmen. I am +trying to warm it by hot air, and am forced to bore through very old and +very thick walls; but we shall be repaid by being able to live here +during the winter. + +I am amusing myself with the letters which our young soldiers in the +East, peasants from this parish, write home to their families, and which +are brought to me. This correspondence should be read in order to +understand the singular character of the French peasant. It is strange to +see the ease with which these men become accustomed to the risks of +military life, to danger and to death, and yet how their hearts cling to +their fields and to the occupations of country life. The horrors of war +are described with simplicity, and almost with enjoyment. But in the +midst of these accounts one finds such phrases as these: "What crop do +you intend to sow in such a field next year?" "How is the mare?" "Has +the cow a fine calf?" &c. No minds can be more versatile, and at the same +time more constant. I have always thought that, after all, the peasantry +were superior to all other classes in France. But these men are +deplorably in want of knowledge and education, or rather the education to +which they have been subjected for centuries past has taught them to make +a bad use of their natural good qualities. + +It seems to me that Lord John's resignation will enable your Cabinet to +stand, at least for some time. All that has passed in England since the +beginning of the war grieves me deeply. Seen from a distance, your +Constitution appears to me an admirable machine which is getting out of +order, partly from the wearing out of its works, partly from the +unskilfulness of its workers. Such a spectacle is useful to our +Government. + +I asked you some questions, which you have not answered. Is Mrs. Grote +returned from Germany? Is she well? Has she received my letter addressed +to her at Heidelberg? The last question is always doubtful when one +writes from France. + +I send you a letter from the Count de Fénelon, which I think will +interest you. You will give it me back when we meet. + +I am very curious to know what you will think of Egypt; and I hope that +we shall be established in Paris when you return. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: On the 18th June, 1855, the French and English made an +unsuccessful assault on Sebastopol.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: That of the 28th May, 1855.--ED.] + + + +Tocqueville, September 19, 1855. + + +Your letter, my dear Senior, of the 26th of August, has much interested +me. I see that you are resolved on your great journey. I could say like +Alexander, if the comparison were not too ambitious, that I should wish +to be in your place if I were not in my own; but I cannot get satiated +with the pleasure of being at home after so long an absence. Everything +is pleasure in this country life, among my own fields. Even the solitude +is charming; but were I anywhere else, I should envy you your tour. + +Everything in Egypt is curious: the past, the present, and the future. I +hope to learn much from your Journal, which I trust that I shall have. We +shall certainly meet you in Paris. + +The noise made by the fall of Sebastopol has echoed even to this distant +corner of France. It is a glorious event, and has delighted every +Frenchman of every party and of every opinion, for in these matters we +are one man. + +I fear that the victory has been bought dearly. There is not a +neighbouring village to which the war has not cost some of its children. +But they bear it admirably. You know, that in war we show the best side +of our character. If our civilians resembled our soldiers we should long +ago have been masters of Europe. + +This war has never been popular, nor is it popular, yet we bear all its +cost with a cheerfulness admirable when you consider the sorrows which it +occasions, aggravated by the distress produced by the dearness of bread. +If, instead of the Crimea, the seat of war had been the Rhine, with a +definite purpose, the whole nation would have risen, as it has done +before. + +But the object of the war is unintelligible to the people. They only know +that France is at war, and must be made, at any price, to triumph. + +I must confess, that I myself, who understand the object for which all +this blood is shed, and who approve that object, do not feel the interest +which such great events ought to excite; for I do not expect a result +equal to the sacrifice. + +I think, with you, that Russia is a great danger to Europe. I think so +more strongly, because I have had peculiar opportunities of studying the +real sources of her power, and because I believe these sources to be +permanent, and entirely beyond the reach of foreign attack. (I have not +time now to tell you why.) But I am deeply convinced that it is not by +taking from her a town, or even a province, nor by diplomatic +precautions, still less by placing sentinels along her frontier, that the +Western Powers will permanently stop her progress. + +A temporary bulwark may be raised against her, but a mere accident may +destroy it, or a change of alliances or a domestic policy may render it +useless. + +I am convinced that Russia can be stopped only by raising before her +powers created by the hatred which she inspires, whose vital and constant +interest it shall be to keep themselves united and to keep her in. In +other words, by the resurrection of Poland, and by the re-animation of +Turkey. + +I do not believe that either of these means can now be adopted. The +detestable jealousies and ambitions of the European nations resemble, as +you say in your letter, nothing better than the quarrels of the Greeks in +the face of Philip. Not one will sacrifice her passions or her objects. + +About a month ago I read some remarkable articles, which you perhaps have +seen, in the German papers, on the progress which Russia is making in the +extreme East. The writer seems to be a man of sense and well informed. + +It appears that during the last five years, Russia, profiting by the +Chinese disturbances, has seized, not only the mouth of the Amoor, but a +large territory in Mongolia, and has also gained a considerable portion +of the tribes which inhabit it. You know that these tribes once overran +all Asia, and have twice conquered China. The means have always been the +same--some accident which, for an instant, has united these tribes in +submission to the will of one man. Now, says the writer, very plausibly, +the Czar may bring this about, and do what has been done by Genghis Khan, +and, indeed, by others. + +If these designs are carried out, all Upper Asia will be at the mercy of +a man, who, though the seat of his power be in Europe, can unite and +close on one point the Mongols. + +I know more about Sir G. Lewis's book[1] than you do. I have read it +through, and I do not say, as you do, that it must be a good book, but +that it _is_ a good book. Pray say as much to Sir George when you see +him, as a letter of mine to Lady Theresa on the subject may have +miscarried. + +It is as necessary now for friends to write in duplicate from town to +town, as it is if they are separated by the ocean and fear that the ship +which carries their letters may be lost. I hear that our friend John Mill +has lately published an excellent book. Is it true? at all events +remember me to him. + +Adieu, my dear Senior. Do not forget us any more than we forget you. +Kindest regards to Mrs. Senior, and Miss Senior, and Mrs. Grote. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: The work referred to was probably that on the _Early History +of Rome_.--ED.] + + + +Paris, April 1, 1856. + +I write a few lines to you at Marseilles, my dear Senior, as you +wished.[1] I hope that you will terminate your great journey as +felicitously as you seem to me to have carried it on from the beginning. +The undertaking appears to have been a complete success. I wish that it +might induce you next year to cross over the ocean to America. I should +be much interested in hearing and reading your remarks upon that society. +But perhaps Mrs. Senior will not be so ready to start off again; so, that +I may not involve myself in a quarrel with her, I will say no more on the +subject. + +I am longing to see you, for beside our old and intimate friendship I +shall be delighted to talk with such an interesting converser, and, above +all, to find myself again in the company of (as Mrs. Grote calls you) +'the boy.' You will find me, however, in all the vexations of correcting +proofs and the other worries connected with bringing out a book.[2] It +will not appear till the end of this month. + +I can tell you no more about politics than you may learn from the +newspapers. Peace, though much desired has caused no public excitement +The truth is that just now we are not _excitable_. As long as she remains +in this condition France will not strike one of those blows by which she +sometimes shakes Europe and overturns herself. + +Reeve has been and Milnes still is here. We have talked much of you with +these two old friends. Good bye, or rather, thank God, _à bientôt_. + +A thousand kind remembrances to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was on his return from Egypt.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: The _Ancien Régime_.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, May_ 16.--M. de Tocqueville has scarcely been visible since my +return to Paris. Madame de Tocqueville has been absent. She returned +yesterday, and they spent this evening with us. + +Tocqueville is full of his book, which is to appear in about a week. His +days and nights are devoted to correcting the press and to writing +notes--which he thought would be trifling, but which grow in length and +importance. + +The object of the work is to account for the rapid progress of the +Revolution, to point out the principal causes which enabled a few +comparatively obscure men to overthrow in six weeks a Monarchy of many +centuries. + +'I am inclined,' I said, 'to attribute the rapidity with which the old +institutions of France fell, to the fact that there was no _lex loci_ in +France. That the laws, or rather the customs, of the different provinces +were dissimilar, and that nothing was defined. That as soon as the +foundations or the limits of any power were examined, it crumbled to +pieces; so that the Assembly became omnipotent in the absence of any +authority with ascertained rights and jurisdiction.' + +'There is much truth in that,' answered Tocqueville, 'but there is also +much truth in what looks like an opposite theory--namely, that the +Monarchy fell because its power was too extensive and too absolute. +Nothing is so favourable to revolution as centralisation, because whoever +can seize the central point is obeyed down to the extremities. Now the +centralisation of France under the old Monarchy, though not so complete +as its Democratic and Imperial tyrants afterwards made it, was great. +Power was concentrated in Paris and in the provincial capitals. The +smaller towns and the agricultural population were unorganised and +defenceless. The 14th of July revealed the terrible secret that the +Master of Paris is the Master of France.' + +_Paris, May_ 18.--I spent the day at Athy, the country-seat of M. +Lafosse,[1] who had been my companion in our Egyptian journey. + +'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of the Empress?' + +'Nothing,' he answered, 'but what is favourable; all her instincts and +prejudices are good. Lesseps, who is nearly related to her, has many of +her letters, written during the courtship, in which she speaks of her +dear Louis with the utmost affection, and dwells on the hope that if ever +she should become his wife, she may be able to induce him to liberalise +his Government.' + +'And now,' he said, 'tell me what you heard in England about our Canal?' + +'I heard nothing,' I answered, 'except from Maclean. He told me that he +thought that the Maritime Canal, if supplied from the sea, would become +stagnant and unwholesome, and gradually fill. That that plan was formed +when the levels of the two seas were supposed to differ, so that there +would be a constant current. + +'"Now that the equality of their levels has been ascertained," he said to +me, "the only mode of obtaining a current is to employ the Nile instead +of the sea." "But can the Nile spare the water?" I asked. "Certainly," +he answered. "An hour a day of the water from the Nile, even when at its +lowest, would be ample." "And what do the other engineers say?" I asked. +"Randall," he replied, "agrees with me. The others are at present for the +salt water. But we are to meet in time and discuss it thoroughly."' + +'It is not the opinion of the engineers,' answered Lafosse, 'that I want, +but that of the politicians. + +'We are told that Lord Palmerston threatens to prevent it as long as he +is Minister. This makes us very angry. We think that we perceive in his +opposition his old hatred of France and of everything that France +supports or even favours--feelings which we hoped the Alliance had cured. + +'The matter,' he continued, 'was to have been brought before the +Congress. Buol had promised to Nigrelli to do so, and Cavour to Lesseps +and Paleocapa. But after the occupation of Italy, and the Belgian press, +and the rights of Neutrals had been introduced, the Congress got +impatient, and it was thought inexpedient to ask them to attend to +another episodical matter. The Emperor, however, did something. He asked +Ali Pasha, the Turkish Minister, what were the Sultan's views. "They +will be governed," said Ali Pasha, "in a great measure by those of his +allies." "As one of them," said the Emperor, "I am most anxious for its +success." "In that case," replied Ali Pasha, "the Sultan can have no +objection to it in principle, though he may wish to annex to his firman +some conditions--for instance, as to the occupation of the forts at each +end by a mixed garrison of Turks and Egyptians." The Emperor then turned +to Lord Clarendon. "What are your views," he asked, "as to the Suez +Canal?" "It is a grave matter," answered Lord Clarendon, "and one on +which I have no instructions. But I believe it to be impracticable." +"Well," replied the Emperor, "but supposing for the sake of the argument, +that it is practicable, what are your intentions?" "I cannot but think," +answered Lord Clarendon, "that any new channel of commerce must be +beneficial to England. The real difficulty is the influence which the +Canal may have in the relations of Egypt and Turkey." "If that be the +only obstacle," replied the Emperor, "there is not much in it, for Ali +Pasha has just told me that if _we_ make no objection the Sultan makes +none. We cannot be more Turkish than the Turk."' + +'I am most anxious,' added Lafosse, 'that this stupid opposition of yours +should come to an end. Trifling as the matter may seem, it endangers the +cordiality of the Alliance. The people of England, who do not know how +jealous and _passionnés_ we are, cannot estimate the mistrust and the +irritation which it excites. That an enterprise on which the French, +wisely or foolishly, have set their hearts, should be stopped by the +caprice of a wrong-headed Englishman, hurts our vanity; and everything +that hurts our vanity offends us much more than what injures our serious +interests. + +'If the engineers and the capitalists decide in favour of the scheme, you +will have to yield at last. You had much better do so now, when you can +do it with a good grace. Do not let your acquiescence be extorted.' + + +[Footnote 1: M. Lafosse died many years ago. He was a friend of M. de +Lesseps, by whom he and Mr. Senior were invited to join the expedition to +Egypt--ED.] + + +_Paris, May_ 19.--After breakfast I spent a couple of hours with Cousin. + +'You have been in England,' he said, 'since you left Egypt. What is the +news as to our Canal? Will Palmerston let us have it? You must stay a few +weeks in Paris to estimate the effect of your opposition to it. We +consider Palmerston's conduct as a proof that his hatred of France is +unabated, and the acquiescence of the rest of your Cabinet as a proof +that, now we are no longer necessary to you, now that we have destroyed +for you the maritime power of Russia, you are indifferent to our +friendship. + +'I know nothing myself as to the merits of the Canal. I distrust Lesseps +and everything that he undertakes. He has much talent and too much +activity, but they only lead him and his friends into scrapes. I daresay +that the Canal is one, and that it will ruin its shareholders; but as I +am anxious we should not quarrel with England, I am most anxious that +this silly subject of dispute should be removed.' + +'Louis Napoleon,' he continued, 'professed to wish that you should allow +the Sultan to give his consent; but I doubt whether he is sincere. I am +not sure that he is not pleased at seeing the Parisians occupied by +something besides his own doings, especially as it promotes the national +dislike of England. Now that the war is over we want an object. He tries +to give us one by launching us into enormous speculations. He is trying +to make us English; to give us a taste for great and hazardous +undertakings, leading to great gains, great losses, profuse expenditure, +and sudden fortunes and failures. Such things suit _you_; they do not +suit _us_. Our habits are economical and prudent, perhaps timid. We like +the petty commerce of commission and detail, we prefer domestic +manufactures to factories, we like to grow moderately rich by small +profits, small expenditure, and constant accumulation. We hate the +_nouveaux riches_, and scarcely wish to be among them. The progress for +which we wish is political progress--not within, for there we are +satisfied to oscillate, and shall be most happy if in 1860 we find +ourselves where we were in 1820--but without. I believe that our master's +_sortie_ against Belgium was a pilot balloon. He wished to see what +amount of opposition he had to fear from you, and from Belgium, and how +far we should support him. He has found the two former greater than he +expected. I am not sure that he is dissatisfied with the last.' + +I spent the morning at H.'s. He too attacked me about the Canal. + +'Do entreat,' he said, 'your public men to overrule their ill-conditioned +colleague. I told you a year ago, the mischief that you were doing, but I +do not think that you believed me. You may find too late that I was +right.' + +I repeated to him Ellice's opinion that the commerce of England would not +use the canal. + +'I have heard that,' he said, 'from Ellice himself, but I differ from +him. I agree with him, indeed, that your sailing vessels will not use the +canal, but I believe that a few years hence you will have no purely +sailing vessels, except for the small coasting trade. Every large ship +will have a propeller; and with propellers, to be employed occasionally, +and sails for ordinary use, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea are very +manageable. I believe that the canal will be useful, and particularly +to you. But whatever be the real merits of the scheme, for God's sake let +it be tried. Do not treat us like children, and say, "We know better what +is good for you than you do yourselves. You shall not make your canal +because you would lose money by it."' + +'What did you hear,' I said, 'about the Congress?' + +'I heard,' he answered, 'that Clarendon was very good, and was the best, +and that Walewski was very bad, and was the worst.' + +'Can you tell me,' I said, 'the real history of the Tripartite Treaty?' + +'I can,' he answered. 'There was an old engagement between the three +Powers, entered into last spring, that if they succeeded in the war, they +would unite to force Russia to perform any conditions to which she might +submit. + +'This engagement had been allowed to sleep; I will not say that it was +forgotten, but no one seemed disposed to revert to it. But after the +twenty-second Protocol, when Piedmont was allowed to threaten Austria, +and neither England nor France defended her, Buol got alarmed. He feared +that Austria might be left exposed to the vengeance of Russia on the +north and east, and to that of the Italian Liberals on the South. An +alliance with France and England, though only for a specified purpose, at +least would relieve Austria from the appearance of insulation. She would +be able to talk of the two greatest Powers in Europe as her allies, and +would thus acquire a moral force which might save her from attack. He +recalled, therefore, the old engagement to the recollection of Clarendon +and Louis Napoleon, and summoned them to fulfil it. I do not believe that +either of them was pleased. But the engagement was formal, and its +performance, though open to misconstruction, and intended by Austria to +be misconstrued, was attended by some advantages, though different ones, +to France and to England. So both your Government and ours complied.' + +_Tuesday, May 20_.--The Tocquevilles and Rivet drank tea with us. + +I mentioned to Tocqueville the subject of my conversations with Cousin +and H. + +'I agree with Cousin,' he said. 'The attempt to turn our national +activity into speculation and commerce has often been made, but has never +had any permanent success. The men who make these sudden fortunes are not +happy, for they are always suspected of _friponnerie_, and the Government +to which they belong is suspected of _friponnerie_. Still less happy are +those who have attempted to make them, and have failed. And those who +have not been able even to make the attempt are envious and sulky. So +that the whole world becomes suspicious and dissatisfied. + +'And even if it were universal, mere material prosperity is not enough +for us. Our Government must give us something more: must gratify our +ambition, or, at least, our vanity.' + +'The Government,' said Rivet, 'has been making a desperate plunge in +order to escape from the accusation of _friponnerie_. It has denounced in +the "Moniteur" the _faiseurs_; it has dismissed a poor _aide-de-camp_ of +Jérôme's for doing what everybody has been doing ever since the _coup +d'état_. When Ponsard's comedy, which was known to be a furious satire on +the _agioteurs_, was first played, Louis Napoleon took the whole +orchestra and pit stalls, and filled them with people instructed to +applaud every allusion to the _faiseurs_. And he himself stood in his +box, his body almost out of it, clapping most energetically every attack +on them.' + +'At the same time,' I said, 'has he not forced the Orleans Company and +the Lyons Company to buy the Grand Central at much more than its worth? +And was not that done in order to enable certain _faiseurs_ to realise +their gains?' + +'He has forced the Orleans Company,' said Rivet, 'to buy up, or rather to +amalgamate the Grand Central; but I will not say at more than its value. +The amount to be paid is to depend on the comparative earnings of the +different lines, for two years before and two years after the purchase.' + +'But,' I said, 'is it not true, first, that the Orleans Company was +unwilling to make the purchase? and, secondly, that thereupon the Grand +Central shares rose much in the market?' + +'Both these facts,' answered Rivet, 'are true.' + +'Do you believe,' I said to Tocqueville, 'H.'s history of the Tripartite +Treaty?' + +'I do,' he answered. 'I do not think that at the time when it was made we +liked it. It suited you, who wish to preserve the _statu quo_ in Europe, +which keeps us your inferiors, or, at least, not your superiors. _You_ +have nothing to gain by a change. We have. The _statu quo_ does not suit +us. The Tripartite Treaty is a sort of chain--not a heavy one, or a +strong one--but one which we should not have put on if we could have +avoided it.' + +'Do you agree,' I asked Tocqueville, 'with Lafosse, Cousin, and H. as to +the effect in Paris of our opposition to the Suez Canal?' + +'I agree,' he answered, 'in every word that they have said. There is +nothing that has done you so much mischief in France, and indeed in +Europe. + +'I am no engineer; I should be sorry to pronounce a decided opinion as to +the feasibility or the utility of the canal; but your opposition makes us +believe that it is practicable.' + +'Those among us,' I answered, 'who fear it, sometimes found their fear on +grounds unconnected with its practicability. They say that it is a +political, not a commercial, scheme. That the object is to give to French +engineers and French shareholders a strip of land separating Egypt from +Syria, and increasing the French interest in Egypt.' + +'What is the value,' answered Tocqueville, 'of a strip of land in the +desert where no one can live? And why are the shareholders to be French? +The Greeks, the Syrians, the Dalmatians, the Italians, and the Sicilians +are the people who will use the canal, if anybody uses it. They will form +the bulk of the shareholders, if shareholders there are. + +'My strong suspicion is, that if you had not opposed it, there never +would have been any shareholders, and that if you now withdraw your +opposition, and let the scheme go on until calls are made, the +subscribers, who are ready enough with their names as patriotic +manifestations against you as long as no money is to be paid, will +withdraw _en masse_ from an undertaking which, at the very best, is a +most hazardous one. + +'As to our influence in Egypt, your journal shows that it is a pet +project of the Viceroy. He hopes to get money and fame from it. You +_imitate_ both his covetousness and his vanity, and throw him for support +upon us.' + + +_Paris, May_ 21--The Tocquevilles and Chrzanowski[1] drank tea with us. + +We talked of the French iron floating batteries. + +'I saw one at Cherbourg,' said Tocqueville, 'and talked much with her +commander. He was not in good spirits about his vessel, and feared some +great disaster. However, she did well at Kinburn.' + +'She suffered little at Kinburn,' said Chrzanowski, 'because she ventured +little. She did not approach the batteries nearer than 600 metres. At +that distance there is little risk and little service. To knock down a +wall two metres thick from a distance of 600 metres would require at +least 300 blows. How far her own iron sides would have withstood at that +distance the fire of heavy guns I will not attempt to say, as I never saw +her. The best material to resist shot is lead. It contracts over the ball +and crushes it.' + +'Kinburn, however,' said Tocqueville, 'surrendered to our floating +batteries.' + +'Kinburn surrendered,' said Chrzanowski, 'because you landed 10,000 men, +and occupied the isthmus which connects Kinburn with the main land. The +garrison saw that they were invested, and had no hope of relief. They +were not Quixotic enough, or heroic enough, to prolong a hopeless +resistance. Scarcely any garrison does so.' + +We talked of Malta; and I said that Malta was the only great +fortification which I had seen totally unprovided with earth-works. + +'The stone,' said Chrzanowski, 'is soft and will not splinter.' + +'I was struck,' I said, 'with the lightness of the armament; the largest +guns that I saw, except some recently placed in Fort St. Elmo, were +twenty-four pounders.' + +'For land defence,' he answered, 'twenty-four pounders are serviceable +guns. They are manageable and act with great effect within the short +distance within which they are generally used. It is against ships that +large guns are wanted. A very large ball or shell is wasted on the +trenches, but may sink a ship. The great strength of the land defences of +Malta arises from the nature of the ground on which Valetta and Floriana +are built, indeed of which the whole island consists. It is a rock +generally bare or covered with only a few inches of earth. Approaches +could not be dug in it. It would be necessary to bring earth or sand in +ships, and to make the trenches with sand-bags or gabions.' + +I asked him if he had read Louis Napoleon's orders to Canrobert, +published in Bazancourt's book? + +'I have,' he answered. 'They show a depth of ignorance and a depth of +conceit, compared to which even Thiers is modest and skilful. Canrobert +is not a great general, but he is not a man to whom a civilian, who +never saw a shot fired, ought to give lectures on what he calls "the +great principles" or "the absolute principles of war." He seems to have +taken the correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph for his model, +forgetting that Canrobert is to him what Napoleon was to Joseph. Then he +applies his principles as absurdly as he enunciates them. Thus he orders +Canrobert to send a fleet carrying 25,000 men to the breach at Aboutcha, +to land 3,000 of them, to send them three leagues up the country, and not +to land any more, until those first sent have established themselves +beyond the defile of Agen. Of course those 3,000 men would be useless if +the enemy were _not_ in force, or destroyed if they _were_ in force. To +send on a small body and not to support them is the grossest of faults. +It is the fault which you committed at the Redan, when the men who had +got on to the works were left by you for an hour unsupported, instead of +reinforcements being poured in after them as quickly as they could be +sent. + +'In fact,' he continued, 'the horrible and mutual blunders of that +campaign arose from its being managed by the two Emperors from Paris and +from St. Petersburg, Nicholas and Alexander were our best friends. Louis +Napoleon was our worst enemy. + +'There is nothing which ought to be so much left to the discretion of +those on the spot as war. Even a commander-in-chief actually present in a +field of battle can do little after the action, if it be really a great +one, has once begun. + +'If we suppose 80,000 men to be engaged on each side, each line will +extend at least three miles. Supposing the general to be in the centre, +it will take an _aide-de-camp_ ten minutes to gallop to him from one of +the wings, and ten minutes to gallop back. But in twenty minutes all may +be altered.' + + +[Footnote 1: 'Chrzanowski has passed thirty years fighting against or for +the Russians. He began military life in 1811 as a sous lieutenant of +artillery in the Polish corps which was attached to the French army. With +that army he served during the march to Moscow, and the retreat. At the +peace, what remained of his corps became a part of the army of the +kingdom of Poland. He had attained the rank of major in that army when +the insurrection on the accession of Nicholas broke out. About one +hundred officers belonging to the staff of the properly Russian army were +implicated, or supposed to be implicated, in that insurrection, and were +dismissed, and their places were supplied from the army of the kingdom of +Poland. Among those so transferred to the Russian army was Chrzanowski. +He was attached to the staff of Wittgenstein, and afterwards of Marshal +Diebitsch, in the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 1829. In 1830 he took +part with his countrymen in the insurrection against the Muscovites, and +quitted Poland when it was finally absorbed in the Russian Empire. A few +years after a quarrel was brewing between England and Russia. Muscovite +agents were stirring up Persia and Affghanistan against us, and it was +thought that we might have to oppose them on the shores of the Black Sea. +Chrzanowski was attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople and was +employed for some years in ascertaining what assistance Turkey, both in +Europe and in Asia, could afford to us. In 1849 he was selected by +Charles Albert to command the army of the kingdom of Sardinia. + +'That army was constituted on the Prussian system, which makes every man +serve, and no man a soldier. It was, in fact, a militia. The men were +enlisted for only fourteen months, at the end of that time they were sent +home, and were recalled when they were wanted, having forgotten their +military training and acquired the habits of cottiers and artisans. They +had scarcely any officers, or even _sous_ officers, that knew anything of +their business. The drill sergeants required to be drilled. The generals, +and indeed the greater part of the officers, were divided into hostile +factions--Absolutists, Rouges, Constitutional Liberals, and even +Austrians--for at that time, in the exaggerated terror occasioned by the +revolutions of 1848, Austria and Russia were looked up to by the greater +part of the noblesse of the Continent as the supporters of order against +Mazzini, Kossuth, Ledru Rollin, and Palmerston. The Absolutists and the +Austrians made common cause, whereas the Rouges or Mazzinists were +bitterest against the Constitutional Liberals. Such an army, even if +there had been no treason, could not have withstood a disciplined enemy. +When it fell a victim to its own defects, and to the treachery of +Ramorino, Chrzanowski retired to Paris.'--(_Extracted from Mr. Senior's +article in the 'North British Review.'_) + +Chrzanowski died several years ago.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Kensington, August 20, 1856. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A few weeks after my return to London your book +reached me--of course from the time that I got it, I employed all my +leisure in reading it. + +Nothing, even of yours, has, I think, so much instructed and delighted +me. Much of it, perhaps, was not quite so new to me as to many others; as +I had had the privilege of hearing it from you--but even the views which +were familiar to me in their outline were made almost new by their +details. + +It is painful to think how difficult it is to create a Constitutional +Government, and how difficult to preserve one, and, what is the same, how +easy to destroy one. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Senior is going to Wales and to Ireland, where I join her, after +having paid a long-promised visit to Lord Aberdeen. + +I like the conversation of retired statesmen, and he is one of our +wisest. Thiers has just left us. I spent two evenings with him, but on +the first he was engrossed by Lord Clarendon, and on the second by the +Duc d'Aumale and by Lord Palmerston. They were curious _rapprochements_, +at least the first and third. It was the first meeting of Palmerston and +Duc d'Aumale. I am very much pleased with the latter. He is sensible, +well informed, and unaffected. + +Kindest regards, &c. + +A.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, September 4, 1856. + +I have read, my dear Senior, your letter with great pleasure. Your +criticism delights me, for I rely on your judgment and on your sincerity. +I am charmed that you have found in my book more than you had learned +from our conversations, on my view of our history. We have known one +another so long, we have conversed so much and so unreservedly, that it +is difficult for either of us to write anything that the other will think +new. I was afraid that what may appear original to the public might seem +trite to you. + +The Reeves have been with us; we have passed together an agreeable +fortnight. I had charged Reeve to bring you, whether you would or not. +Did he make the attempt? I am sure that you would have enjoyed your +visit, and we should have rejoiced to have under our roof two such old +friends as you and Reeve. + +I am glad that you have printed your article; pray try to send it to me. + +It seems that you intend this winter to anchor in Rome. It increases my +regret that I cannot be there. It is out of the question. My wife's +health and mine are so much improved that the journey is not necessary, +and business of all kinds keeps us at home. If you push on to Naples, you +will, perhaps, enjoy the absence of the rascally king whom you and I +found there five years ago. I applaud the virtuous indignation of the +English against this little despot, and their sympathy with the unhappy +wretches whom he detains arbitrarily to die slowly in his prisons, which, +though not placed in the African deserts or the marshes of Cayenne, are +bad enough. The interest which your great nation takes in the cause of +humanity and liberty, even when that cause suffers in another country, +delights me. What I regret is that your generous indignation is directed +against so petty a tyrant. + +I must say that America is a _puer robustus_. Yet I cannot desire, as +many persons do, its dismemberment. Such an event would inflict a great +wound on the whole human race; for it would introduce war into a great +continent from whence it has been banished for more than a century. + +The breaking up of the American Union will be a solemn moment in the +history of the world. I never met an American who did not feel this, and +I believe that it will not be rashly or easily undertaken. There will, +before actual rupture, be always a last interval, in which one or both +parties will draw back. Has not this occurred twice? + +Adieu, dear Senior. Do not be long without letting us hear from you, and +remember us affectionately to Mrs. Senior and to your daughter. + + + +Ashton House, near Phoenix Park, Dublin, September 26, 1856. + +My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter found me at Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, +where we have been spending a fortnight with Lord Aberdeen. + +It has been very interesting. Lord Aberdeen is one of our wisest +statesmen. + + * * * * * + +I found Lord Aberdeen deprecating the war, notwithstanding its success, +utterly incredulous as to the aggressive intentions attributed to +Nicholas, and in fact throwing the blame of the war on Lord Stratford +and, to a certain degree, on Louis Napoleon. + +I found him also much disturbed by our Naples demonstration, believing it +to be an unwarranted interference with an independent Government. + + * * * * * + +Ever yours, + +A.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, November 2, 1856. + +I am grateful to you, my dear Senior, for your kindness in telling me +what I most wished to hear. The judgments of such men as those with whom +you have been living, while they delight me, impose on me the duty of +unrelaxed efforts. + +Your fortnight at Lord Aberdeen's amused me exceedingly, and not the +least amusing part were the eccentricities of A.B. + +There is one point in which the English seem to me to differ from +ourselves, and, indeed, from all other nations, so widely that they form +almost a distinct species of men. There is often scarcely any connection +between what they say and what they do. + +No people carry so far, especially when speaking in public, violence of +language, outrageousness of theories, and extravagance in the inference +drawn from those theories. Thus your A.B. says that the Irish have not +shot half enough landlords. Yet no people act with more moderation. A +quarter of what is said in England at a public meeting, or even round a +dinner-table, without anything being done or intended to be done, would +in France announce violence, which would almost always be more furious +than the language had been. + +We Frenchmen are not so different from our antipodes as we are from a +nation, partly our own progeny, which is separated from us by only a +large ditch. + +I wonder whether you have heard how our illustrious master is relieving +the working-people from the constant rise of house-rent. When they are +turned out of their lodgings he re-establishes them by force; if they are +distrained on for non-payment of rent, he will not allow the tribunals to +treat the distress as legal. What think you, as a political economist, of +this form of outdoor relief? + +What makes the thing amusing is, that the Government which uses this +violent mode of lodging the working classes, is the very same Government +which, by its mad public works, by drawing to Paris suddenly a hundred +thousand workmen, and by destroying suddenly ten thousand houses, has +created the deficiency of habitations. It seems, however, that the +systematic intimidation and oppression of the rich in favour of the poor, +is every day becoming more and more one of the principles of our +Government. + +I read yesterday a circular from the prefect of La Sarthe, a public +document, stuck up on the church-doors and in the market-places, which, +after urging the landed proprietors of the department to assess +themselves for the relief of the poor, adds, that their insensibility +becomes more odious when it is remembered that for many years they have +been growing rich by the rise of prices, which is spreading misery among +the lower orders. + +The real character of our Government, its frightful mixture of socialism +and despotism, was never better shown. + +I have said enough to prevent your getting my letter. If it _should_ +escape the rogue who manages our post-office, let me know as soon as you +can. + +Kindest remembrances, + +A. DE. TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, February 11, 1857. + +I must ask you, my dear Senior, to tell me yourself how you have borne +this long winter. I suppose that it has been the same in England as in +Normandy, for the two climates are alike. + +Here we have been buried for ten or twelve days under a foot of snow, and +it froze hard during the whole time. How has your larynx endured this +trial? I assure you that we take great interest in that larynx of yours. +Give us therefore some news of it. + +Your letter gave us fresh pleasure by announcing your intention of +passing April and May in Paris. We shall certainly be there at the same +time, and perhaps before. I hope that we shall see you continually. We +are, you know, among the very many people who delight in your society; +besides, we have an excellent right to your friendship. + +I am looking forward with great pleasure to your Egypt. What I already +know of that country leads me to think that of all your reminiscences it +will afford the most novelty and interest. + +I do not think that your visit to Paris will be a very valuable addition +to your journals. If I may judge by the letters which I receive thence, +society there has never been flatter, nor more insipid, nor more entirely +without any dominant idea. I need not tell you that your opinion of our +statesmen is the same as that which prevails in Paris, but it is of such +an ancient date, and is so obvious, that it cannot give rise to +interesting discussions. + +A-propos of statesmen, we cannot understand how a man who made, _inter +pocula_, the speech of ---- on his travels can remain in a government. I +think that even ours, though so long-suffering towards its agents, could +not tolerate anything similar even if it should secretly approve. +Absolute power has its limits. The Prince de Ligne, in a discourse which +you have doubtless read, seems to me to have described it in one word by +saying that it was the speech of a _gamin_. + +I am, however, ungrateful to criticise it, for I own that it amused me +extremely, and that I thought that Morny especially was drawn from life; +but I think that if I had the honour of being Her Britannic Majesty's +Prime Minister, I should not have laughed so heartily. How could so +clever a man be guilty of such eccentricities? + +In my last letter to our excellent friend Mrs. Grote, I ventured to say +that there was one person who wrote even worse than I did, and that it +was you. Your last letter has filled me with remorse, for I could +actually read it, and even without trouble. I beg, therefore, to make an +_amende honorable_, and envy you your power of advancing towards +perfection. + + * * * * * + +I still think of paying a little visit to England in June. Adieu, dear +Senior. Do not be angry with me for not writing on politics. Indeed I +could tell you nothing, for I know nothing, and besides, just now +politics are not to be treated by Frenchmen, _in letters_. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Tocqueville, March 8, 1857. + +I still write to you, my dear Senior, from hence. We cannot tear +ourselves away from the charms of our retreat, or from a thousand little +employments. We shall scarcely reach Paris, therefore, before you. You +will, therefore, yourself bring me the remainder of your curious journal. +What I have already seen makes me most anxious to read the rest. I have +never read anything which gave me more valuable information on Egypt +and Oriental politics in general. As soon as I possibly can, I look +forward to continuing its perusal. + +The papers tell us that your Ministry has been beaten on the Chinese War. +It seems to me to have been an ill-chosen battle-field. The war was, +perhaps, somewhat wantonly begun, and very roughly managed; but the +fault lay with distant and subordinate agents. Now that it has begun, no +Cabinet can avoid carrying it on vigorously. The existing Ministry will +do as well for this as any other. As there is no line of policy to be +changed, the upsetting is merely to put in the people who are now +out. + +If the Ministry falls, the man least to be pitied will be our friend +Lewis. He will go out after having obtained a brilliant triumph on his +own ground, and he will enjoy the good fortune, rare to public men, of +quitting power greater than he was when he took it, and with the enviable +reputation of owing his greatness, not merely to his talents, but also to +the respect and the confidence which he has universally inspired. + +All this delights me; for I feel towards him, and towards all his family, +a true friendship. + +To return to China. + +It seems to me that the relations between that country and Europe are +changed, and dangerously changed. + +Till now, Europe has had to deal only with a Chinese government--the most +wretched of governments. Now you will find opposed to you a people; and a +people, however miserable and corrupt, is invincible on its own +territory, if it be supported and impelled by common and violent +passions. + +Yet I should be sorry to die before I have seen China open to the eyes as +well as to the arms of Europe. + +Do you believe in a dissolution? If so, when? + +A thousand regards to Mrs. Grote, to the great historian, to the Reeves, +and generally to all who are kind enough to remember my existence. + +I delight in the prospect of meeting you in Paris; yet I fear that you +will find it dull. All that I hear from the great town shows me that +never, at least during the last two hundred years, has intellectual life +been less active. + +If there be talent in the official circles, it is not the talent of +conversation, and among those who formerly possessed that talent, there +is so much torpidity, such want of interest on public affairs, such +ignorance as to what is passing, and so little wish to hear about it, +that no one, I am told, knows what to talk about or to take interest in. +Your conversation, however, is so agreeable and stimulating that it is +capable of reanimating the dead. Come and try to work this miracle. + +A thousand remembrances. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + + +_Paris, Hotel Bedford, April_ 9, 1857.--We reached this place last night. + +The Tocquevilles are in our hotel. I went to them in the evening. + +Tocqueville asked me how long I intended to remain. + +'Four weeks,' I answered. + +'I do not think,' he replied, 'that you will be able to do so. Paris has +become so dull that no one will voluntarily spend a month here. The +change which five years have produced is marvellous. + +'We have lost our interest not only in public affairs, but in all serious +matters.' + +'You will return then to the social habits of Louis Quinze,' I said. 'You +were as despotically governed then as you are now; and yet the _salons_ +of Madame Geoffrin were amusing.' + +'We may do so in time,' he answered, 'but that time is to come. At +present we talk of nothing but the Bourse. The conversation of our +_salons_ resembles more that of the time of Law, than that of the time of +Marmontel.' + +I spent the evening at Lamartine's. There were few people there, and the +conversation was certainly dull enough to justify Tocqueville's fears. + + +_April_ 10.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. + +We talked of the Empress, and of the possibility of her being Regent of +France. + +'That supposes,' I said, 'first, that _Celui-ci_ holds his power until +his death; and, secondly, that his son will succeed him.' + +'I expect both events,' answered Tocqueville. 'It is impossible to deny +that Louis Napoleon has shown great dexterity and tact. His system of +government is detestable if we suppose the welfare of France to be his +object; but skilful if its aim be merely the preservation of his own +power. + +'Such being his purpose, he has committed no great faults. Wonderful, +almost incredible, as his elevation is, it has not intoxicated him.' + +'It has not intoxicated him,' I answered, 'because he was prepared for +it--he always expected it.' + +'He could scarcely,' replied Tocqueville, 'have really and soberly +expected it until 1848. + +'Boulogne and Strasbourg were the struggles of a desperate man, who +staked merely a life of poverty, obscurity, and exile. Even if either of +them had succeeded, the success could not have been permanent. A +surprise, if it had thrown him upon the throne, could not have kept him +there. Even after 1848, though the Bourbons were discredited, we should +not have tolerated a Bonaparte if we had not lost all our self-possession +in our terror of the Rouges. That terror created him, that terror +supports him; and habit, and the dread of the bloodshed and distress, and +the unknown chances of a revolution, will, I think, maintain him during +his life. + +'The same feelings will give the succession to his heir. Whether the heir +will keep it, is a different question.' + +_Sunday, April_ 12.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. I asked him if he had +seen the Due de Nemours' letter. + +'I have not seen it,' he answered. 'In fact, I have not wished to see it. +I disapprove of the Fusionists, and the anti-Fusionists, and the +Legitimists, and the Orleanists-in short, of all the parties who are +forming plans of action in events which may not happen, or may not +happen in my time, or may be accompanied by circumstances rendering those +plans absurd, or mischievous, or impracticable,' + +'But though you have not read the letter,' I said, 'you know generally +what are its contents.' + +'Of course I do,' he replied. 'And I cannot blame the Comte de Chambord +for doing what I do myself--for refusing to bind himself in +contingencies, and to disgust his friends in the hope of conciliating his +enemies.' + +'Do you believe,' I asked, 'that the mere promise of a Constitution would +offend the Legitimists?' + +'I do not think,' he answered, 'that they would object to a Constitution +giving them what they would consider their fair share of power and +influence. + +'Under Louis Philippe they had neither, but it was in a great measure +their own fault. + +'They have neither under this Government, for its principle is to rest on +the army and on the people, and to ignore the existence of the educated +classes. + +'You see _that_ in its management of the press. 'Montalembert, or Guizot, +or Falloux, or I may publish what we like. We are not read by the soldier +or by the _proletaire_.[1] But the newspaper press is subject to a +slavery to which it was never reduced before. The system was first +elaborated in Austria, and I daresay will be copied by all the +Continental autocrats, for no inventions travel so quickly as despotic +ones. + +'The public _avertissements_ are comparatively unimportant. Before a +journal gets one of those its suppression has probably been decided on. +Every day there are communications between the literary police and the +different editors. Such or such a line of argument is altogether +forbidden, another is allowed to be used to a certain extent. Some +subjects are tabooed, others are to be treated partially. + +'As the mental food of the lower orders is supplied by the newspapers, +this paternal Government takes care that it shall not be too exciting.' + +[Footnote 1: The lowest class.--ED.] + + +_Paris, Monday, April_ 13.--Tocqueville, Jobez, Marcet, St.-Hilaire,[1] +Charles Sumner, and Lord Granville breakfasted with us. + +The conversation turned on public speaking. + +'Very few indeed of our speakers,' said Tocqueville, 'have ever ventured +to improvise: Barrot could do it. We have told him sometimes that a +speech must be answered immediately; and when he objected that he had +nothing to say, we used to insist, and to assure him that as soon as he +was in the tribune, the ideas and the words would come; and so they did. +I have known him go on under such circumstances for an hour; of course +neither the matter nor the form could be first rate, but they were +sufficient.' + +'In fact,' said Lord Granville, 'much of what is called improvisation is +mere recollection. A man who has to speak night after night, gets on most +subjects a set of thoughts, and even of expressions, which naturally pour +in on him as soon as his argument touches the train which leads to them. + +'One of our eminent speakers,' he continued, 'Lord Grey, is perhaps best +when he has not had time to prepare himself. He is so full of knowledge +and of inferences, that he has always enough ready to make an excellent +speech. When he prepares himself, there is _too_ much; he gives the House +more facts and more deductions than it can digest.' + +'Do you agree with me,' I asked, 'in thinking that Lord Melbourne was +best when he improvised?' + +'I agree with you,' answered Lord Granville, 'that his set speeches were +cold and affected. He was natural only when he was quite careless, or +when he was much excited, and then he was admirable.' + +'Did not Thiers improvise?' I asked. + +'Never,' answered Tocqueville. 'He prepared himself most carefully. So +did Guizot. We see from the "Revue rétrospective" that he even prepared +his replies. His long experience enabled him to foresee what he should +have to answer. Pasquier used to bring his speech ready written. It lay +on the desk before him, but he never looked at it.' + +'That seems to me,' I said, 'very difficult. It is like swimming with +corks. One would be always tempted to look down on the paper.' + +'It is almost equally difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to make a speech of +which the words are prepared. There is a struggle between the invention +and the memory. You trust thoroughly to neither, and therefore are not +served thoroughly by either.' + +'Yet that,' said Marcet, 'is what our Swiss pastors are required to do. +They are forbidden to read, and forbidden to extemporise, and by practice +they speak from memory--some well, all tolerably.' + +'Brougham,' said Lord Granville, 'used to introduce his most elaborately +prepared passages by a slight hesitation. When he seemed to pause in +search of thoughts, or of words, we knew that he had a sentence ready cut +and dried.' + +'Who,' I asked Sumner, 'are your best speakers in America?' + +'The best,' he said, 'is Seward; after him perhaps comes Winthrop.' + +'I should have thought it difficult,' I said, 'to speak well in the +Senate, to only fifty or at most sixty members.' + +'You do not speak,' answered Sumner, 'to the Senators. You do not think +of them. You know that their minds are made up. Except as to mere +executive questions, such as the approval of a public functionary, or the +acceptance or modification of a treaty, every senator comes in pledged to +a given, or to an assumed, set of opinions and measures. You speak to the +public. You speak in order that 500,000 copies of what you say, as was +the case with my last speech, may be scattered over the whole Union.' + +'That,' I said, 'must much affect the character of your oratory. A speech +meant to be read must be a different thing from one meant to be heard. +Your speeches must in fact be pamphlets, and that I suppose accounts for +their length.' + +'That is true,' replied Sumner. 'But when you hear that we speak for a +day, or for two days, or, as I have sometimes done, for three days, you +must remember that our days are days of only three hours each.' + +'How long,' I asked, 'was your last speech?' + +'About five hours,' he answered. 'Three hours the first day and two hours +the second.' + +'That,' I said, 'is not beyond our remotest limit. Brougham indeed, on +the amendment of the law, spoke for six hours, during the greater part of +the time to an audience of three. The House was filled with fog, and +there is an H.B. which represents him gesticulating in the obscurity and +the solitude.' + +'He,' said Lord Granville, 'put his speech on the Reform Bill at the +top.' + +'The speech,' I said, 'at the end of which he knelt to implore the Peers +to pass the bill, and found it difficult to rise.' + +[Footnote 1: Barthélemy de St-Hilaire is now Thiers' private secretary +and right hand.--ED.] + + +_Tuesday, April_ 14.--Z., Sumner, Lord Granville, Tocqueville, M. +Circourt, St.-Hilaire, and Corcelle breakfasted with us. + +The conversation took the same turn as yesterday. + +'May I venture,' said Lord Granville to Z., 'to ask whom of your +opponents you feared the most?' + +'Beyond all comparison,' answered Z., 'Thiers.' + +'Was not D.' I asked, 'very formidable?' + +'Certainly,' said Z. 'But he had not the wit, or the _entraînement_ of +Thiers. His sentences were like his action. He had only one gesture, +raising and sinking his right arm, and every time that right arm fell, it +accompanied a sentence adding a link to a chain of argument, massive and +well tempered, without a particle of dross, which coiled round his +adversary like a boa constrictor.' + +'And yet,' said M., 'he was always languid and embarrassed at starting; +it took him ten minutes to get _en train_.' + +'That defect,' said Lord Granville, 'belonged to many of our good +speakers--to Charles Fox--to Lord Holland. Indeed Fox required the +excitement of serious business to become fluent. He never made a +tolerable after-dinner speech.' + +'Among the peculiarities of D.,' said M., 'are his perfect tact and +discretion in the tribune, and his awkwardness in ordinary life. In +public and in private he is two different men.' + +'It is impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'to deny that D. was great in a +deliberative body, but his real scene of action is the bar. He was only +_among_ the best speakers in the Constituent Assembly. He is _the_ +greatest advocate at the bar.' + +'Although,' said M----, 'at the bar, where he represents only his client, +one of the elements of his parliamentary success, his high moral +character, does not assist him. Do you remember how, on the debate of +the Roman expedition, he annihilated by one sentence Jules Favre who had +ventured to assail him? "Les injures," he said, "sont comme les corps +pesants, dont la force dépend de la hauteur d'où ils tombent."' + +'One man,' said Z., 'who enjoys a great European reputation, I could +never think of as a serious adversary, that is Lamartine. + +'He appeared to me to treat the sad realities of political life as +materials out of which he could compose strange and picturesque scenes, +or draw food for his imagination and his vanity. He seemed always to be +saying to himself: "How will the future dramatist or poet, or painter, +represent this event, and what will be my part in the picture, or in the +poem, or on the stage?" + +'_Il cherchait toujours à poser_.--He could give pleasure, he could give +pain--he could amuse, and he could irritate,--but he seldom could +persuade, and he never could convince. Even before the gate of the Hôtel +de Ville, the most brilliant hour of his life, he owed his success rather +to his tall figure, his fine features, attractive as well as commanding, +his voice, his action--in short, to the assemblage of qualities which the +Greeks called [Greek: hupokrisis] than to his eloquence.' + +'Was not,' I said, 'his contrast between the red flag and the tricolor +eloquent?' + +'It was a fine bit of imagery,' said Z., 'and admirably adapted to the +occasion. I do not deny to him the power of saying fine things--perhaps +fine speeches, but he never made a _good_ speech--a speech which it was +difficult to answer.' + +'If anyone,' he continued, 'ever takes the trouble to look into our +Parliamentary debates, Lamartine will hold a higher comparative rank than +he is really entitled to. Most of us were too busy to correct the reports +for the "Moniteur." Lamartine not only corrected them but inserted whole +passages.' + +'He inserted,' said M, 'not only passages but facts. Such as +"_applaudissements_," "_vive émotion," "hilarité_," often when the speech +had been received in silence, or unattended to.' + +'I remember,' said Corcelle, 'an insertion of that kind in the report of +a speech which was never delivered. It was during the Restoration, when +written speeches were read, and sometimes were sent to the "Moniteur" in +anticipation of their being read. Such had been the case with respect to +the speech in question. The intended orator had inserted, like Lamartine, +"_vifs applaudissements," "profonde sensation_," and other notices of the +effect of his speech. The House adjourned unexpectedly before it was +delivered, and he forgot to withdraw the report.' + +'Could a man like Lord Althorp,' I asked, 'whom it was painful to hear, +hold his place as leader of a French Assembly?' + +'Impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'unless he were a soldier. We tolerate +from a man who has almost necessarily been deprived of a careful +education much clumsiness and awkwardness of elocution. Soult did not +speak much better than the Duke of Wellington, but he was listened to. He +had, like the Duke, an air of command which imposed.' + +'Was there,' I said, 'any personal quarrel between Soult and Thiers?' + +'Certainly there was,' said Z., 'a little one. I will not say that Soult +was in Spain a successful commander, or an agreeable colleague, or an +obedient subordinate, but whenever things went wrong there, Soult was the +man whom the Emperor sent thither to put them to rights. Great as Thiers +may be as a military critic, I venture to put him below Napoleon.' + +'I have been reading,' I said, 'Falloux's reception speech, and was +disappointed by it.' + +'In his speech and Brifault's,' said Circourt, 'you may compare the +present declamatory style and that of thirty years ago. Brifault has, or +attempts to have, the _légèreté_ and the prettiness of the Restoration. +Falloux is _grandiose_ and emphatic, as we all are now.' + +'Falloux,' said Z., 'made an excellent speech the first time that he +addressed the Chamber of Deputies. The next time he was not so +successful, and after that he ceased to be listened to. + +'But in the Constituent Assembly, and indeed in the Legislative, he +acquired an ascendency. In those Assemblies, great moral qualities and a +high social position were rarer than they were among the Deputies, and in +the dangers of the country they were more wanted. Falloux possesses them +all. He is honest and brave, and in his province employs liberally and +usefully a large fortune.' + +'Were those the merits,' I asked, 'which opened to him the doors of the +Academy?' + +'Certainly,' answered Z. 'As a man of letters he is nothing, as a +statesman not much. We elected him in honour of his courage and his +honesty, and perhaps with some regard to his fortune. We are the only +independent body left, and we value in a candidate no quality more than +independence.' + +'I am told,' I said, 'that Falloux is now an ultra-Legitimist.' + +'That is not true,' said Z. 'He is a Legitimist, but a liberal one. He +would tolerate no Government, whatever were its other claims, that was +not constitutional.' + +'Your Academic ceremonies,' I said 'seem to me not very well imagined. +There is something _fade_, almost ridiculous, in the literary minuet in +which the _récipiendaire_ and the receiver are trotted out to show their +paces to each other and to the Academy. The new member extolling the +predecessor of whom he is the unworthy successor, the old member lauding +his new colleague to his face, and assuring him that he, too, is one of +the ornaments of the Society.' + +'Particularly,' said ----, 'when, as was the case the other day, it is +notorious that neither of them has any real respect for the idol which he +is forced to crown. Then the political innuendoes, the under-currents of +censure of the present conveyed in praise of the past, become tiresome +after we have listened to them for five years. We long to hear people +talk frankly and directly, instead of saying one thing for the mere +purpose of showing that they are thinking of another thing. The Emperor +revenged himself on Falloux by his antithesis: "_que le désordre les +avait uni, et que l'ordre les avait séparé_.'" + +'How did Falloux reply to it?' I asked. + +'Feebly,' said ----. 'He muttered something about _l'ordre_ having no +firmer adherent than himself. In these formal audiences our great man has +the advantage. He has his _mot_ ready prepared, and you cannot discuss +with him.' + +We talked of the French spoken by foreigners. 'The best,' said Circourt, +'is that of the Swedes and Russians, the worst that of the Germans.' + +'Louis Philippe,' said Z., 'used to maintain that the best test of a +man's general talents was his power of speaking foreign languages. It was +an opinion that flattered his vanity, for he spoke like a native French, +Italian, English, and German.' + +'It is scarcely possible,' said Tocqueville, 'for a man to be original in +any language but his own; in all others he is forced to say what he can, +and that is generally something that he recollects.' + +'I was much struck by that,' said Z., 'when conversing with Narvaez. He +had been talking sensibly but rather dully in French, I begged him to +talk Spanish, which I understand though I cannot speak. The whole man was +changed. It was as if a curtain had been drawn up from between us. +Instead of hammering at commonplaces, he became pointed, and spirited, +and eloquent.' + +'Is he an educated man?' I asked. + +'For a Spaniard,' answered Z., 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, +and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The +want of book-learning contributes to his originality.' + +'The most wonderful speaker in a foreign language,' said Sumner, 'was +Kossuth. He must have been between forty and fifty before he heard an +English word. Yet he spoke it fluently, eloquently, and even +idiomatically. He would have made his fortune among us as a stump-orator.' + + + +_Tuesday, April_ 28.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. + +We talked rather of people than of things. + +'Circourt,' said Tocqueville, 'is my dictionary. When I wish to know what +has been done or what has been said on any occasion, I go to Circourt. He +draws out one of the drawers in his capacious head, and finds there all +that I want arranged and ticketed. + +'One of the merits of his talk, as it is of his character, is its +conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and +his affections are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would +sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man +of whom that can be said?' + +'What think you of Mrs. T-----?' I inquired. + +'I like her too,' he replied, 'but less than I do Circourt. She has +considerable talent, but she thinks and reads only to converse. She has +no originality, no convictions. She says what she thinks that she can say +well; like a person writing a dialogue or an exercise. Whether the +opinion which she expresses be right or wrong, or the story that she +tells be true or false, is no concern of hers, provided it be _bien +dit_.' + +'The fault of her conversation,' I said, 'seems to me to be, that while +she is repeating one sentence she is thinking of the next, and that while +you are speaking to her, she is considering what is to be her next topic. +I have noticed this fault in other very fluent conversers. They are so +intent on the future that they neglect the present.' + +'It is rather a French than an English fault,' said Tocqueville. 'The +English have more curiosity and less vanity, than we have; more desire to +hear and less anxiety to shine. They are often, therefore, better +_causeurs_ than we are. _Le grand talent pour le silence_, or, in other +words, the power of listening which has been imputed to them, is a great +conversational virtue. I do not believe that it was said ironically or +epigrammatically. The man who bestowed that praise knew how rare a merit +silence is.' + +'May we not owe that merit,' I asked, 'to our bad French? We shine most +when we listen.' + +'A great talker,' I continued, 'Montalembert, is to breakfast with us. +Whom shall I ask to meet him?' + +'Not me,' said Tocqueville, 'unless you will accept me as one of the +chorus. I will not take a _premier rôle_, or any prominent _rôle_, in a +piece in which he is to act. I like his society; that is, I like to sit +silent and hear him talk, and I admire his talents; and we have the +strong bond of common hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different, or +even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of +which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger. If we differed on only +one subject, instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would +pick out that single subject to attack me on. I am not sure that even as +host you will be safe. He is more acute in detecting points of opposition +than most men are in finding subjects of agreement. He avoids meeting you +on friendly or even on neutral ground. He chooses to have a combat _en +champ clos_. + +'Take care,' he added, 'and do not have too many _sommités._ They watch +one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps +over the table.' + +'We had two pleasant breakfasts,' I said, 'a fortnight ago. You were +leader of the band at one, Z. at the other, and the rest left the stage +free to the great actor.' + +'As for me,' he answered, 'I often shut myself up, particularly after +dinner, or during dinner if it be long. The process of digestion, little, +as I can eat, seems to oppress me. + +'Z. is always charming. He has an _aplomb_, an ease, a _verve_ arising +from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse. He is a +perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, _homme de lettres_, and _père de +famille_, falling back on literature and the domestic affections. As for +me, I have intervals of _sauvagerie_, or rather the times when I am not +_sauvage_ are the intervals. I have many, perhaps too many, acquaintances +whom I like, and a very few friends whom I love, and a host of relations. +I easily tire of Paris, and long to fly to the fields and woods and +seashore of my province.' + +We passed to the language of conversation. + +'There are three words,' said Tocqueville, 'which you have lost, and +which I wonder how you do without,--Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle. +You are forced always to substitute the name. They are so mixed in all +our forms that half of what we say would appear abrupt or blunt without +them. + +'Then the _tutoyer_ is a _nuance_ that you want. When husband and wife +are talking together they pass insensibly, twenty times perhaps in an +hour, from the _vous_ to the _tu_. When matters of business or of serious +discussion are introduced, indeed whenever the affections are not +concerned, it is _vous_. With the least _soupçon_ of tenderness the _tu_ +returns.' + +'Yet,' I said, 'you never use the _tu_ before a third person.' + +'Never,' he answered, 'in good company. Among the _bourgeoisie_ always. +It is odd that an aristocratic form, so easily learned, should not have +been adopted by all who pretend to be gentry. I remember being present +when an Englishman and his wife, much accustomed to good French society, +but unacquainted with this _nuance_, were laboriously _tutoyering_ each +other. I relieved them much by assuring them that it was not merely +unnecessary, but objectionable.' + + +_May_ 2.--Tocqueville dined with us. + +A lady at the _table d'hôte_ was full of a sermon which she had heard at +the Madeleine. The preacher said, sinking his voice to an audible +whisper, 'I will tell you a secret, but it must go no farther. There is +more religion among the Protestants than with us, they are better +acquainted with the Bible, and make more use of their reading: we have +much to learn from them.' + +I asked Tocqueville, when we were in our own room, as to the feelings of +the religious world in France with respect to heretics. + +'The religious laity,' he answered, 'have probably little opinion on the +subject. They suppose the heretic to be less favourably situated than +themselves, but do not waste much thought upon him. The ignorant priests +of course consign him to perdition. The better instructed think, like +Protestants, that error is dangerous only so far as it influences +practice. + +'Dr. Bretonneau, at Tours, was one of the best men that I have known, but +an unbeliever. The archbishop tried in his last illness to reconcile him +to the Church: Bretonneau died as he had lived. But the archbishop, when +lamenting to me his death, expressed his own conviction that so excellent +a soul could not perish. + +'You recollect the duchesse in St.-Simon, who, on the death of a sinner +of illustrious race, said, "On me dira ce qu'on voudra, on ne me +persuadera pas que Dieu n'y regarde deux fois avant de damner un homme de +sa qualité." The archbishop's feeling was the same, only changing +_qualité_ into virtue. + +'There is something amusing,' he continued, 'when, separated as we are +from it by such a chasm, we look back on the prejudices of the _Ancien +Régime_. An old lady once said to me, "I have been reading with great +satisfaction the genealogies which prove that Jesus Christ descended from +David. Ça montre que notre Seigneur était Gentilhomme."' + +'We are somewhat ashamed,' I said, 'in general of Jewish blood, yet the +Lévis boast of their descent from the Hebrew Levi.' + +'They are proud of it,' said Tocqueville, 'because they make themselves +out to be cousins of the Blessed Virgin. They have a picture in which a +Duc de Lévi stands bareheaded before the Virgin. "Couvrez-vous donc, mon +cousin," she says. "C'est pour ma commodité," he answers.' + +The conversation passed to literature. + +'I am glad,' said Tocqueville, 'to find that, imperfect as my knowledge +of English is, I can feel the difference in styles.' + +'I feel strongly,' I said, 'the difference in French styles in prose, but +little in poetry.' + +'The fact is,' said Tocqueville, 'that the only French poetry, except +that of Racine, that is worth reading is the light poetry. I do not think +that I could now read Lamartine, though thirty years ago he delighted +me.' + +'The French taste,' I said, 'in English poetry differs from ours. You +read Ossian and the "Night Thoughts."' + +'As for Ossian,' he answered, 'he does not seem to have been ever popular +in England. But the frequent reference to the "Night Thoughts," in the +books and letters of the last century, shows that the poem was then in +everybody's memory. Foreigners are in fact provincials. They take up +fashions of literature as country people do fashions of dress, when the +capital has left them off. When I was young you probably had ceased to be +familiar with Richardson. We knew him by heart. We used to weep over the +Lady Clementina, whom I dare say Miss Senior never heard of. + +'During the first Empire, we of the old _régime_ abandoned Paris, as we +do now, and for the same reasons. We used to live in our châteaux, where +I remember as a boy hearing Sir Charles Grandison and Fielding read +aloud. A new novel was then an event. Madame Cottin was much more +celebrated than George Sand is now. For all her books were read, and by +everybody. Notwithstanding the great merits of George Sand's style, her +plots and her characters are so exaggerated and so unnatural, and her +morality is so perverted, that we have ceased to read her.' + +We talked of Montalembert, and I mentioned his _sortie_ the other day +against the clergy. + +'I can guess pretty well,' said Tocqueville, 'what he said to you, for it +probably was a _résumé_ of his article in the "Correspondant." Like most +men accustomed to public speaking, he repeats himself. He is as honest +perhaps as a man who is very _passionné_ can be; but his oscillations are +from one extreme to another. Immediately after the _coup d'état,_ when he +believed Louis Napoleon to be Ultramontane, he was as servile as his +great enemy the "Univers" is now. "Ce sont les nuances qui se querellent, +non les couleurs;" and between him and the "Univers" there is only a +_nuance_. The Bishop of Agen has oscillated like him, but began at the +other end. The other day the Bishop made a most servile address to the +Emperor. He had formerly been a furious anti-Bonapartist. "How is it +possible," said Montalembert, "that a man can rush so completely from one +opinion to another? On the 4th of December in 1851 this same Bishop +denounced the _coup d'état_ with such violence that the President sent me +to the Nuncio to request his interference. Now he is on his knees before +him. Such changes can scarcely be honest." Montalembert does not see that +the only difference between them is that they have trod in opposite +directions the very same path.' + + +_Thursday, May_ 5.--Tocqueville and I dined with M. and Madame de Bourke, +and met there General Dumas and Ary Scheffer. + +We talked of Delaroche's pictures, and Scheffer agreed with me in +preferring the smaller ones. He thought that Delaroche improved up to the +time of his death, and preferred his Moses, and Drowned Martyr, painted +in 1853 and 1855, to the other large ones, and his Girondins, finished in +1856, to the earlier small ones. + +We passed on to the increased and increasing population of Paris. + +'The population of Paris,' I said, 'is only half that of London, while +that of the British Islands is not three-fourths that of France. If you +were to double the population of Paris, therefore, it would still be +proportionally less than that of London.' + +'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'but yet there are many circumstances +connected with the Parisian population each of which renders it more +dangerous than the London one. In the first place, there is the absence +of any right to relief. The English workman knows that neither he nor his +family can starve. The Frenchman becomes anxious as soon as his +employment is irregular, and desperate when it fails. The English workmen +are unacquainted with arms, and have no leaders with military experience. +The bulk of the Frenchmen have served, many of them are veterans in civil +war, and they have commanders skilled in street-fighting. The English +workmen have been gradually attracted to London by a real and permanent +demand for their labour. They have wives and children. At least 100,000 +men have been added to the working population of Paris since the _coup +d'état._ They are young men in the vigour of their strength and passions, +unrestrained by wives or families. They have been drawn hither suddenly +and artificially by the demolition and reconstruction of half the town, +by the enormous local expenditure of the Government, and by the fifty +millions spent in keeping the price of bread in Paris unnaturally low. +The 40,000 men collected in Paris by the construction of the +fortifications are supposed to have mainly contributed to the revolution +of 1848. What is to be expected from this addition of 100,000? Then the +repressive force is differently constituted and differently animated. In +England you have an army which has chosen arms as a profession, which +never thinks of any other employment, and indeed is fit for no other, and +never expects any provision except its pay and its pension. The French +soldier, ever since 1789, is a citizen. He serves his six years because +the law and the colonel force him to do so, but he counts the days until +he can return to his province, his cottage, and his field. He sympathises +with the passions of the people. In the terrible days of June, the army +withstood the cries, the blessings, the imprecations and the seductions +of the mob, only because they had the National Guards by their side. +Their presence was a guarantee that the cause was just. The National +Guards never fought before as they did in those days. Yet at the Château +d'Eau, the miraculous heroism and the miraculous good luck of Lamoricière +were necessary to keep them together. If he had not exposed himself as no +man ever did, and escaped as no man ever did, they would have been +broken.' + +'I was there,' said Scheffer, 'when his fourth horse was killed under +him. As the horse was sinking he drew his feet out of the stirrups and +came to the ground without falling; but his cigar dropped from his mouth. +He picked it up, and went on with the order which he was giving to an +_aide-de-camp._ + +'I saw that,' said Tocqueville. 'He had placed himself immediately behind +a cannon in front of the Château d'Eau which fired down the Boulevard du +Temple. A murderous fire from the windows in a corner of the Rue du +Temple killed all the artillerymen. The instant that Lamoricière placed +himself behind it, I thought that I saw what would happen. I implored him +to get behind some shelter, or at least not to pose as a mark. +"Recollect," I said, "that if you go on in this way you must be killed +before the day is over-and where shall we all be?"' + +'"I see the danger of what I am doing," he answered, "and I dislike it as +much as you can do; but it is necessary. The National Guards are shaking; +if they break, the Line follows. I must set an example that everyone can +see and can understand. This is not a time for taking precautions. If _I_ +were to shelter myself, _they_ would run."' + +'How does Lamoricière,' I asked, 'bear exile and inactivity in Brussels?' + +'Very ill,' said Scheffer. 'He feels that he has compromised the +happiness of his wife, whom he married not long before the _coup +d'état._' + +'Changarnier at Malins, who lives alone and has only himself to care for, +supports it much better.' + +Tocqueville and I walked home together. + +'Scheffer,' he said, 'did not tell all that happened at the Château +d'Eau. Men seldom do when they fight over their battles.' + +'The insurgents by burrowing through walls had got into a house in the +rear of our position. They manned the windows, and suddenly fired down on +us from a point whence no danger had been feared. This caused a panic +among the National Guards, a force of course peculiarly subject to +panics. They turned and ran back 250 yards along the Boulevard St. +Martin, carrying with them the Line and Lamoricière himself. He +endeavoured to stop them by outcries, and by gesticulations, and indeed +by force. He gave to one man who was trying to run by him a blow with his +fist, so well meant and well directed that it broke his collar bone.' + +'At length he stopped them, re-formed them, and said: "Now you shall +march, I at your head, and the drummer beating the charge, as if you were +on parade, up to that house." They did so. After a few discharges, which +miraculously missed Lamoricière, the men in the house deserted it.' + +'What were you doing at the Château d'Eau?' I asked. + +'We were marching,' he said, 'with infantry and artillery on the +Boulevard du Temple, across which there was a succession of barricades, +which it was necessary to take one by one. + +'As we advanced in the middle, our sappers and miners got into the houses +on each side, broke through the party walls, and killed the men at the +windows.' + +'Those three days,' he continued, 'impress strongly on my mind the +dangers of our present state.' + +'It is of no use to take up pavements and straighten streets, and pierce +Paris by long military roads, and loop-hole the barracks, if the +Executive cannot depend on the army. Ditches and bastions are of no use +if the garrison will not man them.' + +'The new law of recruitment, however, may produce a great change. Instead +of 80,000 conscripts, 120,000 are to be taken each year. This is about +all that are fit for service. They are required to serve for only two +years. If the change ended there our army would be still more a militia +than it is now. It would be the Prussian Landwehr. But those entitled to +their discharge are to be enticed by higher pay, promotions, bounties, +and retiring pensions--in short, by all means of seduction, to re-enter +for long periods, for ten, or fifteen, or perhaps twenty years. It is +hoped that thus a permanent regular army may be formed, with an _esprit +de corps_ of its own, unsympathising with the people, and ready to keep +it down; and such will, I believe, be the result. But it will take nine +or ten years to produce such an army--and the dangers that I fear are +immediate.' + +'What are the motives,' I asked, 'for the changes as to the conscription, +the increase of numbers, and the diminution of the time of service?' + +'They are parts,' he answered, 'of the system. The French peasant, and +indeed the _ouvrier_, dislikes the service. The proportion of conscripts +who will re-enlist is small. Therefore the whole number must be large. +The country must be bribed to submit to this by the shortness of the +term. The conscript army will be sacrificed to what is to be the regular +army. It will be young and ill-trained.' + +'But your new regular army,' I said, 'will be more formidable to the +enemy than your present force.' + +'I am not sure of that,' he answered. 