Part 3

I found him convinced that the decree annexing Belgium to France had been drawn up, and that it was the interference of Nicholas, and his expression of a determination not to suffer the existing temporal limits to be altered, that had occasioned it to be withdrawn. I am happy, however, to think, as you also appear to think, that your great man is now intent on peaceful triumphs.

He would scarcely have created such a mass of speculative activity in France if he intended suddenly to check it by war. I hope that by the time Masters in Chancery are abolished, I shall find France intersected by a network of railroads and run from Paris to Marseilles in a day.

I venture to differ from you as to the probable progress of reaction in England. I see no symptom of it; on the contrary, democracy seems to me to continue its triumphant march without a check. The Protectionists are in power, they take for their leader in the House of Commons a man without birth or connection, merely because he is a good speaker. This could not have been done even ten years ago. They bow to the popular will as to free-trade, and acknowledge that, even if they have a majority in the Houses of Lords and Commons, they will not venture to re-impose a Corn-law if the people do not ask for it. Never was such a homage paid to the world 'without doors.'

Then Lord John says that he objects to the Ballot, because those who have no votes have a right to know how those who have votes use them.

The example of the Continent will not affect us, or if it do affect us, will rather strengthen our democracy. We are not accustomed to copy, and shall treat the reaction in France, Austria, and Prussia rather as a warning than as a model.

I suspect that Lord John, who, though not, I think, a very wise statesman, is a clever tactician, takes the same view that I do, and has selected Reform for his platform, believing it to be a strong one.

We were delighted with Rivet, and hope that he will soon come again. Lamoricière tells me that he is going to take the waters of _Aix-la-Chapelle_, but, if his exile continues, will probably come to England next year.

Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville.

Ever yours,

N.W. SENIOR.

Kensington, April 30, 1852.

My dear Tocqueville,--A thousand thanks for your letter.[3] I saw M. de Lamoricière three times, and had a glimpse of Madame de L. who seemed very pleasing. I was delighted with his spirit and intelligence, but understand the criticism that he is _soldatesque_.

I had a long and very interesting conversation with the King, and saw much of my excellent friends Arrivabene and Quetelet. But after all Brussels is not Paris. I was more than ever struck by the ugliness of the country and the provincialness of the society.

I returned on April 18, sprained my ancle on the 19th, and have been on my back ever since. I have spent the time in looking through Fonfrède, who is a remarkable writer, and makes some remarkable prophecies, in finishing Grote's ninth and tenth volumes, in reading Kenrick's 'Ancient Egypt,' which is worth studying, and in reading through Horace, whom I find that I understand much better after my Roman experience.

I differ from you as to the chances of reaction in this country. I believe that we are still travelling the road which you have so well mapped out, which leads to democracy. Our extreme _gauche_, which we call the Manchester School, employs its whole efforts in that direction. It has great energy, activity, and combination. The duties of Parliament and of Government have become so onerous, and the facing our democratic constituencies is so disagreeable, and an idle life of society, literature, art, and travelling has become so pleasant, that our younger aristocracy seem to be giving up politics, and hence you hear the universal complaint that there are no young men of promise in public life.

The House of Commons is full of middle-aged lawyers, merchants, manufacturers, and country-gentlemen, who take to politics late in life, without the early special training which fitted for it the last generation.

I fear that the time may come when to be in the House of Commons may be thought a bore, a somewhat vulgar spouting club, like the Marylebone Vestry, or the City of London Common Council.

I do not know whether Lord Derby has gained much in the last four months, but Lord John has certainly lost. His Reform Bill was a very crude _gâchis,_ without principle, and I think very mischievous. I ventured to say nearly as much to Lord Lansdowne, who sat by my sofa for an hour on Sunday, and he did not take up its defence. Then his opposition to the present Ministry has been factious, and to punish him, he was left the other day in a minority of fifty per cent. People begin now to speculate on the possibility of Lord Derby's reconstructing his minority on rather a larger basis, and maintaining himself for three or four years; which, in these times, is a good old age for a Minister. One admirable result of these changes is the death of Protection. Those who defended it in opposition are found to abandon it now they are in power. So it has not a friend left.

Pray send me word, by yourself or by Mrs. Grote, when you leave Paris. My vacation begins on May 8, but I shall not move unless I recover the use of my legs, nor then I think, if I find that you will be absent.

Kindest regards to Madame de Tocqueville.

Ever yours,

N.W. SENIOR.

Paris, November 13, 1852.

I am unlucky, my dear Senior, about your letters of introduction. You know how much I have wished and tried to make the acquaintance of Lord and Lady Ashburton, but without success. I should also, I am sure, have had great pleasure in meeting Mr. Greg.

This time I was prevented by ill health.

