Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859 Part 1

Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Na.s.sau William Senior from 1834 to 1859.

by Alexis de Tocqueville.

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 a.s.sembly. All the educated cla.s.ses supported the 18th brumaire; all the educated cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sociates. 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 a.s.sembly 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 theoffice to a clerks.h.i.+p. 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly. 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances forced him on more rapidly. One was the candidature of the Prince de Joinville. He thought him the only dangerous compet.i.tor. 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 a.s.sembly, 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 ma.s.s of the people. At present the disapprobation is confined to the educated cla.s.ses. 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 mult.i.tude. 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 subst.i.tute 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 pa.s.sed 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 pallia.s.ses 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 pallia.s.se to pallia.s.se 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 a.s.signable 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sembly 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 s.h.i.+ne in public exhibitions. He does not belong to the highest cla.s.s of hypocrites, who cheat by frankness and cordiality.'

'Such,' I said, 'as Iago. It is a cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tutional empire, with Hungary for its most powerful member, a barrier against Russia instead of her slave.'