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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, by
+Alexis De Tocqueville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville
+
+Author: Alexis De Tocqueville
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira De Mattos
+
+Release Date: October 31, 2011 [EBook #37892]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECOLLECTIONS OF ALEXIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gary Rees and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Words and phrases appearing in italics in the
+original publication have been delimited with underscore characters in
+this transcription. Additional notes appear at the end of this text.]
+
+
+
+
+ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Alexis de Tocqueville]
+
+
+
+
+THE RECOLLECTIONS OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
+
+EDITED BY THE COMTE DE TOCQUEVILLE AND NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO
+ENGLISH BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
+
+
+WITH A PORTRAIT IN HELIOGRAVURE
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ THE MACMILLAN CO.
+ 1896
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+ "C'est tousiours plaisir de veoir les choses escriptes par ceulx
+ qui ont essayé comme il les faut conduire."
+ MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+Alexis de Tocqueville made his entrance in political life in 1839.[1] At
+the outbreak of the Revolution of February he was in the prime of his
+age and in the maturity of his talent. He threw himself into the
+struggle, resolving to devote himself to the interests of the country
+and of society, and he was one of the first among those whole-hearted,
+single-minded men who endeavoured to keep the Republic within a wise and
+moderate course by steering clear of the two-fold perils of Cæsarism on
+the one hand and revolution on the other. A dangerous and thankless
+enterprise, of which the difficulties were never hidden from a mind so
+clear-sighted as his, and of which he soon foresaw the ephemeral
+duration.
+
+ [1: At the age of 34. Alexis Clérel de Tocqueville was born in
+ 1805 at Verneuil. His father was the Comte de Tocqueville, who was
+ made a peer of France and a prefect under the Restoration; his
+ mother, _née_ Mlle. de Rosambo, was a grand-daughter of
+ Malesherbes. Alexis de Tocqueville was appointed an assistant
+ judge, and in 1831 was sent to America, in company with G. de
+ Beaumont to study the penal system in that continent. On his
+ return he published a treatise on this subject; and in 1835
+ appeared his great work on American Democracy, which secured his
+ election to the Academy of Moral Science in 1839 and to the French
+ Academy in 1841. Two years earlier he had been sent to the Chamber
+ as deputy for the arrondissement of Valognes in Normandy, in which
+ the paternal property of Tocqueville was situated; and this seat
+ he retained until his withdrawal from political life. He died in
+ 1859.--A.T. de M.]
+
+After the fall of his short-lived ministry, which had been filled with
+so many cares and such violent agitation, thinking himself removed for a
+time (it was to be for ever) from the conduct of public affairs, he went
+first to Normandy and then to Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples, in search
+of the peace and repose of which he stood in need. The intellect,
+however, but rarely shows itself the docile slave of the will, and his,
+to which idleness was a cause of real suffering, immediately set about
+to seek an object worthy of its attention. This was soon found in the
+great drama of the French Revolution, which attracted him irresistibly,
+and which was destined to form the subject-matter of his most perfect
+work.
+
+It was at this time, while Alexis de Tocqueville was also preoccupied by
+the daily increasing gravity of the political situation at home, that he
+wrote the Recollections now first published. These consisted of mere
+notes jotted down at intervals on odds and ends of paper; and it was not
+until the close of his life that, yielding to the persuasions of his
+intimates, he gave a reluctant consent to their publication. He took a
+certain pleasure in thus retracing and, as it were, re-enacting the
+events in which he had taken part, the character of which seemed the
+more transient, and the more important to establish definitely, inasmuch
+as other events came crowding on, precipitating the crisis and altering
+the aspect of affairs. Thus those travellers who, steering their
+adventurous course through a series of dangerous reefs, alight upon a
+wild and rugged island, where they disembark and live for some days, and
+when about to depart for ever from its shores, throw back upon it a long
+and melancholy gaze before it sinks from their eyes in the immensity of
+the waves. Already the Assembly had lost its independence; the reign of
+constitutional liberty, under which France had lived for thirty-three
+years, was giving way; and, in the words of the famous phrase, "The
+Empire was a fact."
+
+We are to-day well able to judge the period described in these
+Recollections, a period which seems still further removed from us by the
+revolutions, the wars, and even the misfortunes which the country has
+since undergone, and which now only appears to us in that subdued light
+which throws the principal outlines into especial relief, while
+permitting the more observant and penetrating eye to discover also the
+secondary features. Living close enough to those times to receive
+evidence from the lips of survivors, and not so close but that all
+passion has become appeased and all rancour extinguished, we should be
+in a position to lack neither light nor impartiality. As witness, for
+instance, the impression retained by us of the figure of Ledru-Rollin,
+which nevertheless terrified our fathers. We live in a generation which
+has beheld Raoul, Rigault and Delescluze at work. The theories of Louis
+Blanc and Considérant arouse no feeling of astonishment in these days,
+when their ideas have become current coin, and when the majority of
+politicians feel called upon to adopt the badge of some socialism or
+other, whether we call it Christian, State, or revolutionary socialism.
+Cormenin, Marrast and Lamartine belong to history as much as do Sièyes,
+Pétion or Mirabeau; and we are able to judge as freely of the men and
+the events of 1848 as of those of 1830 or 1789.
+
+Alexis de Tocqueville had the rare merit of being able to forestall this
+verdict of posterity; and if we endeavour to discover the secret of this
+prescience, of the loftiness of sight with which he was so specially
+gifted, we shall find that, belonging to no party, he remained above all
+parties; that, depending upon no leader, he kept his hands free; and
+that, possessed of no vulgar ambition, he reserved his energies for the
+noble aim which he had in view--the triumph of liberty and of the
+dignity of man.
+
+Interest will doubtless be taken in the account contained in these
+Recollections of the revolutionary period, written by one of the
+best-informed of its witnesses, and in the ebbs and flows of the
+short-lived ministry which was conducted with so much talent and
+integrity. But what will be especially welcome is the broad views taken
+by this great mind of our collective history; his profound reflections
+upon the future of the country and of society; the firm and
+conscientious opinions which he expresses upon his contemporaries; and
+the portraits drawn by a master hand, always striking and always alive.
+When reading this private record, which has been neither revised nor
+corrected by its author, we seem to approach more closely to the
+sentiments, the desires, the aspirations, I was almost saying the dreams
+of this rare mind, this great heart so ardently pursuing the chimera of
+absolute good that nothing in men or institutions could succeed in
+satisfying it.
+
+Years passed, and the Empire foundered amid terrible disaster. Alexis de
+Tocqueville was no more; and we may say that this proved at that time an
+irreparable loss to his country. Who knows what part he might have been
+called upon to play, what influence he could have brought to bear to
+unmask the guilty intrigues and baffle the mean ambitions under whose
+load, after the lapse of more than twenty years, we are still
+staggering? Enlightened by his harsh experience of 1848, would he have
+once again tried the experiment, which can never be more than an eternal
+stop-gap, of governing the Republic with the support of the Monarchists?
+Or rather, persuaded as he was that "the republican form of government
+is not the best suited to the needs of France," that this "government
+without stability always promises more, but gives less, liberty than a
+Constitutional Monarchy," would he not have appealed to the latter to
+protect the liberty so dear to him? One thing is certain, that he would
+never have "subordinated to the necessity of maintaining his position
+that of remaining true to himself."
+
+We have thought that the present generation, which so rarely has the
+opportunity of beholding a man of character, would take pleasure in
+becoming acquainted with this great and stately figure; in spending some
+short moments in those lofty regions, in which it may learn a powerful
+lesson and find an example of public life in its noblest form, ever
+faithful to its early aspirations, ever filled with two great ideas: the
+cult of honour and the passion of liberty.
+
+COMTE DE TOCQUEVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+
+ PART THE FIRST
+
+
+ CHAPTER I PAGE
+
+ Origin and Character of these Recollections--General aspect of
+ the period preceding the Revolution of 1848--Preliminary
+ symptoms of the Revolution 3
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ The Banquets--Sense of security entertained by the
+ Government--Anxiety of Leaders of the
+ Opposition--Arraignment of Ministers 19
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ Troubles of the 22nd of February--The Sitting of the 23rd--The
+ New Ministry--Opinions of M. Dufaure and M. de Beaumont 33
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ The 24th of February--The Ministers' Plan of Resistance--The
+ National Guard--General Bedeau 44
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ The Sitting of the Chamber--Madame la Duchesse D'Orléans--The
+ Provisional Government 56
+
+
+ PART THE SECOND
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ My Explanation of the 24th of February, and my views as to its
+ effects upon the future 79
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ Paris on the morrow of the 24th of February and the next
+ days--The socialistic character of the New Revolution 90
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ Vacillation of the Members of the Old Parliament as to the
+ attitude they should adopt--My own reflections on my mode
+ of action, and my resolves 102
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ My candidature of the department of la Manche--The aspect of
+ the country--The General Election 114
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ The First Sitting of the Constituent Assembly--The appearance
+ of this Assembly 129
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ My relations with Lamartine--His Subterfuges 145
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ The 15th of May 1848 156
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ The Feast of Concord and the preparations for the Days of June 174
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ The Days of June 187
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ The Days of June--(_continued_) 215
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ The Committee for the Constitution 233
+
+
+ PART THE THIRD
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ My return to France--Formation of the Cabinet 263
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ Aspect of the Cabinet--Its first Acts until after the
+ insurrectionary attempts of the 13th of June 278
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ Our domestic policy--Internal quarrels in the Cabinet--Its
+ difficulties in its relations with the Majority and the
+ President 301
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ Foreign Affairs 325
+
+
+ APPENDIX
+
+
+ I
+
+ Gustave de Beaumont's version of the 24th of February 379
+
+ II
+
+ Barrot's version of the 24th of February (_10 October 1850_) 385
+
+ III
+
+ Some incidents of the 24th of February 1848 389
+
+ 1
+
+ M. Dufaure's efforts to prevent the Revolution of
+ February--Responsibility of M. Thiers, which renders
+ them futile 389
+
+ 2
+
+ Dufaure's conduct on the 24th of February 1848 392
+
+ IV
+
+ My conversation with Berryer, on the 21st of June, at an
+ appointment which I had given him at my house. We were
+ both Members of the Committee for the revision of the
+ Constitution 394
+
+
+ INDEX 399
+
+
+
+
+PART THE FIRST
+
+ _Written in July 1850, at Tocqueville._
+
+
+
+
+ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THESE RECOLLECTIONS--GENERAL ASPECT OF THE
+ PERIOD PRECEDING THE REVOLUTION OF 1848--PRELIMINARY SYMPTOMS OF
+ THE REVOLUTION.
+
+
+Removed for a time from the scene of public life, I am constrained, in
+the midst of my solitude, to turn my thoughts upon myself, or rather to
+reflect upon contemporary events in which I have taken part or acted as
+a witness. And it seems to me that the best use I can make of my leisure
+is to retrace these events, to portray the men who took part in them
+under my eyes, and thus to seize and engrave, if I can, upon my memory
+the confused features which compose the disturbed physiognomy of my
+time.
+
+In taking this resolve I have taken another, to which I shall be no less
+true: these recollections shall be a relaxation of the mind rather than
+a contribution to literature. I write them for myself alone. They shall
+be a mirror in which I will amuse myself in contemplating my
+contemporaries and myself; not a picture painted for the public. My most
+intimate friends shall not see them, for I wish to retain the liberty of
+depicting them as I shall depict myself, without flattery. I wish to
+arrive truly at the secret motives which have caused them, and me, and
+others to act; and, when discovered, to reveal them here. In a word, I
+wish this expression of my recollections to be a sincere one; and to
+effect this, it is essential that it should remain absolutely secret.
+
+I intend that my recollections shall not go farther back than the
+Revolution of 1848, nor extend to a later date than the 30th of October
+1849, the day upon which I resigned my office. It is only within these
+limits that the events which I propose to relate have any importance, or
+that my position has enabled me to observe them well.
+
+My life was passed, although in a comparatively secluded fashion, in the
+midst of the parliamentary world of the closing years of the Monarchy of
+July. Nevertheless, it would be no easy task for me to recall distinctly
+the events of a period so little removed from the present, and yet
+leaving so confused a trace in my memory. The thread of my recollections
+is lost amid the whirl of minor incidents, of paltry ideas, of petty
+passions, of personal views and contradictory opinions in which the life
+of public men was at that time spent. All that remains vivid in my mind
+is the general aspect of the period; for I often regarded it with a
+curiosity mingled with dread, and I clearly discerned the special
+features by which it was characterized.
+
+Our history from 1789 to 1830, if viewed from a distance and as a whole,
+affords as it were the picture of a struggle to the death between the
+Ancien Régime, its traditions, memories, hopes, and men, as represented
+by the aristocracy, and New France under the leadership of the middle
+class. The year 1830 closed the first period of our revolutions, or
+rather of our revolution: for there is but one, which has remained
+always the same in the face of varying fortunes, of which our fathers
+witnessed the commencement, and of which we, in all probability, shall
+not live to behold the end. In 1830 the triumph of the middle class had
+been definite and so thorough that all political power, every franchise,
+every prerogative, and the whole government was confined and, as it
+were, heaped up within the narrow limits of this one class, to the
+statutory exclusion of all beneath them and the actual exclusion of all
+above. Not only did it thus alone rule society, but it may be said to
+have formed it. It ensconced itself in every vacant place, prodigiously
+augmented the number of places, and accustomed itself to live almost as
+much upon the Treasury as upon its own industry.
+
+No sooner had the Revolution of 1830 become an accomplished fact, than
+there ensued a great lull in political passion, a sort of general
+subsidence, accompanied by a rapid increase in the public wealth. The
+particular spirit of the middle class became the general spirit of the
+government; it ruled the latter's foreign policy as well as affairs at
+home: an active, industrious spirit, often dishonourable, generally
+sober, occasionally reckless through vanity or egoism, but timid by
+temperament, moderate in all things, except in its love of ease and
+comfort, and wholly undistinguished. It was a spirit which, mingled with
+that of the people or of the aristocracy, can do wonders; but which, by
+itself, will never produce more than a government shorn of both virtue
+and greatness. Master of everything in a manner that no aristocracy had
+ever been or may ever hope to be, the middle class, when called upon to
+assume the government, took it up as a trade; it entrenched itself
+behind its power, and before long, in their egoism, each of its members
+thought much more of his private business than of public affairs, and of
+his personal enjoyment than of the greatness of the nation.
+
+Posterity, which sees none but the more dazzling crimes, and which loses
+sight, in general, of mere vices, will never, perhaps, know to what
+extent the government of that day, towards its close, assumed the ways
+of a trading company, which conducts all its transactions with a view to
+the profits accruing to the shareholders. These vices were due to the
+natural instincts of the dominant class, to the absoluteness of its
+power, and also to the character of the time. Possibly also King
+Louis-Philippe had contributed to their growth.
+
+This Prince was a singular medley of qualities, and one must have known
+him longer and more nearly than I did to be able to portray him in
+detail.
+
+Nevertheless, although I was never one of his Council, I have frequently
+had occasion to come into contact with him. The last time that I spoke
+to him was shortly before the catastrophe of February. I was then
+director of the Académie Française, and I had to bring to the King's
+notice some matter or other which concerned that body. After treating
+the question which had brought me, I was about to retire, when the King
+detained me, took a chair, motioned me to another, and said, affably:
+
+"Since you are here, Monsieur de Tocqueville, let us talk; I want to
+hear you talk a little about America."
+
+I knew him well enough to know that this meant: I shall talk about
+America myself. And he did actually talk of it at great length and very
+searchingly: it was not possible for me, nor did I desire, to get in a
+word, for he really interested me. He described places as though he saw
+them before him; he recalled the distinguished men whom he had met forty
+years ago as though he had seen them the day before; he mentioned their
+names in full, Christian name and surname, gave their ages at the time,
+related their histories, their pedigrees, their posterity, with
+marvellous exactness and with infinite, though in no way tedious,
+detail. From America he returned, without taking breath, to Europe,
+talked of all our foreign and domestic affairs with incredible
+unconstraint (for I had no title to his confidence), spoke very badly of
+the Emperor of Russia, whom he called "Monsieur Nicolas," casually
+alluded to Lord Palmerston as a rogue, and ended by holding forth at
+length on the Spanish marriages, which had just taken place, and the
+annoyances to which they subjected him on the side of England.
+
+"The Queen is very angry with me," he said, "and displays great
+irritation; but, after all," he added, "all this outcry won't keep me
+from _driving my own cart_."[2]
+
+ [2: "_Mener mon fiacre_": to drive my hackney-coach.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Although this phrase dated back to the Old Order, I felt inclined to
+doubt whether Louis XIV. ever made use of it on accepting the Spanish
+Succession. I believe, moreover, that Louis-Philippe was mistaken, and,
+to borrow his own language, that the Spanish marriage helped not a
+little to upset his cart.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour, the King rose, thanked me for the
+pleasure my conversation had given him (I had not spoken four words),
+and dismissed me, feeling evidently as delighted as one generally is
+with a man before whom one thinks one has spoken well. This was my last
+audience of the King.
+
+Louis-Philippe improvised all the replies which he made, even upon the
+most critical occasions, to the great State bodies; he was as fluent
+then as in his private conversation, although not so happy or
+epigrammatic. He would suddenly become obscure, for the reason that he
+boldly plunged headlong into long sentences, of which he was not able to
+estimate the extent nor perceive the end beforehand, and from which he
+finally emerged struggling and by force, shattering the sense, and not
+completing the thought.
+
+In this political world thus constituted and conducted, what was most
+wanting, particularly towards the end, was political life itself. It
+could neither come into being nor be maintained within the legal circle
+which the Constitution had traced for it: the old aristocracy was
+vanquished, the people excluded. As all business was discussed among
+members of one class, in the interest and in the spirit of that class,
+there was no battle-field for contending parties to meet upon. This
+singular homogeneity of position, of interests, and consequently of
+views, reigning in what M. Guizot had once called the legal country,
+deprived the parliamentary debates of all originality, of all reality,
+and therefore of all genuine passion. I have spent ten years of my life
+in the company of truly great minds, who were in a constant state of
+agitation without succeeding in heating themselves, and who spent all
+their perspicacity in vain endeavours to find subjects upon which they
+could seriously disagree.
+
+On the other hand, the preponderating influence which King
+Louis-Philippe had acquired in public affairs, which never permitted the
+politicians to stray very far from that Prince's ideas, lest they should
+at the same time be removed from power, reduced the different colours of
+parties to the merest shades, and debates to the splitting of straws. I
+doubt whether any parliament (not excepting the Constituent Assembly, I
+mean the true one, that of 1789) ever contained more varied and
+brilliant talents than did ours during the closing years of the Monarchy
+of July. Nevertheless, I am able to declare that these great orators
+were tired to death of listening to one another, and, what was worse,
+the whole country was tired of listening to them. It grew unconsciously
+accustomed to look upon the debates in the Chambers as exercises of the
+intellect rather than as serious discussions, and upon all the
+differences between the various parliamentary parties--the majority, the
+left centre, or the dynastic opposition--as domestic quarrels between
+children of one family trying to trick one another. A few glaring
+instances of corruption, discovered by accident, led it to presuppose a
+number of hidden cases, and convinced it that the whole of the governing
+class was corrupt; whence it conceived for the latter a silent contempt,
+which was generally taken for confiding and contented submission.
+
+The country was at that time divided into two unequal parts, or rather
+zones: in the upper, which alone was intended to contain the whole of
+the nation's political life, there reigned nothing but languor,
+impotence, stagnation, and boredom; in the lower, on the contrary,
+political life began to make itself manifest by means of feverish and
+irregular signs, of which the attentive observer was easily able to
+seize the meaning.
+
+I was one of these observers; and although I was far from imagining that
+the catastrophe was so near at hand and fated to be so terrible, I felt
+a distrust springing up and insensibly growing in my mind, and the idea
+taking root more and more that we were making strides towards a fresh
+revolution. This denoted a great change in my thoughts; since the
+general appeasement and flatness that followed the Revolution of July
+had led me to believe for a long time that I was destined to spend my
+life amid an enervated and peaceful society. Indeed, anyone who had only
+examined the inside of the governmental fabric would have had the same
+conviction. Everything there seemed combined to produce with the
+machinery of liberty a preponderance of royal power which verged upon
+despotism; and, in fact, this result was produced almost without effort
+by the regular and tranquil movement of the machine. King Louis-Philippe
+was persuaded that, so long as he did not himself lay hand upon that
+fine instrument, and allowed it to work according to rule, he was safe
+from all peril. His only occupation was to keep it in order, and to
+make it work according to his own views, forgetful of society, upon
+which this ingenious piece of mechanism rested; he resembled the man who
+refused to believe that his house was on fire, because he had the key in
+his pocket. I had neither the same interests nor the same cares, and
+this permitted me to see through the mechanism of institutions and the
+agglomeration of petty every-day facts, and to observe the state of
+morals and opinions in the country. There I clearly beheld the
+appearance of several of the portents that usually denote the approach
+of revolutions, and I began to believe that in 1830 I had taken for the
+end of the play what was nothing more than the end of an act.
+
+A short unpublished document which I composed at the time, and a speech
+which I delivered early in 1848, will bear witness to these
+preoccupations of my mind.
+
+A number of my friends in Parliament met together in October 1847, to
+decide upon the policy to be adopted during the ensuing session. It was
+agreed that we should issue a programme in the form of a manifesto, and
+the task of drawing it up was deputed to me. Later, the idea of this
+publication was abandoned, but I had already written the document. I
+have discovered it among my papers, and I give the following extracts.
+After commenting on the symptoms of languor in Parliament, I continued:
+
+ "... The time will come when the country will find itself once
+ again divided between two great parties. The French Revolution,
+ which abolished all privileges and destroyed all exclusive rights,
+ has allowed one to remain, that of landed property. Let not the
+ landlords deceive themselves as to the strength of their position,
+ nor think that the rights of property form an insurmountable
+ barrier because they have not as yet been surmounted; for our times
+ are unlike any others. When the rights of property were merely the
+ origin and commencement of a number of other rights, they were
+ easily defended, or rather, they were never attacked; they then
+ formed the surrounding wall of society, of which all other rights
+ were the outposts; no blows reached them; no serious attempt was
+ ever made to touch them. But to-day, when the rights of property
+ are nothing more than the last remnants of an overthrown
+ aristocratic world; when they alone are left intact, isolated
+ privileges amid the universal levelling of society; when they are
+ no longer protected behind a number of still more controversible
+ and odious rights, the case is altered, and they alone are left
+ daily to resist the direct and unceasing shock of democratic
+ opinion....
+
+ "... Before long, the political struggle will be restricted to
+ those who have and those who have not; property will form the great
+ field of battle; and the principal political questions will turn
+ upon the more or less important modifications to be introduced into
+ the rights of landlords. We shall then have once more among us
+ great public agitations and great political parties.
+
+ "How is it that these premonitory symptoms escape the general view?
+ Can anyone believe that it is by accident, through some passing
+ whim of the human brain, that we see appearing on every side these
+ curious doctrines, bearing different titles, but all characterized
+ in their essence by their denial of the rights of property, and all
+ tending, at least, to limit, diminish, and weaken the exercise of
+ these rights? Who can fail here to recognise the final symptom of
+ the old democratic disease of the time, whose crisis would seem to
+ be at hand?"
+
+I was still more urgent and explicit in the speech which I delivered in
+the Chamber of Deputies on the 29th of January 1848, and which appeared
+in the _Moniteur_ of the 30th.
+
+I quote the principal passages:
+
+ "... I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots;
+ I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface
+ of society, there is no revolution at hand.
+
+ "Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are deceived. True,
+ there is no actual disorder; but it has entered deeply into men's
+ minds. See what is passing in the breasts of the working classes,
+ who, I grant, are at present quiet. No doubt they are not disturbed
+ by political passion, properly so-called, to the same extent that
+ they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of
+ political, have become social? Do you not see that there are
+ gradually forming in their breasts opinions and ideas which are
+ destined not only to upset this or that law, ministry, or even form
+ of government, but society itself, until it totters upon the
+ foundations on which it rests to-day? Do you not listen to what
+ they say to themselves each day? Do you not hear them repeating
+ unceasingly that all that is above them is incapable and unworthy
+ of governing them; that the present distribution of goods
+ throughout the world is unjust; that property rests on a foundation
+ which is not an equitable foundation? And do you not realize that
+ when such opinions take root, when they spread in an almost
+ universal manner, when they sink deeply into the masses, they are
+ bound to bring with them sooner or later, I know not when nor how,
+ a most formidable revolution?
+
+ "This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that we are
+ at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly convinced of
+ it....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "... I was saying just now that this evil would, sooner or later, I
+ know not how nor whence it will come, bring with it a most serious
+ revolution: be assured that that is so.
+
+ "When I come to investigate what, at different times, in different
+ periods, among different peoples, has been the effective cause that
+ has brought about the downfall of the governing classes, I perceive
+ this or that event, man, or accidental or superficial cause; but,
+ believe me, the real reason, the effective reason which causes men
+ to lose their power is, that they have become unworthy to retain
+ it.
+
+ "Think, gentlemen, of the old Monarchy: it was stronger than you
+ are, stronger in its origin; it was able to lean more than you do
+ upon ancient customs, ancient habits, ancient beliefs; it was
+ stronger than you are, and yet it has fallen to dust. And why did
+ it fall? Do you think it was by some particular mischance? Do you
+ think it was by the act of some man, by the deficit, the oath in
+ the Tennis Court, La Fayette, Mirabeau? No, gentlemen; there was
+ another reason: the class that was then the governing class had
+ become, through its indifference, its selfishness and its vices,
+ incapable and unworthy of governing the country.
+
+ "That was the true reason.
+
+ "Well, gentlemen, if it is right to have this patriotic prejudice
+ at all times, how much more is it not right to have it in our own?
+ Do you not feel, by some intuitive instinct which is not capable of
+ analysis, but which is undeniable, that the earth is quaking once
+ again in Europe? Do you not feel ... what shall I say? ... as it
+ were a gale of revolution in the air? This gale, no one knows
+ whence it springs, whence it blows, nor, believe me, whom it will
+ carry with it; and it is in such times as these that you remain
+ calm before the degradation of public morality--for the expression
+ is not too strong.
+
+ "I speak without bitterness; I am even addressing you without any
+ party spirit; I am attacking men against whom I feel no
+ vindictiveness. But I am obliged to communicate to my country my
+ firm and decided conviction. Well then, my firm and decided
+ conviction is this: that public morality is being degraded, and
+ that the degradation of public morality will shortly, very shortly,
+ perhaps, bring down upon you a new revolution. Is the life of kings
+ held by stronger threads? Are these more difficult to snap than
+ those of other men? Can you say to-day that you are certain of
+ to-morrow? Do you know what may happen in France a year hence, or
+ even a month or a day hence? You do not know; but what you must
+ know is that the tempest is looming on the horizon, that it is
+ coming towards us. Will you allow it to take you by surprise?
+
+ "Gentlemen, I implore you not to do so. I do not ask you, I implore
+ you. I would gladly throw myself on my knees before you, so
+ strongly do I believe in the reality and the seriousness of the
+ danger, so convinced am I that my warnings are no empty rhetoric.
+ Yes, the danger is great. Allay it while there is yet time; correct
+ the evil by efficacious remedies, by attacking it not in its
+ symptoms but in itself.
+
+ "Legislative changes have been spoken of. I am greatly disposed to
+ think that these changes are not only very useful, but necessary;
+ thus, I believe in the need of electoral reform, in the urgency of
+ parliamentary reform; but I am not, gentlemen, so mad as not to
+ know that no laws can affect the destinies of nations. No, it is
+ not the mechanism of laws that produces great events, gentlemen,
+ but the inner spirit of the government. Keep the laws as they are,
+ if you wish. I think you would be very wrong to do so; but keep
+ them. Keep the men, too, if it gives you any pleasure. I raise no
+ objection so far as I am concerned. But, in God's name, change the
+ spirit of the government; for, I repeat, that spirit will lead you
+ to the abyss."[3]
+
+ [3: This speech was delivered in the Chamber of Deputies on the
+ 27th of January 1848, in the debate on the Address in reply to the
+ Speech from the Throne.--Cte. de T.]
+
+These gloomy predictions were received with ironical cheers from the
+majority. The Opposition applauded loudly, but more from party feeling
+than conviction. The truth is that no one as yet believed seriously in
+the danger which I was prophesying, although we were so near the
+catastrophe. The inveterate habit contracted by all the politicians,
+during this long parliamentary farce, of over-colouring the expression
+of their opinions and grossly exaggerating their thoughts had deprived
+them of all power of appreciating what was real and true. For several
+years the majority had every day been declaring that the Opposition was
+imperilling society; and the Opposition repeated incessantly that the
+Ministers were ruining the Monarchy. These statements had been made so
+constantly on both sides, without either side greatly believing in them,
+that they ended by not believing in them at all, at the very moment when
+the event was about to justify both of them. Even my own friends
+themselves thought that I had overshot the mark, and that my facts were
+a little blurred by rhetoric.
+
+I remember that, when I stepped from the tribune, Dufaure took me on one
+side, and said, with that sort of parliamentary intuition which is his
+only note of genius:
+
+"You have succeeded, but you would have succeeded much more if you had
+not gone so far beyond the feeling of the Assembly and tried to frighten
+us."
+
+And now that I am face to face with myself, searching in my memory to
+discover whether I was actually myself so much alarmed as I seemed, the
+answer is no, and I readily recognise that the event justified me more
+promptly and more completely than I foresaw (a thing which may sometimes
+have happened to other political prophets, better authorized to predict
+than I was). No, I did not expect such a revolution as we were destined
+to have; and who could have expected it? I did, I believe, perceive more
+clearly than the others the general causes which were making for the
+event; but I did not observe the accidents which were to precipitate it.
+Meantime the days which still separated us from the catastrophe passed
+rapidly by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ THE BANQUETS--SENSE OF SECURITY ENTERTAINED BY THE
+ GOVERNMENT--ANXIETY OF LEADERS OF THE OPPOSITION--ARRAIGNMENT OF
+ MINISTERS.
+
+
+I refused to take part in the affair of the banquets. I had both serious
+and petty reasons for abstaining. What I call my petty reasons I am
+quite willing to describe as bad reasons, although they were consistent
+with honour, and would have been unexceptionable in a private matter.
+They were the irritation and disgust aroused in me by the character and
+by the tactics of the leaders of this enterprise. Nevertheless, I
+confess that the private prejudice which we entertain with regard to
+individuals is a bad guide in politics.
+
+A close alliance had at that time been effected between M. Thiers and M.
+Barrot, and a real fusion formed between the two sections of the
+Opposition, which, in our parliamentary jargon, we called the Left
+Centre and the Left. Almost all the stubborn and intractable spirits
+which were found in the latter party had successively been softened,
+unbent, subjugated, made supple, by the promises of place spread
+broadcast by M. Thiers. I believe that even M. Barrot had for the first
+time allowed himself not exactly to be won over, but surprised, by
+arguments of this kind. At any rate, the most complete intimacy reigned
+between the two great leaders of the Opposition, whatever was the cause
+of it, and M. Barrot, who likes to mingle a little simplicity with his
+weaknesses as well as with his virtues, exerted himself to his utmost to
+secure the triumph of his ally, even at his own expense. M. Thiers had
+allowed him to involve himself in this matter of the banquets; I even
+think that he had instigated Barrot in that direction without consenting
+to involve himself. He was willing to accept the results, but not the
+responsibilities, of that dangerous agitation. Wherefore, surrounded by
+his personal friends, he stayed mute and motionless in Paris, while
+Barrot travelled all over the country for three months, making long
+speeches in every town he stopped at, and resembling, in my opinion,
+those beaters who make a great noise in order to bring the game within
+easy range of the sportsman's gun. Personally, I felt no inclination to
+take part in the sport. But the principal and more serious reason which
+restrained me was this: and I expounded it pretty often to those who
+wanted to drag me to those political meetings:
+
+"For the first time for eighteen years," I used to tell them, "you are
+proposing to appeal to the people, and to seek support outside the
+middle class. If you fail in rousing the people (and I think this will
+be the most probable result), you will become still more odious than you
+already are in the eyes of the Government and of the middle classes,
+who for a great part support it. In this way you will strengthen the
+administration which you desire to upset; while if, on the contrary, you
+succeed in rousing the people, you are no more able than I am to foresee
+whither an agitation of this kind will lead you."
+
+In the measure that the campaign of the banquets was prolonged, the
+latter hypothesis became, contrary to my expectation, the more probable.
+A certain anxiety began to oppress the ringleaders themselves; an
+indefinite anxiety, passing vaguely through their minds. I was told by
+Beaumont, who was at that time one of the first among them, that the
+excitement occasioned in the country by the banquets surpassed not only
+the hopes, but the wishes, of those who had started it. The latter were
+labouring to allay rather than increase it. Their intention was that
+there should be no banquet in Paris, and that there should be none held
+anywhere after the assembling of the Chambers. The fact is that they
+were only seeking a way out of the mischievous road which they had
+entered upon. And it was undoubtedly in spite of them that this final
+banquet was resolved on; they were constrained to take part in it, drawn
+into it; their vanity was compromised. The Government, by its defiance,
+goaded the Opposition into adopting this dangerous measure, thinking
+thus to drive it to destruction. The Opposition let itself be caught in
+a spirit of bravado, and lest it should be suspected of retreating; and
+thus irritating each other, spurring one another on, they dragged each
+other towards the common abyss, which neither of them as yet perceived.
+
+I remember that two days before the Revolution of February, at the
+Turkish Ambassador's ball, I met Duvergier de Hauranne. I felt for him
+both friendship and esteem; although he possessed very nearly all the
+failings that arise from party spirit, he at least joined to them the
+sort of disinterestedness and sincerity which one meets with in genuine
+passions, two rare advantages in our day, when the only genuine passion
+is that of self. I said to him, with the familiarity warranted by our
+relations:
+
+"Courage, my friend; you are playing a dangerous game."
+
+He replied gravely, but with no sign of fear:
+
+"Believe me, all will end well; besides, one must risk something. There
+is no free government that has not had to go through a similar
+experience."
+
+This reply perfectly describes this determined but somewhat narrow
+character; narrow, I say, although with plenty of brain, but with the
+brain which, while seeing clearly and in detail all that is on the
+horizon, is incapable of conceiving that the horizon may change;
+scholarly, disinterested, ardent, vindictive, sprung from that learned
+and sectarian race which guides itself in politics by imitation of
+others and by historical recollection, and which restricts its thought
+to one sole idea, at which it warms, in which it blinds itself.
+
+For the rest, the Government were even less uneasy than the leaders of
+the Opposition. A few days before the above conversation, I had had
+another with Duchâtel, the Minister of the Interior. I was on good terms
+with this minister, although for the last eight years I had been very
+boldly (even too boldly, I confess, in the case of its foreign policy)
+attacking the Cabinet of which he was one of the principal members. I am
+not sure that this fault did not even make me find favour in his eyes,
+for I believe that at the bottom of his heart he had a sneaking fondness
+for those who attacked his colleague at the Foreign Office, M. Guizot. A
+battle which M. Duchâtel and I had fought some years before in favour of
+the penitentiary system had brought us together and given rise to a
+certain intimacy between us. This man was very unlike the one I
+mentioned above: he was as heavy in his person and his manners as the
+other was meagre, angular, and sometimes trenchant and bitter. He was as
+remarkable for his scepticism as the other for his ardent convictions,
+for flabby indifference as the former for feverish activity; he
+possessed a very supple, very quick, very subtle mind enclosed in a
+massive body; he understood business admirably, while pretending to be
+above it; he was thoroughly acquainted with the evil passions of
+mankind, and especially with the evil passions of his party, and always
+knew how to turn them to advantage. He was free from all rancour and
+prejudice, cordial in his address, easy of approach, obliging, whenever
+his own interests were not compromised, and bore a kindly contempt for
+his fellow-creatures.
+
+I was about to say that, some days before the catastrophe, I drew M.
+Duchâtel into a corner of the conference room, and observed to him that
+the Government and the Opposition seemed to be striving in concert to
+drive things to an extremity calculated to end by damaging everybody;
+and I asked him if he saw no honest way of escape from a regrettable
+position, some honourable transaction which would permit everyone to
+draw back. I added that my friends and I would be happy to have such a
+way pointed out to us, and that we would make every exertion to persuade
+our colleagues in the Opposition to accept it. He listened attentively
+to my remarks, and assured me that he understood my meaning, although I
+saw clearly that he did not enter into it for a moment.
+
+"Things had reached such a pitch," he said, "that the expedient which I
+sought was no longer to be found. The Government was in the right, and
+could not yield. If the Opposition persisted in its course, the result
+might be a combat in the streets, but this combat had long been
+foreseen, and if the Government was animated with the evil passions with
+which it was credited, it would desire this fighting rather than dread
+it, being sure to triumph in the end."
+
+He went on in his complaisant fashion to tell me in detail of all the
+military precautions that had been taken, the extent of the resources,
+the number of the troops, and the quantity of ammunition.... I took my
+leave, satisfied that the Government, without exactly striving to
+promote an outbreak, was far from dreading one, and that the Ministry,
+in its certainty of ultimate victory, saw in the threatening catastrophe
+possibly its last means of rallying its scattered supporters and of
+finally reducing its adversaries to powerlessness. I confess that I
+thought as he did; his air of unfeigned assurance had proved contagious.
+
+The only really uneasy people in Paris at that moment were the Radical
+chiefs and the men who were sufficiently in touch with the people and
+the revolutionary party to know what was taking place in that quarter. I
+have reason to believe that most of these looked with dread upon the
+events which were ready to burst forth, whether because they kept up the
+tradition of their former passions rather than these passions
+themselves, or because they had begun to grow accustomed to a state of
+things in which they had taken up their position after so many times
+cursing it; or again, because they were doubtful of success; or rather
+because, being in a position to study and become well acquainted with
+their allies, they were frightened at the last moment of the victory
+which they expected to gain through their aid. On the very day before
+the outbreak, Madame de Lamartine betrayed extraordinary anxiety when
+calling upon Madame de Tocqueville, and gave such unmistakable signs of
+a mind heated and almost deranged by ominous thoughts that the latter
+became alarmed, and told me of it the same evening.
+
+It is not one of the least curious characteristics of this singular
+revolution that the incident which led to it was brought about and
+almost longed for by the men whom it eventually precipitated from power,
+and that it was only foreseen and feared by those who were to triumph by
+its means.
+
+Here let me for a moment resume the chain of history, so that I may the
+more easily attach to it the thread of my personal recollections.
+
+It will be remembered that, at the opening of the session of 1848, King
+Louis-Philippe, in his Speech from the Throne, had described the authors
+of the banquets as men excited by blind or hostile passions. This was
+bringing Royalty into direct conflict with more than one hundred members
+of the Chamber. This insult, which added anger to all the ambitious
+passions which were already disturbing the hearts of the majority of
+these men, ended by making them lose their reason. A violent debate was
+expected, but did not take place at once. The earlier discussions on the
+Address were calm: the majority and the Opposition both restrained
+themselves at the commencement, like two men who feel that they have
+lost their tempers, and who fear lest while in that condition they
+should perpetrate some folly in word or deed.
+
+But the storm of passion broke out at last, and continued with
+unaccustomed violence. The extraordinary heat of these debates was
+already redolent of civil war for those who knew how to scent
+revolutions from afar.
+
+The spokesmen of the moderate section of the Opposition were led, in the
+heat of debate, to assert that the right of assembling at the banquets
+was one of our most undeniable and essential rights;[4] that to question
+it, was equivalent to trampling liberty itself underfoot and to
+violating the Charter, and that those who did so unconsciously made an
+appeal, not to discussion, but to arms. On his side M. Duchâtel, who
+ordinarily was very dexterous in debate, displayed in this circumstance
+a consummate want of tact.[5] He absolutely denied the right of
+assemblage, and yet would not say clearly that the Government had made
+up its mind to prohibit thenceforth any manifestations of the kind. On
+the contrary, he seemed to invite the Opposition to try the experiment
+once more, so that the question might be brought before the Courts. His
+colleague, M. Hébert, the Minister of Justice, was still more tactless,
+but this was his habit. I have always observed that lawyers never make
+statesmen; but I have never met anyone who was less of a statesman than
+M. Hébert. He remained the Public-Prosecutor down to the marrow of his
+bones; he had all the mental and physical characteristics of that
+office. You must imagine a little wizened, sorry face, shrunk at the
+temples, with a pointed forehead, nose and chin, cold, bright eyes, and
+thin, in-drawn lips. Add to this a long quill generally held across the
+mouth, and looking at a distance like a cat's bristling whiskers, and
+you have a portrait of a man, than whom I have never seen anyone more
+resembling a carnivorous animal. At the same time, he was neither stupid
+nor even ill-natured; but he was by nature hot-headed and unyielding; he
+always overshot his goal, for want of knowing when to turn aside or stop
+still; and he fell into violence without intending it, and from sheer
+want of discrimination. It showed how little importance M. Guizot
+attached to conciliation, that under the circumstances he sent a speaker
+of this stamp into the tribune;[6] his language while there was so
+outrageous and so provoking that Barrot, quite beside himself and almost
+without knowing what he was doing, exclaimed, in a voice half stifled
+with rage, that the ministers of Charles X., that Polignac and
+Peyronnet, had never dared to talk like that. I remember that I
+shuddered involuntarily in my seat when I heard this naturally moderate
+man exasperated into recalling, for the first time, the terrible
+memories of the Revolution of 1830, holding it up in some sort as an
+example, and unconsciously suggesting the idea of repeating it.
+
+ [4: See the speech of M. Duvergier de Hauranne, 7 February
+ 1848.--Cte. de T.]
+
+ [5: The minister replied to M. Léon de Mandeville. He quoted the
+ laws of 1790 and 1791, which empowered the authorities to oppose
+ any public meetings which seemed to threaten danger to the public
+ peace, and he declared that the Government would be failing in its
+ duty if it were to give way before manifestations of any
+ description. At the end of his speech he again brought in the
+ phrase "blind or hostile passions," and endeavoured to justify
+ it.--Cte. de T.]
+
+ [6: Replying to M. Odilon Barrot, M. Hébert maintained that, since
+ the right of public meeting was not laid down in the Charter, it
+ did not exist.--Cte. de T.]
+
+The result of this heated discussion was a sort of challenge to mortal
+combat exchanged between the Government and the Opposition, the scene of
+the duel to be the law-courts. It was tacitly agreed that the challenged
+party should meet at one final banquet; that the authorities, without
+interfering to prevent the meeting, should prosecute its organizers, and
+that the courts should pronounce judgment.
+
+The debates on the Address were closed, if I remember rightly, on the
+12th of February, and it is really from this moment that the
+revolutionary movement burst out. The Constitutional Opposition, which
+had for many months been constantly pushed on by the Radical party, was
+from this time forward led and directed not so much by the members of
+that party who occupied seats in the Chamber of Deputies (the greater
+number of these had become lukewarm and, as it were, enervated in the
+Parliamentary atmosphere), as by the younger, bolder, and more
+irresponsible men who wrote for the democratic press. This change was
+especially apparent in two principal facts which had an overwhelming
+influence upon events--the programme of the banquet and the arraignment
+of Ministers.
+
+On the 20th of February, there appeared in almost all the Opposition
+newspapers, by way of programme of the approaching banquet, what was
+really a proclamation calling upon the entire population to join in an
+immense political demonstration, convoking the schools and inviting the
+National Guard itself to attend the ceremony in a body. It read like a
+decree emanating from the Provisional Government which was to be set up
+three days later. The Cabinet, which had already been blamed by many of
+its followers for tacitly authorising the banquet, considered that it
+was justified in retracing its steps. It officially announced that it
+forbade the banquet, and that it would prevent it by force.
+
+It was this declaration of the Government which provided the field for
+the battle. I am in a position to state, although it sounds hardly
+credible, that the programme which thus suddenly turned the banquet into
+an insurrection was resolved upon, drawn up and published without the
+participation or the knowledge of the members of Parliament who
+considered themselves to be still leading the movement which they had
+called into existence. The programme was the hurried work of a nocturnal
+gathering of journalists and Radicals, and the leaders of the Dynastic
+Opposition heard of it at the same time as the public, by reading it in
+the papers in the morning.
+
+And see how uncertain is the course of human affairs! M. Odilon Barrot,
+who disapproved of the programme as much as anyone, dared not disclaim
+it for fear of offending the men who, till then, had seemed to be moving
+with him; and then, when the Government, alarmed by the publication of
+this document, prohibited the banquet, M. Barrot, finding himself
+brought face to face with civil war, drew back. He himself gave up this
+dangerous demonstration; but at the same time that he was making this
+concession to the men of moderation, he granted to the extremists the
+impeachment of Ministers. He accused the latter of violating the
+Constitution by prohibiting the banquet, and thus furnished an excuse to
+those who were about to take up arms in the name of the violated
+Constitution.
+
+Thus the principal leaders of the Radical Party, who thought that a
+revolution would be premature, and who did not yet desire it, had
+considered themselves obliged, in order to differentiate themselves from
+their allies in the Dynastic Opposition, to make very revolutionary
+speeches and fan the flame of insurrectionary passion. On the other
+hand, the Dynastic Opposition, which had had enough of the banquets, had
+been forced to persevere in this bad course so as not to present an
+appearance of retreating before the defiance of the Government. And
+finally, the mass of the Conservatives, who believed in the necessity of
+great concessions and were ready to make them, were driven by the
+violence of their adversaries and the passions of some of their chiefs
+to deny even the right of meeting in private banquets and to refuse the
+country any hopes of reform.
+
+One must have lived long amid political parties, and in the very
+whirlwind in which they move, to understand to what extent men mutually
+push each other away from their respective plans, and how the destinies
+of this world proceed as the result, but often as the contrary result,
+of the intentions that produce them, similarly to the kite which flies
+by the antagonistic action of the wind and the cord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ TROUBLES OF THE 22ND OF FEBRUARY--THE SITTING OF THE 23RD--THE NEW
+ MINISTRY--OPINIONS OF M. DUFAURE AND M. DE BEAUMONT.
+
+
+I did not perceive anything on the 22nd of February calculated to give
+rise to serious apprehensions. There was a crowd in the streets, but it
+seemed to be composed rather of sight-seers and fault-finders than of
+the seditiously inclined: the soldier and the townsman chaffed each
+other when they met, and I heard more jokes than cries uttered by the
+crowd. I know that it is not safe to trust one's self to these
+appearances. It is the street-boys of Paris who generally commence the
+insurrections, and as a rule they do so light-heartedly, like schoolboys
+breaking up for the holidays.
+
+When I returned to the Chamber, I found a seeming listlessness reigning
+there, beneath which one could perceive the inner seething of a thousand
+restrained passions. It was the only place in Paris in which, since the
+early morning, I had not heard discussed aloud what was then absorbing
+all France. They were languidly discussing a bill for the creation of a
+bank at Bordeaux; but in reality no one, except the man talking in the
+tribune and the man who was to reply to him, showed any interest in the
+matter. M. Duchâtel told me that all was going well. He said this with
+an air of combined confidence and nervousness which struck me as
+suspicious. I noticed that he twisted his neck and shoulders (a common
+trick with him) much more frequently and violently than usual; and I
+remember that this little observation gave me more food for reflection
+than all the rest.
+
+I learnt that, as a matter of fact, there had been serious troubles in
+many parts of the town which I had not visited; a certain number of men
+had been killed or wounded. People were no longer accustomed to this
+sort of incident, as they had been some years before and as they became
+still more a few months later; and the excitement was great. I happened
+to be invited to dine that evening at the house of one of my
+fellow-members of Parliament and of the Opposition, M. Paulmier, the
+deputy for Calvados. I had some difficulty in getting there through the
+troops which guarded the surrounding streets. I found my host's house in
+great disorder. Madame Paulmier, who was expecting her _accouchement_
+and who had been frightened by a skirmish that had taken place beneath
+her windows, had gone to bed. The dinner was magnificent, but the table
+was deserted; out of twenty guests invited, only five presented
+themselves; the others were kept back either by material impediments or
+by the preoccupations of the day. We sat down with a very thoughtful air
+amid all this abundance. Among the guests was M. Sallandrouze, the
+inheritor of the great business house of that name, which had made a
+large fortune by its manufacture of textile fabrics. He was one of those
+young Conservatives, richer in money than in honours, who, from time to
+time, made a show of opposition, or rather, of captious criticism,
+mainly, I think, to give themselves a certain importance. In the course
+of the last debate on the Address, M. Sallandrouze had moved an
+amendment[7] which would have compromised the Cabinet, had it been
+adopted. At the time when this incident was most occupying attention, M.
+Sallandrouze one evening went to the reception at the Tuileries, hoping
+that this time, at least, he would not remain unrecognized in the crowd.
+And, in fact, no sooner had King Louis-Philippe seen him than he came up
+to him with a very assiduous mien, and solemnly took him aside and began
+to talk to him eagerly, and with a great display of interest, about the
+branch of manufacture to which the young deputy owed his fortune. The
+latter, at first, felt no astonishment, thinking that the King, who was
+known to be clever at managing men's minds, had selected this little
+private road in order to lead round to affairs of State. But he was
+mistaken; for, after a quarter of an hour, the King changed not the
+conversation but the person addressed, and left our friend standing very
+confused amid his carpets and woollen stuffs. M. Sallandrouze had not
+yet got over this trick played upon him, but he was beginning to feel
+very much afraid that he would be revenged too well. He told us that M.
+Émile Girardin had said to him the day before, "In two days, the
+Monarchy of July will have ceased to exist." This seemed to all of us a
+piece of journalistic hyperbole, and perhaps it was; but the events that
+followed turned it into an oracle.
+
+ [7: M. Sallandrouze de Lamornaix' amendment proposed to modify the
+ expression "blind or hostile passions," by adding the words: "Amid
+ these various demonstrations, your Government will know how to
+ recognise the real and lawful desires of the country; it will, we
+ trust, take the initiative by introducing certain wise and moderate
+ reforms called for by public opinion, among which we must place
+ first parliamentary reform. In a Constitutional Monarchy, the union
+ of the great powers of the State removes all danger from a
+ progressive policy, and allows every moral and material interest of
+ the country to be satisfied."--Cte. de T.]
+
+On the next day, the 23rd of February, I learnt, on waking, that the
+excitement in Paris, so far from becoming calmer, was increasing. I went
+early to the Chamber; silence reigned around the Assembly; battalions of
+infantry occupied and closed the approaches, while troops of Cuirassiers
+were drawn up along the walls of the Palace. Inside, men's feelings were
+excited without their quite knowing the reason.
+
+The sitting had been opened at the ordinary time; but the Assembly had
+not had the courage to go through the same parliamentary comedy as on
+the day before, and had suspended its labours; it sat receiving reports
+from the different quarters of the town, awaiting events and counting
+the hours, in a state of feverish idleness. At a certain moment, a loud
+sound of trumpets was heard outside. It appeared that the Cuirassiers
+guarding the Palace were amusing themselves, in order to pass the time,
+by sounding flourishes on their instruments. The gay, triumphant tones
+of the trumpets contrasted in so melancholy a fashion with the thoughts
+by which all our minds were secretly disturbed, that a message was
+hurriedly sent out to stop this offensive and indiscreet performance,
+which caused such painful reflections to all of us.
+
+At last, it was determined to speak aloud of what all had been
+discussing in whispers for several hours. A Paris deputy, M. Vavin,
+commenced to question the Cabinet upon the state of the city. At three
+o'clock M. Guizot appeared at the door of the House. He entered with his
+firmest step and his loftiest mien, silently crossed the gangway,
+ascended the tribune, throwing his head almost back from his shoulders
+for fear of seeming to lower it, and stated in two words that the King
+had called upon M. Molé to form a new ministry. Never did I see such a
+piece of clap-trap.
+
+The Opposition kept their seats, most of them uttering cries of victory
+and satisfied revenge; the leaders alone sat silent, busy in communing
+with themselves upon the use they would make of their triumph, and
+careful not to insult a majority of which they might soon be called upon
+to make use. As to the majority, they seemed thunderstruck by this so
+unexpected blow, moved to and fro like a mass that sways from side to
+side, uncertain as to which side it shall fall on, and then descended
+noisily into the semi-circle. A few surrounded the ministers to ask
+them for explanations or to pay them their last respects, but the
+greater number clamoured against them with noisy and insulting shouts.
+"To throw up office, to abandon your political friends under such
+circumstances," they said, "is a piece of gross cowardice;" while others
+exclaimed that the members ought to repair to the Tuileries in a body,
+and force the King to re-consider his fatal resolve.
+
+This despair will arouse no astonishment when it is remembered that the
+greater number of these men felt themselves attacked, not only in their
+political opinions, but in the most sensitive part of their private
+interest. The fall of the Government compromised the entire fortune of
+one, the daughter's dowry of another, the son's career of a third. It
+was by this that they were almost all held. Most of them had not only
+bettered themselves by means of their votes, but one may say that they
+had lived on them. They still lived on them, and hoped to continue to
+live on them; for, the Ministry having lasted eight years, they had
+accustomed themselves to think that it would last for ever; they had
+grown attached to it with the honest, peaceful feeling of affection
+which one entertains for one's fields. From my seat, I watched this
+swaying crowd; I saw surprise, anger, fear and avarice mingle their
+various expressions upon those bewildered countenances; and I drew an
+involuntary comparison between all these legislators and a pack of
+hounds which, with their jaws half filled, see the quarry withdrawn
+from them.
+
+I grant, however, that, so far as many of the Opposition were concerned,
+it only wanted that they should be put to a similar test in order to
+make the same display. If many of the Conservatives only defended the
+Ministry with a view to keeping their places and emoluments, I am bound
+to say that many of the Opposition seemed to me only to attack it in
+order to reap the plunder in their turn. The truth--the deplorable
+truth--is that a taste for holding office and a desire to live on the
+public money are not with us a disease restricted to either party, but
+the great, chronic ailment of the whole nation; the result of the
+democratic constitution of our society and of the excessive
+centralization of our Government; the secret malady which has undermined
+all former powers, and which will undermine all powers to come.
+
+At last the uproar ceased, as the nature of what had happened became
+better known: we learnt that it had been brought about by the
+insurrectionary inclinations of a battalion of the Fifth Legion and the
+applications made direct to the King by several officers of that section
+of the Guard.
+
+So soon as he was informed of what was going on, King Louis-Philippe,
+who was less prone to change his opinions, but more ready to change his
+line of conduct, than any man I ever saw, had immediately made up his
+mind; and after eight years of complacency, the Ministry was dismissed
+by him in two minutes, and without ceremony.
+
+The Chamber rose without delay, each member thinking only of the change
+of government, and forgetting about the revolution.
+
+I went out with M. Dufaure, and soon perceived that he was not only
+preoccupied but constrained. I at once saw that he felt himself in the
+critical and complicated position of a leader of the Opposition, who was
+about to become a minister, and who, after experiencing the use his
+friends could be to him, was beginning to think of the difficulties
+which their pretentions might well cause him.
+
+M. Dufaure had a somewhat cunning mind, which readily admitted such
+thoughts as these, and he also possessed a sort of natural rusticity
+which, combined with great integrity, but rarely permitted him to
+conceal them. He was, moreover, the sincerest and by far the most
+respectable of all those who at that moment had a chance of becoming
+ministers. He believed that power was at last within his grasp, and his
+ambition betrayed a passion that was the more eager inasmuch as it was
+discreet and suppressed. M. Molé in his place would have felt much
+greater egoism and still more ingratitude, but he would have been only
+all the more open-hearted and amiable.
+
+I soon left him, and went to M. de Beaumont's. There I found every heart
+rejoicing. I was far from sharing this joy, and finding myself among
+people with whom I could talk freely, I gave my reasons.
+
+"The National Guard of Paris," I said, "has upset a Cabinet; therefore
+it is during its good pleasure only that the new Ministers will remain
+at the head of affairs. You are glad because the Government is upset;
+but do you not see that it is authority itself which is overthrown?"
+
+This sombre view of the political situation was not much to Beaumont's
+taste; he was carried away by rancour and ambition.
+
+"You always take a gloomy view of everything," he said. "Let us first
+rejoice at the victory: we can lament over the results later."
+
+Madame de Beaumont, who was present at the interview, seemed herself to
+share her husband's elation, and nothing ever so thoroughly proved to me
+the irresistible power of party feeling. For, by nature, neither hatred
+nor self-interest had a place in the heart of this distinguished and
+attractive woman, one of the most truly and consistently virtuous that I
+have met in my life, and one who best knew how to make virtue both
+touching and lovable. To the nobility of heart of the La Fayettes she
+added a mind that was witty, refined, kindly and just.
+
+I, nevertheless, sustained my theory against both him and her, arguing
+that upon the whole the incident was a regrettable one, or rather that
+we should see more in it than a mere incident, a great event which was
+destined to change the whole aspect of affairs. It was very easy for me
+to philosophize thus, since I did not share the illusions of my friend
+Dufaure. The impulse given to the political machine seemed to me to be
+too violent to permit of the reins of government falling into the hands
+of the moderate party to which I belonged, and I foresaw that they would
+soon fall to those who were almost as obnoxious to me as the men from
+whose hands they had slipped.
+
+I was dining with another of my friends, M. Lanjuinais, of whom I shall
+have to speak often in future. The company was fairly numerous, and
+embraced many shades of political opinion. Many of the guests rejoiced
+at the result of the day's work, while others expressed alarm; but all
+thought that the insurrectionary movement would stop of its own accord,
+to break out again later on another occasion and in another form. All
+the rumours that reached us from the town seemed to confirm this belief;
+cries of war were replaced by cries of joy. Portalis, who became
+Attorney-General of Paris a few days later, was of our number: not the
+son, but the nephew of the Chief President of the Court of Appeal. This
+Portalis had neither his uncle's rare intelligence, nor his exemplary
+character, nor his solemn dulness. His coarse, violent, perverse mind
+had quite naturally entered into all the false ideas and extreme
+opinions of our times. Although he was in relation with most of those
+who are regarded as the authors and leaders of the Revolution of 1848, I
+can conscientiously declare that he did not that night expect the
+revolution any more than we did. I am convinced that, even at that
+supreme moment, the same might have been said of the greater number of
+his friends. It would be a waste of time to try to discover what secret
+conspiracies brought about events of this kind. Revolutions accomplished
+by means of popular risings are generally longed for beforehand rather
+than premeditated. Those who boast of having contrived them have done no
+more than turn them to account. They spring spontaneously into being
+from a general malady of men's minds, brought suddenly to the critical
+stage by some fortuitous and unforeseen circumstance. As to the
+so-called originators or leaders of these revolutions, they originate
+and lead nothing; their only merit is identical with that of the
+adventurers who have discovered most of the unknown countries. They
+simply have the courage to go straight before them as long as the wind
+impels them.
+
+I took my leave early, and went straight home to bed. Although I lived
+close to the Foreign Office, I did not hear the firing which so greatly
+influenced our destinies, and I fell asleep without realizing that I had
+seen the last day of the Monarchy of July.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY--THE MINISTERS' PLAN OF RESISTANCE--THE
+ NATIONAL GUARD--GENERAL BEDEAU.
+
+
+The next morning was the 24th of February. On leaving my bed-room, I met
+the cook, who had been out; the good woman was quite beside herself, and
+poured out a sorrowing rigmarole, of which I failed to understand a
+word, except that the Government was massacring the poor people. I went
+downstairs at once, and had no sooner set foot in the street than I
+breathed for the first time the atmosphere of revolution. The roadway
+was empty; the shops were not open; there were no carriages nor
+pedestrians to be seen; none of the ordinary hawkers' cries were heard;
+neighbours stood talking in little groups at their doors, with subdued
+voices, with a frightened air; every face seemed distorted with fear or
+anger. I met a National Guard hurrying along, gun in hand, with a tragic
+gait; I accosted him, but I could learn nothing from him, save that the
+Government was massacring the people (to which he added that the
+National Guard would know how to put that right). It was the same old
+refrain: it is easily understood that this explanation explained
+nothing. I was too well acquainted with the vices of the Government of
+July not to know that cruelty was not one of them. I considered it one
+of the most corrupt, but also one of the least bloodthirsty, that had
+ever existed, and I only repeat this observation in order to show the
+sort of report that assists the progress of revolutions.
+
+I hastened to M. de Beaumont, who lived in the next street. There I
+learnt that the King had sent for him during the night. The same reply
+was given to my enquiry at M. de Rémusat's, where I went next. M. de
+Corcelles, whom I met in the street, gave me his account of what was
+happening, but in a very confused manner; for, in a city in state of
+revolution, as on a battle-field, each one readily regards the incidents
+of which himself is a witness as the events of the day. He told me of
+the firing on the Boulevard des Capucines, and of the rapid development
+of the insurrection of which this act of unnecessary violence was the
+cause or the pretext; of M. Molé's refusal to take office under these
+circumstances; and lastly, of the summons to the Palace of Messrs.
+Thiers, Barrot and their friends, who were definitely charged with the
+formation of a cabinet, facts too well known to permit of my lingering
+over them. I asked M. de Corcelles how the ministers proposed to set
+about appeasing people's minds.
+
+"M. de Rémusat," said he, "is my authority for saying that the plan
+adopted is to withdraw all the troops and to flood Paris with National
+Guards." These were his own words.
+
+I have always observed that in politics people were often ruined through
+possessing too good a memory. The men who were now charged to put an end
+to the Revolution of 1848 were exactly the same who had made the
+Revolution of 1830. They remembered that at that time the resistance of
+the army had failed to stop them, and that on the other hand the
+presence of the National Guard, so imprudently dissolved by Charles X.,
+might have embarrassed them greatly and prevented them from succeeding.
+They took the opposite steps to those adopted by the Government of the
+Elder Branch, and arrived at the same result. So true is it that, if
+humanity be always the same, the course of history is always different,
+that the past is not able to teach us much concerning the present, and
+that those old pictures, when forced into new frames, never have a good
+effect.
+
+After chatting for a little while on the dangerous position of affairs,
+M. de Corcelles and I went to fetch M. Lanjuinais, and all three of us
+went together to M. Dufaure, who lived in the Rue Le Peletier. The
+boulevard, which we followed to get there, presented a strange
+spectacle. There was hardly a soul to be seen, although it was nearly
+nine o'clock in the morning, and one heard not the slightest sound of a
+human voice; but all the little sentry-boxes which stand along this
+endless avenue seemed to move about and totter upon their base, and from
+time to time one of them would fall with a crash, while the great trees
+along the curb came tumbling down into the roadway as though of their
+own accord. These acts of destruction were the work of isolated
+individuals, who went about their business silently, regularly, and
+hurriedly, preparing in this way the materials for the barricades which
+others were to erect. Nothing ever seemed to me more to resemble the
+carrying on of an industry, and, as a matter of fact, for the greater
+number of these men it was nothing less. The instinct of disorder had
+given them the taste for it, and their experience of so many former
+insurrections the practice. I do not know that during the whole course
+of the day I was so keenly struck as in passing through this solitude in
+which one saw, so to speak, the worst passions of mankind at play,
+without the good ones appearing. I would rather have met in the same
+place a furious crowd; and I remember that, calling Lanjuinais'
+attention to those tottering edifices and falling trees, I gave vent to
+the phrase which had long been on my lips, and said:
+
+"Believe me, this time it is no longer a riot: it is a revolution."
+
+M. Dufaure told us all that concerned himself in the occurrences of the
+preceding evening and of the night. M. Molé had at first applied to him
+to assist him to form the new Cabinet; but the increasing gravity of the
+situation had soon made them both understand that the moment for their
+intervention had passed. M. Molé told the King so about midnight, and
+the King sent him to fetch M. Thiers, who refused to accept office
+unless he was given M. Barrot for a colleague. Beyond this point, M.
+Dufaure knew no more than we did. We separated without having succeeded
+in deciding upon our line of action, and without coming to any
+resolution beyond that of proceeding to the Chamber so soon as it
+opened.
+
+M. Dufaure did not come, and I never precisely learnt why. It was
+certainly not from fear, for I have since seen him very calm and very
+firm under much more dangerous circumstances. I believe that he grew
+alarmed for his family, and desired to take them to a place of safety
+outside Paris. His private and his public virtues, both of which were
+very great, did not keep step: the first were always ahead of the
+second, and we shall see signs of this on more than one subsequent
+occasion. Nor, for that matter, would I care to lay this to his account
+as a serious charge. Virtues of any kind are too rare to entitle us to
+vex those who possess them about their character or their degree.
+
+The time which we had spent with M. Dufaure had sufficed to enable the
+rioters to erect a large number of barricades along the road by which we
+had come; they were putting the finishing touches to them as we passed
+on our way back. These barricades were cunningly constructed by a small
+number of men, who worked very diligently: not like guilty men hurried
+by the dread of being taken in the act, but like good workmen anxious to
+get their task done well and expeditiously. The public watched them
+quietly, without expressing disapproval or offering assistance. I did
+not discover any signs of that sort of general seething which I had
+witnessed in 1830, and which made me at the time compare the whole city
+to a huge boiling caldron. This time the public was not overthrowing the
+Government; it was allowing it to fall.
+
+We met on the boulevard a column of infantry falling back upon the
+Madeleine. No one addressed a word to it, and yet its retreat resembled
+a rout. The ranks were broken, the soldiers marched in disorder, with
+hanging heads and an air that was both downcast and frightened. Whenever
+one of them became separated for a mere instant from the main body, he
+was at once surrounded, seized, embraced, disarmed and sent back: all
+this was the work of a moment.
+
+Crossing the Place du Havre, I met for the first time a battalion of
+that National Guard with which Paris was to be flooded. These men
+marched with a look of astonishment and an uncertain step, surrounded by
+street boys shouting, "Reform for ever!" to whom they replied with the
+same cry, but in a smothered and somewhat constrained voice. This
+battalion belonged to my neighbourhood, and most of those who composed
+it knew me by sight, although I knew hardly any of them. They
+surrounded me and greedily pressed me for news; I told them that we had
+obtained all we wanted, that the ministry was changed, that all the
+abuses complained of were to be reformed, and that the only danger we
+now ran was lest people should go too far, and that it was for them to
+prevent it. I soon saw that this view did not appeal to them.
+
+"That's all very well, sir," said they; "the Government has got itself
+into this scrape through its own fault, let it get out of it as best it
+can."
+
+It was of small use my representing to them that it was much less a
+question for the Government at present than for themselves:
+
+"If Paris is delivered to anarchy," I said, "and all the Kingdom is in
+confusion, do you think that none but the King will suffer?"
+
+It was of no avail, and all I could obtain in reply was this astounding
+absurdity: it was the Government's fault, let the Government run the
+danger; we don't want to get killed for people who have managed their
+business so badly. And yet this was that middle class which had been
+pampered for eighteen years: the current of public opinion had ended by
+dragging it along, and was driving it against those who had flattered it
+until it had become corrupt.
+
+This was the occasion of a reflection which has often since presented
+itself to my mind; in France a government always does wrong to rely
+solely for support upon the exclusive interests and selfish passions of
+one class. This can only succeed with nations more self-interested and
+less vain than ours: with us, when a government established upon this
+basis becomes unpopular, it follows that the members of the very class
+for whose sake it has lost its popularity prefer the pleasure of
+traducing it with all the world to the privileges which it assures them.
+The old French aristocracy, which was more enlightened than our modern
+middle class and possessed much greater _esprit de corps_, had already
+given the same example; it had ended by thinking it a mark of
+distinction to run down its own privileges, and by thundering against
+the abuses upon which it existed. That is why I think that, upon the
+whole, the safest method of government for us to adopt, in order to
+endure, is that of governing well, of governing in the interest of
+everybody. I am bound to confess, however, that, even when one follows
+this course, it is not very certain that one will endure for long.
+
+I soon set out to go to the Chamber, although the time fixed for the
+opening of the sitting had not yet come: it was, I believe, about eleven
+o'clock. I found the Place Louis XV still clear of people, but occupied
+by several regiments of cavalry. When I saw all these troops drawn up in
+such good order, I began to think that they had only deserted the
+streets in order to mass themselves around the Tuileries and defend
+themselves there. At the foot of the obelisk were grouped the staff,
+among whom, as I drew nearer, I recognized Bedeau, whose unlucky star
+had quite recently brought him back from Africa, in time to bury the
+Monarchy. I had spent a few days with him, the year before, at
+Constantine, and there had sprung up between us a sort of intimacy which
+has since continued. So soon as Bedeau caught sight of me, he sprang
+from his horse, came up to me, and grasped my hand in a way that clearly
+betrayed his excitement. His conversation gave yet stronger evidence of
+this, and I was not surprised, for I have always observed that the men
+who lose their heads most easily, and who generally show themselves
+weakest on days of revolution, are soldiers; accustomed as they are to
+have an organized force facing them and an obedient force in their
+hands, they readily become confused before the uproarious shouts of a
+mob and in presence of the hesitation and the occasional connivance of
+their own men. Unquestionably, Bedeau was confused, and everybody knows
+what were the results of this confusion: how the Chamber was invaded by
+a handful of men within pistol-shot of the squadrons protecting it, and
+how, in consequence, the fall of the Monarchy was proclaimed and the
+Provisional Government elected. The part played by Bedeau on this fatal
+day was, unfortunately for himself, of so preponderating a character
+that I propose to stop a moment in order to analyze this man and his
+motives for acting as he did. We have been sufficiently intimate both
+before and after this event to enable me to speak with knowledge. It is
+true that he received the order not to fight; but why did he obey so
+extraordinary an order, which circumstances had rendered so
+impracticable?
+
+Bedeau was assuredly not timid by nature, nor even, properly speaking,
+undecided; for, when he had once made up his mind, you saw him making
+for his goal with great firmness, coolness and courage; but his mind was
+the most methodical, the least self-reliant, the least adventurous, and
+the least adapted for unpremeditated action that can well be imagined.
+He was accustomed to consider the action which he was about to undertake
+in all its aspects before setting to work, taking the worst aspects
+first, and losing much precious time in diluting a single thought in a
+multitude of words. For the rest, he was a just man, moderate,
+liberal-minded, as humane as though he had not waged war in Africa for
+eighteen years, modest, moral, even refined, and religious: the kind of
+honest, virtuous man who is very rarely to be met with in military
+circles, or, to speak plainly, elsewhere. It was assuredly not from want
+of courage that he did certain acts which seemed to point to this
+defect, for he was brave beyond measure; still less was treachery his
+motive: although he may not have been attached to the Orleans Family, he
+was as little capable of betraying those Princes as their best friends
+could have been, and much less so than their creatures eventually were.
+His misfortune was that he was drawn into events which were greater than
+himself, and that he had only merit where genius was needed, and
+especially the genius to grapple with revolutions, which consists
+principally in regulating one's actions according to events, and in
+knowing how to disobey at the right time. The remembrance of February
+poisoned General Bedeau's life, and left a cruel wound deep down in his
+soul, a wound whose agony betrayed itself unceasingly by endless
+recitals and explanations of the events of that period.
+
+While he was engaged in telling me of his perplexities, and in
+endeavouring to prove that the duty of the Opposition was to come down
+to the streets in a body and calm the popular excitement with their
+speeches, a crowd of people glided in between the trees of the
+Champs-Elysées and came down the main avenue towards the Place Louis XV.
+Bedeau perceived these men, dragged me towards them on foot until he was
+more than a hundred paces from his cavalry, and began to harangue them,
+for he was more disposed to speech-making than any military man I have
+ever known.
+
+While he was holding forth in this way, I observed that the circle of
+his listeners was gradually extending itself around us, and would soon
+close us in; and through the first rank of sight-seers I clearly caught
+sight of men of riotous aspect moving about, while I heard dull murmurs
+in the depths of the crowd of these dangerous words, "It's Bugeaud." I
+leant towards the general and whispered in his ear:
+
+"I have more experience than you of the ways of the populace; take my
+word, get back to your horse at once, for if you stay here, you will be
+killed or taken prisoner before five minutes are over."
+
+He took my word for it, and it was well he did. A few moments later,
+these same men whom he had undertaken to convert murdered the occupants
+of the guard-house in the Rue des Champs-Elysées; I myself had some
+difficulty in forcing my way through them. One of them, a short,
+thick-set man, who seemed to belong to the lower class of workmen, asked
+me where I was going.
+
+I replied, "To the Chamber," adding, to show that I was a member of the
+Opposition, "Reform for ever! You know the Guizot Ministry has been
+dismissed?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I know," replied the man, jeeringly, and pointing to the
+Tuileries, "but we want more than that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ THE SITTING OF THE CHAMBER--MADAME LA DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS--THE
+ PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
+
+
+I entered the Chamber; the sitting had not yet commenced. The deputies
+were wandering about the lobbies like men distraught, living on rumours,
+and quite without information. It was not so much an assembly as a mob,
+for nobody was leading it.
+
+The leaders of both parties were absent: the ex-ministers had fled, the
+new ones had not appeared. Members cried loudly for the sitting to open,
+impelled rather by a vague desire for action than by any definite
+intention; the President refused: he was accustomed to do nothing
+without instructions, and since there was no one left to instruct him,
+he was unable to make up his mind. I was begged to go and find him, and
+persuade him to take the chair, and I did so. I found this excellent
+man--for so he was, in spite of the fact that he often indulged in
+well-meaning pieces of trickery, in little pious frauds, in petty
+villainies, in all the venial sins which a faint heart and a wavering
+mind are able to suggest to an honest nature--I found him, as I have
+said, walking to and fro in his room, a prey to the greatest excitement.
+M. Sauzet possessed good but not striking features; he had the dignity
+of a parish beadle, a big fat body, with very short arms. At times when
+he was restless and perplexed--and he almost always was so--he used to
+wave his little arms convulsively, and move them about like a swimmer.
+His demeanour during our conversation was of the strangest: he walked
+about, stopped still, sat down with one foot underneath his clumsy
+frame, as he used to do in moments of great excitement, stood up again,
+sat down anew, and came to no decision. It was very unfortunate for the
+House of Orleans that it had an honest man of this kind to preside over
+the Chamber on a day like this: an audacious rogue would have served its
+turn better.
+
+M. Sauzet gave me many reasons for not opening the sitting, but one
+which he did not give me convinced me that he was right. Seeing him so
+helpless and so incapable of adopting any resolution, I considered that
+he would only confuse men's minds the more he tried to regulate them. I
+therefore left him, and thinking it more important to find protectors
+for the Chamber than to open its deliberations, I went out, intending to
+proceed to the Ministry of the Interior and ask for help.
+
+As I crossed the Place du Palais-Bourbon with this object, I saw a very
+mixed crowd accompanying two men, whom I soon recognized as Barrot and
+Beaumont, with loud cheers. Both of them wore their hats crushed down
+over their eyes; their clothes were covered with dust, their cheeks
+looked hollow, their eyes weary: never were two men in triumph so
+suggestive of men about to be hanged. I ran up to Beaumont, and asked
+him what was happening. He whispered that the King had abdicated in his
+presence, and had taken to flight; that Lamoricière had apparently been
+killed when he went out to announce the abdication to the rioters (in
+fact, an aide-de-camp had come back to say that he had seen him at a
+distance fall from his horse), that everything was going wrong, and
+finally, that he and Barrot were now on their way to the Ministry of the
+Interior in order to take possession of it, and to try and establish
+somewhere a centre of authority and resistance.
+
+"And the Chamber!" I said. "Have you taken any precautions for the
+defence of the Chamber?"
+
+Beaumont received this observation with ill-humour, as though I had been
+speaking of my own house. "Who is thinking of the Chamber?" he replied
+brusquely. "What good or what harm can it do at the present juncture?"
+
+I thought, and rightly, that he was wrong to speak like this. The
+Chamber, it is true, was at that moment in a curious state of
+powerlessness, its majority despised, and its minority left behind by
+public opinion. But M. de Beaumont forgot that it is just in times of
+revolution that the very least instruments of the law, and much more its
+outer symbols, which recall the idea of the law to the minds of the
+people, assume the greatest importance; for it is especially in the
+midst of this universal anarchy and turmoil that the need is felt of
+some simulacrum of authority and tradition in order to save the remnants
+of a half-destroyed constitution or to complete its overthrow. Had the
+deputies been able to proclaim the Regency, the latter might have ended
+by triumphing, in spite of the unpopularity of the deputies; and, on the
+other hand, it is an undoubted fact that the Provisional Government owed
+much to the chance which caused it to come into being between the four
+walls which had so long sheltered the representatives of the nation.
+
+I followed my friends to the Ministry of the Interior, where they were
+going. The crowd which accompanied us entered, or rather swept in,
+tumultuously, and even penetrated with us as far as the room which M.
+Duchâtel had just quitted. Barrot tried to free himself and dismiss the
+mob, but was unable to succeed.
+
+These people, who held two very different sets of opinions, as I was
+then enabled to observe, some being Republicans and others
+Constitutionalists, began vehemently to discuss with us and among
+themselves the measures which were to be taken; and as we were all
+squeezed together in a very small space, the heat, dust, confusion, and
+uproar soon became unbearable. Barrot, who always launched out into
+long, pompous phrases at the most critical moments, and who preserved an
+air of dignity, and even of mystery, in the most ludicrous
+circumstances, was holding forth at his best _in angustis_. His voice
+occasionally rose above the tumult, but never succeeded in quelling it.
+In despair and disgust at so violent and ludicrous a scene, I left this
+place, where they were exchanging almost as many cuffs as arguments, and
+returned to the Chamber.
+
+I reached the entrance to the building without suspecting what was
+happening inside, when I saw people come running up, crying that Madame
+la Duchesse d'Orléans, the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Nemours had
+just arrived. At this news, I flew up the stairs of the Palace, four at
+a time, and rushed into the House.
+
+I saw the three members of the Royal Family whom I have named, at the
+foot of the tribune, facing the House. The Duchesse d'Orléans was
+seated, dressed in mourning, calm and pale; I could see that she was
+greatly excited, but her excitement seemed to be that of courageous
+natures, more prone to turn to heroism than fright.
+
+The Comte de Paris displayed the carelessness of his age and the
+precocious impassiveness of princes. Standing by their side was the Duc
+de Nemours, tightly clad in his uniform--cold, stiff, and erect. He was,
+to my mind, the only man who ran any real danger that day; and during
+the whole time that I saw him exposed to it, I constantly observed in
+him the same firm and silent courage.
+
+Around these unhappy Princes pressed the National Guards who had come
+with them, some deputies, and a small number of the people. The
+galleries were empty and closed, with the exception of the press
+gallery, into which an unarmed but clamorous crowd had forced its way. I
+was more struck by the cries that issued at intervals from there than by
+all else that occurred during the sitting.
+
+Fifty years had passed since the last scene of this kind. Since the time
+of the Convention, the galleries had been silent, and the silence of the
+galleries had become part of our parliamentary customs. However, if the
+Chamber at this moment already felt embarrassed in its actions, it was
+not as yet in any way constrained; the deputies were in considerable
+numbers, though the party leaders were still absent. I heard enquiries
+on every side for M. Thiers and M. Barrot; I did not know what had
+become of M. Thiers, but I knew only too well what M. Barrot was doing.
+I hurriedly sent one of our friends to tell him of what was happening,
+and he came running up with all speed. I can answer for that man that
+his soul never knew fear.
+
+After for a moment watching this extraordinary sitting, I had hastened
+to take my usual seat on the upper benches of the Left Centre: it has
+always been my contention that at critical moments one should not only
+be present in the assembly of which one is a member, but occupy the
+place where one is generally to be found.
+
+A sort of confused and turbulent discussion had been opened: I heard M.
+Lacrosse, who since became my colleague in office, cry amid the uproar:
+
+"M. Dupin wishes to speak!"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"No," replied M. Dupin, "I made no such request."
+
+"No matter," came from every side; "speak, speak!"
+
+Thus urged, M. Dupin ascended the tribune, and proposed in two words
+that they should return to the law of 1842, and proclaim the Duchesse
+d'Orléans Regent. This was received with applause in the Assembly,
+exclamations in the gallery, and murmurs in the lobbies. The lobbies,
+which at first were pretty clear, began to grow crowded in an alarming
+manner. The people did not yet come into the Chamber in streams, but
+entered little by little, one by one; each moment there appeared a new
+face; the Chamber grew flooded as it were by drops. Most of the
+new-comers belonged to the lowest classes; many of them were armed.
+
+I witnessed this growing invasion from a distance, and I felt the danger
+momentarily increase with it. I cast my eyes round the Chamber in search
+of the man best able to resist the torrent; I saw only Lamartine, who
+had the necessary position and the requisite capacity to make the
+attempt; I remembered that in 1842 he was the only one who proposed the
+regency of the Duchesse d'Orléans. On the other hand, his recent
+speeches, and especially his recent writings, had obtained for him the
+favour of the people. His talent, moreover, was of a kind that appeals
+to the popular taste. I was not aware that, half an hour before, he had
+been extolling the Republic to an assemblage of journalists and deputies
+in one of the offices of the Chamber. I saw him standing by his bench. I
+elbowed my way to him, and, when I reached him:
+
+"We shall be lost," I whispered, hurriedly: "you alone can make yourself
+heard at this supreme moment; go to the tribune and speak."
+
+I can see him still, as I write these lines, so struck was I with his
+appearance. I see his long, straight, slender figure, his eye turned
+towards the semi-circle, his fixed and vacant gaze absorbed in inward
+contemplation rather than in observing what was passing around him. When
+he heard me speak, he did not turn towards me, but only stretched out
+his arm towards the place where the Princes stood, and, replying to his
+own thought rather than to mine, said:
+
+"I shall not speak so long as that woman and that child remain where
+they are."
+
+I said no more; I had heard enough. Returning to my bench, I passed by
+the Right Centre, near where Lanjuinais and Billault were sitting, and
+asked, "Can you suggest nothing that we could do?" They mournfully shook
+their heads, and I continued on my way.
+
+Meantime, the crowd had accumulated to such an extent in the
+semi-circle, that the Princes ran the risk of being crushed or
+suffocated at any moment.
+
+The President made vain efforts to clear the House; failing in his
+endeavours, he begged the Duchesse d'Orléans to withdraw. The courageous
+Princess refused, whereupon her friends, with great difficulty,
+extricated her from the throng, and made her climb to the top bench of
+the Left Centre, where she sat down with her son and the Duc de Nemours.
+
+Marie and Crémieux had just, amid the silence of the deputies and the
+acclamations of the people, proposed the establishment of a provisional
+government, when Barrot at last appeared. He was out of breath, but not
+alarmed. Climbing the stairs of the tribune:
+
+"Our duty lies before us," he said; "the Crown of July lies on the head
+of a child and a woman."
+
+The Chamber, recovering its courage, plucked up heart to burst into
+acclamations, and the people in their turn were silent. The Duchesse
+d'Orléans rose from her seat, seemed to wish to speak, hesitated,
+listened to timid counsels, and sat down again: the last glimmer of her
+fortune had gone out. Barrot finished his speech without renewing the
+impression of his opening words; nevertheless, the Chamber had gathered
+strength, and the people wavered.
+
+At that moment, the crowd filling the semi-circle was driven back, by a
+stream from outside, towards the centre benches, which were already
+almost deserted; it burst and spread over the benches. Of the few
+deputies who still occupied them, some slipped away and left the House,
+while others retreated from bench to bench, like victims surprised by
+the tide, who retreat from rock to rock always pursued by the rising
+waters. All this commotion was produced by two troops of men, for the
+most part armed, which marched through the two lobbies, each with
+officers of the National Guards and flags at its head. The two officers
+who carried the flags, of whom one, a swaggering individual, was, as I
+heard later, a half-pay colonel called Dumoulin, ascended the tribune
+with a theatrical air, waved their standards, and with much skipping
+about and great melodramatic gestures, bawled out some revolutionary
+balderdash or other. The President declared the sitting suspended, and
+proceeded to put on his hat, as is customary; but, since he had the
+knack of making himself ridiculous in the most tragic situations, in his
+precipitation he seized the hat of a secretary instead of his own, and
+pulled it down over his eyes and ears.
+
+Sittings of this sort, as may be believed, are not easily suspended, and
+the President's attempts only succeeded in adding to the disorder.
+
+Thenceforth there was nothing but one continuous uproar, broken by
+occasional moments of silence. The speakers appeared in the tribune in
+groups: Crémieux, Ledru-Rollin, and Lamartine sprang into it at the same
+time. Ledru-Rollin drove Crémieux out, and himself held on with his two
+great hands, while Lamartine, without leaving or struggling, waited for
+his colleague to finish speaking. Ledru-Rollin began incoherently,
+interrupted every instant by the impatience of his own friends. "Finish!
+finish!" cried Berryer, more experienced than he, and warier in his
+dynastic ill-will than was the other in his republican passion.
+Ledru-Rollin ended by demanding the appointment of a provisional
+government and descended the stair.
+
+Then Lamartine stepped forward and obtained silence. He commenced with a
+splendid eulogium on the courage of the Duchesse d'Orléans, and the
+people themselves, sensible, as always, to generous sentiments wrapped
+up in fine phrases, applauded. The deputies breathed again. "Wait," said
+I to my neighbours, "this is only the exordium." And in fact, before
+long, Lamartine tacked round and proceeded straight in the same
+direction as Ledru-Rollin.
+
+Until then, as I said, all the galleries except the one reserved for the
+press had remained empty and closed; but while Lamartine was speaking,
+loud blows were heard at the door of one of them, and yielding to the
+strain, the door burst into atoms. In a moment the gallery was invaded
+by an armed mob of men, who noisily filled it and soon afterwards all
+the others. A man of the lower orders, placing one foot on the cornice,
+pointed his gun at the President and the speaker; others seemed to
+level theirs at the assembly. The Duchesse d'Orléans and her son were
+hurried out of the Chamber by some devoted friends and into the corridor
+behind the Chair. The President muttered a few words to the effect that
+the sitting was adjourned, and stepped, or rather slid, off the platform
+on which the chair was placed. I saw him passing before my eyes like a
+shapeless mass: never would I have believed that fear could have
+inspired with such activity, or rather, suddenly reduced to a sort of
+fluidity, so huge a body. All who had remained of the Conservative
+members then dispersed, and the populace sprawled over the centre
+benches, crying, "Let us take the place of the corrupt crew!"
+
+During all the turbulent scenes which I have just described, I remained
+motionless in my seat, very attentive, but not greatly excited; and now,
+when I ask myself why I felt no keener emotion in presence of an event
+bound to exercise so great an influence upon the destinies of France and
+upon my own, I find that the form assumed by this great occurrence did
+much to diminish the impression it made upon me.
+
+In the course of the Revolution of February, I was present at two or
+three scenes which possessed the elements of grandeur (I shall have
+occasion to describe them in their turn); but this scene lacked them
+entirely, for the reason that there was nothing genuine in it. We
+French, especially in Paris, are prone to introduce our literary or
+theatrical reminiscences into our most serious demonstrations; this
+often gives rise to the belief that the sentiments we express are not
+genuine, whereas they are only clumsily adorned. In this case the
+imitation was so evident that the terrible originality of the facts
+remained concealed beneath it. It was a time when every imagination was
+besmeared with the crude colours with which Lamartine had been daubing
+his _Girondins_. The men of the first Revolution were living in every
+mind, their deeds and words present to every memory. All that I saw that
+day bore the visible impress of those recollections; it seemed to me
+throughout as though they were engaged in acting the French Revolution,
+rather than continuing it.
+
+Despite the presence of drawn swords, bayonets and muskets, I was unable
+to persuade myself for a single instant not only that I was in danger of
+death, but that anybody was, and I honestly believe that no one really
+was. Bloodthirsty hatreds only showed themselves later: they had not yet
+had the time to spring up; the special spirit which was to characterize
+the Revolution of February did not yet manifest itself. Meantime, men
+were fruitlessly endeavouring to warm themselves at the fire of our
+fathers' passions, imitating their gestures and attitudes as they had
+seen them represented on the stage, but unable to imitate their
+enthusiasm or to be inflamed with their fury. It was the tradition of
+violent deeds that was being imitated by cold hearts, which understood
+not the spirit of it. Although I clearly saw that the catastrophe of the
+piece would be a terrible one, I was never able to take the actors very
+seriously, and the whole seemed to me like a bad tragedy performed by
+provincial actors.
+
+I confess that what moved me most that day was the sight of that woman
+and child, who were made to bear the whole weight of faults that they
+had not committed. I frequently looked with compassion towards that
+foreign Princess, thrown into the midst of our civil discords; and when
+she had fled, the remembrance of the sweet, sad, firm glances which I
+had seen her cast upon the Assembly during that long agony came back so
+vividly to my memory, I felt so touched with pity when I thought of the
+perils attending her flight that, suddenly springing from my seat, I
+rushed in the direction which my knowledge of the building led me to
+believe that she and her son would have taken to seek a place of safety.
+In a moment I made my way through the crowd, crossed the floor, passed
+out through the cloak-room, and reached the private staircase which
+leads from the entrance in the Rue de Bourgogne to the upper floor of
+the Palace. A messenger whom I questioned as I ran past him told me that
+I was on the track of the Royal party; and, indeed, I heard several
+persons hurriedly mounting the upper portion of the stairs. I therefore
+continued my pursuit, and reached a landing; the steps which preceded
+me had just ceased. Finding a closed door in front of me, I knocked at
+it, but it was not opened. If princes were like God, who reads our
+hearts and accepts the intention for the deed, assuredly these would be
+pleased with me for what I wished to do that day; but they will never
+know, for no one saw me and I told no one.
+
+I returned to the House and resumed my seat. Almost all the members had
+left; the benches were occupied by men of the populace. Lamartine was
+still in the tribune between the two banners, continuing to address the
+crowd, or rather conversing with them; for there seemed to be almost as
+many orators as listeners. The confusion was at its height. In a moment
+of semi-silence, Lamartine began to read out a list containing the names
+of the different people proposed by I don't know whom to take share in
+the Provisional Government that had just been decreed, nobody knows how.
+Most of these names were accepted with acclamations, some rejected with
+groans, others received with jests, for in scenes in which the people
+take part, as in the plays of Shakspeare, burlesque often rubs shoulders
+with tragedy, and wretched jokes sometimes come to the relief of the
+ardour of revolution. When Garnier-Pagès' name was proposed, I heard a
+voice cry, "You've made a mistake, Lamartine; it's the dead one that's
+the good one;" Garnier-Pagès having had a celebrated brother, to whom he
+bore no resemblance except in name.
+
+M. de Lamartine, I think, was beginning to grow greatly embarrassed at
+his position; for in a rebellion, as in a novel, the most difficult part
+to invent is the end. When, therefore, someone took it into his head to
+cry, "To the Hôtel de Ville!" Lamartine echoed, "Yes, to the Hôtel de
+Ville," and went out forthwith, taking half the crowd with him; the
+others remained with Ledru-Rollin, who, in order, I suppose, to retain a
+leading part for himself, felt called upon in his turn to go through the
+same mock election, after which he too set out for the Hôtel de Ville.
+There the same electoral display was gone through once more; in
+connection with which I cannot refrain from repeating an anecdote which
+I was told, a few months later, by M. Marrast. It interrupts the thread
+of my story a little, but it gives a marvellous picture of two men who
+were both at that moment playing a great part, and shows the difference,
+if not in their opinions, at least in their education and habits of
+thought.
+
+"A list of candidates for the Provisional Government," said Marrast,
+"had hurriedly been drawn up. It had to be read out to the people, and I
+handed it to Lamartine, asking him to read it aloud from the top of the
+steps. 'I can't,' replied Lamartine, after looking at it; 'my name is on
+it.' I then passed it on to Crémieux, who, after reading it, said,
+'You're making fun of me: you're asking me to read out to the people a
+list which has not got my name on it!'"
+
+When I saw Ledru-Rollin leave the House, where remained behind none but
+the sheer dregs of the insurrection, I saw that there was nothing more
+to be done there. I accordingly went away, but as I did not care to find
+myself in the middle of the mob marching towards the Hôtel de Ville, I
+took the opposite direction, and began to go down those steep steps,
+like cellar stairs, which lead to the inner yard of the Palace. I then
+saw coming towards me a column of armed National Guards, ascending the
+same staircase at a run, with set bayonets. In front of them were two
+men in civilian dress, who seemed to be leading them, shouting at the
+top of their voices, "Long live the Duchesse d'Orléans and the Regency!"
+In one I recognized General Oudinot and in the other Andryane, who was
+imprisoned in the Spielberg, and who wrote his Memoirs in imitation of
+those of Silvio Pellico. I saw no one else, and nothing could prove more
+clearly how difficult it is for the public ever to learn the truth of
+events happening amid the tumult of a revolution. I know that a letter
+exists, written by Marshal Bugeaud, in which he relates that he
+succeeded in getting together a few companies of the Tenth Legion,
+inspired them in favour of the Duchesse d'Orléans, and led them at the
+double through the yard of the Palais Bourbon and to the door of the
+Chamber, which he found empty. The story is true, but for the presence
+of the marshal, whom I should most certainly have seen had he been
+there; but there was no one, I repeat, except General Oudinot and M.
+Andryane. The latter, seeing me standing still and saying nothing, took
+me sharply by the arm, exclaiming:
+
+"Monsieur, you must join us, to help to free Madame la Duchesse
+d'Orléans and save the Monarchy."
+
+"Monsieur," I replied, "your intention is good, but you are too late:
+the Duchesse d'Orléans has disappeared, and the Chamber has risen."
+
+Now, where was the spirited defender of the Monarchy that evening? The
+incident is worthy of being told and noted among the many incidents of
+versatility with which the history of revolutions abounds.
+
+M. Andryane was in the office of M. Ledru-Rollin, officiating in the
+name of the Republic as general secretary to the Ministry of the
+Interior.
+
+To return to the column which he was leading: I joined it, although I
+had no longer any hope of success for its efforts. Mechanically obeying
+the impulse communicated to it, it proceeded as far as the doors of the
+Chamber. There the men who composed it learnt what had taken place; they
+turned about for a moment, and then dispersed in every direction. Half
+an hour earlier, this handful of National Guards might (as on the
+ensuing 15th of May) have changed the fortunes of France. I allowed this
+new crowd to pass by me, and then, alone and very pensive, I resumed my
+road home, not without casting a last look on the Chamber, now silent
+and deserted, in which, during nine years, I had listened to the sound
+of so many eloquent and futile words.
+
+M. Billault, who had left the Chamber a few minutes before me by the
+entrance in the Rue de Bourgogne, told me that he met M. Barrot in this
+street.
+
+"He was walking," he said, "at a rapid rate, without perceiving that he
+was hatless, and that his grey hair, which he generally carefully
+brushed back along his temples, was falling on either side and
+fluttering in disorder over his shoulders; he seemed beside himself."
+
+This man had made heroic efforts all day long to maintain the Monarchy
+on the declivity down which he himself had pushed it, and he remained as
+though crushed beneath its fall. I learned from Beaumont, who had not
+left him during any part of the day, that in the morning M. Barrot faced
+and mounted twenty barricades, walking up to each unarmed, meeting
+sometimes with insults, often with shots, and always ending by
+overcoming with his words those who guarded them. His words, in fact,
+were all-powerful with the multitude. He had all that was wanted to act
+upon them at a given moment: a strong voice, an inflated eloquence, and
+a fearless heart.
+
+While M. Barrot, in disorder, was leaving the Chamber, M. Thiers, still
+more distraught, wandered round Paris, not daring to venture home. He
+was seen for an instant at the Assembly before the arrival of the
+Duchesse d'Orléans, but disappeared at once, giving the signal for the
+retreat of many others. The next morning, I learnt the details of his
+flight through M. Talabot, who had assisted in it. I was connected with
+M. Talabot by fairly intimate party ties, and M. Thiers, I believe, by
+former business relations. M. Talabot was a man full of mental vigour
+and resolution, very fit for an emergency of that kind. He told me as
+follows--I believe I have neither omitted nor added anything:
+
+"It seems," he said, "that M. Thiers, when crossing the Place Louis XV,
+had been insulted and threatened by some of the populace. He was greatly
+excited and upset when I saw him enter the House; he came up to me, led
+me aside, and told me that he would be murdered by the mob if I did not
+assist him to escape. I took him by the arm and begged him to go with me
+and fear nothing. M. Thiers wished to avoid the Pont Louis XVI, for fear
+of meeting the crowd. We went to the Pont des Invalides, but when we got
+there, he thought he saw a gathering on the other side of the river, and
+again refused to cross. We then made for the Pont d'Iéna, which was
+free, and crossed it without any difficulty. When we reached the other
+side, M. Thiers discovered some street-boys, shouting, on the
+foundations of what was to have been the palace of the King of Rome, and
+forthwith turned down the Rue d'Auteuil and made for the Bois de
+Boulogne. There we had the good luck to find a cabman, who consented to
+drive us along the outer boulevards to the neighbourhood of the
+Barrière de Clichy, through which we were able to reach his house.
+During the whole journey," added M. Talabot, "and especially at the
+start, M. Thiers seemed almost out of his senses, gesticulating,
+sobbing, uttering incoherent phrases. The catastrophe he had just
+beheld, the future of his country, his own personal danger, all
+contributed to form a chaos amid which his thoughts struggled and
+strayed unceasingly."
+
+
+
+
+PART THE SECOND
+
+
+
+
+ _Everything contained in this note-book (Chapters I. to XI.
+ inclusive) was written in stray moments at Sorrento, in November
+ and December 1850, and January, February, and March 1851._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ MY EXPLANATION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY, AND MY VIEWS AS TO ITS
+ EFFECTS UPON THE FUTURE.
+
+
+And so the Monarchy of July was fallen, fallen without a struggle, and
+before rather than beneath the blows of the victors, who were as
+astonished at their triumph as were the vanquished at their defeat. I
+have often, since the Revolution of February, heard M. Guizot and even
+M. Molé and M. Thiers declare that this event should only be attributed
+to a surprise and regarded as a mere accident, a bold and lucky stroke
+and nothing more. I have always felt tempted to answer them in the words
+which Molière's Misanthrope uses to Oronte:
+
+ Pour en juger ainsi, vous avez vos raisons;
+
+for these three men had conducted the affairs of France, under the
+guidance of King Louis-Philippe, during eighteen years, and it was
+difficult for them to admit that it was the King's bad government which
+had prepared the catastrophe which hurled him from the Throne.
+
+As for me, I have not the same motives for forming an opinion, and I
+could hardly persuade myself to be of theirs. I am not prepared to say
+that accidents played no part in the Revolution of February: on the
+contrary, they played a great one; but they were not the only thing.
+
+I have come across men of letters, who have written history without
+taking part in public affairs, and politicians, who have only concerned
+themselves with producing events without thinking of describing them. I
+have observed that the first are always inclined to find general causes,
+whereas the others, living in the midst of disconnected daily facts, are
+prone to imagine that everything is attributable to particular
+incidents, and that the wires which they pull are the same that move the
+world. It is to be presumed that both are equally deceived.
+
+For my part, I detest these absolute systems, which represent all the
+events of history as depending upon great first causes linked by the
+chain of fatality, and which, as it were, suppress men from the history
+of the human race. They seem narrow, to my mind, under their pretence of
+broadness, and false beneath their air of mathematical exactness. I
+believe (_pace_ the writers who have invented these sublime theories in
+order to feed their vanity and facilitate their work) that many
+important historical facts can only be explained by accidental
+circumstances, and that many others remain totally inexplicable.
+Moreover, chance, or rather that tangle of secondary causes which we
+call chance, for want of the knowledge how to unravel it, plays a great
+part in all that happens on the world's stage; although I firmly believe
+that chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
+Antecedent facts, the nature of institutions, the cast of minds and the
+state of morals are the materials of which are composed those impromptus
+which astonish and alarm us.
+
+The Revolution of February, in common with all other great events of
+this class, sprang from general causes, impregnated, if I am permitted
+the expression, by accidents; and it would be as superficial a judgment
+to ascribe it necessarily to the former or exclusively to the latter.
+
+The industrial revolution which, during the past thirty years, had
+turned Paris into the principal manufacturing city of France and
+attracted within its walls an entire new population of workmen (to whom
+the works of the fortifications had added another population of
+labourers at present deprived of work) tended more and more to inflame
+this multitude. Add to this the democratic disease of envy, which was
+silently permeating it; the economical and political theories which were
+beginning to make their way and which strove to prove that human misery
+was the work of laws and not of Providence, and that poverty could be
+suppressed by changing the conditions of society; the contempt into
+which the governing class, and especially the men who led it, had
+fallen, a contempt so general and so profound that it paralyzed the
+resistance even of those who were most interested in maintaining the
+power that was being overthrown; the centralization which reduced the
+whole revolutionary movement to the overmastering of Paris and the
+seizing of the machinery of government; and lastly, the mobility of all
+things, institutions, ideas, men and customs, in a fluctuating state of
+society which had, in less than sixty years, undergone the shock of
+seven great revolutions, without numbering a multitude of smaller,
+secondary upheavals. These were the general causes without which the
+Revolution of February would have been impossible. The principal
+accidents which led to it were the passions of the dynastic Opposition,
+which brought about a riot in proposing a reform; the suppression of
+this riot, first over-violent, and then abandoned; the sudden
+disappearance of the old Ministry, unexpectedly snapping the threads of
+power, which the new ministers, in their confusion, were unable either
+to seize upon or to reunite; the mistakes and disorder of mind of these
+ministers, so powerless to re-establish that which they had been strong
+enough to overthrow; the vacillation of the generals; the absence of the
+only Princes who possessed either personal energy or popularity; and
+above all, the senile imbecility of King Louis-Philippe, his weakness,
+which no one could have foreseen, and which still remains almost
+incredible, after the event has proved it.
+
+I have sometimes asked myself what could have produced this sudden and
+unprecedented depression in the King's mind. Louis-Philippe had spent
+his life in the midst of revolutions, and certainly lacked neither
+experience, courage, nor readiness of mind, although these qualities all
+failed him so completely on that day. In my opinion, his weakness was
+due to his excessive surprise; he was overwhelmed with consternation
+before he had grasped the meaning of things. The Revolution of February
+was _unforeseen_ by all, but by him more than any other; he had been
+prepared for it by no warning from the outside, for since many years his
+mind had withdrawn into that sort of haughty solitude into which in the
+end the intellect almost always settles down of princes who have long
+lived happily, and who, mistaking luck for genius, refuse to listen to
+anything, because they think that there is nothing left for them to
+learn from anybody. Besides, Louis-Philippe had been deceived, as I have
+already said that his ministers were, by the misleading light cast by
+antecedent facts upon present times. One might draw a strange picture of
+all the errors which have thus been begotten, one by the other, without
+resembling each other. We see Charles I. driven to tyranny and violence
+at the sight of the progress which the spirit of opposition had made in
+England during the gentle reign of his father; Louis XVI. determined to
+suffer everything because Charles I. had perished by refusing to endure
+anything; Charles X. provoking the Revolution, because he had with his
+own eyes beheld the weakness of Louis XVI.; and lastly, Louis-Philippe,
+who had more perspicacity than any of them, imagining that, in order to
+remain on the Throne, all he had to do was to observe the letter of the
+law while violating its spirit, and that, provided he himself kept
+within the bounds of the Charter, the nation would never exceed them. To
+warp the spirit of the Constitution without changing the letter; to set
+the vices of the country in opposition to each other; gently to drown
+revolutionary passion in the love of material enjoyment: such was the
+idea of his whole life. Little by little, it had become, not his
+leading, but his sole idea. He had wrapped himself in it, he had lived
+in it; and when he suddenly saw that it was a false idea, he became like
+a man who is awakened in the night by an earthquake, and who, feeling
+his house crumbling in the darkness, and the very ground seeming to yawn
+beneath his feet, remains distracted amid this unforeseen and universal
+ruin.
+
+I am arguing very much at my ease to-day concerning the causes that
+brought about the events of the 24th of February; but on the afternoon
+of that day I had many other things in my head: I was thinking of the
+events themselves, and sought less for what had produced them than for
+what was to follow.
+
+I returned slowly home. I explained in a few words to Madame de
+Tocqueville what I had seen, and sat down in a corner to think. I cannot
+remember ever feeling my soul so full of sadness. It was the second
+revolution I had seen accomplish itself, before my eyes, within
+seventeen years!
+
+On the 30th of July 1830, at daybreak, I had met the carriages of King
+Charles X. on the outer boulevards of Versailles, with damaged
+escutcheons, proceeding at a foot pace, in Indian file, like a funeral,
+and I was unable to restrain my tears at the sight. This time my
+impressions were of another kind, but even keener. Both revolutions had
+afflicted me; but how much more bitter were the impressions caused by
+the last! I had until the end felt a remnant of hereditary affection for
+Charles X.; but that King fell for having violated rights that were dear
+to me, and I had every hope that my country's freedom would be revived
+rather than extinguished by his fall. But now this freedom seemed dead;
+the Princes who were fleeing were nothing to me, but I felt that the
+cause I had at heart was lost.
+
+I had spent the best days of my youth amid a society which seemed to
+increase in greatness and prosperity as it increased in liberty; I had
+conceived the idea of a balanced, regulated liberty, held in check by
+religion, custom and law; the attractions of this liberty had touched
+me; it had become the passion of my life; I felt that I could never be
+consoled for its loss, and that I must renounce all hope of its
+recovery.
+
+I had gained too much experience of mankind to be able to content myself
+with empty words; I knew that, if one great revolution is able to
+establish liberty in a country, a number of succeeding revolutions make
+all regular liberty impossible for very many years.
+
+I could not yet know what would issue from this last revolution, but I
+was already convinced that it could give birth to nothing that would
+satisfy me; and I foresaw that, whatever might be the lot reserved for
+our posterity, our own fate was to drag on our lives miserably amid
+alternate reactions of licence and oppression.
+
+I began to pass in review the history of our last sixty years, and I
+smiled bitterly when I thought of the illusions formed at the conclusion
+of each period in this long revolution; the theories on which these
+illusions had been fed; the sapient dreams of our historians, and all
+the ingenious and deceptive systems by the aid of which it had been
+endeavoured to explain a present which was still incorrectly seen, and a
+future which was not seen at all.
+
+The Constitutional Monarchy had succeeded the Ancien Régime; the
+Republic, the Monarchy; the Empire, the Republic; the Restoration, the
+Empire; and then came the Monarchy of July. After each of these
+successive changes it was said that the French Revolution, having
+accomplished what was presumptuously called its work, was finished; this
+had been said and it had been believed. Alas! I myself had hoped it
+under the Restoration, and again after the fall of the Government of the
+Restoration; and here is the French Revolution beginning over again, for
+it is still the same one. As we go on, its end seems farther off and
+shrouded in greater darkness. Shall we ever--as we are assured by other
+prophets, perhaps as delusive as their predecessors--shall we ever
+attain a more complete and more far-reaching social transformation than
+our fathers foresaw and desired, and than we ourselves are able to
+foresee; or are we not destined simply to end in a condition of
+intermittent anarchy, the well-known chronic and incurable complaint of
+old races? As for me, I am unable to say; I do not know when this long
+voyage will be ended; I am weary of seeing the shore in each successive
+mirage, and I often ask myself whether the _terra firma_ we are seeking
+does really exist, and whether we are not doomed to rove upon the seas
+for ever.
+
+I spent the rest of the day with Ampère, who was my colleague at the
+Institute, and one of my best friends. He came to discover what had
+become of me in the affray, and to ask himself to dinner. I wished at
+first to relieve myself by making him share my vexation; but I soon
+perceived that his impression was not the same as mine, and that he
+looked differently upon the revolution which was in progress. Ampère was
+a man of intelligence and, better still, a man full of heart, gentle in
+manner, and reliable. His good-nature caused him to be liked; and he was
+popular because of his versatile, witty, amusing, good-humoured
+conversation, in which he made many remarks that were at once
+entertaining and agreeable to hear, but too shallow to remember.
+Unfortunately, he was inclined to carry the _esprit_ of the salons into
+literature and the _esprit_ of literature into politics. What I call
+literary _esprit_ in politics consists in seeking for what is novel and
+ingenious rather than for what is true; in preferring the showy to the
+useful; in showing one's self very sensible to the playing and elocution
+of the actors, without regard to the results of the play; and, lastly,
+in judging by impressions rather than reasons. I need not say that this
+eccentricity exists among others besides Academicians. To tell the
+truth, the whole nation is a little inclined that way, and the French
+Public very often takes a man-of-letters' view of politics. Ampère held
+the fallen Government in great contempt, and its last actions had
+irritated him greatly. Moreover, he had witnessed many instances of
+courage, disinterestedness, and even generosity among the insurgents;
+and he had been bitten by the popular excitement.
+
+I saw that he not only did not enter into my view, but that he was
+disposed to take quite an opposite one. Seeing this, I was suddenly
+impelled to turn against Ampère all the feelings of indignation, grief
+and anger that had been accumulating in my heart since the morning; and
+I spoke to him with a violence of language which I have often since
+recalled with a certain shame, and which none but a friendship so
+sincere as his could have excused. I remember saying to him, _inter
+alia_:
+
+"You understand nothing of what is happening; you are judging like a
+poet or a Paris cockney. You call this the triumph of liberty, when it
+is its final defeat. I tell you that the people which you so artlessly
+admire has just succeeded in proving that it is unfit and unworthy to
+live a life of freedom. Show me what experience has taught it! Where are
+the new virtues it has gained, the old vices it has laid aside? No, I
+tell you, it is always the same, as impatient, as thoughtless, as
+contemptuous of law and order, as easily led and as cowardly in the
+presence of danger as its fathers were before it. Time has altered it in
+no way, and has left it as frivolous in serious matters as it used to be
+in trifles."
+
+After much vociferation we both ended by appealing to the future, that
+enlightened and upright judge who always, alas! arrives too late.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ PARIS ON THE MORROW OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY AND THE NEXT DAYS--THE
+ SOCIALISTIC CHARACTER OF THE NEW REVOLUTION.
+
+
+The night passed without accidents, although not until the morning did
+the streets cease to resound with cries and gun-shots; but these were
+sounds of triumph, not of combat. So soon as it was light, I went out to
+observe the appearance of the town, and to discover what had become of
+my two young nephews,[8] who were being educated at the Little Seminary.
+The Little Seminary was in the Rue de Madame, at the back of the
+Luxembourg, so that I had to cross a great part of the town to reach it.
+
+ [8: Hubert and René de Tocqueville.--Cte. de T.]
+
+I found the streets quiet, and even half deserted, as they usually are
+in Paris on a Sunday morning, when the rich are still asleep and the
+poor are resting. From time to time, along the walls, one met the
+victors of the preceding day; but they were filled with wine rather than
+political ardour, and were, for the most part, making for their homes
+without taking heed of the passers-by. A few shops were open, and one
+caught sight of the frightened, but still more astonished, shopkeepers,
+who reminded one of spectators witnessing the end of a play which they
+did not quite understand. What one saw most of in the streets deserted
+by the people, was soldiers; some walking singly, others in little
+groups, all unarmed, and crossing the city on their roads home. The
+defeat these men had just sustained had left a very vivid and lasting
+impression of shame and anger upon them. This was noticed later, but was
+not apparent at the time: the pleasure of finding themselves at liberty
+seemed to absorb every other feeling in these lads; they walked with a
+careless air, with a light and easy gait.
+
+The Little Seminary had not been attacked nor even insulted. My nephews,
+however, were not there; they had been sent home the evening before to
+their maternal grandmother. Accordingly, I turned back, taking the Rue
+du Bac, to find out what had become of Lamoricière, who was then living
+in that street; and it was only after recognizing me that the servants
+admitted that their master was at home, and consented to take me to him.
+
+I found this singular person, whom I shall have occasion to mention more
+than once, stretched upon his bed, and reduced to a state of immobility
+very much opposed to his character or taste. His head was half broken
+open; his arms pierced with bayonet-thrusts; all his limbs bruised and
+powerless. For the rest, he was the same as ever, with his bright
+intelligence and his indomitable heart. He told me of all that happened
+to him the day before, and of the thousand dangers which he had only
+escaped by miracle. I strongly advised him to rest until he was cured,
+and even long after, so as not uselessly to endanger his person and his
+reputation in the chaos about to ensue: good advice, undoubtedly, to
+give to a man so enamoured of action and so accustomed to act that,
+after doing what is necessary and useful, he is always ready to
+undertake the injurious and dangerous, rather than do nothing; but no
+more effective than all those counsels which go against nature.
+
+I spent the whole afternoon in walking about Paris. Two things in
+particular struck me: the first was, I will not say the mainly, but the
+uniquely and exclusively popular character of the revolution that had
+just taken place; the omnipotence it had given to the people properly
+so-called--that is to say, the classes who work with their hands--over
+all others. The second was the comparative absence of malignant passion,
+or, as a matter of fact, of any keen passion--an absence which at once
+made it clear that the lower orders had suddenly become masters of
+Paris.
+
+Although the working classes had often played the leading part in the
+events of the First Revolution, they had never been the sole leaders and
+masters of the State, either _de facto_ or _de jure_; it is doubtful
+whether the Convention contained a single man of the people; it was
+composed of _bourgeois_ and men of letters. The war between the Mountain
+and the Girondists was conducted on both sides by members of the middle
+class, and the triumph of the former never brought power down into the
+hands of the people alone. The Revolution of July was effected by the
+people, but the middle class had stirred it up and led it, and secured
+the principal fruits of it. The Revolution of February, on the contrary,
+seemed to be made entirely outside the _bourgeoisie_ and against it.
+
+In this great concussion, the two parties of which the social body in
+France is mainly composed had, in a way, been thrown more completely
+asunder, and the mass of the people, which had stood alone, remained in
+sole possession of power. Nothing more novel had been known in our
+annals. Similar revolutions had taken place, it is true, in other
+countries and other days; for the history of our own times, however new
+and unexpected it may seem, always belongs at bottom to the old history
+of humanity, and what we call new facts are oftenest nothing more than
+facts forgotten. Florence, in particular, towards the close of the
+middle ages, had presented on a small scale a spectacle analogous to
+ours; the noble classes had first been succeeded by the burgher classes,
+and then one day the latter were, in their turn, expelled from the
+government, and a _gonfalonier_ was seen marching barefoot at the head
+of the people, and thus leading the Republic. But in Florence this
+popular revolution was the result of transient and special causes, while
+with us it was brought about by causes very permanent and of a kind so
+general that, after stirring up France, it was to be expected that it
+would excite all the rest of Europe. This time it was not only a
+question of the triumph of a party; the aim was to establish a social
+science, a philosophy, I might almost say a religion, fit to be learned
+and followed by all mankind. This was the really new portion of the old
+picture.
+
+Throughout this day, I did not see in Paris a single one of the former
+agents of the public authority: not a soldier, not a gendarme, not a
+policeman; the National Guard itself had disappeared. The people alone
+bore arms, guarded the public buildings, watched, gave orders, punished;
+it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see in the sole hands of
+those who possessed nothing all this immense town, so full of riches, or
+rather this great nation: for, thanks to centralization, he who reigns
+in Paris governs France. Hence the affright of all the other classes was
+extreme; I doubt whether at any period of the Revolution it had been so
+great, and I should say that it was only to be compared to that which
+the civilized cities of the Roman Empire must have experienced when they
+suddenly found themselves in the power of the Goths and Vandals. As
+nothing like this had ever been seen before, many people expected acts
+of unexampled violence. For my part I did not once partake of these
+fears. What I saw led me to predict strange disturbances in the near
+future--singular crises. But I never believed that the rich would be
+pillaged; I knew the men of the people in Paris too well not to know
+that their first movements in times of revolution are usually generous,
+and that they are best pleased to spend the days immediately following
+their triumph in boasting of their victory, laying down the law, and
+playing at being great men. During that time it generally happens that
+some government or other is set up, the police returns to its post, and
+the judge to his bench; and when at last our great men consent to step
+down to the better known and more vulgar ground of petty and malicious
+human passion, they are no longer able to do so, and are reduced to live
+simply like honest men. Besides, we have spent so many years in
+insurrections that there has arisen among us a kind of morality peculiar
+to times of disorder, and a special code for days of rebellion.
+According to these exceptional laws, murder is tolerated and havoc
+permitted, but theft is strenuously forbidden; although this, whatever
+one may say, does not prevent a good deal of robbery from occurring upon
+those days, for the simple reason that society in a state of rebellion
+cannot be different from that at any other time, and it will always
+contain a number of rascals who, as far as they are concerned, scorn the
+morality of the main body, and despise its point of honour when they are
+unobserved. What reassured me still more was the reflection that the
+victors had been as much surprised by success as their adversaries were
+by defeat: their passions had not had time to take fire and become
+intensified in the struggle; the Government had fallen undefended by
+others, or even by itself. It had long been attacked, or at least keenly
+censured, by the very men who at heart most deeply regretted its fall.
+
+For a year past the dynastic Opposition and the republican Opposition
+had been living in fallacious intimacy, acting in the same way from
+different motives. The misunderstanding which had facilitated the
+revolution tended to mitigate its after effects. Now that the Monarchy
+had disappeared, the battle-field seemed empty; the people no longer
+clearly saw what enemies remained for them to pursue and strike down;
+the former objects of their anger, themselves, were no longer there; the
+clergy had never been completely reconciled to the new dynasty, and
+witnessed its ruin without regret; the old nobility were delighted at
+it, whatever the ultimate consequences might be: the first had suffered
+through the system of intolerance of the middle classes, the second
+through their pride: both either despised or feared their government.
+
+For the first time in sixty years, the priests, the old aristocracy and
+the people met in a common sentiment--a feeling of revenge, it is true,
+and not of affection; but even that is a great thing in politics, where
+a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
+The real, the only vanquished were the middle class; but even this had
+little to fear. Its reign had been exclusive rather than oppressive;
+corrupt, but not violent; it was despised rather than hated. Moreover,
+the middle class never forms a compact body in the heart of the nation,
+a part very distinct from the whole; it always participates a little
+with all the others, and in some places merges into them. This absence
+of homogeneity and of exact limits makes the government of the middle
+class weak and uncertain, but it also makes it intangible, and, as it
+were, invisible to those who desire to strike it when it is no longer
+governing.
+
+From all these united causes proceeded that languor of the people which
+had struck me as much as its omnipotence, a languor which was the more
+discernible, in that it contrasted strangely with the turgid energy of
+the language used and the terrible recollections which it evoked. The
+lukewarm passions of the time were made to speak in the bombastic
+periods of '93, and one heard cited at every moment the name and example
+of the illustrious ruffians whom no one possessed either the energy or
+even a sincere desire to resemble.
+
+It was the Socialistic theories which I have already described as the
+philosophy of the Revolution of February that later kindled genuine
+passion, embittered jealousy, and ended by stirring up war between the
+classes. If the actions at the commencement were less disorderly than
+might have been feared, on the very morrow of the Revolution there was
+displayed an extraordinary agitation, an unequalled disorder, in the
+ideas of the people.
+
+From the 25th of February onwards, a thousand strange systems came
+issuing pell-mell from the minds of innovators, and spread among the
+troubled minds of the crowd. Everything still remained standing except
+Royalty and Parliament; yet it seemed as though the shock of the
+Revolution had reduced society itself to dust, and as though a
+competition had been opened for the new form that was to be given to the
+edifice about to be erected in its place. Everyone came forward with a
+plan of his own: this one printed it in the papers, that other on the
+placards with which the walls were soon covered, a third proclaimed his
+loud-mouthed in the open air. One aimed at destroying inequality of
+fortune, another inequality of education, a third undertook to do away
+with the oldest of all inequalities, that between man and woman.
+Specifics were offered against poverty, and remedies for the disease of
+work which has tortured humanity since the first days of its existence.
+
+These theories were of very varied natures, often opposed and sometimes
+hostile to one another; but all of them, aiming lower than the
+government and striving to reach society itself, on which government
+rests, adopted the common name of Socialism.
+
+Socialism will always remain the essential characteristic and the most
+redoubtable remembrance of the Revolution of February. The Republic
+will only appear to the on-looker to have come upon the scene as a
+means, not as an end.
+
+It does not come within the scope of these Recollections that I should
+seek for the causes which gave a socialistic character to the Revolution
+of February, and I will content myself with saying that the discovery of
+this new facet of the French Revolution was not of a nature to cause so
+great surprise as it did. Had it not long been perceived that the people
+had continually been improving and raising its condition, that its
+importance, its education, its desires, its power had been constantly
+increasing? Its prosperity had also grown greater, but less rapidly, and
+was approaching the limit which it hardly ever passes in old societies,
+where there are many men and but few places. How should the poor and
+humbler and yet powerful classes not have dreamt of issuing from their
+poverty and inferiority by means of their power, especially in an epoch
+when our view into another world has become dimmer, and the miseries of
+this world become more visible and seem more intolerable? They had been
+working to this end for the last sixty years. The people had first
+endeavoured to help itself by changing every political institution, but
+after each change it found that its lot was in no way improved, or was
+only improving with a slowness quite incompatible with the eagerness of
+its desire. Inevitably, it must sooner or later discover that that which
+held it fixed in its position was not the constitution of the
+government but the unalterable laws that constitute society itself; and
+it was natural that it should be brought to ask itself if it had not
+both the power and the right to alter those laws, as it had altered all
+the rest. And to speak more specially of property, which is, as it were,
+the foundation of our social order--all the privileges which covered it
+and which, so to speak, concealed the privilege of property having been
+destroyed, and the latter remaining the principal obstacle to equality
+among men, and appearing to be the only sign of inequality--was it not
+necessary, I will not say that it should be abolished in its turn, but
+at least that the thought of abolishing it should occur to the minds of
+those who did not enjoy it?
+
+This natural restlessness in the minds of the people, this inevitable
+perturbation of its thoughts and its desires, these needs, these
+instincts of the crowd formed in a certain sense the fabric upon which
+the political innovators embroidered so many monstrous and grotesque
+figures. Their work may be regarded as ludicrous, but the material on
+which they worked is the most serious that it is possible for
+philosophers and statesmen to contemplate.
+
+Will Socialism remain buried in the disdain with which the Socialists of
+1848 are so justly covered? I put the question without making any reply.
+I do not doubt that the laws concerning the constitution of our modern
+society will in the long run undergo modification: they have already
+done so in many of their principal parts. But will they ever be
+destroyed and replaced by others? It seems to me to be impracticable. I
+say no more, because--the more I study the former condition of the world
+and see the world of our own day in greater detail, the more I consider
+the prodigious variety to be met with not only in laws, but in the
+principles of law, and the different forms even now taken and retained,
+whatever one may say, by the rights of property on this earth--the more
+I am tempted to believe that what we call necessary institutions are
+often no more than institutions to which we have grown accustomed, and
+that in matters of social constitution the field of possibilities is
+much more extensive than men living in their various societies are ready
+to imagine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ VACILLATION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE OLD PARLIAMENT AS TO THE ATTITUDE
+ THEY SHOULD ADOPT--MY OWN REFLECTIONS ON MY MODE OF ACTION, AND MY
+ RESOLVES.
+
+
+During the days immediately following upon the 24th of February, I
+neither went in search of nor fell in with any of the politicians from
+whom the events of that day had separated me. I felt no necessity nor,
+to tell the truth, any inclination to do so. I felt a sort of
+instinctive repugnance to remembering this wretched parliamentary world,
+in which I had spent six years of my life, and in whose midst I had seen
+the Revolution sprouting up.
+
+Moreover, at that time I saw the great vanity of any sort of political
+conversation or combination. However feeble the reasons may have been
+which first imparted the movement to the mob, that movement had now
+become irresistible. I felt that we were all in the midst of one of
+those great floods of democracy in which the embankments, intended to
+resist individuals and even parties, only serve to drown those who build
+them, and in which, for a time, there is nothing to be done but to study
+the general character of the phenomenon. I therefore spent all my time
+in the streets with the victors, as though I had been a worshipper of
+fortune. True, I paid no homage to the new sovereign, and asked no
+favours of it. I did not even address it, but contented myself with
+listening to and observing it.
+
+Nevertheless, after the lapse of some days, I resumed relations with the
+vanquished: I once more met ex-deputies, ex-peers, men of letters, men
+of business and finance, land-owners, all who in the language of the
+moment were commencing to be known as the idle. I found that the aspect
+of the Revolution was no less extraordinary when thus seen from above
+than it had seemed to me when, at the commencement, I viewed it from
+below. I encountered much fear, but as little genuine passion as I had
+seen in other quarters; a curious feeling of resignation, no vestige of
+hope, and I should almost say no idea of ever returning to the
+Government which they had only just left. Although the Revolution of
+February was the shortest and the least bloody of all our revolutions,
+it had filled men's minds and hearts with the idea of its omnipotence to
+a much greater extent than any of its predecessors. I believe this was,
+to a great extent, due to the fact that these minds and hearts were void
+of political faith and ardour, and that, after so many disappointments
+and vain agitations, they retained nothing but a taste for comfort--a
+very tenacious and very exclusive, but also a very agreeable feeling,
+which easily accommodates itself to any form of government, provided it
+be allowed to satisfy itself.
+
+I beheld, therefore, an universal endeavour to make the best of the new
+state of things and to win over the new master. The great landlords
+were glad to remember that they had always been hostile to the middle
+class and always favoured the people; the _bourgeois_ themselves
+remembered with a certain pride that their fathers had been working men,
+and when they were unable, owing to the inevitable obscurity of their
+pedigrees, to trace back their descent to a labourer who had worked with
+his hands, they at least strove to discover a plebeian ancestor who had
+been the architect of his own fortune. They took as great pains to make
+a display of the latter as, not long before, they would have taken to
+conceal his existence: so true is it that human vanity, without changing
+its nature, can show itself under the most diverse aspects. It has an
+obverse and a reverse side, but it is always the same medal.
+
+As there was no longer any genuine feeling left save that of fear, far
+from breaking with those of his relations who had thrown themselves into
+the Revolution, each strove to draw closer to them. The time had come to
+try and turn to account any scapegrace whom one had in one's family. If
+good luck would have it that one had a cousin, a brother, or a son who
+had become ruined by his disorderly life, one could be sure that he was
+in a fair way to succeed; and if he had become known by the promulgation
+of some extravagant theory or other, he might hope to attain to any
+height. Most of the commissaries and under-commissaries of the
+Government were men of this type.
+
+As to King Louis-Philippe, there was no more question of him than if he
+had belonged to the Merovingian Dynasty. Nothing struck me more than the
+absolute silence that had suddenly surrounded his name. I did not hear
+it pronounced a single time, so to speak, either by the people or by the
+upper class. Those of his former courtiers whom I saw did not speak of
+him, and I honestly believe they did not think of him. The Revolution
+had so completely turned their thoughts in another direction, that they
+had forgotten their Sovereign. I may be told that this is the ordinary
+fate of fallen kings; but what seems more worthy of remark, his enemies
+even had forgotten him: they no longer feared him enough to slander him,
+perhaps even to hate him, which is one of fortune's greatest, or at
+least rarest, insults.
+
+I do not wish to write the history of the Revolution of 1848, I only
+wish to retrace my own actions, ideas, and impressions during the course
+of this revolution; and I therefore pass over the events that took place
+during the weeks immediately following the 24th of February, and come to
+the period preceding the General Election.
+
+The time had come to decide whether one cared merely to watch the
+progress of this singular revolution or to take part in events. I found
+the former party leaders divided among themselves; and each of them,
+moreover, seemed divided also within himself, to judge by the
+incoherence of the language used and the vacillation of opinion. These
+politicians, who had almost all been trained to public business amid the
+regulated, restrained movement of constitutional liberty, and upon whom
+a great revolution had unexpectedly come, were like river oarsmen who
+should suddenly find themselves called upon to navigate their boat in
+mid-ocean. The knowledge they had acquired in their fresh water trips
+would be of more trouble than assistance to them in this greater
+adventure, and they would often display more confusion and uncertainty
+than the passengers themselves.
+
+M. Thiers frequently expressed the opinion that they should go to the
+poll and get elected, and as frequently urged that it would be wiser to
+stand aside. I do not know whether his hesitation arose from his dread
+of the dangers that might follow upon the election, or his fear lest he
+should not be elected. Rémusat, who always sees so clearly what might,
+and so dimly what should be done, set forth the good reasons that
+existed for staying at home, and the no less good reasons for going to
+the country. Duvergier was distracted. The Revolution had overthrown the
+system of the balance of power in which his mind had sat motionless
+during so many years, and he felt as though he were hung up in mid-air.
+As for the Duc de Broglie, he had not put his head out of his shell
+since the 24th of February, and in this attitude he awaited the end of
+society, which in his opinion was close at hand. M. Molé alone,
+although he was by far the oldest of all the former parliamentary
+leaders, and possibly for that very reason, resolutely maintained the
+opinion that they should take part in public affairs and try to lead the
+Revolution; perhaps because his longer experience had taught him that in
+troubled times it is dangerous to play the looker-on; perhaps because
+the hope of again having something to lead cheered him and hid from him
+the danger of the undertaking; or perhaps because, after being so often
+bent in contrary directions, under so many different _régimes_, his mind
+had become firmer as well as more supple and more indifferent as to the
+kind of master it might serve. On my side, as may be imagined, I very
+attentively considered which was the best resolution to adopt.
+
+I should like here to inquire into the reasons which determined my
+course of action, and having found them, to set them down without
+evasion: but how difficult it is to speak well of one's self! I have
+observed that the greater part of those who have written their Memoirs
+have only well shown us their bad actions or their weaknesses when they
+happened to have taken them for deeds of prowess or fine instincts, a
+thing which often occurs. As in the case of the Cardinal de Retz, who,
+in order to be credited with what he considers the glory of being a good
+conspirator, confesses his schemes for assassinating Richelieu, and
+tells us of his hypocritical devotions and charities lest he should fail
+to be taken for a clever man. In such cases it is not the love of truth
+that guides the pen, but the warped mind which involuntarily betrays the
+vices of the heart.
+
+And even when one wishes to be sincere, it is very rarely that one
+succeeds in the endeavour. The fault lies, in the first place, with the
+public, which likes to see one accuse, but will not suffer him to
+praise, himself; even one's friends are wont to describe as amiable
+candour all the harm, and as unbecoming vanity all the good, that he
+says of himself: so that at this rate sincerity becomes a very thankless
+trade, by which one has everything to lose and nothing to gain. But the
+difficulty, above all, lies with the subject himself: he is too close to
+himself to see well, and prone to lose himself amid the views,
+interests, ideas, thoughts and inclinations that have guided his
+actions. This net-work of little foot-paths, which are little known even
+by those who use them, prevent one from clearly discerning the main
+roads followed by the will before arriving at the most important
+conclusions.
+
+Nevertheless, I will try to discover myself amid this labyrinth, for it
+is only right that I should take the same liberties with myself which I
+have taken, and shall often continue to take, with others.
+
+Let me say, then, that when I came to search carefully into the depths
+of my own heart, I discovered, with some surprise, a certain sense of
+relief, a sort of gladness mingled with all the griefs and fears to
+which the Revolution had given rise. I suffered from this terrible
+event for my country, but clearly not for myself; on the contrary, I
+seemed to breathe more freely than before the catastrophe. I had always
+felt myself stifled in the atmosphere of the parliamentary world which
+had just been destroyed: I had found it full of disappointments, both
+where others and where I myself was concerned; and to commence with the
+latter, I was not long in discovering that I did not possess the
+necessary qualifications to play the brilliant rôle that I had imagined:
+both my qualities and my defects were impediments. I had not the virtues
+necessary to command respect, and I was too upright to stoop to all the
+petty practices which were at that time essential to a speedy success.
+And observe that this uprightness was irremediable; for it forms so
+integral a part both of my temperament and my principles, that without
+it I am never able to turn myself to any account. Whenever I have, by
+ill-luck, been obliged to speak in defence of a bad cause, or to assist
+in bad measures, I have immediately found myself deprived of all talent
+and all ardour; and I confess that nothing has consoled me more at the
+want of success with which my uprightness has often met, than the
+certainty I have always been in that I could never have made more than a
+very clumsy and mediocre rogue. I also ended by perceiving that I was
+absolutely lacking in the art of grouping and leading a large number of
+men. I have always been incapable of dexterity, except in _tête-à-tête_,
+and embarrassed and dumb in the presence of a crowd; I do not mean to
+say that at a given moment I am unable to say and do what will please
+it, but that is not enough: those great occasions are very rare in
+parliamentary warfare. The trick of the trade, in a party leader, is to
+be able to mix continually with his followers and even his adversaries,
+to show himself, to move about daily, to play continually now to the
+boxes, now to the gallery, so as to reach the level of every
+intelligence, to discuss and argue without end, to say the same things a
+thousand times in different ways, and to be impassioned eternally in the
+face of the same objects. These are all things of which I am quite
+incapable. I find it troublesome to discuss matters which interest me
+little, and painful to discuss those in which I am keenly concerned.
+Truth is for me so rare and precious a thing that, once found, I do not
+like to risk it on the hazard of a debate; it is a light which I fear to
+extinguish by waving it to and fro. And as to consorting with men, I
+could not do so in any habitual and general fashion, because I never
+recognize more than a very few. Unless a person strikes me by something
+out of the common in his intellect or opinions, I, so to speak, do not
+see him. I have always taken it for granted that mediocrities, as well
+as men of merit, had a nose, a mouth, eyes; but I have never, in their
+case, been able to fix the particular shape of these features in my
+memory. I am constantly inquiring the name of strangers whom I see
+every day, and as constantly forgetting them; and yet, I do not despise
+them, only I consort but little with them, treating them as constant
+quantities. I honour them, for the world is made up of them; but they
+weary me profoundly.
+
+What completed my disgust was the mediocrity and monotony of the
+parliamentary events of that period, as well as the triviality of the
+passions and the vulgar perversity of the men who pretended to cause or
+to guide them.
+
+I have sometimes thought that, though the habits of different societies
+may differ, the morality of the politicians at the head of affairs is
+everywhere the same. What is very certain is that, in France, all the
+party leaders whom I have met in my time have, with few exceptions,
+appeared to me to be equally unworthy of holding office, some because of
+their lack of personal character or of real parts, most by their lack of
+any sort of virtue. I thus experienced as great a difficulty in joining
+with others as in being satisfied with myself, in obeying as in acting
+on my own initiative.
+
+But that which most tormented and depressed me during the nine years I
+had spent in business, and which to this day remains my most hideous
+memory of that time, is the incessant uncertainty in which I had to live
+as to the best daily course to adopt. I am inclined to think that my
+uncertainty of character arises rather from a want of clearness of idea
+than from any weakness of heart, and that I never experienced either
+hesitation or difficulty in following the most rugged road, when once I
+clearly saw where it would lead me. But amid all these little dynastic
+parties, differing so little in aim, and resembling one another so much
+in the bad methods which they put into practice, which was the
+thoroughfare that led visibly to honour, or even to utility? Where lay
+truth? Where falsehood? On which side were the rogues? On which side the
+honest men? I was never, at that time, fully able to distinguish it, and
+I declare that even now I should not well be able to do so. Most party
+men allow themselves to be neither distressed nor unnerved by doubts of
+this kind; many even have never known them, or know them no longer. They
+are often accused of acting without conviction; but my experience has
+proved that this was much less frequently the case than one might think.
+Only they possess the precious and sometimes, in politics, even
+necessary faculty of creating transient convictions for themselves,
+according to the passions and interests of the moment, and thus they
+succeed in committing, honourably enough, actions which in themselves
+are little to their credit. Unfortunately, I could never bring myself to
+illuminate my intelligence with these special and artificial lights, nor
+so readily to convince myself that my own advantage was one and the same
+with the general good.
+
+It was this parliamentary world, in which I had suffered all the
+wretchedness that I have just described, which was broken up by the
+Revolution; it had mingled and confounded the old parties in one common
+ruin, deposed their leaders, and destroyed their traditions and
+discipline. There had issued from this, it was true, a disordered and
+confused state of society, but one in which ability became less
+necessary and less highly rated than courage and disinterestedness; in
+which personal character was more important than elocution or the art of
+leadership; but, above all, in which there was no field left for
+vacillation of mind: on this side lay the salvation of the country; on
+that, its destruction. There was no longer any mistake possible as to
+the road to follow; we were to walk in broad daylight, supported and
+encouraged by the crowd. The road seemed dangerous, it is true, but my
+mind is so constructed that it is less afraid of danger than of doubt. I
+felt, moreover, that I was still in the prime of life, that I had few
+needs, and, above all, that I was able to find at home the support, so
+rare and precious in times of revolution, of a devoted wife, whom a firm
+and penetrating mind and a naturally lofty soul would easily maintain at
+the level of every situation and above every reverse.
+
+I therefore determined to plunge boldly into the arena, and in defence,
+not of any particular government, but of the laws which constitute
+society itself, to risk my fortune, my person, and my peace of mind. The
+first thing was to secure my election, and I left speedily for Normandy
+in order to put myself before the electors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ MY CANDIDATURE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LA MANCHE--THE ASPECT OF THE
+ COUNTRY--THE GENERAL ELECTION.
+
+
+As every one knows, the Department of la Manche is peopled almost
+exclusively by farmers. It contains few large towns, few manufactures,
+and, with the exception of Cherbourg, no places in which workmen are
+gathered in large numbers. At first, the Revolution was hardly noticed
+there. The upper classes immediately bent beneath the blow, and the
+lower classes scarcely felt it. Generally speaking, agricultural
+populations are slower than others in perceiving, and more stubborn in
+retaining, political impressions; they are the last to rise and the last
+to settle down again. The steward of my estate, himself half a peasant,
+describing what was taking place in the country immediately after the
+24th of February, wrote:
+
+"People here say that if Louis-Philippe has been sent away, it is a good
+thing, and that he deserved it...."
+
+This was to them the whole moral of the play. But when they heard tell
+of the disorder reigning in Paris, of the new taxes to be imposed, and
+of the general state of war that was to be feared; when they saw
+commerce cease and money seem to sink down into the ground, and when, in
+particular, they learnt that the principle of property was being
+attacked, they did not fail to perceive that there was something more
+than Louis-Philippe in question.
+
+Fear, which had first displayed itself in the upper circles of society,
+then descended into the depths of the people, and universal terror took
+possession of the whole country. This was the condition in which I found
+it when I arrived about the middle of March. I was at once struck by a
+spectacle that both astonished and charmed me. A certain demagogic
+agitation reigned, it is true, among the workmen in the towns; but in
+the country all the landed proprietors, whatever their origin,
+antecedents, education or means, had come together, and seemed to form
+but one class: all former political hatred and rivalry of caste or
+fortune had disappeared from view. There was no more jealousy or pride
+displayed between the peasant and the squire, the nobleman and the
+commoner; instead, I found mutual confidence, reciprocal friendliness,
+and regard. Property had become, with all those who owned it, a sort of
+badge of fraternity. The wealthy were the elder, the less endowed the
+younger brothers; but all considered themselves members of one family,
+having the same interest in defending the common inheritance. As the
+French Revolution had infinitely increased the number of land-owners,
+the whole population seemed to belong to that vast family. I had never
+seen anything like it, nor had anyone in France within the memory of
+man. Experience has shown that this union was not so close as it
+appeared, and that the former parties and the various classes had drawn
+closer rather than mingled together; fear had acted upon them as a
+mechanical pressure might upon very hard bodies, which are compelled to
+adhere to one another so long as the pressure continues, but which
+separate so soon as it is relaxed.
+
+As a matter of fact, from the first moment I saw no trace whatever of
+political opinions, properly so-called. One would have thought that the
+republican form of government had suddenly become not only the best, but
+the only one imaginable for France. Dynastic hopes and regrets were
+buried so profoundly in the souls of men that not even the place they
+had once occupied was visible. The Republic respected persons and
+property, and it was accepted as lawful. In the spectacle I have just
+described, I was most struck at witnessing the universal hatred,
+together with the universal terror, now for the first time inspired by
+Paris. In France, provincials have for Paris, and for the central power
+of which Paris is the seat, feelings analogous to those which the
+English entertain for their aristocracy, which they sometimes support
+with impatience and often regard with jealousy, but which at bottom they
+love, because they always hope to turn its privileges to their private
+advantage. This time Paris and those who spoke in its name had so
+greatly abused their power, and seemed to be giving so little heed to
+the rest of the country, that the idea of shaking off the yoke and of
+acting for themselves came to many who had never before conceived it:
+uncertain and timid desires, it is true, feeble and ephemeral passions
+from which I never believed that there was much to be either hoped or
+feared; but these new feelings were then turning into electoral ardour.
+Everyone clamoured for the elections; for to elect the enemies of the
+demagogues of Paris presented itself to public opinion less as the
+constitutional exercise of a right, than as the least dangerous method
+one could employ of making a stand against the tyrant.
+
+I fixed my head-quarters in the little town of Valognes, which was the
+natural centre of my influence; and as soon as I had ascertained the
+condition of the country, I set about my candidature. I then saw what I
+have often observed under a thousand different circumstances, that
+nothing makes more for success than not to desire it too ardently. I
+very much wanted to get elected; but in the difficult and critical
+condition of affairs then reigning, I easily reconciled myself to the
+idea of being rejected; and from this placid anticipation of a rebuff I
+drew a tranquillity and clearness of mind, a respect for myself and a
+contempt for the follies of the time, that I should perhaps not have
+found in the same degree had I been swayed only by a longing to
+succeed.
+
+The country began to fill with roving candidates, hawking their
+protestations of Republicanism from hustings to hustings. I refused to
+present myself before any other electoral body than that of the place
+where I lived. Each small town had its club, and each club questioned
+the candidates regarding their opinions and actions, and subjected them
+to formulas. I refused to reply to any of these insolent
+interrogatories. These refusals, which might have seemed disdainful,
+appeared in the light of dignity and independence in the face of the new
+rulers, and I was more esteemed for my rebelliousness than the others
+for their obedience. I therefore contented myself with publishing an
+address and having it posted up throughout the department.
+
+Most of the candidates had resumed the old customs of '92. When writing
+to people they called them "Citizens," and signed themselves
+"fraternally yours." I would never consent to adopt this revolutionary
+nonsense. I headed my address, "Gentlemen," and ended by proudly
+declaring myself my electors' "very humble servant."
+
+ "I do not come to solicit your suffrages," I said, "I come only to
+ place myself at the orders of my country. I asked to be your
+ representative when the times were easy and peaceful; my honour
+ forbids me to refuse to be so in a period full of agitation, which
+ may become full of danger. That is the first thing I had to tell
+ you."
+
+I added that I had been faithful to the end to the oath I had taken to
+the Monarchy, but that the Republic, which had been brought about
+without my aid, should have my energetic support, and that I would not
+only accept but assist it. Then I went on:
+
+ "But of what Republic is it a question? There are some who, by a
+ Republic, understand a dictatorship exercised in the name of
+ liberty; who think that the Republic should not only change
+ political institutions but the face of society itself. There are
+ some who think that the Republic should needs be of an aggressive
+ and propagandist kind. I am not a Republican after this fashion. If
+ this were your manner of being Republicans, I could be of no use to
+ you, for I should not be of your opinion; but if you understand the
+ Republic as I understand it myself, you can rely upon me to devote
+ myself heart and soul to the triumph of a cause which is mine as
+ well as yours."
+
+Men who show no fear in times of revolution are like princes with the
+army: they produce a great effect by very ordinary actions, because the
+peculiar position which they occupy naturally places them above the
+level of the crowd and brings them very much in view. My address was so
+successful that I myself was astonished at it; within a few days it made
+me the most popular man in the department of la Manche, and the object
+of universal attention. My old political adversaries, the agents of the
+old Government, the Conservatives themselves who had so vigorously
+opposed me, and whom the Republic had overthrown, came in crowds to
+assure me that they were ready not only to vote for me, but to follow my
+views in everything.
+
+In the meantime, the first meeting of the electors of the Arrondissement
+of Valognes took place. I appeared together with the other candidates. A
+shed did duty for a hall; the chairman's platform was at the bottom, and
+at the side was a professorial pulpit which had been transformed into a
+tribune. The chairman, who himself was a professor at the College of
+Valognes, said to me with a loud voice and a magisterial air, but in a
+very respectful tone: "Citizen de Tocqueville, I will tell you the
+questions which are put to you, and to which you will have to reply;" to
+which I replied, carelessly, "Mr Chairman, pray put the questions."
+
+A parliamentary orator, whose name I will not mention, once said to me:
+
+"Look here, my dear friend, there is only one way of speaking well from
+the tribune, and that is to be fully persuaded, as you get into it, that
+you are the cleverest man in the world."
+
+This had always appeared to me easier to say than to do, in the presence
+of our great political assemblies. But I confess that here the maxim was
+easy enough to follow, and that I thought it a wonderfully good one.
+Nevertheless, I did not go so far as to convince myself that I was
+cleverer than all the world; but I soon saw that I was the only one who
+was well acquainted with the facts they brought up, and even with the
+political language they wished to speak. It would be difficult to show
+one's self more maladroit and more ignorant than did my adversaries;
+they overwhelmed me with questions which they thought very close, and
+which left me very free, while I on my side made replies which were
+sometimes not very brilliant, but which always to them appeared most
+conclusive. The ground on which they hoped, above all, to crush me was
+that of the banquets. I had refused, as I have already said, to take
+part in these dangerous demonstrations. My political friends had found
+fault with me for abandoning them in that matter, and many continued to
+bear me ill-will, although--or perhaps because--the Revolution had
+proved me to be right.
+
+"Why did you part from the Opposition on the occasion of the banquets?"
+I was asked.
+
+I replied, boldly:
+
+"I could easily find a pretext, but I prefer to give you my real reason:
+I did not want the banquets because I did not want a revolution; and I
+venture to say that hardly any of those who sat down to the banquets
+would have done so had they foreseen, as I did, the events to which
+these would lead. The only difference I can see between you and myself
+is that I knew what you were doing while you did not know it
+yourselves." This bold profession of anti-revolutionary had been
+preceded by one of republican faith; the sincerity of the one seemed to
+bear witness to that of the other; the meeting laughed and applauded. My
+adversaries were scoffed at, and I came off triumphant.
+
+I had won the agricultural population of the department by my address; I
+won the Cherbourg workmen by a speech. The latter had been assembled to
+the number of two thousand at a patriotic dinner. I received a very
+obliging and pressing invitation to attend, and I did.
+
+When I arrived, the procession was ready to start for the
+banqueting-hall, with, at its head, my old colleague Havin, who had come
+expressly from Saint-Lô to take the chair. It was the first time I had
+met him since the 24th of February. On that day, I saw him giving his
+arm to the Duchesse d'Orléans, and the next morning I heard that he was
+Commissary of the Republic in the department of la Manche. I was not
+surprised, for I knew him as one of those easily bewildered, ambitious
+men who had found themselves fixed for ten years in opposition, after
+thinking at first that they were in it only for a little. How many of
+these men have I not seen around me, tortured with their own virtue, and
+despairing because they saw themselves spending the best part of their
+lives in criticizing the faults of others without ever in some measure
+realizing by experience what were their own, and finding nothing to
+feed upon but the sight of public corruption! Most of them had
+contracted during this long abstinence so great an appetite for places,
+honours and money that it was easy to predict that at the first
+opportunity they would throw themselves upon power with a sort of
+gluttony, without taking time to choose either the moment or the morsel.
+Havin was the very type of these men. The Provisional Government had
+given him as his associate, and even as his chief, another of my former
+colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Vieillard, who has since
+become famous as a particular friend of Prince Louis Napoleon's.
+Vieillard was entitled to serve the Republic, since he had been one of
+the seven or eight republican deputies under the Monarchy. Moreover, he
+was one of the Republicans who had passed through the salons of the
+Empire before attaining demagogism. In literature he was a bigoted
+classic; a Voltairean in religious belief; rather fatuous, very
+kind-hearted; an honest man, and even an intelligent; but a very fool in
+politics. Havin had made him his tool: whenever he wished to strike a
+blow at one of his own enemies, or to reward one of his own friends, he
+invariably put forward Vieillard, who allowed him to do as he pleased.
+In this manner Havin made his way sheltered beneath the honesty and
+republicanism of Vieillard, whom he always kept before him, as the miner
+does his gabion.
+
+Havin scarcely seemed to recognize me; he did not invite me to take a
+place in the procession. I modestly withdrew into the midst of the
+crowd; and when we arrived at the banqueting-hall, I sat down at one of
+the lower tables. We soon got to the speeches: Vieillard delivered a
+very proper written speech, and Havin read out another written speech,
+which was well received. I, too, was very much inclined to speak, but my
+name was not down, and moreover I did not quite see how I was to begin.
+A word which one of the orators (for all the speakers called themselves
+orators) dropped to the memory of Colonel Briqueville gave me my
+opportunity. I asked for permission to speak, and the meeting consented.
+When I found myself perched in the tribune, or rather in that pulpit
+placed twenty feet above the crowd, I felt a little confused; but I soon
+recovered myself, and delivered a little piece of oratorical fustian
+which I should find it impossible to recollect to-day. I only know that
+it contained a certain appositeness, besides the warmth which never
+fails to make itself apparent through the disorder of an improvised
+speech, a merit quite sufficient to succeed with a popular assembly, or
+even with an assembly of any sort; for, it cannot be too often repeated,
+speeches are made to be listened to and not to be read, and the only
+good ones are those that move the audience.
+
+The success of mine was marked and complete, and I confess it seemed
+very sweet to me to revenge myself in this way on the manner in which
+my former colleague had endeavoured to abuse what he considered the
+favours of fortune.
+
+If I am not mistaken, it was between this time and the elections that I
+made my journey to Saint-Lô, as member of the Council General. The
+Council had been summoned to an extraordinary sitting. It was still
+composed as under the Monarchy: most of its members had shown themselves
+complaisant towards Louis-Philippe's ministers, and may be reckoned
+among those who had most contributed to bring that Prince's government
+into contempt in our country. The only thing I can recall of the
+Saint-Lô journey is the singular servility of these ex-Conservatives.
+Not only did they make no opposition to Havin, who had insulted them for
+the past ten years, but they became his most attentive courtiers. They
+praised him with their words, supported him with their votes, smiled
+upon him approvingly; they even spoke well of him among themselves, for
+fear of indiscretion. I have often seen greater pictures of human
+baseness, but never any that was more perfect; and I think it deserves,
+despite its pettiness, to be brought fully to light. I will, therefore,
+display it in the light of subsequent events, and I will add that some
+months later, when the turn of the popular tide had restored them to
+power, they at once set about pursuing this same Havin anew with
+unheard-of violence and even injustice. All their old hatred became
+visible amid the quaking of their terror, and it seemed to have become
+still greater at the remembrance of their temporary complaisance.
+
+Meantime the general election was drawing nigh, and each day the aspect
+of the future became more sinister. All the news from Paris represented
+the capital as on the point of constantly falling into the hands of
+armed Socialists. It was doubted whether these latter would allow the
+electors to vote freely, or at least whether they would submit to the
+National Assembly. Already in every part of the country the officers of
+the National Guard were being made to swear that they would march
+against the Assembly if a conflict arose between that body and the
+people. The provinces were becoming more and more alarmed, but were also
+strengthening themselves at the sight of the danger.
+
+I spent the few days preceding the contest at my poor, dear Tocqueville.
+It was the first time I had visited it since the Revolution: I was
+perhaps about to leave it for ever! I was seized on my arrival with so
+great and uncommon a feeling of sadness that it has left in my memory
+traces which have remained marked and visible to this day amid all the
+vestiges of the events of that time. I was not expected. The empty
+rooms, in which there was none but my old dog to receive me, the
+undraped windows, the heaped-up dusty furniture, the extinct fires, the
+run-down clocks--all seemed to point to abandonment and to foretell
+ruin. This little isolated corner of the earth, lost, as it were, amid
+the fields and hedges of our Norman coppices, which had so often seemed
+to me the most charming of solitudes, now appeared to me, in the actual
+state of my thoughts, as a desolate desert; but across the desolation of
+its present aspect I discovered, as though from the depth of a tomb, the
+sweetest and most attractive episodes of my life. I wonder how our
+imagination gives so much deeper colour and so much more attractiveness
+to things than they possess. I had just witnessed the fall of the
+Monarchy; I have since been present at the most sanguinary scenes; and
+nevertheless I declare that none of these spectacles produced in me so
+deep and painful an emotion as that which I experienced that day at the
+sight of the ancient abode of my forefathers, when I thought of the
+peaceful days and happy hours I had spent there without knowing their
+value--I say that it was then and there that I best understood all the
+bitterness of revolutions.
+
+The local population had always been well disposed to me; but this time
+I found them affectionate, and I was never received with more respect
+than now, when all the walls were placarded with the expression of
+degrading equality. We were all to go and vote together at the borough
+of Saint-Pierre, about one league away from our village. On the morning
+of the election, all the voters (that is to say, all the male population
+above the age of twenty) collected together in front of the church. All
+these men formed themselves in a double column, in alphabetical order.
+I took up my place in the situation denoted by my name, for I knew that
+in democratic times and countries one must be nominated to the head of
+the people, and not place one's self there. At the end of the long
+procession, in carts or on pack-horses, came the sick or infirm who
+wished to follow us; we left none behind save the women and children. We
+were one hundred and sixty-six all told. At the top of the hill which
+commands Tocqueville there came a halt; they wished me to speak. I
+climbed to the other side of a ditch; a circle was formed round me, and
+I spoke a few words such as the circumstances inspired. I reminded these
+worthy people of the gravity and importance of what they were about to
+do; I recommended them not to allow themselves to be accosted or turned
+aside by those who, on our arrival at the borough, might seek to deceive
+them, but to march on solidly and stay together, each in his place,
+until they had voted. "Let no one," I said, "go into a house to seek
+food or shelter [it was raining] before he has done his duty." They
+cried that they would do as I wished, and they did. All the votes were
+given at the same time, and I have reason to believe that they were
+almost all given to the same candidate.
+
+After voting myself, I took my leave of them, and set out to return to
+Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ THE FIRST SITTING OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY--THE APPEARANCE OF
+ THIS ASSEMBLY.
+
+
+I stopped at Valognes only long enough to bid good-bye to some of my
+friends. Many left me with tears in their eyes, for there was a belief
+current in the country that the representatives would be exposed to
+great danger in Paris. Several of these worthy people said to me, "If
+they attack the National Assembly, we will come and defend you." I feel
+a certain remorse at having seen only vain words in this promise at the
+time; for, as a matter of fact, they did all come, they and many more,
+as I shall show later.
+
+It was only when I reached Paris that I learnt that I had received
+110,704 votes out of a possible 120,000. Most of my new colleagues
+belonged to the old dynastic Opposition: two only had professed
+republican principles before the Revolution, and were what was called in
+the jargon of the day "Republicans of yesterday." The same was the case
+in most parts of France.
+
+There have certainly been more wicked revolutionaries than those of
+1848, but I doubt if there were ever any more stupid; they neither knew
+how to make use of universal suffrage nor how to do without it. If they
+had held the elections immediately after the 24th of February, while the
+upper classes were still bewildered by the blow they had just received,
+and the people more amazed than discontented, they would perhaps have
+obtained an assembly after their hearts; if, on the other hand, they had
+boldly seized the dictatorship, they might have been able for some time
+to retain it. But they trusted themselves to the nation, and at the same
+time did all that was most likely to set the latter against them; they
+threatened it while placing themselves in its power; they alarmed it by
+the recklessness of their proposals and the violence of their language,
+while inviting it to resistance by the feebleness of their actions; they
+pretended to lay down the law to it at the very time that they were
+placing themselves at its disposal. Instead of opening out their ranks
+after the victory, they jealously closed them up, and seemed, in one
+word, to be striving to solve this insoluble problem, namely, how to
+govern through the majority and yet against its inclination.
+
+Following the examples of the past without understanding them, they
+foolishly imagined that to summon the crowd to take part in political
+life was sufficient to attach it to their cause; and that to popularize
+the Republic, it was enough to give the public rights without offering
+them any profits. They forgot that their predecessors, when they gave
+every peasant the vote, at the same time did away with tithes, abolished
+statute labour and the other seignorial privileges, and divided the
+property of the nobles among the peasants; whereas they were not in a
+position to do anything of the kind. In establishing universal suffrage
+they thought they were summoning the people to the assistance of the
+Revolution: they were only giving them arms against it. Nevertheless, I
+am far from believing that it was impossible to arouse revolutionary
+passions, even in the country districts. In France, every agriculturist
+owns some portion of the soil, and most of them are more or less
+involved in debt; it was not, therefore, the landlords that should have
+been attacked, but the creditors; not the abolition promised of the
+rights of property, but the abolition of debts. The demagogues of 1848
+did not think of this scheme; they showed themselves much clumsier than
+their predecessors, but no less dishonest, for they were as violent and
+unjust in their desires as the others in their acts. Only, to commit
+violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the
+will, or even the power; the habits, ideas, and passions of the time
+must lend themselves to the committal of them.
+
+As the party which held the reins of government saw its candidates
+rejected one after the other, it displayed great vexation and rage,
+complaining now sadly and now rudely of the electors, whom it treated as
+ignorant, ungrateful blockheads, and enemies of their own good; it lost
+its temper with the whole nation; and, its impatience exhausted by the
+latter's coldness, it seemed ready to say with Molière's Arnolfe, when
+he addresses Agnès:
+
+ "Pourquoi ne m'aimer pas, madame l'impudente?"
+
+One thing was not ridiculous, but really ominous and terrible; and that
+was the appearance of Paris on my return. I found in the capital a
+hundred thousand armed workmen formed into regiments, out of work, dying
+of hunger, but with their minds crammed with vain theories and visionary
+hopes. I saw society cut into two: those who possessed nothing, united
+in a common greed; those who possessed something, united in a common
+terror. There were no bonds, no sympathy between these two great
+sections; everywhere the idea of an inevitable and immediate struggle
+seemed at hand. Already the _bourgeois_ and the _peuple_ (for the old
+nicknames had been resumed) had come to blows, with varying fortunes, at
+Rouen, Limoges, Paris; not a day passed but the owners of property were
+attacked or menaced in either their capital or income: they were asked
+to employ labour without selling the produce; they were expected to
+remit the rents of their tenants when they themselves possessed no other
+means of living. They gave way as long as they could to this tyranny,
+and endeavoured at least to turn their weakness to account by publishing
+it. I remember reading in the papers of that time this advertisement,
+among others, which still strikes me as a model of vanity, poltroonery,
+and stupidity harmoniously mingled:
+
+"Mr Editor," it read, "I make use of your paper to inform my tenants
+that, desiring to put into practice in my relations with them the
+principles of fraternity that should guide all true democrats, I will
+hand to those of my tenants who apply for it a formal receipt for their
+next quarter's rent."
+
+Meanwhile, a gloomy despair had overspread the middle class thus
+threatened and oppressed, and imperceptibly this despair was changing
+into courage. I had always believed that it was useless to hope to
+settle the movement of the Revolution of February peacefully and
+gradually, and that it could only be stopped suddenly, by a great battle
+fought in the streets of Paris. I had said this immediately after the
+24th of February; and what I now saw persuaded me that this battle was
+not only inevitable but imminent, and that it would be well to seize the
+first opportunity to deliver it.
+
+The National Assembly met at last on the 4th of May; it was doubtful
+until the last moment whether it would meet at all. I believe, in fact,
+that the more ardent of the demagogues were often tempted to do without
+it, but they dared not; they remained crushed beneath the weight of
+their own dogma of the sovereignty of the people.
+
+I should have before my eyes the picture which the Assembly presented at
+its opening; but I find, on the contrary, that only a very confused
+recollection of it has lingered in my mind. It is a mistake to believe
+that events remain present in one's memory in proportion to their
+importance or their greatness alone; rather is it certain little
+particularities which occur, and cause them to penetrate deep into the
+mind, and fix them there in a lasting manner. I only remember that we
+shouted, "Long live the Republic" fifteen times during the course of the
+sitting, trying who could out-shout the other. The history of the
+Assemblies is full of parallel incidents, and one constantly sees one
+party exaggerating its feelings in order to embarrass its opponents,
+while the latter feign to hold sentiments which they do not possess, in
+order to avoid the trap. Both sides, with a common effort, went either
+beyond, or in the contrary direction to, the truth. Nevertheless, I
+think the cry was sincere enough; only it responded to diverse or even
+contrary thoughts. All at that time wished to preserve the Republic; but
+some wished to use it for purposes of attack, others for purposes of
+defence The newspapers spoke of the enthusiasm of the Assembly and of
+the public; there was a great deal of noise, but no enthusiasm at all.
+Everyone was too greatly preoccupied with the immediate future to allow
+himself to be carried beyond that thought by sentiment of any kind. A
+decree of the Provisional Government laid down that the representatives
+should wear the costume of the Conventionals, and especially the white
+waistcoat with turn-down collar in which Robespierre was always
+represented on the stage. I thought at first that this fine notion
+originated with Louis Blanc or Ledru-Rollin; but I learned later that it
+was due to the flowery and literary imagination of Armand Marrast. No
+one obeyed the decree, not even its author; Caussidière was the only one
+to adopt the appointed disguise. This drew my attention to him; for I
+did not know him by sight any more than most of those who were about to
+call themselves the Montagnards, always with the idea of keeping up the
+recollection of '93. I beheld a very big and very heavy body, on which
+was placed a sugar-loaf head, sunk deep between the two shoulders, with
+a wicked, cunning eye, and an air of general good-nature spread over the
+rest of his face. In short, he was a mass of shapeless matter, in which
+worked a mind sufficiently subtle to know how to make the most of his
+coarseness and ignorance.
+
+In the course of the two subsequent days, the members of the Provisional
+Government, one after the other, told us what they had done since the
+24th of February. Each said a great deal of good of himself, and even a
+certain amount of good of his colleagues, although it would be difficult
+to meet a body of men who mutually hated one another more sincerely than
+these did. Independently of the political hatred and jealousy that
+divided them, they seemed still to feel towards each other that peculiar
+irritation common to travellers who have been compelled to live
+together upon the same ship during a long and stormy passage, without
+suiting or understanding one another. At this first sitting I met again
+almost all the members of Parliament among whom I had lived. With the
+exception of M. Thiers, who had been defeated; of the Duc de Broglie,
+who had not stood, I believe; and of Messrs Guizot and Duchâtel, who had
+fled, all the famous orators and most of the better-known talkers of the
+political world were there; but they found themselves, as it were, out
+of their element, they felt isolated and suspected, they both felt and
+inspired fear, two contraries often to be met with in the political
+world. As yet they possessed none of that influence which their talents
+and experience were soon to restore to them. All the remainder of the
+Assembly were as much novices as though we had issued fresh from the
+Ancien Régime; for, thanks to our system of centralization, public life
+had always been confined within the limits of the Chambers, and those
+who were neither peers nor deputies scarcely knew what an Assembly was,
+nor how one should speak or behave in one. They were absolutely ignorant
+of its most ordinary, everyday habits and customs; and they were
+inattentive at decisive moments, and listened eagerly to unimportant
+things. Thus, on the second day, they crowded round the tribune and
+insisted on perfect silence in order to hear read the minutes of the
+preceding sitting, imagining that this insignificant form was a most
+important piece of business. I am convinced that nine hundred English
+or American peasants, picked at random, would have better represented
+the appearance of a great political body.
+
+Continuing to imitate the National Convention, the men who professed the
+most radical and the most revolutionary opinions had taken their seats
+on the highest benches; they were very uncomfortable up there; but it
+gave them the right to call themselves Montagnards, and as men always
+like to feed on pleasant imaginations, these very rashly flattered
+themselves that they bore a resemblance to the celebrated blackguards
+whose name they took.
+
+The Montagnards soon divided themselves into two distinct bands: the
+Revolutionaries of the old school and the Socialists. Nevertheless, the
+two shades were not sharply defined. One passed from the one to the
+other by imperceptible tints: the Montagnards proper had almost all some
+socialistic ideas in their heads, and the Socialists quite approved of
+the revolutionary proceedings of the others. However, they differed
+sufficiently among themselves to prevent them from always marching in
+step, and it was this that saved us. The Socialists were the more
+dangerous, because they answered more nearly to the true character of
+the Revolution of February, and to the only passions which it had
+aroused; but they were men of theory rather than action, and in order to
+upset Society at their pleasure they would have needed the practical
+energy and the science of insurrections which only their colleagues in
+any measure possessed.
+
+From the seat I occupied it was easy for me to hear what was said on the
+benches of the Mountain, and especially to see what went on. This gave
+me the opportunity of studying pretty closely the men sitting in that
+part of the Chamber. It was for me like discovering a new world. We
+console ourselves for not knowing foreign countries, with the reflection
+that at least we know our own; but we are wrong, for even in the latter
+there are always districts which we have not visited, and races which
+are new to us. I experienced this now. It was as though I saw these
+Montagnards for the first time, so greatly did their idioms and manners
+surprise me. They spoke a lingo which was not, properly speaking, the
+French of either the ignorant or the cultured classes, but which partook
+of the defects of both, for it abounded in coarse words and ambitious
+phrases. One heard issuing from the benches of the Mountain a ceaseless
+torrent of insulting or jocular comments; and at the same time there was
+poured forth a host of quibbles and maxims; in turns they assumed a very
+humorous or a very superb tone. It was evident that these people
+belonged neither to the tavern nor the drawing-room; I think they must
+have polished their manners in the cafés, and fed their minds on no
+literature but that of the daily press. In any case, it was the first
+time since the commencement of the Revolution that this type made any
+display in one of our Assemblies; until then it had only been
+represented by sporadic and unnoticed individuals, who were more
+occupied in concealing than in showing themselves.
+
+The Constituent Assembly had two other peculiarities which struck me as
+quite as novel as this, although very different from it. It contained an
+infinitely greater number of landlords and even of noblemen than any of
+the Chambers elected in the days when it was a necessary condition, in
+order to be an elector or elected, that you should have money. And also
+there was a more numerous and more powerful religious party than even
+under the Restoration: I counted three bishops, several vicars-general,
+and a Dominican monk, whereas Louis XVIII. and Charles X. had never
+succeeded in securing the election of more than one single abbé.
+
+The abolition of all quit-rents, which made part of the electors
+dependent upon the rich, and the danger threatening property, which led
+the people to choose for their representatives those who were most
+interested in defending it, are the principal reasons which explain the
+presence of so great a number of landlords. The election of the
+ecclesiastics arose from similar causes, and also from a different cause
+still worthier of consideration. This cause was the almost general and
+very unexpected return of a great part of the nation towards the
+concerns of religion.
+
+The Revolution of 1792, when striking the upper classes, had cured them
+of their irreligiousness; it had taught them, if not the truth, at least
+the social uses of belief. This lesson was lost upon the middle class,
+which remained their political heir and their jealous rival; and the
+latter had even become more sceptical in proportion as the former seemed
+to become more religious. The Revolution of 1848 had just done on a
+small scale for our tradesmen what that of 1792 had done for the
+nobility: the same reverses, the same terrors, the same conversion; it
+was the same picture, only painted smaller and in less bright and, no
+doubt, less lasting colours. The clergy had facilitated this conversion
+by separating itself from all the old political parties, and entering
+into the old, true spirit of the Catholic clergy, which is that it
+should belong only to the Church. It readily, therefore, professed
+republican opinions, while at the same time it gave to long-established
+interests the guarantee of its traditions, its customs and its
+hierarchy. It was accepted and made much of by all. The priests sent to
+the Assembly were treated with very great consideration, and they
+deserved it through their good sense, their moderation and their
+modesty. Some of them endeavoured to speak from the tribune, but they
+were never able to learn the language of politics. They had forgotten it
+too long ago, and all their speeches turned imperceptibly into homilies.
+
+For the rest, the universal voting had shaken the country from top to
+bottom without bringing to light a single new man worthy of coming to
+the front. I have always held that, whatever method be followed in a
+general election, the great majority of the exceptional men whom the
+nation possesses definitively succeed in getting elected. The system of
+election adopted exercises a great influence only upon the class of
+ordinary individuals in the Assembly, who form the ground-work of every
+political body. These belong to very different orders and are of very
+diverse natures, according to the system upon which the election has
+been conducted. Nothing confirmed me in this belief more than did the
+sight of the Constituent Assembly. Almost all the men who played the
+first part in it were already known to me, but the bulk of the rest
+resembled nothing that I had seen before. They were imbued with a new
+spirit, and displayed a new character and new manners.
+
+I will say that, in my opinion, and taken all round, this Assembly
+compared favourably with those which I had seen. One met in it more men
+who were sincere, disinterested, honest and, above all, courageous than
+in the Chambers of Deputies among which I had spent my life.
+
+The Constituent Assembly had been elected to make a stand against civil
+war. This was its principal merit; and, in fact, so long as it was
+necessary to fight, it was great, and only became contemptible after the
+victory, and when it felt that it was breaking up in consequence of
+this very victory and under the weight of it.
+
+I selected my seat on the left side of the House, on a bench from which
+it was easy for me to hear the speakers and to reach the tribune when I
+wished to speak myself. A large number of my old friends joined me
+there; Lanjuinais, Dufaure, Corcelles, Beaumont and several others sat
+near me.
+
+Let me say a word concerning the House itself, although everybody knows
+it. This is necessary in order to understand the narrative; and,
+moreover, although this monument of wood and plaster is probably
+destined to last longer than the Republic of which it was the cradle, I
+do not think it will enjoy a very long existence; and when it is
+destroyed, many of the events that took place in it will be difficult to
+understand.
+
+The house formed an oblong of great size. At one end, against the wall,
+was the President's platform and the tribune; nine rows of benches rose
+gradually along the three other walls. In the middle, facing the
+tribune, spread a huge, empty space, like the arena of an amphitheatre,
+with this difference, that this arena was square, not round. The
+consequence was that most of the listeners only caught a side glimpse of
+the speaker, and the only ones who saw him full face were very far away:
+an arrangement curiously calculated to promote inattention and disorder.
+For the first, who saw the speaker badly, and were continually looking
+at one another, were more engaged in threatening and apostrophizing each
+other; and the others did not listen any better, because, although able
+to see the occupant of the tribune, they heard him badly.
+
+Large windows, placed high up in the walls, opened straight outside, and
+admitted air and light; the walls were decorated only with a few flags;
+time had, luckily, been wanting in which to add to them all those
+spiritless allegories on canvas or pasteboard with which the French love
+to adorn their monuments, in spite of their being insipid to those who
+can understand them and utterly incomprehensible to the mass of the
+people. The whole bore an aspect of immensity, together with an air that
+was cold, solemn, and almost melancholy. There were seats for nine
+hundred members, a larger number than that of any of the assemblies that
+had sat in France for sixty years.
+
+I felt at once that the atmosphere of this assembly suited me.
+Notwithstanding the gravity of events, I experienced there a sense of
+well-being that was new to me. For the first time since I had entered
+public life, I felt myself caught in the current of a majority, and
+following in its company the only road which my tastes, my reason and my
+conscience pointed out to me: a new and very welcome sensation. I
+gathered that this majority would disown the Socialists and the
+Montagnards, but was sincere in its desire to maintain and organize the
+Republic. I was with it on these two leading points: I had no monarchic
+faith, no affection nor regrets for any prince; I felt called upon to
+defend no cause save that of liberty and the dignity of mankind. To
+protect the ancient laws of Society against the innovators with the help
+of the new force which the republican principle might lend to the
+government; to cause the evident will of the French people to triumph
+over the passions and desires of the Paris workmen; to conquer
+demagogism by democracy--that was my only aim. I am not sure that the
+dangers to be passed through before it could be attained did not make it
+still more attractive to me; for I have a natural inclination for
+adventure, and a spice of danger has always seemed to me the best
+seasoning that can be given to most of the actions of life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ MY RELATIONS WITH LAMARTINE--HIS SUBTERFUGES
+
+
+Lamartine was now at the climax of his fame: to all those whom the
+Revolution had injured or alarmed, that is to say, to the great majority
+of the nation, he appeared in the light of a saviour. He had been
+elected to the Assembly by the city of Paris and no fewer than eleven
+departments; I do not believe that ever anybody inspired such keen
+transports as those to which he was then giving rise; one must have seen
+love thus stimulated by fear to know with what excess of idolatry men
+are capable of loving. The transcendental favour which was shown him at
+this time was not to be compared with anything except, perhaps, the
+excessive injustice which he shortly afterwards received. All the
+deputies who came to Paris with the desire to put down the excesses of
+the Revolution and to combat the demagogic party regarded him beforehand
+as their only possible leader, and looked to him unhesitatingly to place
+himself at their head to attack and overthrow the Socialists and
+demagogues. They soon discovered that they were deceived, and that
+Lamartine did not see the part he was called upon to play in so simple
+a light. It must be confessed that his was a very complex and difficult
+position. It was forgotten at the time, but he could not himself forget,
+that he had contributed more than any other to the success of the
+Revolution of February. Terror effaced this remembrance for the moment
+from the public mind; but a general feeling of security could not fail
+soon to restore it. It was easy to foresee that, so soon as the current
+which had brought affairs to their present pitch was arrested, a
+contrary current would set in, which would impel the nation in the
+opposite direction, and drive it faster and further than Lamartine could
+or would go. The success of the Montagnards would involve his immediate
+ruin; but their complete defeat would render him useless and must,
+sooner or later, remove the government from his hands. He saw,
+therefore, that for him there was almost as much danger and loss in
+triumph as in defeat.
+
+As a matter of fact, I believe that, if Lamartine had resolutely, from
+the first, placed himself at the head of the immense party which desired
+to moderate and regulate the course of the Revolution, and had succeeded
+in leading it to victory, he would before long have been buried beneath
+his own triumph; he would not have been able to stop his army in time,
+and it would have left him behind and chosen other leaders.
+
+I doubt whether, whatever line of conduct he had adopted, he could have
+retained his power for long. I believe his only remaining chance was to
+be gloriously defeated while saving his country. But Lamartine was the
+last man to sacrifice himself in this way. I do not know that I have
+ever, in this world of selfishness and ambition in which I lived, met a
+mind so void of any thought of the public welfare as his. I have seen a
+crowd of men disturbing the country in order to raise themselves: that
+is an everyday perversity; but he is the only one who seemed to me
+always ready to turn the world upside down in order to divert himself.
+Neither have I ever known a mind less sincere, nor one that had a more
+thorough contempt for the truth. When I say he despised it, I am wrong:
+he did not honour it enough to heed it in any way whatever. When
+speaking or writing, he spoke the truth or lied, without caring which he
+did, occupied only with the effect he wished to produce at the moment.
+
+I had not seen Lamartine since the 24th of February. I saw him the first
+time on the day before the opening of the Assembly in the new house,
+where I had gone to choose my seat, but I did not speak to him; he was
+surrounded by some of his new friends. The instant he saw me, he
+pretended some business at the other end of the house, and hurried away
+as fast as he could. He sent me word afterwards by Champeaux (who
+belonged to him, half as a friend and half as a servant) that I must not
+take it ill of him that he avoided me; that his position obliged him to
+act in this way towards the members of the late parliament; that my
+place was, of course, marked out among the future leaders of the
+Republic; but that we must wait till the first temporary difficulties
+were surmounted before coming to an agreement. Champeaux also declared
+that he was instructed to ask my opinion on the state of business; I
+gave it him very readily, but to very little purpose. This established
+certain indirect relations between Lamartine and myself through the
+intermediary of Champeaux. The latter often came to see me, to inform
+me, on behalf of his patron, of the arrangements that were being
+prepared; and I sometimes went to see him in a little room he had hired
+on the top floor of a house in the Rue Saint-Honoré, where he used to
+receive suspicious visitors, although he had a complete set of rooms at
+the Foreign Office.
+
+I usually found him overwhelmed with place-hunters; for in France
+political mendicancy exists under every form of government. It even
+increases through the very revolutions that are directed against it,
+because all revolutions ruin a certain number of men, and with us a
+ruined man always looks to the State to repair his fortunes. They were
+of all kinds, all attracted by the reflection of power which Lamartine's
+friendship very transiently cast over Champeaux. I remember among others
+a certain cook, not particularly distinguished in his calling, as far as
+I could see, who insisted upon entering the service of Lamartine, who
+had, he said, become President of the Republic.
+
+"But he's not President yet!" cried Champeaux.
+
+"If he's not so yet, as you say," said the man, "he's going to be, and
+he must already be thinking of his kitchen."
+
+In order to rid himself of this scullion's obstinate ambition, Champeaux
+promised to bring his name before Lamartine so soon as the latter should
+be President of the Republic. The poor man went away quite satisfied,
+dreaming no doubt of the very imaginary splendours of his approaching
+condition.
+
+I frequented Champeaux pretty assiduously during that time, although he
+was exceedingly vain, loquacious, and tedious, because, in talking with
+him, I became better acquainted with Lamartine's thoughts and projects
+than if I had been talking to the great man himself. Lamartine's
+intelligence was seen through Champeaux' folly as you see the sun
+through a smoked glass, which shows you the luminary deprived of its
+heat-rays, but less dazzling to the eye. I easily gathered that in this
+world every one was feeding on pretty well the same chimeras as the cook
+of whom I have just spoken, and that Lamartine already tasted at the
+bottom of his heart the sweets of that sovereign power which was
+nevertheless at that very moment escaping from his hands. He was then
+following the tortuous road that was so soon to lead him to his ruin,
+struggling to dominate the Mountain without overthrowing it, and to
+slacken the revolutionary fire without extinguishing it, so as to give
+the country a feeling of security strong enough for it to bless him, not
+strong enough to cause it to forget him. What he dreaded above all was
+that the conduct of the Assembly should be allowed to fall into the
+hands of the former parliamentary leaders. This was, I believe, at the
+time his dominant passion. One could see this during the great
+discussion on the constitution of the Executive Power; never did the
+different parties display more visibly the pedantic hypocrisy which
+induces them to conceal their interests beneath their ideas: an ordinary
+spectacle enough, but more striking at this time than usual, because the
+needs of the moment compelled each party to shelter itself behind
+theories which were foreign or even opposed to it. The old royalist
+party maintained that the Assembly itself should govern and choose its
+ministers: a theory that was almost demagogic; and the demagogues
+declared that the Executive Power should be entrusted to a permanent
+commission, which should govern and select all the agents of the
+government: a system that approached the monarchic idea. All this
+verbiage only meant that one side wished to remove Ledru-Rollin from
+power, and the other to keep him there.
+
+The nation saw in Ledru-Rollin the bloody image of the Terror; it beheld
+in him the genius of evil as in Lamartine the genius of good, and it was
+mistaken in both cases. Ledru-Rollin was nothing more than a very
+sensual and sanguine heavy fellow, quite without principles and almost
+without brains, possessing no real courage of mind or heart, and even
+free from malice: for he naturally wished well to all the world, and was
+incapable of cutting the throats of any one of his adversaries, except,
+perhaps, for the sake of historical reminiscences, or to accommodate his
+friends.
+
+The result of the debate remained long doubtful: Barrot turned it
+against us by making a very fine speech in our favour. I have witnessed
+many of these unforeseen incidents in parliamentary life, and have seen
+parties constantly deceived in the same way, because they always think
+only of the pleasure they themselves derive from their great orator's
+words, and never of the dangerous excitement he promotes in their
+opponents.
+
+When Lamartine, who till then had kept silent and remained, I believe,
+in indecision, heard, for the first time since February, the voice of
+the ex-leader of the Left resounding with brilliancy and success, he
+suddenly made up his mind, and spoke. "You understand," said Champeaux
+to me the next day, "that before all it was necessary to prevent the
+Assembly from coming to a resolution upon Barrot's advice." So Lamartine
+spoke, and, according to his custom, spoke in brilliant fashion.
+
+The majority, who had already adopted the course that Barrot had urged
+upon them, wheeled round as they listened to him (for this Assembly was
+more credulous and more submissive than any that I had ever seen to the
+wiles of eloquence: it was novice and innocent enough to seek for
+reasons for their decisions in the speeches of the orators). Thus
+Lamartine won his cause, but missed his fortune; for he that day gave
+rise to the mistrust which soon arose and hurled him from his pinnacle
+of popularity more quickly than he had mounted it. Suspicion took a
+definite form the very next day, when he was seen to patronize
+Ledru-Rollin and force the hand of his own friends in order to induce
+them to appoint the latter as his colleague on the Executive Commission.
+At this sight there arose in the Assembly and in the nation
+inexpressible disappointment, terror and rage. For my part, I
+experienced these two last emotions in the highest degree; I clearly
+perceived that Lamartine was turning out of the high-road that led us
+away from anarchy, and I could not guess into what abyss he might lead
+us if we followed the byways which he was treading. How was it possible,
+indeed, to foresee how far an always exuberant imagination might go,
+unrestrained by reason or virtue? Lamartine's common-sense impressed me
+no more than did his disinterestedness; and, in fact, I believed him
+capable of everything except cowardly behaviour or vulgar oratory.
+
+I confess that the events of June to a certain extent modified the
+opinion I had formed of his manner of proceeding. They showed that our
+adversaries were more numerous, better organized and, above all, more
+determined than I had thought.
+
+Lamartine, who had seen nothing but Paris during the last two months,
+and who had there, so to speak, lived in the very heart of the
+revolutionary party, exaggerated the power of the Capital and the
+inactivity of the rest of France. He over-estimated both. But I am not
+sure that I, on my side, did not strain a point on the other side. The
+road we ought to follow seemed to me so clearly and visibly traced that
+I would not admit the possibility of deviating from it by mistake; it
+seemed obvious to me that we should hasten to profit by the moral force
+possessed by the Assembly in order to escape from the hands of the
+people, seize upon the government, and by a great effort establish it
+upon a solid basis. Every delay seemed to me calculated to diminish our
+power, and to strengthen the hand of our adversaries.
+
+It was, in fact, during the six months that elapsed between the opening
+of the Assembly and the events of June that the Paris workmen grew bold,
+and took courage to resist, organized themselves, procured both arms and
+ammunition, and made their final preparations for the struggle. In any
+case, I am led to believe that it was Lamartine's tergiversations and
+his semi-connivance with the enemy that saved us, while it ruined him.