'The merit of the French army was +the impetuosity of its attack, the "furia Francese," as the Italians +called it. Young troops have more of this quality than veterans. The +Maison du Roi, whose charge at Steenkirk Macaulay has so well described, +consisted of boys of eighteen.' + +'I am re-editing,' I said, 'my old articles. Among them is one written in +1841 on the National Character of France, England, and America,[1] as +displayed towards foreign nations. I have not much to change in what I +have said of England or of America. As they have increased in strength +they have both become still more arrogant, unjust, and shameless. + +'England has perhaps become a little more prudent America a little less +so. But France seems to me to be altered. I described her as a soldier +with all the faults of that unsocial character. As ambitious, rapacious, +eager for nothing but military glory and territorial aggrandisement. She +seems now to have become moderate and pacific, and to be devoted rather +to the arts of peace than to those of war.' + +'France _is_ changed,' answered Tocqueville, 'and when compared with the +France of Louis XIV., or of Napoleon, was already changed when you wrote, +though the war-cry raised for political purposes in 1840 deceived +you. At the same time, I will not deny that military glory would, more +than any other merit, even _now_ strengthen a Government, and that +military humiliation would inevitably destroy one. Nor must you overrate +the unpopularity of the last war. Only a few even of the higher classes +understood its motives. "Que diable veut cette guerre?" said my country +neighbour to me; "si c'était contre les Anglais--mais _avec_ les Anglais, +et pour le Grand Turc, qu'est-ce que cela peut signifier?" But when they +saw that it cost only men, that they were not invaded or overtaxed, and +that prices rose, they got reconciled to it. + +'It was only the speculators of Paris that were tired of it. And if, +instead of the Crimea, we had fought near our own frontiers, or for some +visible purpose, all our military passions, bad and good, would have +broken out.' + +[Footnote 1: This article is republished in the _Historical and +Philosophical Essays_. Longmans: 1865.--ED.] + + +_Wednesday, May_ 13.--Tocqueville came in after breakfast, and I walked +with him in the shade of the green walls or arcades of the Tuileries +chestnuts. + +We talked of the Montijos, which led our conversation to Mérimée and V. + +'Both of them,' said Tocqueville, 'were the friends of +Countess Montijo, the mother. + +'V. was among the last persons who knew Eugénie as Countess Théba. He +escorted her to the Tuileries the very evening of her marriage. There he +took his leave of her. "You are now," he said, "placed so high that I can +only admire you from below." And I do not believe that they have met +since. + +'Mérimée took a less sentimental view of the change. He acknowledged his +Empress in his former plaything, subsided from a sort of stepfather into +a courtier, and so rose to honour and wealth, while V. is satisfied to +remain an ex-professor and _un homme de lettres_.' + + * * * * * + +We met Henri Martin, and I asked Tocqueville what he thought of his +History. + +'It has the merit of selling,' he said, 'which cannot be said of any +other History of France. Martin is laborious and conscientious, and does +not tell a story ill; but he is a partisan and is always biassed by his +own likings and dislikings. He belongs to the class of theorists, +unfortunately not a small one, whose political _beau idéal_ is the +absence of all control over the will of the people-who are opposed +therefore to an hereditary monarchy-to a permanent President--to a +permanent magistracy-to an established Church--in short, to all +privileged classes, bodies, or institutions. Equality, not liberty or +security, is their object. They are centralisers and absolutists. A +despotic Assembly elected by universal suffrage, sitting at most for a +year, governing, like the Convention, through its committees, or a single +despot, appointed for a week, and not re-eligible, is the sort of ruler +that they would prefer. The last five years have perhaps disgusted Martin +with his Asiatic democracy, but his earlier volumes are coloured +throughout by his prejudices against all systems implying a division of +power, and independent authorities controlling and balancing one +another.' + +We talked of the Secret Police. + +'It has lately,' said Tocqueville, 'been unusually troublesome, or rather +it has been troublesome to a class of persons whom it seldom ventures to +molest. A friend of mine, M. Sauvaire Barthélemy, one of Louis Philippe's +peers, was standing at the door of his hotel reading a letter. A +gentleman in plain clothes addressed him, announced himself as an _agent +de police_, and asked him if the letter which he was reading was +political. "No," said Barthélemy, "you may see it. It is a _billet de +mariage." "I am directed," said the agent, "to request you to get into +this carriage." They got in and drove to Mazas. There Barthélemy was +shown into a neat room with iron bars to the windows, and ordered to +wait. After some time Louis Pietri, the Préfet de Police, arrived. + +'"I am grieved," he said, "at giving you so much trouble, but I have been +commanded to see you in this place, and to inform you that the Emperor +cannot bear that a man in your high position should systematically +misrepresent him. + +'"L'Empereur fait tout ce qu'il peut pour le bonheur de la France, et il +n'entend pas supporter une opposition aussi constante et aussi violente. +Effectivement il ne veut pas d'opposition. Voulez-vous le tenir pour +dit, Monsieur, et recevoir de nouveau mes excuses du dérangement que j'ai +dû vous causer? Pour le présent vous êtes libre."' + + +[Mr. Senior left Paris on the next day. + +M. de Tocqueville paid his promised visit to England in June, and was +received with a perfect ovation.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +London, July 10, 1857. + +I was too ill, my dear friend, to go to you yesterday. Dr. Ferguson tells +me that I have been doing too much, and prescribes perfect rest. + +I have already read half your journal of 1857. It is very curious; but I +am glad that you have disguised me. + +It is terrible to be in London, and to see so little of you; but the +force of circumstances is greater than the force of wishes. + +Ever yours, + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, August 6, 1857. + +You may already have had news of me through some of our common friends, +my dear Senior, but I wish, besides, to give you some myself, and to +thank you again for the kind welcome I received from you and in your +house during my stay in London. + +I regret only that I was unable to be more with you, and that, in spite +of myself, I was drawn into a whirlpool which carried me away and +prevented me from following my inclinations. + +I have returned, however, full of gratitude for the marks of +consideration and affection showered upon me in England. I shall never +forget them. + +I found my wife already installed here, and in good health; and I have +resumed my busy and peaceful life with a delight which does honour to my +wisdom. For I had been so spoiled in England that I might have been +afraid of finding my retreat too much out of the way and too quiet. But +nothing of the sort has happened. The excitement of the past month +appears to have added charms to the present. + +Nevertheless, I have not yet set to work again, but I am full of good +resolutions, which I hope to execute as soon as I have completely +returned to my usual habits. These first days have been devoted to +putting everything into its regular order. + +In France we are almost as much interested as you in England in the +affairs of India. Everyone, even in the country, asks me for news of what +is going on there. + +There is a natural disposition to exaggerate the evil and to believe that +your dominion is overturned. For my part, I am waiting with the utmost +and most painful anxiety for the development of the drama, for no good +can possibly result from it; and there is not one civilised nation in the +world that ought to rejoice in seeing India escape from the hands of +Europeans in order to fall back into a state of anarchy and barbarism +worse than before its conquest. + +I am quite sure that you will conquer. But it is a serious business. + +A military insurrection is the worst of all insurrections, at least in +the beginning. You have to deal with barbarians, but they possess the +arms of civilised people given to them by yourselves. + +My wife, who has preserved her English heart, is particularly affected by +the spectacle which Bengal at present affords. + +If you have any more particular news than is to be found in the +newspapers, you will give us great pleasure by communicating them. + +Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and to your daughter-in-law. + +My wife sends many kind regards to them, as well as to you. + +Adieu, dear Senior. Believe in my sincere affection. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +P.S.--I fancy that the first effect of the Indian affair will be to draw +still closer the alliance between England and France. + + +Tocqueville, November 15, 1857. + +I am somewhat angry with you, my dear Senior, for not having yet given us +your news.[1] It is treating our friendship unfairly, I have not written +to you because I doubted your following exactly your intended route, but +I will write to you at Athens, as I think that you must now be there. If +you have followed your itinerary your travels must have been most +interesting to you, and they will be equally curious to us. I conclude +that you only passed quickly through the Principalities in following the +course of the Danube. I, however, had depended on you for furnishing me +with clear ideas of a country which is at present so interesting to +Europe, and which I think is destined to play an important part in the +future. And what say you of our friends the Turks? Was it worth while to +spend so much money and to shed so much blood in order to retain in +Europe savages who are ill disguised as civilised men? I am impatient to +talk to you, and almost equally so to read you. + +I shall have little to tell you. I have not stirred from home since I +left England, and am leading the life of a gentleman-farmer; a life which +pleases me more and more every day, and would really make me happy, if my +wife were not suffering from an obstinate neuralgic affection in the +face. I fear that she may have to go to some mineral waters, which she +would be sorry to do; for, as you know, she hates travelling, and does no +justice to the reputation for wandering possessed by the English race. + +I can tell you nothing on politics which you will not find in the +newspapers. The great question at present for all civilised Governments +seems to be the financial. The crisis from which America and England are +suffering will probably extend everywhere. As for India, you are out, not +perhaps of your difficulties, but of your greatest dangers. This affair, +and that of the Crimea, show how little sympathy there is for England +abroad. There was everything to interest us in your success--similarity +of race, of religion, and of civilisation. Your loss of India could have +served no cause but that of barbarism. Yet I venture to affirm that the +whole Continent, though it detested the cruelties of your enemies, did +not wish you to triumph. + +Much of this is, without doubt, to be attributed to the evil passions +which make men always desire the fall of the prosperous and the strong. +But much belongs to a less dishonourable cause--to the conviction of all +nations that England considers them only with reference to her own +greatness; that she has less sympathy than any other modern nation; that +she never notices what passes among foreigners, what they think, feel, +suffer, or do, but with relation to the use which England can make of +their actions, their sufferings, their feelings, or their thoughts; and +that when she seems most to care for them she really cares only for +herself. All this is exaggerated, but not without truth. + +Kindest regards from us both to you and to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was at this time in the East.--ED.] + + + +Tocqueville, February 10, 1858. + +I was delighted, my dear Senior, to receive a letter from you dated +Marseilles. You are right in remaining till the spring in the South. We +trust to meet you in Paris in March. + +I say no more, for I cannot write to you on what would most interest +you--French politics. Much is to be said on them; but you will understand +my silence if you study our new Law of Public Safety, and remember who is +the new Home Minister.[1] For the first time in French history has such a +post been filled by a general--and what a general! + +I defer, therefore, until we meet, the expression of feelings and +opinions which cannot be safely transmitted through the post, and only +repeat how eager I am for our meeting. + +Kind regards to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: General Espinasse.] + + +Tocqueville, February 21, 1858. + +I received your letters with great pleasure, my dear Senior, and I think +with still greater satisfaction that I shall soon be able to see you. + +I shall probably arrive in Paris, with my wife, at about the same time as +you will, that is to say, about the 19th of next month. I should have +gone earlier if I were not occupied in planting and sowing, for I am +doing a little farming to my great amusement. + +I am delighted that you intend again to take up your quarters at the +Hôtel Bedford, as I intend also to stay there if I can find apartments. + +I hope that we shall be good neighbours and see each other as frequently +as such old friends ought to do. _A bientôt!_ + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Mr. Senior ran over to England for a few weeks instead of remaining in +Paris. The meeting between the two friends did not, therefore, take place +till April.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, Saturday, April_ 17, 1858.--We had a discussion at the Institut +to-day as to a bust to fill a niche in the anteroom. Rossi was proposed. +His political merits were admitted, but he was placed low as to his +literary claims as an economist and a jurist. Dupin suggested Talleyrand, +which was received with a universal groan, and failed for want of a +seconder. Ultimately the choice fell on Dumont. + +'Nothing that is published of Talleyrand's,' said Tocqueville to me as we +walked home, 'has very great merit, nor indeed is much of it his own. He +hated writing, let his reports and other state papers be drawn up by +others, and merely retouched them. But in the archives of the _Affaires +étrangères_ there is a large quarto volume containing his correspondence +with Louis XVIII during the Congress of Vienna. Nothing can be more +charming. The great European questions which were then in debate, the +diplomatic and social gossip of Vienna, the contemporary literature--in +short, all that one clever _homme du monde_ could find to interest and +amuse another, are treated with wit, brilliancy, and gaiety, supported by +profound good sense. When that volume is published his bust will be +placed here by acclamation.' + +_Monday, April_ 19.--I dined with Lanjuinais, and met Tocqueville, Rivet, +Dufaure, Corcelle, Freslon, and one or two others. + +They attacked me about the change of sentiment in England with respect to +Louis Napoleon. + +'While he was useful to you,' they said, 'you steadily refused to admit +that he was a tyrant, or even an usurper. You chose to disbelieve in the +3,000 men, women, and children massacred on the Boulevards of Paris--in +the 20,000 poisoned by jungle fever in Cayenne--in the 25,000 who have +died of malaria, exposure, and bad food, working in gangs on the roads +and in the marshes of the Metidja and Lambressa.' + +'We did not _choose_', I answered, 'to disbelieve any thing. We were +simply ignorant. _I_ knew all these facts, because I have passed a part +of every year since 1847 in Paris; because I walked along the Boulevards +on the 20th of December 1851, and saw the walls of every house, from the +Bastille to the Madeleine, covered with the marks of musket-balls; +because I heard in every society of the thousands who had been massacred, +and of the tens of thousands who had been _déportés_; but the untravelled +English, and even the travelled English, except the few who live in +France among the French, knew nothing of all this. Your press tells +nothing. The nine millions of votes given to Louis Napoleon seemed to +prove his popularity, and therefore the improbability of the tyranny of +which he was accused by his enemies. _I_ knew that those nine millions of +votes were extorted, or stolen by violence or fraud. But the English +people did not know it. They accepted his election as the will of the +nation, and though they might wonder at your choice, did not presume to +blame it.' + +'The time,' they answered, 'at which light broke in upon you is +suspicious. Up to the 14th of January 1858 the oppression under which +thirty-four millions of people within twenty-four miles of your coast, +with whom you are in constant intercourse, was unknown to you. Their +ruler insults you, and you instantly discover that he is an usurper and a +tyrant. This looks as if the insult, and the insult alone, opened your +eyes.' + +'What opened our eyes,' I answered, 'was not the insult but the _loi de +sûreté publique_. It was the first public act which showed to England the +nature of your Government. + +'When we found, erected in every department, a revolutionary tribunal, +empowered to banish and transport without trial; when we found a rude +soldier made Home Minister, and the country divided into five districts +to be each governed by a marshal, we saw at once that France was under a +violent military despotism. Until that law was passed the surface was +smooth. There was nothing in the appearance of France to show to a +stranger that she was not governed by a Monarch, practically, indeed, +absolute, but governing as many absolute Monarchs have done, mildly and +usefully. + +'Of course we might have found out the truth sooner if we had inquired. +And perhaps we ought to have inquired. We busy ourselves about our own +affairs, and neglect too much those of other countries. In that sense +you have a right to say that we chose to be ignorant, since our conduct +was such as necessarily to make us ignorant. But it was not because Louis +Napoleon was our ally that we chose to be ignorant, but because we +habitually turn our eyes from the domestic affairs of the Continent, as +things in which we have seldom a right to interfere, and in which, when +we do interfere, we do more harm than good.' + +We talked of the manner in which the _loi de sûreté publique_ has been +carried out. And I mentioned 600 as the number of those who had suffered +under it, as acknowledged to me by Blanchard in the beginning of March. + +'It is much greater now,' said Lanjuinais. 'Berryer on his return from +Italy, a week ago, slept in Marseilles. He was informed that more than +900 persons had passed through Marseilles, _déportés_ under the new law +to Algeria. They were of all classes: artisans and labourers mixed with +men of the higher and middle classes. To these must be added those +transported to Cayenne, who were sent by way of Havre. As for the number +_expulsés_ and _internés_ there are no data.' + +'In the Department of Var, a man was found guilty in 1848 of joining in +one of the revolutionary movements of that time. His complete innocence +was soon proved; he was released, and has lived quietly on his little +estate ever since. He was arrested under the new law and ordered to be +_déporté_ to Algeria. His friends, in fact all his neighbours, +remonstrated, and sent to Paris the proof that the original conviction +was a mistake. "Qu'il aille tout de même," was Espinasse's answer. + +'In Calvados the Préfet, finding no one whom he could conscientiously +arrest, took hold of one of the most respectable men in the department. +"If," he said, "I had arrested a man against whom there was plausible +ground for suspicion, he might have been transported. This man _must_ be +released."' + +'Has he been released?' I asked. + +'I have not heard,' was the answer. 'In all probability he has been.' + +'In my department,' said Tocqueville, 'the _sous-préfet_, ordered by the +Préfet to arrest somebody in the arrondissement, was in the same +perplexity as the Préfet of Calvados. "I can find no fit person," he said +to me. I believe that he reported the difficulty to the Préfet, and that +the vacancy was supplied from some other arrondissement. + +'What makes this frightful,' he added, 'is that we now know that +deportation is merely a slow death. Scarcely any of the victims of 1851 +and 1852 are living.' + +'I foretold that,' I said, 'at the time, as you will find if you look at +my article on Lamartine, published in the "Edinburgh Review."'[1] + +[Footnote 1: See _Journals in France and Italy_.--ED.] + + +_April_ 20.--We talked of the political influence in France of the +_hommes de lettres_. + +'It began,' said Tocqueville, 'with the Restoration. Until that time we +had sometimes, though very rarely, statesmen who became writers, but +never writers who became statesmen,' + +'You had _hommes de lettres_,' I said, 'in the early Revolutionary +Assemblies--Mirabeau for instance.' + +'Mirabeau,' he answered, 'is your best example, for Mirabeau, until he +became a statesman, lived by his pen. Still I should scarcely call a man +of his high birth and great expectations _un homme de lettres_. That +appellation seems to belong to a man who owes his position in early life +to literature. Such a man is Thiers, or Guizot, as opposed to such men as +Gladstone, Lord John Russell, or Montalembert.' + + +_Wednesday, April_ 21.--I dined with D. and met, among several others, +Admiral Matthieu the Imperial Hydrographer, and a general whose name I +did not catch. I talked to the general about the army. + +'We are increasing it,' he said, 'but not very materially. We are rather +giving ourselves the means of a future rapid increase, than making an +immediate augmentation. We are raising the number of men from 354,000 to +392,400, in round numbers to 400,000; but the principal increase is in +the _cadres_, the officers attached to each battalion. We have increased +them by more than one third. So that if a war should break out we can +instantly--that is to say in three months, increase our army to 600,000 +or even 700,000 men. Soldiers are never wanting in France, the difficulty +always is to find officers.' + +'I hear,' I said, 'that you are making great improvements in your +artillery.' + +'We are,' he answered. 'We are applying to it the principle of the Minié +musket, and we are improving the material. We hope to make our guns as +capable of resisting rapid and continued firing as well and as long as +the English and the Swedish guns, which are the best in Europe, can do. +And we find that we can throw a ball on the Minié principle with equal +precision twice as far. This will double the force of all our batteries.' + +'Are _you_,' he asked me, 'among those who have taken shares in the +Russian railways?' + +'No,' I said. 'They are the last that I wish to encourage.' + +'Englishmen or Frenchmen,' he answered, 'who help Russia to make +railways, put me in mind of the Dutch who sold powder to their besiegers. + +'The thinness of her population--that is, the vast space over which it is +scattered--alone prevents Russia from being the mistress of Europe. If +her 64,000,000 were as concentrated as our 34,000,000 are, she would be +irresistible. She loses always far more men in marching than in +fighting.' + +'The events of the war,' I said, 'lead me to believe that the goodness of +the Russian soldier is exaggerated. They were always beaten, often by +inferior numbers.' + +'In the first place,' he answered, 'those who were beaten at Sebastopol +were not the best Russian soldiers. They were short small men, generally +drawn from the neighbouring provinces. The Russian Imperial Guards and +the Russian Army in Poland are far superior to any that we encountered in +the Crimea. In the second place, they were ill commanded. The +improvements of weapons, of science and of discipline, have raised the +privates of all the great military nations to about the same level. +Success now depends on numbers and on generalship. With railways Russia +will be able to bring quickly a preponderating force to any point on her +frontier. Her officers are already good, and for money she can import the +best generals; indeed, I do not see why she should not breed them. Russia +is civilised enough to produce men of the highest military qualities.' + +I asked Admiral Matthieu about the naval preparations of France. + +'The "Moniteur,"' I said, 'denies that you are making any.' + +'The "Moniteur,"' he answered, 'does not tell the truth. We are +augmenting largely, both the number and the efficacy of our fleet. + +'Four years ago, at the beginning of the Russian war, we resolved to +build a steam fleet of 150 steam ships of different sizes for fighting, +and 74 steam ships for the transfer service, and to carry fuel and +stores. Though we set about this in the beginning, as we thought, of a +long war, we have not allowed the peace to interrupt it. We are devoting +to it sixty-five millions a year (2,600,000_l_.) of which from fifteen to +seventeen millions are employed every year in building new ships, and +from forty to forty-two in adding steam power to the old ones. We hope to +finish this great work in fourteen years.' + +'What,' I asked, 'is the amount of your present fleet of steamers?' + +'We have thirty-three screws,' he answered, 'fifty-seven paddles, and +sixty-two sailing vessels in commission, and seventy-three, mostly +steamers, _en réserve_, as you would say, in ordinary.' + +'Manned by how many men?' I asked. + +'By twenty-five thousand sailors,' he answered, 'and eleven thousand +marines. But our _inscription maritime_ would give us in a few months or +less one hundred thousand more. Since the times of Louis XVI. the French +Navy has never been so formidable, positively or relatively.' + +'How,' I asked, 'has your "Napoleon" succeeded?' + +'Admirably,' he answered. 'I have not seen the "Wellington," but she is a +much finer ship than the Agamemnon. Her speed is wonderful. A month ago +she left Toulon at seven in the morning, and reached Ajaccio by four in +the evening. But the great improvement is in our men. Napoleon knew +nothing and cared nothing about sailors. He took no care about their +training, and often wasted them in land operations, for which landsmen +would have done as well. + +'In 1814 he left Toulon absolutely unguarded, and sent all the sailors to +join Augereau. You might have walked into it. + +'In 1810 or 1811 I was on board a French corvette which fought an action +with an English vessel, the "Lively." We passed three times under her +stern, and raked her each time. We ought to have cleared her decks. Not a +shot touched her. The other day at Cherbourg I saw a broadside fired at a +floating mark three cables off, the usual distance at which ships engage. +Ten balls hit it, and we could see that all the others passed near enough +to shake it by their wind. + +'A ship of eighty guns has now forty _canonniers_ and forty _maîtres de +pièces_. All practical artillerymen, and even the able seamen, can point +a gun. Nelson's manoeuvre of breaking the line could not be used against +a French fleet, such as a French fleet is now. The leading ships would be +destroyed one after another, by the concentrated fire. Formerly our +officers dreaded a maritime war. They knew that defeat awaited them, +possibly death. Now they are confident, and eager to try their hands.' + +In the evening L. took me into a corner, and we had a long conversation. + +He had been reading my 'Athens Journal.' + +'What struck me,' he said, 'in every page of it, was the resemblance of +King Otho to Louis Napoleon.' + +'I see the resemblance,' I answered, 'but it is the resemblance of a +dwarf to a giant.' + +'No,' he replied. 'Of a man five feet seven inches high to one five feet +eleven inches. There are not more than four inches between them. There is +the same cunning, the same coldness, the same vindictiveness, the same +silence, the same perseverance, the same unscrupulousness, the same +selfishness, the same anxiety to appear to do everything that is done, +and above all, the same determination to destroy, or to seduce by +corruption or by violence, every man and every institution favourable to +liberty, independence, or self-government. In one respect Otho had the +more difficult task. He found himself, in 1843, subject to a Constitution +carefully framed under the advice of England for the express purpose of +controlling him. He did not attempt to get rid of it by a _coup d'état_, +or even to alter it, but cunningly and skilfully perverted it into an +instrument of despotism. Louis Napoleon destroyed the Constitution which +he found, and made a new one, copied from that which had been gradually +elaborated by his uncle, which as a restraint is intentionally powerless +and fraudulent. + +'A man,' he continued, 'may acquire influence either by possessing in a +higher degree the qualities which belong to his country and to his time, +or by possessing those in which they are deficient. + +'Wellington is an example of this first sort. His excellences were those +of an Englishman carried almost to perfection. + +'Louis Napoleon belongs to the second. If his merits had been impetuous +courage, rapidity of ideas, quickness of decision, frankness, versatility +and resource, he would have been surrounded by his equals or his +superiors. He predominated over those with whom he came in contact +because he differed from them. Because he was calm, slow, reserved, +silent, and persevering. Because he is a Dutchman, not a Frenchman.' + +'He seems,' I said, 'to have lost his calmness.' + +'Yes,' answered L. 'But under what a shock! And observe that though the +greatest risk was encountered by _him_, the terror was greatest among his +_entourage_. I do not believe that if he had been left to himself he +would have lost his prudence or his self-possession. He did not for the +first day. Passions are contagious. Everyone who approached him was +agitated by terror and anger. His intrepidity and self-reliance, great as +they are, were disturbed by the hubbub all round him. His great defects +are three. First, his habit of self-contemplation. He belongs to the men +whom the Germans call subjective, whose eye is always turned inwardly; +who think only of themselves, of their own character, and of their own +fortunes. Secondly, his jealousy of able men. He wishes to be what you +called him, a giant, and as Nature has not made him positively tall, he +tries to be comparatively so, by surrounding himself with dwarfs. His +third defect is the disproportion of his wishes to his means. His desires +are enormous. No power, no wealth, no expenditure would satisfy them. +Even if he had his uncle's genius and his uncle's indefatigability, he +would sink, as his uncle did, under the exorbitance of his attempts. As +he is not a man of genius, or even a man of remarkable ability, as he is +ignorant, uninventive and idle, you will see him flounder and fall from +one failure to another. + +'During the three years that Drouyn de L'Huys was his minister he was +intent on home affairs--on his marriage, on the Louvre, on the artillery, +on his _bonnes fortunes_, and on the new delights of unbounded +expenditure. He left foreign affairs altogether to his minister. When +Drouyn de L'Huys left him, the road before him was plain--he had only to +carry on the war. But when the war was over, the road ended; neither +he nor Walewski nor any of his _entourage_ know anything of the country +in which they are travelling. You see them wandering at hazard. Sometimes +trying to find their way to Russia, sometimes to England. Making a treaty +with Austria, then attempting to injure her, and failing; attempting to +injure Turkey, and failing; bullying Naples, and failing; threatening +Switzerland, threatening Belgium, and at last demanding from England an +Alien Bill, which they ought to know to be incompatible with the laws and +hateful to the feelings of the people. + +'He is not satisfied with seeing the country prosperous and respected +abroad. He wants to dazzle. His policy, domestic and foreign, is a policy +of vanity and ostentation--motives which mislead everyone both in private +and in public life. + +'His great moral merits are kindness and sympathy. He is a faithful +attached friend, and wishes to serve all who come near him. + +'His greatest moral fault is his ignorance of the difference between +right and wrong; perhaps his natural insensibility to it, his want of the +organs by which that difference is perceived--a defect which he inherits +from his uncle.' + +'The uncle,' I said, 'had at least one moral sense--he could understand +the difference between pecuniary honesty and dishonesty, a difference +which this man seems not to see, or not to value.' + +'I agree with you,' said L. 'He cannot value it, or he would not look +complacently on the peculation which surrounds him. Every six months some +magnificent hotel rises in the Champs Élysées, built by a man who had +nothing, and has been a minister for a year or two.' + +On my return I found Tocqueville with the ladies. I gave him an outline +of what L. had said. + +'No one,' he said, 'knows Louis Napoleon better than L.' + +'My opportunities of judging him have been much fewer, but as far as they +have gone, they lead to the same conclusions. L. perhaps has not dwelt +enough on his indolence. Probably as he grows older, and the effects of +his early habits tell on him, it increases. I am told that it is +difficult to make him attend to business, that he prolongs audiences +apparently to kill time. + +'One of the few of my acquaintances who go near him, was detained by him +for an hour to answer questions about the members of the _Corps +législatif_. Louis Napoleon inquired about their families, their +fortunes, their previous histories. Nothing about their personal +qualities. These are things that do not interest him. He supposes that +men differ only in externals. "That the _fond_ is the same in everyone."' + + +_April 26_.--Tocqueville spent the evening with us. + +We talked of Novels. + +'I read none,' he said, 'that end ill. Why should one voluntarily subject +oneself to painful emotions? To emotions created by an imaginary cause +and therefore impelling you to no action. I like vivid emotions, but I +seek them in real life, in society, in travelling, in business, but above +all in political business. There is no happiness comparable to political +success, when your own excitement is justified by the magnitude of the +questions at issue, and is doubled and redoubled by the sympathy of your +supporters. Having enjoyed that, I am ashamed of being excited by the +visionary sorrows of heroes and heroines. + +'I had a friend,' he continued, 'a Benedictine, who is now ninety-seven. +He was, therefore, about thirteen when Louis XVI. began to reign. He is a +man of talents and knowledge, has always lived in the world, has attended +to all that he has seen and heard, and is still unimpaired in mind, and +so strong in body that when I leave him he goes down to embrace me, after +the fashion of the eighteenth century, at the bottom of his staircase.' + +'And what effect,' I asked, 'has the contemplation of seventy years of +revolution produced in him? Does he look back, like Talleyrand, to the +_ancien régime_ as a golden age?' + +'He admits,' said Tocqueville, 'the material superiority of our own age, +but he believes that, intellectually and morally, we are far inferior to +our grandfathers. And I agree with him. Those seventy years of revolution +have destroyed our courage, our hopefulness, our self-reliance, our +public spirit, and, as respects by far the majority of the higher +classes, our passions, except the vulgarest and most selfish ones--vanity +and covetousness. Even ambition seems extinct. The men who seek power, +seek it not for itself, not as the means of doing good to their country, +but as a means of getting money and flatterers. + +'It is remarkable,' he continued, 'that women whose influence is +generally greatest under despotisms, have none now. They have lost it, +partly in consequence of the gross vulgarity of our dominant passions, +and partly from their own nullity. They are like London houses, all built +and furnished on exactly the same model, and that a most uninteresting +one. Whether a girl is bred up at home or in a convent, she has the same +masters, gets a smattering of the same accomplishments, reads the same +dull books, and contributes to society the same little contingent of +superficial information. + +'When a young lady comes out I know beforehand how her mother and her +aunts will describe her. "Elle a les goûts simples. Elle est pieuse. Elle +aime la campagne. Elle aime la lecture. Elle n'aime pas le bal. Elle +n'aime pas le monde, elle y ira seulement pour plaire à sa mère." I try +sometimes to escape from these generalities, but there is nothing behind +them.' + +'And how long,' I asked, 'does this simple, pious, retiring character +last?' + +'Till the orange flowers of her wedding chaplet are withered,' he +answered. 'In three months she goes to the _messe d'une heure_.' + +'What is the "messe d'une heure?"' I asked. + +'A priest,' he answered, 'must celebrate Mass fasting; and in strictness +ought to do so before noon. But to accommodate fashionable ladies who +cannot rise by noon, priests are found who will starve all the morning, +and say Mass in the afternoon. It is an irregular proceeding, though +winked at by the ecclesiastical authorities. Still to attend it is rather +discreditable; it is a middle term between the highly meritorious +practice of going to early Mass, and the scandalous one of never going at +all.' + +'What was the education,' I asked, 'of women under the _ancien régime_?' + +'The convent,' he answered. + +'It must have been better,' I said, 'than the present education, since +the women of that time were superior to ours.' + +'It was so far better,' he answered, 'that it did no harm. A girl at that +time was taught nothing. She came from the convent a sheet of white +paper. _Now_ her mind is a paper scribbled over with trash. The women of +that time were thrown into a world far superior to ours, and with the +sagacity, curiosity, and flexibility of French women, caught knowledge +and tact and expression from the men. + +'I knew well,' he continued, 'Madame Récamier. Few traces of her former +beauty then remained, but we were all her lovers and her slaves. The +talent, labour, and skill which she wasted in her _salon_, would have +gained and governed an empire. She was virtuous, if it be virtuous to +persuade every one of a dozen men that you wish to favour him, though +some circumstance always occurs to prevent your doing so. Every friend +thought himself preferred. She governed us by little distinctions, by +letting one man come five minutes before the others, or stay five minutes +after. Just as Louis XIV. raised one courtier to the seventh heaven by +giving him the _bougeoir_, and another by leaning on his arm, or taking +his shirt from him. + +'She said little, but knew what each man's _fort_ was, and placed from +time to time a _mot_ which led him to it. If anything were peculiarly +well said, her face brightened. You saw that her attention was always +active and always intelligent. + +'And yet I doubt whether she really enjoyed conversation. _Tenir salon_ +was to her a game, which she played well, and almost always successfully, +but she must sometimes have been exhausted by the effort. Her _salon_ was +perhaps pleasanter to us than it was to herself. + +'One of the last,' he continued, 'of that class of potentates was the +Duchesse de Dino. Her early married life was active and brilliant, but +not intellectually. It was not till about forty, when she had exhausted +other excitements, that she took to _bel esprit._ But she performed her +part as if she had been bred to it.' + +This was our last conversation. I left Paris the next day, and we never +met again. + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Tocqueville, June 30, 1858. + +I must complain, a little of your silence, my dear Senior. I hear that +before you left Paris you suffered a great deal from your throat. Is it +true, or have you recovered? + +I have not either much to boast of on the score of health since we +parted. The illness which I had in Paris became still worse, and when I +got a little better in that way I had a violent bronchial attack. I even +began to spit blood, which had not happened to me for many years, and I +am still almost reduced to silence. Still I am beginning to mend, and I +hope, please God, to be able to _speak_ to my friends when they visit me. + +You are aware that I wished to induce my wife to accompany me to the +South; but the length of the journey, the difficulties of transport, the +heat, and indeed the state of my health, were reasons which she brought +forward with so much force that we have remained here, and shall not +leave till the end of September. We still hope that you and Miss Senior +will join us the first week in that month. We shall be very happy to have +you both with us. This is no compliment ... I hope soon to be able to +enjoy more frequent communication with my English friends. A steamboat is +about to run from Cherbourg to the coast of England. We shall then be +able to visit each other as neighbours (_voisiner_). + +Between ourselves, I do not think that the events in England during the +last six months are of a nature to raise the reputation of Parliamentary +Government in the rest of the world. _A bientôt!_ + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Kensington, July 5, 1858. + +My dear Tocqueville,--If I had written to you three days ago, I should +have talked of the pleasure which my daughter and I expected from our +visit to Tocqueville. But our plans are changed. Edward Ellice is going +to pay a last visit to America, and has begged me to accompany him. He is +a great proprietor in both America and Canada--knows everybody in both +countries, and is besides a most able and interesting companion. So I +have accepted the proposal, and start on the 30th of this month for +Boston. We shall return in the beginning of November. + +I am _very_ sorry to lose the visit to Normandy, but I trust that it is +only deferred. + +We are grieved to hear that neither you nor Madame de Tocqueville are as +well as your friends could wish you to be. + +My _grippe_, after lasting for three months, has gradually subsided, and +I look to the voyage to America as a cure for all remains of it. + +I have most punctually carried your remembrances to all the persons +honoured by being inscribed on your card. + +Though I have often seen Gladstone, it has always been among many other +persons, and he has been so full of talk, that I have never been able to +allude to your subject. I mentioned it to Mrs. Gladstone on Saturday +last: she said that there was not a person in all France whom her husband +so much admired and venerated as you--therefore, if there was any +appearance of neglect, it could have arisen only from hurry or mistake. I +shall see him again on Thursday, when we are going all together to a +rehearsal of Ristori's, and I will talk to him: we shall there be quiet. + +Things here are in a very odd state. The Government is supported by the +Tories because it calls itself Tory, and by the Whigs and Radicals +because it obeys them. On such terms it may last for an indefinite time. + +Kindest regards from us all to you both. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +9 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, August 2, 1858. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I ought, as you know, to be on the Atlantic by this +time; but I was attacked, ten days ago, with lumbar neuralgia, which they +are trying, literally, to rub away. If I am quite well on the 13th, I +shall go on the 14th to America. + +I was attacked at Sir John Boileau's, where I spent some days with the +Guizots, Mrs. Austin, and Stanley and Lord John Russell. + +Guizot is in excellent spirits, and, what is rare in an ex-premier, +dwells more on the present and the future than on the past. Mrs. Austin +is placid and discursive. + +Lord John seems to me well pleased with the present state of +affairs--which he thinks, I believe with reason, will bring him back to +power. He thinks that Malmesbury and Disraeli are doing well, and praises +much the subordinates of the Government. Considering that no one believes +Lord Derby to be wise, or Disraeli to be either wise or honest, it is +marvellous that they get on as well as they do. The man who has risen +most is Lord Stanley, and, as he has the inestimable advantage of youth, +I believe him to be predestined to influence our fortunes long. + +The world, I think, is gradually coming over to an opinion, which, when I +maintained it thirty years ago, was treated as a ridiculous paradox--that +India is and always has been a great misfortune to us; and, that if it +were possible to get quit of it, we should be richer and stronger. + +But it is clear that we are to keep it, at least for my life. + +Kindest regards from us all to you and Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, August 21, 1858. + +My dear Senior,--I hear indirectly that you are extremely ill. Your +letter told me only that you were suffering from neuralgia which you +hoped to be rid of in a few days, but Mrs. Grote informs me that the +malady continues and has even assumed a more serious character. + +If you could write or dictate a few lines to me, you would please me +much. + +I am inconsolable for the failure of your American journey. I expected +the most curious results from it I hoped that your journal would enable +me once more to understand the present state of a country which has +so changed since I saw it that I feel that I now know nothing of it. What +a blessing, however, that you had not started! What would have become of +you if the painful attack from which you are suffering had seized you +2,000 miles away from home, and in the midst of that agitated society +where no one has time to be ill or to think of those who are ill? It must +be owned that Fortune has favoured you by sending you this illness just +at the moment of your departure instead of ten days later. + +I have been much interested by your visit to Sir John Boileau. You saw +there M. Guizot in one of his best lights. The energy with which he +stands up under the pressure of age and of ill-fortune, and is not only +resigned in his new situation, but as vigorous, as animated, and as +cheerful as ever, shows a character admirably tempered and a pride which +nothing will bend. + +I do not so well understand the cheerfulness of Lord John Russell. For +the spectacle now exhibited by England, in which a party finds no +difficulty in maintaining itself in power by carrying into practice ideas +which it has always opposed, and by relying for support on its natural +enemies, is not of a nature to raise the reputation of your institutions, +or of your public men. I should have a great deal more to say to you on +this and other subjects if I were not afraid of tiring you. I leave off, +therefore, by assuring you that we are longing to hear of your recovery. +Remembrances, &c. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Cannes, December 12, 1858. + +I wish, my dear friend, to reassure you myself on the false reports which +have been spread regarding my health. Far from finding myself worse than +when we arrived, I am already much better. + +I am just now an invalid who takes his daily walks of two hours in the +mountains after eating an excellent breakfast. I am not, however, well. +If I were I should not long remain a citizen of Cannes. + +I have almost renounced the use of speech, and consequently the society +of human beings; which is all the more sad as my wife, my sole companion, +is herself very unwell, not dangerously, but enough to make me +anxious. When I say my sole companion, I am wrong, for my eldest brother +has had the kindness to shut himself up with us for a month. + +Adieu, dear Senior. A thousand kind remembrances from us to all your +party. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Cannes, March 15, 1859. + +You say, my dear Senior, in the letter which I have just received, that I +like to hear from my friends, not to write to them. It is true that I +delight in the letters of my friends, especially of my English friends; +but it is a calumny to say that I do not like to answer them. It is true +that I am in your debt: one great cause is, that a man who lives at +Cannes knows nothing of what is passing. My solitary confinement, which +is bad enough in every way, makes me a bad correspondent, by depressing +my spirits and rendering every exertion painful. + +Mrs. Grote, in a very kind and interesting letter, which I received from +her yesterday, says, that Lord Brougham, on his late arrival in London, +gave a lamentable description of my health. If he confined himself to +January, he was right. It is impossible to exaggerate my sufferings +during that month. But, since that time, all has changed, as if from day +to night, or rather from night to day. To talk now of what I was in +January is like making a speech about the Spanish marriages. + +I am grieved to find that you have suffered so much this year from +bronchitis. I fear that your larynx can scarcely endure an English +winter. But it is very hard to be obliged to expatriate oneself every +year. I fear, however, that such must be my fate for some winters to +come, and the pain with which I anticipate it makes me sympathise more +acutely with you. + +We know not, as yet, whether we are to have peace or war. Whichever it +be, a mortal blow has struck the popularity of Louis Napoleon. What +maintained him was the belief that he was the protector of our material +interests: interests to which we now sacrifice all others. The events of +the last month show, with the utmost vividness, that these very interests +may be endangered by the arbitrary and irrational will of a despot. The +feelings, therefore, which were his real support are now bitterly hostile +to him. + +I feel, in short, that a considerable change in our Government is +approaching. + +Even our poor _Corps législatif_, a week ago, refused to take into +consideration the Budget, until it was informed whether it were to be a +war budget or a peace budget. Great was the fury of those who represented +the Government. They exclaimed that the Chamber misapprehended its +jurisdiction, and that it had nothing to do with political questions. The +Chamber, however, or rather its committee on the Budget, held its ground, +and extorted from the Government some explanations. + +Adieu, my dear Senior. Say everything that is kind to the Grotes, the +Reeves, the Lewises--in short, to all our common friends, and believe in +the sincerity of my friendship. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[This was M. de Tocqueville's last letter to Mr. Senior. He died on the +16th of April.--ED.] + + + +Hotel Westminster, Rue de la Paix, April 25, 1859. + +My dear Madame de Tocqueville,--I was in the country, and it was only +last Friday, as I was passing through London on my way to Paris, that I +heard of the irreparable loss that we, indeed that France and Europe, +have suffered. + +It cannot alleviate your distress to be told how universal and deep is +the sympathy with it--quite as much in England as in France. + +It has thrown a gloom over society, not only over that portion which had +the happiness and the honour of intimacy with M.A. de Tocqueville, but +even of his acquaintances, and of those too whose acquaintance was only +with his works. + +I have, as you know, been for about a year, the depositary of a large +packet confided to me by M. de Tocqueville last spring. About six months +ago he begged me to return it to him, in Paris, when I had a safe +opportunity. No such opportunity offered itself, so that the packet +remains in my library awaiting your orders. + +Since I began this letter I have been informed by M. de Corcelle that you +are likely to be soon in Paris. I shall not venture to send it by the +post, lest it should cross you on the road. + +I shall anxiously inquire as to your arrival, in the hope that you will +allow one who most sincerely loved and admired your husband, morally and +intellectually, to see you as soon as you feel yourself equal to it. + +Believe me, my dear Madame de Tocqueville, with the truest sympathy, +yours most truly, + +NASSAU W. SENIOR. + +[Mr. Senior continued an active correspondence with Madame de +Tocqueville, and we saw her whenever we were in Paris. Our long-promised +visit to Tocqueville took place in 1861.--ED.] + + + + + +JOURNAL. + +_Tocqueville, Sunday, August_ 11, 1861.--We left Paris on Saturday +evening, got to Valognes by the Cherbourg railway by six the next +morning, and were furnished there with a good carriage and horses, which +took us, and our servants and luggage, in three hours to Tocqueville. + +Valognes has been immortalised by Le Sage in Turcaret. It is a town of +about 6,000 inhabitants, built of granite, and therefore little altered +from what it was 200 years ago. Over many of the doors are the armorial +bearings of the provincial nobility who made it a small winter capital: +the practice is not wholly extinct. I asked who was the inhabitant of an +imposing old house. 'M. de Néridoze,' answered our landlady, 'd'une +très-haute noblesse.' I went over one in which Madame de Tocqueville +thinks of passing the winter. It is of two stories. The ground floor +given up to kitchen, laundry, and damp-looking servants' rooms; the first +floor in this form:-- + +[Illustration:] + + Bedroom. + Door + Stairs Bedroom. + +Bedroom. Drawing-room. Dining-room. Hall. Bedroom. + + +The longer side looks into the street, the shorter, which is to be Madame +de Tocqueville's bedroom, into a small garden. + +_August_ 11.--At Tocqueville we find M. and Madame de Beaumont, their +second son--a charming boy of ten years old, and Ampère. + +It is eleven years since I was here. Nothing has been done to the +interior of the house. This is about the plan of ground floor. + +[Illustration:] + + Offices + Tower + staircase Offices. + +Drawing-room. Billiard-room. Dining-room. + Hall. + Tower + +The first floor corresponds to the ground floor, except that on the +western sides a passage runs, into which the library, which is over the +drawing-room, and the bedrooms open. The second consists of garrets. My +room is on the first floor of the eastern tower, with deep windows +looking south and east. The room dedicated by Tocqueville to Ampère is +above me. Creepers in great luxuriance cover the walls up to the first +floor windows. The little park consists of from thirty to forty acres, +well wooded and traversed by an avenue in this form, leading from the +road to the front of the house. + + +* * * * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * * * + + * * + + * * + + * * + + * * + +To the west the ground rises to a wild common commanding the sea, the +lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, La Hogue, and a green plain covered +with woods and hedgerow trees, and studded with church towers and spires +of the picturesque forms of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth +centuries. It has no grand features, except the sea and the rocky coast +of the Cherbourg peninsula, but it is full of variety and beauty. I can +understand Tocqueville's delight in the house and in the country. The +weather is perfect; the thermometer in my bedroom, the walls of which are +about six feet thick, is 71°, in the sun it is 80°; but there is a strong +breeze. + +_August 12th._--Madame de Beaumont, my daughter, and Ampère drove, and +Beaumont and I walked, to the coast about three miles and a half off. Our +road ran through the gay wooded plain which I have described. + +We talked of Italian affairs. + +'Up to the annexation of Tuscany,' said Beaumont, 'I fully approve of all +that has been done. Parma, Modena, and Tuscany were eager to join +Piedmont. During the anxious interval of six months, while the decision +of Louis Napoleon was doubtful, the conduct of the Tuscans was above all +praise. Perhaps the general wish of the people of Romagna justified the +Piedmontese in seizing it. Though there the difficult question as to the +expediency of stripping the Pope of his temporal power rises. + +'Perhaps, too, the facility with which Sicily submitted was a +justification. But I cannot pardon the seizure of Naples. It is clear to +me that if the Neapolitans had been left to themselves they would have +driven out the Garibaldians. Garibaldi himself felt this: nothing but a +conviction of its necessity would have induced him to call for the +assistance of the Piedmontese. I do not believe that in defiance of all +international law-indeed in defiance of all international +morality--Cavour would have given that assistance if the public opinion +of Piedmont had allowed him to refuse it. And what is the consequence? A +civil war which is laying waste the country. The Piedmontese call their +adversaries brigands. There are without doubt among them men whose motive +is plunder, but the great majority are in arms in defence of the +independence of their country. They are no more brigands now than they +were when they resisted King Joseph. The Piedmontese are as much +foreigners to them as the French were: as much hated and as lawfully +resisted. They may be conquered, they probably will be conquered. An +ignorant corrupt population, inhabiting a small country, unsupported by +its higher classes--its fleet, its fortresses, and all the machinery of +its government, in the hands of its enemies--cannot permanently resist; +but the war will be atrocious, and the more cruel on the part of Piedmont +because it is unjust.' + +'You admit,' I said, 'that the higher classes side with Piedmont?' + +'I admit that,' he answered; 'but you must recollect how few they are in +number, and how small is the influence which they exercise. In general, I +detest universal suffrage, I detest democracy and everything belonging to +it, but if it were possible to obtain honestly and truly the opinion of +the people, I would ask it and obey it. I believe that it would be better +to allow the Neapolitans, ignorant and debased as they are, to choose +their own sovereign and their own form of government, than to let them be +forced by years of violence to become the unwilling subjects of +Piedmont.' + +'Do you believe,' I said, 'that it is possible to obtain through +universal suffrage the honest and true opinion of a people?' + +'Not,' he answered, 'if the Government interferes. I believe that in +Savoy not one person in fifty was in favour of annexation to France. But +this is an extreme case. + +'The Bourbons are deservedly hated and despised by the Neapolitans, the +Piedmontese are not despised, but are hated still more intensely. There +is no native royal stock. The people are obviously unfit for a Republic. +It would be as well, I think, to let them select a King as to impose one +on them. The King whom Piedmont, without a shadow of right, is imposing +on them is the one whom they most detest.' + +'If I go to Rome,' I asked, 'in the winter, whom shall I find there?' + +'I think,' he answered, 'that it will be the Piedmontese. The present +state of things is full of personal danger to Louis Napoleon. As his +policy is purely selfish, he will, at any sacrifice, put an end to it. +That sacrifice may be the unity of Catholicism. The Pope, no longer a +sovereign, will be under the influence of the Government in whose +territory he resides, and the other Catholic Powers may follow the +example of Greece and of Russia, and create each an independent Spiritual +Government. It would be a new excitement for _Celui-ci_ to make himself +Head of the Church.' + +'Assassinations,' I said, 'even when successful have seldom produced +important and permanent effects, but Orsini's failure has influenced and +is influencing the destinies of Europe.' + +'If I were an Italian liberal,' said Beaumont, 'I would erect a statue to +him. The policy and almost the disposition of Louis Napoleon have been +changed by the _attentat_. He has become as timid as he once was +intrepid. He began by courting the Pope and the clergy. He despised the +French assassins, who were few in number and unconnected, and who had +proved their unskilfulness on Louis Philippe; but Orsini showed him that +he had to elect between the Pope and the Austrians on one side, and the +Carbonari on the other. He has chosen the alliance of the Carbonari. He +has made himself their tool, and will continue to do so. + +'They are the only enemies whom he fears, at least for the present. + +'France is absolutely passive. The uneducated masses from whom he holds +his power are utterly indifferent to liberty, and he has too much sense +to irritate them by wanton oppression. They do not know that he is +degrading the French character, they do not even feel that he is wasting +the capital of France, they do not know that he is adding twenty millions +every year to the national debt. They think of his loans merely as +investments, and the more profligately extravagant are the terms and the +amount, the better they like them.' + +'Ten years ago,' I said, 'the cry that I heard was, "Ça ne durera pas."' + +'That was my opinion,' he answered; 'indeed, it was the opinion of +everybody. I thought the Duc de Broglie desponding when he gave it three +years. We none of us believed that the love of liberty was dead in +France.' + +'It is not,' I said, 'dead, for among the higher classes it still lives, +and among the lower it never existed.' + +'Perhaps,' he answered, 'our great mistakes were that we miscalculated +the courage of the educated classes, and the degree in which universal +suffrage would throw power into the hands of the uneducated. Not a human +being in my commune reads a newspaper or indeed reads anything: yet it +contains 300 electors. In the towns there is some knowledge and some +political feeling, but for political purposes they are carefully swamped +by being joined to uneducated agricultural districts. + +'Still I think I might enter the _Corps législatif_ for our capital Le +Mans. Perhaps at a general election twenty liberals might come in. But +what good could they do? The opposition in the last session strengthened +Louis Napoleon. It gave him the prestige of liberality and success.' + +'You think him, then,' I said, 'safe for the rest of his life?' + +'Nothing,' he answered, 'is safe in France, and the thing most unsafe is +a Government. Our caprices are as violent as they are sudden. They +resemble those of a half-tamed beast of prey, which licks its keeper's +hand to-day, and may tear him to-morrow. But if his life be not so long +as to enable the fruits of his follies to show themselves in their +natural consequences--unsuccessful war, or defeated diplomacy, or +bankruptcy, or heavily increased taxation--he may die in the Tuileries. + +'But I infer from his conduct that he thinks an insurrection against his +tyranny possible, and that he is preparing to meet it by a popular war-- +that is to say, by a war with England. + +'I found my opinion not so much on the enormous maritime preparations, as +on the long-continued systematic attempts to raise against England our +old national enmity. All the provincial papers are in the hands of the +Government. The constantly recurring topic of every one of them is, the +perfidy and the malignity of England. She is described as opposing all +our diplomacy, as resisting all our aggrandisement, as snarling and +growling at our acquisition of Savoy, as threatening us if we accept +Sardinia, as trying to drive the Pope from Rome because we protect him, +as trying to separate the Danubian provinces because we wish to unite +them, as preventing the Suez Canal because we proposed it--in short, on +every occasion and in every part of the world as putting herself in our +way. To these complaints, which are not without foundation, are added +others of which our ignorant people do not see the absurdity. They are +told that the enormous conscription, and the great naval expenditure, are +rendered necessary by the aggressive armaments of England. That you are +preparing to lay waste all our coasts, to burn our arsenals, to subsidise +against us a new Coalition, and perhaps lead its armies again to Paris. + +'The Emperor's moderation, his love of England, and his love of peace, +are said to be the only obstacles to, a violent rupture. But they are +prepared for these obstacles at length giving way. "The Emperor," they +are told, "is getting tired of his insolent, and hostile, and quarrelsome +allies. He is getting tired of a peace which is more expensive than a +war. Some day the cup will flow over. 'Il en finira avec eux,' will +dictate a peace in London, will free the oppressed Irish nationality, +will make England pay the expense of the war, and then having conquered +the only enemy that France can fear, will let her enjoy, for the first +time, real peace, a reduced conscription, and low taxation." + +'Such is the language of all the provincial papers and of all the +provincial authorities, and it has its effect. There never was a time +when a war with England would be so popular. He does not wish for one, he +knows that it would be extremely dangerous, but he is accustomed to play +for great stakes, and if submitting to any loss of his popularity, or to +any limitation of his power is the alternative, he will run the risk. He +keeps it, as his last card, in reserve, to be played only in extremity, +but to be ready when that extremity has arrived.' + +_Tuesday, August_ 13.--We drove to La Prenelle, a church at the point of +a high table-land running from Tocqueville towards the bay of La Hogue, +and commanding nearly all the Cherbourg peninsula. On three sides of us +was the sea, separated from us by a wooded, well-inhabited plain, whose +churches rose among the trees, and containing the towns and lofty +lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, Vast, and La Hogue. We sat on the +point from whence James II. saw the battle of La Hogue, and admired the +courage of his English rebels. + +Ampère has spent much of his life in Rome, and is engaged on a work in +which its history is to be illustrated by its monuments. + +We talked of the Roman people. + +'Nothing,' said Ampère, 'can be more degraded than the higher classes. +With the exception of Antonelli, who is charming, full of knowledge, +intelligence, and grace, and of the Duke of Sermoneta, who is almost +equally distinguished, there is scarcely a noble of my acquaintance who +has any merits, moral or intellectual. + +'They are surrounded by the finest ancient and modern art, and care +nothing for it. The eminent men of every country visit Rome--the Romans +avoid them for they have nothing to talk to them about. + +'Politics are of course unsafe, literature they have none. They never +read. A cardinal told me something which I doubted, and I asked him where +he had found it. "In certi libri," he answered. + +'Another, who has a fine old library, begged me to use it. "You will do +the room good," he said. "No one has been there for years." Even scandal +and gossip must be avoided under an Ecclesiastical Government. + +'They never ride, they never shoot, they never visit their estates, they +give no parties; if it were not for the theatre and for their lawsuits +they would sink into vegetable life.' + +'Sermoneta,' I said, 'told me that many of his lawsuits were hereditary, +and would probably descend to his son.' + +'If Sermoneta,' said Ampère, 'with his positive intelligence and his +comparative vigour, cannot get through them, what is to be expected from +others? They have, however, one merit, one point of contact with the rest +of the world--their hatred of their Government. They seem to perceive, +not clearly, for they perceive nothing clearly, but they dimly see, that +the want of liberty is a still greater misfortune to the higher classes +than to the lower. + +'But the people are a fine race. Well led they will make excellent +soldiers. They have the cruelty of their ancestors, perhaps I ought to +say of their predecessors, but they have also their courage.' + +'They showed,' said Beaumont, 'courage in the defence of Rome, but +courage behind walls is the commonest of all courages. No training could +make the Spaniards stand against us in the open field, but they were +heroes in Saragossa. The caprices of courage and cowardice are +innumerable. The French have no moral courage, they cannot stand +ridicule, they cannot encounter disapprobation, they bow before +oppression; a French soldier condemned by a court-martial cries for mercy +like a child. The same man in battle appears indifferent to death. The +Spaniard runs away without shame, but submits to death when it is +inevitable without terror. None of the prisoners taken on either side in +the Spanish civil war asked for pardon.' + +'Indifference to life,' I said, 'and indifference to danger have little +in common. General Fénelon told me that in Algeria he had more than once +to preside at an execution. No Arab showed any fear. Once there were two +men, one of whom was to be flogged, the other to be shot. A mistake was +made and they were going to shoot the wrong man. It was found out in +time, but neither of the men seemed to care about it; yet they +would probably have run away in battle. The Chinese are not brave, but +you can hire a man to be beheaded in your place.' + +'So,' said Ampère, 'you could always hire a substitute in our most +murderous wars, when in the course of a year a regiment was killed twice +over. It was hiring a man, not indeed to be beheaded, but to be shot for +you.' + +'The destructiveness,' said Beaumont, 'of a war is only gradually known. +It is found out soonest in the villages when the deaths of the conscripts +are heard of, or are suspected from their never returning; but in the +towns, from which the substitutes chiefly come, it may be long +undiscovered. Nothing is known but what is officially published, and the +Government lies with an audacity which seems always to succeed. If it +stated the loss of men in a battle at one half of the real number, people +would fancy that it ought to be doubled, and so come near to the truth; +but it avows only one-tenth or only one-twentieth, and then the amount of +falsehood is underestimated.' + +'Marshal Randon,' I said, 'told me that the whole loss in the Italian +campaign was under 7,000 men.' + +'That is a good instance,' said Beaumont. 'It certainly was 50,000, +perhaps 70,000. But I am guilty of a _délit_ in saying so, and you will +be guilty of a _délit_ if you repeat what I have said. I remember the +case of a man in a barber's shop in Tours, to whom the barber said that +the harvest was bad. He repeated the information, and was punished by +fine and imprisonment for having spread _des nouvelles alarmantes_. Truth +is no excuse; in fact it is an aggravation, for the truer the news the +more alarming.' + +'In time of peace,' I asked, 'what proportion of the conscripts return +after their six years of service?' + +'About three-quarters,' answered Beaumont. + +'Then,' I said, 'as you take 100,000 conscripts every year even in peace, +you lose 25,000 of your best young men every year?' + +'Certainly,' said Beaumont. + +'And are the 75,000 who return improved or deteriorated?' I asked. + +'Improved,' said Ampère; 'they are _dégourdis_, they are educated, they +submit to authority, they know how to shift for themselves.' + +'Deteriorated,' said Beaumont. 'A garrison life destroys the habits of +steady industry, it impairs skill. The returned conscript is more vicious +and less honest than the peasant who has not left his village.' + +'And what was the loss,' I asked, 'in the late war?' + +'At least twice as great,' said Beaumont, 'as it is in peace. Half of +those who were taken perished. The country would not have borne the +prolongation of the Crimean War.' + +'These wars,' I said, 'were short and successful. A war with England can +scarcely be short, and yet you think that he plans one?' + +'I think,' said Beaumont, 'that he plans one, but only in the event of +his encountering any serious difficulty at home. You must not infer from +the magnitude of his naval expenditure that he expects one. + +'You look at the expense of those preparations, and suppose that so great +a sacrifice would not be made in order to meet an improbable emergency. +But expense is no sacrifice to him. He likes it. He has the morbid +taste for it which some tyrants have had for blood, which his uncle had +for war. Then he is incapable of counting. When he lived at Arenenburg he +used to give every old soldier who visited him an order on Viellard his +treasurer for money. In general the chest was empty. Viellard used to +remonstrate but without effect. The day perhaps after his orders had been +dishonoured he gave new ones.' + +'Is it true,' I asked, 'that the civil list is a couple of years' income +in debt?' + +I know nothing about it,' said Beaumont; 'in fact, nobody knows anything +about anything, but it is highly probable. Everybody who asks for +anything gets it, everybody is allowed to waste, everybody is allowed to +rob, every folly of the Empress is complied with. Fould raised +objections, and was dismissed. + +'She is said to have a room full of revolutionary relics: there is the +bust of Marie Antoinette, the nose broken at one of the sacks of the +Tuileries. There is a picture of Simon beating Louis XVII. Her poor child +has been frightened by it, and she is always dwelling on the dangers of +her position.' + +'So,' I said, 'did Queen Adelaide--William IV.'s Queen. From the passing +of the Reform Bill she fully expected to die on the scaffold.' + +'There is more reason,' he answered, 'for the Empress's fears.' + +'Not,' I said, 'if she fears the scaffold. Judicial murder, at least in +that form, is out of fashion. Cayenne and Lambressa are your guillotines, +and the Empress is safe from them.' + +'But there are other modes of violent death,' he answered; 'from one of +which she escaped almost by miracle.' + +'How did she behave,' I asked, 'at the _attentat?_' + +'Little is known,' he answered, 'except that the Emperor said to her, as +he led her upstairs to her box: "Allons, il faut faire notre métier."' + +'Then she is disturbed by religious fears. The little prince has been +taught to say to his father every morning: "Papa, ne faites pas de mal à +mon parrain." The Pope was his godfather.' + +'If the Emperor dies, the real power will pass into the hands of Prince +Napoleon. And very dangerous hands they will be. He has more talent than +the Emperor, and longer views. Louis Napoleon is a revolutionist from +selfishness. Prince Napoleon is selfish enough, but he has also passion. +He detests everything that is venerable, everything that is established +or legal. + +'There is little value now for property or for law, though the Government +professes to respect them. What, will it be when the Government professes +to hate them?' + +_Wednesday, August_ 14.--We talked at breakfast of Rome. + +'Is there,' said Beaumont to Ampère, 'still an Inquisition at Rome?' + +'There is,' said Ampère, 'but it is torpid. It punishes bad priests, but +does little else.' + +'If a Roman,' I asked, 'were an avowed infidel, would it take notice of +him?' + +'Probably not,' said Ampère, 'but his _curé_ might--not for his +infidelity, but for his avowing it. The _curé_ who has always the powers +of a _commissaire de police,_ might put him in prison if he went into a +_café_ and publicly denied the Immaculate Conception, or if he neglected +going to church or to confession: but the Inquisition no longer cares +about opinions.' + +'Is there much infidelity,' I asked, 'in Rome?' + +'Much,' said Ampère, 'among the laity. The clergy do not actively +disbelieve. They go through their functions without ever seriously +inquiring whether what they have to teach be true or false. No persons +were more annoyed by the Mortara[1] business than the clergy, with the +exception of Antonelli. He hates and fears the man who set it on foot, +the Archbishop of Bologna, and therefore was glad to see him expose +himself, and lose all hope of the Secretaryship, but he took care to +prevent the recurrence of such a scandal. He revived an old law +prohibiting Jews from keeping Christian nurses. But he could scarcely +order restitution. According to the Church it would have been giving the +child to the Devil, and, what is worse, robbing God of him. The Pope's +piety is selfish. His great object is his own salvation. He would not +endanger that, to confer any benefit upon, or to avert any evil from +Rome; or indeed from the whole world. This makes him difficult to +negotiate with. If anything is proposed to him which his confessor +affirms to be dangerous to his soul, he listens to no arguments. As for +Mortara himself, he is a poor creature. A friend of mine went to see him +in his convent. All that he could get from him was: + +'"Sono venuti i Carabinieri." + +'"And what did they do to you?" + +'"M' hanno portato quì." + +'"What more?" + +'"M' hanno dato pasticci; erano molto buoni." + +'What is most teasing,' continued Ampère, 'in the Roman Government is not +so much its active oppression as its torpidity. It hates to act. An +Englishman had with great difficulty obtained permission to light Rome +with gas. He went to the Government in December, and told them that +everything was ready, and that the gas would be lighted on the 1st of +January. + +'"Could you not," they answered, "put it off till April?" + +'"But it is in winter," he replied; "that it is wanted. Every thing is +ready. Why should we wait?" + +'"It is a new thing," they replied; "people will be frightened. It may +have consequences. At least put it off till March." + +'"But they will be as much frightened in March," he replied. + +'"If it must be done," they said, "as a kindness to His Holiness and to +us put it off till February." + +'There is, however, one sort of oppression which even we should find it +difficult to tolerate. + +'A Monsignore has a young friend without money, but an excellent Catholic +and an excellent politician, a fervid believer in the Immaculate +Conception and in the excellence of the Papal Government. He wishes to +reward such admirable opinions: but the Pope has little to give. +Monsignore looks out for some young heiress, sends for her father, +describes his pious and loyal _protégé_, and proposes marriage. Her +father objects--says that his daughter cannot afford to marry a poor man, +or that she does not wish to marry at all--or that he or she has some +other preference. + +'Monsignore insists. He assures the father that what he is proposing is +most favourable to the salvation of his daughter, that he suggests it +principally for the benefit of her soul, and that the father's objections +are inspired by the Evil One. The father breaks off the conversation and +goes home. He finds that his daughter has disappeared. He returns furious +to Monsignore, is received with the utmost politeness and is informed +that his daughter is perfectly safe under the protection of a cardinal +who himself did her the honour of fetching her in his gilded coach. "You +have only," the Monsignore says, "to be reasonable, and she shall be +returned to you." + +'The father flies to the cardinal. + +'The same politeness and the same answer. + +'"Do not oppose," he is told, "the will of the Pope, who, in this matter, +seeks only your daughter's happiness here and hereafter. She is now with +me. If you will give up your sinful obstinacy she shall be restored to +you to-day. If not, it will be our duty to place her in a convent, where +she will be taken the utmost care of, but she will not leave it except to +marry the person whom His Holiness thinks most fitted to promote the +welfare of her soul." + +'I have known several cases in which this attempt has been made. With +such timid slaves as the Roman nobility it always succeeds.' + +[Footnote 1: The Jewish child who was taken away from his parents and +converted.--ED.] + + +_Thursday, August_ 15.--This is the fête of St. Louis--the great fête of +Tocqueville. Madame de Tocqueville and Madame de Beaumont spent much of +the morning in church. + +Beaumont and his son walked to the coast to bathe. Minnie, Ampère, and I +strolled among the deep shady lanes of the plateau above the castle. +Throughout Normandy the fields are small and are divided by mounds +planted with trees. The farmhouses, and even the cottages, are built of +primitive rock, granite, or old red sandstone. At a distance, peeping out +of the trees that surround them, they look pretty, but they, have more +than the usual French untidiness. The outhouses are roofless, the +farmyards are full of pools and dung heaps, which often extend into the +road; and the byroads themselves are quagmires when they do not consist +of pointed stones. I was struck by the paucity of the children and the +absence of new houses. The population of Normandy is diminishing. + +We conversed on the subject of Italy. + +'If we are in Rome next winter,' I asked, 'shall we find the French +there?' + +'I think not,' said Ampère; 'I think that you will find only the +Piedmontese. + +'Every day that Louis Napoleon holds Rome is a day of danger to him, a +danger slight perhaps now, but serious if the occupation be prolonged. +The Anti-papal party, and it includes almost all that are liberal and all +that are energetic, are willing to give him time, but not an indefinite +time. They are quiet only because they trust him. He is a magician who +has sold himself to the Devil. The Devil is patient, but he will not be +cheated. The Carbonari will support Louis Napoleon as long as he is doing +their work, and will allow him to do it in his own way and to take his +own time, as long as they believe he is doing it. But woe to him if they +believe that he is deceiving them. I suspect that they are becoming +impatient, and I suspect too, that he is becoming impatient. This quarrel +between Mérode and Goyon is significative. I do not believe that Goyon +used the words imputed to him. We shall probably keep Civita Vecchia, but +we shall give up Rome to the Piedmontese.' + +'And will the Pope,' I asked, 'remain?' + +'Not this Pope,' said Ampère, 'but his successor. Nor do I see the great +evil of the absence of the Pope from Rome. Popes have often been absent +before, sometimes for long periods.' + +'Most of my French friends,' I said, 'are opposed to Italian Unity as +mischievous to France.' + +'I do not believe,' he answered, 'in the submission of Naples to this +Piedmontese dynasty, but I shall be delighted to see all Italy north of +the Neapolitan territory united. + +'I do not think that we have anything to fear from the kingdom of Italy. +It is as likely to be our friend as to be our enemy. But the Neapolitans, +even if left to themselves, would not willingly give up their +independence, and _Celui-ci_ is trying to prevent their doing so.' + +'What do _they_ wish,' I asked, 'and what does _he_ wish?' + +'I believe,' he answered, 'that _their_ wishes are only negative. + +'They do not wish to recall the Bourbons, and they are resolved not to +keep the Piedmontese. _His_ wish I believe to be to put his cousin there. +Prince Napoleon himself refused Tuscany. It is too small, but he would +like Naples, and Louis Napoleon would be glad to get rid of him. What +would England say?' + +'If we believed,' I said, 'in the duration of a Bonaparte dynasty in +France, we should, of course, object to the creation of one in Naples. +But if, as we think it probable, the Bonapartists have to quit France, I +do not see few we should be injured by their occupying the throne of +Naples. + +'I should object to them if I were a Neapolitan. All their instincts are +despotic, democratic, and revolutionary. But even they are better than +the late king was. What chance have the Murats?' + +'None,' said Ampère. 'They have spoiled their game, if they had a game, +by their precipitation. The Emperor has disavowed them, the Neapolitans +do not care for them. The Prince de Leuchtenberg, grandson of Eugène +Beauharnais, has been talked of. He is well connected, related to many of +the reigning families of the Continent, and is said to be intelligent and +well educated.' + +'If Naples,' I said, 'is to be detached from the kingdom of Italy, Sicily +ought to be detached from Naples. There is quite as much mutual +antipathy.' + +'Would you like to take it?' he asked. + +'Heaven forbid!' I answered. 'It would be another Corfu on a larger +scale. The better we governed them, the more they would hate us. The only +chance for them is to have a king of their own.' + +_August_ 15.--In the evening Ampère read to us a comedy called 'Beatrix,' +by a writer of some reputation, and a member of the Institut. + +It was very bad, full of exaggerated sentiments, forced situations, and +the cant of philanthropic despotism. + +An actress visits the court of a German grand duke. He is absent. His +mother, the duchess, receives her as an equal. The second son falls in +love with her at first sight and wishes to marry her. She is inclined to +consent, when another duchy falls in, the elder duke resigns to his +brother, he becomes king, presses their marriage, his mother does not +oppose, and thereupon Beatrix makes a speech, orders her horses, and +drives off to act somewhere else. + +Ampère reads admirably, but no excellence of reading could make such +absurdities endurable. It was written for Ristori, who acted Beatrix in +French with success. + + +_Friday, August_ 16.--We talked at breakfast of 1793. + +'It is difficult,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'to believe that the French +of that day were our ancestors.' + +'They resembled you,' I said, 'only in two things: in military courage, +and in political cowardice.' + +'They had,' she replied, 'perhaps more passive courage than we have.