Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Volume 2 / Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859

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Title: Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2

Author: Alexis de Tocqueville

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_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 t