+Their effect was to amuse the leaders of the Mountain, and to divide
+them. The Montagnards of the old school, who were retained in the
+Government, separated themselves from the Socialists, who were excluded
+from it. Had all been united by a common interest, and impelled by
+common despair before our victory, as they became since, it is doubtful
+whether that victory would have been won. When I consider that we were
+almost effaced, although we were opposed only by the revolutionary party
+without its leaders, I ask myself what the result of the contest would
+have been if those leaders had come forward, and if the insurrection had
+been supported by a third of the National Assembly.
+
+Lamartine saw these dangers more closely and clearly than I, and I
+believe to-day that the fear of arousing a mortal conflict influenced
+his conduct as much as did his ambition. I might have formed this
+opinion at the time had I listened to Madame de Lamartine, whose alarm
+for the safety of her husband, and even of the Assembly, amounted to
+extravagance. "Beware," she said to me, each time she met me, "beware of
+pushing things to extremes; you do not know the strength of the
+revolutionary party. If we enter into conflict with it, we shall
+perish." I have often reproached myself for not cultivating Madame de
+Lamartine's acquaintance, for I have always found her to possess real
+virtue, although she added to it almost all the faults which can cling
+to virtue, and which, without impairing it, render it less lovable: an
+imperious temper, great personal pride, an upright but unyielding, and
+sometimes bitter, spirit; so much so that it was impossible not to
+respect her, and impossible to like her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ THE 15TH OF MAY 1848.
+
+
+The revolutionary party had not dared to oppose the meeting of the
+Assembly, but it refused to be dominated by it. On the contrary, it well
+understood how to keep the Assembly in subjection, and to obtain from it
+by constraint what it refused to grant from sympathy. Already the clubs
+rang with threats and insults against the deputies. And as the French,
+in their political passions, are as argumentative as they are insensible
+to argument, these popular meeting-places were incessantly occupied in
+manufacturing theories that formed the ground-work of subsequent acts of
+violence. It was held that the people always remained superior to its
+representatives, and never completely surrendered its will into their
+hands: a true principle from which the false conclusion was drawn that
+the Paris workmen were the French people. Since our first sitting, a
+vague and widespread agitation had never ceased to reign in the town.
+The mob met every day in the streets and squares; it spread aimlessly,
+like the swell of the waves. The approaches to the Assembly were always
+filled with a gathering of these redoubtable idlers. A demagogic party
+has so many heads, chance always plays so great, and reason so small, a
+part in its actions that it is almost impossible to say, either before
+or after the event, what it wants or what it wanted. Nevertheless, my
+opinion then was, and has since remained, that the leading demagogues
+did not aim at destroying the Assembly, and that, as yet, they only
+sought to make use of it by mastering it. The attack directed against it
+on the 15th of May seemed intended rather to frighten than to overthrow
+it; it was at least one of those equivocal enterprises which so
+frequently occur in times of popular excitement, in which the promoters
+themselves are careful not to trace or define precisely their plan or
+their aim, so as to remain free to limit themselves to a peaceful
+demonstration or force on a revolution, according to the incidents of
+the day.
+
+Some attempt of this kind had been expected for over a week; but the
+habit of living in a continual state of alarm ends in rendering both
+individuals and assemblies incapable of discerning, amid the signs
+announcing the approach of danger, that which immediately precedes it.
+We only knew that there was a question of a great popular demonstration
+in favour of Poland, and we were but vaguely disturbed at it. Doubtless
+the members of the Government were better informed and more alarmed than
+we, but they kept their own counsel, and I was not sufficiently in touch
+with them to penetrate into their secret thoughts.
+
+Thus it happened that, on the 15th of May, I reached the Assembly
+without foreseeing what was going to happen. The sitting began as any
+other sitting might have begun; and what was very strange, twenty
+thousand men already surrounded the chamber, without a single sound from
+the outside having announced their presence. Wolowski was in the
+tribune: he was mumbling between his teeth I know not what commonplaces
+about Poland, when the mob at last betrayed its approach with a terrible
+shout, which penetrated from every side through the upper windows, left
+open because of the heat, and fell upon us as though from the sky. Never
+had I imagined that a number of human voices could together produce so
+immense a volume of sound, and the sight of the crowd itself, when it
+surged into the Assembly, did not seem to me so formidable as that first
+roar which it had uttered before showing itself. Many members, yielding
+to a first impulse of curiosity or fear, sprang to their feet; others
+shouted violently, "Keep your seats!" Everyone sat down again firmly on
+his bench, and kept silence. Wolowski resumed his speech, and continued
+it for some time. It must have been the first time in his life that he
+was listened to in silence; and even now it was not he to whom we
+listened, but the crowd outside, whose murmurs grew momentarily louder
+and nearer.
+
+Suddenly Degousée, one of our questors, solemnly mounted the steps of
+the tribune, silently pushed Wolowski aside, and said, "Contrary to the
+wishes of the questors, General Courtais has ordered the Gardes Mobiles
+guarding the doors of the Assembly to sheathe their bayonets."
+
+After uttering these few words he stopped. This Degousée, who was a very
+good man, had the most hang-dog look and the hollowest voice imaginable.
+The news, the man and the voice combined to create a curious impression.
+The Assembly was roused, but immediately grew calm again; it was too
+late to do anything: the chamber was forced.
+
+Lamartine, who had gone out at the first noise, returned to the door
+with a disconcerted air; he crossed the central gangway and regained his
+seat with great strides, as though pursued by some enemy invisible to
+us. Almost immediately, there appeared behind him a number of men of the
+people, who stopped still on the threshold, surprised at the sight of
+this immense seated assembly. At the same moment, as on the 24th of
+February, the galleries were noisily opened and invaded by a flood of
+people, who filled and more than filled them. Pressed forward by the mob
+who followed and pushed them without seeing them, the first comers
+climbed over the balustrades of the galleries, trusting to find room in
+the Chamber itself, the floor of which was not more than ten feet
+beneath them, hung down along the walls, and dropped the distance of
+four or five feet into the Chamber. The fall of each of these bodies
+striking the floor in succession produced a dull concussion which at
+first, amid the tumult, I took for the distant sound of cannon. While
+one part of the mob was thus falling into the house, the other, composed
+principally of the club-leaders, entered by every door. They carried
+various emblems of the Terror, and waved flags of which some were
+surmounted by a red cap.
+
+In an instant the mob had filled the large empty space in the centre of
+the Assembly; and finding itself pressed for room, it climbed all the
+little gangways leading to our benches, and crowded more and more into
+these narrow spaces without ceasing its agitation. Amid this tumultuous
+and incessant commotion, the dust became very thick and the heat so
+oppressive that perhaps I would have gone out to breathe some fresh air,
+had it been merely a question of the public interest. But honour kept us
+glued to our seats.
+
+Some of the intruders were openly armed, others showed glimpses of
+concealed weapons, but none seemed to entertain a fixed intention of
+striking us. Their expression was one of astonishment and ill-will
+rather than enmity; with many of them a sort of vulgar curiosity in
+course of gratifying itself seemed to dominate every other sentiment;
+for even in our most sanguinary insurrections there are always a number
+of people half scoundrels, half sight-seers, who fancy themselves at the
+play. Moreover, there was no common leader whom they seemed to obey; it
+was a mob of men, not a troop. I saw some drunken men among them, but
+the majority seemed to be the prey of a feverish excitement imparted to
+them by the enthusiasm and shouting without and the stifling heat, the
+close packing and general discomfort within. They dripped with sweat,
+although the nature and condition of their clothing was not calculated
+to make the heat very uncomfortable for them, for several were quite
+bare-breasted. There rose from this multitude a confused noise from the
+midst of which one sometimes heard very threatening observations. I
+caught sight of men who shook their fists at us and called us their
+agents. This expression was often repeated; for several days the
+ultra-democratic newspapers had done nothing but call the
+representatives the agents of the people, and these blackguards had
+taken kindly to the idea. A moment after, I had an opportunity of
+observing with what vivacity and clearness the popular mind receives and
+reflects images. I heard a man in a blouse, standing next to me, say to
+his fellow, "See that vulture down there? I should like to twist its
+neck." I followed the movement of his arm and his eyes and saw without
+difficulty that he was speaking of Lacordaire, who was sitting in his
+Dominican's frock on the top bench of the Left. The sentiment struck me
+as very unhandsome, but the comparison was admirable; the priest's long,
+bony neck issuing from its white cowl, his bald head surrounded only
+with a tuft of black hair, his narrow face, his hooked nose and his
+fixed, glittering eyes really gave him a striking resemblance to the
+bird of prey in question.
+
+During all this disorder in its midst, the Assembly sat passive and
+motionless on its benches, neither resisting nor giving way, silent and
+firm. A few members of the Mountain fraternized with the mob, but
+stealthily and in whispers. Raspail had taken possession of the tribune
+and was preparing to read the petition of the clubs; a young deputy,
+d'Adelsward, rose and exclaimed, "By what right does Citizen Raspail
+claim to speak here?" A furious howling arose; some men of the people
+made a rush at d'Adelsward, but were stopped and held back. With great
+difficulty, Raspail obtained a moment's silence from his friends, and
+read the petition, or rather the orders, of the clubs, which enjoined us
+to pronounce forthwith in favour of Poland.
+
+"No delay, we're waiting for the answer!" was shouted on every side. The
+Assembly continued to give no sign of life; the mob, in its disorder and
+impatience, made a horrible noise, which by itself alone saved us from
+making a reply. Buchez, the President, whom some would make out to be a
+rascal and others a saint, but who undoubtedly, on that day, was a great
+blockhead, rang his bell with all his might to obtain silence, as though
+the silence of that multitude was not, under the present circumstances,
+more to be dreaded than its cries.
+
+It was then that I saw appear, in his turn, in the tribune a man whom I
+have never seen since, but the recollection of whom has always filled me
+with horror and disgust. He had wan, emaciated cheeks, white lips, a
+sickly, wicked and repulsive expression, a dirty pallor, the appearance
+of a mouldy corpse; he wore no visible linen; an old black frock-coat
+tightly covered his lean, withered limbs; he seemed to have passed his
+life in a sewer, and to have just left it. I was told it was Blanqui.[9]
+
+ [9: Auguste Blanqui, brother to Jérôme Adolphe Blanqui the
+ economist.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Blanqui said one word about Poland; then, turning sharply to domestic
+affairs, he asked for revenge for what he called the massacres of Rouen,
+recalled with threats the wretchedness in which the people had been
+left, and complained of the wrongs done to the latter by the Assembly.
+After thus exciting his hearers, he returned to Poland and, like
+Raspail, demanded an immediate vote.
+
+The Assembly continued to sit motionless, the people to move about and
+utter a thousand contradictory exclamations, the President to ring his
+bell. Ledru-Rollin tried to persuade the mob to withdraw, but nobody was
+now able to exercise any influence over it. Ledru-Rollin, almost hooted,
+left the tribune.
+
+The tumult was renewed, increased, multiplied itself as it were, for the
+mob was no longer sufficiently master of itself to be able even to
+understand the necessity for a moment's self-restraint in order to
+attain the object of its passion. A long interval passed; at last Barbès
+darted up and climbed, or rather leapt, into the tribune. He was one of
+those men in whom the demagogue, the madman and the knight-errant are so
+closely intermingled that it is not possible to say where one ends or
+the other commences, and who can only make their way in a society as
+sick and troubled as ours. I am inclined to believe that it was the
+madman that predominated in him, and his madness became raging when he
+heard the voice of the people. His soul boiled as naturally amid popular
+passion as water does on the fire. Since our invasion by the mob, I had
+not taken my eyes from him; I considered him by far the most formidable
+of our adversaries, because he was the most insane, the most
+disinterested, and the most resolute of them all. I had seen him mount
+the platform on which the President sat, and stand for a long time
+motionless, only turning his agitated gaze about the Assembly; I had
+observed and pointed out to my neighbours the distortion of his
+features, his livid pallor, the convulsive excitement which caused him
+each moment to twist his moustache between his fingers; he stood there
+as the image of irresolution, leaning already towards an extreme side.
+This time, Barbès had made up his mind; he proposed in some way to sum
+up the passions of the people, and to make sure of victory by stating
+its object in terms of precision:
+
+"I demand," said he, in panting, jerking tones, "that, immediately and
+before rising, the Assembly shall vote the departure of an army for
+Poland, a tax of a milliard upon the rich, the removal of the troops
+from Paris, and shall forbid the beating to arms; if not, the
+representatives to be declared traitors to the country."
+
+I believe we should have been lost if Barbès had succeeded in getting
+his motion put to the vote; for if the Assembly had accepted it, it
+would have been dishonoured and powerless, whereas, if it had rejected
+it, which was probable, we should have run the risk of having our
+throats cut. But Barbès himself did not succeed in obtaining a brief
+space of silence so as to compel us to take a decision. The huge clamour
+that followed his last words was not to be appeased; on the contrary, it
+continued in a thousand varied intonations. Barbès exhausted himself in
+his efforts to still it, but in vain, although he was powerfully aided
+by the President's bell, which, during all this time, never ceased to
+sound, like a knell.
+
+This extraordinary sitting had lasted since two o'clock; the Assembly
+held out, its ears pricked up to catch any sound from the outside,
+waiting for assistance to come. But Paris seemed a dead city. Listen as
+we might, we heard no rumour issue from it.
+
+This passive resistance irritated and incensed the people; it was like a
+cold, even surface upon which its fury glided without knowing what to
+catch hold of; it struggled and writhed in vain, without finding any
+issue to its undertaking. A thousand diverse and contradictory clamours
+filled the air: "Let us go away," cried some.... "The organization of
+labour.... A ministry of labour.... A tax on the rich.... We want Louis
+Blanc!" cried others; they ended by fighting at the foot of the tribune
+to decide who should mount it; five or six orators occupied it at once,
+and often all spoke together. As always happens in insurrections, the
+terrible was mingled with the ridiculous. The heat was so stifling that
+many of the first intruders left the Chamber; they were forthwith
+replaced by others who had been waiting at the doors to come in. In this
+way I saw a fireman in uniform making his way down the gangway that
+passed along my bench. "We can't make them vote!" they shouted to him.
+"Wait, wait," he replied, "I'll see to it, I'll give them a piece of my
+mind." Thereupon he pulled his helmet over his eyes with a determined
+air, fastened the straps, squeezed through the crowd, pushing aside all
+who stood in his way, and mounted the tribune. He imagined he would be
+as much at his ease there as upon a roof, but he could not find his
+words and stopped short. The people cried, "Speak up, fireman!" but he
+did not speak a word, and they ended by turning him out of the tribune.
+Just then a number of men of the people caught Louis Blanc in their arms
+and carried him in triumph round the Chamber. They held him by his
+little legs above their heads; I saw him make vain efforts to extricate
+himself: he twisted and turned on every side without succeeding in
+escaping from their hands, talking all the while in a choking, strident
+voice. He reminded me of a snake having its tail pinched. They put him
+down at last on a bench beneath mine. I heard him cry, "My friends, the
+right you have just won...." but the remainder of his words were lost in
+the din. I was told that Sobrier was carried in the same way a little
+lower down.
+
+A very tragic incident nearly put an end to these saturnalia: the
+benches at the bottom of the house suddenly cracked, gave way more than
+a foot, and threatened to hurl into the Chamber the crowd which
+overloaded it, and which fled off in affright. This alarming occurrence
+put a momentary stop to the commotion; and I then first heard, in the
+distance, the sound of drums beating the call to arms in Paris. The mob
+heard it too, and uttered a long yell of rage and terror. "Why are they
+beating to arms?" exclaimed Barbès, beside himself, making his way to
+the tribune afresh. "Who is beating to arms? Let those who have given
+the order be outlawed!" Cries of "We are betrayed, to arms! To the Hôtel
+de Ville!" rose from the crowd.
+
+The President was driven from his chair, whence, if we are to believe
+the version he since gave, he caused himself to be driven voluntarily. A
+club-leader called Huber climbed to his seat and hoisted a flag
+surmounted by a red cap. The man had, it seemed, just recovered from a
+long epileptic swoon, caused doubtless by the excitement and the heat;
+it was on recovering from this sort of troubled sleep that he came
+forward. His clothes were still in disorder, his look scared and
+haggard. He exclaimed twice over in a resounding voice, which, uttered
+from aloft, filled the house and dominated every other sound, "In the
+name of the people, betrayed by its representatives, I declare the
+National Assembly dissolved!"
+
+The Assembly, deprived of its President, broke up. Barbès and the bolder
+of the club politicians went out to go to the Hôtel de Ville. This
+conclusion to the affair was far from meeting the general wishes. I
+heard men of the people beside me say to each other, in an aggrieved
+tone, "No, no, that's not what we want." Many sincere Republicans were
+in despair. I was first accosted, amid this tumult, by Trétat, a
+revolutionary of the sentimental kind, a dreamer who had plotted in
+favour of the Republic during the whole existence of the Monarchy.
+Moreover, he was a physician of distinction, who was at that time at the
+head of one of the principal mad-houses in Paris, although he was a
+little cracked himself. He took my hands effusively, and with tears in
+his eyes:
+
+"Ah, monsieur," he said, "what a misfortune, and how strange it is to
+think that it is madmen, real madmen, who have brought this about! I
+have treated or prescribed for each one of them. Blanqui is a madman,
+Barbès is a madman, Sobrier is a madman, Huber is the greatest madman of
+them all: they are all madmen, monsieur, who ought to be locked up at my
+Salpétrière instead of being here."
+
+He would certainly have added his own name to the list, had he known
+himself as well as he knew his old friends. I have always thought that
+in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so
+called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable
+political part. One thing at least is certain, and that is that a
+condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often
+even leads to success.
+
+The Assembly had dispersed, but it will be readily believed that it did
+not consider itself dissolved. Nor did it even regard itself as
+defeated. The majority of the members who left the House did so with the
+firm intention of soon meeting again elsewhere; they said so to one
+another, and I am convinced that they were, in fact, quite resolved upon
+it. As for myself, I decided to stay behind, kept back partly by the
+feeling of curiosity that irresistibly retains me in places where
+anything uncommon is proceeding, and partly by the opinion which I held
+then, as I did on the 24th of February, that the strength of an assembly
+in a measure resides in the hall it occupies. I therefore remained and
+witnessed the grotesque and disorderly, but meaningless and
+uninteresting, scenes that followed. The mob set itself, amid a
+thousand disorders and a thousand cries, to form a Provisional
+Government. It was a parody of the 24th of February, just as the 24th of
+February was a parody of other revolutionary scenes. This had lasted
+some time, when I thought that among all the noise I heard an irregular
+sound coming from the outside of the Palace. I have a very quick ear,
+and I was not slow in distinguishing the sound of a drum approaching and
+beating the charge; for in our days of civil disorder, everyone has
+learnt to know the language of these warlike instruments. I at once
+hurried to the door by which these new arrivals would enter.
+
+It was, in fact, a drum preceding some forty Gardes Mobiles. These lads
+pierced through the crowd with a certain air of resolution, although one
+could not clearly say at first what they proposed to do. Soon they
+disappeared from sight and remained as though submerged; but a short
+distance behind them marched a compact column of National Guards, who
+rushed into the House with significant shouts of "Long live the National
+Assembly!" I stuck my card of membership in my hat-band and entered with
+them. They first cleared the platform of five or six orators, who were
+at that moment speaking at once, and flung them, with none too great
+ceremony, down the steps of the little staircase that leads to it. At
+the sight of this, the insurgents at first made as though to resist; but
+a panic seized them. Climbing over the empty benches, tumbling over one
+another in the gangways, they made for the outer lobbies and sprang into
+the court-yards from every window. In a few minutes there remained only
+the National Guards, whose cries of "Long live the National Assembly"
+shook the walls of the Chamber.
+
+The Assembly itself was absent; but little by little the members who had
+dispersed in the neighbourhood hastened up. They shook the hands of the
+National Guards, embraced each other, and regained their seats. The
+National Guards cried, "Long live the National Assembly!" and the
+members, "Long live the National Guard! and long live the Republic!"
+
+No sooner was the hall recaptured, than General Courtais, the original
+author of our danger, had the incomparable impudence to present himself;
+the National Guards received him with yells of fury; he was seized and
+dragged to the foot of the rostrum. I saw him pass before my eyes, pale
+as a dying man among the flashing swords: thinking they would cut his
+throat, I cried with all my might, "Tear off his epaulettes, but don't
+kill him!" which was done.
+
+Then Lamartine reappeared. I never learnt how he had employed his time
+during the three hours wherein we were invaded. I had caught sight of
+him during the first hour: he was seated at that moment on a bench below
+mine, and he was combing his hair, glued together with perspiration,
+with a little comb he drew from his pocket; the crowd formed again and
+I saw him no more. Apparently he went to the inner rooms of the Palace,
+into which the mob had also penetrated, with the intention of haranguing
+it, and was very badly received. I was given, on the next day, some
+curious details of this scene, which I would have related here if I had
+not resolved to set down only what I have myself observed. They say
+that, subsequently, he withdrew to the palace then being built, close at
+hand, and destined for the Foreign Office. He would certainly have done
+better had he placed himself at the head of the National Guards and come
+to our release. I think he must have been seized with the faintness of
+heart that overcomes the bravest (and he was one of these) when
+possessed of a restless and lively imagination.
+
+When he returned to the Chamber, he had recovered his energy and his
+eloquence. He told us that his place was not in the Assembly, but in the
+streets, and that he was going to march upon the Hôtel de Ville and
+crush the insurrection. This was the last time I heard him
+enthusiastically cheered. True, it was not he alone that they applauded,
+but the victory: those cheers and clappings were but an echo of the
+tumultuous passions that still agitated every breast. Lamartine went
+out. The drums, which had beat the charge half-an-hour before, now beat
+the march. The National Guards and the Gardes Mobiles, who were still
+with us in crowds, formed themselves into order and followed him. The
+Assembly, still very incomplete, resumed its sitting; it was six
+o'clock.
+
+I went home an instant to take some food; I then returned to the
+Assembly, which had declared its sitting permanent. We soon learnt that
+the members of the new Provisional Government had been arrested. Barbès
+was impeached, as was that old fool of a Courtais, who deserved a sound
+thrashing and no more. Many wished to include Louis Blanc, who, however,
+had pluckily undertaken to defend himself; he had just escaped with
+difficulty from the fury of the National Guards at the door, and still
+wore his torn clothes, covered with dust and all disordered. This time
+he did not send for the stool on which he used to climb in order to
+bring his head above the level of the rostrum balustrade (for he was
+almost a dwarf); he even forgot the effect he wished to produce, and
+thought only of what he had to say. In spite of that, or rather because
+of that, he won his case for the moment. I never considered him to
+possess talent except on that one day; for I do not call talent the art
+of polishing brilliant and hollow phrases, which are like finely chased
+dishes containing nothing.
+
+For the rest, I was so fatigued by the excitement of the day that I have
+retained but a dull, indistinct remembrance of the night sitting. I
+shall therefore say no more, for I wish only to record my personal
+impressions: for facts in detail it is the _Moniteur_, not I, that
+should be consulted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ THE FEAST OF CONCORD AND THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE DAYS OF JUNE.
+
+
+The revolutionaries of 1848, unwilling or unable to imitate the
+bloodthirsty follies of their predecessors, consoled themselves by
+imitating their ludicrous follies. They took it into their heads to give
+the people a series of grand allegorical festivals.
+
+Despite the terrible condition of the finances, the Provisional
+Government had decided that a sum of one or two millions should be spent
+upon celebrating the Feast of Concord in the Champ-de-Mars.
+
+According to the programme, which was published in advance and
+faithfully followed out, the Champ-de-Mars was to be filled with figures
+representing all sorts of persons, virtues, political institutions, and
+even public services. France, Germany and Italy, hand in hand; Equality,
+Liberty and Fraternity, also hand in hand; Agriculture, Commerce, the
+Army, the Navy and, above all, the Republic; the last of colossal
+dimensions. A car was to be drawn by sixteen plough-horses: "this car,"
+said the programme aforesaid, "will be of a simple and rustic shape, and
+will carry three trees, an oak, a laurel, and an olive tree,
+symbolizing strength, honour, and plenty; and, moreover, a plough in the
+midst of a group of flowers and ears of corn. Ploughmen and young girls
+dressed in white will surround the car, singing patriotic hymns." We
+were also promised oxen with gilded horns, but did not get them.
+
+The National Assembly had not the smallest desire to see all these
+beautiful things; it even feared lest the immense gathering of people
+which was sure to be occasioned should produce some dangerous riot.
+Accordingly, it put the date as far back as possible; but the
+preparations were made, there was no possibility of going back from it,
+and the date was fixed for the 21st of May.
+
+On that day I went early to the Assembly, which was to proceed on foot,
+in a body, to the Champ-de-Mars. I had put my pistols in my pockets, and
+in talking to my colleagues I discovered that most of them were secretly
+armed, like myself: one had taken a sword-stick, another a dagger;
+nearly all carried some weapon of defence. Edmond de La Fayette showed
+me a weapon of a peculiar kind. It was a ball of lead sewn into a short
+leathern thong which could easily be fastened to the arm: one might have
+called it a portable club. La Fayette declared that this little
+instrument was being widely carried by the National Assembly, especially
+since the 15th of May. It was thus that we proceeded to this Feast of
+Concord.
+
+A sinister rumour ran that some great danger awaited the Assembly when
+it should cross through the crowd of the Champ-de-Mars and take up its
+place on the stage reserved for it outside the Military College. As a
+matter of fact, nothing could have been easier than to make it the
+object of an unexpected attack during this progress, which it made on
+foot and, so to speak, unguarded. Its real safeguard lay in the
+recollection of the 15th of May, and that sufficed. It very rarely
+happens, whatever opportunity may present itself, that a body is
+affronted the day after its triumph. Moreover, the French never do two
+things at a time. Their minds often change their object, but they are
+always devoted wholly to that occupying them at the moment, and I
+believe there is no precedent of their making an insurrection in the
+middle of a fête or even of a ceremony. On this day, therefore, the
+people seemed to enter willingly into the fictitious idea of its
+happiness, and for a moment to place on one side the recollection of its
+miseries and its hatreds. It was animated, without being turbulent. The
+programme had stated that a "fraternal confusion" was to prevail. There
+was, it is true, extreme confusion, but no disorder; for we are strange
+people: we cannot do without the police when we are orderly, and so soon
+as we start a revolution, the police seem superfluous. The sight of this
+popular joyfulness enraptured the moderate and sincere Republicans, and
+made them almost maudlin. Carnot observed to me, with that silliness
+which the honest democrat always mingles with his virtue:
+
+"Believe me, my dear colleague, one should always trust the people."
+
+I remember rather brusquely replying, "Ah! why didn't you tell me that
+before the 15th?"
+
+The Executive Commission occupied one half of the immense stage that had
+been erected along the Military College, and the National Assembly the
+other. There first defiled past us the different emblems of all nations,
+which took an enormous time, because of the fraternal confusion of which
+the programme spoke. Then came the car, and then the young girls dressed
+in white. There were at least three hundred of them, who wore their
+virginal costume in so virile a fashion that they might have been taken
+for boys dressed up as girls. Each had been given a big bouquet to
+carry, which they were so gallant as to throw to us as they passed. As
+these gossips were the owners of very nervous arms, and were more
+accustomed, I should think, to using the laundress's beetle than to
+strewing flowers, the bouquets fell down upon us in a very hard and
+uncomfortable hail-storm.
+
+One tall girl left her companions and, stopping in front of Lamartine,
+recited an ode to his glory. Gradually she grew excited in talking, so
+much so that she pulled a terrible face and began to make the most
+alarming contortions. Never had enthusiasm seemed to me to come so near
+to epilepsy. When she had finished, the people insisted at all costs
+that Lamartine should kiss her; she offered him two fat cheeks,
+streaming with perspiration, which he touched with the tip of his lips
+and with indifferent bad grace.
+
+The only serious portion of the fête was the review. I have never seen
+so many armed men in one spot in my life, and I believe that few have
+seen more. Apart from the innumerable crowd of sight-seers in the
+Champ-de-Mars, one saw an entire people under arms. The _Moniteur_
+estimated the number of National Guards and soldiers of the line who
+were there at three hundred thousand. This seemed to me to be
+exaggerated, but I do not think that the number could be reduced to less
+than two hundred thousand.
+
+The spectacle of those two hundred thousand bayonets will never leave my
+memory. As the men who carried them were tightly pressed against one
+another, so as to be able to keep within the slopes of the
+Champ-de-Mars, and as we, from our but slightly raised position, could
+only throw an almost horizontal glance upon them, they formed, to our
+eyes, a flat and lightly undulating surface, which flashed in the sun
+and made the Champ-de-Mars resemble a great lake filled with liquid
+steel.
+
+All these men marched past us in succession, and we noticed that this
+army numbered many more muskets than uniforms. Only the legions from the
+wealthier parts of the town presented a large number of National Guards
+clad in military uniform. They were the first to appear, and shouted,
+"Long live the National Assembly!" with much enthusiasm. In the legions
+from the suburbs, which formed in themselves veritable armies, one saw
+little but jackets and blouses, though this did not prevent them from
+marching with a very warlike aspect. Most of them, as they passed us,
+were content to shout, "Long live the Democratic Republic!" or to sing
+the _Marseillaise_ or the song of the _Girondins_. Next came the legions
+of the outskirts, composed of peasants, badly equipped, badly armed, and
+dressed in blouses like the workmen of the suburbs, but filled with a
+very different spirit to that of the latter, as they showed by their
+cries and gestures. The battalions of the Garde Mobile uttered various
+exclamations, which left us full of doubt and anxiety as to the
+intention of these lads, or rather children, who at that time more than
+any other held our destinies in their hands.
+
+The regiments of the line, who closed the review, marched past in
+silence.
+
+I witnessed this long parade with a heart filled with sadness. Never at
+any time had so many arms been placed at once into the hands of the
+people. It will be easily believed that I shared neither the simple
+confidence nor the stupid happiness of my friend Carnot; I foresaw, on
+the contrary, that all the bayonets I saw glittering in the sun would
+soon be raised against each other, and I felt that I was at a review of
+the two armies of the civil war that was just concluded. In the course
+of that day I still heard frequent shouts of "Long live Lamartine!"
+although his great popularity was already waning. In fact, one might say
+it was over, were it not that in every crowd one meets with a large
+number of belated individuals who are stirred with the enthusiasm of
+yesterday, like the provincials who begin to adopt the Paris mode on the
+day when the Parisians abandon it.
+
+Lamartine hastened to withdraw from this last ray of his sun: he retired
+long before the ceremony was finished. He looked weary and care-worn.
+Many members of the Assembly, also overcome with fatigue, followed his
+example, and the review ended in front of almost empty benches. It had
+begun early and ended at night-fall.
+
+The whole time elapsing between the review of the 21st of May and the
+days of June was filled with the anxiety caused by the approach of these
+latter days. Every day fresh alarms came and called out the army and the
+National Guard; the artisans and shopkeepers no longer lived at home,
+but in the public places and under arms. Each one fervently desired to
+avoid the necessity of a conflict, and all vaguely felt that this
+necessity was becoming more inevitable from day to day. The National
+Assembly was so constantly possessed by this thought that one might have
+said that it read the words "Civil War" written on the four walls of the
+House.
+
+On all sides great efforts of prudence and patience were being made to
+prevent, or at least delay, the crisis. Members who in their hearts were
+most hostile to the revolution were careful to restrain any expressions
+of sympathy or antipathy; the old parliamentary orators were silent,
+lest the sound of their voices should give umbrage; they left the
+rostrum to the new-comers, who themselves but rarely occupied it, for
+the great debates had ceased. As is common in all assemblies, that which
+most disturbed the members' minds was that of which they spoke least,
+though it was proved that each day they thought of it. All sorts of
+measures to help the misery of the people were proposed and discussed.
+We even entered readily into an examination of the different socialistic
+systems, and each strove in all good faith to discover in these
+something applicable to, or at least compatible with, the ancient laws
+of Society.
+
+During this time, the national workshops continued to fill; their
+population already exceeded one hundred thousand men. It was felt that
+we could not live if they were kept on, and it was feared that we should
+perish if we tried to dismiss them. This burning question of the
+national workshops was treated daily, but superficially and timidly; it
+was constantly touched upon, but never firmly taken in hand.
+
+On the other hand, it was clear that, outside the Assembly, the
+different parties, while dreading the contest, were actively preparing
+for it. The wealthy legions of the National Guard offered banquets to
+the army and to the Garde Mobile, in which they mutually urged each
+other to unite for the common defence.
+
+The workmen of the suburbs, on their side, were secretly amassing that
+great number of cartridges which enabled them later to sustain so long a
+contest. As to the muskets, the Provisional Government had taken care
+that these should be supplied in profusion; one could safely say that
+there was not a workman who did not possess at least one, and sometimes
+several.
+
+The danger was perceived afar off as well as near at hand. The provinces
+grew indignant and irritated with Paris; for the first time for sixty
+years they ventured to entertain the idea of resisting it; the people
+armed themselves and encouraged each other to come to the assistance of
+the Assembly; they sent it thousands of addresses congratulating it on
+its victory of the 15th of May. The ruin of commerce, universal war, the
+dread of Socialism made the Republic more and more hateful in the eyes
+of the provinces. This hatred manifested itself especially beneath the
+secrecy of the ballot. The electors were called upon to re-elect in
+twenty-one departments; and in general they elected the men who in their
+eyes represented the Monarchy in some form or other. M. Molé was elected
+at Bordeaux, and M. Thiers at Rouen.
+
+It was then that suddenly, for the first time, the name of Louis
+Napoleon came into notice. The Prince was elected at the same time in
+Paris and in several departments. Republicans, Legitimists and
+demagogues gave him their votes; for the nation at that time was like a
+frightened flock of sheep, which runs in all directions without
+following any road. I little thought, when I heard that Louis Napoleon
+had been nominated, that exactly a year later I should be his minister.
+I confess that I beheld the return of the old parliamentary leaders with
+considerable apprehension and regret; not that I failed to do justice to
+their talent and discretion, but I feared lest their approach should
+drive back towards the Mountain the moderate Republicans who were coming
+towards us. Moreover, I knew them too well not to see that, so soon as
+they had returned to political life, they would wish to lead it, and
+that it would not suit them to save the country unless they could govern
+it. Now an enterprise of this sort seemed to me both premature and
+dangerous. Our duty and theirs was to assist the moderate Republicans to
+govern the Republic without seeking to govern it indirectly ourselves,
+and especially without appearing to have this in view.
+
+For my part, I never doubted but that we were on the eve of a terrible
+struggle; nevertheless, I did not fully understand our danger until
+after a conversation that I had about this time with the celebrated
+Madame Sand. I met her at an Englishman's of my acquaintance:
+Milnes,[10] a member of Parliament, who was then in Paris. Milnes was a
+clever fellow who did and, what is rarer, said many foolish things. What
+a number of those faces I have seen in my life of which one can say that
+the two profiles are not alike: men of sense on one side, fools on the
+other. I have always seen Milnes infatuated with something or somebody.
+This time he was smitten with Madame Sand, and notwithstanding the
+seriousness of events, had insisted on giving her a literary _déjeûner_.
+I was present at this repast, and the image of the days of June, which
+followed so closely after, far from effacing the remembrance of it from
+my mind, recalls it.
+
+ [10: The Right Honble. Monckton Milnes, the late Lord
+ Houghton.--A.T. de M.]
+
+The company was anything but homogeneous. Besides Madame Sand, I met a
+young English lady, very modest and very agreeable, who must have found
+the company invited to meet her somewhat singular; some more or less
+obscure writers; and Mérimée. Milnes placed me next to Madame Sand. I
+had never spoken to her, and I doubt whether I had ever seen her (I had
+lived little in the world of literary adventurers which she frequented).
+One of my friends asked her one day what she thought of my book on
+America, and she answered, "Monsieur, I am only accustomed to read the
+books which are presented to me by their authors." I was strongly
+prejudiced against Madame Sand, for I loathe women who write,
+especially those who systematically disguise the weaknesses of their
+sex, instead of interesting us by displaying them in their true
+character. Nevertheless, she pleased me. I thought her features rather
+massive, but her expression admirable: all her mind seemed to have taken
+refuge in her eyes, abandoning the rest of her face to matter; and I was
+particularly struck at meeting in her with something of the naturalness
+of behaviour of great minds. She had a real simplicity of manner and
+language, which she mingled, perhaps, with some little affectation of
+simplicity in her dress. I confess that, more adorned, she would have
+appeared still more simple. We talked for a whole hour of public
+affairs; it was impossible to talk of anything else in those days.
+Besides, Madame Sand at that time was a sort of politician, and what she
+said on the subject struck me greatly; it was the first time that I had
+entered into direct and familiar communication with a person able and
+willing to tell me what was happening in the camp of our adversaries.
+Political parties never know each other: they approach, touch, seize,
+but never see one another. Madame Sand depicted to me, in great detail
+and with singular vivacity, the condition of the Paris workmen, their
+organization, their numbers, their arms, their preparations, their
+thoughts, their passions, their terrible resolves. I thought the picture
+overloaded, but it was not, as subsequent events clearly proved. She
+seemed to be alarmed for herself at the popular triumph, and to take
+the greatest pity upon the fate that awaited us.
+
+"Try to persuade your friends, monsieur," she said, "not to force the
+people into the streets by alarming or irritating them. I also wish that
+I could instil patience into my own friends; for if it comes to a fight,
+believe me, you will all be killed."
+
+With these consoling words we parted, and I have never seen her since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ THE DAYS OF JUNE.
+
+
+I come at last to the insurrection of June, the most extensive and the
+most singular that has occurred in our history, and perhaps in any
+other: the most extensive, because, during four days, more than a
+hundred thousand men were engaged in it; the most singular, because the
+insurgents fought without a war-cry, without leaders, without flags, and
+yet with a marvellous harmony and an amount of military experience that
+astonished the oldest officers.
+
+What distinguished it also, among all the events of this kind which have
+succeeded one another in France for sixty years, is that it did not aim
+at changing the form of government, but at altering the order of
+society. It was not, strictly speaking, a political struggle, in the
+sense which until then we had given to the word, but a combat of class
+against class, a sort of Servile War. It represented the facts of the
+Revolution of February in the same manner as the theories of Socialism
+represented its ideas; or rather it issued naturally from these ideas,
+as a son does from his mother. We behold in it nothing more than a blind
+and rude, but powerful, effort on the part of the workmen to escape from
+the necessities of their condition, which had been depicted to them as
+one of unlawful oppression, and to open up by main force a road towards
+that imaginary comfort with which they had been deluded. It was this
+mixture of greed and false theory which first gave birth to the
+insurrection and then made it so formidable. These poor people had been
+told that the wealth of the rich was in some way the produce of a theft
+practised upon themselves. They had been assured that the inequality of
+fortunes was as opposed to morality and the welfare of society as it was
+to nature. Prompted by their needs and their passions, many had believed
+this obscure and erroneous notion of right, which, mingled with brute
+force, imparted to the latter an energy, a tenacity and a power which it
+would never have possessed unaided.
+
+It must also be observed that this formidable insurrection was not the
+enterprise of a certain number of conspirators, but the revolt of one
+whole section of the population against another. Women took part in it
+as well as men. While the latter fought, the former prepared and carried
+ammunition; and when at last the time had come to surrender, the women
+were the last to yield. These women went to battle with, as it were, a
+housewifely ardour: they looked to victory for the comfort of their
+husbands and the education of their children. They took pleasure in this
+war as they might have taken pleasure in a lottery.
+
+As to the strategic science displayed by this multitude, the warlike
+nature of the French, their long experience of insurrections, and
+particularly the military education which the majority of the men of the
+people in turn receive, suffice to explain it. Half of the Paris workmen
+have served in our armies, and they are always glad to take up arms
+again. Generally speaking, old soldiers abound in our riots. On the 24th
+of February, when Lamoricière was surrounded by his foes, he twice owed
+his life to insurgents who had fought under him in Africa, men in whom
+the recollection of their military life had been stronger than the fury
+of civil war.
+
+As we know, it was the closing of the national workshops that occasioned
+the rising. Dreading to disband this formidable soldiery at one stroke,
+the Government had tried to disperse it by sending part of the workmen
+into the country. They refused to leave. On the 22nd of June, they
+marched through Paris in troops, singing in cadence, in a monotonous
+chant, "We won't be sent away, we won't be sent away...." Their
+delegates waited upon the members of the Committee of the Executive
+Power with a series of arrogant demands, and on meeting with a refusal,
+withdrew with the announcement that next day they would have recourse to
+arms. Everything, indeed, tended to show that the long-expected crisis
+had come.
+
+When this news reached the Assembly it caused the greatest alarm.
+Nevertheless, the Assembly did not interrupt its order of the day; it
+continued the discussion of a commercial act, and even listened to it,
+despite its excited condition; true, it was a very important question
+and a very eminent orator was speaking. The Government had proposed to
+acquire all the railways by purchase. Montalembert opposed it; his case
+was good, but his speech was excellent; I do not think I ever heard him
+speak so well before or since. As a matter of fact, I thought as he did,
+this time; but I believe that, even in the eyes of his adversaries, he
+surpassed himself. He made a vigorous attack without being as peevish
+and outrageous as usual. A certain fear tempered his natural insolence,
+and set a limit to his paradoxical and querulous humour; for, like so
+many other men of words, he had more temerity of language than stoutness
+of heart.
+
+The sitting concluded without any question as to what was occurring
+outside, and the Assembly adjourned.
+
+On the 23rd, on going to the Assembly, I saw a large number of omnibuses
+grouped round the Madeleine. This told me that they were beginning to
+erect barricades in the streets; which was confirmed on my arrival at
+the Palace. Nevertheless, a doubt was expressed whether it was seriously
+contemplated to resort to arms. I resolved to go and assure myself of
+the real state of things, and, with Corcelles, repaired to the
+neighbourhood of the Hôtel de Ville. In all the little streets
+surrounding that building, I found the people engaged in making
+barricades; they proceeded in their work with the cunning and regularity
+of an engineer, not unpaving more stones than were necessary to lay the
+foundations of a very thick, solid and even neatly-built wall, in which
+they generally left a small opening by the side of the houses to permit
+of ingress and egress. Eager for quicker information as to the state of
+the town, Corcelles and I agreed to separate. He went one way and I the
+other; and his excursion very nearly turned out badly. He told me
+afterwards that, after crossing several half-built barricades without
+impediment, he was stopped at the last one. The men of the lower orders
+who were building it, seeing a fine gentleman, in black clothes and very
+white linen, quietly trotting through the dirty streets round the Hôtel
+de Ville and stopping before them with a placid and inquisitive air,
+thought they would make use of this suspicious onlooker. They called
+upon him, in the name of the brotherhood, to assist them in their work.
+Corcelles was as brave as Cæsar, but he rightly judged that, under these
+circumstances, there was nothing better to be done than to give way
+quietly. See him therefore lifting paving-stones and placing them as
+neatly as possible one atop the other. His natural awkwardness and his
+absent-mindedness fortunately came to his aid; and he was soon sent
+about his business as a useless workman.
+
+To me no such adventure happened. I passed through the streets of the
+Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis quarters without coming across any
+barricades to speak of; but the excitement was extraordinary. On my
+return I met, in the Rue des Jeûneurs, a National Guard covered with
+blood and fragments of brain. He was very pale and was going home. I
+asked him what was happening; he told me that his battalion had just
+received the full force of a very murderous discharge of musketry at the
+Porte Saint-Denis. One of his comrades, whose name he mentioned to me,
+had been killed by his side, and he was covered with the blood and
+brains of this unhappy man.
+
+I returned to the Assembly, astonished at not having met a single
+soldier in the whole distance which I had traversed. It was not till I
+came in front of the Palais-Bourbon that I at last perceived great
+columns of infantry, marching, followed by cannon.
+
+Lamoricière, in full uniform and on horseback, was at their head. I have
+never seen a figure more resplendent with aggressive passion and almost
+with joy; and whatever may have been the natural impetuosity of his
+humour, I doubt whether it was that alone which urged him at that
+moment, and whether there was not mingled with it an eagerness to avenge
+himself for the dangers and outrages he had undergone.
+
+"What are you doing?" I asked him. "They have already been fighting at
+the Porte Saint-Denis, and barricades are being built all round the
+Hôtel de Ville."
+
+"Patience," he replied, "we are going there. Do you think we are such
+fools as to scatter our soldiers on such a day as this over the small
+streets of the suburbs? No, no! we shall let the insurgents concentrate
+in the quarters which we can't keep them out of, and then we will go and
+destroy them. They sha'n't escape us this time."
+
+As I reached the Assembly, a terrible storm broke, which flooded the
+town. I entertained a slight hope that this bad weather would get us out
+of our difficulties for the day, and it would, indeed, have been enough
+to put a stop to an ordinary riot; for the people of Paris need fine
+weather to fight in, and are more afraid of rain than of grape-shot. But
+I soon lost this hope: each moment the news became more distressing. The
+Assembly found difficulty in resuming its ordinary work. Agitated,
+though not overcome, by the excitement outside, it suspended the order
+of the day, returned to it, and finally suspended it for good, giving
+itself over to the preoccupations of the civil war. Different members
+came and described from the rostrum what they had seen in Paris. Others
+suggested various courses of action. Falloux, in the name of the
+Committee of Public Assistance, proposed a decree dissolving the
+national workshops, and received applause. Time was wasted with empty
+conversations, empty speeches. Nothing was known for certain; they kept
+on calling for the attendance of the Executive Commission, to inform
+them of the state of Paris, but the latter did not appear. There is
+nothing more pitiful than the spectacle of an assembly in a moment of
+crisis, when the Government itself fails it; it resembles a man still
+full of will and passion, but impotent, and tossing childishly amid the
+helplessness of his limbs. At last appeared two members of the Executive
+Commission; they announced that affairs were in a perilous condition,
+but that, nevertheless, it was hoped to crush the insurrection before
+night. The Assembly declared its sitting permanent, and adjourned till
+the evening.
+
+When the sitting was resumed, we learnt that Lamartine had been received
+with shots at all the barricades he attempted to approach. Two of our
+colleagues, Bixio and Dornès, had been mortally wounded when trying to
+address the insurgents. Bedeau had been shot through the thigh at the
+entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, and a number of officers of
+distinction were already killed or dangerously wounded. One of our
+members, Victor Considérant, spoke of making concessions to the workmen.
+The Assembly, which was tumultuous and disturbed, but not weak, revolted
+at these words: "Order, order!" they cried on every side, with a sort of
+rage, "it will be time to talk of that after the victory!" The rest of
+the evening and a portion of the night were spent in vaguely talking,
+listening, and waiting. About midnight, Cavaignac appeared. The
+Executive Commission had since that afternoon placed the whole military
+power in his hands. In a hoarse and jerky voice, and in simple and
+precise words, Cavaignac detailed the principal incidents of the day. He
+stated that he had given orders to all the regiments posted along the
+railways to converge upon Paris, and that all the National Guards of the
+outskirts had been called out; he concluded by telling us that the
+insurgents had been beaten back to the barriers, and that he hoped soon
+to have mastered the city. The Assembly, exhausted with fatigue, left
+its officials sitting in permanence, and adjourned until eight o'clock
+the next morning.
+
+When, on quitting this turbulent scene, I found myself at one in the
+morning on the Pont Royal, and from there beheld Paris wrapped in
+darkness, and calm as a city asleep, it was with difficulty that I
+persuaded myself that all that I had seen and heard since the morning
+had existed in reality and was not a pure creation of my brain. The
+streets and squares which I crossed were absolutely deserted; not a
+sound, not a cry; one would have said that an industrious population,
+fatigued with its day's work, was resting before resuming the peaceful
+labours of the morrow. The serenity of the night ended by over-mastering
+me; I brought myself to believe that we had triumphed already, and on
+reaching home I went straight to sleep.
+
+I woke very early in the morning. The sun had risen some time before,
+for we were in the midst of the longest days of the year. On opening my
+eyes, I heard a sharp, metallic sound, which shook the window-panes and
+immediately died out amid the silence of Paris.
+
+"What is that?" I asked.
+
+My wife replied, "It is the cannon; I have heard it for over an hour,
+but would not wake you, for I knew you would want your strength during
+the day."
+
+I dressed hurriedly and went out. The drums were beating to arms on
+every side: the day of the great battle had come at last. The National
+Guards left their homes under arms; all those I met seemed full of
+energy, for the sound of cannon, which brought the brave ones out, kept
+the others at home. But they were in bad humour: they thought themselves
+either badly commanded or betrayed by the Executive Power, against which
+they uttered terrible imprecations. This extreme distrust of its leaders
+on the part of the armed force seemed to me an alarming symptom.
+Continuing on my way, at the entrance to the Rue Saint-Honoré, I met a
+crowd of workmen anxiously listening to the cannon. These men were all
+in blouses, which, as we know, constitute their fighting as well as
+their working clothes; nevertheless, they had no arms, but one could see
+by their looks that they were quite ready to take them up. They
+remarked, with a hardly restrained joy, that the sound of the firing
+seemed to come nearer, which showed that the insurrection was gaining
+ground. I had augured before this that the whole of the working class
+was engaged, either in fact or in spirit, in the struggle; and this
+confirmed my suspicions. The spirit of insurrection circulated from one
+end to the other of this immense class, and in each of its parts, as the
+blood does in the body; it filled the quarters where there was no
+fighting, as well as those which served as the scene of battle; it had
+penetrated into our houses, around, above, below us. The very places in
+which we thought ourselves the masters swarmed with domestic enemies;
+one might say that an atmosphere of civil war enveloped the whole of
+Paris, amid which, to whatever part we withdrew, we had to live; and in
+this connection I shall violate the law I had imposed upon myself never
+to speak upon the word of another, and will relate a fact which I learnt
+a few days later from my colleague Blanqui.[11] Although very trivial, I
+consider it very characteristic of the physiognomy of the time. Blanqui
+had brought up from the country and taken into his house, as a servant,
+the son of a poor man, whose wretchedness had touched him. On the
+evening of the day on which the insurrection began, he heard this lad
+say, as he was clearing the table after dinner, "Next Sunday [it was
+Thursday then] _we_ shall be eating the wings of the chicken;" to which
+a little girl who worked in the house replied, "And _we_ shall be
+wearing fine silk dresses." Could anything give a better idea of the
+general state of minds than this childish scene? And to complete it,
+Blanqui was very careful not to seem to hear these little monkeys: they
+really frightened him. It was not until after the victory that he
+ventured to send back the ambitious pair to their hovels.
+
+ [11: Of the Institute, a brother of Blanqui of the 15th of May.]
+
+At last I reached the Assembly. The representatives were gathered in
+crowds, although the time appointed for the sitting was not yet come.
+The sound of the cannon had attracted them. The Palace had the
+appearance of a fortified town: battalions were encamped around, and
+guns were levelled at all the approaches leading to it.
+
+I found the Assembly very determined, but very ill at ease; and it must
+be confessed there was enough to make it so. It was easy to perceive
+through the multitude of contradictory reports that we had to do with
+the most universal, the best armed, and the most furious insurrection
+ever known in Paris. The national workshops and various revolutionary
+bands that had just been disbanded supplied it with trained and
+disciplined soldiers and with leaders. It was extending every moment,
+and it was difficult to believe that it would not end by being
+victorious, when one remembered that all the great insurrections of the
+last sixty years had triumphed. To all these enemies we were only able
+to oppose the battalions of the _bourgeoisie_, regiments which had been
+disarmed in February, and twenty thousand undisciplined lads of the
+Garde Mobile, who were all sons, brothers, or near relations of
+insurgents, and whose dispositions were doubtful.
+
+But what alarmed us most was our leaders. The members of the Executive
+Commission filled us with profound distrust. On this subject I
+encountered, in the Assembly, the same feelings which I had observed
+among the National Guard. We doubted the good faith of some and the
+capacity of others. They were too numerous, besides, and too much
+divided to be able to act in complete harmony, and they were too much
+men of speech and the pen to be able to act to good purpose under such
+circumstances, even if they had agreed among themselves.
+
+Nevertheless, we succeeded in triumphing over this so formidable
+insurrection; nay more, it was just that which rendered it so terrible
+which saved us. One might well apply in this case the famous phrase of
+the Prince de Condé, during the wars of religion: "We should have been
+destroyed, had we not been so near destruction." Had the revolt borne a
+less radical character and a less ferocious aspect, it is probable that
+the greater part of the middle class would have stayed at home; France
+would not have come to our aid; the National Assembly itself would
+perhaps have yielded, or at least a minority of its members would have
+advised it; and the energy of the whole body would have been greatly
+unnerved. But the insurrection was of such a nature that any commerce
+with it became at once impossible, and from the first it left us no
+alternative but to defeat it or to be destroyed ourselves.
+
+The same reason prevented any man of consideration from placing himself
+at its head. In general, insurrections--I mean even those which
+succeed--begin without a leader; but they always end by securing one.
+This insurrection finished without having found one; it embraced every
+class of the populace, but never passed those limits. Even the
+Montagnards in the Assembly did not dare pronounce in its favour.
+Several pronounced against it. They did not even yet despair of
+attaining their ends by other means; they feared, moreover, that the
+triumph of the workmen would soon prove fatal to them. The greedy, blind
+and vulgar passions which induced the populace to take up arms alarmed
+them; for these passions are as dangerous to those who sympathize with
+them, without utterly abandoning themselves to them, as to those who
+reprove and combat them. The only men who could have placed themselves
+at the head of the insurgents had allowed themselves to be prematurely
+taken, like fools, on the 15th of May; and they only heard the sound of
+the conflict through the walls of the dungeon of Vincennes.
+
+Preoccupied though I was with public affairs, I continued to be
+distressed with the uneasiness which my young nephews once more caused
+me. They had been sent back to the Little Seminary, and I feared
+that the insurrection must come pretty near, if it had not already
+reached, the place where they lived. As their parents were not in
+Paris, I decided to go and fetch them, and I accordingly again traversed
+the long distance separating the Palais-Bourbon from the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Champs. I came across a few barricades erected during the
+night by the forlorn hope of the insurrection; but these had been either
+abandoned or captured at daybreak.
+
+All these quarters resounded with a devilish music, a mixture of drums
+and trumpets, whose rough, discordant, savage notes were new to me. In
+fact, I heard for the first time--and I have never heard it since--the
+rally, which it had been decided should never be beaten except in
+extreme cases and to call the whole population at once to arms.
+Everywhere National Guards were issuing from the houses; everywhere
+stood groups of workmen in blouses, listening with a sinister air to the
+rally and the cannon. The fighting had not yet reached so far as the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Champs, although it was very near it. I took my nephews
+with me, and returned to the Chamber.
+
+As I approached, and when I was already in the midst of the troops which
+guarded it, an old woman, pushing a barrow full of vegetables,
+obstinately barred my progress. I ended by telling her pretty curtly to
+make way. Instead of doing so, she left her barrow and flew at me in
+such a frenzy that I had great difficulty in protecting myself. I was
+horrified at the hideous and frightful expression of her face, on which
+were depicted all the fury of demagogic passion and the rage of civil
+war. I mention this little fact because I beheld in it, and with good
+cause, an important symptom. In violently critical times, even actions
+which have nothing to do with politics assume a singular character of
+anger and disorder, which does not escape the attentive eye, and which
+is an unfailing index of the general state of mind. These great public
+excitements form a sort of glowing atmosphere in which all private
+passions seethe and bubble.
+
+I found the Assembly agitated by a thousand sinister reports. The
+insurrection was gaining ground in every direction. Its head-quarters,
+or, so to speak, its trunk, was behind the Hôtel de Ville, whence it
+stretched its long arms further and further to right and left into the
+suburbs, and threatened soon to hug even us. The cannon was drawing
+appreciably nearer. And to this correct news were added a thousand lying
+rumours. Some said that our troops were running short of ammunition;
+others, that a number of them had laid down their arms or gone over to
+the insurgents.
+
+M. Thiers asked Barrot, Dufaure, Rémusat, Lanjuinais and myself to
+follow him to a private room. There he said:
+
+"I know something of insurrections, and I tell you this is the worst I
+have ever seen. The insurgents may be here within an hour, and we shall
+be butchered one and all. Do you not think that it would be well for us
+to agree to propose to the Assembly, so soon as we think necessary and
+before it becomes too late, that it should call back the troops around
+it, in order that, placed in their midst, we may all leave Paris
+together and remove the seat of the Republic to a place where we could
+summon the army and all the National Guards in France to our
+assistance?"
+
+He said this in very eager tones and with a greater display of
+excitement than is, perhaps, advisable in the presence of great danger.
+I saw that he was pursued by the ghost of February. Dufaure, who had a
+less vivid imagination, and who, moreover, never readily made up his
+mind to associate himself with people he did not care about, even to
+save himself, phlegmatically and somewhat sarcastically explained that
+the time had not yet come to discuss a plan of this kind; that we could
+always talk of it later on; that our chances did not seem to him so
+desperate as to oblige us to entertain so extreme a remedy; that to
+entertain it was to weaken ourselves. He was undoubtedly right, and his
+words broke up the consultation. I at once wrote a few lines to my wife,
+telling her that the danger was hourly increasing, that Paris would
+perhaps end by falling entirely into the power of the revolt, and that,
+in that case, we should be obliged to leave it in order to carry on the
+civil war elsewhere. I charged her to go at once to Saint-Germain by
+the railroad, which was still free, and there to await my news; told my
+nephews to take the letter; and returned to the Assembly. I found them
+discussing a decree to proclaim Paris in a state of siege, to abolish
+the powers of the Executive Commission, and to replace it by a military
+dictatorship under General Cavaignac.
+
+The Assembly knew precisely that this was what it wanted. The thing was
+easily done: it was urgent, and yet it was not done. Each moment some
+little incident, some trivial motion interrupted and turned aside the
+current of the general wish; for assemblies are very liable to that sort
+of nightmare in which an unknown and invisible force seems always at the
+last moment to interpose between the will and the deed and to prevent
+the one from influencing the other. Who would have thought that it was
+Bastide who should eventually induce the Assembly to make up its mind?
+Yet he it was.
+
+I had heard him say--and it was very true--speaking of himself, that he
+was never able to remember more than the first fifteen words of a
+speech. But I have sometimes observed that men who do not know how to
+speak produce a greater impression, under certain circumstances, than
+the finest orators. They bring forward but a single idea, that of the
+moment, clothed in a single phrase, and somehow they lay it down in the
+rostrum like an inscription written in big letters, which everybody
+perceives, and in which each instantly recognizes his own particular
+thought. Bastide, then, displayed his long, honest, melancholy face in
+the tribune, and said, with a mournful air:
+
+"Citizens, in the name of the country, I beseech you to vote as quickly
+as possible. We are told that perhaps within an hour the Hôtel de Ville
+will be taken."
+
+These few words put an end to debate, and the decree was voted in the
+twinkling of an eye.
+
+I protested against the clause proclaiming Paris in a state of siege; I
+did so by instinct rather than reflection. I have such a contempt and so
+great a natural horror for military despotism that these feelings came
+rising tumultuously in my breast when I heard a state of siege
+suggested, and even dominated those prompted by our peril. In this I
+made a mistake in which I fortunately found few to imitate me.
+
+The friends of the Executive Commission have asserted in very bitter
+terms that their adversaries and the partisans of General Cavaignac
+spread ominous rumours on purpose to precipitate the vote. If the latter
+did really resort to this trick, I gladly pardon them, for the measures
+they caused to be taken were indispensable to the safety of the country.
+
+Before adopting the decree of which I have spoken, the Assembly
+unanimously voted another, which declared that the families of those who
+should fall in the struggle should receive a pension from the Treasury
+and their children be adopted by the Republic.
+
+It was decided that sixty members of the Chamber, appointed by the
+committees, should spread themselves over Paris, inform the National
+Guards of the different decrees issued by the Assembly, and re-establish
+their confidence, which was said to be uncertain and discouraged. In the
+committee to which I belonged, instead of immediately appointing
+commissioners, they began an endless discussion on the uselessness and
+danger of the resolution adopted. In this manner a great deal of time
+was lost. I ended by stopping this ludicrous chatter with a word.
+"Gentlemen," I said, "the Assembly may have been mistaken; but permit me
+to observe that, having passed a two-fold resolution, it would be a
+disgrace for it to draw back, and a disgrace for us not to submit."
+
+They voted on the spot; and I was unanimously elected a commissioner, as
+I expected. My colleagues were Cormenin and Crémieux, to whom they added
+Goudchaux. The latter was then not so well known, although in his own
+way he was the most original of them all. He was at once a Radical and a
+banker, a rare combination; and by dint of his business occupations, he
+had succeeded by covering with a few reasonable ideas the foundation of
+his mind, which was filled with mad theories that always ended by making
+their way to the top. It was impossible to be vainer, more irascible,
+more quarrelsome, petulant or excitable than he. He was unable to
+discuss the difficulties of the Budget without shedding tears; and yet
+he was one of the valiantest little men it was possible to meet.
+
+Thanks to the stormy discussion in our committee, the other deputations
+had already left, and with them the guides and the escort who were to
+have accompanied us. Nevertheless, we set out, after putting on our
+scarves, and turned our steps alone and a little at hazard towards the
+interior of Paris, along the right bank of the Seine. By that time the
+insurrection had made such progress that one could see the cannon drawn
+up in line and firing between the Pont des Arts and the Pont Neuf. The
+National Guards, who saw us from the top of the embankment, looked at us
+with anxiety; they respectfully took off their hats, and said in an
+undertone, and with grief-stricken accents, "Long live the National
+Assembly!" No noisy cheers uttered at the sight of a king ever came more
+visibly from the heart, or pointed to a more unfeigned sympathy. When we
+had passed through the gates and were on the Carrousel, I saw that
+Cormenin and Crémieux were imperceptibly making for the Tuileries, and I
+heard one of them, I forget which, say:
+
+"Where can we go? And what can we do of any use without guides? Is it
+not best to content ourselves with going through the Tuileries gardens?
+There are several battalions of the reserve stationed there; we will
+inform them of the decrees of the Assembly."
+
+"Certainly," replied the other; "I even think we shall be executing the
+Assembly's instructions better than our colleagues; for what can one say
+to people already engaged in action? It is the reserves that we should
+prepare to fall into line in their turn."
+
+I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary
+movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their
+cowardice in all its nakedness; but the others are able to cover it with
+a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small, plausible lies, that
+there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work
+of the brain.
+
+As may be supposed, I was in no humour for a stroll in the Tuileries
+gardens. I had set out in none too good a temper; but it was no good
+crying over spilt milk. I therefore pointed out to Goudchaux the road
+our colleagues had taken.
+
+"I know," he said, angrily; "I shall leave them and I will make public
+the decrees of the Assembly without them."
+
+Together we made for the gate opposite. Cormenin and Crémieux soon
+rejoined us, a little ashamed of their attempt. Thus we reached the Rue
+Saint-Honoré, the appearance of which was perhaps what struck me most
+during the days of June. This noisy, populous street was at this moment
+more deserted than I had ever seen it at four o'clock on a winter
+morning. As far as the eye could reach, we perceived not a living soul;
+the shops, doors and windows were hermetically closed. Nothing was
+visible, nothing stirred; we heard no sound of a wheel, no clatter of a
+horse, no human footstep, but only the voice of the cannon, which seemed
+to resound through an abandoned city. Yet the houses were not empty; for
+as we walked on, we could catch glimpses at the windows of women and
+children who, with their faces glued to the panes, watched us go by with
+an affrighted air.
+
+At last, near the Palais-Royal, we met some large bodies of National
+Guards, and our mission commenced. When Crémieux saw that it was only a
+question of talking, he became all ardour; he told them of what had
+happened at the National Assembly, and held forth to them in a little
+_bravura_ speech which was heartily applauded. We found an escort there,
+and passed on. We wandered a long time through the little streets of
+that district, until we came in front of the great barricade of the Rue
+Rambuteau, which was not yet taken and which stopped our further
+progress. From there we came back again through all those little
+streets, which were covered with blood from the recent combats: they
+were still fighting from time to time. For it was a war of ambuscades,
+whose scene was not fixed but every moment changed. When one least
+expected it, one was shot at through a garret window; and on breaking
+into the house, one found the gun but not the marksman: the latter
+escaped by a back-door while the front-door was being battered in. For
+this reason the National Guards had orders to have all the shutters
+opened, and to fire on all those who showed themselves at the windows;
+and they obeyed these orders so literally that they narrowly escaped
+killing several merely inquisitive people whom the sight of our scarves
+tempted to put their noses outside.
+
+During this walk of two or three hours, we had to make at least thirty
+speeches; I refer to Crémieux and myself, for Goudchaux was only able to
+speak on finance, and as to Cormenin, he was always as dumb as a fish.
+To tell the truth, almost all the burden of the day fell upon Crémieux.
+He filled me, I will not say with admiration, but with surprise. Janvier
+has said of Crémieux that he was "an eloquent louse." If only he could
+have seen him that day, jaded, with uncovered breast, dripping with
+perspiration and dirty with dust, wrapped in a long scarf twisted
+several times in every direction round his little body, but constantly
+hitting upon new ideas, or rather new words and phrases, now expressing
+in gestures what he had just expressed in words, then in words what he
+had just expressed in gestures: always eloquent, always ardent! I do not
+believe that anyone has ever seen, and I doubt whether anyone has ever
+imagined, a man who was uglier or more fluent.
+
+I observed that when the National Guards were told that Paris was in a
+state of siege, they were pleased, and when one added that the Executive
+Commission was overthrown, they cheered. Never were people so delighted
+to be relieved of their liberty and their government. And yet this was
+what Lamartine's popularity had come to in less than two months.
+
+When we had done speaking, the men surrounded us; they asked us if we
+were quite sure that the Executive Commission had ceased to act; we had
+to show them the decree to satisfy them.
+
+Particularly remarkable was the firm attitude of these men. We had come
+to encourage them, and it was rather they who encouraged us. "Hold on at
+the National Assembly," they cried, "and we'll hold on here. Courage! no
+transactions with the insurgents! We'll put an end to the revolt: all
+will end well." I had never seen the National Guard so resolute before,
+nor do I think that we could rely upon finding it so again; for its
+courage was prompted by necessity and despair, and proceeded from
+circumstances which are not likely to recur.
+
+Paris on that day reminded me of a city of antiquity whose citizens
+defended the walls like heroes, because they knew that if the city were
+taken they themselves would be dragged into slavery. As we turned our
+steps back towards the Assembly, Goudchaux left us. "Now that we have
+done our errand," said he, clenching his teeth, and in an accent half
+Gascon and half Alsatian, "I want to go and fight a bit." He said this
+with such a martial air, so little in harmony with his pacific
+appearance, that I could not help smiling.
+
+He did, in fact, go and fight, as I heard the next day, and so well that
+he might have had his little paunch pierced in two or three places, had
+fate so willed it. I returned from my round convinced that we should
+come out victorious; and what I saw on nearing the Assembly confirmed my
+opinion.
+
+Thousands of men were hastening to our aid from every part of France,
+and entering the city by all the roads not commanded by the insurgents.
+Thanks to the railroads, some had already come from fifty leagues'
+distance, although the fighting had only begun the night before. On the
+next and the subsequent days, they came from distances of a hundred and
+two hundred leagues. These men belonged indiscriminately to every class
+of society; among them were many peasants, many shopkeepers, many
+landlords and nobles, all mingled together in the same ranks. They were
+armed in an irregular and insufficient manner, but they rushed into
+Paris with unequalled ardour: a spectacle as strange and unprecedented
+in our revolutionary annals as that offered by the insurrection itself.
+It was evident from that moment that we should end by gaining the day,
+for the insurgents received no reinforcements, whereas we had all France
+for reserves.
+
+On the Place Louis XV., I met, surrounded by the armed inhabitants of
+his canton, my kinsman Lepelletier d'Aunay, who was Vice-President of
+the Chamber of Deputies during the last days of the Monarchy. He wore
+neither uniform nor musket, but only a little silver-hilted sword which
+he had slung at his side over his coat by a narrow white linen
+bandolier. I was touched to tears on seeing this venerable white-haired
+man thus accoutred.
+
+"Won't you come and dine with us this evening?"
+
+"No, no," he replied; "what would these good folk who are with me, and
+who know that I have more to lose than they by the victory of the
+insurrection--what would they say if they saw me leaving them to take it
+easy? No, I will share their repast and sleep here at their bivouac. The
+only thing I would beg you is, if possible, to hurry the despatch of the
+provision of bread promised us, for we have had no food since morning."
+
+I returned to the Assembly, I believe at about three, and did not go out
+again. The remainder of the day was taken up by accounts of the
+fighting: each moment produced its event and its piece of news. The
+arrival of volunteers from one of the departments was announced; they
+were bringing in prisoners; flags captured on the barricades were
+brought in. Deeds of bravery were described, heroic words repeated; each
+moment we learnt of some person of note being wounded or killed. As to
+the final issue of the day, nothing had yet occurred to enable us to
+form an opinion.
+
+The President only called the Assembly together at infrequent intervals
+and for short periods; and he was right, for assemblies are like
+children, and idleness always makes them say or do a number of foolish
+things. Each time the sitting was resumed, he himself told us all that
+had been learnt for certain during the adjournment. This President, as
+we know, was Sénard, a well-known Rouen advocate and a man of courage;
+but in his youth he had contracted so deep-seated a theatrical habit in
+the daily comedy played at the bar that he had lost the faculty of
+truthfully giving his true impressions of a thing, when by accident he
+happened to have any. It seemed always necessary that he should add some
+turgidity or other of his own to the feats of courage he described, and
+that he should express the emotion, which I believe he really felt, in
+hollow tones, a trembling voice, and a sort of tragic hiccough which
+reminded one of an actor on the stage. Never were the sublime and the
+ridiculous brought so close together: for the facts were sublime and the
+narrator ridiculous.
+
+We did not adjourn till late at night to take a little rest. The
+fighting had stopped, to be resumed on the morrow. The insurrection,
+although everywhere held in check, had as yet been stifled nowhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ THE DAYS OF JUNE--(_continued_).
+
+
+The porter of the house in which we lived in the Rue de la Madeleine was
+a man of very bad reputation in the neighbourhood, an old soldier, not
+quite in his right mind, a drunkard, and a great good-for-nothing, who
+spent at the wine-shop all the time which he did not employ in beating
+his wife. This man might be said to be a Socialist by birth, or rather
+by temperament.
+
+The early successes of the insurrection had brought him to a state of
+exaltation, and on the morning of the day of which I speak he visited
+all the wine-shops around, and among other mischievous remarks of which
+he delivered himself, he said that he would kill me when I came home in
+the evening, if I came in at all. He even displayed a large knife which
+he intended to use for the purpose. A poor woman who heard him ran in
+great alarm to tell Madame de Tocqueville; and she, before leaving
+Paris, sent me a note in which, after telling me of the facts, she
+begged me not to come in that night, but to go to my father's house,
+which was close by, he being away. This I determined to do; but when I
+left the Assembly at midnight, I had not the energy to carry out my
+intention. I was worn out with fatigue, and I did not know whether I
+should find a bed prepared if I slept out. Besides, I had little faith
+in the performance of murders proclaimed beforehand; and also I was
+under the influence of the sort of listlessness that follows upon any
+prolonged excitement. I accordingly went and knocked at my door, only
+taking the precaution to load the pistols which, in those unhappy days,
+it was common to carry. My man opened the door, I entered, and while he
+was carefully pushing the bolts behind me, I asked him if all the
+tenants had come home. He replied drily that they had all left Paris
+that morning, and that we two were alone in the house. I should have
+preferred another kind of _tête-à-tête_, but it was too late to go back;
+I therefore looked him straight in the eyes and told him to walk in
+front and show a light.
+
+He stopped at a gate that led to the court-yard, and told me that he
+heard a curious noise in the stables which alarmed him, begging me to go
+with him to see what it was. As he spoke, he turned towards the stables.
+All this began to seem very suspicious to me, but I thought that, as I
+had gone so far, it was better to go on. I accordingly followed him,
+carefully watching his movements, and making up my mind to kill him like
+a dog at the first sign of treachery. As a matter of fact, we did hear a
+very strange noise. It resembled the dull running of water or the
+distant rumble of a carriage, although it obviously came from somewhere
+quite near. I never learnt what it was; though it was true I did not
+spend much time in trying to discover. I soon returned to the house and
+made my companion bring me to my threshold, keeping my eyes on him the
+whole time. I told him to open my door, and so soon as he had done so, I
+took the candle from his hand and went in. It was not until I was almost
+out of his sight that he brought himself to take off his hat and bow to
+me. Had the man really intended to kill me, and seeing me on my guard,
+with both hands in my pockets, did he reflect that I was better armed
+than he, and that he would be well advised to abandon his design? I
+thought at the time that the latter had never been very seriously
+intended, and I think so still. In times of revolution, people boast
+almost as much about the imaginary crimes they propose to commit as in
+ordinary times they do of the good intentions they pretend to entertain.
+I have always believed that this wretch would only have become dangerous
+if the fortunes of the fight had seemed to turn against us; but they
+leant, on the contrary, to our side, although they were still undecided;
+and this was sufficient to assure my safety.
+
+At dawn I heard some one in my room, and woke with a start: it was my
+man-servant, who had let himself in with a private key of the apartment,
+which he carried. The brave lad had just left the bivouac (I had
+supplied him at his request with a National Guard's uniform and a good
+gun), and he came to know if I had come home and if his services were
+required. This one was certainly not a Socialist, either in theory or
+temperament. He was not even tainted in the slightest degree with the
+most general malady of the age, restlessness of mind, and even in other
+times than ours it would have been difficult to find a man more
+contented with his position and less sullen at his lot. Always very much
+satisfied with himself, and tolerably satisfied with others, he
+generally desired only that which was within his reach, and he generally
+attained, or thought he attained, all that he desired; thus unwittingly
+following the precepts which philosophers teach and never observe, and
+enjoying by the gift of Nature that happy equilibrium between faculty
+and desire which alone gives the happiness which philosophy promises us.
+
+"Well, Eugène," I said, when I saw him, "how are affairs going on?"
+
+"Very well, sir, perfectly well!"
+
+"What do you mean by very well? I can still hear the sound of cannon!"
+
+"Yes, they are still fighting," he replied, "but every one says it will
+end all right."
+
+With that he took off his uniform, cleaned my boots, brushed my clothes,
+and putting on his uniform again:
+
+"If you don't require me any more, sir," said he, "and if you will
+permit me, I will go back to the fighting."
+
+He pursued this two-fold calling during four days and four nights, as
+simply as I am writing it down; and I experienced a sort of reposeful
+feeling, during these days filled with turmoil and hate, when I looked
+at the young man's peaceful and contented face.
+
+Before going to the Assembly, where I did not think there would be any
+important measures to take, I resolved to make my way to the places
+where the fighting was still going on, and where I heard the sound of
+cannon. It was not that I was longing "to go and fight a bit," like
+Goudchaux, but I wanted to judge for myself as to the state of things;
+for, in my complete ignorance of war, I could not understand what made
+the struggle last so long. Besides, shall I confess it, a keen curiosity
+was piercing through all the feelings that filled my mind, and from time
+to time dominated them. I went along a great portion of the boulevard
+without seeing any traces of the battle, but there were plenty just
+beyond the Porte Saint-Martin; one stumbled over the _débris_ left
+behind by the retreating insurrection: broken windows, doors smashed in,
+houses spotted by bullets or pierced by cannon-balls, trees cut down,
+heaped-up paving-stones, straw mixed with blood and mud. Such were these
+melancholy vestiges.
+
+I thus reached the Château-d'Eau, around which were massed a number of
+troops of different sorts. At the foot of the fountain was a piece of
+cannon which was being discharged down the Rue Samson. I thought at
+first that the insurgents were replying with cannon on their side, but I
+ended by seeing that I was deceived by an echo which repeated with a
+terrible crash the sound of our own gun. I have never heard anything
+like it; one might have thought one's self in the midst of a great
+battle. As a matter of fact, the insurgents were only replying with an
+infrequent but deadly musketry fire.
+
+It was a strange combat. The Rue Samson, as we know, is not a very long
+one; at the end runs the Canal Saint-Martin, and behind the canal is a
+large house facing the street. The street was absolutely deserted; there
+was no barricade in sight, and the gun seemed to be firing at a target;
+only from time to time a whiff of smoke issued from a few windows, and
+proclaimed the presence of an invisible enemy. Our sharp-shooters,
+posted along the walls, aimed at the windows from which they saw the
+shots fired. Lamoricière, mounted on a tall horse in full view of the
+enemy, gave his commands amid the whirl of bullets. I thought he was
+more excited and talkative than I had imagined a general ought to be in
+such a juncture; he talked, shouted in a hoarse voice, gesticulated in a
+sort of rage. It was easy to see by the clearness of his thoughts and
+expressions that amid this apparent disorder he lost none of his
+presence of mind; but his manner of commanding might have caused others
+to lose theirs, and I confess I should have admired his courage more if
+he had kept more quiet.
+
+This conflict, in which one saw nobody before him, this firing, which
+seemed to be aimed only at the walls, surprised me strangely. I should
+never have pictured war to myself under this aspect. As the boulevard
+seemed clear beyond the Château-d'Eau, I was unable to understand why
+our columns did not pass further, nor why, if we wanted first to seize
+the large house facing the street, we did not capture it at a run,
+instead of remaining so long exposed to the deadly fire issuing from it.
+Yet nothing was more easily explained: the boulevard, which I thought
+clear from the Château-d'Eau onwards, was not so; beyond the bend which
+it makes at this place, it was bristling with barricades, all the way to
+the Bastille. Before attacking the barricades, we wanted to become
+masters of the streets we left behind us, and especially to capture the
+house facing the street, which, commanding the boulevard as it did,
+would have impeded our communications. Finally, we did not take the
+house by assault, because we were separated from it by the canal, which
+I could not see from the boulevard. We confined ourselves, therefore, to
+efforts to destroy it by cannon-shots, or at least to render it
+untenable. This took a long time to accomplish, and after being
+astonished in the morning that the fighting had not finished, I now
+asked myself how at this rate it could ever finish. For what I was
+witnessing at the Château-d'Eau was at the same time being repeated in
+other forms in a hundred different parts of Paris.
+
+As the insurgents had no artillery, the conflict did not possess the
+horrible aspect which it must have when the battle-field is ploughed by
+cannon balls. The men who were struck down before me seemed transfixed
+by an invisible shaft: they staggered and fell without one's seeing at
+first anything but a little hole made in their clothes. In the cases of
+this kind which I witnessed, I was struck less by the sight of physical
+pain than by the picture of moral anguish. It was indeed a strange and
+frightful thing to see the sudden change of features, the quick
+extinction of the light in the eyes in the terror of death.
+
+After a certain period, I saw Lamoricière's horse sink to the ground,
+shot by a bullet; it was the third horse the General had had killed
+under him since the day before yesterday. He sprang lightly to the
+ground, and continued bellowing his raging instructions.
+
+I noticed that on our side the least eager were the soldiers of the
+Line. They were weakened and, as it were, dulled by the remembrance of
+February, and did not yet seem quite certain that they would not be told
+the next day that they had done wrong. The liveliest were undoubtedly
+the Gardes Mobiles of whom we had felt so uncertain; and, in spite of
+the event, I maintain that we were right, at the time; for it wanted but
+little for them to decide against us instead of taking our side. Until
+the end, they plainly showed that it was the fighting they loved rather
+than the cause for which they fought.
+
+All these troops were raw and very subject to panic: I myself was a
+judge and almost a victim of this. At a street corner close to the
+Château-d'Eau was a large house in process of building. Some insurgents,
+who doubtless entered from behind across the court-yards, had taken up
+their position there, unknown to us; suddenly they appeared on the roof,
+and fired a great volley at the troops who filled the boulevard, and who
+did not expect to find the enemy posted so close at hand. The sound of
+their muskets reverberating with a great crash against the opposite
+houses gave reason to dread that a surprise of the same kind was taking
+place on that side. Immediately the most incredible confusion prevailed
+in our column: artillery, cavalry, and infantry were mingled in a
+moment, the soldiers fired in every direction, without knowing what they
+were doing, and tumultuously fell back sixty paces. This retreat was so
+disorderly and so impetuous that I was thrown against the wall of the
+houses facing the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, knocked down by the
+cavalry, and so hard pressed that I left my hat on the field, and very
+nearly left my body there. It was certainly the most serious danger I
+ran during the days of June. This made me think that it is not all
+heroism in the game of war. I have no doubt but that accidents of this
+kind often happen to the very best troops; no one boasts about them, and
+they are not mentioned in the despatches.
+
+It was now that Lamoricière became sublime. He had till then kept his
+sword in the scabbard: he now drew it, and ran up to his soldiers, his
+features distorted with the most magnificent rage; he stopped them with
+his voice, seized them with his hands, even struck them with the pummel
+of his sword, turned them, brought them back, and, placing himself at
+their head, forced them to pass at the trot through the fire in the Rue
+du Faubourg-du-Temple in order to take the house from which the firing
+had come. This was done in a moment, and without striking a blow: the
+enemy had disappeared.
+
+The combat resumed its dull aspect and lasted some time longer, until
+the enemy's fire was at length extinguished, and the street occupied.
+Before commencing the next operation, there was a moment's pause:
+Lamoricière went to his head-quarters, a wine-shop on the boulevard near
+the Porte Saint-Martin, and I was at last able to consult him on the
+state of affairs.
+
+"How long do you think," I asked, "that all this will last?"
+
+"Why, how can I tell?" he replied. "That depends on the enemy, not on
+us."
+
+He then showed me on the map all the streets we had already captured and
+were occupying, and all those we had still to take, adding, "If the
+insurgents choose to defend themselves on the ground they still hold as
+they have done on that which we have won from them, we may still have a
+week's fighting before us, and our loss will be enormous, for we lose
+more than they do: the first side to lose its moral courage will be the
+first to be beaten."
+
+I next reproached him with exposing himself so rashly, and, as I
+thought, so uselessly.
+
+"What will you have me do?" said he. "Tell Cavaignac to send generals
+able and willing to second me, and I will keep more in the background;
+but you always have to expose yourself when you have only yourself to
+rely on."
+
+M. Thiers then came up, threw himself on Lamoricière's neck, and told
+him he was a hero. I could not help smiling at this effusion, for there
+was no love lost between them: but a great danger is like wine, it makes
+men affectionate.
+
+I left Lamoricière in M. Thiers' arms, and returned to the Assembly: it
+was growing late, and besides, I know no greater fool than the man who
+gets his head broken in battle out of curiosity.
+
+The rest of the day was spent as the day before: the same anxiety in the
+Assembly, the same feverish inaction, the same firmness. Volunteers
+continued to enter Paris; every moment we were told of some tragic event
+or illustrious death. These pieces of news saddened, but animated and
+fortified, the Assembly. Any member who ventured to propose to enter
+into negociations with the insurgents was met with yells of rage.
+
+In the evening I decided to go myself to the Hôtel de Ville, in order
+there to obtain more certain news of the results of the day. The
+insurrection, after alarming me by its extreme violence, now alarmed me
+by its long duration. For who could foresee the effect which the sight
+of so long and uncertain a conflict might produce in some parts of
+France, and especially in the great manufacturing towns, such as Lyons?
+As I went along the Quai de la Ferraille, I met some National Guards
+from my neighbourhood, carrying on litters several of their comrades and
+two of their officers wounded. I observed, in talking with them, with
+what terrible rapidity, even in so civilized a century as our own, the
+most peaceful minds enter, as it were, into the spirit of civil war, and
+how quick they are, in these unhappy times, to acquire a taste for
+violence and a contempt for human life. The men with whom I was talking
+were peaceful, sober artisans, whose gentle and somewhat sluggish
+natures were still further removed from cruelty than from heroism. Yet
+they dreamt of nothing but massacre and destruction. They complained
+that they were not allowed to use bombs, or to sap and mine the streets
+held by the insurgents, and they were determined to show no more
+quarter; already that morning I had almost seen a poor devil shot before
+my eyes on the boulevards, who had been arrested without arms in his
+hands, but whose mouth and hands were blackened by a substance which
+they supposed to be, and which no doubt was, powder. I did all I could
+to calm these rabid sheep. I promised them that we should take terrible
+measures the next day. Lamoricière, in fact, had told me that morning
+that he had sent for shells to hurl behind the barricades; and I knew
+that a regiment of sappers was expected from Douai, to pierce the walls
+and blow up the besieged houses with petards. I added that they must not
+shoot any of their prisoners, but that they should kill then and there
+anyone who made as though to defend himself. I left my men a little more
+contented, and, continuing my road, I could not help examining myself
+and feeling surprised at the nature of the arguments I had used, and the
+promptness with which, in two days, I had become familiarized with those
+ideas of inexorable destruction which were naturally so foreign to my
+character.
+
+As I passed in front of the little streets at the entrance to which, two
+days before, I had seen such neat and solid barricades being built, I
+noticed that the cannon had considerably upset those fine works,
+although some traces remained.
+
+I was received by Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He told me that the Hôtel
+de Ville was clear for the present, but that the insurgents might try in
+the night to recapture the streets from which we had driven them. I
+found him less tranquil than his bulletins. He took me to a room in
+which they had laid Bedeau, who was dangerously wounded on the first
+day. This post at the Hôtel de Ville was a very fatal one for the
+generals who commanded there. Bedeau almost lost his life. Duvivier and
+Négrier, who succeeded him, were killed. Bedeau believed he was but
+slightly hurt, and thought only of the situation of affairs:
+nevertheless, his activity of mind struck me as ill-omened, and alarmed
+me.
+
+The night was well advanced when I left the Hôtel de Ville to go to the
+Assembly. I was offered an escort, which I refused, not thinking I
+should require it; but I regretted it more than once on the road. In
+order to prevent the insurgent districts from receiving reinforcements,
+provisions, or communications from the other parts of the town, in which
+there were so many men prepared to embrace the same cause, it had very
+properly been resolved absolutely to prohibit circulation in any of the
+streets. Everyone was stopped who left his house without a pass or an
+escort. I was constantly stopped on my way and made to show my medal. I
+was aimed at more than ten times by those inexperienced sentries, who
+spoke every imaginable brogue; for Paris was filled with provincials,
+who had come from every part of the country, many of them for the first
+time.
+
+When I arrived, the sitting was over, but the Palace was still in a
+great state of excitement. A rumour had got abroad that the workmen of
+the Gros-Caillou were about to take advantage of the darkness to seize
+upon the Palace itself. Thus the Assembly, which, after three days'
+fighting, had carried the conflict into the heart of the districts
+occupied by its enemies, was trembling for its own quarters. The rumour
+was void of foundation; but nothing could better show the character of
+this war, in which the enemy might always be one's own neighbour, and
+in which one was never certain of not having his house sacked while
+gaining a victory at a distance. In order to secure the Palace against
+all surprise, barricades were hurriedly erected at the entrance to all
+the streets leading up to it. When I saw that there was only a question
+of a false rumour, I went home to bed.
+
+I shall say no more of the June combats. The recollections of the two
+last days merge into and are lost in those of the first. As is known,
+the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the last citadel of the civil war, did not
+lay down its arms until the Monday--that is to say, on the fourth day
+after the commencement of the conflict; and it was not until the morning
+of that day that the volunteers from la Manche were able to reach Paris.
+They had hurried as fast as possible, but they had come more than eighty
+leagues across a country in which there were no railways. They were
+fifteen hundred in number. I was touched at recognizing among them many
+landlords, lawyers, doctors and farmers who were my friends and
+neighbours. Almost all the old nobility of the country had taken up arms
+on this occasion and formed part of the column. It was the same over
+almost the whole of France. From the petty squire squatting in his den
+in the country to the useless, elegant sons of the great houses--all had
+at that moment remembered that they had once formed part of a warlike
+and governing class, and on every side they gave the example of vigour
+and resolution: so great is the vitality of those old bodies of
+aristocracy. They retain traces of themselves even when they appear to
+be reduced to dust, and spring up time after time from the shades of
+death before sinking back for ever.
+
+It was in the midst of the days of June that the death occurred of a man
+who perhaps of all men in our day best preserved the spirit of the old
+races: M. de Chateaubriand, with whom I was connected by so many family
+ties and childish recollections. He had long since fallen into a sort of
+speechless stupor, which made one sometimes believe that his
+intelligence was extinguished. Nevertheless, while in this condition, he
+heard a rumour of the Revolution of February, and desired to be told
+what was happening. They informed him that Louis-Philippe's government
+had been overthrown. He said, "Well done!" and nothing more. Four months
+later, the din of the days of June reached his ears, and again he asked
+what that noise was. They answered that people were fighting in Paris,
+and that it was the sound of cannon. Thereupon he made vain efforts to
+rise, saying, "I want to go to it," and was then silent, this time for
+ever; for he died the next day.
+
+Such were the days of June, necessary and disastrous days. They did not
+extinguish revolutionary ardour in France, but they put a stop, at least
+for a time, to what may be called the work appertaining to the
+Revolution of February. They delivered the nation from the tyranny of
+the Paris workmen and restored it to possession of itself.
+
+Socialistic theories continued to penetrate into the minds of the people
+in the shape of envious and greedy desires, and to sow the seed of
+future revolutions; but the socialist party itself was beaten and
+powerless. The Montagnards, who did not belong to it, felt that they
+were irrevocably affected by the blow that had struck it. The moderate
+Republicans themselves did not fail to be alarmed lest this victory had
+led them to a slope which might precipitate them from the Republic, and
+they made an immediate effort to stop their descent, but in vain.
+Personally I detested the Mountain, and was indifferent to the Republic;
+but I adored Liberty, and I conceived great apprehensions for it
+immediately after these days. I at once looked upon the June fighting as
+a necessary crisis, after which, however, the temper of the nation would
+undergo a certain change. The love of independence was to be followed by
+a dread of, and perhaps a distaste for, free institutions; after such an
+abuse of liberty a return of this sort was inevitable. This retrograde
+movement began, in fact, on the 27th of June. At first very slow and
+invisible, as it were, to the naked eye, it grew swifter, impetuous,
+irresistible. Where will it stop? I do not know. I believe we shall have
+great difficulty in not rolling far beyond the point we had reached
+before February, and I foresee that all of us, Socialists, Montagnards
+and Liberal Republicans, will fall into common discredit until the
+private recollections of the Revolution of 1848 are removed and effaced,
+and the general spirit of the times shall resume its empire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI[12]
+
+ THE COMMITTEE FOR THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+ [12: There is a great hiatus in this chapter, due to my not
+ mentioning the discussions and resolutions relating to _general
+ principles_. Many of the discussions were fairly thorough, and most
+ of the resolutions were tolerably wise and even courageous. Most of
+ the revolutionary and socialistic raptures of the time were
+ combated in them. We were prepared and on our guard on these
+ general questions.]
+
+
+I now change my subject, and am glad to leave the scenes of the civil
+war and to return to the recollections of my parliamentary life. I wish
+to speak of what happened in the Committee for the Constitution, of
+which I was a member. This will oblige us to retrace our steps a little,
+for the appointment and work of this committee date back to before the
+days of June; but I did not mention it earlier, because I did not wish
+to interrupt the course of events which was leading us swiftly and
+directly to those days. The nomination of the Committee for the
+Constitution was commenced on the 17th of May; it was a long
+performance, because it had been decided that the members of the
+committee should be chosen by the whole Assembly and by an absolute
+majority of votes. I was elected at the first time of voting[13]
+together with Cormenin, Marrast, Lamennais, Vivien, and Dufaure. I do
+not know how often the voting had to be repeated in order to complete
+the list, which was to consist of eighteen members.
+
+ [13: I received 496 votes.]
+
+Although the committee had been nominated before the victory of June,
+almost all its members belonged to the different moderate sections of
+the Assembly. The Mountain had only two representatives on it: Lamennais
+and Considérant; and even these were little worse than chimerical
+visionaries, especially Considérant, who would have deserved to be sent
+to a lunatic asylum had he been sincere--but I fear he deserved more
+than that.
+
+Taking the Committee as a whole, it was easy to see that no very
+remarkable result was to be expected from it. Some of its members had
+spent their lives in conducting or controlling the administration during
+the last government. They had never seen, studied, or understood
+anything except the Monarchy; and even then they had, for the most part,
+applied rather than studied its principles. They had raised themselves
+but little above the practice of business. Now that they were called
+upon to realize the theories which they had always slighted or opposed,
+and which had defeated without convincing them, they found it difficult
+to apply any but monarchical ideas to their work; or, if they adopted
+republican ideas, they did so now timidly, now rashly, always a little
+at hap-hazard, like novices.
+
+As for the Republicans proper on the Committee, they had few ideas of
+any sort, except those which they had gathered in reading or writing for
+the newspapers; for there were many journalists among them. Marrast had
+edited the _National_ for ten years; Dornès was at that time its
+editor-in-chief; Vaulabelle, a man of serious but coarse and even
+cynical cast of mind, habitually wrote for its columns. He was the man
+who, a month later, was himself vastly astonished at becoming Minister
+of Public Worship and Instruction.
+
+All this bore very little resemblance to the men, so certain of their
+objects and so well acquainted with the measures necessary to attain
+them, who sixty years before, under Washington's presidency so
+successfully drew up the American Constitution.
+
+For that matter, even if the Committee had been capable of doing its
+work well, the want of time and the preoccupation of outside events
+would have prevented it.
+
+There is no nation which attaches itself less to those who govern it
+than the French Nation, nor which is less able to dispense with
+government. So soon as it finds itself obliged to walk alone, it
+undergoes a sort of vertigo, which makes it dread an abyss at every
+step. At the time I speak of, it had a sort of frenzied desire for the
+work of framing the Constitution to be completed, and for the powers in
+command to be, if not solidly, at least permanently and regularly
+established. The Assembly shared this eagerness, and never ceased urging
+us on, although we required but little urging. The recollection of the
+15th of May, the apprehensions entertained of the days of June and the
+sight of the divided, enervated and incapable government at the head of
+affairs were sufficient inducement to us to hasten our labours. But what
+especially deprived the Committee of its freedom of thought was, it must
+be confessed, the fear of outside matters and the excitement of the
+moment. It would be difficult to imagine the effect produced by this
+forcing of revolutionary ideas upon minds so little disposed to adopt
+them, and how the latter were being incessantly, and even almost
+unconsciously, impelled much further than they wished to go, when they
+were not pushed altogether out of the direction they desired to take.
+Certainly, if the Committee had met on the 27th of June instead of the
+16th of May, its work would have been very different.
+
+The discussion opened on the 22nd of May. The first question was to
+decide on which side we should tackle this immense work. Lamennais
+proposed to commence by regulating the state of the communes. He had
+proceeded in this way himself in a proposal for a Constitution which he
+had just published, so as to make certain of the first fruits of his
+discoveries. Then he passed from the question of sequence to that of the
+main point: he began to talk of administrative centralization, for his
+thoughts were incapable of sub-dividing themselves; his mind was always
+wholly occupied by a single system, and all the ideas contained in it
+adhered so closely together that, so soon as one was uttered, the others
+seemed necessarily to follow. He therefore explained that a Republic
+whose citizens are not clever and experienced enough to govern
+themselves was a monster not fit to live.
+
+Thereupon the Committee took fire: Barrot, who, amid the clouds of his
+mind, always pretty clearly perceived the necessity for local liberty,
+eagerly supported Lamennais. I did the same; Marrast and Vivien opposed
+us. Vivien was quite consistent in defending centralization, for the
+movement of administrative affairs was his profession, and moreover he
+was quite naturally drawn towards it. He had all the qualities of a
+clever legist and an excellent commentator, and none of those necessary
+to a legislator or statesman. The danger in which he beheld the
+institutions so dear to him inflamed him; he grew so excited that he
+began to hold that the Republic, far from restraining centralization,
+ought even to increase it. One would have said that this was the side on
+which the Revolution of February pleased him.
+
+Marrast belonged to the ordinary type of French revolutionaries, who
+have always understood the liberty of the people to mean despotism
+exercised in the name of the people. This sudden harmony between Vivien
+and Marrast did not, therefore, surprise me. I was used to the
+phenomenon, and I had long remarked that the only way to bring a
+Conservative and a Radical together was to attack the power of the
+central government, not in application, but in principle. One was then
+sure of throwing them into each other's arms.
+
+When, therefore, people assert that nothing is safe from revolutions, I
+tell them they are wrong, and that centralization is one of those
+things. In France there is only one thing we can't set up: that is, a
+free government; and only one institution we can't destroy: that is,
+centralization. How could it ever perish? The enemies of government love
+it, and those who govern cherish it. The latter perceive, it is true,
+from time to time, that it exposes them to sudden and irremediable
+disasters; but this does not disgust them with it. The pleasure it
+procures them of interfering with every one and holding everything in
+their hands atones to them for its dangers. They prefer this agreeable
+life to a more certain and longer existence, and say, "_Courte et
+bonne_" like the _roués_ of the Regency: "A short life and a merry one."
+
+The question could not be decided that day; but it was settled in
+advance by the determination arrived at that we should not first occupy
+ourselves with the communal system.
+
+Next day, Lamennais resigned. Under the circumstances, an occurrence of
+this sort was annoying. It was bound to increase and rooten the
+prejudices already existing against us. We took very pressing and even
+somewhat humble steps to induce Lamennais to reconsider his resolve. As
+I had shared his opinion, I was deputed to go and see him and press him
+to return. I did so, but in vain. He had only been beaten over a formal
+question, but he had concluded from this that he would not be the
+master. That was enough to decide him to be nothing at all. He was
+inflexible, in spite of all I could say in the interest of the very
+ideas which we held in common.
+
+One should especially consider an unfrocked priest if one wishes to
+acquire a correct idea of the indestructible and, so to speak, infinite
+power which the clerical habit and method of thought wield over those
+who have once contracted them. It was useless for Lamennais to sport
+white stockings, a yellow waistcoat, a striped necktie, and a green
+coat: he remained a priest in character, and even in appearance. He
+walked with short, hurried and discreet steps, never turning his head or
+looking at anybody, and glided through the crowd with an awkward, modest
+air, as though he were leaving the sacristy. Add to this a pride great
+enough to walk over the heads of kings and bid defiance to God.
+
+When it was found that Lamennais' obstinacy was not to be overcome, we
+proceeded with other business; and so that no more time might be lost in
+premature discussions, a sub-committee was appointed to draw up rules
+for the regulation of our labours, and to propose them to the Committee.
+Unfortunately, this sub-committee was so constituted that Cormenin, our
+chairman, was its master and, in reality, substituted himself for it.
+The permanent power of initiative which he thus possessed, coupled with
+the conduct of the debates which belonged to him as chairman, had the
+most baneful influence upon our deliberations, and I am not sure if the
+faults in our work should not be mainly attributed to him.
+
+Like Lamennais, Cormenin had drawn up and published a Constitution after
+his own idea, and again, like the former, he expected us to adopt it.
+But he did not quite know how to put it to us. As a rule, extreme vanity
+makes the timidest very bold in speaking. Cormenin's did not permit him
+to open his mouth so soon as he had three listeners. He would have liked
+to do as one of my neighbours in Normandy did, a great lover of
+polemics, to whom Providence had refused the capacity of disputing _vivâ
+voce_. Whenever I opposed any of his opinions, he would hurry home and
+write to me all that he ought to have told me. Cormenin accordingly
+despaired of convincing us, but hoped to surprise us. He flattered
+himself that he would make us accept his system gradually and, so to
+speak, unknown to ourselves, by presenting a morsel to us every day. He
+managed so cleverly that a general discussion could never be held upon
+the Constitution as a whole, and that even in each case it was almost
+impossible to trace back and find the primitive idea. He brought us
+every day five or six clauses ready drawn up, and patiently, little by
+little, drew back to this little plot of ground all those who wished to
+escape from it. We resisted sometimes; but in the end, from sheer
+weariness, we yielded to this gentle, continuous restraint. The
+influence of a chairman upon the work of a committee is immense; any one
+who has closely observed these little assemblies will understand what I
+mean. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that if several of us had
+desired to withdraw ourselves from this tyranny, we should have ended by
+coming to an understanding and succeeding. But we had no time and no
+inclination for long discussions. The vastness and complexity of the
+subject alarmed and wearied the minds of the Committee beforehand: the
+majority had not even attempted to study it, or had only collected some
+very confused ideas; and those who had formed clearer ones were ill at
+ease at having to expound them. They were afraid, besides, lest they
+should enter into violent, interminable disputes if they endeavoured to
+get to the bottom of things; and they preferred to appear to be in
+harmony by keeping to the surface. In this way we ambled along to the
+end, adopting great principles explicitly for reasons of petty detail,
+and little by little building up the whole machinery of government
+without properly taking into account the relative strength of the
+various wheels and the manner in which they would work together.
+
+In the moments of repose which interrupted this fine work, Marrast, who
+was a Republican of the Barras type, and who had always preferred the
+pleasures of luxury, the table and women to democracy in rags, told us
+little stories of gallantry, while Vaulabelle made broad jests. I hope,
+for the honour of the Committee, that no one will ever publish the
+minutes (very badly done, for that matter) which the secretary drew up
+of our sittings. The sterility of the discussions amid the exuberant
+fecundity of the subject-matter would assuredly provoke surprise. As for
+myself, I declare that I never witnessed a more wretched display in any
+committee on which I ever sat.
+
+Nevertheless, there was one serious discussion. It referred to the
+system of a single Chamber. As a matter of fact, the two parties into
+which the Committee was silently divided only came to an issue on this
+one occasion. It was even less a question of the two Chambers than of
+the general character to be given to the new government: Were we to
+persevere in the learned and somewhat complicated system of
+counterpoises, and place powers held in check, and consequently prudent
+and moderate, at the head of the Republic? Or were we to adopt the
+contrary course and accept the simpler theory, according to which
+affairs are placed in the hands of a single power, homogeneous in all
+its parts, uncontrolled, and consequently impetuous in its measures, and
+irresistible? This was the subject-matter of the debate. This general
+question might have cropped up as the result of a number of other
+clauses; but it was better contained than elsewhere in the special
+question of the two Chambers.
+
+The struggle was a long one and lasted for two sittings. The result was
+not for a moment in doubt; for public opinion had pronounced strongly in
+favour of a single Chamber, not only in Paris but in nearly every
+department. Barrot was the first to speak in favour of the two Chambers;
+he took up my thesis and developed it with great talent, but
+intemperately; for during the Revolution of February, his mind had lost
+its equilibrium and had never since been able to recover its
+self-possession. I supported Barrot and returned time after time to the
+charge. I was a little surprised to hear Dufaure pronouncing against us
+and doing so with a certain eagerness. Lawyers are rarely able to escape
+from one of two habits: they accustom themselves either to plead what
+they do not believe or to persuade themselves very easily of what they
+wish to plead. Dufaure came under the latter category. The drift of
+public opinion, of his own passions or interest, would never have led
+him to embrace a cause which he thought a bad one; but it prompted him
+with a desire to think it a good one, and that was often sufficient. His
+naturally vacillating, ingenious and subtle mind turned gradually
+towards it; and he sometimes ended by adopting it, not only with
+conviction but with transport. How often have I not been amazed to see
+him vehemently defending theories which I had seen him adopt with
+infinite hesitation!
+
+His principal reason for voting this time in favour of a single Chamber
+in the Legislative Body (and it was the best, I think, that could be
+found) was that, with us, the Executive Power wielded by one man
+elected by the people would most certainly become preponderant if there
+were placed beside him only a legislative body weakened by being divided
+into two branches. I remember that I replied that that might be the
+case, but that one thing was quite certain, and that was, that two great
+powers naturally jealous of one another, and placed in an eternal
+_tête-à-tête_ (that was the expression I used), without ever having
+recourse to the arbitrament of a third power, would at once be on bad
+terms or at war with one another, and would constantly remain so until
+one had destroyed the other. I added that, if it was true that a
+President elected by the people, and possessing the immense prerogatives
+which in France belong to the chief of the public administration, was
+sometimes able to curb a divided legislative body, a President who
+should feel himself to possess this origin and these rights would always
+refuse to become a simple agent and to submit to the capricious and
+tyrannical will of a single assembly.
+
+We were both in the right. The problem, thus propounded, was insolvable;
+but the nation propounded it thus. To allow the President the same power
+that the King had enjoyed, and to have him elected by the people, would
+make the Republic impossible. As I said later, one must either
+infinitely narrow the sphere of his power, or else have him elected by
+the Assembly; but the nation would hear of neither one nor the other.
+
+Dupin completed our defeat: he defended the single Chamber with
+surprising vigour. One would have thought that he had never held another
+opinion. I expected as much. I knew him to possess a heart that was
+habitually self-interested and cowardly, though subject at times to
+sudden leaps of courage and honesty. I had seen him for ten years
+prowling round every party without joining any, and attacking all the
+vanquished: half ape and half jackal, constantly biting, grimacing,
+gambolling, and always ready to fall upon the wretch who slipped. He
+showed himself in his true colours on the Committee of the Constitution,
+or rather he surpassed himself. I perceived in him none of those sudden
+leaps of which I have just spoken: he was uniformly commonplace from
+beginning to end. He usually remained silent while the majority were
+making up their minds; but as soon as he saw them pronounce in favour of
+democratic opinions, he rushed to place himself at their head, and often
+went far beyond them. Once, he perceived, when he had gone half-way,
+that the majority were not going in the direction he had thought;
+whereupon he immediately stopped short with a prompt and nimble effort
+of the intelligence, turned round, and hurried back at the same run
+towards the opinion from which he had been departing.
+
+Almost all the old members of Parliament pronounced in this way against
+the dual Chamber. Most of them sought for more or less plausible
+pretexts for their votes. Some pretended that a Council of State would
+provide the counterpoise of which they acknowledged the necessity;
+others purposed to subject the single assembly to forms whose slowness
+would safeguard it against its own impulses and against surprise; but in
+the end the true reason was always given. On the committee was a
+minister of the Gospel, M. Coquerel, who, seeing that his colleagues of
+the Catholic clergy were entering the Assembly, wanted to appear there
+too, and he was wrong: from the much-admired preacher that he was, he
+suddenly transformed himself into a very ridiculous political orator. He
+could hardly open his mouth without uttering some pompous absurdity. On
+this occasion he was so naïve as to inform us that he continued to
+favour the dual Chamber, but that he would vote for the single Chamber
+because public opinion was pushing him on, and he did not wish, to use
+his own words, to fight against the current. This candour greatly
+annoyed those who were acting as he did, and mightily delighted Barrot
+and myself; but this was the only satisfaction we received, for, when it
+came to voting, there were only three on our side.
+
+This signal defeat disinclined me a little to continue the struggle, and
+threw Barrot quite out of humour. He no longer appeared except at rare
+intervals, and in order to utter signs of impatience or disdain rather
+than opinions.
+
+We passed on to the Executive Power. In spite of all that I have said
+of the circumstances of the time and the disposition of the Committee,
+it will still be believed with difficulty that so vast, so perplexing,
+so novel a subject did not furnish the material for a single general
+debate, nor for any very profound discussion.
+
+All were unanimous in the opinion that the Executive Power should be
+entrusted to one man alone. But what prerogatives and what agents should
+he be given, what responsibilities laid upon him? Clearly, none of these
+questions could be treated in an arbitrary fashion; each of them was
+necessarily in connection with all the others, and could, above all, be
+only decided by taking into special account the habits and customs of
+the country. These were old problems, no doubt; but they were made young
+again by the novelty of the circumstances.
+
+Cormenin, according to his custom, opened the discussion by proposing a
+little clause all ready drawn up, which provided that the head of the
+Executive Power, or the President, as he was thenceforward called,
+should be elected directly by the people by a relative majority, the
+minimum of votes necessary to carry his election being fixed at two
+millions. I believe Marrast was the only one to oppose it; he proposed
+that the head of the Executive Power should be elected by the Assembly:
+he was at that time intoxicated with his own fortune, and flattered
+himself, strange though this may seem to-day, that the choice of the
+Assembly would fall upon himself. Nevertheless, the clause proposed by
+Cormenin was adopted without any difficulty, so far as I can remember;
+and yet it must be confessed that the expediency of having the President
+elected by the people was not a self-evident truth, and that the
+disposition to have him elected directly was as new as it was dangerous.
+In a country with no monarchical tradition, in which the Executive Power
+has always been feeble and continues to be very limited, nothing is
+wiser than to charge the nation with the choice of its representative. A
+President who had not the strength which he could draw from that origin
+would then become the plaything of the Assemblies; but with us the
+conditions of the problem were very different. We were emerging from the
+Monarchy, and the habits of the Republicans themselves were still
+monarchical. Moreover, our system of centralization made our position an
+unique one: according to its principles, the whole administration of the
+country, in matters of the greatest and of the smallest moment, belonged
+to the President; the thousands of officials who held the whole country
+in their hands were dependent upon him alone; this was so according to
+the laws, and even the ideas, which the 24th of February had allowed to
+continue in force; for we had retained the spirit of the Monarchy, while
+losing the taste for it. Under these conditions, what could a President
+elected by the people be other than a pretender to the Crown? The office
+could only suit those who hoped to make use of it in order to assist in
+transforming the Presidential into Royal powers; it seemed clear to me
+then, and it seems evident to me now, that if it was desired that the
+President should be elected by the people without danger to the
+Republic, it was necessary to limit prodigiously the circle of his
+prerogatives; and even then, I am not sure that this would have
+sufficed, for his sphere, although thus confined in point of law, would,
+in habit and remembrance, have preserved its former extent. If, on the
+other hand, the President was allowed to retain his power, he should not
+be elected by the people. These truths were not put forward; I doubt
+whether they were even perceived in the heart of the Committee. However,
+Cormenin's clause, although adopted at first, was later made the object
+of a very lively attack; but it was attacked for reasons different to
+those I have just given. It was on the day after the 4th of June. Prince
+Louis Napoleon, of whom no one had thought a few days before, had just
+been elected to the Assembly by Paris and three departments. They began
+to fear that he would be placed at the head of the Republic if the
+choice were left to the people. The various pretenders and their friends
+grew excited, the question was raised afresh in the Committee, and the
+majority persisted in its original vote.
+
+I remember that, during all the time that the Committee was occupied in
+this way, my mind was labouring to divine to which side the balance of
+power would most generally lean in a Republic of the kind which I saw
+they were going to make. Sometimes I thought that it would be on the
+side of the Assembly, and then again on that of the elected President;
+and this uncertainty made me very uneasy. The fact is, that it was
+impossible to tell beforehand. The victory of one or other of these two
+great rivals must necessarily depend upon circumstances and the humours
+of the moment. There were only two things certain: the war which they
+would wage together, and the eventual ruin of the Republic.
+
+Of all the ideas which I have expounded, not one was sifted by the
+Committee; I might even say that not one was discussed. Barrot one day
+touched upon them in passing, but did not linger over them. His mind
+(which was sleepy rather than feeble, and which was even able to see far
+ahead when it took the trouble to look) caught a glimpse of them, as it
+were, between sleeping and waking, and thought no more of them.
+
+I myself only pointed them out with a certain hesitation and reserve. My
+rebuff in the matter of the dual Chamber left me little heart for the
+fight. Moreover, I confess, I was more anxious to reach a quick
+decision, and place a powerful leader at the head of the Republic, than
+to organize a perfect republican Constitution. We were then under the
+divided and uncertain government of the Executive Committee, Socialism
+was at our gates, and we were approaching the days of June, as we must
+not forget. Later, after these days, I vigorously supported in the
+Assembly the system of electing the President by the people, and in a
+certain measure contributed to its acceptance. The principal reason
+which I gave was that, after announcing to the nation that we would
+grant it that right, which it had always ardently desired, it was no
+longer possible to withhold it. This was true. Nevertheless, I regret
+having spoken on this occasion.
+
+To return to the Committee: unable and even unwilling to oppose the
+adoption of the principle, I endeavoured at least to make its
+application less dangerous. I first proposed to limit in various
+directions the sphere of the Executive Power; but I soon saw that it was
+useless to attempt anything serious on that side. I then fell back upon
+the method of election itself, and raised a discussion on that portion
+of Cormenin's clause which treated of it.
+
+The clause, as I said above, laid down that the President should be
+elected directly, by a relative majority, the minimum of this majority
+being fixed at two million votes. This method had several very serious
+drawbacks.
+
+Since the President was to be elected directly by the citizens, the
+enthusiasm and infatuation of the people was very much to be feared; and
+moreover, the prestige and moral power which the newly elected would
+possess would be much greater. Since a relative majority was to be
+sufficient to make the election valid, it might be possible that the
+President should only represent the wishes of a minority of the nation.
+I asked that the President might not be elected directly by the
+citizens, but that this should be entrusted to delegates whom the people
+would elect. In the second place, I proposed to substitute an actual for
+a relative majority; if an absolute majority was not obtained at the
+first vote, it would fall to the Assembly to make a choice. These ideas
+were, I think, sound, but they were not new; I had borrowed them from
+the American Constitution. I doubt whether anyone would have suspected
+this, had I not said so; so little was the Committee prepared to play
+its great part.
+
+The first part of my amendment was rejected. I expected this: our great
+men were of opinion that this system was not sufficiently simple, and
+they considered it tainted with a touch of aristocracy. The second was
+accepted, and is part of the actual Constitution.
+
+Beaumont proposed that the President should not be re-eligible; I
+supported him vigorously, and the proposal was carried. On this occasion
+we both fell into a great mistake which will, I fear, lead to very sad
+results. We had always been greatly struck with the dangers threatening
+liberty and public morality at the hands of a re-eligible president, who
+in order to secure his re-election would infallibly employ beforehand
+the immense resources of constraint and corruption which our laws and
+customs allow to the head of the Executive Power. Our minds were not
+supple or prompt enough to turn in time or to see that, so soon as it
+was decided that the citizens themselves should directly choose the
+President, the evil was irreparable, and that it would be only
+increasing it rashly to undertake to hinder the people in their choice.
+This vote, and the great influence I brought to bear upon it, is my most
+unpleasant memory of that period.
+
+Each moment we came up against centralization, and instead of removing
+the obstacle, we stumbled over it. It was of the essence of the Republic
+that the head of the Executive Power should be responsible; but
+responsible for what, and to what extent? Could he be made responsible
+for the thousand details of administration with which our administrative
+legislation is overcharged, and over which it would be impossible, and
+moreover dangerous, for him to watch in person? That would have been
+unjust and ridiculous; and if he was not to be responsible for the
+administration proper, who would be? It was decided that the
+responsibility of the President should be shared by the ministers, and
+that their counter-signature should be necessary, as in the days of the
+Monarchy. Thus the President was responsible, and yet he was not
+entirely free in his own actions, and he was not able to protect his
+agents in agents.
+
+We passed to the constitution of the Council of State. Cormenin and
+Vivien took charge of this; it may be said that they set to work like
+people who are building up a house for themselves. They did their utmost
+to make the Council of State a third power, but without success. It
+became something more than an administrative council, but infinitely
+less than a legislative assembly.
+
+The only part of our work which was at all well thought out, and
+arranged, as I think, with wisdom, was that which related to justice.
+Here the committee felt at home, most of its members being, or having
+been, barristers. Thanks to these, we were able to save the principle of
+the irremovability of the judges; as in 1830, it held good against the
+current which swept away all the rest. Those who had been Republicans
+from the commencement attacked it nevertheless, and very stupidly, in my
+opinion; for this principle is much more in favour of the independence
+of one's fellow-citizens than of the power of those who govern. The
+Court of Appeal and, especially, the tribunal charged with judging
+political crimes were constituted at once just as they are to-day
+(1851). Beaumont drew up most of the articles which refer to these two
+great courts. What we did in these matters is far in advance of all that
+had been attempted in the same direction during sixty years. It is
+probably the only part of the Constitution of 1848 which will survive.
+
+It was decided at the instance of Vivien that the Constitution could
+only be revised by a Constituent Assembly, which was right; but they
+added that this revision could only take place if the National Assembly
+demanded it by an express vote, given three times consecutively by a
+majority of four-fifths, which rendered any regular revision almost
+impossible. I took no part in this vote. I had long been of opinion
+that, instead of aiming to make our governments eternal, we should tend
+to make it possible to change them in an easy and regular manner. Taken
+all round, I thought this less dangerous than the opposite course; and I
+thought it best to treat the French people like those madmen whom one
+should be careful not to bind lest they become infuriated by the
+restraint.
+
+I noticed casually a number of curious opinions that were emitted.
+Martin (of Strasburg), who, not content with being a Republican of
+yesterday, one day declared so absurdly in the tribune that he was a
+Republican by birth, nevertheless proposed to give the President the
+right to dissolve the Assembly, and failed to see that a right of this
+kind would easily make him master of the Republic; Marrast wanted a
+section to be added to the Council of State charged to elaborate "new
+ideas," to be called a section of progress; Barrot proposed to leave to
+a jury the decision of all civil suits, as though a judiciary revolution
+of this sort could possibly be improvised. And Dufaure proposed to
+prohibit substitution in the conscription, and to compel everyone
+personally to perform his military service, a measure which would have
+destroyed all liberal education unless the time of service had been
+greatly reduced, or have disorganized the army if this reduction had
+been effected.
+
+In this way, pressed by time and ill prepared to treat such important
+subjects, we approached the time appointed for the end of our labours.
+What was said was: Let us adopt, in the meantime, the articles proposed
+to us; we can afterwards retrace our steps; we can judge from this
+sketch how to fix the definitive features and to adjust the portions
+among themselves. But we did not retrace our steps, and the sketch
+remained the picture.
+
+We appointed Marrast our secretary. The way in which he acquitted
+himself of this important office soon exposed the mixture of idleness,
+giddiness and impudence which formed the basis of his character. He was
+first several days without doing anything, though the Assembly was
+constantly asking to know the result of our deliberations, and all
+France was anxiously awaiting to learn it. Then he hurriedly wrote his
+report in one night immediately preceding the day on which he was to
+communicate it to the Assembly. In the morning, he spoke of it to one or
+two of his colleagues whom he met by chance, and then boldly appeared in
+the tribune and read, in the name of the Committee, a report of which
+hardly one of its members had heard a single word. This reading took
+place on the 19th of June. The draft of the Constitution contained one
+hundred and thirty-nine articles; it had been drawn up in less than a
+month. We could not have been quicker, but we might have done better. We
+had adopted many of the little articles which Cormenin had brought us in
+turns; but we had rejected a yet greater number, which caused their
+author an irritation, which was so much the greater in that he had never
+had an opportunity of giving vent to it. He turned to the public for
+consolation. He published, or caused to be published, I forget which it
+was, in all the newspapers an article in which he related what had
+passed in the Committee, attributing all the good it had done to M. de
+Cormenin, and all the harm to his adversaries. A publication of this
+sort displeased us greatly, as may be imagined; and it was decided to
+acquaint Cormenin with the feeling inspired by his procedure. But no one
+cared to be the spokesman of the company.
+
+We had among us a workman (for in those days they put workmen into
+everything) called Corbon, a tolerably right-minded man of firm
+character. He readily undertook the task. On the next morning,
+therefore, so soon as the sitting of the Committee had opened, Corbon
+stood up and, with cruel simplicity and conciseness, gave Cormenin to
+understand what we thought. Cormenin grew confused, and cast his eyes
+round the table to see if anybody would come to his aid. Nobody moved.
+He then said, in a hesitating voice, "Am I to conclude from what has
+just happened that the Committee wishes me to leave it?" We made no
+reply. He took his hat and went, without anyone interfering. Never was
+so great an outrage swallowed with less effort or grimace. I believe
+that, although enormously vain, he was not very sensitive to insults in
+secret; and as long as his self-love was well tickled in public, he
+would not have made many bones about receiving a few cuffs in private.
+
+Many have believed that Cormenin, who from a viscount had suddenly
+become a Radical, while remaining a devout Catholic, never ceased to
+play a part and to betray his opinions. I would not venture to say that
+this was the case, although I have often observed strange
+inconsistencies between the things he said when talking and those he
+wrote; and to tell the truth, he always seemed to me to be more sincere
+in the dread he entertained of revolutions than in the opinions he had
+borrowed from them. What always especially struck me in him was the
+shortcomings of his mind. No writer ever to a greater extent preserved
+in public business the habits and peculiarities of that calling. When he
+had established a certain agreement between the different clauses of a
+law and drawn it up in a certain ingenious and striking manner, he
+thought he had done all that was necessary: he was absorbed in questions
+of form, of symmetry, and cohesion.
+
+But what he especially sought for was novelty. Institutions which had
+already been tried elsewhere or elsewhen seemed to him as hateful as
+commonplaces, and the first merit of a law in his eyes was to resemble
+in no way that which had preceded it. It is known that the law laying
+down the Constitution was his work. At the time of the General Election
+I met him and he said, with a certain complacency, "Has anything in the
+world ever been seen like what is seen to-day? Where is the country that
+has gone so far as to give votes to servants, paupers and soldiers?
+Confess that no one ever thought of it before." And rubbing his hands,
+he added, "It will be very curious to see the result." He spoke of it as
+though it were an experiment in chemistry.
+
+
+
+
+PART THE THIRD
+
+
+
+
+_MY TERM OF OFFICE_
+
+ _This part was commenced at Versailles on the 16th of September
+ 1851, during the prorogation of the National Assembly._
+
+ _To come at once to this part of my recollections, I pass over the
+ previous period, which extends from the end of the days of June
+ 1848 to the 3rd of June 1849. I return to it later if I have time.
+ I have thought it more important, while my recollections are still
+ fresh in my mind, to recall the five months during which I was a
+ member of the Government._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ MY RETURN TO FRANCE--FORMATION OF THE CABINET.
+
+
+While I was thus occupied in witnessing upon the private stage of
+Germany one act of the great drama of the European Revolution, my
+attention was suddenly drawn towards France and fixed upon our affairs
+by unexpected and alarming news. I heard of the almost incredible check
+received by our army beneath the walls of Rome, the violent debates
+which followed in the Constituent Assembly, the excitement produced
+throughout the country by these two causes, and lastly, the General
+Election, whose result deceived the expectations of both parties and
+brought over one hundred and fifty Montagnards into the new Assembly.
+However, the demagogic wind which had suddenly blown over a part of
+France had not prevailed in the Department of la Manche. All the former
+members for the department who had separated from the Conservative Party
+in the Assembly had gone under in the _scrutin_. Of thirteen
+representatives only four had survived; as for me, I had received more
+votes than all the others, although I was absent and silent, and
+although I had openly voted for Cavaignac in the previous month of
+December. Nevertheless, I was almost unanimously elected, less because
+of my opinions than of the great personal consideration which I enjoyed
+outside politics, an honourable position no doubt, but difficult to
+retain in the midst of parties, and destined to become very precarious
+on the day when the latter should themselves become exclusive as they
+became violent.
+
+I set out as soon as I received this news. At Bonn a sudden
+indisposition obliged Madame de Tocqueville to stop. She herself urged
+me to leave her and to continue my journey, and I did so, although with
+regret; for I was leaving her alone in a country still agitated by civil
+war; and moreover, it is in moments of difficulty or peril that her
+courage and her great sense are so helpful to me.
+
+I arrived in Paris, if I am not mistaken, on the 25th of May 1849, four
+days before the meeting of the Legislative, and during the last
+convulsions of the Constituent Assembly. A few weeks had sufficed to
+make the aspect of the political world entirely unrecognizable, owing
+less to the changes which had taken place in outside facts, than to the
+prodigious revolution which had in a few days taken place in men's
+minds.
+
+The party which was in power at my departure was so still, and the
+material result of the elections should, I thought, have strengthened
+its hands. This party, composed of so many different parties, and
+wishing either to stop or drive back the Revolution, had obtained an
+enormous majority in the electoral colleges, and would command more than
+two-thirds of the new Assembly. Nevertheless, I found it seized with so
+profound a terror that I can only compare it with that which followed
+February: so true is it that in politics one must argue as in war, and
+never forget that the effect of events should be measured less by what
+they are in themselves than by the impressions they give.
+
+The Conservatives, who for six months had seen all the bye-elections
+invariably turning to their advantage, who filled and dominated almost
+all the local councils, had placed an almost unlimited confidence in the
+system of universal suffrage, after professing unbounded distrust of it.
+In the General Election which was just decided, they had expected not
+only to conquer but to annihilate, so to speak, their adversaries, and
+they were as much cast down at not attaining the absolute triumph which
+they had dreamt of as though they had really been beaten. On the other
+hand, the Montagnards, who had thought themselves lost, were as
+intoxicated with joy and mad audacity as though the elections had
+assured them a majority in the new Assembly. Why had the event thus at
+the same time deceived the hopes and fears of both parties? It is
+difficult to say for certain, for great masses of men move by virtue of
+causes almost as unknown to humanity itself as those which rule the
+movements of the sea. In both cases the reasons of the phenomenon are
+concealed and, in a sense, lost in the midst of its immensity.
+
+We are, at any rate, entitled to believe that the Conservatives owed
+their rebuff mainly to the faults which they themselves committed. Their
+intolerance, when they thought their triumph assured, of those who,
+without sharing their ideas, had assisted them in fighting the
+Montagnards; the violent administration of the new Minister of the
+Interior, M. Faucher; and more than all, the poor success of the Roman
+expedition prejudiced against them a portion of the people who were
+naturally disposed to follow them, and threw these into the arms of the
+agitators.
+
+One hundred and fifty Montagnards, as I said, had been elected. A part
+of the peasantry and the majority of the army had voted for them: it was
+the two anchors of mercy which had snapped in the midst of the tempest.
+Terror was universal: it taught anew to the various monarchical parties
+the tolerance and modesty which they had practised immediately after
+February, but which they had to a great extent forgotten during the past
+six months. It was recognized on every hand that there could no longer
+be any question, for the present, of emerging from the Republic, and
+that all that remained to be done was to oppose the moderate Republicans
+to the Montagnards.
+
+The same ministers whom they had created and instigated they now
+accused, and a modification of the Cabinet was loudly demanded. The
+Cabinet itself saw that it was insufficient, and implored to be
+replaced. At the time of my departure I had seen the committee of the
+Rue de Poitiers refuse to admit the name of M. Dufaure to its lists; I
+now saw every glance directed towards M. Dufaure and his friends, who
+were called upon in the most pathetic manner to take office and save
+society.
+
+On the night of my arrival, I heard that some of my friends were dining
+together at a little restaurant in the Champs-Elysées. I hastened to
+join them, and found Dufaure, Lanjuinais, Beaumont, Corcelles, Vivien,
+Lamoricière, Bedeau, and one or two more whose names are not so well
+known. I was informed in a few words of the position of affairs. Barrot,
+who had been invited by the President to form a cabinet, had for some
+days been exhausting himself in vain efforts to do so. M. Thiers, M.
+Molé and the more important of their friends had refused to undertake
+the government. They had made up their minds, nevertheless, as will be
+seen, to remain its masters, but without becoming ministers. The
+uncertainty of the future, the general instability, the difficulties and
+perhaps the dangers of the moment kept them aloof. They were eager
+enough for power, but not for responsibility. Barrot, repulsed on that
+side, had come to us. He asked us, or rather he besought us, to become
+his colleagues. But which among us to choose? What ministries to allot
+to us? What colleagues to give us? What general policy to adopt? From
+all these questions had arisen difficulties in execution which, till
+then, seemed insurmountable. Already, more than once, Barrot had
+returned towards the natural chiefs of the majority; and repelled by
+them, had fallen back upon us.
+
+Time passed amid these sterile labours; the dangers and difficulties
+increased; the news became each day more alarming, and the Ministry were
+liable at any moment to be impeached by the dying but furious Assembly.
+
+I returned home greatly preoccupied, as will be believed, by what I had
+heard. I was convinced that it only depended upon the wishes of myself
+and my friends to become ministers. We were the necessary and obvious
+men. I knew the leaders of the majority well enough to be sure that they
+would never commit themselves to taking charge of affairs under a
+government which seemed to them so ephemeral, and that, even if they had
+the disinterestedness, they would not have the courage to do so. Their
+pride and their timidity assured me of their abstention. It was enough
+for us, therefore, to stand firm on our ground to compel them to come
+and fetch us. But ought we to wish to become ministers? I asked myself
+this very seriously. I think I may do myself the justice to say that I
+did not indulge in the smallest illusion respecting the true
+difficulties of the enterprise, and that I looked upon the future with
+a clearness of view which we rarely possess except when we consider the
+past.
+
+Everybody expected to see fighting in the streets. I myself regarded it
+as imminent; the furious audacity which the result of the elections had
+imparted to the Mountain and the opportunity afforded to it by the Rome
+affair seemed to make an event of this kind inevitable. I was not,
+however, very anxious about the issue. I was convinced that, although
+the majority of the soldiers had voted for the Mountain, the army would
+fight against it without hesitation. The soldier who individually votes
+for a candidate at an election and the soldier acting under pressure of
+_esprit de corps_ and military discipline are two different men. The
+thoughts of the one do not regulate the actions of the other. The Paris
+garrison was very numerous, well commanded, experienced in street
+warfare, and still filled with the memory of the passions and examples
+which had been left to it by the days of June. I therefore felt certain
+of victory. But I was very anxious as to the eventual results of this
+victory: what seemed to others the end of the difficulties I regarded as
+their commencement. I considered them almost insurmountable, as I
+believe they really were.
+
+In whichever direction I looked, I saw no solid or lasting stand-point
+for us.
+
+Public opinion looked to us, but it would have been unsafe to rely upon
+it for support; fear drove the country in our direction, but its
+memories, its secret instincts, its passions could scarcely fail soon to
+withdraw it from us, so soon as the fear should have vanished. Our
+object was, if possible, to found the Republic, or at least to maintain
+it for some time, by governing it in a regular, moderate, conservative,
+and absolutely constitutional way; and this could not allow us to remain
+popular for long, since everybody wanted to evade the Constitution. The
+Mountain wanted more, the Monarchists much less.
+
+In the Assembly it was much worse still. The same general causes were
+aggravated by a thousand accidents arising from the interests and
+vanities of the party leaders. The latter were quite content to allow us
+to assume the government, but we must not expect them to allow us to
+govern. So soon as the crisis was passed, we might expect every sort of
+ambush on their part.
+
+As to the President, I did not know him yet, but it was evident that we
+could not rely upon him to support us in his Council, except where the
+jealousy and hatred were concerned with which our common adversaries
+inspired him. His sympathies must always lie in an opposite direction;
+for our views were not only different, but naturally opposed to one
+another. We wanted to make the Republic live: he longed for its
+inheritance. We only supplied him with ministers where he wanted
+accomplices.
+
+To these difficulties, which were in a sense inherent to the situation
+and consequently permanent, were added passing ones which it was not at
+all easy to surmount: the revolutionary agitation revived in part of the
+country; the spirit and habits of exclusion spread and already rooted in
+the public administration; the Roman expedition, so badly conceived and
+so badly conducted that it was now as difficult to bring it to an end as
+to get out of it; in fact, the whole legacy of mistakes committed by our
+predecessors.
+
+There were reasons enough for hesitation; and yet I did not hesitate.
+The idea of taking a post from which fear kept so many people off, and
+of relieving society from the bad pass in which it had been involved,
+flattered at the same time my sense of honour and my pride. I was quite
+aware that I should only be passing through power, and that I should not
+stay there; but I hoped to stay long enough to be able to render some
+signal service to my country and to raise myself. This was enough to
+attract me.
+
+I at once took three resolutions:
+
+First, not to refuse office if an opportunity offered;
+
+Second, only to enter the Government together with my principal friends,
+directing the principal offices, so that we might always remain the
+masters of the Cabinet;
+
+Third and last, to behave every day when in office as though I was to be
+out of it the next day, that is to say, without ever subordinating to
+the necessity of maintaining my position that of remaining true to
+myself.
+
+The next five or six days were wholly taken up in fruitless endeavours
+to form a ministry. The attempts made were so numerous, so overlapping,
+so full of small incidents--great events of one day forgotten the
+next--that I find it difficult to retrace them in my memory, in spite of
+the prominent part which I myself played in some of them. The problem
+was undoubtedly a difficult one to solve under its given conditions. The
+President was willing enough to change the appearance of his ministry,
+but he was determined to retain in it the men whom he considered his
+principal friends. The leaders of the Monarchical parties refused
+themselves to take the responsibility of government; but they were not
+willing either that it should be entrusted entirely to men over whom
+they had no hold. If they consented to admit us, it was only in a very
+small number and in second-rate offices. We were looked upon as a
+necessary but disagreeable remedy, which it was preferable only to
+administer in very small doses.
+
+Dufaure was first asked to join alone, and to be satisfied with the
+Public Works. He refused, demanded the Interior, and two other offices
+for his friends. After much difficulty they agreed to give him the
+Interior, but they refused the rest. I have reason to believe that he
+was at one time on the point of accepting this proposal and of again
+leaving me in the lurch, as he had done six months ago. Not that he was
+treacherous or indifferent in his friendships; but the sight of this
+important office almost within reach, which he could honestly accept,
+possessed a strange attraction for him. It did not precisely cause him
+to abandon his friends, but it distracted his thoughts from them, and
+made him ready to forget them. He was firm, however, this time; and not
+being able to get him by himself, they offered to take me with him. I
+was most in view at that time, because the new Legislative Assembly had
+just elected me one of its vice-presidents.[14] But what office to give
+me? I only thought myself fit to fill the Ministry of Public
+Instruction. Unfortunately that was in the hands of M. de Falloux, an
+indispensable man, whom it was equally important to the Legitimists to
+retain, of whom he was one of the leaders; to the religious party, who
+saw in him a protector; and finally to the President, of whom he had
+become the friend. I was offered Agriculture, and refused it. At last,
+in despair, Barrot came and asked me to accept the Foreign Office. I
+myself had made great efforts to persuade M. de Rémusat to accept this
+office, and what happened on this occasion between him and me is so
+characteristic that it is worthy of being retold. I was very anxious
+that M. de Rémusat should join the ministry with us. He was at once a
+friend of M. Thiers and a man of honour, a rather unusual combination;
+he alone was able to assure us, if not the support, at least the
+neutrality of that statesman, without infesting us with his spirit.
+Overcome by the insistency of Barrot and the rest of us, Rémusat one
+evening yielded. He had pledged us his word, but the next morning he
+came to withdraw it. I knew for certain that he had seen M. Thiers in
+the interval, and he confessed to me himself that M. Thiers, who was
+then loudly proclaiming the necessity of our accepting office, had
+dissuaded him from joining us. "I fully saw," he said, "that to become
+your colleague would not be to give you his assistance, but only to
+expose myself to be quarrelling with him before long." Those were the
+sort of men we had to deal with.
+
+ [14: 1 June 1849, by 336 votes to 261.]
+
+I had never thought of the Foreign Office, and my first impulse was to
+refuse it. I thought myself unsuited to fill an office for which nothing
+had prepared me. Among my papers I have found a trace of these
+hesitations, in the notes of a conversation which took place at a dinner
+which some of my friends and I had at that time....
+
+I decided at last, however, to accept the Foreign Office, but I made it
+a condition that Lanjuinais should enter the Council at the same time as
+myself. I had many very strong reasons for acting as I did. In the first
+place, I thought that three ministers were indispensable to us in order
+to acquire the preponderance in the Cabinet which we needed in order to
+do any good. I thought, moreover, that Lanjuinais would be very useful
+to keep Dufaure himself within the lines I wished to follow. I did not
+consider myself to have enough hold over him. Above all, I wanted to
+have near me a friend with whom I could talk openly of all things: a
+great advantage at any time, but especially in such times of suspicion
+and variableness as ours, and for a work as hazardous as that which I
+was undertaking.
+
+From all these different points of view Lanjuinais suited me admirably,
+although we were of very dissimilar natures. His humour was as calm and
+placid as mine was restless and anxious. He was methodical, slow,
+indolent, prudent, and even over-scrupulous, and he was very backward to
+enter upon any undertaking; but having once entered upon it he never
+drew back, and showed himself until the end as resolved and stubborn as
+a Breton of the true stamp. He was very slow in giving his opinion, and
+very explicit, and even candid to the verge of rudeness, when he did
+give it. One could not expect from his friendship either enthusiasm,
+ardour, or _abandon_; on the other hand, one need not dread either
+faint-heartedness, treachery, or after-thoughts. In short, he was a very
+safe associate, and taken all round, the most honourable man I ever met
+in public life. Of all of us, it was he who seemed to me least to mix
+his private or interested views with his love of the public good.
+
+No one objected to the name of Lanjuinais; but the difficulty was to
+find him a portfolio. I asked for him that of Commerce and Agriculture,
+which had been held since the 20th of December by Buffel, a friend of
+Falloux. The latter refused to let his colleague go; I insisted; and the
+new Cabinet, which was almost complete, remained for twenty-four hours
+as though dissolved. To conquer my resolution, Falloux attempted a
+direct measure: he came to my house, where I lay confined to my bed,
+urged me, begged me to give up Lanjuinais and to leave his friend Buffel
+at the Ministry of Agriculture. I had made up my mind, and I closed my
+ears. Falloux was vexed, but retained his self-control and rose to go. I
+thought everything had gone wrong: on the contrary, everything had gone
+right.
+
+"You are determined," he said, with that aristocratic good grace with
+which he was able to cover all his feelings, even the bitterest; "you
+are determined, and so I must yield. It shall not be said that a private
+consideration has, at so difficult and critical a period, made me break
+off so necessary a combination. I shall remain alone in the midst of
+you. But I hope you will not forget that I shall be not only your
+colleague but your prisoner!"
+
+One hour later the Cabinet was formed,[15] and Dufaure, who told me of
+it, invited me to take immediate possession of the Foreign Office.
+
+ [15: The Presidential decree is dated 2 June 1849.]
+
+Thus was born this Ministry which was so painfully and slowly formed and
+which was destined to have so short an existence. During the long
+childbirth that preceded it, the man who was at the greatest trouble in
+France was certainly Barrot: his sincere love for the public weal
+inclined him to desire a change of cabinet, and his ambition, which was
+more intimately and narrowly bound up with his honesty than might have
+been believed, made him long with unequalled ardour to remain at the
+head of the new Cabinet. He therefore went incessantly to and fro from
+one to the other, addressing very pathetic and sometimes very eloquent
+objurations to every one, now turning to the leaders of the majority,
+now to us, now again to the new Republicans, whom he regarded as more
+moderate than the others. And for that matter, he was equally inclined
+to carry either one or the other with him; for in politics he was
+incapable of either hatred or friendship. His heart is an evaporating
+vase, in which nothing remains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ ASPECT OF THE CABINET--ITS FIRST ACTS UNTIL AFTER THE
+ INSURRECTIONARY ATTEMPTS OF THE 13TH OF JUNE.
+
+
+The ministry was composed as follows:
+
+ Minister of Justice and }
+ President of the Council} Barrot.
+ Finance Passy.
+ War Rulhière.
+ Navy Tracy.
+ Public Works Lacrosse.
+ Public Instruction Falloux.
+ Interior Dufaure.
+ Agriculture Lanjuinais.
+ Foreign Affairs Tocqueville.
+
+Dufaure, Lanjuinais and I were the only new ministers; all the others
+had belonged to the previous Cabinet.
+
+Passy was a man of real merit, but not of a very attractive merit. His
+mind was narrow, maladroit, provoking, disparaging and ingenious rather
+than just. Nevertheless, he was more inclined to be just when it was
+really necessary to act than when it was only a question of talking; for
+he was more fond of paradox than liable to put it into practice. I never
+knew a greater talker, nor one who so easily consoled himself for
+troublesome events by explaining the causes which had produced them and
+the consequences likely to ensue. When he had finished drawing the most
+sombre picture of the state of affairs, he concluded with a smiling and
+placid air, saying, "So that there is practically no means of saving
+ourselves, and we have only to look forward to the total overthrow of
+Society." In other respects he was a cultured and experienced minister;
+his courage and honesty were proof against everything; and he was as
+incapable of vacillation as of treachery. His ideas, his feelings, his
+former intimacy with Dufaure and, above all, his eager animosity against
+Thiers made us certain of him.
+
+Rulhière would have belonged to the monarchic and ultra-conservative
+party if he had belonged to any, and especially if Changarnier had not
+been in the world; but he was a soldier who only thought of remaining
+Minister for War. We perceived at the first glance his extreme jealousy
+of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army in Paris; and the intimacy between
+the latter and the leaders of the majority, and his influence over the
+President, obliged Rulhière to throw himself into our arms, and forcibly
+drove him to depend upon us.
+
+Tracy had by nature a weak character, which was, as it were, enclosed
+and confined in the very precise and systematic theories which he owed
+to the ideological education he had received from his father.[16] But,
+in the end, contact with every-day events and the shock of revolutions
+had worn out this rigid envelope, and all that remained was a wavering
+intelligence and a sluggish, but always honest and kindly, heart.
+
+ [16: Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy, 1754-1836, the
+ celebrated ideologist, Condillac's disciple.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Lacrosse was a poor devil whose private affairs were more or less
+involved. The chances of the Revolution had driven him into office from
+an obscure corner of the Opposition, and he never grew weary of the
+delight of being a minister. He gladly leant upon us, but he endeavoured
+at the same time to make sure of the good-will of the President of the
+Republic by rendering him all sorts of little services and small
+compliments. To tell the truth, it would have been difficult for him to
+recommend himself in any other way, for he was a rare nonentity, and
+understood nothing about anything. We were reproached for taking office
+in company with such incapable ministers as Tracy and Lacrosse, and not
+without justice, for it was a great cause of ruin: not only because they
+did their work badly, but because their notorious insufficiency kept
+their succession always open, so to speak, and created a sort of
+permanent ministerial crisis.
+
+As to Barrot, he adhered naturally to us from feeling and ideas. His old
+liberal associations, his republican tastes, his Opposition memories
+attached him to us. Had he been differently connected, he might have
+become, however regretfully, our adversary; but, having him once among
+us, we were sure of him.
+
+Of all the Ministry, therefore, only Falloux was a stranger to us by his
+starting-point, his engagements, and his inclinations. He alone
+represented the leaders of the majority on the Council, or rather he
+seemed to represent them, for in reality, as I will explain later, he
+represented, besides himself, nothing but the Church. This isolated
+position, together with the secret aims of his policy, drove him to seek
+support beyond us; he strove to establish it in the Assembly and with
+the President, but discreetly and cleverly, as he did everything.
+
+Thus constituted, the Cabinet had one great weakness: it was about to
+govern with the aid of a composite majority, without itself being a
+coalition ministry. But, on the other hand, it possessed the very great
+strength which ministers derive from uniform origin, identical
+instincts, old bonds of friendship, mutual confidence, and common ends.
+
+I shall doubtless be asked what these ends were, where we were going,
+what we wanted. We live in times so uncertain and so obscure that I
+should hesitate to reply to that question in the name of my colleagues;
+but I will readily reply for myself. I did not believe then, any more
+than I do now, that the republican form of government is the best suited
+to the needs of France. What I mean when I say the republican form of
+government, is the elective Executive Power. With a people among whom
+habit, tradition, custom have assured so great a place to the Executive
+Power, its instability will always be, in periods of excitement, a
+cause of revolution, and in peaceful times, a cause of great uneasiness.
+Moreover, I have always considered the Republic an ill-balanced form of
+government, which always promised more, but gave less, liberty than the
+Constitutional Monarchy. And yet I sincerely wished to maintain the
+Republic; and although there were, so to speak, no Republicans in
+France, I did not look upon the maintenance of it as absolutely
+impossible.
+
+I wished to maintain it because I saw nothing ready or fit to set in its
+place. The old Dynasty was profoundly antipathetic to the majority of
+the country. Amid this flagging of all political passion, which was the
+result of the fatigue of the revolutions and their vain promises, one
+genuine passion remained alive in France: hatred of the Ancien Régime
+and mistrust of the old privileged classes who represented it in the
+eyes of the people. This sentiment passes through revolutions without
+dissolving in them, like the water of those marvellous fountains which,
+according to the ancients, passed across the waves of the sea without
+mixing with or disappearing in them. As to the Orleans Dynasty, the
+experience the people had had of it did not particularly incline them to
+return to it so soon. It was bound once more to throw into Opposition
+all the upper classes and the clergy, and to separate itself from the
+people, as it had done before, leaving the cares and profits of
+government to those same middle classes whom I had already seen during
+eighteen years so inadequate for the good government of France.
+Moreover, nothing was ready for its triumph.
+
+Louis Napoleon alone was ready to take the place of the Republic,
+because he already held the power in his hands. But what could come of
+his success, except a bastard Monarchy, despised by the enlightened
+classes, hostile to liberty, governed by intriguers, adventurers, and
+valets?
+
+The Republic was doubtless difficult to maintain; for those who favoured
+it were, for the most part, incapable or unworthy of governing it, while
+those who were fit to conduct it detested it. But it was also rather
+difficult to pull down. The hatred borne for it was an easy-going
+hatred, as were all the passions which the country then entertained.
+Besides, the Government was found fault with, but no other was loved in
+its place. Three parties, mutually irreconcilable, more hostile to one
+another than either of them was to the Republic, contended with each
+other for the future. As to a majority, there was no such thing.
+
+I thought, therefore, that the Government of the Republic, having
+existence in its favour, and having no adversaries except minorities
+difficult to coalesce, would be able to maintain its position amid the
+inertia of the masses, if it was conducted with moderation and wisdom.
+For this reason, I was resolved not to lend myself to any steps that
+might be taken against it, but rather to defend it. Almost all the
+members of the Council thought as I did. Dufaure believed more than I
+did in the soundness of republican institutions and in their future.
+Barrot was less inclined than I to keep them always respected; but we
+all wished at the present time firmly to maintain them. This common
+resolution was our political bond and standard.
+
+So soon as the Ministry was formed, it repaired to the President of the
+Republic to hold a Council. It was the first time I had come into
+contact with him. I had only seen him at a distance at the time of the
+Constituent Assembly. He received us with politeness. It was all we
+could expect from him, for Dufaure had acted vigorously against him, and
+had spoken almost outrageously of his candidature no longer than six
+months ago, while both Lanjuinais and myself had openly voted for his
+opponent.
+
+Louis Napoleon plays so great a part in the rest of my narrative that he
+seems to me to deserve a special portrait amid the host of
+contemporaries of whom I have been content to sketch the features. Of
+all his ministers, and perhaps of all the men who refused to take part
+in his conspiracy against the Republic, I was the one who was most
+advanced in his good graces, who saw him closest, and who was best able
+to judge him.
+
+He was vastly superior to what his preceding career and his mad
+enterprises might very properly have led one to believe of him. This was
+my first impression on conversing with him. In this respect he deceived
+his adversaries, and perhaps still more his friends, if this term can be
+applied to the politicians who patronized his candidature. The greater
+part of these, in fact, elected him, not because of his merits, but
+because of his presumed mediocrity. They expected to find in him an
+instrument which they could handle as they pleased, and which it would
+always be lawful for them to break when they wished to. In this they
+were greatly deceived.
+
+As a private individual, Louis Napoleon possessed certain attractive
+qualities: an easy and kindly humour, a mind which was gentle, and even
+tender, without being delicate, great confidence in his intercourse,
+perfect simplicity, a certain personal modesty amidst the immense pride
+derived from his origin. He was capable of showing affection, and able
+to inspire it in those who approached him. His conversation was brief
+and unsuggestive. He had not the art of drawing others out or of
+establishing intimate relations with them; nor any facility in
+expressing his views. He had the writer's habit, and a certain amount of
+the author's self-love. His dissimulation, which was the deep
+dissimulation of a man who has spent his life in plots, was assisted in
+a remarkable way by the immobility of his features and his want of
+expression: for his eyes were dull and opaque, like the thick glass used
+to light the cabins of ships, which admits the light but cannot be seen
+through. Careless of danger, he possessed a fine, cool courage in days
+of crisis; and at the same time--a common thing enough--he was very
+vacillating in his plans. He was often seen to change his direction, to
+advance, hesitate, draw back, to his great detriment: for the nation had
+chosen him in order to dare all things, and what it expected from him
+was audacity and not prudence. It was said that he had always been
+greatly addicted to pleasures, and not very dainty in his choice of
+them. This passion for vulgar enjoyment and this taste for luxury had
+increased still more with the facilities offered by his position. Each
+day he wore out his energy in indulgence, and deadened and degraded even
+his ambition. His intelligence was incoherent, confused, filled with
+great but ill-assorted thoughts, which he borrowed now from the examples
+of Napoleon, now from socialistic theories, sometimes from recollections
+of England, where he had lived: very different, and often very contrary,
+sources. These he had laboriously collected in his solitary meditations,
+far removed from the contact of men and facts, for he was naturally a
+dreamer and a visionary. But when he was forced to emerge from these
+vague, vast regions in order to confine his mind to the limits of a
+piece of business, it showed itself to be capable of justice, sometimes
+of subtlety and compass, and even of a certain depth, but never sure,
+and always prepared to place a grotesque idea by the side of a correct
+one.
+
+Generally, it was difficult to come into long and very close contact
+with him without discovering a little vein of madness running through
+his better sense, the sight of which always recalled the escapades of
+his youth, and served to explain them.
+
+It may be admitted, for that matter, that it was his madness rather than
+his reason which, thanks to circumstances, caused his success and his
+force: for the world is a strange theatre. There are moments in it when
+the worst plays are those which succeed best. If Louis Napoleon had been
+a wise man, or a man of genius, he would never have become President of
+the Republic.
+
+He trusted in his star; he firmly believed himself to be the instrument
+of destiny and the necessary man. I have always believed that he was
+really convinced of his right, and I doubt whether Charles X. was ever
+more infatuated with his legitimism than he with his. Moreover, he was
+quite as incapable of alleging a reason for his faith; for, although he
+had a sort of abstract adoration for the people, he had very little
+taste for liberty. The characteristic and fundamental feature of his
+mind in political matters was his hatred of and contempt for assemblies.
+The rule of the Constitutional Monarchy seemed to him even more
+insupportable than that of the Republic. His unlimited pride in the name
+he bore, which willingly bowed before the nation, revolted at the idea
+of yielding to the influence of a parliament.
+
+Before attaining power he had had time to strengthen his natural taste
+for the footman class, which is always displayed by mediocre princes, by
+the habits of twenty years of conspiracy spent amid low-class
+adventurers, men of ruined fortunes or blemished reputations, and young
+debauchees, the only persons who, during all this time, could have
+consented to serve him as go-betweens or accomplices. He himself, in
+spite of his good manners, allowed a glimpse to pierce through of the
+adventurer and the prince of fortune. He continued to take pleasure in
+this inferior company after he was no longer obliged to live in it. I
+believe that his difficulty in expressing his thoughts otherwise than in
+writing attached him to people who had long been familiar with his
+current of thought and with his dreamings, and that his inferiority in
+conversation rendered him generally averse to contact with clever men.
+Moreover, he desired above all things to meet with devotion to his
+person and his cause, as though his person and his cause were such as to
+be able to arouse devotion: merit annoyed him when it displayed ever so
+little independence. He wanted believers in his star, and vulgar
+worshippers of his fortune.
+
+This was the man whom the need of a chief and the power of a memory had
+placed at the head of France, and with whom we would have to govern.
+
+It would be difficult to imagine a more critical moment in which to
+assume the direction of affairs. The Constituent Assembly, before ending
+its turbulent existence, had passed a resolution, on the 7th of June
+1849, prohibiting the Government from attacking Rome. The first thing I
+learnt on entering the Cabinet was that the order to attack Rome had
+been sent to the army three days before. This flagrant disobedience of
+the injunctions of a sovereign Assembly, this war undertaken against a
+people in revolution, because of its revolution, and in defiance of the
+terms of the Constitution which commanded us to respect all foreign
+nationalities, made inevitable and brought nearer the conflict which we
+dreaded. What would be the issue of this new struggle? All the letters
+from prefects of departments that were laid before us, all the police
+reports that reached us were calculated to throw us into great alarm. I
+had seen, at the end of the Cavaignac Administration, how a government
+can be supported in its visionary hopes by the self-interested
+complaisance of its agents. This time I saw, and much more closely, how
+these same agents can work to increase the terror of those who employ
+them: contrary effects produced by the same cause. Each one of them,
+judging that we were uneasy, wished to signalize himself by the
+discovery of new plots, and in his turn to supply us with some fresh
+indication of the conspiracy which threatened us. The more they believed
+in our success, the more readily they talked to us of our danger. For it
+is one of the dangerous characteristics of this sort of information,
+that it becomes rarer and less explicit in the measure that the peril
+increases and the need for information becomes greater. The agents in
+that case, doubting the duration of the government which employs them,
+and already fearing its successor, either scarcely speak at all or keep
+absolute silence. But now they made a great noise. To listen to them, it
+was impossible not to think that we were on the edge of an abyss, and
+yet I did not believe a word of it. I was quite convinced then, as I
+have been ever since, that official correspondence and police reports,
+which may be useful for purposes of consultation when there is question
+of discovering a particular plot, only serve to give exaggerated and
+incomplete and invariably false notions when one wishes to judge or
+foresee great movements of parties. In a matter of this kind, it is the
+aspect of the whole country, the knowledge of its needs, its passions
+and its ideas, that can instruct us, general _data_ which one can
+procure for one's self, and which are never supplied by even the best
+placed and best accredited agents.
+
+The sight of these general facts had led me to believe that at this
+moment no armed revolution was to be feared: but a combat was; and the
+expectation of civil war is always cruel, especially when it comes in
+time to join its fury to that of pestilence. Paris was at that time
+ravaged by cholera. Death struck at all ranks. Already a large number of
+members of the Constituent Assembly had succumbed; and Bugeaud, whom
+Africa had spared, was dying.
+
+Had I entertained a moment's doubt as to the imminence of the crisis,
+the aspect alone of the new Assembly would have clearly announced it to
+me. It is not too much to say that one breathed the atmosphere of civil
+war in its midst. The speeches were short, the gestures violent, the
+words extravagant, the insults outrageous and direct. We met for the
+present in the old Chamber of Deputies. This room, built for 460
+members, had difficulty in containing 750. The members, therefore, sat
+touching, while detesting, each other; they pressed one against the
+other in spite of the hatred which divided them; the discomfort
+increased their anger. It was a duel in a barrel. How would the
+Montagnards be able to restrain themselves? They saw that they were
+sufficiently numerous to entitle them to believe themselves very strong
+in the country and in the army. Yet they remained too weak in Parliament
+to hope to prevail or even to count there. They were offered a fine
+occasion of resorting to force. All Europe, which was still in
+commotion, might with one great blow, struck in Paris, be thrown into
+revolution anew. This was more than was necessary for men of such savage
+temper.
+
+It was easy to foresee that the movement would burst forth at the moment
+when it should become known that the order had been given to attack Rome
+and that the attack had taken place. And this was what in fact occurred.
+
+The order given had remained secret. But on the 10th of June, the
+report of the first combat became current.
+
+On the 11th, the Mountain burst into furious speech. Ledru-Rollin made
+an appeal from the tribune for civil war, saying that the Constitution
+had been violated and that he and his friends were ready to defend it by
+every method, including that of arms. The indictment was demanded of the
+President of the Republic and of the preceding Cabinet.
+
+On the 12th, the Committee of the Assembly, instructed to examine the
+question raised the day before, rejected the impeachment and called upon
+the Assembly to pronounce, where it sat, upon the fate of the President
+and Ministers. The Mountain opposed this immediate discussion and
+demanded that documents should be laid before it. What was its object in
+thus postponing the debate? It was difficult to say. Did it hope that
+this delay would complete the general irritation, or did it in its heart
+of hearts wish to give it time to calm down? One thing is certain, that
+its principal leaders, those who were more accustomed to speaking than
+to fighting, and who were passionate rather than resolute, displayed
+that day, amid all the intemperance of their language, a sort of
+hesitation of which they had given no sign the day before. After half
+drawing the sword from the scabbard, they appeared to wish to replace
+it; but it was too late, the signal had been observed by their friends
+outside, and thenceforward they no longer led, but were led in their
+turn.
+
+During these two days, my position was most cruel. As I have already
+stated, I disapproved entirely of the manner in which the Roman
+expedition had been undertaken and conducted. Before joining the
+Cabinet, I had solemnly declared to Barrot that I declined to take any
+responsibility except for the future, and that he must himself be
+prepared to defend what had up to that time been done in Italy. I had
+only accepted office on this condition. I therefore kept silent during
+the discussion on the 11th, and allowed Barrot to bear the brunt of the
+battle alone. But when, on the 12th, I saw my colleagues threatened with
+an impeachment, I considered that I could no longer abstain. The demand
+for fresh documents gave me an opportunity to intervene, without having
+to express an opinion upon the original question. I did so vigorously,
+although in very few words.
+
+On reading over this little speech in the _Moniteur_, I cannot but think
+it very insignificant and badly turned. Nevertheless, I was applauded to
+the echo by the majority, because in moments of crisis, when one is in
+danger of civil war, it is the movement of thought and the accent of
+one's words which make an impression, rather than their value. I
+directly attacked Ledru-Rollin. I accused him with violence of only
+wanting troubles and of spreading lies in order to create them. The
+feeling which impelled me to speak was an energetic one, the tone was
+determined and aggressive, and although I spoke very badly, being as
+yet unaccustomed to my new part, I met with much favour.
+
+Ledru replied to me, and told the majority that they were on the side of
+the Cossacks. They answered that he was on the side of the plunderers
+and the incendiaries. Thiers, commenting on this thought, said that
+there was an intimate relation between the man they had just listened to
+and the insurgents of June. The Assembly rejected the demand for an
+impeachment by a large majority, and broke up.
+
+Although the leaders of the Mountain continued to be outrageous, they
+had not shown any great firmness, so that we were able to flatter
+ourselves that the decisive moment for the struggle had not yet arrived.
+But this was a mistake. The reports which we received during the night
+told us that the people were preparing to take up arms.
+
+On the next day, in fact, the language of the demagogic papers
+proclaimed that the editors no longer relied upon justice, but upon a
+revolution, to acquit them. All of them called either directly or
+indirectly for civil war. The National Guard, the schools, the entire
+population was summoned by them to repair, unarmed, to a certain
+locality, in order to go and present themselves in mass before the doors
+of the Assembly. It was a 23rd of June which they wished to commence
+with a 15th of May; and, in fact, seven or eight thousand people did
+meet at about eleven o'clock at the Château-d'Eau. We on our side held
+a Council under the President of the Republic. The latter was already in
+uniform, and prepared to go out on horseback so soon as he should be
+told that the fighting had commenced. For the rest, he had changed
+nothing except his clothes. He was exactly the same man as on the day
+before: the same rather dejected air, his speech no less slow and no
+less embarrassed, his eye no less dull. He showed none of that sort of
+warlike excitement and of rather feverish gaiety which the approach of
+danger so often gives: an attitude which is perhaps, after all, no more
+than the sign of a mind disturbed.
+
+We sent for Changarnier, who explained his preparations to us, and
+guaranteed a victory. Dufaure communicated to us the reports he had
+received, all of which told of a formidable insurrection. He then left
+for the Ministry of the Interior, which was the centre of action, and at
+about mid-day I repaired to the Assembly.
+
+The House was some time before it met, because the President, without
+consulting us, had declared, when arranging the Order of the Day on the
+evening before, that there would be no public sitting on the next day, a
+strange blunder which would have looked like treachery in anyone else.
+While messengers were being despatched to inform the members at their
+own houses, I went to see the President of the Assembly in his private
+room: most of the leaders of the majority were there before me. Every
+face bore traces of excitement and anxiety; the contest was both feared
+and demanded. They began by vehemently accusing the Ministry of
+slackness. Thiers, lying back in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed
+one over the other, sat rubbing his stomach (for he felt certain
+symptoms of the prevailing epidemic), loudly and angrily exclaiming, in
+his shrillest _falsetto_, that it was very strange that no one seemed to
+think of declaring Paris in a state of siege. I replied gently that we
+had thought of it, but that the moment had not yet come to do so, since
+the Assembly had not yet met.
+
+The members arrived from every side, attracted less by the messages
+despatched to them, which most of them had not even received, than by
+the rumours prevalent in the town. The sitting was opened at two
+o'clock. The benches of the majority were well filled, but the top of
+the Mountain was deserted. The gloomy silence which reigned in this part
+of the House was more alarming than the shouts which came from that
+quarter as a rule. It was a proof that discussion had ceased, and that
+the civil war was about to commence.
+
+At three o'clock, Dufaure came and asked that the state of siege should
+be proclaimed in Paris. Cavaignac seconded him in one of those short
+addresses which he sometimes delivered, and in which his mind, which was
+naturally middling and confused reached the level of his soul and
+approached the sublime. Under these circumstances he became, for a
+moment, the man of the most genuine eloquence that I have ever heard
+speak in our Assemblies: he left all the mere orators far behind him.
+
+"You have just said," he exclaimed, addressing the Montagnard[17] who
+was leaving the tribune, "that I have fallen from power. That is not
+true: I retired voluntarily. The national will does not overthrow; it
+commands, and we obey. I add--and I want the republican party always to
+be able to say so with justice: I retired voluntarily, and, in so doing,
+my conduct did honour to my republican convictions. You said that we
+lived in terror: history is observing us, and will pronounce when the
+time comes. But what I say to you myself is this, that although you have
+not succeeded in inspiring me with a feeling of terror, you have
+inspired me with a feeling of profound sorrow. Shall I tell you one
+thing more? You are Republicans of long standing; whereas I have not
+worked for the Republic before its foundation, I have not suffered for
+it, and I regret that this is so; but I have served it faithfully, and I
+have done more: I have governed it. I shall serve nothing else,
+understand me well! Write it down, take it down in shorthand, so that it
+may remain engraved upon the annals of our deliberations: _I shall serve
+nothing else_! Between you and me, I take it, it is a question as to
+which of us will serve the Republic best. Well then, my regret is, that
+you have served it very badly. I hope, for the sake of my country, that
+it is not destined to fall; but if we should be condemned to undergo so
+great a blow, remember--remember distinctly--that we shall accuse your
+exaggerations and your fury as being the cause of it."
+
+ [17: Pierre Leroux.]
+
+Shortly after the state of siege had been proclaimed, we learnt that the
+insurrection had been extinguished. Changarnier and the President,
+charging at the head of the cavalry, had cut in two and dispersed the
+column which was making its way towards the Assembly. A few
+newly-erected barricades had been destroyed, without striking a blow.
+The Montagnards, surrounded in the Conservatoire of Arts and Crafts,
+which they had turned into their head-quarters, had either been arrested
+or taken to flight. We were the masters of Paris.
+
+The same movement took place in several of the large towns, with more
+vigour but no less success. At Lyons, the fighting lasted stubbornly for
+five hours, and the victory was for a moment in doubt. But for that
+matter, when we were once victorious in Paris, we distressed ourselves
+very little about the provinces; for we knew that in France, in matters
+both of order and of disorder, Paris lays down the law.
+
+Thus ended the second Insurrection of June, very different to the first
+by the extent of its violence and its duration, but similar in the
+causes which led to its failure. At the time of the first, the people,
+carried away less by their opinions than by their appetites, had fought
+alone, without being able to attract their representatives to their
+head. This time the representatives had been unable to induce the people
+to follow them into battle. In June 1848, the army had no leaders; in
+June 1849, the leaders had no army.
+
+They were singular personages, those Montagnards: their quarrelsome
+nature and their self-conceit were displayed even in measures which
+least allowed of it. Among those who, in their newspapers and in their
+own persons, had spoken most violently in favour of civil war, and who
+had done the most to cover us with insults, was Considérant, the pupil
+and successor of Fourier, and the author of so many socialistic dreams
+which would only have been ridiculous at any other time, but which were
+dangerous in ours. Considérant succeeded in escaping with Ledru-Rollin
+from the Conservatoire, and in reaching the Belgian frontier. I had
+formerly had social relations with him, and when he arrived in Brussels,
+he wrote to me:
+
+ "My dear Tocqueville,
+
+ (Here followed a request for a service which he asked me to do for
+ him, and then he went on):
+
+ "Rely upon me at all times for any personal service. You are good
+ for two or three months perhaps, and the pure Whites who will
+ follow you are good for six months at the longest. You will both
+ of you, it is true, have well deserved what is infallibly bound to
+ happen to you a little sooner or a little later. But let us talk no
+ more politics and respect the very legal, very loyal, and very
+ Odilon Barrotesque state of siege."
+
+To this I replied:
+
+ "My dear Considérant,
+
+ "I have done what you ask. I do not wish to take advantage of so
+ small a service, but I am very pleased to ascertain, by the way,
+ that those odious oppressors of liberty, the Ministers, inspire
+ their adversaries with so much confidence that the latter, after
+ outlawing them, do not hesitate to apply to them to obtain what is
+ just. This proves that there is some good left in us, whatever may
+ be said of us. Are you quite sure that if the position had been
+ inverted, I should have been able to act in the same way, I will
+ not say towards yourself, but towards such and such of your
+ political friends whom I might mention? I think the contrary, and I
+ solemnly declare to you that if ever they become the masters, I
+ shall consider myself quite satisfied if they only leave my head
+ upon my shoulders, and ready to declare that their virtue has
+ surpassed my greatest expectations."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ OUR DOMESTIC POLICY--INTERNAL QUARRELS IN THE CABINET--ITS
+ DIFFICULTIES IN ITS RELATIONS WITH THE MAJORITY AND THE PRESIDENT.
+
+
+We were victorious, but our real difficulties were only about to
+commence, and I expected them. I have always held as a maxim, moreover,
+that it is after a great success that one generally comes across the
+most dangerous chances of ruin: so long as the peril lasts, one has only
+his adversaries to deal with, and he triumphs; but after the victory,
+one begins to have to reckon with himself, his slackness, his pride, the
+imprudent security inspired by victory, and he succumbs.
+
+I was not exposed to this last danger, for I never imagined that we had
+surmounted our principal obstacles. I knew that these lay with the very
+men with whom we would have to govern the country, and that the rapid
+and signal defeat of the Montagnards, instead of guaranteeing us against
+the ill-will of the former, would expose us to it without delay. We
+should have been much stronger if we had not succeeded so well.
+
+The majority consisted in the main, at that time, of three parties (the
+President's party in Parliament was as yet too few in number and of too
+evil repute to count). Sixty to eighty members at the utmost were
+sincerely with us in our endeavours to found a Moderate Republic, and
+these formed the only body we could rely upon in that huge Assembly. The
+remainder of the majority consisted of Legitimists, to the number of
+some one hundred and sixty, and of old friends or supporters of the
+Monarchy of July, for the most part representing those middle classes
+who had governed, and above all exploited, France during eighteen years.
+I felt at once that of these two parties, that of which we could most
+easily make use in our plans was the Legitimist party. The Legitimists
+had been excluded from power under the last government; they therefore
+had no places and no salaries to regret. Moreover, being for the most
+part considerable land-owners, they had not the same need of public
+functions as the middle class; or, at least, custom had not taught them
+the sweetness of place. Although in principles more irreconcilable to
+the Republic than the others, they were better able than most to accept
+its duration, for it had destroyed their destroyer, and had opened up to
+them a prospect of power; it had served at once their ambition and their
+desire for revenge; and it only aroused against itself their fear, which
+was, in truth, very great. The old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of
+the majority, were much more eager to do away with the Republic; but as
+the furious hatred which they bore it was strongly held in check by the
+fear of the risk they would run in endeavouring prematurely to abolish
+it, and as, moreover, they had long been accustomed to follow in the
+wake of power, it would have been easy for us to lead them had we been
+able to obtain the support, or even the mere neutrality of their
+leaders, of whom the principal were then, as is known, M. Thiers and M.
+Molé.
+
+Appreciating this position of affairs, I understood that it was
+necessary to subordinate all secondary objects to the principal end in
+view, which was to prevent the overthrow of the Republic and especially
+to hinder the establishment of the bastard monarchy of Louis Napoleon.
+This was at the time the nearest threatening danger.
+
+I thought first of guaranteeing myself against the mistakes of my
+friends, for I have always considered as profoundly sensible the old
+Norman proverb which says, "Lord, preserve me from my friends: I will
+preserve myself from mine enemies."
+
+At the head of our adherents in the National Assembly was General
+Lamoricière, and I greatly dreaded his petulancy, his imprudent
+observations, and especially his idleness. I endeavoured to appoint him
+to an important and distant embassy. Russia had spontaneously recognized
+the new Republic; it was proper that we should resume the diplomatic
+relations with her which had been almost interrupted under the last
+Government. I cast my eyes upon Lamoricière in order to entrust him with
+this extraordinary and distant mission. He was, besides, a man cut out
+for a post of this kind, in which few but generals, and celebrated
+generals, succeed. I had some difficulty in persuading him, but the most
+difficult thing was to persuade the President of the Republic. He at
+first resisted, and told me on that occasion, with a sort of simplicity
+which pointed less to candour than to his difficulty in finding words in
+which to express himself (these very rarely gave utterance to his
+thoughts, but sometimes permitted them to glimmer through), that he
+wished to be represented at the principal Courts by ambassadors devoted
+to himself. This was not my view of the matter; for I, who was called
+upon to instruct the ambassadors, was quite determined to devote myself
+only to France. I therefore insisted, but I should have failed if I had
+not summoned M. de Falloux to my aid. Falloux was the only man in the
+Ministry in whom the President at that time had confidence. He persuaded
+him with arguments, of which I do not know the purport, and Lamoricière
+left for Russia. I shall say later what he did.
+
+His departure reassured me as to the conduct of our friends, and I
+thought of winning or retaining the necessary allies. Here the task was
+more difficult on all points; for, outside my own department, I was
+unable to do anything without the consent of the Cabinet, which
+contained a number of the most honest minds that one could meet, but so
+inflexible and narrow in matters of politics, that I have sometimes
+gone so far as to regret not having rather had to do with intelligent
+rascals.
+
+As to the Legitimists, my opinion was that they should be allowed to
+retain great influence in the direction of Public Instruction. This
+proposal had its drawbacks, but it was the only one which could satisfy
+them, and which could ensure us their support in return, when it should
+become a question of restraining the President and preventing him from
+upsetting the Constitution. This plan was followed. Falloux was given a
+free hand in his own department, and the Council allowed him to bring
+before the Assembly the plan of Public Instruction, which since became
+law on the 15th of March 1850. I also advised my colleagues to all the
+extent of my power to keep up good relations individually with the
+principal members of the Legitimist party, and I followed this line of
+conduct myself. I soon became and remained, of all the members of the
+Cabinet, the one who lived in the best understanding with them. I even
+ended by becoming the sole intermediary between them and ourselves.
+
+It is true that my birth and the society in which I had been brought up
+gave me great facilities for this which the others did not possess; for,
+although the French nobility have ceased to be a class, they have yet
+remained a sort of freemasonry, of which all the members continue to
+recognize one another through certain invisible signs, whatever may be
+the opinions which make them strangers to one another, or even
+adversaries.
+
+It so happened, therefore, that after annoying Falloux more than anyone
+else had done before entering the Cabinet, I had no sooner joined it
+than I easily became his friend. For that matter, he was a man worth
+taking the trouble of coaxing. I do not think that during my whole
+political career I ever met anyone of a rarer nature. He possessed the
+two essentials necessary for good leadership: an ardent conviction,
+which constantly drove him towards his aim without allowing itself to be
+turned aside by mortifications or dangers, and a mind which was both
+firm and supple, and which applied a great multiplicity and prodigious
+variety of means to the execution of a single plan. He was sincere in
+this sense, that he only considered, as he declared, his cause and not
+his private interest; but otherwise very sly, with a very uncommon and
+very effective slyness, for he succeeded, for the time being, in
+mingling truth and falsehood in his own belief, before serving up the
+mixture to the minds of others. This is the great secret which gives
+falsehood all the advantages of sincerity, and which permits its
+exponent to persuade to the error which he considers beneficial those
+whom he works upon or directs.
+
+In spite of all my efforts, I was never able to bring about, I will not
+say a good understanding, but even a polite understanding between
+Falloux and Dufaure. It must be admitted that these two men had
+precisely the opposite qualities and defects. Dufaure, who in the bottom
+of his heart had remained a good west-country bourgeois, hostile to the
+nobles and the priests, was unable to put up with either Falloux's
+principles or his charming, refined manners, however agreeable they
+might seem to me. I succeeded, however, with great difficulty, in
+persuading him that he must not interfere with him in his own
+department; but as to allowing him to exercise the smallest influence
+upon what went on at the Ministry of the Interior (even within the
+limits where this was permissible and necessary), he would never hear
+speak of it. Falloux had in Anjou, where he came from, a prefect with
+whom he had reason to find fault. He did not ask that he should be
+dismissed, or even refused promotion; all he wanted was that he should
+be transferred, as he thought his own position compromised so long as no
+change took place, a change which was, moreover, demanded by the
+majority of the deputies for Maine-et-Loire. Unfortunately, this prefect
+was a declared friend to the Republic; and this was enough to fill
+Dufaure with distrust, and to persuade him that Falloux's only object
+was to compromise him by making use of him to strike at those of the
+Republicans whom he had not been able to reach till then. He refused,
+therefore; the other insisted; Dufaure grew still more obstinate. It was
+very amusing to watch Falloux spinning round Dufaure, pirouetting
+cleverly and gracefully, without finding a single opening by which to
+penetrate into his mind.
+
+Dufaure let him have his say, and then confined himself to laconically
+replying, without looking at him, or only turning a dull, wry glance in
+his direction:
+
+"I should like to know why you did not take advantage of your friend M.
+Faucher's period at the Home Office to rid yourself of your prefect."
+
+Falloux contained himself, although he was naturally, I believe, of a
+very hasty temper; he came and told me his troubles, and I saw the
+bitterest spleen trickling through the honey of his speech. I thereupon
+intervened, and tried to make Dufaure understand that this was one of
+those demands which one cannot refuse a colleague unless one wishes to
+quarrel with him. I spent a month in this way, acting as a daily
+intermediary between the two, and expending more effort and diplomacy
+than I had employed, during the same period, in treating the great
+affairs of Europe. The Cabinet was more than once on the verge of
+breaking up over this puny incident. Dufaure gave way at last, but with
+such bad grace that it was impossible to thank him for it; so that he
+gave up his prefect without getting Falloux in exchange.
+
+But the most difficult portion of our rôle was the conduct which we had
+to display towards the old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of the
+majority, as I have already said.
+
+These had at one and the same time general opinions which they wished to
+force through and a number of private passions which they desired to
+satisfy. They wanted us to re-establish order energetically: in this we
+were their men; we wanted it as much as they did, and we did it as well
+as they could wish, and better than they could have done. We had
+proclaimed the state of siege in Lyons and several of the neighbouring
+departments, and by virtue of the state of siege we had suspended six
+Paris revolutionary papers, cashiered the three regiments of the Paris
+National Guard which had displayed indecision on the 13th of June,
+arrested seven representatives on the spot, and applied for warrants
+against thirty others. Analogous measures were taken all over France.
+Circulars addressed to all the agents showed them that they had to do
+with a Government which knew how to make itself obeyed, and which was
+determined that everything should give way before the law. Whenever
+Dufaure was attacked on account of these different acts by the
+Montagnards remaining in the Assembly, he replied with that masculine,
+nervous, and sharp-edged eloquence of which he was so great a master,
+and in the tone of a man who fights after burning his boats.
+
+The Conservatives not only wanted us to administrate with vigour; they
+wished us to take advantage of our victory to pass preventive and
+repressive laws. We ourselves felt the necessity of moving in this
+direction, although we were not willing to go as far as they.
+
+For my part, I was convinced that it was both wise and necessary to make
+great concessions in this respect to the fears and the legitimate
+resentment of the nation, and that the only means which remained, after
+so violent a revolution, of saving liberty was to restrict it. My
+colleagues were of the same opinion: we therefore brought in
+successively a law to suspend the clubs; another to suppress, with even
+more energy than had been done under the Monarchy, the vagaries of the
+press; and a third to regulate the state of siege.
+
+"You are establishing a military dictatorship," they cried.
+
+"Yes," replied Dufaure, "it is a dictatorship, but a parliamentary
+dictatorship. There are no individual rights which can prevail against
+the inalienable right of Society to protect itself. There are imperious
+necessities which are the same for all governments, whether monarchies
+or republics; and who has given rise to these necessities? To whom do we
+owe the cruel experience which has given us eighteen months of violent
+agitations, incessant conspiracies, formidable insurrections? Yes, no
+doubt you are quite right when you say that, after so many revolutions
+undertaken in the name of liberty, it is deplorable that we should be
+once again compelled to veil her statue and to place terrible weapons in
+the hands of the public powers. But whose fault is it, if not yours,
+and who is it that serves the Republic best, those who favour
+insurrections, or those who, like ourselves, apply themselves to
+suppressing them?"
+
+These measures, these laws and this language pleased the Conservatives
+without satisfying them; and to tell the truth, nothing would have
+contented them short of the destruction of the Republic. Their instinct
+constantly impelled them in that direction, although their prudence and
+their reason restrained them on the road.
+
+But what they desired above all things was to oust their enemies from
+place and to instal in their stead their partisans or their private
+friends. We were again brought face to face with all the passions which
+had brought about the fall of the Monarchy of July. The Revolution had
+not destroyed them, but only made them the more greedy; this was our
+great and permanent danger. Here again, I considered that we ought to
+make concessions. There were still in the public offices a very large
+number of those Republicans of indifferent capacity or bad character
+whom the chances of the Revolution had driven into power. My advice was
+to get rid of these at once, without waiting to be asked for their
+dismissal, in such a way as to inspire confidence in our intentions and
+to acquire the right to defend all the honest and capable Republicans;
+but I could never induce Dufaure to consent to this. He had already held
+the Ministry of the Interior under Cavaignac. Many of the public
+servants whom it would be necessary to dismiss had been either appointed
+or supported by him. His vanity was involved in the question of
+maintaining them in their positions, and his mistrust of their
+detractors would in any event have sufficed to persuade him to oppose
+their representations. He accordingly resisted. It was, therefore, not
+long before he himself became the object of all their attacks. No one
+dared tackle him in the tribune, for he was too sturdy a swordsman
+there; but he was constantly struck at from a distance and in the shade
+of the lobbies, and I soon saw a great storm gathering against him.
+
+"What is it we have undertaken to do?" I often asked him. "To save the
+Republic with the assistance of the Republicans? No, for the majority of
+those who bear that name would assuredly kill us together with it; and
+those who deserve to bear the name do not number one hundred in the
+Assembly. We have undertaken to save the Republic with the assistance of
+parties which do not love it. We can only, therefore, govern with the
+aid of concessions; only, we must never yield anything substantial. In
+this matter, everything depends upon the degree. The best, and perhaps
+the only guarantee which the Republic at this moment possesses lies in
+our continuance in power. Every honourable means should therefore be
+taken to keep us there."
+
+To this he replied that fighting, as he did every day, with the greatest
+energy, against socialism and anarchy, he must satisfy the majority; as
+though one could ever satisfy men by thinking only of their general
+welfare, without taking into account their vanity and their private
+interests. If even, while refusing, he had been able to do so
+gracefully: but the form of his refusal was still more disobliging than
+the matter of it. I could never conceive how a man who was so much the
+master of his words in the tribune, so clever in the art of selecting
+his arguments and the words best calculated to please, so certain of
+always keeping to the expressions which would compel most agreement with
+his thought, could be so embarrassed, so sullen, and so awkward in
+conversation. This came, I believe, from his original education. He was
+a man of much intelligence, or rather talent--for of intelligence
+properly so-called he had hardly any--but of no knowledge of the world.
+In his youth he had led a laborious, concentrated, and almost savage
+life. His entrance into political life had not to any extent changed his
+habits. He had held aloof not only from intrigues, but from the contact
+of parties, assiduously occupying himself with affairs, but avoiding
+men, detesting the movement of assemblies, and dreading the tribune,
+which was his only strength. Nevertheless, he was ambitious after his
+fashion, but with a measured and somewhat inferior ambition, which aimed
+at the management rather than at the domination of affairs. His manner,
+as a minister, of treating people was sometimes very strange. One day,
+General Castellane, who was then in great credit, asked for an
+audience. He was received, and explained at length his pretensions and
+what he called his rights. Dufaure listened to him long and attentively;
+and then rose, led the general with many bows to the door, and left him
+standing aghast, without having answered a single word. When I
+reproached him with this conduct:
+
+"I should only have had to say disagreeable things to him," he replied;
+"it was more reasonable to say nothing at all!"
+
+It is easy to believe that one rarely left a man of this kind except in
+a very bad temper.
+
+Unfortunately, he had as a sort of double a permanent secretary who was
+as uncouth as himself, and very stupid besides; so that when the
+solicitants passed from the Minister's office into the secretary's, in
+the hope of meeting with a little comfort, they found the same
+unpleasantness, minus the intelligence. It was like falling from a
+quickset hedge on to a bundle of thorns.
+
+In spite of these disadvantages, Dufaure obtained the support of the
+Conservatives; but he was never able to win over their leaders.
+
+The latter, as I had indeed foreseen, would neither undertake the
+government themselves nor allow any one else to govern with a free hand.
+They were unable to see without jealousy ministers at the head of
+affairs who were not their creatures, and who refused to be their
+instruments. I do not believe that, between the 13th of June and the
+last debates on the Roman question, in other words, during almost the
+whole life of the Cabinet, a single day passed without some ambush being
+laid for us. They did not fight us in the tribune, I admit; but they
+incessantly excited the majority secretly against us, blamed our
+decisions, criticized our measures, put unfavourable interpretations
+upon our speeches; unable to make up their minds to overthrow us, they
+arranged in such a way that, finding us wholly unsupported, they were
+always in a position, with the smallest effort, to hurl us from power.
+After all, Dufaure's mistrust was not always without grounds. The
+leaders of the majority wanted to make use of us in order to take
+rigorous measures, and to obtain repressive laws which would make the
+task of government easy to our successors, and our Republican opinions
+made us fitter for this, at that moment, than the Conservatives. They
+did not fail to count on soon bowing us out, and on bringing their
+substitutes upon the scene. Not only did they wish us not to impress our
+influence upon the Assembly, but they laboured unceasingly to prevent us
+from establishing it in the mind of the President. They persisted in the
+delusion that Louis Napoleon was still happy in their leading-strings.