[1] +My great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my great-aunt, were +guillotined on the same day. My great-great-grandmother was ninety years +old. When interrogated, she begged them to speak loud, as she was deaf. +'Écrivez,' said Fouquier Tinville, 'que la citoyenne Noailles a conspiré +sourdement contre la République.' They were dragged to the Place de la +République in the same _tombereau_, and sat waiting their turn on the +same bench. + +'My great-aunt was young and beautiful. The executioner, while fastening +her to the plank, had a rose in his mouth. The Abbé de Noailles, who was +below the scaffold, disguised, to give them, at the risk of his life, a +sign of benediction, was asked how they looked. + +'"Comme si,' he said, 'elles allaient à la messe."' + +'The habit,' said Ampère, 'of seeing people die produces indifference +even to one's own death. You see that among soldiers. You see it in +epidemics. But this indifference, or, to use a more proper word, this +resignation, helped to prolong the Reign of Terror. If the victims had +resisted, if, like Madame du Barry, they had struggled with the +executioner, it would have excited horror.' + +'The cries of even a pig,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'make it disagreeable +to kill it.' + +'Sanson,' I said, 'long survived the Revolution; he made a fortune and +lived in retirement at Versailles. A lady was run away with between +Versailles and Paris. An elderly man, at considerable risk, stopped her +horse. She was very grateful, but could not get from him his name. At +last she traced him, and found that it was Sanson.' + +'Sanson,' said Beaumont, 'may have been an honest man. Whenever a place +of _bourreau_ is vacant, there are thirty or forty candidates, and they +always produce certificates of their extraordinary kindness and humanity. +It seems to be the post most coveted by men eminent for their +benevolence.' + +'How many have you?' I asked. + +'Eighty-six,' he answered. 'One for each department.' + +'And how many executions?' + +'About one hundred a year in all France.' + +'And what is the salary?' + +'Perhaps a couple of thousand francs a year.' + +'Really,' said Ampère, 'it is one of the best parts of the patronage of +the Minister of the Interior. _M. le Bourreau_ gets more than a thousand +francs for each operation.' + +'We pay by the piece,' I said, 'and find one operator enough for all +England.' + +'A friend of mine,' said Beaumont, had a remarkably good Swiss servant. +His education was far above his station, and we could not find what had +been his birth or his canton. + +'Suddenly he became agitated and melancholy, and at last told my friend +that he must leave him, and why. His father was the hereditary _bourreau_ +of a Swiss canton. To the office was attached an estate, to be forfeited +if the office were refused. He had resolved to take neither, and, to +avoid being solicited, had left his country and changed his name. But his +family had traced him, had informed him of his father's death, and had +implored him to accept the succession. He was the only son, and his +mother and sisters would be ruined, if he allowed it to pass to the next +in order of inheritance, a distant cousin. He had not been able to +persist in his refusal.' + +'The husband of an acquaintance of mine,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'used +to disappear for two or three hours every day. He would not tell her for +what purpose. At last she found out that he was employed in the _chambre +noire_, the department of the police by which letters passing through the +post are opened. The duties were well paid, and she could not persuade +him to give them up. They were on uneasy terms, when an accident threw a +list of all the names of the _employés_ in the _chambre noire_, into the +hands of an opposition editor, who published them in his newspaper. + +'She then separated from him.' + +'If the Post-office,' I said, 'were not a Government monopoly, if +everyone had a right to send his letters in the way that he liked best, +there would be some excuse. But the State compels you, under severe +penalties, to use its couriers, undertaking, not tacitly but expressly, +to respect the secrecy of your correspondence, and then systematically +violates it.' + +'I should have said,' answered Ampère, 'not expressly but tacitly.' + +'No,' I replied; 'expressly. Guizot, when Minister for Foreign Affairs, +proclaimed from the tribune, that in France the secrecy of correspondence +was, under all circumstances, inviolable. This has never been officially +contradicted. + +'The English Post-office enters into no such engagements. Any letters may +be legally opened, under an order from a Secretary of State.' + +'Are prisoners in England,' asked Beaumont, 'allowed to correspond with +their friends?' + +'I believe,' I answered, 'that their letters pass through the Governor's +hands, and that he opens them, or not, at his discretion.' + +'Among the tortures,' said Ampère, 'which Continental despots delight to +inflict on their state prisoners the privation of correspondence is one.' + +'In ordinary life,' I said, 'the educated endure inaction worse than the +ignorant. A coachman sits for hours on his box without feeling _ennui_. +If his master had to sit quiet all that time, inside the carriage, he +would tear his hair from impatience. + +'But the educated seem to tolerate the inactivity of imprisonment better +than their inferiors. We find that our ordinary malefactors cannot endure +solitary imprisonment for more than a year--seldom indeed so long. The +Italian prisoners whom I have known, Zucchi, Borsieri, Poerio, +Gonfalonieri, and Pellico, endured imprisonment lasting from ten to +seventeen years without much injury to mind or body.' + +'The spirit of Pellico,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'was broken. When +released, he gave himself up to devotion and works of charity. Perhaps +the humility, resignation, and submission of his book made it still +more mischievous to the Austrian Government. The reader's indignation +against those who could so trample on so unresisting a victim becomes +fierce.' + +'If the Austrians,' I said, 'had been wise, they would have shot instead +of imprisoning them. Their deaths would have been forgotten--their +imprisonment has contributed much to the general odium which is +destroying the Austrian Empire.' + +'It would have been wiser,' said Beaumont, 'but it would have been more +merciful, and therefore it was not done. But you talk of all these men as +solitarily imprisoned. Some of them had companions.' + +'Yes,' I said, 'but they complained that one permanent companion was +worse than solitude. Gonfalonieri said, that one could not be in the same +room, with the same man, a year without hating him. + +'One of the Neapolitan prisoners was chained for some time to a brigand. +Afterwards the brigand was replaced by a gentleman. He complained +bitterly of the change. + +'The brigand,' said Minnie, 'was his slave, the gentleman had a will of +his own.' + +'How did M. de La Fayette,'[2] I asked Madame de Beaumont, 'bear his five +years' imprisonment at Olmutz?' + +'His health,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'was good, but the miseries of his +country and the sufferings of his wife made him very unhappy. When my +grandmother came to him, it was two days before she had strength to tell +him that all his and her family had perished. I was once at Olmutz, and +saw the one room which they had inhabited. It was damp and dark. She +asked to be allowed to leave it for a time for better medical treatment +and change of air. It was granted only on the condition that she should +never return. She refused. The rheumatic attacks which the state of the +prison had produced, continued and increased: she was hopelessly ill when +they were released--and died soon afterwards. The sense of wrong +aggravated their sufferings, for their imprisonment was a gross and +wanton violation of all law, international and municipal. My grandfather +was not an Austrian subject; he had committed no offence against Austria. +She seized him simply because he was a liberal, because his principles +had made him the enemy of tyranny in America and in France; and because +his birth and talents and reputation gave him influence. It was one of +the brutal stupid acts of individual cruelty which characterise the +Austrian despotism, and have done more to ruin it than a wider +oppression--such a one, for instance, as ours, more mischievous, but more +intelligent,--would have done.' + +'Freedom,' said Ampère, 'was offered to him on the mere condition of his +not serving in the French army. At that time the Jacobins would have +guillotined him, the Royalists would have forced duel after duel on him +till they had killed him. It seemed impossible that he should ever be +able to draw his sword for France. In fact he never _was_ able. America +offered him an asylum, honours, land, everything that could console an +exile. But he refused to give up the chance, remote as it was, of being +useful to his country, and remained a prisoner till he was delivered by +Napoleon.' + +'He firmly believed,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'that if the Royal Family +would have taken refuge with his army in 1791 he could have saved them, +and probably the Monarchy. His army was then in his hands, a few months +after the Jacobins had corrupted it.' + +'Two men,' said Ampère, 'Mirabeau and La Fayette, could have saved the +Monarchy, and were anxious to do so. But neither the King nor the Queen +would trust them. + +'Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette are among the historical personages who +have most influenced the destinies of the world. His dulness, torpidity +and indecision, and her frivolity, narrow-minded prejudices and +suspiciousness, are among the causes of our present calamities. They are +among the causes of a state of things which has inflicted on +us, and threatens to inflict on all Europe, the worst of all +Governments--democratic despotism. A Government in which two wills only +prevail--that of the ignorant, envious, ambitious, aggressive multitude, +and that of the despot who, whatever be his natural disposition, is soon +turned, by the intoxication of flattery and of universal power, into a +capricious, fantastic, selfish participator in the worst passions of the +worst portion of his subjects.' + +'Such a Government,' I said, 'may be called an anti-aristocracy. It +excludes from power all those who are fit to exercise it.' + +'The consequence,' said Beaumont, 'is, that the qualities which fit men +for power not being demanded, are not supplied. Our young men have no +political knowledge or public spirit. Those who have a taste for the +sciences cultivated in the military schools enter the army. The rest +learn nothing.' + +'What do they do?' I asked. + +'How they pass their time,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'is a puzzle to me. +They do not read, they do not go into society--I believe that they smoke +and play at dominos, and ride and bet at steeple-chases. + +'Those who are on home service in the army are not much better. The time +not spent in the routine of their profession is sluggishly and viciously +wasted. Algeria has been a God-send to us. There our young men have real +duties to perform, and real dangers to provide against and to encounter. +My son, who left St. Cyr only eighteen months ago, is stationed at +Thebessa, 300 miles in the interior. He belongs to a _bureau arabe_, +consisting of a captain, a lieutenant, and himself, and about forty +spahis. He has to act as a judge, as an engineer, to settle the frontier +between the province of Constantine and Tunis--in short, to be one of a +small ruling aristocracy. This is the school which has furnished, and is +furnishing, our best generals and administrators.' + +We talked of the interior of French families. + +'The ties of relationship,' I said, 'seem to be stronger with you than +they are with us. Cousinship with you is a strong bond, with us it is a +weak one.' + +'The habit of living together,' said Beaumont, 'has perhaps much to do +with the strength of our feelings of consanguinity. Our life is +patriarchal. Grandfather, father, and grandson are often under the same +roof. At the Grange[3] thirty of the family were sometimes assembled at +dinner. With you, the sons go off, form separate establishments, see +little of their parents, still less of their cousins, and become +comparatively indifferent to them.' + +'I remember,' I said, 'the case of an heir apparent of seventy; his +father was ninety-five. One day the young man was very grumpy. They tried +to find out what was the matter with him; at last he broke out, +"Everybody's father dies except mine."' + +'An acquaintance of mine,' said Beaumont, 'not a son, but a son-in-law, +complained equally of the pertinacious longevity of his father-in-law. +"Je n'ai pas cru," he said, "en me mariant, que j'épousais la fille du +Père Éternel." Your primogeniture,' he continued, 'must be a great source +of unfilial feelings. The eldest son of one of your great families is in +the position of the heir apparent to a throne. His father's death is to +give him suddenly rank, power, and wealth; and we know that royal heirs +apparent are seldom affectionate sons. With us the fortunes are much +smaller, they are equally divided, and the rank that descends to the son +is nothing.' + +'What regulates,' I asked, 'the descent of titles?' + +'It is ill regulated,' said Beaumont 'Titles are now of such little value +that scarcely anyone troubles himself to lay down rules about them. + +'In general, however, it is said, that all the sons of dukes and of +marquises are counts. The sons of counts in some families all take the +title of Count. There are, perhaps, thirty Beaumonts. Some call +themselves marquises, some counts, some barons. I am, I believe, the only +one of the family who has assumed no title. Alexis de Tocqueville took +none, but his elder brother, during his father's life, called himself +vicomte and his younger brother baron. Probably Alexis ought then to have +called himself chevalier, and, on his father's death, baron. But, I +repeat, the matter is too unimportant to be subject to any settled rules. +Ancient descent is, with us, of great value, of far more than it is with +you, but titles are worth nothing.' + +[Footnote 1: This incident is described in a little book published last +year, the _Memoirs of Madame de Montaign_.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: M. de La Fayette was Madame de Beaumont's grandfather.--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: The château of M. de La Fayette.--ED.] + + +_Saturday, August_ 17.--We drove to the coast and ascended the lighthouse +of Gatteville, 85 metres, or about 280 feet high. It stands in the middle +of a coast fringed with frightful reefs, just enough under water to +create no breakers, and a flat plain a couple of miles wide behind, so +that the coast is not seen till you come close to it. In spite of many +lighthouses and buoys, wrecks are frequent. A mysterious one occurred +last February: the lighthouse watchman showed us the spot--a reef just +below the lighthouse about two hundred yards from the shore. + +It was at noon--there was a heavy sea, but not a gale. He saw a large +ship steer full on the reef. She struck, fell over on one side till her +yards were in the water, righted herself, fell over on the other, parted +in the middle, and broke up. It did not take five minutes, but during +those five minutes there was the appearance of a violent struggle on +board, and several shots were fired. From the papers which were washed +ashore it appeared that she was from New York, bound for Havre, with a +large cargo and eighty-seven passengers, principally returning emigrants. +No passenger escaped, and only two of the crew: one was an Italian +speaking no French, from whom they could get nothing; the other was an +Englishman from Cardiff, speaking French, but almost obstinately +uncommunicative. He said that he was below when the ship struck, that the +captain had locked the passengers in the cabin, and that he knew nothing +of the causes which had led the ship to go out of her course to run on +this rock. + +The captain may have been drunk or mad. Or there may have been a mutiny +on board, and those who got possession of the ship may have driven her on +the coast, supposing that they could beach her, and ignorant of the +interposed reefs, which, as I have said, are not betrayed by breakers. + +Our informant accounted for the loss of all, except two persons, by the +heavy sea, the sharp reefs, and the blows received by those who tried to +swim from the floating cargo. The two who escaped were much bruised. + +A man and woman were found tied to one another and tied to a spar. They +seemed to have been killed by blows received from the rocks or from the +floating wreck. + +In the evening Ampère read to us the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' His reading +is equal to any acting. It kept us all, for the first two acts, which are +the most comic, in one constant roar of laughter. + +'The modern _nouveau riche,_ said Beaumont, 'has little resemblance to M. +Jourdain. He talks of his horses and his carriages, builds a great hotel, +and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives +four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage +one day, and another the next. His jockey stands behind his cabriolet in +top-boots, and his coachman wears a grand fur coat in summer. His own +clothes are always new, sometimes in the most accurate type of a groom, +sometimes in that of a dandy. His talk is of steeple-chases.' + +'And does he get on?' I asked. + +'Not in the least,' answered Beaumont. 'In England a _nouveau riche_ can +get into Parliament, or help somebody else to get in, and political power +levels all distinctions. Here, wealth gives no power: nothing, indeed, +but office gives power. The only great men in the provinces are the +_préfet_, the _sous-préfet_, and the _maire_. The only great man in Paris +is a minister or a general. Wealth, therefore, unless accompanied by the +social talents, which those who have made their fortunes have seldom had +the leisure or the opportunity to acquire, leads to nothing. The women, +too, of the _parvenus_ always drag them down. They seem to acquire +the _tournure_ of society less easily than the men. Bastide, when +Minister, did pretty well, but his wife used to sign her invitations +"Femme Bastide." + +'Society,' he continued, 'under the Republic was animated. We had great +interests to discuss, and strong feelings to express, but perhaps the +excitement was too great. People seemed to be almost ashamed to amuse +or to be amused when the welfare of France, her glory or her degradation, +her freedom or her slavery, were, as the event has proved, at stake.' + +'I suppose,' I said to Ampère, 'that nothing has ever been better than +the _salon_ of Madame Récamier?' + +'We must distinguish,' said Ampère. 'As great painters have many manners, +so Madame Récamier had many _salons_. When I first knew her, in 1820, her +habitual dinner-party consisted of her father, her husband, Ballanche, +and myself. Both her father, M. Bernard, and her husband were agreeable +men. Ballanche was charming.' + +'You believe,' I said, 'that Bernard was her father?' 'Certainly I do,' +he replied. 'The suspicion that Récamier might be was founded chiefly on +the strangeness of their conjugal relations. To this, I oppose her +apparent love for M. Bernard, and I explain Récamier's conduct by his +tastes. They were coarse, though he was a man of good manners. He never +spent his evenings at home. He went where he could find more license. + +'Perhaps the most agreeable period was at that time of Chateaubriand's +reign when he had ceased to exact a _tête-à-tête_, and Ballanche and I +were admitted at four o'clock. The most illustrious of the _partie +carrée_ was Chateaubriand, the most amusing Ballanche. My merit was that +I was the youngest. Later in the evening Madame Mohl, Miss Clarke as she +then was, was a great resource. She is a charming mixture of French +vivacity and English originality, but I think that the French element +predominates. Chateaubriand, always subject to _ennui_, delighted in her. +He has adopted in his books some of the words which she coined. Her +French is as original as the character of her mind, very good, but more +of the last than of the present century.' + +'Was Chateaubriand himself,' I said, 'agreeable?' + +'Delightful,' said Ampère; 'très-entrain, très-facile à vivre, beaucoup +d'imagination et de connaissances.' + +'Facile à vivre?' I said. 'I thought that his vanity had been _difficile +et exigeante?_' + +'As a public man,' said Ampère, 'yes; and to a certain degree in general +society. But in intimate society, when he was no longer "posing," he was +charming. The charm, however, was rather intellectual than moral. + +'I remember his reading to us a part of his memoirs, in which he +describes his early attachment to an English girl, his separation from +her, and their meeting many years after when she asked his protection for +her son. Miss Clarke was absorbed by the story. She wanted to know what +became of the young man, what Chateaubriand had been able to do for him. +Chateaubriand could answer only in generals: that he had done all that he +could, that he had spoken to the Minister, and that he had no doubt that +the young man got what he wanted. But it was evident that even if he had +really attempted to do anything for the son of his old love, he had +totally forgotten the result. I do not think that he was pleased at Miss +Clarke's attention and sympathy being diverted from himself. Later still +in Madame Récamier's life, when she had become blind, and Chateaubriand +deaf, and Ballanche very infirm, the evenings were sad. I had to try to +amuse persons who had become almost unamusable.' + +'How did Madame de Chateaubriand,' I asked, 'take the devotion of her +husband to Madame Récamier?' + +'Philosophically,' answered Ampère. 'He would not have spent with her the +hours that he passed at the Abbaye au bois. She was glad, probably, to +know that they were not more dangerously employed.' + +'Could I read Chateaubriand?' I asked. + +'I doubt it,' said Ampère. 'His taste is not English.' + +'I _have_ read,' I said, 'and liked, his narrative of the manner in which +he forced on the Spanish war of 1822. I thought it well written.' + +'It is, perhaps,' said Ampère, 'the best thing which he has written, as +the intervention to restore Ferdinand, which he effected in spite of +almost everybody, was perhaps the most important passage in his political +life. + +'There is something revolting in an interference to crush the liberties +of a foreign nation. But the expedition tended to maintain the Bourbons +on the French throne, and, according to Chateaubriand's ideas, it was +more important to support the principle of legitimacy than that of +liberty. He expected, too, sillily enough, that Ferdinand would give a +Constitution. It is certain, that, bad as the effects of that expedition +were, Chateaubriand was always proud of it.' + +'What has Ballanche written?' I asked. + +'A dozen volumes,' he answered. 'Poetry, metaphysics, on all sorts of +subjects, with pages of remarkable vigour and _finesse_, containing some +of the best writing in the language, but too unequal and too desultory to +be worth going through.' + +'How wonderfully extensive,' I said, 'is French literature! Here is a +voluminous author, some of whose writings, you say, are among the best in +the French language, yet his name, at least as an author, is scarcely +known. He shines only by reflected light, and will live only because he +attached himself to a remarkable man and to a remarkable woman.' + +'French literature,' said Ampère, 'is extensive, but yet inferior to +yours. If I were forced to select a single literature and to read nothing +else, I would take the English. In one of the most important departments, +the only one which cannot be re-produced by translation--poetry--you +beat us hollow. We are great only in the drama, and even there you are +perhaps our superiors. We have no short poems comparable to the "Allegro" +or to the "Penseroso," or to the "Country Churchyard."' + +'Tocqueville,' I said, 'told me that he did not think that he could +now read Lamartine.' + +'Tocqueville,' said Ampère, 'could taste, like every man of genius, the +very finest poetry, but he was not a lover of poetry. He could not read a +hundred bad lines and think himself repaid by finding mixed with them ten +good ones.' + +'Ingres,' said Beaumont, 'perhaps our greatest living painter, is one of +the clever cultivated men who do not read. Somebody put the "Misanthrope" +into his hands, "It is wonderfully clever," he said, when he returned it; +"how odd it is that it should be so totally unknown."' + +'Let us read it to-night,' I said. + +'By all means,' said Madame de Tocqueville; 'though we know it by heart +it will be new when read by M. Ampère.' Accordingly Ampère read it to us +after dinner. + +'The tradition of the stage,' he said, 'is that Célimène was Molière's +wife.' + +'She is made too young,' said Minnie. 'A girl of twenty has not her wit, +or her knowledge of the world.' + +'The change of a word,' said Ampère, 'in two or three places would alter +that. The feeblest characters are as usual the good ones. Philinte and +Eliante. + +'Alceste is a grand mixture, perhaps the only one on the French stage, of +the comic and the tragic; for in many of the scenes he rises far above +comedy. His love is real impetuous passion. Talma delighted in playing +him.' + +'The desert,' I said, 'into which he retires, was, I suppose, a distant +country-house. Just such a place as Tocqueville.' + +'As Tocqueville,' said Beaumont, 'fifty years ago, without roads, ten +days' journey from Paris, and depending for society on Valognes.' + +'As Tocqueville,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'when my mother-in-law +first married. She spent in it a month and could never be induced to see +it again.' + +'Whom,' I asked, 'did Célimène marry?' + +'Of course,' said Ampère, 'Alceste. Probably five years afterwards. By +that time he must have got tired of his desert and she of her coquetry.' + +'We know,' I said, 'that Molière was always in love with his wife, +notwithstanding her _légèrété_. What makes me think the tradition that +Célimène was Mademoiselle[1] Molière true, is that Molière was certainly +in love with Célimène. She is made as engaging as possible, and her worst +faults do not rise above foibles. Her satire is good-natured. Arsinoé is +her foil, introduced to show what real evil-speaking is.' + +'All the women,' said Ampère, 'are in love with Alceste, and they care +about no one else. Célimène's satire of the others is scarcely +good-natured. It is clear, at least, that they did not think so.' + +'If Célimène,' said Minnie, 'became Madame Alceste, he probably made her +life a burthen with his jealousy.' + +'Of course he was jealous,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'for he was +violently in love. There can scarcely be violent love without jealousy.' + +'At least,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'till people are married. + +'If a lover is cool enough to be without jealousy, he ought to pretend +it.' + + +[Footnote 1: Under the _ancien régime_ even the married actresses were +called Mademoiselle.--ED.] + + +_Sunday, August_ 18.--After breakfast when the ladies were gone to +church, I talked over with Ampère and Beaumont Tocqueville's political +career. + +'Why,' I asked, 'did he refuse the support of M. Molé in 1835? Why would +he never take office under Louis Philippe? Why did he associate himself +with the Gauche whom he despised, and oppose the Droit with whom he +sympathised? Is the answer given by M. Guizot to a friend of mine who +asked a nearly similar question, "Parce qu'il voulait être où je suis," +the true one?' + +'The answers to your first question,' said Beaumont, 'are two. In 1835 +Tocqueville was young and inexperienced. Like most young politicians, he +thought that he ought to be an independent member, and to vote, on every +occasion, according to his conscience, untrammelled by party connections. +He afterwards found his mistake. + +'And, secondly, if he had chosen to submit to a leader, it would not have +been Molé. + +'Molé represented a principle to which Guizot was then vehemently +opposed, though he was afterwards its incarnation--the subservience of +the Ministry and of the Parliament to the King. In that house of 450 +members, there were 220 placemen; 200 were the slaves of the King. They +received from him their orders; from time to time, in obedience to those +orders, they even opposed his Ministers. + +'This, however, seldom occurred, for the King contrived always to have a +devoted majority in his Cabinet. + +'It was this that drove the Duc de Broglie from the Government and +prevented his ever resuming office. + +'"I could not bear," he said to me, "to hear Sebastiani repeat, in every +council and on every occasion, 'Ce que le Roi vient de dire est +parfaitement juste.'" The only Ministers that ventured to have an opinion +of their own were those of the 12th of May 1839, of which Dufaure, +Villemain, and Passy were members, and that of the 1st of March 1840, of +which Thiers was the leader; and Tocqueville supported them both. + +'When Guizot, who had maintained the principle of Ministerial and +Parliamentary, in opposition to that of Monarchical Governments, with +unequalled eloquence, vigour, and I may add violence, suddenly turned +round and became the most servile member of the King's servile majority, +Tocqueville fell back into opposition. + +'In general it is difficult to act with an opposition systematically and, +at the same time, honestly. For the measures proposed by a Government +are, for the most part, good. But, during the latter part of Louis +Philippe's reign, it was easy, for the Government proposed merely to do +nothing--either abroad or at home. I do not complain of the essence of M. +Guizot's foreign policy, though there was a want of dignity in its forms. + +'There was nothing useful to be done, and, under such circumstances, all +action would have been mischievous. + +'But at home _every_ thing was to be done. Our code required to be +amended, our commerce and our industry, and our agriculture required to +be freed, our municipal and commercial institutions were to be created, +our taxation was to be revised, and, above all, our parliamentary +system--under which, out of 36,000,000 of French, only 200,000 had votes, +under which the Deputies bought a majority of the 200,000 electors, and +the King bought a majority of the 450 deputies--required absolute +reconstruction. + +'Louis Philippe would allow nothing to be done. If he could have +prevented it we should not have had a railroad. He would not allow the +most important of all, that to Marseilles, to be finished. He would not +allow our monstrous centralisation, or our monstrous protective system, +to be touched. The owners of forests were permitted to deprive us of +cheap fuel, the owners of forges of cheap iron, the owners of factories +of cheap clothing. + +'In some of this stupid inaction Guizot supported him conscientiously, +for, like Thiers, he is ignorant of the first principles of political +economy, but he knows too much the philosophy of Government not to have +felt, on every other point, that the King was wrong. + +'If he supposed that Tocqueville wished to be in his place, on the +conditions on which he held office, he was utterly mistaken. + +'Tocqueville was ambitious; he wished for power. So did I. We would +gladly have been real Ministers, but nothing would have tempted us to be +the slaves of the _pensée immuable_, or to sit in a Cabinet in which we +were constantly out-voted, or to defend, as Guizot had to do in the +Chamber, conduct which we had disapproved in the Council. + +'You ask why Tocqueville joined the Gauche whom he despised, against the +Droit with whom he sympathised? + +'He voted with the Gauche only where he thought their votes right. Where +he thought them wrong, as, for instance, in all that respected Algeria, +he left them. They would have abandoned the country, and, when that +could not be obtained, they tried to prevent the creation of the port. + +'Very early, however, in his parliamentary life, he had found that an +independent member--a member who supporting no party is supported by no +party---is useless. He allowed himself therefore to be considered a +member of the Gauche; but I never could persuade him to be tolerably +civil to them. Once, after I had been abusing him for his coldness to +them, he shook hands with Romorantin, then looked towards me for my +applause, but I doubt whether he ever shook hands with him again. In +fact almost his only point of contact with them was their disapprobation +of the inactivity of Louis Philippe. Many of them were Bonapartists like +Abbatucci and Romorantin. Some were Socialists, some were Republicans; +the majority of them wished to overthrow the Monarchy, and the minority +looked forward with indifference to its fall. + +'They hated him as much as he did them, much more indeed, for his mind +was not formed for hatred. They excluded him from almost all committees.' + +'Would it not have been wise in him,' I asked, 'to retire from the +Chamber during the King's life, or at least until it contained a party +with whom he could cordially act?' + +'Perhaps,' said Beaumont, 'that would have been the wisest course for +him--and indeed for me. I entered the Chamber reluctantly. All my family +were convinced that a political man not in the Chamber was nothing. So +I let myself be persuaded. Tocqueville required no persuasion, he was +anxious to get in, and when in it was difficult to persuade oneself to go +out. We always hoped for a change. The King might die, or he might be +forced--as he had been forced before--to submit to a liberal Ministry +which might have been a temporary cure, or even to a Parliamentary reform +which might have been a complete cure. Duchâtel, who is a better +politician than Guizot, was superseding him in the confidence of the King +and of the Chamber. + +'In fact, the liberal Ministry and Parliamentary reform did come at last, +though not until it was too late to save the Monarchy. + +'If Tocqueville had retired in disgust from the Chamber of Deputies, he +might not have been a member of the Constituent, or of the Legislative +Assembly. This would have been a misfortune--though the shortness of the +duration of the first, and the hostility of the President during the +second, and also the state of his health, prevented his influencing the +destinies of the Republic as much as his friends expected him to do, and +indeed as he expected himself.' + +'I have often,' I said, 'wondered how you and Tocqueville, and the other +eminent men who composed the committee for preparing the Constitution, +could have made one incapable of duration, and also incapable of change.' + +'What,' he asked, 'are the principal faults which you find in the +Constitution?' + +'First,' I said, 'that you gave to your President absolute authority over +the army, the whole patronage of the most centralised and the most +place-hunting country in the world, so that there was not one of your +population of 36,000,000 whose interests he could not seriously affect; +and, having thus armed him with irresistible power, you gave him the +strongest possible motives to employ it against the Constitution by +turning him out at the end of his four years, incapable of re-election, +unpensioned and unprovided for, so that he must have gone from the Élysée +Bourbon to a debtor's prison. + +'Next, that, intending your President to be the subordinate Minister of +the Assembly, you gave him the same origin, and enabled him to say, "I +represent the people as much as you do, indeed much more. They _all_ +voted for me, only a fraction of them voted for any one of you." Then +that origin was the very worst that could possibly be selected, the votes +of the uneducated multitude; you must have foreseen that they would give +you a demagogue or a charlatan. The absence of a second Chamber, and the +absence of a power of dissolution, are minor faults, but still serious +ones. When the President and the Assembly differed, they were shut up +together to fight it out without an umpire.' + +'That we gave the President too much power,' said Beaumont, 'the event +has proved. But I do not see how, in the existing state of feeling in +France, we could have given him less. The French have no self-reliance. +They depend for everything on their administrators. The first revolution +and the first empire destroyed all their local authorities and also their +aristocracy. Local authorities may be gradually re-created, and an +aristocracy may gradually arise, but till these things have been done the +Executive must be strong. + +'If he had been re-eligible, our first President would virtually have +been President for life. Having decided that his office should be +temporary, we were forced to forbid his immediate re-election. + +'With respect to his being left unprovided for, no man who had filled the +office decently would have been refused an ample provision on quitting +it. As for this man, no provision that we could have made for him, if we +had given him three or four millions a year, would have induced him to +give up what he considered a throne which was his by descent. He swore to +the Constitution with an _idée fixe _to destroy it. He attempted to do so +on the 29th of January 1849, not two months after his election. + +'I agree with you that the fault of the Constitution was that it allowed +the President to be chosen by universal suffrage; and that the fault of +the people was that they elected a pretender to the throne, whose +ambition, rashness, and faithlessness had been proved. + +'No new Constitution can work if the Executive conspires against it. But +deliberating and acting in the midst of _émeutes_, with a Chamber and a +population divided into half a dozen hostile factions, the two Royalist +parties hating one another, the Bonapartists bent on destroying all +freedom, and the Socialists all individual property, what could we do? My +wish and Tocqueville's was to give the election to the Chamber. We found +that out of 650 members we could not hope that our proposition would be +supported by more than 200. You think that we ought to have proposed two +Chambers. The great use of two Chambers is to strengthen the Executive +by enabling it to play one against the other; but we felt that our +Executive was dangerously strong, and we believed, I think truly, that a +single Chamber would resist him better than two could do. The provision +which required more than a bare majority for the revision of the +Constitution was one of those which we borrowed from America. It had +worked well there. In the general instability we wished to have one +anchor, one mooring ring fixed. We did not choose that the whole +framework of our Government should be capable of being suddenly destroyed +by a majority of one, in a moment of excitement and perhaps by a +parliamentary surprise. + +'With respect to your complaint that, there being no power of +dissolution, there was no means of taking the opinion of the people, the +answer is, that to give the President power of dissolution would have +been to invite him to a _coup d'état._ With no Chamber to watch him, he +would have been omnipotent. + +'I agree with you that the Constitution was a detestable one. But even +now, looking back to the times, and to the conditions under which we made +it, I do not think that it was in our power to make a good one.' + +'Tocqueville,' I said, 'told me that Cormenin was your Solon, that he +brought a bit of constitution to you every morning, and that it was +usually adopted.'[1] + +'Tocqueville's memory,' answered Beaumont, 'deceived him. Cormenin was +our president. It is true that he brought a bit of constitution every +morning. But it scarcely ever was adopted or capable of being adopted. +It was in general bad in itself, or certain to be rejected by the +Assembly. He wished to make the President a puppet. But he exercised over +us a mischievous influence. He tried to revenge himself for our refusal +of all his proposals by rendering our deliberations fruitless. And as +the power of a president over a deliberative body is great, he often +succeeded. + +'Many of our members were unaccustomed to public business and lost their +tempers or their courage when opposed. The Abbé Lamennais proposed a +double election of the president. But of thirty members, only four, among +whom were Tocqueville and I, supported him. He left the committee and +never returned to it. Tocqueville and I were anxious to introduce double +election everywhere. It is the best palliative of universal suffrage.' + +'The double election,' I said, 'of the American President is nugatory. +Every elector is chosen under a pledge to nominate a specified +candidate.' + +'That is true,' said Beaumont, 'as to the President, but not as to the +other functionaries thus elected. The senators chosen by double election +are far superior to the representatives chosen by direct voting. + +'We proposed, too, to begin by establishing municipal institutions. We +were utterly defeated. The love of centralisation is almost inherent in +French politicians. They see the evil of local government--its stupidity, +its corruption, its jobbing. They see the convenience of +centralisation--the ease with which a centralised administration works. +Feelings which are really democratic have reached those who fancy +themselves aristocrats. We had scarcely a supporter. + +'We should perhaps have a few now, when experience has shown that +centralisation is still more useful to an usurper than it is to a regular +Government.' + +[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. p. 212.--ED.] + + +_August_ 18.--We drove in the afternoon to the coast, and sat in the +shade of the little ricks of sea-weed, gazing on an open sea as blue as +the Mediterranean. + +We talked of America. + +'I can understand,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'the indignation of the +North against you. It is, of course, excessive, but they had a right to +expect you to be on their side in an anti-slavery war.' + +'They had no right,' I said, 'to expect from our Government anything but +absolute neutrality.' + +'But you need not,' she replied, 'have been so eager to put the South on +the footing of belligerents.' + +'On what other footing,' I asked, 'could we put them? On what other +footing does the North put them? Have they ventured, or will they +venture, to hang a single seceder?' + +'At least,' she said, 'you might have expressed more sympathy with the +North?' + +'I think,' I answered, 'that we have expressed as much sympathy as it was +possible to feel. We deplore the combat, we hold the South responsible +for it, we think their capricious separation one of the most foolish and +one of the most wicked acts that have ever been committed; we hope that +the North will beat them, and we should bitterly regret their forcing +themselves back into the Union on terms making slavery worse, if +possible, than it is now. We wish the contest to end as quickly as +possible: but we do not think that it can end by the North subjugating +the Southerns and forcing them to be its subjects. + +'The best termination to which we look forward as possible, is that the +North should beat the South, and then dictate its own terms of +separation. + +'If they wish to go farther than this, if they wish us to love or to +admire our Northern cousins in their political capacity, they wish for +what is impossible. + +'We cannot forget that the Abolitionists have been always a small and +discredited party; that the Cuba slave trade is mainly carried on from +New York; that they have neglected the obligations formally entered +into by them with us to co-operate in the suppression of the slave trade; +that they have pertinaciously refused to allow us even to inquire into +the right of slavers to use the American flag; that it is the capital of +the North which feeds the slavery of the South; that the first act of the +North, as soon as the secession of the South from Congress allowed it to +do what it liked, was to enact a selfish protective tariff; that their +treatment of us, from the time that they have felt strong enough to +insult us, has been one unvaried series of threats, bullying, and injury; +that they have refused to submit their claims on us to arbitration, +driven out our ambassadors, seized by force on disputed territory, and +threatened war on every pretence.' + +'It is true,' said Beaumont, 'that during the last twenty years American +diplomacy has not been such as to inspire affection or respect But you +must recollect that during all that time America has been governed by the +South.' + +'It is true,' I said, 'that the presidents have generally been Southerns, +but I am not aware that the North has ever disavowed their treatment of +us. This is certain, that throughout the Union, insolence to England has +been an American statesman's road to popularity.' + + +_Monday., August _19.--We walked in the afternoon over the commons +overlooking the sea, and among the shady lanes of this well-wooded +country. + +We came on a group of about twelve or thirteen reapers taking their +evening meal of enormous loaves of brown bread, basins of butter, and +kegs of cider. + +M. Roussell, the farmer in whose service they were, was sitting among +them. He was an old friend and constituent of Tocqueville, and for thirty +years was Maire of Tocqueville. He has recently resigned. He rose and +walked with us to his house. + +'I was required,' he said, 'to support the prefect's candidate for the +_Conseil général_. No such proposition was ever made to me before. I +could not submit to it. The prefect has been unusually busy of late. The +schoolmaster has been required to send in a list of the peasants whose +children, on the plea of poverty, receive gratuitous education. The +children of those who do not vote with the prefect are to have it no +longer.' + +I asked what were the wages of labour. + +'Three francs and half a day,' he said, 'during the harvest, with +food--which includes cider. In ordinary times one franc a day with food, +or a franc and a half without food.' + +'It seems then,' I said, 'that you can feed a man for half a franc a +day?' + +'He can feed himself,' said M. Roussell, 'for that, but I cannot, or for +double that money.' + +The day labourer is generally hired only for one day. A new bargain is +made every day. + +The house was not uncomfortable, but very untidy. There are no ricks, +everything is stored in large barns, where it is safe from weather, but +terribly exposed to vermin. + +A bright-complexioned servant-girl was in the kitchen preparing an +enormous bowl of soup, of which bread, potatoes, and onions were the +chief solid ingredients. + +'Roussell,' said Beaumont, 'is superior to his class. In general they are +bad politicians. It is seldom difficult to get their votes for the +nominee of the prefect. They dislike to vote for anyone whom they know, +especially if he be a gentleman, or be supported by the gentry. Such a +candidate excites their democratic envy and suspicion. But the prefect is +an abstraction. They have never seen him, they have seldom heard of his +name or of that of his candidate, and therefore they vote for him. + +'Lately, however, in some of my communes, the peasants have adapted a new +practice, that of electing peasants. I suspect that the Government is not +displeased. + +'The presence of such members will throw discredit on the _Conseils +généraux_, and, if they get there, on the _Corps législatif,_ much to the +pleasure of our democratic master, and they will be easily bribed or +frightened. Besides which the fifteen francs a day will be a fortune to +them, and they will be terrified by the threat of a dissolution. I do not +think that even yet we have seen the worst of universal suffrage.' + +'What influence,' I asked, 'have the priests?' + +'In some parts of France,' said Beaumont, 'where the people are +religious, as is the case here, much. Not much in the north-east, where +there is little religion; and in the towns, where there is generally no +religion, their patronage of a candidate would ruin him. I believe that +nothing has so much contributed to Louis Napoleon's popularity with the +_ouvriers_ as his quarrel with the Pope. You may infer the feelings of +the lower classes in Paris from his cousin's conduct.' + +'I study Prince Napoleon,' said Ampère, 'with interest, for I believe +that he will be the successor.' + +'If Louis Napoleon,' I said, 'were to be shot tomorrow, would not the +little prince be proclaimed?' + +'Probably,' said Ampere, 'but with Jérôme for regent, and I doubt whether +the regency would end by the little Napoleon IV. assuming the sceptre. + +'Louis Napoleon himself does not expect it. He often says that, in +France, it is more than two hundred years since a sovereign has been +succeeded by his son. + +'On the whole,' continued Ampère, 'I had rather have Jérôme than Louis +Napoleon. He has more talent and less prudence. He would bring on the +crisis sooner. + +'On the 31st of October, 1849,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'I was in +Louis Napoleon's company, and he mentioned some matter on which he wished +to know my husband's opinion. I could not give it. "It does not much +signify," he answered, "for as I see M. de Tocqueville every day, I will +talk to him about it myself." At that very time, the _ordonnance_ +dismissing M. de Tocqueville had been signed, and Louis Napoleon knew +that he would probably never see him again.' + +'I do not,' said Ampere, 'give up the chance of a republic. I do not wish +for one. It must be a very bad constitutional monarchy which I should not +prefer to the best republic. My democratic illusions are gone. France and +America have dispelled them: but it must be a very bad republic which I +should not prefer to the best despotism. A republic is like a fever, +violent and frightful, but not necessarily productive of organic +mischief. A despotism is a consumption: it degrades and weakens, and +perverts all the vital functions. + +'What is there now in France worth living for? I find people proud of our +Italian campaign. Why should the French be proud that their master's +soldiers have been successful in a war as to which they were not +consulted; which, in fact, they disapproved, which was not made for their +benefit, which was the most glaring proof of their servility and +degradation? We knew before that our troops were better than the +Austrians. What have we gained by the additional example of their +superiority? + +'I fear,' I said, 'that a republic, at least such a republic as you are +likely to have, would begin by some gross economical enormities--by the +_droit au travail_, by the _impôt progressif sur la fortune présumtée_, +by a paper currency made a legal tender without limitation of its +amount.' + +'The last republic,' said Ampere, 'did some of these things, but very +timidly and moderately. It gave to its paper a forced currency, but was +so cautious in its issue, that it was not depreciated. It created the +_ateliers nationaux,_ but it soon dissolved them, though at the expense +of a civil war. Its worst fault was more political than economical: it +was the 45 centimes, that is to say, the sudden increase by 45 per cent, +of the direct taxes. It never recovered that blow. Of all its acts it +is the one which is best recollected. The Provisional Government is known +in the provinces as "ces gredins des quarante-cinq centimes." The +business of a revolutionary government is to be popular. It ought to +reduce taxation, meet its expenditure by loans, abolish octrois and +prohibitions, and defer taxation until it has lasted long enough to be +submitted to as a _fait accompli_.' + +'I fear,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'that our working classes are in a +much worse frame of mind than they were in 1848. Socialist opinions--the +doctrine that the profits of capitalists are so much taken fraudulently +or oppressively from the wages of labourers, and that it is unjust that +one man should have more of the means of happiness than another--are +extending every day. The workpeople believe that the rich are their +enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he will join them +in an attempt to get their fair share, that is, an equal share, of the +property of the country--and I am not sure that they are mistaken.' + +'Nor am I,' said Beaumont '_Celui-ci_ fully sympathises with their +feelings, and I do not think that he has intelligence enough to see the +absurdity of their theories.' + +'You do not deny him,' I said, 'intelligence?' + +'Not,' said Beaumont, 'for some purposes, and to some extent, practical +intelligence. His ends are bad, but he is often skilful in inventing and +pertinacious in employing means for effecting those bad ends. But I +deny him theoretic intelligence. I do not think that he has comprehension +or patience to work out, or even to follow, a long train of reasoning; +such a train as that by which economical errors and fallacies are +detected.' + +'Are there strikes,' I asked, 'among your workmen?' + +'They are beginning,' said Beaumont. 'We have had one near us, and the +authorities were afraid to interfere.' + +'I suppose,' I said, that they are illegal?' + +'They are illegal,' he answered, 'and I think that they ought to be so. +They are always oppressive and tyrannical. The workman who does not join +in a strike is made miserable. They are generally mischievous to +the combined workmen themselves, and always to those of other trades. +Your toleration of them appears to me one of the worst symptoms of your +political state of health. It shows among your public men an ignorance or +a cowardice, or a desire of ill-earned popularity, which is generally a +precursor of a democratic revolution.' + +'It is certain,' said Ampère, 'that the masters are becoming afraid of +their workmen. Péreire brings his from their residences to the Barrière +Malesherbes in carriages. You are not actually insulted in the streets +of Paris, but you are treated with rude neglect. A _fiacre_ likes to +splash you, a _paveur_ to scatter you with mud. Louis Napoleon began with +Chauvinism. He excited all the bad international passions of the +multitude. He has now taken up Sansculotteism. Repulsed with scorn and +disgust by the rich and the educated, he has thrown himself on the poor +and ignorant The passions with which he likes to work are envy, +malignity, and rapacity. + +'I do not believe that he feels them. He is what is called a good-natured +man. That is to say, he likes to please everyone that he sees. But his +selfishness is indescribable. + +'No public interest stands in the way of his slightest caprice. He often +puts me in mind of Nero. With the same indifference to the welfare of +others with which Nero amused himself by burning down Rome, he is amusing +himself by pulling down Paris.' + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + * * * * * * + +[We left Tocqueville on the following day with great regret The same +party was never to meet again--the only survivors are Madame de Beaumont +and myself and the Beaumonts' son, then a very intelligent boy of ten +years old. + +One day my father and I visited the little green churchyard on a cliff +near the sea where Tocqueville is buried. The tomb is a plain grey stone +slab--on it a cross is cut in bas-relief, with these words only:-- + +ICI REPOSE + +ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +NÉ 24 FEVRIER 1805. MORT 16 AVRIL 1859. + +My father laid a wreath of _immortelles_ on the tomb.--ED.] + + +APPENDIX. + +MONTALEMBERT'S speech was afterwards published in the _Moniteur_ but with +considerable alterations. In Mr. Senior's journal in 1854 (which has not +been published), he says, under the date of April 26, I called on +Montalembert and took him my report of his speech. He has promised to add +to it any notes that it may require. "The printed report," he said, "is +intentionally falsified. Before it was struck off I asked to see the +proofs. I was told that, as such an application was new, the President of +the Bureau would meet and decide on its admissibility. They decided that +it could not be granted."' + +[The following is Mr. Senior's report, with M. de Montalembert's own +corrections and additions in French.--ED.] + +At length Montalembert rose. He stood near the extreme right, with his +side towards the tribune, and his face towards the centre gallery, in +which I sat. His voice and delivery are so good, and the house was so +silent, that I did not lose a word. I believe that the following report +is a tolerably accurate abridgment of his speech. + +'Gentlemen, I must begin by expressing to you my deep gratitude for the +attention which you have paid to this unhappy business. I am grieved at +having occasioned the waste of so much public time. I am still more +grieved at having been the occasion of division among my colleagues.' + +[_Note by Montalember_.--'J'aurais voulu faire plus qu'exprimer le +regret: j'aurais voulu me prêter à tous les arrangements qui m'ont été +suggérés par des voix amies pour mettre un terme à cette discussion. Je +n'aurais reculé devant aucun sacrifice qui eût été compatible avec +l'honneur. Mais vous comprenez tous que sous le coup d'une poursuite, +d'un danger, je ne puis rien désavouer, rien rétracter, rien retirer de +ce que j'ai écrit, de ce que j'ai pensé. Si j'agissais autrement il vous +resterait un collègue absous, mais déshonoré et dont vous ne sauriez que +faire.'] + +'More than all I am grieved when I think of the time at which this has +occurred. A time when we are engaged in an honourable and serious war--a +war in which, with the great and faithful ally whom I have always +desired, and the sympathy of all Europe, we are defending civilisation +against an enemy, barbarous indeed, but so formidable as to require our +undivided energy and our undivided attention. + +But you must recollect _when_ that letter was written. It was in last +September, in profound peace, when our whole thoughts were employed, and +were properly employed, on our internal affairs. + +'Aujourd'hui il en est autrement; l'état de guerre impose à tous les +citoyens des devoirs spéciaux: il doit aussi imposer un certain frein à +l'esprit de critique. Aucun Français, quel que soit sa foi politique, ne +peut vouloir discréditer le pouvoir des dissidents, des mécontents, mais +il n'y a plus d'émigrés, ni à l'intérieur, ni à l'extérieur.' + +[_Note by N.W. Senior._--This seems to be an allusion to a passage in +Thiers's celebrated speech of the 17th of February, 1851. 'I1 ne faut +émigrer, ni au dehors, ni au dedans.'] + +['J'aurais su contenir les sentiments les plus passionés de mon âme, +plutôt que de paraître affaiblir en quoi que ce soit la main qui porte +l'épée et le drapeau de la France. Ce n'est pas toutefois que j'admette +que toute liberté de parole ou de presse soit incompatible avec l'état de +guerre. L'Angleterre a conservé toutes ses libertés en faisant la guerre +aux plus redoutables ennemis: aujourd'hui encore l'opposition, d'accord +avec le gouvernement sur la question extérieure, maintient les +résistances et les critiques à l'intérieur. Et certes personne ne dira +que l'Angleterre, pour avoir conservé la liberté de discussion la plus +entière, n'ait pas déployé pour le moins autant de prévoyance et +d'énergie que nous dans la conduite de la guerre où nous entrons. Il n'y +a que les nations où la vie publique circule dans toutes les veines du +corps social, qui sachent résister aux épreuves et aux chances d'une +guerre prolongée. La liberté de la contradiction centuple le prix d'une +libre adhésion; et à force de mettre une sourdine à toutes les émotions +du pays, il faut prendre garde qu'on ne se trouve un jour dans +l'impossibilité de faire vibrer les cordes les plus essentielles quand le +moment des dangers et des sacrifices sera arrivé.'] + +'I deeply regret the publication of that letter. But with that +publication I repeat that I am utterly unconnected. I never sanctioned +it, I never wished for it, I never even thought it possible. There are +passages in the letter itself which I might modify if I were to re-write +it, but it would rather be by adding to them than by taking from them. +Two accusations have been directed against its substance. One that it is +hostile to the Emperor; the other that it is hostile to this assembly. No +one who knows my character, and knows my history, will believe that I can +have intended to injure the Emperor. Our relations have been such as to +make it impossible. + +['J'ai eu l'occasion de défendre le chef actuel de l'État dans des +circonstances infiniment difficiles, et où rien n'était plus douteux que +le succès. Je ne prétends pas l'avoir constitué par cela mon débiteur, +car en le défendant, je ne voulais servir, comme toujours, que la +justice, l'intérêt du pays, la liberté modérée qui se personnifiaient en +lui à mes yeux, mais enfin, aux yeux du public il est mon obligé, et je +ne suis pas le sien. Si j'avais eu la pensée d'offenser publiquement +l'Empereur, et si j'y avais cédé, nous serions _quittes_. Or, je tiens +beaucoup à ce que nous ne le soyons pas. Il n'y aurait pour moi ni +honneur ni avantage à ce changement de position. Tous les hommes de bon +goût, tous les coeurs délicats, me comprendront.'] + +'It is equally impossible that I should have wished to offend this +assembly. It contains men by whose sides I have fought the great battles +of property and law. I love many of its members. I respect almost all. If +I have offended any, it was done unconsciously. Again, it is said that +the tone of my letter is violent. Expressions may be called violent by +some which would be only called _passionnés_ by others. Now I admit that +I am _passionné_. It is in my nature. I owe to that quality much of my +merit, whatever that merit may be. Were I not _passionné_, I should not +have been, during all my life, _la sentinelle perdue de la liberté_. I +should not have thrown myself into every breach: sometimes braving the +attacks of anarchy, sometimes heading the assault on tyranny, and +sometimes fighting against the worst of all despotisms, the despotism +that is based on democracy.' + +['Allons plus au fond, et vous reconnaîtrez que les opinions énoncées +dans la lettre ne sont autres que celles toujours professées par moi. +Elles peuvent toutes se ramener à une seule, à mon éloignement pour le +pouvoir absolu. Je ne l'aime pas: je ne l'ai jamais aimé. Si j'ai tant +combattu l'anarchie avant et après 1848, si j'ai suscité contre moi dans +le parti démagogique ces haines virulentes qui durent encore et qui ne +perdent jamais une occasion d'éclater contre moi, c'est parce que j'ai +compris de bonne heure les affinités naturelles du despotisme et de la +démocratie; c'est parce que j'ai prévu et prédit que la démocratie nous +conduirait au pouvoir absolu. Oui, je crois, comme je l'ai dit, que le +despotisme abaisse les caractères, les intelligences, les consciences. +Oui, je déplore le système qui rend un seul homme tout-puissant et seul +responsable des destinées d'une nation de 36 millions d'hommes; et trouve +que cela ressemble trop au gouvernement russe, contre lequel nous allons +en guerre, et trop peu au gouvernement anglais, dont nous prisons si haut +l'alliance.'] + +'I am told again, and the accusation is sanctioned by the _réquisitoire_ +of the Procureur-Général, that my letter is inconsistent with the +fidelity which I have sworn to the Emperor and to the constitution. When +a man swears fidelity to a sovereign and to a constitution, his oath +engages him only as to matters within his own power. He swears not to +conspire against them. He swears not to attempt to subvert them. He +cannot swear to approve the acts of the sovereign, or the working of the +constitution, for he cannot foresee what either of them will be. I have +kept, and I shall keep, my oath to the Emperor and my oath to the +constitution. I have not attempted, and I shall not attempt, to overthrow +either of them. But my approbation of either of them does not depend on +me. I accepted the _coup d'état_, comme vous l'avez tous fait, comme +notre seule chance de salut dans les circonstances d'alors. I expected +a Government _honnête et modéré_. I have been disappointed.' + +Here a violent exclamation ran through the assembly. Baroche rose and +cried out, 'You hear him, gentlemen. He says that he expected honesty and +moderation from the Government, and that he has been disappointed. I +appeal to you, Mr. President, to decide whether we are to sit and listen +to such infamies.' + +[Voix diverses:--'Expliquez vos paroles.' 'Retirez vos paroles.' M. de +Montalembert.--'Je les maintiens et je les explique.'] + +'I expected _un gouvernement honnête et modéré_. I have been +disappointed. Its _honnêté_ may be judged by the confiscation of the +Orleans property.' + +Here was another hubbub, and another protest of Baroche's. + +'What is going on before you,' continued Montalembert, 'is a sample of +its moderation. It is now attempting in my person to introduce into our +criminal law a new _délit_, "communication." Until now it was supposed +that nothing was criminal until it was published. It was believed that a +man might write his opinions and his reflections, and might exchange them +with his friends; that nothing was libellous that was confidential. _Now_ +this Government holds a man responsible for every thought that an +indiscreet or an incautious friend, or a concealed enemy, or a tool of +power reveals. If it succeeds in this attempt, it will not rest satisfied +with this victory over the remnant of our freedom. It is not in the +nature of things that it should. A Government that will not tolerate +censure must forbid discussion. You are now asked to put down writing. +When that has been done, conversation will be attacked. Paris will +resemble Rome under the successors of Augustus. Already this prosecution +has produced a _malaise_ which I never felt or observed before. What will +be the feelings of the nation when all that is around it is concealed, +when every avenue by which light could penetrate is stopped; when we are +exposed to all the undefined terrors and exaggerated dangers that +accompany utter darkness? The misfortune of France, a national defect +which makes the happiness enjoyed by England unattainable by us, is, that +she is always oscillating between extremes; that she is constantly +swinging from universal conquest to _la paix à tout prix_, from the +desire of nothing but glory to the desire of nothing but wealth, from the +wildest democracy to the most abject servility. Every new Government +starts with a new principle. Every Government in a few years perishes by +carrying that principle to an extreme. The First Republic was destroyed +by the intemperance with which it trampled on every sort of tradition and +authority, the First Empire by its abuse of victory and war, the +Restoration by its exaggerated belief in divine right and legitimacy, the +Royalty of July by its exaggerated reliance on purchased voters and +Parliamentary majorities, the Second Republic by the conduct of its own +Republicans. The danger to the Second Empire--its only internal danger, +but I fear a fatal one--is its abuse of authority. With every phase of +our sixty years' long revolution, we have a new superstition, a new +_culte_. We are now required to become the worshippers of authority. I +lament that with the new religion we have not new priests. Our public men +would not be discredited by instantaneous apostasy from one political +faith to another. I am grieved, gentlemen, if I offend you; though many +of you are older in years than I am, not one probably is so old in public +life. I may be addressing you for the last time, and I feel that my last +words ought to contain all the warnings that I think will be useful to +you. This assembly will soon end, as all its predecessors have ended. Its +acts, its legislation, may perish with it, but its reputation, its fame, +for good or for evil, will survive. Within a few minutes you will do an +act by which that reputation will be seriously affected; by which it may +be raised, by which it may be deeply, perhaps irrevocably, sunk. Your +vote to-night will show whether you possess freedom, and whether you +deserve it. As for myself, I care but little. A few months, or even +years, of imprisonment are among the risks which every public man who +does his duty in revolutionary times must encounter, and which the first +men of the country have incurred, _soit en sortant des affaires, soit +avant d'y entrer_. But whatever may be the effect of your vote on _my_ +person, whatever it may be on _your_ reputation, I trust that it is not +in your power to inflict permanent injury on my country. Among you are +some who lived through the Empire. They must remember that the soldiers +of our glorious army cherished as fondly the recollection of its defeats +as of its victories. They must see that the lessons which those defeats +taught, and the feelings which they inspired, are now among the sources +of our military strength. Your Emperor himself, in one of his earlier +addresses, talked hopefully of the period when France would be capable of +more liberty than he now thinks good for her, "Un jour," he exclaimed, +"mon oeuvre sera couronnée par la liberté." I join in that hope. I look +sanguinely towards the time when she will be worthy of the English +constitution, and she will obtain it. Vous tenez le corps de la France, +mais vous ne tenez pas son âme. Cette âme, aujourd'hui effrayée, +engourdie, endormie, cette âme c'est la liberté. Elle se réveillera un +jour et vous échappera. La certitude de ce réveil suffit pour consoler et +fortifier ses vieux et fidèles soldats à traverser la nuit de l'épreuve. +Cette liberté honnête et modérée, sage et sainte, j'y ai toujours cru, et +j'y crois encore. Je l'ai toujours servie, toujours aimée, toujours +invoquée, tantôt pour la religion, tantôt pour le pays; hier contre le +socialisme, aujourd'hui contre un commencement de despotisme; et, quelle +que soit votre décision, je me féliciterai toujours d'avoir eu cette +occasion solennelle de la confesser encore une fois devant vous, et, s'il +le faut, de souffrir un peu pour elle.' + +These concluding words were drowned in universal murmurs. + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Correspondence & Conversations of +Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2, by Alexis de Tocqueville + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOCQUEVILLE, VOL 2 *** + +***** This file should be named 13333-8.txt or 13333-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/3/13333/ + +Produced by G. Graustein and PG Distributed Proofreaders. 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Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/13333-8.zip b/old/13333-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a41b321 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13333-8.zip diff --git a/old/13333.txt b/old/13333.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21ead98 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13333.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9087 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de +Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2, by Alexis de Tocqueville + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 + +Author: Alexis de Tocqueville + +Release Date: August 30, 2004 [EBook #13333] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOCQUEVILLE, VOL 2 *** + + + + +Produced by G. Graustein and PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced +from images provided by the Million Book Project. + + + + + + + +_CORRESPONDENCE & CONVERSATIONS OF_ ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE + +WITH NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR + +FROM 1834 TO 1859 + + +EDITED BY + +M.C.M. SIMPSON + + +_IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II_ + + +LONDON: HENRY S. KING & Co., 65 CORNHILL 1872 + + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME + +_Journal_ 1851-2. + +The army master of France +Comparison with the 18th Brumaire +Aggressive acts of the President +Coup d'Etat planned for March 1852 +Socialism leads to despotism +War necessary to maintain Louis Napoleon +State prisoners on December 2 +Louis Napoleon's devotion to the Pope +Latent Bonapartism of the French +President's reception at Notre Dame +Frank hypocrites +Mischievous public men +Extradition of Kossuth +January 29, 1849 +Stunner's account of it contradicted +The Second Napoleon a copy of the First +Relies on Russian support +Compulsory voting +Life of a cavalry officer +Victims of the Coup d'Etat + + +_Letters in_ 1852-3. + +Effect of the Orleans confiscation on the English +Firmness of Prussia +Mr. Greg's writings +Communication from Schwartzenberg +New Reform Bill +Democracy or aristocracy +Reform Bill not wanted +Twenty-five thousand men at Cherbourg +Easier to understand Lord Derby than Lord John +Preparations at Cherbourg a delusion +Conversation with King Leopold +No symptoms of aristocratic re-action in England +England's democratic tendencies +Idleness of young aristocrats +Death of Protection +Revolutions leading to masquerades +Tory reforms +Imperial marriage +New Reform Bill a blunder + +_Journal in_ 1853. + +Prosperity in Paris +Dangers incurred by overbuilding +Discharged workmen effect Revolutions +Probable monetary panic +Empire can be firmly established only by a successful war +Agents undermining the Empire +Violence and corruption of the Government +Growing unpopularity of Louis Napoleon +Consequences of his death +He probably will try the resource of war +Conquest would establish his power +War must produce humiliation or slavery to France +Corruption is destroying the army and navy +Emperor cannot tolerate opposition +Will try a plebiscite + +_Letters in_ 1853. + +Blackstone a mere lawyer +Feudal institutions in France and England +Gentleman and Gentilhomme +Life of seclusion +Interference of police with letters +Mrs. Crete's conversations at St. Cyr +Great writers of the eighteenth century +Political torpor unfavourable to intellectual product +English not fond of generalities +Curious archives at Tours +Frightful picture they present +Sufficient to account for the Revolution of 1789 +La Marck's memoir of Mirabeau +Court would not trust Mirabeau +The elder Mirabeau influenced by Revolution +Revolution could not have been averted +Works of David Hume +Effect of intolerance of the press +Honesty and shortsightedness of La Fayette +Laws must be originated by philosophers +Carried into effect by practical men +Napoleon carried out laws +Too fond of centralisation +Country life destroyed by it +Royer Collard +Danton +Madame Tallien +Tocqueville independent of society +Studious and regular life +Influence of writers as compared with active politicians + +_Journal in_ 1854. + +Criticism of the Journals +The speakers generally recognised +Aware that they were being reported +The Legitimists +Necessity of Crimean War +Probable management of it +English view of the Fusion +Bourbons desire Constitutional Government +Socialists would prefer the Empire +They rejoiced in the Orleans confiscation +Empire might be secured by liberal institutions +Policy of G. +English new Reform Bill +Dangers of universal suffrage +Baraguay d'Hilliers and Randon +Lent in the Provinces +Chenonceaux +Montalembert's speech +Cinq Mars +Appearance of prosperity +_Petite culture_ in Touraine +Tyranny more mischievous than civil war +Centralisation of Louis XIV. a means of taxation +Under Louis Napoleon, centralisation more powerful than ever +Power of the Prefet +Courts of Law tools of the Executive +Prefet's candidate must succeed +Empire could not sustain a defeat +Loss of aristocracy in France +Napoleon estranged Legitimists by the murder of the Duc d'Enghien +Louis Philippe attempted to govern through the middle classes +Temporary restoration of aristocratic power under the republic +Overthrown by the second Empire +Legitimists inferior to their ancestors +Dulness of modern society and books +Effects of competition + +_Letters in_ 1854-5. + +Tocqueville attends the Academy +Proposed visit to Germany +Return to France +English adulation of Louis Napoleon +Mismanagement of Crimean War +Continental disparagement of England +Necessity for a conscription in England +Disastrous effects of the war for English aristocracy +Peace premature + +_Journals in_ 1855. + +Effects of the Emperor going to the Crimea +Prince Napoleon +Discontent in England +Disparagement of England +Austria alone profited by Crimean War +Despotism of Louis Napoleon consolidated by it +Centralisation in Algeria +Criticism of Mr. Senior's Article +Places Louis Napoleon too high +English alliances not dependent on the Empire +Louis Napoleon will covet the Rhine +Childish admiration of Emperor by British public +Real friends of England are the friends of her institutions + + +_Extracts from Mr. Senior's Article_. + +Description of political parties +Imperialists +Legitimists +Orleanists +Orleanist-Fusionists form the bulk of the Royalists +Legitimists unfit for public life +Republican party not to be despised +Parliamentarians +Desire only free institutions +No public opinion expressed in the Provinces +Power of Centralisation +Increased under Louis Philippe +Power of the Prefet +Foreign policy of Louis Napoleon +Of former French Sovereigns +Invasion of Rome prepared in 1847 +Eastern question, a legacy from Louis Philippe +Fault as an administrator +Mismanagement of the war +His Ministers mere clerks +Free institutions may secure his throne +English Alliance +Russian influence +Revolutions followed by despotism +Lessons taught by history + + +_Letters in_ 1855-6. + +Tocqueville burns his letter +Conversation of May 28 +Amusing letters from the Army +Enjoyment of home +Fall of Sebastopol +Cost of the war +Russia dangerous to Europe +How to restrain her +Progress in the East +No public excitement in France + + +_Journal in 1856_. + +The 'Ancien Regime' +Master of Paris, Master of France +Opposition to Suez Canal +Mischievous effect of English Opposition +Expenditure under the Empire +Effect of Opposition to the Suez Canal +Tripartite Treaty +'Friponnerie' of the Government +Tripartite Treaty +Suez Canal +French floating batteries +Fortifications of Malta +Emperor's orders to Canrobert +A campaign must be managed on the spot + + +_Letters in_ 1856-7. + +The 'Ancien Regime' +King 'Bomba' +American Rebellion +Lord Aberdeen on the Crimean War +Eccentricities of English public men +Remedy for rise in house-rent +The rise produced by excessive public works +Dulness of Paris +Mr. Senior's Journal in Egypt +Chinese war + + +_Journal in_ 1857. + +Flatness of society in Paris +Dexterity of Louis Napoleon +Is maintained by the fear of the 'Rouges' +Due de Nemours' letter +Tocqueville disapproves of contingent promises +Empire rests on the army and the people +Slavery of the Press +Public speaking in France +English and French speakers +American speakers +Length of speeches +French public men +Lamartine +Falloux +Foreign French +Narvaez and Kossuth +French conversers +Montalembert +Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle +Tu and vous +Feeling respecting heretics +Prejudices of the Ancien Regime +French poetry +Fashion in Literature +Montalembert's changes of opinion +Increasing population of Paris +Its dangerous character +No right to relief +Sudden influx of workmen +Soldiers likely to side with the people +Lamoriciere's heroism +June 1848 +French army +National characteristics +Change in French only apparent +Martin's History of France +He is a centraliser and an absolutist +Secret police + +_Letters in_ 1857-8. + +Reception in England +Indian Mutiny +Financial question +Unpopularity of England +Law of Public Safety + +_Journal in_ 1858. + +Talleyrand as a writer +English ignorance of French affairs +Change of feeling respecting Louis Napoleon +'Loi de surete publique' +Manner in which it has been carried out +Deportation a slow death +Influence of 'hommes de lettres' +French army +Russian army +French navy +Napoleon indifferent to the navy +Mr. Senior's Athens journal +Otho and Louis Napoleon +Qualities which obtain influence +Character of Louis Napoleon +Tocqueville's comments on the above conversation +Tocqueville on Novels +Intellectual and moral inferiority of the age +Education of French women +'Messe d'une heure' +Influence of Madame Recamier +Duchesse de Dino + +_Letters in_ 1858-9. + +Failing health +Mr. Senior's visit to Sir John Boileau +Promise of Lord Stanley +Character of Guizot +Spectacle afforded by English Politics +Tocqueville at Cannes +Louis Napoleon's loss of popularity +Death of Alexis de Tocqueville +Grief it occasioned in England + +_Journal at Tocqueville in_ 1861. + +Madame de Tocqueville house at Valognes +Chateau de Tocqueville +Beaumont on Italian affairs +Piedmontese unpopular with the lower classes +Popular with the higher classes in Naples +Influence of Orsini +Subjection of the French +Effect of Universal Suffrage +Causes which may overthrow Louis Napoleon +Popularity of a war with England +Condition of the Roman people +Different sorts of courage in different nations +Destructiveness of war not found out at first +Effect of service on conscript +Expenditure of Louis Napoleon +Forebodings of the Empress +Prince Napoleon +Ampere on Roman affairs +Inquisition +Infidelity +Mortara affair +Torpor of Roman Government +Interference with marriages +Ampere expects Piedmont to take possession of Rome +Does not think that Naples will submit to Piedmont +Wishes of Naples only negative +Ampere's reading +Execution of three generations +Familiarity with death in 1793 +Sanson +Public executioners +The 'Chambre noire' +Violation of correspondence +Toleration of Ennui +Prisoners of State +M. and Madame de La Fayette +Mirabeau and La Fayette +Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette +Evils of Democratic despotism +Ignorance and indolence of 'La jeune France' +Algeria a God-send +Family life in France +Moral effect of Primogeniture +Descent of Title +Shipwreck off Gatteville +Ampere reads 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' +The modern Nouveau Riche +Society under the Republic +Madame Recamier +Chateaubriand and Madame Mohl +Ballanche +Extensiveness of French literature +French and English poetry +The 'Misanthrope' +Tocqueville's political career +Under Louis Philippe in 1835 +Independence +In 1839 and 1840 +Opposition to Guizot +Inaction of Louis Philippe +Tocqueville would not submit to be a minister without power +Mistaken independence of party +Could not court popularity +Reform came too late +Faults in the Constitution +Defence of the Constitution +Tocqueville wished for a double election of the President +Centralisation useful to a usurper +England in the American War +Defence of England +Politics of a farmer +Wages in Normandy +Evils of Universal Suffrage +Influence of the clergy +Prince Napoleon +Constitutional monarchy preferable to a republic +Republic preferable to a despotism +Probable gross faults of a republic +Evils of socialist opinions +Mischievous effects of strikes +Mistaken tolerance of them in England +Tocqueville's tomb + + * * * * * + +APPENDIX. + +Mr. Senior's report of M. de Montalembert's speech in 1854 + + + +TOCQUEVILLE DURING THE EMPIRE + +FROM DECEMBER 23, 1851 TO APRIL 20, 1858. + + +CONVERSATIONS + +PARIS, 1851-2. + +[The _coup d'etat_ took place on the 2nd, and Mr. Senior reached Paris on +the 21st of December.--ED.] + + +_Paris, December_ 23, 1851.