* * * * *

Two or three months ago, I wrote to you from the country a letter which was addressed to Kensington. Did you receive it? and if so, why have you not answered it?

I wrote upon politics, but especially I asked you about yourselves, your occupations and projects, some questions to which I was very anxious to have answers. At any rate, do now what you ought to have done then--write to me.

I do not now write about politics, because we do not talk, or at least write about them in France any more than in Naples; besides, such subjects are not suitable to an invalid.

I will only tell you, as important and authentic pieces of information, that the new court ladies have taken to trains and little pages, and that the new courtiers hunt the stag with their master in the Forest of Fontainebleau in dresses of the time of Louis XIV. and cocked hats.

Good-bye! Heaven preserve you from the mistakes which lead to revolutions, and from the revolutions which lead to masquerades. A thousand kind regards.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

London, December 4, 1852.

My dear Tocqueville,--Your letter of November 13 is, I think, the first that I have received from you since March.

That which you addressed to me at Kensington, two months ago, did not reach me. I have written to you one or two; I do not know with what success.

I grieve to hear of rheumatism and pleurisy. You say nothing of Madame de Tocqueville, whence I hope that I may infer that she, at least, is well.

We have all been flourishing. We passed the vacation in Wales and Ireland, and brought back a curious journal,[4] which I hope to send or bring to you.

I do not think that I shall venture to Paris at Christmas, though Ellice and Thiers are trying to persuade me. I have too vivid a recollection of the fog, cold, and dirt of last year; but I fully resolve to be with you at Easter--that is, about March 24.

The present Government, with all its want of principle and truth, and with all its want of experience, is doing much better than I expected.

The law reforms are far bolder than any that _my_ friends ever proposed, and the budget, which was brought forward last night, contains more that is good, and less that is bad, than was hoped or feared.

Its worst portion is the abolition of half the malt tax, which leaves all the expense of collection undiminished, besides being a removal of a tax on a luxury which I do not wish to see cheaper. It is probable, however, that the doubling of the house tax will be rejected, in which case Disraeli will probably retain the malt tax, and the budget will sink into a commonplace one.

The removal of certain burdens on navigation and the change in the income tax are thought good, and generally the Government has gained by the budget. I am now inclined to think that it may last for some months longer--perhaps for some years.

In the meantime we are in a state of great prosperity: high wages, great accumulation of capital, low prices of consumable articles, and high prices of stocks and land.

Ever yours,

N.W. SENIOR.

February 27, 1853.

My dear Tocqueville,--I profit by Sir H. Ellis's visit to write, not venturing to trust the post.

We are grieved to hear that both you and Madame de Tocqueville have been suffering. _We_ have borne this disagreeable winter better than perhaps we had a right to expect; but still we have suffered.

Mrs. Grote tells me that you rather complain that the English newspapers approve of the marriage;[5] a marriage which you all disapprove.

The fact is that we like the marriage precisely because you dislike it. We are above all things desirous that the present tyranny should end as quickly as possible. It can end only by the general alienation of the French people from the tyrant; and every fault that he commits delights us, because it is a step towards his fall. To say the truth, I wonder that you do not take the same view, and rejoice over his follies as leading to his destruction.

Our new Government is going on well as yet. As the Opposition has turned law reformers, we expect law reform to go on as rapidly as is consistent with the slowly-innovating temper of the English. Large measures respecting charities, education, secondary punishments, and the transfer of land are in preparation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is at work on the difficult--I suspect the insoluble--problem of an equitable income tax. I foresee, however, a rock ahead.

This is reform of the constituencies. Lord John Russell, very sillily, promised two years ago a new Reform Bill.

Still more sillily he introduced one last year, and was deservedly turned out for it.

Still more sillily the present Government has accepted his responsibility, and is pledged to bring in a measure of reform next year.

I have been trying to persuade them to pave the way by a Commission of Inquiry, being certain that the facts on which we ought to agitate are imperfectly known. But Lord John is unfavourable, and the other Ministers do not venture to control the leader of the House of Commons. There will, therefore, be no previous inquiry; at least only the indirect one which the Government can make for itself. The measure will be concocted in secrecy, will be found open to unforeseen objections; it will be thrown out in the House, and will excite no enthusiasm in the country. If the Government dissolve, the new Parliament will probably be still more opposed to it than the present Parliament will be; and the Government, being beaten again, will resign.

Such is my prophecy.

_Prenez en acte_, and we will talk it over in May 1854.

I hope to be in Paris either for the Easter or for the Whitsun vacation--that is, either about the 24th of March or the 5th of May next--and I trust to find you and Madame de Tocqueville, if not quite flourishing, at least quite convalescent.

Ever yours,

N.W. SENIOR.

[Footnote 1: Republished in the _Biographical Sketches_. Longmans: 1863.--ED.]