+They continued to beset him, therefore. We were informed by our agents
+that most of them, but especially M. Thiers and M. Molé, were constantly
+seeing him in private, and urging him with all their might to overthrow,
+in concert with them, and at their common expense and to their common
+profit, the Republic. They formed, as it were, a secret ministry at the
+side of the responsible Cabinet. Commencing with the 13th of June, I
+lived in a state of continuous alarm, fearing every day that they would
+take advantage of our victory to drive Louis Napoleon to commit some
+violent usurpation, and that one fine morning, as I said to Barrot, the
+Empire should slip in between his legs. I have since learnt that my
+fears were even better founded than I at that time believed. Since
+leaving the ministry, I have learnt from an undoubted source that a plot
+was formed towards the month of July 1849 to alter the Constitution by
+force by the combined enterprise of the President and the Assembly. The
+leaders of the majority and Louis Napoleon had come to an agreement, and
+the blow only failed because Berryer, who no doubt feared lest he should
+be making a fool's bargain, refused his support and that of his
+followers. Nevertheless, the idea was not renounced, but only adjourned;
+and when I think that at the time when I am writing these lines, that is
+to say, two years only after the period of which I speak, the majority
+of these same men are growing indignant at seeing the people violate the
+Constitution by doing for Louis Napoleon precisely what they themselves
+at that time proposed to him to do, I find it difficult to imagine a
+more noteworthy example of the versatility of men and of the vanity of
+the great words "Patriotism" and "Right" beneath which petty passions
+are apt to cloak themselves.
+
+We were no more certain, as has been seen, of the President than of the
+majority. In fact, Louis Napoleon was, for ourselves as well as for the
+Republic, the greatest and the most permanent danger.
+
+I was convinced of this; and yet, when I had very attentively studied
+him, I did not despair of the possibility of establishing ourselves in
+his mind, for a time at least, in a fairly solid fashion. I soon
+discovered that, although he never refused to admit the majority leaders
+to his presence and to receive their advice, which he sometimes
+followed, and although he plotted with them when it suited his purpose,
+he nevertheless endured their yoke with great impatience; that he felt
+humiliated at seeming to walk in their leading-strings; and that he
+secretly burned to be free of them. This gave us a point of contact with
+him and a hold upon his mind; for we ourselves were quite resolved to
+remain independent of these great wire-pullers, and to uphold the
+Executive Power against their attacks.
+
+It did not seem impossible to me, moreover, for us to enter partly into
+Louis Napoleon's designs without emerging from our own. What had always
+struck me, when I reflected upon the situation of that extraordinary man
+(extraordinary, not through his genius, but through the circumstances
+which had combined to raise his mediocrity to so high a level), was the
+need which existed to feed his mind with hope of some kind if we wished
+to keep him quiet. That a man of this stamp could, after governing
+France for four years, be dismissed into private life, seemed very
+doubtful to me; that he would consent to withdraw into private life,
+seemed very chimerical; that he could even be prevented, during the
+length of his term of office, from plunging into some dangerous
+enterprise seemed very difficult, unless, indeed, one were able to place
+before his ambition some point of view which might, if not charm, at
+least restrain him. This is to what I, for my part, applied myself from
+the beginning.
+
+"I will never serve you," I said to him, "in overthrowing the Republic;
+but I will gladly strive to assure you a great position in it, and I
+believe that all my friends will end by entering into my plan. The
+Constitution can be revised; Article 45, which prohibits re-election,
+can be changed. This is an object which we will gladly help you to
+attain."
+
+And as the chances of revision were doubtful, I went further, and I
+hinted to him as to the future that, if he governed France peacefully,
+wisely, modestly, not aiming at more than being the first magistrate of
+the nation, and not its corrupter or its master, he might possibly be
+re-elected at the end of his term of office, in spite of Article 45, by
+an almost unanimous vote, since the Monarchical parties did not see the
+ruin of their hopes in the limited prolongation of his power, and the
+Republican party itself looked upon a government such as his as the
+best means of accustoming the country to the Republic and giving it a
+taste for it.
+
+I told him all this in a tone of sincerity, because I was sincere in
+saying it. What I advised him seemed to me, in fact, and still seems to
+me, the best thing to be done in the interest of the country, and
+perhaps in his own. He readily listened to me, without giving a glimpse
+of the impression my language made upon him: this was his habit. The
+words one addressed to him were like stones thrown down a well; their
+sound was heard, but one never knew what became of them. I believe,
+however, that they were not entirely lost; for there were two distinct
+men in him, as I was not long in discovering. The first was the
+ex-conspirator, the fatalistic dreamer, who thought himself called to
+govern France, and through it to dominate Europe. The other was the
+epicurean, who luxuriously made the most of his new state of well-being
+and of the facile pleasures which his present position gave him, and who
+did not dream of risking it in order to ascend still higher. In any
+case, he seemed to like me better and better. I admit that, in all that
+was compatible with the good of the public service, I made great efforts
+to please him. Whenever, by chance, he recommended for a diplomatic
+appointment a capable and honest man, I showed great alacrity in placing
+him. Even when his _protégé_ was not very capable, if the post was an
+unimportant one, I generally arranged to give it him; but most often
+the President honoured with his recommendations a set of gaol-birds, who
+had formerly thrown themselves in desperation into his party, not
+knowing where else to betake themselves, and to whom he thought himself
+to be under obligations; or else he attempted to place at the principal
+embassies those whom he called "his own men," which most frequently
+meant intriguers and rascals. In that case I went and saw him, I
+explained to him the regulations, which were opposed to his wish, and
+the political reasons which prevented me from complying with it. I
+sometimes even went so far as to let him see that I would rather resign
+than retain office by doing as he wished. As he was not able to see any
+private reasons for my refusal, nor any systematic desire to oppose him,
+he either yielded without complaining or postponed the business.
+
+I did not get off as cheaply with his friends. These were unspeakably
+eager in their rush for the spoil. They incessantly assailed me with
+their demands, with so much importunity, and often impertinence, that I
+frequently felt inclined to have them thrown out of the window. I
+strove, nevertheless, to restrain myself. On one occasion, however, when
+one of them, a real gallows-bird, haughtily insisted, and said that it
+was very strange that the Prince should not have the power of rewarding
+those who had suffered for his cause, I replied:
+
+"Sir, the best thing for the President to do is to forget that he was
+ever a pretender, and to remember that he is here to attend to the
+affairs of France and not to yours."
+
+The Roman affair, in which, as I shall explain later, I firmly supported
+his policy, until the moment when it became extravagant and
+unreasonable, ended by putting me entirely into his good graces: of this
+he one day gave me a great proof. Beaumont, during his short embassy in
+England at the end of 1848, had spoken very strongly about Louis
+Napoleon, who was at that time a candidate for the Presidency. These
+remarks, when repeated to the latter, had caused him extreme irritation.
+I had several times endeavoured, since I had become a minister, to
+re-establish Beaumont in the President's mind; but I should never have
+ventured to propose to employ him, capable as he was, and anxious though
+I was to do so. The Vienna embassy was to be vacated in September 1849.
+It was at that time one of the most important posts in our diplomatic
+service, because of the affairs of Italy and Hungary. The President said
+to me of his own accord:
+
+"I suggest that you should give the Vienna embassy to M. de Beaumont.
+True, I have had great reason to complain of him; but I know that he is
+your best friend, and that is enough to decide me."
+
+I was delighted. No one was better suited than Beaumont for the place
+which had to be filled, and nothing could be more agreeable to me than
+to offer it him.
+
+All my colleagues did not imitate me in the care which I took to gain
+the President's good-will without doing violence to my opinions and my
+wishes. Dufaure, however, against every expectation, was always just
+what he should be in his relations towards him. I believe the
+President's simplicity of manners had half won him over. But Passy
+seemed to take pleasure in being disagreeable to him. I believe that he
+considered that he had degraded himself by becoming the minister of a
+man whom he looked upon as an adventurer, and that he endeavoured to
+regain his level by impertinence. He annoyed him every day
+unnecessarily, rejecting all his candidates, ill-treating his friends,
+and contradicting his opinions with ill-concealed disdain. No wonder
+that the President cordially detested him.
+
+Of all the ministers, the one who was most in his confidence was
+Falloux. I have always believed that the latter had gained him by means
+of something more substantial than that which any of us were able or
+willing to offer him. Falloux, who was a Legitimist by birth, by
+training, by society, and by taste, if you like, belonged at bottom to
+none but the Church. He did not believe in the triumph of the Legitimism
+which he served, and he only sought, amid all our revolutions, to find a
+road by which he could bring back the Catholic religion to power. He had
+only remained in office so that he might watch over its interests, and,
+as he said to me on the first day with well-calculated frankness, by the
+advice of his confessor. I am convinced that from the beginning Falloux
+had suspected the advantages to be gained from Louis Napoleon towards
+the accomplishment of this design, and that, familiarizing himself at an
+early date with the idea of seeing the President become the heir of the
+Republic and the master of France, he had only thought of utilizing this
+inevitable event in the interest of the clergy. He had offered the
+support of his party without, however, compromising himself.
+
+From the time of our entrance into affairs until the prorogation of the
+Assembly, which took place on the 13th of August, we did not cease to
+gain ground with the majority, in spite of their leaders. They saw us
+every day struggling with their enemies before their eyes; and the
+furious attacks which the latter at every moment directed against us
+advanced us gradually in their good graces. But, on the other hand,
+during all that time we made no progress in the mind of the President,
+who used to suffer our presence in his counsels rather than to admit us
+to them.
+
+Six weeks later it was just the opposite. The representatives had
+returned from the provinces incensed by the clamour of their friends, to
+whom we had refused to hand over the control of local affairs; and on
+the other hand, the President of the Republic had drawn closer to us; I
+shall show later why. One would have said that we had advanced on that
+side in the exact proportion to that in which we had gone back on the
+other.
+
+Thus placed between two props badly joined together and always
+tottering, the Cabinet leant now upon one, now upon the other, and was
+always liable to tumble between the two. It was the Roman affair which
+brought about the fall.
+
+Such was the state of things when the parliamentary session was resumed
+on the 1st of October 1849, and when the Roman affair was handled for
+the second and last time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ FOREIGN AFFAIRS
+
+
+I did not wish to interrupt the story of our home misfortunes to speak
+of the difficulties which we encountered abroad, and of which I had to
+bear the brunt more than any other. I shall now retrace my steps and
+return to that part of my subject.
+
+When I found myself installed at the Foreign Office, and when the state
+of affairs had been placed before my eyes, I was alarmed at the number
+and extent of the difficulties which I perceived. But what caused me
+more anxiety than anything else was myself.
+
+I possess a great natural distrust of self. The nine years which I had
+spent rather wretchedly in the last Assemblies of the Monarchy had
+tended greatly to increase this natural infirmity, and although the
+manner in which I had just undergone the trial of the Revolution of
+February had helped to raise me a little in my own opinion, I
+nevertheless accepted this great task, at a time like the present, only
+after much hesitation, and I did not enter into it without great fear.
+
+Before long, I was able to make a certain number of observations which
+tranquillized if they did not entirely reassure me. I began by
+perceiving that affairs did not always increase in difficulty as they
+increased in size, as would naturally appear at a cursory glance: the
+contrary is rather the truth. Their complications do not grow with their
+importance; it even often happens that they assume a simpler aspect in
+the measure that their consequences become wider and more serious.
+Besides, a man whose will influences the destiny of a whole people
+always finds ready to hand more men willing to enlighten him, to assist
+him, to relieve him of details, more prepared to encourage, to defend
+him, than would be met with in second-rate affairs or inferior
+positions. And lastly, the size itself of the object pursued stimulates
+all the mental forces to such an extent, that though the task may be a
+little harder, the workman becomes much more expert.
+
+I should have felt perplexed, full of care, discouragement and
+disordered excitement, in presence of petty responsibilities. I felt a
+peace of mind and a singular feeling of calm when brought face to face
+with larger ones. The sentiment of importance attached to the things I
+then did at once raised me to their level and kept me there. The idea of
+a rebuff had until then seemed insupportable to me; the prospect of a
+dazzling fall upon one of the greatest stages in the world, on which I
+was mounted, did not disconcert me; which showed that my weakness was
+not timidity but pride. I also was not long before perceiving that in
+politics, as in so many other matters--perhaps in all--the vivacity of
+impressions received was not in a ratio with the importance of the fact
+which produced it, but with the more or less frequent repetition of the
+latter. One who grows troubled and excited about the handling of a
+trifling piece of business, the only one which he happens to have taken
+in hand, ends by recovering his self-possession among greater ones, if
+they are repeated every day. Their frequency renders their effect, as it
+were, insensible. I have related how many enemies I used formerly to
+make by holding aloof from people who did not attract my attention by
+any merit; and as people had often taken for haughtiness the boredom
+they caused me, I strongly dreaded this reef in the great journey I was
+about to undertake. But I soon observed that, although insolence
+increases with certain persons in the exact proportion of the progress
+of their fortunes, it was different with me, and that it was much easier
+for me to display affability and even cordiality when I felt myself
+above, than when I was one of, the common herd. This comes from the fact
+that, being a minister, I no longer had the trouble of running after
+people, nor to fear lest I should be coldly received by them, men making
+it a necessity themselves to approach those who occupy posts of that
+sort, and being simple enough to attach great importance to their most
+trivial words. It comes also from this that, as a minister, I no longer
+had to do only with the ideas of fools, but also with their interests,
+which always supply a ready-made and easy subject of conversation.
+
+I saw, therefore, that I was not so ill fitted as I had feared for the
+part I had undertaken to play. This discovery encouraged me, not only
+for the present, but for the rest of my life; and should I be asked what
+I gained in this Ministry, so troubled, so thwarted, and so short that I
+was only able to commence affairs in it and to finish none, I would
+answer that I gained one great advantage, perhaps the greatest advantage
+in the world--confidence in myself.
+
+At home and abroad, our greatest obstacles came less from the difficulty
+of business than from those who had to conduct it with us. I saw this
+from the first. Most of our agents were creatures of the Monarchy, who,
+at the bottom of their hearts, furiously detested the Government they
+served; and in the name of democratic and republican France, they
+extolled the restoration of the old aristocracies and secretly worked
+for the re-establishment of all the absolute monarchies of Europe.
+Others, on the contrary, whom the Revolution of February had dragged
+from an obscurity in which they should have always remained,
+clandestinely supported the demagogic parties which the French
+Government was combating. But the chief fault of most of them was
+timidity. The greater number of our ambassadors were afraid to attach
+themselves to any particular policy in the countries in which they
+represented us, and even feared to display to their own Government
+opinions which might sooner or later have been counted as a crime
+against them. They therefore took care to keep themselves covertly
+concealed beneath a heap of little facts with which they crammed their
+correspondence (for in diplomacy you must always write, even when you
+know nothing and wish to say nothing), and they were very careful not to
+show what they thought of the events they chronicled, and still less to
+give us any indication as to what we were to conclude from them.
+
+This condition of nullity to which our agents voluntarily reduced
+themselves, and which, to tell the truth, was in the case of most of
+them no more than an artificial perfectioning of nature, induced me, so
+soon as I had realized it, to employ new men at the great Courts.
+
+I should have liked in the same way to be able to get rid of the leaders
+of the majority; but not being able to do this, I endeavoured to live on
+good terms with them, and I did not even despair of pleasing them, while
+at the same time remaining independent of their influence: a difficult
+undertaking in which I nevertheless succeeded; for, of all the Cabinet,
+I was the minister who most strongly opposed their policy and yet the
+only one who retained their good graces. My secret, if I must confess
+it, lay in flattering their self-conceit while neglecting their advice.
+
+I had made an observation in small affairs which I deemed very
+applicable to greater ones: I had found that the most advantageous
+negociations are those conducted with human vanity; for one often
+obtains very substantial things from it, while giving very little
+substance in return. One never does so well when treating with ambition
+or cupidity. At the same time, it is a fact that in order to deal
+advantageously with the vanity of others, one must put his own entirely
+on one side and think of nothing but the success of his plans, an
+essential which will always prove a difficulty in the way of this sort
+of commerce. I practised it very happily at this time and to my great
+advantage. Three men thought themselves specially entitled to direct our
+foreign policy, owing to the position they had formerly occupied: these
+were M. de Broglie, M. Molé and M. Thiers. I overwhelmed all three of
+them with deference; I often sent for them to see me, and sometimes
+called upon them to consult them and to ask them, with a sort of
+modesty, for advice which I hardly ever followed. But this did not
+prevent these great men from displaying every satisfaction. I pleased
+them more by asking their opinion without following it than if I had
+followed it without asking it. Especially in the case of M. Thiers, this
+manoeuvre of mine succeeded admirably. Rémusat, who, although without
+any personal pretensions, sincerely wished the Cabinet to last, and who
+had become familiarized through an intercourse extending over
+twenty-five years with all M. Thiers' weaknesses, said to me one day:
+
+"The world does not know M. Thiers well; he has much more vanity than
+ambition; and he prefers consideration to obedience, and the appearance
+of power to power itself. Consult him constantly, and then do just as
+you please. He will take more notice of your deference to him than of
+your actions."
+
+This is what I did, and with great success. In the two principal affairs
+that I had to conduct during my time of office, those of Piedmont and
+Turkey, I did precisely the opposite to what M. Thiers wished, and,
+nevertheless, we remained excellent friends till the end.
+
+As to the President, it was especially in the conduct of foreign affairs
+that he showed how badly prepared he still was for the great part to
+which blind fortune had called him. I was not slow in perceiving that
+this man, whose pride aimed at leading everything, had not yet taken the
+smallest steps to inform himself of anything. I proposed to have an
+analysis drawn up every day of all the despatches and to submit it to
+his inspection. Before this, he knew what happened in the world only by
+hearsay, and only knew what the Minister for Foreign Affairs had thought
+fit to tell him. The solid basis of facts was always lacking to the
+operations of his mind, and this was easily seen in all the dreams with
+which the latter was filled. I was sometimes frightened at perceiving
+how much there was in his plans that was vast, chimerical, unscrupulous,
+and confused; although it is true that, when explaining the real state
+of things to him, I easily made him recognize the difficulties which
+they presented, for discussion was not his strong point. He was silent,
+but never yielded.
+
+One of his myths was an alliance with one of the two great powers of
+Germany, of which he proposed to make use to alter the map of Europe and
+erase the limits which the treaties of 1815 had traced for France. As he
+saw that I did not believe it possible to find either of these powers
+inclined for an alliance of this sort, and with such an object, he
+undertook himself to sound their ambassadors in Paris. One of them came
+to me one day in a state of great excitement to tell me that the
+President of the Republic had asked him if, in consideration of an
+equivalent, his Court would not consent to allow France to seize Savoy.
+On another occasion, he conceived the idea of sending a private agent,
+one of his own men,[18] as he called them, to come to a direct
+understanding with the German Princes. He chose Persigny, and asked me
+to give him his credentials; and I consented, knowing well that nothing
+could come of a negociation of this sort. I believe that Persigny had a
+two-fold mission: it was a question of facilitating the usurpation at
+home and an extension of territory abroad. He went first to Berlin and
+then to Vienna; as I expected, he was very well received, handsomely
+entertained, and politely bowed out.
+
+ [18: "_Un homme à lui._"--A.T. de M.]
+
+But I have spoken enough of individuals; let us come to politics.
+
+At the time when I took up office, Europe was, as it were, on fire,
+although the conflagration was already extinguished in certain
+countries. Sicily was conquered and subdued; the Neapolitans had
+returned to their obedience and even to their servitude; the battle of
+Novara had been fought and lost; the victorious Austrians were
+negociating with the son of Charles Albert, who had become King of
+Piedmont by his father's abdication; their armies, issuing from the
+confines of Lombardy, occupied Parma, a portion of the Papal States,
+Placentia, and Tuscany, which they had entered unasked, and in spite of
+the fact that the Grand Duke had been restored by his subjects, who have
+been but ill rewarded since for their zeal and fidelity. But Venice
+still resisted, and Rome, after repelling our first attack, was calling
+all the demagogues of Italy to its assistance and exciting all Europe
+with its clamour. Never, perhaps, since February, had Germany seemed
+more divided or disturbed. Although the dream of German unity had been
+dispelled, the reality of the old Teutonic organization had not yet
+resumed its place. Reduced to a small number of members, the National
+Assembly, which had till then endeavoured to promote this unity, fled
+from Frankfort and hawked round the spectacle of its impotence and its
+ridiculous fury. But its fall did not restore order; on the contrary, it
+left a freer field for anarchy.
+
+The moderate, one may say the innocent, revolutionaries, who had
+cherished the belief that they would be able, peacefully, and by means
+of arguments and decrees, to persuade the peoples and princes of Germany
+to submit to a single government, made way for the violent
+revolutionaries, who had always maintained that Germany could only be
+brought to a state of unity by the complete ruin of its old systems of
+government, and the entire abolition of the existing social order. Riots
+therefore followed on every hand upon parliamentary discussion.
+Political rivalries turned into a war of classes; the natural hatred and
+jealousy entertained by the poor for the rich developed into socialistic
+theories in many quarters, but especially in the small states of Central
+Germany and in the great Rhine Valley. Wurtemberg was in a state of
+agitation; Saxony had just experienced a terrible insurrection, which
+had only been crushed with the assistance of Prussia; insurrections had
+also occurred in Westphalia; the Palatinate was in open revolt; and
+Baden had expelled its Grand Duke, and appointed a Provisional
+Government. And yet the final victory of the Princes, which I had
+foreseen when travelling through Germany, a month before, was no longer
+in doubt; the very violence of the insurrections hastened it. The
+larger monarchies had recaptured their capitals and their armies. Their
+heads had still difficulties to conquer, but no more dangers; and
+themselves masters, or on the point of becoming so, at home, they could
+not fail soon to triumph in the second-rate States. By thus violently
+disturbing public order, the insurgents gave them the wish, the
+opportunity and the right to intervene.
+
+Prussia had already commenced to do so. The Prussians had just
+suppressed the Saxon insurrection by force of arms; they now entered the
+Rhine Palatinate, offered their intervention to Wurtemberg, and prepared
+to invade the Grand-Duchy of Baden, thus occupying almost the whole of
+Germany with their soldiers or their influence.
+
+Austria had emerged from the terrible crisis which had threatened its
+existence, but it was still in great travail. Its armies, after
+conquering in Italy, were being defeated in Hungary. Despairing of
+mastering its subjects unaided, it had called Russia to its assistance,
+and the Tsar, in a manifesto dated 13 May, had announced to Europe that
+he was marching against the Hungarians. The Emperor Nicholas had till
+then remained at rest amid his uncontested might. He had viewed the
+agitation of the nations from afar in safety, but not with indifference.
+Thenceforward, he alone among the great powers of Europe represented the
+old state of society and the old traditional principle of authority. He
+was not only its representative: he considered himself its champion.
+His political theories, his religious belief, his ambition and his
+conscience, all urged him to adopt this part. He had, therefore, made
+for himself out of the cause of authority throughout the world a second
+empire yet vaster than the first. He encouraged with his letters and
+rewarded with his honours all those who, in whatever corner of Europe,
+gained victories over anarchy and even over liberty, as though they were
+his subjects and had contributed to strengthening his own power. He had
+thus sent, to the extreme South of Europe, one of his orders to
+Filangieri, the conqueror of the Sicilians, and had written that general
+an autograph letter to show to him that he was satisfied with his
+conduct. From the lofty position which he occupied, and whence he
+peacefully watched the various incidents of the struggle which shook
+Europe, the Emperor judged freely, and followed with a certain tranquil
+disdain, not only the follies of the revolutionaries whom he pursued,
+but also the vices and the faults of the parties and princes whom he
+assisted. He expressed himself on this subject simply and as the
+occasion required, without showing any eagerness to disclose his
+thoughts or taking any pains to conceal them.
+
+Lamoricière wrote to me on the 11th of August 1849, in a secret
+despatch:
+
+ "The Tsar said to me this morning, 'You believe, general, that your
+ dynastic parties would be capable of uniting with the Radicals to
+ overthrow a dynasty which they disliked, in the hope of setting
+ their own in its place; and I am certain of it. Your Legitimist
+ Party especially would not hesitate to do so. I have long since
+ thought that it is the Legitimists who make the Elder Branch of the
+ Bourbons impossible. This is one of the reasons why I recognized
+ the Republic; and also because I perceive in your nation a certain
+ common sense which is wanting in the Germans.'
+
+ "Later, the Emperor also said, 'The King of Prussia, my
+ brother-in-law, with whom I was on very close terms of friendship,
+ has not taken the slightest heed of my advice. The result is that
+ our political relations have become remarkably cool, to such an
+ extent that they have affected even our family relations. Look at
+ the things he has done: did he not put himself at the head of those
+ fools who dream of an United Germany, and now that he has broken
+ with the Frankfort Parliament, has he not brought himself to the
+ necessity of fighting the troops of the Schleswig-Holstein Duchies,
+ which were levied under his patronage! Is it possible to imagine
+ anything more disgraceful? And now, who knows how far he will go
+ with his constitutional proposals?' He added, 'Do not think that,
+ because I intervene in Hungary, I wish to justify the conduct of
+ Austria in this affair. She has heaped up, one on the other, the
+ most serious faults and the greatest follies; but when all is said
+ and done, it had allowed the country to be invaded by subversive
+ doctrines, and the government had fallen into the hands of
+ disorderly persons. This was not to be endured.'
+
+ "Speaking of the affairs of Italy, 'We others,' he said, 'see
+ nothing in those temporal functions fulfilled in Rome by
+ ecclesiastics; but it matters little to us how those priests
+ arrange things among themselves, provided that something is set up
+ which will last and that you constitute the power in such a way
+ that it can stand.'"
+
+Hereupon Lamoricière, wounded by this supercilious tone, which smelt
+somewhat of the autocrat and betrayed a sort of rivalry as between pope
+and pope, began to defend Catholic institutions.
+
+ "'Very well, very well,' said the Emperor, ending the conversation,
+ 'let France be as Catholic as she pleases, only let her protect
+ herself against the insane theories and passions of innovators.'"
+
+Though hard and austere in the exercise of his power, the Tsar was
+simple and almost _bourgeois_ in his habits, keeping only the substance
+of sovereign power and rejecting its pomp and worries. On the 17th of
+July, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg wrote to me:
+
+ "The Emperor is here; he arrived from Warsaw without suite of any
+ kind, in an ordinary post-cart--his carriage had broke down sixty
+ leagues from here--so as to be in time for the Empress's
+ saint's-day, which has just taken place. He did the journey with
+ extraordinary rapidity, in two days and a half, and he leaves again
+ to-morrow. Every one here is touched with this contrast of power
+ and simplicity, with the sight of this Sovereign who, after hurling
+ one hundred and twenty thousand men on to the battle-field, races
+ along the roads like a _feld-jäger_, so as not to miss his wife's
+ saint's-day. Nothing is more in keeping with the spirit of the
+ Slavs, among whom one might say that the principal element of
+ civilization is the spirit of family."
+
+It would, in fact, be a great mistake to think that the Tsar's immense
+power was only based upon force. It was founded, above all, on the
+wishes and the ardent sympathies of the Russians. For the principle of
+the sovereignty of the people lies at the root of all government,
+whatever may be said to the contrary, and lurks beneath the least
+independent institutions. The Russian nobles had adopted the principles
+and still more the vices of Europe; but the people were not in touch
+with our West and with the new spirit which animated it. They saw in the
+Emperor not only their lawful Prince, but the envoy of God, and almost
+God Himself.
+
+In the midst of this Europe which I have depicted, the position of
+France was one of weakness and embarrassment. Nowhere had the
+Revolution succeeded in establishing a regular and stable system of
+liberty. On every side, the old powers were rising up again from amid
+the ruins which it had made--not, it is true, the same as when they
+fell, but very similar. We could not assist the latter in establishing
+themselves nor ensure their victory, for the system which they were
+setting up was antipathetic, I will say not only to the institutions
+created by the Revolution of February, but, at the root of our ideas, to
+all that was most permanent and unconquerable in our new habits. They,
+on their side, distrusted us, and rightly. The great part of restorers
+of the general order in Europe was therefore forbidden us. This part,
+moreover, was already played by another: it belonged by right to Russia,
+and only the second remained for us. As to placing France at the head of
+the innovators, this was to be still less thought of, for two reasons:
+first, that it would have been absolutely impossible to advise these
+latter or to hope to lead them, because of their extravagance and their
+detestable incapacity; secondly, that it was not possible to support
+them abroad without falling beneath their blows at home. The contact of
+their passions and doctrines would have put all France in flame,
+revolutionary doctrines at that time dominating all others. Thus we were
+neither able to unite with the nations, who accused us of urging them on
+and then betraying them, nor with the princes, who reproached us with
+shaking their thrones. We were reduced to accepting the sterile
+good-will of the English: it was the same isolation as before February,
+with the Continent more hostile to us and England more lukewarm. It was
+therefore necessary, as it had been then, to reduce ourselves to leading
+a small life, from day to day; but even this was difficult. The French
+Nation, which had made and, in a certain way, still made so great a
+figure in the world, kicked against this necessity of the time: it had
+remained haughty while it ceased to be preponderant; it feared to act
+and tried to talk loudly; and it also expected its Government to be
+proud, without, however, permitting it to run the risks which such
+conduct entailed.
+
+Never had France been looked upon with more anxiety than at the moment
+when the Cabinet had just been formed. The easy and complete victory
+which we had won in Paris on the 13th of June had extraordinary rebounds
+throughout Europe. A new insurrection in France was generally expected.
+The revolutionaries, half destroyed, relied only upon this occurrence to
+recover themselves, and they redoubled their efforts in order to be able
+to take advantage of it. The governments, half victorious, fearing to be
+surprised by this crisis, stopped before striking their final blow. The
+day of the 13th of June gave rise to cries of pain and joy from one end
+of the Continent to the other. It decided fortune suddenly, and
+precipitated it towards the Rhine.
+
+The Prussian army, already master of the Palatinate, at once burst into
+the Grand-Duchy of Baden, dispersed the insurgents, and occupied the
+whole country, with the exception of Rastadt, which held out for a few
+weeks.[19]
+
+ [19: Nothing was ever more despicable than the conduct of those
+ revolutionaries. The soldiers who, at the commencement of the
+ insurrection, had put to flight or killed their officers, turned
+ tail before the Prussians. The ringleaders did nothing but dispute
+ among themselves and defame one another instead of defending
+ themselves, and took refuge in Switzerland after pillaging the
+ public treasury and levying contributions upon their own country.
+
+ While the struggle lasted, we took strong measures to prevent the
+ insurgents from receiving any assistance from France. Those among
+ them who crossed the Rhine, in great numbers, received asylum from
+ us, but were disarmed and placed in confinement. The victors, as it
+ was easy to foresee, at once abused their victory. Many prisoners
+ were put to death, all liberty was indefinitely suspended, and even
+ the government which had been restored was kept in very close
+ tutelage. I soon perceived that the French representative in the
+ Grand-Duchy of Baden not only did not strive to moderate these
+ violences, but thoroughly approved of them. I at once wrote to him
+ as follows:
+
+ "Sir,
+
+ "I am informed that a number of military executions have taken
+ place, and that many more are announced. I do not understand
+ why these facts have not been reported by you, nor why you
+ have not sought to prevent them, without even waiting for
+ instructions. We have assisted as much as we could, without
+ taking up arms, in suppressing the rebellion; all the more
+ reason for desiring that the victory to which we have given
+ our aid should not be sullied by acts of violence of which
+ France disapproves, and which we regard as both odious and
+ impolitic. There is another point which causes us much
+ anxiety, and which does not seem to excite your solicitude to
+ the same degree: I refer to the political institutions of the
+ Grand-Duchy. Do not forget that the object of the Government
+ of the Republic in that country has been to assist in putting
+ down anarchy, but not in destroying liberty. We can in no way
+ lend our hand to an anti-liberal restoration. The
+ Constitutional Monarchy felt the need to create or maintain
+ free States around France. The Republic is still more obliged
+ to do so. The Government therefore asks and imperiously
+ insists that each of its agents shall faithfully conform to
+ these necessities of our situation. See the Grand Duke, and
+ give him to understand what are the wishes of France. We shall
+ certainly never allow either a Prussian province or an
+ absolute government to be established on our frontier in the
+ stead of an independent and constitutional monarchy?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ After some time, the executions ceased. The Grand Duke protested
+ his attachment to constitutional forms, and his resolution to
+ maintain them. This was for the moment all he was able to do, for
+ he reigned only in name. The Prussians were the real masters.]
+
+The Baden revolutionaries took refuge in Switzerland. Refugees were then
+arriving in that country from Italy, France, and to tell the truth, from
+every corner of Europe, for all Europe, with the exception of Russia,
+had undergone or was undergoing a revolution. Their number soon amounted
+to ten or twelve thousand. It was an army always ready to fall upon the
+neighbouring States. All the Cabinets were alarmed at it.
+
+Austria and especially Prussia, which had already had reason to complain
+of the Confederation, and even Russia, which was in no way concerned,
+spoke of invading Swiss territory with armed forces and acting as a
+police in the name of all the governments threatened. This we could not
+allow.
+
+I first endeavoured to make the Swiss listen to reason, and to persuade
+them not to wait till they were threatened, but themselves to expel from
+their territory, as the Law of Nations required them to do, all the
+principal ringleaders who openly threatened neighbouring nations.
+
+"If you in this way anticipate what they have the right to ask of you,"
+I incessantly repeated to the representative in Paris of the Swiss
+Confederation, "you can rely upon France to defend you against any
+unjust or exaggerated pretensions put forward by the Courts. We will
+rather risk war than permit them to oppress or humiliate you. But if you
+refuse to bring reason on your side, you must only rely upon yourselves,
+and you will have to defend yourselves against all Europe."
+
+This language had little effect, for there is nothing to equal the pride
+and conceit of the Swiss. Not one of those peasants but believes that
+his country is able to defy all the princes and all the nations of the
+earth. I then set to work in another way, which was more successful.
+This was to advise the foreign Governments (who were only too disposed
+to agree) to refuse for a certain period all amnesty to such of their
+subjects as had taken refuge in Switzerland, and to deny all of them,
+whatever their degree of guilt, the right to return to their country. On
+our side, we closed our frontiers to all those who, after taking refuge
+in Switzerland, wished to cross France in order to go to England or
+America, including the inoffensive refugees as well as the ringleaders.
+Every outlet being thus closed, Switzerland remained encumbered with
+those ten or twelve thousand adventurers, the most turbulent and
+disorderly people in all Europe. It was necessary to feed, lodge, and
+even pay them, lest they should levy contributions on the country. This
+suddenly enlightened the Swiss as to the drawbacks attendant upon the
+right of asylum. They could have made arrangements to have kept the
+illustrious chiefs for an indefinite period, in spite of the danger with
+which these menaced their neighbours; but the revolutionary army was a
+great nuisance to them. The more radical cantons were the first to raise
+a loud clamour and to ask to be rid of these inconvenient and expensive
+visitors. And as it was impossible to persuade the foreign Governments
+to open their territory to the crowd of inoffensive refugees who were
+able and willing to leave Switzerland, without first driving out the
+leaders who would have liked to stay, they ended by expelling these.
+After almost bringing all Europe down upon them rather than remove these
+men from their territory, the Swiss ended by driving them out of their
+own accord in order to avoid a temporary inconvenience and a trifling
+expense. No better example was ever given of the nature of democracies,
+which, as a rule, have only very confused or very erroneous ideas on
+external affairs, and generally solve outside questions only by internal
+reasons.
+
+While these things were happening in Switzerland, the general aspect of
+affairs in Germany underwent a change. The struggles of the nations
+against the Governments were followed by quarrels of the Princes among
+themselves. I followed this new phase of the Revolution with a very
+attentive gaze and a very perplexed mind.
+
+The Revolution in Germany had not proceeded from a simple cause, as in
+the rest of Europe. It was produced at once by the general spirit of the
+time and by the unitarian ideas peculiar to the Germans. The democracy
+was now beaten, but the idea of German unity was not destroyed; the
+needs, the memories, the passions that had inspired it survived. The
+King of Prussia had undertaken to appropriate it and make use of it.
+This Prince, a man of intelligence but of very little sense, had been
+wavering for a year between his fear of the Revolution and his desire to
+turn it to account. He struggled as much as he could against the liberal
+and democratic spirit of the age; yet he favoured the German unitarian
+spirit, a blundering game in which, if he had dared to go to the length
+of his desires, he would have risked his Crown and his life. For, in
+order to overcome the resistance which existing institutions and the
+interests of the Princes were bound to oppose to the establishment of a
+central power, he would have had to summon the revolutionary passions of
+the peoples to his aid, and of these Frederic William could not have
+made use without soon being destroyed by them himself.
+
+So long as the Frankfort Parliament retained its _prestige_ and its
+power, the King of Prussia entreated it kindly and strove to get himself
+placed by it at the head of the new Empire. When the Parliament fell
+into discredit and powerlessness, the King changed his behaviour
+without changing his plans. He endeavoured to obtain the legacy of this
+assembly and to combat the Revolution by realizing the chimera of German
+unity, of which the democrats had made use to shake every throne. With
+this intention, he invited all the German Princes to come to an
+understanding with him to form a new Confederation, which should be
+closer than that of 1815, and to give him the government of it. In
+return he undertook to establish and strengthen them in their States.
+These Princes, who detested Prussia, but who trembled before the
+Revolution, for the most part accepted the usurious bargain proposed to
+them. Austria, which the success of this proposal would have driven out
+of Germany, protested, being not yet in a position to do more. The two
+principal monarchies of the South, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, followed its
+example, but all North and Central Germany entered into this ephemeral
+Confederation, which was concluded on the 26th of May 1849 and is known
+in history by the name of the Union of the Three Kings.[20]
+
+ [20: Of Prussia, Saxony and Hanover.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Prussia then suddenly became the dominating power in a vast stretch of
+country, reaching from Memel to Basle, and at one time saw twenty-six or
+twenty-seven million Germans marching under its orders. All this was
+completed shortly after my arrival in office.
+
+I confess that, at the sight of this singular spectacle, my mind was
+crossed with strange ideas, and I was for a moment tempted to believe
+that the President was not so mad in his foreign policy as I had at
+first thought him. That union of the great Courts of the North, which
+had so long weighed heavily upon us, was broken. Two of the great
+Continental monarchies, Prussia and Austria, were quarrelling and almost
+at war. Had not the moment come for us to contract one of those intimate
+and powerful alliances which we have been compelled to forego for sixty
+years, and perhaps in a measure to repair our losses of 1815? France, by
+platonically assisting Frederic William in his enterprises, which
+England did not oppose, could divide Europe and bring on one of those
+great crises which entail a redistribution of territory.
+
+The time seemed so well to lend itself to these ideas that they filled
+the imagination of many of the German Princes themselves. The more
+powerful among them dreamt of nothing but changes of frontier and
+accessions of power at the expense of their neighbours. The
+revolutionary malady of the nations seemed to have attacked the
+governments.
+
+"There is no Confederation possible with eight and thirty States," said
+the Bavarian Foreign Minister, Baron von der Pfordten, to our Envoy. "It
+will be necessary to mediatize a large number of them. How, for
+instance, can we ever hope to re-establish order in a country like
+Baden, unless we divide it among sovereigns strong enough to make
+themselves obeyed? In that case," he added, "the Neckar Valley would
+naturally fall to our share."[21]
+
+ [21: Despatch of the 7th of September 1849.]
+
+For my part, I soon dispelled from my mind, as mere visions, all
+thoughts of this kind. I quickly realized that Prussia was neither able
+nor willing to give us anything worth having in exchange for our good
+offices; that its power over the other German States was very
+precarious, and was likely to be ephemeral; that no reliance was to be
+placed in its King, who at the first obstacle would have failed us and
+failed himself; and, above all, that such extensive and ambitious
+designs were not suited to so ill-established a state of society and to
+such troubled and dangerous times as ours, nor to transient powers such
+as that which chance had placed in my hands.
+
+I put a more serious question to myself, and it was this--I recall it
+here because it is bound constantly to crop up again: Is it to the
+interest of France that the bonds which hold together the German
+Confederation should be strengthened or relaxed? In other words, ought
+we to desire that Germany should in a certain sense become a single
+nation, or that it should remain an ill-joined conglomeration of
+disunited peoples and princes? There is an old tradition in our
+diplomacy that we should strive to keep Germany divided among a large
+number of independent powers; and this, in fact, was self-evident at the
+time when there was nothing behind Germany except Poland and a
+semi-savage Russia; but is the case the same in our days? The reply to
+this question depends upon the reply to another: What is really the
+peril with which in our days Russia threatens the independence of
+Europe? For my part, believing as I do that our West is threatened
+sooner or later to fall under the yoke, or at least under the direct and
+irresistible influence of the Tsars, I think that our first object
+should be to favour the union of all the German races in order to oppose
+it to that influence. The conditions of the world are new; we must
+change our old maxims and not fear to strengthen our neighbours, so that
+they may one day be in a condition with us to repel the common enemy.
+
+The Emperor of Russia, on his side, saw how great an obstacle an United
+Germany would prove in his way. Lamoricière, in one of his private
+letters, informed me that the Emperor had said to him with his ordinary
+candour and arrogance:
+
+"If the unity of Germany, which doubtless you wish for no more than I
+do, ever becomes a fact, there will be needed, in order to manage it, a
+man capable of what Napoleon himself was not able to do; and if this man
+were found, if that armed mass developed into a menace, it would then
+become your affair and mine."
+
+But when I put these questions to myself, the time had not come to solve
+them nor even to discuss them, for Germany was of its own accord
+irresistibly returning to its old constitution and to the old anarchy
+of its powers. The Frankfort Parliament's attempt in favour of unity had
+fallen through. That made by the King of Prussia was destined to meet
+with the same fate.
+
+It was the dread of the Revolution which alone had driven the German
+Princes into Frederic William's arms. In the measure that, thanks to the
+efforts of the Prussians, the Revolution was on all sides suppressed and
+ceased to make itself feared, the allies (one might almost say the new
+subjects) of Prussia aimed at recovering their independence. The King of
+Prussia's enterprise was of that unfortunate kind in which success
+itself interferes with triumph, and to compare large things with
+smaller, I would say that his history was not unlike ours, and that,
+like ourselves, he was doomed to strike upon a rock so soon as, and for
+the reason that, he had re-established order. The princes who had
+adhered to what was known as the Prussian hegemony seized the first
+opportunity to renounce it. Austria supplied this opportunity, when,
+after defeating the Hungarians, she was able to re-appear upon the scene
+of German affairs with her material power and that of the memories which
+attached to her name. This is what happened in the course of September
+1849. When the King of Prussia found himself face to face with that
+powerful rival, behind whom he caught sight of Russia, his courage
+suddenly failed him, as I expected, and he returned to his old part.
+The German Constitution of 1815 resumed its empire, the Diet its
+sittings; and soon, of all that great movement of 1848, there remained
+but two traces visible in Germany: a greater dependence of the small
+States upon the great monarchies, and an irreparable blow struck at all
+that remains of feudal institutions: their ruin, consummated by the
+nations, was sanctioned by the Princes. From one end of Germany to the
+other, the perpetuity of ground-rents, baronial tithes, forced labour,
+rights of mutation, of hunting, of justice, which constituted a great
+part of the riches of the nobility, remained abolished.[22] The Kings
+were restored, but the aristocracies did not recover from the blow that
+had been struck them.[23]
+
+ [22: Private letter from Beaumont at Vienna, 10 October
+ 1849.--Despatch from M. Lefèbre at Munich, 23 July 1849.]
+
+ [23: I had foreseen from the commencement that Austria and Prussia
+ would soon return to their former sphere and fall back in each case
+ within the influence of Russia. I find this provision set forth in
+ the instructions which I gave to one of our ambassadors to Germany
+ on the 24th of July, before the events which I have described had
+ taken place. These instructions are drawn up in my own hand, as
+ were all my more important despatches. I read as follows:
+
+ "I know that the malady which is ravaging all the old
+ European society is incurable, that in changing its symptoms
+ it does not change in character, and that all the old powers
+ are, to a greater or lesser extent, threatened with
+ modification or destruction. But I am inclined to believe
+ that the next event will be the strengthening of authority
+ throughout Europe. It would not be impossible that, under the
+ pressure of a common instinct of defence or under the common
+ influence of recent occurrences, Russia should be willing and
+ able to bring about harmony between North and South Germany
+ and to reconcile Austria and Prussia, and that all this great
+ movement should merely resolve itself into a new alliance of
+ principles between the three monarchies at the expense of the
+ secondary governments and the liberty of the citizens.
+ Consider the situation from this point of view, and give me
+ an account of your observations."]
+
+Convinced at an early date that we had no part to play in this internal
+crisis in Germany, I only applied myself to living on good terms with
+the several contending parties. I especially kept up friendly relations
+with Austria, whose concurrence was necessary to us, as I will explain
+later, in the Roman business. I first strove to bring to a happy
+conclusion the negociations which had long been pending between Austria
+and Piedmont; I put the more care into this because I was persuaded
+that, so long as no lasting peace was established on that side, Europe
+would remain unsettled and liable at any moment to be thrown into great
+danger.
+
+Piedmont had been negociating to no purpose since the battle of Novara.
+Austria at first tried to lay down unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, on
+her side, kept up pretensions which the state of her fortunes did not
+authorize. The negociations, several times interrupted, had been resumed
+before I took office. We had many very strong reasons to desire that
+this peace should be concluded without delay. At any moment, a general
+war might break out in this little corner of the Continent. Piedmont,
+moreover, was too near to us to permit us to allow that she should lose
+either her independence, which separated her from Austria, or her
+newly-acquired constitutional institutions, which brought her closer to
+us: two advantages which would be seriously jeopardized if recourse were
+had to arms.
+
+I therefore interposed very eagerly, in the name of France, between the
+two parties, addressing to both of them the language which I thought
+most likely to convince them. I observed to Austria how urgent it was
+that the general peace of Europe should be assured by this particular
+peace, and I exerted myself to point out to her what was excessive in
+her demands. To Piedmont I indicated the points on which it seemed to me
+that honour and interest would permit her to give way. I applied myself
+especially to giving her Government in advance clear and precise ideas
+as to what it might expect from us, so that it should have no excuse to
+entertain, or to pretend to have entertained, any dangerous
+illusions[24]. I will not go into details of the conditions under
+discussion, which are without interest to-day; I will content myself
+with saying that at the end they seemed prepared to come to an
+understanding, and that any further delay was due merely to a question
+of money. This was the condition of affairs, and Austria assured us
+through her Ambassador in Paris of her conciliatory dispositions; I
+already looked upon peace as concluded, when I unexpectedly learned that
+the Austrian Plenipotentiary had suddenly changed his attitude and his
+language, had delivered on the 19th of July a very serious ultimatum,
+couched in exceedingly harsh terms, and had only given four days in
+which to reply to it. At the end of these four days the armistice was to
+be raised and the war resumed. Already Marshal Radetzky was
+concentrating his army and preparing to enter upon a fresh campaign.
+This news, so contrary to the pacific assurances which we had received,
+was to me a great source of surprise and indignation. Demands so
+exorbitant, delivered in such arrogant and violent terms, seemed to
+announce that peace was not Austria's only object, but that she aimed
+rather at the independence of Piedmont and perhaps at her representative
+institutions; for so long as liberty shows itself in the smallest
+fraction of Italy, Austria feels ill at ease in all the rest.
+
+ [24: Despatch of the 4th of July 1849 to M. de Boislecomte:
+
+ "The conditions laid down for Piedmont by His Majesty the
+ Emperor of Austria are no doubt severe; but, nevertheless,
+ they do not affect the integrity of the territory of the
+ Kingdom nor her honour. They neither take away the strength
+ which she should preserve, nor the just influence which she
+ is called upon to exercise over the general policy of Europe
+ and in particular over the affairs of Italy. The treaty which
+ she is asked to sign is a vexatious one, no doubt; but it is
+ not a disastrous one; and, after the fate of arms has been
+ decided, it does not exceed what was naturally to be feared.
+
+ "France has not neglected, and will not neglect, any effort to
+ obtain a mitigation of this proposal; she will persist in her
+ endeavours to obtain from the Austrian Government the
+ modifications which she considers in keeping not only with the
+ interests of Piedmont but with the easy and lasting
+ maintenance of the general peace; and to attain this result,
+ she will employ all the means supplied to diplomacy: but she
+ will not go beyond this. She does not think that, within the
+ limits of the question and the degree to which the interests
+ of Piedmont are involved, it would be opportune to do more.
+ Holding this firm and deliberate opinion, she does not
+ hesitate to give utterance to it. To allow, even by her
+ silence, a belief to gain ground in extreme resolutions that
+ have not been taken; to suggest hopes that we are not certain
+ of wishing to realize; to urge indirectly by words to a line
+ of action which we should not think ourselves justified in
+ supporting by our acts; in a word, to engage others without
+ engaging ourselves, or unconsciously to engage ourselves more
+ deeply than we think or than we mean: that would be, on the
+ part of either the Government or of private individuals, a
+ line of conduct which seems to me neither prudent nor
+ honourable.
+
+ "You can rely, Sir, that so long as I occupy the post in which
+ the President's confidence has placed me, the Government of
+ the Republic shall incur no such reproach; it will announce
+ nothing that it will not be prepared to carry out; it will
+ make no promises that it is not resolved to keep; and it will
+ consider it as much a point of honour to declare beforehand
+ what it is not ready to do as to execute promptly and with
+ vigour that which it has said it would do.
+
+ "You will be good enough to read this despatch to M.
+ d'Azeglio."]
+
+I at once came to the conclusion that we must at no price allow so near
+a neighbour to be oppressed, deliver a territory which touched our
+frontiers to the Austrian armies, or permit political liberty to be
+abolished in the only country in which, since 1848, it had showed itself
+moderate. I thought, moreover, that Austria's mode of procedure towards
+us showed either an intention to deceive us or else a desire to try how
+far our toleration would go, or, as is commonly said, to sound us.
+
+I saw that this was one of those extreme circumstances, which I had
+faced beforehand, where it became my duty to risk not only my portfolio
+(which, to tell the truth, was not risking much) but the fortunes of
+France. I proceeded to the Council and explained the state of affairs.
+
+The President and all my colleagues were unanimous in thinking that I
+ought to act. Orders were immediately telegraphed to concentrate the
+Army of Lyons at the foot of the Alps, and so soon as I returned home, I
+myself wrote (for the flaccid style of diplomacy was not suited to the
+circumstances) the following letter:[25]
+
+ "Should the Austrian Government persist in the unreasonable demands
+ mentioned in your telegram of yesterday, and, abandoning the limits
+ of diplomatic discussion, throw up the armistice and undertake, as
+ it says it will, to go and dictate peace at Turin, Piedmont can be
+ assured that we should not desert her. The situation would no
+ longer be the same as that in which she placed itself before the
+ battle of Novara, when she spontaneously resumed her arms and
+ renewed the war against our advice. This time it would be Austria
+ which would herself take the initiative unprovoked; the nature of
+ her demands and the violence of her proceedings would give us
+ reason to believe that she is not acting solely with a view to
+ peace, but that she is threatening the integrity of Piedmontese
+ territory or, at the very least, the independence of the Sardinian
+ Government.
+
+ "We will not allow such designs as these to be accomplished at our
+ gates. If, under these conditions, Piedmont is attacked, we will
+ defend her."
+
+ [25: Letter to M. de Boislecomte, 25 July 1849.]
+
+I moreover thought it my duty to send for the Austrian representative (a
+little diplomatist very like a fox in appearance as well as in nature),
+and, convinced that, in the attitude we were taking up, hastiness was
+identical with prudence, I took advantage of the fact that I could not
+as yet be expected to have become familiar with habits of diplomatic
+reserve, to express to him our surprise and our dissatisfaction in
+terms so rude that he since admitted to me that he had never been so
+received in his life.
+
+Before the despatch of which I have quoted a few lines had reached
+Turin, the two Powers had come to an agreement. They had come to terms
+on the question of money, which was arranged practically on the
+conditions that had been previously suggested by ourselves. The Austrian
+Government had only desired to precipitate the negociations by
+frightening the other side; it made very little difficulty about the
+conditions.
+
+Prince Schwarzenberg sent me all sorts of explanations and excuses, and
+peace was definitely signed on the 6th of August, a peace hardly hoped
+for by Piedmont after so many mistakes and misfortunes, since it assured
+her more advantages than she had at first ventured to demand.
+
+This affair threw into great relief the habits of English, and
+particularly of Palmerstonian, diplomacy: the feature is worth quoting.
+Since the commencement of the negociation, the British Government had
+never ceased to show great animosity against Austria, and loudly to
+encourage the Piedmontese not to submit to the conditions which she
+sought to force upon them. My first care, after taking the resolutions I
+have described, was to communicate them to England, and to endeavour to
+persuade her to take up the same line of conduct. I therefore sent a
+copy of my despatch to Drouyn de Lhuys, who was then Ambassador in
+London, and instructed him to show it to Lord Palmerston, and to
+discover that minister's intentions. Drouyn de Lhuys replied:[26]
+
+ "While I was informing Lord Palmerston of your resolutions and of
+ the instructions you had sent M. de Boislecomte, he listened with
+ every sign of eager assent; but when I said, 'You see, my lord, how
+ far we wish to go; can you tell me how far you will go yourself?'
+ Lord Palmerston at once replied, 'The British Government, whose
+ interest in this business is not equal to yours, will not lend the
+ Piedmontese Government more than a diplomatic assistance and a
+ moral support."
+
+ [26: Despatches of the 25th and 26th of June 1849.]
+
+Is not this characteristic? England, protected against the revolutionary
+sickness of nations by the wisdom of her laws and the strength of her
+ancient customs, and against the anger of princes by her power and her
+isolation in the midst of us, is always pleased to play the part of the
+advocate of liberty and justice in the internal affairs of the
+Continent. She likes to censure and even to insult the strong, to
+justify and encourage the weak; but it seems that she does not care to
+go further than to assume virtuous airs and discuss honourable theories.
+Should her _protégés_ come to need her, she offers her moral support.
+
+I add, in order to finish the subject, that these tactics succeeded
+remarkably well. The Piedmontese remained convinced that England alone
+had defended them, and that we had very nearly abandoned them. She
+remained very popular in Turin, and France very much suspected. For
+nations are like men, they love still more that which flatters their
+passions than that which serves their interests.
+
+Hardly had we emerged from this bad pass, before we fell into a worse
+one. We had witnessed with fear and regret what was happening in
+Hungary. The misfortunes of this unlucky people excited our sympathies.
+The intervention of the Russians, which for a time subordinated Austria
+to the Tsar, and caused the hand of the latter to be more and more
+active in the management of the general affairs of Europe, was not
+calculated to please us. But all these events happened beyond our reach,
+and we were helpless.
+
+ "I need not tell you," I wrote in the instructions I sent
+ Lamoricière, "with what keen and melancholy interest we follow
+ events in Hungary. Unfortunately, for the present, we can only take
+ a passive part in this question. The letter and spirit of the
+ treaties open out to us no right of intervention. Besides, our
+ distance from the seat of war must impose upon us, in the present
+ state of our affairs and of those of Europe, a certain reserve.
+ Since we are not able to speak or act to good purpose, it is due to
+ our dignity not to display, in respect to this question, any
+ sterile excitement or impotent good-feeling. Our duty with regard
+ to Hungarian events is to limit ourselves to carefully observing
+ what happens and seeking to discover what is likely to take place."
+
+Overwhelmed by numbers, the Hungarians were either conquered or
+surrendering, and their principal leaders, as well as a certain number
+of Polish generals who had joined their cause, crossed the Danube at the
+end of August, and threw themselves into the arms of the Turks at
+Widdin. From there, the two principal ones, Dembinski and Kossuth, wrote
+to our Ambassador in Constantinople.[27] The habits and peculiarities of
+mind of these two men were betrayed in their letters. The soldier's was
+short and simple; the lawyer-orator's long and ornate. I remember one of
+his phrases, among others, in which he said, "As a good Christian, I
+have chosen the unspeakable sorrow of exile rather than the peacefulness
+of death." Both ended by asking for the protection of France.
+
+ [27: Letters of the 22nd and 24th of August 1849.]
+
+While the outlaws were imploring our aid, the Austrian and Russian
+Ambassadors appeared before the Divan and asked that they might be given
+up. Austria based her demand upon the treaty of Belgrade, which in no
+way established her right; and Russia hers upon the treaty of Kaïnardji
+(10 July 1774), of which the meaning, to say the least of it, was very
+obscure. But at bottom they neither of them appealed to an international
+right, but to a better known and more practical right, that of the
+strongest. This was made clear by their acts and their language. The two
+embassies declared from the commencement that it was a question of peace
+or war. Without consenting to discuss the matter, they insisted upon a
+reply of yes or no, and declared that if this reply was in the negative,
+they would at once cease all diplomatic relations with Turkey.
+
+To this exhibition of violence, the Turkish ministers replied, with
+gentleness, that Turkey was a neutral country; that the law of nations
+forbade them to hand over outlaws who had taken refuge on their
+territory; and that the Austrians and Russians had often quoted the same
+law against them when Mussulman rebels had sought an asylum in Hungary,
+Transylvania or Bessarabia. They modestly submitted that what was
+permitted on the left bank of the Danube seemed as though it should also
+be permitted on the right bank. They ended by protesting that what they
+were asked to do was opposed to their honour and their religion, that
+they would gladly undertake to keep the refugees under restraint and
+place them where they could do no mischief, but that they could never
+consent to deliver them to the executioner.
+
+ "The young Sultan," our ambassador wrote to me, "replied yesterday
+ to the Austrian Envoy that, while denouncing what the Hungarian
+ rebels had done, he could now only regard them as unhappy men
+ seeking to escape death, and that humanity forbade him to surrender
+ them. Rechid Pasha, on his part, the Grand Vizier," added our
+ Minister, "said to me, 'I shall be proud if I am driven from power
+ for this;' and he added, with an air of deep concern, 'In our
+ religion, every man who asks for mercy is bound to obtain it.'"
+
+This was talking like civilized people and Christians. The Ambassadors
+were content to reply like real Turks, saying that they must give up the
+fugitives or undergo the consequences of a rupture which would probably
+lead to war. The Mussulman population itself took fire; it approved of
+and supported its Government; and the Mufti came to thank our Ambassador
+for the support he had given to the cause of humanity and good law.
+
+From the commencement of the discussion, the Divan had addressed itself
+to the Ambassadors of France and England. It appealed to public opinion
+in the two great countries which they represented, asked their advice,
+and besought their help in the event of the Northern Powers executing
+their threats. The Ambassadors at once replied that in their opinion
+Austria and Russia were exceeding their rights; and they encouraged the
+Turkish Government in its resistance.
+
+In the meanwhile, arrived at Constantinople an aide-de-camp of the
+Tsar. He brought a letter which that Prince had taken the pains to write
+to the Sultan with his own hand, asking for the extradition of the Poles
+who had served six months before in the Hungarian war against the
+Russian army. This step seems a very strange one when one does not see
+through the particular reasons which influenced the Tsar under the
+circumstance. The following extract from a letter of Lamoricière's
+describes them with great sagacity, and shows to what extent public
+opinion is dreaded at that end of Europe, where one would think that it
+was neither an organ nor a power:
+
+ "The Hungarian war, as you know," he wrote,[28] "was embarked upon
+ to sustain Austria, who is hated as a people and not respected as a
+ government; and it was very unpopular. It brought in nothing, and
+ cost eighty-four millions of francs. The Russians hoped to bring
+ back Bem, Dembinski, and the other Poles to Poland, as the price of
+ the sacrifices of the campaign. Especially in the army, there
+ reigned a veritable fury against these men. The people and soldiers
+ were mad with longing for this satisfaction of their somewhat
+ barbaric national pride. The Emperor, in spite of his omnipotence,
+ is obliged to attach great value to the spirit of the masses upon
+ whom he leans, and who constitute his real force. It is not simply
+ a question of individual self-love: the national sentiment of the
+ country and the army is at stake."
+
+ [28: Despatches of the 11th and 25th of October 1849.]
+
+These were, no doubt, the considerations which prompted the Tsar to take
+the dangerous step I have mentioned. Prince Radziwill presented his
+letter, but obtained nothing. He left forthwith, haughtily refusing a
+second audience, which was offered him to take his leave; and the
+Russian and Austrian Ambassadors officially declared that all diplomatic
+relations had ceased between their masters and the Divan.
+
+The latter acted, in these critical circumstances, with a firmness and
+propriety of bearing which would have done honour to the most
+experienced cabinets of Europe. At the same time that the Sultan refused
+to comply with the demands, or rather the orders, of the two Emperors,
+he wrote to the Tsar to tell him that he would not discuss with him the
+question of right raised by the interpretation of the treaties, but that
+he appealed to his friendship and to his honour, begging him to take it
+in good part that the Turkish Government refused to take a measure which
+would ruin it in the eyes of the world. He offered, moreover, once more,
+himself to place the refugees in a position in which they should be
+harmless. Abdul Medjid sent one of the wisest and cleverest men in his
+Empire, Fuad Effendi, to take this letter to St Petersburg. A similar
+letter was written to Vienna, but this was to be handed to the Emperor
+of Austria by the Turkish Envoy at that Court, thus very visibly marking
+the difference in the value attached to the consent of the two
+Sovereigns. This news reached me at the end of September. My first care
+was to communicate it to England. At the same time[29] I wrote a private
+letter to our Ambassador, in which I said:
+
+ "The conduct of England, who is more interested in this affair than
+ we are, and less exposed in the conflict that may arise from it,
+ must needs have a great influence upon our own. The English Cabinet
+ must be asked clearly and categorically to state _how far_ it is
+ prepared to go. I have not forgotten the Piedmont affair. If they
+ want us to assist them, they must dot their i's. It is possible
+ that, in that case, we shall be found to be very determined;
+ otherwise, not. It is also very important that you should ascertain
+ the opinions produced by these events upon the Tories of all
+ shades; for with a government conducted on the parliamentary
+ system, and consequently variable, the support of the party in
+ power is not always a sufficient guarantee."
+
+ [29: Private letter, 1 October 1849.]
+
+In spite of the gravity of the circumstances, the English ministers, who
+were at that moment dispersed on account of the parliamentary holidays,
+took a long time before meeting; for in that country, the only country
+in the world where the aristocracy still carries on the government, the
+majority of the ministers are both great landed proprietors and, as a
+rule, great noblemen. They were at that time on their estates,
+recruiting from the fatigue and _ennui_ of business; and they showed no
+undue hurry to return to Town. During this interval, all the English
+press, without distinction of party, took fire. It raged against the two
+Emperors, and inflamed public opinion in favour of Turkey. The British
+Government, thus stimulated, at once took up its position. This time it
+did not hesitate, for it was a question, as it said itself, not only of
+the Sultan, but of England's influence in the world.[30] It therefore
+decided, first, that representations should be made to Russia and
+Austria; secondly, that the British Mediterranean Squadron should
+proceed to the Dardanelles, to give confidence to the Sultan and, if
+necessary, defend Constantinople. We were invited to do the same, and to
+act in common. The same evening, the order was despatched to the British
+Fleet to sail.
+
+ [30: Private letter from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 2 October 1849.]
+
+The news of these decisive resolutions threw me into great perplexity. I
+did not hesitate to think that we should approve the generous conduct of
+our Ambassador, and come to the aid of the Sultan;[31] but as to a
+warlike attitude, I did not believe that it would as yet be wise to
+adopt it. The English invited us to do as they did; but our position was
+very different from theirs. In defending Turkey, sword in hand, England
+risked her fleet; we, our very existence. The English Ministers could
+rely that, in that extremity, Parliament and the nation would support
+them; whereas we were almost certain to be abandoned by the Assembly,
+and even by the country, if things came so far as war. For our
+wretchedness and danger at home made people's minds at that moment
+insensible to all beside. I was convinced, moreover, that in this case
+threats, instead of serving to forward our designs, were calculated to
+frustrate them. If Russia, for it was really with her alone that we had
+to do, should chance to be disposed to open the question of the
+partition of the East by invading Turkey--a contingency that I found it
+difficult to believe in--the sending of our fleets would not prevent the
+crisis; and if it was really only a question (as was probably the case)
+of taking revenge upon the Poles, it would aggravate it, by making it
+difficult for the Tsar to retract, and causing his vanity to join forces
+with his resentment.
+
+ [31: Private letters to Lamoricière and Beaumont, 5 and 9 October
+ 1849.]
+
+I went to the meeting of the Council with these reflections. I at once
+saw that the President was already decided and even pledged, as he
+himself declared to us. This resolve on his part had been inspired by
+Lord Normanby, the British Ambassador, an eighteenth-century
+diplomatist, who had worked himself into a strong position in Louis
+Napoleon's good graces.... The majority of my colleagues thought as he
+did, that we should without hesitation adopt the line of joint action to
+which the English invited us, and like them send our fleet to the
+Dardanelles.
+
+Failing in my endeavour to have a measure which I considered premature
+postponed, I asked that at least, before it was carried out, they should
+consult Falloux, whose state of health had compelled him to leave Paris
+for a time and go to the country. Lanjuinais went down to him for this
+purpose, reported the affair to him, and came back and reported to us
+that Falloux had without hesitation given his opinion in favour of the
+despatch of the fleet. The order was sent off at once. However, Falloux
+had acted without consulting the leaders of the majority or his friends,
+and even without due reflection as to the consequences of his action; he
+had yielded to a movement of impulse, as sometimes happened to him, for
+nature had made him frivolous and light-headed before education and
+habit had rendered him calculating to the pitch of duplicity. It is
+probable that, after his conversation with Lanjuinais, he received
+advice, or himself made certain reflections, opposed to the opinion he
+had given. He therefore wrote me a very long and very involved
+letter,[32] in which he pretended to have misunderstood Lanjuinais
+(this was impossible, for Lanjuinais was the clearest and most lucid of
+men both in speech and action). He revoked his opinion and sought to
+evade his responsibility; and I replied at once with this note:
+
+ "My dear Colleague,
+
+ "The Council has taken its resolution, and at this late hour there
+ is nothing to be done but await events; moreover, in this matter
+ the responsibility of the whole Council is the same. There is no
+ individual responsibility. I was not in favour of the measure; but
+ now that the measure is taken, I am prepared to defend it against
+ all comers."[33]
+
+ [32: Letter from Falloux, 11 October 1849.]
+
+ [33: Letter to Falloux, 12 October 1849.]
+
+While giving a lesson to Falloux, I was none the less anxious and
+embarrassed as to the part I was called upon to play. I cared little for
+what would happen at Vienna; for in this business I credited Austria
+merely with the position of a satellite. But what would the Tsar do, who
+had involved himself so rashly and, apparently, so irrevocably in his
+relations towards the Sultan, and whose pride had been put to so severe
+a test by our threats? Fortunately I had two able agents at St
+Petersburg and Vienna, to whom I could explain myself without reserve.
+
+ "Take up the business very gently," I recommended them,[34] "be
+ careful not to set our adversaries' self-esteem against us, avoid
+ too great and too ostensible an intimacy with the English
+ Ambassadors, whose Government is detested by the Court at which you
+ are, although nevertheless maintaining good relations with those
+ ambassadors. In order to attain success, adopt a friendly tone, and
+ do not try to frighten people. Show our position as it is; we do
+ not want war; we detest it; we dread it; but we cannot act
+ dishonourably. We cannot advise the Porte, when it comes to us for
+ our opinion, to commit an act of cowardice; and should the courage
+ which it has displayed, and which we have approved of, bring it
+ into danger, we cannot, either, refuse it the assistance it asks of
+ us. A way must therefore be found out of the difficulty. Is
+ Kossuth's skin worth a general war? Is it to the interest of the
+ Powers that the Eastern Question should be opened at this moment
+ and in this fashion? Cannot a way be found by which everybody's
+ honour will be saved? What do they want, after all? Do they only
+ want to have a few poor devils handed over to them? That is
+ assuredly not worth so great a quarrel; but if it were a pretext,
+ if at the bottom of this business lurked the desire, as a matter of
+ fact, to lay hands upon the Ottoman Empire, then it would certainly
+ be a general war that they wanted; for ultra-pacific though we are,
+ we should never allow Constantinople to fall without striking a
+ blow."
+
+ [34: Private letters to Lamoricière and Beaumont, 5 and 9 October
+ 1849.]
+
+The affair was happily over by the time these instructions reached St
+Petersburg. Lamoricière had conformed to them before he received them.
+He had acted in this circumstance with an amount of prudence and
+discretion which surprised those who did not know him, but which did not
+astonish me in the least. I knew that he was impetuous by temperament,
+but that his mind, formed in the school of Arabian diplomacy, the wisest
+of all diplomacies, was circumspect and acute to the pitch of artifice.
+
+Lamoricière, so soon as he had heard rumours of the quarrel direct from
+Russia, hastened to express, very vividly, though in an amicable tone,
+that he disapproved of what had happened at Constantinople; but he took
+care to make no official, and, above all, no threatening,
+representations. Although acting in concert with the British Minister,
+he carefully avoided compromising himself with him in any joint steps;
+and when Fuad Effendi, bearing Abdul Medjid's letter, arrived, he let
+him know secretly that he would not go to see him, in order not to
+imperil the success of the negociation, but that Turkey could rely upon
+France.
+
+He was admirably assisted by this envoy from the Grand Seignior, who
+concealed a very quick and cunning intelligence beneath his Turkish
+skin. Although the Sultan had appealed for the support of France and
+England, Fuad, on arriving at St. Petersburg, showed no inclination even
+to call upon the representatives of these two Powers. He refused to see
+anybody before his audience of the Tsar, to whose free will alone, he
+said, he looked for the success of his mission.
+
+The Emperor must have experienced a feeling of bitter displeasure on
+beholding the want of success attending his threats, and the unexpected
+turn that things had taken; but he had the strength to restrain himself.
+In his heart he was not desirous to open the Eastern Question, even
+though, not long before, he had gone so far as to say, "The Ottoman
+Empire is dead; we have only to arrange for its funeral."
+
+To go to war in order to force the Sultan to violate the Law of Nations
+was a very difficult matter. He would have been aided in this by the
+barbaric passions of his people, but reproved by the opinion of the
+whole civilized world. He knew what was happening in England and France.
+He resolved to yield before he was threatened. The great Emperor
+therefore drew back, to the immeasurable surprise of his subjects and
+even of foreigners. He received Fuad in audience, and withdrew the
+demand he had made upon the Sultan. Austria hastened to follow his
+example. When Lord Palmerston's note arrived at St Petersburg, all was
+over. The best would have been to say nothing; but while we, in this
+business, had only aimed at success, the British Cabinet had also sought
+for noise. It required it to make a response to the irritation of the
+country. Lord Bloomfield, the British Minister, presented himself at
+Count Nesselrode's the day after the Emperor's decision became known;
+and was very coldly received.[35] He read him the note in which Lord
+Palmerston asked, in polite but peremptory phrases, that the Sultan
+should not be forced to hand over the refugees. The Russian replied that
+he neither understood the aim nor the object of this demand; that the
+affair to which he doubtless referred was arranged; and that, in any
+case, England had nothing to say in the matter. Lord Bloomfield asked
+how things stood. Count Nesselrode haughtily refused to give him any
+explanation; it would be equivalent, he said, to recognizing England's
+right to interfere in an affair that did not concern it. And when the
+British Envoy insisted upon at any rate leaving a copy of the note in
+Count Nesselrode's hands, the latter, after first refusing, at last
+accepted the document with an ill grace and dismissed his visitor,
+saying carelessly that he would reply to the note, that it was a
+terribly long one, and that it would be very tiresome. "France," added
+the Chancellor, "has already made me say the same thing; but she made me
+say it earlier and better."
+
+ [35: Letter from Lamoricière, 19 October 1849.]
+
+At this moment when we learnt the end of the dangerous quarrel, the
+Cabinet, after thus witnessing a happy conclusion to the two great
+pieces of foreign business that still kept the peace of the world in
+suspense, the Piedmont War and the Hungarian War--at that moment, the
+Cabinet fell.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+ I have recently discovered these four notes in the charter-room at
+ Tocqueville, where my grandfather had carefully deposited, by the
+ side of our most precious family archives, all the manuscripts of
+ his brother that came into his possession. They seemed to me to
+ throw some light upon the Revolution of February and the question
+ of the revision of the Constitution in 1851, and to merit
+ publication together with the Recollections.
+
+ Comte de Tocqueville.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+GUSTAVE DE BEAUMONT'S VERSION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY.
+
+
+I have to-day (24 October 1850) had a conversation with Beaumont which
+is worth noting. This is what he told me:
+
+"On the 24th of February, at seven o'clock in the morning, Jules
+Lasteyrie and another [I have forgotten the name which Beaumont
+mentioned] came to fetch me to take me to M. Thiers, where Barrot,
+Duvergier, and several others were expected."
+
+I asked him if he knew what had passed during the night between Thiers
+and the King. He replied:
+
+"I was told by Thiers, and especially by Duvergier, who had at once
+taken a note of Thiers' narrative, that Thiers had been summoned at
+about one o'clock; that he had found the King in an undecided frame of
+mind; that he had at once told him that he could only come in with
+Barrot and Duvergier; that the King, after raising many objections, had
+appeared to yield; that he had put off Thiers till the morning; that
+nevertheless, as he showed him to the door, he had told him that as yet
+no one was bound one way or the other."
+
+Evidently the King reserved the right of attempting to form another
+combination before the morning.
+
+"I must here," continued Beaumont, "tell you a curious anecdote. Do you
+know how Bugeaud was occupied during that decisive night, at the
+Tuileries itself, where he had just received the command-in-chief?
+Listen: Bugeaud's hope and ambition was to become Minister of War when
+Thiers should come into power. Things were so turning out, as he clearly
+saw, as to make this appointment impossible; but what preoccupied him
+was to assure his preponderance at the War Office even if he was not at
+the head of it. Consequently, on the night of the 24th of February, or
+rather in the early morning, Bugeaud with his own hand wrote to Thiers
+from the Tuileries a letter of four pages, of which the substance was:
+
+"'I understand the difficulties which prevent you from making me your
+Minister of War; nevertheless I have always liked you, and I am sure
+that we shall one day govern together. However, I understand the present
+reasons, and I give way before them; but I beg you, at least, to give M.
+Magne, who is my friend, the place of Under-Secretary of State at the
+War Office.'"
+
+Resuming his general narrative, Beaumont continued:
+
+"When I arrived at the Place Saint-Georges, Thiers and his friends had
+already left for the Tuileries. I hastily followed them, and arrived at
+the same time as they did. The appearance of Paris was already
+formidable; however, the King received us as usual, with the same
+copious language and the same mannerisms that you know of. Before being
+shown in to him [at least, I believe it was here that Beaumont placed
+this incident], we talked about affairs among ourselves. I insisted
+urgently upon Bugeaud's dismissal. 'If you want to oppose force to the
+popular movement,' I said, 'by all means make use of Bugeaud's name and
+audacity; but if you wish to attempt conciliation and you suspend
+hostilities[36] ... then Bugeaud's name is a contradiction.' The others
+seconded me, and Thiers reluctantly and with hesitation gave way. They
+compromised the matter as you know: Bugeaud nominally retained the
+command-in-chief, and Lamoricière was placed at the head of the National
+Guard. Thiers and Barrot entered the King's closet, and I do not know
+what happened there. The order had been given to the troops everywhere
+to cease firing, and to fall back upon the Palace and make way for the
+National Guard. I myself, with Rémusat, hurriedly drew up the
+proclamation informing the people of these orders and explaining them.
+At nine o'clock it was agreed that Thiers and Barrot should personally
+attempt to make an appeal to the people; Thiers was stopped on the
+staircase and induced to turn back, but with difficulty, I am bound to
+admit. Barrot set out alone, and I followed him."
+
+ [36: This clearly shows, independently of what Beaumont told me
+ positively, how absolutely the new Cabinet had made up its mind to
+ yield.]
+
+Here Beaumont's account is identical with Barrot's.
+
+"Barrot was wonderful throughout this expedition," said Beaumont. "I had
+difficulty in making him turn back, although when we had once arrived at
+the barricade at the Porte Saint-Denis, it would have been impossible to
+go further. Our return made the situation worse: we brought in our wake,
+by effecting a passage for it, a crowd more hostile than that which we
+had traversed in going; by the time we arrived at the Place Vendôme,
+Barrot feared lest he should take the Tuileries by assault, in spite of
+himself, with the multitude which followed him; he slipped away and
+returned home. I came back to the Château. The situation seemed to me
+very serious but far from desperate, and I was filled with surprise on
+perceiving the disorder that had gained all minds during my absence, and
+the terrible confusion that already reigned at the Tuileries. I was not
+quite able to understand what had happened, or to learn what news they
+had received to turn everything topsy-turvy in this fashion. I was dying
+of hunger and fatigue; I went up to a table and hurriedly took some
+food. Ten times, during this meal of three or four minutes, an
+aide-de-camp of the King or of one of the Princes came to look for me,
+spoke to me in confused language, and left me without properly
+understanding my reply. I quickly joined Thiers, Rémusat, Duvergier,
+and one or two others who were to compose the new Cabinet. We went
+together to the King's closet: this was the only Council at which I was
+present. Thiers spoke, and started a long homily on the duties of the
+King and the paterfamilias. 'That is to say, you advise me to abdicate,'
+said the King, who was but indifferently affected by the touching part
+of the speech and came straight to the point. Thiers assented, and gave
+his reasons. Duvergier supported him with great vivacity. Knowing
+nothing of what had happened, I displayed my astonishment and exclaimed
+that all was not lost. Thiers seemed much annoyed at my outburst, and I
+could not prevent myself from believing that the secret aim of Thiers
+and Duvergier had, from the first, been to get rid of the King, on whom
+they could no longer rely, and to govern in the name of the Duc de
+Nemours or the Duchesse d'Orléans, after forcing the King to abdicate.
+The King, who had struck me as very firm up to a certain moment, seemed
+towards the end to surrender himself entirely."
+
+Here there is a void in my memory in Beaumont's account, which I will
+fill up from another conversation. I come to the scene of the
+abdication, which followed:
+
+"During the interval, events and news growing worse and the panic
+increasing, Thiers had declared that already he was no longer possible
+(which was perhaps true), and that Barrot was scarcely so. He then
+disappeared--at least, I did not see him again during the last
+moments--which was very wrong of him, for although he declined the
+Ministry, he ought not, at so critical a juncture, to have abandoned the
+Princes, and he should have remained to advise them, although no longer
+their Minister. I was present at the final scene of the abdication. The
+Duc de Montpensier begged his father to write and urged him so eagerly
+that the King stopped and said, 'But look here, I can't write faster.'
+The Queen was heroical and desperate: knowing that I had appeared
+opposed to the abdication at the Council, she took my hands and told me
+that such a piece of cowardice must not be allowed to be consummated,
+that we should defend ourselves, that she would let herself be killed,
+before the King's eyes, before they could reach him. The abdication was
+signed nevertheless, and the Duc de Nemours begged me to run and tell
+Marshal Gérard, who was at the further end of the Carrousel, that I had
+seen the King sign, so that he might announce officially to the people
+that the King had abdicated. I hastened there, and returned; all the
+rooms were empty. I went from room to room without meeting a soul. I
+went down into the garden; I there met Barrot, who had come over from
+the Ministry of the Interior, and was indulging in the same useless
+quest. The King had escaped by the main avenue; the Duchesse d'Orléans
+seemed to have gone by the underground passage to the water-side. No
+necessity had compelled them to leave the Château, which was then in
+perfect safety, and which was not invaded by the people until an hour
+after it had been abandoned. Barrot was determined at all costs to
+assist the Duchess. He hurriedly had horses prepared for her, the young
+Prince and ourselves, and wanted us to throw ourselves all together into
+the midst of the people--the only chance in fact, and a feeble one at
+that, that remained to us. Unable to rejoin the Duchess, we left for the
+Ministry of the Interior. You met us on the road; you know the rest."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BARROT'S VERSION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY.
+
+(_10 October 1850._)
+
+
+"I believe that M. Molé only refused the Ministry after the firing had
+commenced on the Boulevard. Thiers told me that he had been sent for at
+one in the morning; that he had asked the King to appoint me as the
+necessary man; that the King had at first resisted and then yielded; and
+that at last he had adjourned our meeting to nine o'clock in the morning
+at the Palace.
+
+"At five o'clock Thiers came to my house to awake me; we talked; he went
+home, and I called for him at eight. I found him quietly shaving. It is
+a great pity that the King and M. Thiers thus wasted the time that
+elapsed between one and eight o'clock. When he had finished shaving, we
+went to the Château; the population already was greatly excited;
+barricades were being built, and even a few shots had already been fired
+from houses near the Tuileries. However, we found the King still very
+calm and retaining his usual manner. He addressed me with the
+commonplaces which you can imagine for yourself. At that hour, Bugeaud
+was still general-in-chief. I strongly persuaded Thiers not to take
+office under the colour of that name, and at least to modify it by
+giving the command of the National Guard to Lamoricière, who was there.
+Thiers accepted this arrangement, which was agreed to by the King and
+Bugeaud himself.
+
+"I next proposed to the King that he should dissolve the Chamber of
+Deputies. 'Never, never!' he said; he lost his temper and left the room,
+slamming the door in the faces of Thiers and me. It was quite clear that
+he only consented to give us office in order to save the first moment,
+and that he intended, after compromising us with the people, to throw us
+over with the assistance of Parliament. Of course, at any ordinary time,
+I should at once have withdrawn; but the gravity of the situation made
+me stay, and I proposed to present myself to the people, myself to
+apprise them of the formation of the new Cabinet, and to calm them. In
+the impossibility of our having anything printed and posted up in time,
+I looked upon myself as a walking placard. I must do Thiers the justice
+to say that he wished to accompany me, and that it was I who refused, as
+I dreaded the bad impression his presence might make.
+
+"I therefore set out; I went up to each barricade unarmed; the muskets
+were lowered, the barricades opened; there were cries of 'Reform for
+ever! long live Barrot!' We thus went to the Porte Saint-Denis, where we
+found a barricade two stories high and defended by men who made no sign
+of concurrence in my words and betrayed no intention of allowing us to
+pass the barricade. We were therefore compelled to retrace our steps. On
+returning, I found the people more excited than when I had come;
+nevertheless, I heard not a single seditious cry, nor anything that
+announced an immediate revolution. The only word that I heard of grave
+import was from Étienne Arago. He came up to me and said, 'If the King
+does not abdicate, we shall have a revolution before eight o'clock
+to-night.' I thus came to the Place Vendôme; thousands of men followed
+me, crying, 'To the Tuileries! to the Tuileries!' I reflected what was
+the best thing to do. To go to the Tuileries at the head of that
+multitude was to make myself the absolute master of the situation, but
+by means of an act which might have seemed violent and revolutionary.
+Had I known what was happening at the moment in the Tuileries, I should
+not have hesitated; but as yet I felt no anxiety. The attitude of the
+people did not yet seem decided. I knew that all the troops were falling
+back upon the Château; that the Government was there, and the generals;
+I could not therefore imagine the panic which, shortly afterwards,
+placed it in the hands of the mob. I turned to the right and returned
+home to take a moment's rest; I had not eaten anything yet and was
+utterly exhausted. After a few minutes, Malleville sent word from the
+Ministry of the Interior that it was urgent that I should come and sign
+the telegrams to the departments. I went in my carriage, and was cheered
+by the people; from there, I set out to walk to the Palace. I was still
+ignorant of all that had happened. When I reached the quay, opposite the
+garden, I saw a regiment of Dragoons returning to barracks; the colonel
+said to me, 'The King has abdicated; all the troops are withdrawing.' I
+hurried; when I reached the wicket-gates, I had great difficulty in
+penetrating to the court-yard, as the troops were crowding out through
+every opening. At last I reached the yard, which I found almost empty;
+the Duc de Nemours was there; I entreated him to tell me where the
+Duchesse d'Orléans was; he replied that he did not know, but that he
+believed that at that moment she was in the pavilion at the water-side.
+I hastened there; I was told that the Duchess was not there. I forced
+the door and went through the rooms, which were, in fact, empty. I left
+the Tuileries, recommending Havin, whom I met, not to bring the Duchess,
+if he found her, to the Chamber, with which there was nothing to be
+done. My intention had been, if I had found the Duchess and her son, to
+put them on horseback and throw myself with them among the people: I had
+even had the horses got ready.
+
+"Not finding the Princess, I returned to the Ministry of the Interior; I
+met you on the road, you know what happened there. I was sent for in
+haste to go to the Chamber. I had scarcely arrived when the leaders of
+the Extreme Left surrounded me and dragged me almost by main force to
+the first office; there, they begged me to propose to the Assembly the
+nomination of a Provisional Government, of which I was to be a member. I
+sent them about their business, and returned to the Chamber. You know
+the rest."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SOME INCIDENTS OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY 1848.
+
+
+1
+
+ _M. Dufaure's efforts to prevent the Revolution of
+ February--Responsibility of M. Thiers, which renders them futile._
+
+To-day (19 October 1850), Rivet recalled and fixed with me the
+circumstances of an incident well worth remembering.
+
+In the course of the week preceding that in which the Monarchy was
+overthrown, a certain number of Conservative deputies began to feel an
+anxiety which was not shared by the Ministers and their colleagues. They
+thought that it was more advisable to overthrow the Cabinet, provided
+that this could be done without violence, than to risk the adventure of
+the banquets. One of them, M. Sallandrouze, made the following proposal
+to M. Billault (the banquet was to take place on Tuesday the 22nd) that
+on the 21st M. Dufaure and his friends should move an urgent order of
+the day, drawn up in consultation with Sallandrouze and those in whose
+name he spoke, some forty in number. The order of the day should be
+voted by them on condition that, on its side, the Opposition should give
+up the banquet and restrain the people.
+
+On Sunday, the 20th of February, we met at Rivet's to discuss this
+proposal. There were present, as far as I am able to remember, Dufaure,
+Billault, Lanjuinais, Corcelles, Ferdinand Barrot, Talabot, Rivet, and
+myself.
+
+Sallandrouze's proposal was explained to us by Billault; we accepted it
+at once, and drafted an order of the day in consequence. I myself
+drafted it, and this draft, with some modifications, was accepted by my
+friends. The terms in which it was couched (I no longer remember them)
+were very moderate, but the adoption of this order of the day would
+inevitably entail the resignation of the Cabinet.
+
+There remained to be fulfilled the condition of the vote of the
+Conservatives, the withdrawal of the banquet. We had had nothing to do
+with this measure, and consequently we were not able to prevent it. It
+was agreed that one of us should at once go in search of Duvergier de
+Hauranne and Barrot, and propose that they should act according to the
+condition demanded. Rivet was selected for this negociation, and we
+adjourned our meeting till the evening to know how he had succeeded.
+
+In the evening he came and reported to us as follows:
+
+Barrot had eagerly entered into the opening offered him; he effusively
+seized Rivet's hands, and declared that he was prepared to do all that
+he was asked in this sense; he seemed relieved of a great weight on
+beholding the possibility of escaping from the responsibility of the
+banquet. But he added that he was not engaged in this enterprise alone,
+and that he must come to an understanding with his friends, without whom
+he could do nothing. How well we knew it!
+
+Rivet went on to Duvergier's, and was told that he was at the
+Conservatoire of Music, but that he would return home before dinner.
+Rivet waited. Duvergier returned. Rivet told him of the proposal of the
+Conservatives and of our order of the day. Duvergier received this
+communication somewhat disdainfully; they had gone too far, he said, to
+draw back; the Conservatives had repented too late; he, Duvergier, and
+his friends could not, without losing their popularity and perhaps all
+their influence with the masses, undertake to make the latter give up
+the proposed demonstration. "However," he added, "I am only giving you
+my first and personal impression; but I am going to dine with Thiers,
+and I will send you a note this evening to let you know our final
+decision."
+
+This note came while we were there; it said briefly that the opinion
+expressed by Duvergier before dinner was also that of Thiers, and that
+the idea which we had suggested must be abandoned. We broke up at once:
+the die was cast!
+
+I have no doubt that, among the reasons for Thiers' and Duvergier's
+refusal, the first place must be given to this, which was not expressed:
+that if the Ministry fell quietly, by the combined effect of a part of
+the Conservatives and ourselves, and upon an order of the day presented
+by us, we should come into power, and not those who had built up all
+this great machinery of the banquets in order to attain it.
+
+
+2
+
+ _Dufaure's conduct on the 24th of February 1848._
+
+Rivet told me to-day (19 October 1850) that he had never talked with
+Dufaure of what happened to him on the 24th of February; but that he had
+gathered the following from conversation with members of his family or
+of his immediate surroundings:
+
+On the 23rd of February, at about a quarter past six, M. Molé, after
+concerting with M. de Montalivet, sent to beg Dufaure to come and see
+him. Dufaure, on his road to M. Molé's, called on Rivet and asked him to
+wait for him, because he intended to come back to Rivet on leaving M.
+Molé. Dufaure did not return, and Rivet did not see him till some time
+after, but he believed that, on arriving at Molé's, Dufaure had a rather
+long conversation with him, and then went away, declaring that he did
+not wish to join the new Cabinet, and that, in his opinion,
+circumstances called for the men who had brought about the movement,
+that is to say, Thiers and Barrot.
+
+He returned greatly alarmed at the appearance of Paris, found his wife
+and mother-in-law still more alarmed, and, at five o'clock in the
+morning of the 24th, set out with them and took them to Vauves. He
+himself came back; I saw him at about eight or nine o'clock, and I do
+not remember that he told me he had taken this morning journey. I was
+calling on him with Lanjuinais and Corcelles; but we soon separated,
+arranging to meet at twelve at the Chamber of Deputies. Dufaure did not
+come; it seems that he started to do so, and in fact arrived at the
+Palace of the Assembly, which had, doubtless, been just at that moment
+invaded. What is certain is that he went on and joined his family at
+Vauves.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+ MY CONVERSATION WITH BERRYER, ON THE 21ST OF JUNE, AT AN
+ APPOINTMENT WHICH I HAD GIVEN HIM AT MY HOUSE. WE WERE BOTH MEMBERS
+ OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+
+I thus opened the conversation:
+
+"Let us leave appearances on one side, between you and me. You are not
+making a revisionist but an electoral campaign."
+
+He replied, "That is true; you are quite right"
+
+"Very well," I replied; "we shall see presently if you are well advised.
+What I must tell you at once is that I cannot join in a manoeuvre of
+which the sole object is to save a section only of the moderate party at
+the next elections, leaving out of the calculation many others, and
+notably that to which I belong. You must either give the moderate
+Republicans a valid reason for voting for the Revision, by giving it a
+republican character, or else expect us to do our best to spike your
+guns."
+
+He agreed, but raised difficulties that originated with the passions and
+prejudices of his party. We discussed for some time what was to be done,
+and at last we came to the policy which he was following.
+
+This is what I said to him on this subject, of which I particularly wish
+to retain the impression. I said:
+
+"Berryer, you are dragging us all, in spite of ourselves, into a plight
+for which you will have to bear the sole responsibility, you may be
+quite sure of that. If the Legitimists had joined those who wished to
+fight against the President, the fight might still be possible. You have
+dragged your party, in spite of itself, in an opposite direction;
+henceforth, we can no longer resist; we cannot remain alone with the
+Montagnards; we must give way, since you give way; but what will be the
+consequence? I can see your thought, it is quite clear: you think that
+circumstances render the President's ascendancy irresistible and the
+movement which carries the country towards him insurmountable. Unable to
+fight against the current, you throw yourselves into it, at the risk of
+making it more violent still, but in the hope that it will land you and
+your friends in the next Assembly, in addition to various other sections
+of the party of order, which is not very sympathetic with the President.
+There alone you think that you will find a solid resting-place from
+which to resist him, and you think that, by working his business to-day,
+you will be able to keep together, in the next Assembly, a group of men
+able to cope with him. To struggle against the tide which carries him at
+this moment is to make one's self unpopular and ineligible and to
+deliver the party to the Socialists and the Bonapartists, neither of
+whom you wish to see triumph: well and good! Your plan has its plausible
+side, but it fails in one principal respect, which is this: I could
+understand you if the election were to take place to-morrow, and if you
+were at once to gather the fruits of your manoeuvre, as at the
+December election; but there is nearly a year between now and the next
+elections. You will not succeed in having them held in the spring, if
+you succeed in having them held at all. Between now and then, do you
+imagine that the Bonapartist movement, aided, precipitated by you, will
+cease? Do you not see that, after asking you for a Revision of the
+Constitution, public opinion, stirred up by all the agents of the
+Executive and led by our own weakness, will ask us for something more,
+and then for something more still, until we are driven openly to favour
+the illegal re-election of the President and purely and simply to work
+his business for him? Can you go as far as that? Would your party be
+willing to, if you are? No! You will therefore come to a moment when you
+will have to stop short, to stand firm on your ground, to resist the
+combined effort of the nation and the Executive Power; in other words,
+on the one hand to become unpopular, and on the other to lose that
+support, or at least that electoral neutrality, of the Government which
+you desire. You will have enslaved yourselves, you will have immensely
+strengthened the forces opposed to you, and that is all. I tell you
+this: either you will pass completely and for ever under the President's
+yoke, or you will lose, just when it is ripe for gathering, all the
+fruit of your manoeuvre, and you will simply have taken upon
+yourself, in your own eyes and the country's, the responsibility of
+having contributed to raise this Power, which will perhaps, in spite of
+the mediocrity of the man, and thanks to the extraordinary power of
+circumstances, become the heir of the Revolution and our master."
+
+Barrot seemed to me to rest tongue-tied, and the time having come to
+part, we parted.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Many of the actors in the Revolution of 1848 are comparatively unknown
+in England. I did not wish to encumber these Recollections with
+foot-notes; and I have preferred, instead, to amplify the following
+Index by giving, in the majority of cases, the full names and titles of
+these participants, with the dates of their birth and death.
+
+A. Teixeira de Mattos.
+
+
+ A
+
+ Abdul Medjid, Sultan of Turkey (1823-1861), on question of Hungarian
+ refugees, 373.
+
+ d'Adelsward, in the National Assembly, 162.
+
+ Ampère, Jean Jacques (1800-1864), character of, 87.
+
+ Andryane, in the Chamber of Deputies, 72.
+
+ Arago, Étienne, on the barricades, 387.
+
+ Austria, her relations with Hungary and Russia, 335.
+ ---- Tsar's views on, 337.
+
+ Austrians, in Italy, 333.
+ ---- submits to the influence of Russia, 352 (_foot-note_).
+ ---- and Piedmont, 353.
+ ---- demands Hungarian refugees from Turkey, 361.
+
+
+ B
+
+ Baden, revolution put down in, 342.
+ ---- Tocqueville interferes on behalf of the rebels (_foot-note_),
+ 342.
+
+ Banquets, the, affair of, 18.
+
+ Banquet in Paris, forbidden by Government, 30.
+ ---- Rivet's statement in regard to, 390
+
+ Barbès, Armand (1810-1870), in the National Assembly, 164.
+ ---- goes to the Hôtel de Ville, 168.
+ ---- impeached by the Assembly, 173.
+
+ Barricades, the, construction of, 47.
+
+ Barrot, Camille Hyacinthe Odilon (1791-1873), alliance of, with
+ Thiers, 19.
+ ---- replies to Hébert in Chamber of Deputies, 28.
+ ---- recoils from Banquet in Paris, 31.
+ ---- sent for by Louis-Philippe, 45.
+ ---- on the Revolution, 59.
+ ---- and the barricades, 74.
+ ---- in Committee of Constitution, 243, 246, 250, 255.
+ ---- tries to form a new Cabinet, 267.
+ ---- succeeds, 277.
+ ---- with Beaumont, &c., 379.
+ ---- his version of the abdication of Louis-Philippe, 385.
+
+ Bastide, gets the Assembly to appoint Cavaignac Military Dictator,
+ 204.
+
+ Beaumont, Gustave de la Bonninière de (1802-1866), Tocqueville's
+ conversation with, 41.
+ ---- is sent for by Louis-Philippe, 45.
+ ---- tells Tocqueville of abdication of Louis-Philippe, 58.
+ ---- meets Tocqueville, 74.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- in Committee of the Constitution, 252.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and political friends, 267.
+ ---- sent as Ambassador to Vienna, 321.
+ ---- letter of Tocqueville to, on the Hungarian refugees, 370.
+ ---- his account of the abdication of Louis-Philippe, 379.
+
+ Beaumont, Madame de, notice of, 41.
+
+ Bedeau, General Marie Alphonse (1804-1863), on the Place Louis XV, 51.
+ ---- character of, 52.
+ ---- nearly killed in Insurrection, 227.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+
+ Berlin, Persigny sent to, 323.
+
+ Berryer, Pierre Antoine (1790-1868), his discussion with Tocqueville
+ on the proposed Constitution, 394.
+
+ Billault, Auguste Adolphe Marie (1805-1863), in the Chamber of
+ Deputies, 74.
+ ---- and banquets, 390.
+
+ Blanc, Jean Joseph Louis (1811-1882), in the National Assembly, 166.
+
+ Blanqui, Louis Auguste (1805-1881), in the National Assembly, 163.
+
+ Blanqui, Adolphe Jérôme (1798-1854), anecdote of, 197.
+
+ Bloomfield, John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield, Lord (1802-1879),
+ British Minister at St Petersburg, 374.
+ ---- snubbed by Nesselrode, _idem_.
+
+ Broglie, Achille Charles Léonce Victor Duc de (1785-1870), his
+ seclusion, 106.
+ ---- and foreign affairs, 330.
+
+ Buchez, Philippe Benjamin Joseph (1769-1865), in the National
+ Assembly, 162.
+
+ Bugeaud, Thomas Robert Marshal, Marquis de la Piconnerie, Duc d'Isly
+ (1784-1849), in favour of the Duchesse d'Orléans, 72.
+ ---- dying of cholera, 290.
+ ---- his ambition, 380.
+
+ Buffel, Minister of Agriculture, 276.
+
+
+ C
+
+ Cabinet, Members of the, 278.
+
+ Cavaignac, General Louis Eugène (1802-1857), in the Insurrection of
+ June, 195.
+ ---- made Military Dictator, 204.
+ ---- Tocqueville votes for, 263.
+ ---- speech of, 297.
+
+ Chamber of Deputies, the, state of in 1848, 10.
+ ---- Tocqueville's speech in, on 27th January 1848, 14.
+ ---- Speeches in, by Hébert and Barrot, 28.
+ ---- state of, on 22nd February, 33.
+ ---- state of, on 23rd February, 36.
+ ---- Guizot in, 36.
+ ---- state of, on 24th February, 56.
+ ---- Tocqueville's estimate of its utility, 58.
+ ---- Duchesse d'Orléans in, 60.
+ ---- invaded by the people, 62.
+
+ Chambers, one or two? debate on, in the Committee of the Constitution,
+ 242.
+
+ Changarnier, General Nicolas Anne Théodule (1793-1877), Rulhière's
+ jealousy of, 279.
+ ---- sent for, 295.
+ ---- puts down insurrection, 298.
+
+ Champeaux, his relation with Lamartine, 147.
+ ---- his relation with Tocqueville, 149.
+
+ Charles X., King of France and Navarre (1757-1836), flight of, in
+ 1830, 85.
+
+ Chateaubriand, François René, Vicomte de (1768-1848), death of, 230.
+
+ Committee for the Constitution, appointed, 233.
+ ---- proceedings of, 235.
+
+ Considérant, Victor, appointed on
+ Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- escapes after insurrection, 299.
+
+ Constituent Assembly, prohibits Government from attacking Rome, 288.
+
+ Coquerel, Athanase Laurent Charles (1795-1875), in the Committee of
+ the Constitution, 246.
+
+ Corbon, on the Committee of the Constitution, 257.
+
+ Corcelles, with Lanjuinais and Tocqueville on the boulevards, 48.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- in the Insurrection of June, 191.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+
+ Cormenin, Louis Marie de la Haye, Vicomte de (1788-1868), appointed a
+ Commissioner for Paris, 206.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 232.
+ ---- in the Committee of the Constitution, 247, 257.
+
+ Council General, the, meets at Saint-Lô, 125.
+
+ Courtais, General, in the National Assembly, 171.
+ ---- impeached by Assembly, 173.
+
+ Crémieux, Isaac Adolphe (1796-1880), in the Chamber of Deputies, 65.
+ ---- appointed a Commissioner for Paris, 206.
+ ---- what Janvier said of him, 210.
+
+
+ D
+
+ Degousée, in the National Assembly, 159.
+
+ Dembinski, General Henry (1791-1864), flees to the Turks, 361.
+
+ Dornès, appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 235.
+
+ Dufaure, Jules Armand Stanislas (1798-1881), Tocqueville's
+ conversation with, 17.
+ ---- character of, 40.
+ ---- tells Tocqueville of his interview with Louis-Philippe, 47.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- converses with Tocqueville, Thiers, Barrot, Rémusat, and
+ Lanjuinais, 203.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- conduct of, in the Committee, 243, 255.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+ ---- made Minister of the Interior, 272.
+ ---- with the President, 296.
+ ---- rupture with Falloux, 307.
+ ---- speech in Assembly, 310.
+ ---- character of, 313.
+ ---- with the President, 322.
+ ---- and banquets, 390.
+ ---- his conduct on 24th February 1848, 393.
+
+ Duchâtel, Charles Marie Tannequi, Comte (1803-1867), Minister of the
+ Interior, character of and conversation with, 23.
+ ---- want of tact in his speech on the banquets, 27.
+ ---- flight of, 136.
+
+ Dupin, André Marie Jean Jacques (1783-1865), speech of, in the Chamber
+ of Deputies, 62.
+ ---- in the Committee of the Constitution, 243.
+
+ Duvergier de Hauranne, Prosper (1798-1881), interview with, 22.
+ ---- with Beaumont, &c., 379.
+ ---- refuses to compromise on the banquet, 392.
+
+ Duvivier, killed in Insurrection, 227.
+
+
+ E
+
+ England, Tocqueville's estimate of the policy of, 359.
+ ---- on question of Hungarian refugees in Turkey, 366.
+
+
+ F
+
+ Falloux, Alfred Frédéric Pierre, Comte de (1811-1886), proposes the
+ dissolution of the National Workshops, 193.
+ ---- Minister of Public Instruction, 273.
+ ---- leader of majority in the Cabinet, 281.
+ ---- his influence with Louis Napoleon, 303.
+ ---- intercourse with Tocqueville, 305.
+ ---- rupture with Dufaure, 307.
+ ---- with the President, 322.
+ ---- on the question of the Hungarian refugees, 369.
+
+ Faucher, Léon (1803-1854), Minister of the Interior, 266.
+
+ Feast of Concord, the, proposal to hold, and celebration of, 174.
+
+ France, state of, when Tocqueville becomes Minister of Foreign
+ Affairs, 339.
+
+ Frederic William IV., King of Prussia (1795-1861), the Tsar's opinion
+ of, 337.
+ ---- his character and his aims for Germany, 346.
+ ---- his coquetting with revolt, 351.
+ ---- submits to the influence of Russia, 352 (_foot-note_).
+
+
+ G
+
+ General Election, the, antecedents of, 105.
+ ---- new, 265.
+
+ Germany, state of, 333.
+ ---- Confederation of States in, 347.
+ ---- views of Baron Pfordten in regard to, 348.
+ ---- views of Tocqueville in regard to, 349.
+ ---- views of Tsar in regard to, 350, 353.
+
+ Goudchaux, Michel (1797-1862), appointed a Commissioner for Paris,
+ 206.
+ ---- his conduct in that capacity, 213.
+
+ Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume (1787-1874), opinion of, 9.
+ ---- in Chamber of Deputies, 36.
+ ---- resigns Government, 36.
+ ---- opinion of, on the Revolution, 79.
+ ---- flight of, 136.
+
+
+ H
+
+ Havin, Léonor Joseph (1799-1868), chairs meeting for Tocqueville, 122.
+ ---- and Barrot, 389.
+
+ Hébert, Minister of Justice, character of and speech by, 28.
+
+ Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord (1809-1885), Tocqueville
+ breakfasts with, 184.
+
+ Huber, in National Assembly, 167.
+
+ Hungary, revolting against Austria, 335.
+ ---- Tsar's views on, 337.
+ ---- Tocqueville's instructions concerning, 360.
+
+
+ I
+
+ Insurrection of June, nature of narrative of, 187.
+
+ Italy, the Tsar's views on, 338.
+
+
+ K
+
+ Kossuth, Louis (1802-1894), flees to the Turks, 361.
+
+
+ L
+
+ Lacordaire, Jean Baptiste Henri Dominique (1802-1861), in the National
+ Assembly, 161.
+
+ Lacrosse, character of, 280.
+
+ La Fayette, Edmond de, and his life-preserver, 175.
+
+ Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis Prat de (1790-1869), in the Chamber of
+ Deputies, 62, 66.
+ ---- reads out the list of the Provisional Government, 70.
+ ---- gets embarrassed in the Chamber of Deputies, 71.
+ ---- his conduct and character, 145.
+ ---- Tocqueville's relations with, 147.
+ ---- his connexion with Champeaux, 147.
+ ---- his speech in the Assembly, 151.
+ ---- his sudden departure from the Assembly, 159.
+ ---- reappears in National Assembly, 171.
+ ---- at the Feast of Concord, 180.
+ ---- shot at in the Insurrection of June, 194.
+
+ Lamartine, Madame de, notice of, 154.
+
+ Lamennais, Hugues Félicité Robert de (1782-1855), appointed on
+ Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+
+ Lamoricière, General Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de (1806-1865),
+ character of, 91.
+ ---- in Insurrection of June, 192, 220.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+ ---- sent as Ambassador to Russia, 303.
+ ---- letter about the Tsar of Russia, 336.
+ ---- instructions of Tocqueville to, 360.
+ ---- letter of, to Tocqueville, 364.
+ ---- letter of Tocqueville to, on Hungarian refugees, 370.
+ ---- conduct of, in regard to them, 372.
+
+ Lanjuinais, Victor Ambroise de (1802-1869), Tocqueville in company of,
+ 42.
+ ---- with Tocqueville and Corcelles on the boulevards, 46.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in the National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+ ---- joins the Council, 274.
+ ---- on the question of the Hungarian refugees, 369.
+
+ Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste (1807-1874), in the Chamber of
+ Deputies, 65, 71.
+ ---- character of, 150.
+ ---- in the National Assembly, 163.
+ ---- has to escape from the National Assembly, 173.
+ ---- demands the indictment of Louis Napoleon, 292.
+ ---- escapes after the Insurrection, 299.
+
+ Legitimists, views and condition of, 302.
+
+ Lepelletier d'Aunay, Tocqueville meets, 213.
+
+ Louis Napoleon, Prince President of the French Republic (1808-1873),
+ elected to the National Assembly, 183.
+ ---- President of the Republic, 270.
+ ---- character of, 283.
+ ---- orders the attack on Rome, 289.
+ ---- attacked in Assembly, 292.
+ ---- puts down Insurrection, 298.
+ ---- intrigues with Thiers and Molé, 315.
+ ---- in connexion with Tocqueville, 317.
+ ---- with Beaumont, Dufaure and Passy, 321-2.
+ ---- his general ignorance, 331.
+ ---- wishes to take Savoy, 332.
+ ---- Tocqueville and Berryer's discussion about the powers of, 394.
+
+ Louis-Philippe, King of the French (1773-1850), Tocqueville's
+ interview with, 7.
+ ---- his opinion of Lord Palmerston, _idem_.
+ ---- of the Tsar Nicholas, _idem_.
+ ---- refers to Queen Victoria, _idem_.
+ ---- influence of, 10.
+ ---- on the Banquets, 26.
+ ---- Sallandrouze, conversation with, 35.
+ ---- sends for Molé, 37.
+ ---- sends for Beaumont, 45.
+ ---- abdicates, 58.
+ ---- character of, and of his Government, 81.
+ ---- finally disappears from France, 105.
+ ---- Beaumont's account of abdication of, 379.
+
+ Lyons, insurrection in, 298.
+
+
+ M
+
+ Manche, la, department of, 114.
+ ---- proceedings in election of, 117.
+ ---- election of Tocqueville for, 263.
+
+ Marrast, Armand (1780-1852), and the Provisional Government, 71.
+ ---- suggests costume for National Representatives, 135.
+ ---- as Mayor of Paris, 227.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- conduct of, in the Committee, 241, 247, 255.
+ ---- appointed Secretary of the Committee, 256.
+
+ Martin, on the Committee of the Constitution, 254.
+
+ Middle Class, the, government of, 5.
+ ---- despair of, 133.
+
+ Molé, Matthieu Louis, Comte (1781-1855), sent for by Louis-Philippe,
+ 37.
+ ---- declines office, 45.
+ ---- opinion of, on the Revolution, 79.
+ ---- on General Election, 107.
+ ---- elected to the National Assembly, 182.
+ ---- refuses to take office, 267.
+ ---- intrigues with the President, 315.
+ ---- on Foreign Affairs, 330.
+ ---- and abdication of Louis-Philippe, 385.
+ ---- with Rivet and Dufaure, 393.
+
+ Montagnards, the description of, 137.
+ ---- separation of, from the Socialists, 154.
+ ---- crushed, 231.
+ ---- strengthened at the new election, 263.
+ ---- supporters of, 266.
+ ---- feelings towards the President, 292.
+
+ Montalembert, Charles Forbes René, Comte de (1810-1870), opposes the
+ Government scheme on railways, 190.
+
+ Montpensier, Antoine d'Orléans, Duc de (1824-1890), at the abdication
+ of Louis-Philippe, 384.
+
+
+ N
+
+ National Assembly, the, meets on 4th of May, 133.
+ ---- description of, 133.
+ ---- Tocqueville's opinion of, 142.
+ ---- speech of Lamartine in, 151.
+ ---- invaded by the mob, 160.
+ ---- breaks up, 168.
+ ---- National Guards take possession of, 170.
+ ---- addresses from provinces, in support of, 182.
+ ---- agrees to pension families of men killed in putting down the
+ Insurrection, 206.
+ ---- threatened, 228.
+ ---- state of the new Assembly, 265, 270, 291.
+
+ National Guard, the, invited by Radical party to the banquet in Paris,
+ 30.
+ ---- on the morning of the 24th February, 44.
+ ---- shouting "Reform," 49.
+ ---- Detachment of, in the Chamber of Deputies, 61, 72.
+ ---- disappearance of, 94.
+ ---- take possession of National Assembly, 170.
+ ---- at Feast of Concord, 178.
+ ---- in Insurrection of June, 200.
+ ---- shout "Long live the National Assembly," 207.
+ ---- eager to put down the Insurrection, 213.
+ ---- wounded of, being carried away, 226.
+ ---- surrounded, 294.
+ ---- three regiments of, cashiered, 309.
+
+ National Workshops, the, create anxiety in the Assembly, 181.
+ ---- Falloux proposes dissolution of, 193.
+ ---- supply weapons to insurgents in June, 198.
+
+ Négrier, killed in the Insurrection, 227.
+
+ Nemours, Louis Charles Philippe Raphael d'Orléans, Duc de (1814-1896),
+ thought of as Regent, 383.
+ ---- and Barrot, 388.
+
+ Nesselrode, Charles Robert, Count (1780-1862), snubs Lord Palmerston,
+ 374.
+
+ Nicholas I., Tsar of all the Russias (1796-1855), supports Austria
+ against Hungary, 335.
+ ---- his general policy, 336.
+ ---- Lamoricière's letter about, 336.
+ ---- his family affection, 339.
+ ---- the real support of his power, 339.
+ ---- views of, on an United Germany, 350.
+ ---- demands Hungarian refugees from Turkey, 364.
+ ---- his irritation about Hungarian refugees, 373.
+
+ Normanby, Constantine Henry Phipps, Marquess of (1797-1863),
+ Ambassador in Paris, 368.
+
+ Novara, Battle of, 323.
+
+
+ O
+
+ D'Orléans, Hélène, Duchesse (1814-1858), in the Chamber of Deputies,
+ 60.
+ ---- and the abdication of Louis-Philippe, 384.
+ ---- and Barrot, 389.
+
+ Oudinot, General Nicolas Charles Victor, Duc de Reggio (1791-1863), in
+ the Chamber of Deputies, 72.
+
+
+ P
+
+ Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Viscount (1784-1865) on Piedmont and
+ Austria, 359.
+ ---- snubbed by Nesselrode, 374.
+
+ Paris, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Comte de (1838-1894), in the Chamber
+ of Deputies, 60.
+
+ Passy, character of, 272.
+ ---- with the President, 322.
+
+ Paulmier, Tocqueville dines with, on the 22nd February, 34.
+
+ Persigny, Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, Duc de (1808-1872), sent to
+ Berlin and Vienna, 323.
+
+ Piedmont and Austria, 353.
+
+ Portalis, character of, 42.
+
+ Presidency, condition of, discussed in the Committee of the
+ Constitution, 246.
+
+ Provisional Government, the, proclaimed, 59.
+ ---- Lamartine reads list of, in the Chamber of Deputies, 70.
+ ---- appoints a costume for National Representatives, 134.
+ ---- reports its proceedings to the National Assembly, 135.
+
+
+ R
+
+ Radetzky, Field-Marshal Johann Joseph Wenzel Anton Franz Carl, Count
+ (1766-1858), and Piedmont, 355.
+
+ Radical Party, state of the, in January 1848, 25.
+
+ Raspail, François Vincent (1794-1878), in the National Assembly, 162.
+
+ Revolutionaries, description of the, 137.
+ ---- in the National Assembly, 158.
+
+ Rivet, his conversation with Tocqueville, 389.
+ ---- consultation of, with Liberals, on the subject of the banquets,
+ 390.
+ ---- another conversation with Tocqueville, 392.
+ ---- with Molé and Dufaure, 393.
+
+ Rome, the French Army at, 263.
+ ---- difficulties about, 269.
+ ---- secret order to the army to attack, 291.
+
+ Rulhière, character of, 279.
+
+
+ S
+
+ Saint-Lô, meeting of the Council General at, 125.
+
+ Sallandrouze de Lamornaix meets Tocqueville at dinner at Paulmier's,
+ 35.
+ ---- snubbed by Louis-Philippe, _idem_.
+
+ Sand, George (1804-1876), Tocqueville's conversation with, 183.
+
+ Sauzet, President of the Chamber of Deputies, 57.
+
+ Savoy, Louis Napoleon wishes to seize, 332.
+
+ Schwarzenberg, Felix Ludwig Johann Friedrich, Prince von (1808-1852),
+ and Tocqueville, 358.
+
+ Sénard, President of the Assembly, 214.
+
+ Sicily, state of, 333.
+
+ Sobrier, in National Assembly, 167.
+
+ Socialism, influence of theories of, 97.
+ ---- Dufaure's conflict with, 312.
+
+ Socialists, the, description of, 137.
+ ---- separation of, from Montagnards, 154.
+
+ Switzerland, Tocqueville's correspondence with, on the subject of the
+ refugees, 343.
+
+
+ T
+
+ Talabot, and Thiers, 75.
+
+ Thiers, Louis Adolphe (1797-1877), alliance of, with Barrot, 19.
+ ---- sent for by Louis-Philippe, 45.
+ ---- wandering round Paris, 74.
+ ---- opinion of, on the Revolution, 79.
+ ---- on the General Election, 106.
+ ---- defeated at the General Election, 136.
+ ---- elected to the National Assembly, 182.
+ ---- addresses Barrot, Dufaure, Rémusat, Lanjuinais and Tocqueville
+ in private, 202.
+ ---- with Lamoricière, 225.
+ ---- refuses to take office, 267.
+ ---- with the President, 296.
+ ---- intrigues with the President, 315.
+ ---- on foreign affairs, 330.
+ ---- with Beaumont, &c., 379.
+ ---- advises Louis-Philippe to abdicate, 383.
+ ---- his interview with Barrot, 385.
+ ---- refuses to compromise on the banquets, 392.
+
+ Tocqueville, Charles Alexis Henri Maurice Clérel de (1805-1859), his
+ purpose in writing these memoirs, 3.
+ ---- his intercourse with Louis-Philippe, 7.
+ ---- his estimate of the state of France in January 1848, 9.
+ ---- picture of the state of the Chamber of Deputies in 1847, 12.
+ ---- his speech in the Chamber of Deputies, 29th January 1848, 14.
+ ---- remarks on this speech by Dufaure and others, 17.
+ ---- his position on the affair of the banquets, 19.
+ ---- his estimate of Duchâtel, Minister of the Interior, 23.
+ ---- his thoughts on the policy of the Radical party, 25.
+ ---- his knowledge of how the affair of the banquets passed into an
+ insurrection, 30.
+ ---- in the Chamber of Deputies on 22nd and 23rd February, when the
+ gloom of the Revolution began to gather, 33.
+ ---- his estimate of the selfishness of both sides, 39.
+ ---- private conversation with Dufaure, 40.
+ ---- private conversation with Beaumont, 41.
+ ---- private conversation with Lanjuinais, 42.
+ ---- hears of the firing in the streets on 24th February 1848, 44.
+ ---- sees preparations for barricades, 46.
+ ---- meets a defeated party of National Guards on the boulevards,
+ and hears shouts of "Reform," 49.
+ ---- reflections which this occasions, 50.
+ ---- goes to Chamber of Deputies on 24th February, 51.
+ ---- recognises Bedeau on his way, 52.
+ ---- character of Bedeau and condition on that day, 53.
+ ---- appearance presented by the Chamber of Deputies, 56.
+ ---- sees the Duchesse d'Orléans and the Comte de Paris there, 60.
+ ---- tries to get Lamartine to speak, 63.
+ ---- his interest in the Duchess and her son, 69.
+ ---- seeks to protect them, 69.
+ ---- leaves the Chamber and meets Oudinot and Andryane, 72.
+ ---- contradicts an assertion of Marshal Bugeaud, 72.
+ ---- converses with Talabot about the movements of Thiers, 75.
+ ---- his reflections on the fate of the Monarchy, 80.
+ ---- spends the evening with Ampère, 87.
+ ---- goes to inquire about his nephews on the 25th February, 90.
+ ---- walks about Paris in the afternoon, 92.
+ ---- reflections on what he sees, 93.
+ ---- keeps in retirement for some days, 102.
+ ---- further reflections on the Revolution, 103.
+ ---- his own individual feelings and intentions, 107.
+ ---- resolves to seek re-election, 113.
+ ---- visits the Department of la Manche, 114.
+ ---- makes Valognes his head-quarters, 117.
+ ---- publishes his address to the electors, 118.
+ ---- meets the electors at Valognes, 120.
+ ---- addresses workmen at Cherbourg, 122.
+ ---- goes to Saint-Lô to the General Council, 125.
+ ---- his reflections on a visit to Tocqueville, 126.
+ ---- returns to Paris and finds himself elected, 129.
+ ---- his view of the state of politics and of Paris, 130.
+ ---- National Assembly meets, 133.
+ ---- his opinion of the Montagnards, 138.
+ ---- his estimate of the Assembly, 141.
+ ---- his character of Lamartine, 146.
+ ---- his intercourse with Champeaux, 149.
+ ---- his observation of the popular mind, 161.
+ ---- his interview with Trétat, 168.
+ ---- at the Feast of Concord, 175.
+ ---- conversation with Carnot, 176.
+ ---- anticipations of the Insurrection of June, 183.
+ ---- conversation with Madame Sand, 183.
+ ---- sees barricades of the Insurrection, 190.
+ ---- interview with Lamoricière, 192.
+ ---- goes about Paris in time of insurrection, 197.
+ ---- describes the Assembly, 198.
+ ---- writes to his wife, 203.
+ ---- protests against Paris being declared in a state of siege, 205.
+ ---- elected a Commissioner for Paris, 206.
+ ---- as such, walks through Paris, 208.
+ ---- his scene with his porter, 215.
+ ---- his scene with his man-servant, 217.
+ ---- in the streets in the Insurrection, 219.
+ ---- on his way to the Hôtel de Ville, 225.
+ ---- his account of the Montagnards, Socialists, &c., 231.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- his narrative of its proceedings, 234.
+ ---- on the duality of the Chambers, 242.
+ ---- on the conditions of the Presidency, 246.
+ ---- re-elected for la Manche, 263.
+ ---- leaves his wife ill at Bonn, 264.
+ ---- his opinion of the new Assembly, 264.
+ ---- his interview with Dufaure, &c., 267.
+ ---- ought he to enter the Ministry?, 268.
+ ---- accepts the Foreign Office, 273.
+ ---- intimacy with Lanjuinais, 275.
+ ---- his opinion of his colleagues, 278.
+ ---- his opinion of France and the Republic, 281.
+ ---- his opinion of Louis Napoleon, 284.
+ ---- speech in Assembly on the Roman expedition, 293.
+ ---- his letters to and from Considérant, 299.
+ ---- his view of affairs after the Insurrection, 301.
+ ---- sends Lamoricière to Russia, 303.
+ ---- his difficulties with Falloux and Dufaure, 306.
+ ---- his advice to Louis Napoleon, 317.
+ ---- sends Beaumont to Vienna, 321.
+ ---- his view of Foreign and Domestic Affairs when he became Foreign
+ Minister, 325.
+ ---- his despatch to the French Minister in Bavaria (_foot-note_),
+ 342.
+ ---- his dealings with Switzerland about the refugees, 344.
+ ---- his observations on the Revolution in Germany, 345.
+ ---- his intervention between Austria and Piedmont, 353.
+ ---- his interposition in support of Turkey on the Hungarian
+ refugees question, 361.
+ ---- his instruction to Lamoricière and Beaumont, 371.
+ ---- narrative of Beaumont to, on the abdication, 379.
+ ---- narrative of Barrot to, on the abdication, 385.
+ ---- Rivet and De Tocqueville's efforts to prevent Revolution, 389.
+ ---- discussion of, with Berryer on the Constitution, 394.
+
+ Tocqueville, Madame de, _née_ Mottley, her report of firing in Paris,
+ 196.
+ ---- taken ill at Bonn, 264.
+
+ Tocqueville, Manor of, Tocqueville visits, 126.
+
+ Tracy, character of, 279.
+
+ Trétat, and Tocqueville, 168.
+
+ Turkey, refuses to surrender the Hungarian refugees, 362.
+
+
+ V
+
+ Valognes, town of, head-quarters in Tocqueville's election, 117.
+
+ Valognes, Tocqueville at, 130.
+
+ Vaulabelle, appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 235.
+
+ Victor Emmanuel II., King of Piedmont (1820-1878), ascends the throne
+ on the abdication of Charles Albert, 333.
+
+ Vieillard speaks at the meeting for the election of Tocqueville, 123.
+
+ Vienna, Beaumont sent as Ambassador to, 321.
+ ---- Persigny sent to, 323.
+
+ Vivien appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- in the Committee of Constitution, 253.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+
+
+ W
+
+ Wolowski, Louis (1810-1876), in the National Assembly on 15th
+ May, 158.
+
+
+
+
+ PRINTED BY
+ TURNBULL AND SPEARS
+ EDINBURGH
+
+
+
+
+ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF AUTHORS PAGE
+
+
+ Abbott, Angus Evan, 414
+
+ Alison, William, 413
+
+
+ Basile, Giovanni Battista, 415
+
+ Bate, Francis, 414
+
+ Beerbohm, Max, 414
+
+ Burton, Sir Richard, K.C.M.G., 414, 415
+
+
+ Cobban, J. MacLaren, 416
+
+ Common, Thomas, 415
+
+ Connell, F. Norreys, 414
+
+ Creswick, Paul, 414
+
+
+ Dearmer, Mrs Percy, 414
+
+ Dobson, Austin, 414
+
+ Donovan, Major C.H.W., 416
+
+ Dowson, Ernest, 414
+
+
+ Farrar, Evelyn L., 416
+
+ Farrar, Very Rev. Dean F.W., 416
+
+ Field, Michael, 414
+
+
+ Garnett, Dr Richard, 414
+
+ Gosse, Edmund, 414
+
+ Gray, John, 414, 415
+
+ Guiffrey, Jules J., 413
+
+
+ Haussmann, William A., Ph.D., 415
+
+ Herrick, Robert, 414
+
+ Hobbes, John Oliver, 414
+
+ Housman, Lawrence, 414
+
+ Hoytema, Th. van, 416
+
+
+ Image, Selwyn, 414
+
+
+ Jepson, Edgar, 414
+
+ Johnson, Lionel, 414
+
+ Jones, Alfred, 414
+
+
+ Langley, Hugh, 416
+
+ Le Gallienne, Richard, 414
+
+
+ MacColl, D.S., 414
+
+ Maeterlinck, Maurice, 414
+
+ Mann, Mary E., 414, 416
+
+ Marriott Watson, Rosamond, 414
+
+ Molesworth, Mrs., 414
+
+ Moore, T. Sturge, 414
+
+ Muther, Richard, 413
+
+
+ Nietzsche, Friedrich, 415
+
+
+ Oudinot, Maréchale, Duchesse de Reggio, 413
+
+
+ Pain, Barry, 414
+
+ Plarr, Victor, 414
+
+ Powell, F. York, 414
+
+ Purcell, Edward, 414
+
+
+ Ricketts, Charles, 414
+
+ Rubens, Paul, 414
+
+ Ruvigny et Raineval, Marquis de, 416
+
+
+ Scull, W. Delaplaine, 414
+
+ Shannon, Charles Hazelwood, 414
+
+ Spalding, Thomas Alfred, 416
+
+ Stiegler, Gaston, 413
+
+ Strange, E.F., 414
+
+ Strange, Captain H.B., 414
+
+
+ Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander, 413
+
+ Tille, Alexander, Ph.D., 415
+
+
+ Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Comte, 414
+
+ Volz, Johanna, 415
+
+
+ White, Gleeson, 414
+
+ Widdrington, George, 416
+
+ Wood, Starr, 414
+
+
+ Zimmern, Helen, 415
+
+
+
+
+ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+ MEMOIRS OF MARSHAL OUDINOT, DUC DE REGGIO.
+ Compiled from the hitherto unpublished Souvenirs of the DUCHESSE DE
+ REGGIO by GASTON STIEGLER, and translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE
+ MATTOS. With Two Portraits in Heliogravure. _Demy 8vo, crimson
+ cloth extra, in a cover adorned with the Marshal's arms, gilt top,
+ 17s. net; 10 copies on Japanese vellum, £3, 3s. net._
+
+
+ THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK.
+ By JULES J. GUIFFREY. Translated from the French by WILLIAM ALISON.
+ One Vol. folio. With Nineteen Etchings of Paintings (now etched for
+ the first time), Eight Heliogravures, and upwards of One Hundred
+ Illustrations in the Text. _Folio, grey buckram extra, adorned with
+ the painter's arms. Edition limited to 250 copies, numbered, £4,
+ 4s. net; 10 copies on Japanese vellum, £12, 12s. net._ (_Only two
+ copies remain unsold._)
+
+"A truly sumptuous and imposing volume."--_Globe._
+
+"A great book on a great painter."--_St James's Gazette._
+
+
+ THE HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING.
+ By RICHARD MUTHER, Professor of Art History at the University of
+ Breslau, Late Keeper of the Royal Collection of Prints and
+ Engravings at Munich. 2304 pages. Over 1300 Illustrations. _Three
+ Volumes imperial 8vo, dark blue cloth extra, with a cover design
+ by_ HOWARD STRINGER, _gilt top and lettering, other edges uncut,
+ £2, 15s. net; Library Edition, green half morocco, gilt top, £3,
+ 15s. net. This work is also published in 36 Parts at 1s. net, or in
+ 16 Parts at 2s. 6d. net._
+
+"There need be no hesitation in pronouncing this work of Muther the most
+authoritative that exists on the subject, the most complete, the best
+informed of all the general histories of Modern Art."--_Times_.
+
+"Not only the best, but the only history of Modern Painting which has
+any pretension to cover the whole ground."--_Times_ (_second notice_).
+
+"A monumental work ... of cyclopædic value.... This author is distinctly
+cheering. He has no slavish and indiscriminate admiration for the old
+masters, and his enthusiasm and his hopes are with the art of his
+time.... There are many illustrations, a copious bibliography, and a
+good index.... It is incomparably the best work of its kind; in some
+respects, the only one of its kind."--_Daily News_.
+
+"A history as crowded and as stirring as a novel."--_Saturday Review_.
+
+"A great book on a great subject."--_Graphic_.
+
+"Not merely readable, but at times fascinating.... The book, although
+not an exhaustive record, is indispensable for one's shelves of
+reference, and worth careful reading."--_Studio_.
+
+
+ THE PAGEANT, 1897.
+ Edited by CHARLES HAZELWOOD SHANNON and GLEESON WHITE. With
+ Twenty-six Full-Page Illustrations (including a Woodcut in Four
+ Colours and Gold) and Ten Illustrations in the Text. _Crown 4to,
+ chocolate cloth extra, with a cover design by_ CHARLES RICKETTS,
+ _and a coloured wrapper by_ GLEESON WHITE, _6s. net_; _Large Paper
+ Edition (limited to 150 copies), £1, 5s. net. These copies contain
+ a special reproduction in photogravure of Rossetti's_ "Hamlet and
+ Ophelia."
+
+ _Contributions in Art by_--
+
+ SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A., PUVIS DE
+ CHAVANNES, GUSTAVE MOREAU, DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, REGINALD SAVAGE,
+ CHARLES HAZELWOOD SHANNON, CHARLES RICKETTS, LAURENCE HOUSMAN,
+ CHARLES CONDER, WALTER CRANE, WILL ROTHENSTEIN, WILLIAM STRANG,
+ LUCIEN PISSARRO.
+
+ _Contributions in Literature by_--
+
+ AUSTIN DOBSON, VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM, EDMUND GOSSE, Mrs MARRIOTT
+ WATSON, LIONEL JOHNSON, D.S. MACCOLL, F. YORK POWELL, VICTOR PLARR,
+ GLEESON WHITE, MICHAEL FIELD, ANGUS EVAN ABBOTT, CHARLES RICKETTS,
+ JOHN GRAY, W. DELAPLAINE SCULL, MAURICE MAETERLINCK, Dr RICHARD
+ GARNETT, T. STURGE MOORE, EDWARD PURCELL, SELWYN IMAGE, MAX
+ BEERBOHM, ERNEST DOWSON.
+
+
+ THE PAGEANT, 1896.
+ Edited by C.H. SHANNON and GLEESON WHITE. _Ordinary Edition, 6s.
+ net. Large Paper Edition, 150 Copies only. The price of the few
+ that remain for sale has been raised to £1, 5s. net._
+
+
+ THE PARADE, 1897.
+ A Gift-Book for Boys and Girls. Edited by GLEESON WHITE. With 35
+ Full-Page Illustrations; 3 Coloured Plates; 10 Head-and
+ Tail-Pieces; Illustrated Initials, Devices, &c. _Crown 4to, scarlet
+ cloth extra, with a Cover designed by_ PAUL WOODROFFE, _coloured
+ edges, 6s. net_.
+
+ _Contributions in Literature by_--
+
+ JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, Mrs MOLESWORTH, LAURENCE HOUSMAN, Sir RICHARD
+ BURTON, ALFRED JONES, E.F. STRANGE, EDGAR JEPSON, BARRY PAIN, Mrs
+ MARY E. MANN, F. NORREYS CONNELL, PAUL CRESWICK, Captain H.B.
+ STRANGE, ROBERT HERRICK, Mrs PERCY DEARMER, MAX BEERBOHM, RICHARD
+ LE GALLIENNE, PAUL RUBENS, VICTOR PLARR, STARR WOOD, FRANCIS BATE.
+
+ _Contributions in Art by_--
+
+ PAUL WOODROFFE, AUBREY BEARDSLEY, ALAN WRIGHT, Miss DE MONTMORENCY,
+ W.J. OVERNELL, HAROLD NELSON, LESLIE BROOKE, LAURENCE HOUSMAN,
+ ALFRED JONES, LEON SOLON, A.A. VAN ANROOY, G.A. GORDON, STARR WOOD,
+ Mrs PERCY DEARMER, MAX BEERBOHM, CHARLES ROBINSON, NICO JUNGMAN,
+ Miss MILNE, WILLIAM SHACKLETON, HENRY TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.
+
+
+ IL PENTAMERONE; OR, THE TALE OF TALES.
+ Being a Translation by the Late Sir RICHARD BURTON, K.C.M.G., of
+ "Il Pentamerone; overo lo Cunto de li Cunte, trattenemiento de li
+ peccerille," of GIOVANNI BATTISTA BASILE, Count of Torone (Gian
+ Alessio Abbattutis). _Two volumes, demy 8vo, black cloth gilt, £3,
+ 3s. net. Large Paper Edition, on hand-made paper (limited to 150
+ copies), royal 8vo, black cloth gilt_, £5, 5_s._ _net_.
+
+This is the only unabridged and unexpurgated edition of "Il Pentamerone"
+in the English language.
+
+
+ THE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
+ Edited by ALEXANDER TILLE, PH.D., Lecturer at the University of
+ Glasgow. Sole Authorized English and American Edition; issued under
+ the supervision of the "Nietzsche Archiv" at Naumburg. _Eleven
+ Volumes, medium 8vo, dark blue buckram extra, with a cover design
+ by_ GLEESON WHITE, £5, 19_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+ _The following Volumes are ready_:
+
+ Vol. XI. The Case of WAGNER; NIETZSCHE CONTRA WAGNER; THE
+ TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS; THE ANTICHRIST. Translated
+ by THOMAS COMMON. 10_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. VIII. THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Translated by ALEXANDER
+ TILLE, Ph.D. 17_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. X. A GENEALOGY OF MORALS. Translated by WILLIAM A.
+ HAUSSMANN, Ph.D. POEMS. Translated by JOHN GRAY.
+ 8_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+ _The following will appear successively within two or three years_:
+
+ Vol. IX. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. Translated by HELEN ZIMMERN.
+ 10_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. VI. DAWN OF THE DAY. Translated by JOHANNA VOLZ.
+ 13_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. IV. HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN, I. Translated by HELEN ZIMMERN.
+ 13_s._ _NET_.
+
+ Vol. V. HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN, II. Translated by HELEN ZIMMERN.
+ 13_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. VII. JOYFUL SCIENCE. Translated by THOMAS COMMON. Poems
+ Translated by JOHN GRAY. 13_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. II. INOPPORTUNE CONTEMPLATIONS, I. and II. Translated by
+ JOHANNA VOLZ. 7_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. III. INOPPORTUNE CONTEMPLATIONS, III. and IV. Translated by
+ JOHANNA VOLZ. 7_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. I. THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY. Translated by WILLIAM A.
+ HAUSSMANN, Ph.D. 7_s._ _net_.
+
+"Nietzsche is worse than shocking; he is simply awful: his epigrams are
+written with phosphorus or brimstone. The only excuse for reading him is
+that before long you must be prepared either to talk about Nietzsche, or
+else retire from society, especially from aristocratically minded
+society.... His sallies, petulant and impossible as some of them are,
+are the work of a rare spirit, and pregnant with its vitality."--MR
+GEORGE BERNARD SHAW in the _Saturday Review_.
+
+"Lurking behind the intellectual movements of Europe in philosophy as in
+everything else, England is just now beginning to hear of the existence
+of Friedrich Nietzsche."--MR ERNEST NEWMAN in the _Free Review_.
+
+"Nietzsche is, without doubt, an extraordinarily interesting figure ...
+the greatest spiritual force which has appeared since Goethe."--MR
+HAVELOCK ELLIS in the _Savoy_.
+
+
+ FEDERATION AND EMPIRE: A Study in Politics.
+ By THOMAS ALFRED SPALDING, LL.B., Author of "The House of Lords: a
+ Retrospect and a Forecast," "Elizabethan Demonology," &c. _Demy
+ 8vo, dark blue buckram extra_, 10_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+
+ WITH WILSON IN MATABELELAND; OR, SPORT AND WAR IN ZAMBESIA.
+ By MAJOR G.H.W. DONOVAN (of the Army Service Corps). With a Map and
+ Numerous Illustrations from Photographs. _Demy 8vo, dark blue cloth
+ extra_, 18_s._
+
+
+ THE LEGITIMIST KALENDAR FOR 1895.
+ Edited by the MARQUIS DE RUVIGNY and RAINEVAL. With 8 Genealogical
+ Tables and a Portrait of the King and Queen of Spain, France, and
+ Navarre. _Crown 8vo, white art linen, limited to 500 copies_, 5_s._
+ _net_.
+
+"A real curiosity."--_Review of Reviews_.
+
+"It is just possible that the volume may one day obtain a success of
+curiosity, and be eagerly sought after by collectors of odd
+books."--_Athenæum_.
+
+
+ STORIES FROM THE BIBLE.
+ By EVELYN L. FARRAR. With an Introductory Chapter on the
+ Unspeakable Value of Early Lessons in Scripture, by her Father, the
+ Very Rev. F.W. FARRAR, D.D., Dean of Canterbury; and Twelve
+ Illustrations, printed in colour, and a Cover Design, by REGINALD
+ HALLWARD. _Crown 4to, dark green cloth extra_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THE HAPPY OWLS.
+ Told, Drawn, and Lithographed by T. VAN HOYTEMA. Containing Twenty
+ Pictures in four colours, drawn on the stone by the Artist. _Crown
+ 4to, picture boards_, 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THE PASSION FOR ROMANCE.
+ By EDGAR JEPSON, Author of "Sybil Falcon." _Large crown 8vo, gold
+ art canvas_, 6_s._
+
+
+ THE TIDES EBB OUT TO THE NIGHT.
+ Being the Journal of a Young Man, Basil Brooke. Edited by his
+ Friend, HUGH LANGLEY. _Large crown 8vo, crimson art canvas_, 6_s._
+
+
+ LADY LEVALLION.
+ By GEORGE WIDDRINGTON. _Crown 8vo, heliotrope cloth elegant_, 5_s._
+
+
+ WHEN ARNOLD COMES HOME.
+ By MARY E. MANN, Author of "Susannah." With a Frontispiece by ALAN
+ WRIGHT. _Crown 8vo, blue cloth elegant_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THE TYRANTS OF KOOL-SIM.
+ By J. MACLAREN COBBAN, Author of "The Red Sultan." New and Cheaper
+ Edition. With a Frontispiece by ALAN WRIGHT. _Crown 8vo, brown and
+ scarlet cloth extra_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THERE WAS ONCE A PRINCE.
+ By MARY E. MANN, Author of "When Arnold Comes Home." New and
+ Cheaper Edition. With a Frontispiece by ALAN WRIGHT. _Crown 8vo,
+ blue cloth_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+
+
+LONDON: H. HENRY & CO., LTD., 93 St Martin's Lane, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected. Questionable, vintage
+and British spellings have been left as printed in the original
+publication. Variations in spelling have been left as printed, unless
+otherwise noted in the following.
+
+Footnotes in the original text were marked at the page level, beginning
+at footnote 1 each time footnotes appeared on a page. Footnote numbers
+for the whole text have been replaced with sequential footnote numbers,
+from 1 to 36.
+
+Inconsistencies in the use of "St" and "St." as an abbreviation for
+"Saint" have been normalized in this transcription to "St".
+
+Page 238: Transcribed "likes" as "like". As originally printed: "likes
+the _roués_ of the Regency".
+
+Page 343 (footnote 19): The concluding sentence in a quoted letter by
+the author ends with a question mark in the original publication, a
+likely typesetting error for a period at the end of the sentence which
+would agree with the context. The punctuation has been left as printed
+in the original publication.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Recollections of Alexis de
+Tocqueville, by Alexis De Tocqueville
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, by
+Alexis De Tocqueville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville
+
+Author: Alexis De Tocqueville
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira De Mattos
+
+Release Date: October 31, 2011 [EBook #37892]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECOLLECTIONS OF ALEXIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gary Rees and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<big><big><strong>ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE</strong></big></big><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;">
+<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville" title="Alexis de Tocqueville" /><br />
+<span class="caption">Alexis de Tocqueville</span>
+<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+<h1>
+THE RECOLLECTIONS OF<br />
+ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE<br /></h1>
+
+<div class="center"><big><big>EDITED BY THE COMTE DE<br />
+TOCQUEVILLE AND NOW<br />
+FIRST TRANSLATED INTO<br />
+ENGLISH BY ALEXANDER<br />
+TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS<br /></big></big><br /><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<big>WITH A PORTRAIT<br />
+IN HELIOGRAVURE<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<br /></big>
+<big><big>NEW YORK<br />
+THE MACMILLAN CO.<br />
+1896</big></big><br /></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>"C'est tousiours plaisir de veoir les<br />
+choses escriptes par ceulx qui ont essayé<br />
+comme il les faut conduire."
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Montaigne.</span><br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>Alexis de Tocqueville made his entrance in political life in 1839.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> At
+the outbreak of the Revolution of February he was in the prime of his
+age and in the maturity of his talent. He threw himself into the
+struggle, resolving to devote himself to the interests of the country
+and of society, and he was one of the first among those whole-hearted,
+single-minded men who endeavoured to keep the Republic within a wise and
+moderate course by steering clear of the two-fold perils of Cæsarism on
+the one hand and revolution on the other. A dangerous and thankless
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>enterprise, of which the difficulties were never hidden from a mind so
+clear-sighted as his, and of which he soon foresaw the ephemeral
+duration.</p>
+
+<p>After the fall of his short-lived ministry, which had been filled with
+so many cares and such violent agitation, thinking himself removed for a
+time (it was to be for ever) from the conduct of public affairs, he went
+first to Normandy and then to Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples, in search
+of the peace and repose of which he stood in need. The intellect,
+however, but rarely shows itself the docile slave of the will, and his,
+to which idleness was a cause of real suffering, immediately set about
+to seek an object worthy of its attention. This was soon found in the
+great drama of the French Revolution, which attracted him irresistibly,
+and which was destined to form the subject-matter of his most perfect
+work.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time, while Alexis de Tocqueville was also preoccupied by
+the daily increasing gravity of the political situation at home, that he
+wrote the Recollections now first published. These consisted of mere
+notes jotted down at intervals on odds and ends of paper; and it was not
+until the close of his life that, yielding to the persuasions of his
+intimates, he gave a reluctant consent to their publication. He took a
+certain pleasure in thus retracing and, as it were, re-enacting the
+events in which he had taken part, the character of which seemed the
+more transient, and the more important to establish definitely, inasmuch
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>as other events came crowding on, precipitating the crisis and altering
+the aspect of affairs. Thus those travellers who, steering their
+adventurous course through a series of dangerous reefs, alight upon a
+wild and rugged island, where they disembark and live for some days, and
+when about to depart for ever from its shores, throw back upon it a long
+and melancholy gaze before it sinks from their eyes in the immensity of
+the waves. Already the Assembly had lost its independence; the reign of
+constitutional liberty, under which France had lived for thirty-three
+years, was giving way; and, in the words of the famous phrase, "The
+Empire was a fact."</p>
+
+<p>We are to-day well able to judge the period described in these
+Recollections, a period which seems still further removed from us by the
+revolutions, the wars, and even the misfortunes which the country has
+since undergone, and which now only appears to us in that subdued light
+which throws the principal outlines into especial relief, while
+permitting the more observant and penetrating eye to discover also the
+secondary features. Living close enough to those times to receive
+evidence from the lips of survivors, and not so close but that all
+passion has become appeased and all rancour extinguished, we should be
+in a position to lack neither light nor impartiality. As witness, for
+instance, the impression retained by us of the figure of Ledru-Rollin,
+which nevertheless terrified our fathers. We live in a generation which
+has beheld<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> Raoul, Rigault and Delescluze at work. The theories of Louis
+Blanc and Considérant arouse no feeling of astonishment in these days,
+when their ideas have become current coin, and when the majority of
+politicians feel called upon to adopt the badge of some socialism or
+other, whether we call it Christian, State, or revolutionary socialism.
+Cormenin, Marrast and Lamartine belong to history as much as do Sièyes,
+Pétion or Mirabeau; and we are able to judge as freely of the men and
+the events of 1848 as of those of 1830 or 1789.</p>
+
+<p>Alexis de Tocqueville had the rare merit of being able to forestall this
+verdict of posterity; and if we endeavour to discover the secret of this
+prescience, of the loftiness of sight with which he was so specially
+gifted, we shall find that, belonging to no party, he remained above all
+parties; that, depending upon no leader, he kept his hands free; and
+that, possessed of no vulgar ambition, he reserved his energies for the
+noble aim which he had in view&mdash;the triumph of liberty and of the
+dignity of man.</p>
+
+<p>Interest will doubtless be taken in the account contained in these
+Recollections of the revolutionary period, written by one of the
+best-informed of its witnesses, and in the ebbs and flows of the
+short-lived ministry which was conducted with so much talent and
+integrity. But what will be especially welcome is the broad views taken
+by this great mind of our collective history; his profound reflections
+upon the future of the country and of society; the firm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> and
+conscientious opinions which he expresses upon his contemporaries; and
+the portraits drawn by a master hand, always striking and always alive.
+When reading this private record, which has been neither revised nor
+corrected by its author, we seem to approach more closely to the
+sentiments, the desires, the aspirations, I was almost saying the dreams
+of this rare mind, this great heart so ardently pursuing the chimera of
+absolute good that nothing in men or institutions could succeed in
+satisfying it.</p>
+
+<p>Years passed, and the Empire foundered amid terrible disaster. Alexis de
+Tocqueville was no more; and we may say that this proved at that time an
+irreparable loss to his country. Who knows what part he might have been
+called upon to play, what influence he could have brought to bear to
+unmask the guilty intrigues and baffle the mean ambitions under whose
+load, after the lapse of more than twenty years, we are still
+staggering? Enlightened by his harsh experience of 1848, would he have
+once again tried the experiment, which can never be more than an eternal
+stop-gap, of governing the Republic with the support of the Monarchists?
+Or rather, persuaded as he was that "the republican form of government
+is not the best suited to the needs of France," that this "government
+without stability always promises more, but gives less, liberty than a
+Constitutional Monarchy," would he not have appealed to the latter to
+protect the liberty so dear to him? One thing is certain, that he would
+never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> have "subordinated to the necessity of maintaining his position
+that of remaining true to himself."</p>
+
+<p>We have thought that the present generation, which so rarely has the
+opportunity of beholding a man of character, would take pleasure in
+becoming acquainted with this great and stately figure; in spending some
+short moments in those lofty regions, in which it may learn a powerful
+lesson and find an example of public life in its noblest form, ever
+faithful to its early aspirations, ever filled with two great ideas: the
+cult of honour and the passion of liberty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Comte de Tocqueville.</span><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> At the age of 34. Alexis Clérel de Tocqueville was born in
+1805 at Verneuil. His father was the Comte de Tocqueville, who was made
+a peer of France and a prefect under the Restoration; his mother, <em>née</em>
+Mlle. de Rosambo, was a grand-daughter of Malesherbes. Alexis de
+Tocqueville was appointed an assistant judge, and in 1831 was sent to
+America, in company with G. de Beaumont to study the penal system in
+that continent. On his return he published a treatise on this subject;
+and in 1835 appeared his great work on American Democracy, which secured
+his election to the Academy of Moral Science in 1839 and to the French
+Academy in 1841. Two years earlier he had been sent to the Chamber as
+deputy for the arrondissement of Valognes in Normandy, in which the
+paternal property of Tocqueville was situated; and this seat he retained
+until his withdrawal from political life. He died in 1859.&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de M.</span><br /><br /></div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<br /><big><a href="#PART_THE_FIRST">PART THE FIRST</a></big>
+<br /><br /><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br />
+</div>
+<div class="ralign"><small>PAGE</small></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Origin and Character of these Recollections&mdash;General
+aspect of the period preceding the Revolution of
+1848&mdash;Preliminary symptoms of the Revolution</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The Banquets&mdash;Sense of security entertained by the
+Government&mdash;Anxiety of Leaders of the Opposition&mdash;Arraignment
+of Ministers</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Troubles of the 22nd of February&mdash;The Sitting of the
+23rd&mdash;The New Ministry&mdash;Opinions of M. Dufaure and
+M. de Beaumont</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The 24th of February&mdash;The Ministers' Plan of Resistance&mdash;The
+National Guard&mdash;General Bedeau</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The Sitting of the Chamber&mdash;Madame la Duchesse D'Orléans&mdash;The
+Provisional Government</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br /></div>
+<div class="center"><big><a href="#PART_THE_SECOND">PART THE SECOND</a></big><br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_Ia">CHAPTER I</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">My Explanation of the 24th of February, and my views
+as to its effects upon the future</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIa">CHAPTER II</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Paris on the morrow of the 24th of February and the
+next days&mdash;The socialistic character of the New
+Revolution</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIa">CHAPTER III</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Vacillation of the Members of the Old Parliament as to
+the attitude they should adopt&mdash;My own reflections
+on my mode of action, and my resolves</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IVa">CHAPTER IV</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">My candidature of the department of la Manche&mdash;The
+aspect of the country&mdash;The General Election</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_Va">CHAPTER V</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The First Sitting of the Constituent Assembly&mdash;The
+appearance of this Assembly</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIa">CHAPTER VI</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">My relations with Lamartine&mdash;His Subterfuges</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIa">CHAPTER VII</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The 15th of May 1848</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIa">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The Feast of Concord and the preparations for the Days
+of June</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IXa">CHAPTER IX</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The Days of June</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_Xa">CHAPTER X</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap">The Days of June</span>&mdash;(<em>continued</em>)<span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI12">CHAPTER XI</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">The Committee for the Constitution</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><big><a href="#PART_THE_THIRD">PART THE THIRD</a></big><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span><br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_Ib">CHAPTER I</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">My return to France&mdash;Formation of the Cabinet</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_263">263</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIb">CHAPTER II</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Aspect of the Cabinet&mdash;Its first Acts until after the
+insurrectionary attempts of the 13th of June</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIb">CHAPTER III</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Our domestic policy&mdash;Internal quarrels in the Cabinet&mdash;Its
+difficulties in its relations with the Majority
+and the President</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IVb">CHAPTER IV</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Foreign Affairs</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><big><a href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX</a></big><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#I">I</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Gustave de Beaumont's version of the 24th of February</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_379">379</a></span><br />
+<br /></div>
+<div class="center"><a href="#II">II</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Barrot's version of the 24th of February</span>(<em>10 October 1850</em>)<span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></span><br />
+<br /></div>
+<div class="center"><a href="#III">III</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">Some incidents of the 24th of February 1848</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_389">389</a></span><br />
+<br /></div>
+<div class="center"><a href="#A1">1</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="toc2">M. Dufaure's efforts to prevent the Revolution of February&mdash;Responsibility
+of M. Thiers, which renders them futile</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_389">389</a></span><br />
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#A2">2</a><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="toc2">Dufaure's conduct on the 24th of February 1848</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_392">392</a></span><br />
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="center"><a href="#IV">IV</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap2">My conversation with Berryer, on the 21st of June, at an
+appointment which I had given him at my house. We
+were both Members of the Committee for the revision
+of the Constitution</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_394">394</a></span><br />
+<br /></div>
+
+<div><span class="smcap">Index</span><span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_399">399</a></span><br /></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PART_THE_FIRST" id="PART_THE_FIRST"></a>PART THE FIRST</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><em>Written in July 1850, at Tocqueville.</em></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p>
+<h2>ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE</h2>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THESE RECOLLECTIONS&mdash;GENERAL ASPECT OF THE
+PERIOD PRECEDING THE REVOLUTION OF 1848&mdash;PRELIMINARY SYMPTOMS OF
+THE REVOLUTION.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Removed for a time from the scene of public life, I am constrained, in
+the midst of my solitude, to turn my thoughts upon myself, or rather to
+reflect upon contemporary events in which I have taken part or acted as
+a witness. And it seems to me that the best use I can make of my leisure
+is to retrace these events, to portray the men who took part in them
+under my eyes, and thus to seize and engrave, if I can, upon my memory
+the confused features which compose the disturbed physiognomy of my
+time.</p>
+
+<p>In taking this resolve I have taken another, to which I shall be no less
+true: these recollections shall be a relaxation of the mind rather than
+a contribution to literature. I write them for myself alone. They shall
+be a mirror in which I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> amuse myself in contemplating my
+contemporaries and myself; not a picture painted for the public. My most
+intimate friends shall not see them, for I wish to retain the liberty of
+depicting them as I shall depict myself, without flattery. I wish to
+arrive truly at the secret motives which have caused them, and me, and
+others to act; and, when discovered, to reveal them here. In a word, I
+wish this expression of my recollections to be a sincere one; and to
+effect this, it is essential that it should remain absolutely secret.</p>
+
+<p>I intend that my recollections shall not go farther back than the
+Revolution of 1848, nor extend to a later date than the 30th of October
+1849, the day upon which I resigned my office. It is only within these
+limits that the events which I propose to relate have any importance, or
+that my position has enabled me to observe them well.</p>
+
+<p>My life was passed, although in a comparatively secluded fashion, in the
+midst of the parliamentary world of the closing years of the Monarchy of
+July. Nevertheless, it would be no easy task for me to recall distinctly
+the events of a period so little removed from the present, and yet
+leaving so confused a trace in my memory. The thread of my recollections
+is lost amid the whirl of minor incidents, of paltry ideas, of petty
+passions, of personal views and contradictory opinions in which the life
+of public men was at that time spent. All that remains vivid in my mind
+is the general aspect of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> the period; for I often regarded it with a
+curiosity mingled with dread, and I clearly discerned the special
+features by which it was characterized.</p>
+
+<p>Our history from 1789 to 1830, if viewed from a distance and as a whole,
+affords as it were the picture of a struggle to the death between the
+Ancien Régime, its traditions, memories, hopes, and men, as represented
+by the aristocracy, and New France under the leadership of the middle
+class. The year 1830 closed the first period of our revolutions, or
+rather of our revolution: for there is but one, which has remained
+always the same in the face of varying fortunes, of which our fathers
+witnessed the commencement, and of which we, in all probability, shall
+not live to behold the end. In 1830 the triumph of the middle class had
+been definite and so thorough that all political power, every franchise,
+every prerogative, and the whole government was confined and, as it
+were, heaped up within the narrow limits of this one class, to the
+statutory exclusion of all beneath them and the actual exclusion of all
+above. Not only did it thus alone rule society, but it may be said to
+have formed it. It ensconced itself in every vacant place, prodigiously
+augmented the number of places, and accustomed itself to live almost as
+much upon the Treasury as upon its own industry.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the Revolution of 1830 become an accomplished fact, than
+there ensued a great lull in political passion, a sort of general
+subsidence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> accompanied by a rapid increase in the public wealth. The
+particular spirit of the middle class became the general spirit of the
+government; it ruled the latter's foreign policy as well as affairs at
+home: an active, industrious spirit, often dishonourable, generally
+sober, occasionally reckless through vanity or egoism, but timid by
+temperament, moderate in all things, except in its love of ease and
+comfort, and wholly undistinguished. It was a spirit which, mingled with
+that of the people or of the aristocracy, can do wonders; but which, by
+itself, will never produce more than a government shorn of both virtue
+and greatness. Master of everything in a manner that no aristocracy had
+ever been or may ever hope to be, the middle class, when called upon to
+assume the government, took it up as a trade; it entrenched itself
+behind its power, and before long, in their egoism, each of its members
+thought much more of his private business than of public affairs, and of
+his personal enjoyment than of the greatness of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Posterity, which sees none but the more dazzling crimes, and which loses
+sight, in general, of mere vices, will never, perhaps, know to what
+extent the government of that day, towards its close, assumed the ways
+of a trading company, which conducts all its transactions with a view to
+the profits accruing to the shareholders. These vices were due to the
+natural instincts of the dominant class, to the absoluteness of its
+power, and also to the character<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> of the time. Possibly also King
+Louis-Philippe had contributed to their growth.</p>
+
+<p>This Prince was a singular medley of qualities, and one must have known
+him longer and more nearly than I did to be able to portray him in
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, although I was never one of his Council, I have frequently
+had occasion to come into contact with him. The last time that I spoke
+to him was shortly before the catastrophe of February. I was then
+director of the Académie Française, and I had to bring to the King's
+notice some matter or other which concerned that body. After treating
+the question which had brought me, I was about to retire, when the King
+detained me, took a chair, motioned me to another, and said, affably:</p>
+
+<p>"Since you are here, Monsieur de Tocqueville, let us talk; I want to
+hear you talk a little about America."</p>
+
+<p>I knew him well enough to know that this meant: I shall talk about
+America myself. And he did actually talk of it at great length and very
+searchingly: it was not possible for me, nor did I desire, to get in a
+word, for he really interested me. He described places as though he saw
+them before him; he recalled the distinguished men whom he had met forty
+years ago as though he had seen them the day before; he mentioned their
+names in full, Christian name and surname, gave their ages at the time,
+related their histories, their pedigrees,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> their posterity, with
+marvellous exactness and with infinite, though in no way tedious,
+detail. From America he returned, without taking breath, to Europe,
+talked of all our foreign and domestic affairs with incredible
+unconstraint (for I had no title to his confidence), spoke very badly of
+the Emperor of Russia, whom he called "Monsieur Nicolas," casually
+alluded to Lord Palmerston as a rogue, and ended by holding forth at
+length on the Spanish marriages, which had just taken place, and the
+annoyances to which they subjected him on the side of England.</p>
+
+<p>"The Queen is very angry with me," he said, "and displays great
+irritation; but, after all," he added, "all this outcry won't keep me
+from <em>driving my own cart</em>."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>Although this phrase dated back to the Old Order, I felt inclined to
+doubt whether Louis XIV. ever made use of it on accepting the Spanish
+Succession. I believe, moreover, that Louis-Philippe was mistaken, and,
+to borrow his own language, that the Spanish marriage helped not a
+little to upset his cart.</p>
+
+<p>After three-quarters of an hour, the King rose, thanked me for the
+pleasure my conversation had given him (I had not spoken four words),
+and dismissed me, feeling evidently as delighted as one generally is
+with a man before whom one thinks one has spoken well. This was my last
+audience of the King.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Louis-Philippe improvised all the replies which he made, even upon the
+most critical occasions, to the great State bodies; he was as fluent
+then as in his private conversation, although not so happy or
+epigrammatic. He would suddenly become obscure, for the reason that he
+boldly plunged headlong into long sentences, of which he was not able to
+estimate the extent nor perceive the end beforehand, and from which he
+finally emerged struggling and by force, shattering the sense, and not
+completing the thought.</p>
+
+<p>In this political world thus constituted and conducted, what was most
+wanting, particularly towards the end, was political life itself. It
+could neither come into being nor be maintained within the legal circle
+which the Constitution had traced for it: the old aristocracy was
+vanquished, the people excluded. As all business was discussed among
+members of one class, in the interest and in the spirit of that class,
+there was no battle-field for contending parties to meet upon. This
+singular homogeneity of position, of interests, and consequently of
+views, reigning in what M. Guizot had once called the legal country,
+deprived the parliamentary debates of all originality, of all reality,
+and therefore of all genuine passion. I have spent ten years of my life
+in the company of truly great minds, who were in a constant state of
+agitation without succeeding in heating themselves, and who spent all
+their perspicacity in vain endeavours to find subjects upon which they
+could seriously disagree.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the preponderating influence which King
+Louis-Philippe had acquired in public affairs, which never permitted the
+politicians to stray very far from that Prince's ideas, lest they should
+at the same time be removed from power, reduced the different colours of
+parties to the merest shades, and debates to the splitting of straws. I
+doubt whether any parliament (not excepting the Constituent Assembly, I
+mean the true one, that of 1789) ever contained more varied and
+brilliant talents than did ours during the closing years of the Monarchy
+of July. Nevertheless, I am able to declare that these great orators
+were tired to death of listening to one another, and, what was worse,
+the whole country was tired of listening to them. It grew unconsciously
+accustomed to look upon the debates in the Chambers as exercises of the
+intellect rather than as serious discussions, and upon all the
+differences between the various parliamentary parties&mdash;the majority, the
+left centre, or the dynastic opposition&mdash;as domestic quarrels between
+children of one family trying to trick one another. A few glaring
+instances of corruption, discovered by accident, led it to presuppose a
+number of hidden cases, and convinced it that the whole of the governing
+class was corrupt; whence it conceived for the latter a silent contempt,
+which was generally taken for confiding and contented submission.</p>
+
+<p>The country was at that time divided into two unequal parts, or rather
+zones: in the upper, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> alone was intended to contain the whole of
+the nation's political life, there reigned nothing but languor,
+impotence, stagnation, and boredom; in the lower, on the contrary,
+political life began to make itself manifest by means of feverish and
+irregular signs, of which the attentive observer was easily able to
+seize the meaning.</p>
+
+<p>I was one of these observers; and although I was far from imagining that
+the catastrophe was so near at hand and fated to be so terrible, I felt
+a distrust springing up and insensibly growing in my mind, and the idea
+taking root more and more that we were making strides towards a fresh
+revolution. This denoted a great change in my thoughts; since the
+general appeasement and flatness that followed the Revolution of July
+had led me to believe for a long time that I was destined to spend my
+life amid an enervated and peaceful society. Indeed, anyone who had only
+examined the inside of the governmental fabric would have had the same
+conviction. Everything there seemed combined to produce with the
+machinery of liberty a preponderance of royal power which verged upon
+despotism; and, in fact, this result was produced almost without effort
+by the regular and tranquil movement of the machine. King Louis-Philippe
+was persuaded that, so long as he did not himself lay hand upon that
+fine instrument, and allowed it to work according to rule, he was safe
+from all peril. His only occupation was to keep it in order, and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+make it work according to his own views, forgetful of society, upon
+which this ingenious piece of mechanism rested; he resembled the man who
+refused to believe that his house was on fire, because he had the key in
+his pocket. I had neither the same interests nor the same cares, and
+this permitted me to see through the mechanism of institutions and the
+agglomeration of petty every-day facts, and to observe the state of
+morals and opinions in the country. There I clearly beheld the
+appearance of several of the portents that usually denote the approach
+of revolutions, and I began to believe that in 1830 I had taken for the
+end of the play what was nothing more than the end of an act.</p>
+
+<p>A short unpublished document which I composed at the time, and a speech
+which I delivered early in 1848, will bear witness to these
+preoccupations of my mind.</p>
+
+<p>A number of my friends in Parliament met together in October 1847, to
+decide upon the policy to be adopted during the ensuing session. It was
+agreed that we should issue a programme in the form of a manifesto, and
+the task of drawing it up was deputed to me. Later, the idea of this
+publication was abandoned, but I had already written the document. I
+have discovered it among my papers, and I give the following extracts.
+After commenting on the symptoms of languor in Parliament, I continued:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"... The time will come when the country will find itself once
+again divided between two great parties. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>The French Revolution,
+which abolished all privileges and destroyed all exclusive rights,
+has allowed one to remain, that of landed property. Let not the
+landlords deceive themselves as to the strength of their position,
+nor think that the rights of property form an insurmountable
+barrier because they have not as yet been surmounted; for our times
+are unlike any others. When the rights of property were merely the
+origin and commencement of a number of other rights, they were
+easily defended, or rather, they were never attacked; they then
+formed the surrounding wall of society, of which all other rights
+were the outposts; no blows reached them; no serious attempt was
+ever made to touch them. But to-day, when the rights of property
+are nothing more than the last remnants of an overthrown
+aristocratic world; when they alone are left intact, isolated
+privileges amid the universal levelling of society; when they are
+no longer protected behind a number of still more controversible
+and odious rights, the case is altered, and they alone are left
+daily to resist the direct and unceasing shock of democratic
+opinion....</p>
+
+<p>"... Before long, the political struggle will be restricted to
+those who have and those who have not; property will form the great
+field of battle; and the principal political questions will turn
+upon the more or less important modifications to be introduced into
+the rights of landlords. We shall then have once more among us
+great public agitations and great political parties.</p>
+
+<p>"How is it that these premonitory symptoms escape the general view?
+Can anyone believe that it is by accident, through some passing
+whim of the human brain, that we see appearing on every side these
+curious doctrines, bearing different titles, but all characterized
+in their essence by their denial of the rights of property, and all
+tending, at least, to limit, diminish, and weaken the exercise of
+these rights? Who can fail here to recognise the final symptom of
+the old democratic disease of the time, whose crisis would seem to
+be at hand?"</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was still more urgent and explicit in the speech which I delivered in
+the Chamber of Deputies on the 29th of January 1848, and which appeared
+in the <em>Moniteur</em> of the 30th.</p>
+
+<p>I quote the principal passages:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"... I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots;
+I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface
+of society, there is no revolution at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are deceived. True,
+there is no actual disorder; but it has entered deeply into men's
+minds. See what is passing in the breasts of the working classes,
+who, I grant, are at present quiet. No doubt they are not disturbed
+by political passion, properly so-called, to the same extent that
+they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of
+political, have become social? Do you not see that there are
+gradually forming in their breasts opinions and ideas which are
+destined not only to upset this or that law, ministry, or even form
+of government, but society itself, until it totters upon the
+foundations on which it rests to-day? Do you not listen to what
+they say to themselves each day? Do you not hear them repeating
+unceasingly that all that is above them is incapable and unworthy
+of governing them; that the present distribution of goods
+throughout the world is unjust; that property rests on a foundation
+which is not an equitable foundation? And do you not realize that
+when such opinions take root, when they spread in an almost
+universal manner, when they sink deeply into the masses, they are
+bound to bring with them sooner or later, I know not when nor how,
+a most formidable revolution?</p>
+
+<p>"This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that we are
+at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly convinced of
+it....</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>"... I was saying just now that this evil would, sooner or later, I
+know not how nor whence it will come, bring with it a most serious
+revolution: be assured that that is so.</p>
+
+<p>"When I come to investigate what, at different times, in different
+periods, among different peoples, has been the effective cause that
+has brought about the downfall of the governing classes, I perceive
+this or that event, man, or accidental or superficial cause; but,
+believe me, the real reason, the effective reason which causes men
+to lose their power is, that they have become unworthy to retain
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Think, gentlemen, of the old Monarchy: it was stronger than you
+are, stronger in its origin; it was able to lean more than you do
+upon ancient customs, ancient habits, ancient beliefs; it was
+stronger than you are, and yet it has fallen to dust. And why did
+it fall? Do you think it was by some particular mischance? Do you
+think it was by the act of some man, by the deficit, the oath in
+the Tennis Court, La Fayette, Mirabeau? No, gentlemen; there was
+another reason: the class that was then the governing class had
+become, through its indifference, its selfishness and its vices,
+incapable and unworthy of governing the country.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the true reason.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, gentlemen, if it is right to have this patriotic prejudice
+at all times, how much more is it not right to have it in our own?
+Do you not feel, by some intuitive instinct which is not capable of
+analysis, but which is undeniable, that the earth is quaking once
+again in Europe? Do you not feel ... what shall I say? ... as it
+were a gale of revolution in the air? This gale, no one knows
+whence it springs, whence it blows, nor, believe me, whom it will
+carry with it; and it is in such times as these that you remain
+calm before the degradation of public morality&mdash;for the expression
+is not too strong.</p>
+
+<p>"I speak without bitterness; I am even addressing you without any
+party spirit; I am attacking men against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> whom I feel no
+vindictiveness. But I am obliged to communicate to my country my
+firm and decided conviction. Well then, my firm and decided
+conviction is this: that public morality is being degraded, and
+that the degradation of public morality will shortly, very shortly,
+perhaps, bring down upon you a new revolution. Is the life of kings
+held by stronger threads? Are these more difficult to snap than
+those of other men? Can you say to-day that you are certain of
+to-morrow? Do you know what may happen in France a year hence, or
+even a month or a day hence? You do not know; but what you must
+know is that the tempest is looming on the horizon, that it is
+coming towards us. Will you allow it to take you by surprise?</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, I implore you not to do so. I do not ask you, I implore
+you. I would gladly throw myself on my knees before you, so
+strongly do I believe in the reality and the seriousness of the
+danger, so convinced am I that my warnings are no empty rhetoric.
+Yes, the danger is great. Allay it while there is yet time; correct
+the evil by efficacious remedies, by attacking it not in its
+symptoms but in itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Legislative changes have been spoken of. I am greatly disposed to
+think that these changes are not only very useful, but necessary;
+thus, I believe in the need of electoral reform, in the urgency of
+parliamentary reform; but I am not, gentlemen, so mad as not to
+know that no laws can affect the destinies of nations. No, it is
+not the mechanism of laws that produces great events, gentlemen,
+but the inner spirit of the government. Keep the laws as they are,
+if you wish. I think you would be very wrong to do so; but keep
+them. Keep the men, too, if it gives you any pleasure. I raise no
+objection so far as I am concerned. But, in God's name, change the
+spirit of the government; for, I repeat, that spirit will lead you
+to the abyss."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p></blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+<p>These gloomy predictions were received with ironical cheers from the
+majority. The Opposition applauded loudly, but more from party feeling
+than conviction. The truth is that no one as yet believed seriously in
+the danger which I was prophesying, although we were so near the
+catastrophe. The inveterate habit contracted by all the politicians,
+during this long parliamentary farce, of over-colouring the expression
+of their opinions and grossly exaggerating their thoughts had deprived
+them of all power of appreciating what was real and true. For several
+years the majority had every day been declaring that the Opposition was
+imperilling society; and the Opposition repeated incessantly that the
+Ministers were ruining the Monarchy. These statements had been made so
+constantly on both sides, without either side greatly believing in them,
+that they ended by not believing in them at all, at the very moment when
+the event was about to justify both of them. Even my own friends
+themselves thought that I had overshot the mark, and that my facts were
+a little blurred by rhetoric.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that, when I stepped from the tribune, Dufaure took me on one
+side, and said, with that sort of parliamentary intuition which is his
+only note of genius:</p>
+
+<p>"You have succeeded, but you would have succeeded much more if you had
+not gone so far beyond the feeling of the Assembly and tried to frighten
+us."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And now that I am face to face with myself, searching in my memory to
+discover whether I was actually myself so much alarmed as I seemed, the
+answer is no, and I readily recognise that the event justified me more
+promptly and more completely than I foresaw (a thing which may sometimes
+have happened to other political prophets, better authorized to predict
+than I was). No, I did not expect such a revolution as we were destined
+to have; and who could have expected it? I did, I believe, perceive more
+clearly than the others the general causes which were making for the
+event; but I did not observe the accidents which were to precipitate it.
+Meantime the days which still separated us from the catastrophe passed
+rapidly by.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "<em>Mener mon fiacre</em>": to drive my hackney-coach.&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de
+M.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> This speech was delivered in the Chamber of Deputies on the
+27th of January 1848, in the debate on the Address in reply to the
+Speech from the Throne.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cte. de T.</span></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE BANQUETS&mdash;SENSE OF SECURITY ENTERTAINED BY THE
+GOVERNMENT&mdash;ANXIETY OF LEADERS OF THE OPPOSITION&mdash;ARRAIGNMENT OF
+MINISTERS.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I refused to take part in the affair of the banquets. I had both serious
+and petty reasons for abstaining. What I call my petty reasons I am
+quite willing to describe as bad reasons, although they were consistent
+with honour, and would have been unexceptionable in a private matter.
+They were the irritation and disgust aroused in me by the character and
+by the tactics of the leaders of this enterprise. Nevertheless, I
+confess that the private prejudice which we entertain with regard to
+individuals is a bad guide in politics.</p>
+
+<p>A close alliance had at that time been effected between M. Thiers and M.
+Barrot, and a real fusion formed between the two sections of the
+Opposition, which, in our parliamentary jargon, we called the Left
+Centre and the Left. Almost all the stubborn and intractable spirits
+which were found in the latter party had successively been softened,
+unbent, subjugated, made supple, by the promises of place spread
+broadcast by M. Thiers. I believe that even M. Barrot had for the first
+time allowed himself not exactly to be won over, but surprised,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> by
+arguments of this kind. At any rate, the most complete intimacy reigned
+between the two great leaders of the Opposition, whatever was the cause
+of it, and M. Barrot, who likes to mingle a little simplicity with his
+weaknesses as well as with his virtues, exerted himself to his utmost to
+secure the triumph of his ally, even at his own expense. M. Thiers had
+allowed him to involve himself in this matter of the banquets; I even
+think that he had instigated Barrot in that direction without consenting
+to involve himself. He was willing to accept the results, but not the
+responsibilities, of that dangerous agitation. Wherefore, surrounded by
+his personal friends, he stayed mute and motionless in Paris, while
+Barrot travelled all over the country for three months, making long
+speeches in every town he stopped at, and resembling, in my opinion,
+those beaters who make a great noise in order to bring the game within
+easy range of the sportsman's gun. Personally, I felt no inclination to
+take part in the sport. But the principal and more serious reason which
+restrained me was this: and I expounded it pretty often to those who
+wanted to drag me to those political meetings:</p>
+
+<p>"For the first time for eighteen years," I used to tell them, "you are
+proposing to appeal to the people, and to seek support outside the
+middle class. If you fail in rousing the people (and I think this will
+be the most probable result), you will become still more odious than you
+already are in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> the eyes of the Government and of the middle classes,
+who for a great part support it. In this way you will strengthen the
+administration which you desire to upset; while if, on the contrary, you
+succeed in rousing the people, you are no more able than I am to foresee
+whither an agitation of this kind will lead you."</p>
+
+<p>In the measure that the campaign of the banquets was prolonged, the
+latter hypothesis became, contrary to my expectation, the more probable.
+A certain anxiety began to oppress the ringleaders themselves; an
+indefinite anxiety, passing vaguely through their minds. I was told by
+Beaumont, who was at that time one of the first among them, that the
+excitement occasioned in the country by the banquets surpassed not only
+the hopes, but the wishes, of those who had started it. The latter were
+labouring to allay rather than increase it. Their intention was that
+there should be no banquet in Paris, and that there should be none held
+anywhere after the assembling of the Chambers. The fact is that they
+were only seeking a way out of the mischievous road which they had
+entered upon. And it was undoubtedly in spite of them that this final
+banquet was resolved on; they were constrained to take part in it, drawn
+into it; their vanity was compromised. The Government, by its defiance,
+goaded the Opposition into adopting this dangerous measure, thinking
+thus to drive it to destruction. The Opposition let itself be caught in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+a spirit of bravado, and lest it should be suspected of retreating; and
+thus irritating each other, spurring one another on, they dragged each
+other towards the common abyss, which neither of them as yet perceived.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that two days before the Revolution of February, at the
+Turkish Ambassador's ball, I met Duvergier de Hauranne. I felt for him
+both friendship and esteem; although he possessed very nearly all the
+failings that arise from party spirit, he at least joined to them the
+sort of disinterestedness and sincerity which one meets with in genuine
+passions, two rare advantages in our day, when the only genuine passion
+is that of self. I said to him, with the familiarity warranted by our
+relations:</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, my friend; you are playing a dangerous game."</p>
+
+<p>He replied gravely, but with no sign of fear:</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, all will end well; besides, one must risk something. There
+is no free government that has not had to go through a similar
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>This reply perfectly describes this determined but somewhat narrow
+character; narrow, I say, although with plenty of brain, but with the
+brain which, while seeing clearly and in detail all that is on the
+horizon, is incapable of conceiving that the horizon may change;
+scholarly, disinterested, ardent, vindictive, sprung from that learned
+and sectarian race which guides itself in politics by imitation of
+others and by historical recollection, and which restricts its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> thought
+to one sole idea, at which it warms, in which it blinds itself.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, the Government were even less uneasy than the leaders of
+the Opposition. A few days before the above conversation, I had had
+another with Duchâtel, the Minister of the Interior. I was on good terms
+with this minister, although for the last eight years I had been very
+boldly (even too boldly, I confess, in the case of its foreign policy)
+attacking the Cabinet of which he was one of the principal members. I am
+not sure that this fault did not even make me find favour in his eyes,
+for I believe that at the bottom of his heart he had a sneaking fondness
+for those who attacked his colleague at the Foreign Office, M. Guizot. A
+battle which M. Duchâtel and I had fought some years before in favour of
+the penitentiary system had brought us together and given rise to a
+certain intimacy between us. This man was very unlike the one I
+mentioned above: he was as heavy in his person and his manners as the
+other was meagre, angular, and sometimes trenchant and bitter. He was as
+remarkable for his scepticism as the other for his ardent convictions,
+for flabby indifference as the former for feverish activity; he
+possessed a very supple, very quick, very subtle mind enclosed in a
+massive body; he understood business admirably, while pretending to be
+above it; he was thoroughly acquainted with the evil passions of
+mankind, and especially with the evil passions of his party, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> always
+knew how to turn them to advantage. He was free from all rancour and
+prejudice, cordial in his address, easy of approach, obliging, whenever
+his own interests were not compromised, and bore a kindly contempt for
+his fellow-creatures.</p>
+
+<p>I was about to say that, some days before the catastrophe, I drew M.