--I dined with Mrs. Grot and drank tea with +the Tocquevilles. + +[1]'This,' said Tocqueville, 'is a new phase in our history. Every +previous revolution has been made by a political party. This is the first +time that the army has seized France, bound and gagged her, and laid her +at the feet of its ruler.' + +'Was not the 18th fructidor,' I said, 'almost a parallel case? Then, as +now, there was a quarrel between the executive and the legislature. The +Directory, like Louis Napoleon, dismissed the ministers, in whom the +legislature had confidence, and appointed its own tools in their places, +denounced the legislature to the country, and flattered and corrupted the +army. The legislature tried the usual tactics of parliamentary +opposition, censured the Government, and refused the supplies. The +Directory prepared a _coup d'etat._ The legislature tried to obtain a +military force, and failed; they planned an impeachment of the Directory, +and found the existing law insufficient. They brought forward a new law +defining the responsibility of the executive, and the night after they +had begun to discuss it, their halls were occupied by a military force, +and the members of the opposition were seized in the room in which they +had met to denounce the treason of the Directory.' + +'So far,' he answered, 'the two events resemble one another. Each was a +military attack on the legislature by the executive. But the Directors +were the representatives of a party. The Councils and the greater part of +the aristocracy, and the _bourgeoisie_, were Bonapartists; the lower +orders were Republican, the army was merely an instrument; it conquered, +not for itself, but for the Republican party. + +'The 18th brumaire was nearer to this--for that ended, as this has begun, +in a military tyranny. But the 18th brumaire was almost as much a civil +as a military revolution. A majority in the Councils was with Bonaparte. +Louis Napoleon had not a real friend in the Assembly. All the educated +classes supported the 18th brumaire; all the educated classes repudiate +the 2nd of December. Bonaparte's Consular Chair was sustained by all the +_elite_ of France. This man cannot obtain a decent supporter. +Montalembert, Baroche, and Fould--an Ultramontane, a country lawyer, and +a Jewish banker--are his most respectable associates. For a real parallel +you must go back 1,800 years.' + +I said that some persons, for whose judgment I had the highest respect, +seemed to treat it as a contest between two conspirators, the Assembly +and the President, and to think the difference between his conduct and +theirs to be that he struck first. + +'This,' said Tocqueville, 'I utterly deny. He, indeed, began to conspire +from November 10, 1848. His direct instructions to Oudinot, and his +letter to Ney, only a few months after his election, showed his +determination not to submit to Parliamentary Government. Then followed +his dismissal of Ministry after Ministry, until he had degraded +the.office to a clerkship. Then came the semi-regal progress, then the +reviews of Satory, the encouragement of treasonable cries, the selection +for all the high appointments in the army of Paris of men whose infamous +characters fitted them to be tools. Then he publicly insulted the +Assembly at Dijon, and at last, in October, we knew that his plans were +laid. It was then only that we began to think what were our means of +defence, but that was no more a conspiracy than it is a conspiracy in +travellers to look for their pistols when they see a band of robbers +advancing. + +'M. Baze's proposition was absurd only because it was impracticable. It +was a precaution against immediate danger, but if it had been voted, it +could not have been executed. The army had already been so corrupted, +that it would have disregarded the orders of the Assembly. I have often +talked over our situation with Lamoriciere and my other military friends. +We saw what was coming as clearly as we now look back to it; but we had +no means of preventing it.' + +'But was not your intended law of responsibility,' I said, 'an attack on +your part?' + +'That law,' he said, 'was not ours. It was sent up to us by the _Conseil +d'Etat_ which had been two years and a half employed on it, and ought to +have sent it to us much sooner. We thought it dangerous--that is to say, +we thought that, though quite right in itself, it would irritate the +President, and that in our defenceless state it was unwise to do so. The +_bureau_, therefore, to which it was referred refused to declare it +urgent: a proof that it would not have passed with the clauses which, +though reasonable, the President thought fit to disapprove. Our +conspiracy was that of the lambs against the wolf. + +'Though I have said,' he continued, 'that he has been conspiring ever +since his election, I do not believe that he intended to strike so soon. +His plan was to wait till next March when the fears of May 1852 would be +most intense. Two circumstances forced him on more rapidly. One was the +candidature of the Prince de Joinville. He thought him the only dangerous +competitor. The other was an agitation set on foot by the Legitimists in +the _Conseils generaux_ for the repeal of the law of May 31. That law was +his moral weapon against the Assembly, and he feared that if he delayed, +it might be abolished without him.' + +'And how long,' I asked, 'will this tyranny last?' + +'It will last,' he answered, 'until it is unpopular with the mass of the +people. At present the disapprobation is confined to the educated +classes. We cannot bear to be deprived of the power of speaking or of +writing. We cannot bear that the fate of France should depend on the +selfishness, or the vanity, or the fears, or the caprice of one man, a +foreigner by race and by education, and of a set of military ruffians and +of infamous civilians, fit only to have formed the staff and the privy +council of Catiline. We cannot bear that the people which carried the +torch of Liberty through Europe should now be employed in quenching all +its lights. But these are not the feelings of the multitude. Their insane +fear of Socialism throws them headlong into the arms of despotism. As in +Prussia, as in Hungary, as in Austria, as in Italy, so in France, the +democrats have served the cause of the absolutists. May 1852 was a +spectre constantly swelling as it drew nearer. But now that the weakness +of the Red party has been proved, now that 10,000 of those who are +supposed to be its most active members are to be sent to die of hunger +and marsh fever in Cayenne, the people will regret the price at which +their visionary enemy has been put down. Thirty-seven years of liberty +have made a free press and free parliamentary discussion necessaries to +us. If Louis Napoleon refuses them, he will be execrated as a tyrant. If +he grants them, they must destroy him. We always criticise our rulers +severely, often unjustly. It is impossible that so rash and wrong-headed +a man surrounded, and always wishing to be surrounded, by men whose +infamous character is their recommendation to him, should not commit +blunders and follies without end. They will be exposed, perhaps +exaggerated by the press, and from the tribune. As soon as he is +discredited the army will turn against him. It sympathises with the +people from which it has recently been separated and to which it is soon +to return. It will never support an unpopular despot. I have no fears +therefore for the ultimate destinies of my country. It seems to me that +the Revolution of the 2nd of December is more dangerous to the rest of +Europe than it is to us. That it ought to alarm England much more than +France. _We_ shall get rid of Louis Napoleon in a few years, perhaps in a +few months, but there is no saying how much mischief he may do in those +years, or even in those months, to his neighbours.' + +'Surely,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'he will wish to remain at peace +with England.' + +'I am not sure at all of that,' said Tocqueville. 'He cannot sit down a +mere quiet administrator. He must do something to distract public +attention; he must give us a substitute for the political excitement +which has amused us during the last forty years. Great social +improvements are uncertain, difficult, and slow; but glory may be +obtained in a week. A war with England, at its beginning, is always +popular. How many thousand volunteers would he have for a "pointe" on +London? + +'The best that can happen to you is to be excluded from the councils of +the great family of despots. Besides, what is to be done to amuse these +400,000 bayonets, _his_ masters as well as ours? Crosses, promotions, +honours, gratuities, are already showered on the army of Paris. It has +already received a thing unheard of in our history--the honours and +recompenses of a campaign for the butchery on the Boulevards. Will not +the other armies demand their share of work and reward? As long as the +civil war in the Provinces lasts they may be employed there. But it will +soon be over. What is then to be done with them? Are they to be marched +on Switzerland, or on Piedmont, or on Belgium? And will England quietly +look on?' + +Our conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the Abbe +Gioberti, and of Sieur Capponi, a Sicilian. + +_Paris, December_ 31, 1851.--I dined with the Tocquevilles and met Mrs. +Grote, Rivet, and Corcelle. + +'The gayest time,' said Tocqueville, 'that I ever passed was in the Quai +d'Orsay. The _elite_ of France in education, in birth, and in talents, +particularly in the talents of society, was collected within the walls of +that barrack. + +'A long struggle was over, in which our part had not been timidly played; +we had done our duty, we had gone through some perils, and we had some to +encounter, and we were all in the high spirits which excitement and +dangers shared with others, when not too formidable, create. From the +courtyard in which we had been penned for a couple of hours, where the +Duc de Broglie and I tore our chicken with our hands and teeth, we were +transferred to a long sort of gallery, or garret, running along through +the higher part of the building, a spare dormitory for the soldiers when +the better rooms are filled. Those who chose to take the trouble went +below, hired palliasses from the soldiers, and carried them up for +themselves. I was too idle and lay on the floor in my cloak. Instead of +sleeping we spent the night in shooting from palliasse to palliasse +anecdotes, repartees, jokes, and pleasantries. "C'etait un feu roulant, +une pluie de bons mots." Things amused us in that state of excitement +which sound flat when repeated. + +'I remember Kerrel, a man of great humour, exciting shouts of laughter by +exclaiming, with great solemnity, as he looked round on the floor, +strewed with mattresses and statesmen, and lighted by a couple of tallow +candles, "Voila donc ou en est reduit ce fameux parti de l'ordre." Those +who were kept _au secret_, deprived of mutual support, were in a very +different state of mind; some were depressed, others were enraged. Bedeau +was left alone for twenty-four hours; at last a man came and offered him +some sugar. He flew at his throat and the poor turnkey ran off, fancying +his prisoner was mad.' + +We talked of Louis Napoleon's devotion to the Pope. + +'It is of recent date,' said Corcelle. 'In January and February 1849 he +was inclined to interfere in support of the Roman Republic against the +Austrians. And when in April he resolved to move on Rome, it was not out +of any love for the Pope. In fact, the Pope did not then wish for us. He +told Corcelle that he hoped to be restored by General Zucchi, who +commanded a body of Roman troops in the neighbourhood of Bologna. No +one at that time believed the Republican party in Rome to be capable of a +serious defence. Probably they would not have made one if they had not +admitted Garibaldi and his band two days before we appeared before their +gates.' + +I mentioned to Tocqueville Beaumont's opinion that France will again +become a republic. + +'I will not venture,' he answered, 'to affirm, with respect to any form +whatever of government, that we shall never adopt it; but I own that I +see no prospect of a French republic within any assignable period. We +are, indeed, less opposed to a republic now than we were in 1848. We have +found that it does not imply war, or bankruptcy, or tyranny; but we still +feel that it is not the government that suits us. This was apparent from +the beginning. Louis Napoleon had the merit, or the luck, to discover, +what few suspected, the latent Bonapartism of the nation. The 10th of +December showed that the memory of the Emperor, vague and indefinite, but +therefore the more imposing, still dwelt like an heroic legend in the +imaginations of the peasantry. When Louis Napoleon's violence and folly +have destroyed the charm with which he has worked, all eyes will turn, +not towards a republic, but to Henri V.' + +'Was much money,' I asked, 'spent at his election?' + +'Very little,' answered Tocqueville. 'The ex-Duke of Brunswick lent him +300,000 francs on a promise of assistance as soon as he should be able to +afford it; and I suppose that we shall have to perform the promise, and +to interfere to restore him to his duchy; but that was all that was +spent. In fact he had no money of his own, and scarcely anyone, except +the Duke, thought well enough of his prospects to lend him any. He used +to sit in the Assembly silent and alone, pitied by some members and +neglected by all. Silence, indeed, was necessary to his success. + +_Paris, January 2nd_, 1852.--I dined with Mrs. Grote and drank tea with +the Tocquevilles. + +'What is your report,' they asked, 'of the President's reception in Notre +Dame. We hear that it was cold.' + +'So,' I answered, 'it seemed to me.' + +'I am told,' said Tocqueville, 'that it was still colder on his road. He +does not shine in public exhibitions. He does not belong to the highest +class of hypocrites, who cheat by frankness and cordiality.' + +'Such,' I said, 'as Iago. It is a class of villains of which the +specimens are not common.' + +'They are common enough with us,' said Tocqueville. 'We call them _faux +bonshommes_. H. was an instance. He had passed a longish life with the +character of a frank, open-hearted soldier. When he became Minister, the +facts which he stated from the tribune appeared often strange, but coming +from so honest a man we accepted them. One falsehood, however, after +another was exposed, and at last we discovered that H. himself, with all +his military bluntness and sincerity, was a most intrepid, unscrupulous +liar. + +'What is the explanation,' he continued, 'of Kossuth's reception in +England? I can understand enthusiasm for a democrat in America, but what +claim had he to the sympathy of aristocratic England?' + +'Our aristocracy,' I answered, 'expressed no sympathy, and as to the +mayors, and corporations, and public meetings, they looked upon him +merely as an oppressed man, the champion of an oppressed country.' + +'I think,' said Tocqueville, 'that he has been the most mischievous man +in Europe.' + +'More so,' I said, 'than Mazzini? More so than Lamartine?' + +At this instant Corcelle came in. + +'We are adjusting,' said Tocqueville, 'the palm of mischievousness.' + +'I am all for Lamartine,' answered Corcelle; 'without him the others +would have been powerless.' + +'But,' I said, 'if Lamartine had never existed, would not the revolution +of 1848 still have occurred?' + +'It would have certainly occurred' said Tocqueville; 'that is to say, the +oligarchy of Louis Philippe would have come to an end, probably to a +violent one, but it would have been something to have delayed it; and it +cannot be denied that Lamartine's eloquence and courage saved us from +great dangers during the Provisional Government. Kossuth's influence was +purely mischievous. But for him, Austria might now be a constitutional +empire, with Hungary for its most powerful member, a barrier against +Russia instead of her slave.' + +'I must put in a word,' said Corcelle,[2] 'for Lord Palmerston. If +Lamartine produced Kossuth, Lord Palmerston produced Lamartine and +Mazzini and Charles Albert--in short, all the incendiaries whose folly +and wickedness have ended in producing Louis Napoleon.' + +'Notwithstanding,' I said, 'your disapprobation of Kossuth, you joined us +in preventing his extradition.' + +'We did,' answered Tocqueville. 'It was owing to the influence of Lord +Normanby over the President. It was a fine _succes de tribune_. It gave +your Government and ours an occasion to boast of their courage and of +their generosity, but a more dangerous experiment was never made. You +reckoned on the prudence and forbearance of Austria and Russia. Luckily, +Nicholas and Nesselrode are prudent men, and luckily the Turks sent to +St. Petersburg Fuad Effendi, an excellent diplomatist, a much better than +Lamoriciere or Lord Bloomfield. He refused to see either of them, +disclaimed their advice or assistance, and addressed himself solely to +the justice and generosity of the Emperor. He admitted that Russia was +powerful enough to seize the refugees, but implored him not to set such +an example, and--he committed nothing to paper. He left nothing, and took +away nothing which could wound the pride of Nicholas; and thus he +succeeded. + +'Two days after, came a long remonstrance from Lord Palmerston, which +Lord Bloomfield was desired to read to Nesselrode, and leave with him. A +man of the world, seeing that the thing was done, would have withheld an +irritating document. But Bloomfield went with it to Nesselrode. +Nesselrode would have nothing to say to it. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "we +have given up all our demands; why tease us by trying to prove that we +ought not to have made them?" Bloomfield said that his orders were +precise. "Lisez donc," cried Nesselrode, "mais il sera tres-ennuyeux." +Before he had got half through Nesselrode interrupted him. "I have heard +all this," he said, "from Lamoriciere, only in half the number of words. +Cannot you consider it as read?" Bloomfield, however, was inexorable.' + +I recurred to a subject on which I had talked to both of them before--the +tumult of January 29, 1849. + +'George Sumner,' I said, 'assures me that it was a plot, concocted by +Faucher and the President, to force the Assembly to fix a day for its +dissolution, instead of continuing to sit until it should have completed +the Constitution by framing the organic laws which, even on December 2 +last, were incomplete. He affirms that it was the model which was +followed on December 2; that during the night the Palais Bourbon was +surrounded by troops; that the members were allowed to enter, but were +informed, not publicly, but one by one, that they were not to be allowed +to separate until they had fixed, or agreed to fix, the day of their +dissolution; and that under the pressure of military intimidation, the +majority, which was opposed to such a dissolution, gave way and consented +to the vote, which was actually carried two days after.' + +'No such proposition was made to me,' said Tocqueville, 'nor, as far as I +know, to anybody else; but I own that I never understood January 29. It +is certain that the Palais Bourbon, or at least its avenues, were taken +possession of during the night; that there was a vast display of military +force, and also of democratic force; that the two bodies remained _en +face_ for some time, and that the crowd dispersed under the influence of +a cold rain.' + +'I too,' said Corcelle, 'disbelieve Sumner's story. The question as to +the time of dissolution depended on only a few votes, and though it is +true that it was voted two days after, I never heard that the military +demonstration of January 29 accelerated the vote. The explanation which +has been made to me is one which I mentioned the other day, namely, that +the President complained to Changarnier, who at that time commanded the +army of Paris, that due weight seemed not to be given to his 6,000,000 +votes, and that the Assembly appeared inclined to consider him a +subordinate power, instead of the _Chef d'Etat_, to whom, not to the +Assembly, the nation had confided its destinies. In short, that the +President indicated an intention to make a _coup d'etat_, and that the +troops were assembled by Changarnier for the purpose of resisting it, if +attempted, and at all events of intimidating the President by showing him +how quickly a force could be collected for the defence of the Assembly.' + +_Sunday, January_ 4.--I dined with the Tocquevilles alone. The only +guest, Mrs. Grote, who was to have accompanied me, being unwell. + +'So enormous,' said Tocqueville, 'are the advantages of Louis Napoleon's +situation, that he may defy any ordinary enemy. He has, however, a most +formidable one in himself. He is essentially a copyist. He can originate +nothing; his opinions, his theories, his maxims, even his plots, all are +borrowed, and from the most dangerous of models--from a man who, though +he possessed genius and industry such as are not seen coupled, or indeed +single, once in a thousand years, yet ruined himself by the extravagance +of his attempts. It would be well for him if he would utterly forget all +his uncle's history. He might then trust to his own sense, and to that of +his advisers. It is true that neither the one nor the other would be a +good guide, but either would probably lead him into fewer dangers than a +blind imitation of what was done fifty years ago by a man very unlike +himself, and in a state of society both in France and in the rest of +Europe, very unlike that which now exists.' + +Lanjuinais and Madame B., a relation of the family, came in. + +Lanjuinais had been dining with Kissileff the Russian Minister. Louis +Napoleon builds on Russian support, in consequence of the marriage of his +cousin, the Prince de Lichtenstein, to the Emperor's daughter. He calls +it an _alliance de famille_, and his organs the 'Constitutionnel' and the +'Patrie' announced a fortnight ago that the Emperor had sent to him the +Order of St. Andrew, which is given only to members of the Imperial +family, and an autograph letter of congratulation on the _coup d'etat_. + +Kissileff says that all this is false, that neither Order nor letter has +been sent, but he has been trying in vain to get a newspaper to insert a +denial. It will be denied, he is told, when the proper moment comes. + +'It is charming,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'to see the Emperor of +Russia, like ourselves, forced to see his name usurped without redress.' + +Madame B. had just seen a friend who left his country-house, and came to +Paris without voting, and told those who consulted him that, in the +difficulties of the case, he thought abstaining was the safest course. +Immediately after the poll was over the Prefect sent to arrest him for +_malveillance_, and he congratulated himself upon being out of the way. + +One of Edward de Tocqueville's sons came in soon after; his brother, who +is about seventeen, does duty as a private, has no servant, and cleans +his own horse; and is delighted with his new life. That of our young +cavalry officers is somewhat different. He did not hear of the _coup +d'etat_ till a week after it had happened. + +'Our regiments,' said Lanjuinais, 'are a kind of convents. The young men +who enter them are as dead to the world, as indifferent to the events +which interest the society which they have left, as if they were monks. +This is what makes them such fit tools for a despot.' + + +_Thursday, January 8, 1852_.--From Sir Henry Ellis's I went to +Tocqueville's. + +[3]'In this darkness,' he said, 'when no one dares to print, and few to +speak, though we know generally that atrocious acts of tyranny are +perpetrated everyday, it is difficult to ascertain precise facts, so I +will give you one. A young man named Hypolite Magin, a gentleman by birth +and education, the author of a tragedy eminently successful called +"Spartacus," was arrested on the 2nd of December. His friends were told +not to be alarmed, that no harm was intended to him, but rather a +kindness; that as his liberal opinions were known, he was shut up to +prevent his compromising himself by some rash expression. He was sent to +Fort Bicetre, where the casemates, miserable damp vaults, have been used +as a prison, into which about 3,000 political prisoners have been +crammed. His friends became uneasy, not only at the sufferings which he +must undergo in five weeks of such an imprisonment in such weather as +this, but lest his health should be permanently injured. At length they +found that he was there no longer: and how do you suppose that his +imprisonment has ended? He is at this instant at sea in a convict ship on +his way to Cayenne--untried, indeed unaccused--to die of fever, if he +escape the horrors of the passage. Who can say how many similar cases +there may be in this wholesale transportation? How many of those who are +missing and are supposed to have died at the barricades, or on the +Boulevards, may be among the transports, reserved for a more lingering +death!' + +A proclamation to-day from the Prefect de Police orders all persons to +erase from their houses the words 'Liberte,' 'Egalite,' and 'Fraternite' +on pain of being proceeded against _administrativement_. + +'There are,' said Tocqueville, 'now three forms of procedure: +_judiciairement, militairement_ and _administrativement._ Under the first +a man is tried before a court of law, and, if his crime be grave, is +sentenced to one or two years' imprisonment. Under the second he is tried +before a drumhead court-martial, and shot. Under the third, without any +trial at all, he is transported to Cayenne or Algiers.' + +I left Paris next day. + + +[Footnote 1: I was not able to resist retaining this conversation in the +_Journals in France_.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: It must be remembered that M. de Corcelle is an ardent Roman +Catholic.--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: This conversation was also retained in the _Journals in +France_.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + + + +Kensington, January 5, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A private messenger has just offered himself to me, +a Mr. Esmeade, who will return in about a fortnight. + +The debate on Tuesday night on the Palmerston question was very +satisfactory to the Government. Lord John's speech was very well +received--Lord Palmerston's very ill; and though the constitution of the +present Ministry is so decidedly unhealthy that it is dangerous to +predict any length of life to it, yet it looks healthier than people +expected. It may last out the Session. + +The feeling with respect to Louis Napoleon is stronger, and it tends more +to unanimity every day. The Orleans confiscation has, I think, almost too +much weight given to it. After his other crimes the mere robbery of a +single family, ruffian-like as it is, is a slight addition. + +I breakfasted with V. yesterday. He assures me that it is false that a +demand of twenty millions, or any other pecuniary demand whatever, has +been made in Belgium. Nor has anything been said as to the demolition of +any fortresses, except those which were agreed to be dismantled in 1832, +and which are unimportant. + +The feeling of the people in Belgium is excellent. + +Mr. Banfield, who has just returned from the Prussian provinces, says the +same with respect to them--and Bunsen assures me that his Government will +perish rather than give up a foot of ground. I feel better hopes of the +preservation of peace. + +Thiers and Duvergier de Hauranne are much _fetes_, as will be the case +with all the exiles. + +I have been reading Fiquelmont. He is deeply steeped in all the _betises_ +of the commercial, or rather the anti-commercial school; and holds that +the benefit of commerce consists not, as might have been supposed, in the +things which are imported, but in those which are exported. + +These follies, however, are not worth reading; but his constitutional +theories--his belief, for instance, that Parliamentary Government is the +curse of Europe--are curious. + +The last number of the 'Edinburgh Review' contains an article on Reform +well worth reading. It is by Greg. He wrote an admirable article in, I +think, the April number, on Alton Locke and the English Socialists, and +has also written a book, which I began to-day, on the Creed of +Christendom. I have long been anxious to get somebody to do what I have +not time to do, to look impartially into the evidences of Christianity, +and report the result. This book does it. + +Lord Normanby does not return to Paris, as you probably know. No +explanation is given, but it is supposed to be in compliance with the +President's wishes. + +I have just sent to the press for the 'Edinburgh Review,' an article on +Tronson du Coudray[1] and the 18th fructidor, which you will see in the +April number. The greater part of it was written this time last year at +Sorrento. + +Gladstone has published a new Neapolitan pamphlet, which I will try to +send you. It is said to demolish King Ferdinand. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. We hope that you will come to +us as soon as it is safe. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + +P.S. and very private.--I have seen a communication from Schwartzenberg +to Russia and Prussia, of the 19th December, the doctrine of which is +that Louis Napoleon has done a great service by putting down +parliamentaryism. That in many respects he is less dangerous than the +Orleans, or elder branch, because they have parliamentary leanings. That +no alteration of the existing parties must be permitted--and that an +attempt to assume an hereditary crown should be discouraged--but that +while it shows no aggressive propensities the policy of the Continent +ought to be to countenance him, and _isoler_ l'Angleterre, as a _foyer_ +of constitutional, that is to say, anarchical, principles. + +Bunsen tells me that in October his King was privately asked whether he +was ready to destroy the Prussian Constitution--and that he peremptorily +refused. + +Look at an article on the personal character of Louis Napoleon in the +'Times' of Monday. It is by R----, much built out of my conversation and +Z.'s letters. + +I have begged Mr. Esmeade to call on you--you will like him. He is a +nephew of Sir John Moore. + + + +[2]Kensington, March 19, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I was very glad to see your hand again--though +there is little in French affairs on which liberals can write with +pleasure. + +Ours are become very interesting. Lord John's declaration, at the meeting +the other day in Chesham Place, that he shall introduce a larger reform, +and surround himself with more advanced adherents, and Lord Derby's, on +Monday, that he is opposed to all democratic innovation, appear to me to +have changed the position of parties. The question at issue is no longer +Free-trade or Protection. Protection is abandoned. It is dead, never to +revive. Instead of it we are to fight for Democracy, or Aristocracy. I +own that my sympathies are with Aristocracy: I prefer it to either +Monarchy or Democracy. I know that it is incident to an aristocratic +government that the highest places shall be filled by persons chosen not +for their fitness but for their birth and connections, but I am ready to +submit to this inconvenience for the sake of its freedom and stability. +I had rather have Malmesbury at the Foreign Office, and Lord Derby first +Lord of the Treasury, than Nesselrode or Metternich, appointed by a +monarch, or Cobden or Bright, whom I suppose we should have under a +republic. But above all, I am for the winning horse. If Democracy is to +prevail I shall join its ranks, in the hope of making its victory less +mischievous. + +I wish, however, that the contest had not been forced on. We were very +well, before Lord John brought in his Reform Bill, which nobody called +for, and I am not at all sure that we shall be as well after it has +passed. + +As to the immediate prospects of the Ministry, the next three weeks may +change much, but it seems probable that they will be forced to dissolve +in April, or the beginning of May, that the new Parliament will meet in +July, and that they will be turned out about the end of August. And that +this time next year we shall be discussing Lord John's new Reform Bill. + +I doubt whether our fears of invasion are exaggerated. At this instant, +without doubt, Louis Napoleon is thinking of nothing but the Empire; and +is kind to Belgium, and pacific to Switzerland in the hope of our +recognition. + +But I heard yesterday from Lord Hardinge that 25,000 men are at +Cherbourg, and that 25,000 more are going there--and that a large sum is +devoted to the navy. We know that he governs _en conspirateur_, and this +is likely to extend to his foreign as well as his civil relations. + +I see a great deal of Thiers, who is very agreeable and very _triste_. +'L'exil,' he says, 'est tres-dur.' Remusat seems to bear it more +patiently. We hear that we are to have Cousin. + +What are your studies in the Bibliotheque Royale? I have begun to read +Bastide, and intend to make the publication of my lectures on Political +Economy my principal literary pursuit. I delivered the last on Monday. + +I shall pass the first fifteen days of April in Brussels, with my old +friend Count Arrivabene, 7 Boulevard du Regent. + + * * * * * + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +March 25, 1852. + +I send you, my dear Senior, an introduction to Lamoriciere. This letter +will be short: you know that I do not write at any length by the post. + +It will contain nothing but thanks for your long and interesting letter +brought by Rivet, who returned delighted with the English in general, and +with you in particular. + +I see that the disturbed state of politics occasioned by Sir Robert +Peel's policy, is passing away, and that your political world is again +dividing itself into the two great sects, one of which tries to narrow, +the other to extend, the area of political power--one of which tries +to lift you into aristocracy, the other to depress you into democracy. + +The political game will be simpler. I can understand better the +conservative policy of Lord Derby than the democratic one of Lord John +Russell. As the friends of free-trade are more numerous than those of +democracy, I think that it would have been easier to attack the +Government on its commercial than on its political illiberality. + +Then in this great nation, called Europe, similar currents of opinions +and feelings prevail, different as may be the institutions and characters +of its different populations. We see over the whole continent so general +and so irresistible a reaction against democracy, and even against +liberty, that I cannot believe that it will stop short on our side of the +Channel; and if the Whigs become Radical, I shall not be surprised at the +permanence in England of a Tory Government allied to foreign despots. + +But I ought not to talk on such matters, for I live at the bottom of a +well, seeing nothing, and regretting that it is not sufficiently closed +above to prevent my hearing anything. Your visions of 25,000 troops at +Cherbourg, to be followed by 25,000 more, are mere phantoms. There is +nothing of the kind, and there will be nothing. I speak with knowledge, +for I come from Cherbourg. I have been attending an extraordinary meeting +of our _Conseil general_ on the subject of a projected railway. My +reception touched and delighted me. I was unanimously, and certainly +freely, elected president. + + * * * * * + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Friday evening, April 17, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--My letter is not likely to be a very amusing one, +for I begin it on the dullest occasion and in the dullest of towns, +namely at Ostend, while waiting for the packet-boat which is to take me +to London. + +A thousand thanks for your letter to Lamoriciere. He was very kind to me, +and I hope hereafter, in Paris or in London, to improve the acquaintance. + +I saw no other French in Brussels. The most interesting conversation that +I had was with the King. + +I found him convinced that the decree annexing Belgium to France had been +drawn up, and that it was the interference of Nicholas, and his +expression of a determination not to suffer the existing temporal limits +to be altered, that had occasioned it to be withdrawn. I am happy, +however, to think, as you also appear to think, that your great man is +now intent on peaceful triumphs. + +He would scarcely have created such a mass of speculative activity in +France if he intended suddenly to check it by war. I hope that by the +time Masters in Chancery are abolished, I shall find France intersected +by a network of railroads and run from Paris to Marseilles in a day. + +I venture to differ from you as to the probable progress of reaction in +England. I see no symptom of it; on the contrary, democracy seems to me +to continue its triumphant march without a check. The Protectionists are +in power, they take for their leader in the House of Commons a man +without birth or connection, merely because he is a good speaker. This +could not have been done even ten years ago. They bow to the popular will +as to free-trade, and acknowledge that, even if they have a majority in +the Houses of Lords and Commons, they will not venture to re-impose a +Corn-law if the people do not ask for it. Never was such a homage paid to +the world 'without doors.' + +Then Lord John says that he objects to the Ballot, because those who have +no votes have a right to know how those who have votes use them. + +The example of the Continent will not affect us, or if it do affect us, +will rather strengthen our democracy. We are not accustomed to copy, and +shall treat the reaction in France, Austria, and Prussia rather as a +warning than as a model. + +I suspect that Lord John, who, though not, I think, a very wise +statesman, is a clever tactician, takes the same view that I do, and has +selected Reform for his platform, believing it to be a strong one. + +We were delighted with Rivet, and hope that he will soon come again. +Lamoriciere tells me that he is going to take the waters of +_Aix-la-Chapelle_, but, if his exile continues, will probably come to +England next year. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +Kensington, April 30, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A thousand thanks for your letter.[3] I saw M. de +Lamoriciere three times, and had a glimpse of Madame de L. who seemed +very pleasing. I was delighted with his spirit and intelligence, but +understand the criticism that he is _soldatesque_. + +I had a long and very interesting conversation with the King, and saw +much of my excellent friends Arrivabene and Quetelet. But after all +Brussels is not Paris. I was more than ever struck by the ugliness of the +country and the provincialness of the society. + +I returned on April 18, sprained my ancle on the 19th, and have been on +my back ever since. I have spent the time in looking through Fonfrede, +who is a remarkable writer, and makes some remarkable prophecies, in +finishing Grote's ninth and tenth volumes, in reading Kenrick's 'Ancient +Egypt,' which is worth studying, and in reading through Horace, whom I +find that I understand much better after my Roman experience. + +I differ from you as to the chances of reaction in this country. I +believe that we are still travelling the road which you have so well +mapped out, which leads to democracy. Our extreme _gauche_, which we call +the Manchester School, employs its whole efforts in that direction. It +has great energy, activity, and combination. The duties of Parliament and +of Government have become so onerous, and the facing our democratic +constituencies is so disagreeable, and an idle life of society, +literature, art, and travelling has become so pleasant, that our younger +aristocracy seem to be giving up politics, and hence you hear the +universal complaint that there are no young men of promise in public +life. + +The House of Commons is full of middle-aged lawyers, merchants, +manufacturers, and country-gentlemen, who take to politics late in life, +without the early special training which fitted for it the last +generation. + +I fear that the time may come when to be in the House of Commons may be +thought a bore, a somewhat vulgar spouting club, like the Marylebone +Vestry, or the City of London Common Council. + +I do not know whether Lord Derby has gained much in the last four months, +but Lord John has certainly lost. His Reform Bill was a very crude +_gachis,_ without principle, and I think very mischievous. I ventured to +say nearly as much to Lord Lansdowne, who sat by my sofa for an hour on +Sunday, and he did not take up its defence. Then his opposition to the +present Ministry has been factious, and to punish him, he was left the +other day in a minority of fifty per cent. People begin now to speculate +on the possibility of Lord Derby's reconstructing his minority on rather +a larger basis, and maintaining himself for three or four years; which, +in these times, is a good old age for a Minister. One admirable result of +these changes is the death of Protection. Those who defended it in +opposition are found to abandon it now they are in power. So it has not a +friend left. + +Pray send me word, by yourself or by Mrs. Grote, when you leave Paris. My +vacation begins on May 8, but I shall not move unless I recover the use +of my legs, nor then I think, if I find that you will be absent. + +Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +Paris, November 13, 1852. + +I am unlucky, my dear Senior, about your letters of introduction. You +know how much I have wished and tried to make the acquaintance of Lord +and Lady Ashburton, but without success. I should also, I am sure, have +had great pleasure in meeting Mr. Greg. + +This time I was prevented by ill health. + + * * * * * + +Two or three months ago, I wrote to you from the country a letter which +was addressed to Kensington. Did you receive it? and if so, why have you +not answered it? + +I wrote upon politics, but especially I asked you about yourselves, your +occupations and projects, some questions to which I was very anxious to +have answers. At any rate, do now what you ought to have done then--write +to me. + +I do not now write about politics, because we do not talk, or at least +write about them in France any more than in Naples; besides, such +subjects are not suitable to an invalid. + +I will only tell you, as important and authentic pieces of information, +that the new court ladies have taken to trains and little pages, and that +the new courtiers hunt the stag with their master in the Forest of +Fontainebleau in dresses of the time of Louis XIV. and cocked hats. + +Good-bye! Heaven preserve you from the mistakes which lead to +revolutions, and from the revolutions which lead to masquerades. A +thousand kind regards. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +London, December 4, 1852. + +My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter of November 13 is, I think, the first +that I have received from you since March. + +That which you addressed to me at Kensington, two months ago, did not +reach me. I have written to you one or two; I do not know with what +success. + +I grieve to hear of rheumatism and pleurisy. You say nothing of Madame de +Tocqueville, whence I hope that I may infer that she, at least, is well. + +We have all been flourishing. We passed the vacation in Wales and +Ireland, and brought back a curious journal,[4] which I hope to send or +bring to you. + +I do not think that I shall venture to Paris at Christmas, though Ellice +and Thiers are trying to persuade me. I have too vivid a recollection of +the fog, cold, and dirt of last year; but I fully resolve to be with you +at Easter--that is, about March 24. + +The present Government, with all its want of principle and truth, and +with all its want of experience, is doing much better than I expected. + +The law reforms are far bolder than any that _my_ friends ever proposed, +and the budget, which was brought forward last night, contains more that +is good, and less that is bad, than was hoped or feared. + +Its worst portion is the abolition of half the malt tax, which leaves all +the expense of collection undiminished, besides being a removal of a tax +on a luxury which I do not wish to see cheaper. It is probable, however, +that the doubling of the house tax will be rejected, in which case +Disraeli will probably retain the malt tax, and the budget will sink into +a commonplace one. + +The removal of certain burdens on navigation and the change in the income +tax are thought good, and generally the Government has gained by the +budget. I am now inclined to think that it may last for some months +longer--perhaps for some years. + +In the meantime we are in a state of great prosperity: high wages, great +accumulation of capital, low prices of consumable articles, and high +prices of stocks and land. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + +February 27, 1853. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I profit by Sir H. Ellis's visit to write, not +venturing to trust the post. + +We are grieved to hear that both you and Madame de Tocqueville have been +suffering. _We_ have borne this disagreeable winter better than perhaps +we had a right to expect; but still we have suffered. + +Mrs. Grote tells me that you rather complain that the English newspapers +approve of the marriage;[5] a marriage which you all disapprove. + +The fact is that we like the marriage precisely because you dislike it. +We are above all things desirous that the present tyranny should end as +quickly as possible. It can end only by the general alienation of the +French people from the tyrant; and every fault that he commits delights +us, because it is a step towards his fall. To say the truth, I wonder +that you do not take the same view, and rejoice over his follies as +leading to his destruction. + +Our new Government is going on well as yet. As the Opposition has turned +law reformers, we expect law reform to go on as rapidly as is consistent +with the slowly-innovating temper of the English. Large measures +respecting charities, education, secondary punishments, and the transfer +of land are in preparation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is at +work on the difficult--I suspect the insoluble--problem of an equitable +income tax. I foresee, however, a rock ahead. + +This is reform of the constituencies. Lord John Russell, very sillily, +promised two years ago a new Reform Bill. + +Still more sillily he introduced one last year, and was deservedly turned +out for it. + +Still more sillily the present Government has accepted his +responsibility, and is pledged to bring in a measure of reform next year. + +I have been trying to persuade them to pave the way by a Commission of +Inquiry, being certain that the facts on which we ought to agitate are +imperfectly known. But Lord John is unfavourable, and the other Ministers +do not venture to control the leader of the House of Commons. There will, +therefore, be no previous inquiry; at least only the indirect one which +the Government can make for itself. The measure will be concocted in +secrecy, will be found open to unforeseen objections; it will be thrown +out in the House, and will excite no enthusiasm in the country. If the +Government dissolve, the new Parliament will probably be still more +opposed to it than the present Parliament will be; and the Government, +being beaten again, will resign. + +Such is my prophecy. + +_Prenez en acte_, and we will talk it over in May 1854. + +I hope to be in Paris either for the Easter or for the Whitsun +vacation--that is, either about the 24th of March or the 5th of May +next--and I trust to find you and Madame de Tocqueville, if not quite +flourishing, at least quite convalescent. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +[Footnote 1: Republished in the _Biographical Sketches_. Longmans: +1863.--ED.] + + +[Footnote 2: The letter to which this is an answer is not to be +found,--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: This letter is not to be found.--ED.] + +[Footnote 4: Published in 1868.--ED.] + +[Footnote 5: That of the Emperor.--ED.] + + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, May_ 9,1853.--I drank tea with the Tocquevilles. Neither of them +is well. + +In February they were caught, on their journey from Tocqueville to Paris, +by the bitter weather of the beginning of that month. It produced +rheumatism and then pleurisy with him, and inflammation of the bowels +with her; and both are still suffering from the effects either of the +disorder or of the remedies. + +In the summer Paris will be too hot and Tocqueville too damp. So they +have taken a small house at St. Cyr, about a mile from Tours, where they +hope for a tolerable climate, easy access to Paris, and the use of the +fine library of the cathedral. He entered eagerly on the Eastern +question, and agreed on all points with Faucher; admitted the folly and +rashness of the French, but deplored the over-caution which had led us to +refuse interference, at least effectual interference, and to allow +Turkey to sink into virtual subservience to Russia. + +_Paris, Tuesday, May_ 17.--Tocqueville and I stood on my balcony, and +looked along the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de la Concorde, swarming +with equipages, and on the well-dressed crowds in the gardens below. From +the height in which we were placed all those apparently small objects, in +incessant movement, looked like a gigantic ant-hill disturbed. + +'I never,' said Tocqueville, 'have known Paris so animated or apparently +so prosperous. Much is to be attributed to the saving of the four +previous years. The parsimony of the Parisians ended in 1850; but the +parsimony of the provinces, always great, and in unsettled times carried +to actual avarice, lasted during the whole of the Republic. Commercial +persons tell me that the arrival of capital which comes up for investment +from the provinces deranges all their calculations. It is like the sudden +burst of vegetation which you have seen during the last week. We have +passed suddenly from winter to summer. + +'I own,' he continued, 'that it fills me with alarm. Among the +innumerable schemes that are afloat, some must be ill-founded, some must +be swelled beyond their proper dimensions, and some may be mere swindles. +The city of Paris and the Government are spending 150,000,000_l_. in +building in Paris. This is almost as much as the fortifications cost. It +has always been said, and I believe with truth, that the revolutionary +army of 1848 was mainly recruited from the 40,000 additional workmen whom +the fortifications attracted from the country, and left without +employment when they were finished. When this enormous extra-expenditure +is over, when the Louvre, and the new rue de Rivoli, and the Halles, and +the street that is to run from the Hotel de Ville to the northern +boundary of Paris, are completed--that is to say, when a city has been +built out of public money in two or three years--what will become of the +mass of discharged workmen? + +'What will become of those on the railways if they are suddenly stopped, +as yours were in 1846? What will be the shock if the Credit Foncier or +the Credit Mobilier fail, after having borrowed each its milliard? +Everything seems to me to be preparing for one of your panics, and the +Government has so identified itself with the state of prosperity and +state of credit of the country that a panic must produce a revolution. +The Government claims the merit of all that is good, and of course is +held responsible for all that is bad. If we were to have a bad harvest, +it would be laid to the charge of the Emperor. + +'Of course,' he continued, 'I do not desire the perpetuation of the +present tyranny. Its duration as a dynasty I believe to be absolutely +impossible, except in one improbable contingency--a successful war. + +'But though, I repeat, I do not desire or expect the permanence of the +Empire, I do not wish for its immediate destruction, before we are +prepared with a substitute. The agents which are undermining it are +sufficiently powerful and sufficiently active to occasion its fall quite +as soon as we ought to wish for that fall.' + +'And what,' I said, 'are those agents?' + +'The principal agents,' he answered, 'are violence in the provinces and +corruption in Paris. Since the first outbreak there has not been much +violence in Paris. You must have observed that freedom of speech is +universal. In every private society, and even in every _cafe_ hatred or +contempt of the Government are the main topics of conversation. We are +too numerous to be attacked. But in the provinces you will find perfect +silence. Anyone who whispers a word against the Emperor may be +imprisoned, or perhaps transported. The prefects are empowered by one of +the decrees made immediately after the _coup d'etat_ to dissolve any +Conseil communal in which there is the least appearance of disaffection, +and to nominate three persons to administer the commune. In many cases +this has been done, and I could point out to you several communes +governed by the prefect's nominees who cannot read. In time, of course, +tyranny will produce corruption; but it has not yet prevailed extensively +in the country, and the cause which now tends to depopularise him _there_ +is arbitrary violence exercised against those whom his agents suppose to +be their enemies. + +'On the other hand, what is ruining him in Paris is not violence, but +corruption. + +'The French are not like the Americans; they have no sympathy with +smartness. Nothing so much excites their disgust as _friponnerie_. The +main cause that overthrew Louis Philippe was the belief that he and his +were _fripons_--that the representatives bought the electors, that the +Minister bought the representatives, and that the King bought the +Minister. + +'Now, no corruption that ever prevailed in the worst periods of Louis +XV., nothing that was done by La Pompadour or the Du Barry resembles what +is going on now. Duchatel, whose organs are not over-acute, tells me that +he shudders at what is forced on his notice. The perfect absence of +publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the +bar--for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to +be reported--give full room for conversational exaggeration. Bad as +things are, they are made still worse. Now this we cannot bear. It hurts +our strongest passion--our vanity. We feel that we are _exploites_ by +Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers. The +injury might be tolerated, but not the disgrace. + +'Every Government in France has a tendency to become unpopular as it +continues. If you were to go down into the street, and inquire into the +politics of the first hundred persons whom you met, you would find some +Socialists, some Republicans, some Orleanists, &c., but you would find no +Louis Napoleonists. Not a voice would utter his name without some +expression of contempt or detestation, but principally of contempt. + +'If then things take their course--if no accident, such as a fever or a +pistol-shot, cut him off--public indignation will spread from Paris to +the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army, +and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.' + +'And what power,' I said, 'will start up in his place?' + +'I trust,' answered Tocqueville, 'that the reins will be seized by the +Senate. Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying, +"A time may come when we shall be wanted." Probably the Corps Legislatif +will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such +bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.' + +'But what,' I said, 'would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the +fever?' + +'The immediate consequence,' answered Tocqueville, 'would be the +installation of his successor. Jerome would go to the Tuileries as easily +as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end. We might bear Louis +Napoleon for four or five years, or Jerome for four or five months.' + +'It has been thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jerome +dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a +military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.' + +'That,' said Tocqueville, 'is one of the few things which I hold to be +impossible. Nero may be followed by another attempt at a Republic, but if +any individual is to succeed him it must be a prince. _Mere_ personal +distinction, at least such as is within the bounds of real possibility, +will not give the sceptre of France. It will be seized by no one who +cannot pretend to an hereditary claim. + +'What I fear,' continued Tocqueville, 'is that when this man feels the +ground crumbling under him, he will try the resource of war. It will be a +most dangerous experiment. Defeat, or even the alternation of success and +failure, which is the ordinary course of war, would be fatal to him; but +brilliant success might, as I have said before, establish him. It would +be playing double or quits. He is by nature a gambler. His +self-confidence, his reliance, not only on himself, but on his fortune, +exceeds even that of his uncle. He believes himself to have a great +military genius. He certainly planned war a year ago. I do not believe +that he has abandoned it now, though the general feeling of the country +forces him to suspend it. That feeling, however, he might overcome; he +might so contrive as to appear to be forced into hostilities; and such is +the intoxicating effect of military glory, that the Government which +would give us _that_ would be pardoned, whatever were its defects or its +crimes. + +'It is your business, and that of Belgium, to put yourselves into such a +state of defence as to force him to make his spring on Italy. There he +can do you little harm. But to us Frenchmen the consequences of war +_must_ be calamitous. If we fail, they are national loss and humiliation. +If we succeed, they are slavery.' + +'Of course,' I said, 'the corruption that infects the civil service must +in time extend to the army, and make it less fit for service. + +'Of course it must,' answered Tocqueville. 'It will extend still sooner +to the navy? The _materiel_ of a force is more easily injured by jobbing +than the _personnel_. And in the navy the _materiel_ is the principal. + +'Our naval strength has never been in proportion to our naval +expenditure, and is likely to be less and less so every year, at least +during every year of the _regne des fripons_.' + +_Tuesday, May_ 24.--I breakfasted with Sir Henry Ellis and then went to +Tocqueville's. + +I found there an elderly man, who did not remain long. + +When he went, Tocqueville said, 'That is one of our provincial prefects. +He has been describing to us the state of public feeling in the South. +Contempt for the present Government, he tells us, is spreading there from +its headquarters, Paris. + +'If the Corps Legislatif is dissolved, he expects the Opposition to +obtain a majority in the new House. + +'This,' continued Tocqueville, 'is a state of things with which Louis +Napoleon is not fit to cope. Opposition makes him furious, particularly +Parliamentary opposition. His first impulse will be to go a step further +in imitation of his uncle, and abolish the Corps Legislatif, as Napoleon +did the Tribunat. + +'But nearly half a century of Parliamentary life has made the French of +1853 as different from those of 1803 as the nephew is from his uncle. + +'He will scarcely risk another _coup d'etat_; and the only legal mode of +abolishing, or even modifying, the Corps Legislatif is by a plebiscite +submitted by ballot to universal suffrage. + +'Will he venture on this? And if he do venture, will he succeed? If he +fail, will he not sink into a constitutional sovereign, controlled by an +Assembly far more unmanageable than we deputies were, as the Ministers +are excluded from it?' + +'Will he not rather,' I said, 'sink into an exile?' + +'That is my hope,' said Tocqueville, 'but I do not expect it quite so +soon as Thiers does,' + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +St. Cyr, July 2, 1853. + +I am not going to talk to you, my dear Senior, about the Emperor, or the +Empress, or any of the august members of the Imperial Family; nor of the +Ministers, nor of any other public functionaries, because I am a +well-disposed subject who does not wish that the perusal of his letters +should give pain to his Government. I shall write to you upon an +historical problem, and discuss with you events which happened five +hundred years ago. There could not be a more innocent subject. + +I have followed your advice, and I have read, or rather re-read, +Blackstone. I studied him twenty years ago. Each time he has made upon me +the same impression. Now, as then, I have ventured to consider him (if +one may say so without blasphemy) an inferior writer, without liberality +of mind or depth of judgment; in short, a commentator and a lawyer, not +what _we_ understand by the words _jurisconsulte_ and _publiciste_. He +has, too, in a degree which is sometimes amusing, a mania for admiring +all that was done in ancient times, and for attributing to them all that +is good in his own. I am inclined to think that, if he had had to write, +not on the institutions, but on the products of England, he would have +discovered that beer was first made from grapes, and that the hop is a +fruit of the vine--rather a degenerate product, it is true, of the wisdom +of our ancestors, but as such worthy of respect. It is impossible to +imagine an excess more opposite to that of his contemporaries in France, +for whom it was enough that a thing was old for it to be bad. But enough +of Blackstone; he must make way for what I really want to say to you. + +In comparing the feudal institutions in England in the period immediately +after the conquest with those of France, you find between them, not only +an analogy, but a perfect resemblance, much greater than Blackstone seems +to think, or, at any rate, chooses to say. In reality, the system in the +two countries is identical. In France, and over the whole Continent, this +system produced a caste; in England, an aristocracy. How is it that the +word _gentleman_, which in our language denotes a mere superiority of +blood, with you is now used to express a certain social position, and +amount of education, independent of birth; so that in two countries the +same word, though the sound remains the same, has entirely changed its +meaning? When did this revolution take place? How, and through what +transitions? Have no books ever treated of this subject in England? Have +none of your great writers, philosophers, politicians, or historians, +ever noticed this characteristic and pregnant fact, tried to account for +it, and to explain it? + +If I had the honour of a personal acquaintance with Mr. Macaulay, I +should venture to write to ask him these questions. In the excellent +history which he is now publishing he alludes to this fact, but he does +not try to explain it. And yet, as I have said before, there is none more +pregnant, nor containing within it so good an explanation of the +difference between the history of England and that of the other feudal +nations in Europe. If you should meet Mr. Macaulay, I beg you to ask him, +with much respect, to solve these questions for me. But tell me what you +yourself think, and if any other eminent writers have treated this +subject. + +You must think me, my dear friend, very tiresome with all these questions +and dissertations; but of what else can I speak? I pass here the life of +a Benedictine monk, seeing absolutely no one, and writing whenever I am +not walking. I expect this cloistered life to do a great deal of good +both to my mind and body. Do not think that in my convent I forget my +friends. My wife and I constantly talk of them, and especially of you and +of our dear Mrs. Grote. I am reading your MSS.,[1] which interest and +amuse me extremely. They are my relaxation. I have promised Beaumont to +send them to him as soon as I have finished them. + + +St. Cyr, December 8, 1853. + +I must absolutely write to you to-day, my dear Senior. I have long been +wishing to do so, but have been deterred by the annoyance I feel at not +being able to discuss with you a thousand subjects as interesting to you +as they are to me, but which one cannot mention in a letter; for letters +are now less secret than ever, and to insist upon writing politics to our +friends is equivalent to their not hearing from us at all. But I may, at +any rate, without making the police uneasy, assure you of the great +pleasure with which we heard that you intended paying us a little visit +next month. + +There is an excellent hotel at Tours, where you will find good +apartments; for the rest, I hope that you will make our house your inn. +We are near enough to Tours for me to walk there and back, and we +regulate our clocks by the striking of theirs; so you see that it is +difficult to be nearer. + +I think that it is a capital idea of yours to visit French Africa. The +country is curious in itself, also on account of the contrasts afforded +by the different populations which spread over the land without ever +mixing. + +You will find them materials for some of those excellent and interesting +articles which you write so well. When you come I shall be able to give +you some useful information, for I have devoted much attention to +Algiers. I have here a long report which I drew up for the Chamber in +1846, which may give you some valuable ideas, though things have +considerably changed since that time. + +Kind remembrances, &c., + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +[The following are some more of Mrs. Grote's interesting notes. She +preceded Mr. Senior at St. Cyr.--ED.] + +The notes relating to St. Cyr are memoranda of various conversations +which I enjoyed during a stay of some ten days or so at Tours, in +February 1854, with Monsieur Alexis de Tocqueville. I occupied an +apartment in the hotel at Tours, and on almost every day passed some +hours in the company of this interesting friend, who at this time lived +at St. Cyr, in a commodious country-house having its garden, &c, which he +rented. I drove out to dine there frequently, and M. de Tocqueville +walked over on the intervening days and stayed an hour or two at the +hotel with me talking incessantly.--H.G. + +_St. Cyr, February_ 13, 1854,--The French allow no author to have a claim +to the highest rank unless he joins the perfection of style with the +instructiveness of his matter. Only four first-rate writers in the +eighteenth century--_grands ecrivains, comme grands penseurs originaux;_ +these being Montesquieu, Voltaire, J.J. Rousseau, and Buffon. Helvetius +not _en premiere ligne_, because his _forme_ was not up to the mark. +Alexis himself is often hung up for days together, having the thoughts, +yet not hitting off the 'phrases' in a way to satisfy his critical ear as +to style. + +Thinks that when a man is capable of originating a _belle pensee_, he +ought to be also capable of clothing that thought in felicitous language. + +Thinks that a torpid state of political life is unfavourable to +intellectual product in general. + +I instanced the case of Louis XIV. as contradicting this. Not admitted by +Tocqueville. The civil wars of Louis XIV.'s reign had engendered +considerable activity in the minds of the educated class. This activity +generated speculation and scientific inquiry in all the departments of +human thoughts. Abstract ideas became the field on which thinkers +occupied themselves. No _practical_ outlet under despotism, but a certain +social fermentation nevertheless existing, and the want of making itself +a vent impelled intellectual life and writings. I instanced Louis XV. 'At +least,' I said, 'the torpor of political life was become yet more a +habit,' 'Yes,' said Alexis, 'but then there was the principle of +discontent very widely diffused, which was the germ of the revolution of +1789. This restless, disaffected state of the national mind gave birth to +some new forms of intellectual product, tending to rather more distinct +practical results, which filtered down among the middle classes, and +became the objects of their desires and projects.' Rousseau and Voltaire +eminently serviceable in leading the public sentiment towards the middle +of the eighteenth century. + +English writers and statesmen having always enjoyed the power of applying +their minds to actual circumstances, and of appealing through a free +press and free speech also to the public of their day, have never +addressed themselves, as French philosophers did, to the cultivation of +abstract speculations and general theories. Here and there a writer has +been thrown, by his individual tastes and turn of thought, upon the study +of political philosophy; but the Englishman, taken as a public writer, +commonly addresses himself to practical legislation rather than to +recondite studies or logical analysis and investigation of the relations +between mankind and their regulations under authorised powers. Since Lord +Bacon there have been few, excepting in our later times Mill, Bentham, +and his disciples, who have explored the metaphysics of jurisprudence and +moral science in England. Hume dealt in the philosophic treatment of +political subjects, but did not work them up into anything like a +coherent system. English are not fond of generalities, but get on by +their instincts, bit by bit, as need arises. + +Alexis thinks that the writers of the period antecedent to the revolution +of 1789 were quite as much _thrown up by_ the condition of public +sentiment as they were the exciters of it. Nothing _comprehensive_, in +matters of social arrangement, can be effected under a state of things +like that of England; so easy there for a peculiar grievance to get +heard, so easy for a local or class interest to obtain redress against +any form of injustice, that legislation _must_ be 'patching.' Next to +impossible to reorganise a community without a revolution. + +Alexis has been at work for about a year in _rummaging_ amid archives, +partly in those of the capital, partly in those of the Touraine. In this +last town a complete collection is contained of the records of the old +'Intendance,' under which several provinces were governed. Nothing short +of a continuous and laborious poring over the details of Government +furnished by these invaluable _paperasses_ could possibly enable a +student of the past century to frame to himself any clear conception of +the working of the social relations and authorities in old France. There +exists no such tableau. The manners of the higher classes and their daily +life and habits are well portrayed in heaps of memoirs, and even pretty +well understood by our contemporaries. But the whole structure of +society, in its relations with the authorised agents of supreme power, +including the pressure of those secondary obligations arising out of +_coutumes du pays_, is so little understood as to be scarcely available +to a general comprehension of the old French world before 1789. + +Alexis says that the reason why the great upheaving of that period has +never been to this day sufficiently appreciated, never sufficiently +explained, is because the actual living hideousness of the social details +and relations of that period, seen from the points of view of a +penetrating contemporary looker-on, has never yet been depicted in +true colours and with minute particulars. After having dived into the +social history of that century, as I have stated, his conviction is that +it was impossible that the revolution of 1789 should _not_ burst out. +Cause and effect were never more irrevocably associated than in this +terrible case. Nothing but the compulsory idleness and obscurity into +which Alexis has been thrown since December 1851 would have put even him +upon the researches in question. Few perhaps could have addressed +themselves to the task with such remarkable powers of interpretation, and +with such talents for exploring the connection between thought and action +as he is endowed with. Also he is singularly exempt from aristocratical +prejudices, and quite capable of sympathising with popular feeling, +though naturally not partial to democracy. + +_February_ 15.--De Tocqueville came down in close carriage and sat an +hour and a half by fireside. Weather horrible. Talked of La Marck's book +on Mirabeau;[2] said that the line Mirabeau pursued was perfectly well +known to Frenchmen prior to the appearance of La Marck's book; but that +the actual details were of course a new revelation, and highly valued +accordingly. Asked what we thought of it in England. I told him the +leading impression made by the book was the clear perception of the +impossibility of effecting any good or coming to terms in any manner of +way of the revolutionary leaders with such a Court. That we also had long +suspected Mirabeau of being what he was now proved to have been--a man +who, imbued though he was with the spirit of revolutionary action and the +conviction of the rightfulness of demanding prodigious changes, yet who +would willingly have directed the monarch in a method of warding off the +terrible consequences of the storm, and who would, if the Court had +confided to his hands the task of conciliating the popular feelings, have +perhaps preserved the forms of monarchy while affording the requisite +concessions to the national demands. But the Court was so steeped in the +old sentiment of divine right, and moreover so distrustful of Mirabeau's +honour and sagacity (the more so as he was insatiable in his pecuniary +requisitions), that they would never place their cause frankly in his +hands, nor indeed in anyone else's who was capable of discerning their +best interests. Lafayette was regarded as an enemy almost (and was +'jaloused' by Mirabeau as being so popular) on account of his popular +sympathies. De Tocqueville said that so diffused was the spirit of +revolution at the period preceding the convocation of the Etats-generaux, +that the elder Mirabeau, who was a very clever and original-minded man, +though strongly tinctured with the old feudal prejudices, nevertheless +let the fact be seen in the clearest manner in his own writings. He wrote +many tracts on public topics, and De Tocqueville says that the tone in +which Mirabeau (_pere_) handles these proves that he was perfectly +cognisant of the universal spread of revolutionary opinions, and even in +some degree influenced by them in his own person. Mirabeau (the son) was +so aware of the absolute necessity of proclaiming himself emancipated +from the old feudalities, that, among other extravagances of his conduct, +he started as a shopkeeper at Marseilles for some time, by way of +fraternizing with the _bourgeoisie; afficheing_ his liberalism. De +Tocqueville quoted Napoleon as saying in one of his conversations at St. +Helena that he had been a spectator _from a window_ of the scene at the +Tuileries, on the famous August 10, 1792, and that it was his conviction +(Napoleon's) that, even at that stage, the revolution might have been +averted--at least, the furious character of it might have been turned +aside--by judicious modes of negotiation on the part of the King's +advisers. De Tocqueville does not concur in Napoleon's opinion. +'Cahiers,' published 1789, contain the whole body of instructions +supplied to their respective delegates by the _trois etats (clerge, +noblesse, et Tiers Etat_), on assembling in convocation. Of this entire +and voluminous collection (which is deposited in the archives of France) +three volumes of extracts are to be bought which were a kind of _redige_ +of the larger body of documents. In these three volumes De Tocqueville +mentioned, one may trace the course of the public sentiment with perfect +clearness. Each class demanded a large instalment of constitutional +securities; the nobles perhaps demanded the largest amount of all the +three. Nothing could be more thoroughgoing than the requisitions which +the body of the _noblesse_ charged their delegates to enforce in the +Assembly of the Etats-generaux--'egalisations des charges (taxation), +responsabilite des ministres, independance des tribunaux, liberte de la +personne, garantie de la propriete contre la couronne,' a balance-sheet +annually of the public expenses and public revenue, and, in fact, all the +salient privileges necessary in order to enfranchise a community weary of +despotism. The clergy asked for what they wanted with equal resolution, +and the _bourgeoisie_ likewise; but what the nobles were instructed to +demand was the boldest of all. We talked of the letters of the writers of +the eighteenth century, and of the correspondence of various eminent men +and women with David Hume, which Mr. Hill Burton has published in a +supplementary volume in addition to those comprised in his life of David +Hume, and which I have with me. I said that the works of Hume being +freely printed and circulated caused great pleasure to the French men of +letters, mingled with envy at the facility enjoyed by the Englishman of +publishing anything he chose; the French writers being debarred, owing to +the importunity of the clergy with Louis XV., from publishing freely +their works in France, and only managing to get themselves printed by +employing printers at the Hague, Amsterdam, and other towns beyond the +limits of the kingdom. To my surprise, De Tocqueville replied that this +disability, so far from proving disadvantageous to the _esprits forts_ of +the period, and the encyclopaedic school, was a source of gain to them in +every respect. Every book or tract which bore the stamp of being printed +at the Hague or elsewhere, _out of France_, was speedily caught up and +devoured. It was a passport to success. Everyone knowing that, since it +was printed there, it must be of a nature to give offence to the ruling +powers, and especially to the priesthood, and as such, all who were +imbued with the new opinions were sure to run after books bearing this +certificate of merit. De Tocqueville said that the _savans_ of 1760-1789 +would not have printed in France, had they been free to do so, at the +period immediately preceding the accession of Louis XVI. + +Talked of Lafayette: said he was as great as pure, good intentions and +noble instincts could make a man; but that he was _d'un esprit mediocre_, +and utterly at a loss how to turn affairs to profit at critical +junctures--never knew what was coming, no political foresight. Mistake in +putting Louis Philippe on the throne _sans garantie_ in 1830; misled by +his own disinterested character to think better of public men than he +ought to have done. Great personal integrity shown by Lafayette during +the Empire, and under the Restoration: not to be cajoled by any monarch. + +_February_ 16.--The current fallacy of Napoleon having made the important +alterations in the laws of France. All the eminent new enactments +originated in the Constituent Assembly, only that they set to work in +such sledgehammer fashion, that the carrying out their work became +extremely troublesome and difficult. Too abstract in their notions to +estimate difficulties of detail in changing the framework of +jurisprudence. De Tocqueville said philosophers must always originate +laws, but men used to active practical life ought to undertake to direct +the transition from old to new arrangements. The Constituent Assembly did +prodigious things in the way of clearing the ground of past abominations. +Napoleon had the talent of making their work take effect; understood +administrative science, but rendered the centralising principle far too +predominant, in the view to consolidate his own power afterwards. France +has felt this, to her cost, ever since. + +Habit formerly (i.e. 300 years back) as prevalent in France as it is in +England of gentlemen of moderate fortune residing wholly or by far the +greater part of the year on their estates. They ceased to do so from +the time when the sovereign took from them all local authority, from the +fifteenth century or so. The French country-houses were excessively +thickly dotted over the land even up to the year 1600; quantities pulled +down after that period. Country life becoming flat after the gentlemen +ceased to be of importance in their political relations with their +districts, they gave up rural habits and took to living in the provincial +towns. + +De Tocqueville had many conversations with M. Royer Collard respecting +the events of 1789. Difficult to get much out of men of our period +relative to their own early manhood. His own father (now 82) much less +capable of communicating details of former _regime_ than might have been +supposed. Because, says De Tocqueville, youths of eighteen to twenty +hardly ever possess the faculty or the inclination to note social +peculiarities. They accept what they find going, and scarcely give a +thought to the contemplation of what is familiar to them and of every +day's experience. Royer Collard was a man of superior mind: had a great +deal to relate. De Tocqueville used to pump him whenever an opportunity +occurred. Knew Danton well, used to discuss political affairs with him. +When revolution was fairly launched, saw him occasionally. Danton was +venal to the last degree; received money from the Court over and over +again; 'agitated,' and was again sopped by the agents of Marie +Antoinette. When matters grew formidable (in 1791) Royer Collard was +himself induced to become an agent or go-between of the Court for buying +up Danton. He sought an opportunity, and after some prefatory +conversations Royer Collard led Danton to the point. 'No,' said Danton, +'I cannot listen to any such suggestions now. Times are altered. It is +too late. 'Nous le detronerons et puis nous le tuerons,' added he in an +emphatic tone. Royer Collard of course gave up the hope of succeeding. + +Danton's passion for a young girl, whom he married, became his ruin. +While he was honeymooning it by some river's margin, Robespierre got the +upper hand in the Assembly, and caused him to be seized--_mis en +jugement_--and soon afterwards guillotined. The woman did not know, it is +affirmed, that it was Danton who set the massacres of 1792 agoing; she +thought him a good-hearted man. He set all his personal enemies free out +of their prisons prior to the commencement of the massacres; wishing to +be able to boast of having spared his enemies, as a proof that he was +actuated by no ignoble vengeance, but only by a patriotic impulse. He +was a low, mean-souled fanatic, who had no clear conception of what he +was aiming at, but who delighted in the horrid excitement prevailing +around him. It was Tallien who had the chief share in the deposition of +Robespierre and the transactions of the 9th thermidor. Madame Tallien was +then in prison, and going to be executed in a few days (she was not yet +married to Tallien then). She wrote, by stealth of course, a few emphatic +words, with a toothpick and soot wetted, to Tallien which nerved him to +the conflict, and she was saved. Talleyrand told De Tocqueville she was +beyond everything captivating, beautiful, and interesting. She afterwards +became the mistress of Barras, and finally married the Prince de Chimay. + +De Tocqueville has been at Vore, Helvetius' chateau in La Perche--a fine +place, and Helvetius lived _en seigneur_ there. A grand-daughter of +Helvetius married M. de Rochambeau, uncle, by mother's side, of Alexis: +so that the great-grandchildren are De Tocqueville's first cousins. + +In the 'Souvenirs' of M. Berryer (_pere_) he describes the scene of the +9th thermidor, in which he was actively concerned in the interest of the +Convention, and saw Robespierre borne past him with his shattered jaw +along the Quai Pelletier. Also went to the terrace of the Tuileries +gardens to assure himself that Robespierre was really executed the next +day; heard the execrations and shouts which attended his last moments, +but did not stay to witness them. Release of the Duchess of St. Aignan, +under sentence of death, by his father. + +_February_ 18.--A. de Tocqueville came to see me, and we walked out for +half-an-hour. He said he had now spent over eight months in a seclusion +such as he had never experienced in his whole life. That, partly his +own debilitated health, partly the impaired state of his wife's general +powers (nervous system inclusive), partly the extreme aversion he felt +for public affairs and the topics of the day connected with politics; all +these considerations had determined him upon withdrawing himself from +society for a certain space, and _that_ to a considerable distance from +all his friends and relations. A physician, also of widely extended fame +(Dr. Brittonneau), happening to reside close to where they have lodged +themselves, formed an additional link in the chain of motives for +settling themselves at Tours. M. de Tocqueville had some misgivings at +first as to whether, after passing twenty years in active public life, +and in the frequent society of men who occupied the most distinguished +position in the political world, as well as of others not less eminent in +that of letters; whether, he said, the monotony and stillness of his new +mode of life would not be too much for his spirits and render his mind +indolent and depressed. 'But,' said he, 'I have been agreeably reassured. +I have come to regard society as a thing which I can perfectly well do +without. I desire nothing better than to occupy myself, as I have been +doing, with the composition of a work which I am in hopes will travel +over somewhat other than beaten ground. I have found many materials for +my purpose in this spot, and the pursuit has got hold of me to a degree +which renders intellectual labour a source of pleasure; and I prosecute +it steadily, unless when my health is out of order; which, happily, does +not occur so frequently since the last three or four months. My wife's +company serves to encourage me in my work, and to cheer me in every +respect, since an entire sympathy subsists between us, as you know; we +seem to require no addition, and our lives revolve in the most inflexible +routine possible. I rise at half-past five, and work seriously till +half-past nine; then dress for _dejeuner_ at ten. I commonly walk +half-an-hour afterwards, and then set to on some other study--usually of +late in the German language--till two P.M., when I go out again and walk +for two hours, if weather allows. In the evenings I read to amuse myself, +often reading aloud to Madame de Tocqueville, and go to bed at ten P.M. +regularly every night.' + +'Sometimes,' said De Tocqueville, 'I reflect on the difference which may +be discerned between the amount of what a man can effect by even the most +strenuous and well-directed efforts, whether as a public servant or as a +leading man in political life, and what a writer of impressive books has +it in his power to effect. It is true that a man of talent and courage +may acquire a creditable position, may exercise great influence over +other individuals engaged in the same career, and may enjoy a certain +measure of triumphant success in cases where he can put out his strength. +At the same time it strikes me that the best of these exaggerates +immensely the amount of good which he has been able to effect. I look +back upon prodigiously vivid passages in various public men's lives, in +this century, with a melancholy reflection of how little influence their +magnificent efforts have really exercised over the march of human +affairs. A man is apt to believe he has done great things when his +hearers and contemporaries are strongly affected, either by a powerful +speech, or an animated address, or an act of opportune courage, or the +like. But, if we investigate the positive amount of what the individual +has effected in the way of bettering or advancing the general interests +of mankind, by personal exertion on the public stage, I regret to say I +can find hardly an instance of more than a transient, though beneficial, +flash of excitement produced on the public mind. I do not here speak of +men invested with great power--princes, prime ministers, popes, generals +and the like. Of course _they_ produce lasting traces of their _power_, +whether it be for good or evil; and, indeed, _individuals_ have on their +side considerable power to work _mischief_, though not often to work +good. I begin to think that a man not invested with a considerable amount +of political _power_ can do but little good by slaving at the oar of +independent political action. Now, on the contrary, what a vast effect a +_writer_ can produce, when he possesses the requisite knowledge and +endowments! In his cabinet, his thoughts collected, his ideas well +arranged, he may hope to imprint indelible traces on the line of human +progress. What orator, what brilliant patriot at the tribune, could ever +effect the extensive fermentation in a whole nation's sentiments achieved +by Voltaire and Jean Jacques? + +'I have certainly seen reason to change some of my views on social facts, +as well as some reasonings founded on imperfect observation. But the +_fond_ of my opinions can never undergo a change--certain irrevocable +maxims and propositions _must_ constitute the basis of thinking minds. +How such changes can come about as I have lived to see in some men's +states of opinion is to me incomprehensible. Lafayette was foolish enough +to give his support to certain conspiracies--certainly to that of +Befort's, in Alsace. What folly! to seek to upset a despotism by the +agency of the _soldiery_, in the nineteenth century!' + +H. GROTE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior's Journals.