[Footnote 2: The letter to which this is an answer is not to be found,--ED.]

[Footnote 3: This letter is not to be found.--ED.]

[Footnote 4: Published in 1868.--ED.]

[Footnote 5: That of the Emperor.--ED.]

CONVERSATIONS.

_Paris, May_ 9,1853.--I drank tea with the Tocquevilles. Neither of them is well.

In February they were caught, on their journey from Tocqueville to Paris, by the bitter weather of the beginning of that month. It produced rheumatism and then pleurisy with him, and inflammation of the bowels with her; and both are still suffering from the effects either of the disorder or of the remedies.

In the summer Paris will be too hot and Tocqueville too damp. So they have taken a small house at St. Cyr, about a mile from Tours, where they hope for a tolerable climate, easy access to Paris, and the use of the fine library of the cathedral. He entered eagerly on the Eastern question, and agreed on all points with Faucher; admitted the folly and rashness of the French, but deplored the over-caution which had led us to refuse interference, at least effectual interference, and to allow Turkey to sink into virtual subservience to Russia.

_Paris, Tuesday, May_ 17.--Tocqueville and I stood on my balcony, and looked along the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de la Concorde, swarming with equipages, and on the well-dressed crowds in the gardens below. From the height in which we were placed all those apparently small objects, in incessant movement, looked like a gigantic ant-hill disturbed.

'I never,' said Tocqueville, 'have known Paris so animated or apparently so prosperous. Much is to be attributed to the saving of the four previous years. The parsimony of the Parisians ended in 1850; but the parsimony of the provinces, always great, and in unsettled times carried to actual avarice, lasted during the whole of the Republic. Commercial persons tell me that the arrival of capital which comes up for investment from the provinces deranges all their calculations. It is like the sudden burst of vegetation which you have seen during the last week. We have passed suddenly from winter to summer.

'I own,' he continued, 'that it fills me with alarm. Among the innumerable schemes that are afloat, some must be ill-founded, some must be swelled beyond their proper dimensions, and some may be mere swindles. The city of Paris and the Government are spending 150,000,000_l_. in building in Paris. This is almost as much as the fortifications cost. It has always been said, and I believe with truth, that the revolutionary army of 1848 was mainly recruited from the 40,000 additional workmen whom the fortifications attracted from the country, and left without employment when they were finished. When this enormous extra-expenditure is over, when the Louvre, and the new rue de Rivoli, and the Halles, and the street that is to run from the Hôtel de Ville to the northern boundary of Paris, are completed--that is to say, when a city has been built out of public money in two or three years--what will become of the mass of discharged workmen?

'What will become of those on the railways if they are suddenly stopped, as yours were in 1846? What will be the shock if the Crédit Foncier or the Crédit Mobilier fail, after having borrowed each its milliard? Everything seems to me to be preparing for one of your panics, and the Government has so identified itself with the state of prosperity and state of credit of the country that a panic must produce a revolution. The Government claims the merit of all that is good, and of course is held responsible for all that is bad. If we were to have a bad harvest, it would be laid to the charge of the Emperor.

'Of course,' he continued, 'I do not desire the perpetuation of the present tyranny. Its duration as a dynasty I believe to be absolutely impossible, except in one improbable contingency--a successful war.

'But though, I repeat, I do not desire or expect the permanence of the Empire, I do not wish for its immediate destruction, before we are prepared with a substitute. The agents which are undermining it are sufficiently powerful and sufficiently active to occasion its fall quite as soon as we ought to wish for that fall.'

'And what,' I said, 'are those agents?'

'The principal agents,' he answered, 'are violence in the provinces and corruption in Paris. Since the first outbreak there has not been much violence in Paris. You must have observed that freedom of speech is universal. In every private society, and even in every _café_ hatred or contempt of the Government are the main topics of conversation. We are too numerous to be attacked. But in the provinces you will find perfect silence. Anyone who whispers a word against the Emperor may be imprisoned, or perhaps transported. The prefects are empowered by one of the decrees made immediately after the _coup d'état_ to dissolve any Conseil communal in which there is the least appearance of disaffection, and to nominate three persons to administer the commune. In many cases this has been done, and I could point out to you several communes governed by the prefect's nominees who cannot read. In time, of course, tyranny will produce corruption; but it has not yet prevailed extensively in the country, and the cause which now tends to depopularise him _there_ is arbitrary violence exercised against those whom his agents suppose to be their enemies.

'On the other hand, what is ruining him in Paris is not violence, but corruption.

'The French are not like the Americans; they have no sympathy with smartness. Nothing so much excites their disgust as _friponnerie_. The main cause that overthrew Louis Philippe was the belief that he and his were _fripons_--that the representatives bought the electors, that the Minister bought the representatives, and that the King bought the Minister.