+Duchâtel into a corner of the conference room, and observed to him that
+the Government and the Opposition seemed to be striving in concert to
+drive things to an extremity calculated to end by damaging everybody;
+and I asked him if he saw no honest way of escape from a regrettable
+position, some honourable transaction which would permit everyone to
+draw back. I added that my friends and I would be happy to have such a
+way pointed out to us, and that we would make every exertion to persuade
+our colleagues in the Opposition to accept it. He listened attentively
+to my remarks, and assured me that he understood my meaning, although I
+saw clearly that he did not enter into it for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Things had reached such a pitch," he said, "that the expedient which I
+sought was no longer to be found. The Government was in the right, and
+could not yield. If the Opposition persisted in its course, the result
+might be a combat in the streets, but this combat had long been
+foreseen, and if the Government was animated with the evil passions with
+which it was credited, it would desire this fighting rather than dread
+it, being sure to triumph in the end."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He went on in his complaisant fashion to tell me in detail of all the
+military precautions that had been taken, the extent of the resources,
+the number of the troops, and the quantity of ammunition.... I took my
+leave, satisfied that the Government, without exactly striving to
+promote an outbreak, was far from dreading one, and that the Ministry,
+in its certainty of ultimate victory, saw in the threatening catastrophe
+possibly its last means of rallying its scattered supporters and of
+finally reducing its adversaries to powerlessness. I confess that I
+thought as he did; his air of unfeigned assurance had proved contagious.</p>
+
+<p>The only really uneasy people in Paris at that moment were the Radical
+chiefs and the men who were sufficiently in touch with the people and
+the revolutionary party to know what was taking place in that quarter. I
+have reason to believe that most of these looked with dread upon the
+events which were ready to burst forth, whether because they kept up the
+tradition of their former passions rather than these passions
+themselves, or because they had begun to grow accustomed to a state of
+things in which they had taken up their position after so many times
+cursing it; or again, because they were doubtful of success; or rather
+because, being in a position to study and become well acquainted with
+their allies, they were frightened at the last moment of the victory
+which they expected to gain through their aid. On the very day before
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> outbreak, Madame de Lamartine betrayed extraordinary anxiety when
+calling upon Madame de Tocqueville, and gave such unmistakable signs of
+a mind heated and almost deranged by ominous thoughts that the latter
+became alarmed, and told me of it the same evening.</p>
+
+<p>It is not one of the least curious characteristics of this singular
+revolution that the incident which led to it was brought about and
+almost longed for by the men whom it eventually precipitated from power,
+and that it was only foreseen and feared by those who were to triumph by
+its means.</p>
+
+<p>Here let me for a moment resume the chain of history, so that I may the
+more easily attach to it the thread of my personal recollections.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that, at the opening of the session of 1848, King
+Louis-Philippe, in his Speech from the Throne, had described the authors
+of the banquets as men excited by blind or hostile passions. This was
+bringing Royalty into direct conflict with more than one hundred members
+of the Chamber. This insult, which added anger to all the ambitious
+passions which were already disturbing the hearts of the majority of
+these men, ended by making them lose their reason. A violent debate was
+expected, but did not take place at once. The earlier discussions on the
+Address were calm: the majority and the Opposition both restrained
+themselves at the commencement, like two men who feel that they have
+lost their tempers, and who fear lest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> while in that condition they
+should perpetrate some folly in word or deed.</p>
+
+<p>But the storm of passion broke out at last, and continued with
+unaccustomed violence. The extraordinary heat of these debates was
+already redolent of civil war for those who knew how to scent
+revolutions from afar.</p>
+
+<p>The spokesmen of the moderate section of the Opposition were led, in the
+heat of debate, to assert that the right of assembling at the banquets
+was one of our most undeniable and essential rights;<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> that to question
+it, was equivalent to trampling liberty itself underfoot and to
+violating the Charter, and that those who did so unconsciously made an
+appeal, not to discussion, but to arms. On his side M. Duchâtel, who
+ordinarily was very dexterous in debate, displayed in this circumstance
+a consummate want of tact.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> He absolutely denied the right of
+assemblage, and yet would not say clearly that the Government had made
+up its mind to prohibit thenceforth any manifestations of the kind. On
+the contrary, he seemed to invite the Opposition to try the experiment
+once more, so that the question might be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> brought before the Courts. His
+colleague, M. Hébert, the Minister of Justice, was still more tactless,
+but this was his habit. I have always observed that lawyers never make
+statesmen; but I have never met anyone who was less of a statesman than
+M. Hébert. He remained the Public-Prosecutor down to the marrow of his
+bones; he had all the mental and physical characteristics of that
+office. You must imagine a little wizened, sorry face, shrunk at the
+temples, with a pointed forehead, nose and chin, cold, bright eyes, and
+thin, in-drawn lips. Add to this a long quill generally held across the
+mouth, and looking at a distance like a cat's bristling whiskers, and
+you have a portrait of a man, than whom I have never seen anyone more
+resembling a carnivorous animal. At the same time, he was neither stupid
+nor even ill-natured; but he was by nature hot-headed and unyielding; he
+always overshot his goal, for want of knowing when to turn aside or stop
+still; and he fell into violence without intending it, and from sheer
+want of discrimination. It showed how little importance M. Guizot
+attached to conciliation, that under the circumstances he sent a speaker
+of this stamp into the tribune;<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> his language while there was so
+outrageous and so provoking that Barrot, quite beside himself and almost
+without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> knowing what he was doing, exclaimed, in a voice half stifled
+with rage, that the ministers of Charles X., that Polignac and
+Peyronnet, had never dared to talk like that. I remember that I
+shuddered involuntarily in my seat when I heard this naturally moderate
+man exasperated into recalling, for the first time, the terrible
+memories of the Revolution of 1830, holding it up in some sort as an
+example, and unconsciously suggesting the idea of repeating it.</p>
+
+<p>The result of this heated discussion was a sort of challenge to mortal
+combat exchanged between the Government and the Opposition, the scene of
+the duel to be the law-courts. It was tacitly agreed that the challenged
+party should meet at one final banquet; that the authorities, without
+interfering to prevent the meeting, should prosecute its organizers, and
+that the courts should pronounce judgment.</p>
+
+<p>The debates on the Address were closed, if I remember rightly, on the
+12th of February, and it is really from this moment that the
+revolutionary movement burst out. The Constitutional Opposition, which
+had for many months been constantly pushed on by the Radical party, was
+from this time forward led and directed not so much by the members of
+that party who occupied seats in the Chamber of Deputies (the greater
+number of these had become lukewarm and, as it were, enervated in the
+Parliamentary atmosphere), as by the younger, bolder, and more
+irresponsible men who wrote for the democratic press. This change was
+especially<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> apparent in two principal facts which had an overwhelming
+influence upon events&mdash;the programme of the banquet and the arraignment
+of Ministers.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20th of February, there appeared in almost all the Opposition
+newspapers, by way of programme of the approaching banquet, what was
+really a proclamation calling upon the entire population to join in an
+immense political demonstration, convoking the schools and inviting the
+National Guard itself to attend the ceremony in a body. It read like a
+decree emanating from the Provisional Government which was to be set up
+three days later. The Cabinet, which had already been blamed by many of
+its followers for tacitly authorising the banquet, considered that it
+was justified in retracing its steps. It officially announced that it
+forbade the banquet, and that it would prevent it by force.</p>
+
+<p>It was this declaration of the Government which provided the field for
+the battle. I am in a position to state, although it sounds hardly
+credible, that the programme which thus suddenly turned the banquet into
+an insurrection was resolved upon, drawn up and published without the
+participation or the knowledge of the members of Parliament who
+considered themselves to be still leading the movement which they had
+called into existence. The programme was the hurried work of a nocturnal
+gathering of journalists and Radicals, and the leaders of the Dynastic
+Opposition heard of it at the same time as the public, by reading it in
+the papers in the morning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And see how uncertain is the course of human affairs! M. Odilon Barrot,
+who disapproved of the programme as much as anyone, dared not disclaim
+it for fear of offending the men who, till then, had seemed to be moving
+with him; and then, when the Government, alarmed by the publication of
+this document, prohibited the banquet, M. Barrot, finding himself
+brought face to face with civil war, drew back. He himself gave up this
+dangerous demonstration; but at the same time that he was making this
+concession to the men of moderation, he granted to the extremists the
+impeachment of Ministers. He accused the latter of violating the
+Constitution by prohibiting the banquet, and thus furnished an excuse to
+those who were about to take up arms in the name of the violated
+Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the principal leaders of the Radical Party, who thought that a
+revolution would be premature, and who did not yet desire it, had
+considered themselves obliged, in order to differentiate themselves from
+their allies in the Dynastic Opposition, to make very revolutionary
+speeches and fan the flame of insurrectionary passion. On the other
+hand, the Dynastic Opposition, which had had enough of the banquets, had
+been forced to persevere in this bad course so as not to present an
+appearance of retreating before the defiance of the Government. And
+finally, the mass of the Conservatives, who believed in the necessity of
+great concessions and were ready to make them, were driven by the
+violence of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> adversaries and the passions of some of their chiefs
+to deny even the right of meeting in private banquets and to refuse the
+country any hopes of reform.</p>
+
+<p>One must have lived long amid political parties, and in the very
+whirlwind in which they move, to understand to what extent men mutually
+push each other away from their respective plans, and how the destinies
+of this world proceed as the result, but often as the contrary result,
+of the intentions that produce them, similarly to the kite which flies
+by the antagonistic action of the wind and the cord.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See the speech of M. Duvergier de Hauranne, 7 February
+1848.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cte. de T.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The minister replied to M. Léon de Mandeville. He quoted
+the laws of 1790 and 1791, which empowered the authorities to oppose any
+public meetings which seemed to threaten danger to the public peace, and
+he declared that the Government would be failing in its duty if it were
+to give way before manifestations of any description. At the end of his
+speech he again brought in the phrase "blind or hostile passions," and
+endeavoured to justify it.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cte. de T.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Replying to M. Odilon Barrot, M. Hébert maintained that,
+since the right of public meeting was not laid down in the Charter, it
+did not exist.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cte. de T.</span></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>TROUBLES OF THE 22ND OF FEBRUARY&mdash;THE SITTING OF THE 23RD&mdash;THE NEW
+MINISTRY&mdash;OPINIONS OF M. DUFAURE AND M. DE BEAUMONT.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I did not perceive anything on the 22nd of February calculated to give
+rise to serious apprehensions. There was a crowd in the streets, but it
+seemed to be composed rather of sight-seers and fault-finders than of
+the seditiously inclined: the soldier and the townsman chaffed each
+other when they met, and I heard more jokes than cries uttered by the
+crowd. I know that it is not safe to trust one's self to these
+appearances. It is the street-boys of Paris who generally commence the
+insurrections, and as a rule they do so light-heartedly, like schoolboys
+breaking up for the holidays.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned to the Chamber, I found a seeming listlessness reigning
+there, beneath which one could perceive the inner seething of a thousand
+restrained passions. It was the only place in Paris in which, since the
+early morning, I had not heard discussed aloud what was then absorbing
+all France. They were languidly discussing a bill for the creation of a
+bank at Bordeaux; but in reality no one, except the man talking in the
+tribune and the man who was to reply to him, showed any interest in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+matter. M. Duchâtel told me that all was going well. He said this with
+an air of combined confidence and nervousness which struck me as
+suspicious. I noticed that he twisted his neck and shoulders (a common
+trick with him) much more frequently and violently than usual; and I
+remember that this little observation gave me more food for reflection
+than all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>I learnt that, as a matter of fact, there had been serious troubles in
+many parts of the town which I had not visited; a certain number of men
+had been killed or wounded. People were no longer accustomed to this
+sort of incident, as they had been some years before and as they became
+still more a few months later; and the excitement was great. I happened
+to be invited to dine that evening at the house of one of my
+fellow-members of Parliament and of the Opposition, M. Paulmier, the
+deputy for Calvados. I had some difficulty in getting there through the
+troops which guarded the surrounding streets. I found my host's house in
+great disorder. Madame Paulmier, who was expecting her <em>accouchement</em>
+and who had been frightened by a skirmish that had taken place beneath
+her windows, had gone to bed. The dinner was magnificent, but the table
+was deserted; out of twenty guests invited, only five presented
+themselves; the others were kept back either by material impediments or
+by the preoccupations of the day. We sat down with a very thoughtful air
+amid all this abundance. Among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> guests was M. Sallandrouze, the
+inheritor of the great business house of that name, which had made a
+large fortune by its manufacture of textile fabrics. He was one of those
+young Conservatives, richer in money than in honours, who, from time to
+time, made a show of opposition, or rather, of captious criticism,
+mainly, I think, to give themselves a certain importance. In the course
+of the last debate on the Address, M. Sallandrouze had moved an
+amendment<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> which would have compromised the Cabinet, had it been
+adopted. At the time when this incident was most occupying attention, M.
+Sallandrouze one evening went to the reception at the Tuileries, hoping
+that this time, at least, he would not remain unrecognized in the crowd.
+And, in fact, no sooner had King Louis-Philippe seen him than he came up
+to him with a very assiduous mien, and solemnly took him aside and began
+to talk to him eagerly, and with a great display of interest, about the
+branch of manufacture to which the young deputy owed his fortune. The
+latter, at first, felt no astonishment, thinking that the King, who was
+known to be clever at managing men's minds, had selected this little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+private road in order to lead round to affairs of State. But he was
+mistaken; for, after a quarter of an hour, the King changed not the
+conversation but the person addressed, and left our friend standing very
+confused amid his carpets and woollen stuffs. M. Sallandrouze had not
+yet got over this trick played upon him, but he was beginning to feel
+very much afraid that he would be revenged too well. He told us that M.
+Émile Girardin had said to him the day before, "In two days, the
+Monarchy of July will have ceased to exist." This seemed to all of us a
+piece of journalistic hyperbole, and perhaps it was; but the events that
+followed turned it into an oracle.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day, the 23rd of February, I learnt, on waking, that the
+excitement in Paris, so far from becoming calmer, was increasing. I went
+early to the Chamber; silence reigned around the Assembly; battalions of
+infantry occupied and closed the approaches, while troops of Cuirassiers
+were drawn up along the walls of the Palace. Inside, men's feelings were
+excited without their quite knowing the reason.</p>
+
+<p>The sitting had been opened at the ordinary time; but the Assembly had
+not had the courage to go through the same parliamentary comedy as on
+the day before, and had suspended its labours; it sat receiving reports
+from the different quarters of the town, awaiting events and counting
+the hours, in a state of feverish idleness. At a certain moment, a loud
+sound of trumpets was heard outside. It appeared that the Cuirassiers
+guarding the Palace were amusing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> themselves, in order to pass the time,
+by sounding flourishes on their instruments. The gay, triumphant tones
+of the trumpets contrasted in so melancholy a fashion with the thoughts
+by which all our minds were secretly disturbed, that a message was
+hurriedly sent out to stop this offensive and indiscreet performance,
+which caused such painful reflections to all of us.</p>
+
+<p>At last, it was determined to speak aloud of what all had been
+discussing in whispers for several hours. A Paris deputy, M. Vavin,
+commenced to question the Cabinet upon the state of the city. At three
+o'clock M. Guizot appeared at the door of the House. He entered with his
+firmest step and his loftiest mien, silently crossed the gangway,
+ascended the tribune, throwing his head almost back from his shoulders
+for fear of seeming to lower it, and stated in two words that the King
+had called upon M. Molé to form a new ministry. Never did I see such a
+piece of clap-trap.</p>
+
+<p>The Opposition kept their seats, most of them uttering cries of victory
+and satisfied revenge; the leaders alone sat silent, busy in communing
+with themselves upon the use they would make of their triumph, and
+careful not to insult a majority of which they might soon be called upon
+to make use. As to the majority, they seemed thunderstruck by this so
+unexpected blow, moved to and fro like a mass that sways from side to
+side, uncertain as to which side it shall fall on, and then descended
+noisily into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> semi-circle. A few surrounded the ministers to ask
+them for explanations or to pay them their last respects, but the
+greater number clamoured against them with noisy and insulting shouts.
+"To throw up office, to abandon your political friends under such
+circumstances," they said, "is a piece of gross cowardice;" while others
+exclaimed that the members ought to repair to the Tuileries in a body,
+and force the King to re-consider his fatal resolve.</p>
+
+<p>This despair will arouse no astonishment when it is remembered that the
+greater number of these men felt themselves attacked, not only in their
+political opinions, but in the most sensitive part of their private
+interest. The fall of the Government compromised the entire fortune of
+one, the daughter's dowry of another, the son's career of a third. It
+was by this that they were almost all held. Most of them had not only
+bettered themselves by means of their votes, but one may say that they
+had lived on them. They still lived on them, and hoped to continue to
+live on them; for, the Ministry having lasted eight years, they had
+accustomed themselves to think that it would last for ever; they had
+grown attached to it with the honest, peaceful feeling of affection
+which one entertains for one's fields. From my seat, I watched this
+swaying crowd; I saw surprise, anger, fear and avarice mingle their
+various expressions upon those bewildered countenances; and I drew an
+involuntary comparison between all these legislators and a pack of
+hounds which, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> their jaws half filled, see the quarry withdrawn
+from them.</p>
+
+<p>I grant, however, that, so far as many of the Opposition were concerned,
+it only wanted that they should be put to a similar test in order to
+make the same display. If many of the Conservatives only defended the
+Ministry with a view to keeping their places and emoluments, I am bound
+to say that many of the Opposition seemed to me only to attack it in
+order to reap the plunder in their turn. The truth&mdash;the deplorable
+truth&mdash;is that a taste for holding office and a desire to live on the
+public money are not with us a disease restricted to either party, but
+the great, chronic ailment of the whole nation; the result of the
+democratic constitution of our society and of the excessive
+centralization of our Government; the secret malady which has undermined
+all former powers, and which will undermine all powers to come.</p>
+
+<p>At last the uproar ceased, as the nature of what had happened became
+better known: we learnt that it had been brought about by the
+insurrectionary inclinations of a battalion of the Fifth Legion and the
+applications made direct to the King by several officers of that section
+of the Guard.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as he was informed of what was going on, King Louis-Philippe,
+who was less prone to change his opinions, but more ready to change his
+line of conduct, than any man I ever saw, had immediately made up his
+mind; and after eight years of com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>placency, the Ministry was dismissed
+by him in two minutes, and without ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>The Chamber rose without delay, each member thinking only of the change
+of government, and forgetting about the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>I went out with M. Dufaure, and soon perceived that he was not only
+preoccupied but constrained. I at once saw that he felt himself in the
+critical and complicated position of a leader of the Opposition, who was
+about to become a minister, and who, after experiencing the use his
+friends could be to him, was beginning to think of the difficulties
+which their pretensions might well cause him.</p>
+
+<p>M. Dufaure had a somewhat cunning mind, which readily admitted such
+thoughts as these, and he also possessed a sort of natural rusticity
+which, combined with great integrity, but rarely permitted him to
+conceal them. He was, moreover, the sincerest and by far the most
+respectable of all those who at that moment had a chance of becoming
+ministers. He believed that power was at last within his grasp, and his
+ambition betrayed a passion that was the more eager inasmuch as it was
+discreet and suppressed. M. Molé in his place would have felt much
+greater egoism and still more ingratitude, but he would have been only
+all the more open-hearted and amiable.</p>
+
+<p>I soon left him, and went to M. de Beaumont's. There I found every heart
+rejoicing. I was far from sharing this joy, and finding myself among
+people with whom I could talk freely, I gave my reasons.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The National Guard of Paris," I said, "has upset a Cabinet; therefore
+it is during its good pleasure only that the new Ministers will remain
+at the head of affairs. You are glad because the Government is upset;
+but do you not see that it is authority itself which is overthrown?"</p>
+
+<p>This sombre view of the political situation was not much to Beaumont's
+taste; he was carried away by rancour and ambition.</p>
+
+<p>"You always take a gloomy view of everything," he said. "Let us first
+rejoice at the victory: we can lament over the results later."</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Beaumont, who was present at the interview, seemed herself to
+share her husband's elation, and nothing ever so thoroughly proved to me
+the irresistible power of party feeling. For, by nature, neither hatred
+nor self-interest had a place in the heart of this distinguished and
+attractive woman, one of the most truly and consistently virtuous that I
+have met in my life, and one who best knew how to make virtue both
+touching and lovable. To the nobility of heart of the La Fayettes she
+added a mind that was witty, refined, kindly and just.</p>
+
+<p>I, nevertheless, sustained my theory against both him and her, arguing
+that upon the whole the incident was a regrettable one, or rather that
+we should see more in it than a mere incident, a great event which was
+destined to change the whole aspect of affairs. It was very easy for me
+to philosophize thus, since I did not share the illusions of my friend
+Dufaure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> The impulse given to the political machine seemed to me to be
+too violent to permit of the reins of government falling into the hands
+of the moderate party to which I belonged, and I foresaw that they would
+soon fall to those who were almost as obnoxious to me as the men from
+whose hands they had slipped.</p>
+
+<p>I was dining with another of my friends, M. Lanjuinais, of whom I shall
+have to speak often in future. The company was fairly numerous, and
+embraced many shades of political opinion. Many of the guests rejoiced
+at the result of the day's work, while others expressed alarm; but all
+thought that the insurrectionary movement would stop of its own accord,
+to break out again later on another occasion and in another form. All
+the rumours that reached us from the town seemed to confirm this belief;
+cries of war were replaced by cries of joy. Portalis, who became
+Attorney-General of Paris a few days later, was of our number: not the
+son, but the nephew of the Chief President of the Court of Appeal. This
+Portalis had neither his uncle's rare intelligence, nor his exemplary
+character, nor his solemn dulness. His coarse, violent, perverse mind
+had quite naturally entered into all the false ideas and extreme
+opinions of our times. Although he was in relation with most of those
+who are regarded as the authors and leaders of the Revolution of 1848, I
+can conscientiously declare that he did not that night expect the
+revolution any more than we did. I am convinced that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> even at that
+supreme moment, the same might have been said of the greater number of
+his friends. It would be a waste of time to try to discover what secret
+conspiracies brought about events of this kind. Revolutions accomplished
+by means of popular risings are generally longed for beforehand rather
+than premeditated. Those who boast of having contrived them have done no
+more than turn them to account. They spring spontaneously into being
+from a general malady of men's minds, brought suddenly to the critical
+stage by some fortuitous and unforeseen circumstance. As to the
+so-called originators or leaders of these revolutions, they originate
+and lead nothing; their only merit is identical with that of the
+adventurers who have discovered most of the unknown countries. They
+simply have the courage to go straight before them as long as the wind
+impels them.</p>
+
+<p>I took my leave early, and went straight home to bed. Although I lived
+close to the Foreign Office, I did not hear the firing which so greatly
+influenced our destinies, and I fell asleep without realizing that I had
+seen the last day of the Monarchy of July.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> M. Sallandrouze de Lamornaix' amendment proposed to modify
+the expression "blind or hostile passions," by adding the words: "Amid
+these various demonstrations, your Government will know how to recognise
+the real and lawful desires of the country; it will, we trust, take the
+initiative by introducing certain wise and moderate reforms called for
+by public opinion, among which we must place first parliamentary reform.
+In a Constitutional Monarchy, the union of the great powers of the State
+removes all danger from a progressive policy, and allows every moral and
+material interest of the country to be satisfied."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cte. de T.</span></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY&mdash;THE MINISTERS' PLAN OF RESISTANCE&mdash;THE
+NATIONAL GUARD&mdash;GENERAL BEDEAU.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The next morning was the 24th of February. On leaving my bed-room, I met
+the cook, who had been out; the good woman was quite beside herself, and
+poured out a sorrowing rigmarole, of which I failed to understand a
+word, except that the Government was massacring the poor people. I went
+downstairs at once, and had no sooner set foot in the street than I
+breathed for the first time the atmosphere of revolution. The roadway
+was empty; the shops were not open; there were no carriages nor
+pedestrians to be seen; none of the ordinary hawkers' cries were heard;
+neighbours stood talking in little groups at their doors, with subdued
+voices, with a frightened air; every face seemed distorted with fear or
+anger. I met a National Guard hurrying along, gun in hand, with a tragic
+gait; I accosted him, but I could learn nothing from him, save that the
+Government was massacring the people (to which he added that the
+National Guard would know how to put that right). It was the same old
+refrain: it is easily understood that this explanation explained
+nothing. I was too well acquainted with the vices of the Gov<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>ernment of
+July not to know that cruelty was not one of them. I considered it one
+of the most corrupt, but also one of the least bloodthirsty, that had
+ever existed, and I only repeat this observation in order to show the
+sort of report that assists the progress of revolutions.</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to M. de Beaumont, who lived in the next street. There I
+learnt that the King had sent for him during the night. The same reply
+was given to my enquiry at M. de Rémusat's, where I went next. M. de
+Corcelles, whom I met in the street, gave me his account of what was
+happening, but in a very confused manner; for, in a city in state of
+revolution, as on a battle-field, each one readily regards the incidents
+of which himself is a witness as the events of the day. He told me of
+the firing on the Boulevard des Capucines, and of the rapid development
+of the insurrection of which this act of unnecessary violence was the
+cause or the pretext; of M. Molé's refusal to take office under these
+circumstances; and lastly, of the summons to the Palace of Messrs.
+Thiers, Barrot and their friends, who were definitely charged with the
+formation of a cabinet, facts too well known to permit of my lingering
+over them. I asked M. de Corcelles how the ministers proposed to set
+about appeasing people's minds.</p>
+
+<p>"M. de Rémusat," said he, "is my authority for saying that the plan
+adopted is to withdraw all the troops and to flood Paris with National
+Guards." These were his own words.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have always observed that in politics people were often ruined through
+possessing too good a memory. The men who were now charged to put an end
+to the Revolution of 1848 were exactly the same who had made the
+Revolution of 1830. They remembered that at that time the resistance of
+the army had failed to stop them, and that on the other hand the
+presence of the National Guard, so imprudently dissolved by Charles X.,
+might have embarrassed them greatly and prevented them from succeeding.
+They took the opposite steps to those adopted by the Government of the
+Elder Branch, and arrived at the same result. So true is it that, if
+humanity be always the same, the course of history is always different,
+that the past is not able to teach us much concerning the present, and
+that those old pictures, when forced into new frames, never have a good
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>After chatting for a little while on the dangerous position of affairs,
+M. de Corcelles and I went to fetch M. Lanjuinais, and all three of us
+went together to M. Dufaure, who lived in the Rue Le Peletier. The
+boulevard, which we followed to get there, presented a strange
+spectacle. There was hardly a soul to be seen, although it was nearly
+nine o'clock in the morning, and one heard not the slightest sound of a
+human voice; but all the little sentry-boxes which stand along this
+endless avenue seemed to move about and totter upon their base, and from
+time to time one of them would fall with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> a crash, while the great trees
+along the curb came tumbling down into the roadway as though of their
+own accord. These acts of destruction were the work of isolated
+individuals, who went about their business silently, regularly, and
+hurriedly, preparing in this way the materials for the barricades which
+others were to erect. Nothing ever seemed to me more to resemble the
+carrying on of an industry, and, as a matter of fact, for the greater
+number of these men it was nothing less. The instinct of disorder had
+given them the taste for it, and their experience of so many former
+insurrections the practice. I do not know that during the whole course
+of the day I was so keenly struck as in passing through this solitude in
+which one saw, so to speak, the worst passions of mankind at play,
+without the good ones appearing. I would rather have met in the same
+place a furious crowd; and I remember that, calling Lanjuinais'
+attention to those tottering edifices and falling trees, I gave vent to
+the phrase which had long been on my lips, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, this time it is no longer a riot: it is a revolution."</p>
+
+<p>M. Dufaure told us all that concerned himself in the occurrences of the
+preceding evening and of the night. M. Molé had at first applied to him
+to assist him to form the new Cabinet; but the increasing gravity of the
+situation had soon made them both understand that the moment for their
+intervention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> had passed. M. Molé told the King so about midnight, and
+the King sent him to fetch M. Thiers, who refused to accept office
+unless he was given M. Barrot for a colleague. Beyond this point, M.
+Dufaure knew no more than we did. We separated without having succeeded
+in deciding upon our line of action, and without coming to any
+resolution beyond that of proceeding to the Chamber so soon as it
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>M. Dufaure did not come, and I never precisely learnt why. It was
+certainly not from fear, for I have since seen him very calm and very
+firm under much more dangerous circumstances. I believe that he grew
+alarmed for his family, and desired to take them to a place of safety
+outside Paris. His private and his public virtues, both of which were
+very great, did not keep step: the first were always ahead of the
+second, and we shall see signs of this on more than one subsequent
+occasion. Nor, for that matter, would I care to lay this to his account
+as a serious charge. Virtues of any kind are too rare to entitle us to
+vex those who possess them about their character or their degree.</p>
+
+<p>The time which we had spent with M. Dufaure had sufficed to enable the
+rioters to erect a large number of barricades along the road by which we
+had come; they were putting the finishing touches to them as we passed
+on our way back. These barricades were cunningly constructed by a small
+number of men, who worked very diligently: not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> like guilty men hurried
+by the dread of being taken in the act, but like good workmen anxious to
+get their task done well and expeditiously. The public watched them
+quietly, without expressing disapproval or offering assistance. I did
+not discover any signs of that sort of general seething which I had
+witnessed in 1830, and which made me at the time compare the whole city
+to a huge boiling caldron. This time the public was not overthrowing the
+Government; it was allowing it to fall.</p>
+
+<p>We met on the boulevard a column of infantry falling back upon the
+Madeleine. No one addressed a word to it, and yet its retreat resembled
+a rout. The ranks were broken, the soldiers marched in disorder, with
+hanging heads and an air that was both downcast and frightened. Whenever
+one of them became separated for a mere instant from the main body, he
+was at once surrounded, seized, embraced, disarmed and sent back: all
+this was the work of a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the Place du Havre, I met for the first time a battalion of
+that National Guard with which Paris was to be flooded. These men
+marched with a look of astonishment and an uncertain step, surrounded by
+street boys shouting, "Reform for ever!" to whom they replied with the
+same cry, but in a smothered and somewhat constrained voice. This
+battalion belonged to my neighbourhood, and most of those who composed
+it knew me by sight, although I knew hardly any of them. They
+sur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>rounded me and greedily pressed me for news; I told them that we had
+obtained all we wanted, that the ministry was changed, that all the
+abuses complained of were to be reformed, and that the only danger we
+now ran was lest people should go too far, and that it was for them to
+prevent it. I soon saw that this view did not appeal to them.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all very well, sir," said they; "the Government has got itself
+into this scrape through its own fault, let it get out of it as best it
+can."</p>
+
+<p>It was of small use my representing to them that it was much less a
+question for the Government at present than for themselves:</p>
+
+<p>"If Paris is delivered to anarchy," I said, "and all the Kingdom is in
+confusion, do you think that none but the King will suffer?"</p>
+
+<p>It was of no avail, and all I could obtain in reply was this astounding
+absurdity: it was the Government's fault, let the Government run the
+danger; we don't want to get killed for people who have managed their
+business so badly. And yet this was that middle class which had been
+pampered for eighteen years: the current of public opinion had ended by
+dragging it along, and was driving it against those who had flattered it
+until it had become corrupt.</p>
+
+<p>This was the occasion of a reflection which has often since presented
+itself to my mind; in France a government always does wrong to rely
+solely for support upon the exclusive interests and selfish passions of
+one class. This can only succeed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> nations more self-interested and
+less vain than ours: with us, when a government established upon this
+basis becomes unpopular, it follows that the members of the very class
+for whose sake it has lost its popularity prefer the pleasure of
+traducing it with all the world to the privileges which it assures them.
+The old French aristocracy, which was more enlightened than our modern
+middle class and possessed much greater <em>esprit de corps</em>, had already
+given the same example; it had ended by thinking it a mark of
+distinction to run down its own privileges, and by thundering against
+the abuses upon which it existed. That is why I think that, upon the
+whole, the safest method of government for us to adopt, in order to
+endure, is that of governing well, of governing in the interest of
+everybody. I am bound to confess, however, that, even when one follows
+this course, it is not very certain that one will endure for long.</p>
+
+<p>I soon set out to go to the Chamber, although the time fixed for the
+opening of the sitting had not yet come: it was, I believe, about eleven
+o'clock. I found the Place Louis XV still clear of people, but occupied
+by several regiments of cavalry. When I saw all these troops drawn up in
+such good order, I began to think that they had only deserted the
+streets in order to mass themselves around the Tuileries and defend
+themselves there. At the foot of the obelisk were grouped the staff,
+among whom, as I drew nearer, I recognized Bedeau, whose un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>lucky star
+had quite recently brought him back from Africa, in time to bury the
+Monarchy. I had spent a few days with him, the year before, at
+Constantine, and there had sprung up between us a sort of intimacy which
+has since continued. So soon as Bedeau caught sight of me, he sprang
+from his horse, came up to me, and grasped my hand in a way that clearly
+betrayed his excitement. His conversation gave yet stronger evidence of
+this, and I was not surprised, for I have always observed that the men
+who lose their heads most easily, and who generally show themselves
+weakest on days of revolution, are soldiers; accustomed as they are to
+have an organized force facing them and an obedient force in their
+hands, they readily become confused before the uproarious shouts of a
+mob and in presence of the hesitation and the occasional connivance of
+their own men. Unquestionably, Bedeau was confused, and everybody knows
+what were the results of this confusion: how the Chamber was invaded by
+a handful of men within pistol-shot of the squadrons protecting it, and
+how, in consequence, the fall of the Monarchy was proclaimed and the
+Provisional Government elected. The part played by Bedeau on this fatal
+day was, unfortunately for himself, of so preponderating a character
+that I propose to stop a moment in order to analyze this man and his
+motives for acting as he did. We have been sufficiently intimate both
+before and after this event to enable me to speak with knowledge. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+true that he received the order not to fight; but why did he obey so
+extraordinary an order, which circumstances had rendered so
+impracticable?</p>
+
+<p>Bedeau was assuredly not timid by nature, nor even, properly speaking,
+undecided; for, when he had once made up his mind, you saw him making
+for his goal with great firmness, coolness and courage; but his mind was
+the most methodical, the least self-reliant, the least adventurous, and
+the least adapted for unpremeditated action that can well be imagined.
+He was accustomed to consider the action which he was about to undertake
+in all its aspects before setting to work, taking the worst aspects
+first, and losing much precious time in diluting a single thought in a
+multitude of words. For the rest, he was a just man, moderate,
+liberal-minded, as humane as though he had not waged war in Africa for
+eighteen years, modest, moral, even refined, and religious: the kind of
+honest, virtuous man who is very rarely to be met with in military
+circles, or, to speak plainly, elsewhere. It was assuredly not from want
+of courage that he did certain acts which seemed to point to this
+defect, for he was brave beyond measure; still less was treachery his
+motive: although he may not have been attached to the Orleans Family, he
+was as little capable of betraying those Princes as their best friends
+could have been, and much less so than their creatures eventually were.
+His misfortune was that he was drawn into events which were greater than
+himself, and that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> he had only merit where genius was needed, and
+especially the genius to grapple with revolutions, which consists
+principally in regulating one's actions according to events, and in
+knowing how to disobey at the right time. The remembrance of February
+poisoned General Bedeau's life, and left a cruel wound deep down in his
+soul, a wound whose agony betrayed itself unceasingly by endless
+recitals and explanations of the events of that period.</p>
+
+<p>While he was engaged in telling me of his perplexities, and in
+endeavouring to prove that the duty of the Opposition was to come down
+to the streets in a body and calm the popular excitement with their
+speeches, a crowd of people glided in between the trees of the
+Champs-Elysées and came down the main avenue towards the Place Louis XV.
+Bedeau perceived these men, dragged me towards them on foot until he was
+more than a hundred paces from his cavalry, and began to harangue them,
+for he was more disposed to speech-making than any military man I have
+ever known.</p>
+
+<p>While he was holding forth in this way, I observed that the circle of
+his listeners was gradually extending itself around us, and would soon
+close us in; and through the first rank of sight-seers I clearly caught
+sight of men of riotous aspect moving about, while I heard dull murmurs
+in the depths of the crowd of these dangerous words, "It's Bugeaud." I
+leant towards the general and whispered in his ear:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have more experience than you of the ways of the populace; take my
+word, get back to your horse at once, for if you stay here, you will be
+killed or taken prisoner before five minutes are over."</p>
+
+<p>He took my word for it, and it was well he did. A few moments later,
+these same men whom he had undertaken to convert murdered the occupants
+of the guard-house in the Rue des Champs-Elysées; I myself had some
+difficulty in forcing my way through them. One of them, a short,
+thick-set man, who seemed to belong to the lower class of workmen, asked
+me where I was going.</p>
+
+<p>I replied, "To the Chamber," adding, to show that I was a member of the
+Opposition, "Reform for ever! You know the Guizot Ministry has been
+dismissed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I know," replied the man, jeeringly, and pointing to the
+Tuileries, "but we want more than that."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<blockquote>
+<p>THE SITTING OF THE CHAMBER&mdash;MADAME LA DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS&mdash;THE
+PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I entered the Chamber; the sitting had not yet commenced. The deputies
+were wandering about the lobbies like men distraught, living on rumours,
+and quite without information. It was not so much an assembly as a mob,
+for nobody was leading it.</p>
+
+<p>The leaders of both parties were absent: the ex-ministers had fled, the
+new ones had not appeared. Members cried loudly for the sitting to open,
+impelled rather by a vague desire for action than by any definite
+intention; the President refused: he was accustomed to do nothing
+without instructions, and since there was no one left to instruct him,
+he was unable to make up his mind. I was begged to go and find him, and
+persuade him to take the chair, and I did so. I found this excellent
+man&mdash;for so he was, in spite of the fact that he often indulged in
+well-meaning pieces of trickery, in little pious frauds, in petty
+villainies, in all the venial sins which a faint heart and a wavering
+mind are able to suggest to an honest nature&mdash;I found him, as I have
+said, walking to and fro in his room, a prey to the greatest excitement.
+M. Sauzet possessed good but not striking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> features; he had the dignity
+of a parish beadle, a big fat body, with very short arms. At times when
+he was restless and perplexed&mdash;and he almost always was so&mdash;he used to
+wave his little arms convulsively, and move them about like a swimmer.
+His demeanour during our conversation was of the strangest: he walked
+about, stopped still, sat down with one foot underneath his clumsy
+frame, as he used to do in moments of great excitement, stood up again,
+sat down anew, and came to no decision. It was very unfortunate for the
+House of Orleans that it had an honest man of this kind to preside over
+the Chamber on a day like this: an audacious rogue would have served its
+turn better.</p>
+
+<p>M. Sauzet gave me many reasons for not opening the sitting, but one
+which he did not give me convinced me that he was right. Seeing him so
+helpless and so incapable of adopting any resolution, I considered that
+he would only confuse men's minds the more he tried to regulate them. I
+therefore left him, and thinking it more important to find protectors
+for the Chamber than to open its deliberations, I went out, intending to
+proceed to the Ministry of the Interior and ask for help.</p>
+
+<p>As I crossed the Place du Palais-Bourbon with this object, I saw a very
+mixed crowd accompanying two men, whom I soon recognized as Barrot and
+Beaumont, with loud cheers. Both of them wore their hats crushed down
+over their eyes; their clothes were covered with dust, their cheeks
+looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> hollow, their eyes weary: never were two men in triumph so
+suggestive of men about to be hanged. I ran up to Beaumont, and asked
+him what was happening. He whispered that the King had abdicated in his
+presence, and had taken to flight; that Lamoricière had apparently been
+killed when he went out to announce the abdication to the rioters (in
+fact, an aide-de-camp had come back to say that he had seen him at a
+distance fall from his horse), that everything was going wrong, and
+finally, that he and Barrot were now on their way to the Ministry of the
+Interior in order to take possession of it, and to try and establish
+somewhere a centre of authority and resistance.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Chamber!" I said. "Have you taken any precautions for the
+defence of the Chamber?"</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont received this observation with ill-humour, as though I had been
+speaking of my own house. "Who is thinking of the Chamber?" he replied
+brusquely. "What good or what harm can it do at the present juncture?"</p>
+
+<p>I thought, and rightly, that he was wrong to speak like this. The
+Chamber, it is true, was at that moment in a curious state of
+powerlessness, its majority despised, and its minority left behind by
+public opinion. But M. de Beaumont forgot that it is just in times of
+revolution that the very least instruments of the law, and much more its
+outer symbols, which recall the idea of the law to the minds of the
+people, assume the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> greatest importance; for it is especially in the
+midst of this universal anarchy and turmoil that the need is felt of
+some simulacrum of authority and tradition in order to save the remnants
+of a half-destroyed constitution or to complete its overthrow. Had the
+deputies been able to proclaim the Regency, the latter might have ended
+by triumphing, in spite of the unpopularity of the deputies; and, on the
+other hand, it is an undoubted fact that the Provisional Government owed
+much to the chance which caused it to come into being between the four
+walls which had so long sheltered the representatives of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>I followed my friends to the Ministry of the Interior, where they were
+going. The crowd which accompanied us entered, or rather swept in,
+tumultuously, and even penetrated with us as far as the room which M.
+Duchâtel had just quitted. Barrot tried to free himself and dismiss the
+mob, but was unable to succeed.</p>
+
+<p>These people, who held two very different sets of opinions, as I was
+then enabled to observe, some being Republicans and others
+Constitutionalists, began vehemently to discuss with us and among
+themselves the measures which were to be taken; and as we were all
+squeezed together in a very small space, the heat, dust, confusion, and
+uproar soon became unbearable. Barrot, who always launched out into
+long, pompous phrases at the most critical moments, and who preserved an
+air<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> of dignity, and even of mystery, in the most ludicrous
+circumstances, was holding forth at his best <em>in angustis</em>. His voice
+occasionally rose above the tumult, but never succeeded in quelling it.
+In despair and disgust at so violent and ludicrous a scene, I left this
+place, where they were exchanging almost as many cuffs as arguments, and
+returned to the Chamber.</p>
+
+<p>I reached the entrance to the building without suspecting what was
+happening inside, when I saw people come running up, crying that Madame
+la Duchesse d'Orléans, the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Nemours had
+just arrived. At this news, I flew up the stairs of the Palace, four at
+a time, and rushed into the House.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the three members of the Royal Family whom I have named, at the
+foot of the tribune, facing the House. The Duchesse d'Orléans was
+seated, dressed in mourning, calm and pale; I could see that she was
+greatly excited, but her excitement seemed to be that of courageous
+natures, more prone to turn to heroism than fright.</p>
+
+<p>The Comte de Paris displayed the carelessness of his age and the
+precocious impassiveness of princes. Standing by their side was the Duc
+de Nemours, tightly clad in his uniform&mdash;cold, stiff, and erect. He was,
+to my mind, the only man who ran any real danger that day; and during
+the whole time that I saw him exposed to it, I constantly observed in
+him the same firm and silent courage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Around these unhappy Princes pressed the National Guards who had come
+with them, some deputies, and a small number of the people. The
+galleries were empty and closed, with the exception of the press
+gallery, into which an unarmed but clamorous crowd had forced its way. I
+was more struck by the cries that issued at intervals from there than by
+all else that occurred during the sitting.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty years had passed since the last scene of this kind. Since the time
+of the Convention, the galleries had been silent, and the silence of the
+galleries had become part of our parliamentary customs. However, if the
+Chamber at this moment already felt embarrassed in its actions, it was
+not as yet in any way constrained; the deputies were in considerable
+numbers, though the party leaders were still absent. I heard enquiries
+on every side for M. Thiers and M. Barrot; I did not know what had
+become of M. Thiers, but I knew only too well what M. Barrot was doing.
+I hurriedly sent one of our friends to tell him of what was happening,
+and he came running up with all speed. I can answer for that man that
+his soul never knew fear.</p>
+
+<p>After for a moment watching this extraordinary sitting, I had hastened
+to take my usual seat on the upper benches of the Left Centre: it has
+always been my contention that at critical moments one should not only
+be present in the assembly of which one is a member, but occupy the
+place where one is generally to be found.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A sort of confused and turbulent discussion had been opened: I heard M.
+Lacrosse, who since became my colleague in office, cry amid the uproar:</p>
+
+<p>"M. Dupin wishes to speak!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied M. Dupin, "I made no such request."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter," came from every side; "speak, speak!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus urged, M. Dupin ascended the tribune, and proposed in two words
+that they should return to the law of 1842, and proclaim the Duchesse
+d'Orléans Regent. This was received with applause in the Assembly,
+exclamations in the gallery, and murmurs in the lobbies. The lobbies,
+which at first were pretty clear, began to grow crowded in an alarming
+manner. The people did not yet come into the Chamber in streams, but
+entered little by little, one by one; each moment there appeared a new
+face; the Chamber grew flooded as it were by drops. Most of the new-comers
+belonged to the lowest classes; many of them were armed.</p>
+
+<p>I witnessed this growing invasion from a distance, and I felt the danger
+momentarily increase with it. I cast my eyes round the Chamber in search
+of the man best able to resist the torrent; I saw only Lamartine, who
+had the necessary position and the requisite capacity to make the
+attempt; I remembered that in 1842 he was the only one who proposed the
+regency of the Duchesse d'Orléans. On the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> other hand, his recent
+speeches, and especially his recent writings, had obtained for him the
+favour of the people. His talent, moreover, was of a kind that appeals
+to the popular taste. I was not aware that, half an hour before, he had
+been extolling the Republic to an assemblage of journalists and deputies
+in one of the offices of the Chamber. I saw him standing by his bench. I
+elbowed my way to him, and, when I reached him:</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be lost," I whispered, hurriedly: "you alone can make yourself
+heard at this supreme moment; go to the tribune and speak."</p>
+
+<p>I can see him still, as I write these lines, so struck was I with his
+appearance. I see his long, straight, slender figure, his eye turned
+towards the semi-circle, his fixed and vacant gaze absorbed in inward
+contemplation rather than in observing what was passing around him. When
+he heard me speak, he did not turn towards me, but only stretched out
+his arm towards the place where the Princes stood, and, replying to his
+own thought rather than to mine, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not speak so long as that woman and that child remain where
+they are."</p>
+
+<p>I said no more; I had heard enough. Returning to my bench, I passed by
+the Right Centre, near where Lanjuinais and Billault were sitting, and
+asked, "Can you suggest nothing that we could do?" They mournfully shook
+their heads, and I continued on my way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the crowd had accumulated to such an extent in the
+semi-circle, that the Princes ran the risk of being crushed or
+suffocated at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>The President made vain efforts to clear the House; failing in his
+endeavours, he begged the Duchesse d'Orléans to withdraw. The courageous
+Princess refused, whereupon her friends, with great difficulty,
+extricated her from the throng, and made her climb to the top bench of
+the Left Centre, where she sat down with her son and the Duc de Nemours.</p>
+
+<p>Marie and Crémieux had just, amid the silence of the deputies and the
+acclamations of the people, proposed the establishment of a provisional
+government, when Barrot at last appeared. He was out of breath, but not
+alarmed. Climbing the stairs of the tribune:</p>
+
+<p>"Our duty lies before us," he said; "the Crown of July lies on the head
+of a child and a woman."</p>
+
+<p>The Chamber, recovering its courage, plucked up heart to burst into
+acclamations, and the people in their turn were silent. The Duchesse
+d'Orléans rose from her seat, seemed to wish to speak, hesitated,
+listened to timid counsels, and sat down again: the last glimmer of her
+fortune had gone out. Barrot finished his speech without renewing the
+impression of his opening words; nevertheless, the Chamber had gathered
+strength, and the people wavered.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, the crowd filling the semi-circle was driven back, by a
+stream from outside, towards the centre benches, which were already
+almost de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>serted; it burst and spread over the benches. Of the few
+deputies who still occupied them, some slipped away and left the House,
+while others retreated from bench to bench, like victims surprised by
+the tide, who retreat from rock to rock always pursued by the rising
+waters. All this commotion was produced by two troops of men, for the
+most part armed, which marched through the two lobbies, each with
+officers of the National Guards and flags at its head. The two officers
+who carried the flags, of whom one, a swaggering individual, was, as I
+heard later, a half-pay colonel called Dumoulin, ascended the tribune
+with a theatrical air, waved their standards, and with much skipping
+about and great melodramatic gestures, bawled out some revolutionary
+balderdash or other. The President declared the sitting suspended, and
+proceeded to put on his hat, as is customary; but, since he had the
+knack of making himself ridiculous in the most tragic situations, in his
+precipitation he seized the hat of a secretary instead of his own, and
+pulled it down over his eyes and ears.</p>
+
+<p>Sittings of this sort, as may be believed, are not easily suspended, and
+the President's attempts only succeeded in adding to the disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Thenceforth there was nothing but one continuous uproar, broken by
+occasional moments of silence. The speakers appeared in the tribune in
+groups: Crémieux, Ledru-Rollin, and Lamartine sprang into it at the same
+time. Ledru-Rollin drove Crémieux<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> out, and himself held on with his two
+great hands, while Lamartine, without leaving or struggling, waited for
+his colleague to finish speaking. Ledru-Rollin began incoherently,
+interrupted every instant by the impatience of his own friends. "Finish!
+finish!" cried Berryer, more experienced than he, and warier in his
+dynastic ill-will than was the other in his republican passion.
+Ledru-Rollin ended by demanding the appointment of a provisional
+government and descended the stair.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lamartine stepped forward and obtained silence. He commenced with a
+splendid eulogium on the courage of the Duchesse d'Orléans, and the
+people themselves, sensible, as always, to generous sentiments wrapped
+up in fine phrases, applauded. The deputies breathed again. "Wait," said
+I to my neighbours, "this is only the exordium." And in fact, before
+long, Lamartine tacked round and proceeded straight in the same
+direction as Ledru-Rollin.</p>
+
+<p>Until then, as I said, all the galleries except the one reserved for the
+press had remained empty and closed; but while Lamartine was speaking,
+loud blows were heard at the door of one of them, and yielding to the
+strain, the door burst into atoms. In a moment the gallery was invaded
+by an armed mob of men, who noisily filled it and soon afterwards all
+the others. A man of the lower orders, placing one foot on the cornice,
+pointed his gun at the President and the speaker; others seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> to
+level theirs at the assembly. The Duchesse d'Orléans and her son were
+hurried out of the Chamber by some devoted friends and into the corridor
+behind the Chair. The President muttered a few words to the effect that
+the sitting was adjourned, and stepped, or rather slid, off the platform
+on which the chair was placed. I saw him passing before my eyes like a
+shapeless mass: never would I have believed that fear could have
+inspired with such activity, or rather, suddenly reduced to a sort of
+fluidity, so huge a body. All who had remained of the Conservative
+members then dispersed, and the populace sprawled over the centre
+benches, crying, "Let us take the place of the corrupt crew!"</p>
+
+<p>During all the turbulent scenes which I have just described, I remained
+motionless in my seat, very attentive, but not greatly excited; and now,
+when I ask myself why I felt no keener emotion in presence of an event
+bound to exercise so great an influence upon the destinies of France and
+upon my own, I find that the form assumed by this great occurrence did
+much to diminish the impression it made upon me.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the Revolution of February, I was present at two or
+three scenes which possessed the elements of grandeur (I shall have
+occasion to describe them in their turn); but this scene lacked them
+entirely, for the reason that there was nothing genuine in it. We
+French, especially in Paris, are prone to introduce our literary or
+theatrical reminis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>cences into our most serious demonstrations; this
+often gives rise to the belief that the sentiments we express are not
+genuine, whereas they are only clumsily adorned. In this case the
+imitation was so evident that the terrible originality of the facts
+remained concealed beneath it. It was a time when every imagination was
+besmeared with the crude colours with which Lamartine had been daubing
+his <em>Girondins</em>. The men of the first Revolution were living in every
+mind, their deeds and words present to every memory. All that I saw that
+day bore the visible impress of those recollections; it seemed to me
+throughout as though they were engaged in acting the French Revolution,
+rather than continuing it.</p>
+
+<p>Despite the presence of drawn swords, bayonets and muskets, I was unable
+to persuade myself for a single instant not only that I was in danger of
+death, but that anybody was, and I honestly believe that no one really
+was. Bloodthirsty hatreds only showed themselves later: they had not yet
+had the time to spring up; the special spirit which was to characterize
+the Revolution of February did not yet manifest itself. Meantime, men
+were fruitlessly endeavouring to warm themselves at the fire of our
+fathers' passions, imitating their gestures and attitudes as they had
+seen them represented on the stage, but unable to imitate their
+enthusiasm or to be inflamed with their fury. It was the tradition of
+violent deeds that was being imitated by cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> hearts, which understood
+not the spirit of it. Although I clearly saw that the catastrophe of the
+piece would be a terrible one, I was never able to take the actors very
+seriously, and the whole seemed to me like a bad tragedy performed by
+provincial actors.</p>
+
+<p>I confess that what moved me most that day was the sight of that woman
+and child, who were made to bear the whole weight of faults that they
+had not committed. I frequently looked with compassion towards that
+foreign Princess, thrown into the midst of our civil discords; and when
+she had fled, the remembrance of the sweet, sad, firm glances which I
+had seen her cast upon the Assembly during that long agony came back so
+vividly to my memory, I felt so touched with pity when I thought of the
+perils attending her flight that, suddenly springing from my seat, I
+rushed in the direction which my knowledge of the building led me to
+believe that she and her son would have taken to seek a place of safety.
+In a moment I made my way through the crowd, crossed the floor, passed
+out through the cloak-room, and reached the private staircase which
+leads from the entrance in the Rue de Bourgogne to the upper floor of
+the Palace. A messenger whom I questioned as I ran past him told me that
+I was on the track of the Royal party; and, indeed, I heard several
+persons hurriedly mounting the upper portion of the stairs. I therefore
+continued my pursuit, and reached a landing; the steps which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> preceded
+me had just ceased. Finding a closed door in front of me, I knocked at
+it, but it was not opened. If princes were like God, who reads our
+hearts and accepts the intention for the deed, assuredly these would be
+pleased with me for what I wished to do that day; but they will never
+know, for no one saw me and I told no one.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to the House and resumed my seat. Almost all the members had
+left; the benches were occupied by men of the populace. Lamartine was
+still in the tribune between the two banners, continuing to address the
+crowd, or rather conversing with them; for there seemed to be almost as
+many orators as listeners. The confusion was at its height. In a moment
+of semi-silence, Lamartine began to read out a list containing the names
+of the different people proposed by I don't know whom to take share in
+the Provisional Government that had just been decreed, nobody knows how.
+Most of these names were accepted with acclamations, some rejected with
+groans, others received with jests, for in scenes in which the people
+take part, as in the plays of Shakspeare, burlesque often rubs shoulders
+with tragedy, and wretched jokes sometimes come to the relief of the
+ardour of revolution. When Garnier-Pagès' name was proposed, I heard a
+voice cry, "You've made a mistake, Lamartine; it's the dead one that's
+the good one;" Garnier-Pagès having had a celebrated brother, to whom he
+bore no resemblance except in name.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>M. de Lamartine, I think, was beginning to grow greatly embarrassed at
+his position; for in a rebellion, as in a novel, the most difficult part
+to invent is the end. When, therefore, someone took it into his head to
+cry, "To the Hôtel de Ville!" Lamartine echoed, "Yes, to the Hôtel de
+Ville," and went out forthwith, taking half the crowd with him; the
+others remained with Ledru-Rollin, who, in order, I suppose, to retain a
+leading part for himself, felt called upon in his turn to go through the
+same mock election, after which he too set out for the Hôtel de Ville.
+There the same electoral display was gone through once more; in
+connection with which I cannot refrain from repeating an anecdote which
+I was told, a few months later, by M. Marrast. It interrupts the thread
+of my story a little, but it gives a marvellous picture of two men who
+were both at that moment playing a great part, and shows the difference,
+if not in their opinions, at least in their education and habits of
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"A list of candidates for the Provisional Government," said Marrast,
+"had hurriedly been drawn up. It had to be read out to the people, and I
+handed it to Lamartine, asking him to read it aloud from the top of the
+steps. 'I can't,' replied Lamartine, after looking at it; 'my name is on
+it.' I then passed it on to Crémieux, who, after reading it, said,
+'You're making fun of me: you're asking me to read out to the people a
+list which has not got my name on it!'"</p>
+
+<p>When I saw Ledru-Rollin leave the House, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> remained behind none but
+the sheer dregs of the insurrection, I saw that there was nothing more
+to be done there. I accordingly went away, but as I did not care to find
+myself in the middle of the mob marching towards the Hôtel de Ville, I
+took the opposite direction, and began to go down those steep steps,
+like cellar stairs, which lead to the inner yard of the Palace. I then
+saw coming towards me a column of armed National Guards, ascending the
+same staircase at a run, with set bayonets. In front of them were two
+men in civilian dress, who seemed to be leading them, shouting at the
+top of their voices, "Long live the Duchesse d'Orléans and the Regency!"
+In one I recognized General Oudinot and in the other Andryane, who was
+imprisoned in the Spielberg, and who wrote his Memoirs in imitation of
+those of Silvio Pellico. I saw no one else, and nothing could prove more
+clearly how difficult it is for the public ever to learn the truth of
+events happening amid the tumult of a revolution. I know that a letter
+exists, written by Marshal Bugeaud, in which he relates that he
+succeeded in getting together a few companies of the Tenth Legion,
+inspired them in favour of the Duchesse d'Orléans, and led them at the
+double through the yard of the Palais Bourbon and to the door of the
+Chamber, which he found empty. The story is true, but for the presence
+of the marshal, whom I should most certainly have seen had he been
+there; but there was no one, I repeat, except General Oudinot and M.
+Andryane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> The latter, seeing me standing still and saying nothing, took
+me sharply by the arm, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, you must join us, to help to free Madame la Duchesse
+d'Orléans and save the Monarchy."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," I replied, "your intention is good, but you are too late:
+the Duchesse d'Orléans has disappeared, and the Chamber has risen."</p>
+
+<p>Now, where was the spirited defender of the Monarchy that evening? The
+incident is worthy of being told and noted among the many incidents of
+versatility with which the history of revolutions abounds.</p>
+
+<p>M. Andryane was in the office of M. Ledru-Rollin, officiating in the
+name of the Republic as general secretary to the Ministry of the
+Interior.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the column which he was leading: I joined it, although I
+had no longer any hope of success for its efforts. Mechanically obeying
+the impulse communicated to it, it proceeded as far as the doors of the
+Chamber. There the men who composed it learnt what had taken place; they
+turned about for a moment, and then dispersed in every direction. Half
+an hour earlier, this handful of National Guards might (as on the
+ensuing 15th of May) have changed the fortunes of France. I allowed this
+new crowd to pass by me, and then, alone and very pensive, I resumed my
+road home, not without casting a last look on the Chamber, now silent
+and deserted, in which, during nine years, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> had listened to the sound
+of so many eloquent and futile words.</p>
+
+<p>M. Billault, who had left the Chamber a few minutes before me by the
+entrance in the Rue de Bourgogne, told me that he met M. Barrot in this
+street.</p>
+
+<p>"He was walking," he said, "at a rapid rate, without perceiving that he
+was hatless, and that his grey hair, which he generally carefully
+brushed back along his temples, was falling on either side and
+fluttering in disorder over his shoulders; he seemed beside himself."</p>
+
+<p>This man had made heroic efforts all day long to maintain the Monarchy
+on the declivity down which he himself had pushed it, and he remained as
+though crushed beneath its fall. I learned from Beaumont, who had not
+left him during any part of the day, that in the morning M. Barrot faced
+and mounted twenty barricades, walking up to each unarmed, meeting
+sometimes with insults, often with shots, and always ending by
+overcoming with his words those who guarded them. His words, in fact,
+were all-powerful with the multitude. He had all that was wanted to act
+upon them at a given moment: a strong voice, an inflated eloquence, and
+a fearless heart.</p>
+
+<p>While M. Barrot, in disorder, was leaving the Chamber, M. Thiers, still
+more distraught, wandered round Paris, not daring to venture home. He
+was seen for an instant at the Assembly before the arrival of the
+Duchesse d'Orléans, but disappeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> at once, giving the signal for the
+retreat of many others. The next morning, I learnt the details of his
+flight through M. Talabot, who had assisted in it. I was connected with
+M. Talabot by fairly intimate party ties, and M. Thiers, I believe, by
+former business relations. M. Talabot was a man full of mental vigour
+and resolution, very fit for an emergency of that kind. He told me as
+follows&mdash;I believe I have neither omitted nor added anything:</p>
+
+<p>"It seems," he said, "that M. Thiers, when crossing the Place Louis XV,
+had been insulted and threatened by some of the populace. He was greatly
+excited and upset when I saw him enter the House; he came up to me, led
+me aside, and told me that he would be murdered by the mob if I did not
+assist him to escape. I took him by the arm and begged him to go with me
+and fear nothing. M. Thiers wished to avoid the Pont Louis XVI, for fear
+of meeting the crowd. We went to the Pont des Invalides, but when we got
+there, he thought he saw a gathering on the other side of the river, and
+again refused to cross. We then made for the Pont d'Iéna, which was
+free, and crossed it without any difficulty. When we reached the other
+side, M. Thiers discovered some street-boys, shouting, on the
+foundations of what was to have been the palace of the King of Rome, and
+forthwith turned down the Rue d'Auteuil and made for the Bois de
+Boulogne. There we had the good luck to find a cabman, who consented to
+drive us along the outer boulevards to the neighbour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>hood of the
+Barrière de Clichy, through which we were able to reach his house.
+During the whole journey," added M. Talabot, "and especially at the
+start, M. Thiers seemed almost out of his senses, gesticulating,
+sobbing, uttering incoherent phrases. The catastrophe he had just
+beheld, the future of his country, his own personal danger, all
+contributed to form a chaos amid which his thoughts struggled and
+strayed unceasingly."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PART_THE_SECOND" id="PART_THE_SECOND"></a>PART THE SECOND</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+<blockquote><p><em>Everything contained in this note-book (Chapters I. to XI.
+inclusive) was written in stray moments at Sorrento, in November
+and December 1850, and January, February, and March 1851.</em></p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Ia" id="CHAPTER_Ia"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>MY EXPLANATION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY, AND MY VIEWS AS TO ITS
+EFFECTS UPON THE FUTURE.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>And so the Monarchy of July was fallen, fallen without a struggle, and
+before rather than beneath the blows of the victors, who were as
+astonished at their triumph as were the vanquished at their defeat. I
+have often, since the Revolution of February, heard M. Guizot and even
+M. Molé and M. Thiers declare that this event should only be attributed
+to a surprise and regarded as a mere accident, a bold and lucky stroke
+and nothing more. I have always felt tempted to answer them in the words
+which Molière's Misanthrope uses to Oronte:</p>
+
+<p>
+Pour en juger ainsi, vous avez vos raisons;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>for these three men had conducted the affairs of France, under the
+guidance of King Louis-Philippe, during eighteen years, and it was
+difficult for them to admit that it was the King's bad government which
+had prepared the catastrophe which hurled him from the Throne.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I have not the same motives for forming an opinion, and I
+could hardly persuade myself to be of theirs. I am not prepared to say
+that accidents played no part in the Revolution of Feb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>ruary: on the
+contrary, they played a great one; but they were not the only thing.</p>
+
+<p>I have come across men of letters, who have written history without
+taking part in public affairs, and politicians, who have only concerned
+themselves with producing events without thinking of describing them. I
+have observed that the first are always inclined to find general causes,
+whereas the others, living in the midst of disconnected daily facts, are
+prone to imagine that everything is attributable to particular
+incidents, and that the wires which they pull are the same that move the
+world. It is to be presumed that both are equally deceived.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I detest these absolute systems, which represent all the
+events of history as depending upon great first causes linked by the
+chain of fatality, and which, as it were, suppress men from the history
+of the human race. They seem narrow, to my mind, under their pretence of
+broadness, and false beneath their air of mathematical exactness. I
+believe (<em>pace</em> the writers who have invented these sublime theories in
+order to feed their vanity and facilitate their work) that many
+important historical facts can only be explained by accidental
+circumstances, and that many others remain totally inexplicable.
+Moreover, chance, or rather that tangle of secondary causes which we
+call chance, for want of the knowledge how to unravel it, plays a great
+part in all that happens on the world's stage; although I firmly believe
+that chance does nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> that has not been prepared beforehand.
+Antecedent facts, the nature of institutions, the cast of minds and the
+state of morals are the materials of which are composed those impromptus
+which astonish and alarm us.</p>
+
+<p>The Revolution of February, in common with all other great events of
+this class, sprang from general causes, impregnated, if I am permitted
+the expression, by accidents; and it would be as superficial a judgment
+to ascribe it necessarily to the former or exclusively to the latter.</p>
+
+<p>The industrial revolution which, during the past thirty years, had
+turned Paris into the principal manufacturing city of France and
+attracted within its walls an entire new population of workmen (to whom
+the works of the fortifications had added another population of
+labourers at present deprived of work) tended more and more to inflame
+this multitude. Add to this the democratic disease of envy, which was
+silently permeating it; the economical and political theories which were
+beginning to make their way and which strove to prove that human misery
+was the work of laws and not of Providence, and that poverty could be
+suppressed by changing the conditions of society; the contempt into
+which the governing class, and especially the men who led it, had
+fallen, a contempt so general and so profound that it paralyzed the
+resistance even of those who were most interested in maintaining the
+power that was being overthrown; the centralization<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> which reduced the
+whole revolutionary movement to the overmastering of Paris and the
+seizing of the machinery of government; and lastly, the mobility of all
+things, institutions, ideas, men and customs, in a fluctuating state of
+society which had, in less than sixty years, undergone the shock of
+seven great revolutions, without numbering a multitude of smaller,
+secondary upheavals. These were the general causes without which the
+Revolution of February would have been impossible. The principal
+accidents which led to it were the passions of the dynastic Opposition,
+which brought about a riot in proposing a reform; the suppression of
+this riot, first over-violent, and then abandoned; the sudden
+disappearance of the old Ministry, unexpectedly snapping the threads of
+power, which the new ministers, in their confusion, were unable either
+to seize upon or to reunite; the mistakes and disorder of mind of these
+ministers, so powerless to re-establish that which they had been strong
+enough to overthrow; the vacillation of the generals; the absence of the
+only Princes who possessed either personal energy or popularity; and
+above all, the senile imbecility of King Louis-Philippe, his weakness,
+which no one could have foreseen, and which still remains almost
+incredible, after the event has proved it.</p>
+
+<p>I have sometimes asked myself what could have produced this sudden and
+unprecedented depression in the King's mind. Louis-Philippe had spent
+his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> life in the midst of revolutions, and certainly lacked neither
+experience, courage, nor readiness of mind, although these qualities all
+failed him so completely on that day. In my opinion, his weakness was
+due to his excessive surprise; he was overwhelmed with consternation
+before he had grasped the meaning of things. The Revolution of February
+was <em>unforeseen</em> by all, but by him more than any other; he had been
+prepared for it by no warning from the outside, for since many years his
+mind had withdrawn into that sort of haughty solitude into which in the
+end the intellect almost always settles down of princes who have long
+lived happily, and who, mistaking luck for genius, refuse to listen to
+anything, because they think that there is nothing left for them to
+learn from anybody. Besides, Louis-Philippe had been deceived, as I have
+already said that his ministers were, by the misleading light cast by
+antecedent facts upon present times. One might draw a strange picture of
+all the errors which have thus been begotten, one by the other, without
+resembling each other. We see Charles I. driven to tyranny and violence
+at the sight of the progress which the spirit of opposition had made in
+England during the gentle reign of his father; Louis XVI. determined to
+suffer everything because Charles I. had perished by refusing to endure
+anything; Charles X. provoking the Revolution, because he had with his
+own eyes beheld the weakness of Louis XVI.; and lastly, Louis-Philippe,
+who had more perspicacity than any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> of them, imagining that, in order to
+remain on the Throne, all he had to do was to observe the letter of the
+law while violating its spirit, and that, provided he himself kept
+within the bounds of the Charter, the nation would never exceed them. To
+warp the spirit of the Constitution without changing the letter; to set
+the vices of the country in opposition to each other; gently to drown
+revolutionary passion in the love of material enjoyment: such was the
+idea of his whole life. Little by little, it had become, not his
+leading, but his sole idea. He had wrapped himself in it, he had lived
+in it; and when he suddenly saw that it was a false idea, he became like
+a man who is awakened in the night by an earthquake, and who, feeling
+his house crumbling in the darkness, and the very ground seeming to yawn
+beneath his feet, remains distracted amid this unforeseen and universal
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>I am arguing very much at my ease to-day concerning the causes that
+brought about the events of the 24th of February; but on the afternoon
+of that day I had many other things in my head: I was thinking of the
+events themselves, and sought less for what had produced them than for
+what was to follow.</p>
+
+<p>I returned slowly home. I explained in a few words to Madame de
+Tocqueville what I had seen, and sat down in a corner to think. I cannot
+remember ever feeling my soul so full of sadness. It was the second
+revolution I had seen accomplish itself, before my eyes, within
+seventeen years!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the 30th of July 1830, at daybreak, I had met the carriages of King
+Charles X. on the outer boulevards of Versailles, with damaged
+escutcheons, proceeding at a foot pace, in Indian file, like a funeral,
+and I was unable to restrain my tears at the sight. This time my
+impressions were of another kind, but even keener. Both revolutions had
+afflicted me; but how much more bitter were the impressions caused by
+the last! I had until the end felt a remnant of hereditary affection for
+Charles X.; but that King fell for having violated rights that were dear
+to me, and I had every hope that my country's freedom would be revived
+rather than extinguished by his fall. But now this freedom seemed dead;
+the Princes who were fleeing were nothing to me, but I felt that the
+cause I had at heart was lost.</p>
+
+<p>I had spent the best days of my youth amid a society which seemed to
+increase in greatness and prosperity as it increased in liberty; I had
+conceived the idea of a balanced, regulated liberty, held in check by
+religion, custom and law; the attractions of this liberty had touched
+me; it had become the passion of my life; I felt that I could never be
+consoled for its loss, and that I must renounce all hope of its
+recovery.</p>
+
+<p>I had gained too much experience of mankind to be able to content myself
+with empty words; I knew that, if one great revolution is able to
+establish liberty in a country, a number of succeeding revolu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>tions make
+all regular liberty impossible for very many years.</p>
+
+<p>I could not yet know what would issue from this last revolution, but I
+was already convinced that it could give birth to nothing that would
+satisfy me; and I foresaw that, whatever might be the lot reserved for
+our posterity, our own fate was to drag on our lives miserably amid
+alternate reactions of licence and oppression.</p>
+
+<p>I began to pass in review the history of our last sixty years, and I
+smiled bitterly when I thought of the illusions formed at the conclusion
+of each period in this long revolution; the theories on which these
+illusions had been fed; the sapient dreams of our historians, and all
+the ingenious and deceptive systems by the aid of which it had been
+endeavoured to explain a present which was still incorrectly seen, and a
+future which was not seen at all.</p>
+
+<p>The Constitutional Monarchy had succeeded the Ancien Régime; the
+Republic, the Monarchy; the Empire, the Republic; the Restoration, the
+Empire; and then came the Monarchy of July. After each of these
+successive changes it was said that the French Revolution, having
+accomplished what was presumptuously called its work, was finished; this
+had been said and it had been believed. Alas! I myself had hoped it
+under the Restoration, and again after the fall of the Government of the
+Restoration; and here is the French Revolution beginning over again, for
+it is still the same one. As we go on, its end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> seems farther off and
+shrouded in greater darkness. Shall we ever&mdash;as we are assured by other
+prophets, perhaps as delusive as their predecessors&mdash;shall we ever
+attain a more complete and more far-reaching social transformation than
+our fathers foresaw and desired, and than we ourselves are able to
+foresee; or are we not destined simply to end in a condition of
+intermittent anarchy, the well-known chronic and incurable complaint of
+old races? As for me, I am unable to say; I do not know when this long
+voyage will be ended; I am weary of seeing the shore in each successive
+mirage, and I often ask myself whether the <em>terra firma</em> we are seeking
+does really exist, and whether we are not doomed to rove upon the seas
+for ever.</p>
+
+<p>I spent the rest of the day with Ampère, who was my colleague at the
+Institute, and one of my best friends. He came to discover what had
+become of me in the affray, and to ask himself to dinner. I wished at
+first to relieve myself by making him share my vexation; but I soon
+perceived that his impression was not the same as mine, and that he
+looked differently upon the revolution which was in progress. Ampère was
+a man of intelligence and, better still, a man full of heart, gentle in
+manner, and reliable. His good-nature caused him to be liked; and he was
+popular because of his versatile, witty, amusing, good-humoured
+conversation, in which he made many remarks that were at once
+entertaining and agreeable to hear, but too shallow to remember.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+Unfortunately, he was inclined to carry the <em>esprit</em> of the salons into
+literature and the <em>esprit</em> of literature into politics. What I call
+literary <em>esprit</em> in politics consists in seeking for what is novel and
+ingenious rather than for what is true; in preferring the showy to the
+useful; in showing one's self very sensible to the playing and elocution
+of the actors, without regard to the results of the play; and, lastly,
+in judging by impressions rather than reasons. I need not say that this
+eccentricity exists among others besides Academicians. To tell the
+truth, the whole nation is a little inclined that way, and the French
+Public very often takes a man-of-letters' view of politics. Ampère held
+the fallen Government in great contempt, and its last actions had
+irritated him greatly. Moreover, he had witnessed many instances of
+courage, disinterestedness, and even generosity among the insurgents;
+and he had been bitten by the popular excitement.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that he not only did not enter into my view, but that he was
+disposed to take quite an opposite one. Seeing this, I was suddenly
+impelled to turn against Ampère all the feelings of indignation, grief
+and anger that had been accumulating in my heart since the morning; and
+I spoke to him with a violence of language which I have often since
+recalled with a certain shame, and which none but a friendship so
+sincere as his could have excused. I remember saying to him, <em>inter
+alia</em>:</p>
+
+<p>"You understand nothing of what is happening;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> you are judging like a
+poet or a Paris cockney. You call this the triumph of liberty, when it
+is its final defeat. I tell you that the people which you so artlessly
+admire has just succeeded in proving that it is unfit and unworthy to
+live a life of freedom. Show me what experience has taught it! Where are
+the new virtues it has gained, the old vices it has laid aside? No, I
+tell you, it is always the same, as impatient, as thoughtless, as
+contemptuous of law and order, as easily led and as cowardly in the
+presence of danger as its fathers were before it. Time has altered it in
+no way, and has left it as frivolous in serious matters as it used to be
+in trifles."</p>
+
+<p>After much vociferation we both ended by appealing to the future, that
+enlightened and upright judge who always, alas! arrives too late.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIa" id="CHAPTER_IIa"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>PARIS ON THE MORROW OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY AND THE NEXT DAYS&mdash;THE
+SOCIALISTIC CHARACTER OF THE NEW REVOLUTION.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The night passed without accidents, although not until the morning did
+the streets cease to resound with cries and gun-shots; but these were
+sounds of triumph, not of combat. So soon as it was light, I went out to
+observe the appearance of the town, and to discover what had become of
+my two young nephews,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> who were being educated at the Little Seminary.
+The Little Seminary was in the Rue de Madame, at the back of the
+Luxembourg, so that I had to cross a great part of the town to reach it.</p>
+
+<p>I found the streets quiet, and even half deserted, as they usually are
+in Paris on a Sunday morning, when the rich are still asleep and the
+poor are resting. From time to time, along the walls, one met the
+victors of the preceding day; but they were filled with wine rather than
+political ardour, and were, for the most part, making for their homes
+without taking heed of the passers-by. A few shops were open, and one
+caught sight of the frightened, but still more astonished, shopkeepers,
+who reminded one of spectators witnessing the end of a play which they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+did not quite understand. What one saw most of in the streets deserted
+by the people, was soldiers; some walking singly, others in little
+groups, all unarmed, and crossing the city on their roads home. The
+defeat these men had just sustained had left a very vivid and lasting
+impression of shame and anger upon them. This was noticed later, but was
+not apparent at the time: the pleasure of finding themselves at liberty
+seemed to absorb every other feeling in these lads; they walked with a
+careless air, with a light and easy gait.</p>
+
+<p>The Little Seminary had not been attacked nor even insulted. My nephews,
+however, were not there; they had been sent home the evening before to
+their maternal grandmother. Accordingly, I turned back, taking the Rue
+du Bac, to find out what had become of Lamoricière, who was then living
+in that street; and it was only after recognizing me that the servants
+admitted that their master was at home, and consented to take me to him.</p>
+
+<p>I found this singular person, whom I shall have occasion to mention more
+than once, stretched upon his bed, and reduced to a state of immobility
+very much opposed to his character or taste. His head was half broken
+open; his arms pierced with bayonet-thrusts; all his limbs bruised and
+powerless. For the rest, he was the same as ever, with his bright
+intelligence and his indomitable heart. He told me of all that happened
+to him the day before,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> and of the thousand dangers which he had only
+escaped by miracle. I strongly advised him to rest until he was cured,
+and even long after, so as not uselessly to endanger his person and his
+reputation in the chaos about to ensue: good advice, undoubtedly, to
+give to a man so enamoured of action and so accustomed to act that,
+after doing what is necessary and useful, he is always ready to
+undertake the injurious and dangerous, rather than do nothing; but no
+more effective than all those counsels which go against nature.</p>
+
+<p>I spent the whole afternoon in walking about Paris. Two things in
+particular struck me: the first was, I will not say the mainly, but the
+uniquely and exclusively popular character of the revolution that had
+just taken place; the omnipotence it had given to the people properly
+so-called&mdash;that is to say, the classes who work with their hands&mdash;over
+all others. The second was the comparative absence of malignant passion,
+or, as a matter of fact, of any keen passion&mdash;an absence which at once
+made it clear that the lower orders had suddenly become masters of
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Although the working classes had often played the leading part in the
+events of the First Revolution, they had never been the sole leaders and
+masters of the State, either <em>de facto</em> or <em>de jure</em>; it is doubtful
+whether the Convention contained a single man of the people; it was
+composed of <em>bourgeois</em> and men of letters. The war between the Mountain
+and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> Girondists was conducted on both sides by members of the middle
+class, and the triumph of the former never brought power down into the
+hands of the people alone. The Revolution of July was effected by the
+people, but the middle class had stirred it up and led it, and secured
+the principal fruits of it. The Revolution of February, on the contrary,
+seemed to be made entirely outside the <em>bourgeoisie</em> and against it.</p>
+
+<p>In this great concussion, the two parties of which the social body in
+France is mainly composed had, in a way, been thrown more completely
+asunder, and the mass of the people, which had stood alone, remained in
+sole possession of power. Nothing more novel had been known in our
+annals. Similar revolutions had taken place, it is true, in other
+countries and other days; for the history of our own times, however new
+and unexpected it may seem, always belongs at bottom to the old history
+of humanity, and what we call new facts are oftenest nothing more than
+facts forgotten. Florence, in particular, towards the close of the
+middle ages, had presented on a small scale a spectacle analogous to
+ours; the noble classes had first been succeeded by the burgher classes,
+and then one day the latter were, in their turn, expelled from the
+government, and a <em>gonfalonier</em> was seen marching barefoot at the head
+of the people, and thus leading the Republic. But in Florence this
+popular revolution was the result of transient and special causes, while
+with us it was brought about by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> causes very permanent and of a kind so
+general that, after stirring up France, it was to be expected that it
+would excite all the rest of Europe. This time it was not only a
+question of the triumph of a party; the aim was to establish a social
+science, a philosophy, I might almost say a religion, fit to be learned
+and followed by all mankind. This was the really new portion of the old
+picture.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout this day, I did not see in Paris a single one of the former
+agents of the public authority: not a soldier, not a gendarme, not a
+policeman; the National Guard itself had disappeared. The people alone
+bore arms, guarded the public buildings, watched, gave orders, punished;
+it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see in the sole hands of
+those who possessed nothing all this immense town, so full of riches, or
+rather this great nation: for, thanks to centralization, he who reigns
+in Paris governs France. Hence the affright of all the other classes was
+extreme; I doubt whether at any period of the Revolution it had been so
+great, and I should say that it was only to be compared to that which
+the civilized cities of the Roman Empire must have experienced when they
+suddenly found themselves in the power of the Goths and Vandals. As
+nothing like this had ever been seen before, many people expected acts
+of unexampled violence. For my part I did not once partake of these
+fears. What I saw led me to predict strange disturbances in the near
+future&mdash;singular crises. But I never believed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> that the rich would be
+pillaged; I knew the men of the people in Paris too well not to know
+that their first movements in times of revolution are usually generous,
+and that they are best pleased to spend the days immediately following
+their triumph in boasting of their victory, laying down the law, and
+playing at being great men. During that time it generally happens that
+some government or other is set up, the police returns to its post, and
+the judge to his bench; and when at last our great men consent to step
+down to the better known and more vulgar ground of petty and malicious
+human passion, they are no longer able to do so, and are reduced to live
+simply like honest men. Besides, we have spent so many years in
+insurrections that there has arisen among us a kind of morality peculiar
+to times of disorder, and a special code for days of rebellion.
+According to these exceptional laws, murder is tolerated and havoc
+permitted, but theft is strenuously forbidden; although this, whatever
+one may say, does not prevent a good deal of robbery from occurring upon
+those days, for the simple reason that society in a state of rebellion
+cannot be different from that at any other time, and it will always
+contain a number of rascals who, as far as they are concerned, scorn the
+morality of the main body, and despise its point of honour when they are
+unobserved. What reassured me still more was the reflection that the
+victors had been as much surprised by success as their adversaries were
+by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> defeat: their passions had not had time to take fire and become
+intensified in the struggle; the Government had fallen undefended by
+others, or even by itself. It had long been attacked, or at least keenly
+censured, by the very men who at heart most deeply regretted its fall.</p>
+
+<p>For a year past the dynastic Opposition and the republican Opposition
+had been living in fallacious intimacy, acting in the same way from
+different motives. The misunderstanding which had facilitated the
+revolution tended to mitigate its after effects. Now that the Monarchy
+had disappeared, the battle-field seemed empty; the people no longer
+clearly saw what enemies remained for them to pursue and strike down;
+the former objects of their anger, themselves, were no longer there; the
+clergy had never been completely reconciled to the new dynasty, and
+witnessed its ruin without regret; the old nobility were delighted at
+it, whatever the ultimate consequences might be: the first had suffered
+through the system of intolerance of the middle classes, the second
+through their pride: both either despised or feared their government.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in sixty years, the priests, the old aristocracy and
+the people met in a common sentiment&mdash;a feeling of revenge, it is true,
+and not of affection; but even that is a great thing in politics, where
+a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
+The real, the only vanquished were the middle class; but even this had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+little to fear. Its reign had been exclusive rather than oppressive;
+corrupt, but not violent; it was despised rather than hated. Moreover,
+the middle class never forms a compact body in the heart of the nation,
+a part very distinct from the whole; it always participates a little
+with all the others, and in some places merges into them. This absence
+of homogeneity and of exact limits makes the government of the middle
+class weak and uncertain, but it also makes it intangible, and, as it
+were, invisible to those who desire to strike it when it is no longer
+governing.</p>
+
+<p>From all these united causes proceeded that languor of the people which
+had struck me as much as its omnipotence, a languor which was the more
+discernible, in that it contrasted strangely with the turgid energy of
+the language used and the terrible recollections which it evoked. The
+lukewarm passions of the time were made to speak in the bombastic
+periods of '93, and one heard cited at every moment the name and example
+of the illustrious ruffians whom no one possessed either the energy or
+even a sincere desire to resemble.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Socialistic theories which I have already described as the
+philosophy of the Revolution of February that later kindled genuine
+passion, embittered jealousy, and ended by stirring up war between the
+classes. If the actions at the commencement were less disorderly than
+might have been feared, on the very morrow of the Revolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> there was
+displayed an extraordinary agitation, an unequalled disorder, in the
+ideas of the people.</p>
+
+<p>From the 25th of February onwards, a thousand strange systems came
+issuing pell-mell from the minds of innovators, and spread among the
+troubled minds of the crowd. Everything still remained standing except
+Royalty and Parliament; yet it seemed as though the shock of the
+Revolution had reduced society itself to dust, and as though a
+competition had been opened for the new form that was to be given to the
+edifice about to be erected in its place. Everyone came forward with a
+plan of his own: this one printed it in the papers, that other on the
+placards with which the walls were soon covered, a third proclaimed his
+loud-mouthed in the open air. One aimed at destroying inequality of
+fortune, another inequality of education, a third undertook to do away
+with the oldest of all inequalities, that between man and woman.
+Specifics were offered against poverty, and remedies for the disease of
+work which has tortured humanity since the first days of its existence.</p>
+
+<p>These theories were of very varied natures, often opposed and sometimes
+hostile to one another; but all of them, aiming lower than the
+government and striving to reach society itself, on which government
+rests, adopted the common name of Socialism.</p>
+
+<p>Socialism will always remain the essential characteristic and the most
+redoubtable remembrance of the Revolution of February. The Republic
+will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> only appear to the on-looker to have come upon the scene as a
+means, not as an end.</p>
+
+<p>It does not come within the scope of these Recollections that I should
+seek for the causes which gave a socialistic character to the Revolution
+of February, and I will content myself with saying that the discovery of
+this new facet of the French Revolution was not of a nature to cause so
+great surprise as it did. Had it not long been perceived that the people
+had continually been improving and raising its condition, that its
+importance, its education, its desires, its power had been constantly
+increasing? Its prosperity had also grown greater, but less rapidly, and
+was approaching the limit which it hardly ever passes in old societies,
+where there are many men and but few places. How should the poor and
+humbler and yet powerful classes not have dreamt of issuing from their
+poverty and inferiority by means of their power, especially in an epoch
+when our view into another world has become dimmer, and the miseries of
+this world become more visible and seem more intolerable? They had been
+working to this end for the last sixty years. The people had first
+endeavoured to help itself by changing every political institution, but
+after each change it found that its lot was in no way improved, or was
+only improving with a slowness quite incompatible with the eagerness of
+its desire. Inevitably, it must sooner or later discover that that which
+held it fixed in its position was not the constitution of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+government but the unalterable laws that constitute society itself; and
+it was natural that it should be brought to ask itself if it had not
+both the power and the right to alter those laws, as it had altered all
+the rest. And to speak more specially of property, which is, as it were,
+the foundation of our social order&mdash;all the privileges which covered it
+and which, so to speak, concealed the privilege of property having been
+destroyed, and the latter remaining the principal obstacle to equality
+among men, and appearing to be the only sign of inequality&mdash;was it not
+necessary, I will not say that it should be abolished in its turn, but
+at least that the thought of abolishing it should occur to the minds of
+those who did not enjoy it?</p>
+
+<p>This natural restlessness in the minds of the people, this inevitable
+perturbation of its thoughts and its desires, these needs, these
+instincts of the crowd formed in a certain sense the fabric upon which
+the political innovators embroidered so many monstrous and grotesque
+figures. Their work may be regarded as ludicrous, but the material on
+which they worked is the most serious that it is possible for
+philosophers and statesmen to contemplate.</p>
+
+<p>Will Socialism remain buried in the disdain with which the Socialists of
+1848 are so justly covered? I put the question without making any reply.
+I do not doubt that the laws concerning the constitution of our modern
+society will in the long run undergo modification: they have already
+done so in many of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> their principal parts. But will they ever be
+destroyed and replaced by others? It seems to me to be impracticable. I
+say no more, because&mdash;the more I study the former condition of the world
+and see the world of our own day in greater detail, the more I consider
+the prodigious variety to be met with not only in laws, but in the
+principles of law, and the different forms even now taken and retained,
+whatever one may say, by the rights of property on this earth&mdash;the more
+I am tempted to believe that what we call necessary institutions are
+often no more than institutions to which we have grown accustomed, and
+that in matters of social constitution the field of possibilities is
+much more extensive than men living in their various societies are ready
+to imagine.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Hubert and René de Tocqueville.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cte. de T.</span></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIa" id="CHAPTER_IIIa"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>VACILLATION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE OLD PARLIAMENT AS TO THE ATTITUDE
+THEY SHOULD ADOPT&mdash;MY OWN REFLECTIONS ON MY MODE OF ACTION, AND MY
+RESOLVES.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>During the days immediately following upon the 24th of February, I
+neither went in search of nor fell in with any of the politicians from
+whom the events of that day had separated me. I felt no necessity nor,
+to tell the truth, any inclination to do so. I felt a sort of
+instinctive repugnance to remembering this wretched parliamentary world,
+in which I had spent six years of my life, and in whose midst I had seen
+the Revolution sprouting up.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, at that time I saw the great vanity of any sort of political
+conversation or combination. However feeble the reasons may have been
+which first imparted the movement to the mob, that movement had now
+become irresistible. I felt that we were all in the midst of one of
+those great floods of democracy in which the embankments, intended to
+resist individuals and even parties, only serve to drown those who build
+them, and in which, for a time, there is nothing to be done but to study
+the general character of the phenomenon. I therefore spent all my time
+in the streets with the victors, as though I had been a worshipper of
+fortune. True,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> I paid no homage to the new sovereign, and asked no
+favours of it. I did not even address it, but contented myself with
+listening to and observing it.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, after the lapse of some days, I resumed relations with the
+vanquished: I once more met ex-deputies, ex-peers, men of letters, men
+of business and finance, land-owners, all who in the language of the
+moment were commencing to be known as the idle. I found that the aspect
+of the Revolution was no less extraordinary when thus seen from above
+than it had seemed to me when, at the commencement, I viewed it from
+below. I encountered much fear, but as little genuine passion as I had
+seen in other quarters; a curious feeling of resignation, no vestige of
+hope, and I should almost say no idea of ever returning to the
+Government which they had only just left. Although the Revolution of
+February was the shortest and the least bloody of all our revolutions,
+it had filled men's minds and hearts with the idea of its omnipotence to
+a much greater extent than any of its predecessors. I believe this was,
+to a great extent, due to the fact that these minds and hearts were void
+of political faith and ardour, and that, after so many disappointments
+and vain agitations, they retained nothing but a taste for comfort&mdash;a
+very tenacious and very exclusive, but also a very agreeable feeling,
+which easily accommodates itself to any form of government, provided it
+be allowed to satisfy itself.</p>
+
+<p>I beheld, therefore, an universal endeavour to make the best of the new
+state of things and to win over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> the new master. The great landlords
+were glad to remember that they had always been hostile to the middle
+class and always favoured the people; the <em>bourgeois</em> themselves
+remembered with a certain pride that their fathers had been working men,
+and when they were unable, owing to the inevitable obscurity of their
+pedigrees, to trace back their descent to a labourer who had worked with
+his hands, they at least strove to discover a plebeian ancestor who had
+been the architect of his own fortune. They took as great pains to make
+a display of the latter as, not long before, they would have taken to
+conceal his existence: so true is it that human vanity, without changing
+its nature, can show itself under the most diverse aspects. It has an
+obverse and a reverse side, but it is always the same medal.</p>
+
+<p>As there was no longer any genuine feeling left save that of fear, far
+from breaking with those of his relations who had thrown themselves into
+the Revolution, each strove to draw closer to them. The time had come to
+try and turn to account any scapegrace whom one had in one's family. If
+good luck would have it that one had a cousin, a brother, or a son who
+had become ruined by his disorderly life, one could be sure that he was
+in a fair way to succeed; and if he had become known by the promulgation
+of some extravagant theory or other, he might hope to attain to any
+height. Most of the commissaries and under-commissaries of the
+Government were men of this type.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As to King Louis-Philippe, there was no more question of him than if he
+had belonged to the Merovingian Dynasty. Nothing struck me more than the
+absolute silence that had suddenly surrounded his name. I did not hear
+it pronounced a single time, so to speak, either by the people or by the
+upper class. Those of his former courtiers whom I saw did not speak of
+him, and I honestly believe they did not think of him. The Revolution
+had so completely turned their thoughts in another direction, that they
+had forgotten their Sovereign. I may be told that this is the ordinary
+fate of fallen kings; but what seems more worthy of remark, his enemies
+even had forgotten him: they no longer feared him enough to slander him,
+perhaps even to hate him, which is one of fortune's greatest, or at
+least rarest, insults.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to write the history of the Revolution of 1848, I only
+wish to retrace my own actions, ideas, and impressions during the course
+of this revolution; and I therefore pass over the events that took place
+during the weeks immediately following the 24th of February, and come to
+the period preceding the General Election.</p>
+
+<p>The time had come to decide whether one cared merely to watch the
+progress of this singular revolution or to take part in events. I found
+the former party leaders divided among themselves; and each of them,
+moreover, seemed divided also within himself, to judge by the
+incoherence of the language<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> used and the vacillation of opinion. These
+politicians, who had almost all been trained to public business amid the
+regulated, restrained movement of constitutional liberty, and upon whom
+a great revolution had unexpectedly come, were like river oarsmen who
+should suddenly find themselves called upon to navigate their boat in
+mid-ocean. The knowledge they had acquired in their fresh water trips
+would be of more trouble than assistance to them in this greater
+adventure, and they would often display more confusion and uncertainty
+than the passengers themselves.</p>
+
+<p>M. Thiers frequently expressed the opinion that they should go to the
+poll and get elected, and as frequently urged that it would be wiser to
+stand aside. I do not know whether his hesitation arose from his dread
+of the dangers that might follow upon the election, or his fear lest he
+should not be elected. Rémusat, who always sees so clearly what might,
+and so dimly what should be done, set forth the good reasons that
+existed for staying at home, and the no less good reasons for going to
+the country. Duvergier was distracted. The Revolution had overthrown the
+system of the balance of power in which his mind had sat motionless
+during so many years, and he felt as though he were hung up in mid-air.
+As for the Duc de Broglie, he had not put his head out of his shell
+since the 24th of February, and in this attitude he awaited the end of
+society, which in his opinion was close at hand. M. Molé<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> alone,
+although he was by far the oldest of all the former parliamentary
+leaders, and possibly for that very reason, resolutely maintained the
+opinion that they should take part in public affairs and try to lead the
+Revolution; perhaps because his longer experience had taught him that in
+troubled times it is dangerous to play the looker-on; perhaps because
+the hope of again having something to lead cheered him and hid from him
+the danger of the undertaking; or perhaps because, after being so often
+bent in contrary directions, under so many different <em>régimes</em>, his mind
+had become firmer as well as more supple and more indifferent as to the
+kind of master it might serve. On my side, as may be imagined, I very
+attentively considered which was the best resolution to adopt.</p>
+
+<p>I should like here to inquire into the reasons which determined my
+course of action, and having found them, to set them down without
+evasion: but how difficult it is to speak well of one's self! I have
+observed that the greater part of those who have written their Memoirs
+have only well shown us their bad actions or their weaknesses when they
+happened to have taken them for deeds of prowess or fine instincts, a
+thing which often occurs. As in the case of the Cardinal de Retz, who,
+in order to be credited with what he considers the glory of being a good
+conspirator, confesses his schemes for assassinating Richelieu, and
+tells us of his hypocritical devotions and charities lest he should fail
+to be taken for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> clever man. In such cases it is not the love of truth
+that guides the pen, but the warped mind which involuntarily betrays the
+vices of the heart.</p>
+
+<p>And even when one wishes to be sincere, it is very rarely that one
+succeeds in the endeavour. The fault lies, in the first place, with the
+public, which likes to see one accuse, but will not suffer him to
+praise, himself; even one's friends are wont to describe as amiable
+candour all the harm, and as unbecoming vanity all the good, that he
+says of himself: so that at this rate sincerity becomes a very thankless
+trade, by which one has everything to lose and nothing to gain. But the
+difficulty, above all, lies with the subject himself: he is too close to
+himself to see well, and prone to lose himself amid the views,
+interests, ideas, thoughts and inclinations that have guided his
+actions. This net-work of little foot-paths, which are little known even
+by those who use them, prevent one from clearly discerning the main
+roads followed by the will before arriving at the most important
+conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I will try to discover myself amid this labyrinth, for it
+is only right that I should take the same liberties with myself which I
+have taken, and shall often continue to take, with others.</p>
+
+<p>Let me say, then, that when I came to search carefully into the depths
+of my own heart, I discovered, with some surprise, a certain sense of
+relief, a sort of gladness mingled with all the griefs and fears to
+which the Revolution had given rise. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> suffered from this terrible
+event for my country, but clearly not for myself; on the contrary, I
+seemed to breathe more freely than before the catastrophe. I had always
+felt myself stifled in the atmosphere of the parliamentary world which
+had just been destroyed: I had found it full of disappointments, both
+where others and where I myself was concerned; and to commence with the
+latter, I was not long in discovering that I did not possess the
+necessary qualifications to play the brilliant rôle that I had imagined:
+both my qualities and my defects were impediments. I had not the virtues
+necessary to command respect, and I was too upright to stoop to all the
+petty practices which were at that time essential to a speedy success.
+And observe that this uprightness was irremediable; for it forms so
+integral a part both of my temperament and my principles, that without
+it I am never able to turn myself to any account. Whenever I have, by
+ill-luck, been obliged to speak in defence of a bad cause, or to assist
+in bad measures, I have immediately found myself deprived of all talent
+and all ardour; and I confess that nothing has consoled me more at the
+want of success with which my uprightness has often met, than the
+certainty I have always been in that I could never have made more than a
+very clumsy and mediocre rogue. I also ended by perceiving that I was
+absolutely lacking in the art of grouping and leading a large number of
+men. I have always been incapable of dexterity, except in <em>tête-à-tête</em>,
+and embarrassed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> and dumb in the presence of a crowd; I do not mean to
+say that at a given moment I am unable to say and do what will please
+it, but that is not enough: those great occasions are very rare in
+parliamentary warfare. The trick of the trade, in a party leader, is to
+be able to mix continually with his followers and even his adversaries,
+to show himself, to move about daily, to play continually now to the
+boxes, now to the gallery, so as to reach the level of every
+intelligence, to discuss and argue without end, to say the same things a
+thousand times in different ways, and to be impassioned eternally in the
+face of the same objects. These are all things of which I am quite
+incapable. I find it troublesome to discuss matters which interest me
+little, and painful to discuss those in which I am keenly concerned.
+Truth is for me so rare and precious a thing that, once found, I do not
+like to risk it on the hazard of a debate; it is a light which I fear to
+extinguish by waving it to and fro. And as to consorting with men, I
+could not do so in any habitual and general fashion, because I never
+recognize more than a very few. Unless a person strikes me by something
+out of the common in his intellect or opinions, I, so to speak, do not
+see him. I have always taken it for granted that mediocrities, as well
+as men of merit, had a nose, a mouth, eyes; but I have never, in their
+case, been able to fix the particular shape of these features in my
+memory. I am constantly inquiring the name of strangers whom I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> see
+every day, and as constantly forgetting them; and yet, I do not despise
+them, only I consort but little with them, treating them as constant
+quantities. I honour them, for the world is made up of them; but they
+weary me profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>What completed my disgust was the mediocrity and monotony of the
+parliamentary events of that period, as well as the triviality of the
+passions and the vulgar perversity of the men who pretended to cause or
+to guide them.</p>
+
+<p>I have sometimes thought that, though the habits of different societies
+may differ, the morality of the politicians at the head of affairs is
+everywhere the same. What is very certain is that, in France, all the
+party leaders whom I have met in my time have, with few exceptions,
+appeared to me to be equally unworthy of holding office, some because of
+their lack of personal character or of real parts, most by their lack of
+any sort of virtue. I thus experienced as great a difficulty in joining
+with others as in being satisfied with myself, in obeying as in acting
+on my own initiative.</p>
+
+<p>But that which most tormented and depressed me during the nine years I
+had spent in business, and which to this day remains my most hideous
+memory of that time, is the incessant uncertainty in which I had to live
+as to the best daily course to adopt. I am inclined to think that my
+uncertainty of character arises rather from a want of clearness of idea
+than from any weakness of heart, and that I never experi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>enced either
+hesitation or difficulty in following the most rugged road, when once I
+clearly saw where it would lead me. But amid all these little dynastic
+parties, differing so little in aim, and resembling one another so much
+in the bad methods which they put into practice, which was the
+thoroughfare that led visibly to honour, or even to utility? Where lay
+truth? Where falsehood? On which side were the rogues? On which side the
+honest men? I was never, at that time, fully able to distinguish it, and
+I declare that even now I should not well be able to do so. Most party
+men allow themselves to be neither distressed nor unnerved by doubts of
+this kind; many even have never known them, or know them no longer. They
+are often accused of acting without conviction; but my experience has
+proved that this was much less frequently the case than one might think.
+Only they possess the precious and sometimes, in politics, even
+necessary faculty of creating transient convictions for themselves,
+according to the passions and interests of the moment, and thus they
+succeed in committing, honourably enough, actions which in themselves
+are little to their credit. Unfortunately, I could never bring myself to
+illuminate my intelligence with these special and artificial lights, nor
+so readily to convince myself that my own advantage was one and the same
+with the general good.</p>
+
+<p>It was this parliamentary world, in which I had suffered all the
+wretchedness that I have just described, which was broken up by the
+Revolution; it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> had mingled and confounded the old parties in one common
+ruin, deposed their leaders, and destroyed their traditions and
+discipline. There had issued from this, it was true, a disordered and
+confused state of society, but one in which ability became less
+necessary and less highly rated than courage and disinterestedness; in
+which personal character was more important than elocution or the art of
+leadership; but, above all, in which there was no field left for
+vacillation of mind: on this side lay the salvation of the country; on
+that, its destruction. There was no longer any mistake possible as to
+the road to follow; we were to walk in broad daylight, supported and
+encouraged by the crowd. The road seemed dangerous, it is true, but my
+mind is so constructed that it is less afraid of danger than of doubt. I
+felt, moreover, that I was still in the prime of life, that I had few
+needs, and, above all, that I was able to find at home the support, so
+rare and precious in times of revolution, of a devoted wife, whom a firm
+and penetrating mind and a naturally lofty soul would easily maintain at
+the level of every situation and above every reverse.</p>
+
+<p>I therefore determined to plunge boldly into the arena, and in defence,
+not of any particular government, but of the laws which constitute
+society itself, to risk my fortune, my person, and my peace of mind. The
+first thing was to secure my election, and I left speedily for Normandy
+in order to put myself before the electors.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVa" id="CHAPTER_IVa"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>MY CANDIDATURE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LA MANCHE&mdash;THE ASPECT OF THE
+COUNTRY&mdash;THE GENERAL ELECTION.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>As every one knows, the Department of la Manche is peopled almost
+exclusively by farmers. It contains few large towns, few manufactures,
+and, with the exception of Cherbourg, no places in which workmen are
+gathered in large numbers. At first, the Revolution was hardly noticed
+there. The upper classes immediately bent beneath the blow, and the
+lower classes scarcely felt it. Generally speaking, agricultural
+populations are slower than others in perceiving, and more stubborn in
+retaining, political impressions; they are the last to rise and the last
+to settle down again. The steward of my estate, himself half a peasant,
+describing what was taking place in the country immediately after the
+24th of February, wrote:</p>
+
+<p>"People here say that if Louis-Philippe has been sent away, it is a good
+thing, and that he deserved it...."</p>
+
+<p>This was to them the whole moral of the play. But when they heard tell
+of the disorder reigning in Paris, of the new taxes to be imposed, and
+of the general state of war that was to be feared;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> when they saw
+commerce cease and money seem to sink down into the ground, and when, in
+particular, they learnt that the principle of property was being
+attacked, they did not fail to perceive that there was something more
+than Louis-Philippe in question.</p>
+
+<p>Fear, which had first displayed itself in the upper circles of society,
+then descended into the depths of the people, and universal terror took
+possession of the whole country. This was the condition in which I found
+it when I arrived about the middle of March. I was at once struck by a
+spectacle that both astonished and charmed me. A certain demagogic
+agitation reigned, it is true, among the workmen in the towns; but in
+the country all the landed proprietors, whatever their origin,
+antecedents, education or means, had come together, and seemed to form
+but one class: all former political hatred and rivalry of caste or
+fortune had disappeared from view. There was no more jealousy or pride
+displayed between the peasant and the squire, the nobleman and the
+commoner; instead, I found mutual confidence, reciprocal friendliness,
+and regard. Property had become, with all those who owned it, a sort of
+badge of fraternity. The wealthy were the elder, the less endowed the
+younger brothers; but all considered themselves members of one family,
+having the same interest in defending the common inheritance. As the
+French Revolution had infinitely increased the number of land-owners,
+the whole population seemed to belong to that vast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> family. I had never
+seen anything like it, nor had anyone in France within the memory of
+man. Experience has shown that this union was not so close as it
+appeared, and that the former parties and the various classes had drawn
+closer rather than mingled together; fear had acted upon them as a
+mechanical pressure might upon very hard bodies, which are compelled to
+adhere to one another so long as the pressure continues, but which
+separate so soon as it is relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, from the first moment I saw no trace whatever of
+political opinions, properly so-called. One would have thought that the
+republican form of government had suddenly become not only the best, but
+the only one imaginable for France. Dynastic hopes and regrets were
+buried so profoundly in the souls of men that not even the place they
+had once occupied was visible. The Republic respected persons and
+property, and it was accepted as lawful. In the spectacle I have just
+described, I was most struck at witnessing the universal hatred,
+together with the universal terror, now for the first time inspired by
+Paris. In France, provincials have for Paris, and for the central power
+of which Paris is the seat, feelings analogous to those which the
+English entertain for their aristocracy, which they sometimes support
+with impatience and often regard with jealousy, but which at bottom they
+love, because they always hope to turn its privileges to their private
+advantage. This time Paris and those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> who spoke in its name had so
+greatly abused their power, and seemed to be giving so little heed to
+the rest of the country, that the idea of shaking off the yoke and of
+acting for themselves came to many who had never before conceived it:
+uncertain and timid desires, it is true, feeble and ephemeral passions
+from which I never believed that there was much to be either hoped or
+feared; but these new feelings were then turning into electoral ardour.
+Everyone clamoured for the elections; for to elect the enemies of the
+demagogues of Paris presented itself to public opinion less as the
+constitutional exercise of a right, than as the least dangerous method
+one could employ of making a stand against the tyrant.</p>
+
+<p>I fixed my head-quarters in the little town of Valognes, which was the
+natural centre of my influence; and as soon as I had ascertained the
+condition of the country, I set about my candidature. I then saw what I
+have often observed under a thousand different circumstances, that
+nothing makes more for success than not to desire it too ardently. I
+very much wanted to get elected; but in the difficult and critical
+condition of affairs then reigning, I easily reconciled myself to the
+idea of being rejected; and from this placid anticipation of a rebuff I
+drew a tranquillity and clearness of mind, a respect for myself and a
+contempt for the follies of the time, that I should perhaps not have
+found in the same degree had I been swayed only by a longing to
+succeed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The country began to fill with roving candidates, hawking their
+protestations of Republicanism from hustings to hustings. I refused to
+present myself before any other electoral body than that of the place
+where I lived. Each small town had its club, and each club questioned
+the candidates regarding their opinions and actions, and subjected them
+to formulas. I refused to reply to any of these insolent
+interrogatories. These refusals, which might have seemed disdainful,
+appeared in the light of dignity and independence in the face of the new
+rulers, and I was more esteemed for my rebelliousness than the others
+for their obedience. I therefore contented myself with publishing an
+address and having it posted up throughout the department.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the candidates had resumed the old customs of '92. When writing
+to people they called them "Citizens," and signed themselves
+"fraternally yours." I would never consent to adopt this revolutionary
+nonsense. I headed my address, "Gentlemen," and ended by proudly
+declaring myself my electors' "very humble servant."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I do not come to solicit your suffrages," I said, "I come only to
+place myself at the orders of my country. I asked to be your
+representative when the times were easy and peaceful; my honour
+forbids me to refuse to be so in a period full of agitation, which
+may become full of danger. That is the first thing I had to tell
+you."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I added that I had been faithful to the end to the oath I had taken to
+the Monarchy, but that the Republic, which had been brought about
+without my aid, should have my energetic support, and that I would not
+only accept but assist it. Then I went on:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"But of what Republic is it a question? There are some who, by a
+Republic, understand a dictatorship exercised in the name of
+liberty; who think that the Republic should not only change
+political institutions but the face of society itself. There are
+some who think that the Republic should needs be of an aggressive
+and propagandist kind. I am not a Republican after this fashion. If
+this were your manner of being Republicans, I could be of no use to
+you, for I should not be of your opinion; but if you understand the
+Republic as I understand it myself, you can rely upon me to devote
+myself heart and soul to the triumph of a cause which is mine as
+well as yours."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Men who show no fear in times of revolution are like princes with the
+army: they produce a great effect by very ordinary actions, because the
+peculiar position which they occupy naturally places them above the
+level of the crowd and brings them very much in view. My address was so
+successful that I myself was astonished at it; within a few days it made
+me the most popular man in the department of la Manche, and the object
+of universal attention.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> My old political adversaries, the agents of the
+old Government, the Conservatives themselves who had so vigorously
+opposed me, and whom the Republic had overthrown, came in crowds to
+assure me that they were ready not only to vote for me, but to follow my
+views in everything.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the first meeting of the electors of the Arrondissement
+of Valognes took place. I appeared together with the other candidates. A
+shed did duty for a hall; the chairman's platform was at the bottom, and
+at the side was a professorial pulpit which had been transformed into a
+tribune. The chairman, who himself was a professor at the College of
+Valognes, said to me with a loud voice and a magisterial air, but in a
+very respectful tone: "Citizen de Tocqueville, I will tell you the
+questions which are put to you, and to which you will have to reply;" to
+which I replied, carelessly, "Mr Chairman, pray put the questions."</p>
+
+<p>A parliamentary orator, whose name I will not mention, once said to me:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, my dear friend, there is only one way of speaking well from
+the tribune, and that is to be fully persuaded, as you get into it, that
+you are the cleverest man in the world."</p>
+
+<p>This had always appeared to me easier to say than to do, in the presence
+of our great political assemblies. But I confess that here the maxim was
+easy enough to follow, and that I thought it a wonderfully good one.
+Nevertheless, I did not go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> so far as to convince myself that I was
+cleverer than all the world; but I soon saw that I was the only one who
+was well acquainted with the facts they brought up, and even with the
+political language they wished to speak. It would be difficult to show
+one's self more maladroit and more ignorant than did my adversaries;
+they overwhelmed me with questions which they thought very close, and
+which left me very free, while I on my side made replies which were
+sometimes not very brilliant, but which always to them appeared most
+conclusive. The ground on which they hoped, above all, to crush me was
+that of the banquets. I had refused, as I have already said, to take
+part in these dangerous demonstrations. My political friends had found
+fault with me for abandoning them in that matter, and many continued to
+bear me ill-will, although&mdash;or perhaps because&mdash;the Revolution had
+proved me to be right.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you part from the Opposition on the occasion of the banquets?"
+I was asked.</p>
+
+<p>I replied, boldly:</p>
+
+<p>"I could easily find a pretext, but I prefer to give you my real reason:
+I did not want the banquets because I did not want a revolution; and I
+venture to say that hardly any of those who sat down to the banquets
+would have done so had they foreseen, as I did, the events to which
+these would lead. The only difference I can see between you and myself
+is that I knew what you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> were doing while you did not know it
+yourselves." This bold profession of anti-revolutionary had been
+preceded by one of republican faith; the sincerity of the one seemed to
+bear witness to that of the other; the meeting laughed and applauded. My
+adversaries were scoffed at, and I came off triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>I had won the agricultural population of the department by my address; I
+won the Cherbourg workmen by a speech. The latter had been assembled to
+the number of two thousand at a patriotic dinner. I received a very
+obliging and pressing invitation to attend, and I did.</p>
+
+<p>When I arrived, the procession was ready to start for the
+banqueting-hall, with, at its head, my old colleague Havin, who had come
+expressly from Saint-Lô to take the chair. It was the first time I had
+met him since the 24th of February. On that day, I saw him giving his
+arm to the Duchesse d'Orléans, and the next morning I heard that he was
+Commissary of the Republic in the department of la Manche. I was not
+surprised, for I knew him as one of those easily bewildered, ambitious
+men who had found themselves fixed for ten years in opposition, after
+thinking at first that they were in it only for a little. How many of
+these men have I not seen around me, tortured with their own virtue, and
+despairing because they saw themselves spending the best part of their
+lives in criticizing the faults of others without ever in some measure
+realizing by experience what were their own, and finding nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> to
+feed upon but the sight of public corruption! Most of them had
+contracted during this long abstinence so great an appetite for places,
+honours and money that it was easy to predict that at the first
+opportunity they would throw themselves upon power with a sort of
+gluttony, without taking time to choose either the moment or the morsel.
+Havin was the very type of these men. The Provisional Government had
+given him as his associate, and even as his chief, another of my former
+colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Vieillard, who has since
+become famous as a particular friend of Prince Louis Napoleon's.
+Vieillard was entitled to serve the Republic, since he had been one of
+the seven or eight republican deputies under the Monarchy. Moreover, he
+was one of the Republicans who had passed through the salons of the
+Empire before attaining demagogism. In literature he was a bigoted
+classic; a Voltairean in religious belief; rather fatuous, very
+kind-hearted; an honest man, and even an intelligent; but a very fool in
+politics. Havin had made him his tool: whenever he wished to strike a
+blow at one of his own enemies, or to reward one of his own friends, he
+invariably put forward Vieillard, who allowed him to do as he pleased.
+In this manner Havin made his way sheltered beneath the honesty and
+republicanism of Vieillard, whom he always kept before him, as the miner
+does his gabion.</p>
+
+<p>Havin scarcely seemed to recognize me; he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> not invite me to take a
+place in the procession. I modestly withdrew into the midst of the
+crowd; and when we arrived at the banqueting-hall, I sat down at one of
+the lower tables. We soon got to the speeches: Vieillard delivered a
+very proper written speech, and Havin read out another written speech,
+which was well received. I, too, was very much inclined to speak, but my
+name was not down, and moreover I did not quite see how I was to begin.
+A word which one of the orators (for all the speakers called themselves
+orators) dropped to the memory of Colonel Briqueville gave me my
+opportunity. I asked for permission to speak, and the meeting consented.
+When I found myself perched in the tribune, or rather in that pulpit
+placed twenty feet above the crowd, I felt a little confused; but I soon
+recovered myself, and delivered a little piece of oratorical fustian
+which I should find it impossible to recollect to-day. I only know that
+it contained a certain appositeness, besides the warmth which never
+fails to make itself apparent through the disorder of an improvised
+speech, a merit quite sufficient to succeed with a popular assembly, or
+even with an assembly of any sort; for, it cannot be too often repeated,
+speeches are made to be listened to and not to be read, and the only
+good ones are those that move the audience.</p>
+
+<p>The success of mine was marked and complete, and I confess it seemed
+very sweet to me to revenge myself in this way on the manner in which
+my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> former colleague had endeavoured to abuse what he considered the
+favours of fortune.</p>
+
+<p>If I am not mistaken, it was between this time and the elections that I
+made my journey to Saint-Lô, as member of the Council General. The
+Council had been summoned to an extraordinary sitting. It was still
+composed as under the Monarchy: most of its members had shown themselves
+complaisant towards Louis-Philippe's ministers, and may be reckoned
+among those who had most contributed to bring that Prince's government
+into contempt in our country. The only thing I can recall of the
+Saint-Lô journey is the singular servility of these ex-Conservatives.
+Not only did they make no opposition to Havin, who had insulted them for
+the past ten years, but they became his most attentive courtiers. They
+praised him with their words, supported him with their votes, smiled
+upon him approvingly; they even spoke well of him among themselves, for
+fear of indiscretion. I have often seen greater pictures of human
+baseness, but never any that was more perfect; and I think it deserves,
+despite its pettiness, to be brought fully to light. I will, therefore,
+display it in the light of subsequent events, and I will add that some
+months later, when the turn of the popular tide had restored them to
+power, they at once set about pursuing this same Havin anew with
+unheard-of violence and even injustice. All their old hatred became
+visible amid the quaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> of their terror, and it seemed to have become
+still greater at the remembrance of their temporary complaisance.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the general election was drawing nigh, and each day the aspect
+of the future became more sinister. All the news from Paris represented
+the capital as on the point of constantly falling into the hands of
+armed Socialists. It was doubted whether these latter would allow the
+electors to vote freely, or at least whether they would submit to the
+National Assembly. Already in every part of the country the officers of
+the National Guard were being made to swear that they would march
+against the Assembly if a conflict arose between that body and the
+people. The provinces were becoming more and more alarmed, but were also
+strengthening themselves at the sight of the danger.</p>
+
+<p>I spent the few days preceding the contest at my poor, dear Tocqueville.
+It was the first time I had visited it since the Revolution: I was
+perhaps about to leave it for ever! I was seized on my arrival with so
+great and uncommon a feeling of sadness that it has left in my memory
+traces which have remained marked and visible to this day amid all the
+vestiges of the events of that time. I was not expected. The empty
+rooms, in which there was none but my old dog to receive me, the
+undraped windows, the heaped-up dusty furniture, the extinct fires, the
+run-down clocks&mdash;all seemed to point to abandonment and to foretell
+ruin. This little isolated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> corner of the earth, lost, as it were, amid
+the fields and hedges of our Norman coppices, which had so often seemed
+to me the most charming of solitudes, now appeared to me, in the actual
+state of my thoughts, as a desolate desert; but across the desolation of
+its present aspect I discovered, as though from the depth of a tomb, the
+sweetest and most attractive episodes of my life. I wonder how our
+imagination gives so much deeper colour and so much more attractiveness
+to things than they possess. I had just witnessed the fall of the
+Monarchy; I have since been present at the most sanguinary scenes; and
+nevertheless I declare that none of these spectacles produced in me so
+deep and painful an emotion as that which I experienced that day at the
+sight of the ancient abode of my forefathers, when I thought of the
+peaceful days and happy hours I had spent there without knowing their
+value&mdash;I say that it was then and there that I best understood all the
+bitterness of revolutions.</p>
+
+<p>The local population had always been well disposed to me; but this time
+I found them affectionate, and I was never received with more respect
+than now, when all the walls were placarded with the expression of
+degrading equality. We were all to go and vote together at the borough
+of Saint-Pierre, about one league away from our village. On the morning
+of the election, all the voters (that is to say, all the male population
+above the age of twenty) collected together in front of the church. All
+these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> men formed themselves in a double column, in alphabetical order.
+I took up my place in the situation denoted by my name, for I knew that
+in democratic times and countries one must be nominated to the head of
+the people, and not place one's self there. At the end of the long
+procession, in carts or on pack-horses, came the sick or infirm who
+wished to follow us; we left none behind save the women and children. We
+were one hundred and sixty-six all told. At the top of the hill which
+commands Tocqueville there came a halt; they wished me to speak. I
+climbed to the other side of a ditch; a circle was formed round me, and
+I spoke a few words such as the circumstances inspired. I reminded these
+worthy people of the gravity and importance of what they were about to
+do; I recommended them not to allow themselves to be accosted or turned
+aside by those who, on our arrival at the borough, might seek to deceive
+them, but to march on solidly and stay together, each in his place,
+until they had voted. "Let no one," I said, "go into a house to seek
+food or shelter [it was raining] before he has done his duty." They
+cried that they would do as I wished, and they did. All the votes were
+given at the same time, and I have reason to believe that they were
+almost all given to the same candidate.</p>
+
+<p>After voting myself, I took my leave of them, and set out to return to
+Paris.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Va" id="CHAPTER_Va"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE FIRST SITTING OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY&mdash;THE APPEARANCE OF
+THIS ASSEMBLY.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I stopped at Valognes only long enough to bid good-bye to some of my
+friends. Many left me with tears in their eyes, for there was a belief
+current in the country that the representatives would be exposed to
+great danger in Paris. Several of these worthy people said to me, "If
+they attack the National Assembly, we will come and defend you." I feel
+a certain remorse at having seen only vain words in this promise at the
+time; for, as a matter of fact, they did all come, they and many more,
+as I shall show later.</p>
+
+<p>It was only when I reached Paris that I learnt that I had received
+110,704 votes out of a possible 120,000. Most of my new colleagues
+belonged to the old dynastic Opposition: two only had professed
+republican principles before the Revolution, and were what was called in
+the jargon of the day "Republicans of yesterday." The same was the case
+in most parts of France.</p>
+
+<p>There have certainly been more wicked revolutionaries than those of
+1848, but I doubt if there were ever any more stupid; they neither knew
+how to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> make use of universal suffrage nor how to do without it. If they
+had held the elections immediately after the 24th of February, while the
+upper classes were still bewildered by the blow they had just received,
+and the people more amazed than discontented, they would perhaps have
+obtained an assembly after their hearts; if, on the other hand, they had
+boldly seized the dictatorship, they might have been able for some time
+to retain it. But they trusted themselves to the nation, and at the same
+time did all that was most likely to set the latter against them; they
+threatened it while placing themselves in its power; they alarmed it by
+the recklessness of their proposals and the violence of their language,
+while inviting it to resistance by the feebleness of their actions; they
+pretended to lay down the law to it at the very time that they were
+placing themselves at its disposal. Instead of opening out their ranks
+after the victory, they jealously closed them up, and seemed, in one
+word, to be striving to solve this insoluble problem, namely, how to
+govern through the majority and yet against its inclination.</p>
+
+<p>Following the examples of the past without understanding them, they
+foolishly imagined that to summon the crowd to take part in political
+life was sufficient to attach it to their cause; and that to popularize
+the Republic, it was enough to give the public rights without offering
+them any profits. They forgot that their predecessors, when they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> gave
+every peasant the vote, at the same time did away with tithes, abolished
+statute labour and the other seignorial privileges, and divided the
+property of the nobles among the peasants; whereas they were not in a
+position to do anything of the kind. In establishing universal suffrage
+they thought they were summoning the people to the assistance of the
+Revolution: they were only giving them arms against it. Nevertheless, I
+am far from believing that it was impossible to arouse revolutionary
+passions, even in the country districts. In France, every agriculturist
+owns some portion of the soil, and most of them are more or less
+involved in debt; it was not, therefore, the landlords that should have
+been attacked, but the creditors; not the abolition promised of the
+rights of property, but the abolition of debts. The demagogues of 1848
+did not think of this scheme; they showed themselves much clumsier than
+their predecessors, but no less dishonest, for they were as violent and
+unjust in their desires as the others in their acts. Only, to commit
+violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the
+will, or even the power; the habits, ideas, and passions of the time
+must lend themselves to the committal of them.</p>
+
+<p>As the party which held the reins of government saw its candidates
+rejected one after the other, it displayed great vexation and rage,
+complaining now sadly and now rudely of the electors, whom it treated as
+ignorant, ungrateful blockheads, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> enemies of their own good; it lost
+its temper with the whole nation; and, its impatience exhausted by the
+latter's coldness, it seemed ready to say with Molière's Arnolfe, when
+he addresses Agnès:</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pourquoi ne m'aimer pas, madame l'impudente?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>One thing was not ridiculous, but really ominous and terrible; and that
+was the appearance of Paris on my return. I found in the capital a
+hundred thousand armed workmen formed into regiments, out of work, dying
+of hunger, but with their minds crammed with vain theories and visionary
+hopes. I saw society cut into two: those who possessed nothing, united
+in a common greed; those who possessed something, united in a common
+terror. There were no bonds, no sympathy between these two great
+sections; everywhere the idea of an inevitable and immediate struggle
+seemed at hand. Already the <em>bourgeois</em> and the <em>peuple</em> (for the old
+nicknames had been resumed) had come to blows, with varying fortunes, at
+Rouen, Limoges, Paris; not a day passed but the owners of property were
+attacked or menaced in either their capital or income: they were asked
+to employ labour without selling the produce; they were expected to
+remit the rents of their tenants when they themselves possessed no other
+means of living. They gave way as long as they could to this tyranny,
+and endeavoured at least to turn their weakness to account by publishing
+it. I remember reading in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> the papers of that time this advertisement,
+among others, which still strikes me as a model of vanity, poltroonery,
+and stupidity harmoniously mingled:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Editor," it read, "I make use of your paper to inform my tenants
+that, desiring to put into practice in my relations with them the
+principles of fraternity that should guide all true democrats, I will
+hand to those of my tenants who apply for it a formal receipt for their
+next quarter's rent."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, a gloomy despair had overspread the middle class thus
+threatened and oppressed, and imperceptibly this despair was changing
+into courage. I had always believed that it was useless to hope to
+settle the movement of the Revolution of February peacefully and
+gradually, and that it could only be stopped suddenly, by a great battle
+fought in the streets of Paris. I had said this immediately after the
+24th of February; and what I now saw persuaded me that this battle was
+not only inevitable but imminent, and that it would be well to seize the
+first opportunity to deliver it.</p>
+
+<p>The National Assembly met at last on the 4th of May; it was doubtful
+until the last moment whether it would meet at all. I believe, in fact,
+that the more ardent of the demagogues were often tempted to do without
+it, but they dared not; they remained crushed beneath the weight of
+their own dogma of the sovereignty of the people.</p>
+
+<p>I should have before my eyes the picture which the Assembly presented at
+its opening; but I find,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> on the contrary, that only a very confused
+recollection of it has lingered in my mind. It is a mistake to believe
+that events remain present in one's memory in proportion to their
+importance or their greatness alone; rather is it certain little
+particularities which occur, and cause them to penetrate deep into the
+mind, and fix them there in a lasting manner. I only remember that we
+shouted, "Long live the Republic" fifteen times during the course of the
+sitting, trying who could out-shout the other. The history of the
+Assemblies is full of parallel incidents, and one constantly sees one
+party exaggerating its feelings in order to embarrass its opponents,
+while the latter feign to hold sentiments which they do not possess, in
+order to avoid the trap. Both sides, with a common effort, went either
+beyond, or in the contrary direction to, the truth. Nevertheless, I
+think the cry was sincere enough; only it responded to diverse or even
+contrary thoughts. All at that time wished to preserve the Republic; but
+some wished to use it for purposes of attack, others for purposes of
+defence The newspapers spoke of the enthusiasm of the Assembly and of
+the public; there was a great deal of noise, but no enthusiasm at all.
+Everyone was too greatly preoccupied with the immediate future to allow
+himself to be carried beyond that thought by sentiment of any kind. A
+decree of the Provisional Government laid down that the representatives
+should wear the costume of the Conventionals, and especially the white
+waistcoat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> with turn-down collar in which Robespierre was always
+represented on the stage. I thought at first that this fine notion
+originated with Louis Blanc or Ledru-Rollin; but I learned later that it
+was due to the flowery and literary imagination of Armand Marrast. No
+one obeyed the decree, not even its author; Caussidière was the only one
+to adopt the appointed disguise. This drew my attention to him; for I
+did not know him by sight any more than most of those who were about to
+call themselves the Montagnards, always with the idea of keeping up the
+recollection of '93. I beheld a very big and very heavy body, on which
+was placed a sugar-loaf head, sunk deep between the two shoulders, with
+a wicked, cunning eye, and an air of general good-nature spread over the
+rest of his face. In short, he was a mass of shapeless matter, in which
+worked a mind sufficiently subtle to know how to make the most of his
+coarseness and ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the two subsequent days, the members of the Provisional
+Government, one after the other, told us what they had done since the
+24th of February. Each said a great deal of good of himself, and even a
+certain amount of good of his colleagues, although it would be difficult
+to meet a body of men who mutually hated one another more sincerely than
+these did. Independently of the political hatred and jealousy that
+divided them, they seemed still to feel towards each other that peculiar
+irritation common to travellers who have been com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>pelled to live
+together upon the same ship during a long and stormy passage, without
+suiting or understanding one another. At this first sitting I met again
+almost all the members of Parliament among whom I had lived. With the
+exception of M. Thiers, who had been defeated; of the Duc de Broglie,
+who had not stood, I believe; and of Messrs Guizot and Duchâtel, who had
+fled, all the famous orators and most of the better-known talkers of the
+political world were there; but they found themselves, as it were, out
+of their element, they felt isolated and suspected, they both felt and
+inspired fear, two contraries often to be met with in the political
+world. As yet they possessed none of that influence which their talents
+and experience were soon to restore to them. All the remainder of the
+Assembly were as much novices as though we had issued fresh from the
+Ancien Régime; for, thanks to our system of centralization, public life
+had always been confined within the limits of the Chambers, and those
+who were neither peers nor deputies scarcely knew what an Assembly was,
+nor how one should speak or behave in one. They were absolutely ignorant
+of its most ordinary, everyday habits and customs; and they were
+inattentive at decisive moments, and listened eagerly to unimportant
+things. Thus, on the second day, they crowded round the tribune and
+insisted on perfect silence in order to hear read the minutes of the
+preceding sitting, imagining that this insignificant form was a most
+important piece<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> of business. I am convinced that nine hundred English
+or American peasants, picked at random, would have better represented
+the appearance of a great political body.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing to imitate the National Convention, the men who professed the
+most radical and the most revolutionary opinions had taken their seats
+on the highest benches; they were very uncomfortable up there; but it
+gave them the right to call themselves Montagnards, and as men always
+like to feed on pleasant imaginations, these very rashly flattered
+themselves that they bore a resemblance to the celebrated blackguards
+whose name they took.</p>
+
+<p>The Montagnards soon divided themselves into two distinct bands: the
+Revolutionaries of the old school and the Socialists. Nevertheless, the
+two shades were not sharply defined. One passed from the one to the
+other by imperceptible tints: the Montagnards proper had almost all some
+socialistic ideas in their heads, and the Socialists quite approved of
+the revolutionary proceedings of the others. However, they differed
+sufficiently among themselves to prevent them from always marching in
+step, and it was this that saved us. The Socialists were the more
+dangerous, because they answered more nearly to the true character of
+the Revolution of February, and to the only passions which it had
+aroused; but they were men of theory rather than action, and in order to
+upset Society at their pleasure they would have needed the practical
+energy and the science<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> of insurrections which only their colleagues in
+any measure possessed.</p>
+
+<p>From the seat I occupied it was easy for me to hear what was said on the
+benches of the Mountain, and especially to see what went on. This gave
+me the opportunity of studying pretty closely the men sitting in that
+part of the Chamber. It was for me like discovering a new world. We
+console ourselves for not knowing foreign countries, with the reflection
+that at least we know our own; but we are wrong, for even in the latter
+there are always districts which we have not visited, and races which
+are new to us. I experienced this now. It was as though I saw these
+Montagnards for the first time, so greatly did their idioms and manners
+surprise me. They spoke a lingo which was not, properly speaking, the
+French of either the ignorant or the cultured classes, but which partook
+of the defects of both, for it abounded in coarse words and ambitious
+phrases. One heard issuing from the benches of the Mountain a ceaseless
+torrent of insulting or jocular comments; and at the same time there was
+poured forth a host of quibbles and maxims; in turns they assumed a very
+humorous or a very superb tone. It was evident that these people
+belonged neither to the tavern nor the drawing-room; I think they must
+have polished their manners in the cafés, and fed their minds on no
+literature but that of the daily press. In any case, it was the first
+time since the commencement of the Revolution that this type made any
+display in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> one of our Assemblies; until then it had only been
+represented by sporadic and unnoticed individuals, who were more
+occupied in concealing than in showing themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Constituent Assembly had two other peculiarities which struck me as
+quite as novel as this, although very different from it. It contained an
+infinitely greater number of landlords and even of noblemen than any of
+the Chambers elected in the days when it was a necessary condition, in
+order to be an elector or elected, that you should have money. And also
+there was a more numerous and more powerful religious party than even
+under the Restoration: I counted three bishops, several vicars-general,
+and a Dominican monk, whereas Louis XVIII. and Charles X. had never
+succeeded in securing the election of more than one single abbé.</p>
+
+<p>The abolition of all quit-rents, which made part of the electors
+dependent upon the rich, and the danger threatening property, which led
+the people to choose for their representatives those who were most
+interested in defending it, are the principal reasons which explain the
+presence of so great a number of landlords. The election of the
+ecclesiastics arose from similar causes, and also from a different cause
+still worthier of consideration. This cause was the almost general and
+very unexpected return of a great part of the nation towards the
+concerns of religion.</p>
+
+<p>The Revolution of 1792, when striking the upper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> classes, had cured them
+of their irreligiousness; it had taught them, if not the truth, at least
+the social uses of belief. This lesson was lost upon the middle class,
+which remained their political heir and their jealous rival; and the
+latter had even become more sceptical in proportion as the former seemed
+to become more religious. The Revolution of 1848 had just done on a
+small scale for our tradesmen what that of 1792 had done for the
+nobility: the same reverses, the same terrors, the same conversion; it
+was the same picture, only painted smaller and in less bright and, no
+doubt, less lasting colours. The clergy had facilitated this conversion
+by separating itself from all the old political parties, and entering
+into the old, true spirit of the Catholic clergy, which is that it
+should belong only to the Church. It readily, therefore, professed
+republican opinions, while at the same time it gave to long-established
+interests the guarantee of its traditions, its customs and its
+hierarchy. It was accepted and made much of by all. The priests sent to
+the Assembly were treated with very great consideration, and they
+deserved it through their good sense, their moderation and their
+modesty. Some of them endeavoured to speak from the tribune, but they
+were never able to learn the language of politics. They had forgotten it
+too long ago, and all their speeches turned imperceptibly into homilies.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, the universal voting had shaken the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> country from top to
+bottom without bringing to light a single new man worthy of coming to
+the front. I have always held that, whatever method be followed in a
+general election, the great majority of the exceptional men whom the
+nation possesses definitively succeed in getting elected. The system of
+election adopted exercises a great influence only upon the class of
+ordinary individuals in the Assembly, who form the ground-work of every
+political body. These belong to very different orders and are of very
+diverse natures, according to the system upon which the election has
+been conducted. Nothing confirmed me in this belief more than did the
+sight of the Constituent Assembly. Almost all the men who played the
+first part in it were already known to me, but the bulk of the rest
+resembled nothing that I had seen before. They were imbued with a new
+spirit, and displayed a new character and new manners.</p>
+
+<p>I will say that, in my opinion, and taken all round, this Assembly
+compared favourably with those which I had seen. One met in it more men
+who were sincere, disinterested, honest and, above all, courageous than
+in the Chambers of Deputies among which I had spent my life.</p>
+
+<p>The Constituent Assembly had been elected to make a stand against civil
+war. This was its principal merit; and, in fact, so long as it was
+necessary to fight, it was great, and only became contemptible after the
+victory, and when it felt that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> it was breaking up in consequence of
+this very victory and under the weight of it.</p>
+
+<p>I selected my seat on the left side of the House, on a bench from which
+it was easy for me to hear the speakers and to reach the tribune when I
+wished to speak myself. A large number of my old friends joined me
+there; Lanjuinais, Dufaure, Corcelles, Beaumont and several others sat
+near me.</p>
+
+<p>Let me say a word concerning the House itself, although everybody knows
+it. This is necessary in order to understand the narrative; and,
+moreover, although this monument of wood and plaster is probably
+destined to last longer than the Republic of which it was the cradle, I
+do not think it will enjoy a very long existence; and when it is
+destroyed, many of the events that took place in it will be difficult to
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>The house formed an oblong of great size. At one end, against the wall,
+was the President's platform and the tribune; nine rows of benches rose
+gradually along the three other walls. In the middle, facing the
+tribune, spread a huge, empty space, like the arena of an amphitheatre,
+with this difference, that this arena was square, not round. The
+consequence was that most of the listeners only caught a side glimpse of
+the speaker, and the only ones who saw him full face were very far away:
+an arrangement curiously calculated to promote inattention and disorder.
+For the first, who saw the speaker badly, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> were continually looking
+at one another, were more engaged in threatening and apostrophizing each
+other; and the others did not listen any better, because, although able
+to see the occupant of the tribune, they heard him badly.</p>
+
+<p>Large windows, placed high up in the walls, opened straight outside, and
+admitted air and light; the walls were decorated only with a few flags;
+time had, luckily, been wanting in which to add to them all those
+spiritless allegories on canvas or pasteboard with which the French love
+to adorn their monuments, in spite of their being insipid to those who
+can understand them and utterly incomprehensible to the mass of the
+people. The whole bore an aspect of immensity, together with an air that
+was cold, solemn, and almost melancholy. There were seats for nine
+hundred members, a larger number than that of any of the assemblies that
+had sat in France for sixty years.</p>
+
+<p>I felt at once that the atmosphere of this assembly suited me.
+Notwithstanding the gravity of events, I experienced there a sense of
+well-being that was new to me. For the first time since I had entered
+public life, I felt myself caught in the current of a majority, and
+following in its company the only road which my tastes, my reason and my
+conscience pointed out to me: a new and very welcome sensation. I
+gathered that this majority would disown the Socialists and the
+Montagnards, but was sincere in its desire to maintain and organize<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> the
+Republic. I was with it on these two leading points: I had no monarchic
+faith, no affection nor regrets for any prince; I felt called upon to
+defend no cause save that of liberty and the dignity of mankind. To
+protect the ancient laws of Society against the innovators with the help
+of the new force which the republican principle might lend to the
+government; to cause the evident will of the French people to triumph
+over the passions and desires of the Paris workmen; to conquer
+demagogism by democracy&mdash;that was my only aim. I am not sure that the
+dangers to be passed through before it could be attained did not make it
+still more attractive to me; for I have a natural inclination for
+adventure, and a spice of danger has always seemed to me the best
+seasoning that can be given to most of the actions of life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIa" id="CHAPTER_VIa"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>MY RELATIONS WITH LAMARTINE&mdash;HIS SUBTERFUGES</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Lamartine was now at the climax of his fame: to all those whom the
+Revolution had injured or alarmed, that is to say, to the great majority
+of the nation, he appeared in the light of a saviour. He had been
+elected to the Assembly by the city of Paris and no fewer than eleven
+departments; I do not believe that ever anybody inspired such keen
+transports as those to which he was then giving rise; one must have seen
+love thus stimulated by fear to know with what excess of idolatry men
+are capable of loving. The transcendental favour which was shown him at
+this time was not to be compared with anything except, perhaps, the
+excessive injustice which he shortly afterwards received. All the
+deputies who came to Paris with the desire to put down the excesses of
+the Revolution and to combat the demagogic party regarded him beforehand
+as their only possible leader, and looked to him unhesitatingly to place
+himself at their head to attack and overthrow the Socialists and
+demagogues. They soon discovered that they were deceived, and that
+Lamartine did not see the part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> he was called upon to play in so simple
+a light. It must be confessed that his was a very complex and difficult
+position. It was forgotten at the time, but he could not himself forget,
+that he had contributed more than any other to the success of the
+Revolution of February. Terror effaced this remembrance for the moment
+from the public mind; but a general feeling of security could not fail
+soon to restore it. It was easy to foresee that, so soon as the current
+which had brought affairs to their present pitch was arrested, a
+contrary current would set in, which would impel the nation in the
+opposite direction, and drive it faster and further than Lamartine could
+or would go. The success of the Montagnards would involve his immediate
+ruin; but their complete defeat would render him useless and must,
+sooner or later, remove the government from his hands. He saw,
+therefore, that for him there was almost as much danger and loss in
+triumph as in defeat.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, I believe that, if Lamartine had resolutely, from
+the first, placed himself at the head of the immense party which desired
+to moderate and regulate the course of the Revolution, and had succeeded
+in leading it to victory, he would before long have been buried beneath
+his own triumph; he would not have been able to stop his army in time,
+and it would have left him behind and chosen other leaders.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt whether, whatever line of conduct he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> adopted, he could have
+retained his power for long. I believe his only remaining chance was to
+be gloriously defeated while saving his country. But Lamartine was the
+last man to sacrifice himself in this way. I do not know that I have
+ever, in this world of selfishness and ambition in which I lived, met a
+mind so void of any thought of the public welfare as his. I have seen a
+crowd of men disturbing the country in order to raise themselves: that
+is an everyday perversity; but he is the only one who seemed to me
+always ready to turn the world upside down in order to divert himself.
+Neither have I ever known a mind less sincere, nor one that had a more
+thorough contempt for the truth. When I say he despised it, I am wrong:
+he did not honour it enough to heed it in any way whatever. When
+speaking or writing, he spoke the truth or lied, without caring which he
+did, occupied only with the effect he wished to produce at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>I had not seen Lamartine since the 24th of February. I saw him the first
+time on the day before the opening of the Assembly in the new house,
+where I had gone to choose my seat, but I did not speak to him; he was
+surrounded by some of his new friends. The instant he saw me, he
+pretended some business at the other end of the house, and hurried away
+as fast as he could. He sent me word afterwards by Champeaux (who
+belonged to him, half as a friend and half as a servant) that I must not
+take it ill of him that he avoided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> me; that his position obliged him to
+act in this way towards the members of the late parliament; that my
+place was, of course, marked out among the future leaders of the
+Republic; but that we must wait till the first temporary difficulties
+were surmounted before coming to an agreement. Champeaux also declared
+that he was instructed to ask my opinion on the state of business; I
+gave it him very readily, but to very little purpose. This established
+certain indirect relations between Lamartine and myself through the
+intermediary of Champeaux. The latter often came to see me, to inform
+me, on behalf of his patron, of the arrangements that were being
+prepared; and I sometimes went to see him in a little room he had hired
+on the top floor of a house in the Rue Saint-Honoré, where he used to
+receive suspicious visitors, although he had a complete set of rooms at
+the Foreign Office.</p>
+
+<p>I usually found him overwhelmed with place-hunters; for in France
+political mendicancy exists under every form of government. It even
+increases through the very revolutions that are directed against it,
+because all revolutions ruin a certain number of men, and with us a
+ruined man always looks to the State to repair his fortunes. They were
+of all kinds, all attracted by the reflection of power which Lamartine's
+friendship very transiently cast over Champeaux. I remember among others
+a certain cook, not particularly distinguished in his calling, as far as
+I could see, who insisted upon entering the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> service of Lamartine, who
+had, he said, become President of the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>"But he's not President yet!" cried Champeaux.</p>
+
+<p>"If he's not so yet, as you say," said the man, "he's going to be, and
+he must already be thinking of his kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>In order to rid himself of this scullion's obstinate ambition, Champeaux
+promised to bring his name before Lamartine so soon as the latter should
+be President of the Republic. The poor man went away quite satisfied,
+dreaming no doubt of the very imaginary splendours of his approaching
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>I frequented Champeaux pretty assiduously during that time, although he
+was exceedingly vain, loquacious, and tedious, because, in talking with
+him, I became better acquainted with Lamartine's thoughts and projects
+than if I had been talking to the great man himself. Lamartine's
+intelligence was seen through Champeaux' folly as you see the sun
+through a smoked glass, which shows you the luminary deprived of its
+heat-rays, but less dazzling to the eye. I easily gathered that in this
+world every one was feeding on pretty well the same chimeras as the cook
+of whom I have just spoken, and that Lamartine already tasted at the
+bottom of his heart the sweets of that sovereign power which was
+nevertheless at that very moment escaping from his hands. He was then
+following the tortuous road that was so soon to lead him to his ruin,
+struggling to dominate the Mountain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> without overthrowing it, and to
+slacken the revolutionary fire without extinguishing it, so as to give
+the country a feeling of security strong enough for it to bless him, not
+strong enough to cause it to forget him. What he dreaded above all was
+that the conduct of the Assembly should be allowed to fall into the
+hands of the former parliamentary leaders. This was, I believe, at the
+time his dominant passion. One could see this during the great
+discussion on the constitution of the Executive Power; never did the
+different parties display more visibly the pedantic hypocrisy which
+induces them to conceal their interests beneath their ideas: an ordinary
+spectacle enough, but more striking at this time than usual, because the
+needs of the moment compelled each party to shelter itself behind
+theories which were foreign or even opposed to it. The old royalist
+party maintained that the Assembly itself should govern and choose its
+ministers: a theory that was almost demagogic; and the demagogues
+declared that the Executive Power should be entrusted to a permanent
+commission, which should govern and select all the agents of the
+government: a system that approached the monarchic idea. All this
+verbiage only meant that one side wished to remove Ledru-Rollin from
+power, and the other to keep him there.</p>
+
+<p>The nation saw in Ledru-Rollin the bloody image of the Terror; it beheld
+in him the genius of evil as in Lamartine the genius of good, and it was
+mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>taken in both cases. Ledru-Rollin was nothing more than a very
+sensual and sanguine heavy fellow, quite without principles and almost
+without brains, possessing no real courage of mind or heart, and even
+free from malice: for he naturally wished well to all the world, and was
+incapable of cutting the throats of any one of his adversaries, except,
+perhaps, for the sake of historical reminiscences, or to accommodate his
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>The result of the debate remained long doubtful: Barrot turned it
+against us by making a very fine speech in our favour. I have witnessed
+many of these unforeseen incidents in parliamentary life, and have seen
+parties constantly deceived in the same way, because they always think
+only of the pleasure they themselves derive from their great orator's
+words, and never of the dangerous excitement he promotes in their
+opponents.</p>
+
+<p>When Lamartine, who till then had kept silent and remained, I believe,
+in indecision, heard, for the first time since February, the voice of
+the ex-leader of the Left resounding with brilliancy and success, he
+suddenly made up his mind, and spoke. "You understand," said Champeaux
+to me the next day, "that before all it was necessary to prevent the
+Assembly from coming to a resolution upon Barrot's advice." So Lamartine
+spoke, and, according to his custom, spoke in brilliant fashion.</p>
+
+<p>The majority, who had already adopted the course that Barrot had urged
+upon them, wheeled round as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> they listened to him (for this Assembly was
+more credulous and more submissive than any that I had ever seen to the
+wiles of eloquence: it was novice and innocent enough to seek for
+reasons for their decisions in the speeches of the orators). Thus
+Lamartine won his cause, but missed his fortune; for he that day gave
+rise to the mistrust which soon arose and hurled him from his pinnacle
+of popularity more quickly than he had mounted it. Suspicion took a
+definite form the very next day, when he was seen to patronize
+Ledru-Rollin and force the hand of his own friends in order to induce
+them to appoint the latter as his colleague on the Executive Commission.
+At this sight there arose in the Assembly and in the nation
+inexpressible disappointment, terror and rage. For my part, I
+experienced these two last emotions in the highest degree; I clearly
+perceived that Lamartine was turning out of the high-road that led us
+away from anarchy, and I could not guess into what abyss he might lead
+us if we followed the byways which he was treading. How was it possible,
+indeed, to foresee how far an always exuberant imagination might go,
+unrestrained by reason or virtue? Lamartine's common-sense impressed me
+no more than did his disinterestedness; and, in fact, I believed him
+capable of everything except cowardly behaviour or vulgar oratory.</p>
+
+<p>I confess that the events of June to a certain extent modified the
+opinion I had formed of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> his manner of proceeding. They showed that our
+adversaries were more numerous, better organized and, above all, more
+determined than I had thought.</p>
+
+<p>Lamartine, who had seen nothing but Paris during the last two months,
+and who had there, so to speak, lived in the very heart of the
+revolutionary party, exaggerated the power of the Capital and the
+inactivity of the rest of France. He over-estimated both. But I am not
+sure that I, on my side, did not strain a point on the other side. The
+road we ought to follow seemed to me so clearly and visibly traced that
+I would not admit the possibility of deviating from it by mistake; it
+seemed obvious to me that we should hasten to profit by the moral force
+possessed by the Assembly in order to escape from the hands of the
+people, seize upon the government, and by a great effort establish it
+upon a solid basis. Every delay seemed to me calculated to diminish our
+power, and to strengthen the hand of our adversaries.</p>
+
+<p>It was, in fact, during the six months that elapsed between the opening
+of the Assembly and the events of June that the Paris workmen grew bold,
+and took courage to resist, organized themselves, procured both arms and
+ammunition, and made their final preparations for the struggle. In any
+case, I am led to believe that it was Lamartine's tergiversations and
+his semi-connivance with the enemy that saved us, while it ruined him.
+Their effect was to amuse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> the leaders of the Mountain, and to divide
+them. The Montagnards of the old school, who were retained in the
+Government, separated themselves from the Socialists, who were excluded
+from it. Had all been united by a common interest, and impelled by
+common despair before our victory, as they became since, it is doubtful
+whether that victory would have been won. When I consider that we were
+almost effaced, although we were opposed only by the revolutionary party
+without its leaders, I ask myself what the result of the contest would
+have been if those leaders had come forward, and if the insurrection had
+been supported by a third of the National Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>Lamartine saw these dangers more closely and clearly than I, and I
+believe to-day that the fear of arousing a mortal conflict influenced
+his conduct as much as did his ambition. I might have formed this
+opinion at the time had I listened to Madame de Lamartine, whose alarm
+for the safety of her husband, and even of the Assembly, amounted to
+extravagance. "Beware," she said to me, each time she met me, "beware of
+pushing things to extremes; you do not know the strength of the
+revolutionary party. If we enter into conflict with it, we shall
+perish." I have often reproached myself for not cultivating Madame de
+Lamartine's acquaintance, for I have always found her to possess real
+virtue, although she added to it almost all the faults<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> which can cling
+to virtue, and which, without impairing it, render it less lovable: an
+imperious temper, great personal pride, an upright but unyielding, and
+sometimes bitter, spirit; so much so that it was impossible not to
+respect her, and impossible to like her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIa" id="CHAPTER_VIIa"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE 15TH OF MAY 1848.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The revolutionary party had not dared to oppose the meeting of the
+Assembly, but it refused to be dominated by it. On the contrary, it well
+understood how to keep the Assembly in subjection, and to obtain from it
+by constraint what it refused to grant from sympathy. Already the clubs
+rang with threats and insults against the deputies. And as the French,
+in their political passions, are as argumentative as they are insensible
+to argument, these popular meeting-places were incessantly occupied in
+manufacturing theories that formed the ground-work of subsequent acts of
+violence. It was held that the people always remained superior to its
+representatives, and never completely surrendered its will into their
+hands: a true principle from which the false conclusion was drawn that
+the Paris workmen were the French people. Since our first sitting, a
+vague and widespread agitation had never ceased to reign in the town.
+The mob met every day in the streets and squares; it spread aimlessly,
+like the swell of the waves. The approaches to the Assembly were always
+filled with a gathering of these redoubtable idlers. A demagogic party<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+has so many heads, chance always plays so great, and reason so small, a
+part in its actions that it is almost impossible to say, either before
+or after the event, what it wants or what it wanted. Nevertheless, my
+opinion then was, and has since remained, that the leading demagogues
+did not aim at destroying the Assembly, and that, as yet, they only
+sought to make use of it by mastering it. The attack directed against it
+on the 15th of May seemed intended rather to frighten than to overthrow
+it; it was at least one of those equivocal enterprises which so
+frequently occur in times of popular excitement, in which the promoters
+themselves are careful not to trace or define precisely their plan or
+their aim, so as to remain free to limit themselves to a peaceful
+demonstration or force on a revolution, according to the incidents of
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>Some attempt of this kind had been expected for over a week; but the
+habit of living in a continual state of alarm ends in rendering both
+individuals and assemblies incapable of discerning, amid the signs
+announcing the approach of danger, that which immediately precedes it.
+We only knew that there was a question of a great popular demonstration
+in favour of Poland, and we were but vaguely disturbed at it. Doubtless
+the members of the Government were better informed and more alarmed than
+we, but they kept their own counsel, and I was not sufficiently in touch
+with them to penetrate into their secret thoughts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened that, on the 15th of May, I reached the Assembly
+without foreseeing what was going to happen. The sitting began as any
+other sitting might have begun; and what was very strange, twenty
+thousand men already surrounded the chamber, without a single sound from
+the outside having announced their presence. Wolowski was in the
+tribune: he was mumbling between his teeth I know not what commonplaces
+about Poland, when the mob at last betrayed its approach with a terrible
+shout, which penetrated from every side through the upper windows, left
+open because of the heat, and fell upon us as though from the sky. Never
+had I imagined that a number of human voices could together produce so
+immense a volume of sound, and the sight of the crowd itself, when it
+surged into the Assembly, did not seem to me so formidable as that first
+roar which it had uttered before showing itself. Many members, yielding
+to a first impulse of curiosity or fear, sprang to their feet; others
+shouted violently, "Keep your seats!" Everyone sat down again firmly on
+his bench, and kept silence. Wolowski resumed his speech, and continued
+it for some time. It must have been the first time in his life that he
+was listened to in silence; and even now it was not he to whom we
+listened, but the crowd outside, whose murmurs grew momentarily louder
+and nearer.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Degousée, one of our questors, solemnly mounted the steps of
+the tribune, silently pushed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> Wolowski aside, and said, "Contrary to the
+wishes of the questors, General Courtais has ordered the Gardes Mobiles
+guarding the doors of the Assembly to sheathe their bayonets."</p>
+
+<p>After uttering these few words he stopped. This Degousée, who was a very
+good man, had the most hang-dog look and the hollowest voice imaginable.
+The news, the man and the voice combined to create a curious impression.
+The Assembly was roused, but immediately grew calm again; it was too
+late to do anything: the chamber was forced.</p>
+
+<p>Lamartine, who had gone out at the first noise, returned to the door
+with a disconcerted air; he crossed the central gangway and regained his
+seat with great strides, as though pursued by some enemy invisible to
+us. Almost immediately, there appeared behind him a number of men of the
+people, who stopped still on the threshold, surprised at the sight of
+this immense seated assembly. At the same moment, as on the 24th of
+February, the galleries were noisily opened and invaded by a flood of
+people, who filled and more than filled them. Pressed forward by the mob
+who followed and pushed them without seeing them, the first comers
+climbed over the balustrades of the galleries, trusting to find room in
+the Chamber itself, the floor of which was not more than ten feet
+beneath them, hung down along the walls, and dropped the distance of
+four or five feet into the Chamber. The fall of each of these bodies
+striking the floor in succession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> produced a dull concussion which at
+first, amid the tumult, I took for the distant sound of cannon. While
+one part of the mob was thus falling into the house, the other, composed
+principally of the club-leaders, entered by every door. They carried
+various emblems of the Terror, and waved flags of which some were
+surmounted by a red cap.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant the mob had filled the large empty space in the centre of
+the Assembly; and finding itself pressed for room, it climbed all the
+little gangways leading to our benches, and crowded more and more into
+these narrow spaces without ceasing its agitation. Amid this tumultuous
+and incessant commotion, the dust became very thick and the heat so
+oppressive that perhaps I would have gone out to breathe some fresh air,
+had it been merely a question of the public interest. But honour kept us
+glued to our seats.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the intruders were openly armed, others showed glimpses of
+concealed weapons, but none seemed to entertain a fixed intention of
+striking us. Their expression was one of astonishment and ill-will
+rather than enmity; with many of them a sort of vulgar curiosity in
+course of gratifying itself seemed to dominate every other sentiment;
+for even in our most sanguinary insurrections there are always a number
+of people half scoundrels, half sight-seers, who fancy themselves at the
+play. Moreover, there was no common leader whom they seemed to obey; it
+was a mob of men, not a troop. I saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> some drunken men among them, but
+the majority seemed to be the prey of a feverish excitement imparted to
+them by the enthusiasm and shouting without and the stifling heat, the
+close packing and general discomfort within. They dripped with sweat,
+although the nature and condition of their clothing was not calculated
+to make the heat very uncomfortable for them, for several were quite
+bare-breasted. There rose from this multitude a confused noise from the
+midst of which one sometimes heard very threatening observations. I
+caught sight of men who shook their fists at us and called us their
+agents. This expression was often repeated; for several days the
+ultra-democratic newspapers had done nothing but call the
+representatives the agents of the people, and these blackguards had
+taken kindly to the idea. A moment after, I had an opportunity of
+observing with what vivacity and clearness the popular mind receives and
+reflects images. I heard a man in a blouse, standing next to me, say to
+his fellow, "See that vulture down there? I should like to twist its
+neck." I followed the movement of his arm and his eyes and saw without
+difficulty that he was speaking of Lacordaire, who was sitting in his
+Dominican's frock on the top bench of the Left. The sentiment struck me
+as very unhandsome, but the comparison was admirable; the priest's long,
+bony neck issuing from its white cowl, his bald head surrounded only
+with a tuft of black hair, his narrow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> face, his hooked nose and his
+fixed, glittering eyes really gave him a striking resemblance to the
+bird of prey in question.</p>
+
+<p>During all this disorder in its midst, the Assembly sat passive and
+motionless on its benches, neither resisting nor giving way, silent and
+firm. A few members of the Mountain fraternized with the mob, but
+stealthily and in whispers. Raspail had taken possession of the tribune
+and was preparing to read the petition of the clubs; a young deputy,
+d'Adelsward, rose and exclaimed, "By what right does Citizen Raspail
+claim to speak here?" A furious howling arose; some men of the people
+made a rush at d'Adelsward, but were stopped and held back. With great
+difficulty, Raspail obtained a moment's silence from his friends, and
+read the petition, or rather the orders, of the clubs, which enjoined us
+to pronounce forthwith in favour of Poland.</p>
+
+<p>"No delay, we're waiting for the answer!" was shouted on every side. The
+Assembly continued to give no sign of life; the mob, in its disorder and
+impatience, made a horrible noise, which by itself alone saved us from
+making a reply. Buchez, the President, whom some would make out to be a
+rascal and others a saint, but who undoubtedly, on that day, was a great
+blockhead, rang his bell with all his might to obtain silence, as though
+the silence of that multitude was not, under the present circumstances,
+more to be dreaded than its cries.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was then that I saw appear, in his turn, in the tribune a man whom I
+have never seen since, but the recollection of whom has always filled me
+with horror and disgust. He had wan, emaciated cheeks, white lips, a
+sickly, wicked and repulsive expression, a dirty pallor, the appearance
+of a mouldy corpse; he wore no visible linen; an old black frock-coat
+tightly covered his lean, withered limbs; he seemed to have passed his
+life in a sewer, and to have just left it. I was told it was Blanqui.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>Blanqui said one word about Poland; then, turning sharply to domestic
+affairs, he asked for revenge for what he called the massacres of Rouen,
+recalled with threats the wretchedness in which the people had been
+left, and complained of the wrongs done to the latter by the Assembly.
+After thus exciting his hearers, he returned to Poland and, like
+Raspail, demanded an immediate vote.</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly continued to sit motionless, the people to move about and
+utter a thousand contradictory exclamations, the President to ring his
+bell. Ledru-Rollin tried to persuade the mob to withdraw, but nobody was
+now able to exercise any influence over it. Ledru-Rollin, almost hooted,
+left the tribune.</p>
+
+<p>The tumult was renewed, increased, multiplied itself as it were, for the
+mob was no longer sufficiently master of itself to be able even to
+understand the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> necessity for a moment's self-restraint in order to
+attain the object of its passion. A long interval passed; at last Barbès
+darted up and climbed, or rather leapt, into the tribune. He was one of
+those men in whom the demagogue, the madman and the knight-errant are so
+closely intermingled that it is not possible to say where one ends or
+the other commences, and who can only make their way in a society as
+sick and troubled as ours. I am inclined to believe that it was the
+madman that predominated in him, and his madness became raging when he
+heard the voice of the people. His soul boiled as naturally amid popular
+passion as water does on the fire. Since our invasion by the mob, I had
+not taken my eyes from him; I considered him by far the most formidable
+of our adversaries, because he was the most insane, the most
+disinterested, and the most resolute of them all. I had seen him mount
+the platform on which the President sat, and stand for a long time
+motionless, only turning his agitated gaze about the Assembly; I had
+observed and pointed out to my neighbours the distortion of his
+features, his livid pallor, the convulsive excitement which caused him
+each moment to twist his moustache between his fingers; he stood there
+as the image of irresolution, leaning already towards an extreme side.
+This time, Barbès had made up his mind; he proposed in some way to sum
+up the passions of the people, and to make sure of victory by stating
+its object in terms of precision:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I demand," said he, in panting, jerking tones, "that, immediately and
+before rising, the Assembly shall vote the departure of an army for
+Poland, a tax of a milliard upon the rich, the removal of the troops
+from Paris, and shall forbid the beating to arms; if not, the
+representatives to be declared traitors to the country."</p>
+
+<p>I believe we should have been lost if Barbès had succeeded in getting
+his motion put to the vote; for if the Assembly had accepted it, it
+would have been dishonoured and powerless, whereas, if it had rejected
+it, which was probable, we should have run the risk of having our
+throats cut. But Barbès himself did not succeed in obtaining a brief
+space of silence so as to compel us to take a decision. The huge clamour
+that followed his last words was not to be appeased; on the contrary, it
+continued in a thousand varied intonations. Barbès exhausted himself in
+his efforts to still it, but in vain, although he was powerfully aided
+by the President's bell, which, during all this time, never ceased to
+sound, like a knell.</p>
+
+<p>This extraordinary sitting had lasted since two o'clock; the Assembly
+held out, its ears pricked up to catch any sound from the outside,
+waiting for assistance to come. But Paris seemed a dead city. Listen as
+we might, we heard no rumour issue from it.</p>
+
+<p>This passive resistance irritated and incensed the people; it was like a
+cold, even surface upon which its fury glided without knowing what to
+catch hold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> of; it struggled and writhed in vain, without finding any
+issue to its undertaking. A thousand diverse and contradictory clamours
+filled the air: "Let us go away," cried some.... "The organization of
+labour.... A ministry of labour.... A tax on the rich.... We want Louis
+Blanc!" cried others; they ended by fighting at the foot of the tribune
+to decide who should mount it; five or six orators occupied it at once,
+and often all spoke together. As always happens in insurrections, the
+terrible was mingled with the ridiculous. The heat was so stifling that
+many of the first intruders left the Chamber; they were forthwith
+replaced by others who had been waiting at the doors to come in. In this
+way I saw a fireman in uniform making his way down the gangway that
+passed along my bench. "We can't make them vote!" they shouted to him.
+"Wait, wait," he replied, "I'll see to it, I'll give them a piece of my
+mind." Thereupon he pulled his helmet over his eyes with a determined
+air, fastened the straps, squeezed through the crowd, pushing aside all
+who stood in his way, and mounted the tribune. He imagined he would be
+as much at his ease there as upon a roof, but he could not find his
+words and stopped short. The people cried, "Speak up, fireman!" but he
+did not speak a word, and they ended by turning him out of the tribune.
+Just then a number of men of the people caught Louis Blanc in their arms
+and carried him in triumph round the Chamber. They held him by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> his
+little legs above their heads; I saw him make vain efforts to extricate
+himself: he twisted and turned on every side without succeeding in
+escaping from their hands, talking all the while in a choking, strident
+voice. He reminded me of a snake having its tail pinched. They put him
+down at last on a bench beneath mine. I heard him cry, "My friends, the
+right you have just won...." but the remainder of his words were lost in
+the din. I was told that Sobrier was carried in the same way a little
+lower down.</p>
+
+<p>A very tragic incident nearly put an end to these saturnalia: the
+benches at the bottom of the house suddenly cracked, gave way more than
+a foot, and threatened to hurl into the Chamber the crowd which
+overloaded it, and which fled off in affright. This alarming occurrence
+put a momentary stop to the commotion; and I then first heard, in the
+distance, the sound of drums beating the call to arms in Paris. The mob
+heard it too, and uttered a long yell of rage and terror. "Why are they
+beating to arms?" exclaimed Barbès, beside himself, making his way to
+the tribune afresh. "Who is beating to arms? Let those who have given
+the order be outlawed!" Cries of "We are betrayed, to arms! To the Hôtel
+de Ville!" rose from the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>The President was driven from his chair, whence, if we are to believe
+the version he since gave, he caused himself to be driven voluntarily. A
+club-leader called Huber climbed to his seat and hoisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> a flag
+surmounted by a red cap. The man had, it seemed, just recovered from a
+long epileptic swoon, caused doubtless by the excitement and the heat;
+it was on recovering from this sort of troubled sleep that he came
+forward. His clothes were still in disorder, his look scared and
+haggard. He exclaimed twice over in a resounding voice, which, uttered
+from aloft, filled the house and dominated every other sound, "In the
+name of the people, betrayed by its representatives, I declare the
+National Assembly dissolved!"</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly, deprived of its President, broke up. Barbès and the bolder
+of the club politicians went out to go to the Hôtel de Ville. This
+conclusion to the affair was far from meeting the general wishes. I
+heard men of the people beside me say to each other, in an aggrieved
+tone, "No, no, that's not what we want." Many sincere Republicans were
+in despair. I was first accosted, amid this tumult, by Trétat, a
+revolutionary of the sentimental kind, a dreamer who had plotted in
+favour of the Republic during the whole existence of the Monarchy.
+Moreover, he was a physician of distinction, who was at that time at the
+head of one of the principal mad-houses in Paris, although he was a
+little cracked himself. He took my hands effusively, and with tears in
+his eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur," he said, "what a misfortune, and how strange it is to
+think that it is madmen, real madmen, who have brought this about! I
+have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> treated or prescribed for each one of them. Blanqui is a madman,
+Barbès is a madman, Sobrier is a madman, Huber is the greatest madman of
+them all: they are all madmen, monsieur, who ought to be locked up at my
+Salpétrière instead of being here."</p>
+
+<p>He would certainly have added his own name to the list, had he known
+himself as well as he knew his old friends. I have always thought that
+in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so
+called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable
+political part. One thing at least is certain, and that is that a
+condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often
+even leads to success.</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly had dispersed, but it will be readily believed that it did
+not consider itself dissolved. Nor did it even regard itself as
+defeated. The majority of the members who left the House did so with the
+firm intention of soon meeting again elsewhere; they said so to one
+another, and I am convinced that they were, in fact, quite resolved upon
+it. As for myself, I decided to stay behind, kept back partly by the
+feeling of curiosity that irresistibly retains me in places where
+anything uncommon is proceeding, and partly by the opinion which I held
+then, as I did on the 24th of February, that the strength of an assembly
+in a measure resides in the hall it occupies. I therefore remained and
+witnessed the grotesque and disorderly, but meaningless and
+uninteresting, scenes that followed. The mob set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> itself, amid a
+thousand disorders and a thousand cries, to form a Provisional
+Government. It was a parody of the 24th of February, just as the 24th of
+February was a parody of other revolutionary scenes. This had lasted
+some time, when I thought that among all the noise I heard an irregular
+sound coming from the outside of the Palace. I have a very quick ear,
+and I was not slow in distinguishing the sound of a drum approaching and
+beating the charge; for in our days of civil disorder, everyone has
+learnt to know the language of these warlike instruments. I at once
+hurried to the door by which these new arrivals would enter.</p>
+
+<p>It was, in fact, a drum preceding some forty Gardes Mobiles. These lads
+pierced through the crowd with a certain air of resolution, although one
+could not clearly say at first what they proposed to do. Soon they
+disappeared from sight and remained as though submerged; but a short
+distance behind them marched a compact column of National Guards, who
+rushed into the House with significant shouts of "Long live the National
+Assembly!" I stuck my card of membership in my hat-band and entered with
+them. They first cleared the platform of five or six orators, who were
+at that moment speaking at once, and flung them, with none too great
+ceremony, down the steps of the little staircase that leads to it. At
+the sight of this, the insurgents at first made as though to resist; but
+a panic seized them. Climbing over the empty benches, tumbling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> over one
+another in the gangways, they made for the outer lobbies and sprang into
+the court-yards from every window. In a few minutes there remained only
+the National Guards, whose cries of "Long live the National Assembly"
+shook the walls of the Chamber.</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly itself was absent; but little by little the members who had
+dispersed in the neighbourhood hastened up. They shook the hands of the
+National Guards, embraced each other, and regained their seats. The
+National Guards cried, "Long live the National Assembly!" and the
+members, "Long live the National Guard! and long live the Republic!"</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was the hall recaptured, than General Courtais, the original
+author of our danger, had the incomparable impudence to present himself;
+the National Guards received him with yells of fury; he was seized and
+dragged to the foot of the rostrum. I saw him pass before my eyes, pale
+as a dying man among the flashing swords: thinking they would cut his
+throat, I cried with all my might, "Tear off his epaulettes, but don't
+kill him!" which was done.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lamartine reappeared. I never learnt how he had employed his time
+during the three hours wherein we were invaded. I had caught sight of
+him during the first hour: he was seated at that moment on a bench below
+mine, and he was combing his hair, glued together with perspiration,
+with a little comb he drew from his pocket; the crowd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> formed again and
+I saw him no more. Apparently he went to the inner rooms of the Palace,
+into which the mob had also penetrated, with the intention of haranguing
+it, and was very badly received. I was given, on the next day, some
+curious details of this scene, which I would have related here if I had
+not resolved to set down only what I have myself observed. They say
+that, subsequently, he withdrew to the palace then being built, close at
+hand, and destined for the Foreign Office. He would certainly have done
+better had he placed himself at the head of the National Guards and come
+to our release. I think he must have been seized with the faintness of
+heart that overcomes the bravest (and he was one of these) when
+possessed of a restless and lively imagination.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to the Chamber, he had recovered his energy and his
+eloquence. He told us that his place was not in the Assembly, but in the
+streets, and that he was going to march upon the Hôtel de Ville and
+crush the insurrection. This was the last time I heard him
+enthusiastically cheered. True, it was not he alone that they applauded,
+but the victory: those cheers and clappings were but an echo of the
+tumultuous passions that still agitated every breast. Lamartine went
+out. The drums, which had beat the charge half-an-hour before, now beat
+the march. The National Guards and the Gardes Mobiles, who were still
+with us in crowds, formed themselves into order and followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> him. The
+Assembly, still very incomplete, resumed its sitting; it was six
+o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>I went home an instant to take some food; I then returned to the
+Assembly, which had declared its sitting permanent. We soon learnt that
+the members of the new Provisional Government had been arrested. Barbès
+was impeached, as was that old fool of a Courtais, who deserved a sound
+thrashing and no more. Many wished to include Louis Blanc, who, however,
+had pluckily undertaken to defend himself; he had just escaped with
+difficulty from the fury of the National Guards at the door, and still
+wore his torn clothes, covered with dust and all disordered. This time
+he did not send for the stool on which he used to climb in order to
+bring his head above the level of the rostrum balustrade (for he was
+almost a dwarf); he even forgot the effect he wished to produce, and
+thought only of what he had to say. In spite of that, or rather because
+of that, he won his case for the moment. I never considered him to
+possess talent except on that one day; for I do not call talent the art
+of polishing brilliant and hollow phrases, which are like finely chased
+dishes containing nothing.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, I was so fatigued by the excitement of the day that I have
+retained but a dull, indistinct remembrance of the night sitting. I
+shall therefore say no more, for I wish only to record my personal
+impressions: for facts in detail it is the <em>Moniteur</em>, not I, that
+should be consulted.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Auguste Blanqui, brother to Jérôme Adolphe Blanqui the
+economist.&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de M.</span></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIa" id="CHAPTER_VIIIa"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE FEAST OF CONCORD AND THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE DAYS OF JUNE.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The revolutionaries of 1848, unwilling or unable to imitate the
+bloodthirsty follies of their predecessors, consoled themselves by
+imitating their ludicrous follies. They took it into their heads to give
+the people a series of grand allegorical festivals.</p>
+
+<p>Despite the terrible condition of the finances, the Provisional
+Government had decided that a sum of one or two millions should be spent
+upon celebrating the Feast of Concord in the Champ-de-Mars.</p>
+
+<p>According to the programme, which was published in advance and
+faithfully followed out, the Champ-de-Mars was to be filled with figures
+representing all sorts of persons, virtues, political institutions, and
+even public services. France, Germany and Italy, hand in hand; Equality,
+Liberty and Fraternity, also hand in hand; Agriculture, Commerce, the
+Army, the Navy and, above all, the Republic; the last of colossal
+dimensions. A car was to be drawn by sixteen plough-horses: "this car,"
+said the programme aforesaid, "will be of a simple and rustic shape, and
+will carry three trees, an oak, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> laurel, and an olive tree,
+symbolizing strength, honour, and plenty; and, moreover, a plough in the
+midst of a group of flowers and ears of corn. Ploughmen and young girls
+dressed in white will surround the car, singing patriotic hymns." We
+were also promised oxen with gilded horns, but did not get them.</p>
+
+<p>The National Assembly had not the smallest desire to see all these
+beautiful things; it even feared lest the immense gathering of people
+which was sure to be occasioned should produce some dangerous riot.
+Accordingly, it put the date as far back as possible; but the
+preparations were made, there was no possibility of going back from it,
+and the date was fixed for the 21st of May.</p>
+
+<p>On that day I went early to the Assembly, which was to proceed on foot,
+in a body, to the Champ-de-Mars. I had put my pistols in my pockets, and
+in talking to my colleagues I discovered that most of them were secretly
+armed, like myself: one had taken a sword-stick, another a dagger;
+nearly all carried some weapon of defence. Edmond de La Fayette showed
+me a weapon of a peculiar kind. It was a ball of lead sewn into a short
+leathern thong which could easily be fastened to the arm: one might have
+called it a portable club. La Fayette declared that this little
+instrument was being widely carried by the National Assembly, especially
+since the 15th of May. It was thus that we proceeded to this Feast of
+Concord.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A sinister rumour ran that some great danger awaited the Assembly when
+it should cross through the crowd of the Champ-de-Mars and take up its
+place on the stage reserved for it outside the Military College. As a
+matter of fact, nothing could have been easier than to make it the
+object of an unexpected attack during this progress, which it made on
+foot and, so to speak, unguarded. Its real safeguard lay in the
+recollection of the 15th of May, and that sufficed. It very rarely
+happens, whatever opportunity may present itself, that a body is
+affronted the day after its triumph. Moreover, the French never do two
+things at a time. Their minds often change their object, but they are
+always devoted wholly to that occupying them at the moment, and I
+believe there is no precedent of their making an insurrection in the
+middle of a fête or even of a ceremony. On this day, therefore, the
+people seemed to enter willingly into the fictitious idea of its
+happiness, and for a moment to place on one side the recollection of its
+miseries and its hatreds. It was animated, without being turbulent. The
+programme had stated that a "fraternal confusion" was to prevail. There
+was, it is true, extreme confusion, but no disorder; for we are strange
+people: we cannot do without the police when we are orderly, and so soon
+as we start a revolution, the police seem superfluous. The sight of this
+popular joyfulness enraptured the moderate and sincere Republicans, and
+made them almost maudlin. Carnot observed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> to me, with that silliness
+which the honest democrat always mingles with his virtue:</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, my dear colleague, one should always trust the people."</p>
+
+<p>I remember rather brusquely replying, "Ah! why didn't you tell me that
+before the 15th?"</p>
+
+<p>The Executive Commission occupied one half of the immense stage that had
+been erected along the Military College, and the National Assembly the
+other. There first defiled past us the different emblems of all nations,
+which took an enormous time, because of the fraternal confusion of which
+the programme spoke. Then came the car, and then the young girls dressed
+in white. There were at least three hundred of them, who wore their
+virginal costume in so virile a fashion that they might have been taken
+for boys dressed up as girls. Each had been given a big bouquet to
+carry, which they were so gallant as to throw to us as they passed. As
+these gossips were the owners of very nervous arms, and were more
+accustomed, I should think, to using the laundress's beetle than to
+strewing flowers, the bouquets fell down upon us in a very hard and
+uncomfortable hail-storm.</p>
+
+<p>One tall girl left her companions and, stopping in front of Lamartine,
+recited an ode to his glory. Gradually she grew excited in talking, so
+much so that she pulled a terrible face and began to make the most
+alarming contortions. Never had enthusiasm seemed to me to come so near
+to epilepsy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> When she had finished, the people insisted at all costs
+that Lamartine should kiss her; she offered him two fat cheeks,
+streaming with perspiration, which he touched with the tip of his lips
+and with indifferent bad grace.</p>
+
+<p>The only serious portion of the fête was the review. I have never seen
+so many armed men in one spot in my life, and I believe that few have
+seen more. Apart from the innumerable crowd of sight-seers in the
+Champ-de-Mars, one saw an entire people under arms. The <em>Moniteur</em>
+estimated the number of National Guards and soldiers of the line who
+were there at three hundred thousand. This seemed to me to be
+exaggerated, but I do not think that the number could be reduced to less
+than two hundred thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The spectacle of those two hundred thousand bayonets will never leave my
+memory. As the men who carried them were tightly pressed against one
+another, so as to be able to keep within the slopes of the
+Champ-de-Mars, and as we, from our but slightly raised position, could
+only throw an almost horizontal glance upon them, they formed, to our
+eyes, a flat and lightly undulating surface, which flashed in the sun
+and made the Champ-de-Mars resemble a great lake filled with liquid
+steel.</p>
+
+<p>All these men marched past us in succession, and we noticed that this
+army numbered many more muskets than uniforms. Only the legions from the
+wealthier parts of the town presented a large number<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> of National Guards
+clad in military uniform. They were the first to appear, and shouted,
+"Long live the National Assembly!" with much enthusiasm. In the legions
+from the suburbs, which formed in themselves veritable armies, one saw
+little but jackets and blouses, though this did not prevent them from
+marching with a very warlike aspect. Most of them, as they passed us,
+were content to shout, "Long live the Democratic Republic!" or to sing
+the <em>Marseillaise</em> or the song of the <em>Girondins</em>. Next came the legions
+of the outskirts, composed of peasants, badly equipped, badly armed, and
+dressed in blouses like the workmen of the suburbs, but filled with a
+very different spirit to that of the latter, as they showed by their
+cries and gestures. The battalions of the Garde Mobile uttered various
+exclamations, which left us full of doubt and anxiety as to the
+intention of these lads, or rather children, who at that time more than
+any other held our destinies in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>The regiments of the line, who closed the review, marched past in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>I witnessed this long parade with a heart filled with sadness. Never at
+any time had so many arms been placed at once into the hands of the
+people. It will be easily believed that I shared neither the simple
+confidence nor the stupid happiness of my friend Carnot; I foresaw, on
+the contrary, that all the bayonets I saw glittering in the sun would
+soon be raised against each other, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> felt that I was at a review of
+the two armies of the civil war that was just concluded. In the course
+of that day I still heard frequent shouts of "Long live Lamartine!"
+although his great popularity was already waning. In fact, one might say
+it was over, were it not that in every crowd one meets with a large
+number of belated individuals who are stirred with the enthusiasm of
+yesterday, like the provincials who begin to adopt the Paris mode on the
+day when the Parisians abandon it.</p>
+
+<p>Lamartine hastened to withdraw from this last ray of his sun: he retired
+long before the ceremony was finished. He looked weary and care-worn.
+Many members of the Assembly, also overcome with fatigue, followed his
+example, and the review ended in front of almost empty benches. It had
+begun early and ended at night-fall.</p>
+
+<p>The whole time elapsing between the review of the 21st of May and the
+days of June was filled with the anxiety caused by the approach of these
+latter days. Every day fresh alarms came and called out the army and the
+National Guard; the artisans and shopkeepers no longer lived at home,
+but in the public places and under arms. Each one fervently desired to
+avoid the necessity of a conflict, and all vaguely felt that this
+necessity was becoming more inevitable from day to day. The National
+Assembly was so constantly possessed by this thought that one might have
+said that it read the words "Civil War" written on the four walls of the
+House.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On all sides great efforts of prudence and patience were being made to
+prevent, or at least delay, the crisis. Members who in their hearts were
+most hostile to the revolution were careful to restrain any expressions
+of sympathy or antipathy; the old parliamentary orators were silent,
+lest the sound of their voices should give umbrage; they left the
+rostrum to the new-comers, who themselves but rarely occupied it, for
+the great debates had ceased. As is common in all assemblies, that which
+most disturbed the members' minds was that of which they spoke least,
+though it was proved that each day they thought of it. All sorts of
+measures to help the misery of the people were proposed and discussed.
+We even entered readily into an examination of the different socialistic
+systems, and each strove in all good faith to discover in these
+something applicable to, or at least compatible with, the ancient laws
+of Society.</p>
+
+<p>During this time, the national workshops continued to fill; their
+population already exceeded one hundred thousand men. It was felt that
+we could not live if they were kept on, and it was feared that we should
+perish if we tried to dismiss them. This burning question of the
+national workshops was treated daily, but superficially and timidly; it
+was constantly touched upon, but never firmly taken in hand.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, it was clear that, outside the Assembly, the
+different parties, while dreading the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> contest, were actively preparing
+for it. The wealthy legions of the National Guard offered banquets to
+the army and to the Garde Mobile, in which they mutually urged each
+other to unite for the common defence.</p>
+
+<p>The workmen of the suburbs, on their side, were secretly amassing that
+great number of cartridges which enabled them later to sustain so long a
+contest. As to the muskets, the Provisional Government had taken care
+that these should be supplied in profusion; one could safely say that
+there was not a workman who did not possess at least one, and sometimes
+several.</p>
+
+<p>The danger was perceived afar off as well as near at hand. The provinces
+grew indignant and irritated with Paris; for the first time for sixty
+years they ventured to entertain the idea of resisting it; the people
+armed themselves and encouraged each other to come to the assistance of
+the Assembly; they sent it thousands of addresses congratulating it on
+its victory of the 15th of May. The ruin of commerce, universal war, the
+dread of Socialism made the Republic more and more hateful in the eyes
+of the provinces. This hatred manifested itself especially beneath the
+secrecy of the ballot. The electors were called upon to re-elect in
+twenty-one departments; and in general they elected the men who in their
+eyes represented the Monarchy in some form or other. M. Molé was elected
+at Bordeaux, and M. Thiers at Rouen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was then that suddenly, for the first time, the name of Louis
+Napoleon came into notice. The Prince was elected at the same time in
+Paris and in several departments. Republicans, Legitimists and
+demagogues gave him their votes; for the nation at that time was like a
+frightened flock of sheep, which runs in all directions without
+following any road. I little thought, when I heard that Louis Napoleon
+had been nominated, that exactly a year later I should be his minister.
+I confess that I beheld the return of the old parliamentary leaders with
+considerable apprehension and regret; not that I failed to do justice to
+their talent and discretion, but I feared lest their approach should
+drive back towards the Mountain the moderate Republicans who were coming
+towards us. Moreover, I knew them too well not to see that, so soon as
+they had returned to political life, they would wish to lead it, and
+that it would not suit them to save the country unless they could govern
+it. Now an enterprise of this sort seemed to me both premature and
+dangerous. Our duty and theirs was to assist the moderate Republicans to
+govern the Republic without seeking to govern it indirectly ourselves,
+and especially without appearing to have this in view.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I never doubted but that we were on the eve of a terrible
+struggle; nevertheless, I did not fully understand our danger until
+after a conversation that I had about this time with the celebrated
+Madame Sand. I met her at an English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>man's of my acquaintance:
+Milnes,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> a member of Parliament, who was then in Paris. Milnes was a
+clever fellow who did and, what is rarer, said many foolish things. What
+a number of those faces I have seen in my life of which one can say that
+the two profiles are not alike: men of sense on one side, fools on the
+other. I have always seen Milnes infatuated with something or somebody.
+This time he was smitten with Madame Sand, and notwithstanding the
+seriousness of events, had insisted on giving her a literary <em>déjeûner</em>.
+I was present at this repast, and the image of the days of June, which
+followed so closely after, far from effacing the remembrance of it from
+my mind, recalls it.</p>
+
+<p>The company was anything but homogeneous. Besides Madame Sand, I met a
+young English lady, very modest and very agreeable, who must have found
+the company invited to meet her somewhat singular; some more or less
+obscure writers; and Mérimée. Milnes placed me next to Madame Sand. I
+had never spoken to her, and I doubt whether I had ever seen her (I had
+lived little in the world of literary adventurers which she frequented).
+One of my friends asked her one day what she thought of my book on
+America, and she answered, "Monsieur, I am only accustomed to read the
+books which are presented to me by their authors." I was strongly
+prejudiced against Madame Sand, for I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> loathe women who write,
+especially those who systematically disguise the weaknesses of their
+sex, instead of interesting us by displaying them in their true
+character. Nevertheless, she pleased me. I thought her features rather
+massive, but her expression admirable: all her mind seemed to have taken
+refuge in her eyes, abandoning the rest of her face to matter; and I was
+particularly struck at meeting in her with something of the naturalness
+of behaviour of great minds. She had a real simplicity of manner and
+language, which she mingled, perhaps, with some little affectation of
+simplicity in her dress. I confess that, more adorned, she would have
+appeared still more simple. We talked for a whole hour of public
+affairs; it was impossible to talk of anything else in those days.
+Besides, Madame Sand at that time was a sort of politician, and what she
+said on the subject struck me greatly; it was the first time that I had
+entered into direct and familiar communication with a person able and
+willing to tell me what was happening in the camp of our adversaries.
+Political parties never know each other: they approach, touch, seize,
+but never see one another. Madame Sand depicted to me, in great detail
+and with singular vivacity, the condition of the Paris workmen, their
+organization, their numbers, their arms, their preparations, their
+thoughts, their passions, their terrible resolves. I thought the picture
+overloaded, but it was not, as subsequent events clearly proved. She
+seemed to be alarmed for herself at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> the popular triumph, and to take
+the greatest pity upon the fate that awaited us.</p>
+
+<p>"Try to persuade your friends, monsieur," she said, "not to force the
+people into the streets by alarming or irritating them. I also wish that
+I could instil patience into my own friends; for if it comes to a fight,
+believe me, you will all be killed."</p>
+
+<p>With these consoling words we parted, and I have never seen her since.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The Right Honble. Monckton Milnes, the late Lord
+Houghton.&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de M.</span></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IXa" id="CHAPTER_IXa"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE DAYS OF JUNE.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I come at last to the insurrection of June, the most extensive and the
+most singular that has occurred in our history, and perhaps in any
+other: the most extensive, because, during four days, more than a
+hundred thousand men were engaged in it; the most singular, because the
+insurgents fought without a war-cry, without leaders, without flags, and
+yet with a marvellous harmony and an amount of military experience that
+astonished the oldest officers.</p>
+
+<p>What distinguished it also, among all the events of this kind which have
+succeeded one another in France for sixty years, is that it did not aim
+at changing the form of government, but at altering the order of
+society. It was not, strictly speaking, a political struggle, in the
+sense which until then we had given to the word, but a combat of class
+against class, a sort of Servile War. It represented the facts of the
+Revolution of February in the same manner as the theories of Socialism
+represented its ideas; or rather it issued naturally from these ideas,
+as a son does from his mother. We behold in it nothing more than a blind
+and rude, but powerful, effort on the part of the workmen to escape from
+the necessities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> of their condition, which had been depicted to them as
+one of unlawful oppression, and to open up by main force a road towards
+that imaginary comfort with which they had been deluded. It was this
+mixture of greed and false theory which first gave birth to the
+insurrection and then made it so formidable. These poor people had been
+told that the wealth of the rich was in some way the produce of a theft
+practised upon themselves. They had been assured that the inequality of
+fortunes was as opposed to morality and the welfare of society as it was
+to nature. Prompted by their needs and their passions, many had believed
+this obscure and erroneous notion of right, which, mingled with brute
+force, imparted to the latter an energy, a tenacity and a power which it
+would never have possessed unaided.</p>
+
+<p>It must also be observed that this formidable insurrection was not the
+enterprise of a certain number of conspirators, but the revolt of one
+whole section of the population against another. Women took part in it
+as well as men. While the latter fought, the former prepared and carried
+ammunition; and when at last the time had come to surrender, the women
+were the last to yield. These women went to battle with, as it were, a
+housewifely ardour: they looked to victory for the comfort of their
+husbands and the education of their children. They took pleasure in this
+war as they might have taken pleasure in a lottery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As to the strategic science displayed by this multitude, the warlike
+nature of the French, their long experience of insurrections, and
+particularly the military education which the majority of the men of the
+people in turn receive, suffice to explain it. Half of the Paris workmen
+have served in our armies, and they are always glad to take up arms
+again. Generally speaking, old soldiers abound in our riots. On the 24th
+of February, when Lamoricière was surrounded by his foes, he twice owed
+his life to insurgents who had fought under him in Africa, men in whom
+the recollection of their military life had been stronger than the fury
+of civil war.</p>
+
+<p>As we know, it was the closing of the national workshops that occasioned
+the rising. Dreading to disband this formidable soldiery at one stroke,
+the Government had tried to disperse it by sending part of the workmen
+into the country. They refused to leave. On the 22nd of June, they
+marched through Paris in troops, singing in cadence, in a monotonous
+chant, "We won't be sent away, we won't be sent away...." Their
+delegates waited upon the members of the Committee of the Executive
+Power with a series of arrogant demands, and on meeting with a refusal,
+withdrew with the announcement that next day they would have recourse to
+arms. Everything, indeed, tended to show that the long-expected crisis
+had come.</p>
+
+<p>When this news reached the Assembly it caused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> the greatest alarm.