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: See _Royal and Republican France_, by H. Reeve Esq. vol. +i.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. SENIOR. + +_St. Cyr, Tuesday, February_ 21, 1854.[1]--On the 20th I left Paris for +Le Tresorier, a country-house in the village of St. Cyr, near Tours, +which the Tocquevilles have been inhabiting for some months. It stands in +a large enclosure of about fifteen acres, of which about ten are orchard +and vineyard, and the remainder are occupied by the house, stables, and a +large garden. The house has a great deal of accommodation, and they pay +for it, imperfectly furnished, 3,000 francs a year, and keep up the +garden, which costs about 500 francs more, being one man at one and +a-half francs a day. + +This is considered dear; but the sheltered position of the house, looking +south, and protected by a hill to the north-east, induced the +Tocquevilles to pay for it about 1,000 francs more than its market value. + +I will throw together the conversations of February 22 and 23. They began +by my giving to him a general account of the opinions of my friends in +Paris. + +'I believe,' said Tocqueville, 'that I should have found out many of your +interlocutors without your naming them. I am sure that I should Thiers, +Duvergier, Broglie, and Rivet; perhaps Faucher--certainly Cousin. I +translate into French what you make them say, and hear them speak. I +recognise Dumon and Lavergne, but I should not have discovered them. The +conversation of neither of them has the marked, peculiar flavour that +distinguishes that of the others. You must recollect, however, that some +of your friends knew, and most of the others must have suspected, that +you were taking notes. Thiers speaks evidently for the purpose of being +reported. To be sure that shows what are the opinions that men wish to be +supposed to entertain, and they often betray what they think that they +conceal. Still it must be admitted that you had not always the natural +man.' 'I am sorry,' he added, 'that you have not penetrated more into the +salons of the Legitimists. You have never got further than a Fusionist. +The Legitimists are not the Russians that Thiers describes them. Still +less do they desire to see Henri V. restored by foreign intervention. +They and their cause have suffered too bitterly for having committed +that crime, or that fault, for them to be capable of repeating it. They +are anti-national so far as not to rejoice in any victories obtained by +France under this man's guidance. But I cannot believe that they would +rejoice in her defeat. They have been so injured in their fortunes and +their influence, have been so long an oppressed caste--excluded from +power, and even from sympathy--that they have acquired the faults of +slaves--have become timid and frivolous, or bitter. + +'They have ceased to be anxious about anything but to be let alone. But +they are a large, a rich, and comparatively well-educated body. Your +picture is incomplete without them, _et il sera toujours tres-difficile +de gouverner sans eux._[2] + +I quite agree,' he continued, 'with Thiers as to the necessity of this +war. Your interests may be more immediate and greater, but ours are very +great. When I say ours, I mean those of France as a country that is +resolved to enjoy constitutional government. I am not sure that if Russia +were to become mistress of the Continent she would not allow France to +continue a quasi-independent despotism under her protectorate. But she +will never willingly allow us to lie powerful and free. + +'I sympathise, too, with Thiers's fears as to the result. I do not +believe that Napoleon himself, with all his energy, and all his +diligence, and all his intelligence, would have thought it possible to +conduct a great war to which his Minister of War was opposed. A man who +has no heart in his business will neglect it, or do it imperfectly. His +first step would have been to dismiss St.-Arnaud. Then, look at the other +two on whose skill and energy we have to depend. One is Ducos, Minister +of Marine, a man of mere commonplace talents and character. The other is +Binneau, Minister of Finance, somewhat inferior to Ducos. Binneau ought +to provide resources. He ought to check the preposterous waste of the +Court. He has not intelligence enough to do the one, or courage enough to +attempt the other. The real Prime Minister is without doubt Louis +Napoleon himself. But he is not a man of business. He does not understand +details. He may order certain things to be done, but he will not be able +to ascertain whether the proper means have been taken. He does not know +indeed what these means are. He does not trust those who do. A war which +would have tasked all the powers of Napoleon, and of Napoleon's Ministers +and generals, is to be carried on without any master-mind to direct it, +or any good instruments to execute it. I fear some great disaster. + +'Such a disaster might throw,' he continued, 'this man from the eminence +on which he is balanced, not rooted. It might produce a popular outbreak, +of which the anarchical party might take advantage. Or, what is perhaps +more to be feared, it might frighten Louis Napoleon into a change of +policy. He is quite capable of turning short round--giving up +everything--key of the Grotto, protectorate of the orthodox, even the +Dardanelles and the Bosphorus--to Nicholas, and asking to be repaid by +the Rhine. + +'I cannot escape from the _cauchemar_ that a couple of years hence France +and England may be at war. Nicholas's expectations have been deceived, +but his plan was not unskilfully laid. He had a fair right to conjecture +that you would think the dangers of this alliance such as to be even +greater than those of allowing him to obtain his protectorate. + +'In deciding otherwise, you have taken the brave and the magnanimous +course. I hope that it may prove the successful one. + +'I am sorry,' continued Tocqueville, 'to see the language of your +newspapers as to the fusion. I did not choose to take part in it. I hate +to have anything to do with pretenders. But as a mere measure of +precaution it is a wise one. It decides what shall be the conduct of the +Royalist party in the event--not an improbable one--of France being +suddenly left without a ruler. + +'Your unmeasured praise of Louis Napoleon and your unmeasured abuse of +the Bourbons are, to a certain degree, the interference in our politics +which you professedly disclaim. I admit the anti-English prejudices +of the Bourbons, and I admit that they are not likely to be abated by +your alliance with a Bonaparte. But the opinions of a constitutional +sovereign do not, like those of a despot, decide the conduct of his +country. The country is anxious for peace, and, above all, peace with +you--for more than peace, for mutual good-feeling. The Bourbons cannot +return except with a constitution. It has become the tradition of the +family, it is their title to the throne. There is not a _vieille +marquise_ in the Faubourg St.-Germain who believes in divine right. + +'The higher classes in France are Bourbonists because they are +Constitutionalists, because they believe that constitutional monarchy is +the government best suited to France, and that the Bourbons offer us the +fairest chance of it. + +'Among the middle classes there is without doubt much inclination for the +social equality of a Republic. But they are alarmed at its instability; +they have never known one live for more than a year or two, or die except +in convulsions. + +'As for the lower classes, the country people think little about +politics, the sensible portion of the artizans care about nothing but +cheap and regular work; the others are Socialists, and, next to the +government of a Rouge Assembly, wish for that of a Rouge despot.' + +'In London,' I said, 'a few weeks ago I came across a French Socialist, +not indeed of the lower orders--for he was a Professor of +Mathematics--but participating in their feelings. "I prefer," he said, "a +Bonaparte to a Bourbon--a Bonaparte must rely on the people, one can +always get something out of him." "What have you got," I asked, "from +this man?" "A great deal," he answered. "We got the Orleans +confiscation--that was a great step. _Il portait attente a la propriete_. +Then he represents the power and majesty of the people. He is like the +people, above all law. _Les Bourbons nous chicanaient._"' + +'That was the true faith of a Rouge,' said Tocqueville 'If this man,' he +added, 'had any self-control, if he would allow us a very moderate degree +of liberty, he might enjoy a reign--probably found a dynasty. He had +everything in his favour; the prestige of his name, the acquiescence of +Europe, the dread of the Socialists, and the contempt felt for the +Republicans. We were tired of Louis Philippe. We remembered the _branche +ainee_ only to dislike it, and the Assembly only to despise it. We never +shall be loyal subjects, but we might have been discontented ones, with +as much moderation as is in our nature.' + +'What is the _nuance_,' I said, 'of G----?' + +'G----,' answered Tocqueville, 'is an honest man, uncorrupt and +public-spirited; he is a clear, logical, but bitter speaker; his words +fall from the tribune like drops of gall. He has great perspicacity, but +rather a narrow range. His vision is neither distant nor comprehensive. +He wears a pair of blinkers, which allow him to see only what he looks +straight at--and that is the English Constitution. For what is to the +right and to the left he has no eyes, and unhappily what is to the right +and to the left is France. + +'Then he has a strong will, perfect self-reliance, and the most restless +activity. All these qualities give him great influence. He led the +_centre gauche_ into most of its errors. H---- used to say, "If you +want to know what I shall do, ask G----." + +'Among the secondary causes of February 1848 he stands prominent. He +planned the banquets. Such demonstrations are safe in England. He +inferred, according to his usual mode of reasoning, that they would not +be dangerous in France. He forgot that in England there is an aristocracy +that leads, and even controls, the people. + +'I am alarmed,' he continued, 'by your Reform Bill. Your new six-pound +franchise must, I suppose, double the constituencies; it is a further +step to universal suffrage, the most fatal and the least remediable of +institutions.[3] + +'While you preserve your aristocracy, you will preserve your freedom; if +that goes, you will fall into the worst of tyrannies, that of a despot, +appointed and controlled, so far as he is controlled at all, by a +mob.'[4] + +Madame de Tocqueville asked me if I had seen the Empress. + +'No,' I said, 'but Mrs. Senior has, and thinks her beautiful.' + +'She is much more so,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'than her portraits. +Her face in perfect repose gets long, and there is a little drooping +about the corners of the mouth. This has a bad effect when she is +serious, as everyone is when sitting for a picture, but disappears as +soon as she speaks. I remember dining in company with her at the +President's--I sat next to him--she was nearly opposite, and close to her +a lady who was much admired. I said to the President, looking towards +Mademoiselle de Montigo, "Really I think that she is far the prettier of +the two." He gazed at her for an instant, and said, "I quite agree with +you; she is charming." It may be a _bon menage_' + +'To come back,' I said, 'to our Eastern question. What is Baraguay +d'Hilliers?' + +'A _brouillon_,' said Tocqueville. 'He is the most impracticable man in +France. His vanity, his ill-temper, and his jealousy make him quarrel +with everybody with whom he comes in contact. In the interest of our +alliance you should get him recalled.' + +'What sort of man,' I asked, 'shall I find General Randon?' + +'Very intelligent,' said Tocqueville. 'He was to have had the command of +the Roman army when Oudinot gave it up; but, just as he was going, it was +discovered that he was a Protestant. He was not so accommodating as one +of our generals during the Restoration. He also was a Protestant. The Duc +d'Angouleme one day said to him, "Vous etes protestant, general?" The +poor man answered in some alarm, for he knew the Duke's +ultra-Catholicism, "Tout ce que vous voulez, monseigneur."' + + + +[Footnote 1: My conversations with M. de Tocqueville during this visit +were written out after my return from Paris and sent to him. He returned +them with the remarks which I have inserted.--N.W. SENIOR.] + +[Footnote 2: Le portrait va plus loin que ma pensee.--_A. de +Tocqueville_. The picture expresses more than my idea.] + +[Footnote 3: Cela va plus loin que ma pensee. Je crois que le vote +universel peut se concilier avec d'autres institutions, qui diminuerait +le danger.--_A. de Tocqueville._ + +This goes farther than my idea. I think that universal suffrage may be +combined with other institutions, which would diminish the danger.] + +[Footnote 4: Cela aussi va plus loin que ma pensee. Je crois +tres-desirable le maintien des institutions aristocratiques en +Angleterre. Mais je suis loin de dire que leur abolition menerait +necessairement au despotisme, surtout si elles s'affaiblissaient peu a +peu et n'etaient pas renversees par une revolution.--_A. de Tocqueville_. + +This also goes farther than my idea. I think the maintenance in England +of aristocratic institutions very desirable. But I am far from saying +that their abolition would necessarily lead to despotism, especially if +their power were diminished gradually and without the shock of a +revolution.] + + + + +_To N.W. Senior, Esq._ + +St. Cyr, March 18, 1854. + +Your letter was a real joy to us, my dear Senior. As you consent to be +ill lodged, we offer to you with all our hearts the bachelor's room which +you saw. You will find there only a bed, without curtains, and some very +shabby furniture. But you will find hosts who will be charmed to have you +and your MSS. I beg you not to forget the latter. + +My wife, as housekeeper, desires me to give you an important piece of +advice. In the provinces, especially during Lent, it is difficult to get +good meat on Fridays and Saturdays, and though you are a great sinner, +she has no wish to force you to do penance, especially against your will, +as that would take away all the merit. She advises you, therefore, to +arrange to spend with us Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and +Thursday, and to avoid Friday and Saturday, and especially the whole of +the Holy Week. + +Now you are provided with the necessary instructions. Choose your own +day, and give us twenty-four hours' warning. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +St. Cyr, March 31, 1854. + +My dear Senior,--As you are willing to encounter hard meat and river +fish, I have no objection to your new plan. I see in it even this +advantage, that you will be able to tell us _de visu_ what went on in the +Corps Legislatif, which will greatly interest us. + +The condemnation of Montalembert seems to me to be certain; but I am no +less curious to know how that honourable assembly will contrive to +condemn a private letter which appeared in a foreign country, and which +was probably published without the authorisation and against the will of +the writer. + +It is a servile trick, which I should like to see played. + +Do not hesitate to postpone your visit if the sitting of the Corps +Legislatif should not take place on Monday. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +I passed the 3rd and 4th of April in the Corps Legislatif listening to +the debate on the demand by the Government of permission to prosecute M. +de Montalembert, a member of the Corps Legislatif, for the publication of +a letter to M. Dupin, which it treated as libellous. As it was supposed +that M. de Montalembert's speech would be suppressed, I wrote as +much of it as I could carry in my recollection; the only other +vehicle--notes--not being allowed to be taken.[1] On the evening of the +5th of April I left Paris for St. Cyr. + +[Footnote 1: See Appendix.] + +_St. Cyr, Thursday, April 6_, 1854.--I drove with Tocqueville to +Chenonceaux, a chateau of the sixteenth century, about sixteen miles from +Tours, on the Cher. I say _on_ the Cher, for such is literally its +position. It is a habitable bridge, stretching across the water. + +The two first arches, which spring from the right bank of the river, and +the piers which form their abutments, are about one hundred feet wide, +and support a considerable house. The others support merely a gallery, +called by our guide the ballroom of Catherine de Medicis, ending in a +small theatre. The view from the windows of the river flowing through +wooded meadows is beautiful and peculiar. Every window looks on the +river; many rooms, as is the case with the gallery, look both up and down +it. It must be a charming summer residence. The rooms still retain the +furniture which was put into them by Diane de Poictiers and Catherine de +Medicis; very curious and very uncomfortable; high narrow chairs, short +sofas, many-footed tables, and diminutive mirrors. The sculptured +pilasters, scrolls, bas-reliefs and tracery of the outside are not of +fine workmanship, but are graceful and picturesque. The associations are +interesting, beginning with Francis I. and ending with Rousseau, who +spent there the autumn of 1746, as the guest of Madame Dupin, and wrote a +comedy for its little theatre. The present proprietor, the Marquis de +Villeneuve, is Madame Dupin's grandson. + +In the evening we read my report of the debate on Montalembert. + +'It is difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to wish that so great a speech had +been suppressed. But I am inclined to think that Montalembert's wiser +course was to remain silent. What good will his speech do? It will not be +published. Yours is probably the only report of it. So far as the public +hears anything of it, the versions coming through an unfavourable medium +will be misrepresentations. In a letter which I received from Paris +this morning it is called virulent. It was of great importance that the +minority against granting the consent should be large, and I have no +doubt that this speech diminished it by twenty or thirty. It must have +wounded many, frightened many, and afforded a pretext to many. Perhaps, +however, it was not in human nature for such a speaker as Montalembert to +resist the last opportunity of uttering bold truths in a French +Assembly.' + +_Friday, April_ 7.--We drove to-day along the Loire to Langrais, about +twelve miles below Tours. + +Here is a castle of the thirteenth century, consisting of two centre and +two corner towers, and a curtain between them, terminating in a rocky +promontory. Nothing can be more perfect than the masonry, or more elegant +than the few ornaments. The outside is covered with marks of bullets, +which appear to have rattled against it with little effect. + +On our return we visited the castles of Cinq Mars and Luynes. Langrais, +Cinq Mars, and Luynes were all the property of Effiat, Marquis of Cinq +Mars, who with De Thou conspired against Richelieu in the latter part of +Louis XIII.'s reign, and was beheaded. The towers of Cinq Mars were, in +the words of his sentence, 'rasees a la hauteur de l'infamie,' and remain +now cut down to half their original height. Luynes stands finely, +crowning a knoll overlooking the Loire. It is square, with twelve towers, +two on each side and four in the corners, and a vast ditch, and must have +been strong. Nearly a mile from it are the remains of a Roman aqueduct, +of which about thirty piers and six perfect arches remain. It is of +stone, except the arches, which have a mixture of brick. The peasants, by +digging under the foundations, are rapidly destroying it. An old man told +us that he had seen six or seven piers tumble. A little nearer to Tours +is the Pile de Cinq Mars, a solid, nearly square tower of Roman brickwork +more than ninety feet high, and about twelve feet by fourteen feet thick. +On one side there appear to have been inscriptions or bas-reliefs. Ampere +believes it to have been a Roman tomb; but the antiquaries are divided +and perplexed. Being absolutely solid, it could not have been built for +any use. + +I am struck during my walks and drives by the appearance of prosperity. +The country about Tours is dotted with country-houses, quite as numerous +as in any part of England. In St. Cyr alone there must be between twenty +and thirty, and the houses of the peasants are far better than the best +cottages of English labourers. Everyone seems to have attached to it a +considerable piece of land, from ten acres to two, cultivated in vines, +vegetables and fruit. These and green crops are nearly the only produce; +there is very little grain. All the persons whom I met appeared to be +healthy and well-clad. The soil and climate are good, and the proximity +to Tours insures a market; but physical advantages are not enough to +insure prosperity. The neighbourhood of Cork enjoys a good climate, soil, +and market, but the inhabitants are not prosperous. + +After some discussion Tocqueville agreed with me in attributing the +comfort of the Tourainese to the slowness with which population +increases. In the commune of Tocqueville the births are only three to a +marriage, but both Monsieur and Madame de Tocqueville think that the +number of children here is still less. I scarcely meet any. + +Marriages are late, and very seldom take place until a house and a bit of +ground and some capital have been inherited or accumulated. Touraine is +the best specimen of the _petite culture_ that I have seen. The want of +wood makes it objectionable as a summer residence. + +We are now suffering from heat. After eight in the morning it is too hot +to walk along the naked glaring roads, yet this is only the first week in +April. + +_Saturday, April_ 8.--The sun has been so scorching during our two last +drives that we have given ourselves a holiday to-day, and only dawdled +about Tours. + +We went first to the cathedral, which I never see without increased +pleasure. Though nearly four hundred years passed from its commencement +in the twelfth century to its completion in the fifteenth, the whole +interior is as harmonious as if it had been finished by the artist who +began it. I know nothing in Gothic architecture superior to the grandeur, +richness, and yet lightness of the choir and eastern apse. Thence we +went to St. Julien's, a fine old church of the thirteenth century, +desecrated in the Revolution, but now under restoration. + +Thence to the Hotel Gouin, a specimen of the purely domestic architecture +of the fifteenth century, covered with elegant tracery and scroll-work in +white marble. We ended with Plessis-les-Tours, Louis XI.'s castle, which +stands on a flat, somewhat marshy, tongue of land stretching between the +Loire and the Cher. All that remains is a small portion of one of the +inner courts, probably a guard-room, and a cellar pointed out to us as +the prison in which Louis XI kept Cardinal de la Balue for several years. +The cellar itself is not bad for a prison of those days, but he is said +to have passed his first year or two in a grated vault under the +staircase, in which he could neither stand up nor lie at full length. + +'It is remarkable,' said Tocqueville, 'that the glorious reigns in French +history, such as those of Louis Onze, Louis Quatorze, and Napoleon ended +in the utmost misery and exhaustion, while the periods at which we are +accustomed to look as those of disturbance and insecurity were those of +comparative prosperity and progress. It seems as if tyranny were worse +than civil war.' + +'And yet,' I said, 'the amount of revenue which these despots managed to +squeeze out of France was never large. The taxation under Napoleon was +much less than under Louis Philippe.' + +'Yes,' said Tocqueville, 'but it was the want of power to tax avowedly +that led them into indirect modes of raising money, which were far more +mischievous; just as our servants put us to more expense by their jobs +than they would do if they simply robbed us to twice the amount of their +indirect gains. + +'Louis XIV. destroyed all the municipal franchises of France, and paved +the way for this centralized tyranny, not from any dislike of municipal +elections, but merely in order to be able himself to sell the places +which the citizens had been accustomed to grant.' + +_Sunday, April_ 9.--Another sultry day. I waited till the sun was low, +and then sauntered by the side of the river with Tocqueville. + +'The worst faults of this Government,' said Tocqueville, 'are those which +do not alarm the public. + +'It is depriving us of the local franchises and local self-government +which we have extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty +years. The Restoration and the Government of July were as absolute +centralizers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced +to surrender they made over to the narrow pays legal, the privileged +ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic +gave the name of Conseils-generaux to the people, and thus dethroned the +notaires who had governed those assemblies when they represented only the +_bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the maires elective. The Republic placed +education in the hands of local authorities. Under its influence, the +communes, the cantons, and the departments were becoming real +administrative bodies. They are now mere geographical divisions. The +prefet appoints the maires. The prefet appoints in every canton a +commissaire de police--seldom a respectable man, as the office is not +honourable. The gardes champetres, who are our local police, are put +under his control. The recteur, who was a sort of local Minister of +Education in every department, is suppressed. His powers are transferred +to the prefet. The prefet appoints, promotes, and dismisses all the +masters of the _ecoles primaires._ He has the power to convert the +commune into a mere unorganised aggregation of individuals, by dismissing +every communal functionary, and placing its concerns in the hands of his +own nominees. There are many hundreds of communes that have been thus +treated, and whose masters now are uneducated peasants. The prefet can +dissolve the Conseil-general of his department and, although he cannot +directly name its successors, he does so virtually. + +'No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless he is supported +by the Government. The prefet can destroy the prosperity of every commune +that displeases him. He can dismiss its functionaries, close its schools, +obstruct its improvements, and withhold the assistance in money which the +Government habitually gives to forward the public purposes of a commune. + +'The Courts of Law, both criminal and civil, are the tools of the +Executive. The Government appoints the judges, the prefet provides the +jury, and _la haute police_ acts without either. + +'All power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from +mouth to mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, +the printers are the slaves of the prefet, as they lose their privilege +if they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly +violated; there are spies to watch and report conversation. + +'Every individual stands defenceless and insulated in the face of this +unscrupulous Executive with its thousands of armed hands and its +thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the +abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, whatever be the man, the +candidate of the prefet comes in; but if he is a man who would have been +universally rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show +their indignation by their absence. I do not believe that, even with +peace, and with the prosperity which usually accompanies peace, such a +Government could long keep down such a country as France. Whether its +existence would be prolonged by a successful war I will not decide. +Perhaps it might be. + +'That it cannot carry on a war only moderately successful, or a war which +from its difficulties and its distance may be generally believed to be +ill managed, still less a war stained by some real disaster, seems to me +certain--if anything in the future of France can be called certain. + +'The vast democratic sea on which the Empire floats is governed by +currents and agitated by ground-swells, which the Government discovers +only by their effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence +these great, apparently slumbering, masses; indeed it takes care, by +stifling their expression, to prevent their being known. Universal +suffrage is a detestable element of government, but it is a powerful +revolutionary instrument' + +'But,' I said, 'the people will not have an opportunity of using that +instrument. All the great elective bodies have some years before them.' + +'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'and therefore their rage will break +out in a more direct, and perhaps more formidable, form. Depend on it, +this Government can exist, even for a time, only on the condition of +brilliant, successful war, or prosperous peace. It is bound to be rapidly +and clearly victorious. If it fail in this, it will sink--or perhaps, in +its terrors and its struggles, it will catch at the other alternative, +peace. + +'The French public is too ignorant to care much about Russian +aggrandisement. So far as it fancies that the strength of Russia is the +weakness of England, it is pleased with it. I am not sure that the most +dishonourable peace with Nicholas would not give to Louis Napoleon an +immediate popularity. I am sure that it would, if it were accompanied by +any baits to the national vanity and cupidity; by the offer of Savoy for +instance, or the Balearic Islands. And if you were to quarrel with us for +accepting them, it would be easy to turn against you our old feelings of +jealousy and hatred.' + +We saw vast columns of smoke on the other side of the river. Those whom +we questioned believed them to arise from an intentional fire. Such fires +are symptoms of popular discontent. They preceded the revolution of 1830. +They have become frequent of late in this country. + +_Monday, April_ 10.--Tocqueville and I drove this morning to +Azy-le-Rideau, another Francis I. chateau, on an island formed by the +Indre. It is less beautifully situated than Chenonceaux; the river Indre +is smaller and more sluggish than the Cher; the site of the castle is in +a hollow, and the trees round it approach too near, and are the tall and +closely planted poles which the French seem to admire. But the +architecture, both in its outlines and in its details, is charming. +It is of white stone, in this form, with two curtains and four +towers. The whole outside and the ceilings and cornices within are +covered with delicate arabesques. + + O ______________ 0 + | |______________| | + 0 \ | | + \ | | + \| | + | | + 0 + +Like Chenonceaux, it escaped the revolution, and is now, with its +furniture of the sixteenth century, the residence of the Marquis de +Biancourt, descended from its ancient proprietors. + +As we sauntered over the gardens, our conversation turned on the old +aristocracy of France. + +'The loss of our aristocracy,' said Tocqueville, 'is a misfortune from +which we have not even begun to recover. The Legitimists are their +territorial successors; they are the successors in their manners, in +their loyalty, and in their prejudices of _caste_; but they are not their +successors in cultivation, or intelligence, or energy, or, therefore, in +influence. Between them and the _bourgeoisie_ is a chasm, which shows no +tendency to close. Nothing but a common interest and a common pursuit +will bring them together. + +'If the murder of the Duc d'Enghien had not made them recoil in terror +and disgust from Napoleon, they might have perhaps been welded into one +mass with his new aristocracy of services, talents, and wealth. They were +ready to adhere to him during the Consulate. During the Restoration they +were always at war with the _bourgeoisie_, and therefore with the +constitution, on which the power of their enemies depended. When the +result of that war was the defeat and expulsion of their leader, Charles +X., their hostility extended from the _bourgeoisie_ and the constitution +up to the Crown. Louis Philippe tried to govern by means of the middle +classes alone. Perhaps it was inevitable that he should make the attempt. +It certainly was inevitable that he should fail. The higher classes, and +the lower classes, all equally offended, combined to overthrow him. Under +the Republic they again took, to a certain extent, their place in the +State. They led the country people, who came to the assistance of the +Assembly in June 1848. The Republic was wise enough to impose no oaths. +It did not require those who were willing to serve it to begin by openly +disavowing their traditionary opinions and principles. The Legitimists +took their places in the Conseils-generaux. They joined with the +_bourgeoisie_ in local administration, the only means by which men of +different classes can coalesce. + +'The socialist tendencies which are imputed to this Second Empire, the +oath which it most imprudently imposes, its pretensions to form a dynasty +and its assertion of the principle most abhorrent to them, elective +monarchy, have thrown them back into disaffection. And I believe their +disaffection to be one of our great dangers--a danger certainly increased +by the Fusion. The principal object of the Fusion is to influence the +army. The great terror of the army is division in itself. It will accept +anything, give up anything, dare anything, to avoid civil war. Rather +than be divided between the two branches, it would have adhered to the +Empire. Now it can throw off the Bonapartes without occasioning a +disputed succession.' + +'When you say,' I asked, 'that the Legitimists are not the successors of +the old aristocracy in cultivation, intelligence, or energy, do you mean +to ascribe to them positive or relative inferiority in these qualities?' + +'In energy,' answered Tocqueville, 'their deficiency is positive. They +are ready to suffer for their cause, they are not ready to exert +themselves for it. In intelligence and cultivation they are superior to +any other class in France; but they are inferior to the English +aristocracy, and they are inferior, as I said before, to their ancestors +of the eighteenth century. There existed in the highest Parisian society +towards the end of that century a comprehensiveness of curiosity and +inquiry, a freedom of opinion, an independence, and soundness of +judgment, never seen before or since. Its pursuits, its pleasures, its +admirations, its vanities, were all intellectual. Look at the success of +Hume. His manners were awkward; he was a heavy, though an instructive, +converser; he spoke bad French; he would pass now for an intelligent +bore. But such was the worship then paid to talents and +knowledge--especially to knowledge, and talents employed on the +destruction of prejudices--that Hume was, for years, the lion of all the +salons of Paris. The fashionable beauties quarrelled for the fat +philosopher. Nor was their admiration or affection put on, or even +transitory. He retained some of them as intimate friends for life. +If the brilliant talkers and writers of that time were to return to life, +I do not believe that gas, or steam, or chloroform, or the electric +telegraph, would so much astonish them as the dulness of modern society, +and the mediocrity of modern books.' + +In the evening we discussed the new scheme of throwing open the service +of India and of the Government offices to public competition. + +'We have followed,' said Tocqueville, 'that system to a great extent for +many years. Our object was twofold. One was to depress the aristocracy of +wealth, birth, and connexions. In this we have succeeded. + +The Ecole Polytechnique, and the other schools in which the vacancies are +given to those who pass the best examinations, are filled by youths +belonging to the middle classes, who, undistracted by society, or +amusement, or by any literary or scientific pursuits, except those +immediately bearing on their examinations, beat their better-born +competitors, who will not degrade themselves into the mere slaves of +success in the _concours_. Our other object was to obtain the best public +servants. In that we have failed. We have brought knowledge and ability +to an average; diminished the number of incompetent _employes_, and +reduced, almost to nothing, the number of distinguished ones. Continued +application to a small number of subjects, and those always the same, not +selected by the student, but imposed on him by the inflexible rule of the +establishment, without reference to his tastes or to his powers, is as +bad for the mind as the constant exercise of one set of muscles would be +for the body. + +'We have a name for those who have been thus educated. They are called +"polytechnises." If you follow our example, you will increase your +second-rates, and extinguish your first-rates; and what is perhaps a more +important result, whether you consider it a good or an evil, you will +make a large stride in the direction in which you have lately made so +many--the removing the government and the administration of England from +the hands of the higher classes into those of the middle and lower ones.' + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + + +Paris, Sunday, May 14, 1854. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I write to you _in meditatione fugae_. We start for +England in an hour's time. The last news that I heard of you was the day +before yesterday from Cousin. He read me your letter, which sounded to me +like that of a man in not very bad health or hopes. I trust that the +attack of which Madame de Tocqueville wrote to us has quite passed off. + +Thiers, who asked very anxiously after you to-day, is earnest that you +should be present at the election on the 18th. The Academy, he said, is +very jealous. _Vous serez tres-mal vu_, if you do not come. + +You are at last going seriously to work in the war. By the end of the +year you will have, military and naval, 700,000 men in arms. + +I wish that they were nearer to the enemy. + +Pray remember us most kindly to Madame de Tocqueville, and let us know +where you go as soon as you are decided. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. Senior. + + +St. Cyr, May 21, 1854. + +I followed the advice which you were commissioned to give me, my dear +Senior. I have just been to Paris, but as I stayed there only twenty-four +hours I have not brought back any distinct impressions. + +I saw only Academicians who talked about the Academy, and--who knew +nothing of politics. It is true that such is now the case with everyone. +Politics, which used to be transacted in open day, have now become a +secret process into which none can penetrate except the two or three +alchemists who are engaged in its preparation. + +You heard of course that after your little visit, which we enjoyed so +much, I became very unwell, and my mind was only less affected than my +body. I spent a month very much out of spirits and very much tired of +myself. During the last eight or ten days I have felt much better. My +visit to our friends the Beaumonts did me a great deal of good, and I owe +a grudge to the Academy for forcing me to shorten it. + +I still intend to visit Germany, but the plan depends on the state of my +health. When it is bad I am inclined to give up the journey, when I am +better I take it up again and look forward to it with pleasure. On the +whole I think that I shall go. But it is impossible for me to settle my +route beforehand. Even if I were stronger it would be difficult, for such +an expedition must always be uncertain. + +I am not going to Germany to see any place in particular, but intend to +go hither and thither wherever I can find certain documents and people. + +I received yesterday a letter from our friend Ampere. He is still in +Rome, still more and more enchanted with the place, and using every +argument to induce us to spend there with him the winter of 1856. His +descriptions are so attractive that we may very likely be persuaded, +especially if we had any chance of meeting you there, for you are one of +the people whose society always increases the happiness of life. However, +we have plenty of time for talking over this plan. + +Adieu, dear Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Wildbad, September 19, 1854. + +You gave me great pleasure, my dear Senior, by making me acquainted with +Sir George and Lady Theresa Lewis. + +I must really thank you sincerely for it, for the time passed with them +has been the most agreeable part of our journey. + +You have no doubt heard of the mischance which has put a stop to our +peregrinations: my wife was seized two months ago at Bonn by a violent +attack of rheumatism. The waters of Wildbad were recommended to her, and +she has been taking them for more than twenty-five days without +experiencing any relief. We are promised that the effects will be felt +afterwards; but these fine promises only half reassure us, and we shall +set out again on our travels in very bad spirits. + +Our original intention was to spend the autumn in the North of Germany, +but in Madame de Tocqueville's condition it is evident that there is +nothing else to be done but to return home as fast as we can. + +We are somewhat consoled by the arrival of our common friend Ampere. He +was returning from Italy, through Germany, and, hearing of our +misfortune, he has come to look after us in these wild mountains of the +Black Forest amidst which Wildbad is situated. He has been with us a +week, and I hope that he will accompany us home. + +Our intention is to spend a month or six weeks with my father near +Compiegne. Towards the first week in November we shall establish +ourselves in Paris for the winter. We hope to see you there at the end of +this year or the beginning of next. + +Ampere, my wife, and I constantly talk of you. If you could overhear us I +think you would not be very much dissatisfied. They insist upon being +very particularly remembered to you, and as for me I beg you to believe +in my most sincere attachment. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Compiegne, January 22, 1855. + +It was a long time since I had seen your handwriting, my dear Senior, and +I was beginning to complain of you; your letter therefore was a double +pleasure. + +I see that you have resumed your intention of visiting Algiers, and I am +anxious that you should carry it into effect. + +I hope that we shall be in Paris when you pass through. We put off our +departure from day to day; not that we are kept by the charms of our +present abode; the house is too small for us and scantily furnished, but +I find it such a favourable retreat for study, that I have great +difficulty in tearing myself away from it. + +I hear, as you do, with great satisfaction of the mutual good feeling of +our armies in the Crimea. It far exceeds my expectations. + +But I am not equally pleased with your management of the war. The English +ought to know that what has passed and is passing there has sensibly +diminished their moral force in Europe. It is an unpleasant truth, but I +ought not to conceal it from you. I see proofs of it every day, and I +have been struck by it peculiarly in a late visit to Paris, where I saw +persons of every rank and of every shade of political opinion. The heroic +courage of your soldiers was everywhere and unreservedly praised, but I +found also a general belief that the importance of England as a military +Power had been greatly exaggerated; that she is utterly devoid of +military talent, which is shown as much in administration as in fighting; +and that even in the most pressing circumstances she cannot raise a large +army. + +Since I was a child I never heard such language. You are believed to be +absolutely dependent on us; and in the midst of our intimacy I see rising +a friendly contempt for you, which if our Governments quarrel, will make +a war with you much easier than it has been since the fall of Napoleon. + +I grieve at all this, not only as endangering the English alliance, +which, as you well know, I cherish, but as injuring the cause of liberty. + +I can pardon you for discrediting it by your adulation of our despotism, +but I wish that you would not serve despotism more efficaciously by your +own faults, and by the comparisons which they suggest. + +It seems also difficult to say what may not be the results of your long +intimacy with such a Government as ours, and of the contact of the two +armies. I doubt whether they will be useful to your aristocracy. + +Remember me to Lord Lansdowne and to the Lewises, who added such pleasure +to our German tour. + + + +Compiegne, February 15, 1855. + +I conclude that this frightful weather is still keeping you in London, my +dear Senior. I am comforted by the fact that I myself shall not reach +Paris before the 28th. + +I do not wish to act the part of the pedagogue in the fable who preaches +to people when his sermon can no longer be of any possible use, but I +cannot help telling you that it is a great imprudence on your part to +allow yourself to be caught in this way by the winter in England. What +you now suffer from is only a trifling malady, but it may become a real +illness if you persist in preferring pleasure to health. Pray think of +this in the future and do not tempt the devil. + +I have not read the article to which you refer.[1] + +I can perfectly understand the reserve which was imposed upon you, and +which you were forced to impose on yourself. + +I confess that I saw with great grief the sudden change in the +expressions of the majority of the English, a year ago, respecting our +Government. It was then ill consolidated, and in want of the splendid +alliance which you offered to it. It was unnecessary that you should +praise it, in order to keep it your friend. By doing so you sacrificed +honourable opinions and tastes without a motive. + +Now things are changed. After you have lost your only army, and our +master has made an alliance with Austria, which suits his feelings much +better than yours did, he does not depend on you; you, to a certain +extent, depend on him. Such being now the case, I can understand the +English thinking it their duty to their country to say nothing that can +offend the master of France. I can understand even their praising him; I +reproach them only for having done so too soon, before it was necessary. + +I agree with you that England ought to be satisfied with being the +greatest maritime Power, and ought not to aim at being also one of the +greatest military Powers. + +But the feelings which I described to you as prevalent in France and in +Germany, arose not from your want of an army of 500,000 men. They were +excited by these two facts. + +First, by what was supposed (perhaps falsely) to be the bad military +administration of your only army. Secondly, and much more, by your +apparent inability to raise another army. + +According to continental notions, a nation which cannot raise as many +troops as its wants require, loses our respect. It ceases, according to +our notions, to be great or even to be patriotic. And I must confess +that, considering how difficult it is to procure soldiers by voluntary +enlistment, and how easily every nation can obtain them by other means, I +do not see how you will be able to hold your high rank, unless your +people will consent to something resembling a conscription. + +Dangerous as it is to speak of a foreign country, I venture to say that +England is mistaken if she thinks that she can continue separated from +the rest of the world, and preserve all her peculiar institutions +uninfluenced by those which prevail over the whole of the Continent. + +In the period in which we live, and, still more, in the period which is +approaching, no European nation can long remain absolutely dissimilar to +all the others. I believe that a law existing over the whole Continent +must in time influence the laws of Great Britain, notwithstanding the +sea, and notwithstanding the habits and institutions, which, still more +than the sea, have separated you from us, up to the present time. + +My prophecies may not be accomplished in our time; but I should not be +sorry to deposit this letter with a notary, to be opened, and their truth +or falsehood proved, fifty years hence. + + + +Compiegne, February 23, 1855. + + ... My object in my last letter was not by any means, as you seem to +think, to accuse _your aristocracy_ of having mismanaged the Crimean war. +It has certainly been mismanaged, but who has been in fault? + +Indeed I know not, and if I did I should think at the same time that it +would not be becoming in a foreigner to set himself up as a judge of the +blunders of any other Government than his own. + +I thought that I had expressed myself clearly. At any rate what I wanted +to say, if I did not say it, is, that the present events created in my +opinion a new and great danger for your aristocracy, and that it will +suffer severely from the rebound, if it does not make enormous efforts to +show itself capable of repairing the past; and that it would be wrong to +suppose that by fighting bravely on the field of battle it could retain +the direction of the Government. + +I did not intend to say more than this. + +I will now add that if it persuades itself that it will easily get out of +the difficulty by making peace, I think that it will find itself +mistaken. + +Peace, after what has happened, may be a good thing for England in +general, and useful to us, but I doubt whether it will be a gain for your +aristocracy. I think that if Chatham could return to life he would agree +with me, and would say that under the circumstances the remedy would not +be peace but a more successful war. + +Kind regards, &c. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: An article in the _North British Review_, see p. 107.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, Hotel Bedford.--Friday, March_ 2, 1855.--We slept on the 27th at +Calais, on the 28th at Amiens, and reached this place last night. + +Tocqueville called on us this morning. We talked of the probability of +Louis Napoleon's going to the Crimea. + +I said, 'that the report made by Lord John Russell, who talked the matter +over with him, was, that he certainly had once intended to go, and had +not given it up.' + +'I do not value,' said Tocqueville, 'Lord John's inferences from anything +that he heard or saw in his audiences. All Louis Napoleon's words and +looks, are, whether intentionally or not, misleading. Now that his having +direct issue seems out of the question, and that the deeper and deeper +discredit into which the heir presumptive is falling, seems to put _him_ +out of the question too, we are looking to this journey with great alarm. +We feel that, for the present, his life is necessary to us, and we feel +that it would be exposed to many hazards. He ought to incur some military +risks, if he is present at a battle or an assault, and his courage and +his fatalism, will lead him to many which he ought to avoid. But it is +disease rather than bullets that we fear. He will have to travel hard, +and to be exposed, under exciting circumstances, to a climate which is +not a safe one even to the strong.' + +'But,' I said, 'he will not be exposed to it long. I have heard thirty, +or at most forty, days proposed as the length of his absence.' + +'Who can say that?' answered Tocqueville. 'If he goes there, he must stay +there until Sebastopol falls. It will not do for him to leave Paris in +order merely to look at the works, pat the generals on the back, +compliment the army, and leave it in the trenches. Unless his journey +produces some great success--in short, unless it gives us Sebastopol--it +will be considered a failure; and a failure he cannot afford. I repeat +that he must stay there till Sebastopol falls. But that may be months. +And what may months bring forth in such a country as France? In such a +city as Paris? In such times as these? Then he cannot safely leave his +cousin--Jerome Plon swears that he will not go, and I do not see how he +can be taken by force.' + +'I do not understand,' I said, 'Jerome's conduct. It seemed as if he had +the ball at his feet. The _role_ of an heir is the easiest in the world. +He has only to behave decently in order to be popular.' + +'Jerome's chances,' answered Tocqueville, 'of the popularity which is to +be obtained by decent behaviour were over long before he became an heir. +His talents are considerable, but he has no principles, and no good +sense. He is Corsican to the bone. I watched him among his Montagnards in +the Constituent. + +'Nothing could be more perverse than his votes, nor more offensive than +his speeches. He is unfit to conciliate the sensible portion of society, +and naturally throws himself into the arms of those who are waiting to +receive him--the violent, the rapacious, and the anarchical: this gives +him at least some adherents.' + +'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of his conduct in the East?' + +'I hear,' said Tocqueville, 'that he showed want, not so much of courage, +as of temper and of subordination. He would not obey orders; he would not +even transmit them, so that Canrobert was forced to communicate directly +with the officers of Napoleon's division, and at last required him to +take sick leave, or to submit to a court-martial.' + +'I thought,' I said, 'that he was really ill.' + +'That is not the general opinion,' said Tocqueville. 'He showed himself +at a ball directly after his return, with no outward symptoms of ill +health.' + +The conversation turned on English politics. + +'So many of my friendships,' said Tocqueville, 'and so many of my +sympathies, are English, that what is passing _in_ your country, and +_respecting_ your country, gives me great pain, and greater anxiety. To +us, whom unhappily experience has rendered sensitive of approaching +storms, your last six months have a frightfully revolutionary appearance. + +'There is with you, as there was with us in 1847, a general _malaise_ in +the midst of general prosperity. Your people seem, as was the case with +ours, to have become tired of their public men, and to be losing faith in +their institutions. What else do these complaints of what is called "the +system" mean? When you complain that the Government patronage is bartered +for political support, that the dunces of a family are selected for the +public service, and selected expressly because they could not get on in +an open profession; that as their places are a sort of property, they are +promoted only by seniority, and never dismissed for any, except for some +moral, delinquency; that therefore the seniors in all your departments +are old men, whose original dulness has been cherished by a life without +the stimulus of hope or fear, you describe a vessel which seems to have +become too crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most +favourable winds. You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department, +your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to +pieces. You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only +seven miles from its base. The next storm may attack your Colonial +Administration. Will that stand any better? Altogether your machinery +seems throughout out of gear. If you set to work actively and fearlessly, +without reference to private interests, or to private expectations, or to +private feelings, to repair, remove and replace, you may escape our +misfortunes; but I see no proofs that you are sufficiently bold, or +indeed that you are sufficiently alarmed. Then as to what is passing +here. A year ago we probably overrated your military power. I believe +that now we most mischievously underrate it. A year ago nothing alarmed +us more than a whisper of the chance of a war with England. We talk of +one now with great composure. We believe that it would not be difficult +to throw 100,000 men upon your shores, and we believe that half that +number would walk over England or Ireland. You are mistaken if you think +that these opinions will die away of themselves, or will be eradicated by +anything but some decisive military success. I do not agree with those +who think that it is your interest that Russia should submit while +Sebastopol stands. You might save money and men by a speedy peace, but +you would not regain your reputation. If you are caught by a peace before +you have an opportunity of doing so, I advise you to let it be on your +part an armed peace. Prepare yourselves for a new struggle with a new +enemy, and let your preparations be, not only as effective as you can +make them, but also as notorious.'[1] + +[Footnote 1: Note inserted by M de Tocqueville in my Journal, after +reading the preceding conversation. + +'J'ai entendu universellement louer sans restriction le courage heroique +de vos soldats, mais en meme temps j'ai trouve repandu cette croyance, +qu'on s'etait trompe de l'importance de l'Angleterre dans le monde, comme +puissance militaire proprement dite, qui consiste autant a _administrer_ +la guerre qu'a combattre, et surtout qu'il lui etait impossible, ce qu'on +ne croyait pas jusque la, d'elever de grandes armees, meme dans les cas +les plus pressants. Je n'avais rien entendu de pareil depuis mon enfance. +On vous croit absolument dans notre dependance, et du sein de la grande +inimite qui regne entre les deux peuples, je vois naitre des idees qui, +le jour ou nos deux gouvernements cesseront d'etre d'accord, nous +precipiteront dans la guerre contre vous, beaucoup plus facilement que +cela n'eut pu avoir lieu depuis la chute du premier Empire. Cela +m'afflige, et pour l'avenir de Alliance anglaise (dont vous savez que j'ai +toujours ete un grand partisan), et non moins aussi, je l'avoue, pour la +cause de vos institutions libres. Ce qui se passe n'est pas de nature a +la relever dans notre esprit. Je vous pardonnerais de deconsiderer vos +principes par les louanges dont vous accablez le gouvernement absolu qui +regne en France, mais je voudrais du moins que vous ne le fissiez pas +d'une maniere encore plus efficace par vos propres fautes, et par la +comparaison qu'elles suggerent. Il me semble, du reste, bien difficile +de dire ce qui resultera pour vous meme du contact intime et prolonge +avec notre gouvernement, et surtout de l'action commune et du melange +des deux armees. J'en doute, je vous l'avouerai, que l'aristocratie +anglaise s'en trouve bien, et quoique A B ait entonne l'autre jour une +veritable hymne en l'honneur de celle ci, je ne crois pas que ce qui +passe soit de nature a rendre ces chances plus grandes dans l'avenir'--_A +de Tocqueville_. + +'I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic courage of your +soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the persuasion that +the importance of England had been overrated as a military Power properly +so called--a Power which consists in administering as much as in +fighting; and above all, that it was impossible (and this had never +before been believed), for her to raise large armies, even under the most +pressing circumstances. I never heard anything like it since my +childhood. You are supposed to be entirely dependent upon us, and from +the midst of the great intimacy which subsists between the two countries, +I see springing up ideas which, on the day when our two Governments cease +to be of one mind, will precipitate our country into a war against you, +much more easily than has been possible since the fall of the first +Empire. This grieves me, both on account of the duration of the English +Alliance (of which you know that I have always been a great partisan), +and no less, I own, for the sake of your free institutions. Passing +events are not calculated to raise them in our estimation. I forgive you +for discrediting your principles by the praise which you lavish on the +absolute government which reigns in France, but I would have you at least +not to do so in a still more efficacious manner by your own blunders and +by the comparisons which they suggest. It seems to me, however, very +difficult to predict the result to yourselves of the long and intimate +contact with, our Government, and, above all, of the united action and +amalgamation of the two armies. I own that I doubt its having a good +effect on the future of the English aristocracy, and although A.B. struck +up the other day a real hymn in its praise, I do not think that present +events are of a nature to increase its chance in the future.'] + + + +_Paris, Saturday, March_ 3.--Tocqueville called on us soon after +breakfast. + +We talked of the loss and gain of Europe by the war. We agreed that +Russia and England have both lost by it. Russia probably the most in +power, England in reputation. That Prussia, though commercially a gainer, +is humiliated and irritated by the superiority claimed by Austria and +conceded to her. + +'You cannot,' said Tocqueville, 'estimate the opinions of Germany without +going there. There is a general feeling among the smaller Powers of +internal insecurity and external weakness, and Austria is looked up to as +the supporter of order against the revolutionists, and of Germany against +Russia. Austria alone has profited by the general calamities. Without +actually drawing the sword she has possession of the Principalities, she +has thrust down Prussia into the second rank, she has emancipated herself +from Russia, she has become the ally of France and of England, and even +of her old enemy Piedmont, she is safe in Italy. Poland and Hungary are +still her difficulties, and very great ones, but as her general strength +increases, she can better deal with them.' + +'Has not France, I said, 'been also a gainer, by becoming head of the +coalition against Russia?' + +'Whatever we have gained,' answered Tocqueville, 'has been dearly +purchased, so far as it has consolidated this despotism. For a whole year +we have felt that the life, and even the reign, of Louis Napoleon was +necessary to us. They will continue necessary to us during the remainder +of the war. We are acquiring habits of obedience, almost of resignation. +His popularity has not increased. He and his court are as much shunned by +the educated classes as they were three years ago; we still repeat "que +ca ne peut pas durer," but we repeat it with less conviction.' + +We passed the spring in Algeria, and returned to Paris the latter part of +May. + +_Paris, May 26,_1855.--After breakfast I went to the Institut. + +M. Passy read to us a long paper on the Art of Government. He spoke so +low and so monotonously that no one attended. I sat next to Tocqueville, +and, as it was not decent to talk, we conversed a little in writing. He +had been reading my Algiers Journal, and thus commented upon it:-- + +'Il y a tout un cote, particulierement curieux, de l'Algerie, qui vous a +echappe parce que vous n'avez pu ou voulu vous imposer l'ennui de causer +souvent avec les colons, et que ce cote-la ne se voit pas en parlant +avec les gouvernants; c'est l'abus de la centralisation. L'Afrique peut +etre consideree comme le tableau le plus complet et le plus +extraordinaire des vices de ce systeme. + +'Je suis convaincu que seul, sans les Arabes, le soleil, le desert, et la +fievre, il suffirait pour nous empecher de coloniser. Tout ce que la +centralisation laisse entrevoir de defauts, de ridicules et absurdites, +d'oppression, de paperasseries en France, est grossi en Afrique au +centuple. C'est comme un pou vu dans un microscope.' + +'J'ai cause,' I answered, 'avec Vialar et avec mon hote aux eaux +ferrugineuses. Mais ils ne se sont pas plaints de la centralisation.' + +'Ils ne se sont pas plaints,' he answered, 'du mot que, peut-etre, ils ne +connaissaient pas. Mais si vous les aviez fait entrer dans les details de +l'administration publique, ou meme de leurs affaires privees, vous auriez +vu que le colon est plus gene dans tous ses mouvements, et plus _gouverne +pour son plus grand bien_ que vous ne l'avez ete quand il s'est agi de +votre passeport. + +'Violar faisait allusion a cela quand il vous a dit que les chemins +manquaient parce que le Gouvernement ne voulait pas laisser les gouvernes +s'en meler.'[1] + +[Footnote 1: 'One whole side, and that a very curious one, of Algeria, +has escaped you, because you could not, or would not, inflict on yourself +the bore of talking frequently with the colonists, and this side cannot +be seen in conversing with officials--it is the abuse of centralisation. +Africa may be considered as the most complete and most extraordinary +picture of the vices of this system. I am convinced that it alone, +without the Arabs, the sun, the desert and the fever, would be enough to +prevent us from colonising. All the defects of centralisation, its +oppressions, its faults, its absurdities, its endless documents, which +are dimly perceived in France, become one hundred times bigger in Africa. +It is like a louse in a microscope.' + +'I conversed,' I answered, 'with Violar and with my landlord at the +mineral waters, and they did not complain of centralisation.' 'They did +not complain,' he answered, 'of the word, which perhaps is unknown to +them. But if you had made them enter into the details of the public +administration, or even of their own private affairs, you would have seen +that the colonist is more confined in all his movements, and more +_governed, for his good_, than you were with regard to your passport. + +'This is what Violar meant when he told you that roads were wanting, +because the Government would not permit its subjects to interfere in +making them.'] + + + +_Monday, May_ 28.--Tocqueville called on me. + +I asked him for criticisms on my article on the State of the Continent in +the 'North British Review' of February 1855.[1] + +[Footnote 1: See p. 107.] + +'Of course,' I said, 'it must be full of blunders. No one who writes on +the politics of a foreign country can avoid them. I want your help to +correct a few of them.' + +'Since you ask me,' he answered, 'for a candid criticism, I will give you +one. I accuse you rather of misappreciation than of misstatement. First +with respect to Louis Napoleon. After having described accurately, in the +beginning of your paper, his unscrupulous, systematic oppression, you end +by saying that, after all, you place him high among our sovereigns.' + +'You must recollect,' I answered, 'that the article was written for the +"Edinburgh Review," the organ of our Government, edited by Lord +Clarendon's brother-in-law--and that the editor thought its criticisms of +Louis Napoleon so severe, that after having printed it, he was afraid to +publish it. I went quite as far as I prudently could. I accused him, as +you admit, of unscrupulous oppression, of ignorance of the feelings of +the people, of being an idle administrator, of being unacquainted with +business himself, and not employing those who understand it, of being +impatient of contradiction, of refusing advice and punishing censure--in +short, I have praised nothing but his foreign policy--and I have +mentioned two errors in that.' + +'But I have a graver accusation to bring against you,' replied +Tocqueville. 'You couple as events mutually dependent the continuance of +the Imperial Government and the continuance of the Anglo-Gallic Alliance. +I believe this opinion not only to be untrue, but to be the reverse of +the truth. I believe the Empire and the Alliance to be not merely, not +mutually dependent, but to be incompatible, except upon terms which you +are resolved never to grant The Empire is essentially warlike--and war in +the mind of a Bonaparte, and of the friends of a Bonaparte, means the +Rhine. This war is merely a stepping stone. It is carried on for purposes +in which the mass of the people of France take no interest. Up to the +present time its burthens have been little felt, as it has been supported +by loans, and the limits of the legal conscription have not been +exceeded. But when the necessity comes for increased taxation and +anticipated conscriptions, Louis Napoleon must have recourse to the real +passions of the French _bourgeoisie_ and peasantry--the love of conquest, +_et la haine de l'Anglais_. Don't fancy that such feelings are dead, they +are scarcely asleep. They might be roused in a week, in a day, and they +_will_ be roused as soon as he thinks that they are wanted. + +'What do you suppose was the effect in France of Louis Napoleon's triumph +in England? + +'Those who know England attributed it to the ignorance and childishness +of the multitude. Those who thought that the shouts of the mob had any +real meaning either hung down their heads in shame at the +self-degradation of a great nation, or attributed them to fear. The +latter was the general feeling. "Il faut," said all our lower classes, +"que ces gens-la aient grande peur de nous." + +'You accuse, in the second place, all the Royalist parties of dislike of +England. + +'Do you suppose that you are more popular with the others? That the +Republicans love your aristocracy, or the Imperialists your freedom? The +real friends of England are the friends of her institutions. They are +the body, small perhaps numerically, and now beaten down, of those who +adore Constitutional Liberty. They have maintained the mutual good +feeling between France and England against the passions of the +Republicans and the prejudices of the Legitimists. I trust, as you trust, +that this good feeling is to continue, but it is on precisely opposite +grounds. My hopes are founded, not on the permanence, but on the want of +permanence, of the Empire. I do not believe that a great nation will be +long led by its tail instead of by its head. My only fear is, that the +overthrow of this tyranny may not take place early enough to save us from +war with England, which I believe to be the inevitable consequence of its +duration.' + +We left Paris soon after this conversation. + +[The following are a few extracts from the article in the 'North British +Review.'--ED.] + +'The principal parties into which the educated society of Paris is +divided, are the Imperialists, Royalists, Republicans, and +Parliamentarians. + +'The Royalists maybe again subdivided into Orleanists, Legitimists, and +Fusionists; and the Fusionists into Orleanist-Fusionists, and +Legitimist-Fusionists. + +'The Imperialists do not require to be described. They form a small party +in the salons of Paris, and much the largest party in the provinces. + +'Those who are Royalists without being Fusionists are also comparatively +insignificant in numbers. There are a very few Legitimists who pay to the +elder branch the unreasoning worship of superstition; who adore Henri +V. not as a means but as an end; who pray for his reign, not for their +own interests, not for the interests of France, but for his own sake; who +believe that he derives his title from God, and that when the proper time +comes God will restore him; and that to subject his claims to the +smallest compromise--to admit, for instance, as the Fusionists do, that +Louis Philippe was really a king, and that the reign of Henri V. did not +begin the instant that Charles X. expired--would be a sinful contempt +of Divine right, which might deprive his cause of Divine assistance. + +'There are also a very few Orleanists who, with a strange confusion of +ideas, do not perceive that a title founded solely on a revolution was +destroyed by a revolution; that if the will of the people was sufficient +to exclude the descendants of Charles X., it also could exclude the +descendants of Louis Philippe; and that the hereditary claims of the +Comte de Paris cannot be urged except on the condition of admitting the +preferable claims of the Comte de Chambord. + +'The bulk, then, of the Royalists are Fusionists; but though all the +Fusionists agree in believing that the only government that can be +permanent in France is a monarchy, and that the only monarchy that can be +permanent is one depending on hereditary succession; though they agree in +believing that neither of the Bourbon branches is strong enough to seize +the throne, and that each of them is strong enough to exclude the other, +yet between the Orleanist-Fusionists and the Legitimist-Fusionists the +separation is as marked and the mutual hatred as bitter, as those which +divide the most hostile parties in England. + +'The Orleanist-Fusionists are generally _roturiers_. They feel towards +the _noblesse_ the hatred which has accumulated during twelve centuries +of past oppression and the resentment excited by present insolence. Of +all the noble families of France the most noble is that of Bourbon. The +head of that house has always called himself _le premier gentilhomme de +France_. The Bourbons therefore suffer, and in an exaggerated degree, +the odium which weighs down the caste to which they belong. It was this +odium, this detestation of privilege and precedence and exclusiveness, +or, as it is sometimes called, this love of equality, which raised the +barricades of 1830. It was to flatter these feelings that Louis Philippe +sent his sons to the public schools and to the National Guard, and tried +to establish his Government on the narrow foundation of the +_bourgeoisie_. Louis Philippe and one or two of the members of his +family, succeeded in obtaining some personal popularity, but it was only +in the comparatively small class, the _pays legal_, with which they +shared the emoluments of Government, and it was not sufficient to raise a +single hand in their defence when the masses, whom the Court could not +bribe or caress, rose against it. The Orleanist-Fusionists are +Bourbonists only from calculation. They wish for the Comte de Paris for +their king, not from any affection for him or for his family, but because +they think that such an arrangement offers to France the best chance of +a stable Government in some degree under popular control: and they are +ready to tolerate the intermediate reign of Henri V. as an evil, but one +which must be endured as a means of obtaining something else, not very +good in itself but less objectionable to them than a Bonapartist dynasty +or a Republic. + + * * * * * + +'The Legitimists have been so injured in fortune and in influence, they +have been so long an oppressed caste, excluded from power, and even from +sympathy, that they have acquired the faults of slaves, have become +timid, or frivolous, or bitter. Their long retirement from public life +has made them unfit for it. The older members of the party have forgotten +its habits and its duties, the younger ones have never learnt them. Their +long absence from the Chambers and from the departmental and municipal +councils, from the central and from the local government of France, has +deprived them of all aptitude for business. The bulk of them are +worshippers of wealth, or ease, or pleasure, or safety. The only +unselfish feeling which they cherish is attachment to their hereditary +sovereign. They revere Henri V. as the ruler pointed out to them by +Providence: they love him as the representative of Charles X. the +champion of their order, who died in exile for having attempted to +restore to them the Government of France. They hope that on his +restoration the _canaille_ of lawyers, and _litterateurs_, and +adventurers, who have trampled on the _gentilshommes_ ever since 1830, +will be turned down to their proper places, and that ancient descent will +again be the passport to the high offices of the State and to the society +of the Sovereign. The advent of Henri V., which to the Orleanist branch +of the Fusionists is a painful means, is to the Legitimist branch a +desirable end. The succession of the Comte de Paris, to which the +Orleanists look with hope, is foreseen by the Legitimists with +misgivings. The Fusionist party is in fact kept together not by common +sympathies but by common antipathies; each branch of it hates or +distrusts the idol of the other, but they co-operate because each +branch hates still more bitterly, and distrusts still more deeply, the +Imperialists and the Republicans. + +'Among the educated classes there are few Republicans, using that word to +designate those who actually wish to see France a republic. There are +indeed, many who regret the social equality of the republic, the times +when plebeian birth was an aid in the struggle for power, and a +journeyman mason could be a serious candidate for the Presidentship, but +they are alarmed at its instability. They have never known a republic +live for more than a few years, or die except in convulsions. The +Republican party, however, though small, is not to be despised. It is +skilful, determined, and united. And the Socialists and the Communists, +whom we have omitted in our enumeration as not belonging to the educated +classes, would supply the Republican leaders with an army which has more +than once become master of Paris. + +'The only party that remains to be described is that to which we have +given the name of Parliamentarians. Under this designation--a designation +that we must admit that we have invented ourselves--we include those who +are distinguished from the Imperialists by their desire for a +parliamentary form of government; and from the Republicans, by their +willingness that that government should be regal; and from the Royalists, +by their willingness that it should be republican. In this class are +included many of the wisest and of the honestest men in France. The only +species of rule to which they are irreconcilably opposed is despotism. No +conduct on the part of Louis Napoleon would conciliate a sincere +Orleanist, or Legitimist, or Fusionist, or Republican. The anti-regal +prejudices of the last, and the loyalty of the other three, must force +them to oppose a Bonapartist dynasty, whatever might be the conduct of +the reigning emperor. But if Louis Napoleon should ever think the time, +to which he professes to look forward, arrived--if he should ever grant +to France, or accept from her, institutions really constitutional; +institutions, under which the will of the nation, freely expressed by a +free press and by freely chosen representatives, should control and +direct the conduct of her governor--the Parliamentarians would eagerly +rally round him. On the same conditions they would support with equal +readiness Henri V. or the Comte de Paris, a president elected by the +people, or a president nominated by an Assembly. They are the friends of +liberty, whatever be the form in which she may present herself.' + + * * * * * + +'Although our author visits the Provinces, his work contains no report of +their political feelings. The explanation probably is, that he found no +expression of it The despotism under which France is now suffering is +little felt in the capital. It shows itself principally in the subdued +tone of the debates, if debates they can be called, of the Corps +Legislatif, and the inanity of the newspapers. Conversation is as free in +Paris as it was under the Republic. Public opinion would not support the +Government in an attempt to silence the salons of Paris. But Paris +possesses a public opinion, because it possesses one or two thousand +highly educated men whose great amusement, we might say whose great +business, is to converse, to criticise the acts of their rulers, and to +pronounce decisions which float from circle to circle, till they reach +the workshop, and even the barrack. In the provinces there are no such +centres of intelligence and discussion, and, therefore, on political +subjects, there is no public opinion. The consequence is, that the action +of the Government is there really despotic; and it employs its +irresistible power in tearing from the departmental and communal +authorities all the local franchises and local self-government which they +had extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty years. + +'Centralisation, though it is generally disclaimed by every party that is +in opposition, is so powerful an instrument that every Monarchical +Government which has ruled France since 1789 has maintained, and even +tried to extend it. + +'The Restoration, and the Government of July, were as absolute +centralisers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced +to surrender they made over to the narrow _pays legal_, the privileged +ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic +gave the election of the _Conseils generaux_ to the people, and thus +dethroned the notaries who governed those assemblies when they +represented only the _bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the Maires +elective; the Republic placed education in the hands of the local +authorities. Under its influence the communes, the cantons, and the +departments were becoming real administrative bodies. They are now +geographical divisions. The Prefet appoints the Maires; the Prefet +appoints in every canton a Commissaire de Police, seldom a respectable +man, as the office is not honourable; the Gardes champetres, who are the +local police, are put under his control; the Recteur, who was a sort of +local Minister of Education in every department, is suppressed; his +powers are transferred to the Prefet; the Prefet appoints, promotes, and +dismisses all the masters of the _ecoles primaires_. The Prefet can +destroy the prosperity of every commune that displeases him. He can +displace the functionaries, close its schools, obstruct its public works, +and withhold the money which the Government habitually gives in aid of +local improvement. He can convert it, indeed, into a mere unorganised +aggregation of individuals, by dismissing every communal functionary, and +placing its concerns in the hands of his own nominees. There are many +hundreds of communes that have been thus treated, and whose masters are +now uneducated peasants. The Prefet can dissolve the _Conseil general_ of +his department, and although he cannot actually name their successors, he +does so virtually. No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless +he is supported by the Government. The Courts of law, criminal and civil, +are the tools of the executive. The Government appoints the judges, the +Prefet provides the jury, and _la Haute Police_ acts without either. All +power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from mouth to +mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, the +printers are the slaves of the Prefet, as they lose their privilege if +they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly violated; +there are spies in every country town to watch and report conversation; +every individual stands defenceless and insulated, in the face of this +unscrupulous executive, with its thousands of armed hands and its +thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the +abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, and whatever be the man, +the candidate of the Prefet comes in; but if he is a man who would have +been unanimously rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show +their indignation by their absence. + +'In such a state of society the traveller can learn little. Even those +who rule it, know little of the feelings of their subjects. The vast +democratic sea on which the Empire floats is influenced by currents, and +agitated by ground swells which the Government discovers only by their +effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence these great +apparently slumbering masses. Indeed, it takes care, by stifling their +expression, to prevent their being known. + +'We disapprove in many respects of the manner in which Louis Napoleon +employs his power, as we disapprove in all respects of the means by which +he seized it; but, on the whole, we place him high among the sovereigns +of France. As respects his foreign policy we put him at the very top. The +foreign policy of the rulers of mankind, whether they be kings, or +ministers, or senates, or demagogues, is generally so hateful, and at the +same time so contemptible, so grasping, so irritable, so unscrupulous, +and so oppressive--so much dictated by ambition, by antipathy and by +vanity, so selfish, often so petty in its objects, and so regardless of +human misery in its means, that a sovereign who behaves to other nations +with merely the honesty and justice and forbearance which are usual +between man and man, deserves the praise of exalted virtue. The +sovereigns of France have probably been as good as the average of +sovereigns. Placed indeed at the head of the first nation of the +Continent, they have probably been better; but how atrocious has been +their conduct towards their neighbour! If we go back no further than to +the Restoration, we find Louis XVIII. forming the Holy Alliance, and +attacking Spain without a shadow of provocation, for the avowed purpose +of crushing her liberties and giving absolute power to the most +detestable of modern tyrants. We find Charles X. invading a dependence +of his ally, the Sultan, and confiscating a province to revenge a tap on +the face given by the Bey of Algiers to a French consul. We find Louis +Philippe breaking the most solemn engagements with almost wanton +faithlessness; renouncing all extension of territory in Africa and then +conquering a country larger than France--a country occupied by tribes who +never were the subjects of the Sultan or of the Bey, and who could be +robbed of their independence only by wholesale and systematic massacre; +we find him joining England, Spain, and Portugal in the Quadruple +Alliance, and deserting them as soon as the time of action had arrived; +joining Russia, Prussia, Austria and England, in the arrangement of the +Eastern question, on the avowed basis that the integrity of the Ottoman +empire should be preserved, and then attempting to rob it of Egypt. We +find him running the risk of a war with America, because she demanded, +too unceremoniously, the payment of a just debt, and with England because +she complained of the ill-treatment of a missionary. We find him trying +to ruin the commerce of Switzerland because the Diet arrested a French +spy, and deposing Queen Pomare because she interfered with the sale of +French brandies; and, as his last act, eluding an express promise by a +miserable verbal equivocation, and sowing the seeds of a future war of +succession in order to get for one of his sons an advantageous +establishment in Spain. + +'The greatest blot in the foreign policy of Louis Napoleon is the +invasion of Rome, and for that he is scarcely responsible. It was +originally planned by Louis Philippe and Rossi. The expedition which +sailed from Toulon in 1849 was prepared in 1847. It was despatched in the +first six months of his presidency, in obedience to a vote of the +Assembly, when the Assembly was still the ruler of France; and Louis +Napoleon's celebrated letter to Ney was an attempt, not, perhaps +constitutional or prudent, but well-intentioned, to obtain for the Roman +people liberal and secular institutions instead of ecclesiastical +tyranny. + +'His other mistake was the attempt to enforce on Turkey the capitulations +of 1740, and to revive pretentions of the Latins in Jerusalem which had +slept for more than a century. This, again, was a legacy from Louis +Philippe. It was Louis Philippe who claimed a right to restore the dome, +or the portico, we forget which, of the Holy Sepulchre, and to insult the +Greeks by rebuilding it in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form. Louis +Napoleon has the merit, rare in private life, and almost unknown among +princes, of having frankly and unreservedly withdrawn his demands, though +supported by treaty, as soon as he found that they could not be conceded +without danger to the conceding party. + +'With these exceptions, his management of the foreign relations of France +has been faultless. To England he has been honest and confiding, to +Russia conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and he has +treated Prussia with, perhaps, more consideration than that semi-Russian +Court and childishly false and cunning king deserved. He has been +assailed by every form of temptation, through his hopes and through his +fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested. Such conduct deserves +the admiration with which England has repaid it. + +'We cannot praise him as an administrator. He is indolent and +procrastinating. He hates details, and therefore does not understand +them. When he has given an order he does not see to its execution; +indeed, he cannot, for he does not know how it ought to be executed. He +directed a fleet to be prepared to co-operate with us in the Baltic in +the spring. Ducos, his Minister of Marine, assured him that it was ready. +The time came, and not a ship was rigged or manned. He asked us to +suspend the expedition for a couple of months. We refused, and sailed +without the French squadron. If the Russians had ventured out, and we +either had beaten them single-handed, or been repulsed for want of the +promised assistance, the effect on France would have been frightful. We +have reason to believe that it was only in the middle of February that he +made up his mind to send an army to Bulgaria. They arrived by driblets, +without any plan of operations, and it was not until August that their +battering train left Toulon. It ought to have reached Sebastopol in May. +In time, however, he must see the necessity of either becoming an active +man of business himself, or of ministering, like other sovereigns, +through his Ministers. Up to the present time many causes have concurred +to occasion him to endeavour to be his own Minister, and to treat those +to whom he gives that name as mere clerks. He is jealous and suspicious, +fond of power, and impatient of contradiction. With the exception of +Drouyn de l'Huys, the eminent men of France, her statesmen and her +generals, stand aloof from him. Those who are not in exile have retired +from public life, and offer neither assistance nor advice. Advice, +indeed, he refuses, and, what is still more useful than advice, censure, +he punishes. + +'But the war, though it must last longer, and cost, more in men and in +money than it would have done if it were managed with more intelligence +and activity, must end favourably. Ill managed as it has been by +France, it has been worse managed by Russia. It is impossible that that +semi-barbarous empire, with its scarcely sane autocrat, its corrupt +administration, its disordered finances, and its heterogeneous +populations, should ultimately triumph over the two most powerful nations +of Europe, flanked by Austria, and disposing of the fanatical valour of +Turkey. If Louis Napoleon pleases the vanity of France by military glory, +and rewards her exertions by a triumphant peace; if he employs his +absolute power in promoting her prosperity by further relaxing the +fetters which encumber her industry; if he takes advantage of the +popularity which a successful war, an honourable peace, and internal +prosperity must confer on him, to give to her a little real liberty and a +little real self-government; if he gradually subsides from a [Greek: +_Tyrannos_] to a [Greek: _Basileus_]; if he allows some liberty of the +press, some liberty of election, some liberty of discussion, and some +liberty of decision; he may pass the remainder of his agitated life in +the tranquil exercise of limited, but great and secure power, the ally of +England, and the benefactor of France. + +'If this expectation should be realised--and we repeat, that among many +contingencies it appears to us to be the least improbable--it affords to +Europe the best hope of undisturbed peace and progressive civilisation +and prosperity. An alliance with England was one of the favourite dreams +of the first Napoleon. He believed, and with reason, that England and +France united could dictate to all Europe. But in this respect, as indeed +in all others, his purposes were selfish. Being master of France, he +wished France to be mistress of the world. All that he gave to France was +power, all that he required from Europe was submission. The objects for +which he desired our co-operation were precisely those which we wished to +defeat. The friendship from which we recoiled in disgust, almost in +terror, was turned into unrelenting hatred; and in the long struggle +which followed, each party felt that its safety depended on the total +ruin of the other. + +'The alliance which the uncle desired as a means of oppressing Europe, +the nephew seeks for the purpose of setting her free. The heavy continued +weight of Russia has, ever since the death of Alexander, kept down all +energy and independence of action, and even of thought, on the Continent. +She has been the patron of every tyrant, the protector of every abuse, +the enemy of every improvement. It was at her instigation that the +Congress of Verona decreed the enslavement of Spain, and that in the +conferences of Leybach it was determined to stifle liberty in Italy. +Every court on the Continent is cursed with a Russian party; and woe be +to the Sovereign and to the Minister who is not at its head: all the +resources of Russian influence and of Russian corruption are lavished to +render his people rebellious and his administration unsuccessful. From +this _peine forte et dure_ we believe that Europe will now be relieved; +and if the people or the sovereigns of the Continent, particularly those +of Germany and Italy, make a tolerable use of the freedom from foreign +dictation which the weakness of Russia will give to them, we look forward +to an indefinite course of prosperity and improvement. Unhappily, +experience, however, forbids us to be sanguine. Forty years ago, an +event, such as we are now contemplating, occurred. A Power which had +deprived the Continent of the power of independent action fell, and for +several years had no successor. Germany and Italy recalled or +re-established their sovereigns, and entrusted them with power such as +they had never possessed before. How they used it may be inferred from +the general outbreak of 1848. A popular indignation, such as could have +been excited only by long years of folly, stupidity, and tyranny, swept +away or shook every throne from Berlin to Palermo. The people was +everywhere for some months triumphant; and its abuse of power produced a +reaction which restored or introduced despotism in every kingdom except +Prussia and Piedmont, and even in Prussia gave to the King power +sufficient to enable him, up to the present moment, to maintain a policy, +mischievous to the interests, disgusting to the sympathies, and injurious +to the honour of his people. But while the Anglo-Gallic alliance +continues, the Continent will be defended from the worst of all evils, +the prevention of domestic improvement, and the aggravation of domestic +disturbance, by foreign intervention. That alliance has already preserved +the liberty of Piedmont. If it had been established sooner, it might have +preserved that of Hesse, and have saved Europe from the revolting +spectacle of the constitutional resistance of a whole people against an +usurping tyrant and a profligate minister crushed by brutal, undisguised +violence. + +'We repeat that we are not sanguine, that we do not expect the tranquil, +uninterrupted progress which would be the result of the timely concession +on the part of the sovereigns, and of the forbearance and moderation on +the part of their subjects, which, if they could profit by the lessons of +history, would be adopted by both parties. The only lesson, indeed, which +history teaches is, that she teaches none either to subjects or to +sovereigns. But we do trust that when the ruler and his people are +allowed to settle their own affairs between one another, they will come +from time to time to coarse and imperfect, but useful arrangements of +their differences. Rational liberty may advance slowly and unequally; it +may sometimes be arrested, it may sometimes be forced back, but its march +in every decennial period will be perceptible. Like an oak which has +grown up among storms, its durability will be in proportion to the +slowness of its progress.' + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Tocqueville, June 30, 1855. + +I have only just arrived here, my dear Senior, after wandering for nearly +a month from friend to friend all through the Touraine and the Maine. As +you may think, I am, on returning home after so long an absence, +overpowered with trifling business. I cannot, therefore, comply to-day +with your request and write to you the letter you ask for: I will write +it after much thought and at length. The subject is well worthy of the +trouble. Shall I at the same time send back to you the conversation which +I have corrected, and in what way? The post would be very unsafe and +expensive. Give me, therefore, your instructions on this point. But above +all, give us news of yourselves and of all our friends. + +My wife has borne the journey better than I expected, and the delight we +feel in finding ourselves here once more will completely restore her. + +This delight is really very great and in proportion to the annoyance of +wandering about as we have done for three years without ever finding a +place which entirely suited us. + +As to public news, I have heard none since I left Paris. The only spot +which a single ray of light can ever reach is Paris. All the rest is in +profound darkness. If you hear anything important, pray tell me. + +Adieu, dear Senior. Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and believe in +our long and very sincere affection, + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, July 25, 1855. + +I wrote to you yesterday, my dear Senior, a long letter according to my +promise. + +But when I read it over I felt that it was absurd to send such a letter +by the post, especially to a foreigner, and I burnt it. + +Since the assault of the 18th,[1] the interference of the police in +private correspondence has become more active. Many of my friends as well +as I myself have perceived it. More letters have been kept back and more +have been stopped. Two of mine have been lost. You may remember that two +letters from me failed to reach you, three years ago. The danger is +greater in the country, where handwritings are known, than in Paris. You +advise me to put my letters into a cover directed to your Embassy, which +will forward them. But this is no security. If a letter be suspected, it +is easy to open and re-seal it, and still easier simply to suppress it. + +And, in fact, after all, you have lost little. I wrote to you only what I +have a hundred times said to you. We have lived so much together, and +with such perfect mutual confidence, that it is difficult for either of +us to say anything new to the other. + +Besides, on reading over again, with attention, your note of our last +conversation,[2] I have nothing to alter. All that I could do would be to +develope a little more my opinions, and to support them by additional +arguments. I feel more and more their truth, and that the progress +of events will confirm them much more than any reasonings of mine can do. + +We are annoyed and disturbed, having the house full of workmen. I am +trying to warm it by hot air, and am forced to bore through very old and +very thick walls; but we shall be repaid by being able to live here +during the winter. + +I am amusing myself with the letters which our young soldiers in the +East, peasants from this parish, write home to their families, and which +are brought to me. This correspondence should be read in order to +understand the singular character of the French peasant. It is strange to +see the ease with which these men become accustomed to the risks of +military life, to danger and to death, and yet how their hearts cling to +their fields and to the occupations of country life. The horrors of war +are described with simplicity, and almost with enjoyment. But in the +midst of these accounts one finds such phrases as these: "What crop do +you intend to sow in such a field next year?" "How is the mare?" "Has +the cow a fine calf?" &c. No minds can be more versatile, and at the same +time more constant. I have always thought that, after all, the peasantry +were superior to all other classes in France. But these men are +deplorably in want of knowledge and education, or rather the education to +which they have been subjected for centuries past has taught them to make +a bad use of their natural good qualities. + +It seems to me that Lord John's resignation will enable your Cabinet to +stand, at least for some time. All that has passed in England since the +beginning of the war grieves me deeply. Seen from a distance, your +Constitution appears to me an admirable machine which is getting out of +order, partly from the wearing out of its works, partly from the +unskilfulness of its workers. Such a spectacle is useful to our +Government. + +I asked you some questions, which you have not answered. Is Mrs. Grote +returned from Germany? Is she well? Has she received my letter addressed +to her at Heidelberg? The last question is always doubtful when one +writes from France. + +I send you a letter from the Count de Fenelon, which I think will +interest you. You will give it me back when we meet. + +I am very curious to know what you will think of Egypt; and I hope that +we shall be established in Paris when you return. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: On the 18th June, 1855, the French and English made an +unsuccessful assault on Sebastopol.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: That of the 28th May, 1855.--ED.] + + + +Tocqueville, September 19, 1855. + + +Your letter, my dear Senior, of the 26th of August, has much interested +me. I see that you are resolved on your great journey. I could say like +Alexander, if the comparison were not too ambitious, that I should wish +to be in your place if I were not in my own; but I cannot get satiated +with the pleasure of being at home after so long an absence. Everything +is pleasure in this country life, among my own fields. Even the solitude +is charming; but were I anywhere else, I should envy you your tour. + +Everything in Egypt is curious: the past, the present, and the future. I +hope to learn much from your Journal, which I trust that I shall have. We +shall certainly meet you in Paris. + +The noise made by the fall of Sebastopol has echoed even to this distant +corner of France. It is a glorious event, and has delighted every +Frenchman of every party and of every opinion, for in these matters we +are one man. + +I fear that the victory has been bought dearly. There is not a +neighbouring village to which the war has not cost some of its children. +But they bear it admirably. You know, that in war we show the best side +of our character. If our civilians resembled our soldiers we should long +ago have been masters of Europe. + +This war has never been popular, nor is it popular, yet we bear all its +cost with a cheerfulness admirable when you consider the sorrows which it +occasions, aggravated by the distress produced by the dearness of bread. +If, instead of the Crimea, the seat of war had been the Rhine, with a +definite purpose, the whole nation would have risen, as it has done +before. + +But the object of the war is unintelligible to the people. They only know +that France is at war, and must be made, at any price, to triumph. + +I must confess, that I myself, who understand the object for which all +this blood is shed, and who approve that object, do not feel the interest +which such great events ought to excite; for I do not expect a result +equal to the sacrifice. + +I think, with you, that Russia is a great danger to Europe. I think so +more strongly, because I have had peculiar opportunities of studying the +real sources of her power, and because I believe these sources to be +permanent, and entirely beyond the reach of foreign attack. (I have not +time now to tell you why.) But I am deeply convinced that it is not by +taking from her a town, or even a province, nor by diplomatic +precautions, still less by placing sentinels along her frontier, that the +Western Powers will permanently stop her progress. + +A temporary bulwark may be raised against her, but a mere accident may +destroy it, or a change of alliances or a domestic policy may render it +useless. + +I am convinced that Russia can be stopped only by raising before her +powers created by the hatred which she inspires, whose vital and constant +interest it shall be to keep themselves united and to keep her in. In +other words, by the resurrection of Poland, and by the re-animation of +Turkey. + +I do not believe that either of these means can now be adopted. The +detestable jealousies and ambitions of the European nations resemble, as +you say in your letter, nothing better than the quarrels of the Greeks in +the face of Philip. Not one will sacrifice her passions or her objects. + +About a month ago I read some remarkable articles, which you perhaps have +seen, in the German papers, on the progress which Russia is making in the +extreme East. The writer seems to be a man of sense and well informed. + +It appears that during the last five years, Russia, profiting by the +Chinese disturbances, has seized, not only the mouth of the Amoor, but a +large territory in Mongolia, and has also gained a considerable portion +of the tribes which inhabit it. You know that these tribes once overran +all Asia, and have twice conquered China. The means have always been the +same--some accident which, for an instant, has united these tribes in +submission to the will of one man. Now, says the writer, very plausibly, +the Czar may bring this about, and do what has been done by Genghis Khan, +and, indeed, by others. + +If these designs are carried out, all Upper Asia will be at the mercy of +a man, who, though the seat of his power be in Europe, can unite and +close on one point the Mongols. + +I know more about Sir G. Lewis's book[1] than you do. I have read it +through, and I do not say, as you do, that it must be a good book, but +that it _is_ a good book. Pray say as much to Sir George when you see +him, as a letter of mine to Lady Theresa on the subject may have +miscarried. + +It is as necessary now for friends to write in duplicate from town to +town, as it is if they are separated by the ocean and fear that the ship +which carries their letters may be lost. I hear that our friend John Mill +has lately published an excellent book. Is it true? at all events +remember me to him. + +Adieu, my dear Senior. Do not forget us any more than we forget you. +Kindest regards to Mrs. Senior, and Miss Senior, and Mrs. Grote. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +[Footnote 1: The work referred to was probably that on the _Early History +of Rome_.--ED.] + + + +Paris, April 1, 1856. + +I write a few lines to you at Marseilles, my dear Senior, as you +wished.[1] I hope that you will terminate your great journey as +felicitously as you seem to me to have carried it on from the beginning. +The undertaking appears to have been a complete success. I wish that it +might induce you next year to cross over the ocean to America. I should +be much interested in hearing and reading your remarks upon that society. +But perhaps Mrs. Senior will not be so ready to start off again; so, that +I may not involve myself in a quarrel with her, I will say no more on the +subject. + +I am longing to see you, for beside our old and intimate friendship I +shall be delighted to talk with such an interesting converser, and, above +all, to find myself again in the company of (as Mrs. Grote calls you) +'the boy.' You will find me, however, in all the vexations of correcting +proofs and the other worries connected with bringing out a book.[2] It +will not appear till the end of this month. + +I can tell you no more about politics than you may learn from the +newspapers. Peace, though much desired has caused no public excitement +The truth is that just now we are not _excitable_. As long as she remains +in this condition France will not strike one of those blows by which she +sometimes shakes Europe and overturns herself. + +Reeve has been and Milnes still is here. We have talked much of you with +these two old friends. Good bye, or rather, thank God, _a bientot_. + +A thousand kind remembrances to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was on his return from Egypt.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: The _Ancien Regime_.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, May_ 16.--M. de Tocqueville has scarcely been visible since my +return to Paris. Madame de Tocqueville has been absent. She returned +yesterday, and they spent this evening with us. + +Tocqueville is full of his book, which is to appear in about a week. His +days and nights are devoted to correcting the press and to writing +notes--which he thought would be trifling, but which grow in length and +importance. + +The object of the work is to account for the rapid progress of the +Revolution, to point out the principal causes which enabled a few +comparatively obscure men to overthrow in six weeks a Monarchy of many +centuries. + +'I am inclined,' I said, 'to attribute the rapidity with which the old +institutions of France fell, to the fact that there was no _lex loci_ in +France. That the laws, or rather the customs, of the different provinces +were dissimilar, and that nothing was defined. That as soon as the +foundations or the limits of any power were examined, it crumbled to +pieces; so that the Assembly became omnipotent in the absence of any +authority with ascertained rights and jurisdiction.' + +'There is much truth in that,' answered Tocqueville, 'but there is also +much truth in what looks like an opposite theory--namely, that the +Monarchy fell because its power was too extensive and too absolute. +Nothing is so favourable to revolution as centralisation, because whoever +can seize the central point is obeyed down to the extremities. Now the +centralisation of France under the old Monarchy, though not so complete +as its Democratic and Imperial tyrants afterwards made it, was great. +Power was concentrated in Paris and in the provincial capitals. The +smaller towns and the agricultural population were unorganised and +defenceless. The 14th of July revealed the terrible secret that the +Master of Paris is the Master of France.' + +_Paris, May_ 18.--I spent the day at Athy, the country-seat of M. +Lafosse,[1] who had been my companion in our Egyptian journey. + +'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of the Empress?' + +'Nothing,' he answered, 'but what is favourable; all her instincts and +prejudices are good. Lesseps, who is nearly related to her, has many of +her letters, written during the courtship, in which she speaks of her +dear Louis with the utmost affection, and dwells on the hope that if ever +she should become his wife, she may be able to induce him to liberalise +his Government.' + +'And now,' he said, 'tell me what you heard in England about our Canal?' + +'I heard nothing,' I answered, 'except from Maclean. He told me that he +thought that the Maritime Canal, if supplied from the sea, would become +stagnant and unwholesome, and gradually fill. That that plan was formed +when the levels of the two seas were supposed to differ, so that there +would be a constant current. + +'"Now that the equality of their levels has been ascertained," he said to +me, "the only mode of obtaining a current is to employ the Nile instead +of the sea." "But can the Nile spare the water?" I asked. "Certainly," +he answered. "An hour a day of the water from the Nile, even when at its +lowest, would be ample." "And what do the other engineers say?" I asked. +"Randall," he replied, "agrees with me. The others are at present for the +salt water. But we are to meet in time and discuss it thoroughly."' + +'It is not the opinion of the engineers,' answered Lafosse, 'that I want, +but that of the politicians. + +'We are told that Lord Palmerston threatens to prevent it as long as he +is Minister. This makes us very angry. We think that we perceive in his +opposition his old hatred of France and of everything that France +supports or even favours--feelings which we hoped the Alliance had cured. + +'The matter,' he continued, 'was to have been brought before the +Congress. Buol had promised to Nigrelli to do so, and Cavour to Lesseps +and Paleocapa. But after the occupation of Italy, and the Belgian press, +and the rights of Neutrals had been introduced, the Congress got +impatient, and it was thought inexpedient to ask them to attend to +another episodical matter. The Emperor, however, did something. He asked +Ali Pasha, the Turkish Minister, what were the Sultan's views. "They +will be governed," said Ali Pasha, "in a great measure by those of his +allies." "As one of them," said the Emperor, "I am most anxious for its +success." "In that case," replied Ali Pasha, "the Sultan can have no +objection to it in principle, though he may wish to annex to his firman +some conditions--for instance, as to the occupation of the forts at each +end by a mixed garrison of Turks and Egyptians." The Emperor then turned +to Lord Clarendon. "What are your views," he asked, "as to the Suez +Canal?" "It is a grave matter," answered Lord Clarendon, "and one on +which I have no instructions. But I believe it to be impracticable." +"Well," replied the Emperor, "but supposing for the sake of the argument, +that it is practicable, what are your intentions?" "I cannot but think," +answered Lord Clarendon, "that any new channel of commerce must be +beneficial to England. The real difficulty is the influence which the +Canal may have in the relations of Egypt and Turkey." "If that be the +only obstacle," replied the Emperor, "there is not much in it, for Ali +Pasha has just told me that if _we_ make no objection the Sultan makes +none. We cannot be more Turkish than the Turk."' + +'I am most anxious,' added Lafosse, 'that this stupid opposition of yours +should come to an end. Trifling as the matter may seem, it endangers the +cordiality of the Alliance. The people of England, who do not know how +jealous and _passionnes_ we are, cannot estimate the mistrust and the +irritation which it excites. That an enterprise on which the French, +wisely or foolishly, have set their hearts, should be stopped by the +caprice of a wrong-headed Englishman, hurts our vanity; and everything +that hurts our vanity offends us much more than what injures our serious +interests. + +'If the engineers and the capitalists decide in favour of the scheme, you +will have to yield at last. You had much better do so now, when you can +do it with a good grace. Do not let your acquiescence be extorted.' + + +[Footnote 1: M. Lafosse died many years ago. He was a friend of M. de +Lesseps, by whom he and Mr. Senior were invited to join the expedition to +Egypt--ED.] + + +_Paris, May_ 19.--After breakfast I spent a couple of hours with Cousin. + +'You have been in England,' he said, 'since you left Egypt. What is the +news as to our Canal? Will Palmerston let us have it? You must stay a few +weeks in Paris to estimate the effect of your opposition to it. We +consider Palmerston's conduct as a proof that his hatred of France is +unabated, and the acquiescence of the rest of your Cabinet as a proof +that, now we are no longer necessary to you, now that we have destroyed +for you the maritime power of Russia, you are indifferent to our +friendship. + +'I know nothing myself as to the merits of the Canal. I distrust Lesseps +and everything that he undertakes. He has much talent and too much +activity, but they only lead him and his friends into scrapes. I daresay +that the Canal is one, and that it will ruin its shareholders; but as I +am anxious we should not quarrel with England, I am most anxious that +this silly subject of dispute should be removed.' + +'Louis Napoleon,' he continued, 'professed to wish that you should allow +the Sultan to give his consent; but I doubt whether he is sincere. I am +not sure that he is not pleased at seeing the Parisians occupied by +something besides his own doings, especially as it promotes the national +dislike of England. Now that the war is over we want an object. He tries +to give us one by launching us into enormous speculations. He is trying +to make us English; to give us a taste for great and hazardous +undertakings, leading to great gains, great losses, profuse expenditure, +and sudden fortunes and failures. Such things suit _you_; they do not +suit _us_. Our habits are economical and prudent, perhaps timid. We like +the petty commerce of commission and detail, we prefer domestic +manufactures to factories, we like to grow moderately rich by small +profits, small expenditure, and constant accumulation. We hate the +_nouveaux riches_, and scarcely wish to be among them. The progress for +which we wish is political progress--not within, for there we are +satisfied to oscillate, and shall be most happy if in 1860 we find +ourselves where we were in 1820--but without. I believe that our master's +_sortie_ against Belgium was a pilot balloon. He wished to see what +amount of opposition he had to fear from you, and from Belgium, and how +far we should support him. He has found the two former greater than he +expected. I am not sure that he is dissatisfied with the last.' + +I spent the morning at H.'s. He too attacked me about the Canal. + +'Do entreat,' he said, 'your public men to overrule their ill-conditioned +colleague. I told you a year ago, the mischief that you were doing, but I +do not think that you believed me. You may find too late that I was +right.' + +I repeated to him Ellice's opinion that the commerce of England would not +use the canal. + +'I have heard that,' he said, 'from Ellice himself, but I differ from +him. I agree with him, indeed, that your sailing vessels will not use the +canal, but I believe that a few years hence you will have no purely +sailing vessels, except for the small coasting trade. Every large ship +will have a propeller; and with propellers, to be employed occasionally, +and sails for ordinary use, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea are very +manageable. I believe that the canal will be useful, and particularly +to you. But whatever be the real merits of the scheme, for God's sake let +it be tried. Do not treat us like children, and say, "We know better what +is good for you than you do yourselves. You shall not make your canal +because you would lose money by it."' + +'What did you hear,' I said, 'about the Congress?' + +'I heard,' he answered, 'that Clarendon was very good, and was the best, +and that Walewski was very bad, and was the worst.' + +'Can you tell me,' I said, 'the real history of the Tripartite Treaty?' + +'I can,' he answered. 'There was an old engagement between the three +Powers, entered into last spring, that if they succeeded in the war, they +would unite to force Russia to perform any conditions to which she might +submit. + +'This engagement had been allowed to sleep; I will not say that it was +forgotten, but no one seemed disposed to revert to it. But after the +twenty-second Protocol, when Piedmont was allowed to threaten Austria, +and neither England nor France defended her, Buol got alarmed. He feared +that Austria might be left exposed to the vengeance of Russia on the +north and east, and to that of the Italian Liberals on the South. An +alliance with France and England, though only for a specified purpose, at +least would relieve Austria from the appearance of insulation. She would +be able to talk of the two greatest Powers in Europe as her allies, and +would thus acquire a moral force which might save her from attack. He +recalled, therefore, the old engagement to the recollection of Clarendon +and Louis Napoleon, and summoned them to fulfil it. I do not believe that +either of them was pleased. But the engagement was formal, and its +performance, though open to misconstruction, and intended by Austria to +be misconstrued, was attended by some advantages, though different ones, +to France and to England. So both your Government and ours complied.' + +_Tuesday, May 20_.--The Tocquevilles and Rivet drank tea with us. + +I mentioned to Tocqueville the subject of my conversations with Cousin +and H. + +'I agree with Cousin,' he said. 'The attempt to turn our national +activity into speculation and commerce has often been made, but has never +had any permanent success. The men who make these sudden fortunes are not +happy, for they are always suspected of _friponnerie_, and the Government +to which they belong is suspected of _friponnerie_. Still less happy are +those who have attempted to make them, and have failed. And those who +have not been able even to make the attempt are envious and sulky. So +that the whole world becomes suspicious and dissatisfied. + +'And even if it were universal, mere material prosperity is not enough +for us. Our Government must give us something more: must gratify our +ambition, or, at least, our vanity.' + +'The Government,' said Rivet, 'has been making a desperate plunge in +order to escape from the accusation of _friponnerie_. It has denounced in +the "Moniteur" the _faiseurs_; it has dismissed a poor _aide-de-camp_ of +Jerome's for doing what everybody has been doing ever since the _coup +d'etat_. When Ponsard's comedy, which was known to be a furious satire on +the _agioteurs_, was first played, Louis Napoleon took the whole +orchestra and pit stalls, and filled them with people instructed to +applaud every allusion to the _faiseurs_. And he himself stood in his +box, his body almost out of it, clapping most energetically every attack +on them.' + +'At the same time,' I said, 'has he not forced the Orleans Company and +the Lyons Company to buy the Grand Central at much more than its worth? +And was not that done in order to enable certain _faiseurs_ to realise +their gains?' + +'He has forced the Orleans Company,' said Rivet, 'to buy up, or rather to +amalgamate the Grand Central; but I will not say at more than its value. +The amount to be paid is to depend on the comparative earnings of the +different lines, for two years before and two years after the purchase.' + +'But,' I said, 'is it not true, first, that the Orleans Company was +unwilling to make the purchase? and, secondly, that thereupon the Grand +Central shares rose much in the market?' + +'Both these facts,' answered Rivet, 'are true.' + +'Do you believe,' I said to Tocqueville, 'H.'s history of the Tripartite +Treaty?' + +'I do,' he answered. 'I do not think that at the time when it was made we +liked it. It suited you, who wish to preserve the _statu quo_ in Europe, +which keeps us your inferiors, or, at least, not your superiors. _You_ +have nothing to gain by a change. We have. The _statu quo_ does not suit +us. The Tripartite Treaty is a sort of chain--not a heavy one, or a +strong one--but one which we should not have put on if we could have +avoided it.' + +'Do you agree,' I asked Tocqueville, 'with Lafosse, Cousin, and H. as to +the effect in Paris of our opposition to the Suez Canal?' + +'I agree,' he answered, 'in every word that they have said. There is +nothing that has done you so much mischief in France, and indeed in +Europe. + +'I am no engineer; I should be sorry to pronounce a decided opinion as to +the feasibility or the utility of the canal; but your opposition makes us +believe that it is practicable.' + +'Those among us,' I answered, 'who fear it, sometimes found their fear on +grounds unconnected with its practicability. They say that it is a +political, not a commercial, scheme. That the object is to give to French +engineers and French shareholders a strip of land separating Egypt from +Syria, and increasing the French interest in Egypt.' + +'What is the value,' answered Tocqueville, 'of a strip of land in the +desert where no one can live? And why are the shareholders to be French? +The Greeks, the Syrians, the Dalmatians, the Italians, and the Sicilians +are the people who will use the canal, if anybody uses it. They will form +the bulk of the shareholders, if shareholders there are. + +'My strong suspicion is, that if you had not opposed it, there never +would have been any shareholders, and that if you now withdraw your +opposition, and let the scheme go on until calls are made, the +subscribers, who are ready enough with their names as patriotic +manifestations against you as long as no money is to be paid, will +withdraw _en masse_ from an undertaking which, at the very best, is a +most hazardous one. + +'As to our influence in Egypt, your journal shows that it is a pet +project of the Viceroy. He hopes to get money and fame from it. You +_imitate_ both his covetousness and his vanity, and throw him for support +upon us.' + + +_Paris, May_ 21--The Tocquevilles and Chrzanowski[1] drank tea with us. + +We talked of the French iron floating batteries. + +'I saw one at Cherbourg,' said Tocqueville, 'and talked much with her +commander. He was not in good spirits about his vessel, and feared some +great disaster. However, she did well at Kinburn.' + +'She suffered little at Kinburn,' said Chrzanowski, 'because she ventured +little. She did not approach the batteries nearer than 600 metres. At +that distance there is little risk and little service. To knock down a +wall two metres thick from a distance of 600 metres would require at +least 300 blows. How far her own iron sides would have withstood at that +distance the fire of heavy guns I will not attempt to say, as I never saw +her. The best material to resist shot is lead. It contracts over the ball +and crushes it.' + +'Kinburn, however,' said Tocqueville, 'surrendered to our floating +batteries.' + +'Kinburn surrendered,' said Chrzanowski, 'because you landed 10,000 men, +and occupied the isthmus which connects Kinburn with the main land. The +garrison saw that they were invested, and had no hope of relief. They +were not Quixotic enough, or heroic enough, to prolong a hopeless +resistance. Scarcely any garrison does so.' + +We talked of Malta; and I said that Malta was the only great +fortification which I had seen totally unprovided with earth-works. + +'The stone,' said Chrzanowski, 'is soft and will not splinter.' + +'I was struck,' I said, 'with the lightness of the armament; the largest +guns that I saw, except some recently placed in Fort St. Elmo, were +twenty-four pounders.' + +'For land defence,' he answered, 'twenty-four pounders are serviceable +guns. They are manageable and act with great effect within the short +distance within which they are generally used. It is against ships that +large guns are wanted. A very large ball or shell is wasted on the +trenches, but may sink a ship. The great strength of the land defences of +Malta arises from the nature of the ground on which Valetta and Floriana +are built, indeed of which the whole island consists. It is a rock +generally bare or covered with only a few inches of earth. Approaches +could not be dug in it. It would be necessary to bring earth or sand in +ships, and to make the trenches with sand-bags or gabions.' + +I asked him if he had read Louis Napoleon's orders to Canrobert, +published in Bazancourt's book? + +'I have,' he answered. 'They show a depth of ignorance and a depth of +conceit, compared to which even Thiers is modest and skilful. Canrobert +is not a great general, but he is not a man to whom a civilian, who +never saw a shot fired, ought to give lectures on what he calls "the +great principles" or "the absolute principles of war." He seems to have +taken the correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph for his model, +forgetting that Canrobert is to him what Napoleon was to Joseph. Then he +applies his principles as absurdly as he enunciates them. Thus he orders +Canrobert to send a fleet carrying 25,000 men to the breach at Aboutcha, +to land 3,000 of them, to send them three leagues up the country, and not +to land any more, until those first sent have established themselves +beyond the defile of Agen. Of course those 3,000 men would be useless if +the enemy were _not_ in force, or destroyed if they _were_ in force. To +send on a small body and not to support them is the grossest of faults. +It is the fault which you committed at the Redan, when the men who had +got on to the works were left by you for an hour unsupported, instead of +reinforcements being poured in after them as quickly as they could be +sent. + +'In fact,' he continued, 'the horrible and mutual blunders of that +campaign arose from its being managed by the two Emperors from Paris and +from St. Petersburg, Nicholas and Alexander were our best friends. Louis +Napoleon was our worst enemy. + +'There is nothing which ought to be so much left to the discretion of +those on the spot as war. Even a commander-in-chief actually present in a +field of battle can do little after the action, if it be really a great +one, has once begun. + +'If we suppose 80,000 men to be engaged on each side, each line will +extend at least three miles. Supposing the general to be in the centre, +it will take an _aide-de-camp_ ten minutes to gallop to him from one of +the wings, and ten minutes to gallop back. But in twenty minutes all may +be altered.' + + +[Footnote 1: 'Chrzanowski has passed thirty years fighting against or for +the Russians. He began military life in 1811 as a sous lieutenant of +artillery in the Polish corps which was attached to the French army. With +that army he served during the march to Moscow, and the retreat. At the +peace, what remained of his corps became a part of the army of the +kingdom of Poland. He had attained the rank of major in that army when +the insurrection on the accession of Nicholas broke out. About one +hundred officers belonging to the staff of the properly Russian army were +implicated, or supposed to be implicated, in that insurrection, and were +dismissed, and their places were supplied from the army of the kingdom of +Poland. Among those so transferred to the Russian army was Chrzanowski. +He was attached to the staff of Wittgenstein, and afterwards of Marshal +Diebitsch, in the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 1829. In 1830 he took +part with his countrymen in the insurrection against the Muscovites, and +quitted Poland when it was finally absorbed in the Russian Empire. A few +years after a quarrel was brewing between England and Russia. Muscovite +agents were stirring up Persia and Affghanistan against us, and it was +thought that we might have to oppose them on the shores of the Black Sea. +Chrzanowski was attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople and was +employed for some years in ascertaining what assistance Turkey, both in +Europe and in Asia, could afford to us. In 1849 he was selected by +Charles Albert to command the army of the kingdom of Sardinia. + +'That army was constituted on the Prussian system, which makes every man +serve, and no man a soldier. It was, in fact, a militia. The men were +enlisted for only fourteen months, at the end of that time they were sent +home, and were recalled when they were wanted, having forgotten their +military training and acquired the habits of cottiers and artisans. They +had scarcely any officers, or even _sous_ officers, that knew anything of +their business. The drill sergeants required to be drilled. The generals, +and indeed the greater part of the officers, were divided into hostile +factions--Absolutists, Rouges, Constitutional Liberals, and even +Austrians--for at that time, in the exaggerated terror occasioned by the +revolutions of 1848, Austria and Russia were looked up to by the greater +part of the noblesse of the Continent as the supporters of order against +Mazzini, Kossuth, Ledru Rollin, and Palmerston. The Absolutists and the +Austrians made common cause, whereas the Rouges or Mazzinists were +bitterest against the Constitutional Liberals. Such an army, even if +there had been no treason, could not have withstood a disciplined enemy. +When it fell a victim to its own defects, and to the treachery of +Ramorino, Chrzanowski retired to Paris.'--(_Extracted from Mr. Senior's +article in the 'North British Review.'_) + +Chrzanowski died several years ago.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Kensington, August 20, 1856. + +My dear Tocqueville,--A few weeks after my return to London your book +reached me--of course from the time that I got it, I employed all my +leisure in reading it. + +Nothing, even of yours, has, I think, so much instructed and delighted +me. Much of it, perhaps, was not quite so new to me as to many others; as +I had had the privilege of hearing it from you--but even the views which +were familiar to me in their outline were made almost new by their +details. + +It is painful to think how difficult it is to create a Constitutional +Government, and how difficult to preserve one, and, what is the same, how +easy to destroy one. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Senior is going to Wales and to Ireland, where I join her, after +having paid a long-promised visit to Lord Aberdeen. + +I like the conversation of retired statesmen, and he is one of our +wisest. Thiers has just left us. I spent two evenings with him, but on +the first he was engrossed by Lord Clarendon, and on the second by the +Duc d'Aumale and by Lord Palmerston. They were curious _rapprochements_, +at least the first and third. It was the first meeting of Palmerston and +Duc d'Aumale. I am very much pleased with the latter. He is sensible, +well informed, and unaffected. + +Kindest regards, &c. + +A.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, September 4, 1856. + +I have read, my dear Senior, your letter with great pleasure. Your +criticism delights me, for I rely on your judgment and on your sincerity. +I am charmed that you have found in my book more than you had learned +from our conversations, on my view of our history. We have known one +another so long, we have conversed so much and so unreservedly, that it +is difficult for either of us to write anything that the other will think +new. I was afraid that what may appear original to the public might seem +trite to you. + +The Reeves have been with us; we have passed together an agreeable +fortnight. I had charged Reeve to bring you, whether you would or not. +Did he make the attempt? I am sure that you would have enjoyed your +visit, and we should have rejoiced to have under our roof two such old +friends as you and Reeve. + +I am glad that you have printed your article; pray try to send it to me. + +It seems that you intend this winter to anchor in Rome. It increases my +regret that I cannot be there. It is out of the question. My wife's +health and mine are so much improved that the journey is not necessary, +and business of all kinds keeps us at home. If you push on to Naples, you +will, perhaps, enjoy the absence of the rascally king whom you and I +found there five years ago. I applaud the virtuous indignation of the +English against this little despot, and their sympathy with the unhappy +wretches whom he detains arbitrarily to die slowly in his prisons, which, +though not placed in the African deserts or the marshes of Cayenne, are +bad enough. The interest which your great nation takes in the cause of +humanity and liberty, even when that cause suffers in another country, +delights me. What I regret is that your generous indignation is directed +against so petty a tyrant. + +I must say that America is a _puer robustus_. Yet I cannot desire, as +many persons do, its dismemberment. Such an event would inflict a great +wound on the whole human race; for it would introduce war into a great +continent from whence it has been banished for more than a century. + +The breaking up of the American Union will be a solemn moment in the +history of the world. I never met an American who did not feel this, and +I believe that it will not be rashly or easily undertaken. There will, +before actual rupture, be always a last interval, in which one or both +parties will draw back. Has not this occurred twice? + +Adieu, dear Senior. Do not be long without letting us hear from you, and +remember us affectionately to Mrs. Senior and to your daughter. + + + +Ashton House, near Phoenix Park, Dublin, September 26, 1856. + +My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter found me at Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, +where we have been spending a fortnight with Lord Aberdeen. + +It has been very interesting. Lord Aberdeen is one of our wisest +statesmen. + + * * * * * + +I found Lord Aberdeen deprecating the war, notwithstanding its success, +utterly incredulous as to the aggressive intentions attributed to +Nicholas, and in fact throwing the blame of the war on Lord Stratford +and, to a certain degree, on Louis Napoleon. + +I found him also much disturbed by our Naples demonstration, believing it +to be an unwarranted interference with an independent Government. + + * * * * * + +Ever yours, + +A.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, November 2, 1856. + +I am grateful to you, my dear Senior, for your kindness in telling me +what I most wished to hear. The judgments of such men as those with whom +you have been living, while they delight me, impose on me the duty of +unrelaxed efforts. + +Your fortnight at Lord Aberdeen's amused me exceedingly, and not the +least amusing part were the eccentricities of A.B. + +There is one point in which the English seem to me to differ from +ourselves, and, indeed, from all other nations, so widely that they form +almost a distinct species of men. There is often scarcely any connection +between what they say and what they do. + +No people carry so far, especially when speaking in public, violence of +language, outrageousness of theories, and extravagance in the inference +drawn from those theories. Thus your A.B. says that the Irish have not +shot half enough landlords. Yet no people act with more moderation. A +quarter of what is said in England at a public meeting, or even round a +dinner-table, without anything being done or intended to be done, would +in France announce violence, which would almost always be more furious +than the language had been. + +We Frenchmen are not so different from our antipodes as we are from a +nation, partly our own progeny, which is separated from us by only a +large ditch. + +I wonder whether you have heard how our illustrious master is relieving +the working-people from the constant rise of house-rent. When they are +turned out of their lodgings he re-establishes them by force; if they are +distrained on for non-payment of rent, he will not allow the tribunals to +treat the distress as legal. What think you, as a political economist, of +this form of outdoor relief? + +What makes the thing amusing is, that the Government which uses this +violent mode of lodging the working classes, is the very same Government +which, by its mad public works, by drawing to Paris suddenly a hundred +thousand workmen, and by destroying suddenly ten thousand houses, has +created the deficiency of habitations. It seems, however, that the +systematic intimidation and oppression of the rich in favour of the poor, +is every day becoming more and more one of the principles of our +Government. + +I read yesterday a circular from the prefect of La Sarthe, a public +document, stuck up on the church-doors and in the market-places, which, +after urging the landed proprietors of the department to assess +themselves for the relief of the poor, adds, that their insensibility +becomes more odious when it is remembered that for many years they have +been growing rich by the rise of prices, which is spreading misery among +the lower orders. + +The real character of our Government, its frightful mixture of socialism +and despotism, was never better shown. + +I have said enough to prevent your getting my letter. If it _should_ +escape the rogue who manages our post-office, let me know as soon as you +can. + +Kindest remembrances, + +A. DE. TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, February 11, 1857. + +I must ask you, my dear Senior, to tell me yourself how you have borne +this long winter. I suppose that it has been the same in England as in +Normandy, for the two climates are alike. + +Here we have been buried for ten or twelve days under a foot of snow, and +it froze hard during the whole time. How has your larynx endured this +trial? I assure you that we take great interest in that larynx of yours. +Give us therefore some news of it. + +Your letter gave us fresh pleasure by announcing your intention of +passing April and May in Paris. We shall certainly be there at the same +time, and perhaps before. I hope that we shall see you continually. We +are, you know, among the very many people who delight in your society; +besides, we have an excellent right to your friendship. + +I am looking forward with great pleasure to your Egypt. What I already +know of that country leads me to think that of all your reminiscences it +will afford the most novelty and interest. + +I do not think that your visit to Paris will be a very valuable addition +to your journals. If I may judge by the letters which I receive thence, +society there has never been flatter, nor more insipid, nor more entirely +without any dominant idea. I need not tell you that your opinion of our +statesmen is the same as that which prevails in Paris, but it is of such +an ancient date, and is so obvious, that it cannot give rise to +interesting discussions. + +A-propos of statesmen, we cannot understand how a man who made, _inter +pocula_, the speech of ---- on his travels can remain in a government. I +think that even ours, though so long-suffering towards its agents, could +not tolerate anything similar even if it should secretly approve. +Absolute power has its limits. The Prince de Ligne, in a discourse which +you have doubtless read, seems to me to have described it in one word by +saying that it was the speech of a _gamin_. + +I am, however, ungrateful to criticise it, for I own that it amused me +extremely, and that I thought that Morny especially was drawn from life; +but I think that if I had the honour of being Her Britannic Majesty's +Prime Minister, I should not have laughed so heartily. How could so +clever a man be guilty of such eccentricities? + +In my last letter to our excellent friend Mrs. Grote, I ventured to say +that there was one person who wrote even worse than I did, and that it +was you. Your last letter has filled me with remorse, for I could +actually read it, and even without trouble. I beg, therefore, to make an +_amende honorable_, and envy you your power of advancing towards +perfection. + + * * * * * + +I still think of paying a little visit to England in June. Adieu, dear +Senior. Do not be angry with me for not writing on politics. Indeed I +could tell you nothing, for I know nothing, and besides, just now +politics are not to be treated by Frenchmen, _in letters_. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Tocqueville, March 8, 1857. + +I still write to you, my dear Senior, from hence. We cannot tear +ourselves away from the charms of our retreat, or from a thousand little +employments. We shall scarcely reach Paris, therefore, before you. You +will, therefore, yourself bring me the remainder of your curious journal. +What I have already seen makes me most anxious to read the rest. I have +never read anything which gave me more valuable information on Egypt +and Oriental politics in general. As soon as I possibly can, I look +forward to continuing its perusal. + +The papers tell us that your Ministry has been beaten on the Chinese War. +It seems to me to have been an ill-chosen battle-field. The war was, +perhaps, somewhat wantonly begun, and very roughly managed; but the +fault lay with distant and subordinate agents. Now that it has begun, no +Cabinet can avoid carrying it on vigorously. The existing Ministry will +do as well for this as any other. As there is no line of policy to be +changed, the upsetting is merely to put in the people who are now +out. + +If the Ministry falls, the man least to be pitied will be our friend +Lewis. He will go out after having obtained a brilliant triumph on his +own ground, and he will enjoy the good fortune, rare to public men, of +quitting power greater than he was when he took it, and with the enviable +reputation of owing his greatness, not merely to his talents, but also to +the respect and the confidence which he has universally inspired. + +All this delights me; for I feel towards him, and towards all his family, +a true friendship. + +To return to China. + +It seems to me that the relations between that country and Europe are +changed, and dangerously changed. + +Till now, Europe has had to deal only with a Chinese government--the most +wretched of governments. Now you will find opposed to you a people; and a +people, however miserable and corrupt, is invincible on its own +territory, if it be supported and impelled by common and violent +passions. + +Yet I should be sorry to die before I have seen China open to the eyes as +well as to the arms of Europe. + +Do you believe in a dissolution? If so, when? + +A thousand regards to Mrs. Grote, to the great historian, to the Reeves, +and generally to all who are kind enough to remember my existence. + +I delight in the prospect of meeting you in Paris; yet I fear that you +will find it dull. All that I hear from the great town shows me that +never, at least during the last two hundred years, has intellectual life +been less active. + +If there be talent in the official circles, it is not the talent of +conversation, and among those who formerly possessed that talent, there +is so much torpidity, such want of interest on public affairs, such +ignorance as to what is passing, and so little wish to hear about it, +that no one, I am told, knows what to talk about or to take interest in. +Your conversation, however, is so agreeable and stimulating that it is +capable of reanimating the dead. Come and try to work this miracle. + +A thousand remembrances. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + + +_Paris, Hotel Bedford, April_ 9, 1857.--We reached this place last night. + +The Tocquevilles are in our hotel. I went to them in the evening. + +Tocqueville asked me how long I intended to remain. + +'Four weeks,' I answered. + +'I do not think,' he replied, 'that you will be able to do so. Paris has +become so dull that no one will voluntarily spend a month here. The +change which five years have produced is marvellous. + +'We have lost our interest not only in public affairs, but in all serious +matters.' + +'You will return then to the social habits of Louis Quinze,' I said. 'You +were as despotically governed then as you are now; and yet the _salons_ +of Madame Geoffrin were amusing.' + +'We may do so in time,' he answered, 'but that time is to come. At +present we talk of nothing but the Bourse. The conversation of our +_salons_ resembles more that of the time of Law, than that of the time of +Marmontel.' + +I spent the evening at Lamartine's. There were few people there, and the +conversation was certainly dull enough to justify Tocqueville's fears. + + +_April_ 10.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. + +We talked of the Empress, and of the possibility of her being Regent of +France. + +'That supposes,' I said, 'first, that _Celui-ci_ holds his power until +his death; and, secondly, that his son will succeed him.' + +'I expect both events,' answered Tocqueville. 'It is impossible to deny +that Louis Napoleon has shown great dexterity and tact. His system of +government is detestable if we suppose the welfare of France to be his +object; but skilful if its aim be merely the preservation of his own +power. + +'Such being his purpose, he has committed no great faults. Wonderful, +almost incredible, as his elevation is, it has not intoxicated him.' + +'It has not intoxicated him,' I answered, 'because he was prepared for +it--he always expected it.' + +'He could scarcely,' replied Tocqueville, 'have really and soberly +expected it until 1848. + +'Boulogne and Strasbourg were the struggles of a desperate man, who +staked merely a life of poverty, obscurity, and exile. Even if either of +them had succeeded, the success could not have been permanent. A +surprise, if it had thrown him upon the throne, could not have kept him +there. Even after 1848, though the Bourbons were discredited, we should +not have tolerated a Bonaparte if we had not lost all our self-possession +in our terror of the Rouges. That terror created him, that terror +supports him; and habit, and the dread of the bloodshed and distress, and +the unknown chances of a revolution, will, I think, maintain him during +his life. + +'The same feelings will give the succession to his heir. Whether the heir +will keep it, is a different question.' + +_Sunday, April_ 12.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. I asked him if he had +seen the Due de Nemours' letter. + +'I have not seen it,' he answered. 'In fact, I have not wished to see it. +I disapprove of the Fusionists, and the anti-Fusionists, and the +Legitimists, and the Orleanists-in short, of all the parties who are +forming plans of action in events which may not happen, or may not +happen in my time, or may be accompanied by circumstances rendering those +plans absurd, or mischievous, or impracticable,' + +'But though you have not read the letter,' I said, 'you know generally +what are its contents.' + +'Of course I do,' he replied. 'And I cannot blame the Comte de Chambord +for doing what I do myself--for refusing to bind himself in +contingencies, and to disgust his friends in the hope of conciliating his +enemies.' + +'Do you believe,' I asked, 'that the mere promise of a Constitution would +offend the Legitimists?' + +'I do not think,' he answered, 'that they would object to a Constitution +giving them what they would consider their fair share of power and +influence. + +'Under Louis Philippe they had neither, but it was in a great measure +their own fault. + +'They have neither under this Government, for its principle is to rest on +the army and on the people, and to ignore the existence of the educated +classes. + +'You see _that_ in its management of the press. 'Montalembert, or Guizot, +or Falloux, or I may publish what we like. We are not read by the soldier +or by the _proletaire_.[1] But the newspaper press is subject to a +slavery to which it was never reduced before. The system was first +elaborated in Austria, and I daresay will be copied by all the +Continental autocrats, for no inventions travel so quickly as despotic +ones. + +'The public _avertissements_ are comparatively unimportant. Before a +journal gets one of those its suppression has probably been decided on. +Every day there are communications between the literary police and the +different editors. Such or such a line of argument is altogether +forbidden, another is allowed to be used to a certain extent. Some +subjects are tabooed, others are to be treated partially. + +'As the mental food of the lower orders is supplied by the newspapers, +this paternal Government takes care that it shall not be too exciting.' + +[Footnote 1: The lowest class.--ED.] + + +_Paris, Monday, April_ 13.--Tocqueville, Jobez, Marcet, St.-Hilaire,[1] +Charles Sumner, and Lord Granville breakfasted with us. + +The conversation turned on public speaking. + +'Very few indeed of our speakers,' said Tocqueville, 'have ever ventured +to improvise: Barrot could do it. We have told him sometimes that a +speech must be answered immediately; and when he objected that he had +nothing to say, we used to insist, and to assure him that as soon as he +was in the tribune, the ideas and the words would come; and so they did. +I have known him go on under such circumstances for an hour; of course +neither the matter nor the form could be first rate, but they were +sufficient.' + +'In fact,' said Lord Granville, 'much of what is called improvisation is +mere recollection. A man who has to speak night after night, gets on most +subjects a set of thoughts, and even of expressions, which naturally pour +in on him as soon as his argument touches the train which leads to them. + +'One of our eminent speakers,' he continued, 'Lord Grey, is perhaps best +when he has not had time to prepare himself. He is so full of knowledge +and of inferences, that he has always enough ready to make an excellent +speech. When he prepares himself, there is _too_ much; he gives the House +more facts and more deductions than it can digest.' + +'Do you agree with me,' I asked, 'in thinking that Lord Melbourne was +best when he improvised?' + +'I agree with you,' answered Lord Granville, 'that his set speeches were +cold and affected. He was natural only when he was quite careless, or +when he was much excited, and then he was admirable.' + +'Did not Thiers improvise?' I asked. + +'Never,' answered Tocqueville. 'He prepared himself most carefully. So +did Guizot. We see from the "Revue retrospective" that he even prepared +his replies. His long experience enabled him to foresee what he should +have to answer. Pasquier used to bring his speech ready written. It lay +on the desk before him, but he never looked at it.' + +'That seems to me,' I said, 'very difficult. It is like swimming with +corks. One would be always tempted to look down on the paper.' + +'It is almost equally difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to make a speech of +which the words are prepared. There is a struggle between the invention +and the memory. You trust thoroughly to neither, and therefore are not +served thoroughly by either.' + +'Yet that,' said Marcet, 'is what our Swiss pastors are required to do. +They are forbidden to read, and forbidden to extemporise, and by practice +they speak from memory--some well, all tolerably.' + +'Brougham,' said Lord Granville, 'used to introduce his most elaborately +prepared passages by a slight hesitation. When he seemed to pause in +search of thoughts, or of words, we knew that he had a sentence ready cut +and dried.' + +'Who,' I asked Sumner, 'are your best speakers in America?' + +'The best,' he said, 'is Seward; after him perhaps comes Winthrop.' + +'I should have thought it difficult,' I said, 'to speak well in the +Senate, to only fifty or at most sixty members.' + +'You do not speak,' answered Sumner, 'to the Senators. You do not think +of them. You know that their minds are made up. Except as to mere +executive questions, such as the approval of a public functionary, or the +acceptance or modification of a treaty, every senator comes in pledged to +a given, or to an assumed, set of opinions and measures. You speak to the +public. You speak in order that 500,000 copies of what you say, as was +the case with my last speech, may be scattered over the whole Union.' + +'That,' I said, 'must much affect the character of your oratory. A speech +meant to be read must be a different thing from one meant to be heard. +Your speeches must in fact be pamphlets, and that I suppose accounts for +their length.' + +'That is true,' replied Sumner. 'But when you hear that we speak for a +day, or for two days, or, as I have sometimes done, for three days, you +must remember that our days are days of only three hours each.' + +'How long,' I asked, 'was your last speech?' + +'About five hours,' he answered. 'Three hours the first day and two hours +the second.' + +'That,' I said, 'is not beyond our remotest limit. Brougham indeed, on +the amendment of the law, spoke for six hours, during the greater part of +the time to an audience of three. The House was filled with fog, and +there is an H.B. which represents him gesticulating in the obscurity and +the solitude.' + +'He,' said Lord Granville, 'put his speech on the Reform Bill at the +top.' + +'The speech,' I said, 'at the end of which he knelt to implore the Peers +to pass the bill, and found it difficult to rise.' + +[Footnote 1: Barthelemy de St-Hilaire is now Thiers' private secretary +and right hand.--ED.] + + +_Tuesday, April_ 14.--Z., Sumner, Lord Granville, Tocqueville, M. +Circourt, St.-Hilaire, and Corcelle breakfasted with us. + +The conversation took the same turn as yesterday. + +'May I venture,' said Lord Granville to Z., 'to ask whom of your +opponents you feared the most?' + +'Beyond all comparison,' answered Z., 'Thiers.' + +'Was not D.' I asked, 'very formidable?' + +'Certainly,' said Z. 'But he had not the wit, or the _entrainement_ of +Thiers. His sentences were like his action. He had only one gesture, +raising and sinking his right arm, and every time that right arm fell, it +accompanied a sentence adding a link to a chain of argument, massive and +well tempered, without a particle of dross, which coiled round his +adversary like a boa constrictor.' + +'And yet,' said M., 'he was always languid and embarrassed at starting; +it took him ten minutes to get _en train_.' + +'That defect,' said Lord Granville, 'belonged to many of our good +speakers--to Charles Fox--to Lord Holland. Indeed Fox required the +excitement of serious business to become fluent. He never made a +tolerable after-dinner speech.' + +'Among the peculiarities of D.,' said M., 'are his perfect tact and +discretion in the tribune, and his awkwardness in ordinary life. In +public and in private he is two different men.' + +'It is impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'to deny that D. was great in a +deliberative body, but his real scene of action is the bar. He was only +_among_ the best speakers in the Constituent Assembly. He is _the_ +greatest advocate at the bar.' + +'Although,' said M----, 'at the bar, where he represents only his client, +one of the elements of his parliamentary success, his high moral +character, does not assist him. Do you remember how, on the debate of +the Roman expedition, he annihilated by one sentence Jules Favre who had +ventured to assail him? "Les injures," he said, "sont comme les corps +pesants, dont la force depend de la hauteur d'ou ils tombent."' + +'One man,' said Z., 'who enjoys a great European reputation, I could +never think of as a serious adversary, that is Lamartine. + +'He appeared to me to treat the sad realities of political life as +materials out of which he could compose strange and picturesque scenes, +or draw food for his imagination and his vanity. He seemed always to be +saying to himself: "How will the future dramatist or poet, or painter, +represent this event, and what will be my part in the picture, or in the +poem, or on the stage?" + +'_Il cherchait toujours a poser_.--He could give pleasure, he could give +pain--he could amuse, and he could irritate,--but he seldom could +persuade, and he never could convince. Even before the gate of the Hotel +de Ville, the most brilliant hour of his life, he owed his success rather +to his tall figure, his fine features, attractive as well as commanding, +his voice, his action--in short, to the assemblage of qualities which the +Greeks called [Greek: hupokrisis] than to his eloquence.' + +'Was not,' I said, 'his contrast between the red flag and the tricolor +eloquent?' + +'It was a fine bit of imagery,' said Z., 'and admirably adapted to the +occasion. I do not deny to him the power of saying fine things--perhaps +fine speeches, but he never made a _good_ speech--a speech which it was +difficult to answer.' + +'If anyone,' he continued, 'ever takes the trouble to look into our +Parliamentary debates, Lamartine will hold a higher comparative rank than +he is really entitled to. Most of us were too busy to correct the reports +for the "Moniteur." Lamartine not only corrected them but inserted whole +passages.' + +'He inserted,' said M, 'not only passages but facts. Such as +"_applaudissements_," "_vive emotion," "hilarite_," often when the speech +had been received in silence, or unattended to.' + +'I remember,' said Corcelle, 'an insertion of that kind in the report of +a speech which was never delivered. It was during the Restoration, when +written speeches were read, and sometimes were sent to the "Moniteur" in +anticipation of their being read. Such had been the case with respect to +the speech in question. The intended orator had inserted, like Lamartine, +"_vifs applaudissements," "profonde sensation_," and other notices of the +effect of his speech. The House adjourned unexpectedly before it was +delivered, and he forgot to withdraw the report.' + +'Could a man like Lord Althorp,' I asked, 'whom it was painful to hear, +hold his place as leader of a French Assembly?' + +'Impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'unless he were a soldier. We tolerate +from a man who has almost necessarily been deprived of a careful +education much clumsiness and awkwardness of elocution. Soult did not +speak much better than the Duke of Wellington, but he was listened to. He +had, like the Duke, an air of command which imposed.' + +'Was there,' I said, 'any personal quarrel between Soult and Thiers?' + +'Certainly there was,' said Z., 'a little one. I will not say that Soult +was in Spain a successful commander, or an agreeable colleague, or an +obedient subordinate, but whenever things went wrong there, Soult was the +man whom the Emperor sent thither to put them to rights. Great as Thiers +may be as a military critic, I venture to put him below Napoleon.' + +'I have been reading,' I said, 'Falloux's reception speech, and was +disappointed by it.' + +'In his speech and Brifault's,' said Circourt, 'you may compare the +present declamatory style and that of thirty years ago. Brifault has, or +attempts to have, the _legerete_ and the prettiness of the Restoration. +Falloux is _grandiose_ and emphatic, as we all are now.' + +'Falloux,' said Z., 'made an excellent speech the first time that he +addressed the Chamber of Deputies. The next time he was not so +successful, and after that he ceased to be listened to. + +'But in the Constituent Assembly, and indeed in the Legislative, he +acquired an ascendency. In those Assemblies, great moral qualities and a +high social position were rarer than they were among the Deputies, and in +the dangers of the country they were more wanted. Falloux possesses them +all. He is honest and brave, and in his province employs liberally and +usefully a large fortune.' + +'Were those the merits,' I asked, 'which opened to him the doors of the +Academy?' + +'Certainly,' answered Z. 'As a man of letters he is nothing, as a +statesman not much. We elected him in honour of his courage and his +honesty, and perhaps with some regard to his fortune. We are the only +independent body left, and we value in a candidate no quality more than +independence.' + +'I am told,' I said, 'that Falloux is now an ultra-Legitimist.' + +'That is not true,' said Z. 'He is a Legitimist, but a liberal one. He +would tolerate no Government, whatever were its other claims, that was +not constitutional.' + +'Your Academic ceremonies,' I said 'seem to me not very well imagined. +There is something _fade_, almost ridiculous, in the literary minuet in +which the _recipiendaire_ and the receiver are trotted out to show their +paces to each other and to the Academy. The new member extolling the +predecessor of whom he is the unworthy successor, the old member lauding +his new colleague to his face, and assuring him that he, too, is one of +the ornaments of the Society.' + +'Particularly,' said ----, 'when, as was the case the other day, it is +notorious that neither of them has any real respect for the idol which he +is forced to crown. Then the political innuendoes, the under-currents of +censure of the present conveyed in praise of the past, become tiresome +after we have listened to them for five years. We long to hear people +talk frankly and directly, instead of saying one thing for the mere +purpose of showing that they are thinking of another thing. The Emperor +revenged himself on Falloux by his antithesis: "_que le desordre les +avait uni, et que l'ordre les avait separe_.'" + +'How did Falloux reply to it?' I asked. + +'Feebly,' said ----. 'He muttered something about _l'ordre_ having no +firmer adherent than himself. In these formal audiences our great man has +the advantage. He has his _mot_ ready prepared, and you cannot discuss +with him.' + +We talked of the French spoken by foreigners. 'The best,' said Circourt, +'is that of the Swedes and Russians, the worst that of the Germans.' + +'Louis Philippe,' said Z., 'used to maintain that the best test of a +man's general talents was his power of speaking foreign languages. It was +an opinion that flattered his vanity, for he spoke like a native French, +Italian, English, and German.' + +'It is scarcely possible,' said Tocqueville, 'for a man to be original in +any language but his own; in all others he is forced to say what he can, +and that is generally something that he recollects.' + +'I was much struck by that,' said Z., 'when conversing with Narvaez. He +had been talking sensibly but rather dully in French, I begged him to +talk Spanish, which I understand though I cannot speak. The whole man was +changed. It was as if a curtain had been drawn up from between us. +Instead of hammering at commonplaces, he became pointed, and spirited, +and eloquent.' + +'Is he an educated man?' I asked. + +'For a Spaniard,' answered Z., 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, +and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The +want of book-learning contributes to his originality.' + +'The most wonderful speaker in a foreign language,' said Sumner, 'was +Kossuth. He must have been between forty and fifty before he heard an +English word. Yet he spoke it fluently, eloquently, and even +idiomatically. He would have made his fortune among us as a stump-orator.' + + + +_Tuesday, April_ 28.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. + +We talked rather of people than of things. + +'Circourt,' said Tocqueville, 'is my dictionary. When I wish to know what +has been done or what has been said on any occasion, I go to Circourt. He +draws out one of the drawers in his capacious head, and finds there all +that I want arranged and ticketed. + +'One of the merits of his talk, as it is of his character, is its +conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and +his affections are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would +sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man +of whom that can be said?' + +'What think you of Mrs. T-----?' I inquired. + +'I like her too,' he replied, 'but less than I do Circourt. She has +considerable talent, but she thinks and reads only to converse. She has +no originality, no convictions. She says what she thinks that she can say +well; like a person writing a dialogue or an exercise. Whether the +opinion which she expresses be right or wrong, or the story that she +tells be true or false, is no concern of hers, provided it be _bien +dit_.' + +'The fault of her conversation,' I said, 'seems to me to be, that while +she is repeating one sentence she is thinking of the next, and that while +you are speaking to her, she is considering what is to be her next topic. +I have noticed this fault in other very fluent conversers. They are so +intent on the future that they neglect the present.' + +'It is rather a French than an English fault,' said Tocqueville. 'The +English have more curiosity and less vanity, than we have; more desire to +hear and less anxiety to shine. They are often, therefore, better +_causeurs_ than we are. _Le grand talent pour le silence_, or, in other +words, the power of listening which has been imputed to them, is a great +conversational virtue. I do not believe that it was said ironically or +epigrammatically. The man who bestowed that praise knew how rare a merit +silence is.' + +'May we not owe that merit,' I asked, 'to our bad French? We shine most +when we listen.' + +'A great talker,' I continued, 'Montalembert, is to breakfast with us. +Whom shall I ask to meet him?' + +'Not me,' said Tocqueville, 'unless you will accept me as one of the +chorus. I will not take a _premier role_, or any prominent _role_, in a +piece in which he is to act. I like his society; that is, I like to sit +silent and hear him talk, and I admire his talents; and we have the +strong bond of common hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different, or +even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of +which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger. If we differed on only +one subject, instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would +pick out that single subject to attack me on. I am not sure that even as +host you will be safe. He is more acute in detecting points of opposition +than most men are in finding subjects of agreement. He avoids meeting you +on friendly or even on neutral ground. He chooses to have a combat _en +champ clos_. + +'Take care,' he added, 'and do not have too many _sommites._ They watch +one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps +over the table.' + +'We had two pleasant breakfasts,' I said, 'a fortnight ago. You were +leader of the band at one, Z. at the other, and the rest left the stage +free to the great actor.' + +'As for me,' he answered, 'I often shut myself up, particularly after +dinner, or during dinner if it be long. The process of digestion, little, +as I can eat, seems to oppress me. + +'Z. is always charming. He has an _aplomb_, an ease, a _verve_ arising +from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse. He is a +perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, _homme de lettres_, and _pere de +famille_, falling back on literature and the domestic affections. As for +me, I have intervals of _sauvagerie_, or rather the times when I am not +_sauvage_ are the intervals. I have many, perhaps too many, acquaintances +whom I like, and a very few friends whom I love, and a host of relations. +I easily tire of Paris, and long to fly to the fields and woods and +seashore of my province.' + +We passed to the language of conversation. + +'There are three words,' said Tocqueville, 'which you have lost, and +which I wonder how you do without,--Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle. +You are forced always to substitute the name. They are so mixed in all +our forms that half of what we say would appear abrupt or blunt without +them. + +'Then the _tutoyer_ is a _nuance_ that you want. When husband and wife +are talking together they pass insensibly, twenty times perhaps in an +hour, from the _vous_ to the _tu_. When matters of business or of serious +discussion are introduced, indeed whenever the affections are not +concerned, it is _vous_. With the least _soupcon_ of tenderness the _tu_ +returns.' + +'Yet,' I said, 'you never use the _tu_ before a third person.' + +'Never,' he answered, 'in good company. Among the _bourgeoisie_ always. +It is odd that an aristocratic form, so easily learned, should not have +been adopted by all who pretend to be gentry. I remember being present +when an Englishman and his wife, much accustomed to good French society, +but unacquainted with this _nuance_, were laboriously _tutoyering_ each +other. I relieved them much by assuring them that it was not merely +unnecessary, but objectionable.' + + +_May_ 2.