Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859 Part 25

'Then,' I said, 'as you take 100,000 conscripts every year even in peace, you lose 25,000 of your best young men every year?'

'Certainly,' said Beaumont.

'And are the 75,000 who return improved or deteriorated?' I asked.

'Improved,' said Ampere; 'they are _degourdis_, they are educated, they submit to authority, they know how to s.h.i.+ft for themselves.'

'Deteriorated,' said Beaumont. 'A garrison life destroys the habits of steady industry, it impairs skill. The returned conscript is more vicious and less honest than the peasant who has not left his village.'

'And what was the loss,' I asked, 'in the late war?'

'At least twice as great,' said Beaumont, 'as it is in peace. Half of those who were taken perished. The country would not have borne the prolongation of the Crimean War.'

'These wars,' I said, 'were short and successful. A war with England can scarcely be short, and yet you think that he plans one?'

'I think,' said Beaumont, 'that he plans one, but only in the event of his encountering any serious difficulty at home. You must not infer from the magnitude of his naval expenditure that he expects one.

'You look at the expense of those preparations, and suppose that so great a sacrifice would not be made in order to meet an improbable emergency.

But expense is no sacrifice to him. He likes it. He has the morbid taste for it which some tyrants have had for blood, which his uncle had for war. Then he is incapable of counting. When he lived at Arenenburg he used to give every old soldier who visited him an order on Viellard his treasurer for money. In general the chest was empty. Viellard used to remonstrate but without effect. The day perhaps after his orders had been dishonoured he gave new ones.'

'Is it true,' I asked, 'that the civil list is a couple of years' income in debt?'

I know nothing about it,' said Beaumont; 'in fact, n.o.body knows anything about anything, but it is highly probable. Everybody who asks for anything gets it, everybody is allowed to waste, everybody is allowed to rob, every folly of the Empress is complied with. Fould raised objections, and was dismissed.

'She is said to have a room full of revolutionary relics: there is the bust of Marie Antoinette, the nose broken at one of the sacks of the Tuileries. There is a picture of Simon beating Louis XVII. Her poor child has been frightened by it, and she is always dwelling on the dangers of her position.'

'So,' I said, 'did Queen Adelaide--William IV.'s Queen. From the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill she fully expected to die on the scaffold.'

'There is more reason,' he answered, 'for the Empress's fears.'

'Not,' I said, 'if she fears the scaffold. Judicial murder, at least in that form, is out of fas.h.i.+on. Cayenne and Lambressa are your guillotines, and the Empress is safe from them.'

'But there are other modes of violent death,' he answered; 'from one of which she escaped almost by miracle.'

'How did she behave,' I asked, 'at the _attentat?_'

'Little is known,' he answered, 'except that the Emperor said to her, as he led her upstairs to her box: "Allons, il faut faire notre metier."'

'Then she is disturbed by religious fears. The little prince has been taught to say to his father every morning: "Papa, ne faites pas de mal a mon parrain." The Pope was his G.o.dfather.'

'If the Emperor dies, the real power will pa.s.s into the hands of Prince Napoleon. And very dangerous hands they will be. He has more talent than the Emperor, and longer views. Louis Napoleon is a revolutionist from selfishness. Prince Napoleon is selfish enough, but he has also pa.s.sion.

He detests everything that is venerable, everything that is established or legal.

'There is little value now for property or for law, though the Government professes to respect them. What, will it be when the Government professes to hate them?'

_Wednesday, August_ 14.--We talked at breakfast of Rome.

'Is there,' said Beaumont to Ampere, 'still an Inquisition at Rome?'

'There is,' said Ampere, 'but it is torpid. It punishes bad priests, but does little else.'

'If a Roman,' I asked, 'were an avowed infidel, would it take notice of him?'

'Probably not,' said Ampere, 'but his _cure_ might--not for his infidelity, but for his avowing it. The _cure_ who has always the powers of a _commissaire de police,_ might put him in prison if he went into a _cafe_ and publicly denied the Immaculate Conception, or if he neglected going to church or to confession: but the Inquisition no longer cares about opinions.'

'Is there much infidelity,' I asked, 'in Rome?'

'Much,' said Ampere, 'among the laity. The clergy do not actively disbelieve. They go through their functions without ever seriously inquiring whether what they have to teach be true or false. No persons were more annoyed by the Mortara[1] business than the clergy, with the exception of Antonelli. He hates and fears the man who set it on foot, the Archbishop of Bologna, and therefore was glad to see him expose himself, and lose all hope of the Secretarys.h.i.+p, but he took care to prevent the recurrence of such a scandal. He revived an old law prohibiting Jews from keeping Christian nurses. But he could scarcely order rest.i.tution. According to the Church it would have been giving the child to the Devil, and, what is worse, robbing G.o.d of him. The Pope's piety is selfish. His great object is his own salvation. He would not endanger that, to confer any benefit upon, or to avert any evil from Rome; or indeed from the whole world. This makes him difficult to negotiate with. If anything is proposed to him which his confessor affirms to be dangerous to his soul, he listens to no arguments. As for Mortara himself, he is a poor creature. A friend of mine went to see him in his convent. All that he could get from him was:

'"Sono venuti i Carabinieri."

'"And what did they do to you?"

'"M' hanno portato qu."

'"What more?"

'"M' hanno dato pasticci; erano molto buoni."

'What is most teasing,' continued Ampere, 'in the Roman Government is not so much its active oppression as its torpidity. It hates to act. An Englishman had with great difficulty obtained permission to light Rome with gas. He went to the Government in December, and told them that everything was ready, and that the gas would be lighted on the 1st of January.

'"Could you not," they answered, "put it off till April?"

'"But it is in winter," he replied; "that it is wanted. Every thing is ready. Why should we wait?"

'"It is a new thing," they replied; "people will be frightened. It may have consequences. At least put it off till March."

'"But they will be as much frightened in March," he replied.

'"If it must be done," they said, "as a kindness to His Holiness and to us put it off till February."

'There is, however, one sort of oppression which even we should find it difficult to tolerate.

'A Monsignore has a young friend without money, but an excellent Catholic and an excellent politician, a fervid believer in the Immaculate Conception and in the excellence of the Papal Government. He wishes to reward such admirable opinions: but the Pope has little to give.

Monsignore looks out for some young heiress, sends for her father, describes his pious and loyal _protege_, and proposes marriage. Her father objects--says that his daughter cannot afford to marry a poor man, or that she does not wish to marry at all--or that he or she has some other preference.

'Monsignore insists. He a.s.sures the father that what he is proposing is most favourable to the salvation of his daughter, that he suggests it princ.i.p.ally for the benefit of her soul, and that the father's objections are inspired by the Evil One. The father breaks off the conversation and goes home. He finds that his daughter has disappeared. He returns furious to Monsignore, is received with the utmost politeness and is informed that his daughter is perfectly safe under the protection of a cardinal who himself did her the honour of fetching her in his gilded coach. "You have only," the Monsignore says, "to be reasonable, and she shall be returned to you."

'The father flies to the cardinal.

'The same politeness and the same answer.

'"Do not oppose," he is told, "the will of the Pope, who, in this matter, seeks only your daughter's happiness here and hereafter. She is now with me. If you will give up your sinful obstinacy she shall be restored to you to-day. If not, it will be our duty to place her in a convent, where she will be taken the utmost care of, but she will not leave it except to marry the person whom His Holiness thinks most fitted to promote the welfare of her soul."

'I have known several cases in which this attempt has been made. With such timid slaves as the Roman n.o.bility it always succeeds.'

[Footnote 1: The Jewish child who was taken away from his parents and converted.--ED.]