+Nevertheless, the Assembly did not interrupt its order of the day; it
+continued the discussion of a commercial act, and even listened to it,
+despite its excited condition; true, it was a very important question
+and a very eminent orator was speaking. The Government had proposed to
+acquire all the railways by purchase. Montalembert opposed it; his case
+was good, but his speech was excellent; I do not think I ever heard him
+speak so well before or since. As a matter of fact, I thought as he did,
+this time; but I believe that, even in the eyes of his adversaries, he
+surpassed himself. He made a vigorous attack without being as peevish
+and outrageous as usual. A certain fear tempered his natural insolence,
+and set a limit to his paradoxical and querulous humour; for, like so
+many other men of words, he had more temerity of language than stoutness
+of heart.</p>
+
+<p>The sitting concluded without any question as to what was occurring
+outside, and the Assembly adjourned.</p>
+
+<p>On the 23rd, on going to the Assembly, I saw a large number of omnibuses
+grouped round the Madeleine. This told me that they were beginning to
+erect barricades in the streets; which was confirmed on my arrival at
+the Palace. Nevertheless, a doubt was expressed whether it was seriously
+contemplated to resort to arms. I resolved to go and assure myself of
+the real state of things, and, with Corcelles, repaired to the
+neighbourhood of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> Hôtel de Ville. In all the little streets
+surrounding that building, I found the people engaged in making
+barricades; they proceeded in their work with the cunning and regularity
+of an engineer, not unpaving more stones than were necessary to lay the
+foundations of a very thick, solid and even neatly-built wall, in which
+they generally left a small opening by the side of the houses to permit
+of ingress and egress. Eager for quicker information as to the state of
+the town, Corcelles and I agreed to separate. He went one way and I the
+other; and his excursion very nearly turned out badly. He told me
+afterwards that, after crossing several half-built barricades without
+impediment, he was stopped at the last one. The men of the lower orders
+who were building it, seeing a fine gentleman, in black clothes and very
+white linen, quietly trotting through the dirty streets round the Hôtel
+de Ville and stopping before them with a placid and inquisitive air,
+thought they would make use of this suspicious onlooker. They called
+upon him, in the name of the brotherhood, to assist them in their work.
+Corcelles was as brave as Cæsar, but he rightly judged that, under these
+circumstances, there was nothing better to be done than to give way
+quietly. See him therefore lifting paving-stones and placing them as
+neatly as possible one atop the other. His natural awkwardness and his
+absent-mindedness fortunately came to his aid; and he was soon sent
+about his business as a useless workman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To me no such adventure happened. I passed through the streets of the
+Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis quarters without coming across any
+barricades to speak of; but the excitement was extraordinary. On my
+return I met, in the Rue des Jeûneurs, a National Guard covered with
+blood and fragments of brain. He was very pale and was going home. I
+asked him what was happening; he told me that his battalion had just
+received the full force of a very murderous discharge of musketry at the
+Porte Saint-Denis. One of his comrades, whose name he mentioned to me,
+had been killed by his side, and he was covered with the blood and
+brains of this unhappy man.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to the Assembly, astonished at not having met a single
+soldier in the whole distance which I had traversed. It was not till I
+came in front of the Palais-Bourbon that I at last perceived great
+columns of infantry, marching, followed by cannon.</p>
+
+<p>Lamoricière, in full uniform and on horseback, was at their head. I have
+never seen a figure more resplendent with aggressive passion and almost
+with joy; and whatever may have been the natural impetuosity of his
+humour, I doubt whether it was that alone which urged him at that
+moment, and whether there was not mingled with it an eagerness to avenge
+himself for the dangers and outrages he had undergone.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing?" I asked him. "They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> have already been fighting at
+the Porte Saint-Denis, and barricades are being built all round the
+Hôtel de Ville."</p>
+
+<p>"Patience," he replied, "we are going there. Do you think we are such
+fools as to scatter our soldiers on such a day as this over the small
+streets of the suburbs? No, no! we shall let the insurgents concentrate
+in the quarters which we can't keep them out of, and then we will go and
+destroy them. They sha'n't escape us this time."</p>
+
+<p>As I reached the Assembly, a terrible storm broke, which flooded the
+town. I entertained a slight hope that this bad weather would get us out
+of our difficulties for the day, and it would, indeed, have been enough
+to put a stop to an ordinary riot; for the people of Paris need fine
+weather to fight in, and are more afraid of rain than of grape-shot. But
+I soon lost this hope: each moment the news became more distressing. The
+Assembly found difficulty in resuming its ordinary work. Agitated,
+though not overcome, by the excitement outside, it suspended the order
+of the day, returned to it, and finally suspended it for good, giving
+itself over to the preoccupations of the civil war. Different members
+came and described from the rostrum what they had seen in Paris. Others
+suggested various courses of action. Falloux, in the name of the
+Committee of Public Assistance, proposed a decree dissolving the
+national workshops, and received applause. Time was wasted with empty
+conversations, empty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> speeches. Nothing was known for certain; they kept
+on calling for the attendance of the Executive Commission, to inform
+them of the state of Paris, but the latter did not appear. There is
+nothing more pitiful than the spectacle of an assembly in a moment of
+crisis, when the Government itself fails it; it resembles a man still
+full of will and passion, but impotent, and tossing childishly amid the
+helplessness of his limbs. At last appeared two members of the Executive
+Commission; they announced that affairs were in a perilous condition,
+but that, nevertheless, it was hoped to crush the insurrection before
+night. The Assembly declared its sitting permanent, and adjourned till
+the evening.</p>
+
+<p>When the sitting was resumed, we learnt that Lamartine had been received
+with shots at all the barricades he attempted to approach. Two of our
+colleagues, Bixio and Dornès, had been mortally wounded when trying to
+address the insurgents. Bedeau had been shot through the thigh at the
+entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, and a number of officers of
+distinction were already killed or dangerously wounded. One of our
+members, Victor Considérant, spoke of making concessions to the workmen.
+The Assembly, which was tumultuous and disturbed, but not weak, revolted
+at these words: "Order, order!" they cried on every side, with a sort of
+rage, "it will be time to talk of that after the victory!" The rest of
+the evening and a portion of the night were spent in vaguely talking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+listening, and waiting. About midnight, Cavaignac appeared. The
+Executive Commission had since that afternoon placed the whole military
+power in his hands. In a hoarse and jerky voice, and in simple and
+precise words, Cavaignac detailed the principal incidents of the day. He
+stated that he had given orders to all the regiments posted along the
+railways to converge upon Paris, and that all the National Guards of the
+outskirts had been called out; he concluded by telling us that the
+insurgents had been beaten back to the barriers, and that he hoped soon
+to have mastered the city. The Assembly, exhausted with fatigue, left
+its officials sitting in permanence, and adjourned until eight o'clock
+the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>When, on quitting this turbulent scene, I found myself at one in the
+morning on the Pont Royal, and from there beheld Paris wrapped in
+darkness, and calm as a city asleep, it was with difficulty that I
+persuaded myself that all that I had seen and heard since the morning
+had existed in reality and was not a pure creation of my brain. The
+streets and squares which I crossed were absolutely deserted; not a
+sound, not a cry; one would have said that an industrious population,
+fatigued with its day's work, was resting before resuming the peaceful
+labours of the morrow. The serenity of the night ended by over-mastering
+me; I brought myself to believe that we had triumphed already, and on
+reaching home I went straight to sleep.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I woke very early in the morning. The sun had risen some time before,
+for we were in the midst of the longest days of the year. On opening my
+eyes, I heard a sharp, metallic sound, which shook the window-panes and
+immediately died out amid the silence of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>My wife replied, "It is the cannon; I have heard it for over an hour,
+but would not wake you, for I knew you would want your strength during
+the day."</p>
+
+<p>I dressed hurriedly and went out. The drums were beating to arms on
+every side: the day of the great battle had come at last. The National
+Guards left their homes under arms; all those I met seemed full of
+energy, for the sound of cannon, which brought the brave ones out, kept
+the others at home. But they were in bad humour: they thought themselves
+either badly commanded or betrayed by the Executive Power, against which
+they uttered terrible imprecations. This extreme distrust of its leaders
+on the part of the armed force seemed to me an alarming symptom.
+Continuing on my way, at the entrance to the Rue Saint-Honoré, I met a
+crowd of workmen anxiously listening to the cannon. These men were all
+in blouses, which, as we know, constitute their fighting as well as
+their working clothes; nevertheless, they had no arms, but one could see
+by their looks that they were quite ready to take them up. They
+remarked, with a hardly restrained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> joy, that the sound of the firing
+seemed to come nearer, which showed that the insurrection was gaining
+ground. I had augured before this that the whole of the working class
+was engaged, either in fact or in spirit, in the struggle; and this
+confirmed my suspicions. The spirit of insurrection circulated from one
+end to the other of this immense class, and in each of its parts, as the
+blood does in the body; it filled the quarters where there was no
+fighting, as well as those which served as the scene of battle; it had
+penetrated into our houses, around, above, below us. The very places in
+which we thought ourselves the masters swarmed with domestic enemies;
+one might say that an atmosphere of civil war enveloped the whole of
+Paris, amid which, to whatever part we withdrew, we had to live; and in
+this connection I shall violate the law I had imposed upon myself never
+to speak upon the word of another, and will relate a fact which I learnt
+a few days later from my colleague Blanqui.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Although very trivial, I
+consider it very characteristic of the physiognomy of the time. Blanqui
+had brought up from the country and taken into his house, as a servant,
+the son of a poor man, whose wretchedness had touched him. On the
+evening of the day on which the insurrection began, he heard this lad
+say, as he was clearing the table after dinner, "Next Sunday [it was
+Thursday then] <em>we</em> shall be eating the wings of the chicken;" to which
+a little girl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> who worked in the house replied, "And <em>we</em> shall be
+wearing fine silk dresses." Could anything give a better idea of the
+general state of minds than this childish scene? And to complete it,
+Blanqui was very careful not to seem to hear these little monkeys: they
+really frightened him. It was not until after the victory that he
+ventured to send back the ambitious pair to their hovels.</p>
+
+<p>At last I reached the Assembly. The representatives were gathered in
+crowds, although the time appointed for the sitting was not yet come.
+The sound of the cannon had attracted them. The Palace had the
+appearance of a fortified town: battalions were encamped around, and
+guns were levelled at all the approaches leading to it.</p>
+
+<p>I found the Assembly very determined, but very ill at ease; and it must
+be confessed there was enough to make it so. It was easy to perceive
+through the multitude of contradictory reports that we had to do with
+the most universal, the best armed, and the most furious insurrection
+ever known in Paris. The national workshops and various revolutionary
+bands that had just been disbanded supplied it with trained and
+disciplined soldiers and with leaders. It was extending every moment,
+and it was difficult to believe that it would not end by being
+victorious, when one remembered that all the great insurrections of the
+last sixty years had triumphed. To all these enemies we were only able
+to oppose the battalions of the <em>bourgeoisie</em>, regiments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> which had been
+disarmed in February, and twenty thousand undisciplined lads of the
+Garde Mobile, who were all sons, brothers, or near relations of
+insurgents, and whose dispositions were doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>But what alarmed us most was our leaders. The members of the Executive
+Commission filled us with profound distrust. On this subject I
+encountered, in the Assembly, the same feelings which I had observed
+among the National Guard. We doubted the good faith of some and the
+capacity of others. They were too numerous, besides, and too much
+divided to be able to act in complete harmony, and they were too much
+men of speech and the pen to be able to act to good purpose under such
+circumstances, even if they had agreed among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, we succeeded in triumphing over this so formidable
+insurrection; nay more, it was just that which rendered it so terrible
+which saved us. One might well apply in this case the famous phrase of
+the Prince de Condé, during the wars of religion: "We should have been
+destroyed, had we not been so near destruction." Had the revolt borne a
+less radical character and a less ferocious aspect, it is probable that
+the greater part of the middle class would have stayed at home; France
+would not have come to our aid; the National Assembly itself would
+perhaps have yielded, or at least a minority of its members would have
+advised it; and the energy of the whole body would have been greatly
+unnerved. But the insurrection was of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> such a nature that any commerce
+with it became at once impossible, and from the first it left us no
+alternative but to defeat it or to be destroyed ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The same reason prevented any man of consideration from placing himself
+at its head. In general, insurrections&mdash;I mean even those which
+succeed&mdash;begin without a leader; but they always end by securing one.
+This insurrection finished without having found one; it embraced every
+class of the populace, but never passed those limits. Even the
+Montagnards in the Assembly did not dare pronounce in its favour.
+Several pronounced against it. They did not even yet despair of
+attaining their ends by other means; they feared, moreover, that the
+triumph of the workmen would soon prove fatal to them. The greedy, blind
+and vulgar passions which induced the populace to take up arms alarmed
+them; for these passions are as dangerous to those who sympathize with
+them, without utterly abandoning themselves to them, as to those who
+reprove and combat them. The only men who could have placed themselves
+at the head of the insurgents had allowed themselves to be prematurely
+taken, like fools, on the 15th of May; and they only heard the sound of
+the conflict through the walls of the dungeon of Vincennes.</p>
+
+<p>Preoccupied though I was with public affairs, I continued to be
+distressed with the uneasiness which my young nephews once more caused
+me. They had been sent back to the Little Seminary, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> feared that
+the insurrection must come pretty near, if it had not already reached,
+the place where they lived. As their parents were not in Paris, I
+decided to go and fetch them, and I accordingly again traversed the long
+distance separating the Palais-Bourbon from the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Champs. I came across a few barricades erected during the
+night by the forlorn hope of the insurrection; but these had been either
+abandoned or captured at daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>All these quarters resounded with a devilish music, a mixture of drums
+and trumpets, whose rough, discordant, savage notes were new to me. In
+fact, I heard for the first time&mdash;and I have never heard it since&mdash;the
+rally, which it had been decided should never be beaten except in
+extreme cases and to call the whole population at once to arms.
+Everywhere National Guards were issuing from the houses; everywhere
+stood groups of workmen in blouses, listening with a sinister air to the
+rally and the cannon. The fighting had not yet reached so far as the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Champs, although it was very near it. I took my nephews
+with me, and returned to the Chamber.</p>
+
+<p>As I approached, and when I was already in the midst of the troops which
+guarded it, an old woman, pushing a barrow full of vegetables,
+obstinately barred my progress. I ended by telling her pretty curtly to
+make way. Instead of doing so, she left her barrow and flew at me in
+such a frenzy that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> I had great difficulty in protecting myself. I was
+horrified at the hideous and frightful expression of her face, on which
+were depicted all the fury of demagogic passion and the rage of civil
+war. I mention this little fact because I beheld in it, and with good
+cause, an important symptom. In violently critical times, even actions
+which have nothing to do with politics assume a singular character of
+anger and disorder, which does not escape the attentive eye, and which
+is an unfailing index of the general state of mind. These great public
+excitements form a sort of glowing atmosphere in which all private
+passions seethe and bubble.</p>
+
+<p>I found the Assembly agitated by a thousand sinister reports. The
+insurrection was gaining ground in every direction. Its head-quarters,
+or, so to speak, its trunk, was behind the Hôtel de Ville, whence it
+stretched its long arms further and further to right and left into the
+suburbs, and threatened soon to hug even us. The cannon was drawing
+appreciably nearer. And to this correct news were added a thousand lying
+rumours. Some said that our troops were running short of ammunition;
+others, that a number of them had laid down their arms or gone over to
+the insurgents.</p>
+
+<p>M. Thiers asked Barrot, Dufaure, Rémusat, Lanjuinais and myself to
+follow him to a private room. There he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I know something of insurrections, and I tell you this is the worst I
+have ever seen. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> insurgents may be here within an hour, and we shall
+be butchered one and all. Do you not think that it would be well for us
+to agree to propose to the Assembly, so soon as we think necessary and
+before it becomes too late, that it should call back the troops around
+it, in order that, placed in their midst, we may all leave Paris
+together and remove the seat of the Republic to a place where we could
+summon the army and all the National Guards in France to our
+assistance?"</p>
+
+<p>He said this in very eager tones and with a greater display of
+excitement than is, perhaps, advisable in the presence of great danger.
+I saw that he was pursued by the ghost of February. Dufaure, who had a
+less vivid imagination, and who, moreover, never readily made up his
+mind to associate himself with people he did not care about, even to
+save himself, phlegmatically and somewhat sarcastically explained that
+the time had not yet come to discuss a plan of this kind; that we could
+always talk of it later on; that our chances did not seem to him so
+desperate as to oblige us to entertain so extreme a remedy; that to
+entertain it was to weaken ourselves. He was undoubtedly right, and his
+words broke up the consultation. I at once wrote a few lines to my wife,
+telling her that the danger was hourly increasing, that Paris would
+perhaps end by falling entirely into the power of the revolt, and that,
+in that case, we should be obliged to leave it in order to carry on the
+civil war elsewhere. I charged her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> to go at once to Saint-Germain by
+the railroad, which was still free, and there to await my news; told my
+nephews to take the letter; and returned to the Assembly. I found them
+discussing a decree to proclaim Paris in a state of siege, to abolish
+the powers of the Executive Commission, and to replace it by a military
+dictatorship under General Cavaignac.</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly knew precisely that this was what it wanted. The thing was
+easily done: it was urgent, and yet it was not done. Each moment some
+little incident, some trivial motion interrupted and turned aside the
+current of the general wish; for assemblies are very liable to that sort
+of nightmare in which an unknown and invisible force seems always at the
+last moment to interpose between the will and the deed and to prevent
+the one from influencing the other. Who would have thought that it was
+Bastide who should eventually induce the Assembly to make up its mind?
+Yet he it was.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard him say&mdash;and it was very true&mdash;speaking of himself, that he
+was never able to remember more than the first fifteen words of a
+speech. But I have sometimes observed that men who do not know how to
+speak produce a greater impression, under certain circumstances, than
+the finest orators. They bring forward but a single idea, that of the
+moment, clothed in a single phrase, and somehow they lay it down in the
+rostrum like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> an inscription written in big letters, which everybody
+perceives, and in which each instantly recognizes his own particular
+thought. Bastide, then, displayed his long, honest, melancholy face in
+the tribune, and said, with a mournful air:</p>
+
+<p>"Citizens, in the name of the country, I beseech you to vote as quickly
+as possible. We are told that perhaps within an hour the Hôtel de Ville
+will be taken."</p>
+
+<p>These few words put an end to debate, and the decree was voted in the
+twinkling of an eye.</p>
+
+<p>I protested against the clause proclaiming Paris in a state of siege; I
+did so by instinct rather than reflection. I have such a contempt and so
+great a natural horror for military despotism that these feelings came
+rising tumultuously in my breast when I heard a state of siege
+suggested, and even dominated those prompted by our peril. In this I
+made a mistake in which I fortunately found few to imitate me.</p>
+
+<p>The friends of the Executive Commission have asserted in very bitter
+terms that their adversaries and the partisans of General Cavaignac
+spread ominous rumours on purpose to precipitate the vote. If the latter
+did really resort to this trick, I gladly pardon them, for the measures
+they caused to be taken were indispensable to the safety of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Before adopting the decree of which I have spoken, the Assembly
+unanimously voted another, which declared that the families of those who
+should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> fall in the struggle should receive a pension from the Treasury
+and their children be adopted by the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided that sixty members of the Chamber, appointed by the
+committees, should spread themselves over Paris, inform the National
+Guards of the different decrees issued by the Assembly, and re-establish
+their confidence, which was said to be uncertain and discouraged. In the
+committee to which I belonged, instead of immediately appointing
+commissioners, they began an endless discussion on the uselessness and
+danger of the resolution adopted. In this manner a great deal of time
+was lost. I ended by stopping this ludicrous chatter with a word.
+"Gentlemen," I said, "the Assembly may have been mistaken; but permit me
+to observe that, having passed a two-fold resolution, it would be a
+disgrace for it to draw back, and a disgrace for us not to submit."</p>
+
+<p>They voted on the spot; and I was unanimously elected a commissioner, as
+I expected. My colleagues were Cormenin and Crémieux, to whom they added
+Goudchaux. The latter was then not so well known, although in his own
+way he was the most original of them all. He was at once a Radical and a
+banker, a rare combination; and by dint of his business occupations, he
+had succeeded by covering with a few reasonable ideas the foundation of
+his mind, which was filled with mad theories that always ended by making
+their way to the top. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> impossible to be vainer, more irascible,
+more quarrelsome, petulant or excitable than he. He was unable to
+discuss the difficulties of the Budget without shedding tears; and yet
+he was one of the valiantest little men it was possible to meet.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to the stormy discussion in our committee, the other deputations
+had already left, and with them the guides and the escort who were to
+have accompanied us. Nevertheless, we set out, after putting on our
+scarves, and turned our steps alone and a little at hazard towards the
+interior of Paris, along the right bank of the Seine. By that time the
+insurrection had made such progress that one could see the cannon drawn
+up in line and firing between the Pont des Arts and the Pont Neuf. The
+National Guards, who saw us from the top of the embankment, looked at us
+with anxiety; they respectfully took off their hats, and said in an
+undertone, and with grief-stricken accents, "Long live the National
+Assembly!" No noisy cheers uttered at the sight of a king ever came more
+visibly from the heart, or pointed to a more unfeigned sympathy. When we
+had passed through the gates and were on the Carrousel, I saw that
+Cormenin and Crémieux were imperceptibly making for the Tuileries, and I
+heard one of them, I forget which, say:</p>
+
+<p>"Where can we go? And what can we do of any use without guides? Is it
+not best to content ourselves with going through the Tuileries gardens?
+There are several battalions of the reserve stationed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> there; we will
+inform them of the decrees of the Assembly."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," replied the other; "I even think we shall be executing the
+Assembly's instructions better than our colleagues; for what can one say
+to people already engaged in action? It is the reserves that we should
+prepare to fall into line in their turn."</p>
+
+<p>I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary
+movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their
+cowardice in all its nakedness; but the others are able to cover it with
+a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small, plausible lies, that
+there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work
+of the brain.</p>
+
+<p>As may be supposed, I was in no humour for a stroll in the Tuileries
+gardens. I had set out in none too good a temper; but it was no good
+crying over spilt milk. I therefore pointed out to Goudchaux the road
+our colleagues had taken.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he said, angrily; "I shall leave them and I will make public
+the decrees of the Assembly without them."</p>
+
+<p>Together we made for the gate opposite. Cormenin and Crémieux soon
+rejoined us, a little ashamed of their attempt. Thus we reached the Rue
+Saint-Honoré, the appearance of which was perhaps what struck me most
+during the days of June. This noisy, populous street was at this moment
+more deserted than I had ever seen it at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> four o'clock on a winter
+morning. As far as the eye could reach, we perceived not a living soul;
+the shops, doors and windows were hermetically closed. Nothing was
+visible, nothing stirred; we heard no sound of a wheel, no clatter of a
+horse, no human footstep, but only the voice of the cannon, which seemed
+to resound through an abandoned city. Yet the houses were not empty; for
+as we walked on, we could catch glimpses at the windows of women and
+children who, with their faces glued to the panes, watched us go by with
+an affrighted air.</p>
+
+<p>At last, near the Palais-Royal, we met some large bodies of National
+Guards, and our mission commenced. When Crémieux saw that it was only a
+question of talking, he became all ardour; he told them of what had
+happened at the National Assembly, and held forth to them in a little
+<em>bravura</em> speech which was heartily applauded. We found an escort there,
+and passed on. We wandered a long time through the little streets of
+that district, until we came in front of the great barricade of the Rue
+Rambuteau, which was not yet taken and which stopped our further
+progress. From there we came back again through all those little
+streets, which were covered with blood from the recent combats: they
+were still fighting from time to time. For it was a war of ambuscades,
+whose scene was not fixed but every moment changed. When one least
+expected it, one was shot at through a garret<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> window; and on breaking
+into the house, one found the gun but not the marksman: the latter
+escaped by a back-door while the front-door was being battered in. For
+this reason the National Guards had orders to have all the shutters
+opened, and to fire on all those who showed themselves at the windows;
+and they obeyed these orders so literally that they narrowly escaped
+killing several merely inquisitive people whom the sight of our scarves
+tempted to put their noses outside.</p>
+
+<p>During this walk of two or three hours, we had to make at least thirty
+speeches; I refer to Crémieux and myself, for Goudchaux was only able to
+speak on finance, and as to Cormenin, he was always as dumb as a fish.
+To tell the truth, almost all the burden of the day fell upon Crémieux.
+He filled me, I will not say with admiration, but with surprise. Janvier
+has said of Crémieux that he was "an eloquent louse." If only he could
+have seen him that day, jaded, with uncovered breast, dripping with
+perspiration and dirty with dust, wrapped in a long scarf twisted
+several times in every direction round his little body, but constantly
+hitting upon new ideas, or rather new words and phrases, now expressing
+in gestures what he had just expressed in words, then in words what he
+had just expressed in gestures: always eloquent, always ardent! I do not
+believe that anyone has ever seen, and I doubt whether anyone has ever
+imagined, a man who was uglier or more fluent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I observed that when the National Guards were told that Paris was in a
+state of siege, they were pleased, and when one added that the Executive
+Commission was overthrown, they cheered. Never were people so delighted
+to be relieved of their liberty and their government. And yet this was
+what Lamartine's popularity had come to in less than two months.</p>
+
+<p>When we had done speaking, the men surrounded us; they asked us if we
+were quite sure that the Executive Commission had ceased to act; we had
+to show them the decree to satisfy them.</p>
+
+<p>Particularly remarkable was the firm attitude of these men. We had come
+to encourage them, and it was rather they who encouraged us. "Hold on at
+the National Assembly," they cried, "and we'll hold on here. Courage! no
+transactions with the insurgents! We'll put an end to the revolt: all
+will end well." I had never seen the National Guard so resolute before,
+nor do I think that we could rely upon finding it so again; for its
+courage was prompted by necessity and despair, and proceeded from
+circumstances which are not likely to recur.</p>
+
+<p>Paris on that day reminded me of a city of antiquity whose citizens
+defended the walls like heroes, because they knew that if the city were
+taken they themselves would be dragged into slavery. As we turned our
+steps back towards the Assembly, Goudchaux left us. "Now that we have
+done our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> errand," said he, clenching his teeth, and in an accent half
+Gascon and half Alsatian, "I want to go and fight a bit." He said this
+with such a martial air, so little in harmony with his pacific
+appearance, that I could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>He did, in fact, go and fight, as I heard the next day, and so well that
+he might have had his little paunch pierced in two or three places, had
+fate so willed it. I returned from my round convinced that we should
+come out victorious; and what I saw on nearing the Assembly confirmed my
+opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Thousands of men were hastening to our aid from every part of France,
+and entering the city by all the roads not commanded by the insurgents.
+Thanks to the railroads, some had already come from fifty leagues'
+distance, although the fighting had only begun the night before. On the
+next and the subsequent days, they came from distances of a hundred and
+two hundred leagues. These men belonged indiscriminately to every class
+of society; among them were many peasants, many shopkeepers, many
+landlords and nobles, all mingled together in the same ranks. They were
+armed in an irregular and insufficient manner, but they rushed into
+Paris with unequalled ardour: a spectacle as strange and unprecedented
+in our revolutionary annals as that offered by the insurrection itself.
+It was evident from that moment that we should end by gaining the day,
+for the insurgents received no reinforcements, whereas we had all France
+for reserves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the Place Louis XV., I met, surrounded by the armed inhabitants of
+his canton, my kinsman Lepelletier d'Aunay, who was Vice-President of
+the Chamber of Deputies during the last days of the Monarchy. He wore
+neither uniform nor musket, but only a little silver-hilted sword which
+he had slung at his side over his coat by a narrow white linen
+bandolier. I was touched to tears on seeing this venerable white-haired
+man thus accoutred.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you come and dine with us this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," he replied; "what would these good folk who are with me, and
+who know that I have more to lose than they by the victory of the
+insurrection&mdash;what would they say if they saw me leaving them to take it
+easy? No, I will share their repast and sleep here at their bivouac. The
+only thing I would beg you is, if possible, to hurry the despatch of the
+provision of bread promised us, for we have had no food since morning."</p>
+
+<p>I returned to the Assembly, I believe at about three, and did not go out
+again. The remainder of the day was taken up by accounts of the
+fighting: each moment produced its event and its piece of news. The
+arrival of volunteers from one of the departments was announced; they
+were bringing in prisoners; flags captured on the barricades were
+brought in. Deeds of bravery were described, heroic words repeated; each
+moment we learnt of some person of note being wounded or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> killed. As to
+the final issue of the day, nothing had yet occurred to enable us to
+form an opinion.</p>
+
+<p>The President only called the Assembly together at infrequent intervals
+and for short periods; and he was right, for assemblies are like
+children, and idleness always makes them say or do a number of foolish
+things. Each time the sitting was resumed, he himself told us all that
+had been learnt for certain during the adjournment. This President, as
+we know, was Sénard, a well-known Rouen advocate and a man of courage;
+but in his youth he had contracted so deep-seated a theatrical habit in
+the daily comedy played at the bar that he had lost the faculty of
+truthfully giving his true impressions of a thing, when by accident he
+happened to have any. It seemed always necessary that he should add some
+turgidity or other of his own to the feats of courage he described, and
+that he should express the emotion, which I believe he really felt, in
+hollow tones, a trembling voice, and a sort of tragic hiccough which
+reminded one of an actor on the stage. Never were the sublime and the
+ridiculous brought so close together: for the facts were sublime and the
+narrator ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>We did not adjourn till late at night to take a little rest. The
+fighting had stopped, to be resumed on the morrow. The insurrection,
+although everywhere held in check, had as yet been stifled nowhere.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Of the Institute, a brother of Blanqui of the 15th of
+May.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Xa" id="CHAPTER_Xa"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE DAYS OF JUNE&mdash;(<em>continued</em>).</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The porter of the house in which we lived in the Rue de la Madeleine was
+a man of very bad reputation in the neighbourhood, an old soldier, not
+quite in his right mind, a drunkard, and a great good-for-nothing, who
+spent at the wine-shop all the time which he did not employ in beating
+his wife. This man might be said to be a Socialist by birth, or rather
+by temperament.</p>
+
+<p>The early successes of the insurrection had brought him to a state of
+exaltation, and on the morning of the day of which I speak he visited
+all the wine-shops around, and among other mischievous remarks of which
+he delivered himself, he said that he would kill me when I came home in
+the evening, if I came in at all. He even displayed a large knife which
+he intended to use for the purpose. A poor woman who heard him ran in
+great alarm to tell Madame de Tocqueville; and she, before leaving
+Paris, sent me a note in which, after telling me of the facts, she
+begged me not to come in that night, but to go to my father's house,
+which was close by, he being away. This I determined to do; but when I
+left the Assembly at midnight, I had not the energy to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> carry out my
+intention. I was worn out with fatigue, and I did not know whether I
+should find a bed prepared if I slept out. Besides, I had little faith
+in the performance of murders proclaimed beforehand; and also I was
+under the influence of the sort of listlessness that follows upon any
+prolonged excitement. I accordingly went and knocked at my door, only
+taking the precaution to load the pistols which, in those unhappy days,
+it was common to carry. My man opened the door, I entered, and while he
+was carefully pushing the bolts behind me, I asked him if all the
+tenants had come home. He replied drily that they had all left Paris
+that morning, and that we two were alone in the house. I should have
+preferred another kind of <em>tête-à-tête</em>, but it was too late to go back;
+I therefore looked him straight in the eyes and told him to walk in
+front and show a light.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped at a gate that led to the court-yard, and told me that he
+heard a curious noise in the stables which alarmed him, begging me to go
+with him to see what it was. As he spoke, he turned towards the stables.
+All this began to seem very suspicious to me, but I thought that, as I
+had gone so far, it was better to go on. I accordingly followed him,
+carefully watching his movements, and making up my mind to kill him like
+a dog at the first sign of treachery. As a matter of fact, we did hear a
+very strange noise. It resembled the dull running of water or the
+distant rumble of a carriage, although<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> it obviously came from somewhere
+quite near. I never learnt what it was; though it was true I did not
+spend much time in trying to discover. I soon returned to the house and
+made my companion bring me to my threshold, keeping my eyes on him the
+whole time. I told him to open my door, and so soon as he had done so, I
+took the candle from his hand and went in. It was not until I was almost
+out of his sight that he brought himself to take off his hat and bow to
+me. Had the man really intended to kill me, and seeing me on my guard,
+with both hands in my pockets, did he reflect that I was better armed
+than he, and that he would be well advised to abandon his design? I
+thought at the time that the latter had never been very seriously
+intended, and I think so still. In times of revolution, people boast
+almost as much about the imaginary crimes they propose to commit as in
+ordinary times they do of the good intentions they pretend to entertain.
+I have always believed that this wretch would only have become dangerous
+if the fortunes of the fight had seemed to turn against us; but they
+leant, on the contrary, to our side, although they were still undecided;
+and this was sufficient to assure my safety.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn I heard some one in my room, and woke with a start: it was my
+man-servant, who had let himself in with a private key of the apartment,
+which he carried. The brave lad had just left the bivouac (I had
+supplied him at his request with a National Guard's uniform and a good
+gun), and he came to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> know if I had come home and if his services were
+required. This one was certainly not a Socialist, either in theory or
+temperament. He was not even tainted in the slightest degree with the
+most general malady of the age, restlessness of mind, and even in other
+times than ours it would have been difficult to find a man more
+contented with his position and less sullen at his lot. Always very much
+satisfied with himself, and tolerably satisfied with others, he
+generally desired only that which was within his reach, and he generally
+attained, or thought he attained, all that he desired; thus unwittingly
+following the precepts which philosophers teach and never observe, and
+enjoying by the gift of Nature that happy equilibrium between faculty
+and desire which alone gives the happiness which philosophy promises us.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Eugène," I said, when I saw him, "how are affairs going on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir, perfectly well!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by very well? I can still hear the sound of cannon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they are still fighting," he replied, "but every one says it will
+end all right."</p>
+
+<p>With that he took off his uniform, cleaned my boots, brushed my clothes,
+and putting on his uniform again:</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't require me any more, sir," said he, "and if you will
+permit me, I will go back to the fighting."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He pursued this two-fold calling during four days and four nights, as
+simply as I am writing it down; and I experienced a sort of reposeful
+feeling, during these days filled with turmoil and hate, when I looked
+at the young man's peaceful and contented face.</p>
+
+<p>Before going to the Assembly, where I did not think there would be any
+important measures to take, I resolved to make my way to the places
+where the fighting was still going on, and where I heard the sound of
+cannon. It was not that I was longing "to go and fight a bit," like
+Goudchaux, but I wanted to judge for myself as to the state of things;
+for, in my complete ignorance of war, I could not understand what made
+the struggle last so long. Besides, shall I confess it, a keen curiosity
+was piercing through all the feelings that filled my mind, and from time
+to time dominated them. I went along a great portion of the boulevard
+without seeing any traces of the battle, but there were plenty just
+beyond the Porte Saint-Martin; one stumbled over the <em>débris</em> left
+behind by the retreating insurrection: broken windows, doors smashed in,
+houses spotted by bullets or pierced by cannon-balls, trees cut down,
+heaped-up paving-stones, straw mixed with blood and mud. Such were these
+melancholy vestiges.</p>
+
+<p>I thus reached the Château-d'Eau, around which were massed a number of
+troops of different sorts. At the foot of the fountain was a piece of
+cannon which was being discharged down the Rue Samson.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> I thought at
+first that the insurgents were replying with cannon on their side, but I
+ended by seeing that I was deceived by an echo which repeated with a
+terrible crash the sound of our own gun. I have never heard anything
+like it; one might have thought one's self in the midst of a great
+battle. As a matter of fact, the insurgents were only replying with an
+infrequent but deadly musketry fire.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange combat. The Rue Samson, as we know, is not a very long
+one; at the end runs the Canal Saint-Martin, and behind the canal is a
+large house facing the street. The street was absolutely deserted; there
+was no barricade in sight, and the gun seemed to be firing at a target;
+only from time to time a whiff of smoke issued from a few windows, and
+proclaimed the presence of an invisible enemy. Our sharp-shooters,
+posted along the walls, aimed at the windows from which they saw the
+shots fired. Lamoricière, mounted on a tall horse in full view of the
+enemy, gave his commands amid the whirl of bullets. I thought he was
+more excited and talkative than I had imagined a general ought to be in
+such a juncture; he talked, shouted in a hoarse voice, gesticulated in a
+sort of rage. It was easy to see by the clearness of his thoughts and
+expressions that amid this apparent disorder he lost none of his
+presence of mind; but his manner of commanding might have caused others
+to lose theirs, and I confess I should have admired his courage more if
+he had kept more quiet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This conflict, in which one saw nobody before him, this firing, which
+seemed to be aimed only at the walls, surprised me strangely. I should
+never have pictured war to myself under this aspect. As the boulevard
+seemed clear beyond the Château-d'Eau, I was unable to understand why
+our columns did not pass further, nor why, if we wanted first to seize
+the large house facing the street, we did not capture it at a run,
+instead of remaining so long exposed to the deadly fire issuing from it.
+Yet nothing was more easily explained: the boulevard, which I thought
+clear from the Château-d'Eau onwards, was not so; beyond the bend which
+it makes at this place, it was bristling with barricades, all the way to
+the Bastille. Before attacking the barricades, we wanted to become
+masters of the streets we left behind us, and especially to capture the
+house facing the street, which, commanding the boulevard as it did,
+would have impeded our communications. Finally, we did not take the
+house by assault, because we were separated from it by the canal, which
+I could not see from the boulevard. We confined ourselves, therefore, to
+efforts to destroy it by cannon-shots, or at least to render it
+untenable. This took a long time to accomplish, and after being
+astonished in the morning that the fighting had not finished, I now
+asked myself how at this rate it could ever finish. For what I was
+witnessing at the Château-d'Eau was at the same time being repeated in
+other forms in a hundred different parts of Paris.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the insurgents had no artillery, the conflict did not possess the
+horrible aspect which it must have when the battle-field is ploughed by
+cannon balls. The men who were struck down before me seemed transfixed
+by an invisible shaft: they staggered and fell without one's seeing at
+first anything but a little hole made in their clothes. In the cases of
+this kind which I witnessed, I was struck less by the sight of physical
+pain than by the picture of moral anguish. It was indeed a strange and
+frightful thing to see the sudden change of features, the quick
+extinction of the light in the eyes in the terror of death.</p>
+
+<p>After a certain period, I saw Lamoricière's horse sink to the ground,
+shot by a bullet; it was the third horse the General had had killed
+under him since the day before yesterday. He sprang lightly to the
+ground, and continued bellowing his raging instructions.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed that on our side the least eager were the soldiers of the
+Line. They were weakened and, as it were, dulled by the remembrance of
+February, and did not yet seem quite certain that they would not be told
+the next day that they had done wrong. The liveliest were undoubtedly
+the Gardes Mobiles of whom we had felt so uncertain; and, in spite of
+the event, I maintain that we were right, at the time; for it wanted but
+little for them to decide against us instead of taking our side. Until
+the end, they plainly showed that it was the fighting they loved rather
+than the cause for which they fought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All these troops were raw and very subject to panic: I myself was a
+judge and almost a victim of this. At a street corner close to the
+Château-d'Eau was a large house in process of building. Some insurgents,
+who doubtless entered from behind across the court-yards, had taken up
+their position there, unknown to us; suddenly they appeared on the roof,
+and fired a great volley at the troops who filled the boulevard, and who
+did not expect to find the enemy posted so close at hand. The sound of
+their muskets reverberating with a great crash against the opposite
+houses gave reason to dread that a surprise of the same kind was taking
+place on that side. Immediately the most incredible confusion prevailed
+in our column: artillery, cavalry, and infantry were mingled in a
+moment, the soldiers fired in every direction, without knowing what they
+were doing, and tumultuously fell back sixty paces. This retreat was so
+disorderly and so impetuous that I was thrown against the wall of the
+houses facing the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, knocked down by the
+cavalry, and so hard pressed that I left my hat on the field, and very
+nearly left my body there. It was certainly the most serious danger I
+ran during the days of June. This made me think that it is not all
+heroism in the game of war. I have no doubt but that accidents of this
+kind often happen to the very best troops; no one boasts about them, and
+they are not mentioned in the despatches.</p>
+
+<p>It was now that Lamoricière became sublime. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> had till then kept his
+sword in the scabbard: he now drew it, and ran up to his soldiers, his
+features distorted with the most magnificent rage; he stopped them with
+his voice, seized them with his hands, even struck them with the pummel
+of his sword, turned them, brought them back, and, placing himself at
+their head, forced them to pass at the trot through the fire in the Rue
+du Faubourg-du-Temple in order to take the house from which the firing
+had come. This was done in a moment, and without striking a blow: the
+enemy had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The combat resumed its dull aspect and lasted some time longer, until
+the enemy's fire was at length extinguished, and the street occupied.
+Before commencing the next operation, there was a moment's pause:
+Lamoricière went to his head-quarters, a wine-shop on the boulevard near
+the Porte Saint-Martin, and I was at last able to consult him on the
+state of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"How long do you think," I asked, "that all this will last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how can I tell?" he replied. "That depends on the enemy, not on
+us."</p>
+
+<p>He then showed me on the map all the streets we had already captured and
+were occupying, and all those we had still to take, adding, "If the
+insurgents choose to defend themselves on the ground they still hold as
+they have done on that which we have won from them, we may still have a
+week's fighting before us, and our loss will be enormous, for we lose
+more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> than they do: the first side to lose its moral courage will be the
+first to be beaten."</p>
+
+<p>I next reproached him with exposing himself so rashly, and, as I
+thought, so uselessly.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you have me do?" said he. "Tell Cavaignac to send generals
+able and willing to second me, and I will keep more in the background;
+but you always have to expose yourself when you have only yourself to
+rely on."</p>
+
+<p>M. Thiers then came up, threw himself on Lamoricière's neck, and told
+him he was a hero. I could not help smiling at this effusion, for there
+was no love lost between them: but a great danger is like wine, it makes
+men affectionate.</p>
+
+<p>I left Lamoricière in M. Thiers' arms, and returned to the Assembly: it
+was growing late, and besides, I know no greater fool than the man who
+gets his head broken in battle out of curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the day was spent as the day before: the same anxiety in the
+Assembly, the same feverish inaction, the same firmness. Volunteers
+continued to enter Paris; every moment we were told of some tragic event
+or illustrious death. These pieces of news saddened, but animated and
+fortified, the Assembly. Any member who ventured to propose to enter
+into negociations with the insurgents was met with yells of rage.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I decided to go myself to the Hôtel de Ville, in order
+there to obtain more certain news of the results of the day. The
+insurrection, after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> alarming me by its extreme violence, now alarmed me
+by its long duration. For who could foresee the effect which the sight
+of so long and uncertain a conflict might produce in some parts of
+France, and especially in the great manufacturing towns, such as Lyons?
+As I went along the Quai de la Ferraille, I met some National Guards
+from my neighbourhood, carrying on litters several of their comrades and
+two of their officers wounded. I observed, in talking with them, with
+what terrible rapidity, even in so civilized a century as our own, the
+most peaceful minds enter, as it were, into the spirit of civil war, and
+how quick they are, in these unhappy times, to acquire a taste for
+violence and a contempt for human life. The men with whom I was talking
+were peaceful, sober artisans, whose gentle and somewhat sluggish
+natures were still further removed from cruelty than from heroism. Yet
+they dreamt of nothing but massacre and destruction. They complained
+that they were not allowed to use bombs, or to sap and mine the streets
+held by the insurgents, and they were determined to show no more
+quarter; already that morning I had almost seen a poor devil shot before
+my eyes on the boulevards, who had been arrested without arms in his
+hands, but whose mouth and hands were blackened by a substance which
+they supposed to be, and which no doubt was, powder. I did all I could
+to calm these rabid sheep. I promised them that we should take terrible
+measures the next day. Lamoricière, in fact, had told me that morning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+that he had sent for shells to hurl behind the barricades; and I knew
+that a regiment of sappers was expected from Douai, to pierce the walls
+and blow up the besieged houses with petards. I added that they must not
+shoot any of their prisoners, but that they should kill then and there
+anyone who made as though to defend himself. I left my men a little more
+contented, and, continuing my road, I could not help examining myself
+and feeling surprised at the nature of the arguments I had used, and the
+promptness with which, in two days, I had become familiarized with those
+ideas of inexorable destruction which were naturally so foreign to my
+character.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed in front of the little streets at the entrance to which, two
+days before, I had seen such neat and solid barricades being built, I
+noticed that the cannon had considerably upset those fine works,
+although some traces remained.</p>
+
+<p>I was received by Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He told me that the Hôtel
+de Ville was clear for the present, but that the insurgents might try in
+the night to recapture the streets from which we had driven them. I
+found him less tranquil than his bulletins. He took me to a room in
+which they had laid Bedeau, who was dangerously wounded on the first
+day. This post at the Hôtel de Ville was a very fatal one for the
+generals who commanded there. Bedeau almost lost his life. Duvivier and
+Négrier, who succeeded him, were killed. Bedeau believed he was but
+slightly hurt, and thought only of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> situation of affairs:
+nevertheless, his activity of mind struck me as ill-omened, and alarmed
+me.</p>
+
+<p>The night was well advanced when I left the Hôtel de Ville to go to the
+Assembly. I was offered an escort, which I refused, not thinking I
+should require it; but I regretted it more than once on the road. In
+order to prevent the insurgent districts from receiving reinforcements,
+provisions, or communications from the other parts of the town, in which
+there were so many men prepared to embrace the same cause, it had very
+properly been resolved absolutely to prohibit circulation in any of the
+streets. Everyone was stopped who left his house without a pass or an
+escort. I was constantly stopped on my way and made to show my medal. I
+was aimed at more than ten times by those inexperienced sentries, who
+spoke every imaginable brogue; for Paris was filled with provincials,
+who had come from every part of the country, many of them for the first
+time.</p>
+
+<p>When I arrived, the sitting was over, but the Palace was still in a
+great state of excitement. A rumour had got abroad that the workmen of
+the Gros-Caillou were about to take advantage of the darkness to seize
+upon the Palace itself. Thus the Assembly, which, after three days'
+fighting, had carried the conflict into the heart of the districts
+occupied by its enemies, was trembling for its own quarters. The rumour
+was void of foundation; but nothing could better show the character of
+this war,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> in which the enemy might always be one's own neighbour, and
+in which one was never certain of not having his house sacked while
+gaining a victory at a distance. In order to secure the Palace against
+all surprise, barricades were hurriedly erected at the entrance to all
+the streets leading up to it. When I saw that there was only a question
+of a false rumour, I went home to bed.</p>
+
+<p>I shall say no more of the June combats. The recollections of the two
+last days merge into and are lost in those of the first. As is known,
+the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the last citadel of the civil war, did not
+lay down its arms until the Monday&mdash;that is to say, on the fourth day
+after the commencement of the conflict; and it was not until the morning
+of that day that the volunteers from la Manche were able to reach Paris.
+They had hurried as fast as possible, but they had come more than eighty
+leagues across a country in which there were no railways. They were
+fifteen hundred in number. I was touched at recognizing among them many
+landlords, lawyers, doctors and farmers who were my friends and
+neighbours. Almost all the old nobility of the country had taken up arms
+on this occasion and formed part of the column. It was the same over
+almost the whole of France. From the petty squire squatting in his den
+in the country to the useless, elegant sons of the great houses&mdash;all had
+at that moment remembered that they had once formed part of a warlike
+and governing class, and on every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> side they gave the example of vigour
+and resolution: so great is the vitality of those old bodies of
+aristocracy. They retain traces of themselves even when they appear to
+be reduced to dust, and spring up time after time from the shades of
+death before sinking back for ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the midst of the days of June that the death occurred of a man
+who perhaps of all men in our day best preserved the spirit of the old
+races: M. de Chateaubriand, with whom I was connected by so many family
+ties and childish recollections. He had long since fallen into a sort of
+speechless stupor, which made one sometimes believe that his
+intelligence was extinguished. Nevertheless, while in this condition, he
+heard a rumour of the Revolution of February, and desired to be told
+what was happening. They informed him that Louis-Philippe's government
+had been overthrown. He said, "Well done!" and nothing more. Four months
+later, the din of the days of June reached his ears, and again he asked
+what that noise was. They answered that people were fighting in Paris,
+and that it was the sound of cannon. Thereupon he made vain efforts to
+rise, saying, "I want to go to it," and was then silent, this time for
+ever; for he died the next day.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the days of June, necessary and disastrous days. They did not
+extinguish revolutionary ardour in France, but they put a stop, at least
+for a time, to what may be called the work appertaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> to the
+Revolution of February. They delivered the nation from the tyranny of
+the Paris workmen and restored it to possession of itself.</p>
+
+<p>Socialistic theories continued to penetrate into the minds of the people
+in the shape of envious and greedy desires, and to sow the seed of
+future revolutions; but the socialist party itself was beaten and
+powerless. The Montagnards, who did not belong to it, felt that they
+were irrevocably affected by the blow that had struck it. The moderate
+Republicans themselves did not fail to be alarmed lest this victory had
+led them to a slope which might precipitate them from the Republic, and
+they made an immediate effort to stop their descent, but in vain.
+Personally I detested the Mountain, and was indifferent to the Republic;
+but I adored Liberty, and I conceived great apprehensions for it
+immediately after these days. I at once looked upon the June fighting as
+a necessary crisis, after which, however, the temper of the nation would
+undergo a certain change. The love of independence was to be followed by
+a dread of, and perhaps a distaste for, free institutions; after such an
+abuse of liberty a return of this sort was inevitable. This retrograde
+movement began, in fact, on the 27th of June. At first very slow and
+invisible, as it were, to the naked eye, it grew swifter, impetuous,
+irresistible. Where will it stop? I do not know. I believe we shall have
+great difficulty in not rolling far beyond the point we had reached
+before February, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> foresee that all of us, Socialists, Montagnards
+and Liberal Republicans, will fall into common discredit until the
+private recollections of the Revolution of 1848 are removed and effaced,
+and the general spirit of the times shall resume its empire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI12" id="CHAPTER_XI12"></a>CHAPTER XI<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchorh2">[12]</a></h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>THE COMMITTEE FOR THE CONSTITUTION.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I now change my subject, and am glad to leave the scenes of the civil
+war and to return to the recollections of my parliamentary life. I wish
+to speak of what happened in the Committee for the Constitution, of
+which I was a member. This will oblige us to retrace our steps a little,
+for the appointment and work of this committee date back to before the
+days of June; but I did not mention it earlier, because I did not wish
+to interrupt the course of events which was leading us swiftly and
+directly to those days. The nomination of the Committee for the
+Constitution was commenced on the 17th of May; it was a long
+performance, because it had been decided that the members of the
+committee should be chosen by the whole Assembly and by an absolute
+majority of votes. I was elected at the first time of voting<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>
+together with Cormenin, Marrast, Lamennais, Vivien, and Dufaure. I do
+not know how often the voting had to be repeated in order to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> complete
+the list, which was to consist of eighteen members.</p>
+
+<p>Although the committee had been nominated before the victory of June,
+almost all its members belonged to the different moderate sections of
+the Assembly. The Mountain had only two representatives on it: Lamennais
+and Considérant; and even these were little worse than chimerical
+visionaries, especially Considérant, who would have deserved to be sent
+to a lunatic asylum had he been sincere&mdash;but I fear he deserved more
+than that.</p>
+
+<p>Taking the Committee as a whole, it was easy to see that no very
+remarkable result was to be expected from it. Some of its members had
+spent their lives in conducting or controlling the administration during
+the last government. They had never seen, studied, or understood
+anything except the Monarchy; and even then they had, for the most part,
+applied rather than studied its principles. They had raised themselves
+but little above the practice of business. Now that they were called
+upon to realize the theories which they had always slighted or opposed,
+and which had defeated without convincing them, they found it difficult
+to apply any but monarchical ideas to their work; or, if they adopted
+republican ideas, they did so now timidly, now rashly, always a little
+at hap-hazard, like novices.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Republicans proper on the Committee, they had few ideas of
+any sort, except those which they had gathered in reading or writing for
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> newspapers; for there were many journalists among them. Marrast had
+edited the <em>National</em> for ten years; Dornès was at that time its
+editor-in-chief; Vaulabelle, a man of serious but coarse and even
+cynical cast of mind, habitually wrote for its columns. He was the man
+who, a month later, was himself vastly astonished at becoming Minister
+of Public Worship and Instruction.</p>
+
+<p>All this bore very little resemblance to the men, so certain of their
+objects and so well acquainted with the measures necessary to attain
+them, who sixty years before, under Washington's presidency so
+successfully drew up the American Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>For that matter, even if the Committee had been capable of doing its
+work well, the want of time and the preoccupation of outside events
+would have prevented it.</p>
+
+<p>There is no nation which attaches itself less to those who govern it
+than the French Nation, nor which is less able to dispense with
+government. So soon as it finds itself obliged to walk alone, it
+undergoes a sort of vertigo, which makes it dread an abyss at every
+step. At the time I speak of, it had a sort of frenzied desire for the
+work of framing the Constitution to be completed, and for the powers in
+command to be, if not solidly, at least permanently and regularly
+established. The Assembly shared this eagerness, and never ceased urging
+us on, although we required but little urging. The recollection of the
+15th of May, the apprehensions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> entertained of the days of June and the
+sight of the divided, enervated and incapable government at the head of
+affairs were sufficient inducement to us to hasten our labours. But what
+especially deprived the Committee of its freedom of thought was, it must
+be confessed, the fear of outside matters and the excitement of the
+moment. It would be difficult to imagine the effect produced by this
+forcing of revolutionary ideas upon minds so little disposed to adopt
+them, and how the latter were being incessantly, and even almost
+unconsciously, impelled much further than they wished to go, when they
+were not pushed altogether out of the direction they desired to take.
+Certainly, if the Committee had met on the 27th of June instead of the
+16th of May, its work would have been very different.</p>
+
+<p>The discussion opened on the 22nd of May. The first question was to
+decide on which side we should tackle this immense work. Lamennais
+proposed to commence by regulating the state of the communes. He had
+proceeded in this way himself in a proposal for a Constitution which he
+had just published, so as to make certain of the first fruits of his
+discoveries. Then he passed from the question of sequence to that of the
+main point: he began to talk of administrative centralization, for his
+thoughts were incapable of sub-dividing themselves; his mind was always
+wholly occupied by a single system, and all the ideas contained in it
+adhered so closely together that, so soon as one was uttered, the others
+seemed necessarily to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> follow. He therefore explained that a Republic
+whose citizens are not clever and experienced enough to govern
+themselves was a monster not fit to live.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon the Committee took fire: Barrot, who, amid the clouds of his
+mind, always pretty clearly perceived the necessity for local liberty,
+eagerly supported Lamennais. I did the same; Marrast and Vivien opposed
+us. Vivien was quite consistent in defending centralization, for the
+movement of administrative affairs was his profession, and moreover he
+was quite naturally drawn towards it. He had all the qualities of a
+clever legist and an excellent commentator, and none of those necessary
+to a legislator or statesman. The danger in which he beheld the
+institutions so dear to him inflamed him; he grew so excited that he
+began to hold that the Republic, far from restraining centralization,
+ought even to increase it. One would have said that this was the side on
+which the Revolution of February pleased him.</p>
+
+<p>Marrast belonged to the ordinary type of French revolutionaries, who
+have always understood the liberty of the people to mean despotism
+exercised in the name of the people. This sudden harmony between Vivien
+and Marrast did not, therefore, surprise me. I was used to the
+phenomenon, and I had long remarked that the only way to bring a
+Conservative and a Radical together was to attack the power of the
+central government, not in applica<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>tion, but in principle. One was then
+sure of throwing them into each other's arms.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, people assert that nothing is safe from revolutions, I
+tell them they are wrong, and that centralization is one of those
+things. In France there is only one thing we can't set up: that is, a
+free government; and only one institution we can't destroy: that is,
+centralization. How could it ever perish? The enemies of government love
+it, and those who govern cherish it. The latter perceive, it is true,
+from time to time, that it exposes them to sudden and irremediable
+disasters; but this does not disgust them with it. The pleasure it
+procures them of interfering with every one and holding everything in
+their hands atones to them for its dangers. They prefer this agreeable
+life to a more certain and longer existence, and say, "<em>Courte et
+bonne</em>" like the <em>roués</em> of the Regency: "A short life and a merry one."</p>
+
+<p>The question could not be decided that day; but it was settled in
+advance by the determination arrived at that we should not first occupy
+ourselves with the communal system.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, Lamennais resigned. Under the circumstances, an occurrence of
+this sort was annoying. It was bound to increase and rooten the
+prejudices already existing against us. We took very pressing and even
+somewhat humble steps to induce Lamennais to reconsider his resolve. As
+I had shared his opinion, I was deputed to go and see him and press<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> him
+to return. I did so, but in vain. He had only been beaten over a formal
+question, but he had concluded from this that he would not be the
+master. That was enough to decide him to be nothing at all. He was
+inflexible, in spite of all I could say in the interest of the very
+ideas which we held in common.</p>
+
+<p>One should especially consider an unfrocked priest if one wishes to
+acquire a correct idea of the indestructible and, so to speak, infinite
+power which the clerical habit and method of thought wield over those
+who have once contracted them. It was useless for Lamennais to sport
+white stockings, a yellow waistcoat, a striped necktie, and a green
+coat: he remained a priest in character, and even in appearance. He
+walked with short, hurried and discreet steps, never turning his head or
+looking at anybody, and glided through the crowd with an awkward, modest
+air, as though he were leaving the sacristy. Add to this a pride great
+enough to walk over the heads of kings and bid defiance to God.</p>
+
+<p>When it was found that Lamennais' obstinacy was not to be overcome, we
+proceeded with other business; and so that no more time might be lost in
+premature discussions, a sub-committee was appointed to draw up rules
+for the regulation of our labours, and to propose them to the Committee.
+Unfortunately, this sub-committee was so constituted that Cormenin, our
+chairman, was its master and, in reality, substituted himself for it.
+The permanent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> power of initiative which he thus possessed, coupled with
+the conduct of the debates which belonged to him as chairman, had the
+most baneful influence upon our deliberations, and I am not sure if the
+faults in our work should not be mainly attributed to him.</p>
+
+<p>Like Lamennais, Cormenin had drawn up and published a Constitution after
+his own idea, and again, like the former, he expected us to adopt it.
+But he did not quite know how to put it to us. As a rule, extreme vanity
+makes the timidest very bold in speaking. Cormenin's did not permit him
+to open his mouth so soon as he had three listeners. He would have liked
+to do as one of my neighbours in Normandy did, a great lover of
+polemics, to whom Providence had refused the capacity of disputing <em>vivâ
+voce</em>. Whenever I opposed any of his opinions, he would hurry home and
+write to me all that he ought to have told me. Cormenin accordingly
+despaired of convincing us, but hoped to surprise us. He flattered
+himself that he would make us accept his system gradually and, so to
+speak, unknown to ourselves, by presenting a morsel to us every day. He
+managed so cleverly that a general discussion could never be held upon
+the Constitution as a whole, and that even in each case it was almost
+impossible to trace back and find the primitive idea. He brought us
+every day five or six clauses ready drawn up, and patiently, little by
+little, drew back to this little plot of ground all those who wished to
+escape from it. We resisted sometimes; but in the end, from sheer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+weariness, we yielded to this gentle, continuous restraint. The
+influence of a chairman upon the work of a committee is immense; any one
+who has closely observed these little assemblies will understand what I
+mean. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that if several of us had
+desired to withdraw ourselves from this tyranny, we should have ended by
+coming to an understanding and succeeding. But we had no time and no
+inclination for long discussions. The vastness and complexity of the
+subject alarmed and wearied the minds of the Committee beforehand: the
+majority had not even attempted to study it, or had only collected some
+very confused ideas; and those who had formed clearer ones were ill at
+ease at having to expound them. They were afraid, besides, lest they
+should enter into violent, interminable disputes if they endeavoured to
+get to the bottom of things; and they preferred to appear to be in
+harmony by keeping to the surface. In this way we ambled along to the
+end, adopting great principles explicitly for reasons of petty detail,
+and little by little building up the whole machinery of government
+without properly taking into account the relative strength of the
+various wheels and the manner in which they would work together.</p>
+
+<p>In the moments of repose which interrupted this fine work, Marrast, who
+was a Republican of the Barras type, and who had always preferred the
+pleasures of luxury, the table and women to democracy in rags, told us
+little stories of gallantry, while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> Vaulabelle made broad jests. I hope,
+for the honour of the Committee, that no one will ever publish the
+minutes (very badly done, for that matter) which the secretary drew up
+of our sittings. The sterility of the discussions amid the exuberant
+fecundity of the subject-matter would assuredly provoke surprise. As for
+myself, I declare that I never witnessed a more wretched display in any
+committee on which I ever sat.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, there was one serious discussion. It referred to the
+system of a single Chamber. As a matter of fact, the two parties into
+which the Committee was silently divided only came to an issue on this
+one occasion. It was even less a question of the two Chambers than of
+the general character to be given to the new government: Were we to
+persevere in the learned and somewhat complicated system of
+counterpoises, and place powers held in check, and consequently prudent
+and moderate, at the head of the Republic? Or were we to adopt the
+contrary course and accept the simpler theory, according to which
+affairs are placed in the hands of a single power, homogeneous in all
+its parts, uncontrolled, and consequently impetuous in its measures, and
+irresistible? This was the subject-matter of the debate. This general
+question might have cropped up as the result of a number of other
+clauses; but it was better contained than elsewhere in the special
+question of the two Chambers.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle was a long one and lasted for two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> sittings. The result was
+not for a moment in doubt; for public opinion had pronounced strongly in
+favour of a single Chamber, not only in Paris but in nearly every
+department. Barrot was the first to speak in favour of the two Chambers;
+he took up my thesis and developed it with great talent, but
+intemperately; for during the Revolution of February, his mind had lost
+its equilibrium and had never since been able to recover its
+self-possession. I supported Barrot and returned time after time to the
+charge. I was a little surprised to hear Dufaure pronouncing against us
+and doing so with a certain eagerness. Lawyers are rarely able to escape
+from one of two habits: they accustom themselves either to plead what
+they do not believe or to persuade themselves very easily of what they
+wish to plead. Dufaure came under the latter category. The drift of
+public opinion, of his own passions or interest, would never have led
+him to embrace a cause which he thought a bad one; but it prompted him
+with a desire to think it a good one, and that was often sufficient. His
+naturally vacillating, ingenious and subtle mind turned gradually
+towards it; and he sometimes ended by adopting it, not only with
+conviction but with transport. How often have I not been amazed to see
+him vehemently defending theories which I had seen him adopt with
+infinite hesitation!</p>
+
+<p>His principal reason for voting this time in favour of a single Chamber
+in the Legislative Body (and it was the best, I think, that could be
+found) was that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> with us, the Executive Power wielded by one man
+elected by the people would most certainly become preponderant if there
+were placed beside him only a legislative body weakened by being divided
+into two branches. I remember that I replied that that might be the
+case, but that one thing was quite certain, and that was, that two great
+powers naturally jealous of one another, and placed in an eternal
+<em>tête-à-tête</em> (that was the expression I used), without ever having
+recourse to the arbitrament of a third power, would at once be on bad
+terms or at war with one another, and would constantly remain so until
+one had destroyed the other. I added that, if it was true that a
+President elected by the people, and possessing the immense prerogatives
+which in France belong to the chief of the public administration, was
+sometimes able to curb a divided legislative body, a President who
+should feel himself to possess this origin and these rights would always
+refuse to become a simple agent and to submit to the capricious and
+tyrannical will of a single assembly.</p>
+
+<p>We were both in the right. The problem, thus propounded, was insolvable;
+but the nation propounded it thus. To allow the President the same power
+that the King had enjoyed, and to have him elected by the people, would
+make the Republic impossible. As I said later, one must either
+infinitely narrow the sphere of his power, or else have him elected by
+the Assembly; but the nation would hear of neither one nor the other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dupin completed our defeat: he defended the single Chamber with
+surprising vigour. One would have thought that he had never held another
+opinion. I expected as much. I knew him to possess a heart that was
+habitually self-interested and cowardly, though subject at times to
+sudden leaps of courage and honesty. I had seen him for ten years
+prowling round every party without joining any, and attacking all the
+vanquished: half ape and half jackal, constantly biting, grimacing,
+gambolling, and always ready to fall upon the wretch who slipped. He
+showed himself in his true colours on the Committee of the Constitution,
+or rather he surpassed himself. I perceived in him none of those sudden
+leaps of which I have just spoken: he was uniformly commonplace from
+beginning to end. He usually remained silent while the majority were
+making up their minds; but as soon as he saw them pronounce in favour of
+democratic opinions, he rushed to place himself at their head, and often
+went far beyond them. Once, he perceived, when he had gone half-way,
+that the majority were not going in the direction he had thought;
+whereupon he immediately stopped short with a prompt and nimble effort
+of the intelligence, turned round, and hurried back at the same run
+towards the opinion from which he had been departing.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all the old members of Parliament pronounced in this way against
+the dual Chamber. Most of them sought for more or less plausible
+pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>texts for their votes. Some pretended that a Council of State would
+provide the counterpoise of which they acknowledged the necessity;
+others purposed to subject the single assembly to forms whose slowness
+would safeguard it against its own impulses and against surprise; but in
+the end the true reason was always given. On the committee was a
+minister of the Gospel, M. Coquerel, who, seeing that his colleagues of
+the Catholic clergy were entering the Assembly, wanted to appear there
+too, and he was wrong: from the much-admired preacher that he was, he
+suddenly transformed himself into a very ridiculous political orator. He
+could hardly open his mouth without uttering some pompous absurdity. On
+this occasion he was so naïve as to inform us that he continued to
+favour the dual Chamber, but that he would vote for the single Chamber
+because public opinion was pushing him on, and he did not wish, to use
+his own words, to fight against the current. This candour greatly
+annoyed those who were acting as he did, and mightily delighted Barrot
+and myself; but this was the only satisfaction we received, for, when it
+came to voting, there were only three on our side.</p>
+
+<p>This signal defeat disinclined me a little to continue the struggle, and
+threw Barrot quite out of humour. He no longer appeared except at rare
+intervals, and in order to utter signs of impatience or disdain rather
+than opinions.</p>
+
+<p>We passed on to the Executive Power. In spite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> of all that I have said
+of the circumstances of the time and the disposition of the Committee,
+it will still be believed with difficulty that so vast, so perplexing,
+so novel a subject did not furnish the material for a single general
+debate, nor for any very profound discussion.</p>
+
+<p>All were unanimous in the opinion that the Executive Power should be
+entrusted to one man alone. But what prerogatives and what agents should
+he be given, what responsibilities laid upon him? Clearly, none of these
+questions could be treated in an arbitrary fashion; each of them was
+necessarily in connection with all the others, and could, above all, be
+only decided by taking into special account the habits and customs of
+the country. These were old problems, no doubt; but they were made young
+again by the novelty of the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Cormenin, according to his custom, opened the discussion by proposing a
+little clause all ready drawn up, which provided that the head of the
+Executive Power, or the President, as he was thenceforward called,
+should be elected directly by the people by a relative majority, the
+minimum of votes necessary to carry his election being fixed at two
+millions. I believe Marrast was the only one to oppose it; he proposed
+that the head of the Executive Power should be elected by the Assembly:
+he was at that time intoxicated with his own fortune, and flattered
+himself, strange though this may seem to-day, that the choice of the
+Assembly would fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> upon himself. Nevertheless, the clause proposed by
+Cormenin was adopted without any difficulty, so far as I can remember;
+and yet it must be confessed that the expediency of having the President
+elected by the people was not a self-evident truth, and that the
+disposition to have him elected directly was as new as it was dangerous.
+In a country with no monarchical tradition, in which the Executive Power
+has always been feeble and continues to be very limited, nothing is
+wiser than to charge the nation with the choice of its representative. A
+President who had not the strength which he could draw from that origin
+would then become the plaything of the Assemblies; but with us the
+conditions of the problem were very different. We were emerging from the
+Monarchy, and the habits of the Republicans themselves were still
+monarchical. Moreover, our system of centralization made our position an
+unique one: according to its principles, the whole administration of the
+country, in matters of the greatest and of the smallest moment, belonged
+to the President; the thousands of officials who held the whole country
+in their hands were dependent upon him alone; this was so according to
+the laws, and even the ideas, which the 24th of February had allowed to
+continue in force; for we had retained the spirit of the Monarchy, while
+losing the taste for it. Under these conditions, what could a President
+elected by the people be other than a pretender to the Crown? The office
+could only suit those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> who hoped to make use of it in order to assist in
+transforming the Presidential into Royal powers; it seemed clear to me
+then, and it seems evident to me now, that if it was desired that the
+President should be elected by the people without danger to the
+Republic, it was necessary to limit prodigiously the circle of his
+prerogatives; and even then, I am not sure that this would have
+sufficed, for his sphere, although thus confined in point of law, would,
+in habit and remembrance, have preserved its former extent. If, on the
+other hand, the President was allowed to retain his power, he should not
+be elected by the people. These truths were not put forward; I doubt
+whether they were even perceived in the heart of the Committee. However,
+Cormenin's clause, although adopted at first, was later made the object
+of a very lively attack; but it was attacked for reasons different to
+those I have just given. It was on the day after the 4th of June. Prince
+Louis Napoleon, of whom no one had thought a few days before, had just
+been elected to the Assembly by Paris and three departments. They began
+to fear that he would be placed at the head of the Republic if the
+choice were left to the people. The various pretenders and their friends
+grew excited, the question was raised afresh in the Committee, and the
+majority persisted in its original vote.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that, during all the time that the Committee was occupied in
+this way, my mind was labouring to divine to which side the balance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+power would most generally lean in a Republic of the kind which I saw
+they were going to make. Sometimes I thought that it would be on the
+side of the Assembly, and then again on that of the elected President;
+and this uncertainty made me very uneasy. The fact is, that it was
+impossible to tell beforehand. The victory of one or other of these two
+great rivals must necessarily depend upon circumstances and the humours
+of the moment. There were only two things certain: the war which they
+would wage together, and the eventual ruin of the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the ideas which I have expounded, not one was sifted by the
+Committee; I might even say that not one was discussed. Barrot one day
+touched upon them in passing, but did not linger over them. His mind
+(which was sleepy rather than feeble, and which was even able to see far
+ahead when it took the trouble to look) caught a glimpse of them, as it
+were, between sleeping and waking, and thought no more of them.</p>
+
+<p>I myself only pointed them out with a certain hesitation and reserve. My
+rebuff in the matter of the dual Chamber left me little heart for the
+fight. Moreover, I confess, I was more anxious to reach a quick
+decision, and place a powerful leader at the head of the Republic, than
+to organize a perfect republican Constitution. We were then under the
+divided and uncertain government of the Executive Committee, Socialism
+was at our gates, and we were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> approaching the days of June, as we must
+not forget. Later, after these days, I vigorously supported in the
+Assembly the system of electing the President by the people, and in a
+certain measure contributed to its acceptance. The principal reason
+which I gave was that, after announcing to the nation that we would
+grant it that right, which it had always ardently desired, it was no
+longer possible to withhold it. This was true. Nevertheless, I regret
+having spoken on this occasion.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the Committee: unable and even unwilling to oppose the
+adoption of the principle, I endeavoured at least to make its
+application less dangerous. I first proposed to limit in various
+directions the sphere of the Executive Power; but I soon saw that it was
+useless to attempt anything serious on that side. I then fell back upon
+the method of election itself, and raised a discussion on that portion
+of Cormenin's clause which treated of it.</p>
+
+<p>The clause, as I said above, laid down that the President should be
+elected directly, by a relative majority, the minimum of this majority
+being fixed at two million votes. This method had several very serious
+drawbacks.</p>
+
+<p>Since the President was to be elected directly by the citizens, the
+enthusiasm and infatuation of the people was very much to be feared; and
+moreover, the prestige and moral power which the newly elected would
+possess would be much greater. Since a relative majority was to be
+sufficient to make the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> election valid, it might be possible that the
+President should only represent the wishes of a minority of the nation.
+I asked that the President might not be elected directly by the
+citizens, but that this should be entrusted to delegates whom the people
+would elect. In the second place, I proposed to substitute an actual for
+a relative majority; if an absolute majority was not obtained at the
+first vote, it would fall to the Assembly to make a choice. These ideas
+were, I think, sound, but they were not new; I had borrowed them from
+the American Constitution. I doubt whether anyone would have suspected
+this, had I not said so; so little was the Committee prepared to play
+its great part.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of my amendment was rejected. I expected this: our great
+men were of opinion that this system was not sufficiently simple, and
+they considered it tainted with a touch of aristocracy. The second was
+accepted, and is part of the actual Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont proposed that the President should not be re-eligible; I
+supported him vigorously, and the proposal was carried. On this occasion
+we both fell into a great mistake which will, I fear, lead to very sad
+results. We had always been greatly struck with the dangers threatening
+liberty and public morality at the hands of a re-eligible president, who
+in order to secure his re-election would infallibly employ beforehand
+the immense resources of constraint and corruption which our laws and
+customs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> allow to the head of the Executive Power. Our minds were not
+supple or prompt enough to turn in time or to see that, so soon as it
+was decided that the citizens themselves should directly choose the
+President, the evil was irreparable, and that it would be only
+increasing it rashly to undertake to hinder the people in their choice.
+This vote, and the great influence I brought to bear upon it, is my most
+unpleasant memory of that period.</p>
+
+<p>Each moment we came up against centralization, and instead of removing
+the obstacle, we stumbled over it. It was of the essence of the Republic
+that the head of the Executive Power should be responsible; but
+responsible for what, and to what extent? Could he be made responsible
+for the thousand details of administration with which our administrative
+legislation is overcharged, and over which it would be impossible, and
+moreover dangerous, for him to watch in person? That would have been
+unjust and ridiculous; and if he was not to be responsible for the
+administration proper, who would be? It was decided that the
+responsibility of the President should be shared by the ministers, and
+that their counter-signature should be necessary, as in the days of the
+Monarchy. Thus the President was responsible, and yet he was not
+entirely free in his own actions, and he was not able to protect his
+agents in agents.</p>
+
+<p>We passed to the constitution of the Council of State. Cormenin and
+Vivien took charge of this;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> it may be said that they set to work like
+people who are building up a house for themselves. They did their utmost
+to make the Council of State a third power, but without success. It
+became something more than an administrative council, but infinitely
+less than a legislative assembly.</p>
+
+<p>The only part of our work which was at all well thought out, and
+arranged, as I think, with wisdom, was that which related to justice.
+Here the committee felt at home, most of its members being, or having
+been, barristers. Thanks to these, we were able to save the principle of
+the irremovability of the judges; as in 1830, it held good against the
+current which swept away all the rest. Those who had been Republicans
+from the commencement attacked it nevertheless, and very stupidly, in my
+opinion; for this principle is much more in favour of the independence
+of one's fellow-citizens than of the power of those who govern. The
+Court of Appeal and, especially, the tribunal charged with judging
+political crimes were constituted at once just as they are to-day
+(1851). Beaumont drew up most of the articles which refer to these two
+great courts. What we did in these matters is far in advance of all that
+had been attempted in the same direction during sixty years. It is
+probably the only part of the Constitution of 1848 which will survive.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided at the instance of Vivien that the Constitution could
+only be revised by a Constituent Assembly, which was right; but they
+added<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> that this revision could only take place if the National Assembly
+demanded it by an express vote, given three times consecutively by a
+majority of four-fifths, which rendered any regular revision almost
+impossible. I took no part in this vote. I had long been of opinion
+that, instead of aiming to make our governments eternal, we should tend
+to make it possible to change them in an easy and regular manner. Taken
+all round, I thought this less dangerous than the opposite course; and I
+thought it best to treat the French people like those madmen whom one
+should be careful not to bind lest they become infuriated by the
+restraint.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed casually a number of curious opinions that were emitted.
+Martin (of Strasburg), who, not content with being a Republican of
+yesterday, one day declared so absurdly in the tribune that he was a
+Republican by birth, nevertheless proposed to give the President the
+right to dissolve the Assembly, and failed to see that a right of this
+kind would easily make him master of the Republic; Marrast wanted a
+section to be added to the Council of State charged to elaborate "new
+ideas," to be called a section of progress; Barrot proposed to leave to
+a jury the decision of all civil suits, as though a judiciary revolution
+of this sort could possibly be improvised. And Dufaure proposed to
+prohibit substitution in the conscription, and to compel everyone
+personally to perform his military service, a measure which would have
+destroyed all liberal education<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> unless the time of service had been
+greatly reduced, or have disorganized the army if this reduction had
+been effected.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, pressed by time and ill prepared to treat such important
+subjects, we approached the time appointed for the end of our labours.
+What was said was: Let us adopt, in the meantime, the articles proposed
+to us; we can afterwards retrace our steps; we can judge from this
+sketch how to fix the definitive features and to adjust the portions
+among themselves. But we did not retrace our steps, and the sketch
+remained the picture.</p>
+
+<p>We appointed Marrast our secretary. The way in which he acquitted
+himself of this important office soon exposed the mixture of idleness,
+giddiness and impudence which formed the basis of his character. He was
+first several days without doing anything, though the Assembly was
+constantly asking to know the result of our deliberations, and all
+France was anxiously awaiting to learn it. Then he hurriedly wrote his
+report in one night immediately preceding the day on which he was to
+communicate it to the Assembly. In the morning, he spoke of it to one or
+two of his colleagues whom he met by chance, and then boldly appeared in
+the tribune and read, in the name of the Committee, a report of which
+hardly one of its members had heard a single word. This reading took
+place on the 19th of June. The draft of the Constitution contained one
+hundred and thirty-nine articles; it had been drawn up in less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> than a
+month. We could not have been quicker, but we might have done better. We
+had adopted many of the little articles which Cormenin had brought us in
+turns; but we had rejected a yet greater number, which caused their
+author an irritation, which was so much the greater in that he had never
+had an opportunity of giving vent to it. He turned to the public for
+consolation. He published, or caused to be published, I forget which it
+was, in all the newspapers an article in which he related what had
+passed in the Committee, attributing all the good it had done to M. de
+Cormenin, and all the harm to his adversaries. A publication of this
+sort displeased us greatly, as may be imagined; and it was decided to
+acquaint Cormenin with the feeling inspired by his procedure. But no one
+cared to be the spokesman of the company.</p>
+
+<p>We had among us a workman (for in those days they put workmen into
+everything) called Corbon, a tolerably right-minded man of firm
+character. He readily undertook the task. On the next morning,
+therefore, so soon as the sitting of the Committee had opened, Corbon
+stood up and, with cruel simplicity and conciseness, gave Cormenin to
+understand what we thought. Cormenin grew confused, and cast his eyes
+round the table to see if anybody would come to his aid. Nobody moved.
+He then said, in a hesitating voice, "Am I to conclude from what has
+just happened that the Committee wishes me to leave it?" We made no
+reply. He took his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> hat and went, without anyone interfering. Never was
+so great an outrage swallowed with less effort or grimace. I believe
+that, although enormously vain, he was not very sensitive to insults in
+secret; and as long as his self-love was well tickled in public, he
+would not have made many bones about receiving a few cuffs in private.</p>
+
+<p>Many have believed that Cormenin, who from a viscount had suddenly
+become a Radical, while remaining a devout Catholic, never ceased to
+play a part and to betray his opinions. I would not venture to say that
+this was the case, although I have often observed strange
+inconsistencies between the things he said when talking and those he
+wrote; and to tell the truth, he always seemed to me to be more sincere
+in the dread he entertained of revolutions than in the opinions he had
+borrowed from them. What always especially struck me in him was the
+shortcomings of his mind. No writer ever to a greater extent preserved
+in public business the habits and peculiarities of that calling. When he
+had established a certain agreement between the different clauses of a
+law and drawn it up in a certain ingenious and striking manner, he
+thought he had done all that was necessary: he was absorbed in questions
+of form, of symmetry, and cohesion.</p>
+
+<p>But what he especially sought for was novelty. Institutions which had
+already been tried elsewhere or elsewhen seemed to him as hateful as
+common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>places, and the first merit of a law in his eyes was to resemble
+in no way that which had preceded it. It is known that the law laying
+down the Constitution was his work. At the time of the General Election
+I met him and he said, with a certain complacency, "Has anything in the
+world ever been seen like what is seen to-day? Where is the country that
+has gone so far as to give votes to servants, paupers and soldiers?
+Confess that no one ever thought of it before." And rubbing his hands,
+he added, "It will be very curious to see the result." He spoke of it as
+though it were an experiment in chemistry.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> There is a great hiatus in this chapter, due to my not
+mentioning the discussions and resolutions relating to <em>general
+principles</em>. Many of the discussions were fairly thorough, and most of
+the resolutions were tolerably wise and even courageous. Most of the
+revolutionary and socialistic raptures of the time were combated in
+them. We were prepared and on our guard on these general questions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> I received 496 votes.</p></div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PART_THE_THIRD" id="PART_THE_THIRD"></a>PART THE THIRD</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p>
+<h3><em>MY TERM OF OFFICE</em></h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><em>This part was commenced at Versailles on the 16th of September
+1851, during the prorogation of the National Assembly.</em></p>
+
+<p><em>To come at once to this part of my recollections, I pass over the
+previous period, which extends from the end of the days of June
+1848 to the 3rd of June 1849. I return to it later if I have time.
+I have thought it more important, while my recollections are still
+fresh in my mind, to recall the five months during which I was a
+member of the Government.</em></p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Ib" id="CHAPTER_Ib"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>MY RETURN TO FRANCE&mdash;FORMATION OF THE CABINET.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>While I was thus occupied in witnessing upon the private stage of
+Germany one act of the great drama of the European Revolution, my
+attention was suddenly drawn towards France and fixed upon our affairs
+by unexpected and alarming news. I heard of the almost incredible check
+received by our army beneath the walls of Rome, the violent debates
+which followed in the Constituent Assembly, the excitement produced
+throughout the country by these two causes, and lastly, the General
+Election, whose result deceived the expectations of both parties and
+brought over one hundred and fifty Montagnards into the new Assembly.
+However, the demagogic wind which had suddenly blown over a part of
+France had not prevailed in the Department of la Manche. All the former
+members for the department who had separated from the Conservative Party
+in the Assembly had gone under in the <em>scrutin</em>. Of thirteen
+representatives only four had survived; as for me, I had received more
+votes than all the others, although I was absent and silent, and
+although I had openly voted for Cavaignac in the previous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> month of
+December. Nevertheless, I was almost unanimously elected, less because
+of my opinions than of the great personal consideration which I enjoyed
+outside politics, an honourable position no doubt, but difficult to
+retain in the midst of parties, and destined to become very precarious
+on the day when the latter should themselves become exclusive as they
+became violent.</p>
+
+<p>I set out as soon as I received this news. At Bonn a sudden
+indisposition obliged Madame de Tocqueville to stop. She herself urged
+me to leave her and to continue my journey, and I did so, although with
+regret; for I was leaving her alone in a country still agitated by civil
+war; and moreover, it is in moments of difficulty or peril that her
+courage and her great sense are so helpful to me.</p>
+
+<p>I arrived in Paris, if I am not mistaken, on the 25th of May 1849, four
+days before the meeting of the Legislative, and during the last
+convulsions of the Constituent Assembly. A few weeks had sufficed to
+make the aspect of the political world entirely unrecognizable, owing
+less to the changes which had taken place in outside facts, than to the
+prodigious revolution which had in a few days taken place in men's
+minds.</p>
+
+<p>The party which was in power at my departure was so still, and the
+material result of the elections should, I thought, have strengthened
+its hands. This party, composed of so many different parties,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> and
+wishing either to stop or drive back the Revolution, had obtained an
+enormous majority in the electoral colleges, and would command more than
+two-thirds of the new Assembly. Nevertheless, I found it seized with so
+profound a terror that I can only compare it with that which followed
+February: so true is it that in politics one must argue as in war, and
+never forget that the effect of events should be measured less by what
+they are in themselves than by the impressions they give.</p>
+
+<p>The Conservatives, who for six months had seen all the bye-elections
+invariably turning to their advantage, who filled and dominated almost
+all the local councils, had placed an almost unlimited confidence in the
+system of universal suffrage, after professing unbounded distrust of it.
+In the General Election which was just decided, they had expected not
+only to conquer but to annihilate, so to speak, their adversaries, and
+they were as much cast down at not attaining the absolute triumph which
+they had dreamt of as though they had really been beaten. On the other
+hand, the Montagnards, who had thought themselves lost, were as
+intoxicated with joy and mad audacity as though the elections had
+assured them a majority in the new Assembly. Why had the event thus at
+the same time deceived the hopes and fears of both parties? It is
+difficult to say for certain, for great masses of men move by virtue of
+causes almost as unknown to humanity itself as those which rule the
+movements of the sea.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> In both cases the reasons of the phenomenon are
+concealed and, in a sense, lost in the midst of its immensity.</p>
+
+<p>We are, at any rate, entitled to believe that the Conservatives owed
+their rebuff mainly to the faults which they themselves committed. Their
+intolerance, when they thought their triumph assured, of those who,
+without sharing their ideas, had assisted them in fighting the
+Montagnards; the violent administration of the new Minister of the
+Interior, M. Faucher; and more than all, the poor success of the Roman
+expedition prejudiced against them a portion of the people who were
+naturally disposed to follow them, and threw these into the arms of the
+agitators.</p>
+
+<p>One hundred and fifty Montagnards, as I said, had been elected. A part
+of the peasantry and the majority of the army had voted for them: it was
+the two anchors of mercy which had snapped in the midst of the tempest.
+Terror was universal: it taught anew to the various monarchical parties
+the tolerance and modesty which they had practised immediately after
+February, but which they had to a great extent forgotten during the past
+six months. It was recognized on every hand that there could no longer
+be any question, for the present, of emerging from the Republic, and
+that all that remained to be done was to oppose the moderate Republicans
+to the Montagnards.</p>
+
+<p>The same ministers whom they had created and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> instigated they now
+accused, and a modification of the Cabinet was loudly demanded. The
+Cabinet itself saw that it was insufficient, and implored to be
+replaced. At the time of my departure I had seen the committee of the
+Rue de Poitiers refuse to admit the name of M. Dufaure to its lists; I
+now saw every glance directed towards M. Dufaure and his friends, who
+were called upon in the most pathetic manner to take office and save
+society.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of my arrival, I heard that some of my friends were dining
+together at a little restaurant in the Champs-Elysées. I hastened to
+join them, and found Dufaure, Lanjuinais, Beaumont, Corcelles, Vivien,
+Lamoricière, Bedeau, and one or two more whose names are not so well
+known. I was informed in a few words of the position of affairs. Barrot,
+who had been invited by the President to form a cabinet, had for some
+days been exhausting himself in vain efforts to do so. M. Thiers, M.
+Molé and the more important of their friends had refused to undertake
+the government. They had made up their minds, nevertheless, as will be
+seen, to remain its masters, but without becoming ministers. The
+uncertainty of the future, the general instability, the difficulties and
+perhaps the dangers of the moment kept them aloof. They were eager
+enough for power, but not for responsibility. Barrot, repulsed on that
+side, had come to us. He asked us, or rather he besought us, to become
+his colleagues. But which among us to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> choose? What ministries to allot
+to us? What colleagues to give us? What general policy to adopt? From
+all these questions had arisen difficulties in execution which, till
+then, seemed insurmountable. Already, more than once, Barrot had
+returned towards the natural chiefs of the majority; and repelled by
+them, had fallen back upon us.</p>
+
+<p>Time passed amid these sterile labours; the dangers and difficulties
+increased; the news became each day more alarming, and the Ministry were
+liable at any moment to be impeached by the dying but furious Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>I returned home greatly preoccupied, as will be believed, by what I had
+heard. I was convinced that it only depended upon the wishes of myself
+and my friends to become ministers. We were the necessary and obvious
+men. I knew the leaders of the majority well enough to be sure that they
+would never commit themselves to taking charge of affairs under a
+government which seemed to them so ephemeral, and that, even if they had
+the disinterestedness, they would not have the courage to do so. Their
+pride and their timidity assured me of their abstention. It was enough
+for us, therefore, to stand firm on our ground to compel them to come
+and fetch us. But ought we to wish to become ministers? I asked myself
+this very seriously. I think I may do myself the justice to say that I
+did not indulge in the smallest illusion respecting the true
+difficulties of the enterprise, and that I looked upon the future<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> with
+a clearness of view which we rarely possess except when we consider the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody expected to see fighting in the streets. I myself regarded it
+as imminent; the furious audacity which the result of the elections had
+imparted to the Mountain and the opportunity afforded to it by the Rome
+affair seemed to make an event of this kind inevitable. I was not,
+however, very anxious about the issue. I was convinced that, although
+the majority of the soldiers had voted for the Mountain, the army would
+fight against it without hesitation. The soldier who individually votes
+for a candidate at an election and the soldier acting under pressure of
+<em>esprit de corps</em> and military discipline are two different men. The
+thoughts of the one do not regulate the actions of the other. The Paris
+garrison was very numerous, well commanded, experienced in street
+warfare, and still filled with the memory of the passions and examples
+which had been left to it by the days of June. I therefore felt certain
+of victory. But I was very anxious as to the eventual results of this
+victory: what seemed to others the end of the difficulties I regarded as
+their commencement. I considered them almost insurmountable, as I
+believe they really were.</p>
+
+<p>In whichever direction I looked, I saw no solid or lasting stand-point
+for us.</p>
+
+<p>Public opinion looked to us, but it would have been unsafe to rely upon
+it for support; fear drove<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> the country in our direction, but its
+memories, its secret instincts, its passions could scarcely fail soon to
+withdraw it from us, so soon as the fear should have vanished. Our
+object was, if possible, to found the Republic, or at least to maintain
+it for some time, by governing it in a regular, moderate, conservative,
+and absolutely constitutional way; and this could not allow us to remain
+popular for long, since everybody wanted to evade the Constitution. The
+Mountain wanted more, the Monarchists much less.</p>
+
+<p>In the Assembly it was much worse still. The same general causes were
+aggravated by a thousand accidents arising from the interests and
+vanities of the party leaders. The latter were quite content to allow us
+to assume the government, but we must not expect them to allow us to
+govern. So soon as the crisis was passed, we might expect every sort of
+ambush on their part.</p>
+
+<p>As to the President, I did not know him yet, but it was evident that we
+could not rely upon him to support us in his Council, except where the
+jealousy and hatred were concerned with which our common adversaries
+inspired him. His sympathies must always lie in an opposite direction;
+for our views were not only different, but naturally opposed to one
+another. We wanted to make the Republic live: he longed for its
+inheritance. We only supplied him with ministers where he wanted
+accomplices.</p>
+
+<p>To these difficulties, which were in a sense in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>herent to the situation
+and consequently permanent, were added passing ones which it was not at
+all easy to surmount: the revolutionary agitation revived in part of the
+country; the spirit and habits of exclusion spread and already rooted in
+the public administration; the Roman expedition, so badly conceived and
+so badly conducted that it was now as difficult to bring it to an end as
+to get out of it; in fact, the whole legacy of mistakes committed by our
+predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>There were reasons enough for hesitation; and yet I did not hesitate.
+The idea of taking a post from which fear kept so many people off, and
+of relieving society from the bad pass in which it had been involved,
+flattered at the same time my sense of honour and my pride. I was quite
+aware that I should only be passing through power, and that I should not
+stay there; but I hoped to stay long enough to be able to render some
+signal service to my country and to raise myself. This was enough to
+attract me.</p>
+
+<p>I at once took three resolutions:</p>
+
+<p>First, not to refuse office if an opportunity offered;</p>
+
+<p>Second, only to enter the Government together with my principal friends,
+directing the principal offices, so that we might always remain the
+masters of the Cabinet;</p>
+
+<p>Third and last, to behave every day when in office as though I was to be
+out of it the next day, that is to say, without ever subordinating to
+the necessity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> of maintaining my position that of remaining true to
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>The next five or six days were wholly taken up in fruitless endeavours
+to form a ministry. The attempts made were so numerous, so overlapping,
+so full of small incidents&mdash;great events of one day forgotten the
+next&mdash;that I find it difficult to retrace them in my memory, in spite of
+the prominent part which I myself played in some of them. The problem
+was undoubtedly a difficult one to solve under its given conditions. The
+President was willing enough to change the appearance of his ministry,
+but he was determined to retain in it the men whom he considered his
+principal friends. The leaders of the Monarchical parties refused
+themselves to take the responsibility of government; but they were not
+willing either that it should be entrusted entirely to men over whom
+they had no hold. If they consented to admit us, it was only in a very
+small number and in second-rate offices. We were looked upon as a
+necessary but disagreeable remedy, which it was preferable only to
+administer in very small doses.</p>
+
+<p>Dufaure was first asked to join alone, and to be satisfied with the
+Public Works. He refused, demanded the Interior, and two other offices
+for his friends. After much difficulty they agreed to give him the
+Interior, but they refused the rest. I have reason to believe that he
+was at one time on the point of accepting this proposal and of again
+leaving me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> in the lurch, as he had done six months ago. Not that he was
+treacherous or indifferent in his friendships; but the sight of this
+important office almost within reach, which he could honestly accept,
+possessed a strange attraction for him. It did not precisely cause him
+to abandon his friends, but it distracted his thoughts from them, and
+made him ready to forget them. He was firm, however, this time; and not
+being able to get him by himself, they offered to take me with him. I
+was most in view at that time, because the new Legislative Assembly had
+just elected me one of its vice-presidents.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> But what office to give
+me? I only thought myself fit to fill the Ministry of Public
+Instruction. Unfortunately that was in the hands of M. de Falloux, an
+indispensable man, whom it was equally important to the Legitimists to
+retain, of whom he was one of the leaders; to the religious party, who
+saw in him a protector; and finally to the President, of whom he had
+become the friend. I was offered Agriculture, and refused it. At last,
+in despair, Barrot came and asked me to accept the Foreign Office. I
+myself had made great efforts to persuade M. de Rémusat to accept this
+office, and what happened on this occasion between him and me is so
+characteristic that it is worthy of being retold. I was very anxious
+that M. de Rémusat should join the ministry with us. He was at once a
+friend of M. Thiers and a man of honour, a rather unusual combination;
+he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> alone was able to assure us, if not the support, at least the
+neutrality of that statesman, without infesting us with his spirit.
+Overcome by the insistency of Barrot and the rest of us, Rémusat one
+evening yielded. He had pledged us his word, but the next morning he
+came to withdraw it. I knew for certain that he had seen M. Thiers in
+the interval, and he confessed to me himself that M. Thiers, who was
+then loudly proclaiming the necessity of our accepting office, had
+dissuaded him from joining us. "I fully saw," he said, "that to become
+your colleague would not be to give you his assistance, but only to
+expose myself to be quarrelling with him before long." Those were the
+sort of men we had to deal with.</p>
+
+<p>I had never thought of the Foreign Office, and my first impulse was to
+refuse it. I thought myself unsuited to fill an office for which nothing
+had prepared me. Among my papers I have found a trace of these
+hesitations, in the notes of a conversation which took place at a dinner
+which some of my friends and I had at that time....</p>
+
+<p>I decided at last, however, to accept the Foreign Office, but I made it
+a condition that Lanjuinais should enter the Council at the same time as
+myself. I had many very strong reasons for acting as I did. In the first
+place, I thought that three ministers were indispensable to us in order
+to acquire the preponderance in the Cabinet which we needed in order to
+do any good. I thought,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> moreover, that Lanjuinais would be very useful
+to keep Dufaure himself within the lines I wished to follow. I did not
+consider myself to have enough hold over him. Above all, I wanted to
+have near me a friend with whom I could talk openly of all things: a
+great advantage at any time, but especially in such times of suspicion
+and variableness as ours, and for a work as hazardous as that which I
+was undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>From all these different points of view Lanjuinais suited me admirably,
+although we were of very dissimilar natures. His humour was as calm and
+placid as mine was restless and anxious. He was methodical, slow,
+indolent, prudent, and even over-scrupulous, and he was very backward to
+enter upon any undertaking; but having once entered upon it he never
+drew back, and showed himself until the end as resolved and stubborn as
+a Breton of the true stamp. He was very slow in giving his opinion, and
+very explicit, and even candid to the verge of rudeness, when he did
+give it. One could not expect from his friendship either enthusiasm,
+ardour, or <em>abandon</em>; on the other hand, one need not dread either
+faint-heartedness, treachery, or after-thoughts. In short, he was a very
+safe associate, and taken all round, the most honourable man I ever met
+in public life. Of all of us, it was he who seemed to me least to mix
+his private or interested views with his love of the public good.</p>
+
+<p>No one objected to the name of Lanjuinais; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> the difficulty was to
+find him a portfolio. I asked for him that of Commerce and Agriculture,
+which had been held since the 20th of December by Buffel, a friend of
+Falloux. The latter refused to let his colleague go; I insisted; and the
+new Cabinet, which was almost complete, remained for twenty-four hours
+as though dissolved. To conquer my resolution, Falloux attempted a
+direct measure: he came to my house, where I lay confined to my bed,
+urged me, begged me to give up Lanjuinais and to leave his friend Buffel
+at the Ministry of Agriculture. I had made up my mind, and I closed my
+ears. Falloux was vexed, but retained his self-control and rose to go. I
+thought everything had gone wrong: on the contrary, everything had gone
+right.</p>
+
+<p>"You are determined," he said, with that aristocratic good grace with
+which he was able to cover all his feelings, even the bitterest; "you
+are determined, and so I must yield. It shall not be said that a private
+consideration has, at so difficult and critical a period, made me break
+off so necessary a combination. I shall remain alone in the midst of
+you. But I hope you will not forget that I shall be not only your
+colleague but your prisoner!"</p>
+
+<p>One hour later the Cabinet was formed,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and Dufaure, who told me of
+it, invited me to take immediate possession of the Foreign Office.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was born this Ministry which was so painfully and slowly formed and
+which was destined to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> have so short an existence. During the long
+childbirth that preceded it, the man who was at the greatest trouble in
+France was certainly Barrot: his sincere love for the public weal
+inclined him to desire a change of cabinet, and his ambition, which was
+more intimately and narrowly bound up with his honesty than might have
+been believed, made him long with unequalled ardour to remain at the
+head of the new Cabinet. He therefore went incessantly to and fro from
+one to the other, addressing very pathetic and sometimes very eloquent
+objurations to every one, now turning to the leaders of the majority,
+now to us, now again to the new Republicans, whom he regarded as more
+moderate than the others. And for that matter, he was equally inclined
+to carry either one or the other with him; for in politics he was
+incapable of either hatred or friendship. His heart is an evaporating
+vase, in which nothing remains.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 1 June 1849, by 336 votes to 261.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The Presidential decree is dated 2 June 1849.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIb" id="CHAPTER_IIb"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>ASPECT OF THE CABINET&mdash;ITS FIRST ACTS UNTIL AFTER THE
+INSURRECTIONARY ATTEMPTS OF THE 13TH OF JUNE.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The ministry was composed as follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Ministers in the Cabinet">
+<tr><td align="left">Minister of Justice and President of the Council&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Barrot.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Finance</td><td align="left">Passy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">War</td><td align="left">Rulhière.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Navy</td><td align="left">Tracy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Public Works</td><td align="left">Lacrosse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Public Instruction</td><td align="left">Falloux.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Interior</td><td align="left">Dufaure.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Agriculture</td><td align="left">Lanjuinais.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Foreign Affairs</td><td align="left">Tocqueville.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>Dufaure, Lanjuinais and I were the only new ministers; all the others
+had belonged to the previous Cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>Passy was a man of real merit, but not of a very attractive merit. His
+mind was narrow, maladroit, provoking, disparaging and ingenious rather
+than just. Nevertheless, he was more inclined to be just when it was
+really necessary to act than when it was only a question of talking; for
+he was more fond of paradox than liable to put it into practice. I never
+knew a greater talker, nor one who so easily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> consoled himself for
+troublesome events by explaining the causes which had produced them and
+the consequences likely to ensue. When he had finished drawing the most
+sombre picture of the state of affairs, he concluded with a smiling and
+placid air, saying, "So that there is practically no means of saving
+ourselves, and we have only to look forward to the total overthrow of
+Society." In other respects he was a cultured and experienced minister;
+his courage and honesty were proof against everything; and he was as
+incapable of vacillation as of treachery. His ideas, his feelings, his
+former intimacy with Dufaure and, above all, his eager animosity against
+Thiers made us certain of him.</p>
+
+<p>Rulhière would have belonged to the monarchic and ultra-conservative
+party if he had belonged to any, and especially if Changarnier had not
+been in the world; but he was a soldier who only thought of remaining
+Minister for War. We perceived at the first glance his extreme jealousy
+of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army in Paris; and the intimacy between
+the latter and the leaders of the majority, and his influence over the
+President, obliged Rulhière to throw himself into our arms, and forcibly
+drove him to depend upon us.</p>
+
+<p>Tracy had by nature a weak character, which was, as it were, enclosed
+and confined in the very precise and systematic theories which he owed
+to the ideological education he had received from his father.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"><span class="pagenum">[280]</span></a> But,
+in the end, contact with every-day events and the shock of revolutions
+had worn out this rigid envelope, and all that remained was a wavering
+intelligence and a sluggish, but always honest and kindly, heart.</p>
+
+<p>Lacrosse was a poor devil whose private affairs were more or less
+involved. The chances of the Revolution had driven him into office from
+an obscure corner of the Opposition, and he never grew weary of the
+delight of being a minister. He gladly leant upon us, but he endeavoured
+at the same time to make sure of the good-will of the President of the
+Republic by rendering him all sorts of little services and small
+compliments. To tell the truth, it would have been difficult for him to
+recommend himself in any other way, for he was a rare nonentity, and
+understood nothing about anything. We were reproached for taking office
+in company with such incapable ministers as Tracy and Lacrosse, and not
+without justice, for it was a great cause of ruin: not only because they
+did their work badly, but because their notorious insufficiency kept
+their succession always open, so to speak, and created a sort of
+permanent ministerial crisis.</p>
+
+<p>As to Barrot, he adhered naturally to us from feeling and ideas. His old
+liberal associations, his republican tastes, his Opposition memories
+attached him to us. Had he been differently connected, he might have
+become, however regretfully, our adversary; but, having him once among
+us, we were sure of him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of all the Ministry, therefore, only Falloux was a stranger to us by his
+starting-point, his engagements, and his inclinations. He alone
+represented the leaders of the majority on the Council, or rather he
+seemed to represent them, for in reality, as I will explain later, he
+represented, besides himself, nothing but the Church. This isolated
+position, together with the secret aims of his policy, drove him to seek
+support beyond us; he strove to establish it in the Assembly and with
+the President, but discreetly and cleverly, as he did everything.</p>
+
+<p>Thus constituted, the Cabinet had one great weakness: it was about to
+govern with the aid of a composite majority, without itself being a
+coalition ministry. But, on the other hand, it possessed the very great
+strength which ministers derive from uniform origin, identical
+instincts, old bonds of friendship, mutual confidence, and common ends.</p>
+
+<p>I shall doubtless be asked what these ends were, where we were going,
+what we wanted. We live in times so uncertain and so obscure that I
+should hesitate to reply to that question in the name of my colleagues;
+but I will readily reply for myself. I did not believe then, any more
+than I do now, that the republican form of government is the best suited
+to the needs of France. What I mean when I say the republican form of
+government, is the elective Executive Power. With a people among whom
+habit, tradition, custom have assured so great a place to the Executive
+Power, its instability will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> always be, in periods of excitement, a
+cause of revolution, and in peaceful times, a cause of great uneasiness.
+Moreover, I have always considered the Republic an ill-balanced form of
+government, which always promised more, but gave less, liberty than the
+Constitutional Monarchy. And yet I sincerely wished to maintain the
+Republic; and although there were, so to speak, no Republicans in
+France, I did not look upon the maintenance of it as absolutely
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>I wished to maintain it because I saw nothing ready or fit to set in its
+place. The old Dynasty was profoundly antipathetic to the majority of
+the country. Amid this flagging of all political passion, which was the
+result of the fatigue of the revolutions and their vain promises, one
+genuine passion remained alive in France: hatred of the Ancien Régime
+and mistrust of the old privileged classes who represented it in the
+eyes of the people. This sentiment passes through revolutions without
+dissolving in them, like the water of those marvellous fountains which,
+according to the ancients, passed across the waves of the sea without
+mixing with or disappearing in them. As to the Orleans Dynasty, the
+experience the people had had of it did not particularly incline them to
+return to it so soon. It was bound once more to throw into Opposition
+all the upper classes and the clergy, and to separate itself from the
+people, as it had done before, leaving the cares and profits of
+government to those same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> middle classes whom I had already seen during
+eighteen years so inadequate for the good government of France.
+Moreover, nothing was ready for its triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Louis Napoleon alone was ready to take the place of the Republic,
+because he already held the power in his hands. But what could come of
+his success, except a bastard Monarchy, despised by the enlightened
+classes, hostile to liberty, governed by intriguers, adventurers, and
+valets?</p>
+
+<p>The Republic was doubtless difficult to maintain; for those who favoured
+it were, for the most part, incapable or unworthy of governing it, while
+those who were fit to conduct it detested it. But it was also rather
+difficult to pull down. The hatred borne for it was an easy-going
+hatred, as were all the passions which the country then entertained.
+Besides, the Government was found fault with, but no other was loved in
+its place. Three parties, mutually irreconcilable, more hostile to one
+another than either of them was to the Republic, contended with each
+other for the future. As to a majority, there was no such thing.</p>
+
+<p>I thought, therefore, that the Government of the Republic, having
+existence in its favour, and having no adversaries except minorities
+difficult to coalesce, would be able to maintain its position amid the
+inertia of the masses, if it was conducted with moderation and wisdom.
+For this reason, I was resolved not to lend myself to any steps that
+might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> be taken against it, but rather to defend it. Almost all the
+members of the Council thought as I did. Dufaure believed more than I
+did in the soundness of republican institutions and in their future.
+Barrot was less inclined than I to keep them always respected; but we
+all wished at the present time firmly to maintain them. This common
+resolution was our political bond and standard.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the Ministry was formed, it repaired to the President of the
+Republic to hold a Council. It was the first time I had come into
+contact with him. I had only seen him at a distance at the time of the
+Constituent Assembly. He received us with politeness. It was all we
+could expect from him, for Dufaure had acted vigorously against him, and
+had spoken almost outrageously of his candidature no longer than six
+months ago, while both Lanjuinais and myself had openly voted for his
+opponent.</p>
+
+<p>Louis Napoleon plays so great a part in the rest of my narrative that he
+seems to me to deserve a special portrait amid the host of
+contemporaries of whom I have been content to sketch the features. Of
+all his ministers, and perhaps of all the men who refused to take part
+in his conspiracy against the Republic, I was the one who was most
+advanced in his good graces, who saw him closest, and who was best able
+to judge him.</p>
+
+<p>He was vastly superior to what his preceding career and his mad
+enterprises might very properly have led one to believe of him. This was
+my first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> impression on conversing with him. In this respect he deceived
+his adversaries, and perhaps still more his friends, if this term can be
+applied to the politicians who patronized his candidature. The greater
+part of these, in fact, elected him, not because of his merits, but
+because of his presumed mediocrity. They expected to find in him an
+instrument which they could handle as they pleased, and which it would
+always be lawful for them to break when they wished to. In this they
+were greatly deceived.</p>
+
+<p>As a private individual, Louis Napoleon possessed certain attractive
+qualities: an easy and kindly humour, a mind which was gentle, and even
+tender, without being delicate, great confidence in his intercourse,
+perfect simplicity, a certain personal modesty amidst the immense pride
+derived from his origin. He was capable of showing affection, and able
+to inspire it in those who approached him. His conversation was brief
+and unsuggestive. He had not the art of drawing others out or of
+establishing intimate relations with them; nor any facility in
+expressing his views. He had the writer's habit, and a certain amount of
+the author's self-love. His dissimulation, which was the deep
+dissimulation of a man who has spent his life in plots, was assisted in
+a remarkable way by the immobility of his features and his want of
+expression: for his eyes were dull and opaque, like the thick glass used
+to light the cabins of ships, which admits the light but cannot be seen
+through. Careless of danger, he possessed a fine, cool courage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> in days
+of crisis; and at the same time&mdash;a common thing enough&mdash;he was very
+vacillating in his plans. He was often seen to change his direction, to
+advance, hesitate, draw back, to his great detriment: for the nation had
+chosen him in order to dare all things, and what it expected from him
+was audacity and not prudence. It was said that he had always been
+greatly addicted to pleasures, and not very dainty in his choice of
+them. This passion for vulgar enjoyment and this taste for luxury had
+increased still more with the facilities offered by his position. Each
+day he wore out his energy in indulgence, and deadened and degraded even
+his ambition. His intelligence was incoherent, confused, filled with
+great but ill-assorted thoughts, which he borrowed now from the examples
+of Napoleon, now from socialistic theories, sometimes from recollections
+of England, where he had lived: very different, and often very contrary,
+sources. These he had laboriously collected in his solitary meditations,
+far removed from the contact of men and facts, for he was naturally a
+dreamer and a visionary. But when he was forced to emerge from these
+vague, vast regions in order to confine his mind to the limits of a
+piece of business, it showed itself to be capable of justice, sometimes
+of subtlety and compass, and even of a certain depth, but never sure,
+and always prepared to place a grotesque idea by the side of a correct
+one.</p>
+
+<p>Generally, it was difficult to come into long and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> very close contact
+with him without discovering a little vein of madness running through
+his better sense, the sight of which always recalled the escapades of
+his youth, and served to explain them.</p>
+
+<p>It may be admitted, for that matter, that it was his madness rather than
+his reason which, thanks to circumstances, caused his success and his
+force: for the world is a strange theatre. There are moments in it when
+the worst plays are those which succeed best. If Louis Napoleon had been
+a wise man, or a man of genius, he would never have become President of
+the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>He trusted in his star; he firmly believed himself to be the instrument
+of destiny and the necessary man. I have always believed that he was
+really convinced of his right, and I doubt whether Charles X. was ever
+more infatuated with his legitimism than he with his. Moreover, he was
+quite as incapable of alleging a reason for his faith; for, although he
+had a sort of abstract adoration for the people, he had very little
+taste for liberty. The characteristic and fundamental feature of his
+mind in political matters was his hatred of and contempt for assemblies.
+The rule of the Constitutional Monarchy seemed to him even more
+insupportable than that of the Republic. His unlimited pride in the name
+he bore, which willingly bowed before the nation, revolted at the idea
+of yielding to the influence of a parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Before attaining power he had had time to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> strengthen his natural taste
+for the footman class, which is always displayed by mediocre princes, by
+the habits of twenty years of conspiracy spent amid low-class
+adventurers, men of ruined fortunes or blemished reputations, and young
+debauchees, the only persons who, during all this time, could have
+consented to serve him as go-betweens or accomplices. He himself, in
+spite of his good manners, allowed a glimpse to pierce through of the
+adventurer and the prince of fortune. He continued to take pleasure in
+this inferior company after he was no longer obliged to live in it. I
+believe that his difficulty in expressing his thoughts otherwise than in
+writing attached him to people who had long been familiar with his
+current of thought and with his dreamings, and that his inferiority in
+conversation rendered him generally averse to contact with clever men.
+Moreover, he desired above all things to meet with devotion to his
+person and his cause, as though his person and his cause were such as to
+be able to arouse devotion: merit annoyed him when it displayed ever so
+little independence. He wanted believers in his star, and vulgar
+worshippers of his fortune.</p>
+
+<p>This was the man whom the need of a chief and the power of a memory had
+placed at the head of France, and with whom we would have to govern.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to imagine a more critical moment in which to
+assume the direction of affairs. The Constituent Assembly, before ending
+its turbu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>lent existence, had passed a resolution, on the 7th of June
+1849, prohibiting the Government from attacking Rome. The first thing I
+learnt on entering the Cabinet was that the order to attack Rome had
+been sent to the army three days before. This flagrant disobedience of
+the injunctions of a sovereign Assembly, this war undertaken against a
+people in revolution, because of its revolution, and in defiance of the
+terms of the Constitution which commanded us to respect all foreign
+nationalities, made inevitable and brought nearer the conflict which we
+dreaded. What would be the issue of this new struggle? All the letters
+from prefects of departments that were laid before us, all the police
+reports that reached us were calculated to throw us into great alarm. I
+had seen, at the end of the Cavaignac Administration, how a government
+can be supported in its visionary hopes by the self-interested
+complaisance of its agents. This time I saw, and much more closely, how
+these same agents can work to increase the terror of those who employ
+them: contrary effects produced by the same cause. Each one of them,
+judging that we were uneasy, wished to signalize himself by the
+discovery of new plots, and in his turn to supply us with some fresh
+indication of the conspiracy which threatened us. The more they believed
+in our success, the more readily they talked to us of our danger. For it
+is one of the dangerous characteristics of this sort of information,
+that it becomes rarer and less explicit in the measure that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> the peril
+increases and the need for information becomes greater. The agents in
+that case, doubting the duration of the government which employs them,
+and already fearing its successor, either scarcely speak at all or keep
+absolute silence. But now they made a great noise. To listen to them, it
+was impossible not to think that we were on the edge of an abyss, and
+yet I did not believe a word of it. I was quite convinced then, as I
+have been ever since, that official correspondence and police reports,
+which may be useful for purposes of consultation when there is question
+of discovering a particular plot, only serve to give exaggerated and
+incomplete and invariably false notions when one wishes to judge or
+foresee great movements of parties. In a matter of this kind, it is the
+aspect of the whole country, the knowledge of its needs, its passions
+and its ideas, that can instruct us, general <em>data</em> which one can
+procure for one's self, and which are never supplied by even the best
+placed and best accredited agents.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of these general facts had led me to believe that at this
+moment no armed revolution was to be feared: but a combat was; and the
+expectation of civil war is always cruel, especially when it comes in
+time to join its fury to that of pestilence. Paris was at that time
+ravaged by cholera. Death struck at all ranks. Already a large number of
+members of the Constituent Assembly had succumbed; and Bugeaud, whom
+Africa had spared, was dying.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Had I entertained a moment's doubt as to the imminence of the crisis,
+the aspect alone of the new Assembly would have clearly announced it to
+me. It is not too much to say that one breathed the atmosphere of civil
+war in its midst. The speeches were short, the gestures violent, the
+words extravagant, the insults outrageous and direct. We met for the
+present in the old Chamber of Deputies. This room, built for 460
+members, had difficulty in containing 750. The members, therefore, sat
+touching, while detesting, each other; they pressed one against the
+other in spite of the hatred which divided them; the discomfort
+increased their anger. It was a duel in a barrel. How would the
+Montagnards be able to restrain themselves? They saw that they were
+sufficiently numerous to entitle them to believe themselves very strong
+in the country and in the army. Yet they remained too weak in Parliament
+to hope to prevail or even to count there. They were offered a fine
+occasion of resorting to force. All Europe, which was still in
+commotion, might with one great blow, struck in Paris, be thrown into
+revolution anew. This was more than was necessary for men of such savage
+temper.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to foresee that the movement would burst forth at the moment
+when it should become known that the order had been given to attack Rome
+and that the attack had taken place. And this was what in fact occurred.</p>
+
+<p>The order given had remained secret. But on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> the 10th of June, the
+report of the first combat became current.</p>
+
+<p>On the 11th, the Mountain burst into furious speech. Ledru-Rollin made
+an appeal from the tribune for civil war, saying that the Constitution
+had been violated and that he and his friends were ready to defend it by
+every method, including that of arms. The indictment was demanded of the
+President of the Republic and of the preceding Cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th, the Committee of the Assembly, instructed to examine the
+question raised the day before, rejected the impeachment and called upon
+the Assembly to pronounce, where it sat, upon the fate of the President
+and Ministers. The Mountain opposed this immediate discussion and
+demanded that documents should be laid before it. What was its object in
+thus postponing the debate? It was difficult to say. Did it hope that
+this delay would complete the general irritation, or did it in its heart
+of hearts wish to give it time to calm down? One thing is certain, that
+its principal leaders, those who were more accustomed to speaking than
+to fighting, and who were passionate rather than resolute, displayed
+that day, amid all the intemperance of their language, a sort of
+hesitation of which they had given no sign the day before. After half
+drawing the sword from the scabbard, they appeared to wish to replace
+it; but it was too late, the signal had been observed by their friends
+outside, and thenceforward they no longer led, but were led in their
+turn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>During these two days, my position was most cruel. As I have already
+stated, I disapproved entirely of the manner in which the Roman
+expedition had been undertaken and conducted. Before joining the
+Cabinet, I had solemnly declared to Barrot that I declined to take any
+responsibility except for the future, and that he must himself be
+prepared to defend what had up to that time been done in Italy. I had
+only accepted office on this condition. I therefore kept silent during
+the discussion on the 11th, and allowed Barrot to bear the brunt of the
+battle alone. But when, on the 12th, I saw my colleagues threatened with
+an impeachment, I considered that I could no longer abstain. The demand
+for fresh documents gave me an opportunity to intervene, without having
+to express an opinion upon the original question. I did so vigorously,
+although in very few words.</p>
+
+<p>On reading over this little speech in the <em>Moniteur</em>, I cannot but think
+it very insignificant and badly turned. Nevertheless, I was applauded to
+the echo by the majority, because in moments of crisis, when one is in
+danger of civil war, it is the movement of thought and the accent of
+one's words which make an impression, rather than their value. I
+directly attacked Ledru-Rollin. I accused him with violence of only
+wanting troubles and of spreading lies in order to create them. The
+feeling which impelled me to speak was an energetic one, the tone was
+determined and aggressive, and although I spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> very badly, being as
+yet unaccustomed to my new part, I met with much favour.</p>
+
+<p>Ledru replied to me, and told the majority that they were on the side of
+the Cossacks. They answered that he was on the side of the plunderers
+and the incendiaries. Thiers, commenting on this thought, said that
+there was an intimate relation between the man they had just listened to
+and the insurgents of June. The Assembly rejected the demand for an
+impeachment by a large majority, and broke up.</p>
+
+<p>Although the leaders of the Mountain continued to be outrageous, they
+had not shown any great firmness, so that we were able to flatter
+ourselves that the decisive moment for the struggle had not yet arrived.
+But this was a mistake. The reports which we received during the night
+told us that the people were preparing to take up arms.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day, in fact, the language of the demagogic papers
+proclaimed that the editors no longer relied upon justice, but upon a
+revolution, to acquit them. All of them called either directly or
+indirectly for civil war. The National Guard, the schools, the entire
+population was summoned by them to repair, unarmed, to a certain
+locality, in order to go and present themselves in mass before the doors
+of the Assembly. It was a 23rd of June which they wished to commence
+with a 15th of May; and, in fact, seven or eight thousand people did
+meet at about eleven o'clock at the Château-d'Eau. We on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> our side held
+a Council under the President of the Republic. The latter was already in
+uniform, and prepared to go out on horseback so soon as he should be
+told that the fighting had commenced. For the rest, he had changed
+nothing except his clothes. He was exactly the same man as on the day
+before: the same rather dejected air, his speech no less slow and no
+less embarrassed, his eye no less dull. He showed none of that sort of
+warlike excitement and of rather feverish gaiety which the approach of
+danger so often gives: an attitude which is perhaps, after all, no more
+than the sign of a mind disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>We sent for Changarnier, who explained his preparations to us, and
+guaranteed a victory. Dufaure communicated to us the reports he had
+received, all of which told of a formidable insurrection. He then left
+for the Ministry of the Interior, which was the centre of action, and at
+about mid-day I repaired to the Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>The House was some time before it met, because the President, without
+consulting us, had declared, when arranging the Order of the Day on the
+evening before, that there would be no public sitting on the next day, a
+strange blunder which would have looked like treachery in anyone else.
+While messengers were being despatched to inform the members at their
+own houses, I went to see the President of the Assembly in his private
+room: most of the leaders of the majority were there before me. Every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+face bore traces of excitement and anxiety; the contest was both feared
+and demanded. They began by vehemently accusing the Ministry of
+slackness. Thiers, lying back in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed
+one over the other, sat rubbing his stomach (for he felt certain
+symptoms of the prevailing epidemic), loudly and angrily exclaiming, in
+his shrillest <em>falsetto</em>, that it was very strange that no one seemed to
+think of declaring Paris in a state of siege. I replied gently that we
+had thought of it, but that the moment had not yet come to do so, since
+the Assembly had not yet met.</p>
+
+<p>The members arrived from every side, attracted less by the messages
+despatched to them, which most of them had not even received, than by
+the rumours prevalent in the town. The sitting was opened at two
+o'clock. The benches of the majority were well filled, but the top of
+the Mountain was deserted. The gloomy silence which reigned in this part
+of the House was more alarming than the shouts which came from that
+quarter as a rule. It was a proof that discussion had ceased, and that
+the civil war was about to commence.</p>
+
+<p>At three o'clock, Dufaure came and asked that the state of siege should
+be proclaimed in Paris. Cavaignac seconded him in one of those short
+addresses which he sometimes delivered, and in which his mind, which was
+naturally middling and confused reached the level of his soul and
+approached the sublime. Under these circumstances he became, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> a
+moment, the man of the most genuine eloquence that I have ever heard
+speak in our Assemblies: he left all the mere orators far behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"You have just said," he exclaimed, addressing the Montagnard<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> who
+was leaving the tribune, "that I have fallen from power. That is not
+true: I retired voluntarily. The national will does not overthrow; it
+commands, and we obey. I add&mdash;and I want the republican party always to
+be able to say so with justice: I retired voluntarily, and, in so doing,
+my conduct did honour to my republican convictions. You said that we
+lived in terror: history is observing us, and will pronounce when the
+time comes. But what I say to you myself is this, that although you have
+not succeeded in inspiring me with a feeling of terror, you have
+inspired me with a feeling of profound sorrow. Shall I tell you one
+thing more? You are Republicans of long standing; whereas I have not
+worked for the Republic before its foundation, I have not suffered for
+it, and I regret that this is so; but I have served it faithfully, and I
+have done more: I have governed it. I shall serve nothing else,
+understand me well! Write it down, take it down in shorthand, so that it
+may remain engraved upon the annals of our deliberations: <em>I shall serve
+nothing else</em>! Between you and me, I take it, it is a question as to
+which of us will serve the Republic best. Well then, my regret is, that
+you have served it very badly. I hope, for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> sake of my country, that
+it is not destined to fall; but if we should be condemned to undergo so
+great a blow, remember&mdash;remember distinctly&mdash;that we shall accuse your
+exaggerations and your fury as being the cause of it."</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the state of siege had been proclaimed, we learnt that the
+insurrection had been extinguished. Changarnier and the President,
+charging at the head of the cavalry, had cut in two and dispersed the
+column which was making its way towards the Assembly. A few
+newly-erected barricades had been destroyed, without striking a blow.
+The Montagnards, surrounded in the Conservatoire of Arts and Crafts,
+which they had turned into their head-quarters, had either been arrested
+or taken to flight. We were the masters of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The same movement took place in several of the large towns, with more
+vigour but no less success. At Lyons, the fighting lasted stubbornly for
+five hours, and the victory was for a moment in doubt. But for that
+matter, when we were once victorious in Paris, we distressed ourselves
+very little about the provinces; for we knew that in France, in matters
+both of order and of disorder, Paris lays down the law.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended the second Insurrection of June, very different to the first
+by the extent of its violence and its duration, but similar in the
+causes which led to its failure. At the time of the first, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> people,
+carried away less by their opinions than by their appetites, had fought
+alone, without being able to attract their representatives to their
+head. This time the representatives had been unable to induce the people
+to follow them into battle. In June 1848, the army had no leaders; in
+June 1849, the leaders had no army.</p>
+
+<p>They were singular personages, those Montagnards: their quarrelsome
+nature and their self-conceit were displayed even in measures which
+least allowed of it. Among those who, in their newspapers and in their
+own persons, had spoken most violently in favour of civil war, and who
+had done the most to cover us with insults, was Considérant, the pupil
+and successor of Fourier, and the author of so many socialistic dreams
+which would only have been ridiculous at any other time, but which were
+dangerous in ours. Considérant succeeded in escaping with Ledru-Rollin
+from the Conservatoire, and in reaching the Belgian frontier. I had
+formerly had social relations with him, and when he arrived in Brussels,
+he wrote to me:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">My dear Tocqueville</span>,</p>
+
+<p>(Here followed a request for a service which he asked me to do for
+him, and then he went on):</p>
+
+<p>"Rely upon me at all times for any personal service. You are good
+for two or three months perhaps, and the pure Whites who will
+follow you are good for six months at the longest. You will both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+of you, it is true, have well deserved what is infallibly bound to
+happen to you a little sooner or a little later. But let us talk no
+more politics and respect the very legal, very loyal, and very
+Odilon Barrotesque state of siege."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this I replied:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">My dear Considérant</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I have done what you ask. I do not wish to take advantage of so
+small a service, but I am very pleased to ascertain, by the way,
+that those odious oppressors of liberty, the Ministers, inspire
+their adversaries with so much confidence that the latter, after
+outlawing them, do not hesitate to apply to them to obtain what is
+just. This proves that there is some good left in us, whatever may
+be said of us. Are you quite sure that if the position had been
+inverted, I should have been able to act in the same way, I will
+not say towards yourself, but towards such and such of your
+political friends whom I might mention? I think the contrary, and I
+solemnly declare to you that if ever they become the masters, I
+shall consider myself quite satisfied if they only leave my head
+upon my shoulders, and ready to declare that their virtue has
+surpassed my greatest expectations."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy, 1754-1836, the
+celebrated ideologist, Condillac's disciple.&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de M.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Pierre Leroux.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIb" id="CHAPTER_IIIb"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>OUR DOMESTIC POLICY&mdash;INTERNAL QUARRELS IN THE CABINET&mdash;ITS
+DIFFICULTIES IN ITS RELATIONS WITH THE MAJORITY AND THE PRESIDENT.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>We were victorious, but our real difficulties were only about to
+commence, and I expected them. I have always held as a maxim, moreover,
+that it is after a great success that one generally comes across the
+most dangerous chances of ruin: so long as the peril lasts, one has only
+his adversaries to deal with, and he triumphs; but after the victory,
+one begins to have to reckon with himself, his slackness, his pride, the
+imprudent security inspired by victory, and he succumbs.</p>
+
+<p>I was not exposed to this last danger, for I never imagined that we had
+surmounted our principal obstacles. I knew that these lay with the very
+men with whom we would have to govern the country, and that the rapid
+and signal defeat of the Montagnards, instead of guaranteeing us against
+the ill-will of the former, would expose us to it without delay. We
+should have been much stronger if we had not succeeded so well.</p>
+
+<p>The majority consisted in the main, at that time, of three parties (the
+President's party in Parliament was as yet too few in number and of too
+evil repute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> to count). Sixty to eighty members at the utmost were
+sincerely with us in our endeavours to found a Moderate Republic, and
+these formed the only body we could rely upon in that huge Assembly. The
+remainder of the majority consisted of Legitimists, to the number of
+some one hundred and sixty, and of old friends or supporters of the
+Monarchy of July, for the most part representing those middle classes
+who had governed, and above all exploited, France during eighteen years.
+I felt at once that of these two parties, that of which we could most
+easily make use in our plans was the Legitimist party. The Legitimists
+had been excluded from power under the last government; they therefore
+had no places and no salaries to regret. Moreover, being for the most
+part considerable land-owners, they had not the same need of public
+functions as the middle class; or, at least, custom had not taught them
+the sweetness of place. Although in principles more irreconcilable to
+the Republic than the others, they were better able than most to accept
+its duration, for it had destroyed their destroyer, and had opened up to
+them a prospect of power; it had served at once their ambition and their
+desire for revenge; and it only aroused against itself their fear, which
+was, in truth, very great. The old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of
+the majority, were much more eager to do away with the Republic; but as
+the furious hatred which they bore it was strongly held in check by the
+fear of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> risk they would run in endeavouring prematurely to abolish
+it, and as, moreover, they had long been accustomed to follow in the
+wake of power, it would have been easy for us to lead them had we been
+able to obtain the support, or even the mere neutrality of their
+leaders, of whom the principal were then, as is known, M. Thiers and M.
+Molé.</p>
+
+<p>Appreciating this position of affairs, I understood that it was
+necessary to subordinate all secondary objects to the principal end in
+view, which was to prevent the overthrow of the Republic and especially
+to hinder the establishment of the bastard monarchy of Louis Napoleon.
+This was at the time the nearest threatening danger.</p>
+
+<p>I thought first of guaranteeing myself against the mistakes of my
+friends, for I have always considered as profoundly sensible the old
+Norman proverb which says, "Lord, preserve me from my friends: I will
+preserve myself from mine enemies."</p>
+
+<p>At the head of our adherents in the National Assembly was General
+Lamoricière, and I greatly dreaded his petulancy, his imprudent
+observations, and especially his idleness. I endeavoured to appoint him
+to an important and distant embassy. Russia had spontaneously recognized
+the new Republic; it was proper that we should resume the diplomatic
+relations with her which had been almost interrupted under the last
+Government. I cast my eyes upon Lamoricière in order to entrust him with
+this extraordinary and distant mission. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> was, besides, a man cut out
+for a post of this kind, in which few but generals, and celebrated
+generals, succeed. I had some difficulty in persuading him, but the most
+difficult thing was to persuade the President of the Republic. He at
+first resisted, and told me on that occasion, with a sort of simplicity
+which pointed less to candour than to his difficulty in finding words in
+which to express himself (these very rarely gave utterance to his
+thoughts, but sometimes permitted them to glimmer through), that he
+wished to be represented at the principal Courts by ambassadors devoted
+to himself. This was not my view of the matter; for I, who was called
+upon to instruct the ambassadors, was quite determined to devote myself
+only to France. I therefore insisted, but I should have failed if I had
+not summoned M. de Falloux to my aid. Falloux was the only man in the
+Ministry in whom the President at that time had confidence. He persuaded
+him with arguments, of which I do not know the purport, and Lamoricière
+left for Russia. I shall say later what he did.</p>
+
+<p>His departure reassured me as to the conduct of our friends, and I
+thought of winning or retaining the necessary allies. Here the task was
+more difficult on all points; for, outside my own department, I was
+unable to do anything without the consent of the Cabinet, which
+contained a number of the most honest minds that one could meet, but so
+inflexible and narrow in matters of politics, that I have some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>times
+gone so far as to regret not having rather had to do with intelligent
+rascals.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Legitimists, my opinion was that they should be allowed to
+retain great influence in the direction of Public Instruction. This
+proposal had its drawbacks, but it was the only one which could satisfy
+them, and which could ensure us their support in return, when it should
+become a question of restraining the President and preventing him from
+upsetting the Constitution. This plan was followed. Falloux was given a
+free hand in his own department, and the Council allowed him to bring
+before the Assembly the plan of Public Instruction, which since became
+law on the 15th of March 1850. I also advised my colleagues to all the
+extent of my power to keep up good relations individually with the
+principal members of the Legitimist party, and I followed this line of
+conduct myself. I soon became and remained, of all the members of the
+Cabinet, the one who lived in the best understanding with them. I even
+ended by becoming the sole intermediary between them and ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that my birth and the society in which I had been brought up
+gave me great facilities for this which the others did not possess; for,
+although the French nobility have ceased to be a class, they have yet
+remained a sort of freemasonry, of which all the members continue to
+recognize one another through certain invisible signs, whatever may be
+the opinions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> which make them strangers to one another, or even
+adversaries.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened, therefore, that after annoying Falloux more than anyone
+else had done before entering the Cabinet, I had no sooner joined it
+than I easily became his friend. For that matter, he was a man worth
+taking the trouble of coaxing. I do not think that during my whole
+political career I ever met anyone of a rarer nature. He possessed the
+two essentials necessary for good leadership: an ardent conviction,
+which constantly drove him towards his aim without allowing itself to be
+turned aside by mortifications or dangers, and a mind which was both
+firm and supple, and which applied a great multiplicity and prodigious
+variety of means to the execution of a single plan. He was sincere in
+this sense, that he only considered, as he declared, his cause and not
+his private interest; but otherwise very sly, with a very uncommon and
+very effective slyness, for he succeeded, for the time being, in
+mingling truth and falsehood in his own belief, before serving up the
+mixture to the minds of others. This is the great secret which gives
+falsehood all the advantages of sincerity, and which permits its
+exponent to persuade to the error which he considers beneficial those
+whom he works upon or directs.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all my efforts, I was never able to bring about, I will not
+say a good understanding, but even a polite understanding between
+Falloux and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> Dufaure. It must be admitted that these two men had
+precisely the opposite qualities and defects. Dufaure, who in the bottom
+of his heart had remained a good west-country bourgeois, hostile to the
+nobles and the priests, was unable to put up with either Falloux's
+principles or his charming, refined manners, however agreeable they
+might seem to me. I succeeded, however, with great difficulty, in
+persuading him that he must not interfere with him in his own
+department; but as to allowing him to exercise the smallest influence
+upon what went on at the Ministry of the Interior (even within the
+limits where this was permissible and necessary), he would never hear
+speak of it. Falloux had in Anjou, where he came from, a prefect with
+whom he had reason to find fault. He did not ask that he should be
+dismissed, or even refused promotion; all he wanted was that he should
+be transferred, as he thought his own position compromised so long as no
+change took place, a change which was, moreover, demanded by the
+majority of the deputies for Maine-et-Loire. Unfortunately, this prefect
+was a declared friend to the Republic; and this was enough to fill
+Dufaure with distrust, and to persuade him that Falloux's only object
+was to compromise him by making use of him to strike at those of the
+Republicans whom he had not been able to reach till then. He refused,
+therefore; the other insisted; Dufaure grew still more obstinate. It was
+very amusing to watch Falloux spinning round<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> Dufaure, pirouetting
+cleverly and gracefully, without finding a single opening by which to
+penetrate into his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Dufaure let him have his say, and then confined himself to laconically
+replying, without looking at him, or only turning a dull, wry glance in
+his direction:</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to know why you did not take advantage of your friend M.
+Faucher's period at the Home Office to rid yourself of your prefect."</p>
+
+<p>Falloux contained himself, although he was naturally, I believe, of a
+very hasty temper; he came and told me his troubles, and I saw the
+bitterest spleen trickling through the honey of his speech. I thereupon
+intervened, and tried to make Dufaure understand that this was one of
+those demands which one cannot refuse a colleague unless one wishes to
+quarrel with him. I spent a month in this way, acting as a daily
+intermediary between the two, and expending more effort and diplomacy
+than I had employed, during the same period, in treating the great
+affairs of Europe. The Cabinet was more than once on the verge of
+breaking up over this puny incident. Dufaure gave way at last, but with
+such bad grace that it was impossible to thank him for it; so that he
+gave up his prefect without getting Falloux in exchange.</p>
+
+<p>But the most difficult portion of our rôle was the conduct which we had
+to display towards the old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of the
+majority, as I have already said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These had at one and the same time general opinions which they wished to
+force through and a number of private passions which they desired to
+satisfy. They wanted us to re-establish order energetically: in this we
+were their men; we wanted it as much as they did, and we did it as well
+as they could wish, and better than they could have done. We had
+proclaimed the state of siege in Lyons and several of the neighbouring
+departments, and by virtue of the state of siege we had suspended six
+Paris revolutionary papers, cashiered the three regiments of the Paris
+National Guard which had displayed indecision on the 13th of June,
+arrested seven representatives on the spot, and applied for warrants
+against thirty others. Analogous measures were taken all over France.
+Circulars addressed to all the agents showed them that they had to do
+with a Government which knew how to make itself obeyed, and which was
+determined that everything should give way before the law. Whenever
+Dufaure was attacked on account of these different acts by the
+Montagnards remaining in the Assembly, he replied with that masculine,
+nervous, and sharp-edged eloquence of which he was so great a master,
+and in the tone of a man who fights after burning his boats.</p>
+
+<p>The Conservatives not only wanted us to administrate with vigour; they
+wished us to take advantage of our victory to pass preventive and
+repressive laws. We ourselves felt the necessity of moving in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> this
+direction, although we were not willing to go as far as they.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I was convinced that it was both wise and necessary to make
+great concessions in this respect to the fears and the legitimate
+resentment of the nation, and that the only means which remained, after
+so violent a revolution, of saving liberty was to restrict it. My
+colleagues were of the same opinion: we therefore brought in
+successively a law to suspend the clubs; another to suppress, with even
+more energy than had been done under the Monarchy, the vagaries of the
+press; and a third to regulate the state of siege.</p>
+
+<p>"You are establishing a military dictatorship," they cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Dufaure, "it is a dictatorship, but a parliamentary
+dictatorship. There are no individual rights which can prevail against
+the inalienable right of Society to protect itself. There are imperious
+necessities which are the same for all governments, whether monarchies
+or republics; and who has given rise to these necessities? To whom do we
+owe the cruel experience which has given us eighteen months of violent
+agitations, incessant conspiracies, formidable insurrections? Yes, no
+doubt you are quite right when you say that, after so many revolutions
+undertaken in the name of liberty, it is deplorable that we should be
+once again compelled to veil her statue and to place terrible weapons in
+the hands of the public powers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> But whose fault is it, if not yours,
+and who is it that serves the Republic best, those who favour
+insurrections, or those who, like ourselves, apply themselves to
+suppressing them?"</p>
+
+<p>These measures, these laws and this language pleased the Conservatives
+without satisfying them; and to tell the truth, nothing would have
+contented them short of the destruction of the Republic. Their instinct
+constantly impelled them in that direction, although their prudence and
+their reason restrained them on the road.</p>
+
+<p>But what they desired above all things was to oust their enemies from
+place and to instal in their stead their partisans or their private
+friends. We were again brought face to face with all the passions which
+had brought about the fall of the Monarchy of July. The Revolution had
+not destroyed them, but only made them the more greedy; this was our
+great and permanent danger. Here again, I considered that we ought to
+make concessions. There were still in the public offices a very large
+number of those Republicans of indifferent capacity or bad character
+whom the chances of the Revolution had driven into power. My advice was
+to get rid of these at once, without waiting to be asked for their
+dismissal, in such a way as to inspire confidence in our intentions and
+to acquire the right to defend all the honest and capable Republicans;
+but I could never induce Dufaure to consent to this. He had already held
+the Ministry of the Interior under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> Cavaignac. Many of the public
+servants whom it would be necessary to dismiss had been either appointed
+or supported by him. His vanity was involved in the question of
+maintaining them in their positions, and his mistrust of their
+detractors would in any event have sufficed to persuade him to oppose
+their representations. He accordingly resisted. It was, therefore, not
+long before he himself became the object of all their attacks. No one
+dared tackle him in the tribune, for he was too sturdy a swordsman
+there; but he was constantly struck at from a distance and in the shade
+of the lobbies, and I soon saw a great storm gathering against him.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it we have undertaken to do?" I often asked him. "To save the
+Republic with the assistance of the Republicans? No, for the majority of
+those who bear that name would assuredly kill us together with it; and
+those who deserve to bear the name do not number one hundred in the
+Assembly. We have undertaken to save the Republic with the assistance of
+parties which do not love it. We can only, therefore, govern with the
+aid of concessions; only, we must never yield anything substantial. In
+this matter, everything depends upon the degree. The best, and perhaps
+the only guarantee which the Republic at this moment possesses lies in
+our continuance in power. Every honourable means should therefore be
+taken to keep us there."</p>
+
+<p>To this he replied that fighting, as he did every day, with the greatest
+energy, against socialism and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> anarchy, he must satisfy the majority; as
+though one could ever satisfy men by thinking only of their general
+welfare, without taking into account their vanity and their private
+interests. If even, while refusing, he had been able to do so
+gracefully: but the form of his refusal was still more disobliging than
+the matter of it. I could never conceive how a man who was so much the
+master of his words in the tribune, so clever in the art of selecting
+his arguments and the words best calculated to please, so certain of
+always keeping to the expressions which would compel most agreement with
+his thought, could be so embarrassed, so sullen, and so awkward in
+conversation. This came, I believe, from his original education. He was
+a man of much intelligence, or rather talent&mdash;for of intelligence
+properly so-called he had hardly any&mdash;but of no knowledge of the world.
+In his youth he had led a laborious, concentrated, and almost savage
+life. His entrance into political life had not to any extent changed his
+habits. He had held aloof not only from intrigues, but from the contact
+of parties, assiduously occupying himself with affairs, but avoiding
+men, detesting the movement of assemblies, and dreading the tribune,
+which was his only strength. Nevertheless, he was ambitious after his
+fashion, but with a measured and somewhat inferior ambition, which aimed
+at the management rather than at the domination of affairs. His manner,
+as a minister, of treating people was sometimes very strange. One day,
+General<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> Castellane, who was then in great credit, asked for an
+audience. He was received, and explained at length his pretensions and
+what he called his rights. Dufaure listened to him long and attentively;
+and then rose, led the general with many bows to the door, and left him
+standing aghast, without having answered a single word. When I
+reproached him with this conduct:</p>
+
+<p>"I should only have had to say disagreeable things to him," he replied;
+"it was more reasonable to say nothing at all!"</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to believe that one rarely left a man of this kind except in
+a very bad temper.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, he had as a sort of double a permanent secretary who was
+as uncouth as himself, and very stupid besides; so that when the
+solicitants passed from the Minister's office into the secretary's, in
+the hope of meeting with a little comfort, they found the same
+unpleasantness, minus the intelligence. It was like falling from a
+quickset hedge on to a bundle of thorns.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of these disadvantages, Dufaure obtained the support of the
+Conservatives; but he was never able to win over their leaders.</p>
+
+<p>The latter, as I had indeed foreseen, would neither undertake the
+government themselves nor allow any one else to govern with a free hand.
+They were unable to see without jealousy ministers at the head of
+affairs who were not their creatures, and who refused to be their
+instruments. I do not believe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> that, between the 13th of June and the
+last debates on the Roman question, in other words, during almost the
+whole life of the Cabinet, a single day passed without some ambush being
+laid for us. They did not fight us in the tribune, I admit; but they
+incessantly excited the majority secretly against us, blamed our
+decisions, criticized our measures, put unfavourable interpretations
+upon our speeches; unable to make up their minds to overthrow us, they
+arranged in such a way that, finding us wholly unsupported, they were
+always in a position, with the smallest effort, to hurl us from power.
+After all, Dufaure's mistrust was not always without grounds. The
+leaders of the majority wanted to make use of us in order to take
+rigorous measures, and to obtain repressive laws which would make the
+task of government easy to our successors, and our Republican opinions
+made us fitter for this, at that moment, than the Conservatives. They
+did not fail to count on soon bowing us out, and on bringing their
+substitutes upon the scene. Not only did they wish us not to impress our
+influence upon the Assembly, but they laboured unceasingly to prevent us
+from establishing it in the mind of the President. They persisted in the
+delusion that Louis Napoleon was still happy in their leading-strings.
+They continued to beset him, therefore. We were informed by our agents
+that most of them, but especially M. Thiers and M. Molé, were constantly
+seeing him in private, and urging him with all their might to overthrow,
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> concert with them, and at their common expense and to their common
+profit, the Republic. They formed, as it were, a secret ministry at the
+side of the responsible Cabinet. Commencing with the 13th of June, I
+lived in a state of continuous alarm, fearing every day that they would
+take advantage of our victory to drive Louis Napoleon to commit some
+violent usurpation, and that one fine morning, as I said to Barrot, the
+Empire should slip in between his legs. I have since learnt that my
+fears were even better founded than I at that time believed. Since
+leaving the ministry, I have learnt from an undoubted source that a plot
+was formed towards the month of July 1849 to alter the Constitution by
+force by the combined enterprise of the President and the Assembly. The
+leaders of the majority and Louis Napoleon had come to an agreement, and
+the blow only failed because Berryer, who no doubt feared lest he should
+be making a fool's bargain, refused his support and that of his
+followers. Nevertheless, the idea was not renounced, but only adjourned;
+and when I think that at the time when I am writing these lines, that is
+to say, two years only after the period of which I speak, the majority
+of these same men are growing indignant at seeing the people violate the
+Constitution by doing for Louis Napoleon precisely what they themselves
+at that time proposed to him to do, I find it difficult to imagine a
+more noteworthy example of the versatility of men and of the vanity of
+the great words "Patriotism" and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> "Right" beneath which petty passions
+are apt to cloak themselves.</p>
+
+<p>We were no more certain, as has been seen, of the President than of the
+majority. In fact, Louis Napoleon was, for ourselves as well as for the
+Republic, the greatest and the most permanent danger.</p>
+
+<p>I was convinced of this; and yet, when I had very attentively studied
+him, I did not despair of the possibility of establishing ourselves in
+his mind, for a time at least, in a fairly solid fashion. I soon
+discovered that, although he never refused to admit the majority leaders
+to his presence and to receive their advice, which he sometimes
+followed, and although he plotted with them when it suited his purpose,
+he nevertheless endured their yoke with great impatience; that he felt
+humiliated at seeming to walk in their leading-strings; and that he
+secretly burned to be free of them. This gave us a point of contact with
+him and a hold upon his mind; for we ourselves were quite resolved to
+remain independent of these great wire-pullers, and to uphold the
+Executive Power against their attacks.</p>
+
+<p>It did not seem impossible to me, moreover, for us to enter partly into
+Louis Napoleon's designs without emerging from our own. What had always
+struck me, when I reflected upon the situation of that extraordinary man
+(extraordinary, not through his genius, but through the circumstances
+which had combined to raise his mediocrity to so high a level), was the
+need which existed to feed his mind with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> hope of some kind if we wished
+to keep him quiet. That a man of this stamp could, after governing
+France for four years, be dismissed into private life, seemed very
+doubtful to me; that he would consent to withdraw into private life,
+seemed very chimerical; that he could even be prevented, during the
+length of his term of office, from plunging into some dangerous
+enterprise seemed very difficult, unless, indeed, one were able to place
+before his ambition some point of view which might, if not charm, at
+least restrain him. This is to what I, for my part, applied myself from
+the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"I will never serve you," I said to him, "in overthrowing the Republic;
+but I will gladly strive to assure you a great position in it, and I
+believe that all my friends will end by entering into my plan. The
+Constitution can be revised; Article 45, which prohibits re-election,
+can be changed. This is an object which we will gladly help you to
+attain."</p>
+
+<p>And as the chances of revision were doubtful, I went further, and I
+hinted to him as to the future that, if he governed France peacefully,
+wisely, modestly, not aiming at more than being the first magistrate of
+the nation, and not its corrupter or its master, he might possibly be
+re-elected at the end of his term of office, in spite of Article 45, by
+an almost unanimous vote, since the Monarchical parties did not see the
+ruin of their hopes in the limited prolongation of his power, and the
+Republican party itself looked upon a government such as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> his as the
+best means of accustoming the country to the Republic and giving it a
+taste for it.</p>
+
+<p>I told him all this in a tone of sincerity, because I was sincere in
+saying it. What I advised him seemed to me, in fact, and still seems to
+me, the best thing to be done in the interest of the country, and
+perhaps in his own. He readily listened to me, without giving a glimpse
+of the impression my language made upon him: this was his habit. The
+words one addressed to him were like stones thrown down a well; their
+sound was heard, but one never knew what became of them. I believe,
+however, that they were not entirely lost; for there were two distinct
+men in him, as I was not long in discovering. The first was the
+ex-conspirator, the fatalistic dreamer, who thought himself called to
+govern France, and through it to dominate Europe. The other was the
+epicurean, who luxuriously made the most of his new state of well-being
+and of the facile pleasures which his present position gave him, and who
+did not dream of risking it in order to ascend still higher. In any
+case, he seemed to like me better and better. I admit that, in all that
+was compatible with the good of the public service, I made great efforts
+to please him. Whenever, by chance, he recommended for a diplomatic
+appointment a capable and honest man, I showed great alacrity in placing
+him. Even when his <em>protégé</em> was not very capable, if the post was an
+unimportant one, I generally arranged to give it him; but most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> often
+the President honoured with his recommendations a set of gaol-birds, who
+had formerly thrown themselves in desperation into his party, not
+knowing where else to betake themselves, and to whom he thought himself
+to be under obligations; or else he attempted to place at the principal
+embassies those whom he called "his own men," which most frequently
+meant intriguers and rascals. In that case I went and saw him, I
+explained to him the regulations, which were opposed to his wish, and
+the political reasons which prevented me from complying with it. I
+sometimes even went so far as to let him see that I would rather resign
+than retain office by doing as he wished. As he was not able to see any
+private reasons for my refusal, nor any systematic desire to oppose him,
+he either yielded without complaining or postponed the business.</p>
+
+<p>I did not get off as cheaply with his friends. These were unspeakably
+eager in their rush for the spoil. They incessantly assailed me with
+their demands, with so much importunity, and often impertinence, that I
+frequently felt inclined to have them thrown out of the window. I
+strove, nevertheless, to restrain myself. On one occasion, however, when
+one of them, a real gallows-bird, haughtily insisted, and said that it
+was very strange that the Prince should not have the power of rewarding
+those who had suffered for his cause, I replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, the best thing for the President to do is to forget that he was
+ever a pretender, and to remem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>ber that he is here to attend to the
+affairs of France and not to yours."</p>
+
+<p>The Roman affair, in which, as I shall explain later, I firmly supported
+his policy, until the moment when it became extravagant and
+unreasonable, ended by putting me entirely into his good graces: of this
+he one day gave me a great proof. Beaumont, during his short embassy in
+England at the end of 1848, had spoken very strongly about Louis
+Napoleon, who was at that time a candidate for the Presidency. These
+remarks, when repeated to the latter, had caused him extreme irritation.
+I had several times endeavoured, since I had become a minister, to
+re-establish Beaumont in the President's mind; but I should never have
+ventured to propose to employ him, capable as he was, and anxious though
+I was to do so. The Vienna embassy was to be vacated in September 1849.
+It was at that time one of the most important posts in our diplomatic
+service, because of the affairs of Italy and Hungary. The President said
+to me of his own accord:</p>
+
+<p>"I suggest that you should give the Vienna embassy to M. de Beaumont.
+True, I have had great reason to complain of him; but I know that he is
+your best friend, and that is enough to decide me."</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted. No one was better suited than Beaumont for the place
+which had to be filled, and nothing could be more agreeable to me than
+to offer it him.</p>
+
+<p>All my colleagues did not imitate me in the care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> which I took to gain
+the President's good-will without doing violence to my opinions and my
+wishes. Dufaure, however, against every expectation, was always just
+what he should be in his relations towards him. I believe the
+President's simplicity of manners had half won him over. But Passy
+seemed to take pleasure in being disagreeable to him. I believe that he
+considered that he had degraded himself by becoming the minister of a
+man whom he looked upon as an adventurer, and that he endeavoured to
+regain his level by impertinence. He annoyed him every day
+unnecessarily, rejecting all his candidates, ill-treating his friends,
+and contradicting his opinions with ill-concealed disdain. No wonder
+that the President cordially detested him.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the ministers, the one who was most in his confidence was
+Falloux. I have always believed that the latter had gained him by means
+of something more substantial than that which any of us were able or
+willing to offer him. Falloux, who was a Legitimist by birth, by
+training, by society, and by taste, if you like, belonged at bottom to
+none but the Church. He did not believe in the triumph of the Legitimism
+which he served, and he only sought, amid all our revolutions, to find a
+road by which he could bring back the Catholic religion to power. He had
+only remained in office so that he might watch over its interests, and,
+as he said to me on the first day with well-calculated frankness, by the
+advice of his confessor. I am convinced that from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> the beginning Falloux
+had suspected the advantages to be gained from Louis Napoleon towards
+the accomplishment of this design, and that, familiarizing himself at an
+early date with the idea of seeing the President become the heir of the
+Republic and the master of France, he had only thought of utilizing this
+inevitable event in the interest of the clergy. He had offered the
+support of his party without, however, compromising himself.</p>
+
+<p>From the time of our entrance into affairs until the prorogation of the
+Assembly, which took place on the 13th of August, we did not cease to
+gain ground with the majority, in spite of their leaders. They saw us
+every day struggling with their enemies before their eyes; and the
+furious attacks which the latter at every moment directed against us
+advanced us gradually in their good graces. But, on the other hand,
+during all that time we made no progress in the mind of the President,
+who used to suffer our presence in his counsels rather than to admit us
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>Six weeks later it was just the opposite. The representatives had
+returned from the provinces incensed by the clamour of their friends, to
+whom we had refused to hand over the control of local affairs; and on
+the other hand, the President of the Republic had drawn closer to us; I
+shall show later why. One would have said that we had advanced on that
+side in the exact proportion to that in which we had gone back on the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Thus placed between two props badly joined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> together and always
+tottering, the Cabinet leant now upon one, now upon the other, and was
+always liable to tumble between the two. It was the Roman affair which
+brought about the fall.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when the parliamentary session was resumed
+on the 1st of October 1849, and when the Roman affair was handled for
+the second and last time.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVb" id="CHAPTER_IVb"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>FOREIGN AFFAIRS</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I did not wish to interrupt the story of our home misfortunes to speak
+of the difficulties which we encountered abroad, and of which I had to
+bear the brunt more than any other. I shall now retrace my steps and
+return to that part of my subject.</p>
+
+<p>When I found myself installed at the Foreign Office, and when the state
+of affairs had been placed before my eyes, I was alarmed at the number
+and extent of the difficulties which I perceived. But what caused me
+more anxiety than anything else was myself.</p>
+
+<p>I possess a great natural distrust of self. The nine years which I had
+spent rather wretchedly in the last Assemblies of the Monarchy had
+tended greatly to increase this natural infirmity, and although the
+manner in which I had just undergone the trial of the Revolution of
+February had helped to raise me a little in my own opinion, I
+nevertheless accepted this great task, at a time like the present, only
+after much hesitation, and I did not enter into it without great fear.</p>
+
+<p>Before long, I was able to make a certain number of observations which
+tranquillized if they did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> entirely reassure me. I began by
+perceiving that affairs did not always increase in difficulty as they
+increased in size, as would naturally appear at a cursory glance: the
+contrary is rather the truth. Their complications do not grow with their
+importance; it even often happens that they assume a simpler aspect in
+the measure that their consequences become wider and more serious.
+Besides, a man whose will influences the destiny of a whole people
+always finds ready to hand more men willing to enlighten him, to assist
+him, to relieve him of details, more prepared to encourage, to defend
+him, than would be met with in second-rate affairs or inferior
+positions. And lastly, the size itself of the object pursued stimulates
+all the mental forces to such an extent, that though the task may be a
+little harder, the workman becomes much more expert.</p>
+
+<p>I should have felt perplexed, full of care, discouragement and
+disordered excitement, in presence of petty responsibilities. I felt a
+peace of mind and a singular feeling of calm when brought face to face
+with larger ones. The sentiment of importance attached to the things I
+then did at once raised me to their level and kept me there. The idea of
+a rebuff had until then seemed insupportable to me; the prospect of a
+dazzling fall upon one of the greatest stages in the world, on which I
+was mounted, did not disconcert me; which showed that my weakness was
+not timidity but pride. I also was not long before perceiving that in
+politics, as in so many other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> matters&mdash;perhaps in all&mdash;the vivacity of
+impressions received was not in a ratio with the importance of the fact
+which produced it, but with the more or less frequent repetition of the
+latter. One who grows troubled and excited about the handling of a
+trifling piece of business, the only one which he happens to have taken
+in hand, ends by recovering his self-possession among greater ones, if
+they are repeated every day. Their frequency renders their effect, as it
+were, insensible. I have related how many enemies I used formerly to
+make by holding aloof from people who did not attract my attention by
+any merit; and as people had often taken for haughtiness the boredom
+they caused me, I strongly dreaded this reef in the great journey I was
+about to undertake. But I soon observed that, although insolence
+increases with certain persons in the exact proportion of the progress
+of their fortunes, it was different with me, and that it was much easier
+for me to display affability and even cordiality when I felt myself
+above, than when I was one of, the common herd. This comes from the fact
+that, being a minister, I no longer had the trouble of running after
+people, nor to fear lest I should be coldly received by them, men making
+it a necessity themselves to approach those who occupy posts of that
+sort, and being simple enough to attach great importance to their most
+trivial words. It comes also from this that, as a minister, I no longer
+had to do only with the ideas of fools, but also with their interests,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+which always supply a ready-made and easy subject of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, therefore, that I was not so ill fitted as I had feared for the
+part I had undertaken to play. This discovery encouraged me, not only
+for the present, but for the rest of my life; and should I be asked what
+I gained in this Ministry, so troubled, so thwarted, and so short that I
+was only able to commence affairs in it and to finish none, I would
+answer that I gained one great advantage, perhaps the greatest advantage
+in the world&mdash;confidence in myself.</p>
+
+<p>At home and abroad, our greatest obstacles came less from the difficulty
+of business than from those who had to conduct it with us. I saw this
+from the first. Most of our agents were creatures of the Monarchy, who,
+at the bottom of their hearts, furiously detested the Government they
+served; and in the name of democratic and republican France, they
+extolled the restoration of the old aristocracies and secretly worked
+for the re-establishment of all the absolute monarchies of Europe.
+Others, on the contrary, whom the Revolution of February had dragged
+from an obscurity in which they should have always remained,
+clandestinely supported the demagogic parties which the French
+Government was combating. But the chief fault of most of them was
+timidity. The greater number of our ambassadors were afraid to attach
+themselves to any particular policy in the countries in which they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+represented us, and even feared to display to their own Government
+opinions which might sooner or later have been counted as a crime
+against them. They therefore took care to keep themselves covertly
+concealed beneath a heap of little facts with which they crammed their
+correspondence (for in diplomacy you must always write, even when you
+know nothing and wish to say nothing), and they were very careful not to
+show what they thought of the events they chronicled, and still less to
+give us any indication as to what we were to conclude from them.</p>
+
+<p>This condition of nullity to which our agents voluntarily reduced
+themselves, and which, to tell the truth, was in the case of most of
+them no more than an artificial perfectioning of nature, induced me, so
+soon as I had realized it, to employ new men at the great Courts.</p>
+
+<p>I should have liked in the same way to be able to get rid of the leaders
+of the majority; but not being able to do this, I endeavoured to live on
+good terms with them, and I did not even despair of pleasing them, while
+at the same time remaining independent of their influence: a difficult
+undertaking in which I nevertheless succeeded; for, of all the Cabinet,
+I was the minister who most strongly opposed their policy and yet the
+only one who retained their good graces. My secret, if I must confess
+it, lay in flattering their self-conceit while neglecting their advice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had made an observation in small affairs which I deemed very
+applicable to greater ones: I had found that the most advantageous
+negociations are those conducted with human vanity; for one often
+obtains very substantial things from it, while giving very little
+substance in return. One never does so well when treating with ambition
+or cupidity. At the same time, it is a fact that in order to deal
+advantageously with the vanity of others, one must put his own entirely
+on one side and think of nothing but the success of his plans, an
+essential which will always prove a difficulty in the way of this sort
+of commerce. I practised it very happily at this time and to my great
+advantage. Three men thought themselves specially entitled to direct our
+foreign policy, owing to the position they had formerly occupied: these
+were M. de Broglie, M. Molé and M. Thiers. I overwhelmed all three of
+them with deference; I often sent for them to see me, and sometimes
+called upon them to consult them and to ask them, with a sort of
+modesty, for advice which I hardly ever followed. But this did not
+prevent these great men from displaying every satisfaction. I pleased
+them more by asking their opinion without following it than if I had
+followed it without asking it. Especially in the case of M. Thiers, this
+man&oelig;uvre of mine succeeded admirably. Rémusat, who, although without
+any personal pretensions, sincerely wished the Cabinet to last, and who
+had become familiarized<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> through an intercourse extending over
+twenty-five years with all M. Thiers' weaknesses, said to me one day:</p>
+
+<p>"The world does not know M. Thiers well; he has much more vanity than
+ambition; and he prefers consideration to obedience, and the appearance
+of power to power itself. Consult him constantly, and then do just as
+you please. He will take more notice of your deference to him than of
+your actions."</p>
+
+<p>This is what I did, and with great success. In the two principal affairs
+that I had to conduct during my time of office, those of Piedmont and
+Turkey, I did precisely the opposite to what M. Thiers wished, and,
+nevertheless, we remained excellent friends till the end.</p>
+
+<p>As to the President, it was especially in the conduct of foreign affairs
+that he showed how badly prepared he still was for the great part to
+which blind fortune had called him. I was not slow in perceiving that
+this man, whose pride aimed at leading everything, had not yet taken the
+smallest steps to inform himself of anything. I proposed to have an
+analysis drawn up every day of all the despatches and to submit it to
+his inspection. Before this, he knew what happened in the world only by
+hearsay, and only knew what the Minister for Foreign Affairs had thought
+fit to tell him. The solid basis of facts was always lacking to the
+operations of his mind, and this was easily seen in all the dreams with
+which the latter was filled. I was sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> frightened at perceiving
+how much there was in his plans that was vast, chimerical, unscrupulous,
+and confused; although it is true that, when explaining the real state
+of things to him, I easily made him recognize the difficulties which
+they presented, for discussion was not his strong point. He was silent,
+but never yielded.</p>
+
+<p>One of his myths was an alliance with one of the two great powers of
+Germany, of which he proposed to make use to alter the map of Europe and
+erase the limits which the treaties of 1815 had traced for France. As he
+saw that I did not believe it possible to find either of these powers
+inclined for an alliance of this sort, and with such an object, he
+undertook himself to sound their ambassadors in Paris. One of them came
+to me one day in a state of great excitement to tell me that the
+President of the Republic had asked him if, in consideration of an
+equivalent, his Court would not consent to allow France to seize Savoy.
+On another occasion, he conceived the idea of sending a private agent,
+one of his own men,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> as he called them, to come to a direct
+understanding with the German Princes. He chose Persigny, and asked me
+to give him his credentials; and I consented, knowing well that nothing
+could come of a negociation of this sort. I believe that Persigny had a
+two-fold mission: it was a question of facilitating the usurpation at
+home and an extension of territory abroad. He went first to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> Berlin and
+then to Vienna; as I expected, he was very well received, handsomely
+entertained, and politely bowed out.</p>
+
+<p>But I have spoken enough of individuals; let us come to politics.</p>
+
+<p>At the time when I took up office, Europe was, as it were, on fire,
+although the conflagration was already extinguished in certain
+countries. Sicily was conquered and subdued; the Neapolitans had
+returned to their obedience and even to their servitude; the battle of
+Novara had been fought and lost; the victorious Austrians were
+negociating with the son of Charles Albert, who had become King of
+Piedmont by his father's abdication; their armies, issuing from the
+confines of Lombardy, occupied Parma, a portion of the Papal States,
+Placentia, and Tuscany, which they had entered unasked, and in spite of
+the fact that the Grand Duke had been restored by his subjects, who have
+been but ill rewarded since for their zeal and fidelity. But Venice
+still resisted, and Rome, after repelling our first attack, was calling
+all the demagogues of Italy to its assistance and exciting all Europe
+with its clamour. Never, perhaps, since February, had Germany seemed
+more divided or disturbed. Although the dream of German unity had been
+dispelled, the reality of the old Teutonic organization had not yet
+resumed its place. Reduced to a small number of members, the National
+Assembly, which had till then endeavoured to promote this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> unity, fled
+from Frankfort and hawked round the spectacle of its impotence and its
+ridiculous fury. But its fall did not restore order; on the contrary, it
+left a freer field for anarchy.</p>
+
+<p>The moderate, one may say the innocent, revolutionaries, who had
+cherished the belief that they would be able, peacefully, and by means
+of arguments and decrees, to persuade the peoples and princes of Germany
+to submit to a single government, made way for the violent
+revolutionaries, who had always maintained that Germany could only be
+brought to a state of unity by the complete ruin of its old systems of
+government, and the entire abolition of the existing social order. Riots
+therefore followed on every hand upon parliamentary discussion.
+Political rivalries turned into a war of classes; the natural hatred and
+jealousy entertained by the poor for the rich developed into socialistic
+theories in many quarters, but especially in the small states of Central
+Germany and in the great Rhine Valley. Wurtemberg was in a state of
+agitation; Saxony had just experienced a terrible insurrection, which
+had only been crushed with the assistance of Prussia; insurrections had
+also occurred in Westphalia; the Palatinate was in open revolt; and
+Baden had expelled its Grand Duke, and appointed a Provisional
+Government. And yet the final victory of the Princes, which I had
+foreseen when travelling through Germany, a month before, was no longer
+in doubt; the very violence of the insurrections<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> hastened it. The
+larger monarchies had recaptured their capitals and their armies. Their
+heads had still difficulties to conquer, but no more dangers; and
+themselves masters, or on the point of becoming so, at home, they could
+not fail soon to triumph in the second-rate States. By thus violently
+disturbing public order, the insurgents gave them the wish, the
+opportunity and the right to intervene.</p>
+
+<p>Prussia had already commenced to do so. The Prussians had just
+suppressed the Saxon insurrection by force of arms; they now entered the
+Rhine Palatinate, offered their intervention to Wurtemberg, and prepared
+to invade the Grand-Duchy of Baden, thus occupying almost the whole of
+Germany with their soldiers or their influence.</p>
+
+<p>Austria had emerged from the terrible crisis which had threatened its
+existence, but it was still in great travail. Its armies, after
+conquering in Italy, were being defeated in Hungary. Despairing of
+mastering its subjects unaided, it had called Russia to its assistance,
+and the Tsar, in a manifesto dated 13 May, had announced to Europe that
+he was marching against the Hungarians. The Emperor Nicholas had till
+then remained at rest amid his uncontested might. He had viewed the
+agitation of the nations from afar in safety, but not with indifference.
+Thenceforward, he alone among the great powers of Europe represented the
+old state of society and the old traditional principle of authority. He
+was not only its representative: he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> considered himself its champion.
+His political theories, his religious belief, his ambition and his
+conscience, all urged him to adopt this part. He had, therefore, made
+for himself out of the cause of authority throughout the world a second
+empire yet vaster than the first. He encouraged with his letters and
+rewarded with his honours all those who, in whatever corner of Europe,
+gained victories over anarchy and even over liberty, as though they were
+his subjects and had contributed to strengthening his own power. He had
+thus sent, to the extreme South of Europe, one of his orders to
+Filangieri, the conqueror of the Sicilians, and had written that general
+an autograph letter to show to him that he was satisfied with his
+conduct. From the lofty position which he occupied, and whence he
+peacefully watched the various incidents of the struggle which shook
+Europe, the Emperor judged freely, and followed with a certain tranquil
+disdain, not only the follies of the revolutionaries whom he pursued,
+but also the vices and the faults of the parties and princes whom he
+assisted. He expressed himself on this subject simply and as the
+occasion required, without showing any eagerness to disclose his
+thoughts or taking any pains to conceal them.</p>
+
+<p>Lamoricière wrote to me on the 11th of August 1849, in a secret
+despatch:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Tsar said to me this morning, 'You believe, general, that your
+dynastic parties would be capable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> of uniting with the Radicals to
+overthrow a dynasty which they disliked, in the hope of setting
+their own in its place; and I am certain of it. Your Legitimist
+Party especially would not hesitate to do so. I have long since
+thought that it is the Legitimists who make the Elder Branch of the
+Bourbons impossible. This is one of the reasons why I recognized
+the Republic; and also because I perceive in your nation a certain
+common sense which is wanting in the Germans.'</p>
+
+<p>"Later, the Emperor also said, 'The King of Prussia, my
+brother-in-law, with whom I was on very close terms of friendship,
+has not taken the slightest heed of my advice. The result is that
+our political relations have become remarkably cool, to such an
+extent that they have affected even our family relations. Look at
+the things he has done: did he not put himself at the head of those
+fools who dream of an United Germany, and now that he has broken
+with the Frankfort Parliament, has he not brought himself to the
+necessity of fighting the troops of the Schleswig-Holstein Duchies,
+which were levied under his patronage! Is it possible to imagine
+anything more disgraceful? And now, who knows how far he will go
+with his constitutional proposals?' He added, 'Do not think that,
+because I intervene in Hungary, I wish to justify the conduct of
+Austria in this affair. She has heaped up, one on the other, the
+most serious faults and the greatest follies; but when all is said
+and done, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> had allowed the country to be invaded by subversive
+doctrines, and the government had fallen into the hands of
+disorderly persons. This was not to be endured.'</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of the affairs of Italy, 'We others,' he said, 'see
+nothing in those temporal functions fulfilled in Rome by
+ecclesiastics; but it matters little to us how those priests
+arrange things among themselves, provided that something is set up
+which will last and that you constitute the power in such a way
+that it can stand.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Hereupon Lamoricière, wounded by this supercilious tone, which smelt
+somewhat of the autocrat and betrayed a sort of rivalry as between pope
+and pope, began to defend Catholic institutions.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'Very well, very well,' said the Emperor, ending the conversation,
+'let France be as Catholic as she pleases, only let her protect
+herself against the insane theories and passions of innovators.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Though hard and austere in the exercise of his power, the Tsar was
+simple and almost <em>bourgeois</em> in his habits, keeping only the substance
+of sovereign power and rejecting its pomp and worries. On the 17th of
+July, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg wrote to me:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"The Emperor is here; he arrived from Warsaw without suite of any
+kind, in an ordinary post-cart&mdash;his carriage had broke down sixty
+leagues from here&mdash;so as to be in time for the Empress's
+saint's-day, which has just taken place. He did the journey with
+extraordinary rapidity, in two days and a half, and he leaves again
+to-morrow. Every one here is touched with this contrast of power
+and simplicity, with the sight of this Sovereign who, after hurling
+one hundred and twenty thousand men on to the battle-field, races
+along the roads like a <em>feld-jäger</em>, so as not to miss his wife's
+saint's-day. Nothing is more in keeping with the spirit of the
+Slavs, among whom one might say that the principal element of
+civilization is the spirit of family."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It would, in fact, be a great mistake to think that the Tsar's immense
+power was only based upon force. It was founded, above all, on the
+wishes and the ardent sympathies of the Russians. For the principle of
+the sovereignty of the people lies at the root of all government,
+whatever may be said to the contrary, and lurks beneath the least
+independent institutions. The Russian nobles had adopted the principles
+and still more the vices of Europe; but the people were not in touch
+with our West and with the new spirit which animated it. They saw in the
+Emperor not only their lawful Prince, but the envoy of God, and almost
+God Himself.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this Europe which I have depicted, the position of
+France was one of weakness and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> embarrassment. Nowhere had the
+Revolution succeeded in establishing a regular and stable system of
+liberty. On every side, the old powers were rising up again from amid
+the ruins which it had made&mdash;not, it is true, the same as when they
+fell, but very similar. We could not assist the latter in establishing
+themselves nor ensure their victory, for the system which they were
+setting up was antipathetic, I will say not only to the institutions
+created by the Revolution of February, but, at the root of our ideas, to
+all that was most permanent and unconquerable in our new habits. They,
+on their side, distrusted us, and rightly. The great part of restorers
+of the general order in Europe was therefore forbidden us. This part,
+moreover, was already played by another: it belonged by right to Russia,
+and only the second remained for us. As to placing France at the head of
+the innovators, this was to be still less thought of, for two reasons:
+first, that it would have been absolutely impossible to advise these
+latter or to hope to lead them, because of their extravagance and their
+detestable incapacity; secondly, that it was not possible to support
+them abroad without falling beneath their blows at home. The contact of
+their passions and doctrines would have put all France in flame,
+revolutionary doctrines at that time dominating all others. Thus we were
+neither able to unite with the nations, who accused us of urging them on
+and then betraying them, nor with the princes, who reproached us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> with
+shaking their thrones. We were reduced to accepting the sterile
+good-will of the English: it was the same isolation as before February,
+with the Continent more hostile to us and England more lukewarm. It was
+therefore necessary, as it had been then, to reduce ourselves to leading
+a small life, from day to day; but even this was difficult. The French
+Nation, which had made and, in a certain way, still made so great a
+figure in the world, kicked against this necessity of the time: it had
+remained haughty while it ceased to be preponderant; it feared to act
+and tried to talk loudly; and it also expected its Government to be
+proud, without, however, permitting it to run the risks which such
+conduct entailed.</p>
+
+<p>Never had France been looked upon with more anxiety than at the moment
+when the Cabinet had just been formed. The easy and complete victory
+which we had won in Paris on the 13th of June had extraordinary rebounds
+throughout Europe. A new insurrection in France was generally expected.
+The revolutionaries, half destroyed, relied only upon this occurrence to
+recover themselves, and they redoubled their efforts in order to be able
+to take advantage of it. The governments, half victorious, fearing to be
+surprised by this crisis, stopped before striking their final blow. The
+day of the 13th of June gave rise to cries of pain and joy from one end
+of the Continent to the other. It decided fortune suddenly, and
+precipitated it towards the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>The Prussian army, already master of the Palatinate, at once burst into
+the Grand-Duchy of Baden, dispersed the insurgents, and occupied the
+whole country, with the exception of Rastadt, which held out for a few
+weeks.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Baden revolutionaries took refuge in Switzerland. Refugees were then
+arriving in that country from Italy, France, and to tell the truth, from
+every corner of Europe, for all Europe, with the exception of Russia,
+had undergone or was undergoing a revolution. Their number soon amounted
+to ten or twelve thousand. It was an army always ready to fall upon the
+neighbouring States. All the Cabinets were alarmed at it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>Austria and especially Prussia, which had already had reason to complain
+of the Confederation, and even Russia, which was in no way concerned,
+spoke of invading Swiss territory with armed forces and acting as a
+police in the name of all the governments threatened. This we could not
+allow.</p>
+
+<p>I first endeavoured to make the Swiss listen to reason, and to persuade
+them not to wait till they were threatened, but themselves to expel from
+their territory, as the Law of Nations required them to do, all the
+principal ringleaders who openly threatened neighbouring nations.</p>
+
+<p>"If you in this way anticipate what they have the right to ask of you,"
+I incessantly repeated to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> representative in Paris of the Swiss
+Confederation, "you can rely upon France to defend you against any
+unjust or exaggerated pretensions put forward by the Courts. We will
+rather risk war than permit them to oppress or humiliate you. But if you
+refuse to bring reason on your side, you must only rely upon yourselves,
+and you will have to defend yourselves against all Europe."</p>
+
+<p>This language had little effect, for there is nothing to equal the pride
+and conceit of the Swiss. Not one of those peasants but believes that
+his country is able to defy all the princes and all the nations of the
+earth. I then set to work in another way, which was more successful.
+This was to advise the foreign Governments (who were only too disposed
+to agree) to refuse for a certain period all amnesty to such of their
+subjects as had taken refuge in Switzerland, and to deny all of them,
+whatever their degree of guilt, the right to return to their country. On
+our side, we closed our frontiers to all those who, after taking refuge
+in Switzerland, wished to cross France in order to go to England or
+America, including the inoffensive refugees as well as the ringleaders.
+Every outlet being thus closed, Switzerland remained encumbered with
+those ten or twelve thousand adventurers, the most turbulent and
+disorderly people in all Europe. It was necessary to feed, lodge, and
+even pay them, lest they should levy contributions on the country. This
+suddenly enlightened the Swiss as to the drawbacks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> attendant upon the
+right of asylum. They could have made arrangements to have kept the
+illustrious chiefs for an indefinite period, in spite of the danger with
+which these menaced their neighbours; but the revolutionary army was a
+great nuisance to them. The more radical cantons were the first to raise
+a loud clamour and to ask to be rid of these inconvenient and expensive
+visitors. And as it was impossible to persuade the foreign Governments
+to open their territory to the crowd of inoffensive refugees who were
+able and willing to leave Switzerland, without first driving out the
+leaders who would have liked to stay, they ended by expelling these.
+After almost bringing all Europe down upon them rather than remove these
+men from their territory, the Swiss ended by driving them out of their
+own accord in order to avoid a temporary inconvenience and a trifling
+expense. No better example was ever given of the nature of democracies,
+which, as a rule, have only very confused or very erroneous ideas on
+external affairs, and generally solve outside questions only by internal
+reasons.</p>
+
+<p>While these things were happening in Switzerland, the general aspect of
+affairs in Germany underwent a change. The struggles of the nations
+against the Governments were followed by quarrels of the Princes among
+themselves. I followed this new phase of the Revolution with a very
+attentive gaze and a very perplexed mind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>The Revolution in Germany had not proceeded from a simple cause, as in
+the rest of Europe. It was produced at once by the general spirit of the
+time and by the unitarian ideas peculiar to the Germans. The democracy
+was now beaten, but the idea of German unity was not destroyed; the
+needs, the memories, the passions that had inspired it survived. The
+King of Prussia had undertaken to appropriate it and make use of it.
+This Prince, a man of intelligence but of very little sense, had been
+wavering for a year between his fear of the Revolution and his desire to
+turn it to account. He struggled as much as he could against the liberal
+and democratic spirit of the age; yet he favoured the German unitarian
+spirit, a blundering game in which, if he had dared to go to the length
+of his desires, he would have risked his Crown and his life. For, in
+order to overcome the resistance which existing institutions and the
+interests of the Princes were bound to oppose to the establishment of a
+central power, he would have had to summon the revolutionary passions of
+the peoples to his aid, and of these Frederic William could not have
+made use without soon being destroyed by them himself.</p>
+
+<p>So long as the Frankfort Parliament retained its <em>prestige</em> and its
+power, the King of Prussia entreated it kindly and strove to get himself
+placed by it at the head of the new Empire. When the Parliament fell
+into discredit and powerlessness, the King<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> changed his behaviour
+without changing his plans. He endeavoured to obtain the legacy of this
+assembly and to combat the Revolution by realizing the chimera of German
+unity, of which the democrats had made use to shake every throne. With
+this intention, he invited all the German Princes to come to an
+understanding with him to form a new Confederation, which should be
+closer than that of 1815, and to give him the government of it. In
+return he undertook to establish and strengthen them in their States.