--Tocqueville dined with us. + +A lady at the _table d'hote_ was full of a sermon which she had heard at +the Madeleine. The preacher said, sinking his voice to an audible +whisper, 'I will tell you a secret, but it must go no farther. There is +more religion among the Protestants than with us, they are better +acquainted with the Bible, and make more use of their reading: we have +much to learn from them.' + +I asked Tocqueville, when we were in our own room, as to the feelings of +the religious world in France with respect to heretics. + +'The religious laity,' he answered, 'have probably little opinion on the +subject. They suppose the heretic to be less favourably situated than +themselves, but do not waste much thought upon him. The ignorant priests +of course consign him to perdition. The better instructed think, like +Protestants, that error is dangerous only so far as it influences +practice. + +'Dr. Bretonneau, at Tours, was one of the best men that I have known, but +an unbeliever. The archbishop tried in his last illness to reconcile him +to the Church: Bretonneau died as he had lived. But the archbishop, when +lamenting to me his death, expressed his own conviction that so excellent +a soul could not perish. + +'You recollect the duchesse in St.-Simon, who, on the death of a sinner +of illustrious race, said, "On me dira ce qu'on voudra, on ne me +persuadera pas que Dieu n'y regarde deux fois avant de damner un homme de +sa qualite." The archbishop's feeling was the same, only changing +_qualite_ into virtue. + +'There is something amusing,' he continued, 'when, separated as we are +from it by such a chasm, we look back on the prejudices of the _Ancien +Regime_. An old lady once said to me, "I have been reading with great +satisfaction the genealogies which prove that Jesus Christ descended from +David. Ca montre que notre Seigneur etait Gentilhomme."' + +'We are somewhat ashamed,' I said, 'in general of Jewish blood, yet the +Levis boast of their descent from the Hebrew Levi.' + +'They are proud of it,' said Tocqueville, 'because they make themselves +out to be cousins of the Blessed Virgin. They have a picture in which a +Duc de Levi stands bareheaded before the Virgin. "Couvrez-vous donc, mon +cousin," she says. "C'est pour ma commodite," he answers.' + +The conversation passed to literature. + +'I am glad,' said Tocqueville, 'to find that, imperfect as my knowledge +of English is, I can feel the difference in styles.' + +'I feel strongly,' I said, 'the difference in French styles in prose, but +little in poetry.' + +'The fact is,' said Tocqueville, 'that the only French poetry, except +that of Racine, that is worth reading is the light poetry. I do not think +that I could now read Lamartine, though thirty years ago he delighted +me.' + +'The French taste,' I said, 'in English poetry differs from ours. You +read Ossian and the "Night Thoughts."' + +'As for Ossian,' he answered, 'he does not seem to have been ever popular +in England. But the frequent reference to the "Night Thoughts," in the +books and letters of the last century, shows that the poem was then in +everybody's memory. Foreigners are in fact provincials. They take up +fashions of literature as country people do fashions of dress, when the +capital has left them off. When I was young you probably had ceased to be +familiar with Richardson. We knew him by heart. We used to weep over the +Lady Clementina, whom I dare say Miss Senior never heard of. + +'During the first Empire, we of the old _regime_ abandoned Paris, as we +do now, and for the same reasons. We used to live in our chateaux, where +I remember as a boy hearing Sir Charles Grandison and Fielding read +aloud. A new novel was then an event. Madame Cottin was much more +celebrated than George Sand is now. For all her books were read, and by +everybody. Notwithstanding the great merits of George Sand's style, her +plots and her characters are so exaggerated and so unnatural, and her +morality is so perverted, that we have ceased to read her.' + +We talked of Montalembert, and I mentioned his _sortie_ the other day +against the clergy. + +'I can guess pretty well,' said Tocqueville, 'what he said to you, for it +probably was a _resume_ of his article in the "Correspondant." Like most +men accustomed to public speaking, he repeats himself. He is as honest +perhaps as a man who is very _passionne_ can be; but his oscillations are +from one extreme to another. Immediately after the _coup d'etat,_ when he +believed Louis Napoleon to be Ultramontane, he was as servile as his +great enemy the "Univers" is now. "Ce sont les nuances qui se querellent, +non les couleurs;" and between him and the "Univers" there is only a +_nuance_. The Bishop of Agen has oscillated like him, but began at the +other end. The other day the Bishop made a most servile address to the +Emperor. He had formerly been a furious anti-Bonapartist. "How is it +possible," said Montalembert, "that a man can rush so completely from one +opinion to another? On the 4th of December in 1851 this same Bishop +denounced the _coup d'etat_ with such violence that the President sent me +to the Nuncio to request his interference. Now he is on his knees before +him. Such changes can scarcely be honest." Montalembert does not see that +the only difference between them is that they have trod in opposite +directions the very same path.' + + +_Thursday, May_ 5.--Tocqueville and I dined with M. and Madame de Bourke, +and met there General Dumas and Ary Scheffer. + +We talked of Delaroche's pictures, and Scheffer agreed with me in +preferring the smaller ones. He thought that Delaroche improved up to the +time of his death, and preferred his Moses, and Drowned Martyr, painted +in 1853 and 1855, to the other large ones, and his Girondins, finished in +1856, to the earlier small ones. + +We passed on to the increased and increasing population of Paris. + +'The population of Paris,' I said, 'is only half that of London, while +that of the British Islands is not three-fourths that of France. If you +were to double the population of Paris, therefore, it would still be +proportionally less than that of London.' + +'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'but yet there are many circumstances +connected with the Parisian population each of which renders it more +dangerous than the London one. In the first place, there is the absence +of any right to relief. The English workman knows that neither he nor his +family can starve. The Frenchman becomes anxious as soon as his +employment is irregular, and desperate when it fails. The English workmen +are unacquainted with arms, and have no leaders with military experience. +The bulk of the Frenchmen have served, many of them are veterans in civil +war, and they have commanders skilled in street-fighting. The English +workmen have been gradually attracted to London by a real and permanent +demand for their labour. They have wives and children. At least 100,000 +men have been added to the working population of Paris since the _coup +d'etat._ They are young men in the vigour of their strength and passions, +unrestrained by wives or families. They have been drawn hither suddenly +and artificially by the demolition and reconstruction of half the town, +by the enormous local expenditure of the Government, and by the fifty +millions spent in keeping the price of bread in Paris unnaturally low. +The 40,000 men collected in Paris by the construction of the +fortifications are supposed to have mainly contributed to the revolution +of 1848. What is to be expected from this addition of 100,000? Then the +repressive force is differently constituted and differently animated. In +England you have an army which has chosen arms as a profession, which +never thinks of any other employment, and indeed is fit for no other, and +never expects any provision except its pay and its pension. The French +soldier, ever since 1789, is a citizen. He serves his six years because +the law and the colonel force him to do so, but he counts the days until +he can return to his province, his cottage, and his field. He sympathises +with the passions of the people. In the terrible days of June, the army +withstood the cries, the blessings, the imprecations and the seductions +of the mob, only because they had the National Guards by their side. +Their presence was a guarantee that the cause was just. The National +Guards never fought before as they did in those days. Yet at the Chateau +d'Eau, the miraculous heroism and the miraculous good luck of Lamoriciere +were necessary to keep them together. If he had not exposed himself as no +man ever did, and escaped as no man ever did, they would have been +broken.' + +'I was there,' said Scheffer, 'when his fourth horse was killed under +him. As the horse was sinking he drew his feet out of the stirrups and +came to the ground without falling; but his cigar dropped from his mouth. +He picked it up, and went on with the order which he was giving to an +_aide-de-camp._ + +'I saw that,' said Tocqueville. 'He had placed himself immediately behind +a cannon in front of the Chateau d'Eau which fired down the Boulevard du +Temple. A murderous fire from the windows in a corner of the Rue du +Temple killed all the artillerymen. The instant that Lamoriciere placed +himself behind it, I thought that I saw what would happen. I implored him +to get behind some shelter, or at least not to pose as a mark. +"Recollect," I said, "that if you go on in this way you must be killed +before the day is over-and where shall we all be?"' + +'"I see the danger of what I am doing," he answered, "and I dislike it as +much as you can do; but it is necessary. The National Guards are shaking; +if they break, the Line follows. I must set an example that everyone can +see and can understand. This is not a time for taking precautions. If _I_ +were to shelter myself, _they_ would run."' + +'How does Lamoriciere,' I asked, 'bear exile and inactivity in Brussels?' + +'Very ill,' said Scheffer. 'He feels that he has compromised the +happiness of his wife, whom he married not long before the _coup +d'etat._' + +'Changarnier at Malins, who lives alone and has only himself to care for, +supports it much better.' + +Tocqueville and I walked home together. + +'Scheffer,' he said, 'did not tell all that happened at the Chateau +d'Eau. Men seldom do when they fight over their battles.' + +'The insurgents by burrowing through walls had got into a house in the +rear of our position. They manned the windows, and suddenly fired down on +us from a point whence no danger had been feared. This caused a panic +among the National Guards, a force of course peculiarly subject to +panics. They turned and ran back 250 yards along the Boulevard St. +Martin, carrying with them the Line and Lamoriciere himself. He +endeavoured to stop them by outcries, and by gesticulations, and indeed +by force. He gave to one man who was trying to run by him a blow with his +fist, so well meant and well directed that it broke his collar bone.' + +'At length he stopped them, re-formed them, and said: "Now you shall +march, I at your head, and the drummer beating the charge, as if you were +on parade, up to that house." They did so. After a few discharges, which +miraculously missed Lamoriciere, the men in the house deserted it.' + +'What were you doing at the Chateau d'Eau?' I asked. + +'We were marching,' he said, 'with infantry and artillery on the +Boulevard du Temple, across which there was a succession of barricades, +which it was necessary to take one by one. + +'As we advanced in the middle, our sappers and miners got into the houses +on each side, broke through the party walls, and killed the men at the +windows.' + +'Those three days,' he continued, 'impress strongly on my mind the +dangers of our present state.' + +'It is of no use to take up pavements and straighten streets, and pierce +Paris by long military roads, and loop-hole the barracks, if the +Executive cannot depend on the army. Ditches and bastions are of no use +if the garrison will not man them.' + +'The new law of recruitment, however, may produce a great change. Instead +of 80,000 conscripts, 120,000 are to be taken each year. This is about +all that are fit for service. They are required to serve for only two +years. If the change ended there our army would be still more a militia +than it is now. It would be the Prussian Landwehr. But those entitled to +their discharge are to be enticed by higher pay, promotions, bounties, +and retiring pensions--in short, by all means of seduction, to re-enter +for long periods, for ten, or fifteen, or perhaps twenty years. It is +hoped that thus a permanent regular army may be formed, with an _esprit +de corps_ of its own, unsympathising with the people, and ready to keep +it down; and such will, I believe, be the result. But it will take nine +or ten years to produce such an army--and the dangers that I fear are +immediate.' + +'What are the motives,' I asked, 'for the changes as to the conscription, +the increase of numbers, and the diminution of the time of service?' + +'They are parts,' he answered, 'of the system. The French peasant, and +indeed the _ouvrier_, dislikes the service. The proportion of conscripts +who will re-enlist is small. Therefore the whole number must be large. +The country must be bribed to submit to this by the shortness of the +term. The conscript army will be sacrificed to what is to be the regular +army. It will be young and ill-trained.' + +'But your new regular army,' I said, 'will be more formidable to the +enemy than your present force.' + +'I am not sure of that,' he answered. 'The merit of the French army was +the impetuosity of its attack, the "furia Francese," as the Italians +called it. Young troops have more of this quality than veterans. The +Maison du Roi, whose charge at Steenkirk Macaulay has so well described, +consisted of boys of eighteen.' + +'I am re-editing,' I said, 'my old articles. Among them is one written in +1841 on the National Character of France, England, and America,[1] as +displayed towards foreign nations. I have not much to change in what I +have said of England or of America. As they have increased in strength +they have both become still more arrogant, unjust, and shameless. + +'England has perhaps become a little more prudent America a little less +so. But France seems to me to be altered. I described her as a soldier +with all the faults of that unsocial character. As ambitious, rapacious, +eager for nothing but military glory and territorial aggrandisement. She +seems now to have become moderate and pacific, and to be devoted rather +to the arts of peace than to those of war.' + +'France _is_ changed,' answered Tocqueville, 'and when compared with the +France of Louis XIV., or of Napoleon, was already changed when you wrote, +though the war-cry raised for political purposes in 1840 deceived +you. At the same time, I will not deny that military glory would, more +than any other merit, even _now_ strengthen a Government, and that +military humiliation would inevitably destroy one. Nor must you overrate +the unpopularity of the last war. Only a few even of the higher classes +understood its motives. "Que diable veut cette guerre?" said my country +neighbour to me; "si c'etait contre les Anglais--mais _avec_ les Anglais, +et pour le Grand Turc, qu'est-ce que cela peut signifier?" But when they +saw that it cost only men, that they were not invaded or overtaxed, and +that prices rose, they got reconciled to it. + +'It was only the speculators of Paris that were tired of it. And if, +instead of the Crimea, we had fought near our own frontiers, or for some +visible purpose, all our military passions, bad and good, would have +broken out.' + +[Footnote 1: This article is republished in the _Historical and +Philosophical Essays_. Longmans: 1865.--ED.] + + +_Wednesday, May_ 13.--Tocqueville came in after breakfast, and I walked +with him in the shade of the green walls or arcades of the Tuileries +chestnuts. + +We talked of the Montijos, which led our conversation to Merimee and V. + +'Both of them,' said Tocqueville, 'were the friends of +Countess Montijo, the mother. + +'V. was among the last persons who knew Eugenie as Countess Theba. He +escorted her to the Tuileries the very evening of her marriage. There he +took his leave of her. "You are now," he said, "placed so high that I can +only admire you from below." And I do not believe that they have met +since. + +'Merimee took a less sentimental view of the change. He acknowledged his +Empress in his former plaything, subsided from a sort of stepfather into +a courtier, and so rose to honour and wealth, while V. is satisfied to +remain an ex-professor and _un homme de lettres_.' + + * * * * * + +We met Henri Martin, and I asked Tocqueville what he thought of his +History. + +'It has the merit of selling,' he said, 'which cannot be said of any +other History of France. Martin is laborious and conscientious, and does +not tell a story ill; but he is a partisan and is always biassed by his +own likings and dislikings. He belongs to the class of theorists, +unfortunately not a small one, whose political _beau ideal_ is the +absence of all control over the will of the people-who are opposed +therefore to an hereditary monarchy-to a permanent President--to a +permanent magistracy-to an established Church--in short, to all +privileged classes, bodies, or institutions. Equality, not liberty or +security, is their object. They are centralisers and absolutists. A +despotic Assembly elected by universal suffrage, sitting at most for a +year, governing, like the Convention, through its committees, or a single +despot, appointed for a week, and not re-eligible, is the sort of ruler +that they would prefer. The last five years have perhaps disgusted Martin +with his Asiatic democracy, but his earlier volumes are coloured +throughout by his prejudices against all systems implying a division of +power, and independent authorities controlling and balancing one +another.' + +We talked of the Secret Police. + +'It has lately,' said Tocqueville, 'been unusually troublesome, or rather +it has been troublesome to a class of persons whom it seldom ventures to +molest. A friend of mine, M. Sauvaire Barthelemy, one of Louis Philippe's +peers, was standing at the door of his hotel reading a letter. A +gentleman in plain clothes addressed him, announced himself as an _agent +de police_, and asked him if the letter which he was reading was +political. "No," said Barthelemy, "you may see it. It is a _billet de +mariage." "I am directed," said the agent, "to request you to get into +this carriage." They got in and drove to Mazas. There Barthelemy was +shown into a neat room with iron bars to the windows, and ordered to +wait. After some time Louis Pietri, the Prefet de Police, arrived. + +'"I am grieved," he said, "at giving you so much trouble, but I have been +commanded to see you in this place, and to inform you that the Emperor +cannot bear that a man in your high position should systematically +misrepresent him. + +'"L'Empereur fait tout ce qu'il peut pour le bonheur de la France, et il +n'entend pas supporter une opposition aussi constante et aussi violente. +Effectivement il ne veut pas d'opposition. Voulez-vous le tenir pour +dit, Monsieur, et recevoir de nouveau mes excuses du derangement que j'ai +du vous causer? Pour le present vous etes libre."' + + +[Mr. Senior left Paris on the next day. + +M. de Tocqueville paid his promised visit to England in June, and was +received with a perfect ovation.--ED.] + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +London, July 10, 1857. + +I was too ill, my dear friend, to go to you yesterday. Dr. Ferguson tells +me that I have been doing too much, and prescribes perfect rest. + +I have already read half your journal of 1857. It is very curious; but I +am glad that you have disguised me. + +It is terrible to be in London, and to see so little of you; but the +force of circumstances is greater than the force of wishes. + +Ever yours, + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Tocqueville, August 6, 1857. + +You may already have had news of me through some of our common friends, +my dear Senior, but I wish, besides, to give you some myself, and to +thank you again for the kind welcome I received from you and in your +house during my stay in London. + +I regret only that I was unable to be more with you, and that, in spite +of myself, I was drawn into a whirlpool which carried me away and +prevented me from following my inclinations. + +I have returned, however, full of gratitude for the marks of +consideration and affection showered upon me in England. I shall never +forget them. + +I found my wife already installed here, and in good health; and I have +resumed my busy and peaceful life with a delight which does honour to my +wisdom. For I had been so spoiled in England that I might have been +afraid of finding my retreat too much out of the way and too quiet. But +nothing of the sort has happened. The excitement of the past month +appears to have added charms to the present. + +Nevertheless, I have not yet set to work again, but I am full of good +resolutions, which I hope to execute as soon as I have completely +returned to my usual habits. These first days have been devoted to +putting everything into its regular order. + +In France we are almost as much interested as you in England in the +affairs of India. Everyone, even in the country, asks me for news of what +is going on there. + +There is a natural disposition to exaggerate the evil and to believe that +your dominion is overturned. For my part, I am waiting with the utmost +and most painful anxiety for the development of the drama, for no good +can possibly result from it; and there is not one civilised nation in the +world that ought to rejoice in seeing India escape from the hands of +Europeans in order to fall back into a state of anarchy and barbarism +worse than before its conquest. + +I am quite sure that you will conquer. But it is a serious business. + +A military insurrection is the worst of all insurrections, at least in +the beginning. You have to deal with barbarians, but they possess the +arms of civilised people given to them by yourselves. + +My wife, who has preserved her English heart, is particularly affected by +the spectacle which Bengal at present affords. + +If you have any more particular news than is to be found in the +newspapers, you will give us great pleasure by communicating them. + +Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and to your daughter-in-law. + +My wife sends many kind regards to them, as well as to you. + +Adieu, dear Senior. Believe in my sincere affection. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +P.S.--I fancy that the first effect of the Indian affair will be to draw +still closer the alliance between England and France. + + +Tocqueville, November 15, 1857. + +I am somewhat angry with you, my dear Senior, for not having yet given us +your news.[1] It is treating our friendship unfairly, I have not written +to you because I doubted your following exactly your intended route, but +I will write to you at Athens, as I think that you must now be there. If +you have followed your itinerary your travels must have been most +interesting to you, and they will be equally curious to us. I conclude +that you only passed quickly through the Principalities in following the +course of the Danube. I, however, had depended on you for furnishing me +with clear ideas of a country which is at present so interesting to +Europe, and which I think is destined to play an important part in the +future. And what say you of our friends the Turks? Was it worth while to +spend so much money and to shed so much blood in order to retain in +Europe savages who are ill disguised as civilised men? I am impatient to +talk to you, and almost equally so to read you. + +I shall have little to tell you. I have not stirred from home since I +left England, and am leading the life of a gentleman-farmer; a life which +pleases me more and more every day, and would really make me happy, if my +wife were not suffering from an obstinate neuralgic affection in the +face. I fear that she may have to go to some mineral waters, which she +would be sorry to do; for, as you know, she hates travelling, and does no +justice to the reputation for wandering possessed by the English race. + +I can tell you nothing on politics which you will not find in the +newspapers. The great question at present for all civilised Governments +seems to be the financial. The crisis from which America and England are +suffering will probably extend everywhere. As for India, you are out, not +perhaps of your difficulties, but of your greatest dangers. This affair, +and that of the Crimea, show how little sympathy there is for England +abroad. There was everything to interest us in your success--similarity +of race, of religion, and of civilisation. Your loss of India could have +served no cause but that of barbarism. Yet I venture to affirm that the +whole Continent, though it detested the cruelties of your enemies, did +not wish you to triumph. + +Much of this is, without doubt, to be attributed to the evil passions +which make men always desire the fall of the prosperous and the strong. +But much belongs to a less dishonourable cause--to the conviction of all +nations that England considers them only with reference to her own +greatness; that she has less sympathy than any other modern nation; that +she never notices what passes among foreigners, what they think, feel, +suffer, or do, but with relation to the use which England can make of +their actions, their sufferings, their feelings, or their thoughts; and +that when she seems most to care for them she really cares only for +herself. All this is exaggerated, but not without truth. + +Kindest regards from us both to you and to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was at this time in the East.--ED.] + + + +Tocqueville, February 10, 1858. + +I was delighted, my dear Senior, to receive a letter from you dated +Marseilles. You are right in remaining till the spring in the South. We +trust to meet you in Paris in March. + +I say no more, for I cannot write to you on what would most interest +you--French politics. Much is to be said on them; but you will understand +my silence if you study our new Law of Public Safety, and remember who is +the new Home Minister.[1] For the first time in French history has such a +post been filled by a general--and what a general! + +I defer, therefore, until we meet, the expression of feelings and +opinions which cannot be safely transmitted through the post, and only +repeat how eager I am for our meeting. + +Kind regards to Mrs. Senior. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Footnote 1: General Espinasse.] + + +Tocqueville, February 21, 1858. + +I received your letters with great pleasure, my dear Senior, and I think +with still greater satisfaction that I shall soon be able to see you. + +I shall probably arrive in Paris, with my wife, at about the same time as +you will, that is to say, about the 19th of next month. I should have +gone earlier if I were not occupied in planting and sowing, for I am +doing a little farming to my great amusement. + +I am delighted that you intend again to take up your quarters at the +Hotel Bedford, as I intend also to stay there if I can find apartments. + +I hope that we shall be good neighbours and see each other as frequently +as such old friends ought to do. _A bientot!_ + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[Mr. Senior ran over to England for a few weeks instead of remaining in +Paris. The meeting between the two friends did not, therefore, take place +till April.--ED.] + + + +CONVERSATIONS. + +_Paris, Saturday, April_ 17, 1858.--We had a discussion at the Institut +to-day as to a bust to fill a niche in the anteroom. Rossi was proposed. +His political merits were admitted, but he was placed low as to his +literary claims as an economist and a jurist. Dupin suggested Talleyrand, +which was received with a universal groan, and failed for want of a +seconder. Ultimately the choice fell on Dumont. + +'Nothing that is published of Talleyrand's,' said Tocqueville to me as we +walked home, 'has very great merit, nor indeed is much of it his own. He +hated writing, let his reports and other state papers be drawn up by +others, and merely retouched them. But in the archives of the _Affaires +etrangeres_ there is a large quarto volume containing his correspondence +with Louis XVIII during the Congress of Vienna. Nothing can be more +charming. The great European questions which were then in debate, the +diplomatic and social gossip of Vienna, the contemporary literature--in +short, all that one clever _homme du monde_ could find to interest and +amuse another, are treated with wit, brilliancy, and gaiety, supported by +profound good sense. When that volume is published his bust will be +placed here by acclamation.' + +_Monday, April_ 19.--I dined with Lanjuinais, and met Tocqueville, Rivet, +Dufaure, Corcelle, Freslon, and one or two others. + +They attacked me about the change of sentiment in England with respect to +Louis Napoleon. + +'While he was useful to you,' they said, 'you steadily refused to admit +that he was a tyrant, or even an usurper. You chose to disbelieve in the +3,000 men, women, and children massacred on the Boulevards of Paris--in +the 20,000 poisoned by jungle fever in Cayenne--in the 25,000 who have +died of malaria, exposure, and bad food, working in gangs on the roads +and in the marshes of the Metidja and Lambressa.' + +'We did not _choose_', I answered, 'to disbelieve any thing. We were +simply ignorant. _I_ knew all these facts, because I have passed a part +of every year since 1847 in Paris; because I walked along the Boulevards +on the 20th of December 1851, and saw the walls of every house, from the +Bastille to the Madeleine, covered with the marks of musket-balls; +because I heard in every society of the thousands who had been massacred, +and of the tens of thousands who had been _deportes_; but the untravelled +English, and even the travelled English, except the few who live in +France among the French, knew nothing of all this. Your press tells +nothing. The nine millions of votes given to Louis Napoleon seemed to +prove his popularity, and therefore the improbability of the tyranny of +which he was accused by his enemies. _I_ knew that those nine millions of +votes were extorted, or stolen by violence or fraud. But the English +people did not know it. They accepted his election as the will of the +nation, and though they might wonder at your choice, did not presume to +blame it.' + +'The time,' they answered, 'at which light broke in upon you is +suspicious. Up to the 14th of January 1858 the oppression under which +thirty-four millions of people within twenty-four miles of your coast, +with whom you are in constant intercourse, was unknown to you. Their +ruler insults you, and you instantly discover that he is an usurper and a +tyrant. This looks as if the insult, and the insult alone, opened your +eyes.' + +'What opened our eyes,' I answered, 'was not the insult but the _loi de +surete publique_. It was the first public act which showed to England the +nature of your Government. + +'When we found, erected in every department, a revolutionary tribunal, +empowered to banish and transport without trial; when we found a rude +soldier made Home Minister, and the country divided into five districts +to be each governed by a marshal, we saw at once that France was under a +violent military despotism. Until that law was passed the surface was +smooth. There was nothing in the appearance of France to show to a +stranger that she was not governed by a Monarch, practically, indeed, +absolute, but governing as many absolute Monarchs have done, mildly and +usefully. + +'Of course we might have found out the truth sooner if we had inquired. +And perhaps we ought to have inquired. We busy ourselves about our own +affairs, and neglect too much those of other countries. In that sense +you have a right to say that we chose to be ignorant, since our conduct +was such as necessarily to make us ignorant. But it was not because Louis +Napoleon was our ally that we chose to be ignorant, but because we +habitually turn our eyes from the domestic affairs of the Continent, as +things in which we have seldom a right to interfere, and in which, when +we do interfere, we do more harm than good.' + +We talked of the manner in which the _loi de surete publique_ has been +carried out. And I mentioned 600 as the number of those who had suffered +under it, as acknowledged to me by Blanchard in the beginning of March. + +'It is much greater now,' said Lanjuinais. 'Berryer on his return from +Italy, a week ago, slept in Marseilles. He was informed that more than +900 persons had passed through Marseilles, _deportes_ under the new law +to Algeria. They were of all classes: artisans and labourers mixed with +men of the higher and middle classes. To these must be added those +transported to Cayenne, who were sent by way of Havre. As for the number +_expulses_ and _internes_ there are no data.' + +'In the Department of Var, a man was found guilty in 1848 of joining in +one of the revolutionary movements of that time. His complete innocence +was soon proved; he was released, and has lived quietly on his little +estate ever since. He was arrested under the new law and ordered to be +_deporte_ to Algeria. His friends, in fact all his neighbours, +remonstrated, and sent to Paris the proof that the original conviction +was a mistake. "Qu'il aille tout de meme," was Espinasse's answer. + +'In Calvados the Prefet, finding no one whom he could conscientiously +arrest, took hold of one of the most respectable men in the department. +"If," he said, "I had arrested a man against whom there was plausible +ground for suspicion, he might have been transported. This man _must_ be +released."' + +'Has he been released?' I asked. + +'I have not heard,' was the answer. 'In all probability he has been.' + +'In my department,' said Tocqueville, 'the _sous-prefet_, ordered by the +Prefet to arrest somebody in the arrondissement, was in the same +perplexity as the Prefet of Calvados. "I can find no fit person," he said +to me. I believe that he reported the difficulty to the Prefet, and that +the vacancy was supplied from some other arrondissement. + +'What makes this frightful,' he added, 'is that we now know that +deportation is merely a slow death. Scarcely any of the victims of 1851 +and 1852 are living.' + +'I foretold that,' I said, 'at the time, as you will find if you look at +my article on Lamartine, published in the "Edinburgh Review."'[1] + +[Footnote 1: See _Journals in France and Italy_.--ED.] + + +_April_ 20.--We talked of the political influence in France of the +_hommes de lettres_. + +'It began,' said Tocqueville, 'with the Restoration. Until that time we +had sometimes, though very rarely, statesmen who became writers, but +never writers who became statesmen,' + +'You had _hommes de lettres_,' I said, 'in the early Revolutionary +Assemblies--Mirabeau for instance.' + +'Mirabeau,' he answered, 'is your best example, for Mirabeau, until he +became a statesman, lived by his pen. Still I should scarcely call a man +of his high birth and great expectations _un homme de lettres_. That +appellation seems to belong to a man who owes his position in early life +to literature. Such a man is Thiers, or Guizot, as opposed to such men as +Gladstone, Lord John Russell, or Montalembert.' + + +_Wednesday, April_ 21.--I dined with D. and met, among several others, +Admiral Matthieu the Imperial Hydrographer, and a general whose name I +did not catch. I talked to the general about the army. + +'We are increasing it,' he said, 'but not very materially. We are rather +giving ourselves the means of a future rapid increase, than making an +immediate augmentation. We are raising the number of men from 354,000 to +392,400, in round numbers to 400,000; but the principal increase is in +the _cadres_, the officers attached to each battalion. We have increased +them by more than one third. So that if a war should break out we can +instantly--that is to say in three months, increase our army to 600,000 +or even 700,000 men. Soldiers are never wanting in France, the difficulty +always is to find officers.' + +'I hear,' I said, 'that you are making great improvements in your +artillery.' + +'We are,' he answered. 'We are applying to it the principle of the Minie +musket, and we are improving the material. We hope to make our guns as +capable of resisting rapid and continued firing as well and as long as +the English and the Swedish guns, which are the best in Europe, can do. +And we find that we can throw a ball on the Minie principle with equal +precision twice as far. This will double the force of all our batteries.' + +'Are _you_,' he asked me, 'among those who have taken shares in the +Russian railways?' + +'No,' I said. 'They are the last that I wish to encourage.' + +'Englishmen or Frenchmen,' he answered, 'who help Russia to make +railways, put me in mind of the Dutch who sold powder to their besiegers. + +'The thinness of her population--that is, the vast space over which it is +scattered--alone prevents Russia from being the mistress of Europe. If +her 64,000,000 were as concentrated as our 34,000,000 are, she would be +irresistible. She loses always far more men in marching than in +fighting.' + +'The events of the war,' I said, 'lead me to believe that the goodness of +the Russian soldier is exaggerated. They were always beaten, often by +inferior numbers.' + +'In the first place,' he answered, 'those who were beaten at Sebastopol +were not the best Russian soldiers. They were short small men, generally +drawn from the neighbouring provinces. The Russian Imperial Guards and +the Russian Army in Poland are far superior to any that we encountered in +the Crimea. In the second place, they were ill commanded. The +improvements of weapons, of science and of discipline, have raised the +privates of all the great military nations to about the same level. +Success now depends on numbers and on generalship. With railways Russia +will be able to bring quickly a preponderating force to any point on her +frontier. Her officers are already good, and for money she can import the +best generals; indeed, I do not see why she should not breed them. Russia +is civilised enough to produce men of the highest military qualities.' + +I asked Admiral Matthieu about the naval preparations of France. + +'The "Moniteur,"' I said, 'denies that you are making any.' + +'The "Moniteur,"' he answered, 'does not tell the truth. We are +augmenting largely, both the number and the efficacy of our fleet. + +'Four years ago, at the beginning of the Russian war, we resolved to +build a steam fleet of 150 steam ships of different sizes for fighting, +and 74 steam ships for the transfer service, and to carry fuel and +stores. Though we set about this in the beginning, as we thought, of a +long war, we have not allowed the peace to interrupt it. We are devoting +to it sixty-five millions a year (2,600,000_l_.) of which from fifteen to +seventeen millions are employed every year in building new ships, and +from forty to forty-two in adding steam power to the old ones. We hope to +finish this great work in fourteen years.' + +'What,' I asked, 'is the amount of your present fleet of steamers?' + +'We have thirty-three screws,' he answered, 'fifty-seven paddles, and +sixty-two sailing vessels in commission, and seventy-three, mostly +steamers, _en reserve_, as you would say, in ordinary.' + +'Manned by how many men?' I asked. + +'By twenty-five thousand sailors,' he answered, 'and eleven thousand +marines. But our _inscription maritime_ would give us in a few months or +less one hundred thousand more. Since the times of Louis XVI. the French +Navy has never been so formidable, positively or relatively.' + +'How,' I asked, 'has your "Napoleon" succeeded?' + +'Admirably,' he answered. 'I have not seen the "Wellington," but she is a +much finer ship than the Agamemnon. Her speed is wonderful. A month ago +she left Toulon at seven in the morning, and reached Ajaccio by four in +the evening. But the great improvement is in our men. Napoleon knew +nothing and cared nothing about sailors. He took no care about their +training, and often wasted them in land operations, for which landsmen +would have done as well. + +'In 1814 he left Toulon absolutely unguarded, and sent all the sailors to +join Augereau. You might have walked into it. + +'In 1810 or 1811 I was on board a French corvette which fought an action +with an English vessel, the "Lively." We passed three times under her +stern, and raked her each time. We ought to have cleared her decks. Not a +shot touched her. The other day at Cherbourg I saw a broadside fired at a +floating mark three cables off, the usual distance at which ships engage. +Ten balls hit it, and we could see that all the others passed near enough +to shake it by their wind. + +'A ship of eighty guns has now forty _canonniers_ and forty _maitres de +pieces_. All practical artillerymen, and even the able seamen, can point +a gun. Nelson's manoeuvre of breaking the line could not be used against +a French fleet, such as a French fleet is now. The leading ships would be +destroyed one after another, by the concentrated fire. Formerly our +officers dreaded a maritime war. They knew that defeat awaited them, +possibly death. Now they are confident, and eager to try their hands.' + +In the evening L. took me into a corner, and we had a long conversation. + +He had been reading my 'Athens Journal.' + +'What struck me,' he said, 'in every page of it, was the resemblance of +King Otho to Louis Napoleon.' + +'I see the resemblance,' I answered, 'but it is the resemblance of a +dwarf to a giant.' + +'No,' he replied. 'Of a man five feet seven inches high to one five feet +eleven inches. There are not more than four inches between them. There is +the same cunning, the same coldness, the same vindictiveness, the same +silence, the same perseverance, the same unscrupulousness, the same +selfishness, the same anxiety to appear to do everything that is done, +and above all, the same determination to destroy, or to seduce by +corruption or by violence, every man and every institution favourable to +liberty, independence, or self-government. In one respect Otho had the +more difficult task. He found himself, in 1843, subject to a Constitution +carefully framed under the advice of England for the express purpose of +controlling him. He did not attempt to get rid of it by a _coup d'etat_, +or even to alter it, but cunningly and skilfully perverted it into an +instrument of despotism. Louis Napoleon destroyed the Constitution which +he found, and made a new one, copied from that which had been gradually +elaborated by his uncle, which as a restraint is intentionally powerless +and fraudulent. + +'A man,' he continued, 'may acquire influence either by possessing in a +higher degree the qualities which belong to his country and to his time, +or by possessing those in which they are deficient. + +'Wellington is an example of this first sort. His excellences were those +of an Englishman carried almost to perfection. + +'Louis Napoleon belongs to the second. If his merits had been impetuous +courage, rapidity of ideas, quickness of decision, frankness, versatility +and resource, he would have been surrounded by his equals or his +superiors. He predominated over those with whom he came in contact +because he differed from them. Because he was calm, slow, reserved, +silent, and persevering. Because he is a Dutchman, not a Frenchman.' + +'He seems,' I said, 'to have lost his calmness.' + +'Yes,' answered L. 'But under what a shock! And observe that though the +greatest risk was encountered by _him_, the terror was greatest among his +_entourage_. I do not believe that if he had been left to himself he +would have lost his prudence or his self-possession. He did not for the +first day. Passions are contagious. Everyone who approached him was +agitated by terror and anger. His intrepidity and self-reliance, great as +they are, were disturbed by the hubbub all round him. His great defects +are three. First, his habit of self-contemplation. He belongs to the men +whom the Germans call subjective, whose eye is always turned inwardly; +who think only of themselves, of their own character, and of their own +fortunes. Secondly, his jealousy of able men. He wishes to be what you +called him, a giant, and as Nature has not made him positively tall, he +tries to be comparatively so, by surrounding himself with dwarfs. His +third defect is the disproportion of his wishes to his means. His desires +are enormous. No power, no wealth, no expenditure would satisfy them. +Even if he had his uncle's genius and his uncle's indefatigability, he +would sink, as his uncle did, under the exorbitance of his attempts. As +he is not a man of genius, or even a man of remarkable ability, as he is +ignorant, uninventive and idle, you will see him flounder and fall from +one failure to another. + +'During the three years that Drouyn de L'Huys was his minister he was +intent on home affairs--on his marriage, on the Louvre, on the artillery, +on his _bonnes fortunes_, and on the new delights of unbounded +expenditure. He left foreign affairs altogether to his minister. When +Drouyn de L'Huys left him, the road before him was plain--he had only to +carry on the war. But when the war was over, the road ended; neither +he nor Walewski nor any of his _entourage_ know anything of the country +in which they are travelling. You see them wandering at hazard. Sometimes +trying to find their way to Russia, sometimes to England. Making a treaty +with Austria, then attempting to injure her, and failing; attempting to +injure Turkey, and failing; bullying Naples, and failing; threatening +Switzerland, threatening Belgium, and at last demanding from England an +Alien Bill, which they ought to know to be incompatible with the laws and +hateful to the feelings of the people. + +'He is not satisfied with seeing the country prosperous and respected +abroad. He wants to dazzle. His policy, domestic and foreign, is a policy +of vanity and ostentation--motives which mislead everyone both in private +and in public life. + +'His great moral merits are kindness and sympathy. He is a faithful +attached friend, and wishes to serve all who come near him. + +'His greatest moral fault is his ignorance of the difference between +right and wrong; perhaps his natural insensibility to it, his want of the +organs by which that difference is perceived--a defect which he inherits +from his uncle.' + +'The uncle,' I said, 'had at least one moral sense--he could understand +the difference between pecuniary honesty and dishonesty, a difference +which this man seems not to see, or not to value.' + +'I agree with you,' said L. 'He cannot value it, or he would not look +complacently on the peculation which surrounds him. Every six months some +magnificent hotel rises in the Champs Elysees, built by a man who had +nothing, and has been a minister for a year or two.' + +On my return I found Tocqueville with the ladies. I gave him an outline +of what L. had said. + +'No one,' he said, 'knows Louis Napoleon better than L.' + +'My opportunities of judging him have been much fewer, but as far as they +have gone, they lead to the same conclusions. L. perhaps has not dwelt +enough on his indolence. Probably as he grows older, and the effects of +his early habits tell on him, it increases. I am told that it is +difficult to make him attend to business, that he prolongs audiences +apparently to kill time. + +'One of the few of my acquaintances who go near him, was detained by him +for an hour to answer questions about the members of the _Corps +legislatif_. Louis Napoleon inquired about their families, their +fortunes, their previous histories. Nothing about their personal +qualities. These are things that do not interest him. He supposes that +men differ only in externals. "That the _fond_ is the same in everyone."' + + +_April 26_.--Tocqueville spent the evening with us. + +We talked of Novels. + +'I read none,' he said, 'that end ill. Why should one voluntarily subject +oneself to painful emotions? To emotions created by an imaginary cause +and therefore impelling you to no action. I like vivid emotions, but I +seek them in real life, in society, in travelling, in business, but above +all in political business. There is no happiness comparable to political +success, when your own excitement is justified by the magnitude of the +questions at issue, and is doubled and redoubled by the sympathy of your +supporters. Having enjoyed that, I am ashamed of being excited by the +visionary sorrows of heroes and heroines. + +'I had a friend,' he continued, 'a Benedictine, who is now ninety-seven. +He was, therefore, about thirteen when Louis XVI. began to reign. He is a +man of talents and knowledge, has always lived in the world, has attended +to all that he has seen and heard, and is still unimpaired in mind, and +so strong in body that when I leave him he goes down to embrace me, after +the fashion of the eighteenth century, at the bottom of his staircase.' + +'And what effect,' I asked, 'has the contemplation of seventy years of +revolution produced in him? Does he look back, like Talleyrand, to the +_ancien regime_ as a golden age?' + +'He admits,' said Tocqueville, 'the material superiority of our own age, +but he believes that, intellectually and morally, we are far inferior to +our grandfathers. And I agree with him. Those seventy years of revolution +have destroyed our courage, our hopefulness, our self-reliance, our +public spirit, and, as respects by far the majority of the higher +classes, our passions, except the vulgarest and most selfish ones--vanity +and covetousness. Even ambition seems extinct. The men who seek power, +seek it not for itself, not as the means of doing good to their country, +but as a means of getting money and flatterers. + +'It is remarkable,' he continued, 'that women whose influence is +generally greatest under despotisms, have none now. They have lost it, +partly in consequence of the gross vulgarity of our dominant passions, +and partly from their own nullity. They are like London houses, all built +and furnished on exactly the same model, and that a most uninteresting +one. Whether a girl is bred up at home or in a convent, she has the same +masters, gets a smattering of the same accomplishments, reads the same +dull books, and contributes to society the same little contingent of +superficial information. + +'When a young lady comes out I know beforehand how her mother and her +aunts will describe her. "Elle a les gouts simples. Elle est pieuse. Elle +aime la campagne. Elle aime la lecture. Elle n'aime pas le bal. Elle +n'aime pas le monde, elle y ira seulement pour plaire a sa mere." I try +sometimes to escape from these generalities, but there is nothing behind +them.' + +'And how long,' I asked, 'does this simple, pious, retiring character +last?' + +'Till the orange flowers of her wedding chaplet are withered,' he +answered. 'In three months she goes to the _messe d'une heure_.' + +'What is the "messe d'une heure?"' I asked. + +'A priest,' he answered, 'must celebrate Mass fasting; and in strictness +ought to do so before noon. But to accommodate fashionable ladies who +cannot rise by noon, priests are found who will starve all the morning, +and say Mass in the afternoon. It is an irregular proceeding, though +winked at by the ecclesiastical authorities. Still to attend it is rather +discreditable; it is a middle term between the highly meritorious +practice of going to early Mass, and the scandalous one of never going at +all.' + +'What was the education,' I asked, 'of women under the _ancien regime_?' + +'The convent,' he answered. + +'It must have been better,' I said, 'than the present education, since +the women of that time were superior to ours.' + +'It was so far better,' he answered, 'that it did no harm. A girl at that +time was taught nothing. She came from the convent a sheet of white +paper. _Now_ her mind is a paper scribbled over with trash. The women of +that time were thrown into a world far superior to ours, and with the +sagacity, curiosity, and flexibility of French women, caught knowledge +and tact and expression from the men. + +'I knew well,' he continued, 'Madame Recamier. Few traces of her former +beauty then remained, but we were all her lovers and her slaves. The +talent, labour, and skill which she wasted in her _salon_, would have +gained and governed an empire. She was virtuous, if it be virtuous to +persuade every one of a dozen men that you wish to favour him, though +some circumstance always occurs to prevent your doing so. Every friend +thought himself preferred. She governed us by little distinctions, by +letting one man come five minutes before the others, or stay five minutes +after. Just as Louis XIV. raised one courtier to the seventh heaven by +giving him the _bougeoir_, and another by leaning on his arm, or taking +his shirt from him. + +'She said little, but knew what each man's _fort_ was, and placed from +time to time a _mot_ which led him to it. If anything were peculiarly +well said, her face brightened. You saw that her attention was always +active and always intelligent. + +'And yet I doubt whether she really enjoyed conversation. _Tenir salon_ +was to her a game, which she played well, and almost always successfully, +but she must sometimes have been exhausted by the effort. Her _salon_ was +perhaps pleasanter to us than it was to herself. + +'One of the last,' he continued, 'of that class of potentates was the +Duchesse de Dino. Her early married life was active and brilliant, but +not intellectually. It was not till about forty, when she had exhausted +other excitements, that she took to _bel esprit._ But she performed her +part as if she had been bred to it.' + +This was our last conversation. I left Paris the next day, and we never +met again. + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE. + +Tocqueville, June 30, 1858. + +I must complain, a little of your silence, my dear Senior. I hear that +before you left Paris you suffered a great deal from your throat. Is it +true, or have you recovered? + +I have not either much to boast of on the score of health since we +parted. The illness which I had in Paris became still worse, and when I +got a little better in that way I had a violent bronchial attack. I even +began to spit blood, which had not happened to me for many years, and I +am still almost reduced to silence. Still I am beginning to mend, and I +hope, please God, to be able to _speak_ to my friends when they visit me. + +You are aware that I wished to induce my wife to accompany me to the +South; but the length of the journey, the difficulties of transport, the +heat, and indeed the state of my health, were reasons which she brought +forward with so much force that we have remained here, and shall not +leave till the end of September. We still hope that you and Miss Senior +will join us the first week in that month. We shall be very happy to have +you both with us. This is no compliment ... I hope soon to be able to +enjoy more frequent communication with my English friends. A steamboat is +about to run from Cherbourg to the coast of England. We shall then be +able to visit each other as neighbours (_voisiner_). + +Between ourselves, I do not think that the events in England during the +last six months are of a nature to raise the reputation of Parliamentary +Government in the rest of the world. _A bientot!_ + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + +Kensington, July 5, 1858. + +My dear Tocqueville,--If I had written to you three days ago, I should +have talked of the pleasure which my daughter and I expected from our +visit to Tocqueville. But our plans are changed. Edward Ellice is going +to pay a last visit to America, and has begged me to accompany him. He is +a great proprietor in both America and Canada--knows everybody in both +countries, and is besides a most able and interesting companion. So I +have accepted the proposal, and start on the 30th of this month for +Boston. We shall return in the beginning of November. + +I am _very_ sorry to lose the visit to Normandy, but I trust that it is +only deferred. + +We are grieved to hear that neither you nor Madame de Tocqueville are as +well as your friends could wish you to be. + +My _grippe_, after lasting for three months, has gradually subsided, and +I look to the voyage to America as a cure for all remains of it. + +I have most punctually carried your remembrances to all the persons +honoured by being inscribed on your card. + +Though I have often seen Gladstone, it has always been among many other +persons, and he has been so full of talk, that I have never been able to +allude to your subject. I mentioned it to Mrs. Gladstone on Saturday +last: she said that there was not a person in all France whom her husband +so much admired and venerated as you--therefore, if there was any +appearance of neglect, it could have arisen only from hurry or mistake. I +shall see him again on Thursday, when we are going all together to a +rehearsal of Ristori's, and I will talk to him: we shall there be quiet. + +Things here are in a very odd state. The Government is supported by the +Tories because it calls itself Tory, and by the Whigs and Radicals +because it obeys them. On such terms it may last for an indefinite time. + +Kindest regards from us all to you both. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +9 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, August 2, 1858. + +My dear Tocqueville,--I ought, as you know, to be on the Atlantic by this +time; but I was attacked, ten days ago, with lumbar neuralgia, which they +are trying, literally, to rub away. If I am quite well on the 13th, I +shall go on the 14th to America. + +I was attacked at Sir John Boileau's, where I spent some days with the +Guizots, Mrs. Austin, and Stanley and Lord John Russell. + +Guizot is in excellent spirits, and, what is rare in an ex-premier, +dwells more on the present and the future than on the past. Mrs. Austin +is placid and discursive. + +Lord John seems to me well pleased with the present state of +affairs--which he thinks, I believe with reason, will bring him back to +power. He thinks that Malmesbury and Disraeli are doing well, and praises +much the subordinates of the Government. Considering that no one believes +Lord Derby to be wise, or Disraeli to be either wise or honest, it is +marvellous that they get on as well as they do. The man who has risen +most is Lord Stanley, and, as he has the inestimable advantage of youth, +I believe him to be predestined to influence our fortunes long. + +The world, I think, is gradually coming over to an opinion, which, when I +maintained it thirty years ago, was treated as a ridiculous paradox--that +India is and always has been a great misfortune to us; and, that if it +were possible to get quit of it, we should be richer and stronger. + +But it is clear that we are to keep it, at least for my life. + +Kindest regards from us all to you and Madame de Tocqueville. + +Ever yours, + +N.W. SENIOR. + + +Tocqueville, August 21, 1858. + +My dear Senior,--I hear indirectly that you are extremely ill. Your +letter told me only that you were suffering from neuralgia which you +hoped to be rid of in a few days, but Mrs. Grote informs me that the +malady continues and has even assumed a more serious character. + +If you could write or dictate a few lines to me, you would please me +much. + +I am inconsolable for the failure of your American journey. I expected +the most curious results from it I hoped that your journal would enable +me once more to understand the present state of a country which has +so changed since I saw it that I feel that I now know nothing of it. What +a blessing, however, that you had not started! What would have become of +you if the painful attack from which you are suffering had seized you +2,000 miles away from home, and in the midst of that agitated society +where no one has time to be ill or to think of those who are ill? It must +be owned that Fortune has favoured you by sending you this illness just +at the moment of your departure instead of ten days later. + +I have been much interested by your visit to Sir John Boileau. You saw +there M. Guizot in one of his best lights. The energy with which he +stands up under the pressure of age and of ill-fortune, and is not only +resigned in his new situation, but as vigorous, as animated, and as +cheerful as ever, shows a character admirably tempered and a pride which +nothing will bend. + +I do not so well understand the cheerfulness of Lord John Russell. For +the spectacle now exhibited by England, in which a party finds no +difficulty in maintaining itself in power by carrying into practice ideas +which it has always opposed, and by relying for support on its natural +enemies, is not of a nature to raise the reputation of your institutions, +or of your public men. I should have a great deal more to say to you on +this and other subjects if I were not afraid of tiring you. I leave off, +therefore, by assuring you that we are longing to hear of your recovery. +Remembrances, &c. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Cannes, December 12, 1858. + +I wish, my dear friend, to reassure you myself on the false reports which +have been spread regarding my health. Far from finding myself worse than +when we arrived, I am already much better. + +I am just now an invalid who takes his daily walks of two hours in the +mountains after eating an excellent breakfast. I am not, however, well. +If I were I should not long remain a citizen of Cannes. + +I have almost renounced the use of speech, and consequently the society +of human beings; which is all the more sad as my wife, my sole companion, +is herself very unwell, not dangerously, but enough to make me +anxious. When I say my sole companion, I am wrong, for my eldest brother +has had the kindness to shut himself up with us for a month. + +Adieu, dear Senior. A thousand kind remembrances from us to all your +party. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + + + +Cannes, March 15, 1859. + +You say, my dear Senior, in the letter which I have just received, that I +like to hear from my friends, not to write to them. It is true that I +delight in the letters of my friends, especially of my English friends; +but it is a calumny to say that I do not like to answer them. It is true +that I am in your debt: one great cause is, that a man who lives at +Cannes knows nothing of what is passing. My solitary confinement, which +is bad enough in every way, makes me a bad correspondent, by depressing +my spirits and rendering every exertion painful. + +Mrs. Grote, in a very kind and interesting letter, which I received from +her yesterday, says, that Lord Brougham, on his late arrival in London, +gave a lamentable description of my health. If he confined himself to +January, he was right. It is impossible to exaggerate my sufferings +during that month. But, since that time, all has changed, as if from day +to night, or rather from night to day. To talk now of what I was in +January is like making a speech about the Spanish marriages. + +I am grieved to find that you have suffered so much this year from +bronchitis. I fear that your larynx can scarcely endure an English +winter. But it is very hard to be obliged to expatriate oneself every +year. I fear, however, that such must be my fate for some winters to +come, and the pain with which I anticipate it makes me sympathise more +acutely with you. + +We know not, as yet, whether we are to have peace or war. Whichever it +be, a mortal blow has struck the popularity of Louis Napoleon. What +maintained him was the belief that he was the protector of our material +interests: interests to which we now sacrifice all others. The events of +the last month show, with the utmost vividness, that these very interests +may be endangered by the arbitrary and irrational will of a despot. The +feelings, therefore, which were his real support are now bitterly hostile +to him. + +I feel, in short, that a considerable change in our Government is +approaching. + +Even our poor _Corps legislatif_, a week ago, refused to take into +consideration the Budget, until it was informed whether it were to be a +war budget or a peace budget. Great was the fury of those who represented +the Government. They exclaimed that the Chamber misapprehended its +jurisdiction, and that it had nothing to do with political questions. The +Chamber, however, or rather its committee on the Budget, held its ground, +and extorted from the Government some explanations. + +Adieu, my dear Senior. Say everything that is kind to the Grotes, the +Reeves, the Lewises--in short, to all our common friends, and believe in +the sincerity of my friendship. + +A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +[This was M. de Tocqueville's last letter to Mr. Senior. He died on the +16th of April.--ED.] + + + +Hotel Westminster, Rue de la Paix, April 25, 1859. + +My dear Madame de Tocqueville,--I was in the country, and it was only +last Friday, as I was passing through London on my way to Paris, that I +heard of the irreparable loss that we, indeed that France and Europe, +have suffered. + +It cannot alleviate your distress to be told how universal and deep is +the sympathy with it--quite as much in England as in France. + +It has thrown a gloom over society, not only over that portion which had +the happiness and the honour of intimacy with M.A. de Tocqueville, but +even of his acquaintances, and of those too whose acquaintance was only +with his works. + +I have, as you know, been for about a year, the depositary of a large +packet confided to me by M. de Tocqueville last spring. About six months +ago he begged me to return it to him, in Paris, when I had a safe +opportunity. No such opportunity offered itself, so that the packet +remains in my library awaiting your orders. + +Since I began this letter I have been informed by M. de Corcelle that you +are likely to be soon in Paris. I shall not venture to send it by the +post, lest it should cross you on the road. + +I shall anxiously inquire as to your arrival, in the hope that you will +allow one who most sincerely loved and admired your husband, morally and +intellectually, to see you as soon as you feel yourself equal to it. + +Believe me, my dear Madame de Tocqueville, with the truest sympathy, +yours most truly, + +NASSAU W. SENIOR. + +[Mr. Senior continued an active correspondence with Madame de +Tocqueville, and we saw her whenever we were in Paris. Our long-promised +visit to Tocqueville took place in 1861.--ED.] + + + + + +JOURNAL. + +_Tocqueville, Sunday, August_ 11, 1861.--We left Paris on Saturday +evening, got to Valognes by the Cherbourg railway by six the next +morning, and were furnished there with a good carriage and horses, which +took us, and our servants and luggage, in three hours to Tocqueville. + +Valognes has been immortalised by Le Sage in Turcaret. It is a town of +about 6,000 inhabitants, built of granite, and therefore little altered +from what it was 200 years ago. Over many of the doors are the armorial +bearings of the provincial nobility who made it a small winter capital: +the practice is not wholly extinct. I asked who was the inhabitant of an +imposing old house. 'M. de Neridoze,' answered our landlady, 'd'une +tres-haute noblesse.' I went over one in which Madame de Tocqueville +thinks of passing the winter. It is of two stories. The ground floor +given up to kitchen, laundry, and damp-looking servants' rooms; the first +floor in this form:-- + +[Illustration:] + + Bedroom. + Door + Stairs Bedroom. + +Bedroom. Drawing-room. Dining-room. Hall. Bedroom. + + +The longer side looks into the street, the shorter, which is to be Madame +de Tocqueville's bedroom, into a small garden. + +_August_ 11.--At Tocqueville we find M. and Madame de Beaumont, their +second son--a charming boy of ten years old, and Ampere. + +It is eleven years since I was here. Nothing has been done to the +interior of the house. This is about the plan of ground floor. + +[Illustration:] + + Offices + Tower + staircase Offices. + +Drawing-room. Billiard-room. Dining-room. + Hall. + Tower + +The first floor corresponds to the ground floor, except that on the +western sides a passage runs, into which the library, which is over the +drawing-room, and the bedrooms open. The second consists of garrets. My +room is on the first floor of the eastern tower, with deep windows +looking south and east. The room dedicated by Tocqueville to Ampere is +above me. Creepers in great luxuriance cover the walls up to the first +floor windows. The little park consists of from thirty to forty acres, +well wooded and traversed by an avenue in this form, leading from the +road to the front of the house. + + +* * * * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * * * + + * * + + * * + + * * + + * * + +To the west the ground rises to a wild common commanding the sea, the +lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, La Hogue, and a green plain covered +with woods and hedgerow trees, and studded with church towers and spires +of the picturesque forms of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth +centuries. It has no grand features, except the sea and the rocky coast +of the Cherbourg peninsula, but it is full of variety and beauty. I can +understand Tocqueville's delight in the house and in the country. The +weather is perfect; the thermometer in my bedroom, the walls of which are +about six feet thick, is 71 deg., in the sun it is 80 deg.; but there is a strong +breeze. + +_August 12th._--Madame de Beaumont, my daughter, and Ampere drove, and +Beaumont and I walked, to the coast about three miles and a half off. Our +road ran through the gay wooded plain which I have described. + +We talked of Italian affairs. + +'Up to the annexation of Tuscany,' said Beaumont, 'I fully approve of all +that has been done. Parma, Modena, and Tuscany were eager to join +Piedmont. During the anxious interval of six months, while the decision +of Louis Napoleon was doubtful, the conduct of the Tuscans was above all +praise. Perhaps the general wish of the people of Romagna justified the +Piedmontese in seizing it. Though there the difficult question as to the +expediency of stripping the Pope of his temporal power rises. + +'Perhaps, too, the facility with which Sicily submitted was a +justification. But I cannot pardon the seizure of Naples. It is clear to +me that if the Neapolitans had been left to themselves they would have +driven out the Garibaldians. Garibaldi himself felt this: nothing but a +conviction of its necessity would have induced him to call for the +assistance of the Piedmontese. I do not believe that in defiance of all +international law-indeed in defiance of all international +morality--Cavour would have given that assistance if the public opinion +of Piedmont had allowed him to refuse it. And what is the consequence? A +civil war which is laying waste the country. The Piedmontese call their +adversaries brigands. There are without doubt among them men whose motive +is plunder, but the great majority are in arms in defence of the +independence of their country. They are no more brigands now than they +were when they resisted King Joseph. The Piedmontese are as much +foreigners to them as the French were: as much hated and as lawfully +resisted. They may be conquered, they probably will be conquered. An +ignorant corrupt population, inhabiting a small country, unsupported by +its higher classes--its fleet, its fortresses, and all the machinery of +its government, in the hands of its enemies--cannot permanently resist; +but the war will be atrocious, and the more cruel on the part of Piedmont +because it is unjust.' + +'You admit,' I said, 'that the higher classes side with Piedmont?' + +'I admit that,' he answered; 'but you must recollect how few they are in +number, and how small is the influence which they exercise. In general, I +detest universal suffrage, I detest democracy and everything belonging to +it, but if it were possible to obtain honestly and truly the opinion of +the people, I would ask it and obey it. I believe that it would be better +to allow the Neapolitans, ignorant and debased as they are, to choose +their own sovereign and their own form of government, than to let them be +forced by years of violence to become the unwilling subjects of +Piedmont.' + +'Do you believe,' I said, 'that it is possible to obtain through +universal suffrage the honest and true opinion of a people?' + +'Not,' he answered, 'if the Government interferes. I believe that in +Savoy not one person in fifty was in favour of annexation to France. But +this is an extreme case. + +'The Bourbons are deservedly hated and despised by the Neapolitans, the +Piedmontese are not despised, but are hated still more intensely. There +is no native royal stock. The people are obviously unfit for a Republic. +It would be as well, I think, to let them select a King as to impose one +on them. The King whom Piedmont, without a shadow of right, is imposing +on them is the one whom they most detest.' + +'If I go to Rome,' I asked, 'in the winter, whom shall I find there?' + +'I think,' he answered, 'that it will be the Piedmontese. The present +state of things is full of personal danger to Louis Napoleon. As his +policy is purely selfish, he will, at any sacrifice, put an end to it. +That sacrifice may be the unity of Catholicism. The Pope, no longer a +sovereign, will be under the influence of the Government in whose +territory he resides, and the other Catholic Powers may follow the +example of Greece and of Russia, and create each an independent Spiritual +Government. It would be a new excitement for _Celui-ci_ to make himself +Head of the Church.' + +'Assassinations,' I said, 'even when successful have seldom produced +important and permanent effects, but Orsini's failure has influenced and +is influencing the destinies of Europe.' + +'If I were an Italian liberal,' said Beaumont, 'I would erect a statue to +him. The policy and almost the disposition of Louis Napoleon have been +changed by the _attentat_. He has become as timid as he once was +intrepid. He began by courting the Pope and the clergy. He despised the +French assassins, who were few in number and unconnected, and who had +proved their unskilfulness on Louis Philippe; but Orsini showed him that +he had to elect between the Pope and the Austrians on one side, and the +Carbonari on the other. He has chosen the alliance of the Carbonari. He +has made himself their tool, and will continue to do so. + +'They are the only enemies whom he fears, at least for the present. + +'France is absolutely passive. The uneducated masses from whom he holds +his power are utterly indifferent to liberty, and he has too much sense +to irritate them by wanton oppression. They do not know that he is +degrading the French character, they do not even feel that he is wasting +the capital of France, they do not know that he is adding twenty millions +every year to the national debt. They think of his loans merely as +investments, and the more profligately extravagant are the terms and the +amount, the better they like them.' + +'Ten years ago,' I said, 'the cry that I heard was, "Ca ne durera pas."' + +'That was my opinion,' he answered; 'indeed, it was the opinion of +everybody. I thought the Duc de Broglie desponding when he gave it three +years. We none of us believed that the love of liberty was dead in +France.' + +'It is not,' I said, 'dead, for among the higher classes it still lives, +and among the lower it never existed.' + +'Perhaps,' he answered, 'our great mistakes were that we miscalculated +the courage of the educated classes, and the degree in which universal +suffrage would throw power into the hands of the uneducated. Not a human +being in my commune reads a newspaper or indeed reads anything: yet it +contains 300 electors. In the towns there is some knowledge and some +political feeling, but for political purposes they are carefully swamped +by being joined to uneducated agricultural districts. + +'Still I think I might enter the _Corps legislatif_ for our capital Le +Mans. Perhaps at a general election twenty liberals might come in. But +what good could they do? The opposition in the last session strengthened +Louis Napoleon. It gave him the prestige of liberality and success.' + +'You think him, then,' I said, 'safe for the rest of his life?' + +'Nothing,' he answered, 'is safe in France, and the thing most unsafe is +a Government. Our caprices are as violent as they are sudden. They +resemble those of a half-tamed beast of prey, which licks its keeper's +hand to-day, and may tear him to-morrow. But if his life be not so long +as to enable the fruits of his follies to show themselves in their +natural consequences--unsuccessful war, or defeated diplomacy, or +bankruptcy, or heavily increased taxation--he may die in the Tuileries. + +'But I infer from his conduct that he thinks an insurrection against his +tyranny possible, and that he is preparing to meet it by a popular war-- +that is to say, by a war with England. + +'I found my opinion not so much on the enormous maritime preparations, as +on the long-continued systematic attempts to raise against England our +old national enmity. All the provincial papers are in the hands of the +Government. The constantly recurring topic of every one of them is, the +perfidy and the malignity of England. She is described as opposing all +our diplomacy, as resisting all our aggrandisement, as snarling and +growling at our acquisition of Savoy, as threatening us if we accept +Sardinia, as trying to drive the Pope from Rome because we protect him, +as trying to separate the Danubian provinces because we wish to unite +them, as preventing the Suez Canal because we proposed it--in short, on +every occasion and in every part of the world as putting herself in our +way. To these complaints, which are not without foundation, are added +others of which our ignorant people do not see the absurdity. They are +told that the enormous conscription, and the great naval expenditure, are +rendered necessary by the aggressive armaments of England. That you are +preparing to lay waste all our coasts, to burn our arsenals, to subsidise +against us a new Coalition, and perhaps lead its armies again to Paris. + +'The Emperor's moderation, his love of England, and his love of peace, +are said to be the only obstacles to, a violent rupture. But they are +prepared for these obstacles at length giving way. "The Emperor," they +are told, "is getting tired of his insolent, and hostile, and quarrelsome +allies. He is getting tired of a peace which is more expensive than a +war. Some day the cup will flow over. 'Il en finira avec eux,' will +dictate a peace in London, will free the oppressed Irish nationality, +will make England pay the expense of the war, and then having conquered +the only enemy that France can fear, will let her enjoy, for the first +time, real peace, a reduced conscription, and low taxation." + +'Such is the language of all the provincial papers and of all the +provincial authorities, and it has its effect. There never was a time +when a war with England would be so popular. He does not wish for one, he +knows that it would be extremely dangerous, but he is accustomed to play +for great stakes, and if submitting to any loss of his popularity, or to +any limitation of his power is the alternative, he will run the risk. He +keeps it, as his last card, in reserve, to be played only in extremity, +but to be ready when that extremity has arrived.' + +_Tuesday, August_ 13.--We drove to La Prenelle, a church at the point of +a high table-land running from Tocqueville towards the bay of La Hogue, +and commanding nearly all the Cherbourg peninsula. On three sides of us +was the sea, separated from us by a wooded, well-inhabited plain, whose +churches rose among the trees, and containing the towns and lofty +lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, Vast, and La Hogue. We sat on the +point from whence James II. saw the battle of La Hogue, and admired the +courage of his English rebels. + +Ampere has spent much of his life in Rome, and is engaged on a work in +which its history is to be illustrated by its monuments. + +We talked of the Roman people. + +'Nothing,' said Ampere, 'can be more degraded than the higher classes. +With the exception of Antonelli, who is charming, full of knowledge, +intelligence, and grace, and of the Duke of Sermoneta, who is almost +equally distinguished, there is scarcely a noble of my acquaintance who +has any merits, moral or intellectual. + +'They are surrounded by the finest ancient and modern art, and care +nothing for it. The eminent men of every country visit Rome--the Romans +avoid them for they have nothing to talk to them about. + +'Politics are of course unsafe, literature they have none. They never +read. A cardinal told me something which I doubted, and I asked him where +he had found it. "In certi libri," he answered. + +'Another, who has a fine old library, begged me to use it. "You will do +the room good," he said. "No one has been there for years." Even scandal +and gossip must be avoided under an Ecclesiastical Government. + +'They never ride, they never shoot, they never visit their estates, they +give no parties; if it were not for the theatre and for their lawsuits +they would sink into vegetable life.' + +'Sermoneta,' I said, 'told me that many of his lawsuits were hereditary, +and would probably descend to his son.' + +'If Sermoneta,' said Ampere, 'with his positive intelligence and his +comparative vigour, cannot get through them, what is to be expected from +others? They have, however, one merit, one point of contact with the rest +of the world--their hatred of their Government. They seem to perceive, +not clearly, for they perceive nothing clearly, but they dimly see, that +the want of liberty is a still greater misfortune to the higher classes +than to the lower. + +'But the people are a fine race. Well led they will make excellent +soldiers. They have the cruelty of their ancestors, perhaps I ought to +say of their predecessors, but they have also their courage.' + +'They showed,' said Beaumont, 'courage in the defence of Rome, but +courage behind walls is the commonest of all courages. No training could +make the Spaniards stand against us in the open field, but they were +heroes in Saragossa. The caprices of courage and cowardice are +innumerable. The French have no moral courage, they cannot stand +ridicule, they cannot encounter disapprobation, they bow before +oppression; a French soldier condemned by a court-martial cries for mercy +like a child. The same man in battle appears indifferent to death. The +Spaniard runs away without shame, but submits to death when it is +inevitable without terror. None of the prisoners taken on either side in +the Spanish civil war asked for pardon.' + +'Indifference to life,' I said, 'and indifference to danger have little +in common. General Fenelon told me that in Algeria he had more than once +to preside at an execution. No Arab showed any fear. Once there were two +men, one of whom was to be flogged, the other to be shot. A mistake was +made and they were going to shoot the wrong man. It was found out in +time, but neither of the men seemed to care about it; yet they +would probably have run away in battle. The Chinese are not brave, but +you can hire a man to be beheaded in your place.' + +'So,' said Ampere, 'you could always hire a substitute in our most +murderous wars, when in the course of a year a regiment was killed twice +over. It was hiring a man, not indeed to be beheaded, but to be shot for +you.' + +'The destructiveness,' said Beaumont, 'of a war is only gradually known. +It is found out soonest in the villages when the deaths of the conscripts +are heard of, or are suspected from their never returning; but in the +towns, from which the substitutes chiefly come, it may be long +undiscovered. Nothing is known but what is officially published, and the +Government lies with an audacity which seems always to succeed. If it +stated the loss of men in a battle at one half of the real number, people +would fancy that it ought to be doubled, and so come near to the truth; +but it avows only one-tenth or only one-twentieth, and then the amount of +falsehood is underestimated.' + +'Marshal Randon,' I said, 'told me that the whole loss in the Italian +campaign was under 7,000 men.' + +'That is a good instance,' said Beaumont. 