'Now, no corruption that ever prevailed in the worst periods of Louis XV., nothing that was done by La Pompadour or the Du Barry resembles what is going on now. Duchâtel, whose organs are not over-acute, tells me that he shudders at what is forced on his notice. The perfect absence of publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the bar--for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to be reported--give full room for conversational exaggeration. Bad as things are, they are made still worse. Now this we cannot bear. It hurts our strongest passion--our vanity. We feel that we are _exploités_ by Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers. The injury might be tolerated, but not the disgrace.

'Every Government in France has a tendency to become unpopular as it continues. If you were to go down into the street, and inquire into the politics of the first hundred persons whom you met, you would find some Socialists, some Republicans, some Orleanists, &c., but you would find no Louis Napoleonists. Not a voice would utter his name without some expression of contempt or detestation, but principally of contempt.

'If then things take their course--if no accident, such as a fever or a pistol-shot, cut him off--public indignation will spread from Paris to the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army, and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.'

'And what power,' I said, 'will start up in his place?'

'I trust,' answered Tocqueville, 'that the reins will be seized by the Senate. Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying, "A time may come when we shall be wanted." Probably the Corps Législatif will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.'

'But what,' I said, 'would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the fever?'

'The immediate consequence,' answered Tocqueville, 'would be the installation of his successor. Jérôme would go to the Tuileries as easily as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end. We might bear Louis Napoleon for four or five years, or Jérôme for four or five months.'

'It has been thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jérôme dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.'

'That,' said Tocqueville, 'is one of the few things which I hold to be impossible. Nero may be followed by another attempt at a Republic, but if any individual is to succeed him it must be a prince. _Mere_ personal distinction, at least such as is within the bounds of real possibility, will not give the sceptre of France. It will be seized by no one who cannot pretend to an hereditary claim.

'What I fear,' continued Tocqueville, 'is that when this man feels the ground crumbling under him, he will try the resource of war. It will be a most dangerous experiment. Defeat, or even the alternation of success and failure, which is the ordinary course of war, would be fatal to him; but brilliant success might, as I have said before, establish him. It would be playing double or quits. He is by nature a gambler. His self-confidence, his reliance, not only on himself, but on his fortune, exceeds even that of his uncle. He believes himself to have a great military genius. He certainly planned war a year ago. I do not believe that he has abandoned it now, though the general feeling of the country forces him to suspend it. That feeling, however, he might overcome; he might so contrive as to appear to be forced into hostilities; and such is the intoxicating effect of military glory, that the Government which would give us _that_ would be pardoned, whatever were its defects or its crimes.

'It is your business, and that of Belgium, to put yourselves into such a state of defence as to force him to make his spring on Italy. There he can do you little harm. But to us Frenchmen the consequences of war _must_ be calamitous. If we fail, they are national loss and humiliation. If we succeed, they are slavery.'

'Of course,' I said, 'the corruption that infects the civil service must in time extend to the army, and make it less fit for service.

'Of course it must,' answered Tocqueville. 'It will extend still sooner to the navy? The _matériel_ of a force is more easily injured by jobbing than the _personnel_. And in the navy the _matériel_ is the principal.

'Our naval strength has never been in proportion to our naval expenditure, and is likely to be less and less so every year, at least during every year of the _règne des fripons_.'

_Tuesday, May_ 24.--I breakfasted with Sir Henry Ellis and then went to Tocqueville's.

I found there an elderly man, who did not remain long.

When he went, Tocqueville said, 'That is one of our provincial prefects. He has been describing to us the state of public feeling in the South. Contempt for the present Government, he tells us, is spreading there from its headquarters, Paris.

'If the Corps Législatif is dissolved, he expects the Opposition to obtain a majority in the new House.

'This,' continued Tocqueville, 'is a state of things with which Louis Napoleon is not fit to cope. Opposition makes him furious, particularly Parliamentary opposition. His first impulse will be to go a step further in imitation of his uncle, and abolish the Corps Législatif, as Napoleon did the Tribunat.

'But nearly half a century of Parliamentary life has made the French of 1853 as different from those of 1803 as the nephew is from his uncle.

'He will scarcely risk another _coup d'état_; and the only legal mode of abolishing, or even modifying, the Corps Législatif is by a plébiscite submitted by ballot to universal suffrage.

'Will he venture on this? And if he do venture, will he succeed? If he fail, will he not sink into a constitutional sovereign, controlled by an Assembly far more unmanageable than we deputies were, as the Ministers are excluded from it?'

'Will he not rather,' I said, 'sink into an exile?'

'That is my hope,' said Tocqueville, 'but I do not expect it quite so soon as Thiers does,'

CORRESPONDENCE.

St. Cyr, July 2, 1853.