+These Princes, who detested Prussia, but who trembled before the
+Revolution, for the most part accepted the usurious bargain proposed to
+them. Austria, which the success of this proposal would have driven out
+of Germany, protested, being not yet in a position to do more. The two
+principal monarchies of the South, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, followed its
+example, but all North and Central Germany entered into this ephemeral
+Confederation, which was concluded on the 26th of May 1849 and is known
+in history by the name of the Union of the Three Kings.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p>Prussia then suddenly became the dominating power in a vast stretch of
+country, reaching from Memel to Basle, and at one time saw twenty-six or
+twenty-seven million Germans marching under its orders. All this was
+completed shortly after my arrival in office.</p>
+
+<p>I confess that, at the sight of this singular spectacle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> my mind was
+crossed with strange ideas, and I was for a moment tempted to believe
+that the President was not so mad in his foreign policy as I had at
+first thought him. That union of the great Courts of the North, which
+had so long weighed heavily upon us, was broken. Two of the great
+Continental monarchies, Prussia and Austria, were quarrelling and almost
+at war. Had not the moment come for us to contract one of those intimate
+and powerful alliances which we have been compelled to forego for sixty
+years, and perhaps in a measure to repair our losses of 1815? France, by
+platonically assisting Frederic William in his enterprises, which
+England did not oppose, could divide Europe and bring on one of those
+great crises which entail a redistribution of territory.</p>
+
+<p>The time seemed so well to lend itself to these ideas that they filled
+the imagination of many of the German Princes themselves. The more
+powerful among them dreamt of nothing but changes of frontier and
+accessions of power at the expense of their neighbours. The
+revolutionary malady of the nations seemed to have attacked the
+governments.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no Confederation possible with eight and thirty States," said
+the Bavarian Foreign Minister, Baron von der Pfordten, to our Envoy. "It
+will be necessary to mediatize a large number of them. How, for
+instance, can we ever hope to re-establish order in a country like
+Baden, unless we divide it among sovereigns strong enough to make
+themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> obeyed? In that case," he added, "the Neckar Valley would
+naturally fall to our share."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>For my part, I soon dispelled from my mind, as mere visions, all
+thoughts of this kind. I quickly realized that Prussia was neither able
+nor willing to give us anything worth having in exchange for our good
+offices; that its power over the other German States was very
+precarious, and was likely to be ephemeral; that no reliance was to be
+placed in its King, who at the first obstacle would have failed us and
+failed himself; and, above all, that such extensive and ambitious
+designs were not suited to so ill-established a state of society and to
+such troubled and dangerous times as ours, nor to transient powers such
+as that which chance had placed in my hands.</p>
+
+<p>I put a more serious question to myself, and it was this&mdash;I recall it
+here because it is bound constantly to crop up again: Is it to the
+interest of France that the bonds which hold together the German
+Confederation should be strengthened or relaxed? In other words, ought
+we to desire that Germany should in a certain sense become a single
+nation, or that it should remain an ill-joined conglomeration of
+disunited peoples and princes? There is an old tradition in our
+diplomacy that we should strive to keep Germany divided among a large
+number of independent powers; and this, in fact, was self-evident at the
+time when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> there was nothing behind Germany except Poland and a
+semi-savage Russia; but is the case the same in our days? The reply to
+this question depends upon the reply to another: What is really the
+peril with which in our days Russia threatens the independence of
+Europe? For my part, believing as I do that our West is threatened
+sooner or later to fall under the yoke, or at least under the direct and
+irresistible influence of the Tsars, I think that our first object
+should be to favour the union of all the German races in order to oppose
+it to that influence. The conditions of the world are new; we must
+change our old maxims and not fear to strengthen our neighbours, so that
+they may one day be in a condition with us to repel the common enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor of Russia, on his side, saw how great an obstacle an United
+Germany would prove in his way. Lamoricière, in one of his private
+letters, informed me that the Emperor had said to him with his ordinary
+candour and arrogance:</p>
+
+<p>"If the unity of Germany, which doubtless you wish for no more than I
+do, ever becomes a fact, there will be needed, in order to manage it, a
+man capable of what Napoleon himself was not able to do; and if this man
+were found, if that armed mass developed into a menace, it would then
+become your affair and mine."</p>
+
+<p>But when I put these questions to myself, the time had not come to solve
+them nor even to discuss them, for Germany was of its own accord
+irresistibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> returning to its old constitution and to the old anarchy
+of its powers. The Frankfort Parliament's attempt in favour of unity had
+fallen through. That made by the King of Prussia was destined to meet
+with the same fate.</p>
+
+<p>It was the dread of the Revolution which alone had driven the German
+Princes into Frederic William's arms. In the measure that, thanks to the
+efforts of the Prussians, the Revolution was on all sides suppressed and
+ceased to make itself feared, the allies (one might almost say the new
+subjects) of Prussia aimed at recovering their independence. The King of
+Prussia's enterprise was of that unfortunate kind in which success
+itself interferes with triumph, and to compare large things with
+smaller, I would say that his history was not unlike ours, and that,
+like ourselves, he was doomed to strike upon a rock so soon as, and for
+the reason that, he had re-established order. The princes who had
+adhered to what was known as the Prussian hegemony seized the first
+opportunity to renounce it. Austria supplied this opportunity, when,
+after defeating the Hungarians, she was able to re-appear upon the scene
+of German affairs with her material power and that of the memories which
+attached to her name. This is what happened in the course of September
+1849. When the King of Prussia found himself face to face with that
+powerful rival, behind whom he caught sight of Russia, his courage
+suddenly failed him, as I expected, and he returned to his old part.
+The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> German Constitution of 1815 resumed its empire, the Diet its
+sittings; and soon, of all that great movement of 1848, there remained
+but two traces visible in Germany: a greater dependence of the small
+States upon the great monarchies, and an irreparable blow struck at all
+that remains of feudal institutions: their ruin, consummated by the
+nations, was sanctioned by the Princes. From one end of Germany to the
+other, the perpetuity of ground-rents, baronial tithes, forced labour,
+rights of mutation, of hunting, of justice, which constituted a great
+part of the riches of the nobility, remained abolished.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The Kings
+were restored, but the aristocracies did not recover from the blow that
+had been struck them.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span></p><p>Convinced at an early date that we had no part to play in this internal
+crisis in Germany, I only applied myself to living on good terms with
+the several contending parties. I especially kept up friendly relations
+with Austria, whose concurrence was necessary to us, as I will explain
+later, in the Roman business. I first strove to bring to a happy
+conclusion the negociations which had long been pending between Austria
+and Piedmont; I put the more care into this because I was persuaded
+that, so long as no lasting peace was established on that side, Europe
+would remain unsettled and liable at any moment to be thrown into great
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>Piedmont had been negociating to no purpose since the battle of Novara.
+Austria at first tried to lay down unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, on
+her side, kept up pretensions which the state of her fortunes did not
+authorize. The negociations, several times interrupted, had been resumed
+before I took office. We had many very strong reasons to desire that
+this peace should be concluded without delay. At any moment, a general
+war might break out in this little corner of the Continent. Piedmont,
+moreover, was too near to us to permit us to allow that she should lose
+either her independence, which separated her from Austria, or her
+newly-acquired constitutional institutions, which brought her closer to
+us: two advantages which would be seriously jeopardized if recourse were
+had to arms.</p>
+
+<p>I therefore interposed very eagerly, in the name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> of France, between the
+two parties, addressing to both of them the language which I thought
+most likely to convince them. I observed to Austria how urgent it was
+that the general peace of Europe should be assured by this particular
+peace, and I exerted myself to point out to her what was excessive in
+her demands. To Piedmont I indicated the points on which it seemed to me
+that honour and interest would permit her to give way. I applied myself
+especially to giving her Government in advance clear and precise ideas
+as to what it might expect from us, so that it should have no excuse to
+entertain, or to pretend to have entertained, any dangerous
+illusions<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>. I will not go into details of the conditions under
+discussion, which are without interest to-day; I will content myself
+with saying that at the end they seemed prepared to come to an
+understanding,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> and that any further delay was due merely to a question
+of money. This was the condition of affairs, and Austria assured us
+through her Ambassador in Paris of her conciliatory dispositions; I
+already looked upon peace as concluded, when I unexpectedly learned that
+the Austrian Plenipotentiary had suddenly changed his attitude and his
+language, had delivered on the 19th of July a very serious ultimatum,
+couched in exceedingly harsh terms, and had only given four days in
+which to reply to it. At the end of these four days the armistice was to
+be raised and the war resumed. Already Marshal Radetzky was
+concentrating his army and preparing to enter upon a fresh campaign.
+This news, so contrary to the pacific assurances which we had received,
+was to me a great source of surprise and indignation. Demands so
+exorbitant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> delivered in such arrogant and violent terms, seemed to
+announce that peace was not Austria's only object, but that she aimed
+rather at the independence of Piedmont and perhaps at her representative
+institutions; for so long as liberty shows itself in the smallest
+fraction of Italy, Austria feels ill at ease in all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>I at once came to the conclusion that we must at no price allow so near
+a neighbour to be oppressed, deliver a territory which touched our
+frontiers to the Austrian armies, or permit political liberty to be
+abolished in the only country in which, since 1848, it had showed itself
+moderate. I thought, moreover, that Austria's mode of procedure towards
+us showed either an intention to deceive us or else a desire to try how
+far our toleration would go, or, as is commonly said, to sound us.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that this was one of those extreme circumstances, which I had
+faced beforehand, where it became my duty to risk not only my portfolio
+(which, to tell the truth, was not risking much) but the fortunes of
+France. I proceeded to the Council and explained the state of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>The President and all my colleagues were unanimous in thinking that I
+ought to act. Orders were immediately telegraphed to concentrate the
+Army of Lyons at the foot of the Alps, and so soon as I returned home, I
+myself wrote (for the flaccid style of diplomacy was not suited to the
+circumstances) the following letter:<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span></p>
+<blockquote><p>"Should the Austrian Government persist in the unreasonable demands
+mentioned in your telegram of yesterday, and, abandoning the limits
+of diplomatic discussion, throw up the armistice and undertake, as
+it says it will, to go and dictate peace at Turin, Piedmont can be
+assured that we should not desert her. The situation would no
+longer be the same as that in which she placed itself before the
+battle of Novara, when she spontaneously resumed her arms and
+renewed the war against our advice. This time it would be Austria
+which would herself take the initiative unprovoked; the nature of
+her demands and the violence of her proceedings would give us
+reason to believe that she is not acting solely with a view to
+peace, but that she is threatening the integrity of Piedmontese
+territory or, at the very least, the independence of the Sardinian
+Government.</p>
+
+<p>"We will not allow such designs as these to be accomplished at our
+gates. If, under these conditions, Piedmont is attacked, we will
+defend her."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>I moreover thought it my duty to send for the Austrian representative (a
+little diplomatist very like a fox in appearance as well as in nature),
+and, convinced that, in the attitude we were taking up, hastiness was
+identical with prudence, I took advantage of the fact that I could not
+as yet be expected to have become familiar with habits of diplomatic
+reserve, to express to him our surprise and our dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>satisfaction in
+terms so rude that he since admitted to me that he had never been so
+received in his life.</p>
+
+<p>Before the despatch of which I have quoted a few lines had reached
+Turin, the two Powers had come to an agreement. They had come to terms
+on the question of money, which was arranged practically on the
+conditions that had been previously suggested by ourselves. The Austrian
+Government had only desired to precipitate the negociations by
+frightening the other side; it made very little difficulty about the
+conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Schwarzenberg sent me all sorts of explanations and excuses, and
+peace was definitely signed on the 6th of August, a peace hardly hoped
+for by Piedmont after so many mistakes and misfortunes, since it assured
+her more advantages than she had at first ventured to demand.</p>
+
+<p>This affair threw into great relief the habits of English, and
+particularly of Palmerstonian, diplomacy: the feature is worth quoting.
+Since the commencement of the negociation, the British Government had
+never ceased to show great animosity against Austria, and loudly to
+encourage the Piedmontese not to submit to the conditions which she
+sought to force upon them. My first care, after taking the resolutions I
+have described, was to communicate them to England, and to endeavour to
+persuade her to take up the same line of conduct. I therefore sent a
+copy of my despatch to Drouyn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> de Lhuys, who was then Ambassador in
+London, and instructed him to show it to Lord Palmerston, and to
+discover that minister's intentions. Drouyn de Lhuys replied:<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"While I was informing Lord Palmerston of your resolutions and of
+the instructions you had sent M. de Boislecomte, he listened with
+every sign of eager assent; but when I said, 'You see, my lord, how
+far we wish to go; can you tell me how far you will go yourself?'
+Lord Palmerston at once replied, 'The British Government, whose
+interest in this business is not equal to yours, will not lend the
+Piedmontese Government more than a diplomatic assistance and a
+moral support."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Is not this characteristic? England, protected against the revolutionary
+sickness of nations by the wisdom of her laws and the strength of her
+ancient customs, and against the anger of princes by her power and her
+isolation in the midst of us, is always pleased to play the part of the
+advocate of liberty and justice in the internal affairs of the
+Continent. She likes to censure and even to insult the strong, to
+justify and encourage the weak; but it seems that she does not care to
+go further than to assume virtuous airs and discuss honourable theories.
+Should her <em>protégés</em> come to need her, she offers her moral support.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I add, in order to finish the subject, that these tactics succeeded
+remarkably well. The Piedmontese remained convinced that England alone
+had defended them, and that we had very nearly abandoned them. She
+remained very popular in Turin, and France very much suspected. For
+nations are like men, they love still more that which flatters their
+passions than that which serves their interests.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had we emerged from this bad pass, before we fell into a worse
+one. We had witnessed with fear and regret what was happening in
+Hungary. The misfortunes of this unlucky people excited our sympathies.
+The intervention of the Russians, which for a time subordinated Austria
+to the Tsar, and caused the hand of the latter to be more and more
+active in the management of the general affairs of Europe, was not
+calculated to please us. But all these events happened beyond our reach,
+and we were helpless.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I need not tell you," I wrote in the instructions I sent
+Lamoricière, "with what keen and melancholy interest we follow
+events in Hungary. Unfortunately, for the present, we can only take
+a passive part in this question. The letter and spirit of the
+treaties open out to us no right of intervention. Besides, our
+distance from the seat of war must impose upon us, in the present
+state of our affairs and of those of Europe, a certain reserve.
+Since we are not able to speak or act to good purpose, it is due to
+our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> dignity not to display, in respect to this question, any
+sterile excitement or impotent good-feeling. Our duty with regard
+to Hungarian events is to limit ourselves to carefully observing
+what happens and seeking to discover what is likely to take place."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Overwhelmed by numbers, the Hungarians were either conquered or
+surrendering, and their principal leaders, as well as a certain number
+of Polish generals who had joined their cause, crossed the Danube at the
+end of August, and threw themselves into the arms of the Turks at
+Widdin. From there, the two principal ones, Dembinski and Kossuth, wrote
+to our Ambassador in Constantinople.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The habits and peculiarities of
+mind of these two men were betrayed in their letters. The soldier's was
+short and simple; the lawyer-orator's long and ornate. I remember one of
+his phrases, among others, in which he said, "As a good Christian, I
+have chosen the unspeakable sorrow of exile rather than the peacefulness
+of death." Both ended by asking for the protection of France.</p>
+
+<p>While the outlaws were imploring our aid, the Austrian and Russian
+Ambassadors appeared before the Divan and asked that they might be given
+up. Austria based her demand upon the treaty of Belgrade, which in no
+way established her right; and Russia hers upon the treaty of Kaïnardji
+(10 July 1774), of which the meaning, to say the least of it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> was very
+obscure. But at bottom they neither of them appealed to an international
+right, but to a better known and more practical right, that of the
+strongest. This was made clear by their acts and their language. The two
+embassies declared from the commencement that it was a question of peace
+or war. Without consenting to discuss the matter, they insisted upon a
+reply of yes or no, and declared that if this reply was in the negative,
+they would at once cease all diplomatic relations with Turkey.</p>
+
+<p>To this exhibition of violence, the Turkish ministers replied, with
+gentleness, that Turkey was a neutral country; that the law of nations
+forbade them to hand over outlaws who had taken refuge on their
+territory; and that the Austrians and Russians had often quoted the same
+law against them when Mussulman rebels had sought an asylum in Hungary,
+Transylvania or Bessarabia. They modestly submitted that what was
+permitted on the left bank of the Danube seemed as though it should also
+be permitted on the right bank. They ended by protesting that what they
+were asked to do was opposed to their honour and their religion, that
+they would gladly undertake to keep the refugees under restraint and
+place them where they could do no mischief, but that they could never
+consent to deliver them to the executioner.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The young Sultan," our ambassador wrote to me, "replied yesterday
+to the Austrian Envoy that, while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> denouncing what the Hungarian
+rebels had done, he could now only regard them as unhappy men
+seeking to escape death, and that humanity forbade him to surrender
+them. Rechid Pasha, on his part, the Grand Vizier," added our
+Minister, "said to me, 'I shall be proud if I am driven from power
+for this;' and he added, with an air of deep concern, 'In our
+religion, every man who asks for mercy is bound to obtain it.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was talking like civilized people and Christians. The Ambassadors
+were content to reply like real Turks, saying that they must give up the
+fugitives or undergo the consequences of a rupture which would probably
+lead to war. The Mussulman population itself took fire; it approved of
+and supported its Government; and the Mufti came to thank our Ambassador
+for the support he had given to the cause of humanity and good law.</p>
+
+<p>From the commencement of the discussion, the Divan had addressed itself
+to the Ambassadors of France and England. It appealed to public opinion
+in the two great countries which they represented, asked their advice,
+and besought their help in the event of the Northern Powers executing
+their threats. The Ambassadors at once replied that in their opinion
+Austria and Russia were exceeding their rights; and they encouraged the
+Turkish Government in its resistance.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile, arrived at Constantinople an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> aide-de-camp of the
+Tsar. He brought a letter which that Prince had taken the pains to write
+to the Sultan with his own hand, asking for the extradition of the Poles
+who had served six months before in the Hungarian war against the
+Russian army. This step seems a very strange one when one does not see
+through the particular reasons which influenced the Tsar under the
+circumstance. The following extract from a letter of Lamoricière's
+describes them with great sagacity, and shows to what extent public
+opinion is dreaded at that end of Europe, where one would think that it
+was neither an organ nor a power:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Hungarian war, as you know," he wrote,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> "was embarked upon
+to sustain Austria, who is hated as a people and not respected as a
+government; and it was very unpopular. It brought in nothing, and
+cost eighty-four millions of francs. The Russians hoped to bring
+back Bem, Dembinski, and the other Poles to Poland, as the price of
+the sacrifices of the campaign. Especially in the army, there
+reigned a veritable fury against these men. The people and soldiers
+were mad with longing for this satisfaction of their somewhat
+barbaric national pride. The Emperor, in spite of his omnipotence,
+is obliged to attach great value to the spirit of the masses upon
+whom he leans, and who constitute his real force. It is not simply
+a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> question of individual self-love: the national sentiment of the
+country and the army is at stake."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>These were, no doubt, the considerations which prompted the Tsar to take
+the dangerous step I have mentioned. Prince Radziwill presented his
+letter, but obtained nothing. He left forthwith, haughtily refusing a
+second audience, which was offered him to take his leave; and the
+Russian and Austrian Ambassadors officially declared that all diplomatic
+relations had ceased between their masters and the Divan.</p>
+
+<p>The latter acted, in these critical circumstances, with a firmness and
+propriety of bearing which would have done honour to the most
+experienced cabinets of Europe. At the same time that the Sultan refused
+to comply with the demands, or rather the orders, of the two Emperors,
+he wrote to the Tsar to tell him that he would not discuss with him the
+question of right raised by the interpretation of the treaties, but that
+he appealed to his friendship and to his honour, begging him to take it
+in good part that the Turkish Government refused to take a measure which
+would ruin it in the eyes of the world. He offered, moreover, once more,
+himself to place the refugees in a position in which they should be
+harmless. Abdul Medjid sent one of the wisest and cleverest men in his
+Empire, Fuad Effendi, to take this letter to St Petersburg. A similar
+letter was written to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> Vienna, but this was to be handed to the Emperor
+of Austria by the Turkish Envoy at that Court, thus very visibly marking
+the difference in the value attached to the consent of the two
+Sovereigns. This news reached me at the end of September. My first care
+was to communicate it to England. At the same time<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> I wrote a private
+letter to our Ambassador, in which I said:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The conduct of England, who is more interested in this affair than
+we are, and less exposed in the conflict that may arise from it,
+must needs have a great influence upon our own. The English Cabinet
+must be asked clearly and categorically to state <em>how far</em> it is
+prepared to go. I have not forgotten the Piedmont affair. If they
+want us to assist them, they must dot their i's. It is possible
+that, in that case, we shall be found to be very determined;
+otherwise, not. It is also very important that you should ascertain
+the opinions produced by these events upon the Tories of all
+shades; for with a government conducted on the parliamentary
+system, and consequently variable, the support of the party in
+power is not always a sufficient guarantee."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In spite of the gravity of the circumstances, the English ministers, who
+were at that moment dispersed on account of the parliamentary holidays,
+took a long time before meeting; for in that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> country, the only country
+in the world where the aristocracy still carries on the government, the
+majority of the ministers are both great landed proprietors and, as a
+rule, great noblemen. They were at that time on their estates,
+recruiting from the fatigue and <em>ennui</em> of business; and they showed no
+undue hurry to return to Town. During this interval, all the English
+press, without distinction of party, took fire. It raged against the two
+Emperors, and inflamed public opinion in favour of Turkey. The British
+Government, thus stimulated, at once took up its position. This time it
+did not hesitate, for it was a question, as it said itself, not only of
+the Sultan, but of England's influence in the world.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> It therefore
+decided, first, that representations should be made to Russia and
+Austria; secondly, that the British Mediterranean Squadron should
+proceed to the Dardanelles, to give confidence to the Sultan and, if
+necessary, defend Constantinople. We were invited to do the same, and to
+act in common. The same evening, the order was despatched to the British
+Fleet to sail.</p>
+
+<p>The news of these decisive resolutions threw me into great perplexity. I
+did not hesitate to think that we should approve the generous conduct of
+our Ambassador, and come to the aid of the Sultan;<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> but as to a
+warlike attitude, I did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> believe that it would as yet be wise to
+adopt it. The English invited us to do as they did; but our position was
+very different from theirs. In defending Turkey, sword in hand, England
+risked her fleet; we, our very existence. The English Ministers could
+rely that, in that extremity, Parliament and the nation would support
+them; whereas we were almost certain to be abandoned by the Assembly,
+and even by the country, if things came so far as war. For our
+wretchedness and danger at home made people's minds at that moment
+insensible to all beside. I was convinced, moreover, that in this case
+threats, instead of serving to forward our designs, were calculated to
+frustrate them. If Russia, for it was really with her alone that we had
+to do, should chance to be disposed to open the question of the
+partition of the East by invading Turkey&mdash;a contingency that I found it
+difficult to believe in&mdash;the sending of our fleets would not prevent the
+crisis; and if it was really only a question (as was probably the case)
+of taking revenge upon the Poles, it would aggravate it, by making it
+difficult for the Tsar to retract, and causing his vanity to join forces
+with his resentment.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the meeting of the Council with these reflections. I at once
+saw that the President was already decided and even pledged, as he
+himself declared to us. This resolve on his part had been inspired by
+Lord Normanby, the British Ambassador,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> an eighteenth-century
+diplomatist, who had worked himself into a strong position in Louis
+Napoleon's good graces.... The majority of my colleagues thought as he
+did, that we should without hesitation adopt the line of joint action to
+which the English invited us, and like them send our fleet to the
+Dardanelles.</p>
+
+<p>Failing in my endeavour to have a measure which I considered premature
+postponed, I asked that at least, before it was carried out, they should
+consult Falloux, whose state of health had compelled him to leave Paris
+for a time and go to the country. Lanjuinais went down to him for this
+purpose, reported the affair to him, and came back and reported to us
+that Falloux had without hesitation given his opinion in favour of the
+despatch of the fleet. The order was sent off at once. However, Falloux
+had acted without consulting the leaders of the majority or his friends,
+and even without due reflection as to the consequences of his action; he
+had yielded to a movement of impulse, as sometimes happened to him, for
+nature had made him frivolous and light-headed before education and
+habit had rendered him calculating to the pitch of duplicity. It is
+probable that, after his conversation with Lanjuinais, he received
+advice, or himself made certain reflections, opposed to the opinion he
+had given. He therefore wrote me a very long and very involved
+letter,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> in which he pretended to have misunder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>stood Lanjuinais
+(this was impossible, for Lanjuinais was the clearest and most lucid of
+men both in speech and action). He revoked his opinion and sought to
+evade his responsibility; and I replied at once with this note:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="smcap">My dear Colleague</span>,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"The Council has taken its resolution, and at this late hour there
+is nothing to be done but await events; moreover, in this matter
+the responsibility of the whole Council is the same. There is no
+individual responsibility. I was not in favour of the measure; but
+now that the measure is taken, I am prepared to defend it against
+all comers."<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>While giving a lesson to Falloux, I was none the less anxious and
+embarrassed as to the part I was called upon to play. I cared little for
+what would happen at Vienna; for in this business I credited Austria
+merely with the position of a satellite. But what would the Tsar do, who
+had involved himself so rashly and, apparently, so irrevocably in his
+relations towards the Sultan, and whose pride had been put to so severe
+a test by our threats? Fortunately I had two able agents at St
+Petersburg and Vienna, to whom I could explain myself without reserve.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"Take up the business very gently," I recommended them,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> "be
+careful not to set our adversaries' self-esteem against us, avoid
+too great and too ostensible an intimacy with the English
+Ambassadors, whose Government is detested by the Court at which you
+are, although nevertheless maintaining good relations with those
+ambassadors. In order to attain success, adopt a friendly tone, and
+do not try to frighten people. Show our position as it is; we do
+not want war; we detest it; we dread it; but we cannot act
+dishonourably. We cannot advise the Porte, when it comes to us for
+our opinion, to commit an act of cowardice; and should the courage
+which it has displayed, and which we have approved of, bring it
+into danger, we cannot, either, refuse it the assistance it asks of
+us. A way must therefore be found out of the difficulty. Is
+Kossuth's skin worth a general war? Is it to the interest of the
+Powers that the Eastern Question should be opened at this moment
+and in this fashion? Cannot a way be found by which everybody's
+honour will be saved? What do they want, after all? Do they only
+want to have a few poor devils handed over to them? That is
+assuredly not worth so great a quarrel; but if it were a pretext,
+if at the bottom of this business lurked the desire, as a matter of
+fact, to lay hands upon the Ottoman Empire, then it would certainly
+be a general war that they wanted; for ultra-pacific though we are,
+we should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> never allow Constantinople to fall without striking a
+blow."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The affair was happily over by the time these instructions reached St
+Petersburg. Lamoricière had conformed to them before he received them.
+He had acted in this circumstance with an amount of prudence and
+discretion which surprised those who did not know him, but which did not
+astonish me in the least. I knew that he was impetuous by temperament,
+but that his mind, formed in the school of Arabian diplomacy, the wisest
+of all diplomacies, was circumspect and acute to the pitch of artifice.</p>
+
+<p>Lamoricière, so soon as he had heard rumours of the quarrel direct from
+Russia, hastened to express, very vividly, though in an amicable tone,
+that he disapproved of what had happened at Constantinople; but he took
+care to make no official, and, above all, no threatening,
+representations. Although acting in concert with the British Minister,
+he carefully avoided compromising himself with him in any joint steps;
+and when Fuad Effendi, bearing Abdul Medjid's letter, arrived, he let
+him know secretly that he would not go to see him, in order not to
+imperil the success of the negociation, but that Turkey could rely upon
+France.</p>
+
+<p>He was admirably assisted by this envoy from the Grand Seignior, who
+concealed a very quick and cunning intelligence beneath his Turkish
+skin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> Although the Sultan had appealed for the support of France and
+England, Fuad, on arriving at St. Petersburg, showed no inclination even
+to call upon the representatives of these two Powers. He refused to see
+anybody before his audience of the Tsar, to whose free will alone, he
+said, he looked for the success of his mission.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor must have experienced a feeling of bitter displeasure on
+beholding the want of success attending his threats, and the unexpected
+turn that things had taken; but he had the strength to restrain himself.
+In his heart he was not desirous to open the Eastern Question, even
+though, not long before, he had gone so far as to say, "The Ottoman
+Empire is dead; we have only to arrange for its funeral."</p>
+
+<p>To go to war in order to force the Sultan to violate the Law of Nations
+was a very difficult matter. He would have been aided in this by the
+barbaric passions of his people, but reproved by the opinion of the
+whole civilized world. He knew what was happening in England and France.
+He resolved to yield before he was threatened. The great Emperor
+therefore drew back, to the immeasurable surprise of his subjects and
+even of foreigners. He received Fuad in audience, and withdrew the
+demand he had made upon the Sultan. Austria hastened to follow his
+example. When Lord Palmerston's note arrived at St Petersburg, all was
+over. The best would have been to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> nothing; but while we, in this
+business, had only aimed at success, the British Cabinet had also sought
+for noise. It required it to make a response to the irritation of the
+country. Lord Bloomfield, the British Minister, presented himself at
+Count Nesselrode's the day after the Emperor's decision became known;
+and was very coldly received.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> He read him the note in which Lord
+Palmerston asked, in polite but peremptory phrases, that the Sultan
+should not be forced to hand over the refugees. The Russian replied that
+he neither understood the aim nor the object of this demand; that the
+affair to which he doubtless referred was arranged; and that, in any
+case, England had nothing to say in the matter. Lord Bloomfield asked
+how things stood. Count Nesselrode haughtily refused to give him any
+explanation; it would be equivalent, he said, to recognizing England's
+right to interfere in an affair that did not concern it. And when the
+British Envoy insisted upon at any rate leaving a copy of the note in
+Count Nesselrode's hands, the latter, after first refusing, at last
+accepted the document with an ill grace and dismissed his visitor,
+saying carelessly that he would reply to the note, that it was a
+terribly long one, and that it would be very tiresome. "France," added
+the Chancellor, "has already made me say the same thing; but she made me
+say it earlier and better."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span></p>
+<p>At this moment when we learnt the end of the dangerous quarrel, the
+Cabinet, after thus witnessing a happy conclusion to the two great
+pieces of foreign business that still kept the peace of the world in
+suspense, the Piedmont War and the Hungarian War&mdash;at that moment, the
+Cabinet fell.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> "<em>Un homme à lui.</em>"&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de M.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Nothing was ever more despicable than the conduct of those
+revolutionaries. The soldiers who, at the commencement of the
+insurrection, had put to flight or killed their officers, turned tail
+before the Prussians. The ringleaders did nothing but dispute among
+themselves and defame one another instead of defending themselves, and
+took refuge in Switzerland after pillaging the public treasury and
+levying contributions upon their own country.
+</p><p>
+While the struggle lasted, we took strong measures to prevent the
+insurgents from receiving any assistance from France. Those among them
+who crossed the Rhine, in great numbers, received asylum from us, but
+were disarmed and placed in confinement. The victors, as it was easy to
+foresee, at once abused their victory. Many prisoners were put to death,
+all liberty was indefinitely suspended, and even the government which
+had been restored was kept in very close tutelage. I soon perceived that
+the French representative in the Grand-Duchy of Baden not only did not
+strive to moderate these violences, but thoroughly approved of them. I
+at once wrote to him as follows:
+</p>
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,<br /><br />
+
+"I am informed that a number of military executions have taken
+place, and that many more are announced. I do not understand why
+these facts have not been reported by you, nor why you have not
+sought to prevent them, without even waiting for instructions.
+We have assisted as much as we could, without taking up arms, in
+suppressing the rebellion; all the more reason for desiring that
+the victory to which we have given our aid should not be sullied by
+acts of violence of which France disapproves, and which we regard
+as both odious and impolitic. There is another point which causes
+us much anxiety, and which does not seem to excite your solicitude
+to the same degree: I refer to the political institutions of the
+Grand-Duchy. Do not forget that the object of the Government of the
+Republic in that country has been to assist in putting down
+anarchy, but not in destroying liberty. We can in no way lend our
+hand to an anti-liberal restoration. The Constitutional Monarchy
+felt the need to create or maintain free States around France. The
+Republic is still more obliged to do so. The Government therefore
+asks and imperiously insists that each of its agents shall
+faithfully conform to these necessities of our situation. See the
+Grand Duke, and give him to understand what are the wishes of
+France. We shall certainly never allow either a Prussian province
+or an absolute government to be established on our frontier in the
+stead of an independent and constitutional monarchy?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p>
+After some time, the executions ceased. The Grand Duke protested his
+attachment to constitutional forms, and his resolution to maintain them.
+This was for the moment all he was able to do, for he reigned only in
+name. The Prussians were the real masters.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Of Prussia, Saxony and Hanover.&mdash;<span class="smcap">A.T. de M.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Despatch of the 7th of September 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Private letter from Beaumont at Vienna, 10 October
+1849.&mdash;Despatch from M. Lefèbre at Munich, 23 July 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> I had foreseen from the commencement that Austria and
+Prussia would soon return to their former sphere and fall back in each
+case within the influence of Russia. I find this provision set forth in
+the instructions which I gave to one of our ambassadors to Germany on
+the 24th of July, before the events which I have described had taken
+place. These instructions are drawn up in my own hand, as were all my
+more important despatches. I read as follows:
+</p>
+<blockquote><p>"I know that the malady which is ravaging all the old European
+society is incurable, that in changing its symptoms it does not
+change in character, and that all the old powers are, to a greater
+or lesser extent, threatened with modification or destruction. But
+I am inclined to believe that the next event will be the
+strengthening of authority throughout Europe. It would not be
+impossible that, under the pressure of a common instinct of defence
+or under the common influence of recent occurrences, Russia should
+be willing and able to bring about harmony between North and South
+Germany and to reconcile Austria and Prussia, and that all this
+great movement should merely resolve itself into a new alliance of
+principles between the three monarchies at the expense of the
+secondary governments and the liberty of the citizens. Consider the
+situation from this point of view, and give me an account of your
+observations."</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Despatch of the 4th of July 1849 to M. de Boislecomte:
+</p>
+<blockquote><p>"The conditions laid down for Piedmont by His Majesty the Emperor
+of Austria are no doubt severe; but, nevertheless, they do not
+affect the integrity of the territory of the Kingdom nor her
+honour. They neither take away the strength which she should
+preserve, nor the just influence which she is called upon to
+exercise over the general policy of Europe and in particular over
+the affairs of Italy. The treaty which she is asked to sign is a
+vexatious one, no doubt; but it is not a disastrous one; and, after
+the fate of arms has been decided, it does not exceed what was
+naturally to be feared.
+</p><p>
+"France has not neglected, and will not neglect, any effort to
+obtain a mitigation of this proposal; she will persist in her
+endeavours to obtain from the Austrian Government the modifications
+which she considers in keeping not only with the interests of
+Piedmont but with the easy and lasting maintenance of the general
+peace; and to attain this result, she will employ all the means
+supplied to diplomacy: but she will not go beyond this. She does
+not think that, within the limits of the question and the degree to
+which the interests of Piedmont are involved, it would be opportune
+to do more. Holding this firm and deliberate opinion, she does not
+hesitate to give utterance to it. To allow, even by her silence, a
+belief to gain ground in extreme resolutions that have not been
+taken; to suggest hopes that we are not certain of wishing to
+realize; to urge indirectly by words to a line of action which we
+should not think ourselves justified in supporting by our acts; in
+a word, to engage others without engaging ourselves, or
+unconsciously to engage ourselves more deeply than we think or than
+we mean: that would be, on the part of either the Government or of
+private individuals, a line of conduct which seems to me neither
+prudent nor honourable.
+</p><p>
+"You can rely, Sir, that so long as I occupy the post in which the
+President's confidence has placed me, the Government of the
+Republic shall incur no such reproach; it will announce nothing
+that it will not be prepared to carry out; it will make no promises
+that it is not resolved to keep; and it will consider it as much a
+point of honour to declare beforehand what it is not ready to do as
+to execute promptly and with vigour that which it has said it would
+do.
+</p><p>
+"You will be good enough to read this despatch to M. d'Azeglio."</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Letter to M. de Boislecomte, 25 July 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Despatches of the 25th and 26th of June 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Letters of the 22nd and 24th of August 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Despatches of the 11th and 25th of October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Private letter, 1 October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Private letter from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 2 October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Private letters to Lamoricière and Beaumont, 5 and 9
+October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Letter from Falloux, 11 October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Letter to Falloux, 12 October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Private letters to Lamoricière and Beaumont, 5 and 9
+October 1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Letter from Lamoricière, 19 October 1849.</p></div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>I have recently discovered these four notes in the charter-room at
+Tocqueville, where my grandfather had carefully deposited, by the
+side of our most precious family archives, all the manuscripts of
+his brother that came into his possession. They seemed to me to
+throw some light upon the Revolution of February and the question
+of the revision of the Constitution in 1851, and to merit
+publication together with the Recollections.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Comte de Tocqueville.</span><br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<div class="center">GUSTAVE DE BEAUMONT'S VERSION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY.</div>
+
+
+<p>I have to-day (24 October 1850) had a conversation with Beaumont which
+is worth noting. This is what he told me:</p>
+
+<p>"On the 24th of February, at seven o'clock in the morning, Jules
+Lasteyrie and another [I have forgotten the name which Beaumont
+mentioned] came to fetch me to take me to M. Thiers, where Barrot,
+Duvergier, and several others were expected."</p>
+
+<p>I asked him if he knew what had passed during the night between Thiers
+and the King. He replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I was told by Thiers, and especially by Duvergier, who had at once
+taken a note of Thiers' narrative, that Thiers had been summoned at
+about one o'clock; that he had found the King in an undecided frame of
+mind; that he had at once told him that he could only come in with
+Barrot and Duvergier; that the King, after raising many objections, had
+appeared to yield; that he had put off Thiers till the morning; that
+nevertheless, as he showed him to the door, he had told him that as yet
+no one was bound one way or the other."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>Evidently the King reserved the right of attempting to form another
+combination before the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"I must here," continued Beaumont, "tell you a curious anecdote. Do you
+know how Bugeaud was occupied during that decisive night, at the
+Tuileries itself, where he had just received the command-in-chief?
+Listen: Bugeaud's hope and ambition was to become Minister of War when
+Thiers should come into power. Things were so turning out, as he clearly
+saw, as to make this appointment impossible; but what preoccupied him
+was to assure his preponderance at the War Office even if he was not at
+the head of it. Consequently, on the night of the 24th of February, or
+rather in the early morning, Bugeaud with his own hand wrote to Thiers
+from the Tuileries a letter of four pages, of which the substance was:</p>
+
+<p>"'I understand the difficulties which prevent you from making me your
+Minister of War; nevertheless I have always liked you, and I am sure
+that we shall one day govern together. However, I understand the present
+reasons, and I give way before them; but I beg you, at least, to give M.
+Magne, who is my friend, the place of Under-Secretary of State at the
+War Office.'"</p>
+
+<p>Resuming his general narrative, Beaumont continued:</p>
+
+<p>"When I arrived at the Place Saint-Georges, Thiers and his friends had
+already left for the Tuileries. I hastily followed them, and arrived at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
+the same time as they did. The appearance of Paris was already
+formidable; however, the King received us as usual, with the same
+copious language and the same mannerisms that you know of. Before being
+shown in to him [at least, I believe it was here that Beaumont placed
+this incident], we talked about affairs among ourselves. I insisted
+urgently upon Bugeaud's dismissal. 'If you want to oppose force to the
+popular movement,' I said, 'by all means make use of Bugeaud's name and
+audacity; but if you wish to attempt conciliation and you suspend
+hostilities<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> ... then Bugeaud's name is a contradiction.' The others
+seconded me, and Thiers reluctantly and with hesitation gave way. They
+compromised the matter as you know: Bugeaud nominally retained the
+command-in-chief, and Lamoricière was placed at the head of the National
+Guard. Thiers and Barrot entered the King's closet, and I do not know
+what happened there. The order had been given to the troops everywhere
+to cease firing, and to fall back upon the Palace and make way for the
+National Guard. I myself, with Rémusat, hurriedly drew up the
+proclamation informing the people of these orders and explaining them.
+At nine o'clock it was agreed that Thiers and Barrot should personally
+attempt to make an appeal to the people; Thiers was stopped on the
+staircase and induced to turn back, but with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> difficulty, I am bound to
+admit. Barrot set out alone, and I followed him."</p>
+
+<p>Here Beaumont's account is identical with Barrot's.</p>
+
+<p>"Barrot was wonderful throughout this expedition," said Beaumont. "I had
+difficulty in making him turn back, although when we had once arrived at
+the barricade at the Porte Saint-Denis, it would have been impossible to
+go further. Our return made the situation worse: we brought in our wake,
+by effecting a passage for it, a crowd more hostile than that which we
+had traversed in going; by the time we arrived at the Place Vendôme,
+Barrot feared lest he should take the Tuileries by assault, in spite of
+himself, with the multitude which followed him; he slipped away and
+returned home. I came back to the Château. The situation seemed to me
+very serious but far from desperate, and I was filled with surprise on
+perceiving the disorder that had gained all minds during my absence, and
+the terrible confusion that already reigned at the Tuileries. I was not
+quite able to understand what had happened, or to learn what news they
+had received to turn everything topsy-turvy in this fashion. I was dying
+of hunger and fatigue; I went up to a table and hurriedly took some
+food. Ten times, during this meal of three or four minutes, an
+aide-de-camp of the King or of one of the Princes came to look for me,
+spoke to me in confused language, and left me without properly
+understanding my reply. I quickly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> joined Thiers, Rémusat, Duvergier,
+and one or two others who were to compose the new Cabinet. We went
+together to the King's closet: this was the only Council at which I was
+present. Thiers spoke, and started a long homily on the duties of the
+King and the paterfamilias. 'That is to say, you advise me to abdicate,'
+said the King, who was but indifferently affected by the touching part
+of the speech and came straight to the point. Thiers assented, and gave
+his reasons. Duvergier supported him with great vivacity. Knowing
+nothing of what had happened, I displayed my astonishment and exclaimed
+that all was not lost. Thiers seemed much annoyed at my outburst, and I
+could not prevent myself from believing that the secret aim of Thiers
+and Duvergier had, from the first, been to get rid of the King, on whom
+they could no longer rely, and to govern in the name of the Duc de
+Nemours or the Duchesse d'Orléans, after forcing the King to abdicate.
+The King, who had struck me as very firm up to a certain moment, seemed
+towards the end to surrender himself entirely."</p>
+
+<p>Here there is a void in my memory in Beaumont's account, which I will
+fill up from another conversation. I come to the scene of the
+abdication, which followed:</p>
+
+<p>"During the interval, events and news growing worse and the panic
+increasing, Thiers had declared that already he was no longer possible
+(which was perhaps true), and that Barrot was scarcely so.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span> He then
+disappeared&mdash;at least, I did not see him again during the last
+moments&mdash;which was very wrong of him, for although he declined the
+Ministry, he ought not, at so critical a juncture, to have abandoned the
+Princes, and he should have remained to advise them, although no longer
+their Minister. I was present at the final scene of the abdication. The
+Duc de Montpensier begged his father to write and urged him so eagerly
+that the King stopped and said, 'But look here, I can't write faster.'
+The Queen was heroical and desperate: knowing that I had appeared
+opposed to the abdication at the Council, she took my hands and told me
+that such a piece of cowardice must not be allowed to be consummated,
+that we should defend ourselves, that she would let herself be killed,
+before the King's eyes, before they could reach him. The abdication was
+signed nevertheless, and the Duc de Nemours begged me to run and tell
+Marshal Gérard, who was at the further end of the Carrousel, that I had
+seen the King sign, so that he might announce officially to the people
+that the King had abdicated. I hastened there, and returned; all the
+rooms were empty. I went from room to room without meeting a soul. I
+went down into the garden; I there met Barrot, who had come over from
+the Ministry of the Interior, and was indulging in the same useless
+quest. The King had escaped by the main avenue; the Duchesse d'Orléans
+seemed to have gone by the underground passage to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> water-side. No
+necessity had compelled them to leave the Château, which was then in
+perfect safety, and which was not invaded by the people until an hour
+after it had been abandoned. Barrot was determined at all costs to
+assist the Duchess. He hurriedly had horses prepared for her, the young
+Prince and ourselves, and wanted us to throw ourselves all together into
+the midst of the people&mdash;the only chance in fact, and a feeble one at
+that, that remained to us. Unable to rejoin the Duchess, we left for the
+Ministry of the Interior. You met us on the road; you know the rest."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> This clearly shows, independently of what Beaumont told me
+positively, how absolutely the new Cabinet had made up its mind to
+yield.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<div class="center">BARROT'S VERSION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY.<br /><br />
+
+(<em>10 October 1850.</em>)</div>
+
+
+<p>"I believe that M. Molé only refused the Ministry after the firing had
+commenced on the Boulevard. Thiers told me that he had been sent for at
+one in the morning; that he had asked the King to appoint me as the
+necessary man; that the King had at first resisted and then yielded; and
+that at last he had adjourned our meeting to nine o'clock in the morning
+at the Palace.</p>
+
+<p>"At five o'clock Thiers came to my house to awake me; we talked; he went
+home, and I called for him at eight. I found him quietly shaving. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> is
+a great pity that the King and M. Thiers thus wasted the time that
+elapsed between one and eight o'clock. When he had finished shaving, we
+went to the Château; the population already was greatly excited;
+barricades were being built, and even a few shots had already been fired
+from houses near the Tuileries. However, we found the King still very
+calm and retaining his usual manner. He addressed me with the
+commonplaces which you can imagine for yourself. At that hour, Bugeaud
+was still general-in-chief. I strongly persuaded Thiers not to take
+office under the colour of that name, and at least to modify it by
+giving the command of the National Guard to Lamoricière, who was there.
+Thiers accepted this arrangement, which was agreed to by the King and
+Bugeaud himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I next proposed to the King that he should dissolve the Chamber of
+Deputies. 'Never, never!' he said; he lost his temper and left the room,
+slamming the door in the faces of Thiers and me. It was quite clear that
+he only consented to give us office in order to save the first moment,
+and that he intended, after compromising us with the people, to throw us
+over with the assistance of Parliament. Of course, at any ordinary time,
+I should at once have withdrawn; but the gravity of the situation made
+me stay, and I proposed to present myself to the people, myself to
+apprise them of the formation of the new Cabinet, and to calm them. In
+the impossibility of our having anything printed and posted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> up in time,
+I looked upon myself as a walking placard. I must do Thiers the justice
+to say that he wished to accompany me, and that it was I who refused, as
+I dreaded the bad impression his presence might make.</p>
+
+<p>"I therefore set out; I went up to each barricade unarmed; the muskets
+were lowered, the barricades opened; there were cries of 'Reform for
+ever! long live Barrot!' We thus went to the Porte Saint-Denis, where we
+found a barricade two stories high and defended by men who made no sign
+of concurrence in my words and betrayed no intention of allowing us to
+pass the barricade. We were therefore compelled to retrace our steps. On
+returning, I found the people more excited than when I had come;
+nevertheless, I heard not a single seditious cry, nor anything that
+announced an immediate revolution. The only word that I heard of grave
+import was from Étienne Arago. He came up to me and said, 'If the King
+does not abdicate, we shall have a revolution before eight o'clock
+to-night.' I thus came to the Place Vendôme; thousands of men followed
+me, crying, 'To the Tuileries! to the Tuileries!' I reflected what was
+the best thing to do. To go to the Tuileries at the head of that
+multitude was to make myself the absolute master of the situation, but
+by means of an act which might have seemed violent and revolutionary.
+Had I known what was happening at the moment in the Tuileries, I should
+not have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> hesitated; but as yet I felt no anxiety. The attitude of the
+people did not yet seem decided. I knew that all the troops were falling
+back upon the Château; that the Government was there, and the generals;
+I could not therefore imagine the panic which, shortly afterwards,
+placed it in the hands of the mob. I turned to the right and returned
+home to take a moment's rest; I had not eaten anything yet and was
+utterly exhausted. After a few minutes, Malleville sent word from the
+Ministry of the Interior that it was urgent that I should come and sign
+the telegrams to the departments. I went in my carriage, and was cheered
+by the people; from there, I set out to walk to the Palace. I was still
+ignorant of all that had happened. When I reached the quay, opposite the
+garden, I saw a regiment of Dragoons returning to barracks; the colonel
+said to me, 'The King has abdicated; all the troops are withdrawing.' I
+hurried; when I reached the wicket-gates, I had great difficulty in
+penetrating to the court-yard, as the troops were crowding out through
+every opening. At last I reached the yard, which I found almost empty;
+the Duc de Nemours was there; I entreated him to tell me where the
+Duchesse d'Orléans was; he replied that he did not know, but that he
+believed that at that moment she was in the pavilion at the water-side.
+I hastened there; I was told that the Duchess was not there. I forced
+the door and went through the rooms, which were, in fact, empty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> I left
+the Tuileries, recommending Havin, whom I met, not to bring the Duchess,
+if he found her, to the Chamber, with which there was nothing to be
+done. My intention had been, if I had found the Duchess and her son, to
+put them on horseback and throw myself with them among the people: I had
+even had the horses got ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Not finding the Princess, I returned to the Ministry of the Interior; I
+met you on the road, you know what happened there. I was sent for in
+haste to go to the Chamber. I had scarcely arrived when the leaders of
+the Extreme Left surrounded me and dragged me almost by main force to
+the first office; there, they begged me to propose to the Assembly the
+nomination of a Provisional Government, of which I was to be a member. I
+sent them about their business, and returned to the Chamber. You know
+the rest."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<div class="center">SOME INCIDENTS OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY 1848.<br />
+<br />
+<a name="A1" id="A1"></a>1</div>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><em>M. Dufaure's efforts to prevent the Revolution of
+February&mdash;Responsibility of M. Thiers, which renders them futile.</em></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To-day (19 October 1850), Rivet recalled and fixed with me the
+circumstances of an incident well worth remembering.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the week preceding that in which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> the Monarchy was
+overthrown, a certain number of Conservative deputies began to feel an
+anxiety which was not shared by the Ministers and their colleagues. They
+thought that it was more advisable to overthrow the Cabinet, provided
+that this could be done without violence, than to risk the adventure of
+the banquets. One of them, M. Sallandrouze, made the following proposal
+to M. Billault (the banquet was to take place on Tuesday the 22nd) that
+on the 21st M. Dufaure and his friends should move an urgent order of
+the day, drawn up in consultation with Sallandrouze and those in whose
+name he spoke, some forty in number. The order of the day should be
+voted by them on condition that, on its side, the Opposition should give
+up the banquet and restrain the people.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday, the 20th of February, we met at Rivet's to discuss this
+proposal. There were present, as far as I am able to remember, Dufaure,
+Billault, Lanjuinais, Corcelles, Ferdinand Barrot, Talabot, Rivet, and
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>Sallandrouze's proposal was explained to us by Billault; we accepted it
+at once, and drafted an order of the day in consequence. I myself
+drafted it, and this draft, with some modifications, was accepted by my
+friends. The terms in which it was couched (I no longer remember them)
+were very moderate, but the adoption of this order of the day would
+inevitably entail the resignation of the Cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>There remained to be fulfilled the condition of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> vote of the
+Conservatives, the withdrawal of the banquet. We had had nothing to do
+with this measure, and consequently we were not able to prevent it. It
+was agreed that one of us should at once go in search of Duvergier de
+Hauranne and Barrot, and propose that they should act according to the
+condition demanded. Rivet was selected for this negociation, and we
+adjourned our meeting till the evening to know how he had succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening he came and reported to us as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Barrot had eagerly entered into the opening offered him; he effusively
+seized Rivet's hands, and declared that he was prepared to do all that
+he was asked in this sense; he seemed relieved of a great weight on
+beholding the possibility of escaping from the responsibility of the
+banquet. But he added that he was not engaged in this enterprise alone,
+and that he must come to an understanding with his friends, without whom
+he could do nothing. How well we knew it!</p>
+
+<p>Rivet went on to Duvergier's, and was told that he was at the
+Conservatoire of Music, but that he would return home before dinner.
+Rivet waited. Duvergier returned. Rivet told him of the proposal of the
+Conservatives and of our order of the day. Duvergier received this
+communication somewhat disdainfully; they had gone too far, he said, to
+draw back; the Conservatives had repented too late; he, Duvergier, and
+his friends could not, without losing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> their popularity and perhaps all
+their influence with the masses, undertake to make the latter give up
+the proposed demonstration. "However," he added, "I am only giving you
+my first and personal impression; but I am going to dine with Thiers,
+and I will send you a note this evening to let you know our final
+decision."</p>
+
+<p>This note came while we were there; it said briefly that the opinion
+expressed by Duvergier before dinner was also that of Thiers, and that
+the idea which we had suggested must be abandoned. We broke up at once:
+the die was cast!</p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt that, among the reasons for Thiers' and Duvergier's
+refusal, the first place must be given to this, which was not expressed:
+that if the Ministry fell quietly, by the combined effect of a part of
+the Conservatives and ourselves, and upon an order of the day presented
+by us, we should come into power, and not those who had built up all
+this great machinery of the banquets in order to attain it.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><br />
+<a name="A2" id="A2"></a>2</div>
+
+<blockquote><p><em>Dufaure's conduct on the 24th of February 1848.</em></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Rivet told me to-day (19 October 1850) that he had never talked with
+Dufaure of what happened to him on the 24th of February; but that he had
+gathered the following from conversation with members of his family or
+of his immediate surroundings:</p>
+
+<p>On the 23rd of February, at about a quarter past<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> six, M. Molé, after
+concerting with M. de Montalivet, sent to beg Dufaure to come and see
+him. Dufaure, on his road to M. Molé's, called on Rivet and asked him to
+wait for him, because he intended to come back to Rivet on leaving M.
+Molé. Dufaure did not return, and Rivet did not see him till some time
+after, but he believed that, on arriving at Molé's, Dufaure had a rather
+long conversation with him, and then went away, declaring that he did
+not wish to join the new Cabinet, and that, in his opinion,
+circumstances called for the men who had brought about the movement,
+that is to say, Thiers and Barrot.</p>
+
+<p>He returned greatly alarmed at the appearance of Paris, found his wife
+and mother-in-law still more alarmed, and, at five o'clock in the
+morning of the 24th, set out with them and took them to Vauves. He
+himself came back; I saw him at about eight or nine o'clock, and I do
+not remember that he told me he had taken this morning journey. I was
+calling on him with Lanjuinais and Corcelles; but we soon separated,
+arranging to meet at twelve at the Chamber of Deputies. Dufaure did not
+come; it seems that he started to do so, and in fact arrived at the
+Palace of the Assembly, which had, doubtless, been just at that moment
+invaded. What is certain is that he went on and joined his family at
+Vauves.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>MY CONVERSATION WITH BERRYER, ON THE 21ST OF JUNE, AT AN
+APPOINTMENT WHICH I HAD GIVEN HIM AT MY HOUSE. WE WERE BOTH MEMBERS
+OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I thus opened the conversation:</p>
+
+<p>"Let us leave appearances on one side, between you and me. You are not
+making a revisionist but an electoral campaign."</p>
+
+<p>He replied, "That is true; you are quite right"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," I replied; "we shall see presently if you are well advised.
+What I must tell you at once is that I cannot join in a man&oelig;uvre of
+which the sole object is to save a section only of the moderate party at
+the next elections, leaving out of the calculation many others, and
+notably that to which I belong. You must either give the moderate
+Republicans a valid reason for voting for the Revision, by giving it a
+republican character, or else expect us to do our best to spike your
+guns."</p>
+
+<p>He agreed, but raised difficulties that originated with the passions and
+prejudices of his party. We discussed for some time what was to be done,
+and at last we came to the policy which he was following.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I said to him on this subject, of which I particularly wish
+to retain the impression. I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Berryer, you are dragging us all, in spite of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> ourselves, into a plight
+for which you will have to bear the sole responsibility, you may be
+quite sure of that. If the Legitimists had joined those who wished to
+fight against the President, the fight might still be possible. You have
+dragged your party, in spite of itself, in an opposite direction;
+henceforth, we can no longer resist; we cannot remain alone with the
+Montagnards; we must give way, since you give way; but what will be the
+consequence? I can see your thought, it is quite clear: you think that
+circumstances render the President's ascendancy irresistible and the
+movement which carries the country towards him insurmountable. Unable to
+fight against the current, you throw yourselves into it, at the risk of
+making it more violent still, but in the hope that it will land you and
+your friends in the next Assembly, in addition to various other sections
+of the party of order, which is not very sympathetic with the President.
+There alone you think that you will find a solid resting-place from
+which to resist him, and you think that, by working his business to-day,
+you will be able to keep together, in the next Assembly, a group of men
+able to cope with him. To struggle against the tide which carries him at
+this moment is to make one's self unpopular and ineligible and to
+deliver the party to the Socialists and the Bonapartists, neither of
+whom you wish to see triumph: well and good! Your plan has its plausible
+side, but it fails in one principal respect, which is this:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> I could
+understand you if the election were to take place to-morrow, and if you
+were at once to gather the fruits of your man&oelig;uvre, as at the
+December election; but there is nearly a year between now and the next
+elections. You will not succeed in having them held in the spring, if
+you succeed in having them held at all. Between now and then, do you
+imagine that the Bonapartist movement, aided, precipitated by you, will
+cease? Do you not see that, after asking you for a Revision of the
+Constitution, public opinion, stirred up by all the agents of the
+Executive and led by our own weakness, will ask us for something more,
+and then for something more still, until we are driven openly to favour
+the illegal re-election of the President and purely and simply to work
+his business for him? Can you go as far as that? Would your party be
+willing to, if you are? No! You will therefore come to a moment when you
+will have to stop short, to stand firm on your ground, to resist the
+combined effort of the nation and the Executive Power; in other words,
+on the one hand to become unpopular, and on the other to lose that
+support, or at least that electoral neutrality, of the Government which
+you desire. You will have enslaved yourselves, you will have immensely
+strengthened the forces opposed to you, and that is all. I tell you
+this: either you will pass completely and for ever under the President's
+yoke, or you will lose, just when it is ripe for gathering, all the
+fruit of your man&oelig;uvre, and you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> will simply have taken upon
+yourself, in your own eyes and the country's, the responsibility of
+having contributed to raise this Power, which will perhaps, in spite of
+the mediocrity of the man, and thanks to the extraordinary power of
+circumstances, become the heir of the Revolution and our master."</p>
+
+<p>Barrot seemed to me to rest tongue-tied, and the time having come to
+part, we parted.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span>Many of the actors in the Revolution of 1848 are comparatively unknown
+in England. I did not wish to encumber these Recollections with
+foot-notes; and I have preferred, instead, to amplify the following
+Index by giving, in the majority of cases, the full names and titles of
+these participants, with the dates of their birth and death.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">A. Teixeira de Mattos.</span><br /><br /></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>A<br />
+<br />
+Abdul Medjid, Sultan of Turkey (1823-1861), on question of Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.<br />
+<br />
+d'Adelsward, in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ampère, Jean Jacques (1800-1864), character of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Andryane, in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Arago, Étienne, on the barricades, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Austria, her relations with Hungary and Russia, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tsar's views on, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Austrians, in Italy, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; submits to the influence of Russia, <a href="#Page_352">352</a> (<em><a href="#Footnote_23_23">foot-note</a></em>).<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and Piedmont, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; demands Hungarian refugees from Turkey, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+B<br />
+<br />
+Baden, revolution put down in, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville interferes on behalf of the rebels (<em><a href="#Footnote_19_19">foot-note</a></em>), <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Banquets, the, affair of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Banquet in Paris, forbidden by Government, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Rivet's statement in regard to, <a href="#Page_390">390</a><br />
+<br />
+Barbès, Armand (1810-1870), in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; goes to the Hôtel de Ville, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; impeached by the Assembly, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barricades, the, construction of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barrot, Camille Hyacinthe Odilon (1791-1873), alliance of, with Thiers, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; replies to Hébert in Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barrot, recoils from Banquet in Paris, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barrot, sent for by Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the Revolution, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and the barricades, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in Committee of Constitution, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; tries to form a new Cabinet, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; succeeds, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Beaumont, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his version of the abdication of Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bastide, gets the Assembly to appoint Cavaignac Military Dictator, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beaumont, Gustave de la Bonninière de (1802-1866), Tocqueville's conversation with, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; is sent for by Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; tells Tocqueville of abdication of Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; meets Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sent as Ambassador to Vienna, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; letter of Tocqueville to, on the Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his account of the abdication of Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beaumont, Madame de, notice of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bedeau, General Marie Alphonse (1804-1863), on the Place Louis XV, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; nearly killed in Insurrection, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Berlin, Persigny sent to, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Berryer, Pierre Antoine (1790-1868), his discussion with Tocqueville on the proposed Constitution, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>Billault, Auguste Adolphe Marie (1805-1863), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and banquets, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blanc, Jean Joseph Louis (1811-1882), in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blanqui, Louis Auguste (1805-1881), in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blanqui, Adolphe Jérôme (1798-1854), anecdote of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bloomfield, John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield, Lord (1802-1879),
+British Minister at St Petersburg, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; snubbed by Nesselrode, <em>idem</em>.<br />
+<br />
+Broglie, Achille Charles Léonce Victor Duc de (1785-1870), his seclusion, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and foreign affairs, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Buchez, Philippe Benjamin Joseph (1769-1865), in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bugeaud, Thomas Robert Marshal, Marquis de la Piconnerie, Duc d'Isly (1784-1849), in favour of the Duchesse d'Orléans, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; dying of cholera, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his ambition, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Buffel, Minister of Agriculture, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+C<br />
+<br />
+Cabinet, Members of the, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cavaignac, General Louis Eugène (1802-1857), in the Insurrection of June, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; made Military Dictator, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville votes for, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; speech of, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chamber of Deputies, the, state of in 1848, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville's speech in, on 27th January 1848, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Speeches in, by Hébert and Barrot, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; state of, on 22nd February, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; state of, on 23rd February, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Guizot in, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; state of, on 24th February, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville's estimate of its utility, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Duchesse d'Orléans in, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; invaded by the people, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chambers, one or two? debate on, in the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Changarnier, General Nicolas Anne Théodule (1793-1877), Rulhière's jealousy of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sent for, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; puts down insurrection, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Champeaux, his relation with Lamartine, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his relation with Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Charles X., King of France and Navarre (1757-1836), flight of, in 1830, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chateaubriand, François René, Vicomte de (1768-1848), death of, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Committee for the Constitution, appointed, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; proceedings of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Considérant, Victor, appointed on Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; escapes after insurrection, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Constituent Assembly, prohibits Government from attacking Rome, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Coquerel, Athanase Laurent Charles (1795-1875), in the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Corbon, on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Corcelles, with Lanjuinais and Tocqueville on the boulevards, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the Insurrection of June, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cormenin, Louis Marie de la Haye, Vicomte de (1788-1868), appointed a Commissioner for Paris, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Council General, the, meets at Saint-Lô, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Courtais, General, in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; impeached by Assembly, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Crémieux, Isaac Adolphe (1796-1880), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appointed a Commissioner for Paris, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; what Janvier said of him, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+D<br />
+<br />
+Degousée, in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dembinski, General Henry (1791-1864), flees to the Turks, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>Dornès, appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dufaure, Jules Armand Stanislas (1798-1881), Tocqueville's conversation with, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; tells Tocqueville of his interview with Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; converses with Tocqueville, Thiers, Barrot, Rémusat, and Lanjuinais, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; conduct of, in the Committee, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; made Minister of the Interior, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with the President, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; rupture with Falloux, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; speech in Assembly, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with the President, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and banquets, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his conduct on 24th February 1848, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Duchâtel, Charles Marie Tannequi, Comte (1803-1867), Minister of the Interior, character of and conversation with, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; want of tact in his speech on the banquets, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; flight of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dupin, André Marie Jean Jacques (1783-1865), speech of, in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Duvergier de Hauranne, Prosper (1798-1881), interview with, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Beaumont, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; refuses to compromise on the banquet, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.<br /><br />
+Duvivier, killed in Insurrection, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+E<br />
+<br />
+England, Tocqueville's estimate of the policy of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on question of Hungarian refugees in Turkey, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+F<br />
+<br />
+Falloux, Alfred Frédéric Pierre, Comte de (1811-1886), proposes the dissolution of the National Workshops, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Minister of Public Instruction, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; leader of majority in the Cabinet, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his influence with Louis Napoleon, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; intercourse with Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; rupture with Dufaure, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with the President, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the question of the Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Faucher, Léon (1803-1854), Minister of the Interior, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Feast of Concord, the, proposal to hold, and celebration of, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.<br />
+<br />
+France, state of, when Tocqueville becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Frederic William IV., King of Prussia (1795-1861), the Tsar's opinion of, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his character and his aims for Germany, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his coquetting with revolt, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; submits to the influence of Russia, <a href="#Page_352">352</a> (<em><a href="#Footnote_23_23">foot-note</a></em>).<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+G<br />
+<br />
+General Election, the, antecedents of, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; new, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Germany, state of, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Confederation of States in, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; views of Baron Pfordten in regard to, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; views of Tocqueville in regard to, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; views of Tsar in regard to, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Goudchaux, Michel (1797-1862), appointed a Commissioner for Paris, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his conduct in that capacity, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume (1787-1874), opinion of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; resigns Government, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; opinion of, on the Revolution, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; flight of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>H<br />
+<br />
+Havin, Léonor Joseph (1799-1868), chairs meeting for Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and Barrot, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hébert, Minister of Justice, character of and speech by, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord (1809-1885), Tocqueville breakfasts with, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Huber, in National Assembly, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hungary, revolting against Austria, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tsar's views on, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville's instructions concerning, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+I<br />
+<br />
+Insurrection of June, nature of narrative of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Italy, the Tsar's views on, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+K<br />
+<br />
+Kossuth, Louis (1802-1894), flees to the Turks, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+L<br />
+<br />
+Lacordaire, Jean Baptiste Henri Dominique (1802-1861), in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lacrosse, character of, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.<br />
+<br />
+La Fayette, Edmond de, and his life-preserver, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis Prat de (1790-1869), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; reads out the list of the Provisional Government, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; gets embarrassed in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his conduct and character, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville's relations with, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his connexion with Champeaux, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his speech in the Assembly, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his sudden departure from the Assembly, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; reappears in National Assembly, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lamartine, at the Feast of Concord, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; shot at in the Insurrection of June, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lamartine, Madame de, notice of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lamennais, Hugues Félicité Robert de (1782-1855), appointed on Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lamoricière, General Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de (1806-1865), character of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in Insurrection of June, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sent as Ambassador to Russia, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; letter about the Tsar of Russia, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; instructions of Tocqueville to, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; letter of, to Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; letter of Tocqueville to, on Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; conduct of, in regard to them, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lanjuinais, Victor Ambroise de (1802-1869), Tocqueville in company of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Tocqueville and Corcelles on the boulevards, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sits with Tocqueville in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; joins the Council, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the question of the Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste (1807-1874), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; has to escape from the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; demands the indictment of Louis Napoleon, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; escapes after the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Legitimists, views and condition of, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lepelletier d'Aunay, Tocqueville meets, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Louis Napoleon, Prince President of the French Republic (1808-1873), elected to the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; President of the Republic, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; orders the attack on Rome, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; attacked in Assembly, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; puts down Insurrection, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; intrigues with Thiers and Molé, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in connexion with Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>&mdash;&mdash; with Beaumont, Dufaure and Passy, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_322">2</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his general ignorance, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; wishes to take Savoy, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville and Berryer's discussion about the powers of, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Louis-Philippe, King of the French (1773-1850), Tocqueville's interview with, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his opinion of Lord Palmerston, <em>idem</em>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; of the Tsar Nicholas, <em>idem</em>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; refers to Queen Victoria, <em>idem</em>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; influence of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the Banquets, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Sallandrouze, conversation with, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sends for Molé, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sends for Beaumont, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; abdicates, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of, and of his Government, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; finally disappears from France, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Beaumont's account of abdication of, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lyons, insurrection in, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+M<br />
+<br />
+Manche, la, department of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; proceedings in election of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; election of Tocqueville for, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Marrast, Armand (1780-1852), and the Provisional Government, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; suggests costume for National Representatives, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; as Mayor of Paris, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; conduct of, in the Committee, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appointed Secretary of the Committee, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Martin, on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Middle Class, the, government of, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; despair of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Molé, Matthieu Louis, Comte (1781-1855), sent for by Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; declines office, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; opinion of, on the Revolution, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on General Election, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; elected to the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; refuses to take office, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; intrigues with the President, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on Foreign Affairs, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and abdication of Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Rivet and Dufaure, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Montagnards, the description of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; separation of, from the Socialists, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; crushed, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; strengthened at the new election, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; supporters of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; feelings towards the President, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Montalembert, Charles Forbes René, Comte de (1810-1870), opposes the Government scheme on railways, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Montpensier, Antoine d'Orléans, Duc de (1824-1890), at the abdication of Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+N<br />
+<br />
+National Assembly, the, meets on 4th of May, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; description of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Tocqueville's opinion of, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; speech of Lamartine in, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; invaded by the mob, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; breaks up, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; National Guards take possession of, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; addresses from provinces, in support of, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; agrees to pension families of men killed in putting down the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; threatened, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; state of the new Assembly, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br />
+<br />
+National Guard, the, invited by Radical party to the banquet in Paris, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the morning of the 24th February, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; shouting "Reform," <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Detachment of, in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; disappearance of, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; take possession of National Assembly, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; at Feast of Concord, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in Insurrection of June, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; shout "Long live the National Assembly," <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; eager to put down the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; wounded of, being carried away, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>&mdash;&mdash; surrounded, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; three regiments of, cashiered, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.<br />
+<br />
+National Workshops, the, create anxiety in the Assembly, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Falloux proposes dissolution of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; supply weapons to insurgents in June, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Négrier, killed in the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nemours, Louis Charles Philippe Raphael d'Orléans, Duc de (1814-1896), thought of as Regent, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and Barrot, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nesselrode, Charles Robert, Count (1780-1862), snubs Lord Palmerston, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nicholas I., Tsar of all the Russias (1796-1855), supports Austria against Hungary, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his general policy, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Lamoricière's letter about, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his family affection, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; the real support of his power, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; views of, on an United Germany, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; demands Hungarian refugees from Turkey, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his irritation about Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Normanby, Constantine Henry Phipps, Marquess of (1797-1863), Ambassador in Paris, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Novara, Battle of, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+O<br />
+<br />
+D'Orléans, Hélène, Duchesse (1814-1858), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and the abdication of Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; and Barrot, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Oudinot, General Nicolas Charles Victor, Duc de Reggio (1791-1863), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+P<br />
+<br />
+Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Viscount (1784-1865) on Piedmont and Austria, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; snubbed by Nesselrode, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Paris, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Comte de (1838-1894), in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Passy, character of, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with the President, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Paulmier, Tocqueville dines with, on the 22nd February, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Persigny, Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, Duc de (1808-1872), sent to Berlin and Vienna, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Piedmont and Austria, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Portalis, character of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Presidency, condition of, discussed in the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Provisional Government, the, proclaimed, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Lamartine reads list of, in the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appoints a costume for National Representatives, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; reports its proceedings to the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+R<br />
+<br />
+Radetzky, Field-Marshal Johann Joseph Wenzel Anton Franz Carl, Count (1766-1858), and Piedmont, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Radical Party, state of the, in January 1848, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Raspail, François Vincent (1794-1878), in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Revolutionaries, description of the, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rivet, his conversation with Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; consultation of, with Liberals, on the subject of the banquets, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; another conversation with Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Molé and Dufaure, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rome, the French Army at, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; difficulties about, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; secret order to the army to attack, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rulhière, character of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+S<br />
+<br />
+Saint-Lô, meeting of the Council General at, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sallandrouze de Lamornaix meets Tocqueville at dinner at Paulmier's, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; snubbed by Louis-Philippe, <em>idem</em>.<br />
+<br />
+Sand, George (1804-1876), Tocqueville's conversation with, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sauzet, President of the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>Savoy, Louis Napoleon wishes to seize, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Schwarzenberg, Felix Ludwig Johann Friedrich, Prince von (1808-1852), and Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sénard, President of the Assembly, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sicily, state of, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sobrier, in National Assembly, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Socialism, influence of theories of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Dufaure's conflict with, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Socialists, the, description of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; separation of, from Montagnards, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Switzerland, Tocqueville's correspondence with, on the subject of the refugees, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+T<br />
+<br />
+Talabot, and Thiers, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Thiers, Louis Adolphe (1797-1877), alliance of, with Barrot, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sent for by Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; wandering round Paris, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; opinion of, on the Revolution, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the General Election, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; defeated at the General Election, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; elected to the National Assembly, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; addresses Barrot, Dufaure, Rémusat, Lanjuinais and Tocqueville in private, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Lamoricière, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; refuses to take office, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with the President, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; intrigues with the President, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on foreign affairs, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; with Beaumont, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; advises Louis-Philippe to abdicate, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Barrot, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; refuses to compromise on the banquets, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tocqueville, Charles Alexis Henri Maurice Clérel de (1805-1859), his purpose in writing these memoirs, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his intercourse with Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his estimate of the state of France in January 1848, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; picture of the state of the Chamber of Deputies in 1847, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his speech in the Chamber of Deputies, 29th January 1848, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; remarks on this speech by Dufaure and others, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his position on the affair of the banquets, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his estimate of Duchâtel, Minister of the Interior, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his thoughts on the policy of the Radical party, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his knowledge of how the affair of the banquets passed into an insurrection, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his estimate of the selfishness of both sides, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; private conversation with Dufaure, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; private conversation with Beaumont, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; private conversation with Lanjuinais, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; hears of the firing in the streets on 24th February 1848, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sees preparations for barricades, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; meets a defeated party of National Guards on the boulevards, and hears shouts of "Reform," <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; reflections which this occasions, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; goes to Chamber of Deputies on 24th February, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; recognises Bedeau on his way, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; character of Bedeau and condition on that day, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appearance presented by the Chamber of Deputies, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sees the Duchesse d'Orléans and the Comte de Paris there, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; tries to get Lamartine to speak, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interest in the Duchess and her son, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; seeks to protect them, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; leaves the Chamber and meets Oudinot and Andryane, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; contradicts an assertion of Marshal Bugeaud, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; converses with Talabot about the movements of Thiers, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his reflections on the fate of the Monarchy, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; spends the evening with Ampère, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>&mdash;&mdash; goes to inquire about his nephews on the 25th February, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; walks about Paris in the afternoon, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; reflections on what he sees, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; keeps in retirement for some days, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; further reflections on the Revolution, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his own individual feelings and intentions, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; resolves to seek re-election, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; visits the Department of la Manche, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; makes Valognes his head-quarters, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; publishes his address to the electors, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; meets the electors at Valognes, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; addresses workmen at Cherbourg, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; goes to Saint-Lô to the General Council, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his reflections on a visit to Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; returns to Paris and finds himself elected, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his view of the state of politics and of Paris, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; National Assembly meets, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his opinion of the Montagnards, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his estimate of the Assembly, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his character of Lamartine, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his intercourse with Champeaux, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his observation of the popular mind, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Trétat, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; at the Feast of Concord, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; conversation with Carnot, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; anticipations of the Insurrection of June, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; conversation with Madame Sand, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sees barricades of the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; interview with Lamoricière, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; goes about Paris in time of insurrection, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; describes the Assembly, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; writes to his wife, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; protests against Paris being declared in a state of siege, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; elected a Commissioner for Paris, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; as such, walks through Paris, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his scene with his porter, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his scene with his man-servant, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the streets in the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on his way to the Hôtel de Ville, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his account of the Montagnards, Socialists, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his narrative of its proceedings, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the duality of the Chambers, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; on the conditions of the Presidency, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; re-elected for la Manche, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; leaves his wife ill at Bonn, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his opinion of the new Assembly, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Dufaure, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; ought he to enter the Ministry?, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; accepts the Foreign Office, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; intimacy with Lanjuinais, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his opinion of his colleagues, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his opinion of France and the Republic, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his opinion of Louis Napoleon, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; speech in Assembly on the Roman expedition, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his letters to and from Considérant, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his view of affairs after the Insurrection, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sends Lamoricière to Russia, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his difficulties with Falloux and Dufaure, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his advice to Louis Napoleon, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; sends Beaumont to Vienna, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his view of Foreign and Domestic Affairs when he became Foreign Minister, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his despatch to the French Minister in Bavaria (<em>foot-note</em>), <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his dealings with Switzerland about the refugees, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his observations on the Revolution in Germany, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his intervention between Austria and Piedmont, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interposition in support of Turkey on the Hungarian refugees question, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>&mdash;&mdash; his instruction to Lamoricière and Beaumont, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; narrative of Beaumont to, on the abdication, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; narrative of Barrot to, on the abdication, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Rivet and De Tocqueville's efforts to prevent Revolution, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; discussion of, with Berryer on the Constitution, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tocqueville, Madame de, <em>née</em> Mottley, her report of firing in Paris, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; taken ill at Bonn, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tocqueville, Manor of, Tocqueville visits, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tracy, character of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Trétat, and Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Turkey, refuses to surrender the Hungarian refugees, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+V<br />
+<br />
+Valognes, town of, head-quarters in Tocqueville's election, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Valognes, Tocqueville at, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vaulabelle, appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Victor Emmanuel II., King of Piedmont (1820-1878), ascends the throne on the abdication of Charles Albert, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vieillard speaks at the meeting for the election of Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vienna, Beaumont sent as Ambassador to, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; Persigny sent to, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vivien appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; in the Committee of Constitution, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+W<br />
+<br />
+Wolowski, Louis (1810-1876), in the National Assembly on 15th May, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span></p>
+PRINTED BY<br />
+TURNBULL AND SPEARS<br />
+EDINBURGH<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ANNOUNCEMENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span></p>
+<h3>INDEX OF AUTHORS</h3>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="float:right;">PAGE</span><br />
+<br />
+Abbott, Angus Evan, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Alison, William, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Basile, Giovanni Battista, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bate, Francis, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Beerbohm, Max, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Burton, Sir Richard, K.C.M.G., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Cobban, J. MacLaren, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Common, Thomas, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Connell, F. Norreys, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Creswick, Paul, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dearmer, Mrs Percy, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dobson, Austin, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Donovan, Major C.H.W., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dowson, Ernest, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Farrar, Evelyn L., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Farrar, Very Rev. Dean F.W., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Field, Michael, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Garnett, Dr Richard, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gosse, Edmund, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gray, John, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Guiffrey, Jules J., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Haussmann, William A., Ph.D., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Herrick, Robert, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hobbes, John Oliver, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Housman, Lawrence, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hoytema, Th. van, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Image, Selwyn, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Jepson, Edgar, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Johnson, Lionel, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Jones, Alfred, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Langley, Hugh, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Le Gallienne, Richard, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+MacColl, D.S., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Maeterlinck, Maurice, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mann, Mary E., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Marriott Watson, Rosamond, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Molesworth, Mrs., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Moore, T. Sturge, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Muther, Richard, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Nietzsche, Friedrich, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Oudinot, Maréchale, Duchesse de Reggio, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Pain, Barry, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Plarr, Victor, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Powell, F. York, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Purcell, Edward, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Ricketts, Charles, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rubens, Paul, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Ruvigny et Raineval, Marquis de, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Scull, W. Delaplaine, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Shannon, Charles Hazelwood, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Spalding, Thomas Alfred, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stiegler, Gaston, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Strange, E.F., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Strange, Captain H.B., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Tille, Alexander, Ph.D., <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Comte, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Volz, Johanna, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+White, Gleeson, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Widdrington, George, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wood, Starr, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Zimmern, Helen, <span style="float:right;"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ANNOUNCEMENTS<br /></h2>
+
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">MEMOIRS OF MARSHAL OUDINOT, DUC DE REGGIO.</span> Compiled from the hitherto unpublished
+Souvenirs of the <span class="smcap">Duchesse de Reggio</span> by <span class="smcap">Gaston Stiegler</span>,
+and translated by <span class="smcap">Alexander Teixeira de Mattos</span>. With
+Two Portraits in Heliogravure. <em>Demy 8vo, crimson cloth extra,
+in a cover adorned with the Marshal's arms, gilt top, 17s. net;
+10 copies on Japanese vellum, £3, 3s. net.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK.</span> By <span class="smcap">Jules J. Guiffrey</span>. Translated from the
+French by <span class="smcap">William Alison</span>. One Vol. folio. With Nineteen
+Etchings of Paintings (now etched for the first time), Eight
+Heliogravures, and upwards of One Hundred Illustrations in the
+Text. <em>Folio, grey buckram extra, adorned with the painter's
+arms. Edition limited to 250 copies, numbered, £4, 4s. net;
+10 copies on Japanese vellum, £12, 12s. net.</em> (<em>Only two copies
+remain unsold.</em>)</p>
+
+<p>"A truly sumptuous and imposing volume."&mdash;<em>Globe.</em></p>
+
+<p>"A great book on a great painter."&mdash;<em>St James's Gazette.</em><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING.</span> By <span class="smcap">Richard Muther</span>, Professor of Art History at the University
+of Breslau, Late Keeper of the Royal Collection of Prints and
+Engravings at Munich. 2304 pages. Over 1300 Illustrations.
+<em>Three Volumes imperial 8vo, dark blue cloth extra, with a cover
+design by</em> <span class="smcap">Howard Stringer</span>, <em>gilt top and lettering, other edges
+uncut, £2, 15s. net; Library Edition, green half morocco, gilt top,
+£3, 15s. net. This work is also published in 36 Parts at 1s. net,
+or in 16 Parts at 2s. 6d. net.</em></p>
+
+<p>"There need be no hesitation in pronouncing this work of Muther the most
+authoritative that exists on the subject, the most complete, the best informed of all
+the general histories of Modern Art."&mdash;<em>Times</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Not only the best, but the only history of Modern Painting which has any
+pretension to cover the whole ground."&mdash;<em>Times</em> (<em>second notice</em>).</p>
+
+<p>"A monumental work ... of cyclopædic value.... This author is distinctly
+cheering. He has no slavish and indiscriminate admiration for the old masters,
+and his enthusiasm and his hopes are with the art of his time.... There are
+many illustrations, a copious bibliography, and a good index.... It is incomparably
+the best work of its kind; in some respects, the only one of its kind."&mdash;<em>Daily
+News</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"A history as crowded and as stirring as a novel."&mdash;<em>Saturday Review</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"A great book on a great subject."&mdash;<em>Graphic</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Not merely readable, but at times fascinating.... The book, although not
+an exhaustive record, is indispensable for one's shelves of reference, and worth
+careful reading."&mdash;<em>Studio</em>.<br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span></p>
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE PAGEANT, 1897.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">Charles
+Hazelwood Shannon</span> and <span class="smcap">Gleeson White</span>. With Twenty-six
+Full-Page Illustrations (including a Woodcut in Four Colours
+and Gold) and Ten Illustrations in the Text. <em>Crown 4to, chocolate
+cloth extra, with a cover design by</em> <span class="smcap">Charles Ricketts</span>, <em>and a
+coloured wrapper by</em> <span class="smcap">Gleeson White</span>, <em>6s. net; Large Paper
+Edition (limited to 150 copies), £1, 5s. net. These copies contain
+a special reproduction in photogravure of Rossetti's</em> "Hamlet and
+Ophelia."<br />
+<br />
+<em>Contributions in Art by</em>&mdash;<br />
+<span class="smcap">Sir Edward Burne-Jones</span>, <span class="smcap">George Frederick Watts</span>, <span class="smcap">R.A.,
+Puvis de Chavannes</span>, <span class="smcap">Gustave Moreau</span>, <span class="smcap">Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti</span>, <span class="smcap">Reginald Savage</span>, <span class="smcap">Charles Hazelwood Shannon</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Charles Ricketts</span>, <span class="smcap">Laurence Housman</span>, <span class="smcap">Charles
+Conder</span>, <span class="smcap">Walter Crane</span>, <span class="smcap">Will Rothenstein</span>, <span class="smcap">William
+Strang</span>, <span class="smcap">Lucien Pissarro</span>.<br />
+<br />
+<em>Contributions in Literature by</em>&mdash;<br />
+<span class="smcap">Austin Dobson</span>, <span class="smcap">Villiers de L'Isle-Adam</span>, <span class="smcap">Edmund
+Gosse</span>, Mrs <span class="smcap">Marriott Watson</span>, <span class="smcap">Lionel Johnson</span>, <span class="smcap">D.S.
+MacColl</span>, <span class="smcap">F. York Powell</span>, <span class="smcap">Victor Plarr</span>, <span class="smcap">Gleeson
+White</span>, <span class="smcap">Michael Field</span>, <span class="smcap">Angus Evan Abbott</span>, <span class="smcap">Charles
+Ricketts</span>, <span class="smcap">John Gray</span>, <span class="smcap">W. Delaplaine Scull</span>, <span class="smcap">Maurice
+Maeterlinck</span>, Dr <span class="smcap">Richard Garnett</span>, <span class="smcap">T. Sturge Moore</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Edward Purcell</span>, <span class="smcap">Selwyn Image</span>, <span class="smcap">Max Beerbohm</span>, <span class="smcap">Ernest
+Dowson</span>.<br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE PAGEANT, 1896.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">C.H.
+Shannon</span> and <span class="smcap">Gleeson White</span>. <em>Ordinary Edition, 6s. net.
+Large Paper Edition, 150 Copies only. The price of the few that
+remain for sale has been raised to £1, 5s. net.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE PARADE, 1897.</span> A Gift-Book for Boys
+and Girls. Edited by <span class="smcap">Gleeson White</span>. With 35 Full-Page
+Illustrations; 3 Coloured Plates; 10 Head-and Tail-Pieces;
+Illustrated Initials, Devices, &amp;c. <em>Crown 4to, scarlet cloth extra,
+with a Cover designed by</em> <span class="smcap">Paul Woodroffe</span>, <em>coloured edges,
+6s. net.</em><br /><br />
+
+<em>Contributions in Literature by</em>&mdash;<br />
+<span class="smcap">John Oliver Hobbes</span>, Mrs <span class="smcap">Molesworth</span>, <span class="smcap">Laurence
+Housman</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">Richard Burton</span>, <span class="smcap">Alfred Jones</span>, <span class="smcap">E.F.
+Strange</span>, <span class="smcap">Edgar Jepson</span>, <span class="smcap">Barry Pain</span>, Mrs <span class="smcap">Mary E. Mann</span>,
+<span class="smcap">F. Norreys Connell</span>, <span class="smcap">Paul Creswick</span>, Captain <span class="smcap">H.B.
+Strange</span>, <span class="smcap">Robert Herrick</span>, Mrs <span class="smcap">Percy Dearmer</span>, <span class="smcap">Max
+Beerbohm</span>, <span class="smcap">Richard Le Gallienne</span>, <span class="smcap">Paul Rubens</span>, <span class="smcap">Victor
+Plarr</span>, <span class="smcap">Starr Wood</span>, <span class="smcap">Francis Bate</span>.<br />
+<br />
+<em>Contributions in Art by</em>&mdash;<br />
+<span class="smcap">Paul Woodroffe</span>, <span class="smcap">Aubrey Beardsley</span>, <span class="smcap">Alan Wright</span>,
+Miss <span class="smcap">de Montmorency</span>, <span class="smcap">W.J. Overnell</span>, <span class="smcap">Harold Nelson</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Leslie Brooke</span>, <span class="smcap">Laurence Housman</span>, <span class="smcap">Alfred Jones</span>, <span class="smcap">Leon
+Solon</span>, <span class="smcap">A.A. van Anrooy</span>, <span class="smcap">G.A. Gordon</span>, <span class="smcap">Starr Wood</span>, Mrs
+<span class="smcap">Percy Dearmer</span>, <span class="smcap">Max Beerbohm</span>, <span class="smcap">Charles Robinson</span>, <span class="smcap">Nico
+Jungman</span>, Miss <span class="smcap">Milne</span>, <span class="smcap">William Shackleton</span>, <span class="smcap">Henry Teixeira de Mattos</span>.<br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span></p>
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">IL PENTAMERONE; OR, THE TALE OF
+TALES.</span> Being a Translation by the Late Sir <span class="smcap">Richard
+Burton</span>, K.C.M.G., of "Il Pentamerone; overo lo Cunto de
+li Cunte, trattenemiento de li peccerille," of <span class="smcap">Giovanni Battista
+Basile</span>, Count of Torone (Gian Alessio Abbattutis). <em>Two volumes,
+demy 8vo, black cloth gilt, £3, 3s. net. Large Paper
+Edition, on hand-made paper (limited to 150 copies), royal 8vo,
+black cloth gilt, £5, 5s. net.</em></p>
+
+<p>This is the only unabridged and unexpurgated edition of "Il Pentamerone" in
+the English language.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH
+NIETZSCHE.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">Alexander Tille, Ph.D.</span>, Lecturer
+at the University of Glasgow. Sole Authorized English
+and American Edition; issued under the supervision of the
+"Nietzsche Archiv" at Naumburg. <em>Eleven Volumes, medium
+8vo, dark blue buckram extra, with a cover design by</em> <span class="smcap">Gleeson
+White</span>, <em>£5, 19s. 6d. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+
+<em>The following Volumes are ready</em>:<br /><br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Vol. XI.</span> The Case of <span class="smcap">Wagner</span>; <span class="smcap">Nietzsche Contra
+Wagner</span>; <span class="smcap">The Twilight of the Idols</span>;
+<span class="smcap">The Antichrist</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Thomas
+Common</span>. <em>10s. 6d. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Vol. VIII.</span> <span class="smcap">Thus Spake Zarathustra.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Alexander
+Tille</span>, Ph.D. <em>17s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Vol. X.</span> <span class="smcap">A Genealogy of Morals.</span> Translated by
+<span class="smcap">William A. Haussmann</span>, Ph.D. <span class="smcap">Poems.</span>
+Translated by <span class="smcap">John Gray</span>. <em>8s. 6d. net.</em><br /><br />
+
+<em>The following will appear successively within two or three years</em>:<br /><br />
+
+Vol. IX. <span class="smcap">Beyond Good and Evil.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Helen
+Zimmern</span>. <em>10s. 6d. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. VI. <span class="smcap">Dawn of the Day.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Johanna Volz</span>.
+<em>13s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. IV. <span class="smcap">Human, All-too-human, I.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Helen
+Zimmern</span>. <em>13s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. V. <span class="smcap">Human, All-too-human, II.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Helen
+Zimmern</span>. <em>13s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. VII. <span class="smcap">Joyful Science.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Thomas Common</span>.
+Poems Translated by <span class="smcap">John Gray</span>. <em>13s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. II. <span class="smcap">Inopportune Contemplations</span>, I. and II. Translated
+by <span class="smcap">Johanna Volz</span>. <em>7s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. III. <span class="smcap">Inopportune Contemplations</span>, III. and IV.
+Translated by <span class="smcap">Johanna Volz</span>. <em>7s. net.</em><br />
+<br />
+Vol. I. <span class="smcap">The Birth of Tragedy.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">William
+A. HAUSSMANN</span>, Ph.D. <em>7s. net.</em><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Nietzsche is worse than shocking; he is simply awful: his epigrams
+are written with phosphorus or brimstone. The only excuse for
+reading him is that before long you must be prepared either to talk
+about Nietzsche, or else retire from society, especially from
+aristocratically minded society.... His sallies, petulant and
+impossible as some of them are, are the work of a rare spirit, and
+pregnant with its vitality."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mr George Bernard Shaw</span> in the
+<em>Saturday Review</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Lurking behind the intellectual movements of Europe in philosophy
+as in everything else, England is just now beginning to hear of the
+existence of Friedrich Nietzsche."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mr Ernest Newman</span> in the <em>Free
+Review</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Nietzsche is, without doubt, an extraordinarily interesting figure
+... the greatest spiritual force which has appeared since
+Goethe."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mr Havelock Ellis</span> in the <em>Savoy</em>.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span></p>
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">FEDERATION AND EMPIRE:</span> A Study in
+Politics. By <span class="smcap">Thomas Alfred Spalding</span>, LL.B., Author of
+"The House of Lords: a Retrospect and a Forecast," "Elizabethan
+Demonology," &amp;c. <em>Demy 8vo, dark blue buckram extra, 10s. 6d. net.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">WITH WILSON IN MATABELELAND;</span>
+<span class="smcap">Or, Sport and War in Zambesia.</span> By <span class="smcap">Major G.H.W.
+Donovan</span> (of the Army Service Corps). With a Map and
+Numerous Illustrations from Photographs. <em>Demy 8vo, dark blue
+cloth extra, 18s.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE LEGITIMIST KALENDAR FOR 1895.</span>
+Edited by the <span class="smcap">Marquis de Ruvigny</span> and <span class="smcap">Raineval</span>. With
+8 Genealogical Tables and a Portrait of the King and Queen of
+Spain, France, and Navarre. <em>Crown 8vo, white art linen,
+limited to 500 copies, 5s. net.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p>"A real curiosity."&mdash;<em>Review of Reviews</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just possible that the volume may one day obtain a success of curiosity,
+and be eagerly sought after by collectors of odd books."&mdash;<em>Athenæum</em>.<br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">STORIES FROM THE BIBLE.</span> By <span class="smcap">Evelyn
+L. Farrar</span>. With an Introductory Chapter on the Unspeakable
+Value of Early Lessons in Scripture, by her Father, the Very
+Rev. <span class="smcap">F.W. Farrar</span>, D.D., Dean of Canterbury; and Twelve Illustrations,
+printed in colour, and a Cover Design, by <span class="smcap">Reginald
+Hallward</span>. <em>Crown 4to, dark green cloth extra, 3s. 6d.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE HAPPY OWLS.</span> Told, Drawn, and
+Lithographed by <span class="smcap">T. Van Hoytema</span>. Containing Twenty Pictures
+in four colours, drawn on the stone by the Artist. <em>Crown 4to,
+picture boards, 2s. 6d.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE PASSION FOR ROMANCE.</span> By <span class="smcap">Edgar
+Jepson</span>, Author of "Sybil Falcon." <em>Large crown 8vo, gold
+art canvas, 6s.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE TIDES EBB OUT TO THE NIGHT.</span>
+Being the Journal of a Young Man, Basil Brooke. Edited
+by his Friend, <span class="smcap">Hugh Langley</span>. <em>Large crown 8vo, crimson
+art canvas, 6s.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">LADY LEVALLION.</span> By <span class="smcap">George Widdrington</span>.
+<em>Crown 8vo, heliotrope cloth elegant, 5s.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">WHEN ARNOLD COMES HOME.</span> By <span class="smcap">Mary
+E. Mann</span>, Author of "Susannah." With a Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">Alan
+Wright</span>. <em>Crown 8vo, blue cloth elegant, 3s. 6d.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THE TYRANTS OF KOOL-SIM.</span> By <span class="smcap">J.
+MacLaren Cobban</span>, Author of "The Red Sultan." New and
+Cheaper Edition. With a Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">Alan Wright</span>.
+<em>Crown 8vo, brown and scarlet cloth extra, 3s. 6d.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent"><span style="font-size: 125%;">THERE WAS ONCE A PRINCE.</span> By <span class="smcap">Mary
+E. Mann</span>, Author of "When Arnold Comes Home." New and
+Cheaper Edition. With a Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">Alan Wright</span>.
+<em>Crown 8vo, blue cloth, 3s. 6d.</em><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><br /><span class="smcap">London: H. HENRY &amp; CO., Ltd.</span>, 93 St Martin's Lane, W.C.</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="notes"><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+
+<p>Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected. Questionable, vintage
+and British spellings have been left as printed in the original
+publication. Variations in spelling have been left as printed, unless
+otherwise noted in the following.</p>
+
+<p>Footnotes in the original text were marked at the page level, beginning
+at footnote 1 each time footnotes appeared on a page. Footnote numbers
+for the whole text have been replaced with sequential footnote numbers,
+from 1 to 36.</p>
+
+<p>Pages 260, 376 and 398 in the original publication are blank pages. The page numbers
+have been omitted in this transcription.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in the use of "St" and "St." as an abbreviation for
+"Saint" have been normalized in this transcription to "St".</p>
+
+<p>Page 238: Transcribed "likes" as "like". As originally printed: "likes
+the <em>roués</em> of the Regency".</p>
+
+<p>Page 343 (footnote 19): The concluding sentence in a quoted letter by
+the author ends with a question mark in the original publication, a
+likely typesetting error for a period at the end of the sentence which
+would agree with the context. The punctuation has been left as printed
+in the original publication.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
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+
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+Tocqueville, by Alexis De Tocqueville
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, by
+Alexis De Tocqueville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville
+
+Author: Alexis De Tocqueville
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira De Mattos
+
+Release Date: October 31, 2011 [EBook #37892]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECOLLECTIONS OF ALEXIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gary Rees and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Words and phrases appearing in italics in the
+original publication have been delimited with underscore characters in
+this transcription. Additional notes appear at the end of this text.]
+
+
+
+
+ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Alexis de Tocqueville]
+
+
+
+
+THE RECOLLECTIONS OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
+
+EDITED BY THE COMTE DE TOCQUEVILLE AND NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO
+ENGLISH BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
+
+
+WITH A PORTRAIT IN HELIOGRAVURE
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ THE MACMILLAN CO.
+ 1896
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+ "C'est tousiours plaisir de veoir les choses escriptes par ceulx
+ qui ont essaye comme il les faut conduire."
+ MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+Alexis de Tocqueville made his entrance in political life in 1839.[1] At
+the outbreak of the Revolution of February he was in the prime of his
+age and in the maturity of his talent. He threw himself into the
+struggle, resolving to devote himself to the interests of the country
+and of society, and he was one of the first among those whole-hearted,
+single-minded men who endeavoured to keep the Republic within a wise and
+moderate course by steering clear of the two-fold perils of Caesarism on
+the one hand and revolution on the other. A dangerous and thankless
+enterprise, of which the difficulties were never hidden from a mind so
+clear-sighted as his, and of which he soon foresaw the ephemeral
+duration.
+
+ [1: At the age of 34. Alexis Clerel de Tocqueville was born in
+ 1805 at Verneuil. His father was the Comte de Tocqueville, who was
+ made a peer of France and a prefect under the Restoration; his
+ mother, _nee_ Mlle. de Rosambo, was a grand-daughter of
+ Malesherbes. Alexis de Tocqueville was appointed an assistant
+ judge, and in 1831 was sent to America, in company with G. de
+ Beaumont to study the penal system in that continent. On his
+ return he published a treatise on this subject; and in 1835
+ appeared his great work on American Democracy, which secured his
+ election to the Academy of Moral Science in 1839 and to the French
+ Academy in 1841. Two years earlier he had been sent to the Chamber
+ as deputy for the arrondissement of Valognes in Normandy, in which
+ the paternal property of Tocqueville was situated; and this seat
+ he retained until his withdrawal from political life. He died in
+ 1859.--A.T. de M.]
+
+After the fall of his short-lived ministry, which had been filled with
+so many cares and such violent agitation, thinking himself removed for a
+time (it was to be for ever) from the conduct of public affairs, he went
+first to Normandy and then to Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples, in search
+of the peace and repose of which he stood in need. The intellect,
+however, but rarely shows itself the docile slave of the will, and his,
+to which idleness was a cause of real suffering, immediately set about
+to seek an object worthy of its attention. This was soon found in the
+great drama of the French Revolution, which attracted him irresistibly,
+and which was destined to form the subject-matter of his most perfect
+work.
+
+It was at this time, while Alexis de Tocqueville was also preoccupied by
+the daily increasing gravity of the political situation at home, that he
+wrote the Recollections now first published. These consisted of mere
+notes jotted down at intervals on odds and ends of paper; and it was not
+until the close of his life that, yielding to the persuasions of his
+intimates, he gave a reluctant consent to their publication. He took a
+certain pleasure in thus retracing and, as it were, re-enacting the
+events in which he had taken part, the character of which seemed the
+more transient, and the more important to establish definitely, inasmuch
+as other events came crowding on, precipitating the crisis and altering
+the aspect of affairs. Thus those travellers who, steering their
+adventurous course through a series of dangerous reefs, alight upon a
+wild and rugged island, where they disembark and live for some days, and
+when about to depart for ever from its shores, throw back upon it a long
+and melancholy gaze before it sinks from their eyes in the immensity of
+the waves. Already the Assembly had lost its independence; the reign of
+constitutional liberty, under which France had lived for thirty-three
+years, was giving way; and, in the words of the famous phrase, "The
+Empire was a fact."
+
+We are to-day well able to judge the period described in these
+Recollections, a period which seems still further removed from us by the
+revolutions, the wars, and even the misfortunes which the country has
+since undergone, and which now only appears to us in that subdued light
+which throws the principal outlines into especial relief, while
+permitting the more observant and penetrating eye to discover also the
+secondary features. Living close enough to those times to receive
+evidence from the lips of survivors, and not so close but that all
+passion has become appeased and all rancour extinguished, we should be
+in a position to lack neither light nor impartiality. As witness, for
+instance, the impression retained by us of the figure of Ledru-Rollin,
+which nevertheless terrified our fathers. We live in a generation which
+has beheld Raoul, Rigault and Delescluze at work. The theories of Louis
+Blanc and Considerant arouse no feeling of astonishment in these days,
+when their ideas have become current coin, and when the majority of
+politicians feel called upon to adopt the badge of some socialism or
+other, whether we call it Christian, State, or revolutionary socialism.
+Cormenin, Marrast and Lamartine belong to history as much as do Sieyes,
+Petion or Mirabeau; and we are able to judge as freely of the men and
+the events of 1848 as of those of 1830 or 1789.
+
+Alexis de Tocqueville had the rare merit of being able to forestall this
+verdict of posterity; and if we endeavour to discover the secret of this
+prescience, of the loftiness of sight with which he was so specially
+gifted, we shall find that, belonging to no party, he remained above all
+parties; that, depending upon no leader, he kept his hands free; and
+that, possessed of no vulgar ambition, he reserved his energies for the
+noble aim which he had in view--the triumph of liberty and of the
+dignity of man.
+
+Interest will doubtless be taken in the account contained in these
+Recollections of the revolutionary period, written by one of the
+best-informed of its witnesses, and in the ebbs and flows of the
+short-lived ministry which was conducted with so much talent and
+integrity. But what will be especially welcome is the broad views taken
+by this great mind of our collective history; his profound reflections
+upon the future of the country and of society; the firm and
+conscientious opinions which he expresses upon his contemporaries; and
+the portraits drawn by a master hand, always striking and always alive.
+When reading this private record, which has been neither revised nor
+corrected by its author, we seem to approach more closely to the
+sentiments, the desires, the aspirations, I was almost saying the dreams
+of this rare mind, this great heart so ardently pursuing the chimera of
+absolute good that nothing in men or institutions could succeed in
+satisfying it.
+
+Years passed, and the Empire foundered amid terrible disaster. Alexis de
+Tocqueville was no more; and we may say that this proved at that time an
+irreparable loss to his country. Who knows what part he might have been
+called upon to play, what influence he could have brought to bear to
+unmask the guilty intrigues and baffle the mean ambitions under whose
+load, after the lapse of more than twenty years, we are still
+staggering? Enlightened by his harsh experience of 1848, would he have
+once again tried the experiment, which can never be more than an eternal
+stop-gap, of governing the Republic with the support of the Monarchists?
+Or rather, persuaded as he was that "the republican form of government
+is not the best suited to the needs of France," that this "government
+without stability always promises more, but gives less, liberty than a
+Constitutional Monarchy," would he not have appealed to the latter to
+protect the liberty so dear to him? One thing is certain, that he would
+never have "subordinated to the necessity of maintaining his position
+that of remaining true to himself."
+
+We have thought that the present generation, which so rarely has the
+opportunity of beholding a man of character, would take pleasure in
+becoming acquainted with this great and stately figure; in spending some
+short moments in those lofty regions, in which it may learn a powerful
+lesson and find an example of public life in its noblest form, ever
+faithful to its early aspirations, ever filled with two great ideas: the
+cult of honour and the passion of liberty.
+
+COMTE DE TOCQUEVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+
+ PART THE FIRST
+
+
+ CHAPTER I PAGE
+
+ Origin and Character of these Recollections--General aspect of
+ the period preceding the Revolution of 1848--Preliminary
+ symptoms of the Revolution 3
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ The Banquets--Sense of security entertained by the
+ Government--Anxiety of Leaders of the
+ Opposition--Arraignment of Ministers 19
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ Troubles of the 22nd of February--The Sitting of the 23rd--The
+ New Ministry--Opinions of M. Dufaure and M. de Beaumont 33
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ The 24th of February--The Ministers' Plan of Resistance--The
+ National Guard--General Bedeau 44
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ The Sitting of the Chamber--Madame la Duchesse D'Orleans--The
+ Provisional Government 56
+
+
+ PART THE SECOND
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ My Explanation of the 24th of February, and my views as to its
+ effects upon the future 79
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ Paris on the morrow of the 24th of February and the next
+ days--The socialistic character of the New Revolution 90
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ Vacillation of the Members of the Old Parliament as to the
+ attitude they should adopt--My own reflections on my mode
+ of action, and my resolves 102
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ My candidature of the department of la Manche--The aspect of
+ the country--The General Election 114
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ The First Sitting of the Constituent Assembly--The appearance
+ of this Assembly 129
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ My relations with Lamartine--His Subterfuges 145
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ The 15th of May 1848 156
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ The Feast of Concord and the preparations for the Days of June 174
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ The Days of June 187
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ The Days of June--(_continued_) 215
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ The Committee for the Constitution 233
+
+
+ PART THE THIRD
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ My return to France--Formation of the Cabinet 263
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ Aspect of the Cabinet--Its first Acts until after the
+ insurrectionary attempts of the 13th of June 278
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ Our domestic policy--Internal quarrels in the Cabinet--Its
+ difficulties in its relations with the Majority and the
+ President 301
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ Foreign Affairs 325
+
+
+ APPENDIX
+
+
+ I
+
+ Gustave de Beaumont's version of the 24th of February 379
+
+ II
+
+ Barrot's version of the 24th of February (_10 October 1850_) 385
+
+ III
+
+ Some incidents of the 24th of February 1848 389
+
+ 1
+
+ M. Dufaure's efforts to prevent the Revolution of
+ February--Responsibility of M. Thiers, which renders
+ them futile 389
+
+ 2
+
+ Dufaure's conduct on the 24th of February 1848 392
+
+ IV
+
+ My conversation with Berryer, on the 21st of June, at an
+ appointment which I had given him at my house. We were
+ both Members of the Committee for the revision of the
+ Constitution 394
+
+
+ INDEX 399
+
+
+
+
+PART THE FIRST
+
+ _Written in July 1850, at Tocqueville._
+
+
+
+
+ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THESE RECOLLECTIONS--GENERAL ASPECT OF THE
+ PERIOD PRECEDING THE REVOLUTION OF 1848--PRELIMINARY SYMPTOMS OF
+ THE REVOLUTION.
+
+
+Removed for a time from the scene of public life, I am constrained, in
+the midst of my solitude, to turn my thoughts upon myself, or rather to
+reflect upon contemporary events in which I have taken part or acted as
+a witness. And it seems to me that the best use I can make of my leisure
+is to retrace these events, to portray the men who took part in them
+under my eyes, and thus to seize and engrave, if I can, upon my memory
+the confused features which compose the disturbed physiognomy of my
+time.
+
+In taking this resolve I have taken another, to which I shall be no less
+true: these recollections shall be a relaxation of the mind rather than
+a contribution to literature. I write them for myself alone. They shall
+be a mirror in which I will amuse myself in contemplating my
+contemporaries and myself; not a picture painted for the public. My most
+intimate friends shall not see them, for I wish to retain the liberty of
+depicting them as I shall depict myself, without flattery. I wish to
+arrive truly at the secret motives which have caused them, and me, and
+others to act; and, when discovered, to reveal them here. In a word, I
+wish this expression of my recollections to be a sincere one; and to
+effect this, it is essential that it should remain absolutely secret.
+
+I intend that my recollections shall not go farther back than the
+Revolution of 1848, nor extend to a later date than the 30th of October
+1849, the day upon which I resigned my office. It is only within these
+limits that the events which I propose to relate have any importance, or
+that my position has enabled me to observe them well.
+
+My life was passed, although in a comparatively secluded fashion, in the
+midst of the parliamentary world of the closing years of the Monarchy of
+July. Nevertheless, it would be no easy task for me to recall distinctly
+the events of a period so little removed from the present, and yet
+leaving so confused a trace in my memory. The thread of my recollections
+is lost amid the whirl of minor incidents, of paltry ideas, of petty
+passions, of personal views and contradictory opinions in which the life
+of public men was at that time spent. All that remains vivid in my mind
+is the general aspect of the period; for I often regarded it with a
+curiosity mingled with dread, and I clearly discerned the special
+features by which it was characterized.
+
+Our history from 1789 to 1830, if viewed from a distance and as a whole,
+affords as it were the picture of a struggle to the death between the
+Ancien Regime, its traditions, memories, hopes, and men, as represented
+by the aristocracy, and New France under the leadership of the middle
+class. The year 1830 closed the first period of our revolutions, or
+rather of our revolution: for there is but one, which has remained
+always the same in the face of varying fortunes, of which our fathers
+witnessed the commencement, and of which we, in all probability, shall
+not live to behold the end. In 1830 the triumph of the middle class had
+been definite and so thorough that all political power, every franchise,
+every prerogative, and the whole government was confined and, as it
+were, heaped up within the narrow limits of this one class, to the
+statutory exclusion of all beneath them and the actual exclusion of all
+above. Not only did it thus alone rule society, but it may be said to
+have formed it. It ensconced itself in every vacant place, prodigiously
+augmented the number of places, and accustomed itself to live almost as
+much upon the Treasury as upon its own industry.
+
+No sooner had the Revolution of 1830 become an accomplished fact, than
+there ensued a great lull in political passion, a sort of general
+subsidence, accompanied by a rapid increase in the public wealth. The
+particular spirit of the middle class became the general spirit of the
+government; it ruled the latter's foreign policy as well as affairs at
+home: an active, industrious spirit, often dishonourable, generally
+sober, occasionally reckless through vanity or egoism, but timid by
+temperament, moderate in all things, except in its love of ease and
+comfort, and wholly undistinguished. It was a spirit which, mingled with
+that of the people or of the aristocracy, can do wonders; but which, by
+itself, will never produce more than a government shorn of both virtue
+and greatness. Master of everything in a manner that no aristocracy had
+ever been or may ever hope to be, the middle class, when called upon to
+assume the government, took it up as a trade; it entrenched itself
+behind its power, and before long, in their egoism, each of its members
+thought much more of his private business than of public affairs, and of
+his personal enjoyment than of the greatness of the nation.
+
+Posterity, which sees none but the more dazzling crimes, and which loses
+sight, in general, of mere vices, will never, perhaps, know to what
+extent the government of that day, towards its close, assumed the ways
+of a trading company, which conducts all its transactions with a view to
+the profits accruing to the shareholders. These vices were due to the
+natural instincts of the dominant class, to the absoluteness of its
+power, and also to the character of the time. Possibly also King
+Louis-Philippe had contributed to their growth.
+
+This Prince was a singular medley of qualities, and one must have known
+him longer and more nearly than I did to be able to portray him in
+detail.
+
+Nevertheless, although I was never one of his Council, I have frequently
+had occasion to come into contact with him. The last time that I spoke
+to him was shortly before the catastrophe of February. I was then
+director of the Academie Francaise, and I had to bring to the King's
+notice some matter or other which concerned that body. After treating
+the question which had brought me, I was about to retire, when the King
+detained me, took a chair, motioned me to another, and said, affably:
+
+"Since you are here, Monsieur de Tocqueville, let us talk; I want to
+hear you talk a little about America."
+
+I knew him well enough to know that this meant: I shall talk about
+America myself. And he did actually talk of it at great length and very
+searchingly: it was not possible for me, nor did I desire, to get in a
+word, for he really interested me. He described places as though he saw
+them before him; he recalled the distinguished men whom he had met forty
+years ago as though he had seen them the day before; he mentioned their
+names in full, Christian name and surname, gave their ages at the time,
+related their histories, their pedigrees, their posterity, with
+marvellous exactness and with infinite, though in no way tedious,
+detail. From America he returned, without taking breath, to Europe,
+talked of all our foreign and domestic affairs with incredible
+unconstraint (for I had no title to his confidence), spoke very badly of
+the Emperor of Russia, whom he called "Monsieur Nicolas," casually
+alluded to Lord Palmerston as a rogue, and ended by holding forth at
+length on the Spanish marriages, which had just taken place, and the
+annoyances to which they subjected him on the side of England.
+
+"The Queen is very angry with me," he said, "and displays great
+irritation; but, after all," he added, "all this outcry won't keep me
+from _driving my own cart_."[2]
+
+ [2: "_Mener mon fiacre_": to drive my hackney-coach.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Although this phrase dated back to the Old Order, I felt inclined to
+doubt whether Louis XIV. ever made use of it on accepting the Spanish
+Succession. I believe, moreover, that Louis-Philippe was mistaken, and,
+to borrow his own language, that the Spanish marriage helped not a
+little to upset his cart.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour, the King rose, thanked me for the
+pleasure my conversation had given him (I had not spoken four words),
+and dismissed me, feeling evidently as delighted as one generally is
+with a man before whom one thinks one has spoken well. This was my last
+audience of the King.
+
+Louis-Philippe improvised all the replies which he made, even upon the
+most critical occasions, to the great State bodies; he was as fluent
+then as in his private conversation, although not so happy or
+epigrammatic. He would suddenly become obscure, for the reason that he
+boldly plunged headlong into long sentences, of which he was not able to
+estimate the extent nor perceive the end beforehand, and from which he
+finally emerged struggling and by force, shattering the sense, and not
+completing the thought.
+
+In this political world thus constituted and conducted, what was most
+wanting, particularly towards the end, was political life itself. It
+could neither come into being nor be maintained within the legal circle
+which the Constitution had traced for it: the old aristocracy was
+vanquished, the people excluded. As all business was discussed among
+members of one class, in the interest and in the spirit of that class,
+there was no battle-field for contending parties to meet upon. This
+singular homogeneity of position, of interests, and consequently of
+views, reigning in what M. Guizot had once called the legal country,
+deprived the parliamentary debates of all originality, of all reality,
+and therefore of all genuine passion. I have spent ten years of my life
+in the company of truly great minds, who were in a constant state of
+agitation without succeeding in heating themselves, and who spent all
+their perspicacity in vain endeavours to find subjects upon which they
+could seriously disagree.
+
+On the other hand, the preponderating influence which King
+Louis-Philippe had acquired in public affairs, which never permitted the
+politicians to stray very far from that Prince's ideas, lest they should
+at the same time be removed from power, reduced the different colours of
+parties to the merest shades, and debates to the splitting of straws. I
+doubt whether any parliament (not excepting the Constituent Assembly, I
+mean the true one, that of 1789) ever contained more varied and
+brilliant talents than did ours during the closing years of the Monarchy
+of July. Nevertheless, I am able to declare that these great orators
+were tired to death of listening to one another, and, what was worse,
+the whole country was tired of listening to them. It grew unconsciously
+accustomed to look upon the debates in the Chambers as exercises of the
+intellect rather than as serious discussions, and upon all the
+differences between the various parliamentary parties--the majority, the
+left centre, or the dynastic opposition--as domestic quarrels between
+children of one family trying to trick one another. A few glaring
+instances of corruption, discovered by accident, led it to presuppose a
+number of hidden cases, and convinced it that the whole of the governing
+class was corrupt; whence it conceived for the latter a silent contempt,
+which was generally taken for confiding and contented submission.
+
+The country was at that time divided into two unequal parts, or rather
+zones: in the upper, which alone was intended to contain the whole of
+the nation's political life, there reigned nothing but languor,
+impotence, stagnation, and boredom; in the lower, on the contrary,
+political life began to make itself manifest by means of feverish and
+irregular signs, of which the attentive observer was easily able to
+seize the meaning.
+
+I was one of these observers; and although I was far from imagining that
+the catastrophe was so near at hand and fated to be so terrible, I felt
+a distrust springing up and insensibly growing in my mind, and the idea
+taking root more and more that we were making strides towards a fresh
+revolution. This denoted a great change in my thoughts; since the
+general appeasement and flatness that followed the Revolution of July
+had led me to believe for a long time that I was destined to spend my
+life amid an enervated and peaceful society. Indeed, anyone who had only
+examined the inside of the governmental fabric would have had the same
+conviction. Everything there seemed combined to produce with the
+machinery of liberty a preponderance of royal power which verged upon
+despotism; and, in fact, this result was produced almost without effort
+by the regular and tranquil movement of the machine. King Louis-Philippe
+was persuaded that, so long as he did not himself lay hand upon that
+fine instrument, and allowed it to work according to rule, he was safe
+from all peril. His only occupation was to keep it in order, and to
+make it work according to his own views, forgetful of society, upon
+which this ingenious piece of mechanism rested; he resembled the man who
+refused to believe that his house was on fire, because he had the key in
+his pocket. I had neither the same interests nor the same cares, and
+this permitted me to see through the mechanism of institutions and the
+agglomeration of petty every-day facts, and to observe the state of
+morals and opinions in the country. There I clearly beheld the
+appearance of several of the portents that usually denote the approach
+of revolutions, and I began to believe that in 1830 I had taken for the
+end of the play what was nothing more than the end of an act.
+
+A short unpublished document which I composed at the time, and a speech
+which I delivered early in 1848, will bear witness to these
+preoccupations of my mind.
+
+A number of my friends in Parliament met together in October 1847, to
+decide upon the policy to be adopted during the ensuing session. It was
+agreed that we should issue a programme in the form of a manifesto, and
+the task of drawing it up was deputed to me. Later, the idea of this
+publication was abandoned, but I had already written the document. I
+have discovered it among my papers, and I give the following extracts.
+After commenting on the symptoms of languor in Parliament, I continued:
+
+ "... The time will come when the country will find itself once
+ again divided between two great parties. The French Revolution,
+ which abolished all privileges and destroyed all exclusive rights,
+ has allowed one to remain, that of landed property. Let not the
+ landlords deceive themselves as to the strength of their position,
+ nor think that the rights of property form an insurmountable
+ barrier because they have not as yet been surmounted; for our times
+ are unlike any others. When the rights of property were merely the
+ origin and commencement of a number of other rights, they were
+ easily defended, or rather, they were never attacked; they then
+ formed the surrounding wall of society, of which all other rights
+ were the outposts; no blows reached them; no serious attempt was
+ ever made to touch them. But to-day, when the rights of property
+ are nothing more than the last remnants of an overthrown
+ aristocratic world; when they alone are left intact, isolated
+ privileges amid the universal levelling of society; when they are
+ no longer protected behind a number of still more controversible
+ and odious rights, the case is altered, and they alone are left
+ daily to resist the direct and unceasing shock of democratic
+ opinion....
+
+ "... Before long, the political struggle will be restricted to
+ those who have and those who have not; property will form the great
+ field of battle; and the principal political questions will turn
+ upon the more or less important modifications to be introduced into
+ the rights of landlords. We shall then have once more among us
+ great public agitations and great political parties.
+
+ "How is it that these premonitory symptoms escape the general view?
+ Can anyone believe that it is by accident, through some passing
+ whim of the human brain, that we see appearing on every side these
+ curious doctrines, bearing different titles, but all characterized
+ in their essence by their denial of the rights of property, and all
+ tending, at least, to limit, diminish, and weaken the exercise of
+ these rights? Who can fail here to recognise the final symptom of
+ the old democratic disease of the time, whose crisis would seem to
+ be at hand?"
+
+I was still more urgent and explicit in the speech which I delivered in
+the Chamber of Deputies on the 29th of January 1848, and which appeared
+in the _Moniteur_ of the 30th.
+
+I quote the principal passages:
+
+ "... I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots;
+ I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface
+ of society, there is no revolution at hand.
+
+ "Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are deceived. True,
+ there is no actual disorder; but it has entered deeply into men's
+ minds. See what is passing in the breasts of the working classes,
+ who, I grant, are at present quiet. No doubt they are not disturbed
+ by political passion, properly so-called, to the same extent that
+ they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of
+ political, have become social? Do you not see that there are
+ gradually forming in their breasts opinions and ideas which are
+ destined not only to upset this or that law, ministry, or even form
+ of government, but society itself, until it totters upon the
+ foundations on which it rests to-day? Do you not listen to what
+ they say to themselves each day? Do you not hear them repeating
+ unceasingly that all that is above them is incapable and unworthy
+ of governing them; that the present distribution of goods
+ throughout the world is unjust; that property rests on a foundation
+ which is not an equitable foundation? And do you not realize that
+ when such opinions take root, when they spread in an almost
+ universal manner, when they sink deeply into the masses, they are
+ bound to bring with them sooner or later, I know not when nor how,
+ a most formidable revolution?
+
+ "This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that we are
+ at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly convinced of
+ it....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "... I was saying just now that this evil would, sooner or later, I
+ know not how nor whence it will come, bring with it a most serious
+ revolution: be assured that that is so.
+
+ "When I come to investigate what, at different times, in different
+ periods, among different peoples, has been the effective cause that
+ has brought about the downfall of the governing classes, I perceive
+ this or that event, man, or accidental or superficial cause; but,
+ believe me, the real reason, the effective reason which causes men
+ to lose their power is, that they have become unworthy to retain
+ it.
+
+ "Think, gentlemen, of the old Monarchy: it was stronger than you
+ are, stronger in its origin; it was able to lean more than you do
+ upon ancient customs, ancient habits, ancient beliefs; it was
+ stronger than you are, and yet it has fallen to dust. And why did
+ it fall? Do you think it was by some particular mischance? Do you
+ think it was by the act of some man, by the deficit, the oath in
+ the Tennis Court, La Fayette, Mirabeau? No, gentlemen; there was
+ another reason: the class that was then the governing class had
+ become, through its indifference, its selfishness and its vices,
+ incapable and unworthy of governing the country.
+
+ "That was the true reason.
+
+ "Well, gentlemen, if it is right to have this patriotic prejudice
+ at all times, how much more is it not right to have it in our own?
+ Do you not feel, by some intuitive instinct which is not capable of
+ analysis, but which is undeniable, that the earth is quaking once
+ again in Europe? Do you not feel ... what shall I say? ... as it
+ were a gale of revolution in the air? This gale, no one knows
+ whence it springs, whence it blows, nor, believe me, whom it will
+ carry with it; and it is in such times as these that you remain
+ calm before the degradation of public morality--for the expression
+ is not too strong.
+
+ "I speak without bitterness; I am even addressing you without any
+ party spirit; I am attacking men against whom I feel no
+ vindictiveness. But I am obliged to communicate to my country my
+ firm and decided conviction. Well then, my firm and decided
+ conviction is this: that public morality is being degraded, and
+ that the degradation of public morality will shortly, very shortly,
+ perhaps, bring down upon you a new revolution. Is the life of kings
+ held by stronger threads? Are these more difficult to snap than
+ those of other men? Can you say to-day that you are certain of
+ to-morrow? Do you know what may happen in France a year hence, or
+ even a month or a day hence? You do not know; but what you must
+ know is that the tempest is looming on the horizon, that it is
+ coming towards us. Will you allow it to take you by surprise?
+
+ "Gentlemen, I implore you not to do so. I do not ask you, I implore
+ you. I would gladly throw myself on my knees before you, so
+ strongly do I believe in the reality and the seriousness of the
+ danger, so convinced am I that my warnings are no empty rhetoric.
+ Yes, the danger is great. Allay it while there is yet time; correct
+ the evil by efficacious remedies, by attacking it not in its
+ symptoms but in itself.
+
+ "Legislative changes have been spoken of. I am greatly disposed to
+ think that these changes are not only very useful, but necessary;
+ thus, I believe in the need of electoral reform, in the urgency of
+ parliamentary reform; but I am not, gentlemen, so mad as not to
+ know that no laws can affect the destinies of nations. No, it is
+ not the mechanism of laws that produces great events, gentlemen,
+ but the inner spirit of the government. Keep the laws as they are,
+ if you wish. I think you would be very wrong to do so; but keep
+ them. Keep the men, too, if it gives you any pleasure. I raise no
+ objection so far as I am concerned. But, in God's name, change the
+ spirit of the government; for, I repeat, that spirit will lead you
+ to the abyss."[3]
+
+ [3: This speech was delivered in the Chamber of Deputies on the
+ 27th of January 1848, in the debate on the Address in reply to the
+ Speech from the Throne.--Cte. de T.]
+
+These gloomy predictions were received with ironical cheers from the
+majority. The Opposition applauded loudly, but more from party feeling
+than conviction. The truth is that no one as yet believed seriously in
+the danger which I was prophesying, although we were so near the
+catastrophe. The inveterate habit contracted by all the politicians,
+during this long parliamentary farce, of over-colouring the expression
+of their opinions and grossly exaggerating their thoughts had deprived
+them of all power of appreciating what was real and true. For several
+years the majority had every day been declaring that the Opposition was
+imperilling society; and the Opposition repeated incessantly that the
+Ministers were ruining the Monarchy. These statements had been made so
+constantly on both sides, without either side greatly believing in them,
+that they ended by not believing in them at all, at the very moment when
+the event was about to justify both of them. Even my own friends
+themselves thought that I had overshot the mark, and that my facts were
+a little blurred by rhetoric.
+
+I remember that, when I stepped from the tribune, Dufaure took me on one
+side, and said, with that sort of parliamentary intuition which is his
+only note of genius:
+
+"You have succeeded, but you would have succeeded much more if you had
+not gone so far beyond the feeling of the Assembly and tried to frighten
+us."
+
+And now that I am face to face with myself, searching in my memory to
+discover whether I was actually myself so much alarmed as I seemed, the
+answer is no, and I readily recognise that the event justified me more
+promptly and more completely than I foresaw (a thing which may sometimes
+have happened to other political prophets, better authorized to predict
+than I was). No, I did not expect such a revolution as we were destined
+to have; and who could have expected it? I did, I believe, perceive more
+clearly than the others the general causes which were making for the
+event; but I did not observe the accidents which were to precipitate it.
+Meantime the days which still separated us from the catastrophe passed
+rapidly by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ THE BANQUETS--SENSE OF SECURITY ENTERTAINED BY THE
+ GOVERNMENT--ANXIETY OF LEADERS OF THE OPPOSITION--ARRAIGNMENT OF
+ MINISTERS.
+
+
+I refused to take part in the affair of the banquets. I had both serious
+and petty reasons for abstaining. What I call my petty reasons I am
+quite willing to describe as bad reasons, although they were consistent
+with honour, and would have been unexceptionable in a private matter.
+They were the irritation and disgust aroused in me by the character and
+by the tactics of the leaders of this enterprise. Nevertheless, I
+confess that the private prejudice which we entertain with regard to
+individuals is a bad guide in politics.
+
+A close alliance had at that time been effected between M. Thiers and M.
+Barrot, and a real fusion formed between the two sections of the
+Opposition, which, in our parliamentary jargon, we called the Left
+Centre and the Left. Almost all the stubborn and intractable spirits
+which were found in the latter party had successively been softened,
+unbent, subjugated, made supple, by the promises of place spread
+broadcast by M. Thiers. I believe that even M. Barrot had for the first
+time allowed himself not exactly to be won over, but surprised, by
+arguments of this kind. At any rate, the most complete intimacy reigned
+between the two great leaders of the Opposition, whatever was the cause
+of it, and M. Barrot, who likes to mingle a little simplicity with his
+weaknesses as well as with his virtues, exerted himself to his utmost to
+secure the triumph of his ally, even at his own expense. M. Thiers had
+allowed him to involve himself in this matter of the banquets; I even
+think that he had instigated Barrot in that direction without consenting
+to involve himself. He was willing to accept the results, but not the
+responsibilities, of that dangerous agitation. Wherefore, surrounded by
+his personal friends, he stayed mute and motionless in Paris, while
+Barrot travelled all over the country for three months, making long
+speeches in every town he stopped at, and resembling, in my opinion,
+those beaters who make a great noise in order to bring the game within
+easy range of the sportsman's gun. Personally, I felt no inclination to
+take part in the sport. But the principal and more serious reason which
+restrained me was this: and I expounded it pretty often to those who
+wanted to drag me to those political meetings:
+
+"For the first time for eighteen years," I used to tell them, "you are
+proposing to appeal to the people, and to seek support outside the
+middle class. If you fail in rousing the people (and I think this will
+be the most probable result), you will become still more odious than you
+already are in the eyes of the Government and of the middle classes,
+who for a great part support it. In this way you will strengthen the
+administration which you desire to upset; while if, on the contrary, you
+succeed in rousing the people, you are no more able than I am to foresee
+whither an agitation of this kind will lead you."
+
+In the measure that the campaign of the banquets was prolonged, the
+latter hypothesis became, contrary to my expectation, the more probable.
+A certain anxiety began to oppress the ringleaders themselves; an
+indefinite anxiety, passing vaguely through their minds. I was told by
+Beaumont, who was at that time one of the first among them, that the
+excitement occasioned in the country by the banquets surpassed not only
+the hopes, but the wishes, of those who had started it. The latter were
+labouring to allay rather than increase it. Their intention was that
+there should be no banquet in Paris, and that there should be none held
+anywhere after the assembling of the Chambers. The fact is that they
+were only seeking a way out of the mischievous road which they had
+entered upon. And it was undoubtedly in spite of them that this final
+banquet was resolved on; they were constrained to take part in it, drawn
+into it; their vanity was compromised. The Government, by its defiance,
+goaded the Opposition into adopting this dangerous measure, thinking
+thus to drive it to destruction. The Opposition let itself be caught in
+a spirit of bravado, and lest it should be suspected of retreating; and
+thus irritating each other, spurring one another on, they dragged each
+other towards the common abyss, which neither of them as yet perceived.
+
+I remember that two days before the Revolution of February, at the
+Turkish Ambassador's ball, I met Duvergier de Hauranne. I felt for him
+both friendship and esteem; although he possessed very nearly all the
+failings that arise from party spirit, he at least joined to them the
+sort of disinterestedness and sincerity which one meets with in genuine
+passions, two rare advantages in our day, when the only genuine passion
+is that of self. I said to him, with the familiarity warranted by our
+relations:
+
+"Courage, my friend; you are playing a dangerous game."
+
+He replied gravely, but with no sign of fear:
+
+"Believe me, all will end well; besides, one must risk something. There
+is no free government that has not had to go through a similar
+experience."
+
+This reply perfectly describes this determined but somewhat narrow
+character; narrow, I say, although with plenty of brain, but with the
+brain which, while seeing clearly and in detail all that is on the
+horizon, is incapable of conceiving that the horizon may change;
+scholarly, disinterested, ardent, vindictive, sprung from that learned
+and sectarian race which guides itself in politics by imitation of
+others and by historical recollection, and which restricts its thought
+to one sole idea, at which it warms, in which it blinds itself.
+
+For the rest, the Government were even less uneasy than the leaders of
+the Opposition. A few days before the above conversation, I had had
+another with Duchatel, the Minister of the Interior. I was on good terms
+with this minister, although for the last eight years I had been very
+boldly (even too boldly, I confess, in the case of its foreign policy)
+attacking the Cabinet of which he was one of the principal members. I am
+not sure that this fault did not even make me find favour in his eyes,
+for I believe that at the bottom of his heart he had a sneaking fondness
+for those who attacked his colleague at the Foreign Office, M. Guizot. A
+battle which M. Duchatel and I had fought some years before in favour of
+the penitentiary system had brought us together and given rise to a
+certain intimacy between us. This man was very unlike the one I
+mentioned above: he was as heavy in his person and his manners as the
+other was meagre, angular, and sometimes trenchant and bitter. He was as
+remarkable for his scepticism as the other for his ardent convictions,
+for flabby indifference as the former for feverish activity; he
+possessed a very supple, very quick, very subtle mind enclosed in a
+massive body; he understood business admirably, while pretending to be
+above it; he was thoroughly acquainted with the evil passions of
+mankind, and especially with the evil passions of his party, and always
+knew how to turn them to advantage. He was free from all rancour and
+prejudice, cordial in his address, easy of approach, obliging, whenever
+his own interests were not compromised, and bore a kindly contempt for
+his fellow-creatures.
+
+I was about to say that, some days before the catastrophe, I drew M.
+Duchatel into a corner of the conference room, and observed to him that
+the Government and the Opposition seemed to be striving in concert to
+drive things to an extremity calculated to end by damaging everybody;
+and I asked him if he saw no honest way of escape from a regrettable
+position, some honourable transaction which would permit everyone to
+draw back. I added that my friends and I would be happy to have such a
+way pointed out to us, and that we would make every exertion to persuade
+our colleagues in the Opposition to accept it. He listened attentively
+to my remarks, and assured me that he understood my meaning, although I
+saw clearly that he did not enter into it for a moment.
+
+"Things had reached such a pitch," he said, "that the expedient which I
+sought was no longer to be found. The Government was in the right, and
+could not yield. If the Opposition persisted in its course, the result
+might be a combat in the streets, but this combat had long been
+foreseen, and if the Government was animated with the evil passions with
+which it was credited, it would desire this fighting rather than dread
+it, being sure to triumph in the end."
+
+He went on in his complaisant fashion to tell me in detail of all the
+military precautions that had been taken, the extent of the resources,
+the number of the troops, and the quantity of ammunition.... I took my
+leave, satisfied that the Government, without exactly striving to
+promote an outbreak, was far from dreading one, and that the Ministry,
+in its certainty of ultimate victory, saw in the threatening catastrophe
+possibly its last means of rallying its scattered supporters and of
+finally reducing its adversaries to powerlessness. I confess that I
+thought as he did; his air of unfeigned assurance had proved contagious.
+
+The only really uneasy people in Paris at that moment were the Radical
+chiefs and the men who were sufficiently in touch with the people and
+the revolutionary party to know what was taking place in that quarter. I
+have reason to believe that most of these looked with dread upon the
+events which were ready to burst forth, whether because they kept up the
+tradition of their former passions rather than these passions
+themselves, or because they had begun to grow accustomed to a state of
+things in which they had taken up their position after so many times
+cursing it; or again, because they were doubtful of success; or rather
+because, being in a position to study and become well acquainted with
+their allies, they were frightened at the last moment of the victory
+which they expected to gain through their aid. On the very day before
+the outbreak, Madame de Lamartine betrayed extraordinary anxiety when
+calling upon Madame de Tocqueville, and gave such unmistakable signs of
+a mind heated and almost deranged by ominous thoughts that the latter
+became alarmed, and told me of it the same evening.
+
+It is not one of the least curious characteristics of this singular
+revolution that the incident which led to it was brought about and
+almost longed for by the men whom it eventually precipitated from power,
+and that it was only foreseen and feared by those who were to triumph by
+its means.
+
+Here let me for a moment resume the chain of history, so that I may the
+more easily attach to it the thread of my personal recollections.
+
+It will be remembered that, at the opening of the session of 1848, King
+Louis-Philippe, in his Speech from the Throne, had described the authors
+of the banquets as men excited by blind or hostile passions. This was
+bringing Royalty into direct conflict with more than one hundred members
+of the Chamber. This insult, which added anger to all the ambitious
+passions which were already disturbing the hearts of the majority of
+these men, ended by making them lose their reason. A violent debate was
+expected, but did not take place at once. The earlier discussions on the
+Address were calm: the majority and the Opposition both restrained
+themselves at the commencement, like two men who feel that they have
+lost their tempers, and who fear lest while in that condition they
+should perpetrate some folly in word or deed.
+
+But the storm of passion broke out at last, and continued with
+unaccustomed violence. The extraordinary heat of these debates was
+already redolent of civil war for those who knew how to scent
+revolutions from afar.
+
+The spokesmen of the moderate section of the Opposition were led, in the
+heat of debate, to assert that the right of assembling at the banquets
+was one of our most undeniable and essential rights;[4] that to question
+it, was equivalent to trampling liberty itself underfoot and to
+violating the Charter, and that those who did so unconsciously made an
+appeal, not to discussion, but to arms. On his side M. Duchatel, who
+ordinarily was very dexterous in debate, displayed in this circumstance
+a consummate want of tact.[5] He absolutely denied the right of
+assemblage, and yet would not say clearly that the Government had made
+up its mind to prohibit thenceforth any manifestations of the kind. On
+the contrary, he seemed to invite the Opposition to try the experiment
+once more, so that the question might be brought before the Courts. His
+colleague, M. Hebert, the Minister of Justice, was still more tactless,
+but this was his habit. I have always observed that lawyers never make
+statesmen; but I have never met anyone who was less of a statesman than
+M. Hebert. He remained the Public-Prosecutor down to the marrow of his
+bones; he had all the mental and physical characteristics of that
+office. You must imagine a little wizened, sorry face, shrunk at the
+temples, with a pointed forehead, nose and chin, cold, bright eyes, and
+thin, in-drawn lips. Add to this a long quill generally held across the
+mouth, and looking at a distance like a cat's bristling whiskers, and
+you have a portrait of a man, than whom I have never seen anyone more
+resembling a carnivorous animal. At the same time, he was neither stupid
+nor even ill-natured; but he was by nature hot-headed and unyielding; he
+always overshot his goal, for want of knowing when to turn aside or stop
+still; and he fell into violence without intending it, and from sheer
+want of discrimination. It showed how little importance M. Guizot
+attached to conciliation, that under the circumstances he sent a speaker
+of this stamp into the tribune;[6] his language while there was so
+outrageous and so provoking that Barrot, quite beside himself and almost
+without knowing what he was doing, exclaimed, in a voice half stifled
+with rage, that the ministers of Charles X., that Polignac and
+Peyronnet, had never dared to talk like that. I remember that I
+shuddered involuntarily in my seat when I heard this naturally moderate
+man exasperated into recalling, for the first time, the terrible
+memories of the Revolution of 1830, holding it up in some sort as an
+example, and unconsciously suggesting the idea of repeating it.
+
+ [4: See the speech of M. Duvergier de Hauranne, 7 February
+ 1848.--Cte. de T.]
+
+ [5: The minister replied to M. Leon de Mandeville. He quoted the
+ laws of 1790 and 1791, which empowered the authorities to oppose
+ any public meetings which seemed to threaten danger to the public
+ peace, and he declared that the Government would be failing in its
+ duty if it were to give way before manifestations of any
+ description. At the end of his speech he again brought in the
+ phrase "blind or hostile passions," and endeavoured to justify
+ it.--Cte. de T.]
+
+ [6: Replying to M. Odilon Barrot, M. Hebert maintained that, since
+ the right of public meeting was not laid down in the Charter, it
+ did not exist.--Cte. de T.]
+
+The result of this heated discussion was a sort of challenge to mortal
+combat exchanged between the Government and the Opposition, the scene of
+the duel to be the law-courts. It was tacitly agreed that the challenged
+party should meet at one final banquet; that the authorities, without
+interfering to prevent the meeting, should prosecute its organizers, and
+that the courts should pronounce judgment.
+
+The debates on the Address were closed, if I remember rightly, on the
+12th of February, and it is really from this moment that the
+revolutionary movement burst out. The Constitutional Opposition, which
+had for many months been constantly pushed on by the Radical party, was
+from this time forward led and directed not so much by the members of
+that party who occupied seats in the Chamber of Deputies (the greater
+number of these had become lukewarm and, as it were, enervated in the
+Parliamentary atmosphere), as by the younger, bolder, and more
+irresponsible men who wrote for the democratic press. This change was
+especially apparent in two principal facts which had an overwhelming
+influence upon events--the programme of the banquet and the arraignment
+of Ministers.
+
+On the 20th of February, there appeared in almost all the Opposition
+newspapers, by way of programme of the approaching banquet, what was
+really a proclamation calling upon the entire population to join in an
+immense political demonstration, convoking the schools and inviting the
+National Guard itself to attend the ceremony in a body. It read like a
+decree emanating from the Provisional Government which was to be set up
+three days later. The Cabinet, which had already been blamed by many of
+its followers for tacitly authorising the banquet, considered that it
+was justified in retracing its steps. It officially announced that it
+forbade the banquet, and that it would prevent it by force.
+
+It was this declaration of the Government which provided the field for
+the battle. I am in a position to state, although it sounds hardly
+credible, that the programme which thus suddenly turned the banquet into
+an insurrection was resolved upon, drawn up and published without the
+participation or the knowledge of the members of Parliament who
+considered themselves to be still leading the movement which they had
+called into existence. The programme was the hurried work of a nocturnal
+gathering of journalists and Radicals, and the leaders of the Dynastic
+Opposition heard of it at the same time as the public, by reading it in
+the papers in the morning.
+
+And see how uncertain is the course of human affairs! M. Odilon Barrot,
+who disapproved of the programme as much as anyone, dared not disclaim
+it for fear of offending the men who, till then, had seemed to be moving
+with him; and then, when the Government, alarmed by the publication of
+this document, prohibited the banquet, M. Barrot, finding himself
+brought face to face with civil war, drew back. He himself gave up this
+dangerous demonstration; but at the same time that he was making this
+concession to the men of moderation, he granted to the extremists the
+impeachment of Ministers. He accused the latter of violating the
+Constitution by prohibiting the banquet, and thus furnished an excuse to
+those who were about to take up arms in the name of the violated
+Constitution.
+
+Thus the principal leaders of the Radical Party, who thought that a
+revolution would be premature, and who did not yet desire it, had
+considered themselves obliged, in order to differentiate themselves from
+their allies in the Dynastic Opposition, to make very revolutionary
+speeches and fan the flame of insurrectionary passion. On the other
+hand, the Dynastic Opposition, which had had enough of the banquets, had
+been forced to persevere in this bad course so as not to present an
+appearance of retreating before the defiance of the Government. And
+finally, the mass of the Conservatives, who believed in the necessity of
+great concessions and were ready to make them, were driven by the
+violence of their adversaries and the passions of some of their chiefs
+to deny even the right of meeting in private banquets and to refuse the
+country any hopes of reform.
+
+One must have lived long amid political parties, and in the very
+whirlwind in which they move, to understand to what extent men mutually
+push each other away from their respective plans, and how the destinies
+of this world proceed as the result, but often as the contrary result,
+of the intentions that produce them, similarly to the kite which flies
+by the antagonistic action of the wind and the cord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ TROUBLES OF THE 22ND OF FEBRUARY--THE SITTING OF THE 23RD--THE NEW
+ MINISTRY--OPINIONS OF M. DUFAURE AND M. DE BEAUMONT.
+
+
+I did not perceive anything on the 22nd of February calculated to give
+rise to serious apprehensions. There was a crowd in the streets, but it
+seemed to be composed rather of sight-seers and fault-finders than of
+the seditiously inclined: the soldier and the townsman chaffed each
+other when they met, and I heard more jokes than cries uttered by the
+crowd. I know that it is not safe to trust one's self to these
+appearances. It is the street-boys of Paris who generally commence the
+insurrections, and as a rule they do so light-heartedly, like schoolboys
+breaking up for the holidays.
+
+When I returned to the Chamber, I found a seeming listlessness reigning
+there, beneath which one could perceive the inner seething of a thousand
+restrained passions. It was the only place in Paris in which, since the
+early morning, I had not heard discussed aloud what was then absorbing
+all France. They were languidly discussing a bill for the creation of a
+bank at Bordeaux; but in reality no one, except the man talking in the
+tribune and the man who was to reply to him, showed any interest in the
+matter. M. Duchatel told me that all was going well. He said this with
+an air of combined confidence and nervousness which struck me as
+suspicious. I noticed that he twisted his neck and shoulders (a common
+trick with him) much more frequently and violently than usual; and I
+remember that this little observation gave me more food for reflection
+than all the rest.
+
+I learnt that, as a matter of fact, there had been serious troubles in
+many parts of the town which I had not visited; a certain number of men
+had been killed or wounded. People were no longer accustomed to this
+sort of incident, as they had been some years before and as they became
+still more a few months later; and the excitement was great. I happened
+to be invited to dine that evening at the house of one of my
+fellow-members of Parliament and of the Opposition, M. Paulmier, the
+deputy for Calvados. I had some difficulty in getting there through the
+troops which guarded the surrounding streets. I found my host's house in
+great disorder. Madame Paulmier, who was expecting her _accouchement_
+and who had been frightened by a skirmish that had taken place beneath
+her windows, had gone to bed. The dinner was magnificent, but the table
+was deserted; out of twenty guests invited, only five presented
+themselves; the others were kept back either by material impediments or
+by the preoccupations of the day. We sat down with a very thoughtful air
+amid all this abundance. Among the guests was M. Sallandrouze, the
+inheritor of the great business house of that name, which had made a
+large fortune by its manufacture of textile fabrics. He was one of those
+young Conservatives, richer in money than in honours, who, from time to
+time, made a show of opposition, or rather, of captious criticism,
+mainly, I think, to give themselves a certain importance. In the course
+of the last debate on the Address, M. Sallandrouze had moved an
+amendment[7] which would have compromised the Cabinet, had it been
+adopted. At the time when this incident was most occupying attention, M.
+Sallandrouze one evening went to the reception at the Tuileries, hoping
+that this time, at least, he would not remain unrecognized in the crowd.
+And, in fact, no sooner had King Louis-Philippe seen him than he came up
+to him with a very assiduous mien, and solemnly took him aside and began
+to talk to him eagerly, and with a great display of interest, about the
+branch of manufacture to which the young deputy owed his fortune. The
+latter, at first, felt no astonishment, thinking that the King, who was
+known to be clever at managing men's minds, had selected this little
+private road in order to lead round to affairs of State. But he was
+mistaken; for, after a quarter of an hour, the King changed not the
+conversation but the person addressed, and left our friend standing very
+confused amid his carpets and woollen stuffs. M. Sallandrouze had not
+yet got over this trick played upon him, but he was beginning to feel
+very much afraid that he would be revenged too well. He told us that M.
+Emile Girardin had said to him the day before, "In two days, the
+Monarchy of July will have ceased to exist." This seemed to all of us a
+piece of journalistic hyperbole, and perhaps it was; but the events that
+followed turned it into an oracle.
+
+ [7: M. Sallandrouze de Lamornaix' amendment proposed to modify the
+ expression "blind or hostile passions," by adding the words: "Amid
+ these various demonstrations, your Government will know how to
+ recognise the real and lawful desires of the country; it will, we
+ trust, take the initiative by introducing certain wise and moderate
+ reforms called for by public opinion, among which we must place
+ first parliamentary reform. In a Constitutional Monarchy, the union
+ of the great powers of the State removes all danger from a
+ progressive policy, and allows every moral and material interest of
+ the country to be satisfied."--Cte. de T.]
+
+On the next day, the 23rd of February, I learnt, on waking, that the
+excitement in Paris, so far from becoming calmer, was increasing. I went
+early to the Chamber; silence reigned around the Assembly; battalions of
+infantry occupied and closed the approaches, while troops of Cuirassiers
+were drawn up along the walls of the Palace. Inside, men's feelings were
+excited without their quite knowing the reason.
+
+The sitting had been opened at the ordinary time; but the Assembly had
+not had the courage to go through the same parliamentary comedy as on
+the day before, and had suspended its labours; it sat receiving reports
+from the different quarters of the town, awaiting events and counting
+the hours, in a state of feverish idleness. At a certain moment, a loud
+sound of trumpets was heard outside. It appeared that the Cuirassiers
+guarding the Palace were amusing themselves, in order to pass the time,
+by sounding flourishes on their instruments. The gay, triumphant tones
+of the trumpets contrasted in so melancholy a fashion with the thoughts
+by which all our minds were secretly disturbed, that a message was
+hurriedly sent out to stop this offensive and indiscreet performance,
+which caused such painful reflections to all of us.
+
+At last, it was determined to speak aloud of what all had been
+discussing in whispers for several hours. A Paris deputy, M. Vavin,
+commenced to question the Cabinet upon the state of the city. At three
+o'clock M. Guizot appeared at the door of the House. He entered with his
+firmest step and his loftiest mien, silently crossed the gangway,
+ascended the tribune, throwing his head almost back from his shoulders
+for fear of seeming to lower it, and stated in two words that the King
+had called upon M. Mole to form a new ministry. Never did I see such a
+piece of clap-trap.
+
+The Opposition kept their seats, most of them uttering cries of victory
+and satisfied revenge; the leaders alone sat silent, busy in communing
+with themselves upon the use they would make of their triumph, and
+careful not to insult a majority of which they might soon be called upon
+to make use. As to the majority, they seemed thunderstruck by this so
+unexpected blow, moved to and fro like a mass that sways from side to
+side, uncertain as to which side it shall fall on, and then descended
+noisily into the semi-circle. A few surrounded the ministers to ask
+them for explanations or to pay them their last respects, but the
+greater number clamoured against them with noisy and insulting shouts.
+"To throw up office, to abandon your political friends under such
+circumstances," they said, "is a piece of gross cowardice;" while others
+exclaimed that the members ought to repair to the Tuileries in a body,
+and force the King to re-consider his fatal resolve.
+
+This despair will arouse no astonishment when it is remembered that the
+greater number of these men felt themselves attacked, not only in their
+political opinions, but in the most sensitive part of their private
+interest. The fall of the Government compromised the entire fortune of
+one, the daughter's dowry of another, the son's career of a third. It
+was by this that they were almost all held. Most of them had not only
+bettered themselves by means of their votes, but one may say that they
+had lived on them. They still lived on them, and hoped to continue to
+live on them; for, the Ministry having lasted eight years, they had
+accustomed themselves to think that it would last for ever; they had
+grown attached to it with the honest, peaceful feeling of affection
+which one entertains for one's fields. From my seat, I watched this
+swaying crowd; I saw surprise, anger, fear and avarice mingle their
+various expressions upon those bewildered countenances; and I drew an
+involuntary comparison between all these legislators and a pack of
+hounds which, with their jaws half filled, see the quarry withdrawn
+from them.
+
+I grant, however, that, so far as many of the Opposition were concerned,
+it only wanted that they should be put to a similar test in order to
+make the same display. If many of the Conservatives only defended the
+Ministry with a view to keeping their places and emoluments, I am bound
+to say that many of the Opposition seemed to me only to attack it in
+order to reap the plunder in their turn. The truth--the deplorable
+truth--is that a taste for holding office and a desire to live on the
+public money are not with us a disease restricted to either party, but
+the great, chronic ailment of the whole nation; the result of the
+democratic constitution of our society and of the excessive
+centralization of our Government; the secret malady which has undermined
+all former powers, and which will undermine all powers to come.
+
+At last the uproar ceased, as the nature of what had happened became
+better known: we learnt that it had been brought about by the
+insurrectionary inclinations of a battalion of the Fifth Legion and the
+applications made direct to the King by several officers of that section
+of the Guard.
+
+So soon as he was informed of what was going on, King Louis-Philippe,
+who was less prone to change his opinions, but more ready to change his
+line of conduct, than any man I ever saw, had immediately made up his
+mind; and after eight years of complacency, the Ministry was dismissed
+by him in two minutes, and without ceremony.
+
+The Chamber rose without delay, each member thinking only of the change
+of government, and forgetting about the revolution.
+
+I went out with M. Dufaure, and soon perceived that he was not only
+preoccupied but constrained. I at once saw that he felt himself in the
+critical and complicated position of a leader of the Opposition, who was
+about to become a minister, and who, after experiencing the use his
+friends could be to him, was beginning to think of the difficulties
+which their pretentions might well cause him.
+
+M. Dufaure had a somewhat cunning mind, which readily admitted such
+thoughts as these, and he also possessed a sort of natural rusticity
+which, combined with great integrity, but rarely permitted him to
+conceal them. He was, moreover, the sincerest and by far the most
+respectable of all those who at that moment had a chance of becoming
+ministers. He believed that power was at last within his grasp, and his
+ambition betrayed a passion that was the more eager inasmuch as it was
+discreet and suppressed. M. Mole in his place would have felt much
+greater egoism and still more ingratitude, but he would have been only
+all the more open-hearted and amiable.
+
+I soon left him, and went to M. de Beaumont's. There I found every heart
+rejoicing. I was far from sharing this joy, and finding myself among
+people with whom I could talk freely, I gave my reasons.
+
+"The National Guard of Paris," I said, "has upset a Cabinet; therefore
+it is during its good pleasure only that the new Ministers will remain
+at the head of affairs. You are glad because the Government is upset;
+but do you not see that it is authority itself which is overthrown?"
+
+This sombre view of the political situation was not much to Beaumont's
+taste; he was carried away by rancour and ambition.
+
+"You always take a gloomy view of everything," he said. "Let us first
+rejoice at the victory: we can lament over the results later."
+
+Madame de Beaumont, who was present at the interview, seemed herself to
+share her husband's elation, and nothing ever so thoroughly proved to me
+the irresistible power of party feeling. For, by nature, neither hatred
+nor self-interest had a place in the heart of this distinguished and
+attractive woman, one of the most truly and consistently virtuous that I
+have met in my life, and one who best knew how to make virtue both
+touching and lovable. To the nobility of heart of the La Fayettes she
+added a mind that was witty, refined, kindly and just.
+
+I, nevertheless, sustained my theory against both him and her, arguing
+that upon the whole the incident was a regrettable one, or rather that
+we should see more in it than a mere incident, a great event which was
+destined to change the whole aspect of affairs. It was very easy for me
+to philosophize thus, since I did not share the illusions of my friend
+Dufaure. The impulse given to the political machine seemed to me to be
+too violent to permit of the reins of government falling into the hands
+of the moderate party to which I belonged, and I foresaw that they would
+soon fall to those who were almost as obnoxious to me as the men from
+whose hands they had slipped.
+
+I was dining with another of my friends, M. Lanjuinais, of whom I shall
+have to speak often in future. The company was fairly numerous, and
+embraced many shades of political opinion. Many of the guests rejoiced
+at the result of the day's work, while others expressed alarm; but all
+thought that the insurrectionary movement would stop of its own accord,
+to break out again later on another occasion and in another form. All
+the rumours that reached us from the town seemed to confirm this belief;
+cries of war were replaced by cries of joy. Portalis, who became
+Attorney-General of Paris a few days later, was of our number: not the
+son, but the nephew of the Chief President of the Court of Appeal. This
+Portalis had neither his uncle's rare intelligence, nor his exemplary
+character, nor his solemn dulness. His coarse, violent, perverse mind
+had quite naturally entered into all the false ideas and extreme
+opinions of our times. Although he was in relation with most of those
+who are regarded as the authors and leaders of the Revolution of 1848, I
+can conscientiously declare that he did not that night expect the
+revolution any more than we did. I am convinced that, even at that
+supreme moment, the same might have been said of the greater number of
+his friends. It would be a waste of time to try to discover what secret
+conspiracies brought about events of this kind. Revolutions accomplished
+by means of popular risings are generally longed for beforehand rather
+than premeditated. Those who boast of having contrived them have done no
+more than turn them to account. They spring spontaneously into being
+from a general malady of men's minds, brought suddenly to the critical
+stage by some fortuitous and unforeseen circumstance. As to the
+so-called originators or leaders of these revolutions, they originate
+and lead nothing; their only merit is identical with that of the
+adventurers who have discovered most of the unknown countries. They
+simply have the courage to go straight before them as long as the wind
+impels them.
+
+I took my leave early, and went straight home to bed. Although I lived
+close to the Foreign Office, I did not hear the firing which so greatly
+influenced our destinies, and I fell asleep without realizing that I had
+seen the last day of the Monarchy of July.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY--THE MINISTERS' PLAN OF RESISTANCE--THE
+ NATIONAL GUARD--GENERAL BEDEAU.
+
+
+The next morning was the 24th of February. On leaving my bed-room, I met
+the cook, who had been out; the good woman was quite beside herself, and
+poured out a sorrowing rigmarole, of which I failed to understand a
+word, except that the Government was massacring the poor people. I went
+downstairs at once, and had no sooner set foot in the street than I
+breathed for the first time the atmosphere of revolution. The roadway
+was empty; the shops were not open; there were no carriages nor
+pedestrians to be seen; none of the ordinary hawkers' cries were heard;
+neighbours stood talking in little groups at their doors, with subdued
+voices, with a frightened air; every face seemed distorted with fear or
+anger. I met a National Guard hurrying along, gun in hand, with a tragic
+gait; I accosted him, but I could learn nothing from him, save that the
+Government was massacring the people (to which he added that the
+National Guard would know how to put that right). It was the same old
+refrain: it is easily understood that this explanation explained
+nothing. I was too well acquainted with the vices of the Government of
+July not to know that cruelty was not one of them. I considered it one
+of the most corrupt, but also one of the least bloodthirsty, that had
+ever existed, and I only repeat this observation in order to show the
+sort of report that assists the progress of revolutions.
+
+I hastened to M. de Beaumont, who lived in the next street. There I
+learnt that the King had sent for him during the night. The same reply
+was given to my enquiry at M. de Remusat's, where I went next. M. de
+Corcelles, whom I met in the street, gave me his account of what was
+happening, but in a very confused manner; for, in a city in state of
+revolution, as on a battle-field, each one readily regards the incidents
+of which himself is a witness as the events of the day. He told me of
+the firing on the Boulevard des Capucines, and of the rapid development
+of the insurrection of which this act of unnecessary violence was the
+cause or the pretext; of M. Mole's refusal to take office under these
+circumstances; and lastly, of the summons to the Palace of Messrs.
+Thiers, Barrot and their friends, who were definitely charged with the
+formation of a cabinet, facts too well known to permit of my lingering
+over them. I asked M. de Corcelles how the ministers proposed to set
+about appeasing people's minds.
+
+"M. de Remusat," said he, "is my authority for saying that the plan
+adopted is to withdraw all the troops and to flood Paris with National
+Guards." These were his own words.
+
+I have always observed that in politics people were often ruined through
+possessing too good a memory. The men who were now charged to put an end
+to the Revolution of 1848 were exactly the same who had made the
+Revolution of 1830. They remembered that at that time the resistance of
+the army had failed to stop them, and that on the other hand the
+presence of the National Guard, so imprudently dissolved by Charles X.,
+might have embarrassed them greatly and prevented them from succeeding.
+They took the opposite steps to those adopted by the Government of the
+Elder Branch, and arrived at the same result. So true is it that, if
+humanity be always the same, the course of history is always different,
+that the past is not able to teach us much concerning the present, and
+that those old pictures, when forced into new frames, never have a good
+effect.
+
+After chatting for a little while on the dangerous position of affairs,
+M. de Corcelles and I went to fetch M. Lanjuinais, and all three of us
+went together to M. Dufaure, who lived in the Rue Le Peletier. The
+boulevard, which we followed to get there, presented a strange
+spectacle. There was hardly a soul to be seen, although it was nearly
+nine o'clock in the morning, and one heard not the slightest sound of a
+human voice; but all the little sentry-boxes which stand along this
+endless avenue seemed to move about and totter upon their base, and from
+time to time one of them would fall with a crash, while the great trees
+along the curb came tumbling down into the roadway as though of their
+own accord. These acts of destruction were the work of isolated
+individuals, who went about their business silently, regularly, and
+hurriedly, preparing in this way the materials for the barricades which
+others were to erect. Nothing ever seemed to me more to resemble the
+carrying on of an industry, and, as a matter of fact, for the greater
+number of these men it was nothing less. The instinct of disorder had
+given them the taste for it, and their experience of so many former
+insurrections the practice. I do not know that during the whole course
+of the day I was so keenly struck as in passing through this solitude in
+which one saw, so to speak, the worst passions of mankind at play,
+without the good ones appearing. I would rather have met in the same
+place a furious crowd; and I remember that, calling Lanjuinais'
+attention to those tottering edifices and falling trees, I gave vent to
+the phrase which had long been on my lips, and said:
+
+"Believe me, this time it is no longer a riot: it is a revolution."
+
+M. Dufaure told us all that concerned himself in the occurrences of the
+preceding evening and of the night. M. Mole had at first applied to him
+to assist him to form the new Cabinet; but the increasing gravity of the
+situation had soon made them both understand that the moment for their
+intervention had passed. M. Mole told the King so about midnight, and
+the King sent him to fetch M. Thiers, who refused to accept office
+unless he was given M. Barrot for a colleague. Beyond this point, M.
+Dufaure knew no more than we did. We separated without having succeeded
+in deciding upon our line of action, and without coming to any
+resolution beyond that of proceeding to the Chamber so soon as it
+opened.
+
+M. Dufaure did not come, and I never precisely learnt why. It was
+certainly not from fear, for I have since seen him very calm and very
+firm under much more dangerous circumstances. I believe that he grew
+alarmed for his family, and desired to take them to a place of safety
+outside Paris. His private and his public virtues, both of which were
+very great, did not keep step: the first were always ahead of the
+second, and we shall see signs of this on more than one subsequent
+occasion. Nor, for that matter, would I care to lay this to his account
+as a serious charge. Virtues of any kind are too rare to entitle us to
+vex those who possess them about their character or their degree.
+
+The time which we had spent with M. Dufaure had sufficed to enable the
+rioters to erect a large number of barricades along the road by which we
+had come; they were putting the finishing touches to them as we passed
+on our way back. These barricades were cunningly constructed by a small
+number of men, who worked very diligently: not like guilty men hurried
+by the dread of being taken in the act, but like good workmen anxious to
+get their task done well and expeditiously. The public watched them
+quietly, without expressing disapproval or offering assistance. I did
+not discover any signs of that sort of general seething which I had
+witnessed in 1830, and which made me at the time compare the whole city
+to a huge boiling caldron. This time the public was not overthrowing the
+Government; it was allowing it to fall.
+
+We met on the boulevard a column of infantry falling back upon the
+Madeleine. No one addressed a word to it, and yet its retreat resembled
+a rout. The ranks were broken, the soldiers marched in disorder, with
+hanging heads and an air that was both downcast and frightened. Whenever
+one of them became separated for a mere instant from the main body, he
+was at once surrounded, seized, embraced, disarmed and sent back: all
+this was the work of a moment.
+
+Crossing the Place du Havre, I met for the first time a battalion of
+that National Guard with which Paris was to be flooded. These men
+marched with a look of astonishment and an uncertain step, surrounded by
+street boys shouting, "Reform for ever!" to whom they replied with the
+same cry, but in a smothered and somewhat constrained voice. This
+battalion belonged to my neighbourhood, and most of those who composed
+it knew me by sight, although I knew hardly any of them. They
+surrounded me and greedily pressed me for news; I told them that we had
+obtained all we wanted, that the ministry was changed, that all the
+abuses complained of were to be reformed, and that the only danger we
+now ran was lest people should go too far, and that it was for them to
+prevent it. I soon saw that this view did not appeal to them.
+
+"That's all very well, sir," said they; "the Government has got itself
+into this scrape through its own fault, let it get out of it as best it
+can."
+
+It was of small use my representing to them that it was much less a
+question for the Government at present than for themselves:
+
+"If Paris is delivered to anarchy," I said, "and all the Kingdom is in
+confusion, do you think that none but the King will suffer?"
+
+It was of no avail, and all I could obtain in reply was this astounding
+absurdity: it was the Government's fault, let the Government run the
+danger; we don't want to get killed for people who have managed their
+business so badly. And yet this was that middle class which had been
+pampered for eighteen years: the current of public opinion had ended by
+dragging it along, and was driving it against those who had flattered it
+until it had become corrupt.
+
+This was the occasion of a reflection which has often since presented
+itself to my mind; in France a government always does wrong to rely
+solely for support upon the exclusive interests and selfish passions of
+one class. This can only succeed with nations more self-interested and
+less vain than ours: with us, when a government established upon this
+basis becomes unpopular, it follows that the members of the very class
+for whose sake it has lost its popularity prefer the pleasure of
+traducing it with all the world to the privileges which it assures them.
+The old French aristocracy, which was more enlightened than our modern
+middle class and possessed much greater _esprit de corps_, had already
+given the same example; it had ended by thinking it a mark of
+distinction to run down its own privileges, and by thundering against
+the abuses upon which it existed. That is why I think that, upon the
+whole, the safest method of government for us to adopt, in order to
+endure, is that of governing well, of governing in the interest of
+everybody. I am bound to confess, however, that, even when one follows
+this course, it is not very certain that one will endure for long.
+
+I soon set out to go to the Chamber, although the time fixed for the
+opening of the sitting had not yet come: it was, I believe, about eleven
+o'clock. I found the Place Louis XV still clear of people, but occupied
+by several regiments of cavalry. When I saw all these troops drawn up in
+such good order, I began to think that they had only deserted the
+streets in order to mass themselves around the Tuileries and defend
+themselves there. At the foot of the obelisk were grouped the staff,
+among whom, as I drew nearer, I recognized Bedeau, whose unlucky star
+had quite recently brought him back from Africa, in time to bury the
+Monarchy. I had spent a few days with him, the year before, at
+Constantine, and there had sprung up between us a sort of intimacy which
+has since continued. So soon as Bedeau caught sight of me, he sprang
+from his horse, came up to me, and grasped my hand in a way that clearly
+betrayed his excitement. His conversation gave yet stronger evidence of
+this, and I was not surprised, for I have always observed that the men
+who lose their heads most easily, and who generally show themselves
+weakest on days of revolution, are soldiers; accustomed as they are to
+have an organized force facing them and an obedient force in their
+hands, they readily become confused before the uproarious shouts of a
+mob and in presence of the hesitation and the occasional connivance of
+their own men. Unquestionably, Bedeau was confused, and everybody knows
+what were the results of this confusion: how the Chamber was invaded by
+a handful of men within pistol-shot of the squadrons protecting it, and
+how, in consequence, the fall of the Monarchy was proclaimed and the
+Provisional Government elected. The part played by Bedeau on this fatal
+day was, unfortunately for himself, of so preponderating a character
+that I propose to stop a moment in order to analyze this man and his
+motives for acting as he did. We have been sufficiently intimate both
+before and after this event to enable me to speak with knowledge. It is
+true that he received the order not to fight; but why did he obey so
+extraordinary an order, which circumstances had rendered so
+impracticable?
+
+Bedeau was assuredly not timid by nature, nor even, properly speaking,
+undecided; for, when he had once made up his mind, you saw him making
+for his goal with great firmness, coolness and courage; but his mind was
+the most methodical, the least self-reliant, the least adventurous, and
+the least adapted for unpremeditated action that can well be imagined.
+He was accustomed to consider the action which he was about to undertake
+in all its aspects before setting to work, taking the worst aspects
+first, and losing much precious time in diluting a single thought in a
+multitude of words. For the rest, he was a just man, moderate,
+liberal-minded, as humane as though he had not waged war in Africa for
+eighteen years, modest, moral, even refined, and religious: the kind of
+honest, virtuous man who is very rarely to be met with in military
+circles, or, to speak plainly, elsewhere. It was assuredly not from want
+of courage that he did certain acts which seemed to point to this
+defect, for he was brave beyond measure; still less was treachery his
+motive: although he may not have been attached to the Orleans Family, he
+was as little capable of betraying those Princes as their best friends
+could have been, and much less so than their creatures eventually were.
+His misfortune was that he was drawn into events which were greater than
+himself, and that he had only merit where genius was needed, and
+especially the genius to grapple with revolutions, which consists
+principally in regulating one's actions according to events, and in
+knowing how to disobey at the right time. The remembrance of February
+poisoned General Bedeau's life, and left a cruel wound deep down in his
+soul, a wound whose agony betrayed itself unceasingly by endless
+recitals and explanations of the events of that period.
+
+While he was engaged in telling me of his perplexities, and in
+endeavouring to prove that the duty of the Opposition was to come down
+to the streets in a body and calm the popular excitement with their
+speeches, a crowd of people glided in between the trees of the
+Champs-Elysees and came down the main avenue towards the Place Louis XV.
+Bedeau perceived these men, dragged me towards them on foot until he was
+more than a hundred paces from his cavalry, and began to harangue them,
+for he was more disposed to speech-making than any military man I have
+ever known.
+
+While he was holding forth in this way, I observed that the circle of
+his listeners was gradually extending itself around us, and would soon
+close us in; and through the first rank of sight-seers I clearly caught
+sight of men of riotous aspect moving about, while I heard dull murmurs
+in the depths of the crowd of these dangerous words, "It's Bugeaud." I
+leant towards the general and whispered in his ear:
+
+"I have more experience than you of the ways of the populace; take my
+word, get back to your horse at once, for if you stay here, you will be
+killed or taken prisoner before five minutes are over."
+
+He took my word for it, and it was well he did. A few moments later,
+these same men whom he had undertaken to convert murdered the occupants
+of the guard-house in the Rue des Champs-Elysees; I myself had some
+difficulty in forcing my way through them. One of them, a short,
+thick-set man, who seemed to belong to the lower class of workmen, asked
+me where I was going.
+
+I replied, "To the Chamber," adding, to show that I was a member of the
+Opposition, "Reform for ever! You know the Guizot Ministry has been
+dismissed?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I know," replied the man, jeeringly, and pointing to the
+Tuileries, "but we want more than that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ THE SITTING OF THE CHAMBER--MADAME LA DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS--THE
+ PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
+
+
+I entered the Chamber; the sitting had not yet commenced. The deputies
+were wandering about the lobbies like men distraught, living on rumours,
+and quite without information. It was not so much an assembly as a mob,
+for nobody was leading it.
+
+The leaders of both parties were absent: the ex-ministers had fled, the
+new ones had not appeared. Members cried loudly for the sitting to open,
+impelled rather by a vague desire for action than by any definite
+intention; the President refused: he was accustomed to do nothing
+without instructions, and since there was no one left to instruct him,
+he was unable to make up his mind. I was begged to go and find him, and
+persuade him to take the chair, and I did so. I found this excellent
+man--for so he was, in spite of the fact that he often indulged in
+well-meaning pieces of trickery, in little pious frauds, in petty
+villainies, in all the venial sins which a faint heart and a wavering
+mind are able to suggest to an honest nature--I found him, as I have
+said, walking to and fro in his room, a prey to the greatest excitement.
+M. Sauzet possessed good but not striking features; he had the dignity
+of a parish beadle, a big fat body, with very short arms. At times when
+he was restless and perplexed--and he almost always was so--he used to
+wave his little arms convulsively, and move them about like a swimmer.
+His demeanour during our conversation was of the strangest: he walked
+about, stopped still, sat down with one foot underneath his clumsy
+frame, as he used to do in moments of great excitement, stood up again,
+sat down anew, and came to no decision. It was very unfortunate for the
+House of Orleans that it had an honest man of this kind to preside over
+the Chamber on a day like this: an audacious rogue would have served its
+turn better.
+
+M. Sauzet gave me many reasons for not opening the sitting, but one
+which he did not give me convinced me that he was right. Seeing him so
+helpless and so incapable of adopting any resolution, I considered that
+he would only confuse men's minds the more he tried to regulate them. I
+therefore left him, and thinking it more important to find protectors
+for the Chamber than to open its deliberations, I went out, intending to
+proceed to the Ministry of the Interior and ask for help.
+
+As I crossed the Place du Palais-Bourbon with this object, I saw a very
+mixed crowd accompanying two men, whom I soon recognized as Barrot and
+Beaumont, with loud cheers. Both of them wore their hats crushed down
+over their eyes; their clothes were covered with dust, their cheeks
+looked hollow, their eyes weary: never were two men in triumph so
+suggestive of men about to be hanged. I ran up to Beaumont, and asked
+him what was happening. He whispered that the King had abdicated in his
+presence, and had taken to flight; that Lamoriciere had apparently been
+killed when he went out to announce the abdication to the rioters (in
+fact, an aide-de-camp had come back to say that he had seen him at a
+distance fall from his horse), that everything was going wrong, and
+finally, that he and Barrot were now on their way to the Ministry of the
+Interior in order to take possession of it, and to try and establish
+somewhere a centre of authority and resistance.
+
+"And the Chamber!" I said. "Have you taken any precautions for the
+defence of the Chamber?"
+
+Beaumont received this observation with ill-humour, as though I had been
+speaking of my own house. "Who is thinking of the Chamber?" he replied
+brusquely. "What good or what harm can it do at the present juncture?"
+
+I thought, and rightly, that he was wrong to speak like this. The
+Chamber, it is true, was at that moment in a curious state of
+powerlessness, its majority despised, and its minority left behind by
+public opinion. But M. de Beaumont forgot that it is just in times of
+revolution that the very least instruments of the law, and much more its
+outer symbols, which recall the idea of the law to the minds of the
+people, assume the greatest importance; for it is especially in the
+midst of this universal anarchy and turmoil that the need is felt of
+some simulacrum of authority and tradition in order to save the remnants
+of a half-destroyed constitution or to complete its overthrow. Had the
+deputies been able to proclaim the Regency, the latter might have ended
+by triumphing, in spite of the unpopularity of the deputies; and, on the
+other hand, it is an undoubted fact that the Provisional Government owed
+much to the chance which caused it to come into being between the four
+walls which had so long sheltered the representatives of the nation.
+
+I followed my friends to the Ministry of the Interior, where they were
+going. The crowd which accompanied us entered, or rather swept in,
+tumultuously, and even penetrated with us as far as the room which M.
+Duchatel had just quitted. Barrot tried to free himself and dismiss the
+mob, but was unable to succeed.
+
+These people, who held two very different sets of opinions, as I was
+then enabled to observe, some being Republicans and others
+Constitutionalists, began vehemently to discuss with us and among
+themselves the measures which were to be taken; and as we were all
+squeezed together in a very small space, the heat, dust, confusion, and
+uproar soon became unbearable. Barrot, who always launched out into
+long, pompous phrases at the most critical moments, and who preserved an
+air of dignity, and even of mystery, in the most ludicrous
+circumstances, was holding forth at his best _in angustis_. His voice
+occasionally rose above the tumult, but never succeeded in quelling it.
+In despair and disgust at so violent and ludicrous a scene, I left this
+place, where they were exchanging almost as many cuffs as arguments, and
+returned to the Chamber.
+
+I reached the entrance to the building without suspecting what was
+happening inside, when I saw people come running up, crying that Madame
+la Duchesse d'Orleans, the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Nemours had
+just arrived. At this news, I flew up the stairs of the Palace, four at
+a time, and rushed into the House.
+
+I saw the three members of the Royal Family whom I have named, at the
+foot of the tribune, facing the House. The Duchesse d'Orleans was
+seated, dressed in mourning, calm and pale; I could see that she was
+greatly excited, but her excitement seemed to be that of courageous
+natures, more prone to turn to heroism than fright.
+
+The Comte de Paris displayed the carelessness of his age and the
+precocious impassiveness of princes. Standing by their side was the Duc
+de Nemours, tightly clad in his uniform--cold, stiff, and erect. He was,
+to my mind, the only man who ran any real danger that day; and during
+the whole time that I saw him exposed to it, I constantly observed in
+him the same firm and silent courage.
+
+Around these unhappy Princes pressed the National Guards who had come
+with them, some deputies, and a small number of the people. The
+galleries were empty and closed, with the exception of the press
+gallery, into which an unarmed but clamorous crowd had forced its way. I
+was more struck by the cries that issued at intervals from there than by
+all else that occurred during the sitting.
+
+Fifty years had passed since the last scene of this kind. Since the time
+of the Convention, the galleries had been silent, and the silence of the
+galleries had become part of our parliamentary customs. However, if the
+Chamber at this moment already felt embarrassed in its actions, it was
+not as yet in any way constrained; the deputies were in considerable
+numbers, though the party leaders were still absent. I heard enquiries
+on every side for M. Thiers and M. Barrot; I did not know what had
+become of M. Thiers, but I knew only too well what M. Barrot was doing.
+I hurriedly sent one of our friends to tell him of what was happening,
+and he came running up with all speed. I can answer for that man that
+his soul never knew fear.
+
+After for a moment watching this extraordinary sitting, I had hastened
+to take my usual seat on the upper benches of the Left Centre: it has
+always been my contention that at critical moments one should not only
+be present in the assembly of which one is a member, but occupy the
+place where one is generally to be found.
+
+A sort of confused and turbulent discussion had been opened: I heard M.
+Lacrosse, who since became my colleague in office, cry amid the uproar:
+
+"M. Dupin wishes to speak!"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"No," replied M. Dupin, "I made no such request."
+
+"No matter," came from every side; "speak, speak!"
+
+Thus urged, M. Dupin ascended the tribune, and proposed in two words
+that they should return to the law of 1842, and proclaim the Duchesse
+d'Orleans Regent. This was received with applause in the Assembly,
+exclamations in the gallery, and murmurs in the lobbies. The lobbies,
+which at first were pretty clear, began to grow crowded in an alarming
+manner. The people did not yet come into the Chamber in streams, but
+entered little by little, one by one; each moment there appeared a new
+face; the Chamber grew flooded as it were by drops. Most of the
+new-comers belonged to the lowest classes; many of them were armed.
+
+I witnessed this growing invasion from a distance, and I felt the danger
+momentarily increase with it. I cast my eyes round the Chamber in search
+of the man best able to resist the torrent; I saw only Lamartine, who
+had the necessary position and the requisite capacity to make the
+attempt; I remembered that in 1842 he was the only one who proposed the
+regency of the Duchesse d'Orleans. On the other hand, his recent
+speeches, and especially his recent writings, had obtained for him the
+favour of the people. His talent, moreover, was of a kind that appeals
+to the popular taste. I was not aware that, half an hour before, he had
+been extolling the Republic to an assemblage of journalists and deputies
+in one of the offices of the Chamber. I saw him standing by his bench. I
+elbowed my way to him, and, when I reached him:
+
+"We shall be lost," I whispered, hurriedly: "you alone can make yourself
+heard at this supreme moment; go to the tribune and speak."
+
+I can see him still, as I write these lines, so struck was I with his
+appearance. I see his long, straight, slender figure, his eye turned
+towards the semi-circle, his fixed and vacant gaze absorbed in inward
+contemplation rather than in observing what was passing around him. When
+he heard me speak, he did not turn towards me, but only stretched out
+his arm towards the place where the Princes stood, and, replying to his
+own thought rather than to mine, said:
+
+"I shall not speak so long as that woman and that child remain where
+they are."
+
+I said no more; I had heard enough. Returning to my bench, I passed by
+the Right Centre, near where Lanjuinais and Billault were sitting, and
+asked, "Can you suggest nothing that we could do?" They mournfully shook
+their heads, and I continued on my way.
+
+Meantime, the crowd had accumulated to such an extent in the
+semi-circle, that the Princes ran the risk of being crushed or
+suffocated at any moment.
+
+The President made vain efforts to clear the House; failing in his
+endeavours, he begged the Duchesse d'Orleans to withdraw. The courageous
+Princess refused, whereupon her friends, with great difficulty,
+extricated her from the throng, and made her climb to the top bench of
+the Left Centre, where she sat down with her son and the Duc de Nemours.
+
+Marie and Cremieux had just, amid the silence of the deputies and the
+acclamations of the people, proposed the establishment of a provisional
+government, when Barrot at last appeared. He was out of breath, but not
+alarmed. Climbing the stairs of the tribune:
+
+"Our duty lies before us," he said; "the Crown of July lies on the head
+of a child and a woman."
+
+The Chamber, recovering its courage, plucked up heart to burst into
+acclamations, and the people in their turn were silent. The Duchesse
+d'Orleans rose from her seat, seemed to wish to speak, hesitated,
+listened to timid counsels, and sat down again: the last glimmer of her
+fortune had gone out. Barrot finished his speech without renewing the
+impression of his opening words; nevertheless, the Chamber had gathered
+strength, and the people wavered.
+
+At that moment, the crowd filling the semi-circle was driven back, by a
+stream from outside, towards the centre benches, which were already
+almost deserted; it burst and spread over the benches. Of the few
+deputies who still occupied them, some slipped away and left the House,
+while others retreated from bench to bench, like victims surprised by
+the tide, who retreat from rock to rock always pursued by the rising
+waters. All this commotion was produced by two troops of men, for the
+most part armed, which marched through the two lobbies, each with
+officers of the National Guards and flags at its head. The two officers
+who carried the flags, of whom one, a swaggering individual, was, as I
+heard later, a half-pay colonel called Dumoulin, ascended the tribune
+with a theatrical air, waved their standards, and with much skipping
+about and great melodramatic gestures, bawled out some revolutionary
+balderdash or other. The President declared the sitting suspended, and
+proceeded to put on his hat, as is customary; but, since he had the
+knack of making himself ridiculous in the most tragic situations, in his
+precipitation he seized the hat of a secretary instead of his own, and
+pulled it down over his eyes and ears.
+
+Sittings of this sort, as may be believed, are not easily suspended, and
+the President's attempts only succeeded in adding to the disorder.
+
+Thenceforth there was nothing but one continuous uproar, broken by
+occasional moments of silence. The speakers appeared in the tribune in
+groups: Cremieux, Ledru-Rollin, and Lamartine sprang into it at the same
+time. Ledru-Rollin drove Cremieux out, and himself held on with his two
+great hands, while Lamartine, without leaving or struggling, waited for
+his colleague to finish speaking. Ledru-Rollin began incoherently,
+interrupted every instant by the impatience of his own friends. "Finish!
+finish!" cried Berryer, more experienced than he, and warier in his
+dynastic ill-will than was the other in his republican passion.
+Ledru-Rollin ended by demanding the appointment of a provisional
+government and descended the stair.
+
+Then Lamartine stepped forward and obtained silence. He commenced with a
+splendid eulogium on the courage of the Duchesse d'Orleans, and the
+people themselves, sensible, as always, to generous sentiments wrapped
+up in fine phrases, applauded. The deputies breathed again. "Wait," said
+I to my neighbours, "this is only the exordium." And in fact, before
+long, Lamartine tacked round and proceeded straight in the same
+direction as Ledru-Rollin.
+
+Until then, as I said, all the galleries except the one reserved for the
+press had remained empty and closed; but while Lamartine was speaking,
+loud blows were heard at the door of one of them, and yielding to the
+strain, the door burst into atoms. In a moment the gallery was invaded
+by an armed mob of men, who noisily filled it and soon afterwards all
+the others. A man of the lower orders, placing one foot on the cornice,
+pointed his gun at the President and the speaker; others seemed to
+level theirs at the assembly. The Duchesse d'Orleans and her son were
+hurried out of the Chamber by some devoted friends and into the corridor
+behind the Chair. The President muttered a few words to the effect that
+the sitting was adjourned, and stepped, or rather slid, off the platform
+on which the chair was placed. I saw him passing before my eyes like a
+shapeless mass: never would I have believed that fear could have
+inspired with such activity, or rather, suddenly reduced to a sort of
+fluidity, so huge a body. All who had remained of the Conservative
+members then dispersed, and the populace sprawled over the centre
+benches, crying, "Let us take the place of the corrupt crew!"
+
+During all the turbulent scenes which I have just described, I remained
+motionless in my seat, very attentive, but not greatly excited; and now,
+when I ask myself why I felt no keener emotion in presence of an event
+bound to exercise so great an influence upon the destinies of France and
+upon my own, I find that the form assumed by this great occurrence did
+much to diminish the impression it made upon me.
+
+In the course of the Revolution of February, I was present at two or
+three scenes which possessed the elements of grandeur (I shall have
+occasion to describe them in their turn); but this scene lacked them
+entirely, for the reason that there was nothing genuine in it. We
+French, especially in Paris, are prone to introduce our literary or
+theatrical reminiscences into our most serious demonstrations; this
+often gives rise to the belief that the sentiments we express are not
+genuine, whereas they are only clumsily adorned. In this case the
+imitation was so evident that the terrible originality of the facts
+remained concealed beneath it. It was a time when every imagination was
+besmeared with the crude colours with which Lamartine had been daubing
+his _Girondins_. The men of the first Revolution were living in every
+mind, their deeds and words present to every memory. All that I saw that
+day bore the visible impress of those recollections; it seemed to me
+throughout as though they were engaged in acting the French Revolution,
+rather than continuing it.
+
+Despite the presence of drawn swords, bayonets and muskets, I was unable
+to persuade myself for a single instant not only that I was in danger of
+death, but that anybody was, and I honestly believe that no one really
+was. Bloodthirsty hatreds only showed themselves later: they had not yet
+had the time to spring up; the special spirit which was to characterize
+the Revolution of February did not yet manifest itself. Meantime, men
+were fruitlessly endeavouring to warm themselves at the fire of our
+fathers' passions, imitating their gestures and attitudes as they had
+seen them represented on the stage, but unable to imitate their
+enthusiasm or to be inflamed with their fury. It was the tradition of
+violent deeds that was being imitated by cold hearts, which understood
+not the spirit of it. Although I clearly saw that the catastrophe of the
+piece would be a terrible one, I was never able to take the actors very
+seriously, and the whole seemed to me like a bad tragedy performed by
+provincial actors.