'It certainly was 50,000, +perhaps 70,000. But I am guilty of a _delit_ in saying so, and you will +be guilty of a _delit_ if you repeat what I have said. I remember the +case of a man in a barber's shop in Tours, to whom the barber said that +the harvest was bad. He repeated the information, and was punished by +fine and imprisonment for having spread _des nouvelles alarmantes_. Truth +is no excuse; in fact it is an aggravation, for the truer the news the +more alarming.' + +'In time of peace,' I asked, 'what proportion of the conscripts return +after their six years of service?' + +'About three-quarters,' answered Beaumont. + +'Then,' I said, 'as you take 100,000 conscripts every year even in peace, +you lose 25,000 of your best young men every year?' + +'Certainly,' said Beaumont. + +'And are the 75,000 who return improved or deteriorated?' I asked. + +'Improved,' said Ampere; 'they are _degourdis_, they are educated, they +submit to authority, they know how to shift for themselves.' + +'Deteriorated,' said Beaumont. 'A garrison life destroys the habits of +steady industry, it impairs skill. The returned conscript is more vicious +and less honest than the peasant who has not left his village.' + +'And what was the loss,' I asked, 'in the late war?' + +'At least twice as great,' said Beaumont, 'as it is in peace. Half of +those who were taken perished. The country would not have borne the +prolongation of the Crimean War.' + +'These wars,' I said, 'were short and successful. A war with England can +scarcely be short, and yet you think that he plans one?' + +'I think,' said Beaumont, 'that he plans one, but only in the event of +his encountering any serious difficulty at home. You must not infer from +the magnitude of his naval expenditure that he expects one. + +'You look at the expense of those preparations, and suppose that so great +a sacrifice would not be made in order to meet an improbable emergency. +But expense is no sacrifice to him. He likes it. He has the morbid +taste for it which some tyrants have had for blood, which his uncle had +for war. Then he is incapable of counting. When he lived at Arenenburg he +used to give every old soldier who visited him an order on Viellard his +treasurer for money. In general the chest was empty. Viellard used to +remonstrate but without effect. The day perhaps after his orders had been +dishonoured he gave new ones.' + +'Is it true,' I asked, 'that the civil list is a couple of years' income +in debt?' + +I know nothing about it,' said Beaumont; 'in fact, nobody knows anything +about anything, but it is highly probable. Everybody who asks for +anything gets it, everybody is allowed to waste, everybody is allowed to +rob, every folly of the Empress is complied with. Fould raised +objections, and was dismissed. + +'She is said to have a room full of revolutionary relics: there is the +bust of Marie Antoinette, the nose broken at one of the sacks of the +Tuileries. There is a picture of Simon beating Louis XVII. Her poor child +has been frightened by it, and she is always dwelling on the dangers of +her position.' + +'So,' I said, 'did Queen Adelaide--William IV.'s Queen. From the passing +of the Reform Bill she fully expected to die on the scaffold.' + +'There is more reason,' he answered, 'for the Empress's fears.' + +'Not,' I said, 'if she fears the scaffold. Judicial murder, at least in +that form, is out of fashion. Cayenne and Lambressa are your guillotines, +and the Empress is safe from them.' + +'But there are other modes of violent death,' he answered; 'from one of +which she escaped almost by miracle.' + +'How did she behave,' I asked, 'at the _attentat?_' + +'Little is known,' he answered, 'except that the Emperor said to her, as +he led her upstairs to her box: "Allons, il faut faire notre metier."' + +'Then she is disturbed by religious fears. The little prince has been +taught to say to his father every morning: "Papa, ne faites pas de mal a +mon parrain." The Pope was his godfather.' + +'If the Emperor dies, the real power will pass into the hands of Prince +Napoleon. And very dangerous hands they will be. He has more talent than +the Emperor, and longer views. Louis Napoleon is a revolutionist from +selfishness. Prince Napoleon is selfish enough, but he has also passion. +He detests everything that is venerable, everything that is established +or legal. + +'There is little value now for property or for law, though the Government +professes to respect them. What, will it be when the Government professes +to hate them?' + +_Wednesday, August_ 14.--We talked at breakfast of Rome. + +'Is there,' said Beaumont to Ampere, 'still an Inquisition at Rome?' + +'There is,' said Ampere, 'but it is torpid. It punishes bad priests, but +does little else.' + +'If a Roman,' I asked, 'were an avowed infidel, would it take notice of +him?' + +'Probably not,' said Ampere, 'but his _cure_ might--not for his +infidelity, but for his avowing it. The _cure_ who has always the powers +of a _commissaire de police,_ might put him in prison if he went into a +_cafe_ and publicly denied the Immaculate Conception, or if he neglected +going to church or to confession: but the Inquisition no longer cares +about opinions.' + +'Is there much infidelity,' I asked, 'in Rome?' + +'Much,' said Ampere, 'among the laity. The clergy do not actively +disbelieve. They go through their functions without ever seriously +inquiring whether what they have to teach be true or false. No persons +were more annoyed by the Mortara[1] business than the clergy, with the +exception of Antonelli. He hates and fears the man who set it on foot, +the Archbishop of Bologna, and therefore was glad to see him expose +himself, and lose all hope of the Secretaryship, but he took care to +prevent the recurrence of such a scandal. He revived an old law +prohibiting Jews from keeping Christian nurses. But he could scarcely +order restitution. According to the Church it would have been giving the +child to the Devil, and, what is worse, robbing God of him. The Pope's +piety is selfish. His great object is his own salvation. He would not +endanger that, to confer any benefit upon, or to avert any evil from +Rome; or indeed from the whole world. This makes him difficult to +negotiate with. If anything is proposed to him which his confessor +affirms to be dangerous to his soul, he listens to no arguments. As for +Mortara himself, he is a poor creature. A friend of mine went to see him +in his convent. All that he could get from him was: + +'"Sono venuti i Carabinieri." + +'"And what did they do to you?" + +'"M' hanno portato qui." + +'"What more?" + +'"M' hanno dato pasticci; erano molto buoni." + +'What is most teasing,' continued Ampere, 'in the Roman Government is not +so much its active oppression as its torpidity. It hates to act. An +Englishman had with great difficulty obtained permission to light Rome +with gas. He went to the Government in December, and told them that +everything was ready, and that the gas would be lighted on the 1st of +January. + +'"Could you not," they answered, "put it off till April?" + +'"But it is in winter," he replied; "that it is wanted. Every thing is +ready. Why should we wait?" + +'"It is a new thing," they replied; "people will be frightened. It may +have consequences. At least put it off till March." + +'"But they will be as much frightened in March," he replied. + +'"If it must be done," they said, "as a kindness to His Holiness and to +us put it off till February." + +'There is, however, one sort of oppression which even we should find it +difficult to tolerate. + +'A Monsignore has a young friend without money, but an excellent Catholic +and an excellent politician, a fervid believer in the Immaculate +Conception and in the excellence of the Papal Government. He wishes to +reward such admirable opinions: but the Pope has little to give. +Monsignore looks out for some young heiress, sends for her father, +describes his pious and loyal _protege_, and proposes marriage. Her +father objects--says that his daughter cannot afford to marry a poor man, +or that she does not wish to marry at all--or that he or she has some +other preference. + +'Monsignore insists. He assures the father that what he is proposing is +most favourable to the salvation of his daughter, that he suggests it +principally for the benefit of her soul, and that the father's objections +are inspired by the Evil One. The father breaks off the conversation and +goes home. He finds that his daughter has disappeared. He returns furious +to Monsignore, is received with the utmost politeness and is informed +that his daughter is perfectly safe under the protection of a cardinal +who himself did her the honour of fetching her in his gilded coach. "You +have only," the Monsignore says, "to be reasonable, and she shall be +returned to you." + +'The father flies to the cardinal. + +'The same politeness and the same answer. + +'"Do not oppose," he is told, "the will of the Pope, who, in this matter, +seeks only your daughter's happiness here and hereafter. She is now with +me. If you will give up your sinful obstinacy she shall be restored to +you to-day. If not, it will be our duty to place her in a convent, where +she will be taken the utmost care of, but she will not leave it except to +marry the person whom His Holiness thinks most fitted to promote the +welfare of her soul." + +'I have known several cases in which this attempt has been made. With +such timid slaves as the Roman nobility it always succeeds.' + +[Footnote 1: The Jewish child who was taken away from his parents and +converted.--ED.] + + +_Thursday, August_ 15.--This is the fete of St. Louis--the great fete of +Tocqueville. Madame de Tocqueville and Madame de Beaumont spent much of +the morning in church. + +Beaumont and his son walked to the coast to bathe. Minnie, Ampere, and I +strolled among the deep shady lanes of the plateau above the castle. +Throughout Normandy the fields are small and are divided by mounds +planted with trees. The farmhouses, and even the cottages, are built of +primitive rock, granite, or old red sandstone. At a distance, peeping out +of the trees that surround them, they look pretty, but they, have more +than the usual French untidiness. The outhouses are roofless, the +farmyards are full of pools and dung heaps, which often extend into the +road; and the byroads themselves are quagmires when they do not consist +of pointed stones. I was struck by the paucity of the children and the +absence of new houses. The population of Normandy is diminishing. + +We conversed on the subject of Italy. + +'If we are in Rome next winter,' I asked, 'shall we find the French +there?' + +'I think not,' said Ampere; 'I think that you will find only the +Piedmontese. + +'Every day that Louis Napoleon holds Rome is a day of danger to him, a +danger slight perhaps now, but serious if the occupation be prolonged. +The Anti-papal party, and it includes almost all that are liberal and all +that are energetic, are willing to give him time, but not an indefinite +time. They are quiet only because they trust him. He is a magician who +has sold himself to the Devil. The Devil is patient, but he will not be +cheated. The Carbonari will support Louis Napoleon as long as he is doing +their work, and will allow him to do it in his own way and to take his +own time, as long as they believe he is doing it. But woe to him if they +believe that he is deceiving them. I suspect that they are becoming +impatient, and I suspect too, that he is becoming impatient. This quarrel +between Merode and Goyon is significative. I do not believe that Goyon +used the words imputed to him. We shall probably keep Civita Vecchia, but +we shall give up Rome to the Piedmontese.' + +'And will the Pope,' I asked, 'remain?' + +'Not this Pope,' said Ampere, 'but his successor. Nor do I see the great +evil of the absence of the Pope from Rome. Popes have often been absent +before, sometimes for long periods.' + +'Most of my French friends,' I said, 'are opposed to Italian Unity as +mischievous to France.' + +'I do not believe,' he answered, 'in the submission of Naples to this +Piedmontese dynasty, but I shall be delighted to see all Italy north of +the Neapolitan territory united. + +'I do not think that we have anything to fear from the kingdom of Italy. +It is as likely to be our friend as to be our enemy. But the Neapolitans, +even if left to themselves, would not willingly give up their +independence, and _Celui-ci_ is trying to prevent their doing so.' + +'What do _they_ wish,' I asked, 'and what does _he_ wish?' + +'I believe,' he answered, 'that _their_ wishes are only negative. + +'They do not wish to recall the Bourbons, and they are resolved not to +keep the Piedmontese. _His_ wish I believe to be to put his cousin there. +Prince Napoleon himself refused Tuscany. It is too small, but he would +like Naples, and Louis Napoleon would be glad to get rid of him. What +would England say?' + +'If we believed,' I said, 'in the duration of a Bonaparte dynasty in +France, we should, of course, object to the creation of one in Naples. +But if, as we think it probable, the Bonapartists have to quit France, I +do not see few we should be injured by their occupying the throne of +Naples. + +'I should object to them if I were a Neapolitan. All their instincts are +despotic, democratic, and revolutionary. But even they are better than +the late king was. What chance have the Murats?' + +'None,' said Ampere. 'They have spoiled their game, if they had a game, +by their precipitation. The Emperor has disavowed them, the Neapolitans +do not care for them. The Prince de Leuchtenberg, grandson of Eugene +Beauharnais, has been talked of. He is well connected, related to many of +the reigning families of the Continent, and is said to be intelligent and +well educated.' + +'If Naples,' I said, 'is to be detached from the kingdom of Italy, Sicily +ought to be detached from Naples. There is quite as much mutual +antipathy.' + +'Would you like to take it?' he asked. + +'Heaven forbid!' I answered. 'It would be another Corfu on a larger +scale. The better we governed them, the more they would hate us. The only +chance for them is to have a king of their own.' + +_August_ 15.--In the evening Ampere read to us a comedy called 'Beatrix,' +by a writer of some reputation, and a member of the Institut. + +It was very bad, full of exaggerated sentiments, forced situations, and +the cant of philanthropic despotism. + +An actress visits the court of a German grand duke. He is absent. His +mother, the duchess, receives her as an equal. The second son falls in +love with her at first sight and wishes to marry her. She is inclined to +consent, when another duchy falls in, the elder duke resigns to his +brother, he becomes king, presses their marriage, his mother does not +oppose, and thereupon Beatrix makes a speech, orders her horses, and +drives off to act somewhere else. + +Ampere reads admirably, but no excellence of reading could make such +absurdities endurable. It was written for Ristori, who acted Beatrix in +French with success. + + +_Friday, August_ 16.--We talked at breakfast of 1793. + +'It is difficult,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'to believe that the French +of that day were our ancestors.' + +'They resembled you,' I said, 'only in two things: in military courage, +and in political cowardice.' + +'They had,' she replied, 'perhaps more passive courage than we have.[1] +My great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my great-aunt, were +guillotined on the same day. My great-great-grandmother was ninety years +old. When interrogated, she begged them to speak loud, as she was deaf. +'Ecrivez,' said Fouquier Tinville, 'que la citoyenne Noailles a conspire +sourdement contre la Republique.' They were dragged to the Place de la +Republique in the same _tombereau_, and sat waiting their turn on the +same bench. + +'My great-aunt was young and beautiful. The executioner, while fastening +her to the plank, had a rose in his mouth. The Abbe de Noailles, who was +below the scaffold, disguised, to give them, at the risk of his life, a +sign of benediction, was asked how they looked. + +'"Comme si,' he said, 'elles allaient a la messe."' + +'The habit,' said Ampere, 'of seeing people die produces indifference +even to one's own death. You see that among soldiers. You see it in +epidemics. But this indifference, or, to use a more proper word, this +resignation, helped to prolong the Reign of Terror. If the victims had +resisted, if, like Madame du Barry, they had struggled with the +executioner, it would have excited horror.' + +'The cries of even a pig,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'make it disagreeable +to kill it.' + +'Sanson,' I said, 'long survived the Revolution; he made a fortune and +lived in retirement at Versailles. A lady was run away with between +Versailles and Paris. An elderly man, at considerable risk, stopped her +horse. She was very grateful, but could not get from him his name. At +last she traced him, and found that it was Sanson.' + +'Sanson,' said Beaumont, 'may have been an honest man. Whenever a place +of _bourreau_ is vacant, there are thirty or forty candidates, and they +always produce certificates of their extraordinary kindness and humanity. +It seems to be the post most coveted by men eminent for their +benevolence.' + +'How many have you?' I asked. + +'Eighty-six,' he answered. 'One for each department.' + +'And how many executions?' + +'About one hundred a year in all France.' + +'And what is the salary?' + +'Perhaps a couple of thousand francs a year.' + +'Really,' said Ampere, 'it is one of the best parts of the patronage of +the Minister of the Interior. _M. le Bourreau_ gets more than a thousand +francs for each operation.' + +'We pay by the piece,' I said, 'and find one operator enough for all +England.' + +'A friend of mine,' said Beaumont, had a remarkably good Swiss servant. +His education was far above his station, and we could not find what had +been his birth or his canton. + +'Suddenly he became agitated and melancholy, and at last told my friend +that he must leave him, and why. His father was the hereditary _bourreau_ +of a Swiss canton. To the office was attached an estate, to be forfeited +if the office were refused. He had resolved to take neither, and, to +avoid being solicited, had left his country and changed his name. But his +family had traced him, had informed him of his father's death, and had +implored him to accept the succession. He was the only son, and his +mother and sisters would be ruined, if he allowed it to pass to the next +in order of inheritance, a distant cousin. He had not been able to +persist in his refusal.' + +'The husband of an acquaintance of mine,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'used +to disappear for two or three hours every day. He would not tell her for +what purpose. At last she found out that he was employed in the _chambre +noire_, the department of the police by which letters passing through the +post are opened. The duties were well paid, and she could not persuade +him to give them up. They were on uneasy terms, when an accident threw a +list of all the names of the _employes_ in the _chambre noire_, into the +hands of an opposition editor, who published them in his newspaper. + +'She then separated from him.' + +'If the Post-office,' I said, 'were not a Government monopoly, if +everyone had a right to send his letters in the way that he liked best, +there would be some excuse. But the State compels you, under severe +penalties, to use its couriers, undertaking, not tacitly but expressly, +to respect the secrecy of your correspondence, and then systematically +violates it.' + +'I should have said,' answered Ampere, 'not expressly but tacitly.' + +'No,' I replied; 'expressly. Guizot, when Minister for Foreign Affairs, +proclaimed from the tribune, that in France the secrecy of correspondence +was, under all circumstances, inviolable. This has never been officially +contradicted. + +'The English Post-office enters into no such engagements. Any letters may +be legally opened, under an order from a Secretary of State.' + +'Are prisoners in England,' asked Beaumont, 'allowed to correspond with +their friends?' + +'I believe,' I answered, 'that their letters pass through the Governor's +hands, and that he opens them, or not, at his discretion.' + +'Among the tortures,' said Ampere, 'which Continental despots delight to +inflict on their state prisoners the privation of correspondence is one.' + +'In ordinary life,' I said, 'the educated endure inaction worse than the +ignorant. A coachman sits for hours on his box without feeling _ennui_. +If his master had to sit quiet all that time, inside the carriage, he +would tear his hair from impatience. + +'But the educated seem to tolerate the inactivity of imprisonment better +than their inferiors. We find that our ordinary malefactors cannot endure +solitary imprisonment for more than a year--seldom indeed so long. The +Italian prisoners whom I have known, Zucchi, Borsieri, Poerio, +Gonfalonieri, and Pellico, endured imprisonment lasting from ten to +seventeen years without much injury to mind or body.' + +'The spirit of Pellico,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'was broken. When +released, he gave himself up to devotion and works of charity. Perhaps +the humility, resignation, and submission of his book made it still +more mischievous to the Austrian Government. The reader's indignation +against those who could so trample on so unresisting a victim becomes +fierce.' + +'If the Austrians,' I said, 'had been wise, they would have shot instead +of imprisoning them. Their deaths would have been forgotten--their +imprisonment has contributed much to the general odium which is +destroying the Austrian Empire.' + +'It would have been wiser,' said Beaumont, 'but it would have been more +merciful, and therefore it was not done. But you talk of all these men as +solitarily imprisoned. Some of them had companions.' + +'Yes,' I said, 'but they complained that one permanent companion was +worse than solitude. Gonfalonieri said, that one could not be in the same +room, with the same man, a year without hating him. + +'One of the Neapolitan prisoners was chained for some time to a brigand. +Afterwards the brigand was replaced by a gentleman. He complained +bitterly of the change. + +'The brigand,' said Minnie, 'was his slave, the gentleman had a will of +his own.' + +'How did M. de La Fayette,'[2] I asked Madame de Beaumont, 'bear his five +years' imprisonment at Olmutz?' + +'His health,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'was good, but the miseries of his +country and the sufferings of his wife made him very unhappy. When my +grandmother came to him, it was two days before she had strength to tell +him that all his and her family had perished. I was once at Olmutz, and +saw the one room which they had inhabited. It was damp and dark. She +asked to be allowed to leave it for a time for better medical treatment +and change of air. It was granted only on the condition that she should +never return. She refused. The rheumatic attacks which the state of the +prison had produced, continued and increased: she was hopelessly ill when +they were released--and died soon afterwards. The sense of wrong +aggravated their sufferings, for their imprisonment was a gross and +wanton violation of all law, international and municipal. My grandfather +was not an Austrian subject; he had committed no offence against Austria. +She seized him simply because he was a liberal, because his principles +had made him the enemy of tyranny in America and in France; and because +his birth and talents and reputation gave him influence. It was one of +the brutal stupid acts of individual cruelty which characterise the +Austrian despotism, and have done more to ruin it than a wider +oppression--such a one, for instance, as ours, more mischievous, but more +intelligent,--would have done.' + +'Freedom,' said Ampere, 'was offered to him on the mere condition of his +not serving in the French army. At that time the Jacobins would have +guillotined him, the Royalists would have forced duel after duel on him +till they had killed him. It seemed impossible that he should ever be +able to draw his sword for France. In fact he never _was_ able. America +offered him an asylum, honours, land, everything that could console an +exile. But he refused to give up the chance, remote as it was, of being +useful to his country, and remained a prisoner till he was delivered by +Napoleon.' + +'He firmly believed,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'that if the Royal Family +would have taken refuge with his army in 1791 he could have saved them, +and probably the Monarchy. His army was then in his hands, a few months +after the Jacobins had corrupted it.' + +'Two men,' said Ampere, 'Mirabeau and La Fayette, could have saved the +Monarchy, and were anxious to do so. But neither the King nor the Queen +would trust them. + +'Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette are among the historical personages who +have most influenced the destinies of the world. His dulness, torpidity +and indecision, and her frivolity, narrow-minded prejudices and +suspiciousness, are among the causes of our present calamities. They are +among the causes of a state of things which has inflicted on +us, and threatens to inflict on all Europe, the worst of all +Governments--democratic despotism. A Government in which two wills only +prevail--that of the ignorant, envious, ambitious, aggressive multitude, +and that of the despot who, whatever be his natural disposition, is soon +turned, by the intoxication of flattery and of universal power, into a +capricious, fantastic, selfish participator in the worst passions of the +worst portion of his subjects.' + +'Such a Government,' I said, 'may be called an anti-aristocracy. It +excludes from power all those who are fit to exercise it.' + +'The consequence,' said Beaumont, 'is, that the qualities which fit men +for power not being demanded, are not supplied. Our young men have no +political knowledge or public spirit. Those who have a taste for the +sciences cultivated in the military schools enter the army. The rest +learn nothing.' + +'What do they do?' I asked. + +'How they pass their time,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'is a puzzle to me. +They do not read, they do not go into society--I believe that they smoke +and play at dominos, and ride and bet at steeple-chases. + +'Those who are on home service in the army are not much better. The time +not spent in the routine of their profession is sluggishly and viciously +wasted. Algeria has been a God-send to us. There our young men have real +duties to perform, and real dangers to provide against and to encounter. +My son, who left St. Cyr only eighteen months ago, is stationed at +Thebessa, 300 miles in the interior. He belongs to a _bureau arabe_, +consisting of a captain, a lieutenant, and himself, and about forty +spahis. He has to act as a judge, as an engineer, to settle the frontier +between the province of Constantine and Tunis--in short, to be one of a +small ruling aristocracy. This is the school which has furnished, and is +furnishing, our best generals and administrators.' + +We talked of the interior of French families. + +'The ties of relationship,' I said, 'seem to be stronger with you than +they are with us. Cousinship with you is a strong bond, with us it is a +weak one.' + +'The habit of living together,' said Beaumont, 'has perhaps much to do +with the strength of our feelings of consanguinity. Our life is +patriarchal. Grandfather, father, and grandson are often under the same +roof. At the Grange[3] thirty of the family were sometimes assembled at +dinner. With you, the sons go off, form separate establishments, see +little of their parents, still less of their cousins, and become +comparatively indifferent to them.' + +'I remember,' I said, 'the case of an heir apparent of seventy; his +father was ninety-five. One day the young man was very grumpy. They tried +to find out what was the matter with him; at last he broke out, +"Everybody's father dies except mine."' + +'An acquaintance of mine,' said Beaumont, 'not a son, but a son-in-law, +complained equally of the pertinacious longevity of his father-in-law. +"Je n'ai pas cru," he said, "en me mariant, que j'epousais la fille du +Pere Eternel." Your primogeniture,' he continued, 'must be a great source +of unfilial feelings. The eldest son of one of your great families is in +the position of the heir apparent to a throne. His father's death is to +give him suddenly rank, power, and wealth; and we know that royal heirs +apparent are seldom affectionate sons. With us the fortunes are much +smaller, they are equally divided, and the rank that descends to the son +is nothing.' + +'What regulates,' I asked, 'the descent of titles?' + +'It is ill regulated,' said Beaumont 'Titles are now of such little value +that scarcely anyone troubles himself to lay down rules about them. + +'In general, however, it is said, that all the sons of dukes and of +marquises are counts. The sons of counts in some families all take the +title of Count. There are, perhaps, thirty Beaumonts. Some call +themselves marquises, some counts, some barons. I am, I believe, the only +one of the family who has assumed no title. Alexis de Tocqueville took +none, but his elder brother, during his father's life, called himself +vicomte and his younger brother baron. Probably Alexis ought then to have +called himself chevalier, and, on his father's death, baron. But, I +repeat, the matter is too unimportant to be subject to any settled rules. +Ancient descent is, with us, of great value, of far more than it is with +you, but titles are worth nothing.' + +[Footnote 1: This incident is described in a little book published last +year, the _Memoirs of Madame de Montaign_.--ED.] + +[Footnote 2: M. de La Fayette was Madame de Beaumont's grandfather.--ED.] + +[Footnote 3: The chateau of M. de La Fayette.--ED.] + + +_Saturday, August_ 17.--We drove to the coast and ascended the lighthouse +of Gatteville, 85 metres, or about 280 feet high. It stands in the middle +of a coast fringed with frightful reefs, just enough under water to +create no breakers, and a flat plain a couple of miles wide behind, so +that the coast is not seen till you come close to it. In spite of many +lighthouses and buoys, wrecks are frequent. A mysterious one occurred +last February: the lighthouse watchman showed us the spot--a reef just +below the lighthouse about two hundred yards from the shore. + +It was at noon--there was a heavy sea, but not a gale. He saw a large +ship steer full on the reef. She struck, fell over on one side till her +yards were in the water, righted herself, fell over on the other, parted +in the middle, and broke up. It did not take five minutes, but during +those five minutes there was the appearance of a violent struggle on +board, and several shots were fired. From the papers which were washed +ashore it appeared that she was from New York, bound for Havre, with a +large cargo and eighty-seven passengers, principally returning emigrants. +No passenger escaped, and only two of the crew: one was an Italian +speaking no French, from whom they could get nothing; the other was an +Englishman from Cardiff, speaking French, but almost obstinately +uncommunicative. He said that he was below when the ship struck, that the +captain had locked the passengers in the cabin, and that he knew nothing +of the causes which had led the ship to go out of her course to run on +this rock. + +The captain may have been drunk or mad. Or there may have been a mutiny +on board, and those who got possession of the ship may have driven her on +the coast, supposing that they could beach her, and ignorant of the +interposed reefs, which, as I have said, are not betrayed by breakers. + +Our informant accounted for the loss of all, except two persons, by the +heavy sea, the sharp reefs, and the blows received by those who tried to +swim from the floating cargo. The two who escaped were much bruised. + +A man and woman were found tied to one another and tied to a spar. They +seemed to have been killed by blows received from the rocks or from the +floating wreck. + +In the evening Ampere read to us the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' His reading +is equal to any acting. It kept us all, for the first two acts, which are +the most comic, in one constant roar of laughter. + +'The modern _nouveau riche,_ said Beaumont, 'has little resemblance to M. +Jourdain. He talks of his horses and his carriages, builds a great hotel, +and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives +four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage +one day, and another the next. His jockey stands behind his cabriolet in +top-boots, and his coachman wears a grand fur coat in summer. His own +clothes are always new, sometimes in the most accurate type of a groom, +sometimes in that of a dandy. His talk is of steeple-chases.' + +'And does he get on?' I asked. + +'Not in the least,' answered Beaumont. 'In England a _nouveau riche_ can +get into Parliament, or help somebody else to get in, and political power +levels all distinctions. Here, wealth gives no power: nothing, indeed, +but office gives power. The only great men in the provinces are the +_prefet_, the _sous-prefet_, and the _maire_. The only great man in Paris +is a minister or a general. Wealth, therefore, unless accompanied by the +social talents, which those who have made their fortunes have seldom had +the leisure or the opportunity to acquire, leads to nothing. The women, +too, of the _parvenus_ always drag them down. They seem to acquire +the _tournure_ of society less easily than the men. Bastide, when +Minister, did pretty well, but his wife used to sign her invitations +"Femme Bastide." + +'Society,' he continued, 'under the Republic was animated. We had great +interests to discuss, and strong feelings to express, but perhaps the +excitement was too great. People seemed to be almost ashamed to amuse +or to be amused when the welfare of France, her glory or her degradation, +her freedom or her slavery, were, as the event has proved, at stake.' + +'I suppose,' I said to Ampere, 'that nothing has ever been better than +the _salon_ of Madame Recamier?' + +'We must distinguish,' said Ampere. 'As great painters have many manners, +so Madame Recamier had many _salons_. When I first knew her, in 1820, her +habitual dinner-party consisted of her father, her husband, Ballanche, +and myself. Both her father, M. Bernard, and her husband were agreeable +men. Ballanche was charming.' + +'You believe,' I said, 'that Bernard was her father?' 'Certainly I do,' +he replied. 'The suspicion that Recamier might be was founded chiefly on +the strangeness of their conjugal relations. To this, I oppose her +apparent love for M. Bernard, and I explain Recamier's conduct by his +tastes. They were coarse, though he was a man of good manners. He never +spent his evenings at home. He went where he could find more license. + +'Perhaps the most agreeable period was at that time of Chateaubriand's +reign when he had ceased to exact a _tete-a-tete_, and Ballanche and I +were admitted at four o'clock. The most illustrious of the _partie +carree_ was Chateaubriand, the most amusing Ballanche. My merit was that +I was the youngest. Later in the evening Madame Mohl, Miss Clarke as she +then was, was a great resource. She is a charming mixture of French +vivacity and English originality, but I think that the French element +predominates. Chateaubriand, always subject to _ennui_, delighted in her. +He has adopted in his books some of the words which she coined. Her +French is as original as the character of her mind, very good, but more +of the last than of the present century.' + +'Was Chateaubriand himself,' I said, 'agreeable?' + +'Delightful,' said Ampere; 'tres-entrain, tres-facile a vivre, beaucoup +d'imagination et de connaissances.' + +'Facile a vivre?' I said. 'I thought that his vanity had been _difficile +et exigeante?_' + +'As a public man,' said Ampere, 'yes; and to a certain degree in general +society. But in intimate society, when he was no longer "posing," he was +charming. The charm, however, was rather intellectual than moral. + +'I remember his reading to us a part of his memoirs, in which he +describes his early attachment to an English girl, his separation from +her, and their meeting many years after when she asked his protection for +her son. Miss Clarke was absorbed by the story. She wanted to know what +became of the young man, what Chateaubriand had been able to do for him. +Chateaubriand could answer only in generals: that he had done all that he +could, that he had spoken to the Minister, and that he had no doubt that +the young man got what he wanted. But it was evident that even if he had +really attempted to do anything for the son of his old love, he had +totally forgotten the result. I do not think that he was pleased at Miss +Clarke's attention and sympathy being diverted from himself. Later still +in Madame Recamier's life, when she had become blind, and Chateaubriand +deaf, and Ballanche very infirm, the evenings were sad. I had to try to +amuse persons who had become almost unamusable.' + +'How did Madame de Chateaubriand,' I asked, 'take the devotion of her +husband to Madame Recamier?' + +'Philosophically,' answered Ampere. 'He would not have spent with her the +hours that he passed at the Abbaye au bois. She was glad, probably, to +know that they were not more dangerously employed.' + +'Could I read Chateaubriand?' I asked. + +'I doubt it,' said Ampere. 'His taste is not English.' + +'I _have_ read,' I said, 'and liked, his narrative of the manner in which +he forced on the Spanish war of 1822. I thought it well written.' + +'It is, perhaps,' said Ampere, 'the best thing which he has written, as +the intervention to restore Ferdinand, which he effected in spite of +almost everybody, was perhaps the most important passage in his political +life. + +'There is something revolting in an interference to crush the liberties +of a foreign nation. But the expedition tended to maintain the Bourbons +on the French throne, and, according to Chateaubriand's ideas, it was +more important to support the principle of legitimacy than that of +liberty. He expected, too, sillily enough, that Ferdinand would give a +Constitution. It is certain, that, bad as the effects of that expedition +were, Chateaubriand was always proud of it.' + +'What has Ballanche written?' I asked. + +'A dozen volumes,' he answered. 'Poetry, metaphysics, on all sorts of +subjects, with pages of remarkable vigour and _finesse_, containing some +of the best writing in the language, but too unequal and too desultory to +be worth going through.' + +'How wonderfully extensive,' I said, 'is French literature! Here is a +voluminous author, some of whose writings, you say, are among the best in +the French language, yet his name, at least as an author, is scarcely +known. He shines only by reflected light, and will live only because he +attached himself to a remarkable man and to a remarkable woman.' + +'French literature,' said Ampere, 'is extensive, but yet inferior to +yours. If I were forced to select a single literature and to read nothing +else, I would take the English. In one of the most important departments, +the only one which cannot be re-produced by translation--poetry--you +beat us hollow. We are great only in the drama, and even there you are +perhaps our superiors. We have no short poems comparable to the "Allegro" +or to the "Penseroso," or to the "Country Churchyard."' + +'Tocqueville,' I said, 'told me that he did not think that he could +now read Lamartine.' + +'Tocqueville,' said Ampere, 'could taste, like every man of genius, the +very finest poetry, but he was not a lover of poetry. He could not read a +hundred bad lines and think himself repaid by finding mixed with them ten +good ones.' + +'Ingres,' said Beaumont, 'perhaps our greatest living painter, is one of +the clever cultivated men who do not read. Somebody put the "Misanthrope" +into his hands, "It is wonderfully clever," he said, when he returned it; +"how odd it is that it should be so totally unknown."' + +'Let us read it to-night,' I said. + +'By all means,' said Madame de Tocqueville; 'though we know it by heart +it will be new when read by M. Ampere.' Accordingly Ampere read it to us +after dinner. + +'The tradition of the stage,' he said, 'is that Celimene was Moliere's +wife.' + +'She is made too young,' said Minnie. 'A girl of twenty has not her wit, +or her knowledge of the world.' + +'The change of a word,' said Ampere, 'in two or three places would alter +that. The feeblest characters are as usual the good ones. Philinte and +Eliante. + +'Alceste is a grand mixture, perhaps the only one on the French stage, of +the comic and the tragic; for in many of the scenes he rises far above +comedy. His love is real impetuous passion. Talma delighted in playing +him.' + +'The desert,' I said, 'into which he retires, was, I suppose, a distant +country-house. Just such a place as Tocqueville.' + +'As Tocqueville,' said Beaumont, 'fifty years ago, without roads, ten +days' journey from Paris, and depending for society on Valognes.' + +'As Tocqueville,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'when my mother-in-law +first married. She spent in it a month and could never be induced to see +it again.' + +'Whom,' I asked, 'did Celimene marry?' + +'Of course,' said Ampere, 'Alceste. Probably five years afterwards. By +that time he must have got tired of his desert and she of her coquetry.' + +'We know,' I said, 'that Moliere was always in love with his wife, +notwithstanding her _legerete_. What makes me think the tradition that +Celimene was Mademoiselle[1] Moliere true, is that Moliere was certainly +in love with Celimene. She is made as engaging as possible, and her worst +faults do not rise above foibles. Her satire is good-natured. Arsinoe is +her foil, introduced to show what real evil-speaking is.' + +'All the women,' said Ampere, 'are in love with Alceste, and they care +about no one else. Celimene's satire of the others is scarcely +good-natured. It is clear, at least, that they did not think so.' + +'If Celimene,' said Minnie, 'became Madame Alceste, he probably made her +life a burthen with his jealousy.' + +'Of course he was jealous,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'for he was +violently in love. There can scarcely be violent love without jealousy.' + +'At least,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'till people are married. + +'If a lover is cool enough to be without jealousy, he ought to pretend +it.' + + +[Footnote 1: Under the _ancien regime_ even the married actresses were +called Mademoiselle.--ED.] + + +_Sunday, August_ 18.--After breakfast when the ladies were gone to +church, I talked over with Ampere and Beaumont Tocqueville's political +career. + +'Why,' I asked, 'did he refuse the support of M. Mole in 1835? Why would +he never take office under Louis Philippe? Why did he associate himself +with the Gauche whom he despised, and oppose the Droit with whom he +sympathised? Is the answer given by M. Guizot to a friend of mine who +asked a nearly similar question, "Parce qu'il voulait etre ou je suis," +the true one?' + +'The answers to your first question,' said Beaumont, 'are two. In 1835 +Tocqueville was young and inexperienced. Like most young politicians, he +thought that he ought to be an independent member, and to vote, on every +occasion, according to his conscience, untrammelled by party connections. +He afterwards found his mistake. + +'And, secondly, if he had chosen to submit to a leader, it would not have +been Mole. + +'Mole represented a principle to which Guizot was then vehemently +opposed, though he was afterwards its incarnation--the subservience of +the Ministry and of the Parliament to the King. In that house of 450 +members, there were 220 placemen; 200 were the slaves of the King. They +received from him their orders; from time to time, in obedience to those +orders, they even opposed his Ministers. + +'This, however, seldom occurred, for the King contrived always to have a +devoted majority in his Cabinet. + +'It was this that drove the Duc de Broglie from the Government and +prevented his ever resuming office. + +'"I could not bear," he said to me, "to hear Sebastiani repeat, in every +council and on every occasion, 'Ce que le Roi vient de dire est +parfaitement juste.'" The only Ministers that ventured to have an opinion +of their own were those of the 12th of May 1839, of which Dufaure, +Villemain, and Passy were members, and that of the 1st of March 1840, of +which Thiers was the leader; and Tocqueville supported them both. + +'When Guizot, who had maintained the principle of Ministerial and +Parliamentary, in opposition to that of Monarchical Governments, with +unequalled eloquence, vigour, and I may add violence, suddenly turned +round and became the most servile member of the King's servile majority, +Tocqueville fell back into opposition. + +'In general it is difficult to act with an opposition systematically and, +at the same time, honestly. For the measures proposed by a Government +are, for the most part, good. But, during the latter part of Louis +Philippe's reign, it was easy, for the Government proposed merely to do +nothing--either abroad or at home. I do not complain of the essence of M. +Guizot's foreign policy, though there was a want of dignity in its forms. + +'There was nothing useful to be done, and, under such circumstances, all +action would have been mischievous. + +'But at home _every_ thing was to be done. Our code required to be +amended, our commerce and our industry, and our agriculture required to +be freed, our municipal and commercial institutions were to be created, +our taxation was to be revised, and, above all, our parliamentary +system--under which, out of 36,000,000 of French, only 200,000 had votes, +under which the Deputies bought a majority of the 200,000 electors, and +the King bought a majority of the 450 deputies--required absolute +reconstruction. + +'Louis Philippe would allow nothing to be done. If he could have +prevented it we should not have had a railroad. He would not allow the +most important of all, that to Marseilles, to be finished. He would not +allow our monstrous centralisation, or our monstrous protective system, +to be touched. The owners of forests were permitted to deprive us of +cheap fuel, the owners of forges of cheap iron, the owners of factories +of cheap clothing. + +'In some of this stupid inaction Guizot supported him conscientiously, +for, like Thiers, he is ignorant of the first principles of political +economy, but he knows too much the philosophy of Government not to have +felt, on every other point, that the King was wrong. + +'If he supposed that Tocqueville wished to be in his place, on the +conditions on which he held office, he was utterly mistaken. + +'Tocqueville was ambitious; he wished for power. So did I. We would +gladly have been real Ministers, but nothing would have tempted us to be +the slaves of the _pensee immuable_, or to sit in a Cabinet in which we +were constantly out-voted, or to defend, as Guizot had to do in the +Chamber, conduct which we had disapproved in the Council. + +'You ask why Tocqueville joined the Gauche whom he despised, against the +Droit with whom he sympathised? + +'He voted with the Gauche only where he thought their votes right. Where +he thought them wrong, as, for instance, in all that respected Algeria, +he left them. They would have abandoned the country, and, when that +could not be obtained, they tried to prevent the creation of the port. + +'Very early, however, in his parliamentary life, he had found that an +independent member--a member who supporting no party is supported by no +party---is useless. He allowed himself therefore to be considered a +member of the Gauche; but I never could persuade him to be tolerably +civil to them. Once, after I had been abusing him for his coldness to +them, he shook hands with Romorantin, then looked towards me for my +applause, but I doubt whether he ever shook hands with him again. In +fact almost his only point of contact with them was their disapprobation +of the inactivity of Louis Philippe. Many of them were Bonapartists like +Abbatucci and Romorantin. Some were Socialists, some were Republicans; +the majority of them wished to overthrow the Monarchy, and the minority +looked forward with indifference to its fall. + +'They hated him as much as he did them, much more indeed, for his mind +was not formed for hatred. They excluded him from almost all committees.' + +'Would it not have been wise in him,' I asked, 'to retire from the +Chamber during the King's life, or at least until it contained a party +with whom he could cordially act?' + +'Perhaps,' said Beaumont, 'that would have been the wisest course for +him--and indeed for me. I entered the Chamber reluctantly. All my family +were convinced that a political man not in the Chamber was nothing. So +I let myself be persuaded. Tocqueville required no persuasion, he was +anxious to get in, and when in it was difficult to persuade oneself to go +out. We always hoped for a change. The King might die, or he might be +forced--as he had been forced before--to submit to a liberal Ministry +which might have been a temporary cure, or even to a Parliamentary reform +which might have been a complete cure. Duchatel, who is a better +politician than Guizot, was superseding him in the confidence of the King +and of the Chamber. + +'In fact, the liberal Ministry and Parliamentary reform did come at last, +though not until it was too late to save the Monarchy. + +'If Tocqueville had retired in disgust from the Chamber of Deputies, he +might not have been a member of the Constituent, or of the Legislative +Assembly. This would have been a misfortune--though the shortness of the +duration of the first, and the hostility of the President during the +second, and also the state of his health, prevented his influencing the +destinies of the Republic as much as his friends expected him to do, and +indeed as he expected himself.' + +'I have often,' I said, 'wondered how you and Tocqueville, and the other +eminent men who composed the committee for preparing the Constitution, +could have made one incapable of duration, and also incapable of change.' + +'What,' he asked, 'are the principal faults which you find in the +Constitution?' + +'First,' I said, 'that you gave to your President absolute authority over +the army, the whole patronage of the most centralised and the most +place-hunting country in the world, so that there was not one of your +population of 36,000,000 whose interests he could not seriously affect; +and, having thus armed him with irresistible power, you gave him the +strongest possible motives to employ it against the Constitution by +turning him out at the end of his four years, incapable of re-election, +unpensioned and unprovided for, so that he must have gone from the Elysee +Bourbon to a debtor's prison. + +'Next, that, intending your President to be the subordinate Minister of +the Assembly, you gave him the same origin, and enabled him to say, "I +represent the people as much as you do, indeed much more. They _all_ +voted for me, only a fraction of them voted for any one of you." Then +that origin was the very worst that could possibly be selected, the votes +of the uneducated multitude; you must have foreseen that they would give +you a demagogue or a charlatan. The absence of a second Chamber, and the +absence of a power of dissolution, are minor faults, but still serious +ones. When the President and the Assembly differed, they were shut up +together to fight it out without an umpire.' + +'That we gave the President too much power,' said Beaumont, 'the event +has proved. But I do not see how, in the existing state of feeling in +France, we could have given him less. The French have no self-reliance. +They depend for everything on their administrators. The first revolution +and the first empire destroyed all their local authorities and also their +aristocracy. Local authorities may be gradually re-created, and an +aristocracy may gradually arise, but till these things have been done the +Executive must be strong. + +'If he had been re-eligible, our first President would virtually have +been President for life. Having decided that his office should be +temporary, we were forced to forbid his immediate re-election. + +'With respect to his being left unprovided for, no man who had filled the +office decently would have been refused an ample provision on quitting +it. As for this man, no provision that we could have made for him, if we +had given him three or four millions a year, would have induced him to +give up what he considered a throne which was his by descent. He swore to +the Constitution with an _idee fixe _to destroy it. He attempted to do so +on the 29th of January 1849, not two months after his election. + +'I agree with you that the fault of the Constitution was that it allowed +the President to be chosen by universal suffrage; and that the fault of +the people was that they elected a pretender to the throne, whose +ambition, rashness, and faithlessness had been proved. + +'No new Constitution can work if the Executive conspires against it. But +deliberating and acting in the midst of _emeutes_, with a Chamber and a +population divided into half a dozen hostile factions, the two Royalist +parties hating one another, the Bonapartists bent on destroying all +freedom, and the Socialists all individual property, what could we do? My +wish and Tocqueville's was to give the election to the Chamber. We found +that out of 650 members we could not hope that our proposition would be +supported by more than 200. You think that we ought to have proposed two +Chambers. The great use of two Chambers is to strengthen the Executive +by enabling it to play one against the other; but we felt that our +Executive was dangerously strong, and we believed, I think truly, that a +single Chamber would resist him better than two could do. The provision +which required more than a bare majority for the revision of the +Constitution was one of those which we borrowed from America. It had +worked well there. In the general instability we wished to have one +anchor, one mooring ring fixed. We did not choose that the whole +framework of our Government should be capable of being suddenly destroyed +by a majority of one, in a moment of excitement and perhaps by a +parliamentary surprise. + +'With respect to your complaint that, there being no power of +dissolution, there was no means of taking the opinion of the people, the +answer is, that to give the President power of dissolution would have +been to invite him to a _coup d'etat._ With no Chamber to watch him, he +would have been omnipotent. + +'I agree with you that the Constitution was a detestable one. But even +now, looking back to the times, and to the conditions under which we made +it, I do not think that it was in our power to make a good one.' + +'Tocqueville,' I said, 'told me that Cormenin was your Solon, that he +brought a bit of constitution to you every morning, and that it was +usually adopted.'[1] + +'Tocqueville's memory,' answered Beaumont, 'deceived him. Cormenin was +our president. It is true that he brought a bit of constitution every +morning. But it scarcely ever was adopted or capable of being adopted. +It was in general bad in itself, or certain to be rejected by the +Assembly. He wished to make the President a puppet. But he exercised over +us a mischievous influence. He tried to revenge himself for our refusal +of all his proposals by rendering our deliberations fruitless. And as +the power of a president over a deliberative body is great, he often +succeeded. + +'Many of our members were unaccustomed to public business and lost their +tempers or their courage when opposed. The Abbe Lamennais proposed a +double election of the president. But of thirty members, only four, among +whom were Tocqueville and I, supported him. He left the committee and +never returned to it. Tocqueville and I were anxious to introduce double +election everywhere. It is the best palliative of universal suffrage.' + +'The double election,' I said, 'of the American President is nugatory. +Every elector is chosen under a pledge to nominate a specified +candidate.' + +'That is true,' said Beaumont, 'as to the President, but not as to the +other functionaries thus elected. The senators chosen by double election +are far superior to the representatives chosen by direct voting. + +'We proposed, too, to begin by establishing municipal institutions. We +were utterly defeated. The love of centralisation is almost inherent in +French politicians. They see the evil of local government--its stupidity, +its corruption, its jobbing. They see the convenience of +centralisation--the ease with which a centralised administration works. +Feelings which are really democratic have reached those who fancy +themselves aristocrats. We had scarcely a supporter. + +'We should perhaps have a few now, when experience has shown that +centralisation is still more useful to an usurper than it is to a regular +Government.' + +[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. p. 212.--ED.] + + +_August_ 18.--We drove in the afternoon to the coast, and sat in the +shade of the little ricks of sea-weed, gazing on an open sea as blue as +the Mediterranean. + +We talked of America. + +'I can understand,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'the indignation of the +North against you. It is, of course, excessive, but they had a right to +expect you to be on their side in an anti-slavery war.' + +'They had no right,' I said, 'to expect from our Government anything but +absolute neutrality.' + +'But you need not,' she replied, 'have been so eager to put the South on +the footing of belligerents.' + +'On what other footing,' I asked, 'could we put them? On what other +footing does the North put them? Have they ventured, or will they +venture, to hang a single seceder?' + +'At least,' she said, 'you might have expressed more sympathy with the +North?' + +'I think,' I answered, 'that we have expressed as much sympathy as it was +possible to feel. We deplore the combat, we hold the South responsible +for it, we think their capricious separation one of the most foolish and +one of the most wicked acts that have ever been committed; we hope that +the North will beat them, and we should bitterly regret their forcing +themselves back into the Union on terms making slavery worse, if +possible, than it is now. We wish the contest to end as quickly as +possible: but we do not think that it can end by the North subjugating +the Southerns and forcing them to be its subjects. + +'The best termination to which we look forward as possible, is that the +North should beat the South, and then dictate its own terms of +separation. + +'If they wish to go farther than this, if they wish us to love or to +admire our Northern cousins in their political capacity, they wish for +what is impossible. + +'We cannot forget that the Abolitionists have been always a small and +discredited party; that the Cuba slave trade is mainly carried on from +New York; that they have neglected the obligations formally entered +into by them with us to co-operate in the suppression of the slave trade; +that they have pertinaciously refused to allow us even to inquire into +the right of slavers to use the American flag; that it is the capital of +the North which feeds the slavery of the South; that the first act of the +North, as soon as the secession of the South from Congress allowed it to +do what it liked, was to enact a selfish protective tariff; that their +treatment of us, from the time that they have felt strong enough to +insult us, has been one unvaried series of threats, bullying, and injury; +that they have refused to submit their claims on us to arbitration, +driven out our ambassadors, seized by force on disputed territory, and +threatened war on every pretence.' + +'It is true,' said Beaumont, 'that during the last twenty years American +diplomacy has not been such as to inspire affection or respect But you +must recollect that during all that time America has been governed by the +South.' + +'It is true,' I said, 'that the presidents have generally been Southerns, +but I am not aware that the North has ever disavowed their treatment of +us. This is certain, that throughout the Union, insolence to England has +been an American statesman's road to popularity.' + + +_Monday., August _19.--We walked in the afternoon over the commons +overlooking the sea, and among the shady lanes of this well-wooded +country. + +We came on a group of about twelve or thirteen reapers taking their +evening meal of enormous loaves of brown bread, basins of butter, and +kegs of cider. + +M. Roussell, the farmer in whose service they were, was sitting among +them. He was an old friend and constituent of Tocqueville, and for thirty +years was Maire of Tocqueville. He has recently resigned. He rose and +walked with us to his house. + +'I was required,' he said, 'to support the prefect's candidate for the +_Conseil general_. No such proposition was ever made to me before. I +could not submit to it. The prefect has been unusually busy of late. The +schoolmaster has been required to send in a list of the peasants whose +children, on the plea of poverty, receive gratuitous education. The +children of those who do not vote with the prefect are to have it no +longer.' + +I asked what were the wages of labour. + +'Three francs and half a day,' he said, 'during the harvest, with +food--which includes cider. In ordinary times one franc a day with food, +or a franc and a half without food.' + +'It seems then,' I said, 'that you can feed a man for half a franc a +day?' + +'He can feed himself,' said M. Roussell, 'for that, but I cannot, or for +double that money.' + +The day labourer is generally hired only for one day. A new bargain is +made every day. + +The house was not uncomfortable, but very untidy. There are no ricks, +everything is stored in large barns, where it is safe from weather, but +terribly exposed to vermin. + +A bright-complexioned servant-girl was in the kitchen preparing an +enormous bowl of soup, of which bread, potatoes, and onions were the +chief solid ingredients. + +'Roussell,' said Beaumont, 'is superior to his class. In general they are +bad politicians. It is seldom difficult to get their votes for the +nominee of the prefect. They dislike to vote for anyone whom they know, +especially if he be a gentleman, or be supported by the gentry. Such a +candidate excites their democratic envy and suspicion. But the prefect is +an abstraction. They have never seen him, they have seldom heard of his +name or of that of his candidate, and therefore they vote for him. + +'Lately, however, in some of my communes, the peasants have adapted a new +practice, that of electing peasants. I suspect that the Government is not +displeased. + +'The presence of such members will throw discredit on the _Conseils +generaux_, and, if they get there, on the _Corps legislatif,_ much to the +pleasure of our democratic master, and they will be easily bribed or +frightened. Besides which the fifteen francs a day will be a fortune to +them, and they will be terrified by the threat of a dissolution. I do not +think that even yet we have seen the worst of universal suffrage.' + +'What influence,' I asked, 'have the priests?' + +'In some parts of France,' said Beaumont, 'where the people are +religious, as is the case here, much. Not much in the north-east, where +there is little religion; and in the towns, where there is generally no +religion, their patronage of a candidate would ruin him. I believe that +nothing has so much contributed to Louis Napoleon's popularity with the +_ouvriers_ as his quarrel with the Pope. You may infer the feelings of +the lower classes in Paris from his cousin's conduct.' + +'I study Prince Napoleon,' said Ampere, 'with interest, for I believe +that he will be the successor.' + +'If Louis Napoleon,' I said, 'were to be shot tomorrow, would not the +little prince be proclaimed?' + +'Probably,' said Ampere, 'but with Jerome for regent, and I doubt whether +the regency would end by the little Napoleon IV. assuming the sceptre. + +'Louis Napoleon himself does not expect it. He often says that, in +France, it is more than two hundred years since a sovereign has been +succeeded by his son. + +'On the whole,' continued Ampere, 'I had rather have Jerome than Louis +Napoleon. He has more talent and less prudence. He would bring on the +crisis sooner. + +'On the 31st of October, 1849,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'I was in +Louis Napoleon's company, and he mentioned some matter on which he wished +to know my husband's opinion. I could not give it. "It does not much +signify," he answered, "for as I see M. de Tocqueville every day, I will +talk to him about it myself." At that very time, the _ordonnance_ +dismissing M. de Tocqueville had been signed, and Louis Napoleon knew +that he would probably never see him again.' + +'I do not,' said Ampere, 'give up the chance of a republic. I do not wish +for one. It must be a very bad constitutional monarchy which I should not +prefer to the best republic. My democratic illusions are gone. France and +America have dispelled them: but it must be a very bad republic which I +should not prefer to the best despotism. A republic is like a fever, +violent and frightful, but not necessarily productive of organic +mischief. A despotism is a consumption: it degrades and weakens, and +perverts all the vital functions. + +'What is there now in France worth living for? I find people proud of our +Italian campaign. Why should the French be proud that their master's +soldiers have been successful in a war as to which they were not +consulted; which, in fact, they disapproved, which was not made for their +benefit, which was the most glaring proof of their servility and +degradation? We knew before that our troops were better than the +Austrians. What have we gained by the additional example of their +superiority? + +'I fear,' I said, 'that a republic, at least such a republic as you are +likely to have, would begin by some gross economical enormities--by the +_droit au travail_, by the _impot progressif sur la fortune presumtee_, +by a paper currency made a legal tender without limitation of its +amount.' + +'The last republic,' said Ampere, 'did some of these things, but very +timidly and moderately. It gave to its paper a forced currency, but was +so cautious in its issue, that it was not depreciated. It created the +_ateliers nationaux,_ but it soon dissolved them, though at the expense +of a civil war. Its worst fault was more political than economical: it +was the 45 centimes, that is to say, the sudden increase by 45 per cent, +of the direct taxes. It never recovered that blow. Of all its acts it +is the one which is best recollected. The Provisional Government is known +in the provinces as "ces gredins des quarante-cinq centimes." The +business of a revolutionary government is to be popular. It ought to +reduce taxation, meet its expenditure by loans, abolish octrois and +prohibitions, and defer taxation until it has lasted long enough to be +submitted to as a _fait accompli_.' + +'I fear,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'that our working classes are in a +much worse frame of mind than they were in 1848. Socialist opinions--the +doctrine that the profits of capitalists are so much taken fraudulently +or oppressively from the wages of labourers, and that it is unjust that +one man should have more of the means of happiness than another--are +extending every day. The workpeople believe that the rich are their +enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he will join them +in an attempt to get their fair share, that is, an equal share, of the +property of the country--and I am not sure that they are mistaken.' + +'Nor am I,' said Beaumont '_Celui-ci_ fully sympathises with their +feelings, and I do not think that he has intelligence enough to see the +absurdity of their theories.' + +'You do not deny him,' I said, 'intelligence?' + +'Not,' said Beaumont, 'for some purposes, and to some extent, practical +intelligence. His ends are bad, but he is often skilful in inventing and +pertinacious in employing means for effecting those bad ends. But I +deny him theoretic intelligence. I do not think that he has comprehension +or patience to work out, or even to follow, a long train of reasoning; +such a train as that by which economical errors and fallacies are +detected.' + +'Are there strikes,' I asked, 'among your workmen?' + +'They are beginning,' said Beaumont. 'We have had one near us, and the +authorities were afraid to interfere.' + +'I suppose,' I said, that they are illegal?' + +'They are illegal,' he answered, 'and I think that they ought to be so. +They are always oppressive and tyrannical. The workman who does not join +in a strike is made miserable. They are generally mischievous to +the combined workmen themselves, and always to those of other trades. +Your toleration of them appears to me one of the worst symptoms of your +political state of health. It shows among your public men an ignorance or +a cowardice, or a desire of ill-earned popularity, which is generally a +precursor of a democratic revolution.' + +'It is certain,' said Ampere, 'that the masters are becoming afraid of +their workmen. Pereire brings his from their residences to the Barriere +Malesherbes in carriages. You are not actually insulted in the streets +of Paris, but you are treated with rude neglect. A _fiacre_ likes to +splash you, a _paveur_ to scatter you with mud. Louis Napoleon began with +Chauvinism. He excited all the bad international passions of the +multitude. He has now taken up Sansculotteism. Repulsed with scorn and +disgust by the rich and the educated, he has thrown himself on the poor +and ignorant The passions with which he likes to work are envy, +malignity, and rapacity. + +'I do not believe that he feels them. He is what is called a good-natured +man. That is to say, he likes to please everyone that he sees. But his +selfishness is indescribable. + +'No public interest stands in the way of his slightest caprice. He often +puts me in mind of Nero. With the same indifference to the welfare of +others with which Nero amused himself by burning down Rome, he is amusing +himself by pulling down Paris.' + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + * * * * * * + +[We left Tocqueville on the following day with great regret The same +party was never to meet again--the only survivors are Madame de Beaumont +and myself and the Beaumonts' son, then a very intelligent boy of ten +years old. + +One day my father and I visited the little green churchyard on a cliff +near the sea where Tocqueville is buried. The tomb is a plain grey stone +slab--on it a cross is cut in bas-relief, with these words only:-- + +ICI REPOSE + +ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. + +NE 24 FEVRIER 1805. MORT 16 AVRIL 1859. + +My father laid a wreath of _immortelles_ on the tomb.--ED.] + + +APPENDIX. + +MONTALEMBERT'S speech was afterwards published in the _Moniteur_ but with +considerable alterations. In Mr. Senior's journal in 1854 (which has not +been published), he says, under the date of April 26, I called on +Montalembert and took him my report of his speech. He has promised to add +to it any notes that it may require. "The printed report," he said, "is +intentionally falsified. Before it was struck off I asked to see the +proofs. I was told that, as such an application was new, the President of +the Bureau would meet and decide on its admissibility. They decided that +it could not be granted."' + +[The following is Mr. Senior's report, with M. de Montalembert's own +corrections and additions in French.--ED.] + +At length Montalembert rose. He stood near the extreme right, with his +side towards the tribune, and his face towards the centre gallery, in +which I sat. His voice and delivery are so good, and the house was so +silent, that I did not lose a word. I believe that the following report +is a tolerably accurate abridgment of his speech. + +'Gentlemen, I must begin by expressing to you my deep gratitude for the +attention which you have paid to this unhappy business. I am grieved at +having occasioned the waste of so much public time. I am still more +grieved at having been the occasion of division among my colleagues.' + +[_Note by Montalember_.--'J'aurais voulu faire plus qu'exprimer le +regret: j'aurais voulu me preter a tous les arrangements qui m'ont ete +suggeres par des voix amies pour mettre un terme a cette discussion. Je +n'aurais recule devant aucun sacrifice qui eut ete compatible avec +l'honneur. Mais vous comprenez tous que sous le coup d'une poursuite, +d'un danger, je ne puis rien desavouer, rien retracter, rien retirer de +ce que j'ai ecrit, de ce que j'ai pense. Si j'agissais autrement il vous +resterait un collegue absous, mais deshonore et dont vous ne sauriez que +faire.'] + +'More than all I am grieved when I think of the time at which this has +occurred. A time when we are engaged in an honourable and serious war--a +war in which, with the great and faithful ally whom I have always +desired, and the sympathy of all Europe, we are defending civilisation +against an enemy, barbarous indeed, but so formidable as to require our +undivided energy and our undivided attention. + +But you must recollect _when_ that letter was written. It was in last +September, in profound peace, when our whole thoughts were employed, and +were properly employed, on our internal affairs. + +'Aujourd'hui il en est autrement; l'etat de guerre impose a tous les +citoyens des devoirs speciaux: il doit aussi imposer un certain frein a +l'esprit de critique. Aucun Francais, quel que soit sa foi politique, ne +peut vouloir discrediter le pouvoir des dissidents, des mecontents, mais +il n'y a plus d'emigres, ni a l'interieur, ni a l'exterieur.' + +[_Note by N.W. Senior._--This seems to be an allusion to a passage in +Thiers's celebrated speech of the 17th of February, 1851. 'I1 ne faut +emigrer, ni au dehors, ni au dedans.'] + +['J'aurais su contenir les sentiments les plus passiones de mon ame, +plutot que de paraitre affaiblir en quoi que ce soit la main qui porte +l'epee et le drapeau de la France. Ce n'est pas toutefois que j'admette +que toute liberte de parole ou de presse soit incompatible avec l'etat de +guerre. L'Angleterre a conserve toutes ses libertes en faisant la guerre +aux plus redoutables ennemis: aujourd'hui encore l'opposition, d'accord +avec le gouvernement sur la question exterieure, maintient les +resistances et les critiques a l'interieur. Et certes personne ne dira +que l'Angleterre, pour avoir conserve la liberte de discussion la plus +entiere, n'ait pas deploye pour le moins autant de prevoyance et +d'energie que nous dans la conduite de la guerre ou nous entrons. Il n'y +a que les nations ou la vie publique circule dans toutes les veines du +corps social, qui sachent resister aux epreuves et aux chances d'une +guerre prolongee. La liberte de la contradiction centuple le prix d'une +libre adhesion; et a force de mettre une sourdine a toutes les emotions +du pays, il faut prendre garde qu'on ne se trouve un jour dans +l'impossibilite de faire vibrer les cordes les plus essentielles quand le +moment des dangers et des sacrifices sera arrive.'] + +'I deeply regret the publication of that letter. But with that +publication I repeat that I am utterly unconnected. I never sanctioned +it, I never wished for it, I never even thought it possible. There are +passages in the letter itself which I might modify if I were to re-write +it, but it would rather be by adding to them than by taking from them. +Two accusations have been directed against its substance. One that it is +hostile to the Emperor; the other that it is hostile to this assembly. No +one who knows my character, and knows my history, will believe that I can +have intended to injure the Emperor. Our relations have been such as to +make it impossible. + +['J'ai eu l'occasion de defendre le chef actuel de l'Etat dans des +circonstances infiniment difficiles, et ou rien n'etait plus douteux que +le succes. Je ne pretends pas l'avoir constitue par cela mon debiteur, +car en le defendant, je ne voulais servir, comme toujours, que la +justice, l'interet du pays, la liberte moderee qui se personnifiaient en +lui a mes yeux, mais enfin, aux yeux du public il est mon oblige, et je +ne suis pas le sien. Si j'avais eu la pensee d'offenser publiquement +l'Empereur, et si j'y avais cede, nous serions _quittes_. Or, je tiens +beaucoup a ce que nous ne le soyons pas. Il n'y aurait pour moi ni +honneur ni avantage a ce changement de position. Tous les hommes de bon +gout, tous les coeurs delicats, me comprendront.'] + +'It is equally impossible that I should have wished to offend this +assembly. It contains men by whose sides I have fought the great battles +of property and law. I love many of its members. I respect almost all. If +I have offended any, it was done unconsciously. Again, it is said that +the tone of my letter is violent. Expressions may be called violent by +some which would be only called _passionnes_ by others. Now I admit that +I am _passionne_. It is in my nature. I owe to that quality much of my +merit, whatever that merit may be. Were I not _passionne_, I should not +have been, during all my life, _la sentinelle perdue de la liberte_. I +should not have thrown myself into every breach: sometimes braving the +attacks of anarchy, sometimes heading the assault on tyranny, and +sometimes fighting against the worst of all despotisms, the despotism +that is based on democracy.' + +['Allons plus au fond, et vous reconnaitrez que les opinions enoncees +dans la lettre ne sont autres que celles toujours professees par moi. +Elles peuvent toutes se ramener a une seule, a mon eloignement pour le +pouvoir absolu. Je ne l'aime pas: je ne l'ai jamais aime. Si j'ai tant +combattu l'anarchie avant et apres 1848, si j'ai suscite contre moi dans +le parti demagogique ces haines virulentes qui durent encore et qui ne +perdent jamais une occasion d'eclater contre moi, c'est parce que j'ai +compris de bonne heure les affinites naturelles du despotisme et de la +democratie; c'est parce que j'ai prevu et predit que la democratie nous +conduirait au pouvoir absolu. Oui, je crois, comme je l'ai dit, que le +despotisme abaisse les caracteres, les intelligences, les consciences. +Oui, je deplore le systeme qui rend un seul homme tout-puissant et seul +responsable des destinees d'une nation de 36 millions d'hommes; et trouve +que cela ressemble trop au gouvernement russe, contre lequel nous allons +en guerre, et trop peu au gouvernement anglais, dont nous prisons si haut +l'alliance.'] + +'I am told again, and the accusation is sanctioned by the _requisitoire_ +of the Procureur-General, that my letter is inconsistent with the +fidelity which I have sworn to the Emperor and to the constitution. When +a man swears fidelity to a sovereign and to a constitution, his oath +engages him only as to matters within his own power. He swears not to +conspire against them. He swears not to attempt to subvert them. He +cannot swear to approve the acts of the sovereign, or the working of the +constitution, for he cannot foresee what either of them will be. I have +kept, and I shall keep, my oath to the Emperor and my oath to the +constitution. I have not attempted, and I shall not attempt, to overthrow +either of them. But my approbation of either of them does not depend on +me. I accepted the _coup d'etat_, comme vous l'avez tous fait, comme +notre seule chance de salut dans les circonstances d'alors. I expected +a Government _honnete et modere_. I have been disappointed.' + +Here a violent exclamation ran through the assembly. Baroche rose and +cried out, 'You hear him, gentlemen. He says that he expected honesty and +moderation from the Government, and that he has been disappointed. I +appeal to you, Mr. President, to decide whether we are to sit and listen +to such infamies.' + +[Voix diverses:--'Expliquez vos paroles.' 'Retirez vos paroles.' M. de +Montalembert.--'Je les maintiens et je les explique.'] + +'I expected _un gouvernement honnete et modere_. I have been +disappointed. Its _honnete_ may be judged by the confiscation of the +Orleans property.' + +Here was another hubbub, and another protest of Baroche's. + +'What is going on before you,' continued Montalembert, 'is a sample of +its moderation. It is now attempting in my person to introduce into our +criminal law a new _delit_, "communication." Until now it was supposed +that nothing was criminal until it was published. It was believed that a +man might write his opinions and his reflections, and might exchange them +with his friends; that nothing was libellous that was confidential. _Now_ +this Government holds a man responsible for every thought that an +indiscreet or an incautious friend, or a concealed enemy, or a tool of +power reveals. If it succeeds in this attempt, it will not rest satisfied +with this victory over the remnant of our freedom. It is not in the +nature of things that it should. A Government that will not tolerate +censure must forbid discussion. You are now asked to put down writing. +When that has been done, conversation will be attacked. Paris will +resemble Rome under the successors of Augustus. Already this prosecution +has produced a _malaise_ which I never felt or observed before. What will +be the feelings of the nation when all that is around it is concealed, +when every avenue by which light could penetrate is stopped; when we are +exposed to all the undefined terrors and exaggerated dangers that +accompany utter darkness? The misfortune of France, a national defect +which makes the happiness enjoyed by England unattainable by us, is, that +she is always oscillating between extremes; that she is constantly +swinging from universal conquest to _la paix a tout prix_, from the +desire of nothing but glory to the desire of nothing but wealth, from the +wildest democracy to the most abject servility. Every new Government +starts with a new principle. Every Government in a few years perishes by +carrying that principle to an extreme. The First Republic was destroyed +by the intemperance with which it trampled on every sort of tradition and +authority, the First Empire by its abuse of victory and war, the +Restoration by its exaggerated belief in divine right and legitimacy, the +Royalty of July by its exaggerated reliance on purchased voters and +Parliamentary majorities, the Second Republic by the conduct of its own +Republicans. The danger to the Second Empire--its only internal danger, +but I fear a fatal one--is its abuse of authority. With every phase of +our sixty years' long revolution, we have a new superstition, a new +_culte_. We are now required to become the worshippers of authority. I +lament that with the new religion we have not new priests. Our public men +would not be discredited by instantaneous apostasy from one political +faith to another. I am grieved, gentlemen, if I offend you; though many +of you are older in years than I am, not one probably is so old in public +life. I may be addressing you for the last time, and I feel that my last +words ought to contain all the warnings that I think will be useful to +you. This assembly will soon end, as all its predecessors have ended. Its +acts, its legislation, may perish with it, but its reputation, its fame, +for good or for evil, will survive. Within a few minutes you will do an +act by which that reputation will be seriously affected; by which it may +be raised, by which it may be deeply, perhaps irrevocably, sunk. Your +vote to-night will show whether you possess freedom, and whether you +deserve it. As for myself, I care but little. A few months, or even +years, of imprisonment are among the risks which every public man who +does his duty in revolutionary times must encounter, and which the first +men of the country have incurred, _soit en sortant des affaires, soit +avant d'y entrer_. But whatever may be the effect of your vote on _my_ +person, whatever it may be on _your_ reputation, I trust that it is not +in your power to inflict permanent injury on my country. Among you are +some who lived through the Empire. They must remember that the soldiers +of our glorious army cherished as fondly the recollection of its defeats +as of its victories. They must see that the lessons which those defeats +taught, and the feelings which they inspired, are now among the sources +of our military strength. Your Emperor himself, in one of his earlier +addresses, talked hopefully of the period when France would be capable of +more liberty than he now thinks good for her, "Un jour," he exclaimed, +"mon oeuvre sera couronnee par la liberte." I join in that hope. I look +sanguinely towards the time when she will be worthy of the English +constitution, and she will obtain it. Vous tenez le corps de la France, +mais vous ne tenez pas son ame. Cette ame, aujourd'hui effrayee, +engourdie, endormie, cette ame c'est la liberte. Elle se reveillera un +jour et vous echappera. La certitude de ce reveil suffit pour consoler et +fortifier ses vieux et fideles soldats a traverser la nuit de l'epreuve. +Cette liberte honnete et moderee, sage et sainte, j'y ai toujours cru, et +j'y crois encore. Je l'ai toujours servie, toujours aimee, toujours +invoquee, tantot pour la religion, tantot pour le pays; hier contre le +socialisme, aujourd'hui contre un commencement de despotisme; et, quelle +que soit votre decision, je me feliciterai toujours d'avoir eu cette +occasion solennelle de la confesser encore une fois devant vous, et, s'il +le faut, de souffrir un peu pour elle.' + +These concluding words were drowned in universal murmurs. + +N.W. SENIOR. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Correspondence & Conversations of +Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2, by Alexis de Tocqueville + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOCQUEVILLE, VOL 2 *** + +***** This file should be named 13333.txt or 13333.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/3/13333/ + +Produced by G. Graustein and PG Distributed Proofreaders. 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