+
+I confess that what moved me most that day was the sight of that woman
+and child, who were made to bear the whole weight of faults that they
+had not committed. I frequently looked with compassion towards that
+foreign Princess, thrown into the midst of our civil discords; and when
+she had fled, the remembrance of the sweet, sad, firm glances which I
+had seen her cast upon the Assembly during that long agony came back so
+vividly to my memory, I felt so touched with pity when I thought of the
+perils attending her flight that, suddenly springing from my seat, I
+rushed in the direction which my knowledge of the building led me to
+believe that she and her son would have taken to seek a place of safety.
+In a moment I made my way through the crowd, crossed the floor, passed
+out through the cloak-room, and reached the private staircase which
+leads from the entrance in the Rue de Bourgogne to the upper floor of
+the Palace. A messenger whom I questioned as I ran past him told me that
+I was on the track of the Royal party; and, indeed, I heard several
+persons hurriedly mounting the upper portion of the stairs. I therefore
+continued my pursuit, and reached a landing; the steps which preceded
+me had just ceased. Finding a closed door in front of me, I knocked at
+it, but it was not opened. If princes were like God, who reads our
+hearts and accepts the intention for the deed, assuredly these would be
+pleased with me for what I wished to do that day; but they will never
+know, for no one saw me and I told no one.
+
+I returned to the House and resumed my seat. Almost all the members had
+left; the benches were occupied by men of the populace. Lamartine was
+still in the tribune between the two banners, continuing to address the
+crowd, or rather conversing with them; for there seemed to be almost as
+many orators as listeners. The confusion was at its height. In a moment
+of semi-silence, Lamartine began to read out a list containing the names
+of the different people proposed by I don't know whom to take share in
+the Provisional Government that had just been decreed, nobody knows how.
+Most of these names were accepted with acclamations, some rejected with
+groans, others received with jests, for in scenes in which the people
+take part, as in the plays of Shakspeare, burlesque often rubs shoulders
+with tragedy, and wretched jokes sometimes come to the relief of the
+ardour of revolution. When Garnier-Pages' name was proposed, I heard a
+voice cry, "You've made a mistake, Lamartine; it's the dead one that's
+the good one;" Garnier-Pages having had a celebrated brother, to whom he
+bore no resemblance except in name.
+
+M. de Lamartine, I think, was beginning to grow greatly embarrassed at
+his position; for in a rebellion, as in a novel, the most difficult part
+to invent is the end. When, therefore, someone took it into his head to
+cry, "To the Hotel de Ville!" Lamartine echoed, "Yes, to the Hotel de
+Ville," and went out forthwith, taking half the crowd with him; the
+others remained with Ledru-Rollin, who, in order, I suppose, to retain a
+leading part for himself, felt called upon in his turn to go through the
+same mock election, after which he too set out for the Hotel de Ville.
+There the same electoral display was gone through once more; in
+connection with which I cannot refrain from repeating an anecdote which
+I was told, a few months later, by M. Marrast. It interrupts the thread
+of my story a little, but it gives a marvellous picture of two men who
+were both at that moment playing a great part, and shows the difference,
+if not in their opinions, at least in their education and habits of
+thought.
+
+"A list of candidates for the Provisional Government," said Marrast,
+"had hurriedly been drawn up. It had to be read out to the people, and I
+handed it to Lamartine, asking him to read it aloud from the top of the
+steps. 'I can't,' replied Lamartine, after looking at it; 'my name is on
+it.' I then passed it on to Cremieux, who, after reading it, said,
+'You're making fun of me: you're asking me to read out to the people a
+list which has not got my name on it!'"
+
+When I saw Ledru-Rollin leave the House, where remained behind none but
+the sheer dregs of the insurrection, I saw that there was nothing more
+to be done there. I accordingly went away, but as I did not care to find
+myself in the middle of the mob marching towards the Hotel de Ville, I
+took the opposite direction, and began to go down those steep steps,
+like cellar stairs, which lead to the inner yard of the Palace. I then
+saw coming towards me a column of armed National Guards, ascending the
+same staircase at a run, with set bayonets. In front of them were two
+men in civilian dress, who seemed to be leading them, shouting at the
+top of their voices, "Long live the Duchesse d'Orleans and the Regency!"
+In one I recognized General Oudinot and in the other Andryane, who was
+imprisoned in the Spielberg, and who wrote his Memoirs in imitation of
+those of Silvio Pellico. I saw no one else, and nothing could prove more
+clearly how difficult it is for the public ever to learn the truth of
+events happening amid the tumult of a revolution. I know that a letter
+exists, written by Marshal Bugeaud, in which he relates that he
+succeeded in getting together a few companies of the Tenth Legion,
+inspired them in favour of the Duchesse d'Orleans, and led them at the
+double through the yard of the Palais Bourbon and to the door of the
+Chamber, which he found empty. The story is true, but for the presence
+of the marshal, whom I should most certainly have seen had he been
+there; but there was no one, I repeat, except General Oudinot and M.
+Andryane. The latter, seeing me standing still and saying nothing, took
+me sharply by the arm, exclaiming:
+
+"Monsieur, you must join us, to help to free Madame la Duchesse
+d'Orleans and save the Monarchy."
+
+"Monsieur," I replied, "your intention is good, but you are too late:
+the Duchesse d'Orleans has disappeared, and the Chamber has risen."
+
+Now, where was the spirited defender of the Monarchy that evening? The
+incident is worthy of being told and noted among the many incidents of
+versatility with which the history of revolutions abounds.
+
+M. Andryane was in the office of M. Ledru-Rollin, officiating in the
+name of the Republic as general secretary to the Ministry of the
+Interior.
+
+To return to the column which he was leading: I joined it, although I
+had no longer any hope of success for its efforts. Mechanically obeying
+the impulse communicated to it, it proceeded as far as the doors of the
+Chamber. There the men who composed it learnt what had taken place; they
+turned about for a moment, and then dispersed in every direction. Half
+an hour earlier, this handful of National Guards might (as on the
+ensuing 15th of May) have changed the fortunes of France. I allowed this
+new crowd to pass by me, and then, alone and very pensive, I resumed my
+road home, not without casting a last look on the Chamber, now silent
+and deserted, in which, during nine years, I had listened to the sound
+of so many eloquent and futile words.
+
+M. Billault, who had left the Chamber a few minutes before me by the
+entrance in the Rue de Bourgogne, told me that he met M. Barrot in this
+street.
+
+"He was walking," he said, "at a rapid rate, without perceiving that he
+was hatless, and that his grey hair, which he generally carefully
+brushed back along his temples, was falling on either side and
+fluttering in disorder over his shoulders; he seemed beside himself."
+
+This man had made heroic efforts all day long to maintain the Monarchy
+on the declivity down which he himself had pushed it, and he remained as
+though crushed beneath its fall. I learned from Beaumont, who had not
+left him during any part of the day, that in the morning M. Barrot faced
+and mounted twenty barricades, walking up to each unarmed, meeting
+sometimes with insults, often with shots, and always ending by
+overcoming with his words those who guarded them. His words, in fact,
+were all-powerful with the multitude. He had all that was wanted to act
+upon them at a given moment: a strong voice, an inflated eloquence, and
+a fearless heart.
+
+While M. Barrot, in disorder, was leaving the Chamber, M. Thiers, still
+more distraught, wandered round Paris, not daring to venture home. He
+was seen for an instant at the Assembly before the arrival of the
+Duchesse d'Orleans, but disappeared at once, giving the signal for the
+retreat of many others. The next morning, I learnt the details of his
+flight through M. Talabot, who had assisted in it. I was connected with
+M. Talabot by fairly intimate party ties, and M. Thiers, I believe, by
+former business relations. M. Talabot was a man full of mental vigour
+and resolution, very fit for an emergency of that kind. He told me as
+follows--I believe I have neither omitted nor added anything:
+
+"It seems," he said, "that M. Thiers, when crossing the Place Louis XV,
+had been insulted and threatened by some of the populace. He was greatly
+excited and upset when I saw him enter the House; he came up to me, led
+me aside, and told me that he would be murdered by the mob if I did not
+assist him to escape. I took him by the arm and begged him to go with me
+and fear nothing. M. Thiers wished to avoid the Pont Louis XVI, for fear
+of meeting the crowd. We went to the Pont des Invalides, but when we got
+there, he thought he saw a gathering on the other side of the river, and
+again refused to cross. We then made for the Pont d'Iena, which was
+free, and crossed it without any difficulty. When we reached the other
+side, M. Thiers discovered some street-boys, shouting, on the
+foundations of what was to have been the palace of the King of Rome, and
+forthwith turned down the Rue d'Auteuil and made for the Bois de
+Boulogne. There we had the good luck to find a cabman, who consented to
+drive us along the outer boulevards to the neighbourhood of the
+Barriere de Clichy, through which we were able to reach his house.
+During the whole journey," added M. Talabot, "and especially at the
+start, M. Thiers seemed almost out of his senses, gesticulating,
+sobbing, uttering incoherent phrases. The catastrophe he had just
+beheld, the future of his country, his own personal danger, all
+contributed to form a chaos amid which his thoughts struggled and
+strayed unceasingly."
+
+
+
+
+PART THE SECOND
+
+
+
+
+ _Everything contained in this note-book (Chapters I. to XI.
+ inclusive) was written in stray moments at Sorrento, in November
+ and December 1850, and January, February, and March 1851._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ MY EXPLANATION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY, AND MY VIEWS AS TO ITS
+ EFFECTS UPON THE FUTURE.
+
+
+And so the Monarchy of July was fallen, fallen without a struggle, and
+before rather than beneath the blows of the victors, who were as
+astonished at their triumph as were the vanquished at their defeat. I
+have often, since the Revolution of February, heard M. Guizot and even
+M. Mole and M. Thiers declare that this event should only be attributed
+to a surprise and regarded as a mere accident, a bold and lucky stroke
+and nothing more. I have always felt tempted to answer them in the words
+which Moliere's Misanthrope uses to Oronte:
+
+ Pour en juger ainsi, vous avez vos raisons;
+
+for these three men had conducted the affairs of France, under the
+guidance of King Louis-Philippe, during eighteen years, and it was
+difficult for them to admit that it was the King's bad government which
+had prepared the catastrophe which hurled him from the Throne.
+
+As for me, I have not the same motives for forming an opinion, and I
+could hardly persuade myself to be of theirs. I am not prepared to say
+that accidents played no part in the Revolution of February: on the
+contrary, they played a great one; but they were not the only thing.
+
+I have come across men of letters, who have written history without
+taking part in public affairs, and politicians, who have only concerned
+themselves with producing events without thinking of describing them. I
+have observed that the first are always inclined to find general causes,
+whereas the others, living in the midst of disconnected daily facts, are
+prone to imagine that everything is attributable to particular
+incidents, and that the wires which they pull are the same that move the
+world. It is to be presumed that both are equally deceived.
+
+For my part, I detest these absolute systems, which represent all the
+events of history as depending upon great first causes linked by the
+chain of fatality, and which, as it were, suppress men from the history
+of the human race. They seem narrow, to my mind, under their pretence of
+broadness, and false beneath their air of mathematical exactness. I
+believe (_pace_ the writers who have invented these sublime theories in
+order to feed their vanity and facilitate their work) that many
+important historical facts can only be explained by accidental
+circumstances, and that many others remain totally inexplicable.
+Moreover, chance, or rather that tangle of secondary causes which we
+call chance, for want of the knowledge how to unravel it, plays a great
+part in all that happens on the world's stage; although I firmly believe
+that chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
+Antecedent facts, the nature of institutions, the cast of minds and the
+state of morals are the materials of which are composed those impromptus
+which astonish and alarm us.
+
+The Revolution of February, in common with all other great events of
+this class, sprang from general causes, impregnated, if I am permitted
+the expression, by accidents; and it would be as superficial a judgment
+to ascribe it necessarily to the former or exclusively to the latter.
+
+The industrial revolution which, during the past thirty years, had
+turned Paris into the principal manufacturing city of France and
+attracted within its walls an entire new population of workmen (to whom
+the works of the fortifications had added another population of
+labourers at present deprived of work) tended more and more to inflame
+this multitude. Add to this the democratic disease of envy, which was
+silently permeating it; the economical and political theories which were
+beginning to make their way and which strove to prove that human misery
+was the work of laws and not of Providence, and that poverty could be
+suppressed by changing the conditions of society; the contempt into
+which the governing class, and especially the men who led it, had
+fallen, a contempt so general and so profound that it paralyzed the
+resistance even of those who were most interested in maintaining the
+power that was being overthrown; the centralization which reduced the
+whole revolutionary movement to the overmastering of Paris and the
+seizing of the machinery of government; and lastly, the mobility of all
+things, institutions, ideas, men and customs, in a fluctuating state of
+society which had, in less than sixty years, undergone the shock of
+seven great revolutions, without numbering a multitude of smaller,
+secondary upheavals. These were the general causes without which the
+Revolution of February would have been impossible. The principal
+accidents which led to it were the passions of the dynastic Opposition,
+which brought about a riot in proposing a reform; the suppression of
+this riot, first over-violent, and then abandoned; the sudden
+disappearance of the old Ministry, unexpectedly snapping the threads of
+power, which the new ministers, in their confusion, were unable either
+to seize upon or to reunite; the mistakes and disorder of mind of these
+ministers, so powerless to re-establish that which they had been strong
+enough to overthrow; the vacillation of the generals; the absence of the
+only Princes who possessed either personal energy or popularity; and
+above all, the senile imbecility of King Louis-Philippe, his weakness,
+which no one could have foreseen, and which still remains almost
+incredible, after the event has proved it.
+
+I have sometimes asked myself what could have produced this sudden and
+unprecedented depression in the King's mind. Louis-Philippe had spent
+his life in the midst of revolutions, and certainly lacked neither
+experience, courage, nor readiness of mind, although these qualities all
+failed him so completely on that day. In my opinion, his weakness was
+due to his excessive surprise; he was overwhelmed with consternation
+before he had grasped the meaning of things. The Revolution of February
+was _unforeseen_ by all, but by him more than any other; he had been
+prepared for it by no warning from the outside, for since many years his
+mind had withdrawn into that sort of haughty solitude into which in the
+end the intellect almost always settles down of princes who have long
+lived happily, and who, mistaking luck for genius, refuse to listen to
+anything, because they think that there is nothing left for them to
+learn from anybody. Besides, Louis-Philippe had been deceived, as I have
+already said that his ministers were, by the misleading light cast by
+antecedent facts upon present times. One might draw a strange picture of
+all the errors which have thus been begotten, one by the other, without
+resembling each other. We see Charles I. driven to tyranny and violence
+at the sight of the progress which the spirit of opposition had made in
+England during the gentle reign of his father; Louis XVI. determined to
+suffer everything because Charles I. had perished by refusing to endure
+anything; Charles X. provoking the Revolution, because he had with his
+own eyes beheld the weakness of Louis XVI.; and lastly, Louis-Philippe,
+who had more perspicacity than any of them, imagining that, in order to
+remain on the Throne, all he had to do was to observe the letter of the
+law while violating its spirit, and that, provided he himself kept
+within the bounds of the Charter, the nation would never exceed them. To
+warp the spirit of the Constitution without changing the letter; to set
+the vices of the country in opposition to each other; gently to drown
+revolutionary passion in the love of material enjoyment: such was the
+idea of his whole life. Little by little, it had become, not his
+leading, but his sole idea. He had wrapped himself in it, he had lived
+in it; and when he suddenly saw that it was a false idea, he became like
+a man who is awakened in the night by an earthquake, and who, feeling
+his house crumbling in the darkness, and the very ground seeming to yawn
+beneath his feet, remains distracted amid this unforeseen and universal
+ruin.
+
+I am arguing very much at my ease to-day concerning the causes that
+brought about the events of the 24th of February; but on the afternoon
+of that day I had many other things in my head: I was thinking of the
+events themselves, and sought less for what had produced them than for
+what was to follow.
+
+I returned slowly home. I explained in a few words to Madame de
+Tocqueville what I had seen, and sat down in a corner to think. I cannot
+remember ever feeling my soul so full of sadness. It was the second
+revolution I had seen accomplish itself, before my eyes, within
+seventeen years!
+
+On the 30th of July 1830, at daybreak, I had met the carriages of King
+Charles X. on the outer boulevards of Versailles, with damaged
+escutcheons, proceeding at a foot pace, in Indian file, like a funeral,
+and I was unable to restrain my tears at the sight. This time my
+impressions were of another kind, but even keener. Both revolutions had
+afflicted me; but how much more bitter were the impressions caused by
+the last! I had until the end felt a remnant of hereditary affection for
+Charles X.; but that King fell for having violated rights that were dear
+to me, and I had every hope that my country's freedom would be revived
+rather than extinguished by his fall. But now this freedom seemed dead;
+the Princes who were fleeing were nothing to me, but I felt that the
+cause I had at heart was lost.
+
+I had spent the best days of my youth amid a society which seemed to
+increase in greatness and prosperity as it increased in liberty; I had
+conceived the idea of a balanced, regulated liberty, held in check by
+religion, custom and law; the attractions of this liberty had touched
+me; it had become the passion of my life; I felt that I could never be
+consoled for its loss, and that I must renounce all hope of its
+recovery.
+
+I had gained too much experience of mankind to be able to content myself
+with empty words; I knew that, if one great revolution is able to
+establish liberty in a country, a number of succeeding revolutions make
+all regular liberty impossible for very many years.
+
+I could not yet know what would issue from this last revolution, but I
+was already convinced that it could give birth to nothing that would
+satisfy me; and I foresaw that, whatever might be the lot reserved for
+our posterity, our own fate was to drag on our lives miserably amid
+alternate reactions of licence and oppression.
+
+I began to pass in review the history of our last sixty years, and I
+smiled bitterly when I thought of the illusions formed at the conclusion
+of each period in this long revolution; the theories on which these
+illusions had been fed; the sapient dreams of our historians, and all
+the ingenious and deceptive systems by the aid of which it had been
+endeavoured to explain a present which was still incorrectly seen, and a
+future which was not seen at all.
+
+The Constitutional Monarchy had succeeded the Ancien Regime; the
+Republic, the Monarchy; the Empire, the Republic; the Restoration, the
+Empire; and then came the Monarchy of July. After each of these
+successive changes it was said that the French Revolution, having
+accomplished what was presumptuously called its work, was finished; this
+had been said and it had been believed. Alas! I myself had hoped it
+under the Restoration, and again after the fall of the Government of the
+Restoration; and here is the French Revolution beginning over again, for
+it is still the same one. As we go on, its end seems farther off and
+shrouded in greater darkness. Shall we ever--as we are assured by other
+prophets, perhaps as delusive as their predecessors--shall we ever
+attain a more complete and more far-reaching social transformation than
+our fathers foresaw and desired, and than we ourselves are able to
+foresee; or are we not destined simply to end in a condition of
+intermittent anarchy, the well-known chronic and incurable complaint of
+old races? As for me, I am unable to say; I do not know when this long
+voyage will be ended; I am weary of seeing the shore in each successive
+mirage, and I often ask myself whether the _terra firma_ we are seeking
+does really exist, and whether we are not doomed to rove upon the seas
+for ever.
+
+I spent the rest of the day with Ampere, who was my colleague at the
+Institute, and one of my best friends. He came to discover what had
+become of me in the affray, and to ask himself to dinner. I wished at
+first to relieve myself by making him share my vexation; but I soon
+perceived that his impression was not the same as mine, and that he
+looked differently upon the revolution which was in progress. Ampere was
+a man of intelligence and, better still, a man full of heart, gentle in
+manner, and reliable. His good-nature caused him to be liked; and he was
+popular because of his versatile, witty, amusing, good-humoured
+conversation, in which he made many remarks that were at once
+entertaining and agreeable to hear, but too shallow to remember.
+Unfortunately, he was inclined to carry the _esprit_ of the salons into
+literature and the _esprit_ of literature into politics. What I call
+literary _esprit_ in politics consists in seeking for what is novel and
+ingenious rather than for what is true; in preferring the showy to the
+useful; in showing one's self very sensible to the playing and elocution
+of the actors, without regard to the results of the play; and, lastly,
+in judging by impressions rather than reasons. I need not say that this
+eccentricity exists among others besides Academicians. To tell the
+truth, the whole nation is a little inclined that way, and the French
+Public very often takes a man-of-letters' view of politics. Ampere held
+the fallen Government in great contempt, and its last actions had
+irritated him greatly. Moreover, he had witnessed many instances of
+courage, disinterestedness, and even generosity among the insurgents;
+and he had been bitten by the popular excitement.
+
+I saw that he not only did not enter into my view, but that he was
+disposed to take quite an opposite one. Seeing this, I was suddenly
+impelled to turn against Ampere all the feelings of indignation, grief
+and anger that had been accumulating in my heart since the morning; and
+I spoke to him with a violence of language which I have often since
+recalled with a certain shame, and which none but a friendship so
+sincere as his could have excused. I remember saying to him, _inter
+alia_:
+
+"You understand nothing of what is happening; you are judging like a
+poet or a Paris cockney. You call this the triumph of liberty, when it
+is its final defeat. I tell you that the people which you so artlessly
+admire has just succeeded in proving that it is unfit and unworthy to
+live a life of freedom. Show me what experience has taught it! Where are
+the new virtues it has gained, the old vices it has laid aside? No, I
+tell you, it is always the same, as impatient, as thoughtless, as
+contemptuous of law and order, as easily led and as cowardly in the
+presence of danger as its fathers were before it. Time has altered it in
+no way, and has left it as frivolous in serious matters as it used to be
+in trifles."
+
+After much vociferation we both ended by appealing to the future, that
+enlightened and upright judge who always, alas! arrives too late.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ PARIS ON THE MORROW OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY AND THE NEXT DAYS--THE
+ SOCIALISTIC CHARACTER OF THE NEW REVOLUTION.
+
+
+The night passed without accidents, although not until the morning did
+the streets cease to resound with cries and gun-shots; but these were
+sounds of triumph, not of combat. So soon as it was light, I went out to
+observe the appearance of the town, and to discover what had become of
+my two young nephews,[8] who were being educated at the Little Seminary.
+The Little Seminary was in the Rue de Madame, at the back of the
+Luxembourg, so that I had to cross a great part of the town to reach it.
+
+ [8: Hubert and Rene de Tocqueville.--Cte. de T.]
+
+I found the streets quiet, and even half deserted, as they usually are
+in Paris on a Sunday morning, when the rich are still asleep and the
+poor are resting. From time to time, along the walls, one met the
+victors of the preceding day; but they were filled with wine rather than
+political ardour, and were, for the most part, making for their homes
+without taking heed of the passers-by. A few shops were open, and one
+caught sight of the frightened, but still more astonished, shopkeepers,
+who reminded one of spectators witnessing the end of a play which they
+did not quite understand. What one saw most of in the streets deserted
+by the people, was soldiers; some walking singly, others in little
+groups, all unarmed, and crossing the city on their roads home. The
+defeat these men had just sustained had left a very vivid and lasting
+impression of shame and anger upon them. This was noticed later, but was
+not apparent at the time: the pleasure of finding themselves at liberty
+seemed to absorb every other feeling in these lads; they walked with a
+careless air, with a light and easy gait.
+
+The Little Seminary had not been attacked nor even insulted. My nephews,
+however, were not there; they had been sent home the evening before to
+their maternal grandmother. Accordingly, I turned back, taking the Rue
+du Bac, to find out what had become of Lamoriciere, who was then living
+in that street; and it was only after recognizing me that the servants
+admitted that their master was at home, and consented to take me to him.
+
+I found this singular person, whom I shall have occasion to mention more
+than once, stretched upon his bed, and reduced to a state of immobility
+very much opposed to his character or taste. His head was half broken
+open; his arms pierced with bayonet-thrusts; all his limbs bruised and
+powerless. For the rest, he was the same as ever, with his bright
+intelligence and his indomitable heart. He told me of all that happened
+to him the day before, and of the thousand dangers which he had only
+escaped by miracle. I strongly advised him to rest until he was cured,
+and even long after, so as not uselessly to endanger his person and his
+reputation in the chaos about to ensue: good advice, undoubtedly, to
+give to a man so enamoured of action and so accustomed to act that,
+after doing what is necessary and useful, he is always ready to
+undertake the injurious and dangerous, rather than do nothing; but no
+more effective than all those counsels which go against nature.
+
+I spent the whole afternoon in walking about Paris. Two things in
+particular struck me: the first was, I will not say the mainly, but the
+uniquely and exclusively popular character of the revolution that had
+just taken place; the omnipotence it had given to the people properly
+so-called--that is to say, the classes who work with their hands--over
+all others. The second was the comparative absence of malignant passion,
+or, as a matter of fact, of any keen passion--an absence which at once
+made it clear that the lower orders had suddenly become masters of
+Paris.
+
+Although the working classes had often played the leading part in the
+events of the First Revolution, they had never been the sole leaders and
+masters of the State, either _de facto_ or _de jure_; it is doubtful
+whether the Convention contained a single man of the people; it was
+composed of _bourgeois_ and men of letters. The war between the Mountain
+and the Girondists was conducted on both sides by members of the middle
+class, and the triumph of the former never brought power down into the
+hands of the people alone. The Revolution of July was effected by the
+people, but the middle class had stirred it up and led it, and secured
+the principal fruits of it. The Revolution of February, on the contrary,
+seemed to be made entirely outside the _bourgeoisie_ and against it.
+
+In this great concussion, the two parties of which the social body in
+France is mainly composed had, in a way, been thrown more completely
+asunder, and the mass of the people, which had stood alone, remained in
+sole possession of power. Nothing more novel had been known in our
+annals. Similar revolutions had taken place, it is true, in other
+countries and other days; for the history of our own times, however new
+and unexpected it may seem, always belongs at bottom to the old history
+of humanity, and what we call new facts are oftenest nothing more than
+facts forgotten. Florence, in particular, towards the close of the
+middle ages, had presented on a small scale a spectacle analogous to
+ours; the noble classes had first been succeeded by the burgher classes,
+and then one day the latter were, in their turn, expelled from the
+government, and a _gonfalonier_ was seen marching barefoot at the head
+of the people, and thus leading the Republic. But in Florence this
+popular revolution was the result of transient and special causes, while
+with us it was brought about by causes very permanent and of a kind so
+general that, after stirring up France, it was to be expected that it
+would excite all the rest of Europe. This time it was not only a
+question of the triumph of a party; the aim was to establish a social
+science, a philosophy, I might almost say a religion, fit to be learned
+and followed by all mankind. This was the really new portion of the old
+picture.
+
+Throughout this day, I did not see in Paris a single one of the former
+agents of the public authority: not a soldier, not a gendarme, not a
+policeman; the National Guard itself had disappeared. The people alone
+bore arms, guarded the public buildings, watched, gave orders, punished;
+it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see in the sole hands of
+those who possessed nothing all this immense town, so full of riches, or
+rather this great nation: for, thanks to centralization, he who reigns
+in Paris governs France. Hence the affright of all the other classes was
+extreme; I doubt whether at any period of the Revolution it had been so
+great, and I should say that it was only to be compared to that which
+the civilized cities of the Roman Empire must have experienced when they
+suddenly found themselves in the power of the Goths and Vandals. As
+nothing like this had ever been seen before, many people expected acts
+of unexampled violence. For my part I did not once partake of these
+fears. What I saw led me to predict strange disturbances in the near
+future--singular crises. But I never believed that the rich would be
+pillaged; I knew the men of the people in Paris too well not to know
+that their first movements in times of revolution are usually generous,
+and that they are best pleased to spend the days immediately following
+their triumph in boasting of their victory, laying down the law, and
+playing at being great men. During that time it generally happens that
+some government or other is set up, the police returns to its post, and
+the judge to his bench; and when at last our great men consent to step
+down to the better known and more vulgar ground of petty and malicious
+human passion, they are no longer able to do so, and are reduced to live
+simply like honest men. Besides, we have spent so many years in
+insurrections that there has arisen among us a kind of morality peculiar
+to times of disorder, and a special code for days of rebellion.
+According to these exceptional laws, murder is tolerated and havoc
+permitted, but theft is strenuously forbidden; although this, whatever
+one may say, does not prevent a good deal of robbery from occurring upon
+those days, for the simple reason that society in a state of rebellion
+cannot be different from that at any other time, and it will always
+contain a number of rascals who, as far as they are concerned, scorn the
+morality of the main body, and despise its point of honour when they are
+unobserved. What reassured me still more was the reflection that the
+victors had been as much surprised by success as their adversaries were
+by defeat: their passions had not had time to take fire and become
+intensified in the struggle; the Government had fallen undefended by
+others, or even by itself. It had long been attacked, or at least keenly
+censured, by the very men who at heart most deeply regretted its fall.
+
+For a year past the dynastic Opposition and the republican Opposition
+had been living in fallacious intimacy, acting in the same way from
+different motives. The misunderstanding which had facilitated the
+revolution tended to mitigate its after effects. Now that the Monarchy
+had disappeared, the battle-field seemed empty; the people no longer
+clearly saw what enemies remained for them to pursue and strike down;
+the former objects of their anger, themselves, were no longer there; the
+clergy had never been completely reconciled to the new dynasty, and
+witnessed its ruin without regret; the old nobility were delighted at
+it, whatever the ultimate consequences might be: the first had suffered
+through the system of intolerance of the middle classes, the second
+through their pride: both either despised or feared their government.
+
+For the first time in sixty years, the priests, the old aristocracy and
+the people met in a common sentiment--a feeling of revenge, it is true,
+and not of affection; but even that is a great thing in politics, where
+a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
+The real, the only vanquished were the middle class; but even this had
+little to fear. Its reign had been exclusive rather than oppressive;
+corrupt, but not violent; it was despised rather than hated. Moreover,
+the middle class never forms a compact body in the heart of the nation,
+a part very distinct from the whole; it always participates a little
+with all the others, and in some places merges into them. This absence
+of homogeneity and of exact limits makes the government of the middle
+class weak and uncertain, but it also makes it intangible, and, as it
+were, invisible to those who desire to strike it when it is no longer
+governing.
+
+From all these united causes proceeded that languor of the people which
+had struck me as much as its omnipotence, a languor which was the more
+discernible, in that it contrasted strangely with the turgid energy of
+the language used and the terrible recollections which it evoked. The
+lukewarm passions of the time were made to speak in the bombastic
+periods of '93, and one heard cited at every moment the name and example
+of the illustrious ruffians whom no one possessed either the energy or
+even a sincere desire to resemble.
+
+It was the Socialistic theories which I have already described as the
+philosophy of the Revolution of February that later kindled genuine
+passion, embittered jealousy, and ended by stirring up war between the
+classes. If the actions at the commencement were less disorderly than
+might have been feared, on the very morrow of the Revolution there was
+displayed an extraordinary agitation, an unequalled disorder, in the
+ideas of the people.
+
+From the 25th of February onwards, a thousand strange systems came
+issuing pell-mell from the minds of innovators, and spread among the
+troubled minds of the crowd. Everything still remained standing except
+Royalty and Parliament; yet it seemed as though the shock of the
+Revolution had reduced society itself to dust, and as though a
+competition had been opened for the new form that was to be given to the
+edifice about to be erected in its place. Everyone came forward with a
+plan of his own: this one printed it in the papers, that other on the
+placards with which the walls were soon covered, a third proclaimed his
+loud-mouthed in the open air. One aimed at destroying inequality of
+fortune, another inequality of education, a third undertook to do away
+with the oldest of all inequalities, that between man and woman.
+Specifics were offered against poverty, and remedies for the disease of
+work which has tortured humanity since the first days of its existence.
+
+These theories were of very varied natures, often opposed and sometimes
+hostile to one another; but all of them, aiming lower than the
+government and striving to reach society itself, on which government
+rests, adopted the common name of Socialism.
+
+Socialism will always remain the essential characteristic and the most
+redoubtable remembrance of the Revolution of February. The Republic
+will only appear to the on-looker to have come upon the scene as a
+means, not as an end.
+
+It does not come within the scope of these Recollections that I should
+seek for the causes which gave a socialistic character to the Revolution
+of February, and I will content myself with saying that the discovery of
+this new facet of the French Revolution was not of a nature to cause so
+great surprise as it did. Had it not long been perceived that the people
+had continually been improving and raising its condition, that its
+importance, its education, its desires, its power had been constantly
+increasing? Its prosperity had also grown greater, but less rapidly, and
+was approaching the limit which it hardly ever passes in old societies,
+where there are many men and but few places. How should the poor and
+humbler and yet powerful classes not have dreamt of issuing from their
+poverty and inferiority by means of their power, especially in an epoch
+when our view into another world has become dimmer, and the miseries of
+this world become more visible and seem more intolerable? They had been
+working to this end for the last sixty years. The people had first
+endeavoured to help itself by changing every political institution, but
+after each change it found that its lot was in no way improved, or was
+only improving with a slowness quite incompatible with the eagerness of
+its desire. Inevitably, it must sooner or later discover that that which
+held it fixed in its position was not the constitution of the
+government but the unalterable laws that constitute society itself; and
+it was natural that it should be brought to ask itself if it had not
+both the power and the right to alter those laws, as it had altered all
+the rest. And to speak more specially of property, which is, as it were,
+the foundation of our social order--all the privileges which covered it
+and which, so to speak, concealed the privilege of property having been
+destroyed, and the latter remaining the principal obstacle to equality
+among men, and appearing to be the only sign of inequality--was it not
+necessary, I will not say that it should be abolished in its turn, but
+at least that the thought of abolishing it should occur to the minds of
+those who did not enjoy it?
+
+This natural restlessness in the minds of the people, this inevitable
+perturbation of its thoughts and its desires, these needs, these
+instincts of the crowd formed in a certain sense the fabric upon which
+the political innovators embroidered so many monstrous and grotesque
+figures. Their work may be regarded as ludicrous, but the material on
+which they worked is the most serious that it is possible for
+philosophers and statesmen to contemplate.
+
+Will Socialism remain buried in the disdain with which the Socialists of
+1848 are so justly covered? I put the question without making any reply.
+I do not doubt that the laws concerning the constitution of our modern
+society will in the long run undergo modification: they have already
+done so in many of their principal parts. But will they ever be
+destroyed and replaced by others? It seems to me to be impracticable. I
+say no more, because--the more I study the former condition of the world
+and see the world of our own day in greater detail, the more I consider
+the prodigious variety to be met with not only in laws, but in the
+principles of law, and the different forms even now taken and retained,
+whatever one may say, by the rights of property on this earth--the more
+I am tempted to believe that what we call necessary institutions are
+often no more than institutions to which we have grown accustomed, and
+that in matters of social constitution the field of possibilities is
+much more extensive than men living in their various societies are ready
+to imagine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ VACILLATION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE OLD PARLIAMENT AS TO THE ATTITUDE
+ THEY SHOULD ADOPT--MY OWN REFLECTIONS ON MY MODE OF ACTION, AND MY
+ RESOLVES.
+
+
+During the days immediately following upon the 24th of February, I
+neither went in search of nor fell in with any of the politicians from
+whom the events of that day had separated me. I felt no necessity nor,
+to tell the truth, any inclination to do so. I felt a sort of
+instinctive repugnance to remembering this wretched parliamentary world,
+in which I had spent six years of my life, and in whose midst I had seen
+the Revolution sprouting up.
+
+Moreover, at that time I saw the great vanity of any sort of political
+conversation or combination. However feeble the reasons may have been
+which first imparted the movement to the mob, that movement had now
+become irresistible. I felt that we were all in the midst of one of
+those great floods of democracy in which the embankments, intended to
+resist individuals and even parties, only serve to drown those who build
+them, and in which, for a time, there is nothing to be done but to study
+the general character of the phenomenon. I therefore spent all my time
+in the streets with the victors, as though I had been a worshipper of
+fortune. True, I paid no homage to the new sovereign, and asked no
+favours of it. I did not even address it, but contented myself with
+listening to and observing it.
+
+Nevertheless, after the lapse of some days, I resumed relations with the
+vanquished: I once more met ex-deputies, ex-peers, men of letters, men
+of business and finance, land-owners, all who in the language of the
+moment were commencing to be known as the idle. I found that the aspect
+of the Revolution was no less extraordinary when thus seen from above
+than it had seemed to me when, at the commencement, I viewed it from
+below. I encountered much fear, but as little genuine passion as I had
+seen in other quarters; a curious feeling of resignation, no vestige of
+hope, and I should almost say no idea of ever returning to the
+Government which they had only just left. Although the Revolution of
+February was the shortest and the least bloody of all our revolutions,
+it had filled men's minds and hearts with the idea of its omnipotence to
+a much greater extent than any of its predecessors. I believe this was,
+to a great extent, due to the fact that these minds and hearts were void
+of political faith and ardour, and that, after so many disappointments
+and vain agitations, they retained nothing but a taste for comfort--a
+very tenacious and very exclusive, but also a very agreeable feeling,
+which easily accommodates itself to any form of government, provided it
+be allowed to satisfy itself.
+
+I beheld, therefore, an universal endeavour to make the best of the new
+state of things and to win over the new master. The great landlords
+were glad to remember that they had always been hostile to the middle
+class and always favoured the people; the _bourgeois_ themselves
+remembered with a certain pride that their fathers had been working men,
+and when they were unable, owing to the inevitable obscurity of their
+pedigrees, to trace back their descent to a labourer who had worked with
+his hands, they at least strove to discover a plebeian ancestor who had
+been the architect of his own fortune. They took as great pains to make
+a display of the latter as, not long before, they would have taken to
+conceal his existence: so true is it that human vanity, without changing
+its nature, can show itself under the most diverse aspects. It has an
+obverse and a reverse side, but it is always the same medal.
+
+As there was no longer any genuine feeling left save that of fear, far
+from breaking with those of his relations who had thrown themselves into
+the Revolution, each strove to draw closer to them. The time had come to
+try and turn to account any scapegrace whom one had in one's family. If
+good luck would have it that one had a cousin, a brother, or a son who
+had become ruined by his disorderly life, one could be sure that he was
+in a fair way to succeed; and if he had become known by the promulgation
+of some extravagant theory or other, he might hope to attain to any
+height. Most of the commissaries and under-commissaries of the
+Government were men of this type.
+
+As to King Louis-Philippe, there was no more question of him than if he
+had belonged to the Merovingian Dynasty. Nothing struck me more than the
+absolute silence that had suddenly surrounded his name. I did not hear
+it pronounced a single time, so to speak, either by the people or by the
+upper class. Those of his former courtiers whom I saw did not speak of
+him, and I honestly believe they did not think of him. The Revolution
+had so completely turned their thoughts in another direction, that they
+had forgotten their Sovereign. I may be told that this is the ordinary
+fate of fallen kings; but what seems more worthy of remark, his enemies
+even had forgotten him: they no longer feared him enough to slander him,
+perhaps even to hate him, which is one of fortune's greatest, or at
+least rarest, insults.
+
+I do not wish to write the history of the Revolution of 1848, I only
+wish to retrace my own actions, ideas, and impressions during the course
+of this revolution; and I therefore pass over the events that took place
+during the weeks immediately following the 24th of February, and come to
+the period preceding the General Election.
+
+The time had come to decide whether one cared merely to watch the
+progress of this singular revolution or to take part in events. I found
+the former party leaders divided among themselves; and each of them,
+moreover, seemed divided also within himself, to judge by the
+incoherence of the language used and the vacillation of opinion. These
+politicians, who had almost all been trained to public business amid the
+regulated, restrained movement of constitutional liberty, and upon whom
+a great revolution had unexpectedly come, were like river oarsmen who
+should suddenly find themselves called upon to navigate their boat in
+mid-ocean. The knowledge they had acquired in their fresh water trips
+would be of more trouble than assistance to them in this greater
+adventure, and they would often display more confusion and uncertainty
+than the passengers themselves.
+
+M. Thiers frequently expressed the opinion that they should go to the
+poll and get elected, and as frequently urged that it would be wiser to
+stand aside. I do not know whether his hesitation arose from his dread
+of the dangers that might follow upon the election, or his fear lest he
+should not be elected. Remusat, who always sees so clearly what might,
+and so dimly what should be done, set forth the good reasons that
+existed for staying at home, and the no less good reasons for going to
+the country. Duvergier was distracted. The Revolution had overthrown the
+system of the balance of power in which his mind had sat motionless
+during so many years, and he felt as though he were hung up in mid-air.
+As for the Duc de Broglie, he had not put his head out of his shell
+since the 24th of February, and in this attitude he awaited the end of
+society, which in his opinion was close at hand. M. Mole alone,
+although he was by far the oldest of all the former parliamentary
+leaders, and possibly for that very reason, resolutely maintained the
+opinion that they should take part in public affairs and try to lead the
+Revolution; perhaps because his longer experience had taught him that in
+troubled times it is dangerous to play the looker-on; perhaps because
+the hope of again having something to lead cheered him and hid from him
+the danger of the undertaking; or perhaps because, after being so often
+bent in contrary directions, under so many different _regimes_, his mind
+had become firmer as well as more supple and more indifferent as to the
+kind of master it might serve. On my side, as may be imagined, I very
+attentively considered which was the best resolution to adopt.
+
+I should like here to inquire into the reasons which determined my
+course of action, and having found them, to set them down without
+evasion: but how difficult it is to speak well of one's self! I have
+observed that the greater part of those who have written their Memoirs
+have only well shown us their bad actions or their weaknesses when they
+happened to have taken them for deeds of prowess or fine instincts, a
+thing which often occurs. As in the case of the Cardinal de Retz, who,
+in order to be credited with what he considers the glory of being a good
+conspirator, confesses his schemes for assassinating Richelieu, and
+tells us of his hypocritical devotions and charities lest he should fail
+to be taken for a clever man. In such cases it is not the love of truth
+that guides the pen, but the warped mind which involuntarily betrays the
+vices of the heart.
+
+And even when one wishes to be sincere, it is very rarely that one
+succeeds in the endeavour. The fault lies, in the first place, with the
+public, which likes to see one accuse, but will not suffer him to
+praise, himself; even one's friends are wont to describe as amiable
+candour all the harm, and as unbecoming vanity all the good, that he
+says of himself: so that at this rate sincerity becomes a very thankless
+trade, by which one has everything to lose and nothing to gain. But the
+difficulty, above all, lies with the subject himself: he is too close to
+himself to see well, and prone to lose himself amid the views,
+interests, ideas, thoughts and inclinations that have guided his
+actions. This net-work of little foot-paths, which are little known even
+by those who use them, prevent one from clearly discerning the main
+roads followed by the will before arriving at the most important
+conclusions.
+
+Nevertheless, I will try to discover myself amid this labyrinth, for it
+is only right that I should take the same liberties with myself which I
+have taken, and shall often continue to take, with others.
+
+Let me say, then, that when I came to search carefully into the depths
+of my own heart, I discovered, with some surprise, a certain sense of
+relief, a sort of gladness mingled with all the griefs and fears to
+which the Revolution had given rise. I suffered from this terrible
+event for my country, but clearly not for myself; on the contrary, I
+seemed to breathe more freely than before the catastrophe. I had always
+felt myself stifled in the atmosphere of the parliamentary world which
+had just been destroyed: I had found it full of disappointments, both
+where others and where I myself was concerned; and to commence with the
+latter, I was not long in discovering that I did not possess the
+necessary qualifications to play the brilliant role that I had imagined:
+both my qualities and my defects were impediments. I had not the virtues
+necessary to command respect, and I was too upright to stoop to all the
+petty practices which were at that time essential to a speedy success.
+And observe that this uprightness was irremediable; for it forms so
+integral a part both of my temperament and my principles, that without
+it I am never able to turn myself to any account. Whenever I have, by
+ill-luck, been obliged to speak in defence of a bad cause, or to assist
+in bad measures, I have immediately found myself deprived of all talent
+and all ardour; and I confess that nothing has consoled me more at the
+want of success with which my uprightness has often met, than the
+certainty I have always been in that I could never have made more than a
+very clumsy and mediocre rogue. I also ended by perceiving that I was
+absolutely lacking in the art of grouping and leading a large number of
+men. I have always been incapable of dexterity, except in _tete-a-tete_,
+and embarrassed and dumb in the presence of a crowd; I do not mean to
+say that at a given moment I am unable to say and do what will please
+it, but that is not enough: those great occasions are very rare in
+parliamentary warfare. The trick of the trade, in a party leader, is to
+be able to mix continually with his followers and even his adversaries,
+to show himself, to move about daily, to play continually now to the
+boxes, now to the gallery, so as to reach the level of every
+intelligence, to discuss and argue without end, to say the same things a
+thousand times in different ways, and to be impassioned eternally in the
+face of the same objects. These are all things of which I am quite
+incapable. I find it troublesome to discuss matters which interest me
+little, and painful to discuss those in which I am keenly concerned.
+Truth is for me so rare and precious a thing that, once found, I do not
+like to risk it on the hazard of a debate; it is a light which I fear to
+extinguish by waving it to and fro. And as to consorting with men, I
+could not do so in any habitual and general fashion, because I never
+recognize more than a very few. Unless a person strikes me by something
+out of the common in his intellect or opinions, I, so to speak, do not
+see him. I have always taken it for granted that mediocrities, as well
+as men of merit, had a nose, a mouth, eyes; but I have never, in their
+case, been able to fix the particular shape of these features in my
+memory. I am constantly inquiring the name of strangers whom I see
+every day, and as constantly forgetting them; and yet, I do not despise
+them, only I consort but little with them, treating them as constant
+quantities. I honour them, for the world is made up of them; but they
+weary me profoundly.
+
+What completed my disgust was the mediocrity and monotony of the
+parliamentary events of that period, as well as the triviality of the
+passions and the vulgar perversity of the men who pretended to cause or
+to guide them.
+
+I have sometimes thought that, though the habits of different societies
+may differ, the morality of the politicians at the head of affairs is
+everywhere the same. What is very certain is that, in France, all the
+party leaders whom I have met in my time have, with few exceptions,
+appeared to me to be equally unworthy of holding office, some because of
+their lack of personal character or of real parts, most by their lack of
+any sort of virtue. I thus experienced as great a difficulty in joining
+with others as in being satisfied with myself, in obeying as in acting
+on my own initiative.
+
+But that which most tormented and depressed me during the nine years I
+had spent in business, and which to this day remains my most hideous
+memory of that time, is the incessant uncertainty in which I had to live
+as to the best daily course to adopt. I am inclined to think that my
+uncertainty of character arises rather from a want of clearness of idea
+than from any weakness of heart, and that I never experienced either
+hesitation or difficulty in following the most rugged road, when once I
+clearly saw where it would lead me. But amid all these little dynastic
+parties, differing so little in aim, and resembling one another so much
+in the bad methods which they put into practice, which was the
+thoroughfare that led visibly to honour, or even to utility? Where lay
+truth? Where falsehood? On which side were the rogues? On which side the
+honest men? I was never, at that time, fully able to distinguish it, and
+I declare that even now I should not well be able to do so. Most party
+men allow themselves to be neither distressed nor unnerved by doubts of
+this kind; many even have never known them, or know them no longer. They
+are often accused of acting without conviction; but my experience has
+proved that this was much less frequently the case than one might think.
+Only they possess the precious and sometimes, in politics, even
+necessary faculty of creating transient convictions for themselves,
+according to the passions and interests of the moment, and thus they
+succeed in committing, honourably enough, actions which in themselves
+are little to their credit. Unfortunately, I could never bring myself to
+illuminate my intelligence with these special and artificial lights, nor
+so readily to convince myself that my own advantage was one and the same
+with the general good.
+
+It was this parliamentary world, in which I had suffered all the
+wretchedness that I have just described, which was broken up by the
+Revolution; it had mingled and confounded the old parties in one common
+ruin, deposed their leaders, and destroyed their traditions and
+discipline. There had issued from this, it was true, a disordered and
+confused state of society, but one in which ability became less
+necessary and less highly rated than courage and disinterestedness; in
+which personal character was more important than elocution or the art of
+leadership; but, above all, in which there was no field left for
+vacillation of mind: on this side lay the salvation of the country; on
+that, its destruction. There was no longer any mistake possible as to
+the road to follow; we were to walk in broad daylight, supported and
+encouraged by the crowd. The road seemed dangerous, it is true, but my
+mind is so constructed that it is less afraid of danger than of doubt. I
+felt, moreover, that I was still in the prime of life, that I had few
+needs, and, above all, that I was able to find at home the support, so
+rare and precious in times of revolution, of a devoted wife, whom a firm
+and penetrating mind and a naturally lofty soul would easily maintain at
+the level of every situation and above every reverse.
+
+I therefore determined to plunge boldly into the arena, and in defence,
+not of any particular government, but of the laws which constitute
+society itself, to risk my fortune, my person, and my peace of mind. The
+first thing was to secure my election, and I left speedily for Normandy
+in order to put myself before the electors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ MY CANDIDATURE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LA MANCHE--THE ASPECT OF THE
+ COUNTRY--THE GENERAL ELECTION.
+
+
+As every one knows, the Department of la Manche is peopled almost
+exclusively by farmers. It contains few large towns, few manufactures,
+and, with the exception of Cherbourg, no places in which workmen are
+gathered in large numbers. At first, the Revolution was hardly noticed
+there. The upper classes immediately bent beneath the blow, and the
+lower classes scarcely felt it. Generally speaking, agricultural
+populations are slower than others in perceiving, and more stubborn in
+retaining, political impressions; they are the last to rise and the last
+to settle down again. The steward of my estate, himself half a peasant,
+describing what was taking place in the country immediately after the
+24th of February, wrote:
+
+"People here say that if Louis-Philippe has been sent away, it is a good
+thing, and that he deserved it...."
+
+This was to them the whole moral of the play. But when they heard tell
+of the disorder reigning in Paris, of the new taxes to be imposed, and
+of the general state of war that was to be feared; when they saw
+commerce cease and money seem to sink down into the ground, and when, in
+particular, they learnt that the principle of property was being
+attacked, they did not fail to perceive that there was something more
+than Louis-Philippe in question.
+
+Fear, which had first displayed itself in the upper circles of society,
+then descended into the depths of the people, and universal terror took
+possession of the whole country. This was the condition in which I found
+it when I arrived about the middle of March. I was at once struck by a
+spectacle that both astonished and charmed me. A certain demagogic
+agitation reigned, it is true, among the workmen in the towns; but in
+the country all the landed proprietors, whatever their origin,
+antecedents, education or means, had come together, and seemed to form
+but one class: all former political hatred and rivalry of caste or
+fortune had disappeared from view. There was no more jealousy or pride
+displayed between the peasant and the squire, the nobleman and the
+commoner; instead, I found mutual confidence, reciprocal friendliness,
+and regard. Property had become, with all those who owned it, a sort of
+badge of fraternity. The wealthy were the elder, the less endowed the
+younger brothers; but all considered themselves members of one family,
+having the same interest in defending the common inheritance. As the
+French Revolution had infinitely increased the number of land-owners,
+the whole population seemed to belong to that vast family. I had never
+seen anything like it, nor had anyone in France within the memory of
+man. Experience has shown that this union was not so close as it
+appeared, and that the former parties and the various classes had drawn
+closer rather than mingled together; fear had acted upon them as a
+mechanical pressure might upon very hard bodies, which are compelled to
+adhere to one another so long as the pressure continues, but which
+separate so soon as it is relaxed.
+
+As a matter of fact, from the first moment I saw no trace whatever of
+political opinions, properly so-called. One would have thought that the
+republican form of government had suddenly become not only the best, but
+the only one imaginable for France. Dynastic hopes and regrets were
+buried so profoundly in the souls of men that not even the place they
+had once occupied was visible. The Republic respected persons and
+property, and it was accepted as lawful. In the spectacle I have just
+described, I was most struck at witnessing the universal hatred,
+together with the universal terror, now for the first time inspired by
+Paris. In France, provincials have for Paris, and for the central power
+of which Paris is the seat, feelings analogous to those which the
+English entertain for their aristocracy, which they sometimes support
+with impatience and often regard with jealousy, but which at bottom they
+love, because they always hope to turn its privileges to their private
+advantage. This time Paris and those who spoke in its name had so
+greatly abused their power, and seemed to be giving so little heed to
+the rest of the country, that the idea of shaking off the yoke and of
+acting for themselves came to many who had never before conceived it:
+uncertain and timid desires, it is true, feeble and ephemeral passions
+from which I never believed that there was much to be either hoped or
+feared; but these new feelings were then turning into electoral ardour.
+Everyone clamoured for the elections; for to elect the enemies of the
+demagogues of Paris presented itself to public opinion less as the
+constitutional exercise of a right, than as the least dangerous method
+one could employ of making a stand against the tyrant.
+
+I fixed my head-quarters in the little town of Valognes, which was the
+natural centre of my influence; and as soon as I had ascertained the
+condition of the country, I set about my candidature. I then saw what I
+have often observed under a thousand different circumstances, that
+nothing makes more for success than not to desire it too ardently. I
+very much wanted to get elected; but in the difficult and critical
+condition of affairs then reigning, I easily reconciled myself to the
+idea of being rejected; and from this placid anticipation of a rebuff I
+drew a tranquillity and clearness of mind, a respect for myself and a
+contempt for the follies of the time, that I should perhaps not have
+found in the same degree had I been swayed only by a longing to
+succeed.
+
+The country began to fill with roving candidates, hawking their
+protestations of Republicanism from hustings to hustings. I refused to
+present myself before any other electoral body than that of the place
+where I lived. Each small town had its club, and each club questioned
+the candidates regarding their opinions and actions, and subjected them
+to formulas. I refused to reply to any of these insolent
+interrogatories. These refusals, which might have seemed disdainful,
+appeared in the light of dignity and independence in the face of the new
+rulers, and I was more esteemed for my rebelliousness than the others
+for their obedience. I therefore contented myself with publishing an
+address and having it posted up throughout the department.
+
+Most of the candidates had resumed the old customs of '92. When writing
+to people they called them "Citizens," and signed themselves
+"fraternally yours." I would never consent to adopt this revolutionary
+nonsense. I headed my address, "Gentlemen," and ended by proudly
+declaring myself my electors' "very humble servant."
+
+ "I do not come to solicit your suffrages," I said, "I come only to
+ place myself at the orders of my country. I asked to be your
+ representative when the times were easy and peaceful; my honour
+ forbids me to refuse to be so in a period full of agitation, which
+ may become full of danger. That is the first thing I had to tell
+ you."
+
+I added that I had been faithful to the end to the oath I had taken to
+the Monarchy, but that the Republic, which had been brought about
+without my aid, should have my energetic support, and that I would not
+only accept but assist it. Then I went on:
+
+ "But of what Republic is it a question? There are some who, by a
+ Republic, understand a dictatorship exercised in the name of
+ liberty; who think that the Republic should not only change
+ political institutions but the face of society itself. There are
+ some who think that the Republic should needs be of an aggressive
+ and propagandist kind. I am not a Republican after this fashion. If
+ this were your manner of being Republicans, I could be of no use to
+ you, for I should not be of your opinion; but if you understand the
+ Republic as I understand it myself, you can rely upon me to devote
+ myself heart and soul to the triumph of a cause which is mine as
+ well as yours."
+
+Men who show no fear in times of revolution are like princes with the
+army: they produce a great effect by very ordinary actions, because the
+peculiar position which they occupy naturally places them above the
+level of the crowd and brings them very much in view. My address was so
+successful that I myself was astonished at it; within a few days it made
+me the most popular man in the department of la Manche, and the object
+of universal attention. My old political adversaries, the agents of the
+old Government, the Conservatives themselves who had so vigorously
+opposed me, and whom the Republic had overthrown, came in crowds to
+assure me that they were ready not only to vote for me, but to follow my
+views in everything.
+
+In the meantime, the first meeting of the electors of the Arrondissement
+of Valognes took place. I appeared together with the other candidates. A
+shed did duty for a hall; the chairman's platform was at the bottom, and
+at the side was a professorial pulpit which had been transformed into a
+tribune. The chairman, who himself was a professor at the College of
+Valognes, said to me with a loud voice and a magisterial air, but in a
+very respectful tone: "Citizen de Tocqueville, I will tell you the
+questions which are put to you, and to which you will have to reply;" to
+which I replied, carelessly, "Mr Chairman, pray put the questions."
+
+A parliamentary orator, whose name I will not mention, once said to me:
+
+"Look here, my dear friend, there is only one way of speaking well from
+the tribune, and that is to be fully persuaded, as you get into it, that
+you are the cleverest man in the world."
+
+This had always appeared to me easier to say than to do, in the presence
+of our great political assemblies. But I confess that here the maxim was
+easy enough to follow, and that I thought it a wonderfully good one.
+Nevertheless, I did not go so far as to convince myself that I was
+cleverer than all the world; but I soon saw that I was the only one who
+was well acquainted with the facts they brought up, and even with the
+political language they wished to speak. It would be difficult to show
+one's self more maladroit and more ignorant than did my adversaries;
+they overwhelmed me with questions which they thought very close, and
+which left me very free, while I on my side made replies which were
+sometimes not very brilliant, but which always to them appeared most
+conclusive. The ground on which they hoped, above all, to crush me was
+that of the banquets. I had refused, as I have already said, to take
+part in these dangerous demonstrations. My political friends had found
+fault with me for abandoning them in that matter, and many continued to
+bear me ill-will, although--or perhaps because--the Revolution had
+proved me to be right.
+
+"Why did you part from the Opposition on the occasion of the banquets?"
+I was asked.
+
+I replied, boldly:
+
+"I could easily find a pretext, but I prefer to give you my real reason:
+I did not want the banquets because I did not want a revolution; and I
+venture to say that hardly any of those who sat down to the banquets
+would have done so had they foreseen, as I did, the events to which
+these would lead. The only difference I can see between you and myself
+is that I knew what you were doing while you did not know it
+yourselves." This bold profession of anti-revolutionary had been
+preceded by one of republican faith; the sincerity of the one seemed to
+bear witness to that of the other; the meeting laughed and applauded. My
+adversaries were scoffed at, and I came off triumphant.
+
+I had won the agricultural population of the department by my address; I
+won the Cherbourg workmen by a speech. The latter had been assembled to
+the number of two thousand at a patriotic dinner. I received a very
+obliging and pressing invitation to attend, and I did.
+
+When I arrived, the procession was ready to start for the
+banqueting-hall, with, at its head, my old colleague Havin, who had come
+expressly from Saint-Lo to take the chair. It was the first time I had
+met him since the 24th of February. On that day, I saw him giving his
+arm to the Duchesse d'Orleans, and the next morning I heard that he was
+Commissary of the Republic in the department of la Manche. I was not
+surprised, for I knew him as one of those easily bewildered, ambitious
+men who had found themselves fixed for ten years in opposition, after
+thinking at first that they were in it only for a little. How many of
+these men have I not seen around me, tortured with their own virtue, and
+despairing because they saw themselves spending the best part of their
+lives in criticizing the faults of others without ever in some measure
+realizing by experience what were their own, and finding nothing to
+feed upon but the sight of public corruption! Most of them had
+contracted during this long abstinence so great an appetite for places,
+honours and money that it was easy to predict that at the first
+opportunity they would throw themselves upon power with a sort of
+gluttony, without taking time to choose either the moment or the morsel.
+Havin was the very type of these men. The Provisional Government had
+given him as his associate, and even as his chief, another of my former
+colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Vieillard, who has since
+become famous as a particular friend of Prince Louis Napoleon's.
+Vieillard was entitled to serve the Republic, since he had been one of
+the seven or eight republican deputies under the Monarchy. Moreover, he
+was one of the Republicans who had passed through the salons of the
+Empire before attaining demagogism. In literature he was a bigoted
+classic; a Voltairean in religious belief; rather fatuous, very
+kind-hearted; an honest man, and even an intelligent; but a very fool in
+politics. Havin had made him his tool: whenever he wished to strike a
+blow at one of his own enemies, or to reward one of his own friends, he
+invariably put forward Vieillard, who allowed him to do as he pleased.
+In this manner Havin made his way sheltered beneath the honesty and
+republicanism of Vieillard, whom he always kept before him, as the miner
+does his gabion.
+
+Havin scarcely seemed to recognize me; he did not invite me to take a
+place in the procession. I modestly withdrew into the midst of the
+crowd; and when we arrived at the banqueting-hall, I sat down at one of
+the lower tables. We soon got to the speeches: Vieillard delivered a
+very proper written speech, and Havin read out another written speech,
+which was well received. I, too, was very much inclined to speak, but my
+name was not down, and moreover I did not quite see how I was to begin.
+A word which one of the orators (for all the speakers called themselves
+orators) dropped to the memory of Colonel Briqueville gave me my
+opportunity. I asked for permission to speak, and the meeting consented.
+When I found myself perched in the tribune, or rather in that pulpit
+placed twenty feet above the crowd, I felt a little confused; but I soon
+recovered myself, and delivered a little piece of oratorical fustian
+which I should find it impossible to recollect to-day. I only know that
+it contained a certain appositeness, besides the warmth which never
+fails to make itself apparent through the disorder of an improvised
+speech, a merit quite sufficient to succeed with a popular assembly, or
+even with an assembly of any sort; for, it cannot be too often repeated,
+speeches are made to be listened to and not to be read, and the only
+good ones are those that move the audience.
+
+The success of mine was marked and complete, and I confess it seemed
+very sweet to me to revenge myself in this way on the manner in which
+my former colleague had endeavoured to abuse what he considered the
+favours of fortune.
+
+If I am not mistaken, it was between this time and the elections that I
+made my journey to Saint-Lo, as member of the Council General. The
+Council had been summoned to an extraordinary sitting. It was still
+composed as under the Monarchy: most of its members had shown themselves
+complaisant towards Louis-Philippe's ministers, and may be reckoned
+among those who had most contributed to bring that Prince's government
+into contempt in our country. The only thing I can recall of the
+Saint-Lo journey is the singular servility of these ex-Conservatives.
+Not only did they make no opposition to Havin, who had insulted them for
+the past ten years, but they became his most attentive courtiers. They
+praised him with their words, supported him with their votes, smiled
+upon him approvingly; they even spoke well of him among themselves, for
+fear of indiscretion. I have often seen greater pictures of human
+baseness, but never any that was more perfect; and I think it deserves,
+despite its pettiness, to be brought fully to light. I will, therefore,
+display it in the light of subsequent events, and I will add that some
+months later, when the turn of the popular tide had restored them to
+power, they at once set about pursuing this same Havin anew with
+unheard-of violence and even injustice. All their old hatred became
+visible amid the quaking of their terror, and it seemed to have become
+still greater at the remembrance of their temporary complaisance.
+
+Meantime the general election was drawing nigh, and each day the aspect
+of the future became more sinister. All the news from Paris represented
+the capital as on the point of constantly falling into the hands of
+armed Socialists. It was doubted whether these latter would allow the
+electors to vote freely, or at least whether they would submit to the
+National Assembly. Already in every part of the country the officers of
+the National Guard were being made to swear that they would march
+against the Assembly if a conflict arose between that body and the
+people. The provinces were becoming more and more alarmed, but were also
+strengthening themselves at the sight of the danger.
+
+I spent the few days preceding the contest at my poor, dear Tocqueville.
+It was the first time I had visited it since the Revolution: I was
+perhaps about to leave it for ever! I was seized on my arrival with so
+great and uncommon a feeling of sadness that it has left in my memory
+traces which have remained marked and visible to this day amid all the
+vestiges of the events of that time. I was not expected. The empty
+rooms, in which there was none but my old dog to receive me, the
+undraped windows, the heaped-up dusty furniture, the extinct fires, the
+run-down clocks--all seemed to point to abandonment and to foretell
+ruin. This little isolated corner of the earth, lost, as it were, amid
+the fields and hedges of our Norman coppices, which had so often seemed
+to me the most charming of solitudes, now appeared to me, in the actual
+state of my thoughts, as a desolate desert; but across the desolation of
+its present aspect I discovered, as though from the depth of a tomb, the
+sweetest and most attractive episodes of my life. I wonder how our
+imagination gives so much deeper colour and so much more attractiveness
+to things than they possess. I had just witnessed the fall of the
+Monarchy; I have since been present at the most sanguinary scenes; and
+nevertheless I declare that none of these spectacles produced in me so
+deep and painful an emotion as that which I experienced that day at the
+sight of the ancient abode of my forefathers, when I thought of the
+peaceful days and happy hours I had spent there without knowing their
+value--I say that it was then and there that I best understood all the
+bitterness of revolutions.
+
+The local population had always been well disposed to me; but this time
+I found them affectionate, and I was never received with more respect
+than now, when all the walls were placarded with the expression of
+degrading equality. We were all to go and vote together at the borough
+of Saint-Pierre, about one league away from our village. On the morning
+of the election, all the voters (that is to say, all the male population
+above the age of twenty) collected together in front of the church. All
+these men formed themselves in a double column, in alphabetical order.
+I took up my place in the situation denoted by my name, for I knew that
+in democratic times and countries one must be nominated to the head of
+the people, and not place one's self there. At the end of the long
+procession, in carts or on pack-horses, came the sick or infirm who
+wished to follow us; we left none behind save the women and children. We
+were one hundred and sixty-six all told. At the top of the hill which
+commands Tocqueville there came a halt; they wished me to speak. I
+climbed to the other side of a ditch; a circle was formed round me, and
+I spoke a few words such as the circumstances inspired. I reminded these
+worthy people of the gravity and importance of what they were about to
+do; I recommended them not to allow themselves to be accosted or turned
+aside by those who, on our arrival at the borough, might seek to deceive
+them, but to march on solidly and stay together, each in his place,
+until they had voted. "Let no one," I said, "go into a house to seek
+food or shelter [it was raining] before he has done his duty." They
+cried that they would do as I wished, and they did. All the votes were
+given at the same time, and I have reason to believe that they were
+almost all given to the same candidate.
+
+After voting myself, I took my leave of them, and set out to return to
+Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ THE FIRST SITTING OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY--THE APPEARANCE OF
+ THIS ASSEMBLY.
+
+
+I stopped at Valognes only long enough to bid good-bye to some of my
+friends. Many left me with tears in their eyes, for there was a belief
+current in the country that the representatives would be exposed to
+great danger in Paris. Several of these worthy people said to me, "If
+they attack the National Assembly, we will come and defend you." I feel
+a certain remorse at having seen only vain words in this promise at the
+time; for, as a matter of fact, they did all come, they and many more,
+as I shall show later.
+
+It was only when I reached Paris that I learnt that I had received
+110,704 votes out of a possible 120,000. Most of my new colleagues
+belonged to the old dynastic Opposition: two only had professed
+republican principles before the Revolution, and were what was called in
+the jargon of the day "Republicans of yesterday." The same was the case
+in most parts of France.
+
+There have certainly been more wicked revolutionaries than those of
+1848, but I doubt if there were ever any more stupid; they neither knew
+how to make use of universal suffrage nor how to do without it. If they
+had held the elections immediately after the 24th of February, while the
+upper classes were still bewildered by the blow they had just received,
+and the people more amazed than discontented, they would perhaps have
+obtained an assembly after their hearts; if, on the other hand, they had
+boldly seized the dictatorship, they might have been able for some time
+to retain it. But they trusted themselves to the nation, and at the same
+time did all that was most likely to set the latter against them; they
+threatened it while placing themselves in its power; they alarmed it by
+the recklessness of their proposals and the violence of their language,
+while inviting it to resistance by the feebleness of their actions; they
+pretended to lay down the law to it at the very time that they were
+placing themselves at its disposal. Instead of opening out their ranks
+after the victory, they jealously closed them up, and seemed, in one
+word, to be striving to solve this insoluble problem, namely, how to
+govern through the majority and yet against its inclination.
+
+Following the examples of the past without understanding them, they
+foolishly imagined that to summon the crowd to take part in political
+life was sufficient to attach it to their cause; and that to popularize
+the Republic, it was enough to give the public rights without offering
+them any profits. They forgot that their predecessors, when they gave
+every peasant the vote, at the same time did away with tithes, abolished
+statute labour and the other seignorial privileges, and divided the
+property of the nobles among the peasants; whereas they were not in a
+position to do anything of the kind. In establishing universal suffrage
+they thought they were summoning the people to the assistance of the
+Revolution: they were only giving them arms against it. Nevertheless, I
+am far from believing that it was impossible to arouse revolutionary
+passions, even in the country districts. In France, every agriculturist
+owns some portion of the soil, and most of them are more or less
+involved in debt; it was not, therefore, the landlords that should have
+been attacked, but the creditors; not the abolition promised of the
+rights of property, but the abolition of debts. The demagogues of 1848
+did not think of this scheme; they showed themselves much clumsier than
+their predecessors, but no less dishonest, for they were as violent and
+unjust in their desires as the others in their acts. Only, to commit
+violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the
+will, or even the power; the habits, ideas, and passions of the time
+must lend themselves to the committal of them.
+
+As the party which held the reins of government saw its candidates
+rejected one after the other, it displayed great vexation and rage,
+complaining now sadly and now rudely of the electors, whom it treated as
+ignorant, ungrateful blockheads, and enemies of their own good; it lost
+its temper with the whole nation; and, its impatience exhausted by the
+latter's coldness, it seemed ready to say with Moliere's Arnolfe, when
+he addresses Agnes:
+
+ "Pourquoi ne m'aimer pas, madame l'impudente?"
+
+One thing was not ridiculous, but really ominous and terrible; and that
+was the appearance of Paris on my return. I found in the capital a
+hundred thousand armed workmen formed into regiments, out of work, dying
+of hunger, but with their minds crammed with vain theories and visionary
+hopes. I saw society cut into two: those who possessed nothing, united
+in a common greed; those who possessed something, united in a common
+terror. There were no bonds, no sympathy between these two great
+sections; everywhere the idea of an inevitable and immediate struggle
+seemed at hand. Already the _bourgeois_ and the _peuple_ (for the old
+nicknames had been resumed) had come to blows, with varying fortunes, at
+Rouen, Limoges, Paris; not a day passed but the owners of property were
+attacked or menaced in either their capital or income: they were asked
+to employ labour without selling the produce; they were expected to
+remit the rents of their tenants when they themselves possessed no other
+means of living. They gave way as long as they could to this tyranny,
+and endeavoured at least to turn their weakness to account by publishing
+it. I remember reading in the papers of that time this advertisement,
+among others, which still strikes me as a model of vanity, poltroonery,
+and stupidity harmoniously mingled:
+
+"Mr Editor," it read, "I make use of your paper to inform my tenants
+that, desiring to put into practice in my relations with them the
+principles of fraternity that should guide all true democrats, I will
+hand to those of my tenants who apply for it a formal receipt for their
+next quarter's rent."
+
+Meanwhile, a gloomy despair had overspread the middle class thus
+threatened and oppressed, and imperceptibly this despair was changing
+into courage. I had always believed that it was useless to hope to
+settle the movement of the Revolution of February peacefully and
+gradually, and that it could only be stopped suddenly, by a great battle
+fought in the streets of Paris. I had said this immediately after the
+24th of February; and what I now saw persuaded me that this battle was
+not only inevitable but imminent, and that it would be well to seize the
+first opportunity to deliver it.
+
+The National Assembly met at last on the 4th of May; it was doubtful
+until the last moment whether it would meet at all. I believe, in fact,
+that the more ardent of the demagogues were often tempted to do without
+it, but they dared not; they remained crushed beneath the weight of
+their own dogma of the sovereignty of the people.
+
+I should have before my eyes the picture which the Assembly presented at
+its opening; but I find, on the contrary, that only a very confused
+recollection of it has lingered in my mind. It is a mistake to believe
+that events remain present in one's memory in proportion to their
+importance or their greatness alone; rather is it certain little
+particularities which occur, and cause them to penetrate deep into the
+mind, and fix them there in a lasting manner. I only remember that we
+shouted, "Long live the Republic" fifteen times during the course of the
+sitting, trying who could out-shout the other. The history of the
+Assemblies is full of parallel incidents, and one constantly sees one
+party exaggerating its feelings in order to embarrass its opponents,
+while the latter feign to hold sentiments which they do not possess, in
+order to avoid the trap. Both sides, with a common effort, went either
+beyond, or in the contrary direction to, the truth. Nevertheless, I
+think the cry was sincere enough; only it responded to diverse or even
+contrary thoughts. All at that time wished to preserve the Republic; but
+some wished to use it for purposes of attack, others for purposes of
+defence The newspapers spoke of the enthusiasm of the Assembly and of
+the public; there was a great deal of noise, but no enthusiasm at all.
+Everyone was too greatly preoccupied with the immediate future to allow
+himself to be carried beyond that thought by sentiment of any kind. A
+decree of the Provisional Government laid down that the representatives
+should wear the costume of the Conventionals, and especially the white
+waistcoat with turn-down collar in which Robespierre was always
+represented on the stage. I thought at first that this fine notion
+originated with Louis Blanc or Ledru-Rollin; but I learned later that it
+was due to the flowery and literary imagination of Armand Marrast. No
+one obeyed the decree, not even its author; Caussidiere was the only one
+to adopt the appointed disguise. This drew my attention to him; for I
+did not know him by sight any more than most of those who were about to
+call themselves the Montagnards, always with the idea of keeping up the
+recollection of '93. I beheld a very big and very heavy body, on which
+was placed a sugar-loaf head, sunk deep between the two shoulders, with
+a wicked, cunning eye, and an air of general good-nature spread over the
+rest of his face. In short, he was a mass of shapeless matter, in which
+worked a mind sufficiently subtle to know how to make the most of his
+coarseness and ignorance.
+
+In the course of the two subsequent days, the members of the Provisional
+Government, one after the other, told us what they had done since the
+24th of February. Each said a great deal of good of himself, and even a
+certain amount of good of his colleagues, although it would be difficult
+to meet a body of men who mutually hated one another more sincerely than
+these did. Independently of the political hatred and jealousy that
+divided them, they seemed still to feel towards each other that peculiar
+irritation common to travellers who have been compelled to live
+together upon the same ship during a long and stormy passage, without
+suiting or understanding one another. At this first sitting I met again
+almost all the members of Parliament among whom I had lived. With the
+exception of M. Thiers, who had been defeated; of the Duc de Broglie,
+who had not stood, I believe; and of Messrs Guizot and Duchatel, who had
+fled, all the famous orators and most of the better-known talkers of the
+political world were there; but they found themselves, as it were, out
+of their element, they felt isolated and suspected, they both felt and
+inspired fear, two contraries often to be met with in the political
+world. As yet they possessed none of that influence which their talents
+and experience were soon to restore to them. All the remainder of the
+Assembly were as much novices as though we had issued fresh from the
+Ancien Regime; for, thanks to our system of centralization, public life
+had always been confined within the limits of the Chambers, and those
+who were neither peers nor deputies scarcely knew what an Assembly was,
+nor how one should speak or behave in one. They were absolutely ignorant
+of its most ordinary, everyday habits and customs; and they were
+inattentive at decisive moments, and listened eagerly to unimportant
+things. Thus, on the second day, they crowded round the tribune and
+insisted on perfect silence in order to hear read the minutes of the
+preceding sitting, imagining that this insignificant form was a most
+important piece of business. I am convinced that nine hundred English
+or American peasants, picked at random, would have better represented
+the appearance of a great political body.
+
+Continuing to imitate the National Convention, the men who professed the
+most radical and the most revolutionary opinions had taken their seats
+on the highest benches; they were very uncomfortable up there; but it
+gave them the right to call themselves Montagnards, and as men always
+like to feed on pleasant imaginations, these very rashly flattered
+themselves that they bore a resemblance to the celebrated blackguards
+whose name they took.
+
+The Montagnards soon divided themselves into two distinct bands: the
+Revolutionaries of the old school and the Socialists. Nevertheless, the
+two shades were not sharply defined. One passed from the one to the
+other by imperceptible tints: the Montagnards proper had almost all some
+socialistic ideas in their heads, and the Socialists quite approved of
+the revolutionary proceedings of the others. However, they differed
+sufficiently among themselves to prevent them from always marching in
+step, and it was this that saved us. The Socialists were the more
+dangerous, because they answered more nearly to the true character of
+the Revolution of February, and to the only passions which it had
+aroused; but they were men of theory rather than action, and in order to
+upset Society at their pleasure they would have needed the practical
+energy and the science of insurrections which only their colleagues in
+any measure possessed.
+
+From the seat I occupied it was easy for me to hear what was said on the
+benches of the Mountain, and especially to see what went on. This gave
+me the opportunity of studying pretty closely the men sitting in that
+part of the Chamber. It was for me like discovering a new world. We
+console ourselves for not knowing foreign countries, with the reflection
+that at least we know our own; but we are wrong, for even in the latter
+there are always districts which we have not visited, and races which
+are new to us. I experienced this now. It was as though I saw these
+Montagnards for the first time, so greatly did their idioms and manners
+surprise me. They spoke a lingo which was not, properly speaking, the
+French of either the ignorant or the cultured classes, but which partook
+of the defects of both, for it abounded in coarse words and ambitious
+phrases. One heard issuing from the benches of the Mountain a ceaseless
+torrent of insulting or jocular comments; and at the same time there was
+poured forth a host of quibbles and maxims; in turns they assumed a very
+humorous or a very superb tone. It was evident that these people
+belonged neither to the tavern nor the drawing-room; I think they must
+have polished their manners in the cafes, and fed their minds on no
+literature but that of the daily press. In any case, it was the first
+time since the commencement of the Revolution that this type made any
+display in one of our Assemblies; until then it had only been
+represented by sporadic and unnoticed individuals, who were more
+occupied in concealing than in showing themselves.
+
+The Constituent Assembly had two other peculiarities which struck me as
+quite as novel as this, although very different from it. It contained an
+infinitely greater number of landlords and even of noblemen than any of
+the Chambers elected in the days when it was a necessary condition, in
+order to be an elector or elected, that you should have money. And also
+there was a more numerous and more powerful religious party than even
+under the Restoration: I counted three bishops, several vicars-general,
+and a Dominican monk, whereas Louis XVIII. and Charles X. had never
+succeeded in securing the election of more than one single abbe.
+
+The abolition of all quit-rents, which made part of the electors
+dependent upon the rich, and the danger threatening property, which led
+the people to choose for their representatives those who were most
+interested in defending it, are the principal reasons which explain the
+presence of so great a number of landlords. The election of the
+ecclesiastics arose from similar causes, and also from a different cause
+still worthier of consideration. This cause was the almost general and
+very unexpected return of a great part of the nation towards the
+concerns of religion.
+
+The Revolution of 1792, when striking the upper classes, had cured them
+of their irreligiousness; it had taught them, if not the truth, at least
+the social uses of belief. This lesson was lost upon the middle class,
+which remained their political heir and their jealous rival; and the
+latter had even become more sceptical in proportion as the former seemed
+to become more religious. The Revolution of 1848 had just done on a
+small scale for our tradesmen what that of 1792 had done for the
+nobility: the same reverses, the same terrors, the same conversion; it
+was the same picture, only painted smaller and in less bright and, no
+doubt, less lasting colours. The clergy had facilitated this conversion
+by separating itself from all the old political parties, and entering
+into the old, true spirit of the Catholic clergy, which is that it
+should belong only to the Church. It readily, therefore, professed
+republican opinions, while at the same time it gave to long-established
+interests the guarantee of its traditions, its customs and its
+hierarchy. It was accepted and made much of by all. The priests sent to
+the Assembly were treated with very great consideration, and they
+deserved it through their good sense, their moderation and their
+modesty. Some of them endeavoured to speak from the tribune, but they
+were never able to learn the language of politics. They had forgotten it
+too long ago, and all their speeches turned imperceptibly into homilies.
+
+For the rest, the universal voting had shaken the country from top to
+bottom without bringing to light a single new man worthy of coming to
+the front. I have always held that, whatever method be followed in a
+general election, the great majority of the exceptional men whom the
+nation possesses definitively succeed in getting elected. The system of
+election adopted exercises a great influence only upon the class of
+ordinary individuals in the Assembly, who form the ground-work of every
+political body. These belong to very different orders and are of very
+diverse natures, according to the system upon which the election has
+been conducted. Nothing confirmed me in this belief more than did the
+sight of the Constituent Assembly. Almost all the men who played the
+first part in it were already known to me, but the bulk of the rest
+resembled nothing that I had seen before. They were imbued with a new
+spirit, and displayed a new character and new manners.
+
+I will say that, in my opinion, and taken all round, this Assembly
+compared favourably with those which I had seen. One met in it more men
+who were sincere, disinterested, honest and, above all, courageous than
+in the Chambers of Deputies among which I had spent my life.
+
+The Constituent Assembly had been elected to make a stand against civil
+war. This was its principal merit; and, in fact, so long as it was
+necessary to fight, it was great, and only became contemptible after the
+victory, and when it felt that it was breaking up in consequence of
+this very victory and under the weight of it.
+
+I selected my seat on the left side of the House, on a bench from which
+it was easy for me to hear the speakers and to reach the tribune when I
+wished to speak myself. A large number of my old friends joined me
+there; Lanjuinais, Dufaure, Corcelles, Beaumont and several others sat
+near me.
+
+Let me say a word concerning the House itself, although everybody knows
+it. This is necessary in order to understand the narrative; and,
+moreover, although this monument of wood and plaster is probably
+destined to last longer than the Republic of which it was the cradle, I
+do not think it will enjoy a very long existence; and when it is
+destroyed, many of the events that took place in it will be difficult to
+understand.
+
+The house formed an oblong of great size. At one end, against the wall,
+was the President's platform and the tribune; nine rows of benches rose
+gradually along the three other walls. In the middle, facing the
+tribune, spread a huge, empty space, like the arena of an amphitheatre,
+with this difference, that this arena was square, not round. The
+consequence was that most of the listeners only caught a side glimpse of
+the speaker, and the only ones who saw him full face were very far away:
+an arrangement curiously calculated to promote inattention and disorder.
+For the first, who saw the speaker badly, and were continually looking
+at one another, were more engaged in threatening and apostrophizing each
+other; and the others did not listen any better, because, although able
+to see the occupant of the tribune, they heard him badly.
+
+Large windows, placed high up in the walls, opened straight outside, and
+admitted air and light; the walls were decorated only with a few flags;
+time had, luckily, been wanting in which to add to them all those
+spiritless allegories on canvas or pasteboard with which the French love
+to adorn their monuments, in spite of their being insipid to those who
+can understand them and utterly incomprehensible to the mass of the
+people. The whole bore an aspect of immensity, together with an air that
+was cold, solemn, and almost melancholy. There were seats for nine
+hundred members, a larger number than that of any of the assemblies that
+had sat in France for sixty years.
+
+I felt at once that the atmosphere of this assembly suited me.
+Notwithstanding the gravity of events, I experienced there a sense of
+well-being that was new to me. For the first time since I had entered
+public life, I felt myself caught in the current of a majority, and
+following in its company the only road which my tastes, my reason and my
+conscience pointed out to me: a new and very welcome sensation. I
+gathered that this majority would disown the Socialists and the
+Montagnards, but was sincere in its desire to maintain and organize the
+Republic. I was with it on these two leading points: I had no monarchic
+faith, no affection nor regrets for any prince; I felt called upon to
+defend no cause save that of liberty and the dignity of mankind. To
+protect the ancient laws of Society against the innovators with the help
+of the new force which the republican principle might lend to the
+government; to cause the evident will of the French people to triumph
+over the passions and desires of the Paris workmen; to conquer
+demagogism by democracy--that was my only aim. I am not sure that the
+dangers to be passed through before it could be attained did not make it
+still more attractive to me; for I have a natural inclination for
+adventure, and a spice of danger has always seemed to me the best
+seasoning that can be given to most of the actions of life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ MY RELATIONS WITH LAMARTINE--HIS SUBTERFUGES
+
+
+Lamartine was now at the climax of his fame: to all those whom the
+Revolution had injured or alarmed, that is to say, to the great majority
+of the nation, he appeared in the light of a saviour. He had been
+elected to the Assembly by the city of Paris and no fewer than eleven
+departments; I do not believe that ever anybody inspired such keen
+transports as those to which he was then giving rise; one must have seen
+love thus stimulated by fear to know with what excess of idolatry men
+are capable of loving. The transcendental favour which was shown him at
+this time was not to be compared with anything except, perhaps, the
+excessive injustice which he shortly afterwards received. All the
+deputies who came to Paris with the desire to put down the excesses of
+the Revolution and to combat the demagogic party regarded him beforehand
+as their only possible leader, and looked to him unhesitatingly to place
+himself at their head to attack and overthrow the Socialists and
+demagogues. They soon discovered that they were deceived, and that
+Lamartine did not see the part he was called upon to play in so simple
+a light. It must be confessed that his was a very complex and difficult
+position. It was forgotten at the time, but he could not himself forget,
+that he had contributed more than any other to the success of the
+Revolution of February. Terror effaced this remembrance for the moment
+from the public mind; but a general feeling of security could not fail
+soon to restore it. It was easy to foresee that, so soon as the current
+which had brought affairs to their present pitch was arrested, a
+contrary current would set in, which would impel the nation in the
+opposite direction, and drive it faster and further than Lamartine could
+or would go. The success of the Montagnards would involve his immediate
+ruin; but their complete defeat would render him useless and must,
+sooner or later, remove the government from his hands. He saw,
+therefore, that for him there was almost as much danger and loss in
+triumph as in defeat.
+
+As a matter of fact, I believe that, if Lamartine had resolutely, from
+the first, placed himself at the head of the immense party which desired
+to moderate and regulate the course of the Revolution, and had succeeded
+in leading it to victory, he would before long have been buried beneath
+his own triumph; he would not have been able to stop his army in time,
+and it would have left him behind and chosen other leaders.
+
+I doubt whether, whatever line of conduct he had adopted, he could have
+retained his power for long. I believe his only remaining chance was to
+be gloriously defeated while saving his country. But Lamartine was the
+last man to sacrifice himself in this way. I do not know that I have
+ever, in this world of selfishness and ambition in which I lived, met a
+mind so void of any thought of the public welfare as his. I have seen a
+crowd of men disturbing the country in order to raise themselves: that
+is an everyday perversity; but he is the only one who seemed to me
+always ready to turn the world upside down in order to divert himself.
+Neither have I ever known a mind less sincere, nor one that had a more
+thorough contempt for the truth. When I say he despised it, I am wrong:
+he did not honour it enough to heed it in any way whatever. When
+speaking or writing, he spoke the truth or lied, without caring which he
+did, occupied only with the effect he wished to produce at the moment.
+
+I had not seen Lamartine since the 24th of February. I saw him the first
+time on the day before the opening of the Assembly in the new house,
+where I had gone to choose my seat, but I did not speak to him; he was
+surrounded by some of his new friends. The instant he saw me, he
+pretended some business at the other end of the house, and hurried away
+as fast as he could. He sent me word afterwards by Champeaux (who
+belonged to him, half as a friend and half as a servant) that I must not
+take it ill of him that he avoided me; that his position obliged him to
+act in this way towards the members of the late parliament; that my
+place was, of course, marked out among the future leaders of the
+Republic; but that we must wait till the first temporary difficulties
+were surmounted before coming to an agreement. Champeaux also declared
+that he was instructed to ask my opinion on the state of business; I
+gave it him very readily, but to very little purpose. This established
+certain indirect relations between Lamartine and myself through the
+intermediary of Champeaux. The latter often came to see me, to inform
+me, on behalf of his patron, of the arrangements that were being
+prepared; and I sometimes went to see him in a little room he had hired
+on the top floor of a house in the Rue Saint-Honore, where he used to
+receive suspicious visitors, although he had a complete set of rooms at
+the Foreign Office.
+
+I usually found him overwhelmed with place-hunters; for in France
+political mendicancy exists under every form of government. It even
+increases through the very revolutions that are directed against it,
+because all revolutions ruin a certain number of men, and with us a
+ruined man always looks to the State to repair his fortunes. They were
+of all kinds, all attracted by the reflection of power which Lamartine's
+friendship very transiently cast over Champeaux. I remember among others
+a certain cook, not particularly distinguished in his calling, as far as
+I could see, who insisted upon entering the service of Lamartine, who
+had, he said, become President of the Republic.
+
+"But he's not President yet!" cried Champeaux.
+
+"If he's not so yet, as you say," said the man, "he's going to be, and
+he must already be thinking of his kitchen."
+
+In order to rid himself of this scullion's obstinate ambition, Champeaux
+promised to bring his name before Lamartine so soon as the latter should
+be President of the Republic. The poor man went away quite satisfied,
+dreaming no doubt of the very imaginary splendours of his approaching
+condition.
+
+I frequented Champeaux pretty assiduously during that time, although he
+was exceedingly vain, loquacious, and tedious, because, in talking with
+him, I became better acquainted with Lamartine's thoughts and projects
+than if I had been talking to the great man himself. Lamartine's
+intelligence was seen through Champeaux' folly as you see the sun
+through a smoked glass, which shows you the luminary deprived of its
+heat-rays, but less dazzling to the eye. I easily gathered that in this
+world every one was feeding on pretty well the same chimeras as the cook
+of whom I have just spoken, and that Lamartine already tasted at the
+bottom of his heart the sweets of that sovereign power which was
+nevertheless at that very moment escaping from his hands. He was then
+following the tortuous road that was so soon to lead him to his ruin,
+struggling to dominate the Mountain without overthrowing it, and to
+slacken the revolutionary fire without extinguishing it, so as to give
+the country a feeling of security strong enough for it to bless him, not
+strong enough to cause it to forget him. What he dreaded above all was
+that the conduct of the Assembly should be allowed to fall into the
+hands of the former parliamentary leaders. This was, I believe, at the
+time his dominant passion. One could see this during the great
+discussion on the constitution of the Executive Power; never did the
+different parties display more visibly the pedantic hypocrisy which
+induces them to conceal their interests beneath their ideas: an ordinary
+spectacle enough, but more striking at this time than usual, because the
+needs of the moment compelled each party to shelter itself behind
+theories which were foreign or even opposed to it. The old royalist
+party maintained that the Assembly itself should govern and choose its
+ministers: a theory that was almost demagogic; and the demagogues
+declared that the Executive Power should be entrusted to a permanent
+commission, which should govern and select all the agents of the
+government: a system that approached the monarchic idea. All this
+verbiage only meant that one side wished to remove Ledru-Rollin from
+power, and the other to keep him there.
+
+The nation saw in Ledru-Rollin the bloody image of the Terror; it beheld
+in him the genius of evil as in Lamartine the genius of good, and it was
+mistaken in both cases. Ledru-Rollin was nothing more than a very
+sensual and sanguine heavy fellow, quite without principles and almost
+without brains, possessing no real courage of mind or heart, and even
+free from malice: for he naturally wished well to all the world, and was
+incapable of cutting the throats of any one of his adversaries, except,
+perhaps, for the sake of historical reminiscences, or to accommodate his
+friends.
+
+The result of the debate remained long doubtful: Barrot turned it
+against us by making a very fine speech in our favour. I have witnessed
+many of these unforeseen incidents in parliamentary life, and have seen
+parties constantly deceived in the same way, because they always think
+only of the pleasure they themselves derive from their great orator's
+words, and never of the dangerous excitement he promotes in their
+opponents.
+
+When Lamartine, who till then had kept silent and remained, I believe,
+in indecision, heard, for the first time since February, the voice of
+the ex-leader of the Left resounding with brilliancy and success, he
+suddenly made up his mind, and spoke. "You understand," said Champeaux
+to me the next day, "that before all it was necessary to prevent the
+Assembly from coming to a resolution upon Barrot's advice." So Lamartine
+spoke, and, according to his custom, spoke in brilliant fashion.
+
+The majority, who had already adopted the course that Barrot had urged
+upon them, wheeled round as they listened to him (for this Assembly was
+more credulous and more submissive than any that I had ever seen to the
+wiles of eloquence: it was novice and innocent enough to seek for
+reasons for their decisions in the speeches of the orators). Thus
+Lamartine won his cause, but missed his fortune; for he that day gave
+rise to the mistrust which soon arose and hurled him from his pinnacle
+of popularity more quickly than he had mounted it. Suspicion took a
+definite form the very next day, when he was seen to patronize
+Ledru-Rollin and force the hand of his own friends in order to induce
+them to appoint the latter as his colleague on the Executive Commission.
+At this sight there arose in the Assembly and in the nation
+inexpressible disappointment, terror and rage. For my part, I
+experienced these two last emotions in the highest degree; I clearly
+perceived that Lamartine was turning out of the high-road that led us
+away from anarchy, and I could not guess into what abyss he might lead
+us if we followed the byways which he was treading. How was it possible,
+indeed, to foresee how far an always exuberant imagination might go,
+unrestrained by reason or virtue? Lamartine's common-sense impressed me
+no more than did his disinterestedness; and, in fact, I believed him
+capable of everything except cowardly behaviour or vulgar oratory.
+
+I confess that the events of June to a certain extent modified the
+opinion I had formed of his manner of proceeding. They showed that our
+adversaries were more numerous, better organized and, above all, more
+determined than I had thought.
+
+Lamartine, who had seen nothing but Paris during the last two months,
+and who had there, so to speak, lived in the very heart of the
+revolutionary party, exaggerated the power of the Capital and the
+inactivity of the rest of France. He over-estimated both. But I am not
+sure that I, on my side, did not strain a point on the other side. The
+road we ought to follow seemed to me so clearly and visibly traced that
+I would not admit the possibility of deviating from it by mistake; it
+seemed obvious to me that we should hasten to profit by the moral force
+possessed by the Assembly in order to escape from the hands of the
+people, seize upon the government, and by a great effort establish it
+upon a solid basis. Every delay seemed to me calculated to diminish our
+power, and to strengthen the hand of our adversaries.
+
+It was, in fact, during the six months that elapsed between the opening
+of the Assembly and the events of June that the Paris workmen grew bold,
+and took courage to resist, organized themselves, procured both arms and
+ammunition, and made their final preparations for the struggle. In any
+case, I am led to believe that it was Lamartine's tergiversations and
+his semi-connivance with the enemy that saved us, while it ruined him.
+Their effect was to amuse the leaders of the Mountain, and to divide
+them. The Montagnards of the old school, who were retained in the
+Government, separated themselves from the Socialists, who were excluded
+from it. Had all been united by a common interest, and impelled by
+common despair before our victory, as they became since, it is doubtful
+whether that victory would have been won. When I consider that we were
+almost effaced, although we were opposed only by the revolutionary party
+without its leaders, I ask myself what the result of the contest would
+have been if those leaders had come forward, and if the insurrection had
+been supported by a third of the National Assembly.
+
+Lamartine saw these dangers more closely and clearly than I, and I
+believe to-day that the fear of arousing a mortal conflict influenced
+his conduct as much as did his ambition. I might have formed this
+opinion at the time had I listened to Madame de Lamartine, whose alarm
+for the safety of her husband, and even of the Assembly, amounted to
+extravagance. "Beware," she said to me, each time she met me, "beware of
+pushing things to extremes; you do not know the strength of the
+revolutionary party. If we enter into conflict with it, we shall
+perish." I have often reproached myself for not cultivating Madame de
+Lamartine's acquaintance, for I have always found her to possess real
+virtue, although she added to it almost all the faults which can cling
+to virtue, and which, without impairing it, render it less lovable: an
+imperious temper, great personal pride, an upright but unyielding, and
+sometimes bitter, spirit; so much so that it was impossible not to
+respect her, and impossible to like her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ THE 15TH OF MAY 1848.
+
+
+The revolutionary party had not dared to oppose the meeting of the
+Assembly, but it refused to be dominated by it. On the contrary, it well
+understood how to keep the Assembly in subjection, and to obtain from it
+by constraint what it refused to grant from sympathy. Already the clubs
+rang with threats and insults against the deputies. And as the French,
+in their political passions, are as argumentative as they are insensible
+to argument, these popular meeting-places were incessantly occupied in
+manufacturing theories that formed the ground-work of subsequent acts of
+violence. It was held that the people always remained superior to its
+representatives, and never completely surrendered its will into their
+hands: a true principle from which the false conclusion was drawn that
+the Paris workmen were the French people. Since our first sitting, a
+vague and widespread agitation had never ceased to reign in the town.
+The mob met every day in the streets and squares; it spread aimlessly,
+like the swell of the waves. The approaches to the Assembly were always
+filled with a gathering of these redoubtable idlers. A demagogic party
+has so many heads, chance always plays so great, and reason so small, a
+part in its actions that it is almost impossible to say, either before
+or after the event, what it wants or what it wanted. Nevertheless, my
+opinion then was, and has since remained, that the leading demagogues
+did not aim at destroying the Assembly, and that, as yet, they only
+sought to make use of it by mastering it. The attack directed against it
+on the 15th of May seemed intended rather to frighten than to overthrow
+it; it was at least one of those equivocal enterprises which so
+frequently occur in times of popular excitement, in which the promoters
+themselves are careful not to trace or define precisely their plan or
+their aim, so as to remain free to limit themselves to a peaceful
+demonstration or force on a revolution, according to the incidents of
+the day.
+
+Some attempt of this kind had been expected for over a week; but the
+habit of living in a continual state of alarm ends in rendering both
+individuals and assemblies incapable of discerning, amid the signs
+announcing the approach of danger, that which immediately precedes it.
+We only knew that there was a question of a great popular demonstration
+in favour of Poland, and we were but vaguely disturbed at it. Doubtless
+the members of the Government were better informed and more alarmed than
+we, but they kept their own counsel, and I was not sufficiently in touch
+with them to penetrate into their secret thoughts.
+
+Thus it happened that, on the 15th of May, I reached the Assembly
+without foreseeing what was going to happen. The sitting began as any
+other sitting might have begun; and what was very strange, twenty
+thousand men already surrounded the chamber, without a single sound from
+the outside having announced their presence. Wolowski was in the
+tribune: he was mumbling between his teeth I know not what commonplaces
+about Poland, when the mob at last betrayed its approach with a terrible
+shout, which penetrated from every side through the upper windows, left
+open because of the heat, and fell upon us as though from the sky. Never
+had I imagined that a number of human voices could together produce so
+immense a volume of sound, and the sight of the crowd itself, when it
+surged into the Assembly, did not seem to me so formidable as that first
+roar which it had uttered before showing itself. Many members, yielding
+to a first impulse of curiosity or fear, sprang to their feet; others
+shouted violently, "Keep your seats!" Everyone sat down again firmly on
+his bench, and kept silence. Wolowski resumed his speech, and continued
+it for some time. It must have been the first time in his life that he
+was listened to in silence; and even now it was not he to whom we
+listened, but the crowd outside, whose murmurs grew momentarily louder
+and nearer.
+
+Suddenly Degousee, one of our questors, solemnly mounted the steps of
+the tribune, silently pushed Wolowski aside, and said, "Contrary to the
+wishes of the questors, General Courtais has ordered the Gardes Mobiles
+guarding the doors of the Assembly to sheathe their bayonets."
+
+After uttering these few words he stopped. This Degousee, who was a very
+good man, had the most hang-dog look and the hollowest voice imaginable.
+The news, the man and the voice combined to create a curious impression.
+The Assembly was roused, but immediately grew calm again; it was too
+late to do anything: the chamber was forced.
+
+Lamartine, who had gone out at the first noise, returned to the door
+with a disconcerted air; he crossed the central gangway and regained his
+seat with great strides, as though pursued by some enemy invisible to
+us. Almost immediately, there appeared behind him a number of men of the
+people, who stopped still on the threshold, surprised at the sight of
+this immense seated assembly. At the same moment, as on the 24th of
+February, the galleries were noisily opened and invaded by a flood of
+people, who filled and more than filled them. Pressed forward by the mob
+who followed and pushed them without seeing them, the first comers
+climbed over the balustrades of the galleries, trusting to find room in
+the Chamber itself, the floor of which was not more than ten feet
+beneath them, hung down along the walls, and dropped the distance of
+four or five feet into the Chamber. The fall of each of these bodies
+striking the floor in succession produced a dull concussion which at
+first, amid the tumult, I took for the distant sound of cannon. While
+one part of the mob was thus falling into the house, the other, composed
+principally of the club-leaders, entered by every door. They carried
+various emblems of the Terror, and waved flags of which some were
+surmounted by a red cap.
+
+In an instant the mob had filled the large empty space in the centre of
+the Assembly; and finding itself pressed for room, it climbed all the
+little gangways leading to our benches, and crowded more and more into
+these narrow spaces without ceasing its agitation. Amid this tumultuous
+and incessant commotion, the dust became very thick and the heat so
+oppressive that perhaps I would have gone out to breathe some fresh air,
+had it been merely a question of the public interest. But honour kept us
+glued to our seats.
+
+Some of the intruders were openly armed, others showed glimpses of
+concealed weapons, but none seemed to entertain a fixed intention of
+striking us. Their expression was one of astonishment and ill-will
+rather than enmity; with many of them a sort of vulgar curiosity in
+course of gratifying itself seemed to dominate every other sentiment;
+for even in our most sanguinary insurrections there are always a number
+of people half scoundrels, half sight-seers, who fancy themselves at the
+play. Moreover, there was no common leader whom they seemed to obey; it
+was a mob of men, not a troop. I saw some drunken men among them, but
+the majority seemed to be the prey of a feverish excitement imparted to
+them by the enthusiasm and shouting without and the stifling heat, the
+close packing and general discomfort within. They dripped with sweat,
+although the nature and condition of their clothing was not calculated
+to make the heat very uncomfortable for them, for several were quite
+bare-breasted. There rose from this multitude a confused noise from the
+midst of which one sometimes heard very threatening observations. I
+caught sight of men who shook their fists at us and called us their
+agents. This expression was often repeated; for several days the
+ultra-democratic newspapers had done nothing but call the
+representatives the agents of the people, and these blackguards had
+taken kindly to the idea. A moment after, I had an opportunity of
+observing with what vivacity and clearness the popular mind receives and
+reflects images. I heard a man in a blouse, standing next to me, say to
+his fellow, "See that vulture down there? I should like to twist its
+neck." I followed the movement of his arm and his eyes and saw without
+difficulty that he was speaking of Lacordaire, who was sitting in his
+Dominican's frock on the top bench of the Left. The sentiment struck me
+as very unhandsome, but the comparison was admirable; the priest's long,
+bony neck issuing from its white cowl, his bald head surrounded only
+with a tuft of black hair, his narrow face, his hooked nose and his
+fixed, glittering eyes really gave him a striking resemblance to the
+bird of prey in question.
+
+During all this disorder in its midst, the Assembly sat passive and
+motionless on its benches, neither resisting nor giving way, silent and
+firm. A few members of the Mountain fraternized with the mob, but
+stealthily and in whispers. Raspail had taken possession of the tribune
+and was preparing to read the petition of the clubs; a young deputy,
+d'Adelsward, rose and exclaimed, "By what right does Citizen Raspail
+claim to speak here?" A furious howling arose; some men of the people
+made a rush at d'Adelsward, but were stopped and held back. With great
+difficulty, Raspail obtained a moment's silence from his friends, and
+read the petition, or rather the orders, of the clubs, which enjoined us
+to pronounce forthwith in favour of Poland.
+
+"No delay, we're waiting for the answer!" was shouted on every side. The
+Assembly continued to give no sign of life; the mob, in its disorder and
+impatience, made a horrible noise, which by itself alone saved us from
+making a reply. Buchez, the President, whom some would make out to be a
+rascal and others a saint, but who undoubtedly, on that day, was a great
+blockhead, rang his bell with all his might to obtain silence, as though
+the silence of that multitude was not, under the present circumstances,
+more to be dreaded than its cries.
+
+It was then that I saw appear, in his turn, in the tribune a man whom I
+have never seen since, but the recollection of whom has always filled me
+with horror and disgust. He had wan, emaciated cheeks, white lips, a
+sickly, wicked and repulsive expression, a dirty pallor, the appearance
+of a mouldy corpse; he wore no visible linen; an old black frock-coat
+tightly covered his lean, withered limbs; he seemed to have passed his
+life in a sewer, and to have just left it. I was told it was Blanqui.[9]
+
+ [9: Auguste Blanqui, brother to Jerome Adolphe Blanqui the
+ economist.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Blanqui said one word about Poland; then, turning sharply to domestic
+affairs, he asked for revenge for what he called the massacres of Rouen,
+recalled with threats the wretchedness in which the people had been
+left, and complained of the wrongs done to the latter by the Assembly.
+After thus exciting his hearers, he returned to Poland and, like
+Raspail, demanded an immediate vote.
+
+The Assembly continued to sit motionless, the people to move about and
+utter a thousand contradictory exclamations, the President to ring his
+bell. Ledru-Rollin tried to persuade the mob to withdraw, but nobody was
+now able to exercise any influence over it. Ledru-Rollin, almost hooted,
+left the tribune.
+
+The tumult was renewed, increased, multiplied itself as it were, for the
+mob was no longer sufficiently master of itself to be able even to
+understand the necessity for a moment's self-restraint in order to
+attain the object of its passion. A long interval passed; at last Barbes
+darted up and climbed, or rather leapt, into the tribune. He was one of
+those men in whom the demagogue, the madman and the knight-errant are so
+closely intermingled that it is not possible to say where one ends or
+the other commences, and who can only make their way in a society as
+sick and troubled as ours. I am inclined to believe that it was the
+madman that predominated in him, and his madness became raging when he
+heard the voice of the people. His soul boiled as naturally amid popular
+passion as water does on the fire. Since our invasion by the mob, I had
+not taken my eyes from him; I considered him by far the most formidable
+of our adversaries, because he was the most insane, the most
+disinterested, and the most resolute of them all. I had seen him mount
+the platform on which the President sat, and stand for a long time
+motionless, only turning his agitated gaze about the Assembly; I had
+observed and pointed out to my neighbours the distortion of his
+features, his livid pallor, the convulsive excitement which caused him
+each moment to twist his moustache between his fingers; he stood there
+as the image of irresolution, leaning already towards an extreme side.
+This time, Barbes had made up his mind; he proposed in some way to sum
+up the passions of the people, and to make sure of victory by stating
+its object in terms of precision:
+
+"I demand," said he, in panting, jerking tones, "that, immediately and
+before rising, the Assembly shall vote the departure of an army for
+Poland, a tax of a milliard upon the rich, the removal of the troops
+from Paris, and shall forbid the beating to arms; if not, the
+representatives to be declared traitors to the country."
+
+I believe we should have been lost if Barbes had succeeded in getting
+his motion put to the vote; for if the Assembly had accepted it, it
+would have been dishonoured and powerless, whereas, if it had rejected
+it, which was probable, we should have run the risk of having our
+throats cut. But Barbes himself did not succeed in obtaining a brief
+space of silence so as to compel us to take a decision. The huge clamour
+that followed his last words was not to be appeased; on the contrary, it
+continued in a thousand varied intonations. Barbes exhausted himself in
+his efforts to still it, but in vain, although he was powerfully aided
+by the President's bell, which, during all this time, never ceased to
+sound, like a knell.
+
+This extraordinary sitting had lasted since two o'clock; the Assembly
+held out, its ears pricked up to catch any sound from the outside,
+waiting for assistance to come. But Paris seemed a dead city. Listen as
+we might, we heard no rumour issue from it.
+
+This passive resistance irritated and incensed the people; it was like a
+cold, even surface upon which its fury glided without knowing what to
+catch hold of; it struggled and writhed in vain, without finding any
+issue to its undertaking. A thousand diverse and contradictory clamours
+filled the air: "Let us go away," cried some.... "The organization of
+labour.... A ministry of labour.... A tax on the rich.... We want Louis
+Blanc!" cried others; they ended by fighting at the foot of the tribune
+to decide who should mount it; five or six orators occupied it at once,
+and often all spoke together. As always happens in insurrections, the
+terrible was mingled with the ridiculous. The heat was so stifling that
+many of the first intruders left the Chamber; they were forthwith
+replaced by others who had been waiting at the doors to come in. In this
+way I saw a fireman in uniform making his way down the gangway that
+passed along my bench. "We can't make them vote!" they shouted to him.
+"Wait, wait," he replied, "I'll see to it, I'll give them a piece of my
+mind." Thereupon he pulled his helmet over his eyes with a determined
+air, fastened the straps, squeezed through the crowd, pushing aside all
+who stood in his way, and mounted the tribune. He imagined he would be
+as much at his ease there as upon a roof, but he could not find his
+words and stopped short. The people cried, "Speak up, fireman!" but he
+did not speak a word, and they ended by turning him out of the tribune.
+Just then a number of men of the people caught Louis Blanc in their arms
+and carried him in triumph round the Chamber. They held him by his
+little legs above their heads; I saw him make vain efforts to extricate
+himself: he twisted and turned on every side without succeeding in
+escaping from their hands, talking all the while in a choking, strident
+voice. He reminded me of a snake having its tail pinched. They put him
+down at last on a bench beneath mine. I heard him cry, "My friends, the
+right you have just won...." but the remainder of his words were lost in
+the din. I was told that Sobrier was carried in the same way a little
+lower down.
+
+A very tragic incident nearly put an end to these saturnalia: the
+benches at the bottom of the house suddenly cracked, gave way more than
+a foot, and threatened to hurl into the Chamber the crowd which
+overloaded it, and which fled off in affright. This alarming occurrence
+put a momentary stop to the commotion; and I then first heard, in the
+distance, the sound of drums beating the call to arms in Paris. The mob
+heard it too, and uttered a long yell of rage and terror. "Why are they
+beating to arms?" exclaimed Barbes, beside himself, making his way to
+the tribune afresh. "Who is beating to arms? Let those who have given
+the order be outlawed!" Cries of "We are betrayed, to arms! To the Hotel
+de Ville!" rose from the crowd.
+
+The President was driven from his chair, whence, if we are to believe
+the version he since gave, he caused himself to be driven voluntarily. A
+club-leader called Huber climbed to his seat and hoisted a flag
+surmounted by a red cap. The man had, it seemed, just recovered from a
+long epileptic swoon, caused doubtless by the excitement and the heat;
+it was on recovering from this sort of troubled sleep that he came
+forward. His clothes were still in disorder, his look scared and
+haggard. He exclaimed twice over in a resounding voice, which, uttered
+from aloft, filled the house and dominated every other sound, "In the
+name of the people, betrayed by its representatives, I declare the
+National Assembly dissolved!"
+
+The Assembly, deprived of its President, broke up. Barbes and the bolder
+of the club politicians went out to go to the Hotel de Ville. This
+conclusion to the affair was far from meeting the general wishes. I
+heard men of the people beside me say to each other, in an aggrieved
+tone, "No, no, that's not what we want." Many sincere Republicans were
+in despair. I was first accosted, amid this tumult, by Tretat, a
+revolutionary of the sentimental kind, a dreamer who had plotted in
+favour of the Republic during the whole existence of the Monarchy.
+Moreover, he was a physician of distinction, who was at that time at the
+head of one of the principal mad-houses in Paris, although he was a
+little cracked himself. He took my hands effusively, and with tears in
+his eyes:
+
+"Ah, monsieur," he said, "what a misfortune, and how strange it is to
+think that it is madmen, real madmen, who have brought this about! I
+have treated or prescribed for each one of them. Blanqui is a madman,
+Barbes is a madman, Sobrier is a madman, Huber is the greatest madman of
+them all: they are all madmen, monsieur, who ought to be locked up at my
+Salpetriere instead of being here."
+
+He would certainly have added his own name to the list, had he known
+himself as well as he knew his old friends. I have always thought that
+in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so
+called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable
+political part. One thing at least is certain, and that is that a
+condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often
+even leads to success.
+
+The Assembly had dispersed, but it will be readily believed that it did
+not consider itself dissolved. Nor did it even regard itself as
+defeated. The majority of the members who left the House did so with the
+firm intention of soon meeting again elsewhere; they said so to one
+another, and I am convinced that they were, in fact, quite resolved upon
+it. As for myself, I decided to stay behind, kept back partly by the
+feeling of curiosity that irresistibly retains me in places where
+anything uncommon is proceeding, and partly by the opinion which I held
+then, as I did on the 24th of February, that the strength of an assembly
+in a measure resides in the hall it occupies. I therefore remained and
+witnessed the grotesque and disorderly, but meaningless and
+uninteresting, scenes that followed. The mob set itself, amid a
+thousand disorders and a thousand cries, to form a Provisional
+Government. It was a parody of the 24th of February, just as the 24th of
+February was a parody of other revolutionary scenes. This had lasted
+some time, when I thought that among all the noise I heard an irregular
+sound coming from the outside of the Palace. I have a very quick ear,
+and I was not slow in distinguishing the sound of a drum approaching and
+beating the charge; for in our days of civil disorder, everyone has
+learnt to know the language of these warlike instruments. I at once
+hurried to the door by which these new arrivals would enter.
+
+It was, in fact, a drum preceding some forty Gardes Mobiles. These lads
+pierced through the crowd with a certain air of resolution, although one
+could not clearly say at first what they proposed to do. Soon they
+disappeared from sight and remained as though submerged; but a short
+distance behind them marched a compact column of National Guards, who
+rushed into the House with significant shouts of "Long live the National
+Assembly!" I stuck my card of membership in my hat-band and entered with
+them. They first cleared the platform of five or six orators, who were
+at that moment speaking at once, and flung them, with none too great
+ceremony, down the steps of the little staircase that leads to it. At
+the sight of this, the insurgents at first made as though to resist; but
+a panic seized them. Climbing over the empty benches, tumbling over one
+another in the gangways, they made for the outer lobbies and sprang into
+the court-yards from every window. In a few minutes there remained only
+the National Guards, whose cries of "Long live the National Assembly"
+shook the walls of the Chamber.
+
+The Assembly itself was absent; but little by little the members who had
+dispersed in the neighbourhood hastened up. They shook the hands of the
+National Guards, embraced each other, and regained their seats. The
+National Guards cried, "Long live the National Assembly!" and the
+members, "Long live the National Guard! and long live the Republic!"
+
+No sooner was the hall recaptured, than General Courtais, the original
+author of our danger, had the incomparable impudence to present himself;
+the National Guards received him with yells of fury; he was seized and
+dragged to the foot of the rostrum. I saw him pass before my eyes, pale
+as a dying man among the flashing swords: thinking they would cut his
+throat, I cried with all my might, "Tear off his epaulettes, but don't
+kill him!" which was done.
+
+Then Lamartine reappeared. I never learnt how he had employed his time
+during the three hours wherein we were invaded. I had caught sight of
+him during the first hour: he was seated at that moment on a bench below
+mine, and he was combing his hair, glued together with perspiration,
+with a little comb he drew from his pocket; the crowd formed again and
+I saw him no more. Apparently he went to the inner rooms of the Palace,
+into which the mob had also penetrated, with the intention of haranguing
+it, and was very badly received. I was given, on the next day, some
+curious details of this scene, which I would have related here if I had
+not resolved to set down only what I have myself observed. They say
+that, subsequently, he withdrew to the palace then being built, close at
+hand, and destined for the Foreign Office. He would certainly have done
+better had he placed himself at the head of the National Guards and come
+to our release. I think he must have been seized with the faintness of
+heart that overcomes the bravest (and he was one of these) when
+possessed of a restless and lively imagination.
+
+When he returned to the Chamber, he had recovered his energy and his
+eloquence. He told us that his place was not in the Assembly, but in the
+streets, and that he was going to march upon the Hotel de Ville and
+crush the insurrection. This was the last time I heard him
+enthusiastically cheered. True, it was not he alone that they applauded,
+but the victory: those cheers and clappings were but an echo of the
+tumultuous passions that still agitated every breast. Lamartine went
+out. The drums, which had beat the charge half-an-hour before, now beat
+the march. The National Guards and the Gardes Mobiles, who were still
+with us in crowds, formed themselves into order and followed him. The
+Assembly, still very incomplete, resumed its sitting; it was six
+o'clock.
+
+I went home an instant to take some food; I then returned to the
+Assembly, which had declared its sitting permanent. We soon learnt that
+the members of the new Provisional Government had been arrested. Barbes
+was impeached, as was that old fool of a Courtais, who deserved a sound
+thrashing and no more. Many wished to include Louis Blanc, who, however,
+had pluckily undertaken to defend himself; he had just escaped with
+difficulty from the fury of the National Guards at the door, and still
+wore his torn clothes, covered with dust and all disordered. This time
+he did not send for the stool on which he used to climb in order to
+bring his head above the level of the rostrum balustrade (for he was
+almost a dwarf); he even forgot the effect he wished to produce, and
+thought only of what he had to say. In spite of that, or rather because
+of that, he won his case for the moment. I never considered him to
+possess talent except on that one day; for I do not call talent the art
+of polishing brilliant and hollow phrases, which are like finely chased
+dishes containing nothing.
+
+For the rest, I was so fatigued by the excitement of the day that I have
+retained but a dull, indistinct remembrance of the night sitting. I
+shall therefore say no more, for I wish only to record my personal
+impressions: for facts in detail it is the _Moniteur_, not I, that
+should be consulted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ THE FEAST OF CONCORD AND THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE DAYS OF JUNE.
+
+
+The revolutionaries of 1848, unwilling or unable to imitate the
+bloodthirsty follies of their predecessors, consoled themselves by
+imitating their ludicrous follies. They took it into their heads to give
+the people a series of grand allegorical festivals.
+
+Despite the terrible condition of the finances, the Provisional
+Government had decided that a sum of one or two millions should be spent
+upon celebrating the Feast of Concord in the Champ-de-Mars.
+
+According to the programme, which was published in advance and
+faithfully followed out, the Champ-de-Mars was to be filled with figures
+representing all sorts of persons, virtues, political institutions, and
+even public services. France, Germany and Italy, hand in hand; Equality,
+Liberty and Fraternity, also hand in hand; Agriculture, Commerce, the
+Army, the Navy and, above all, the Republic; the last of colossal
+dimensions. A car was to be drawn by sixteen plough-horses: "this car,"
+said the programme aforesaid, "will be of a simple and rustic shape, and
+will carry three trees, an oak, a laurel, and an olive tree,
+symbolizing strength, honour, and plenty; and, moreover, a plough in the
+midst of a group of flowers and ears of corn. Ploughmen and young girls
+dressed in white will surround the car, singing patriotic hymns." We
+were also promised oxen with gilded horns, but did not get them.
+
+The National Assembly had not the smallest desire to see all these
+beautiful things; it even feared lest the immense gathering of people
+which was sure to be occasioned should produce some dangerous riot.
+Accordingly, it put the date as far back as possible; but the
+preparations were made, there was no possibility of going back from it,
+and the date was fixed for the 21st of May.
+
+On that day I went early to the Assembly, which was to proceed on foot,
+in a body, to the Champ-de-Mars. I had put my pistols in my pockets, and
+in talking to my colleagues I discovered that most of them were secretly
+armed, like myself: one had taken a sword-stick, another a dagger;
+nearly all carried some weapon of defence. Edmond de La Fayette showed
+me a weapon of a peculiar kind. It was a ball of lead sewn into a short
+leathern thong which could easily be fastened to the arm: one might have
+called it a portable club. La Fayette declared that this little
+instrument was being widely carried by the National Assembly, especially
+since the 15th of May. It was thus that we proceeded to this Feast of
+Concord.
+
+A sinister rumour ran that some great danger awaited the Assembly when
+it should cross through the crowd of the Champ-de-Mars and take up its
+place on the stage reserved for it outside the Military College. As a
+matter of fact, nothing could have been easier than to make it the
+object of an unexpected attack during this progress, which it made on
+foot and, so to speak, unguarded. Its real safeguard lay in the
+recollection of the 15th of May, and that sufficed. It very rarely
+happens, whatever opportunity may present itself, that a body is
+affronted the day after its triumph. Moreover, the French never do two
+things at a time. Their minds often change their object, but they are
+always devoted wholly to that occupying them at the moment, and I
+believe there is no precedent of their making an insurrection in the
+middle of a fete or even of a ceremony. On this day, therefore, the
+people seemed to enter willingly into the fictitious idea of its
+happiness, and for a moment to place on one side the recollection of its
+miseries and its hatreds. It was animated, without being turbulent. The
+programme had stated that a "fraternal confusion" was to prevail. There
+was, it is true, extreme confusion, but no disorder; for we are strange
+people: we cannot do without the police when we are orderly, and so soon
+as we start a revolution, the police seem superfluous. The sight of this
+popular joyfulness enraptured the moderate and sincere Republicans, and
+made them almost maudlin. Carnot observed to me, with that silliness
+which the honest democrat always mingles with his virtue:
+
+"Believe me, my dear colleague, one should always trust the people."
+
+I remember rather brusquely replying, "Ah! why didn't you tell me that
+before the 15th?"
+
+The Executive Commission occupied one half of the immense stage that had
+been erected along the Military College, and the National Assembly the
+other. There first defiled past us the different emblems of all nations,
+which took an enormous time, because of the fraternal confusion of which
+the programme spoke. Then came the car, and then the young girls dressed
+in white. There were at least three hundred of them, who wore their
+virginal costume in so virile a fashion that they might have been taken
+for boys dressed up as girls. Each had been given a big bouquet to
+carry, which they were so gallant as to throw to us as they passed. As
+these gossips were the owners of very nervous arms, and were more
+accustomed, I should think, to using the laundress's beetle than to
+strewing flowers, the bouquets fell down upon us in a very hard and
+uncomfortable hail-storm.
+
+One tall girl left her companions and, stopping in front of Lamartine,
+recited an ode to his glory. Gradually she grew excited in talking, so
+much so that she pulled a terrible face and began to make the most
+alarming contortions. Never had enthusiasm seemed to me to come so near
+to epilepsy. When she had finished, the people insisted at all costs
+that Lamartine should kiss her; she offered him two fat cheeks,
+streaming with perspiration, which he touched with the tip of his lips
+and with indifferent bad grace.
+
+The only serious portion of the fete was the review. I have never seen
+so many armed men in one spot in my life, and I believe that few have
+seen more. Apart from the innumerable crowd of sight-seers in the
+Champ-de-Mars, one saw an entire people under arms. The _Moniteur_
+estimated the number of National Guards and soldiers of the line who
+were there at three hundred thousand. This seemed to me to be
+exaggerated, but I do not think that the number could be reduced to less
+than two hundred thousand.
+
+The spectacle of those two hundred thousand bayonets will never leave my
+memory. As the men who carried them were tightly pressed against one
+another, so as to be able to keep within the slopes of the
+Champ-de-Mars, and as we, from our but slightly raised position, could
+only throw an almost horizontal glance upon them, they formed, to our
+eyes, a flat and lightly undulating surface, which flashed in the sun
+and made the Champ-de-Mars resemble a great lake filled with liquid
+steel.
+
+All these men marched past us in succession, and we noticed that this
+army numbered many more muskets than uniforms. Only the legions from the
+wealthier parts of the town presented a large number of National Guards
+clad in military uniform. They were the first to appear, and shouted,
+"Long live the National Assembly!" with much enthusiasm. In the legions
+from the suburbs, which formed in themselves veritable armies, one saw
+little but jackets and blouses, though this did not prevent them from
+marching with a very warlike aspect. Most of them, as they passed us,
+were content to shout, "Long live the Democratic Republic!" or to sing
+the _Marseillaise_ or the song of the _Girondins_. Next came the legions
+of the outskirts, composed of peasants, badly equipped, badly armed, and
+dressed in blouses like the workmen of the suburbs, but filled with a
+very different spirit to that of the latter, as they showed by their
+cries and gestures. The battalions of the Garde Mobile uttered various
+exclamations, which left us full of doubt and anxiety as to the
+intention of these lads, or rather children, who at that time more than
+any other held our destinies in their hands.
+
+The regiments of the line, who closed the review, marched past in
+silence.
+
+I witnessed this long parade with a heart filled with sadness. Never at
+any time had so many arms been placed at once into the hands of the
+people. It will be easily believed that I shared neither the simple
+confidence nor the stupid happiness of my friend Carnot; I foresaw, on
+the contrary, that all the bayonets I saw glittering in the sun would
+soon be raised against each other, and I felt that I was at a review of
+the two armies of the civil war that was just concluded. In the course
+of that day I still heard frequent shouts of "Long live Lamartine!"
+although his great popularity was already waning. In fact, one might say
+it was over, were it not that in every crowd one meets with a large
+number of belated individuals who are stirred with the enthusiasm of
+yesterday, like the provincials who begin to adopt the Paris mode on the
+day when the Parisians abandon it.
+
+Lamartine hastened to withdraw from this last ray of his sun: he retired
+long before the ceremony was finished. He looked weary and care-worn.
+Many members of the Assembly, also overcome with fatigue, followed his
+example, and the review ended in front of almost empty benches. It had
+begun early and ended at night-fall.
+
+The whole time elapsing between the review of the 21st of May and the
+days of June was filled with the anxiety caused by the approach of these
+latter days. Every day fresh alarms came and called out the army and the
+National Guard; the artisans and shopkeepers no longer lived at home,
+but in the public places and under arms. Each one fervently desired to
+avoid the necessity of a conflict, and all vaguely felt that this
+necessity was becoming more inevitable from day to day. The National
+Assembly was so constantly possessed by this thought that one might have
+said that it read the words "Civil War" written on the four walls of the
+House.
+
+On all sides great efforts of prudence and patience were being made to
+prevent, or at least delay, the crisis. Members who in their hearts were
+most hostile to the revolution were careful to restrain any expressions
+of sympathy or antipathy; the old parliamentary orators were silent,
+lest the sound of their voices should give umbrage; they left the
+rostrum to the new-comers, who themselves but rarely occupied it, for
+the great debates had ceased. As is common in all assemblies, that which
+most disturbed the members' minds was that of which they spoke least,
+though it was proved that each day they thought of it. All sorts of
+measures to help the misery of the people were proposed and discussed.
+We even entered readily into an examination of the different socialistic
+systems, and each strove in all good faith to discover in these
+something applicable to, or at least compatible with, the ancient laws
+of Society.
+
+During this time, the national workshops continued to fill; their
+population already exceeded one hundred thousand men. It was felt that
+we could not live if they were kept on, and it was feared that we should
+perish if we tried to dismiss them. This burning question of the
+national workshops was treated daily, but superficially and timidly; it
+was constantly touched upon, but never firmly taken in hand.
+
+On the other hand, it was clear that, outside the Assembly, the
+different parties, while dreading the contest, were actively preparing
+for it. The wealthy legions of the National Guard offered banquets to
+the army and to the Garde Mobile, in which they mutually urged each
+other to unite for the common defence.
+
+The workmen of the suburbs, on their side, were secretly amassing that
+great number of cartridges which enabled them later to sustain so long a
+contest. As to the muskets, the Provisional Government had taken care
+that these should be supplied in profusion; one could safely say that
+there was not a workman who did not possess at least one, and sometimes
+several.
+
+The danger was perceived afar off as well as near at hand. The provinces
+grew indignant and irritated with Paris; for the first time for sixty
+years they ventured to entertain the idea of resisting it; the people
+armed themselves and encouraged each other to come to the assistance of
+the Assembly; they sent it thousands of addresses congratulating it on
+its victory of the 15th of May. The ruin of commerce, universal war, the
+dread of Socialism made the Republic more and more hateful in the eyes
+of the provinces. This hatred manifested itself especially beneath the
+secrecy of the ballot. The electors were called upon to re-elect in
+twenty-one departments; and in general they elected the men who in their
+eyes represented the Monarchy in some form or other. M. Mole was elected
+at Bordeaux, and M. Thiers at Rouen.
+
+It was then that suddenly, for the first time, the name of Louis
+Napoleon came into notice. The Prince was elected at the same time in
+Paris and in several departments. Republicans, Legitimists and
+demagogues gave him their votes; for the nation at that time was like a
+frightened flock of sheep, which runs in all directions without
+following any road. I little thought, when I heard that Louis Napoleon
+had been nominated, that exactly a year later I should be his minister.
+I confess that I beheld the return of the old parliamentary leaders with
+considerable apprehension and regret; not that I failed to do justice to
+their talent and discretion, but I feared lest their approach should
+drive back towards the Mountain the moderate Republicans who were coming
+towards us. Moreover, I knew them too well not to see that, so soon as
+they had returned to political life, they would wish to lead it, and
+that it would not suit them to save the country unless they could govern
+it. Now an enterprise of this sort seemed to me both premature and
+dangerous. Our duty and theirs was to assist the moderate Republicans to
+govern the Republic without seeking to govern it indirectly ourselves,
+and especially without appearing to have this in view.
+
+For my part, I never doubted but that we were on the eve of a terrible
+struggle; nevertheless, I did not fully understand our danger until
+after a conversation that I had about this time with the celebrated
+Madame Sand. I met her at an Englishman's of my acquaintance:
+Milnes,[10] a member of Parliament, who was then in Paris. Milnes was a
+clever fellow who did and, what is rarer, said many foolish things. What
+a number of those faces I have seen in my life of which one can say that
+the two profiles are not alike: men of sense on one side, fools on the
+other. I have always seen Milnes infatuated with something or somebody.
+This time he was smitten with Madame Sand, and notwithstanding the
+seriousness of events, had insisted on giving her a literary _dejeuner_.
+I was present at this repast, and the image of the days of June, which
+followed so closely after, far from effacing the remembrance of it from
+my mind, recalls it.
+
+ [10: The Right Honble. Monckton Milnes, the late Lord
+ Houghton.--A.T. de M.]
+
+The company was anything but homogeneous. Besides Madame Sand, I met a
+young English lady, very modest and very agreeable, who must have found
+the company invited to meet her somewhat singular; some more or less
+obscure writers; and Merimee. Milnes placed me next to Madame Sand. I
+had never spoken to her, and I doubt whether I had ever seen her (I had
+lived little in the world of literary adventurers which she frequented).
+One of my friends asked her one day what she thought of my book on
+America, and she answered, "Monsieur, I am only accustomed to read the
+books which are presented to me by their authors." I was strongly
+prejudiced against Madame Sand, for I loathe women who write,
+especially those who systematically disguise the weaknesses of their
+sex, instead of interesting us by displaying them in their true
+character. Nevertheless, she pleased me. I thought her features rather
+massive, but her expression admirable: all her mind seemed to have taken
+refuge in her eyes, abandoning the rest of her face to matter; and I was
+particularly struck at meeting in her with something of the naturalness
+of behaviour of great minds. She had a real simplicity of manner and
+language, which she mingled, perhaps, with some little affectation of
+simplicity in her dress. I confess that, more adorned, she would have
+appeared still more simple. We talked for a whole hour of public
+affairs; it was impossible to talk of anything else in those days.
+Besides, Madame Sand at that time was a sort of politician, and what she
+said on the subject struck me greatly; it was the first time that I had
+entered into direct and familiar communication with a person able and
+willing to tell me what was happening in the camp of our adversaries.
+Political parties never know each other: they approach, touch, seize,
+but never see one another. Madame Sand depicted to me, in great detail
+and with singular vivacity, the condition of the Paris workmen, their
+organization, their numbers, their arms, their preparations, their
+thoughts, their passions, their terrible resolves. I thought the picture
+overloaded, but it was not, as subsequent events clearly proved. She
+seemed to be alarmed for herself at the popular triumph, and to take
+the greatest pity upon the fate that awaited us.
+
+"Try to persuade your friends, monsieur," she said, "not to force the
+people into the streets by alarming or irritating them. I also wish that
+I could instil patience into my own friends; for if it comes to a fight,
+believe me, you will all be killed."
+
+With these consoling words we parted, and I have never seen her since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ THE DAYS OF JUNE.
+
+
+I come at last to the insurrection of June, the most extensive and the
+most singular that has occurred in our history, and perhaps in any
+other: the most extensive, because, during four days, more than a
+hundred thousand men were engaged in it; the most singular, because the
+insurgents fought without a war-cry, without leaders, without flags, and
+yet with a marvellous harmony and an amount of military experience that
+astonished the oldest officers.
+
+What distinguished it also, among all the events of this kind which have
+succeeded one another in France for sixty years, is that it did not aim
+at changing the form of government, but at altering the order of
+society. It was not, strictly speaking, a political struggle, in the
+sense which until then we had given to the word, but a combat of class
+against class, a sort of Servile War. It represented the facts of the
+Revolution of February in the same manner as the theories of Socialism
+represented its ideas; or rather it issued naturally from these ideas,
+as a son does from his mother. We behold in it nothing more than a blind
+and rude, but powerful, effort on the part of the workmen to escape from
+the necessities of their condition, which had been depicted to them as
+one of unlawful oppression, and to open up by main force a road towards
+that imaginary comfort with which they had been deluded. It was this
+mixture of greed and false theory which first gave birth to the
+insurrection and then made it so formidable. These poor people had been
+told that the wealth of the rich was in some way the produce of a theft
+practised upon themselves. They had been assured that the inequality of
+fortunes was as opposed to morality and the welfare of society as it was
+to nature. Prompted by their needs and their passions, many had believed
+this obscure and erroneous notion of right, which, mingled with brute
+force, imparted to the latter an energy, a tenacity and a power which it
+would never have possessed unaided.
+
+It must also be observed that this formidable insurrection was not the
+enterprise of a certain number of conspirators, but the revolt of one
+whole section of the population against another. Women took part in it
+as well as men. While the latter fought, the former prepared and carried
+ammunition; and when at last the time had come to surrender, the women
+were the last to yield. These women went to battle with, as it were, a
+housewifely ardour: they looked to victory for the comfort of their
+husbands and the education of their children. They took pleasure in this
+war as they might have taken pleasure in a lottery.
+
+As to the strategic science displayed by this multitude, the warlike
+nature of the French, their long experience of insurrections, and
+particularly the military education which the majority of the men of the
+people in turn receive, suffice to explain it. Half of the Paris workmen
+have served in our armies, and they are always glad to take up arms
+again. Generally speaking, old soldiers abound in our riots. On the 24th
+of February, when Lamoriciere was surrounded by his foes, he twice owed
+his life to insurgents who had fought under him in Africa, men in whom
+the recollection of their military life had been stronger than the fury
+of civil war.
+
+As we know, it was the closing of the national workshops that occasioned
+the rising. Dreading to disband this formidable soldiery at one stroke,
+the Government had tried to disperse it by sending part of the workmen
+into the country. They refused to leave. On the 22nd of June, they
+marched through Paris in troops, singing in cadence, in a monotonous
+chant, "We won't be sent away, we won't be sent away...." Their
+delegates waited upon the members of the Committee of the Executive
+Power with a series of arrogant demands, and on meeting with a refusal,
+withdrew with the announcement that next day they would have recourse to
+arms. Everything, indeed, tended to show that the long-expected crisis
+had come.
+
+When this news reached the Assembly it caused the greatest alarm.
+Nevertheless, the Assembly did not interrupt its order of the day; it
+continued the discussion of a commercial act, and even listened to it,
+despite its excited condition; true, it was a very important question
+and a very eminent orator was speaking. The Government had proposed to
+acquire all the railways by purchase. Montalembert opposed it; his case
+was good, but his speech was excellent; I do not think I ever heard him
+speak so well before or since. As a matter of fact, I thought as he did,
+this time; but I believe that, even in the eyes of his adversaries, he
+surpassed himself. He made a vigorous attack without being as peevish
+and outrageous as usual. A certain fear tempered his natural insolence,
+and set a limit to his paradoxical and querulous humour; for, like so
+many other men of words, he had more temerity of language than stoutness
+of heart.
+
+The sitting concluded without any question as to what was occurring
+outside, and the Assembly adjourned.
+
+On the 23rd, on going to the Assembly, I saw a large number of omnibuses
+grouped round the Madeleine. This told me that they were beginning to
+erect barricades in the streets; which was confirmed on my arrival at
+the Palace. Nevertheless, a doubt was expressed whether it was seriously
+contemplated to resort to arms. I resolved to go and assure myself of
+the real state of things, and, with Corcelles, repaired to the
+neighbourhood of the Hotel de Ville. In all the little streets
+surrounding that building, I found the people engaged in making
+barricades; they proceeded in their work with the cunning and regularity
+of an engineer, not unpaving more stones than were necessary to lay the
+foundations of a very thick, solid and even neatly-built wall, in which
+they generally left a small opening by the side of the houses to permit
+of ingress and egress. Eager for quicker information as to the state of
+the town, Corcelles and I agreed to separate. He went one way and I the
+other; and his excursion very nearly turned out badly. He told me
+afterwards that, after crossing several half-built barricades without
+impediment, he was stopped at the last one. The men of the lower orders
+who were building it, seeing a fine gentleman, in black clothes and very
+white linen, quietly trotting through the dirty streets round the Hotel
+de Ville and stopping before them with a placid and inquisitive air,
+thought they would make use of this suspicious onlooker. They called
+upon him, in the name of the brotherhood, to assist them in their work.
+Corcelles was as brave as Caesar, but he rightly judged that, under these
+circumstances, there was nothing better to be done than to give way
+quietly. See him therefore lifting paving-stones and placing them as
+neatly as possible one atop the other. His natural awkwardness and his
+absent-mindedness fortunately came to his aid; and he was soon sent
+about his business as a useless workman.
+
+To me no such adventure happened. I passed through the streets of the
+Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis quarters without coming across any
+barricades to speak of; but the excitement was extraordinary. On my
+return I met, in the Rue des Jeuneurs, a National Guard covered with
+blood and fragments of brain. He was very pale and was going home. I
+asked him what was happening; he told me that his battalion had just
+received the full force of a very murderous discharge of musketry at the
+Porte Saint-Denis. One of his comrades, whose name he mentioned to me,
+had been killed by his side, and he was covered with the blood and
+brains of this unhappy man.
+
+I returned to the Assembly, astonished at not having met a single
+soldier in the whole distance which I had traversed. It was not till I
+came in front of the Palais-Bourbon that I at last perceived great
+columns of infantry, marching, followed by cannon.
+
+Lamoriciere, in full uniform and on horseback, was at their head. I have
+never seen a figure more resplendent with aggressive passion and almost
+with joy; and whatever may have been the natural impetuosity of his
+humour, I doubt whether it was that alone which urged him at that
+moment, and whether there was not mingled with it an eagerness to avenge
+himself for the dangers and outrages he had undergone.
+
+"What are you doing?" I asked him. "They have already been fighting at
+the Porte Saint-Denis, and barricades are being built all round the
+Hotel de Ville."
+
+"Patience," he replied, "we are going there. Do you think we are such
+fools as to scatter our soldiers on such a day as this over the small
+streets of the suburbs? No, no! we shall let the insurgents concentrate
+in the quarters which we can't keep them out of, and then we will go and
+destroy them. They sha'n't escape us this time."
+
+As I reached the Assembly, a terrible storm broke, which flooded the
+town. I entertained a slight hope that this bad weather would get us out
+of our difficulties for the day, and it would, indeed, have been enough
+to put a stop to an ordinary riot; for the people of Paris need fine
+weather to fight in, and are more afraid of rain than of grape-shot. But
+I soon lost this hope: each moment the news became more distressing. The
+Assembly found difficulty in resuming its ordinary work. Agitated,
+though not overcome, by the excitement outside, it suspended the order
+of the day, returned to it, and finally suspended it for good, giving
+itself over to the preoccupations of the civil war. Different members
+came and described from the rostrum what they had seen in Paris. Others
+suggested various courses of action. Falloux, in the name of the
+Committee of Public Assistance, proposed a decree dissolving the
+national workshops, and received applause. Time was wasted with empty
+conversations, empty speeches. Nothing was known for certain; they kept
+on calling for the attendance of the Executive Commission, to inform
+them of the state of Paris, but the latter did not appear. There is
+nothing more pitiful than the spectacle of an assembly in a moment of
+crisis, when the Government itself fails it; it resembles a man still
+full of will and passion, but impotent, and tossing childishly amid the
+helplessness of his limbs. At last appeared two members of the Executive
+Commission; they announced that affairs were in a perilous condition,
+but that, nevertheless, it was hoped to crush the insurrection before
+night. The Assembly declared its sitting permanent, and adjourned till
+the evening.
+
+When the sitting was resumed, we learnt that Lamartine had been received
+with shots at all the barricades he attempted to approach. Two of our
+colleagues, Bixio and Dornes, had been mortally wounded when trying to
+address the insurgents. Bedeau had been shot through the thigh at the
+entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, and a number of officers of
+distinction were already killed or dangerously wounded. One of our
+members, Victor Considerant, spoke of making concessions to the workmen.
+The Assembly, which was tumultuous and disturbed, but not weak, revolted
+at these words: "Order, order!" they cried on every side, with a sort of
+rage, "it will be time to talk of that after the victory!" The rest of
+the evening and a portion of the night were spent in vaguely talking,
+listening, and waiting. About midnight, Cavaignac appeared. The
+Executive Commission had since that afternoon placed the whole military
+power in his hands. In a hoarse and jerky voice, and in simple and
+precise words, Cavaignac detailed the principal incidents of the day. He
+stated that he had given orders to all the regiments posted along the
+railways to converge upon Paris, and that all the National Guards of the
+outskirts had been called out; he concluded by telling us that the
+insurgents had been beaten back to the barriers, and that he hoped soon
+to have mastered the city. The Assembly, exhausted with fatigue, left
+its officials sitting in permanence, and adjourned until eight o'clock
+the next morning.
+
+When, on quitting this turbulent scene, I found myself at one in the
+morning on the Pont Royal, and from there beheld Paris wrapped in
+darkness, and calm as a city asleep, it was with difficulty that I
+persuaded myself that all that I had seen and heard since the morning
+had existed in reality and was not a pure creation of my brain. The
+streets and squares which I crossed were absolutely deserted; not a
+sound, not a cry; one would have said that an industrious population,
+fatigued with its day's work, was resting before resuming the peaceful
+labours of the morrow. The serenity of the night ended by over-mastering
+me; I brought myself to believe that we had triumphed already, and on
+reaching home I went straight to sleep.
+
+I woke very early in the morning. The sun had risen some time before,
+for we were in the midst of the longest days of the year. On opening my
+eyes, I heard a sharp, metallic sound, which shook the window-panes and
+immediately died out amid the silence of Paris.
+
+"What is that?" I asked.
+
+My wife replied, "It is the cannon; I have heard it for over an hour,
+but would not wake you, for I knew you would want your strength during
+the day."
+
+I dressed hurriedly and went out. The drums were beating to arms on
+every side: the day of the great battle had come at last. The National
+Guards left their homes under arms; all those I met seemed full of
+energy, for the sound of cannon, which brought the brave ones out, kept
+the others at home. But they were in bad humour: they thought themselves
+either badly commanded or betrayed by the Executive Power, against which
+they uttered terrible imprecations. This extreme distrust of its leaders
+on the part of the armed force seemed to me an alarming symptom.
+Continuing on my way, at the entrance to the Rue Saint-Honore, I met a
+crowd of workmen anxiously listening to the cannon. These men were all
+in blouses, which, as we know, constitute their fighting as well as
+their working clothes; nevertheless, they had no arms, but one could see
+by their looks that they were quite ready to take them up. They
+remarked, with a hardly restrained joy, that the sound of the firing
+seemed to come nearer, which showed that the insurrection was gaining
+ground. I had augured before this that the whole of the working class
+was engaged, either in fact or in spirit, in the struggle; and this
+confirmed my suspicions. The spirit of insurrection circulated from one
+end to the other of this immense class, and in each of its parts, as the
+blood does in the body; it filled the quarters where there was no
+fighting, as well as those which served as the scene of battle; it had
+penetrated into our houses, around, above, below us. The very places in
+which we thought ourselves the masters swarmed with domestic enemies;
+one might say that an atmosphere of civil war enveloped the whole of
+Paris, amid which, to whatever part we withdrew, we had to live; and in
+this connection I shall violate the law I had imposed upon myself never
+to speak upon the word of another, and will relate a fact which I learnt
+a few days later from my colleague Blanqui.[11] Although very trivial, I
+consider it very characteristic of the physiognomy of the time. Blanqui
+had brought up from the country and taken into his house, as a servant,
+the son of a poor man, whose wretchedness had touched him. On the
+evening of the day on which the insurrection began, he heard this lad
+say, as he was clearing the table after dinner, "Next Sunday [it was
+Thursday then] _we_ shall be eating the wings of the chicken;" to which
+a little girl who worked in the house replied, "And _we_ shall be
+wearing fine silk dresses." Could anything give a better idea of the
+general state of minds than this childish scene? And to complete it,
+Blanqui was very careful not to seem to hear these little monkeys: they
+really frightened him. It was not until after the victory that he
+ventured to send back the ambitious pair to their hovels.
+
+ [11: Of the Institute, a brother of Blanqui of the 15th of May.]
+
+At last I reached the Assembly. The representatives were gathered in
+crowds, although the time appointed for the sitting was not yet come.
+The sound of the cannon had attracted them. The Palace had the
+appearance of a fortified town: battalions were encamped around, and
+guns were levelled at all the approaches leading to it.
+
+I found the Assembly very determined, but very ill at ease; and it must
+be confessed there was enough to make it so. It was easy to perceive
+through the multitude of contradictory reports that we had to do with
+the most universal, the best armed, and the most furious insurrection
+ever known in Paris. The national workshops and various revolutionary
+bands that had just been disbanded supplied it with trained and
+disciplined soldiers and with leaders. It was extending every moment,
+and it was difficult to believe that it would not end by being
+victorious, when one remembered that all the great insurrections of the
+last sixty years had triumphed. To all these enemies we were only able
+to oppose the battalions of the _bourgeoisie_, regiments which had been
+disarmed in February, and twenty thousand undisciplined lads of the
+Garde Mobile, who were all sons, brothers, or near relations of
+insurgents, and whose dispositions were doubtful.
+
+But what alarmed us most was our leaders. The members of the Executive
+Commission filled us with profound distrust. On this subject I
+encountered, in the Assembly, the same feelings which I had observed
+among the National Guard. We doubted the good faith of some and the
+capacity of others. They were too numerous, besides, and too much
+divided to be able to act in complete harmony, and they were too much
+men of speech and the pen to be able to act to good purpose under such
+circumstances, even if they had agreed among themselves.
+
+Nevertheless, we succeeded in triumphing over this so formidable
+insurrection; nay more, it was just that which rendered it so terrible
+which saved us. One might well apply in this case the famous phrase of
+the Prince de Conde, during the wars of religion: "We should have been
+destroyed, had we not been so near destruction." Had the revolt borne a
+less radical character and a less ferocious aspect, it is probable that
+the greater part of the middle class would have stayed at home; France
+would not have come to our aid; the National Assembly itself would
+perhaps have yielded, or at least a minority of its members would have
+advised it; and the energy of the whole body would have been greatly
+unnerved. But the insurrection was of such a nature that any commerce
+with it became at once impossible, and from the first it left us no
+alternative but to defeat it or to be destroyed ourselves.
+
+The same reason prevented any man of consideration from placing himself
+at its head. In general, insurrections--I mean even those which
+succeed--begin without a leader; but they always end by securing one.
+This insurrection finished without having found one; it embraced every
+class of the populace, but never passed those limits. Even the
+Montagnards in the Assembly did not dare pronounce in its favour.
+Several pronounced against it. They did not even yet despair of
+attaining their ends by other means; they feared, moreover, that the
+triumph of the workmen would soon prove fatal to them. The greedy, blind
+and vulgar passions which induced the populace to take up arms alarmed
+them; for these passions are as dangerous to those who sympathize with
+them, without utterly abandoning themselves to them, as to those who
+reprove and combat them. The only men who could have placed themselves
+at the head of the insurgents had allowed themselves to be prematurely
+taken, like fools, on the 15th of May; and they only heard the sound of
+the conflict through the walls of the dungeon of Vincennes.
+
+Preoccupied though I was with public affairs, I continued to be
+distressed with the uneasiness which my young nephews once more caused
+me. They had been sent back to the Little Seminary, and I feared
+that the insurrection must come pretty near, if it had not already
+reached, the place where they lived. As their parents were not in
+Paris, I decided to go and fetch them, and I accordingly again traversed
+the long distance separating the Palais-Bourbon from the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Champs. I came across a few barricades erected during the
+night by the forlorn hope of the insurrection; but these had been either
+abandoned or captured at daybreak.
+
+All these quarters resounded with a devilish music, a mixture of drums
+and trumpets, whose rough, discordant, savage notes were new to me. In
+fact, I heard for the first time--and I have never heard it since--the
+rally, which it had been decided should never be beaten except in
+extreme cases and to call the whole population at once to arms.
+Everywhere National Guards were issuing from the houses; everywhere
+stood groups of workmen in blouses, listening with a sinister air to the
+rally and the cannon. The fighting had not yet reached so far as the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Champs, although it was very near it. I took my nephews
+with me, and returned to the Chamber.
+
+As I approached, and when I was already in the midst of the troops which
+guarded it, an old woman, pushing a barrow full of vegetables,
+obstinately barred my progress. I ended by telling her pretty curtly to
+make way. Instead of doing so, she left her barrow and flew at me in
+such a frenzy that I had great difficulty in protecting myself. I was
+horrified at the hideous and frightful expression of her face, on which
+were depicted all the fury of demagogic passion and the rage of civil
+war. I mention this little fact because I beheld in it, and with good
+cause, an important symptom. In violently critical times, even actions
+which have nothing to do with politics assume a singular character of
+anger and disorder, which does not escape the attentive eye, and which
+is an unfailing index of the general state of mind. These great public
+excitements form a sort of glowing atmosphere in which all private
+passions seethe and bubble.
+
+I found the Assembly agitated by a thousand sinister reports. The
+insurrection was gaining ground in every direction. Its head-quarters,
+or, so to speak, its trunk, was behind the Hotel de Ville, whence it
+stretched its long arms further and further to right and left into the
+suburbs, and threatened soon to hug even us. The cannon was drawing
+appreciably nearer. And to this correct news were added a thousand lying
+rumours. Some said that our troops were running short of ammunition;
+others, that a number of them had laid down their arms or gone over to
+the insurgents.
+
+M. Thiers asked Barrot, Dufaure, Remusat, Lanjuinais and myself to
+follow him to a private room. There he said:
+
+"I know something of insurrections, and I tell you this is the worst I
+have ever seen. The insurgents may be here within an hour, and we shall
+be butchered one and all. Do you not think that it would be well for us
+to agree to propose to the Assembly, so soon as we think necessary and
+before it becomes too late, that it should call back the troops around
+it, in order that, placed in their midst, we may all leave Paris
+together and remove the seat of the Republic to a place where we could
+summon the army and all the National Guards in France to our
+assistance?"
+
+He said this in very eager tones and with a greater display of
+excitement than is, perhaps, advisable in the presence of great danger.
+I saw that he was pursued by the ghost of February. Dufaure, who had a
+less vivid imagination, and who, moreover, never readily made up his
+mind to associate himself with people he did not care about, even to
+save himself, phlegmatically and somewhat sarcastically explained that
+the time had not yet come to discuss a plan of this kind; that we could
+always talk of it later on; that our chances did not seem to him so
+desperate as to oblige us to entertain so extreme a remedy; that to
+entertain it was to weaken ourselves. He was undoubtedly right, and his
+words broke up the consultation. I at once wrote a few lines to my wife,
+telling her that the danger was hourly increasing, that Paris would
+perhaps end by falling entirely into the power of the revolt, and that,
+in that case, we should be obliged to leave it in order to carry on the
+civil war elsewhere. I charged her to go at once to Saint-Germain by
+the railroad, which was still free, and there to await my news; told my
+nephews to take the letter; and returned to the Assembly. I found them
+discussing a decree to proclaim Paris in a state of siege, to abolish
+the powers of the Executive Commission, and to replace it by a military
+dictatorship under General Cavaignac.
+
+The Assembly knew precisely that this was what it wanted. The thing was
+easily done: it was urgent, and yet it was not done. Each moment some
+little incident, some trivial motion interrupted and turned aside the
+current of the general wish; for assemblies are very liable to that sort
+of nightmare in which an unknown and invisible force seems always at the
+last moment to interpose between the will and the deed and to prevent
+the one from influencing the other. Who would have thought that it was
+Bastide who should eventually induce the Assembly to make up its mind?
+Yet he it was.
+
+I had heard him say--and it was very true--speaking of himself, that he
+was never able to remember more than the first fifteen words of a
+speech. But I have sometimes observed that men who do not know how to
+speak produce a greater impression, under certain circumstances, than
+the finest orators. They bring forward but a single idea, that of the
+moment, clothed in a single phrase, and somehow they lay it down in the
+rostrum like an inscription written in big letters, which everybody
+perceives, and in which each instantly recognizes his own particular
+thought. Bastide, then, displayed his long, honest, melancholy face in
+the tribune, and said, with a mournful air:
+
+"Citizens, in the name of the country, I beseech you to vote as quickly
+as possible. We are told that perhaps within an hour the Hotel de Ville
+will be taken."
+
+These few words put an end to debate, and the decree was voted in the
+twinkling of an eye.
+
+I protested against the clause proclaiming Paris in a state of siege; I
+did so by instinct rather than reflection. I have such a contempt and so
+great a natural horror for military despotism that these feelings came
+rising tumultuously in my breast when I heard a state of siege
+suggested, and even dominated those prompted by our peril. In this I
+made a mistake in which I fortunately found few to imitate me.
+
+The friends of the Executive Commission have asserted in very bitter
+terms that their adversaries and the partisans of General Cavaignac
+spread ominous rumours on purpose to precipitate the vote. If the latter
+did really resort to this trick, I gladly pardon them, for the measures
+they caused to be taken were indispensable to the safety of the country.
+
+Before adopting the decree of which I have spoken, the Assembly
+unanimously voted another, which declared that the families of those who
+should fall in the struggle should receive a pension from the Treasury
+and their children be adopted by the Republic.
+
+It was decided that sixty members of the Chamber, appointed by the
+committees, should spread themselves over Paris, inform the National
+Guards of the different decrees issued by the Assembly, and re-establish
+their confidence, which was said to be uncertain and discouraged. In the
+committee to which I belonged, instead of immediately appointing
+commissioners, they began an endless discussion on the uselessness and
+danger of the resolution adopted. In this manner a great deal of time
+was lost. I ended by stopping this ludicrous chatter with a word.
+"Gentlemen," I said, "the Assembly may have been mistaken; but permit me
+to observe that, having passed a two-fold resolution, it would be a
+disgrace for it to draw back, and a disgrace for us not to submit."
+
+They voted on the spot; and I was unanimously elected a commissioner, as
+I expected. My colleagues were Cormenin and Cremieux, to whom they added
+Goudchaux. The latter was then not so well known, although in his own
+way he was the most original of them all. He was at once a Radical and a
+banker, a rare combination; and by dint of his business occupations, he
+had succeeded by covering with a few reasonable ideas the foundation of
+his mind, which was filled with mad theories that always ended by making
+their way to the top. It was impossible to be vainer, more irascible,
+more quarrelsome, petulant or excitable than he. He was unable to
+discuss the difficulties of the Budget without shedding tears; and yet
+he was one of the valiantest little men it was possible to meet.
+
+Thanks to the stormy discussion in our committee, the other deputations
+had already left, and with them the guides and the escort who were to
+have accompanied us. Nevertheless, we set out, after putting on our
+scarves, and turned our steps alone and a little at hazard towards the
+interior of Paris, along the right bank of the Seine. By that time the
+insurrection had made such progress that one could see the cannon drawn
+up in line and firing between the Pont des Arts and the Pont Neuf. The
+National Guards, who saw us from the top of the embankment, looked at us
+with anxiety; they respectfully took off their hats, and said in an
+undertone, and with grief-stricken accents, "Long live the National
+Assembly!" No noisy cheers uttered at the sight of a king ever came more
+visibly from the heart, or pointed to a more unfeigned sympathy. When we
+had passed through the gates and were on the Carrousel, I saw that
+Cormenin and Cremieux were imperceptibly making for the Tuileries, and I
+heard one of them, I forget which, say:
+
+"Where can we go? And what can we do of any use without guides? Is it
+not best to content ourselves with going through the Tuileries gardens?
+There are several battalions of the reserve stationed there; we will
+inform them of the decrees of the Assembly."
+
+"Certainly," replied the other; "I even think we shall be executing the
+Assembly's instructions better than our colleagues; for what can one say
+to people already engaged in action? It is the reserves that we should
+prepare to fall into line in their turn."
+
+I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary
+movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their
+cowardice in all its nakedness; but the others are able to cover it with
+a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small, plausible lies, that
+there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work
+of the brain.
+
+As may be supposed, I was in no humour for a stroll in the Tuileries
+gardens. I had set out in none too good a temper; but it was no good
+crying over spilt milk. I therefore pointed out to Goudchaux the road
+our colleagues had taken.
+
+"I know," he said, angrily; "I shall leave them and I will make public
+the decrees of the Assembly without them."
+
+Together we made for the gate opposite. Cormenin and Cremieux soon
+rejoined us, a little ashamed of their attempt. Thus we reached the Rue
+Saint-Honore, the appearance of which was perhaps what struck me most
+during the days of June. This noisy, populous street was at this moment
+more deserted than I had ever seen it at four o'clock on a winter
+morning. As far as the eye could reach, we perceived not a living soul;
+the shops, doors and windows were hermetically closed. Nothing was
+visible, nothing stirred; we heard no sound of a wheel, no clatter of a
+horse, no human footstep, but only the voice of the cannon, which seemed
+to resound through an abandoned city. Yet the houses were not empty; for
+as we walked on, we could catch glimpses at the windows of women and
+children who, with their faces glued to the panes, watched us go by with
+an affrighted air.
+
+At last, near the Palais-Royal, we met some large bodies of National
+Guards, and our mission commenced. When Cremieux saw that it was only a
+question of talking, he became all ardour; he told them of what had
+happened at the National Assembly, and held forth to them in a little
+_bravura_ speech which was heartily applauded. We found an escort there,
+and passed on. We wandered a long time through the little streets of
+that district, until we came in front of the great barricade of the Rue
+Rambuteau, which was not yet taken and which stopped our further
+progress. From there we came back again through all those little
+streets, which were covered with blood from the recent combats: they
+were still fighting from time to time. For it was a war of ambuscades,
+whose scene was not fixed but every moment changed. When one least
+expected it, one was shot at through a garret window; and on breaking
+into the house, one found the gun but not the marksman: the latter
+escaped by a back-door while the front-door was being battered in. For
+this reason the National Guards had orders to have all the shutters
+opened, and to fire on all those who showed themselves at the windows;
+and they obeyed these orders so literally that they narrowly escaped
+killing several merely inquisitive people whom the sight of our scarves
+tempted to put their noses outside.
+
+During this walk of two or three hours, we had to make at least thirty
+speeches; I refer to Cremieux and myself, for Goudchaux was only able to
+speak on finance, and as to Cormenin, he was always as dumb as a fish.
+To tell the truth, almost all the burden of the day fell upon Cremieux.
+He filled me, I will not say with admiration, but with surprise. Janvier
+has said of Cremieux that he was "an eloquent louse." If only he could
+have seen him that day, jaded, with uncovered breast, dripping with
+perspiration and dirty with dust, wrapped in a long scarf twisted
+several times in every direction round his little body, but constantly
+hitting upon new ideas, or rather new words and phrases, now expressing
+in gestures what he had just expressed in words, then in words what he
+had just expressed in gestures: always eloquent, always ardent! I do not
+believe that anyone has ever seen, and I doubt whether anyone has ever
+imagined, a man who was uglier or more fluent.
+
+I observed that when the National Guards were told that Paris was in a
+state of siege, they were pleased, and when one added that the Executive
+Commission was overthrown, they cheered. Never were people so delighted
+to be relieved of their liberty and their government. And yet this was
+what Lamartine's popularity had come to in less than two months.
+
+When we had done speaking, the men surrounded us; they asked us if we
+were quite sure that the Executive Commission had ceased to act; we had
+to show them the decree to satisfy them.
+
+Particularly remarkable was the firm attitude of these men. We had come
+to encourage them, and it was rather they who encouraged us. "Hold on at
+the National Assembly," they cried, "and we'll hold on here. Courage! no
+transactions with the insurgents! We'll put an end to the revolt: all
+will end well." I had never seen the National Guard so resolute before,
+nor do I think that we could rely upon finding it so again; for its
+courage was prompted by necessity and despair, and proceeded from
+circumstances which are not likely to recur.
+
+Paris on that day reminded me of a city of antiquity whose citizens
+defended the walls like heroes, because they knew that if the city were
+taken they themselves would be dragged into slavery. As we turned our
+steps back towards the Assembly, Goudchaux left us. "Now that we have
+done our errand," said he, clenching his teeth, and in an accent half
+Gascon and half Alsatian, "I want to go and fight a bit." He said this
+with such a martial air, so little in harmony with his pacific
+appearance, that I could not help smiling.
+
+He did, in fact, go and fight, as I heard the next day, and so well that
+he might have had his little paunch pierced in two or three places, had
+fate so willed it. I returned from my round convinced that we should
+come out victorious; and what I saw on nearing the Assembly confirmed my
+opinion.
+
+Thousands of men were hastening to our aid from every part of France,
+and entering the city by all the roads not commanded by the insurgents.
+Thanks to the railroads, some had already come from fifty leagues'
+distance, although the fighting had only begun the night before. On the
+next and the subsequent days, they came from distances of a hundred and
+two hundred leagues. These men belonged indiscriminately to every class
+of society; among them were many peasants, many shopkeepers, many
+landlords and nobles, all mingled together in the same ranks. They were
+armed in an irregular and insufficient manner, but they rushed into
+Paris with unequalled ardour: a spectacle as strange and unprecedented
+in our revolutionary annals as that offered by the insurrection itself.
+It was evident from that moment that we should end by gaining the day,
+for the insurgents received no reinforcements, whereas we had all France
+for reserves.
+
+On the Place Louis XV., I met, surrounded by the armed inhabitants of
+his canton, my kinsman Lepelletier d'Aunay, who was Vice-President of
+the Chamber of Deputies during the last days of the Monarchy. He wore
+neither uniform nor musket, but only a little silver-hilted sword which
+he had slung at his side over his coat by a narrow white linen
+bandolier. I was touched to tears on seeing this venerable white-haired
+man thus accoutred.
+
+"Won't you come and dine with us this evening?"
+
+"No, no," he replied; "what would these good folk who are with me, and
+who know that I have more to lose than they by the victory of the
+insurrection--what would they say if they saw me leaving them to take it
+easy? No, I will share their repast and sleep here at their bivouac. The
+only thing I would beg you is, if possible, to hurry the despatch of the
+provision of bread promised us, for we have had no food since morning."
+
+I returned to the Assembly, I believe at about three, and did not go out
+again. The remainder of the day was taken up by accounts of the
+fighting: each moment produced its event and its piece of news. The
+arrival of volunteers from one of the departments was announced; they
+were bringing in prisoners; flags captured on the barricades were
+brought in. Deeds of bravery were described, heroic words repeated; each
+moment we learnt of some person of note being wounded or killed. As to
+the final issue of the day, nothing had yet occurred to enable us to
+form an opinion.
+
+The President only called the Assembly together at infrequent intervals
+and for short periods; and he was right, for assemblies are like
+children, and idleness always makes them say or do a number of foolish
+things. Each time the sitting was resumed, he himself told us all that
+had been learnt for certain during the adjournment. This President, as
+we know, was Senard, a well-known Rouen advocate and a man of courage;
+but in his youth he had contracted so deep-seated a theatrical habit in
+the daily comedy played at the bar that he had lost the faculty of
+truthfully giving his true impressions of a thing, when by accident he
+happened to have any. It seemed always necessary that he should add some
+turgidity or other of his own to the feats of courage he described, and
+that he should express the emotion, which I believe he really felt, in
+hollow tones, a trembling voice, and a sort of tragic hiccough which
+reminded one of an actor on the stage. Never were the sublime and the
+ridiculous brought so close together: for the facts were sublime and the
+narrator ridiculous.
+
+We did not adjourn till late at night to take a little rest. The
+fighting had stopped, to be resumed on the morrow. The insurrection,
+although everywhere held in check, had as yet been stifled nowhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ THE DAYS OF JUNE--(_continued_).
+
+
+The porter of the house in which we lived in the Rue de la Madeleine was
+a man of very bad reputation in the neighbourhood, an old soldier, not
+quite in his right mind, a drunkard, and a great good-for-nothing, who
+spent at the wine-shop all the time which he did not employ in beating
+his wife. This man might be said to be a Socialist by birth, or rather
+by temperament.
+
+The early successes of the insurrection had brought him to a state of
+exaltation, and on the morning of the day of which I speak he visited
+all the wine-shops around, and among other mischievous remarks of which
+he delivered himself, he said that he would kill me when I came home in
+the evening, if I came in at all. He even displayed a large knife which
+he intended to use for the purpose. A poor woman who heard him ran in
+great alarm to tell Madame de Tocqueville; and she, before leaving
+Paris, sent me a note in which, after telling me of the facts, she
+begged me not to come in that night, but to go to my father's house,
+which was close by, he being away. This I determined to do; but when I
+left the Assembly at midnight, I had not the energy to carry out my
+intention. I was worn out with fatigue, and I did not know whether I
+should find a bed prepared if I slept out. Besides, I had little faith
+in the performance of murders proclaimed beforehand; and also I was
+under the influence of the sort of listlessness that follows upon any
+prolonged excitement. I accordingly went and knocked at my door, only
+taking the precaution to load the pistols which, in those unhappy days,
+it was common to carry. My man opened the door, I entered, and while he
+was carefully pushing the bolts behind me, I asked him if all the
+tenants had come home. He replied drily that they had all left Paris
+that morning, and that we two were alone in the house. I should have
+preferred another kind of _tete-a-tete_, but it was too late to go back;
+I therefore looked him straight in the eyes and told him to walk in
+front and show a light.
+
+He stopped at a gate that led to the court-yard, and told me that he
+heard a curious noise in the stables which alarmed him, begging me to go
+with him to see what it was. As he spoke, he turned towards the stables.
+All this began to seem very suspicious to me, but I thought that, as I
+had gone so far, it was better to go on. I accordingly followed him,
+carefully watching his movements, and making up my mind to kill him like
+a dog at the first sign of treachery. As a matter of fact, we did hear a
+very strange noise. It resembled the dull running of water or the
+distant rumble of a carriage, although it obviously came from somewhere
+quite near. I never learnt what it was; though it was true I did not
+spend much time in trying to discover. I soon returned to the house and
+made my companion bring me to my threshold, keeping my eyes on him the
+whole time. I told him to open my door, and so soon as he had done so, I
+took the candle from his hand and went in. It was not until I was almost
+out of his sight that he brought himself to take off his hat and bow to
+me. Had the man really intended to kill me, and seeing me on my guard,
+with both hands in my pockets, did he reflect that I was better armed
+than he, and that he would be well advised to abandon his design? I
+thought at the time that the latter had never been very seriously
+intended, and I think so still. In times of revolution, people boast
+almost as much about the imaginary crimes they propose to commit as in
+ordinary times they do of the good intentions they pretend to entertain.
+I have always believed that this wretch would only have become dangerous
+if the fortunes of the fight had seemed to turn against us; but they
+leant, on the contrary, to our side, although they were still undecided;
+and this was sufficient to assure my safety.
+
+At dawn I heard some one in my room, and woke with a start: it was my
+man-servant, who had let himself in with a private key of the apartment,
+which he carried. The brave lad had just left the bivouac (I had
+supplied him at his request with a National Guard's uniform and a good
+gun), and he came to know if I had come home and if his services were
+required. This one was certainly not a Socialist, either in theory or
+temperament. He was not even tainted in the slightest degree with the
+most general malady of the age, restlessness of mind, and even in other
+times than ours it would have been difficult to find a man more
+contented with his position and less sullen at his lot. Always very much
+satisfied with himself, and tolerably satisfied with others, he
+generally desired only that which was within his reach, and he generally
+attained, or thought he attained, all that he desired; thus unwittingly
+following the precepts which philosophers teach and never observe, and
+enjoying by the gift of Nature that happy equilibrium between faculty
+and desire which alone gives the happiness which philosophy promises us.
+
+"Well, Eugene," I said, when I saw him, "how are affairs going on?"
+
+"Very well, sir, perfectly well!"
+
+"What do you mean by very well? I can still hear the sound of cannon!"
+
+"Yes, they are still fighting," he replied, "but every one says it will
+end all right."
+
+With that he took off his uniform, cleaned my boots, brushed my clothes,
+and putting on his uniform again:
+
+"If you don't require me any more, sir," said he, "and if you will
+permit me, I will go back to the fighting."
+
+He pursued this two-fold calling during four days and four nights, as
+simply as I am writing it down; and I experienced a sort of reposeful
+feeling, during these days filled with turmoil and hate, when I looked
+at the young man's peaceful and contented face.
+
+Before going to the Assembly, where I did not think there would be any
+important measures to take, I resolved to make my way to the places
+where the fighting was still going on, and where I heard the sound of
+cannon. It was not that I was longing "to go and fight a bit," like
+Goudchaux, but I wanted to judge for myself as to the state of things;
+for, in my complete ignorance of war, I could not understand what made
+the struggle last so long. Besides, shall I confess it, a keen curiosity
+was piercing through all the feelings that filled my mind, and from time
+to time dominated them. I went along a great portion of the boulevard
+without seeing any traces of the battle, but there were plenty just
+beyond the Porte Saint-Martin; one stumbled over the _debris_ left
+behind by the retreating insurrection: broken windows, doors smashed in,
+houses spotted by bullets or pierced by cannon-balls, trees cut down,
+heaped-up paving-stones, straw mixed with blood and mud. Such were these
+melancholy vestiges.
+
+I thus reached the Chateau-d'Eau, around which were massed a number of
+troops of different sorts. At the foot of the fountain was a piece of
+cannon which was being discharged down the Rue Samson. I thought at
+first that the insurgents were replying with cannon on their side, but I
+ended by seeing that I was deceived by an echo which repeated with a
+terrible crash the sound of our own gun. I have never heard anything
+like it; one might have thought one's self in the midst of a great
+battle. As a matter of fact, the insurgents were only replying with an
+infrequent but deadly musketry fire.
+
+It was a strange combat. The Rue Samson, as we know, is not a very long
+one; at the end runs the Canal Saint-Martin, and behind the canal is a
+large house facing the street. The street was absolutely deserted; there
+was no barricade in sight, and the gun seemed to be firing at a target;
+only from time to time a whiff of smoke issued from a few windows, and
+proclaimed the presence of an invisible enemy. Our sharp-shooters,
+posted along the walls, aimed at the windows from which they saw the
+shots fired. Lamoriciere, mounted on a tall horse in full view of the
+enemy, gave his commands amid the whirl of bullets. I thought he was
+more excited and talkative than I had imagined a general ought to be in
+such a juncture; he talked, shouted in a hoarse voice, gesticulated in a
+sort of rage. It was easy to see by the clearness of his thoughts and
+expressions that amid this apparent disorder he lost none of his
+presence of mind; but his manner of commanding might have caused others
+to lose theirs, and I confess I should have admired his courage more if
+he had kept more quiet.
+
+This conflict, in which one saw nobody before him, this firing, which
+seemed to be aimed only at the walls, surprised me strangely. I should
+never have pictured war to myself under this aspect. As the boulevard
+seemed clear beyond the Chateau-d'Eau, I was unable to understand why
+our columns did not pass further, nor why, if we wanted first to seize
+the large house facing the street, we did not capture it at a run,
+instead of remaining so long exposed to the deadly fire issuing from it.
+Yet nothing was more easily explained: the boulevard, which I thought
+clear from the Chateau-d'Eau onwards, was not so; beyond the bend which
+it makes at this place, it was bristling with barricades, all the way to
+the Bastille. Before attacking the barricades, we wanted to become
+masters of the streets we left behind us, and especially to capture the
+house facing the street, which, commanding the boulevard as it did,
+would have impeded our communications. Finally, we did not take the
+house by assault, because we were separated from it by the canal, which
+I could not see from the boulevard. We confined ourselves, therefore, to
+efforts to destroy it by cannon-shots, or at least to render it
+untenable. This took a long time to accomplish, and after being
+astonished in the morning that the fighting had not finished, I now
+asked myself how at this rate it could ever finish. For what I was
+witnessing at the Chateau-d'Eau was at the same time being repeated in
+other forms in a hundred different parts of Paris.
+
+As the insurgents had no artillery, the conflict did not possess the
+horrible aspect which it must have when the battle-field is ploughed by
+cannon balls. The men who were struck down before me seemed transfixed
+by an invisible shaft: they staggered and fell without one's seeing at
+first anything but a little hole made in their clothes. In the cases of
+this kind which I witnessed, I was struck less by the sight of physical
+pain than by the picture of moral anguish. It was indeed a strange and
+frightful thing to see the sudden change of features, the quick
+extinction of the light in the eyes in the terror of death.
+
+After a certain period, I saw Lamoriciere's horse sink to the ground,
+shot by a bullet; it was the third horse the General had had killed
+under him since the day before yesterday. He sprang lightly to the
+ground, and continued bellowing his raging instructions.
+
+I noticed that on our side the least eager were the soldiers of the
+Line. They were weakened and, as it were, dulled by the remembrance of
+February, and did not yet seem quite certain that they would not be told
+the next day that they had done wrong. The liveliest were undoubtedly
+the Gardes Mobiles of whom we had felt so uncertain; and, in spite of
+the event, I maintain that we were right, at the time; for it wanted but
+little for them to decide against us instead of taking our side. Until
+the end, they plainly showed that it was the fighting they loved rather
+than the cause for which they fought.
+
+All these troops were raw and very subject to panic: I myself was a
+judge and almost a victim of this. At a street corner close to the
+Chateau-d'Eau was a large house in process of building. Some insurgents,
+who doubtless entered from behind across the court-yards, had taken up
+their position there, unknown to us; suddenly they appeared on the roof,
+and fired a great volley at the troops who filled the boulevard, and who
+did not expect to find the enemy posted so close at hand. The sound of
+their muskets reverberating with a great crash against the opposite
+houses gave reason to dread that a surprise of the same kind was taking
+place on that side. Immediately the most incredible confusion prevailed
+in our column: artillery, cavalry, and infantry were mingled in a
+moment, the soldiers fired in every direction, without knowing what they
+were doing, and tumultuously fell back sixty paces. This retreat was so
+disorderly and so impetuous that I was thrown against the wall of the
+houses facing the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, knocked down by the
+cavalry, and so hard pressed that I left my hat on the field, and very
+nearly left my body there. It was certainly the most serious danger I
+ran during the days of June. This made me think that it is not all
+heroism in the game of war. I have no doubt but that accidents of this
+kind often happen to the very best troops; no one boasts about them, and
+they are not mentioned in the despatches.
+
+It was now that Lamoriciere became sublime. He had till then kept his
+sword in the scabbard: he now drew it, and ran up to his soldiers, his
+features distorted with the most magnificent rage; he stopped them with
+his voice, seized them with his hands, even struck them with the pummel
+of his sword, turned them, brought them back, and, placing himself at
+their head, forced them to pass at the trot through the fire in the Rue
+du Faubourg-du-Temple in order to take the house from which the firing
+had come. This was done in a moment, and without striking a blow: the
+enemy had disappeared.
+
+The combat resumed its dull aspect and lasted some time longer, until
+the enemy's fire was at length extinguished, and the street occupied.
+Before commencing the next operation, there was a moment's pause:
+Lamoriciere went to his head-quarters, a wine-shop on the boulevard near
+the Porte Saint-Martin, and I was at last able to consult him on the
+state of affairs.
+
+"How long do you think," I asked, "that all this will last?"
+
+"Why, how can I tell?" he replied. "That depends on the enemy, not on
+us."
+
+He then showed me on the map all the streets we had already captured and
+were occupying, and all those we had still to take, adding, "If the
+insurgents choose to defend themselves on the ground they still hold as
+they have done on that which we have won from them, we may still have a
+week's fighting before us, and our loss will be enormous, for we lose
+more than they do: the first side to lose its moral courage will be the
+first to be beaten."
+
+I next reproached him with exposing himself so rashly, and, as I
+thought, so uselessly.
+
+"What will you have me do?" said he. "Tell Cavaignac to send generals
+able and willing to second me, and I will keep more in the background;
+but you always have to expose yourself when you have only yourself to
+rely on."
+
+M. Thiers then came up, threw himself on Lamoriciere's neck, and told
+him he was a hero. I could not help smiling at this effusion, for there
+was no love lost between them: but a great danger is like wine, it makes
+men affectionate.
+
+I left Lamoriciere in M. Thiers' arms, and returned to the Assembly: it
+was growing late, and besides, I know no greater fool than the man who
+gets his head broken in battle out of curiosity.
+
+The rest of the day was spent as the day before: the same anxiety in the
+Assembly, the same feverish inaction, the same firmness. Volunteers
+continued to enter Paris; every moment we were told of some tragic event
+or illustrious death. These pieces of news saddened, but animated and
+fortified, the Assembly. Any member who ventured to propose to enter
+into negociations with the insurgents was met with yells of rage.
+
+In the evening I decided to go myself to the Hotel de Ville, in order
+there to obtain more certain news of the results of the day. The
+insurrection, after alarming me by its extreme violence, now alarmed me
+by its long duration. For who could foresee the effect which the sight
+of so long and uncertain a conflict might produce in some parts of
+France, and especially in the great manufacturing towns, such as Lyons?
+As I went along the Quai de la Ferraille, I met some National Guards
+from my neighbourhood, carrying on litters several of their comrades and
+two of their officers wounded. I observed, in talking with them, with
+what terrible rapidity, even in so civilized a century as our own, the
+most peaceful minds enter, as it were, into the spirit of civil war, and
+how quick they are, in these unhappy times, to acquire a taste for
+violence and a contempt for human life. The men with whom I was talking
+were peaceful, sober artisans, whose gentle and somewhat sluggish
+natures were still further removed from cruelty than from heroism. Yet
+they dreamt of nothing but massacre and destruction. They complained
+that they were not allowed to use bombs, or to sap and mine the streets
+held by the insurgents, and they were determined to show no more
+quarter; already that morning I had almost seen a poor devil shot before
+my eyes on the boulevards, who had been arrested without arms in his
+hands, but whose mouth and hands were blackened by a substance which
+they supposed to be, and which no doubt was, powder. I did all I could
+to calm these rabid sheep. I promised them that we should take terrible
+measures the next day. Lamoriciere, in fact, had told me that morning
+that he had sent for shells to hurl behind the barricades; and I knew
+that a regiment of sappers was expected from Douai, to pierce the walls
+and blow up the besieged houses with petards. I added that they must not
+shoot any of their prisoners, but that they should kill then and there
+anyone who made as though to defend himself. I left my men a little more
+contented, and, continuing my road, I could not help examining myself
+and feeling surprised at the nature of the arguments I had used, and the
+promptness with which, in two days, I had become familiarized with those
+ideas of inexorable destruction which were naturally so foreign to my
+character.
+
+As I passed in front of the little streets at the entrance to which, two
+days before, I had seen such neat and solid barricades being built, I
+noticed that the cannon had considerably upset those fine works,
+although some traces remained.
+
+I was received by Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He told me that the Hotel
+de Ville was clear for the present, but that the insurgents might try in
+the night to recapture the streets from which we had driven them. I
+found him less tranquil than his bulletins. He took me to a room in
+which they had laid Bedeau, who was dangerously wounded on the first
+day. This post at the Hotel de Ville was a very fatal one for the
+generals who commanded there. Bedeau almost lost his life. Duvivier and
+Negrier, who succeeded him, were killed. Bedeau believed he was but
+slightly hurt, and thought only of the situation of affairs:
+nevertheless, his activity of mind struck me as ill-omened, and alarmed
+me.
+
+The night was well advanced when I left the Hotel de Ville to go to the
+Assembly. I was offered an escort, which I refused, not thinking I
+should require it; but I regretted it more than once on the road. In
+order to prevent the insurgent districts from receiving reinforcements,
+provisions, or communications from the other parts of the town, in which
+there were so many men prepared to embrace the same cause, it had very
+properly been resolved absolutely to prohibit circulation in any of the
+streets. Everyone was stopped who left his house without a pass or an
+escort. I was constantly stopped on my way and made to show my medal. I
+was aimed at more than ten times by those inexperienced sentries, who
+spoke every imaginable brogue; for Paris was filled with provincials,
+who had come from every part of the country, many of them for the first
+time.
+
+When I arrived, the sitting was over, but the Palace was still in a
+great state of excitement. A rumour had got abroad that the workmen of
+the Gros-Caillou were about to take advantage of the darkness to seize
+upon the Palace itself. Thus the Assembly, which, after three days'
+fighting, had carried the conflict into the heart of the districts
+occupied by its enemies, was trembling for its own quarters. The rumour
+was void of foundation; but nothing could better show the character of
+this war, in which the enemy might always be one's own neighbour, and
+in which one was never certain of not having his house sacked while
+gaining a victory at a distance. In order to secure the Palace against
+all surprise, barricades were hurriedly erected at the entrance to all
+the streets leading up to it. When I saw that there was only a question
+of a false rumour, I went home to bed.
+
+I shall say no more of the June combats. The recollections of the two
+last days merge into and are lost in those of the first. As is known,
+the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the last citadel of the civil war, did not
+lay down its arms until the Monday--that is to say, on the fourth day
+after the commencement of the conflict; and it was not until the morning
+of that day that the volunteers from la Manche were able to reach Paris.
+They had hurried as fast as possible, but they had come more than eighty
+leagues across a country in which there were no railways. They were
+fifteen hundred in number. I was touched at recognizing among them many
+landlords, lawyers, doctors and farmers who were my friends and
+neighbours. Almost all the old nobility of the country had taken up arms
+on this occasion and formed part of the column. It was the same over
+almost the whole of France. From the petty squire squatting in his den
+in the country to the useless, elegant sons of the great houses--all had
+at that moment remembered that they had once formed part of a warlike
+and governing class, and on every side they gave the example of vigour
+and resolution: so great is the vitality of those old bodies of
+aristocracy. They retain traces of themselves even when they appear to
+be reduced to dust, and spring up time after time from the shades of
+death before sinking back for ever.
+
+It was in the midst of the days of June that the death occurred of a man
+who perhaps of all men in our day best preserved the spirit of the old
+races: M. de Chateaubriand, with whom I was connected by so many family
+ties and childish recollections. He had long since fallen into a sort of
+speechless stupor, which made one sometimes believe that his
+intelligence was extinguished. Nevertheless, while in this condition, he
+heard a rumour of the Revolution of February, and desired to be told
+what was happening. They informed him that Louis-Philippe's government
+had been overthrown. He said, "Well done!" and nothing more. Four months
+later, the din of the days of June reached his ears, and again he asked
+what that noise was. They answered that people were fighting in Paris,
+and that it was the sound of cannon. Thereupon he made vain efforts to
+rise, saying, "I want to go to it," and was then silent, this time for
+ever; for he died the next day.
+
+Such were the days of June, necessary and disastrous days. They did not
+extinguish revolutionary ardour in France, but they put a stop, at least
+for a time, to what may be called the work appertaining to the
+Revolution of February. They delivered the nation from the tyranny of
+the Paris workmen and restored it to possession of itself.
+
+Socialistic theories continued to penetrate into the minds of the people
+in the shape of envious and greedy desires, and to sow the seed of
+future revolutions; but the socialist party itself was beaten and
+powerless. The Montagnards, who did not belong to it, felt that they
+were irrevocably affected by the blow that had struck it. The moderate
+Republicans themselves did not fail to be alarmed lest this victory had
+led them to a slope which might precipitate them from the Republic, and
+they made an immediate effort to stop their descent, but in vain.
+Personally I detested the Mountain, and was indifferent to the Republic;
+but I adored Liberty, and I conceived great apprehensions for it
+immediately after these days. I at once looked upon the June fighting as
+a necessary crisis, after which, however, the temper of the nation would
+undergo a certain change. The love of independence was to be followed by
+a dread of, and perhaps a distaste for, free institutions; after such an
+abuse of liberty a return of this sort was inevitable. This retrograde
+movement began, in fact, on the 27th of June. At first very slow and
+invisible, as it were, to the naked eye, it grew swifter, impetuous,
+irresistible. Where will it stop? I do not know. I believe we shall have
+great difficulty in not rolling far beyond the point we had reached
+before February, and I foresee that all of us, Socialists, Montagnards
+and Liberal Republicans, will fall into common discredit until the
+private recollections of the Revolution of 1848 are removed and effaced,
+and the general spirit of the times shall resume its empire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI[12]
+
+ THE COMMITTEE FOR THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+ [12: There is a great hiatus in this chapter, due to my not
+ mentioning the discussions and resolutions relating to _general
+ principles_. Many of the discussions were fairly thorough, and most
+ of the resolutions were tolerably wise and even courageous. Most of
+ the revolutionary and socialistic raptures of the time were
+ combated in them. We were prepared and on our guard on these
+ general questions.]
+
+
+I now change my subject, and am glad to leave the scenes of the civil
+war and to return to the recollections of my parliamentary life. I wish
+to speak of what happened in the Committee for the Constitution, of
+which I was a member. This will oblige us to retrace our steps a little,
+for the appointment and work of this committee date back to before the
+days of June; but I did not mention it earlier, because I did not wish
+to interrupt the course of events which was leading us swiftly and
+directly to those days. The nomination of the Committee for the
+Constitution was commenced on the 17th of May; it was a long
+performance, because it had been decided that the members of the
+committee should be chosen by the whole Assembly and by an absolute
+majority of votes. I was elected at the first time of voting[13]
+together with Cormenin, Marrast, Lamennais, Vivien, and Dufaure. I do
+not know how often the voting had to be repeated in order to complete
+the list, which was to consist of eighteen members.
+
+ [13: I received 496 votes.]
+
+Although the committee had been nominated before the victory of June,
+almost all its members belonged to the different moderate sections of
+the Assembly. The Mountain had only two representatives on it: Lamennais
+and Considerant; and even these were little worse than chimerical
+visionaries, especially Considerant, who would have deserved to be sent
+to a lunatic asylum had he been sincere--but I fear he deserved more
+than that.
+
+Taking the Committee as a whole, it was easy to see that no very
+remarkable result was to be expected from it. Some of its members had
+spent their lives in conducting or controlling the administration during
+the last government. They had never seen, studied, or understood
+anything except the Monarchy; and even then they had, for the most part,
+applied rather than studied its principles. They had raised themselves
+but little above the practice of business. Now that they were called
+upon to realize the theories which they had always slighted or opposed,
+and which had defeated without convincing them, they found it difficult
+to apply any but monarchical ideas to their work; or, if they adopted
+republican ideas, they did so now timidly, now rashly, always a little
+at hap-hazard, like novices.
+
+As for the Republicans proper on the Committee, they had few ideas of
+any sort, except those which they had gathered in reading or writing for
+the newspapers; for there were many journalists among them. Marrast had
+edited the _National_ for ten years; Dornes was at that time its
+editor-in-chief; Vaulabelle, a man of serious but coarse and even
+cynical cast of mind, habitually wrote for its columns. He was the man
+who, a month later, was himself vastly astonished at becoming Minister
+of Public Worship and Instruction.
+
+All this bore very little resemblance to the men, so certain of their
+objects and so well acquainted with the measures necessary to attain
+them, who sixty years before, under Washington's presidency so
+successfully drew up the American Constitution.
+
+For that matter, even if the Committee had been capable of doing its
+work well, the want of time and the preoccupation of outside events
+would have prevented it.
+
+There is no nation which attaches itself less to those who govern it
+than the French Nation, nor which is less able to dispense with
+government. So soon as it finds itself obliged to walk alone, it
+undergoes a sort of vertigo, which makes it dread an abyss at every
+step. At the time I speak of, it had a sort of frenzied desire for the
+work of framing the Constitution to be completed, and for the powers in
+command to be, if not solidly, at least permanently and regularly
+established. The Assembly shared this eagerness, and never ceased urging
+us on, although we required but little urging. The recollection of the
+15th of May, the apprehensions entertained of the days of June and the
+sight of the divided, enervated and incapable government at the head of
+affairs were sufficient inducement to us to hasten our labours. But what
+especially deprived the Committee of its freedom of thought was, it must
+be confessed, the fear of outside matters and the excitement of the
+moment. It would be difficult to imagine the effect produced by this
+forcing of revolutionary ideas upon minds so little disposed to adopt
+them, and how the latter were being incessantly, and even almost
+unconsciously, impelled much further than they wished to go, when they
+were not pushed altogether out of the direction they desired to take.
+Certainly, if the Committee had met on the 27th of June instead of the
+16th of May, its work would have been very different.
+
+The discussion opened on the 22nd of May. The first question was to
+decide on which side we should tackle this immense work. Lamennais
+proposed to commence by regulating the state of the communes. He had
+proceeded in this way himself in a proposal for a Constitution which he
+had just published, so as to make certain of the first fruits of his
+discoveries. Then he passed from the question of sequence to that of the
+main point: he began to talk of administrative centralization, for his
+thoughts were incapable of sub-dividing themselves; his mind was always
+wholly occupied by a single system, and all the ideas contained in it
+adhered so closely together that, so soon as one was uttered, the others
+seemed necessarily to follow. He therefore explained that a Republic
+whose citizens are not clever and experienced enough to govern
+themselves was a monster not fit to live.
+
+Thereupon the Committee took fire: Barrot, who, amid the clouds of his
+mind, always pretty clearly perceived the necessity for local liberty,
+eagerly supported Lamennais. I did the same; Marrast and Vivien opposed
+us. Vivien was quite consistent in defending centralization, for the
+movement of administrative affairs was his profession, and moreover he
+was quite naturally drawn towards it. He had all the qualities of a
+clever legist and an excellent commentator, and none of those necessary
+to a legislator or statesman. The danger in which he beheld the
+institutions so dear to him inflamed him; he grew so excited that he
+began to hold that the Republic, far from restraining centralization,
+ought even to increase it. One would have said that this was the side on
+which the Revolution of February pleased him.
+
+Marrast belonged to the ordinary type of French revolutionaries, who
+have always understood the liberty of the people to mean despotism
+exercised in the name of the people. This sudden harmony between Vivien
+and Marrast did not, therefore, surprise me. I was used to the
+phenomenon, and I had long remarked that the only way to bring a
+Conservative and a Radical together was to attack the power of the
+central government, not in application, but in principle. One was then
+sure of throwing them into each other's arms.
+
+When, therefore, people assert that nothing is safe from revolutions, I
+tell them they are wrong, and that centralization is one of those
+things. In France there is only one thing we can't set up: that is, a
+free government; and only one institution we can't destroy: that is,
+centralization. How could it ever perish? The enemies of government love
+it, and those who govern cherish it. The latter perceive, it is true,
+from time to time, that it exposes them to sudden and irremediable
+disasters; but this does not disgust them with it. The pleasure it
+procures them of interfering with every one and holding everything in
+their hands atones to them for its dangers. They prefer this agreeable
+life to a more certain and longer existence, and say, "_Courte et
+bonne_" like the _roues_ of the Regency: "A short life and a merry one."
+
+The question could not be decided that day; but it was settled in
+advance by the determination arrived at that we should not first occupy
+ourselves with the communal system.
+
+Next day, Lamennais resigned. Under the circumstances, an occurrence of
+this sort was annoying. It was bound to increase and rooten the
+prejudices already existing against us. We took very pressing and even
+somewhat humble steps to induce Lamennais to reconsider his resolve. As
+I had shared his opinion, I was deputed to go and see him and press him
+to return. I did so, but in vain. He had only been beaten over a formal
+question, but he had concluded from this that he would not be the
+master. That was enough to decide him to be nothing at all. He was
+inflexible, in spite of all I could say in the interest of the very
+ideas which we held in common.
+
+One should especially consider an unfrocked priest if one wishes to
+acquire a correct idea of the indestructible and, so to speak, infinite
+power which the clerical habit and method of thought wield over those
+who have once contracted them. It was useless for Lamennais to sport
+white stockings, a yellow waistcoat, a striped necktie, and a green
+coat: he remained a priest in character, and even in appearance. He
+walked with short, hurried and discreet steps, never turning his head or
+looking at anybody, and glided through the crowd with an awkward, modest
+air, as though he were leaving the sacristy. Add to this a pride great
+enough to walk over the heads of kings and bid defiance to God.
+
+When it was found that Lamennais' obstinacy was not to be overcome, we
+proceeded with other business; and so that no more time might be lost in
+premature discussions, a sub-committee was appointed to draw up rules
+for the regulation of our labours, and to propose them to the Committee.
+Unfortunately, this sub-committee was so constituted that Cormenin, our
+chairman, was its master and, in reality, substituted himself for it.
+The permanent power of initiative which he thus possessed, coupled with
+the conduct of the debates which belonged to him as chairman, had the
+most baneful influence upon our deliberations, and I am not sure if the
+faults in our work should not be mainly attributed to him.
+
+Like Lamennais, Cormenin had drawn up and published a Constitution after
+his own idea, and again, like the former, he expected us to adopt it.
+But he did not quite know how to put it to us. As a rule, extreme vanity
+makes the timidest very bold in speaking. Cormenin's did not permit him
+to open his mouth so soon as he had three listeners. He would have liked
+to do as one of my neighbours in Normandy did, a great lover of
+polemics, to whom Providence had refused the capacity of disputing _viva
+voce_. Whenever I opposed any of his opinions, he would hurry home and
+write to me all that he ought to have told me. Cormenin accordingly
+despaired of convincing us, but hoped to surprise us. He flattered
+himself that he would make us accept his system gradually and, so to
+speak, unknown to ourselves, by presenting a morsel to us every day. He
+managed so cleverly that a general discussion could never be held upon
+the Constitution as a whole, and that even in each case it was almost
+impossible to trace back and find the primitive idea. He brought us
+every day five or six clauses ready drawn up, and patiently, little by
+little, drew back to this little plot of ground all those who wished to
+escape from it. We resisted sometimes; but in the end, from sheer
+weariness, we yielded to this gentle, continuous restraint. The
+influence of a chairman upon the work of a committee is immense; any one
+who has closely observed these little assemblies will understand what I
+mean. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that if several of us had
+desired to withdraw ourselves from this tyranny, we should have ended by
+coming to an understanding and succeeding. But we had no time and no
+inclination for long discussions. The vastness and complexity of the
+subject alarmed and wearied the minds of the Committee beforehand: the
+majority had not even attempted to study it, or had only collected some
+very confused ideas; and those who had formed clearer ones were ill at
+ease at having to expound them. They were afraid, besides, lest they
+should enter into violent, interminable disputes if they endeavoured to
+get to the bottom of things; and they preferred to appear to be in
+harmony by keeping to the surface. In this way we ambled along to the
+end, adopting great principles explicitly for reasons of petty detail,
+and little by little building up the whole machinery of government
+without properly taking into account the relative strength of the
+various wheels and the manner in which they would work together.
+
+In the moments of repose which interrupted this fine work, Marrast, who
+was a Republican of the Barras type, and who had always preferred the
+pleasures of luxury, the table and women to democracy in rags, told us
+little stories of gallantry, while Vaulabelle made broad jests. I hope,
+for the honour of the Committee, that no one will ever publish the
+minutes (very badly done, for that matter) which the secretary drew up
+of our sittings. The sterility of the discussions amid the exuberant
+fecundity of the subject-matter would assuredly provoke surprise. As for
+myself, I declare that I never witnessed a more wretched display in any
+committee on which I ever sat.
+
+Nevertheless, there was one serious discussion. It referred to the
+system of a single Chamber. As a matter of fact, the two parties into
+which the Committee was silently divided only came to an issue on this
+one occasion. It was even less a question of the two Chambers than of
+the general character to be given to the new government: Were we to
+persevere in the learned and somewhat complicated system of
+counterpoises, and place powers held in check, and consequently prudent
+and moderate, at the head of the Republic? Or were we to adopt the
+contrary course and accept the simpler theory, according to which
+affairs are placed in the hands of a single power, homogeneous in all
+its parts, uncontrolled, and consequently impetuous in its measures, and
+irresistible? This was the subject-matter of the debate. This general
+question might have cropped up as the result of a number of other
+clauses; but it was better contained than elsewhere in the special
+question of the two Chambers.
+
+The struggle was a long one and lasted for two sittings. The result was
+not for a moment in doubt; for public opinion had pronounced strongly in
+favour of a single Chamber, not only in Paris but in nearly every
+department. Barrot was the first to speak in favour of the two Chambers;
+he took up my thesis and developed it with great talent, but
+intemperately; for during the Revolution of February, his mind had lost
+its equilibrium and had never since been able to recover its
+self-possession. I supported Barrot and returned time after time to the
+charge. I was a little surprised to hear Dufaure pronouncing against us
+and doing so with a certain eagerness. Lawyers are rarely able to escape
+from one of two habits: they accustom themselves either to plead what
+they do not believe or to persuade themselves very easily of what they
+wish to plead. Dufaure came under the latter category. The drift of
+public opinion, of his own passions or interest, would never have led
+him to embrace a cause which he thought a bad one; but it prompted him
+with a desire to think it a good one, and that was often sufficient. His
+naturally vacillating, ingenious and subtle mind turned gradually
+towards it; and he sometimes ended by adopting it, not only with
+conviction but with transport. How often have I not been amazed to see
+him vehemently defending theories which I had seen him adopt with
+infinite hesitation!
+
+His principal reason for voting this time in favour of a single Chamber
+in the Legislative Body (and it was the best, I think, that could be
+found) was that, with us, the Executive Power wielded by one man
+elected by the people would most certainly become preponderant if there
+were placed beside him only a legislative body weakened by being divided
+into two branches. I remember that I replied that that might be the
+case, but that one thing was quite certain, and that was, that two great
+powers naturally jealous of one another, and placed in an eternal
+_tete-a-tete_ (that was the expression I used), without ever having
+recourse to the arbitrament of a third power, would at once be on bad
+terms or at war with one another, and would constantly remain so until
+one had destroyed the other. I added that, if it was true that a
+President elected by the people, and possessing the immense prerogatives
+which in France belong to the chief of the public administration, was
+sometimes able to curb a divided legislative body, a President who
+should feel himself to possess this origin and these rights would always
+refuse to become a simple agent and to submit to the capricious and
+tyrannical will of a single assembly.
+
+We were both in the right. The problem, thus propounded, was insolvable;
+but the nation propounded it thus. To allow the President the same power
+that the King had enjoyed, and to have him elected by the people, would
+make the Republic impossible. As I said later, one must either
+infinitely narrow the sphere of his power, or else have him elected by
+the Assembly; but the nation would hear of neither one nor the other.
+
+Dupin completed our defeat: he defended the single Chamber with
+surprising vigour. One would have thought that he had never held another
+opinion. I expected as much. I knew him to possess a heart that was
+habitually self-interested and cowardly, though subject at times to
+sudden leaps of courage and honesty. I had seen him for ten years
+prowling round every party without joining any, and attacking all the
+vanquished: half ape and half jackal, constantly biting, grimacing,
+gambolling, and always ready to fall upon the wretch who slipped. He
+showed himself in his true colours on the Committee of the Constitution,
+or rather he surpassed himself. I perceived in him none of those sudden
+leaps of which I have just spoken: he was uniformly commonplace from
+beginning to end. He usually remained silent while the majority were
+making up their minds; but as soon as he saw them pronounce in favour of
+democratic opinions, he rushed to place himself at their head, and often
+went far beyond them. Once, he perceived, when he had gone half-way,
+that the majority were not going in the direction he had thought;
+whereupon he immediately stopped short with a prompt and nimble effort
+of the intelligence, turned round, and hurried back at the same run
+towards the opinion from which he had been departing.
+
+Almost all the old members of Parliament pronounced in this way against
+the dual Chamber. Most of them sought for more or less plausible
+pretexts for their votes. Some pretended that a Council of State would
+provide the counterpoise of which they acknowledged the necessity;
+others purposed to subject the single assembly to forms whose slowness
+would safeguard it against its own impulses and against surprise; but in
+the end the true reason was always given. On the committee was a
+minister of the Gospel, M. Coquerel, who, seeing that his colleagues of
+the Catholic clergy were entering the Assembly, wanted to appear there
+too, and he was wrong: from the much-admired preacher that he was, he
+suddenly transformed himself into a very ridiculous political orator. He
+could hardly open his mouth without uttering some pompous absurdity. On
+this occasion he was so naive as to inform us that he continued to
+favour the dual Chamber, but that he would vote for the single Chamber
+because public opinion was pushing him on, and he did not wish, to use
+his own words, to fight against the current. This candour greatly
+annoyed those who were acting as he did, and mightily delighted Barrot
+and myself; but this was the only satisfaction we received, for, when it
+came to voting, there were only three on our side.
+
+This signal defeat disinclined me a little to continue the struggle, and
+threw Barrot quite out of humour. He no longer appeared except at rare
+intervals, and in order to utter signs of impatience or disdain rather
+than opinions.
+
+We passed on to the Executive Power. In spite of all that I have said
+of the circumstances of the time and the disposition of the Committee,
+it will still be believed with difficulty that so vast, so perplexing,
+so novel a subject did not furnish the material for a single general
+debate, nor for any very profound discussion.
+
+All were unanimous in the opinion that the Executive Power should be
+entrusted to one man alone. But what prerogatives and what agents should
+he be given, what responsibilities laid upon him? Clearly, none of these
+questions could be treated in an arbitrary fashion; each of them was
+necessarily in connection with all the others, and could, above all, be
+only decided by taking into special account the habits and customs of
+the country. These were old problems, no doubt; but they were made young
+again by the novelty of the circumstances.
+
+Cormenin, according to his custom, opened the discussion by proposing a
+little clause all ready drawn up, which provided that the head of the
+Executive Power, or the President, as he was thenceforward called,
+should be elected directly by the people by a relative majority, the
+minimum of votes necessary to carry his election being fixed at two
+millions. I believe Marrast was the only one to oppose it; he proposed
+that the head of the Executive Power should be elected by the Assembly:
+he was at that time intoxicated with his own fortune, and flattered
+himself, strange though this may seem to-day, that the choice of the
+Assembly would fall upon himself. Nevertheless, the clause proposed by
+Cormenin was adopted without any difficulty, so far as I can remember;
+and yet it must be confessed that the expediency of having the President
+elected by the people was not a self-evident truth, and that the
+disposition to have him elected directly was as new as it was dangerous.
+In a country with no monarchical tradition, in which the Executive Power
+has always been feeble and continues to be very limited, nothing is
+wiser than to charge the nation with the choice of its representative. A
+President who had not the strength which he could draw from that origin
+would then become the plaything of the Assemblies; but with us the
+conditions of the problem were very different. We were emerging from the
+Monarchy, and the habits of the Republicans themselves were still
+monarchical. Moreover, our system of centralization made our position an
+unique one: according to its principles, the whole administration of the
+country, in matters of the greatest and of the smallest moment, belonged
+to the President; the thousands of officials who held the whole country
+in their hands were dependent upon him alone; this was so according to
+the laws, and even the ideas, which the 24th of February had allowed to
+continue in force; for we had retained the spirit of the Monarchy, while
+losing the taste for it. Under these conditions, what could a President
+elected by the people be other than a pretender to the Crown? The office
+could only suit those who hoped to make use of it in order to assist in
+transforming the Presidential into Royal powers; it seemed clear to me
+then, and it seems evident to me now, that if it was desired that the
+President should be elected by the people without danger to the
+Republic, it was necessary to limit prodigiously the circle of his
+prerogatives; and even then, I am not sure that this would have
+sufficed, for his sphere, although thus confined in point of law, would,
+in habit and remembrance, have preserved its former extent. If, on the
+other hand, the President was allowed to retain his power, he should not
+be elected by the people. These truths were not put forward; I doubt
+whether they were even perceived in the heart of the Committee. However,
+Cormenin's clause, although adopted at first, was later made the object
+of a very lively attack; but it was attacked for reasons different to
+those I have just given. It was on the day after the 4th of June. Prince
+Louis Napoleon, of whom no one had thought a few days before, had just
+been elected to the Assembly by Paris and three departments. They began
+to fear that he would be placed at the head of the Republic if the
+choice were left to the people. The various pretenders and their friends
+grew excited, the question was raised afresh in the Committee, and the
+majority persisted in its original vote.
+
+I remember that, during all the time that the Committee was occupied in
+this way, my mind was labouring to divine to which side the balance of
+power would most generally lean in a Republic of the kind which I saw
+they were going to make. Sometimes I thought that it would be on the
+side of the Assembly, and then again on that of the elected President;
+and this uncertainty made me very uneasy. The fact is, that it was
+impossible to tell beforehand. The victory of one or other of these two
+great rivals must necessarily depend upon circumstances and the humours
+of the moment. There were only two things certain: the war which they
+would wage together, and the eventual ruin of the Republic.
+
+Of all the ideas which I have expounded, not one was sifted by the
+Committee; I might even say that not one was discussed. Barrot one day
+touched upon them in passing, but did not linger over them. His mind
+(which was sleepy rather than feeble, and which was even able to see far
+ahead when it took the trouble to look) caught a glimpse of them, as it
+were, between sleeping and waking, and thought no more of them.
+
+I myself only pointed them out with a certain hesitation and reserve. My
+rebuff in the matter of the dual Chamber left me little heart for the
+fight. Moreover, I confess, I was more anxious to reach a quick
+decision, and place a powerful leader at the head of the Republic, than
+to organize a perfect republican Constitution. We were then under the
+divided and uncertain government of the Executive Committee, Socialism
+was at our gates, and we were approaching the days of June, as we must
+not forget. Later, after these days, I vigorously supported in the
+Assembly the system of electing the President by the people, and in a
+certain measure contributed to its acceptance. The principal reason
+which I gave was that, after announcing to the nation that we would
+grant it that right, which it had always ardently desired, it was no
+longer possible to withhold it. This was true. Nevertheless, I regret
+having spoken on this occasion.
+
+To return to the Committee: unable and even unwilling to oppose the
+adoption of the principle, I endeavoured at least to make its
+application less dangerous. I first proposed to limit in various
+directions the sphere of the Executive Power; but I soon saw that it was
+useless to attempt anything serious on that side. I then fell back upon
+the method of election itself, and raised a discussion on that portion
+of Cormenin's clause which treated of it.
+
+The clause, as I said above, laid down that the President should be
+elected directly, by a relative majority, the minimum of this majority
+being fixed at two million votes. This method had several very serious
+drawbacks.
+
+Since the President was to be elected directly by the citizens, the
+enthusiasm and infatuation of the people was very much to be feared; and
+moreover, the prestige and moral power which the newly elected would
+possess would be much greater. Since a relative majority was to be
+sufficient to make the election valid, it might be possible that the
+President should only represent the wishes of a minority of the nation.
+I asked that the President might not be elected directly by the
+citizens, but that this should be entrusted to delegates whom the people
+would elect. In the second place, I proposed to substitute an actual for
+a relative majority; if an absolute majority was not obtained at the
+first vote, it would fall to the Assembly to make a choice. These ideas
+were, I think, sound, but they were not new; I had borrowed them from
+the American Constitution. I doubt whether anyone would have suspected
+this, had I not said so; so little was the Committee prepared to play
+its great part.
+
+The first part of my amendment was rejected. I expected this: our great
+men were of opinion that this system was not sufficiently simple, and
+they considered it tainted with a touch of aristocracy. The second was
+accepted, and is part of the actual Constitution.
+
+Beaumont proposed that the President should not be re-eligible; I
+supported him vigorously, and the proposal was carried. On this occasion
+we both fell into a great mistake which will, I fear, lead to very sad
+results. We had always been greatly struck with the dangers threatening
+liberty and public morality at the hands of a re-eligible president, who
+in order to secure his re-election would infallibly employ beforehand
+the immense resources of constraint and corruption which our laws and
+customs allow to the head of the Executive Power. Our minds were not
+supple or prompt enough to turn in time or to see that, so soon as it
+was decided that the citizens themselves should directly choose the
+President, the evil was irreparable, and that it would be only
+increasing it rashly to undertake to hinder the people in their choice.
+This vote, and the great influence I brought to bear upon it, is my most
+unpleasant memory of that period.
+
+Each moment we came up against centralization, and instead of removing
+the obstacle, we stumbled over it. It was of the essence of the Republic
+that the head of the Executive Power should be responsible; but
+responsible for what, and to what extent? Could he be made responsible
+for the thousand details of administration with which our administrative
+legislation is overcharged, and over which it would be impossible, and
+moreover dangerous, for him to watch in person? That would have been
+unjust and ridiculous; and if he was not to be responsible for the
+administration proper, who would be? It was decided that the
+responsibility of the President should be shared by the ministers, and
+that their counter-signature should be necessary, as in the days of the
+Monarchy. Thus the President was responsible, and yet he was not
+entirely free in his own actions, and he was not able to protect his
+agents in agents.
+
+We passed to the constitution of the Council of State. Cormenin and
+Vivien took charge of this; it may be said that they set to work like
+people who are building up a house for themselves. They did their utmost
+to make the Council of State a third power, but without success. It
+became something more than an administrative council, but infinitely
+less than a legislative assembly.
+
+The only part of our work which was at all well thought out, and
+arranged, as I think, with wisdom, was that which related to justice.
+Here the committee felt at home, most of its members being, or having
+been, barristers. Thanks to these, we were able to save the principle of
+the irremovability of the judges; as in 1830, it held good against the
+current which swept away all the rest. Those who had been Republicans
+from the commencement attacked it nevertheless, and very stupidly, in my
+opinion; for this principle is much more in favour of the independence
+of one's fellow-citizens than of the power of those who govern. The
+Court of Appeal and, especially, the tribunal charged with judging
+political crimes were constituted at once just as they are to-day
+(1851). Beaumont drew up most of the articles which refer to these two
+great courts. What we did in these matters is far in advance of all that
+had been attempted in the same direction during sixty years. It is
+probably the only part of the Constitution of 1848 which will survive.
+
+It was decided at the instance of Vivien that the Constitution could
+only be revised by a Constituent Assembly, which was right; but they
+added that this revision could only take place if the National Assembly
+demanded it by an express vote, given three times consecutively by a
+majority of four-fifths, which rendered any regular revision almost
+impossible. I took no part in this vote. I had long been of opinion
+that, instead of aiming to make our governments eternal, we should tend
+to make it possible to change them in an easy and regular manner. Taken
+all round, I thought this less dangerous than the opposite course; and I
+thought it best to treat the French people like those madmen whom one
+should be careful not to bind lest they become infuriated by the
+restraint.
+
+I noticed casually a number of curious opinions that were emitted.
+Martin (of Strasburg), who, not content with being a Republican of
+yesterday, one day declared so absurdly in the tribune that he was a
+Republican by birth, nevertheless proposed to give the President the
+right to dissolve the Assembly, and failed to see that a right of this
+kind would easily make him master of the Republic; Marrast wanted a
+section to be added to the Council of State charged to elaborate "new
+ideas," to be called a section of progress; Barrot proposed to leave to
+a jury the decision of all civil suits, as though a judiciary revolution
+of this sort could possibly be improvised. And Dufaure proposed to
+prohibit substitution in the conscription, and to compel everyone
+personally to perform his military service, a measure which would have
+destroyed all liberal education unless the time of service had been
+greatly reduced, or have disorganized the army if this reduction had
+been effected.
+
+In this way, pressed by time and ill prepared to treat such important
+subjects, we approached the time appointed for the end of our labours.
+What was said was: Let us adopt, in the meantime, the articles proposed
+to us; we can afterwards retrace our steps; we can judge from this
+sketch how to fix the definitive features and to adjust the portions
+among themselves. But we did not retrace our steps, and the sketch
+remained the picture.
+
+We appointed Marrast our secretary. The way in which he acquitted
+himself of this important office soon exposed the mixture of idleness,
+giddiness and impudence which formed the basis of his character. He was
+first several days without doing anything, though the Assembly was
+constantly asking to know the result of our deliberations, and all
+France was anxiously awaiting to learn it. Then he hurriedly wrote his
+report in one night immediately preceding the day on which he was to
+communicate it to the Assembly. In the morning, he spoke of it to one or
+two of his colleagues whom he met by chance, and then boldly appeared in
+the tribune and read, in the name of the Committee, a report of which
+hardly one of its members had heard a single word. This reading took
+place on the 19th of June. The draft of the Constitution contained one
+hundred and thirty-nine articles; it had been drawn up in less than a
+month. We could not have been quicker, but we might have done better. We
+had adopted many of the little articles which Cormenin had brought us in
+turns; but we had rejected a yet greater number, which caused their
+author an irritation, which was so much the greater in that he had never
+had an opportunity of giving vent to it. He turned to the public for
+consolation. He published, or caused to be published, I forget which it
+was, in all the newspapers an article in which he related what had
+passed in the Committee, attributing all the good it had done to M. de
+Cormenin, and all the harm to his adversaries. A publication of this
+sort displeased us greatly, as may be imagined; and it was decided to
+acquaint Cormenin with the feeling inspired by his procedure. But no one
+cared to be the spokesman of the company.
+
+We had among us a workman (for in those days they put workmen into
+everything) called Corbon, a tolerably right-minded man of firm
+character. He readily undertook the task. On the next morning,
+therefore, so soon as the sitting of the Committee had opened, Corbon
+stood up and, with cruel simplicity and conciseness, gave Cormenin to
+understand what we thought. Cormenin grew confused, and cast his eyes
+round the table to see if anybody would come to his aid. Nobody moved.
+He then said, in a hesitating voice, "Am I to conclude from what has
+just happened that the Committee wishes me to leave it?" We made no
+reply. He took his hat and went, without anyone interfering. Never was
+so great an outrage swallowed with less effort or grimace. I believe
+that, although enormously vain, he was not very sensitive to insults in
+secret; and as long as his self-love was well tickled in public, he
+would not have made many bones about receiving a few cuffs in private.
+
+Many have believed that Cormenin, who from a viscount had suddenly
+become a Radical, while remaining a devout Catholic, never ceased to
+play a part and to betray his opinions. I would not venture to say that
+this was the case, although I have often observed strange
+inconsistencies between the things he said when talking and those he
+wrote; and to tell the truth, he always seemed to me to be more sincere
+in the dread he entertained of revolutions than in the opinions he had
+borrowed from them. What always especially struck me in him was the
+shortcomings of his mind. No writer ever to a greater extent preserved
+in public business the habits and peculiarities of that calling. When he
+had established a certain agreement between the different clauses of a
+law and drawn it up in a certain ingenious and striking manner, he
+thought he had done all that was necessary: he was absorbed in questions
+of form, of symmetry, and cohesion.
+
+But what he especially sought for was novelty. Institutions which had
+already been tried elsewhere or elsewhen seemed to him as hateful as
+commonplaces, and the first merit of a law in his eyes was to resemble
+in no way that which had preceded it. It is known that the law laying
+down the Constitution was his work. At the time of the General Election
+I met him and he said, with a certain complacency, "Has anything in the
+world ever been seen like what is seen to-day? Where is the country that
+has gone so far as to give votes to servants, paupers and soldiers?
+Confess that no one ever thought of it before." And rubbing his hands,
+he added, "It will be very curious to see the result." He spoke of it as
+though it were an experiment in chemistry.
+
+
+
+
+PART THE THIRD
+
+
+
+
+_MY TERM OF OFFICE_
+
+ _This part was commenced at Versailles on the 16th of September
+ 1851, during the prorogation of the National Assembly._
+
+ _To come at once to this part of my recollections, I pass over the
+ previous period, which extends from the end of the days of June
+ 1848 to the 3rd of June 1849. I return to it later if I have time.
+ I have thought it more important, while my recollections are still
+ fresh in my mind, to recall the five months during which I was a
+ member of the Government._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ MY RETURN TO FRANCE--FORMATION OF THE CABINET.
+
+
+While I was thus occupied in witnessing upon the private stage of
+Germany one act of the great drama of the European Revolution, my
+attention was suddenly drawn towards France and fixed upon our affairs
+by unexpected and alarming news. I heard of the almost incredible check
+received by our army beneath the walls of Rome, the violent debates
+which followed in the Constituent Assembly, the excitement produced
+throughout the country by these two causes, and lastly, the General
+Election, whose result deceived the expectations of both parties and
+brought over one hundred and fifty Montagnards into the new Assembly.
+However, the demagogic wind which had suddenly blown over a part of
+France had not prevailed in the Department of la Manche. All the former
+members for the department who had separated from the Conservative Party
+in the Assembly had gone under in the _scrutin_. Of thirteen
+representatives only four had survived; as for me, I had received more
+votes than all the others, although I was absent and silent, and
+although I had openly voted for Cavaignac in the previous month of
+December. Nevertheless, I was almost unanimously elected, less because
+of my opinions than of the great personal consideration which I enjoyed
+outside politics, an honourable position no doubt, but difficult to
+retain in the midst of parties, and destined to become very precarious
+on the day when the latter should themselves become exclusive as they
+became violent.
+
+I set out as soon as I received this news. At Bonn a sudden
+indisposition obliged Madame de Tocqueville to stop. She herself urged
+me to leave her and to continue my journey, and I did so, although with
+regret; for I was leaving her alone in a country still agitated by civil
+war; and moreover, it is in moments of difficulty or peril that her
+courage and her great sense are so helpful to me.
+
+I arrived in Paris, if I am not mistaken, on the 25th of May 1849, four
+days before the meeting of the Legislative, and during the last
+convulsions of the Constituent Assembly. A few weeks had sufficed to
+make the aspect of the political world entirely unrecognizable, owing
+less to the changes which had taken place in outside facts, than to the
+prodigious revolution which had in a few days taken place in men's
+minds.
+
+The party which was in power at my departure was so still, and the
+material result of the elections should, I thought, have strengthened
+its hands. This party, composed of so many different parties, and
+wishing either to stop or drive back the Revolution, had obtained an
+enormous majority in the electoral colleges, and would command more than
+two-thirds of the new Assembly. Nevertheless, I found it seized with so
+profound a terror that I can only compare it with that which followed
+February: so true is it that in politics one must argue as in war, and
+never forget that the effect of events should be measured less by what
+they are in themselves than by the impressions they give.
+
+The Conservatives, who for six months had seen all the bye-elections
+invariably turning to their advantage, who filled and dominated almost
+all the local councils, had placed an almost unlimited confidence in the
+system of universal suffrage, after professing unbounded distrust of it.
+In the General Election which was just decided, they had expected not
+only to conquer but to annihilate, so to speak, their adversaries, and
+they were as much cast down at not attaining the absolute triumph which
+they had dreamt of as though they had really been beaten. On the other
+hand, the Montagnards, who had thought themselves lost, were as
+intoxicated with joy and mad audacity as though the elections had
+assured them a majority in the new Assembly. Why had the event thus at
+the same time deceived the hopes and fears of both parties? It is
+difficult to say for certain, for great masses of men move by virtue of
+causes almost as unknown to humanity itself as those which rule the
+movements of the sea. In both cases the reasons of the phenomenon are
+concealed and, in a sense, lost in the midst of its immensity.
+
+We are, at any rate, entitled to believe that the Conservatives owed
+their rebuff mainly to the faults which they themselves committed. Their
+intolerance, when they thought their triumph assured, of those who,
+without sharing their ideas, had assisted them in fighting the
+Montagnards; the violent administration of the new Minister of the
+Interior, M. Faucher; and more than all, the poor success of the Roman
+expedition prejudiced against them a portion of the people who were
+naturally disposed to follow them, and threw these into the arms of the
+agitators.
+
+One hundred and fifty Montagnards, as I said, had been elected. A part
+of the peasantry and the majority of the army had voted for them: it was
+the two anchors of mercy which had snapped in the midst of the tempest.
+Terror was universal: it taught anew to the various monarchical parties
+the tolerance and modesty which they had practised immediately after
+February, but which they had to a great extent forgotten during the past
+six months. It was recognized on every hand that there could no longer
+be any question, for the present, of emerging from the Republic, and
+that all that remained to be done was to oppose the moderate Republicans
+to the Montagnards.
+
+The same ministers whom they had created and instigated they now
+accused, and a modification of the Cabinet was loudly demanded. The
+Cabinet itself saw that it was insufficient, and implored to be
+replaced. At the time of my departure I had seen the committee of the
+Rue de Poitiers refuse to admit the name of M. Dufaure to its lists; I
+now saw every glance directed towards M. Dufaure and his friends, who
+were called upon in the most pathetic manner to take office and save
+society.
+
+On the night of my arrival, I heard that some of my friends were dining
+together at a little restaurant in the Champs-Elysees. I hastened to
+join them, and found Dufaure, Lanjuinais, Beaumont, Corcelles, Vivien,
+Lamoriciere, Bedeau, and one or two more whose names are not so well
+known. I was informed in a few words of the position of affairs. Barrot,
+who had been invited by the President to form a cabinet, had for some
+days been exhausting himself in vain efforts to do so. M. Thiers, M.
+Mole and the more important of their friends had refused to undertake
+the government. They had made up their minds, nevertheless, as will be
+seen, to remain its masters, but without becoming ministers. The
+uncertainty of the future, the general instability, the difficulties and
+perhaps the dangers of the moment kept them aloof. They were eager
+enough for power, but not for responsibility. Barrot, repulsed on that
+side, had come to us. He asked us, or rather he besought us, to become
+his colleagues. But which among us to choose? What ministries to allot
+to us? What colleagues to give us? What general policy to adopt? From
+all these questions had arisen difficulties in execution which, till
+then, seemed insurmountable. Already, more than once, Barrot had
+returned towards the natural chiefs of the majority; and repelled by
+them, had fallen back upon us.
+
+Time passed amid these sterile labours; the dangers and difficulties
+increased; the news became each day more alarming, and the Ministry were
+liable at any moment to be impeached by the dying but furious Assembly.
+
+I returned home greatly preoccupied, as will be believed, by what I had
+heard. I was convinced that it only depended upon the wishes of myself
+and my friends to become ministers. We were the necessary and obvious
+men. I knew the leaders of the majority well enough to be sure that they
+would never commit themselves to taking charge of affairs under a
+government which seemed to them so ephemeral, and that, even if they had
+the disinterestedness, they would not have the courage to do so. Their
+pride and their timidity assured me of their abstention. It was enough
+for us, therefore, to stand firm on our ground to compel them to come
+and fetch us. But ought we to wish to become ministers? I asked myself
+this very seriously. I think I may do myself the justice to say that I
+did not indulge in the smallest illusion respecting the true
+difficulties of the enterprise, and that I looked upon the future with
+a clearness of view which we rarely possess except when we consider the
+past.
+
+Everybody expected to see fighting in the streets. I myself regarded it
+as imminent; the furious audacity which the result of the elections had
+imparted to the Mountain and the opportunity afforded to it by the Rome
+affair seemed to make an event of this kind inevitable. I was not,
+however, very anxious about the issue. I was convinced that, although
+the majority of the soldiers had voted for the Mountain, the army would
+fight against it without hesitation. The soldier who individually votes
+for a candidate at an election and the soldier acting under pressure of
+_esprit de corps_ and military discipline are two different men. The
+thoughts of the one do not regulate the actions of the other. The Paris
+garrison was very numerous, well commanded, experienced in street
+warfare, and still filled with the memory of the passions and examples
+which had been left to it by the days of June. I therefore felt certain
+of victory. But I was very anxious as to the eventual results of this
+victory: what seemed to others the end of the difficulties I regarded as
+their commencement. I considered them almost insurmountable, as I
+believe they really were.
+
+In whichever direction I looked, I saw no solid or lasting stand-point
+for us.
+
+Public opinion looked to us, but it would have been unsafe to rely upon
+it for support; fear drove the country in our direction, but its
+memories, its secret instincts, its passions could scarcely fail soon to
+withdraw it from us, so soon as the fear should have vanished. Our
+object was, if possible, to found the Republic, or at least to maintain
+it for some time, by governing it in a regular, moderate, conservative,
+and absolutely constitutional way; and this could not allow us to remain
+popular for long, since everybody wanted to evade the Constitution. The
+Mountain wanted more, the Monarchists much less.
+
+In the Assembly it was much worse still. The same general causes were
+aggravated by a thousand accidents arising from the interests and
+vanities of the party leaders. The latter were quite content to allow us
+to assume the government, but we must not expect them to allow us to
+govern. So soon as the crisis was passed, we might expect every sort of
+ambush on their part.
+
+As to the President, I did not know him yet, but it was evident that we
+could not rely upon him to support us in his Council, except where the
+jealousy and hatred were concerned with which our common adversaries
+inspired him. His sympathies must always lie in an opposite direction;
+for our views were not only different, but naturally opposed to one
+another. We wanted to make the Republic live: he longed for its
+inheritance. We only supplied him with ministers where he wanted
+accomplices.
+
+To these difficulties, which were in a sense inherent to the situation
+and consequently permanent, were added passing ones which it was not at
+all easy to surmount: the revolutionary agitation revived in part of the
+country; the spirit and habits of exclusion spread and already rooted in
+the public administration; the Roman expedition, so badly conceived and
+so badly conducted that it was now as difficult to bring it to an end as
+to get out of it; in fact, the whole legacy of mistakes committed by our
+predecessors.
+
+There were reasons enough for hesitation; and yet I did not hesitate.
+The idea of taking a post from which fear kept so many people off, and
+of relieving society from the bad pass in which it had been involved,
+flattered at the same time my sense of honour and my pride. I was quite
+aware that I should only be passing through power, and that I should not
+stay there; but I hoped to stay long enough to be able to render some
+signal service to my country and to raise myself. This was enough to
+attract me.
+
+I at once took three resolutions:
+
+First, not to refuse office if an opportunity offered;
+
+Second, only to enter the Government together with my principal friends,
+directing the principal offices, so that we might always remain the
+masters of the Cabinet;
+
+Third and last, to behave every day when in office as though I was to be
+out of it the next day, that is to say, without ever subordinating to
+the necessity of maintaining my position that of remaining true to
+myself.
+
+The next five or six days were wholly taken up in fruitless endeavours
+to form a ministry. The attempts made were so numerous, so overlapping,
+so full of small incidents--great events of one day forgotten the
+next--that I find it difficult to retrace them in my memory, in spite of
+the prominent part which I myself played in some of them. The problem
+was undoubtedly a difficult one to solve under its given conditions. The
+President was willing enough to change the appearance of his ministry,
+but he was determined to retain in it the men whom he considered his
+principal friends. The leaders of the Monarchical parties refused
+themselves to take the responsibility of government; but they were not
+willing either that it should be entrusted entirely to men over whom
+they had no hold. If they consented to admit us, it was only in a very
+small number and in second-rate offices. We were looked upon as a
+necessary but disagreeable remedy, which it was preferable only to
+administer in very small doses.
+
+Dufaure was first asked to join alone, and to be satisfied with the
+Public Works. He refused, demanded the Interior, and two other offices
+for his friends. After much difficulty they agreed to give him the
+Interior, but they refused the rest. I have reason to believe that he
+was at one time on the point of accepting this proposal and of again
+leaving me in the lurch, as he had done six months ago. Not that he was
+treacherous or indifferent in his friendships; but the sight of this
+important office almost within reach, which he could honestly accept,
+possessed a strange attraction for him. It did not precisely cause him
+to abandon his friends, but it distracted his thoughts from them, and
+made him ready to forget them. He was firm, however, this time; and not
+being able to get him by himself, they offered to take me with him. I
+was most in view at that time, because the new Legislative Assembly had
+just elected me one of its vice-presidents.[14] But what office to give
+me? I only thought myself fit to fill the Ministry of Public
+Instruction. Unfortunately that was in the hands of M. de Falloux, an
+indispensable man, whom it was equally important to the Legitimists to
+retain, of whom he was one of the leaders; to the religious party, who
+saw in him a protector; and finally to the President, of whom he had
+become the friend. I was offered Agriculture, and refused it. At last,
+in despair, Barrot came and asked me to accept the Foreign Office. I
+myself had made great efforts to persuade M. de Remusat to accept this
+office, and what happened on this occasion between him and me is so
+characteristic that it is worthy of being retold. I was very anxious
+that M. de Remusat should join the ministry with us. He was at once a
+friend of M. Thiers and a man of honour, a rather unusual combination;
+he alone was able to assure us, if not the support, at least the
+neutrality of that statesman, without infesting us with his spirit.
+Overcome by the insistency of Barrot and the rest of us, Remusat one
+evening yielded. He had pledged us his word, but the next morning he
+came to withdraw it. I knew for certain that he had seen M. Thiers in
+the interval, and he confessed to me himself that M. Thiers, who was
+then loudly proclaiming the necessity of our accepting office, had
+dissuaded him from joining us. "I fully saw," he said, "that to become
+your colleague would not be to give you his assistance, but only to
+expose myself to be quarrelling with him before long." Those were the
+sort of men we had to deal with.
+
+ [14: 1 June 1849, by 336 votes to 261.]
+
+I had never thought of the Foreign Office, and my first impulse was to
+refuse it. I thought myself unsuited to fill an office for which nothing
+had prepared me. Among my papers I have found a trace of these
+hesitations, in the notes of a conversation which took place at a dinner
+which some of my friends and I had at that time....
+
+I decided at last, however, to accept the Foreign Office, but I made it
+a condition that Lanjuinais should enter the Council at the same time as
+myself. I had many very strong reasons for acting as I did. In the first
+place, I thought that three ministers were indispensable to us in order
+to acquire the preponderance in the Cabinet which we needed in order to
+do any good. I thought, moreover, that Lanjuinais would be very useful
+to keep Dufaure himself within the lines I wished to follow. I did not
+consider myself to have enough hold over him. Above all, I wanted to
+have near me a friend with whom I could talk openly of all things: a
+great advantage at any time, but especially in such times of suspicion
+and variableness as ours, and for a work as hazardous as that which I
+was undertaking.
+
+From all these different points of view Lanjuinais suited me admirably,
+although we were of very dissimilar natures. His humour was as calm and
+placid as mine was restless and anxious. He was methodical, slow,
+indolent, prudent, and even over-scrupulous, and he was very backward to
+enter upon any undertaking; but having once entered upon it he never
+drew back, and showed himself until the end as resolved and stubborn as
+a Breton of the true stamp. He was very slow in giving his opinion, and
+very explicit, and even candid to the verge of rudeness, when he did
+give it. One could not expect from his friendship either enthusiasm,
+ardour, or _abandon_; on the other hand, one need not dread either
+faint-heartedness, treachery, or after-thoughts. In short, he was a very
+safe associate, and taken all round, the most honourable man I ever met
+in public life. Of all of us, it was he who seemed to me least to mix
+his private or interested views with his love of the public good.
+
+No one objected to the name of Lanjuinais; but the difficulty was to
+find him a portfolio. I asked for him that of Commerce and Agriculture,
+which had been held since the 20th of December by Buffel, a friend of
+Falloux. The latter refused to let his colleague go; I insisted; and the
+new Cabinet, which was almost complete, remained for twenty-four hours
+as though dissolved. To conquer my resolution, Falloux attempted a
+direct measure: he came to my house, where I lay confined to my bed,
+urged me, begged me to give up Lanjuinais and to leave his friend Buffel
+at the Ministry of Agriculture. I had made up my mind, and I closed my
+ears. Falloux was vexed, but retained his self-control and rose to go. I
+thought everything had gone wrong: on the contrary, everything had gone
+right.
+
+"You are determined," he said, with that aristocratic good grace with
+which he was able to cover all his feelings, even the bitterest; "you
+are determined, and so I must yield. It shall not be said that a private
+consideration has, at so difficult and critical a period, made me break
+off so necessary a combination. I shall remain alone in the midst of
+you. But I hope you will not forget that I shall be not only your
+colleague but your prisoner!"
+
+One hour later the Cabinet was formed,[15] and Dufaure, who told me of
+it, invited me to take immediate possession of the Foreign Office.
+
+ [15: The Presidential decree is dated 2 June 1849.]
+
+Thus was born this Ministry which was so painfully and slowly formed and
+which was destined to have so short an existence. During the long
+childbirth that preceded it, the man who was at the greatest trouble in
+France was certainly Barrot: his sincere love for the public weal
+inclined him to desire a change of cabinet, and his ambition, which was
+more intimately and narrowly bound up with his honesty than might have
+been believed, made him long with unequalled ardour to remain at the
+head of the new Cabinet. He therefore went incessantly to and fro from
+one to the other, addressing very pathetic and sometimes very eloquent
+objurations to every one, now turning to the leaders of the majority,
+now to us, now again to the new Republicans, whom he regarded as more
+moderate than the others. And for that matter, he was equally inclined
+to carry either one or the other with him; for in politics he was
+incapable of either hatred or friendship. His heart is an evaporating
+vase, in which nothing remains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ ASPECT OF THE CABINET--ITS FIRST ACTS UNTIL AFTER THE
+ INSURRECTIONARY ATTEMPTS OF THE 13TH OF JUNE.
+
+
+The ministry was composed as follows:
+
+ Minister of Justice and }
+ President of the Council} Barrot.
+ Finance Passy.
+ War Rulhiere.
+ Navy Tracy.
+ Public Works Lacrosse.
+ Public Instruction Falloux.
+ Interior Dufaure.
+ Agriculture Lanjuinais.
+ Foreign Affairs Tocqueville.
+
+Dufaure, Lanjuinais and I were the only new ministers; all the others
+had belonged to the previous Cabinet.
+
+Passy was a man of real merit, but not of a very attractive merit. His
+mind was narrow, maladroit, provoking, disparaging and ingenious rather
+than just. Nevertheless, he was more inclined to be just when it was
+really necessary to act than when it was only a question of talking; for
+he was more fond of paradox than liable to put it into practice. I never
+knew a greater talker, nor one who so easily consoled himself for
+troublesome events by explaining the causes which had produced them and
+the consequences likely to ensue. When he had finished drawing the most
+sombre picture of the state of affairs, he concluded with a smiling and
+placid air, saying, "So that there is practically no means of saving
+ourselves, and we have only to look forward to the total overthrow of
+Society." In other respects he was a cultured and experienced minister;
+his courage and honesty were proof against everything; and he was as
+incapable of vacillation as of treachery. His ideas, his feelings, his
+former intimacy with Dufaure and, above all, his eager animosity against
+Thiers made us certain of him.
+
+Rulhiere would have belonged to the monarchic and ultra-conservative
+party if he had belonged to any, and especially if Changarnier had not
+been in the world; but he was a soldier who only thought of remaining
+Minister for War. We perceived at the first glance his extreme jealousy
+of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army in Paris; and the intimacy between
+the latter and the leaders of the majority, and his influence over the
+President, obliged Rulhiere to throw himself into our arms, and forcibly
+drove him to depend upon us.
+
+Tracy had by nature a weak character, which was, as it were, enclosed
+and confined in the very precise and systematic theories which he owed
+to the ideological education he had received from his father.[16] But,
+in the end, contact with every-day events and the shock of revolutions
+had worn out this rigid envelope, and all that remained was a wavering
+intelligence and a sluggish, but always honest and kindly, heart.
+
+ [16: Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy, 1754-1836, the
+ celebrated ideologist, Condillac's disciple.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Lacrosse was a poor devil whose private affairs were more or less
+involved. The chances of the Revolution had driven him into office from
+an obscure corner of the Opposition, and he never grew weary of the
+delight of being a minister. He gladly leant upon us, but he endeavoured
+at the same time to make sure of the good-will of the President of the
+Republic by rendering him all sorts of little services and small
+compliments. To tell the truth, it would have been difficult for him to
+recommend himself in any other way, for he was a rare nonentity, and
+understood nothing about anything. We were reproached for taking office
+in company with such incapable ministers as Tracy and Lacrosse, and not
+without justice, for it was a great cause of ruin: not only because they
+did their work badly, but because their notorious insufficiency kept
+their succession always open, so to speak, and created a sort of
+permanent ministerial crisis.
+
+As to Barrot, he adhered naturally to us from feeling and ideas. His old
+liberal associations, his republican tastes, his Opposition memories
+attached him to us. Had he been differently connected, he might have
+become, however regretfully, our adversary; but, having him once among
+us, we were sure of him.
+
+Of all the Ministry, therefore, only Falloux was a stranger to us by his
+starting-point, his engagements, and his inclinations. He alone
+represented the leaders of the majority on the Council, or rather he
+seemed to represent them, for in reality, as I will explain later, he
+represented, besides himself, nothing but the Church. This isolated
+position, together with the secret aims of his policy, drove him to seek
+support beyond us; he strove to establish it in the Assembly and with
+the President, but discreetly and cleverly, as he did everything.
+
+Thus constituted, the Cabinet had one great weakness: it was about to
+govern with the aid of a composite majority, without itself being a
+coalition ministry. But, on the other hand, it possessed the very great
+strength which ministers derive from uniform origin, identical
+instincts, old bonds of friendship, mutual confidence, and common ends.
+
+I shall doubtless be asked what these ends were, where we were going,
+what we wanted. We live in times so uncertain and so obscure that I
+should hesitate to reply to that question in the name of my colleagues;
+but I will readily reply for myself. I did not believe then, any more
+than I do now, that the republican form of government is the best suited
+to the needs of France. What I mean when I say the republican form of
+government, is the elective Executive Power. With a people among whom
+habit, tradition, custom have assured so great a place to the Executive
+Power, its instability will always be, in periods of excitement, a
+cause of revolution, and in peaceful times, a cause of great uneasiness.
+Moreover, I have always considered the Republic an ill-balanced form of
+government, which always promised more, but gave less, liberty than the
+Constitutional Monarchy. And yet I sincerely wished to maintain the
+Republic; and although there were, so to speak, no Republicans in
+France, I did not look upon the maintenance of it as absolutely
+impossible.
+
+I wished to maintain it because I saw nothing ready or fit to set in its
+place. The old Dynasty was profoundly antipathetic to the majority of
+the country. Amid this flagging of all political passion, which was the
+result of the fatigue of the revolutions and their vain promises, one
+genuine passion remained alive in France: hatred of the Ancien Regime
+and mistrust of the old privileged classes who represented it in the
+eyes of the people. This sentiment passes through revolutions without
+dissolving in them, like the water of those marvellous fountains which,
+according to the ancients, passed across the waves of the sea without
+mixing with or disappearing in them. As to the Orleans Dynasty, the
+experience the people had had of it did not particularly incline them to
+return to it so soon. It was bound once more to throw into Opposition
+all the upper classes and the clergy, and to separate itself from the
+people, as it had done before, leaving the cares and profits of
+government to those same middle classes whom I had already seen during
+eighteen years so inadequate for the good government of France.
+Moreover, nothing was ready for its triumph.
+
+Louis Napoleon alone was ready to take the place of the Republic,
+because he already held the power in his hands. But what could come of
+his success, except a bastard Monarchy, despised by the enlightened
+classes, hostile to liberty, governed by intriguers, adventurers, and
+valets?
+
+The Republic was doubtless difficult to maintain; for those who favoured
+it were, for the most part, incapable or unworthy of governing it, while
+those who were fit to conduct it detested it. But it was also rather
+difficult to pull down. The hatred borne for it was an easy-going
+hatred, as were all the passions which the country then entertained.
+Besides, the Government was found fault with, but no other was loved in
+its place. Three parties, mutually irreconcilable, more hostile to one
+another than either of them was to the Republic, contended with each
+other for the future. As to a majority, there was no such thing.
+
+I thought, therefore, that the Government of the Republic, having
+existence in its favour, and having no adversaries except minorities
+difficult to coalesce, would be able to maintain its position amid the
+inertia of the masses, if it was conducted with moderation and wisdom.
+For this reason, I was resolved not to lend myself to any steps that
+might be taken against it, but rather to defend it. Almost all the
+members of the Council thought as I did. Dufaure believed more than I
+did in the soundness of republican institutions and in their future.
+Barrot was less inclined than I to keep them always respected; but we
+all wished at the present time firmly to maintain them. This common
+resolution was our political bond and standard.
+
+So soon as the Ministry was formed, it repaired to the President of the
+Republic to hold a Council. It was the first time I had come into
+contact with him. I had only seen him at a distance at the time of the
+Constituent Assembly. He received us with politeness. It was all we
+could expect from him, for Dufaure had acted vigorously against him, and
+had spoken almost outrageously of his candidature no longer than six
+months ago, while both Lanjuinais and myself had openly voted for his
+opponent.
+
+Louis Napoleon plays so great a part in the rest of my narrative that he
+seems to me to deserve a special portrait amid the host of
+contemporaries of whom I have been content to sketch the features. Of
+all his ministers, and perhaps of all the men who refused to take part
+in his conspiracy against the Republic, I was the one who was most
+advanced in his good graces, who saw him closest, and who was best able
+to judge him.
+
+He was vastly superior to what his preceding career and his mad
+enterprises might very properly have led one to believe of him. This was
+my first impression on conversing with him. In this respect he deceived
+his adversaries, and perhaps still more his friends, if this term can be
+applied to the politicians who patronized his candidature. The greater
+part of these, in fact, elected him, not because of his merits, but
+because of his presumed mediocrity. They expected to find in him an
+instrument which they could handle as they pleased, and which it would
+always be lawful for them to break when they wished to. In this they
+were greatly deceived.
+
+As a private individual, Louis Napoleon possessed certain attractive
+qualities: an easy and kindly humour, a mind which was gentle, and even
+tender, without being delicate, great confidence in his intercourse,
+perfect simplicity, a certain personal modesty amidst the immense pride
+derived from his origin. He was capable of showing affection, and able
+to inspire it in those who approached him. His conversation was brief
+and unsuggestive. He had not the art of drawing others out or of
+establishing intimate relations with them; nor any facility in
+expressing his views. He had the writer's habit, and a certain amount of
+the author's self-love. His dissimulation, which was the deep
+dissimulation of a man who has spent his life in plots, was assisted in
+a remarkable way by the immobility of his features and his want of
+expression: for his eyes were dull and opaque, like the thick glass used
+to light the cabins of ships, which admits the light but cannot be seen
+through. Careless of danger, he possessed a fine, cool courage in days
+of crisis; and at the same time--a common thing enough--he was very
+vacillating in his plans. He was often seen to change his direction, to
+advance, hesitate, draw back, to his great detriment: for the nation had
+chosen him in order to dare all things, and what it expected from him
+was audacity and not prudence. It was said that he had always been
+greatly addicted to pleasures, and not very dainty in his choice of
+them. This passion for vulgar enjoyment and this taste for luxury had
+increased still more with the facilities offered by his position. Each
+day he wore out his energy in indulgence, and deadened and degraded even
+his ambition. His intelligence was incoherent, confused, filled with
+great but ill-assorted thoughts, which he borrowed now from the examples
+of Napoleon, now from socialistic theories, sometimes from recollections
+of England, where he had lived: very different, and often very contrary,
+sources. These he had laboriously collected in his solitary meditations,
+far removed from the contact of men and facts, for he was naturally a
+dreamer and a visionary. But when he was forced to emerge from these
+vague, vast regions in order to confine his mind to the limits of a
+piece of business, it showed itself to be capable of justice, sometimes
+of subtlety and compass, and even of a certain depth, but never sure,
+and always prepared to place a grotesque idea by the side of a correct
+one.
+
+Generally, it was difficult to come into long and very close contact
+with him without discovering a little vein of madness running through
+his better sense, the sight of which always recalled the escapades of
+his youth, and served to explain them.
+
+It may be admitted, for that matter, that it was his madness rather than
+his reason which, thanks to circumstances, caused his success and his
+force: for the world is a strange theatre. There are moments in it when
+the worst plays are those which succeed best. If Louis Napoleon had been
+a wise man, or a man of genius, he would never have become President of
+the Republic.
+
+He trusted in his star; he firmly believed himself to be the instrument
+of destiny and the necessary man. I have always believed that he was
+really convinced of his right, and I doubt whether Charles X. was ever
+more infatuated with his legitimism than he with his. Moreover, he was
+quite as incapable of alleging a reason for his faith; for, although he
+had a sort of abstract adoration for the people, he had very little
+taste for liberty. The characteristic and fundamental feature of his
+mind in political matters was his hatred of and contempt for assemblies.
+The rule of the Constitutional Monarchy seemed to him even more
+insupportable than that of the Republic. His unlimited pride in the name
+he bore, which willingly bowed before the nation, revolted at the idea
+of yielding to the influence of a parliament.
+
+Before attaining power he had had time to strengthen his natural taste
+for the footman class, which is always displayed by mediocre princes, by
+the habits of twenty years of conspiracy spent amid low-class
+adventurers, men of ruined fortunes or blemished reputations, and young
+debauchees, the only persons who, during all this time, could have
+consented to serve him as go-betweens or accomplices. He himself, in
+spite of his good manners, allowed a glimpse to pierce through of the
+adventurer and the prince of fortune. He continued to take pleasure in
+this inferior company after he was no longer obliged to live in it. I
+believe that his difficulty in expressing his thoughts otherwise than in
+writing attached him to people who had long been familiar with his
+current of thought and with his dreamings, and that his inferiority in
+conversation rendered him generally averse to contact with clever men.
+Moreover, he desired above all things to meet with devotion to his
+person and his cause, as though his person and his cause were such as to
+be able to arouse devotion: merit annoyed him when it displayed ever so
+little independence. He wanted believers in his star, and vulgar
+worshippers of his fortune.
+
+This was the man whom the need of a chief and the power of a memory had
+placed at the head of France, and with whom we would have to govern.
+
+It would be difficult to imagine a more critical moment in which to
+assume the direction of affairs. The Constituent Assembly, before ending
+its turbulent existence, had passed a resolution, on the 7th of June
+1849, prohibiting the Government from attacking Rome. The first thing I
+learnt on entering the Cabinet was that the order to attack Rome had
+been sent to the army three days before. This flagrant disobedience of
+the injunctions of a sovereign Assembly, this war undertaken against a
+people in revolution, because of its revolution, and in defiance of the
+terms of the Constitution which commanded us to respect all foreign
+nationalities, made inevitable and brought nearer the conflict which we
+dreaded. What would be the issue of this new struggle? All the letters
+from prefects of departments that were laid before us, all the police
+reports that reached us were calculated to throw us into great alarm. I
+had seen, at the end of the Cavaignac Administration, how a government
+can be supported in its visionary hopes by the self-interested
+complaisance of its agents. This time I saw, and much more closely, how
+these same agents can work to increase the terror of those who employ
+them: contrary effects produced by the same cause. Each one of them,
+judging that we were uneasy, wished to signalize himself by the
+discovery of new plots, and in his turn to supply us with some fresh
+indication of the conspiracy which threatened us. The more they believed
+in our success, the more readily they talked to us of our danger. For it
+is one of the dangerous characteristics of this sort of information,
+that it becomes rarer and less explicit in the measure that the peril
+increases and the need for information becomes greater. The agents in
+that case, doubting the duration of the government which employs them,
+and already fearing its successor, either scarcely speak at all or keep
+absolute silence. But now they made a great noise. To listen to them, it
+was impossible not to think that we were on the edge of an abyss, and
+yet I did not believe a word of it. I was quite convinced then, as I
+have been ever since, that official correspondence and police reports,
+which may be useful for purposes of consultation when there is question
+of discovering a particular plot, only serve to give exaggerated and
+incomplete and invariably false notions when one wishes to judge or
+foresee great movements of parties. In a matter of this kind, it is the
+aspect of the whole country, the knowledge of its needs, its passions
+and its ideas, that can instruct us, general _data_ which one can
+procure for one's self, and which are never supplied by even the best
+placed and best accredited agents.
+
+The sight of these general facts had led me to believe that at this
+moment no armed revolution was to be feared: but a combat was; and the
+expectation of civil war is always cruel, especially when it comes in
+time to join its fury to that of pestilence. Paris was at that time
+ravaged by cholera. Death struck at all ranks. Already a large number of
+members of the Constituent Assembly had succumbed; and Bugeaud, whom
+Africa had spared, was dying.
+
+Had I entertained a moment's doubt as to the imminence of the crisis,
+the aspect alone of the new Assembly would have clearly announced it to
+me. It is not too much to say that one breathed the atmosphere of civil
+war in its midst. The speeches were short, the gestures violent, the
+words extravagant, the insults outrageous and direct. We met for the
+present in the old Chamber of Deputies. This room, built for 460
+members, had difficulty in containing 750. The members, therefore, sat
+touching, while detesting, each other; they pressed one against the
+other in spite of the hatred which divided them; the discomfort
+increased their anger. It was a duel in a barrel. How would the
+Montagnards be able to restrain themselves? They saw that they were
+sufficiently numerous to entitle them to believe themselves very strong
+in the country and in the army. Yet they remained too weak in Parliament
+to hope to prevail or even to count there. They were offered a fine
+occasion of resorting to force. All Europe, which was still in
+commotion, might with one great blow, struck in Paris, be thrown into
+revolution anew. This was more than was necessary for men of such savage
+temper.
+
+It was easy to foresee that the movement would burst forth at the moment
+when it should become known that the order had been given to attack Rome
+and that the attack had taken place. And this was what in fact occurred.
+
+The order given had remained secret. But on the 10th of June, the
+report of the first combat became current.
+
+On the 11th, the Mountain burst into furious speech. Ledru-Rollin made
+an appeal from the tribune for civil war, saying that the Constitution
+had been violated and that he and his friends were ready to defend it by
+every method, including that of arms. The indictment was demanded of the
+President of the Republic and of the preceding Cabinet.
+
+On the 12th, the Committee of the Assembly, instructed to examine the
+question raised the day before, rejected the impeachment and called upon
+the Assembly to pronounce, where it sat, upon the fate of the President
+and Ministers. The Mountain opposed this immediate discussion and
+demanded that documents should be laid before it. What was its object in
+thus postponing the debate? It was difficult to say. Did it hope that
+this delay would complete the general irritation, or did it in its heart
+of hearts wish to give it time to calm down? One thing is certain, that
+its principal leaders, those who were more accustomed to speaking than
+to fighting, and who were passionate rather than resolute, displayed
+that day, amid all the intemperance of their language, a sort of
+hesitation of which they had given no sign the day before. After half
+drawing the sword from the scabbard, they appeared to wish to replace
+it; but it was too late, the signal had been observed by their friends
+outside, and thenceforward they no longer led, but were led in their
+turn.
+
+During these two days, my position was most cruel. As I have already
+stated, I disapproved entirely of the manner in which the Roman
+expedition had been undertaken and conducted. Before joining the
+Cabinet, I had solemnly declared to Barrot that I declined to take any
+responsibility except for the future, and that he must himself be
+prepared to defend what had up to that time been done in Italy. I had
+only accepted office on this condition. I therefore kept silent during
+the discussion on the 11th, and allowed Barrot to bear the brunt of the
+battle alone. But when, on the 12th, I saw my colleagues threatened with
+an impeachment, I considered that I could no longer abstain. The demand
+for fresh documents gave me an opportunity to intervene, without having
+to express an opinion upon the original question. I did so vigorously,
+although in very few words.
+
+On reading over this little speech in the _Moniteur_, I cannot but think
+it very insignificant and badly turned. Nevertheless, I was applauded to
+the echo by the majority, because in moments of crisis, when one is in
+danger of civil war, it is the movement of thought and the accent of
+one's words which make an impression, rather than their value. I
+directly attacked Ledru-Rollin. I accused him with violence of only
+wanting troubles and of spreading lies in order to create them. The
+feeling which impelled me to speak was an energetic one, the tone was
+determined and aggressive, and although I spoke very badly, being as
+yet unaccustomed to my new part, I met with much favour.
+
+Ledru replied to me, and told the majority that they were on the side of
+the Cossacks. They answered that he was on the side of the plunderers
+and the incendiaries. Thiers, commenting on this thought, said that
+there was an intimate relation between the man they had just listened to
+and the insurgents of June. The Assembly rejected the demand for an
+impeachment by a large majority, and broke up.
+
+Although the leaders of the Mountain continued to be outrageous, they
+had not shown any great firmness, so that we were able to flatter
+ourselves that the decisive moment for the struggle had not yet arrived.
+But this was a mistake. The reports which we received during the night
+told us that the people were preparing to take up arms.
+
+On the next day, in fact, the language of the demagogic papers
+proclaimed that the editors no longer relied upon justice, but upon a
+revolution, to acquit them. All of them called either directly or
+indirectly for civil war. The National Guard, the schools, the entire
+population was summoned by them to repair, unarmed, to a certain
+locality, in order to go and present themselves in mass before the doors
+of the Assembly. It was a 23rd of June which they wished to commence
+with a 15th of May; and, in fact, seven or eight thousand people did
+meet at about eleven o'clock at the Chateau-d'Eau. We on our side held
+a Council under the President of the Republic. The latter was already in
+uniform, and prepared to go out on horseback so soon as he should be
+told that the fighting had commenced. For the rest, he had changed
+nothing except his clothes. He was exactly the same man as on the day
+before: the same rather dejected air, his speech no less slow and no
+less embarrassed, his eye no less dull. He showed none of that sort of
+warlike excitement and of rather feverish gaiety which the approach of
+danger so often gives: an attitude which is perhaps, after all, no more
+than the sign of a mind disturbed.
+
+We sent for Changarnier, who explained his preparations to us, and
+guaranteed a victory. Dufaure communicated to us the reports he had
+received, all of which told of a formidable insurrection. He then left
+for the Ministry of the Interior, which was the centre of action, and at
+about mid-day I repaired to the Assembly.
+
+The House was some time before it met, because the President, without
+consulting us, had declared, when arranging the Order of the Day on the
+evening before, that there would be no public sitting on the next day, a
+strange blunder which would have looked like treachery in anyone else.
+While messengers were being despatched to inform the members at their
+own houses, I went to see the President of the Assembly in his private
+room: most of the leaders of the majority were there before me. Every
+face bore traces of excitement and anxiety; the contest was both feared
+and demanded. They began by vehemently accusing the Ministry of
+slackness. Thiers, lying back in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed
+one over the other, sat rubbing his stomach (for he felt certain
+symptoms of the prevailing epidemic), loudly and angrily exclaiming, in
+his shrillest _falsetto_, that it was very strange that no one seemed to
+think of declaring Paris in a state of siege. I replied gently that we
+had thought of it, but that the moment had not yet come to do so, since
+the Assembly had not yet met.
+
+The members arrived from every side, attracted less by the messages
+despatched to them, which most of them had not even received, than by
+the rumours prevalent in the town. The sitting was opened at two
+o'clock. The benches of the majority were well filled, but the top of
+the Mountain was deserted. The gloomy silence which reigned in this part
+of the House was more alarming than the shouts which came from that
+quarter as a rule. It was a proof that discussion had ceased, and that
+the civil war was about to commence.
+
+At three o'clock, Dufaure came and asked that the state of siege should
+be proclaimed in Paris. Cavaignac seconded him in one of those short
+addresses which he sometimes delivered, and in which his mind, which was
+naturally middling and confused reached the level of his soul and
+approached the sublime. Under these circumstances he became, for a
+moment, the man of the most genuine eloquence that I have ever heard
+speak in our Assemblies: he left all the mere orators far behind him.
+
+"You have just said," he exclaimed, addressing the Montagnard[17] who
+was leaving the tribune, "that I have fallen from power. That is not
+true: I retired voluntarily. The national will does not overthrow; it
+commands, and we obey. I add--and I want the republican party always to
+be able to say so with justice: I retired voluntarily, and, in so doing,
+my conduct did honour to my republican convictions. You said that we
+lived in terror: history is observing us, and will pronounce when the
+time comes. But what I say to you myself is this, that although you have
+not succeeded in inspiring me with a feeling of terror, you have
+inspired me with a feeling of profound sorrow. Shall I tell you one
+thing more? You are Republicans of long standing; whereas I have not
+worked for the Republic before its foundation, I have not suffered for
+it, and I regret that this is so; but I have served it faithfully, and I
+have done more: I have governed it. I shall serve nothing else,
+understand me well! Write it down, take it down in shorthand, so that it
+may remain engraved upon the annals of our deliberations: _I shall serve
+nothing else_! Between you and me, I take it, it is a question as to
+which of us will serve the Republic best. Well then, my regret is, that
+you have served it very badly. I hope, for the sake of my country, that
+it is not destined to fall; but if we should be condemned to undergo so
+great a blow, remember--remember distinctly--that we shall accuse your
+exaggerations and your fury as being the cause of it."
+
+ [17: Pierre Leroux.]
+
+Shortly after the state of siege had been proclaimed, we learnt that the
+insurrection had been extinguished. Changarnier and the President,
+charging at the head of the cavalry, had cut in two and dispersed the
+column which was making its way towards the Assembly. A few
+newly-erected barricades had been destroyed, without striking a blow.
+The Montagnards, surrounded in the Conservatoire of Arts and Crafts,
+which they had turned into their head-quarters, had either been arrested
+or taken to flight. We were the masters of Paris.
+
+The same movement took place in several of the large towns, with more
+vigour but no less success. At Lyons, the fighting lasted stubbornly for
+five hours, and the victory was for a moment in doubt. But for that
+matter, when we were once victorious in Paris, we distressed ourselves
+very little about the provinces; for we knew that in France, in matters
+both of order and of disorder, Paris lays down the law.
+
+Thus ended the second Insurrection of June, very different to the first
+by the extent of its violence and its duration, but similar in the
+causes which led to its failure. At the time of the first, the people,
+carried away less by their opinions than by their appetites, had fought
+alone, without being able to attract their representatives to their
+head. This time the representatives had been unable to induce the people
+to follow them into battle. In June 1848, the army had no leaders; in
+June 1849, the leaders had no army.
+
+They were singular personages, those Montagnards: their quarrelsome
+nature and their self-conceit were displayed even in measures which
+least allowed of it. Among those who, in their newspapers and in their
+own persons, had spoken most violently in favour of civil war, and who
+had done the most to cover us with insults, was Considerant, the pupil
+and successor of Fourier, and the author of so many socialistic dreams
+which would only have been ridiculous at any other time, but which were
+dangerous in ours. Considerant succeeded in escaping with Ledru-Rollin
+from the Conservatoire, and in reaching the Belgian frontier. I had
+formerly had social relations with him, and when he arrived in Brussels,
+he wrote to me:
+
+ "My dear Tocqueville,
+
+ (Here followed a request for a service which he asked me to do for
+ him, and then he went on):
+
+ "Rely upon me at all times for any personal service. You are good
+ for two or three months perhaps, and the pure Whites who will
+ follow you are good for six months at the longest. You will both
+ of you, it is true, have well deserved what is infallibly bound to
+ happen to you a little sooner or a little later. But let us talk no
+ more politics and respect the very legal, very loyal, and very
+ Odilon Barrotesque state of siege."
+
+To this I replied:
+
+ "My dear Considerant,
+
+ "I have done what you ask. I do not wish to take advantage of so
+ small a service, but I am very pleased to ascertain, by the way,
+ that those odious oppressors of liberty, the Ministers, inspire
+ their adversaries with so much confidence that the latter, after
+ outlawing them, do not hesitate to apply to them to obtain what is
+ just. This proves that there is some good left in us, whatever may
+ be said of us. Are you quite sure that if the position had been
+ inverted, I should have been able to act in the same way, I will
+ not say towards yourself, but towards such and such of your
+ political friends whom I might mention? I think the contrary, and I
+ solemnly declare to you that if ever they become the masters, I
+ shall consider myself quite satisfied if they only leave my head
+ upon my shoulders, and ready to declare that their virtue has
+ surpassed my greatest expectations."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ OUR DOMESTIC POLICY--INTERNAL QUARRELS IN THE CABINET--ITS
+ DIFFICULTIES IN ITS RELATIONS WITH THE MAJORITY AND THE PRESIDENT.
+
+
+We were victorious, but our real difficulties were only about to
+commence, and I expected them. I have always held as a maxim, moreover,
+that it is after a great success that one generally comes across the
+most dangerous chances of ruin: so long as the peril lasts, one has only
+his adversaries to deal with, and he triumphs; but after the victory,
+one begins to have to reckon with himself, his slackness, his pride, the
+imprudent security inspired by victory, and he succumbs.
+
+I was not exposed to this last danger, for I never imagined that we had
+surmounted our principal obstacles. I knew that these lay with the very
+men with whom we would have to govern the country, and that the rapid
+and signal defeat of the Montagnards, instead of guaranteeing us against
+the ill-will of the former, would expose us to it without delay. We
+should have been much stronger if we had not succeeded so well.
+
+The majority consisted in the main, at that time, of three parties (the
+President's party in Parliament was as yet too few in number and of too
+evil repute to count). Sixty to eighty members at the utmost were
+sincerely with us in our endeavours to found a Moderate Republic, and
+these formed the only body we could rely upon in that huge Assembly. The
+remainder of the majority consisted of Legitimists, to the number of
+some one hundred and sixty, and of old friends or supporters of the
+Monarchy of July, for the most part representing those middle classes
+who had governed, and above all exploited, France during eighteen years.
+I felt at once that of these two parties, that of which we could most
+easily make use in our plans was the Legitimist party. The Legitimists
+had been excluded from power under the last government; they therefore
+had no places and no salaries to regret. Moreover, being for the most
+part considerable land-owners, they had not the same need of public
+functions as the middle class; or, at least, custom had not taught them
+the sweetness of place. Although in principles more irreconcilable to
+the Republic than the others, they were better able than most to accept
+its duration, for it had destroyed their destroyer, and had opened up to
+them a prospect of power; it had served at once their ambition and their
+desire for revenge; and it only aroused against itself their fear, which
+was, in truth, very great. The old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of
+the majority, were much more eager to do away with the Republic; but as
+the furious hatred which they bore it was strongly held in check by the
+fear of the risk they would run in endeavouring prematurely to abolish
+it, and as, moreover, they had long been accustomed to follow in the
+wake of power, it would have been easy for us to lead them had we been
+able to obtain the support, or even the mere neutrality of their
+leaders, of whom the principal were then, as is known, M. Thiers and M.
+Mole.
+
+Appreciating this position of affairs, I understood that it was
+necessary to subordinate all secondary objects to the principal end in
+view, which was to prevent the overthrow of the Republic and especially
+to hinder the establishment of the bastard monarchy of Louis Napoleon.
+This was at the time the nearest threatening danger.
+
+I thought first of guaranteeing myself against the mistakes of my
+friends, for I have always considered as profoundly sensible the old
+Norman proverb which says, "Lord, preserve me from my friends: I will
+preserve myself from mine enemies."
+
+At the head of our adherents in the National Assembly was General
+Lamoriciere, and I greatly dreaded his petulancy, his imprudent
+observations, and especially his idleness. I endeavoured to appoint him
+to an important and distant embassy. Russia had spontaneously recognized
+the new Republic; it was proper that we should resume the diplomatic
+relations with her which had been almost interrupted under the last
+Government. I cast my eyes upon Lamoriciere in order to entrust him with
+this extraordinary and distant mission. He was, besides, a man cut out
+for a post of this kind, in which few but generals, and celebrated
+generals, succeed. I had some difficulty in persuading him, but the most
+difficult thing was to persuade the President of the Republic. He at
+first resisted, and told me on that occasion, with a sort of simplicity
+which pointed less to candour than to his difficulty in finding words in
+which to express himself (these very rarely gave utterance to his
+thoughts, but sometimes permitted them to glimmer through), that he
+wished to be represented at the principal Courts by ambassadors devoted
+to himself. This was not my view of the matter; for I, who was called
+upon to instruct the ambassadors, was quite determined to devote myself
+only to France. I therefore insisted, but I should have failed if I had
+not summoned M. de Falloux to my aid. Falloux was the only man in the
+Ministry in whom the President at that time had confidence. He persuaded
+him with arguments, of which I do not know the purport, and Lamoriciere
+left for Russia. I shall say later what he did.
+
+His departure reassured me as to the conduct of our friends, and I
+thought of winning or retaining the necessary allies. Here the task was
+more difficult on all points; for, outside my own department, I was
+unable to do anything without the consent of the Cabinet, which
+contained a number of the most honest minds that one could meet, but so
+inflexible and narrow in matters of politics, that I have sometimes
+gone so far as to regret not having rather had to do with intelligent
+rascals.
+
+As to the Legitimists, my opinion was that they should be allowed to
+retain great influence in the direction of Public Instruction. This
+proposal had its drawbacks, but it was the only one which could satisfy
+them, and which could ensure us their support in return, when it should
+become a question of restraining the President and preventing him from
+upsetting the Constitution. This plan was followed. Falloux was given a
+free hand in his own department, and the Council allowed him to bring
+before the Assembly the plan of Public Instruction, which since became
+law on the 15th of March 1850. I also advised my colleagues to all the
+extent of my power to keep up good relations individually with the
+principal members of the Legitimist party, and I followed this line of
+conduct myself. I soon became and remained, of all the members of the
+Cabinet, the one who lived in the best understanding with them. I even
+ended by becoming the sole intermediary between them and ourselves.
+
+It is true that my birth and the society in which I had been brought up
+gave me great facilities for this which the others did not possess; for,
+although the French nobility have ceased to be a class, they have yet
+remained a sort of freemasonry, of which all the members continue to
+recognize one another through certain invisible signs, whatever may be
+the opinions which make them strangers to one another, or even
+adversaries.
+
+It so happened, therefore, that after annoying Falloux more than anyone
+else had done before entering the Cabinet, I had no sooner joined it
+than I easily became his friend. For that matter, he was a man worth
+taking the trouble of coaxing. I do not think that during my whole
+political career I ever met anyone of a rarer nature. He possessed the
+two essentials necessary for good leadership: an ardent conviction,
+which constantly drove him towards his aim without allowing itself to be
+turned aside by mortifications or dangers, and a mind which was both
+firm and supple, and which applied a great multiplicity and prodigious
+variety of means to the execution of a single plan. He was sincere in
+this sense, that he only considered, as he declared, his cause and not
+his private interest; but otherwise very sly, with a very uncommon and
+very effective slyness, for he succeeded, for the time being, in
+mingling truth and falsehood in his own belief, before serving up the
+mixture to the minds of others. This is the great secret which gives
+falsehood all the advantages of sincerity, and which permits its
+exponent to persuade to the error which he considers beneficial those
+whom he works upon or directs.
+
+In spite of all my efforts, I was never able to bring about, I will not
+say a good understanding, but even a polite understanding between
+Falloux and Dufaure. It must be admitted that these two men had
+precisely the opposite qualities and defects. Dufaure, who in the bottom
+of his heart had remained a good west-country bourgeois, hostile to the
+nobles and the priests, was unable to put up with either Falloux's
+principles or his charming, refined manners, however agreeable they
+might seem to me. I succeeded, however, with great difficulty, in
+persuading him that he must not interfere with him in his own
+department; but as to allowing him to exercise the smallest influence
+upon what went on at the Ministry of the Interior (even within the
+limits where this was permissible and necessary), he would never hear
+speak of it. Falloux had in Anjou, where he came from, a prefect with
+whom he had reason to find fault. He did not ask that he should be
+dismissed, or even refused promotion; all he wanted was that he should
+be transferred, as he thought his own position compromised so long as no
+change took place, a change which was, moreover, demanded by the
+majority of the deputies for Maine-et-Loire. Unfortunately, this prefect
+was a declared friend to the Republic; and this was enough to fill
+Dufaure with distrust, and to persuade him that Falloux's only object
+was to compromise him by making use of him to strike at those of the
+Republicans whom he had not been able to reach till then. He refused,
+therefore; the other insisted; Dufaure grew still more obstinate. It was
+very amusing to watch Falloux spinning round Dufaure, pirouetting
+cleverly and gracefully, without finding a single opening by which to
+penetrate into his mind.
+
+Dufaure let him have his say, and then confined himself to laconically
+replying, without looking at him, or only turning a dull, wry glance in
+his direction:
+
+"I should like to know why you did not take advantage of your friend M.
+Faucher's period at the Home Office to rid yourself of your prefect."
+
+Falloux contained himself, although he was naturally, I believe, of a
+very hasty temper; he came and told me his troubles, and I saw the
+bitterest spleen trickling through the honey of his speech. I thereupon
+intervened, and tried to make Dufaure understand that this was one of
+those demands which one cannot refuse a colleague unless one wishes to
+quarrel with him. I spent a month in this way, acting as a daily
+intermediary between the two, and expending more effort and diplomacy
+than I had employed, during the same period, in treating the great
+affairs of Europe. The Cabinet was more than once on the verge of
+breaking up over this puny incident. Dufaure gave way at last, but with
+such bad grace that it was impossible to thank him for it; so that he
+gave up his prefect without getting Falloux in exchange.
+
+But the most difficult portion of our role was the conduct which we had
+to display towards the old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of the
+majority, as I have already said.
+
+These had at one and the same time general opinions which they wished to
+force through and a number of private passions which they desired to
+satisfy. They wanted us to re-establish order energetically: in this we
+were their men; we wanted it as much as they did, and we did it as well
+as they could wish, and better than they could have done. We had
+proclaimed the state of siege in Lyons and several of the neighbouring
+departments, and by virtue of the state of siege we had suspended six
+Paris revolutionary papers, cashiered the three regiments of the Paris
+National Guard which had displayed indecision on the 13th of June,
+arrested seven representatives on the spot, and applied for warrants
+against thirty others. Analogous measures were taken all over France.
+Circulars addressed to all the agents showed them that they had to do
+with a Government which knew how to make itself obeyed, and which was
+determined that everything should give way before the law. Whenever
+Dufaure was attacked on account of these different acts by the
+Montagnards remaining in the Assembly, he replied with that masculine,
+nervous, and sharp-edged eloquence of which he was so great a master,
+and in the tone of a man who fights after burning his boats.
+
+The Conservatives not only wanted us to administrate with vigour; they
+wished us to take advantage of our victory to pass preventive and
+repressive laws. We ourselves felt the necessity of moving in this
+direction, although we were not willing to go as far as they.
+
+For my part, I was convinced that it was both wise and necessary to make
+great concessions in this respect to the fears and the legitimate
+resentment of the nation, and that the only means which remained, after
+so violent a revolution, of saving liberty was to restrict it. My
+colleagues were of the same opinion: we therefore brought in
+successively a law to suspend the clubs; another to suppress, with even
+more energy than had been done under the Monarchy, the vagaries of the
+press; and a third to regulate the state of siege.
+
+"You are establishing a military dictatorship," they cried.
+
+"Yes," replied Dufaure, "it is a dictatorship, but a parliamentary
+dictatorship. There are no individual rights which can prevail against
+the inalienable right of Society to protect itself. There are imperious
+necessities which are the same for all governments, whether monarchies
+or republics; and who has given rise to these necessities? To whom do we
+owe the cruel experience which has given us eighteen months of violent
+agitations, incessant conspiracies, formidable insurrections? Yes, no
+doubt you are quite right when you say that, after so many revolutions
+undertaken in the name of liberty, it is deplorable that we should be
+once again compelled to veil her statue and to place terrible weapons in
+the hands of the public powers. But whose fault is it, if not yours,
+and who is it that serves the Republic best, those who favour
+insurrections, or those who, like ourselves, apply themselves to
+suppressing them?"
+
+These measures, these laws and this language pleased the Conservatives
+without satisfying them; and to tell the truth, nothing would have
+contented them short of the destruction of the Republic. Their instinct
+constantly impelled them in that direction, although their prudence and
+their reason restrained them on the road.
+
+But what they desired above all things was to oust their enemies from
+place and to instal in their stead their partisans or their private
+friends. We were again brought face to face with all the passions which
+had brought about the fall of the Monarchy of July. The Revolution had
+not destroyed them, but only made them the more greedy; this was our
+great and permanent danger. Here again, I considered that we ought to
+make concessions. There were still in the public offices a very large
+number of those Republicans of indifferent capacity or bad character
+whom the chances of the Revolution had driven into power. My advice was
+to get rid of these at once, without waiting to be asked for their
+dismissal, in such a way as to inspire confidence in our intentions and
+to acquire the right to defend all the honest and capable Republicans;
+but I could never induce Dufaure to consent to this. He had already held
+the Ministry of the Interior under Cavaignac. Many of the public
+servants whom it would be necessary to dismiss had been either appointed
+or supported by him. His vanity was involved in the question of
+maintaining them in their positions, and his mistrust of their
+detractors would in any event have sufficed to persuade him to oppose
+their representations. He accordingly resisted. It was, therefore, not
+long before he himself became the object of all their attacks. No one
+dared tackle him in the tribune, for he was too sturdy a swordsman
+there; but he was constantly struck at from a distance and in the shade
+of the lobbies, and I soon saw a great storm gathering against him.
+
+"What is it we have undertaken to do?" I often asked him. "To save the
+Republic with the assistance of the Republicans? No, for the majority of
+those who bear that name would assuredly kill us together with it; and
+those who deserve to bear the name do not number one hundred in the
+Assembly. We have undertaken to save the Republic with the assistance of
+parties which do not love it. We can only, therefore, govern with the
+aid of concessions; only, we must never yield anything substantial. In
+this matter, everything depends upon the degree. The best, and perhaps
+the only guarantee which the Republic at this moment possesses lies in
+our continuance in power. Every honourable means should therefore be
+taken to keep us there."
+
+To this he replied that fighting, as he did every day, with the greatest
+energy, against socialism and anarchy, he must satisfy the majority; as
+though one could ever satisfy men by thinking only of their general
+welfare, without taking into account their vanity and their private
+interests. If even, while refusing, he had been able to do so
+gracefully: but the form of his refusal was still more disobliging than
+the matter of it. I could never conceive how a man who was so much the
+master of his words in the tribune, so clever in the art of selecting
+his arguments and the words best calculated to please, so certain of
+always keeping to the expressions which would compel most agreement with
+his thought, could be so embarrassed, so sullen, and so awkward in
+conversation. This came, I believe, from his original education. He was
+a man of much intelligence, or rather talent--for of intelligence
+properly so-called he had hardly any--but of no knowledge of the world.
+In his youth he had led a laborious, concentrated, and almost savage
+life. His entrance into political life had not to any extent changed his
+habits. He had held aloof not only from intrigues, but from the contact
+of parties, assiduously occupying himself with affairs, but avoiding
+men, detesting the movement of assemblies, and dreading the tribune,
+which was his only strength. Nevertheless, he was ambitious after his
+fashion, but with a measured and somewhat inferior ambition, which aimed
+at the management rather than at the domination of affairs. His manner,
+as a minister, of treating people was sometimes very strange. One day,
+General Castellane, who was then in great credit, asked for an
+audience. He was received, and explained at length his pretensions and
+what he called his rights. Dufaure listened to him long and attentively;
+and then rose, led the general with many bows to the door, and left him
+standing aghast, without having answered a single word. When I
+reproached him with this conduct:
+
+"I should only have had to say disagreeable things to him," he replied;
+"it was more reasonable to say nothing at all!"
+
+It is easy to believe that one rarely left a man of this kind except in
+a very bad temper.
+
+Unfortunately, he had as a sort of double a permanent secretary who was
+as uncouth as himself, and very stupid besides; so that when the
+solicitants passed from the Minister's office into the secretary's, in
+the hope of meeting with a little comfort, they found the same
+unpleasantness, minus the intelligence. It was like falling from a
+quickset hedge on to a bundle of thorns.
+
+In spite of these disadvantages, Dufaure obtained the support of the
+Conservatives; but he was never able to win over their leaders.
+
+The latter, as I had indeed foreseen, would neither undertake the
+government themselves nor allow any one else to govern with a free hand.
+They were unable to see without jealousy ministers at the head of
+affairs who were not their creatures, and who refused to be their
+instruments. I do not believe that, between the 13th of June and the
+last debates on the Roman question, in other words, during almost the
+whole life of the Cabinet, a single day passed without some ambush being
+laid for us. They did not fight us in the tribune, I admit; but they
+incessantly excited the majority secretly against us, blamed our
+decisions, criticized our measures, put unfavourable interpretations
+upon our speeches; unable to make up their minds to overthrow us, they
+arranged in such a way that, finding us wholly unsupported, they were
+always in a position, with the smallest effort, to hurl us from power.
+After all, Dufaure's mistrust was not always without grounds. The
+leaders of the majority wanted to make use of us in order to take
+rigorous measures, and to obtain repressive laws which would make the
+task of government easy to our successors, and our Republican opinions
+made us fitter for this, at that moment, than the Conservatives. They
+did not fail to count on soon bowing us out, and on bringing their
+substitutes upon the scene. Not only did they wish us not to impress our
+influence upon the Assembly, but they laboured unceasingly to prevent us
+from establishing it in the mind of the President. They persisted in the
+delusion that Louis Napoleon was still happy in their leading-strings.
+They continued to beset him, therefore. We were informed by our agents
+that most of them, but especially M. Thiers and M. Mole, were constantly
+seeing him in private, and urging him with all their might to overthrow,
+in concert with them, and at their common expense and to their common
+profit, the Republic. They formed, as it were, a secret ministry at the
+side of the responsible Cabinet. Commencing with the 13th of June, I
+lived in a state of continuous alarm, fearing every day that they would
+take advantage of our victory to drive Louis Napoleon to commit some
+violent usurpation, and that one fine morning, as I said to Barrot, the
+Empire should slip in between his legs. I have since learnt that my
+fears were even better founded than I at that time believed. Since
+leaving the ministry, I have learnt from an undoubted source that a plot
+was formed towards the month of July 1849 to alter the Constitution by
+force by the combined enterprise of the President and the Assembly. The
+leaders of the majority and Louis Napoleon had come to an agreement, and
+the blow only failed because Berryer, who no doubt feared lest he should
+be making a fool's bargain, refused his support and that of his
+followers. Nevertheless, the idea was not renounced, but only adjourned;
+and when I think that at the time when I am writing these lines, that is
+to say, two years only after the period of which I speak, the majority
+of these same men are growing indignant at seeing the people violate the
+Constitution by doing for Louis Napoleon precisely what they themselves
+at that time proposed to him to do, I find it difficult to imagine a
+more noteworthy example of the versatility of men and of the vanity of
+the great words "Patriotism" and "Right" beneath which petty passions
+are apt to cloak themselves.
+
+We were no more certain, as has been seen, of the President than of the
+majority. In fact, Louis Napoleon was, for ourselves as well as for the
+Republic, the greatest and the most permanent danger.
+
+I was convinced of this; and yet, when I had very attentively studied
+him, I did not despair of the possibility of establishing ourselves in
+his mind, for a time at least, in a fairly solid fashion. I soon
+discovered that, although he never refused to admit the majority leaders
+to his presence and to receive their advice, which he sometimes
+followed, and although he plotted with them when it suited his purpose,
+he nevertheless endured their yoke with great impatience; that he felt
+humiliated at seeming to walk in their leading-strings; and that he
+secretly burned to be free of them. This gave us a point of contact with
+him and a hold upon his mind; for we ourselves were quite resolved to
+remain independent of these great wire-pullers, and to uphold the
+Executive Power against their attacks.
+
+It did not seem impossible to me, moreover, for us to enter partly into
+Louis Napoleon's designs without emerging from our own. What had always
+struck me, when I reflected upon the situation of that extraordinary man
+(extraordinary, not through his genius, but through the circumstances
+which had combined to raise his mediocrity to so high a level), was the
+need which existed to feed his mind with hope of some kind if we wished
+to keep him quiet. That a man of this stamp could, after governing
+France for four years, be dismissed into private life, seemed very
+doubtful to me; that he would consent to withdraw into private life,
+seemed very chimerical; that he could even be prevented, during the
+length of his term of office, from plunging into some dangerous
+enterprise seemed very difficult, unless, indeed, one were able to place
+before his ambition some point of view which might, if not charm, at
+least restrain him. This is to what I, for my part, applied myself from
+the beginning.
+
+"I will never serve you," I said to him, "in overthrowing the Republic;
+but I will gladly strive to assure you a great position in it, and I
+believe that all my friends will end by entering into my plan. The
+Constitution can be revised; Article 45, which prohibits re-election,
+can be changed. This is an object which we will gladly help you to
+attain."
+
+And as the chances of revision were doubtful, I went further, and I
+hinted to him as to the future that, if he governed France peacefully,
+wisely, modestly, not aiming at more than being the first magistrate of
+the nation, and not its corrupter or its master, he might possibly be
+re-elected at the end of his term of office, in spite of Article 45, by
+an almost unanimous vote, since the Monarchical parties did not see the
+ruin of their hopes in the limited prolongation of his power, and the
+Republican party itself looked upon a government such as his as the
+best means of accustoming the country to the Republic and giving it a
+taste for it.
+
+I told him all this in a tone of sincerity, because I was sincere in
+saying it. What I advised him seemed to me, in fact, and still seems to
+me, the best thing to be done in the interest of the country, and
+perhaps in his own. He readily listened to me, without giving a glimpse
+of the impression my language made upon him: this was his habit. The
+words one addressed to him were like stones thrown down a well; their
+sound was heard, but one never knew what became of them. I believe,
+however, that they were not entirely lost; for there were two distinct
+men in him, as I was not long in discovering. The first was the
+ex-conspirator, the fatalistic dreamer, who thought himself called to
+govern France, and through it to dominate Europe. The other was the
+epicurean, who luxuriously made the most of his new state of well-being
+and of the facile pleasures which his present position gave him, and who
+did not dream of risking it in order to ascend still higher. In any
+case, he seemed to like me better and better. I admit that, in all that
+was compatible with the good of the public service, I made great efforts
+to please him. Whenever, by chance, he recommended for a diplomatic
+appointment a capable and honest man, I showed great alacrity in placing
+him. Even when his _protege_ was not very capable, if the post was an
+unimportant one, I generally arranged to give it him; but most often
+the President honoured with his recommendations a set of gaol-birds, who
+had formerly thrown themselves in desperation into his party, not
+knowing where else to betake themselves, and to whom he thought himself
+to be under obligations; or else he attempted to place at the principal
+embassies those whom he called "his own men," which most frequently
+meant intriguers and rascals. In that case I went and saw him, I
+explained to him the regulations, which were opposed to his wish, and
+the political reasons which prevented me from complying with it. I
+sometimes even went so far as to let him see that I would rather resign
+than retain office by doing as he wished. As he was not able to see any
+private reasons for my refusal, nor any systematic desire to oppose him,
+he either yielded without complaining or postponed the business.
+
+I did not get off as cheaply with his friends. These were unspeakably
+eager in their rush for the spoil. They incessantly assailed me with
+their demands, with so much importunity, and often impertinence, that I
+frequently felt inclined to have them thrown out of the window. I
+strove, nevertheless, to restrain myself. On one occasion, however, when
+one of them, a real gallows-bird, haughtily insisted, and said that it
+was very strange that the Prince should not have the power of rewarding
+those who had suffered for his cause, I replied:
+
+"Sir, the best thing for the President to do is to forget that he was
+ever a pretender, and to remember that he is here to attend to the
+affairs of France and not to yours."
+
+The Roman affair, in which, as I shall explain later, I firmly supported
+his policy, until the moment when it became extravagant and
+unreasonable, ended by putting me entirely into his good graces: of this
+he one day gave me a great proof. Beaumont, during his short embassy in
+England at the end of 1848, had spoken very strongly about Louis
+Napoleon, who was at that time a candidate for the Presidency. These
+remarks, when repeated to the latter, had caused him extreme irritation.
+I had several times endeavoured, since I had become a minister, to
+re-establish Beaumont in the President's mind; but I should never have
+ventured to propose to employ him, capable as he was, and anxious though
+I was to do so. The Vienna embassy was to be vacated in September 1849.
+It was at that time one of the most important posts in our diplomatic
+service, because of the affairs of Italy and Hungary. The President said
+to me of his own accord:
+
+"I suggest that you should give the Vienna embassy to M. de Beaumont.
+True, I have had great reason to complain of him; but I know that he is
+your best friend, and that is enough to decide me."
+
+I was delighted. No one was better suited than Beaumont for the place
+which had to be filled, and nothing could be more agreeable to me than
+to offer it him.
+
+All my colleagues did not imitate me in the care which I took to gain
+the President's good-will without doing violence to my opinions and my
+wishes. Dufaure, however, against every expectation, was always just
+what he should be in his relations towards him. I believe the
+President's simplicity of manners had half won him over. But Passy
+seemed to take pleasure in being disagreeable to him. I believe that he
+considered that he had degraded himself by becoming the minister of a
+man whom he looked upon as an adventurer, and that he endeavoured to
+regain his level by impertinence. He annoyed him every day
+unnecessarily, rejecting all his candidates, ill-treating his friends,
+and contradicting his opinions with ill-concealed disdain. No wonder
+that the President cordially detested him.
+
+Of all the ministers, the one who was most in his confidence was
+Falloux. I have always believed that the latter had gained him by means
+of something more substantial than that which any of us were able or
+willing to offer him. Falloux, who was a Legitimist by birth, by
+training, by society, and by taste, if you like, belonged at bottom to
+none but the Church. He did not believe in the triumph of the Legitimism
+which he served, and he only sought, amid all our revolutions, to find a
+road by which he could bring back the Catholic religion to power. He had
+only remained in office so that he might watch over its interests, and,
+as he said to me on the first day with well-calculated frankness, by the
+advice of his confessor. I am convinced that from the beginning Falloux
+had suspected the advantages to be gained from Louis Napoleon towards
+the accomplishment of this design, and that, familiarizing himself at an
+early date with the idea of seeing the President become the heir of the
+Republic and the master of France, he had only thought of utilizing this
+inevitable event in the interest of the clergy. He had offered the
+support of his party without, however, compromising himself.
+
+From the time of our entrance into affairs until the prorogation of the
+Assembly, which took place on the 13th of August, we did not cease to
+gain ground with the majority, in spite of their leaders. They saw us
+every day struggling with their enemies before their eyes; and the
+furious attacks which the latter at every moment directed against us
+advanced us gradually in their good graces. But, on the other hand,
+during all that time we made no progress in the mind of the President,
+who used to suffer our presence in his counsels rather than to admit us
+to them.
+
+Six weeks later it was just the opposite. The representatives had
+returned from the provinces incensed by the clamour of their friends, to
+whom we had refused to hand over the control of local affairs; and on
+the other hand, the President of the Republic had drawn closer to us; I
+shall show later why. One would have said that we had advanced on that
+side in the exact proportion to that in which we had gone back on the
+other.
+
+Thus placed between two props badly joined together and always
+tottering, the Cabinet leant now upon one, now upon the other, and was
+always liable to tumble between the two. It was the Roman affair which
+brought about the fall.
+
+Such was the state of things when the parliamentary session was resumed
+on the 1st of October 1849, and when the Roman affair was handled for
+the second and last time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ FOREIGN AFFAIRS
+
+
+I did not wish to interrupt the story of our home misfortunes to speak
+of the difficulties which we encountered abroad, and of which I had to
+bear the brunt more than any other. I shall now retrace my steps and
+return to that part of my subject.
+
+When I found myself installed at the Foreign Office, and when the state
+of affairs had been placed before my eyes, I was alarmed at the number
+and extent of the difficulties which I perceived. But what caused me
+more anxiety than anything else was myself.
+
+I possess a great natural distrust of self. The nine years which I had
+spent rather wretchedly in the last Assemblies of the Monarchy had
+tended greatly to increase this natural infirmity, and although the
+manner in which I had just undergone the trial of the Revolution of
+February had helped to raise me a little in my own opinion, I
+nevertheless accepted this great task, at a time like the present, only
+after much hesitation, and I did not enter into it without great fear.
+
+Before long, I was able to make a certain number of observations which
+tranquillized if they did not entirely reassure me. I began by
+perceiving that affairs did not always increase in difficulty as they
+increased in size, as would naturally appear at a cursory glance: the
+contrary is rather the truth. Their complications do not grow with their
+importance; it even often happens that they assume a simpler aspect in
+the measure that their consequences become wider and more serious.
+Besides, a man whose will influences the destiny of a whole people
+always finds ready to hand more men willing to enlighten him, to assist
+him, to relieve him of details, more prepared to encourage, to defend
+him, than would be met with in second-rate affairs or inferior
+positions. And lastly, the size itself of the object pursued stimulates
+all the mental forces to such an extent, that though the task may be a
+little harder, the workman becomes much more expert.
+
+I should have felt perplexed, full of care, discouragement and
+disordered excitement, in presence of petty responsibilities. I felt a
+peace of mind and a singular feeling of calm when brought face to face
+with larger ones. The sentiment of importance attached to the things I
+then did at once raised me to their level and kept me there. The idea of
+a rebuff had until then seemed insupportable to me; the prospect of a
+dazzling fall upon one of the greatest stages in the world, on which I
+was mounted, did not disconcert me; which showed that my weakness was
+not timidity but pride. I also was not long before perceiving that in
+politics, as in so many other matters--perhaps in all--the vivacity of
+impressions received was not in a ratio with the importance of the fact
+which produced it, but with the more or less frequent repetition of the
+latter. One who grows troubled and excited about the handling of a
+trifling piece of business, the only one which he happens to have taken
+in hand, ends by recovering his self-possession among greater ones, if
+they are repeated every day. Their frequency renders their effect, as it
+were, insensible. I have related how many enemies I used formerly to
+make by holding aloof from people who did not attract my attention by
+any merit; and as people had often taken for haughtiness the boredom
+they caused me, I strongly dreaded this reef in the great journey I was
+about to undertake. But I soon observed that, although insolence
+increases with certain persons in the exact proportion of the progress
+of their fortunes, it was different with me, and that it was much easier
+for me to display affability and even cordiality when I felt myself
+above, than when I was one of, the common herd. This comes from the fact
+that, being a minister, I no longer had the trouble of running after
+people, nor to fear lest I should be coldly received by them, men making
+it a necessity themselves to approach those who occupy posts of that
+sort, and being simple enough to attach great importance to their most
+trivial words. It comes also from this that, as a minister, I no longer
+had to do only with the ideas of fools, but also with their interests,
+which always supply a ready-made and easy subject of conversation.
+
+I saw, therefore, that I was not so ill fitted as I had feared for the
+part I had undertaken to play. This discovery encouraged me, not only
+for the present, but for the rest of my life; and should I be asked what
+I gained in this Ministry, so troubled, so thwarted, and so short that I
+was only able to commence affairs in it and to finish none, I would
+answer that I gained one great advantage, perhaps the greatest advantage
+in the world--confidence in myself.
+
+At home and abroad, our greatest obstacles came less from the difficulty
+of business than from those who had to conduct it with us. I saw this
+from the first. Most of our agents were creatures of the Monarchy, who,
+at the bottom of their hearts, furiously detested the Government they
+served; and in the name of democratic and republican France, they
+extolled the restoration of the old aristocracies and secretly worked
+for the re-establishment of all the absolute monarchies of Europe.
+Others, on the contrary, whom the Revolution of February had dragged
+from an obscurity in which they should have always remained,
+clandestinely supported the demagogic parties which the French
+Government was combating. But the chief fault of most of them was
+timidity. The greater number of our ambassadors were afraid to attach
+themselves to any particular policy in the countries in which they
+represented us, and even feared to display to their own Government
+opinions which might sooner or later have been counted as a crime
+against them. They therefore took care to keep themselves covertly
+concealed beneath a heap of little facts with which they crammed their
+correspondence (for in diplomacy you must always write, even when you
+know nothing and wish to say nothing), and they were very careful not to
+show what they thought of the events they chronicled, and still less to
+give us any indication as to what we were to conclude from them.
+
+This condition of nullity to which our agents voluntarily reduced
+themselves, and which, to tell the truth, was in the case of most of
+them no more than an artificial perfectioning of nature, induced me, so
+soon as I had realized it, to employ new men at the great Courts.
+
+I should have liked in the same way to be able to get rid of the leaders
+of the majority; but not being able to do this, I endeavoured to live on
+good terms with them, and I did not even despair of pleasing them, while
+at the same time remaining independent of their influence: a difficult
+undertaking in which I nevertheless succeeded; for, of all the Cabinet,
+I was the minister who most strongly opposed their policy and yet the
+only one who retained their good graces. My secret, if I must confess
+it, lay in flattering their self-conceit while neglecting their advice.
+
+I had made an observation in small affairs which I deemed very
+applicable to greater ones: I had found that the most advantageous
+negociations are those conducted with human vanity; for one often
+obtains very substantial things from it, while giving very little
+substance in return. One never does so well when treating with ambition
+or cupidity. At the same time, it is a fact that in order to deal
+advantageously with the vanity of others, one must put his own entirely
+on one side and think of nothing but the success of his plans, an
+essential which will always prove a difficulty in the way of this sort
+of commerce. I practised it very happily at this time and to my great
+advantage. Three men thought themselves specially entitled to direct our
+foreign policy, owing to the position they had formerly occupied: these
+were M. de Broglie, M. Mole and M. Thiers. I overwhelmed all three of
+them with deference; I often sent for them to see me, and sometimes
+called upon them to consult them and to ask them, with a sort of
+modesty, for advice which I hardly ever followed. But this did not
+prevent these great men from displaying every satisfaction. I pleased
+them more by asking their opinion without following it than if I had
+followed it without asking it. Especially in the case of M. Thiers, this
+manoeuvre of mine succeeded admirably. Remusat, who, although without
+any personal pretensions, sincerely wished the Cabinet to last, and who
+had become familiarized through an intercourse extending over
+twenty-five years with all M. Thiers' weaknesses, said to me one day:
+
+"The world does not know M. Thiers well; he has much more vanity than
+ambition; and he prefers consideration to obedience, and the appearance
+of power to power itself. Consult him constantly, and then do just as
+you please. He will take more notice of your deference to him than of
+your actions."
+
+This is what I did, and with great success. In the two principal affairs
+that I had to conduct during my time of office, those of Piedmont and
+Turkey, I did precisely the opposite to what M. Thiers wished, and,
+nevertheless, we remained excellent friends till the end.
+
+As to the President, it was especially in the conduct of foreign affairs
+that he showed how badly prepared he still was for the great part to
+which blind fortune had called him. I was not slow in perceiving that
+this man, whose pride aimed at leading everything, had not yet taken the
+smallest steps to inform himself of anything. I proposed to have an
+analysis drawn up every day of all the despatches and to submit it to
+his inspection. Before this, he knew what happened in the world only by
+hearsay, and only knew what the Minister for Foreign Affairs had thought
+fit to tell him. The solid basis of facts was always lacking to the
+operations of his mind, and this was easily seen in all the dreams with
+which the latter was filled. I was sometimes frightened at perceiving
+how much there was in his plans that was vast, chimerical, unscrupulous,
+and confused; although it is true that, when explaining the real state
+of things to him, I easily made him recognize the difficulties which
+they presented, for discussion was not his strong point. He was silent,
+but never yielded.
+
+One of his myths was an alliance with one of the two great powers of
+Germany, of which he proposed to make use to alter the map of Europe and
+erase the limits which the treaties of 1815 had traced for France. As he
+saw that I did not believe it possible to find either of these powers
+inclined for an alliance of this sort, and with such an object, he
+undertook himself to sound their ambassadors in Paris. One of them came
+to me one day in a state of great excitement to tell me that the
+President of the Republic had asked him if, in consideration of an
+equivalent, his Court would not consent to allow France to seize Savoy.
+On another occasion, he conceived the idea of sending a private agent,
+one of his own men,[18] as he called them, to come to a direct
+understanding with the German Princes. He chose Persigny, and asked me
+to give him his credentials; and I consented, knowing well that nothing
+could come of a negociation of this sort. I believe that Persigny had a
+two-fold mission: it was a question of facilitating the usurpation at
+home and an extension of territory abroad. He went first to Berlin and
+then to Vienna; as I expected, he was very well received, handsomely
+entertained, and politely bowed out.
+
+ [18: "_Un homme a lui._"--A.T. de M.]
+
+But I have spoken enough of individuals; let us come to politics.
+
+At the time when I took up office, Europe was, as it were, on fire,
+although the conflagration was already extinguished in certain
+countries. Sicily was conquered and subdued; the Neapolitans had
+returned to their obedience and even to their servitude; the battle of
+Novara had been fought and lost; the victorious Austrians were
+negociating with the son of Charles Albert, who had become King of
+Piedmont by his father's abdication; their armies, issuing from the
+confines of Lombardy, occupied Parma, a portion of the Papal States,
+Placentia, and Tuscany, which they had entered unasked, and in spite of
+the fact that the Grand Duke had been restored by his subjects, who have
+been but ill rewarded since for their zeal and fidelity. But Venice
+still resisted, and Rome, after repelling our first attack, was calling
+all the demagogues of Italy to its assistance and exciting all Europe
+with its clamour. Never, perhaps, since February, had Germany seemed
+more divided or disturbed. Although the dream of German unity had been
+dispelled, the reality of the old Teutonic organization had not yet
+resumed its place. Reduced to a small number of members, the National
+Assembly, which had till then endeavoured to promote this unity, fled
+from Frankfort and hawked round the spectacle of its impotence and its
+ridiculous fury. But its fall did not restore order; on the contrary, it
+left a freer field for anarchy.
+
+The moderate, one may say the innocent, revolutionaries, who had
+cherished the belief that they would be able, peacefully, and by means
+of arguments and decrees, to persuade the peoples and princes of Germany
+to submit to a single government, made way for the violent
+revolutionaries, who had always maintained that Germany could only be
+brought to a state of unity by the complete ruin of its old systems of
+government, and the entire abolition of the existing social order. Riots
+therefore followed on every hand upon parliamentary discussion.
+Political rivalries turned into a war of classes; the natural hatred and
+jealousy entertained by the poor for the rich developed into socialistic
+theories in many quarters, but especially in the small states of Central
+Germany and in the great Rhine Valley. Wurtemberg was in a state of
+agitation; Saxony had just experienced a terrible insurrection, which
+had only been crushed with the assistance of Prussia; insurrections had
+also occurred in Westphalia; the Palatinate was in open revolt; and
+Baden had expelled its Grand Duke, and appointed a Provisional
+Government. And yet the final victory of the Princes, which I had
+foreseen when travelling through Germany, a month before, was no longer
+in doubt; the very violence of the insurrections hastened it. The
+larger monarchies had recaptured their capitals and their armies. Their
+heads had still difficulties to conquer, but no more dangers; and
+themselves masters, or on the point of becoming so, at home, they could
+not fail soon to triumph in the second-rate States. By thus violently
+disturbing public order, the insurgents gave them the wish, the
+opportunity and the right to intervene.
+
+Prussia had already commenced to do so. The Prussians had just
+suppressed the Saxon insurrection by force of arms; they now entered the
+Rhine Palatinate, offered their intervention to Wurtemberg, and prepared
+to invade the Grand-Duchy of Baden, thus occupying almost the whole of
+Germany with their soldiers or their influence.
+
+Austria had emerged from the terrible crisis which had threatened its
+existence, but it was still in great travail. Its armies, after
+conquering in Italy, were being defeated in Hungary. Despairing of
+mastering its subjects unaided, it had called Russia to its assistance,
+and the Tsar, in a manifesto dated 13 May, had announced to Europe that
+he was marching against the Hungarians. The Emperor Nicholas had till
+then remained at rest amid his uncontested might. He had viewed the
+agitation of the nations from afar in safety, but not with indifference.
+Thenceforward, he alone among the great powers of Europe represented the
+old state of society and the old traditional principle of authority. He
+was not only its representative: he considered himself its champion.
+His political theories, his religious belief, his ambition and his
+conscience, all urged him to adopt this part. He had, therefore, made
+for himself out of the cause of authority throughout the world a second
+empire yet vaster than the first. He encouraged with his letters and
+rewarded with his honours all those who, in whatever corner of Europe,
+gained victories over anarchy and even over liberty, as though they were
+his subjects and had contributed to strengthening his own power. He had
+thus sent, to the extreme South of Europe, one of his orders to
+Filangieri, the conqueror of the Sicilians, and had written that general
+an autograph letter to show to him that he was satisfied with his
+conduct. From the lofty position which he occupied, and whence he
+peacefully watched the various incidents of the struggle which shook
+Europe, the Emperor judged freely, and followed with a certain tranquil
+disdain, not only the follies of the revolutionaries whom he pursued,
+but also the vices and the faults of the parties and princes whom he
+assisted. He expressed himself on this subject simply and as the
+occasion required, without showing any eagerness to disclose his
+thoughts or taking any pains to conceal them.
+
+Lamoriciere wrote to me on the 11th of August 1849, in a secret
+despatch:
+
+ "The Tsar said to me this morning, 'You believe, general, that your
+ dynastic parties would be capable of uniting with the Radicals to
+ overthrow a dynasty which they disliked, in the hope of setting
+ their own in its place; and I am certain of it. Your Legitimist
+ Party especially would not hesitate to do so. I have long since
+ thought that it is the Legitimists who make the Elder Branch of the
+ Bourbons impossible. This is one of the reasons why I recognized
+ the Republic; and also because I perceive in your nation a certain
+ common sense which is wanting in the Germans.'
+
+ "Later, the Emperor also said, 'The King of Prussia, my
+ brother-in-law, with whom I was on very close terms of friendship,
+ has not taken the slightest heed of my advice. The result is that
+ our political relations have become remarkably cool, to such an
+ extent that they have affected even our family relations. Look at
+ the things he has done: did he not put himself at the head of those
+ fools who dream of an United Germany, and now that he has broken
+ with the Frankfort Parliament, has he not brought himself to the
+ necessity of fighting the troops of the Schleswig-Holstein Duchies,
+ which were levied under his patronage! Is it possible to imagine
+ anything more disgraceful? And now, who knows how far he will go
+ with his constitutional proposals?' He added, 'Do not think that,
+ because I intervene in Hungary, I wish to justify the conduct of
+ Austria in this affair. She has heaped up, one on the other, the
+ most serious faults and the greatest follies; but when all is said
+ and done, it had allowed the country to be invaded by subversive
+ doctrines, and the government had fallen into the hands of
+ disorderly persons. This was not to be endured.'
+
+ "Speaking of the affairs of Italy, 'We others,' he said, 'see
+ nothing in those temporal functions fulfilled in Rome by
+ ecclesiastics; but it matters little to us how those priests
+ arrange things among themselves, provided that something is set up
+ which will last and that you constitute the power in such a way
+ that it can stand.'"
+
+Hereupon Lamoriciere, wounded by this supercilious tone, which smelt
+somewhat of the autocrat and betrayed a sort of rivalry as between pope
+and pope, began to defend Catholic institutions.
+
+ "'Very well, very well,' said the Emperor, ending the conversation,
+ 'let France be as Catholic as she pleases, only let her protect
+ herself against the insane theories and passions of innovators.'"
+
+Though hard and austere in the exercise of his power, the Tsar was
+simple and almost _bourgeois_ in his habits, keeping only the substance
+of sovereign power and rejecting its pomp and worries. On the 17th of
+July, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg wrote to me:
+
+ "The Emperor is here; he arrived from Warsaw without suite of any
+ kind, in an ordinary post-cart--his carriage had broke down sixty
+ leagues from here--so as to be in time for the Empress's
+ saint's-day, which has just taken place. He did the journey with
+ extraordinary rapidity, in two days and a half, and he leaves again
+ to-morrow. Every one here is touched with this contrast of power
+ and simplicity, with the sight of this Sovereign who, after hurling
+ one hundred and twenty thousand men on to the battle-field, races
+ along the roads like a _feld-jaeger_, so as not to miss his wife's
+ saint's-day. Nothing is more in keeping with the spirit of the
+ Slavs, among whom one might say that the principal element of
+ civilization is the spirit of family."
+
+It would, in fact, be a great mistake to think that the Tsar's immense
+power was only based upon force. It was founded, above all, on the
+wishes and the ardent sympathies of the Russians. For the principle of
+the sovereignty of the people lies at the root of all government,
+whatever may be said to the contrary, and lurks beneath the least
+independent institutions. The Russian nobles had adopted the principles
+and still more the vices of Europe; but the people were not in touch
+with our West and with the new spirit which animated it. They saw in the
+Emperor not only their lawful Prince, but the envoy of God, and almost
+God Himself.
+
+In the midst of this Europe which I have depicted, the position of
+France was one of weakness and embarrassment. Nowhere had the
+Revolution succeeded in establishing a regular and stable system of
+liberty. On every side, the old powers were rising up again from amid
+the ruins which it had made--not, it is true, the same as when they
+fell, but very similar. We could not assist the latter in establishing
+themselves nor ensure their victory, for the system which they were
+setting up was antipathetic, I will say not only to the institutions
+created by the Revolution of February, but, at the root of our ideas, to
+all that was most permanent and unconquerable in our new habits. They,
+on their side, distrusted us, and rightly. The great part of restorers
+of the general order in Europe was therefore forbidden us. This part,
+moreover, was already played by another: it belonged by right to Russia,
+and only the second remained for us. As to placing France at the head of
+the innovators, this was to be still less thought of, for two reasons:
+first, that it would have been absolutely impossible to advise these
+latter or to hope to lead them, because of their extravagance and their
+detestable incapacity; secondly, that it was not possible to support
+them abroad without falling beneath their blows at home. The contact of
+their passions and doctrines would have put all France in flame,
+revolutionary doctrines at that time dominating all others. Thus we were
+neither able to unite with the nations, who accused us of urging them on
+and then betraying them, nor with the princes, who reproached us with
+shaking their thrones. We were reduced to accepting the sterile
+good-will of the English: it was the same isolation as before February,
+with the Continent more hostile to us and England more lukewarm. It was
+therefore necessary, as it had been then, to reduce ourselves to leading
+a small life, from day to day; but even this was difficult. The French
+Nation, which had made and, in a certain way, still made so great a
+figure in the world, kicked against this necessity of the time: it had
+remained haughty while it ceased to be preponderant; it feared to act
+and tried to talk loudly; and it also expected its Government to be
+proud, without, however, permitting it to run the risks which such
+conduct entailed.
+
+Never had France been looked upon with more anxiety than at the moment
+when the Cabinet had just been formed. The easy and complete victory
+which we had won in Paris on the 13th of June had extraordinary rebounds
+throughout Europe. A new insurrection in France was generally expected.
+The revolutionaries, half destroyed, relied only upon this occurrence to
+recover themselves, and they redoubled their efforts in order to be able
+to take advantage of it. The governments, half victorious, fearing to be
+surprised by this crisis, stopped before striking their final blow. The
+day of the 13th of June gave rise to cries of pain and joy from one end
+of the Continent to the other. It decided fortune suddenly, and
+precipitated it towards the Rhine.
+
+The Prussian army, already master of the Palatinate, at once burst into
+the Grand-Duchy of Baden, dispersed the insurgents, and occupied the
+whole country, with the exception of Rastadt, which held out for a few
+weeks.[19]
+
+ [19: Nothing was ever more despicable than the conduct of those
+ revolutionaries. The soldiers who, at the commencement of the
+ insurrection, had put to flight or killed their officers, turned
+ tail before the Prussians. The ringleaders did nothing but dispute
+ among themselves and defame one another instead of defending
+ themselves, and took refuge in Switzerland after pillaging the
+ public treasury and levying contributions upon their own country.
+
+ While the struggle lasted, we took strong measures to prevent the
+ insurgents from receiving any assistance from France. Those among
+ them who crossed the Rhine, in great numbers, received asylum from
+ us, but were disarmed and placed in confinement. The victors, as it
+ was easy to foresee, at once abused their victory. Many prisoners
+ were put to death, all liberty was indefinitely suspended, and even
+ the government which had been restored was kept in very close
+ tutelage. I soon perceived that the French representative in the
+ Grand-Duchy of Baden not only did not strive to moderate these
+ violences, but thoroughly approved of them. I at once wrote to him
+ as follows:
+
+ "Sir,
+
+ "I am informed that a number of military executions have taken
+ place, and that many more are announced. I do not understand
+ why these facts have not been reported by you, nor why you
+ have not sought to prevent them, without even waiting for
+ instructions. We have assisted as much as we could, without
+ taking up arms, in suppressing the rebellion; all the more
+ reason for desiring that the victory to which we have given
+ our aid should not be sullied by acts of violence of which
+ France disapproves, and which we regard as both odious and
+ impolitic. There is another point which causes us much
+ anxiety, and which does not seem to excite your solicitude to
+ the same degree: I refer to the political institutions of the
+ Grand-Duchy. Do not forget that the object of the Government
+ of the Republic in that country has been to assist in putting
+ down anarchy, but not in destroying liberty. We can in no way
+ lend our hand to an anti-liberal restoration. The
+ Constitutional Monarchy felt the need to create or maintain
+ free States around France. The Republic is still more obliged
+ to do so. The Government therefore asks and imperiously
+ insists that each of its agents shall faithfully conform to
+ these necessities of our situation. See the Grand Duke, and
+ give him to understand what are the wishes of France. We shall
+ certainly never allow either a Prussian province or an
+ absolute government to be established on our frontier in the
+ stead of an independent and constitutional monarchy?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ After some time, the executions ceased. The Grand Duke protested
+ his attachment to constitutional forms, and his resolution to
+ maintain them. This was for the moment all he was able to do, for
+ he reigned only in name. The Prussians were the real masters.]
+
+The Baden revolutionaries took refuge in Switzerland. Refugees were then
+arriving in that country from Italy, France, and to tell the truth, from
+every corner of Europe, for all Europe, with the exception of Russia,
+had undergone or was undergoing a revolution. Their number soon amounted
+to ten or twelve thousand. It was an army always ready to fall upon the
+neighbouring States. All the Cabinets were alarmed at it.
+
+Austria and especially Prussia, which had already had reason to complain
+of the Confederation, and even Russia, which was in no way concerned,
+spoke of invading Swiss territory with armed forces and acting as a
+police in the name of all the governments threatened. This we could not
+allow.
+
+I first endeavoured to make the Swiss listen to reason, and to persuade
+them not to wait till they were threatened, but themselves to expel from
+their territory, as the Law of Nations required them to do, all the
+principal ringleaders who openly threatened neighbouring nations.
+
+"If you in this way anticipate what they have the right to ask of you,"
+I incessantly repeated to the representative in Paris of the Swiss
+Confederation, "you can rely upon France to defend you against any
+unjust or exaggerated pretensions put forward by the Courts. We will
+rather risk war than permit them to oppress or humiliate you. But if you
+refuse to bring reason on your side, you must only rely upon yourselves,
+and you will have to defend yourselves against all Europe."
+
+This language had little effect, for there is nothing to equal the pride
+and conceit of the Swiss. Not one of those peasants but believes that
+his country is able to defy all the princes and all the nations of the
+earth. I then set to work in another way, which was more successful.
+This was to advise the foreign Governments (who were only too disposed
+to agree) to refuse for a certain period all amnesty to such of their
+subjects as had taken refuge in Switzerland, and to deny all of them,
+whatever their degree of guilt, the right to return to their country. On
+our side, we closed our frontiers to all those who, after taking refuge
+in Switzerland, wished to cross France in order to go to England or
+America, including the inoffensive refugees as well as the ringleaders.
+Every outlet being thus closed, Switzerland remained encumbered with
+those ten or twelve thousand adventurers, the most turbulent and
+disorderly people in all Europe. It was necessary to feed, lodge, and
+even pay them, lest they should levy contributions on the country. This
+suddenly enlightened the Swiss as to the drawbacks attendant upon the
+right of asylum. They could have made arrangements to have kept the
+illustrious chiefs for an indefinite period, in spite of the danger with
+which these menaced their neighbours; but the revolutionary army was a
+great nuisance to them. The more radical cantons were the first to raise
+a loud clamour and to ask to be rid of these inconvenient and expensive
+visitors. And as it was impossible to persuade the foreign Governments
+to open their territory to the crowd of inoffensive refugees who were
+able and willing to leave Switzerland, without first driving out the
+leaders who would have liked to stay, they ended by expelling these.
+After almost bringing all Europe down upon them rather than remove these
+men from their territory, the Swiss ended by driving them out of their
+own accord in order to avoid a temporary inconvenience and a trifling
+expense. No better example was ever given of the nature of democracies,
+which, as a rule, have only very confused or very erroneous ideas on
+external affairs, and generally solve outside questions only by internal
+reasons.
+
+While these things were happening in Switzerland, the general aspect of
+affairs in Germany underwent a change. The struggles of the nations
+against the Governments were followed by quarrels of the Princes among
+themselves. I followed this new phase of the Revolution with a very
+attentive gaze and a very perplexed mind.
+
+The Revolution in Germany had not proceeded from a simple cause, as in
+the rest of Europe. It was produced at once by the general spirit of the
+time and by the unitarian ideas peculiar to the Germans. The democracy
+was now beaten, but the idea of German unity was not destroyed; the
+needs, the memories, the passions that had inspired it survived. The
+King of Prussia had undertaken to appropriate it and make use of it.
+This Prince, a man of intelligence but of very little sense, had been
+wavering for a year between his fear of the Revolution and his desire to
+turn it to account. He struggled as much as he could against the liberal
+and democratic spirit of the age; yet he favoured the German unitarian
+spirit, a blundering game in which, if he had dared to go to the length
+of his desires, he would have risked his Crown and his life. For, in
+order to overcome the resistance which existing institutions and the
+interests of the Princes were bound to oppose to the establishment of a
+central power, he would have had to summon the revolutionary passions of
+the peoples to his aid, and of these Frederic William could not have
+made use without soon being destroyed by them himself.
+
+So long as the Frankfort Parliament retained its _prestige_ and its
+power, the King of Prussia entreated it kindly and strove to get himself
+placed by it at the head of the new Empire. When the Parliament fell
+into discredit and powerlessness, the King changed his behaviour
+without changing his plans. He endeavoured to obtain the legacy of this
+assembly and to combat the Revolution by realizing the chimera of German
+unity, of which the democrats had made use to shake every throne. With
+this intention, he invited all the German Princes to come to an
+understanding with him to form a new Confederation, which should be
+closer than that of 1815, and to give him the government of it. In
+return he undertook to establish and strengthen them in their States.
+These Princes, who detested Prussia, but who trembled before the
+Revolution, for the most part accepted the usurious bargain proposed to
+them. Austria, which the success of this proposal would have driven out
+of Germany, protested, being not yet in a position to do more. The two
+principal monarchies of the South, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, followed its
+example, but all North and Central Germany entered into this ephemeral
+Confederation, which was concluded on the 26th of May 1849 and is known
+in history by the name of the Union of the Three Kings.[20]
+
+ [20: Of Prussia, Saxony and Hanover.--A.T. de M.]
+
+Prussia then suddenly became the dominating power in a vast stretch of
+country, reaching from Memel to Basle, and at one time saw twenty-six or
+twenty-seven million Germans marching under its orders. All this was
+completed shortly after my arrival in office.
+
+I confess that, at the sight of this singular spectacle, my mind was
+crossed with strange ideas, and I was for a moment tempted to believe
+that the President was not so mad in his foreign policy as I had at
+first thought him. That union of the great Courts of the North, which
+had so long weighed heavily upon us, was broken. Two of the great
+Continental monarchies, Prussia and Austria, were quarrelling and almost
+at war. Had not the moment come for us to contract one of those intimate
+and powerful alliances which we have been compelled to forego for sixty
+years, and perhaps in a measure to repair our losses of 1815? France, by
+platonically assisting Frederic William in his enterprises, which
+England did not oppose, could divide Europe and bring on one of those
+great crises which entail a redistribution of territory.
+
+The time seemed so well to lend itself to these ideas that they filled
+the imagination of many of the German Princes themselves. The more
+powerful among them dreamt of nothing but changes of frontier and
+accessions of power at the expense of their neighbours. The
+revolutionary malady of the nations seemed to have attacked the
+governments.
+
+"There is no Confederation possible with eight and thirty States," said
+the Bavarian Foreign Minister, Baron von der Pfordten, to our Envoy. "It
+will be necessary to mediatize a large number of them. How, for
+instance, can we ever hope to re-establish order in a country like
+Baden, unless we divide it among sovereigns strong enough to make
+themselves obeyed? In that case," he added, "the Neckar Valley would
+naturally fall to our share."[21]
+
+ [21: Despatch of the 7th of September 1849.]
+
+For my part, I soon dispelled from my mind, as mere visions, all
+thoughts of this kind. I quickly realized that Prussia was neither able
+nor willing to give us anything worth having in exchange for our good
+offices; that its power over the other German States was very
+precarious, and was likely to be ephemeral; that no reliance was to be
+placed in its King, who at the first obstacle would have failed us and
+failed himself; and, above all, that such extensive and ambitious
+designs were not suited to so ill-established a state of society and to
+such troubled and dangerous times as ours, nor to transient powers such
+as that which chance had placed in my hands.
+
+I put a more serious question to myself, and it was this--I recall it
+here because it is bound constantly to crop up again: Is it to the
+interest of France that the bonds which hold together the German
+Confederation should be strengthened or relaxed? In other words, ought
+we to desire that Germany should in a certain sense become a single
+nation, or that it should remain an ill-joined conglomeration of
+disunited peoples and princes? There is an old tradition in our
+diplomacy that we should strive to keep Germany divided among a large
+number of independent powers; and this, in fact, was self-evident at the
+time when there was nothing behind Germany except Poland and a
+semi-savage Russia; but is the case the same in our days? The reply to
+this question depends upon the reply to another: What is really the
+peril with which in our days Russia threatens the independence of
+Europe? For my part, believing as I do that our West is threatened
+sooner or later to fall under the yoke, or at least under the direct and
+irresistible influence of the Tsars, I think that our first object
+should be to favour the union of all the German races in order to oppose
+it to that influence. The conditions of the world are new; we must
+change our old maxims and not fear to strengthen our neighbours, so that
+they may one day be in a condition with us to repel the common enemy.
+
+The Emperor of Russia, on his side, saw how great an obstacle an United
+Germany would prove in his way. Lamoriciere, in one of his private
+letters, informed me that the Emperor had said to him with his ordinary
+candour and arrogance:
+
+"If the unity of Germany, which doubtless you wish for no more than I
+do, ever becomes a fact, there will be needed, in order to manage it, a
+man capable of what Napoleon himself was not able to do; and if this man
+were found, if that armed mass developed into a menace, it would then
+become your affair and mine."
+
+But when I put these questions to myself, the time had not come to solve
+them nor even to discuss them, for Germany was of its own accord
+irresistibly returning to its old constitution and to the old anarchy
+of its powers. The Frankfort Parliament's attempt in favour of unity had
+fallen through. That made by the King of Prussia was destined to meet
+with the same fate.
+
+It was the dread of the Revolution which alone had driven the German
+Princes into Frederic William's arms. In the measure that, thanks to the
+efforts of the Prussians, the Revolution was on all sides suppressed and
+ceased to make itself feared, the allies (one might almost say the new
+subjects) of Prussia aimed at recovering their independence. The King of
+Prussia's enterprise was of that unfortunate kind in which success
+itself interferes with triumph, and to compare large things with
+smaller, I would say that his history was not unlike ours, and that,
+like ourselves, he was doomed to strike upon a rock so soon as, and for
+the reason that, he had re-established order. The princes who had
+adhered to what was known as the Prussian hegemony seized the first
+opportunity to renounce it. Austria supplied this opportunity, when,
+after defeating the Hungarians, she was able to re-appear upon the scene
+of German affairs with her material power and that of the memories which
+attached to her name. This is what happened in the course of September
+1849. When the King of Prussia found himself face to face with that
+powerful rival, behind whom he caught sight of Russia, his courage
+suddenly failed him, as I expected, and he returned to his old part.
+The German Constitution of 1815 resumed its empire, the Diet its
+sittings; and soon, of all that great movement of 1848, there remained
+but two traces visible in Germany: a greater dependence of the small
+States upon the great monarchies, and an irreparable blow struck at all
+that remains of feudal institutions: their ruin, consummated by the
+nations, was sanctioned by the Princes. From one end of Germany to the
+other, the perpetuity of ground-rents, baronial tithes, forced labour,
+rights of mutation, of hunting, of justice, which constituted a great
+part of the riches of the nobility, remained abolished.[22] The Kings
+were restored, but the aristocracies did not recover from the blow that
+had been struck them.[23]
+
+ [22: Private letter from Beaumont at Vienna, 10 October
+ 1849.--Despatch from M. Lefebre at Munich, 23 July 1849.]
+
+ [23: I had foreseen from the commencement that Austria and Prussia
+ would soon return to their former sphere and fall back in each case
+ within the influence of Russia. I find this provision set forth in
+ the instructions which I gave to one of our ambassadors to Germany
+ on the 24th of July, before the events which I have described had
+ taken place. These instructions are drawn up in my own hand, as
+ were all my more important despatches. I read as follows:
+
+ "I know that the malady which is ravaging all the old
+ European society is incurable, that in changing its symptoms
+ it does not change in character, and that all the old powers
+ are, to a greater or lesser extent, threatened with
+ modification or destruction. But I am inclined to believe
+ that the next event will be the strengthening of authority
+ throughout Europe. It would not be impossible that, under the
+ pressure of a common instinct of defence or under the common
+ influence of recent occurrences, Russia should be willing and
+ able to bring about harmony between North and South Germany
+ and to reconcile Austria and Prussia, and that all this great
+ movement should merely resolve itself into a new alliance of
+ principles between the three monarchies at the expense of the
+ secondary governments and the liberty of the citizens.
+ Consider the situation from this point of view, and give me
+ an account of your observations."]
+
+Convinced at an early date that we had no part to play in this internal
+crisis in Germany, I only applied myself to living on good terms with
+the several contending parties. I especially kept up friendly relations
+with Austria, whose concurrence was necessary to us, as I will explain
+later, in the Roman business. I first strove to bring to a happy
+conclusion the negociations which had long been pending between Austria
+and Piedmont; I put the more care into this because I was persuaded
+that, so long as no lasting peace was established on that side, Europe
+would remain unsettled and liable at any moment to be thrown into great
+danger.
+
+Piedmont had been negociating to no purpose since the battle of Novara.
+Austria at first tried to lay down unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, on
+her side, kept up pretensions which the state of her fortunes did not
+authorize. The negociations, several times interrupted, had been resumed
+before I took office. We had many very strong reasons to desire that
+this peace should be concluded without delay. At any moment, a general
+war might break out in this little corner of the Continent. Piedmont,
+moreover, was too near to us to permit us to allow that she should lose
+either her independence, which separated her from Austria, or her
+newly-acquired constitutional institutions, which brought her closer to
+us: two advantages which would be seriously jeopardized if recourse were
+had to arms.
+
+I therefore interposed very eagerly, in the name of France, between the
+two parties, addressing to both of them the language which I thought
+most likely to convince them. I observed to Austria how urgent it was
+that the general peace of Europe should be assured by this particular
+peace, and I exerted myself to point out to her what was excessive in
+her demands. To Piedmont I indicated the points on which it seemed to me
+that honour and interest would permit her to give way. I applied myself
+especially to giving her Government in advance clear and precise ideas
+as to what it might expect from us, so that it should have no excuse to
+entertain, or to pretend to have entertained, any dangerous
+illusions[24]. I will not go into details of the conditions under
+discussion, which are without interest to-day; I will content myself
+with saying that at the end they seemed prepared to come to an
+understanding, and that any further delay was due merely to a question
+of money. This was the condition of affairs, and Austria assured us
+through her Ambassador in Paris of her conciliatory dispositions; I
+already looked upon peace as concluded, when I unexpectedly learned that
+the Austrian Plenipotentiary had suddenly changed his attitude and his
+language, had delivered on the 19th of July a very serious ultimatum,
+couched in exceedingly harsh terms, and had only given four days in
+which to reply to it. At the end of these four days the armistice was to
+be raised and the war resumed. Already Marshal Radetzky was
+concentrating his army and preparing to enter upon a fresh campaign.
+This news, so contrary to the pacific assurances which we had received,
+was to me a great source of surprise and indignation. Demands so
+exorbitant, delivered in such arrogant and violent terms, seemed to
+announce that peace was not Austria's only object, but that she aimed
+rather at the independence of Piedmont and perhaps at her representative
+institutions; for so long as liberty shows itself in the smallest
+fraction of Italy, Austria feels ill at ease in all the rest.
+
+ [24: Despatch of the 4th of July 1849 to M. de Boislecomte:
+
+ "The conditions laid down for Piedmont by His Majesty the
+ Emperor of Austria are no doubt severe; but, nevertheless,
+ they do not affect the integrity of the territory of the
+ Kingdom nor her honour. They neither take away the strength
+ which she should preserve, nor the just influence which she
+ is called upon to exercise over the general policy of Europe
+ and in particular over the affairs of Italy. The treaty which
+ she is asked to sign is a vexatious one, no doubt; but it is
+ not a disastrous one; and, after the fate of arms has been
+ decided, it does not exceed what was naturally to be feared.
+
+ "France has not neglected, and will not neglect, any effort to
+ obtain a mitigation of this proposal; she will persist in her
+ endeavours to obtain from the Austrian Government the
+ modifications which she considers in keeping not only with the
+ interests of Piedmont but with the easy and lasting
+ maintenance of the general peace; and to attain this result,
+ she will employ all the means supplied to diplomacy: but she
+ will not go beyond this. She does not think that, within the
+ limits of the question and the degree to which the interests
+ of Piedmont are involved, it would be opportune to do more.
+ Holding this firm and deliberate opinion, she does not
+ hesitate to give utterance to it. To allow, even by her
+ silence, a belief to gain ground in extreme resolutions that
+ have not been taken; to suggest hopes that we are not certain
+ of wishing to realize; to urge indirectly by words to a line
+ of action which we should not think ourselves justified in
+ supporting by our acts; in a word, to engage others without
+ engaging ourselves, or unconsciously to engage ourselves more
+ deeply than we think or than we mean: that would be, on the
+ part of either the Government or of private individuals, a
+ line of conduct which seems to me neither prudent nor
+ honourable.
+
+ "You can rely, Sir, that so long as I occupy the post in which
+ the President's confidence has placed me, the Government of
+ the Republic shall incur no such reproach; it will announce
+ nothing that it will not be prepared to carry out; it will
+ make no promises that it is not resolved to keep; and it will
+ consider it as much a point of honour to declare beforehand
+ what it is not ready to do as to execute promptly and with
+ vigour that which it has said it would do.
+
+ "You will be good enough to read this despatch to M.
+ d'Azeglio."]
+
+I at once came to the conclusion that we must at no price allow so near
+a neighbour to be oppressed, deliver a territory which touched our
+frontiers to the Austrian armies, or permit political liberty to be
+abolished in the only country in which, since 1848, it had showed itself
+moderate. I thought, moreover, that Austria's mode of procedure towards
+us showed either an intention to deceive us or else a desire to try how
+far our toleration would go, or, as is commonly said, to sound us.
+
+I saw that this was one of those extreme circumstances, which I had
+faced beforehand, where it became my duty to risk not only my portfolio
+(which, to tell the truth, was not risking much) but the fortunes of
+France. I proceeded to the Council and explained the state of affairs.
+
+The President and all my colleagues were unanimous in thinking that I
+ought to act. Orders were immediately telegraphed to concentrate the
+Army of Lyons at the foot of the Alps, and so soon as I returned home, I
+myself wrote (for the flaccid style of diplomacy was not suited to the
+circumstances) the following letter:[25]
+
+ "Should the Austrian Government persist in the unreasonable demands
+ mentioned in your telegram of yesterday, and, abandoning the limits
+ of diplomatic discussion, throw up the armistice and undertake, as
+ it says it will, to go and dictate peace at Turin, Piedmont can be
+ assured that we should not desert her. The situation would no
+ longer be the same as that in which she placed itself before the
+ battle of Novara, when she spontaneously resumed her arms and
+ renewed the war against our advice. This time it would be Austria
+ which would herself take the initiative unprovoked; the nature of
+ her demands and the violence of her proceedings would give us
+ reason to believe that she is not acting solely with a view to
+ peace, but that she is threatening the integrity of Piedmontese
+ territory or, at the very least, the independence of the Sardinian
+ Government.
+
+ "We will not allow such designs as these to be accomplished at our
+ gates. If, under these conditions, Piedmont is attacked, we will
+ defend her."
+
+ [25: Letter to M. de Boislecomte, 25 July 1849.]
+
+I moreover thought it my duty to send for the Austrian representative (a
+little diplomatist very like a fox in appearance as well as in nature),
+and, convinced that, in the attitude we were taking up, hastiness was
+identical with prudence, I took advantage of the fact that I could not
+as yet be expected to have become familiar with habits of diplomatic
+reserve, to express to him our surprise and our dissatisfaction in
+terms so rude that he since admitted to me that he had never been so
+received in his life.
+
+Before the despatch of which I have quoted a few lines had reached
+Turin, the two Powers had come to an agreement. They had come to terms
+on the question of money, which was arranged practically on the
+conditions that had been previously suggested by ourselves. The Austrian
+Government had only desired to precipitate the negociations by
+frightening the other side; it made very little difficulty about the
+conditions.
+
+Prince Schwarzenberg sent me all sorts of explanations and excuses, and
+peace was definitely signed on the 6th of August, a peace hardly hoped
+for by Piedmont after so many mistakes and misfortunes, since it assured
+her more advantages than she had at first ventured to demand.
+
+This affair threw into great relief the habits of English, and
+particularly of Palmerstonian, diplomacy: the feature is worth quoting.
+Since the commencement of the negociation, the British Government had
+never ceased to show great animosity against Austria, and loudly to
+encourage the Piedmontese not to submit to the conditions which she
+sought to force upon them. My first care, after taking the resolutions I
+have described, was to communicate them to England, and to endeavour to
+persuade her to take up the same line of conduct. I therefore sent a
+copy of my despatch to Drouyn de Lhuys, who was then Ambassador in
+London, and instructed him to show it to Lord Palmerston, and to
+discover that minister's intentions. Drouyn de Lhuys replied:[26]
+
+ "While I was informing Lord Palmerston of your resolutions and of
+ the instructions you had sent M. de Boislecomte, he listened with
+ every sign of eager assent; but when I said, 'You see, my lord, how
+ far we wish to go; can you tell me how far you will go yourself?'
+ Lord Palmerston at once replied, 'The British Government, whose
+ interest in this business is not equal to yours, will not lend the
+ Piedmontese Government more than a diplomatic assistance and a
+ moral support."
+
+ [26: Despatches of the 25th and 26th of June 1849.]
+
+Is not this characteristic? England, protected against the revolutionary
+sickness of nations by the wisdom of her laws and the strength of her
+ancient customs, and against the anger of princes by her power and her
+isolation in the midst of us, is always pleased to play the part of the
+advocate of liberty and justice in the internal affairs of the
+Continent. She likes to censure and even to insult the strong, to
+justify and encourage the weak; but it seems that she does not care to
+go further than to assume virtuous airs and discuss honourable theories.
+Should her _proteges_ come to need her, she offers her moral support.
+
+I add, in order to finish the subject, that these tactics succeeded
+remarkably well. The Piedmontese remained convinced that England alone
+had defended them, and that we had very nearly abandoned them. She
+remained very popular in Turin, and France very much suspected. For
+nations are like men, they love still more that which flatters their
+passions than that which serves their interests.
+
+Hardly had we emerged from this bad pass, before we fell into a worse
+one. We had witnessed with fear and regret what was happening in
+Hungary. The misfortunes of this unlucky people excited our sympathies.
+The intervention of the Russians, which for a time subordinated Austria
+to the Tsar, and caused the hand of the latter to be more and more
+active in the management of the general affairs of Europe, was not
+calculated to please us. But all these events happened beyond our reach,
+and we were helpless.
+
+ "I need not tell you," I wrote in the instructions I sent
+ Lamoriciere, "with what keen and melancholy interest we follow
+ events in Hungary. Unfortunately, for the present, we can only take
+ a passive part in this question. The letter and spirit of the
+ treaties open out to us no right of intervention. Besides, our
+ distance from the seat of war must impose upon us, in the present
+ state of our affairs and of those of Europe, a certain reserve.
+ Since we are not able to speak or act to good purpose, it is due to
+ our dignity not to display, in respect to this question, any
+ sterile excitement or impotent good-feeling. Our duty with regard
+ to Hungarian events is to limit ourselves to carefully observing
+ what happens and seeking to discover what is likely to take place."
+
+Overwhelmed by numbers, the Hungarians were either conquered or
+surrendering, and their principal leaders, as well as a certain number
+of Polish generals who had joined their cause, crossed the Danube at the
+end of August, and threw themselves into the arms of the Turks at
+Widdin. From there, the two principal ones, Dembinski and Kossuth, wrote
+to our Ambassador in Constantinople.[27] The habits and peculiarities of
+mind of these two men were betrayed in their letters. The soldier's was
+short and simple; the lawyer-orator's long and ornate. I remember one of
+his phrases, among others, in which he said, "As a good Christian, I
+have chosen the unspeakable sorrow of exile rather than the peacefulness
+of death." Both ended by asking for the protection of France.
+
+ [27: Letters of the 22nd and 24th of August 1849.]
+
+While the outlaws were imploring our aid, the Austrian and Russian
+Ambassadors appeared before the Divan and asked that they might be given
+up. Austria based her demand upon the treaty of Belgrade, which in no
+way established her right; and Russia hers upon the treaty of Kainardji
+(10 July 1774), of which the meaning, to say the least of it, was very
+obscure. But at bottom they neither of them appealed to an international
+right, but to a better known and more practical right, that of the
+strongest. This was made clear by their acts and their language. The two
+embassies declared from the commencement that it was a question of peace
+or war. Without consenting to discuss the matter, they insisted upon a
+reply of yes or no, and declared that if this reply was in the negative,
+they would at once cease all diplomatic relations with Turkey.
+
+To this exhibition of violence, the Turkish ministers replied, with
+gentleness, that Turkey was a neutral country; that the law of nations
+forbade them to hand over outlaws who had taken refuge on their
+territory; and that the Austrians and Russians had often quoted the same
+law against them when Mussulman rebels had sought an asylum in Hungary,
+Transylvania or Bessarabia. They modestly submitted that what was
+permitted on the left bank of the Danube seemed as though it should also
+be permitted on the right bank. They ended by protesting that what they
+were asked to do was opposed to their honour and their religion, that
+they would gladly undertake to keep the refugees under restraint and
+place them where they could do no mischief, but that they could never
+consent to deliver them to the executioner.
+
+ "The young Sultan," our ambassador wrote to me, "replied yesterday
+ to the Austrian Envoy that, while denouncing what the Hungarian
+ rebels had done, he could now only regard them as unhappy men
+ seeking to escape death, and that humanity forbade him to surrender
+ them. Rechid Pasha, on his part, the Grand Vizier," added our
+ Minister, "said to me, 'I shall be proud if I am driven from power
+ for this;' and he added, with an air of deep concern, 'In our
+ religion, every man who asks for mercy is bound to obtain it.'"
+
+This was talking like civilized people and Christians. The Ambassadors
+were content to reply like real Turks, saying that they must give up the
+fugitives or undergo the consequences of a rupture which would probably
+lead to war. The Mussulman population itself took fire; it approved of
+and supported its Government; and the Mufti came to thank our Ambassador
+for the support he had given to the cause of humanity and good law.
+
+From the commencement of the discussion, the Divan had addressed itself
+to the Ambassadors of France and England. It appealed to public opinion
+in the two great countries which they represented, asked their advice,
+and besought their help in the event of the Northern Powers executing
+their threats. The Ambassadors at once replied that in their opinion
+Austria and Russia were exceeding their rights; and they encouraged the
+Turkish Government in its resistance.
+
+In the meanwhile, arrived at Constantinople an aide-de-camp of the
+Tsar. He brought a letter which that Prince had taken the pains to write
+to the Sultan with his own hand, asking for the extradition of the Poles
+who had served six months before in the Hungarian war against the
+Russian army. This step seems a very strange one when one does not see
+through the particular reasons which influenced the Tsar under the
+circumstance. The following extract from a letter of Lamoriciere's
+describes them with great sagacity, and shows to what extent public
+opinion is dreaded at that end of Europe, where one would think that it
+was neither an organ nor a power:
+
+ "The Hungarian war, as you know," he wrote,[28] "was embarked upon
+ to sustain Austria, who is hated as a people and not respected as a
+ government; and it was very unpopular. It brought in nothing, and
+ cost eighty-four millions of francs. The Russians hoped to bring
+ back Bem, Dembinski, and the other Poles to Poland, as the price of
+ the sacrifices of the campaign. Especially in the army, there
+ reigned a veritable fury against these men. The people and soldiers
+ were mad with longing for this satisfaction of their somewhat
+ barbaric national pride. The Emperor, in spite of his omnipotence,
+ is obliged to attach great value to the spirit of the masses upon
+ whom he leans, and who constitute his real force. It is not simply
+ a question of individual self-love: the national sentiment of the
+ country and the army is at stake."
+
+ [28: Despatches of the 11th and 25th of October 1849.]
+
+These were, no doubt, the considerations which prompted the Tsar to take
+the dangerous step I have mentioned. Prince Radziwill presented his
+letter, but obtained nothing. He left forthwith, haughtily refusing a
+second audience, which was offered him to take his leave; and the
+Russian and Austrian Ambassadors officially declared that all diplomatic
+relations had ceased between their masters and the Divan.
+
+The latter acted, in these critical circumstances, with a firmness and
+propriety of bearing which would have done honour to the most
+experienced cabinets of Europe. At the same time that the Sultan refused
+to comply with the demands, or rather the orders, of the two Emperors,
+he wrote to the Tsar to tell him that he would not discuss with him the
+question of right raised by the interpretation of the treaties, but that
+he appealed to his friendship and to his honour, begging him to take it
+in good part that the Turkish Government refused to take a measure which
+would ruin it in the eyes of the world. He offered, moreover, once more,
+himself to place the refugees in a position in which they should be
+harmless. Abdul Medjid sent one of the wisest and cleverest men in his
+Empire, Fuad Effendi, to take this letter to St Petersburg. A similar
+letter was written to Vienna, but this was to be handed to the Emperor
+of Austria by the Turkish Envoy at that Court, thus very visibly marking
+the difference in the value attached to the consent of the two
+Sovereigns. This news reached me at the end of September. My first care
+was to communicate it to England. At the same time[29] I wrote a private
+letter to our Ambassador, in which I said:
+
+ "The conduct of England, who is more interested in this affair than
+ we are, and less exposed in the conflict that may arise from it,
+ must needs have a great influence upon our own. The English Cabinet
+ must be asked clearly and categorically to state _how far_ it is
+ prepared to go. I have not forgotten the Piedmont affair. If they
+ want us to assist them, they must dot their i's. It is possible
+ that, in that case, we shall be found to be very determined;
+ otherwise, not. It is also very important that you should ascertain
+ the opinions produced by these events upon the Tories of all
+ shades; for with a government conducted on the parliamentary
+ system, and consequently variable, the support of the party in
+ power is not always a sufficient guarantee."
+
+ [29: Private letter, 1 October 1849.]
+
+In spite of the gravity of the circumstances, the English ministers, who
+were at that moment dispersed on account of the parliamentary holidays,
+took a long time before meeting; for in that country, the only country
+in the world where the aristocracy still carries on the government, the
+majority of the ministers are both great landed proprietors and, as a
+rule, great noblemen. They were at that time on their estates,
+recruiting from the fatigue and _ennui_ of business; and they showed no
+undue hurry to return to Town. During this interval, all the English
+press, without distinction of party, took fire. It raged against the two
+Emperors, and inflamed public opinion in favour of Turkey. The British
+Government, thus stimulated, at once took up its position. This time it
+did not hesitate, for it was a question, as it said itself, not only of
+the Sultan, but of England's influence in the world.[30] It therefore
+decided, first, that representations should be made to Russia and
+Austria; secondly, that the British Mediterranean Squadron should
+proceed to the Dardanelles, to give confidence to the Sultan and, if
+necessary, defend Constantinople. We were invited to do the same, and to
+act in common. The same evening, the order was despatched to the British
+Fleet to sail.
+
+ [30: Private letter from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 2 October 1849.]
+
+The news of these decisive resolutions threw me into great perplexity. I
+did not hesitate to think that we should approve the generous conduct of
+our Ambassador, and come to the aid of the Sultan;[31] but as to a
+warlike attitude, I did not believe that it would as yet be wise to
+adopt it. The English invited us to do as they did; but our position was
+very different from theirs. In defending Turkey, sword in hand, England
+risked her fleet; we, our very existence. The English Ministers could
+rely that, in that extremity, Parliament and the nation would support
+them; whereas we were almost certain to be abandoned by the Assembly,
+and even by the country, if things came so far as war. For our
+wretchedness and danger at home made people's minds at that moment
+insensible to all beside. I was convinced, moreover, that in this case
+threats, instead of serving to forward our designs, were calculated to
+frustrate them. If Russia, for it was really with her alone that we had
+to do, should chance to be disposed to open the question of the
+partition of the East by invading Turkey--a contingency that I found it
+difficult to believe in--the sending of our fleets would not prevent the
+crisis; and if it was really only a question (as was probably the case)
+of taking revenge upon the Poles, it would aggravate it, by making it
+difficult for the Tsar to retract, and causing his vanity to join forces
+with his resentment.
+
+ [31: Private letters to Lamoriciere and Beaumont, 5 and 9 October
+ 1849.]
+
+I went to the meeting of the Council with these reflections. I at once
+saw that the President was already decided and even pledged, as he
+himself declared to us. This resolve on his part had been inspired by
+Lord Normanby, the British Ambassador, an eighteenth-century
+diplomatist, who had worked himself into a strong position in Louis
+Napoleon's good graces.... The majority of my colleagues thought as he
+did, that we should without hesitation adopt the line of joint action to
+which the English invited us, and like them send our fleet to the
+Dardanelles.
+
+Failing in my endeavour to have a measure which I considered premature
+postponed, I asked that at least, before it was carried out, they should
+consult Falloux, whose state of health had compelled him to leave Paris
+for a time and go to the country. Lanjuinais went down to him for this
+purpose, reported the affair to him, and came back and reported to us
+that Falloux had without hesitation given his opinion in favour of the
+despatch of the fleet. The order was sent off at once. However, Falloux
+had acted without consulting the leaders of the majority or his friends,
+and even without due reflection as to the consequences of his action; he
+had yielded to a movement of impulse, as sometimes happened to him, for
+nature had made him frivolous and light-headed before education and
+habit had rendered him calculating to the pitch of duplicity. It is
+probable that, after his conversation with Lanjuinais, he received
+advice, or himself made certain reflections, opposed to the opinion he
+had given. He therefore wrote me a very long and very involved
+letter,[32] in which he pretended to have misunderstood Lanjuinais
+(this was impossible, for Lanjuinais was the clearest and most lucid of
+men both in speech and action). He revoked his opinion and sought to
+evade his responsibility; and I replied at once with this note:
+
+ "My dear Colleague,
+
+ "The Council has taken its resolution, and at this late hour there
+ is nothing to be done but await events; moreover, in this matter
+ the responsibility of the whole Council is the same. There is no
+ individual responsibility. I was not in favour of the measure; but
+ now that the measure is taken, I am prepared to defend it against
+ all comers."[33]
+
+ [32: Letter from Falloux, 11 October 1849.]
+
+ [33: Letter to Falloux, 12 October 1849.]
+
+While giving a lesson to Falloux, I was none the less anxious and
+embarrassed as to the part I was called upon to play. I cared little for
+what would happen at Vienna; for in this business I credited Austria
+merely with the position of a satellite. But what would the Tsar do, who
+had involved himself so rashly and, apparently, so irrevocably in his
+relations towards the Sultan, and whose pride had been put to so severe
+a test by our threats? Fortunately I had two able agents at St
+Petersburg and Vienna, to whom I could explain myself without reserve.
+
+ "Take up the business very gently," I recommended them,[34] "be
+ careful not to set our adversaries' self-esteem against us, avoid
+ too great and too ostensible an intimacy with the English
+ Ambassadors, whose Government is detested by the Court at which you
+ are, although nevertheless maintaining good relations with those
+ ambassadors. In order to attain success, adopt a friendly tone, and
+ do not try to frighten people. Show our position as it is; we do
+ not want war; we detest it; we dread it; but we cannot act
+ dishonourably. We cannot advise the Porte, when it comes to us for
+ our opinion, to commit an act of cowardice; and should the courage
+ which it has displayed, and which we have approved of, bring it
+ into danger, we cannot, either, refuse it the assistance it asks of
+ us. A way must therefore be found out of the difficulty. Is
+ Kossuth's skin worth a general war? Is it to the interest of the
+ Powers that the Eastern Question should be opened at this moment
+ and in this fashion? Cannot a way be found by which everybody's
+ honour will be saved? What do they want, after all? Do they only
+ want to have a few poor devils handed over to them? That is
+ assuredly not worth so great a quarrel; but if it were a pretext,
+ if at the bottom of this business lurked the desire, as a matter of
+ fact, to lay hands upon the Ottoman Empire, then it would certainly
+ be a general war that they wanted; for ultra-pacific though we are,
+ we should never allow Constantinople to fall without striking a
+ blow."
+
+ [34: Private letters to Lamoriciere and Beaumont, 5 and 9 October
+ 1849.]
+
+The affair was happily over by the time these instructions reached St
+Petersburg. Lamoriciere had conformed to them before he received them.
+He had acted in this circumstance with an amount of prudence and
+discretion which surprised those who did not know him, but which did not
+astonish me in the least. I knew that he was impetuous by temperament,
+but that his mind, formed in the school of Arabian diplomacy, the wisest
+of all diplomacies, was circumspect and acute to the pitch of artifice.
+
+Lamoriciere, so soon as he had heard rumours of the quarrel direct from
+Russia, hastened to express, very vividly, though in an amicable tone,
+that he disapproved of what had happened at Constantinople; but he took
+care to make no official, and, above all, no threatening,
+representations. Although acting in concert with the British Minister,
+he carefully avoided compromising himself with him in any joint steps;
+and when Fuad Effendi, bearing Abdul Medjid's letter, arrived, he let
+him know secretly that he would not go to see him, in order not to
+imperil the success of the negociation, but that Turkey could rely upon
+France.
+
+He was admirably assisted by this envoy from the Grand Seignior, who
+concealed a very quick and cunning intelligence beneath his Turkish
+skin. Although the Sultan had appealed for the support of France and
+England, Fuad, on arriving at St. Petersburg, showed no inclination even
+to call upon the representatives of these two Powers. He refused to see
+anybody before his audience of the Tsar, to whose free will alone, he
+said, he looked for the success of his mission.
+
+The Emperor must have experienced a feeling of bitter displeasure on
+beholding the want of success attending his threats, and the unexpected
+turn that things had taken; but he had the strength to restrain himself.
+In his heart he was not desirous to open the Eastern Question, even
+though, not long before, he had gone so far as to say, "The Ottoman
+Empire is dead; we have only to arrange for its funeral."
+
+To go to war in order to force the Sultan to violate the Law of Nations
+was a very difficult matter. He would have been aided in this by the
+barbaric passions of his people, but reproved by the opinion of the
+whole civilized world. He knew what was happening in England and France.
+He resolved to yield before he was threatened. The great Emperor
+therefore drew back, to the immeasurable surprise of his subjects and
+even of foreigners. He received Fuad in audience, and withdrew the
+demand he had made upon the Sultan. Austria hastened to follow his
+example. When Lord Palmerston's note arrived at St Petersburg, all was
+over. The best would have been to say nothing; but while we, in this
+business, had only aimed at success, the British Cabinet had also sought
+for noise. It required it to make a response to the irritation of the
+country. Lord Bloomfield, the British Minister, presented himself at
+Count Nesselrode's the day after the Emperor's decision became known;
+and was very coldly received.[35] He read him the note in which Lord
+Palmerston asked, in polite but peremptory phrases, that the Sultan
+should not be forced to hand over the refugees. The Russian replied that
+he neither understood the aim nor the object of this demand; that the
+affair to which he doubtless referred was arranged; and that, in any
+case, England had nothing to say in the matter. Lord Bloomfield asked
+how things stood. Count Nesselrode haughtily refused to give him any
+explanation; it would be equivalent, he said, to recognizing England's
+right to interfere in an affair that did not concern it. And when the
+British Envoy insisted upon at any rate leaving a copy of the note in
+Count Nesselrode's hands, the latter, after first refusing, at last
+accepted the document with an ill grace and dismissed his visitor,
+saying carelessly that he would reply to the note, that it was a
+terribly long one, and that it would be very tiresome. "France," added
+the Chancellor, "has already made me say the same thing; but she made me
+say it earlier and better."
+
+ [35: Letter from Lamoriciere, 19 October 1849.]
+
+At this moment when we learnt the end of the dangerous quarrel, the
+Cabinet, after thus witnessing a happy conclusion to the two great
+pieces of foreign business that still kept the peace of the world in
+suspense, the Piedmont War and the Hungarian War--at that moment, the
+Cabinet fell.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+ I have recently discovered these four notes in the charter-room at
+ Tocqueville, where my grandfather had carefully deposited, by the
+ side of our most precious family archives, all the manuscripts of
+ his brother that came into his possession. They seemed to me to
+ throw some light upon the Revolution of February and the question
+ of the revision of the Constitution in 1851, and to merit
+ publication together with the Recollections.
+
+ Comte de Tocqueville.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+GUSTAVE DE BEAUMONT'S VERSION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY.
+
+
+I have to-day (24 October 1850) had a conversation with Beaumont which
+is worth noting. This is what he told me:
+
+"On the 24th of February, at seven o'clock in the morning, Jules
+Lasteyrie and another [I have forgotten the name which Beaumont
+mentioned] came to fetch me to take me to M. Thiers, where Barrot,
+Duvergier, and several others were expected."
+
+I asked him if he knew what had passed during the night between Thiers
+and the King. He replied:
+
+"I was told by Thiers, and especially by Duvergier, who had at once
+taken a note of Thiers' narrative, that Thiers had been summoned at
+about one o'clock; that he had found the King in an undecided frame of
+mind; that he had at once told him that he could only come in with
+Barrot and Duvergier; that the King, after raising many objections, had
+appeared to yield; that he had put off Thiers till the morning; that
+nevertheless, as he showed him to the door, he had told him that as yet
+no one was bound one way or the other."
+
+Evidently the King reserved the right of attempting to form another
+combination before the morning.
+
+"I must here," continued Beaumont, "tell you a curious anecdote. Do you
+know how Bugeaud was occupied during that decisive night, at the
+Tuileries itself, where he had just received the command-in-chief?
+Listen: Bugeaud's hope and ambition was to become Minister of War when
+Thiers should come into power. Things were so turning out, as he clearly
+saw, as to make this appointment impossible; but what preoccupied him
+was to assure his preponderance at the War Office even if he was not at
+the head of it. Consequently, on the night of the 24th of February, or
+rather in the early morning, Bugeaud with his own hand wrote to Thiers
+from the Tuileries a letter of four pages, of which the substance was:
+
+"'I understand the difficulties which prevent you from making me your
+Minister of War; nevertheless I have always liked you, and I am sure
+that we shall one day govern together. However, I understand the present
+reasons, and I give way before them; but I beg you, at least, to give M.
+Magne, who is my friend, the place of Under-Secretary of State at the
+War Office.'"
+
+Resuming his general narrative, Beaumont continued:
+
+"When I arrived at the Place Saint-Georges, Thiers and his friends had
+already left for the Tuileries. I hastily followed them, and arrived at
+the same time as they did. The appearance of Paris was already
+formidable; however, the King received us as usual, with the same
+copious language and the same mannerisms that you know of. Before being
+shown in to him [at least, I believe it was here that Beaumont placed
+this incident], we talked about affairs among ourselves. I insisted
+urgently upon Bugeaud's dismissal. 'If you want to oppose force to the
+popular movement,' I said, 'by all means make use of Bugeaud's name and
+audacity; but if you wish to attempt conciliation and you suspend
+hostilities[36] ... then Bugeaud's name is a contradiction.' The others
+seconded me, and Thiers reluctantly and with hesitation gave way. They
+compromised the matter as you know: Bugeaud nominally retained the
+command-in-chief, and Lamoriciere was placed at the head of the National
+Guard. Thiers and Barrot entered the King's closet, and I do not know
+what happened there. The order had been given to the troops everywhere
+to cease firing, and to fall back upon the Palace and make way for the
+National Guard. I myself, with Remusat, hurriedly drew up the
+proclamation informing the people of these orders and explaining them.
+At nine o'clock it was agreed that Thiers and Barrot should personally
+attempt to make an appeal to the people; Thiers was stopped on the
+staircase and induced to turn back, but with difficulty, I am bound to
+admit. Barrot set out alone, and I followed him."
+
+ [36: This clearly shows, independently of what Beaumont told me
+ positively, how absolutely the new Cabinet had made up its mind to
+ yield.]
+
+Here Beaumont's account is identical with Barrot's.
+
+"Barrot was wonderful throughout this expedition," said Beaumont. "I had
+difficulty in making him turn back, although when we had once arrived at
+the barricade at the Porte Saint-Denis, it would have been impossible to
+go further. Our return made the situation worse: we brought in our wake,
+by effecting a passage for it, a crowd more hostile than that which we
+had traversed in going; by the time we arrived at the Place Vendome,
+Barrot feared lest he should take the Tuileries by assault, in spite of
+himself, with the multitude which followed him; he slipped away and
+returned home. I came back to the Chateau. The situation seemed to me
+very serious but far from desperate, and I was filled with surprise on
+perceiving the disorder that had gained all minds during my absence, and
+the terrible confusion that already reigned at the Tuileries. I was not
+quite able to understand what had happened, or to learn what news they
+had received to turn everything topsy-turvy in this fashion. I was dying
+of hunger and fatigue; I went up to a table and hurriedly took some
+food. Ten times, during this meal of three or four minutes, an
+aide-de-camp of the King or of one of the Princes came to look for me,
+spoke to me in confused language, and left me without properly
+understanding my reply. I quickly joined Thiers, Remusat, Duvergier,
+and one or two others who were to compose the new Cabinet. We went
+together to the King's closet: this was the only Council at which I was
+present. Thiers spoke, and started a long homily on the duties of the
+King and the paterfamilias. 'That is to say, you advise me to abdicate,'
+said the King, who was but indifferently affected by the touching part
+of the speech and came straight to the point. Thiers assented, and gave
+his reasons. Duvergier supported him with great vivacity. Knowing
+nothing of what had happened, I displayed my astonishment and exclaimed
+that all was not lost. Thiers seemed much annoyed at my outburst, and I
+could not prevent myself from believing that the secret aim of Thiers
+and Duvergier had, from the first, been to get rid of the King, on whom
+they could no longer rely, and to govern in the name of the Duc de
+Nemours or the Duchesse d'Orleans, after forcing the King to abdicate.
+The King, who had struck me as very firm up to a certain moment, seemed
+towards the end to surrender himself entirely."
+
+Here there is a void in my memory in Beaumont's account, which I will
+fill up from another conversation. I come to the scene of the
+abdication, which followed:
+
+"During the interval, events and news growing worse and the panic
+increasing, Thiers had declared that already he was no longer possible
+(which was perhaps true), and that Barrot was scarcely so. He then
+disappeared--at least, I did not see him again during the last
+moments--which was very wrong of him, for although he declined the
+Ministry, he ought not, at so critical a juncture, to have abandoned the
+Princes, and he should have remained to advise them, although no longer
+their Minister. I was present at the final scene of the abdication. The
+Duc de Montpensier begged his father to write and urged him so eagerly
+that the King stopped and said, 'But look here, I can't write faster.'
+The Queen was heroical and desperate: knowing that I had appeared
+opposed to the abdication at the Council, she took my hands and told me
+that such a piece of cowardice must not be allowed to be consummated,
+that we should defend ourselves, that she would let herself be killed,
+before the King's eyes, before they could reach him. The abdication was
+signed nevertheless, and the Duc de Nemours begged me to run and tell
+Marshal Gerard, who was at the further end of the Carrousel, that I had
+seen the King sign, so that he might announce officially to the people
+that the King had abdicated. I hastened there, and returned; all the
+rooms were empty. I went from room to room without meeting a soul. I
+went down into the garden; I there met Barrot, who had come over from
+the Ministry of the Interior, and was indulging in the same useless
+quest. The King had escaped by the main avenue; the Duchesse d'Orleans
+seemed to have gone by the underground passage to the water-side. No
+necessity had compelled them to leave the Chateau, which was then in
+perfect safety, and which was not invaded by the people until an hour
+after it had been abandoned. Barrot was determined at all costs to
+assist the Duchess. He hurriedly had horses prepared for her, the young
+Prince and ourselves, and wanted us to throw ourselves all together into
+the midst of the people--the only chance in fact, and a feeble one at
+that, that remained to us. Unable to rejoin the Duchess, we left for the
+Ministry of the Interior. You met us on the road; you know the rest."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BARROT'S VERSION OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY.
+
+(_10 October 1850._)
+
+
+"I believe that M. Mole only refused the Ministry after the firing had
+commenced on the Boulevard. Thiers told me that he had been sent for at
+one in the morning; that he had asked the King to appoint me as the
+necessary man; that the King had at first resisted and then yielded; and
+that at last he had adjourned our meeting to nine o'clock in the morning
+at the Palace.
+
+"At five o'clock Thiers came to my house to awake me; we talked; he went
+home, and I called for him at eight. I found him quietly shaving. It is
+a great pity that the King and M. Thiers thus wasted the time that
+elapsed between one and eight o'clock. When he had finished shaving, we
+went to the Chateau; the population already was greatly excited;
+barricades were being built, and even a few shots had already been fired
+from houses near the Tuileries. However, we found the King still very
+calm and retaining his usual manner. He addressed me with the
+commonplaces which you can imagine for yourself. At that hour, Bugeaud
+was still general-in-chief. I strongly persuaded Thiers not to take
+office under the colour of that name, and at least to modify it by
+giving the command of the National Guard to Lamoriciere, who was there.
+Thiers accepted this arrangement, which was agreed to by the King and
+Bugeaud himself.
+
+"I next proposed to the King that he should dissolve the Chamber of
+Deputies. 'Never, never!' he said; he lost his temper and left the room,
+slamming the door in the faces of Thiers and me. It was quite clear that
+he only consented to give us office in order to save the first moment,
+and that he intended, after compromising us with the people, to throw us
+over with the assistance of Parliament. Of course, at any ordinary time,
+I should at once have withdrawn; but the gravity of the situation made
+me stay, and I proposed to present myself to the people, myself to
+apprise them of the formation of the new Cabinet, and to calm them. In
+the impossibility of our having anything printed and posted up in time,
+I looked upon myself as a walking placard. I must do Thiers the justice
+to say that he wished to accompany me, and that it was I who refused, as
+I dreaded the bad impression his presence might make.
+
+"I therefore set out; I went up to each barricade unarmed; the muskets
+were lowered, the barricades opened; there were cries of 'Reform for
+ever! long live Barrot!' We thus went to the Porte Saint-Denis, where we
+found a barricade two stories high and defended by men who made no sign
+of concurrence in my words and betrayed no intention of allowing us to
+pass the barricade. We were therefore compelled to retrace our steps. On
+returning, I found the people more excited than when I had come;
+nevertheless, I heard not a single seditious cry, nor anything that
+announced an immediate revolution. The only word that I heard of grave
+import was from Etienne Arago. He came up to me and said, 'If the King
+does not abdicate, we shall have a revolution before eight o'clock
+to-night.' I thus came to the Place Vendome; thousands of men followed
+me, crying, 'To the Tuileries! to the Tuileries!' I reflected what was
+the best thing to do. To go to the Tuileries at the head of that
+multitude was to make myself the absolute master of the situation, but
+by means of an act which might have seemed violent and revolutionary.
+Had I known what was happening at the moment in the Tuileries, I should
+not have hesitated; but as yet I felt no anxiety. The attitude of the
+people did not yet seem decided. I knew that all the troops were falling
+back upon the Chateau; that the Government was there, and the generals;
+I could not therefore imagine the panic which, shortly afterwards,
+placed it in the hands of the mob. I turned to the right and returned
+home to take a moment's rest; I had not eaten anything yet and was
+utterly exhausted. After a few minutes, Malleville sent word from the
+Ministry of the Interior that it was urgent that I should come and sign
+the telegrams to the departments. I went in my carriage, and was cheered
+by the people; from there, I set out to walk to the Palace. I was still
+ignorant of all that had happened. When I reached the quay, opposite the
+garden, I saw a regiment of Dragoons returning to barracks; the colonel
+said to me, 'The King has abdicated; all the troops are withdrawing.' I
+hurried; when I reached the wicket-gates, I had great difficulty in
+penetrating to the court-yard, as the troops were crowding out through
+every opening. At last I reached the yard, which I found almost empty;
+the Duc de Nemours was there; I entreated him to tell me where the
+Duchesse d'Orleans was; he replied that he did not know, but that he
+believed that at that moment she was in the pavilion at the water-side.
+I hastened there; I was told that the Duchess was not there. I forced
+the door and went through the rooms, which were, in fact, empty. I left
+the Tuileries, recommending Havin, whom I met, not to bring the Duchess,
+if he found her, to the Chamber, with which there was nothing to be
+done. My intention had been, if I had found the Duchess and her son, to
+put them on horseback and throw myself with them among the people: I had
+even had the horses got ready.
+
+"Not finding the Princess, I returned to the Ministry of the Interior; I
+met you on the road, you know what happened there. I was sent for in
+haste to go to the Chamber. I had scarcely arrived when the leaders of
+the Extreme Left surrounded me and dragged me almost by main force to
+the first office; there, they begged me to propose to the Assembly the
+nomination of a Provisional Government, of which I was to be a member. I
+sent them about their business, and returned to the Chamber. You know
+the rest."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SOME INCIDENTS OF THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY 1848.
+
+
+1
+
+ _M. Dufaure's efforts to prevent the Revolution of
+ February--Responsibility of M. Thiers, which renders them futile._
+
+To-day (19 October 1850), Rivet recalled and fixed with me the
+circumstances of an incident well worth remembering.
+
+In the course of the week preceding that in which the Monarchy was
+overthrown, a certain number of Conservative deputies began to feel an
+anxiety which was not shared by the Ministers and their colleagues. They
+thought that it was more advisable to overthrow the Cabinet, provided
+that this could be done without violence, than to risk the adventure of
+the banquets. One of them, M. Sallandrouze, made the following proposal
+to M. Billault (the banquet was to take place on Tuesday the 22nd) that
+on the 21st M. Dufaure and his friends should move an urgent order of
+the day, drawn up in consultation with Sallandrouze and those in whose
+name he spoke, some forty in number. The order of the day should be
+voted by them on condition that, on its side, the Opposition should give
+up the banquet and restrain the people.
+
+On Sunday, the 20th of February, we met at Rivet's to discuss this
+proposal. There were present, as far as I am able to remember, Dufaure,
+Billault, Lanjuinais, Corcelles, Ferdinand Barrot, Talabot, Rivet, and
+myself.
+
+Sallandrouze's proposal was explained to us by Billault; we accepted it
+at once, and drafted an order of the day in consequence. I myself
+drafted it, and this draft, with some modifications, was accepted by my
+friends. The terms in which it was couched (I no longer remember them)
+were very moderate, but the adoption of this order of the day would
+inevitably entail the resignation of the Cabinet.
+
+There remained to be fulfilled the condition of the vote of the
+Conservatives, the withdrawal of the banquet. We had had nothing to do
+with this measure, and consequently we were not able to prevent it. It
+was agreed that one of us should at once go in search of Duvergier de
+Hauranne and Barrot, and propose that they should act according to the
+condition demanded. Rivet was selected for this negociation, and we
+adjourned our meeting till the evening to know how he had succeeded.
+
+In the evening he came and reported to us as follows:
+
+Barrot had eagerly entered into the opening offered him; he effusively
+seized Rivet's hands, and declared that he was prepared to do all that
+he was asked in this sense; he seemed relieved of a great weight on
+beholding the possibility of escaping from the responsibility of the
+banquet. But he added that he was not engaged in this enterprise alone,
+and that he must come to an understanding with his friends, without whom
+he could do nothing. How well we knew it!
+
+Rivet went on to Duvergier's, and was told that he was at the
+Conservatoire of Music, but that he would return home before dinner.
+Rivet waited. Duvergier returned. Rivet told him of the proposal of the
+Conservatives and of our order of the day. Duvergier received this
+communication somewhat disdainfully; they had gone too far, he said, to
+draw back; the Conservatives had repented too late; he, Duvergier, and
+his friends could not, without losing their popularity and perhaps all
+their influence with the masses, undertake to make the latter give up
+the proposed demonstration. "However," he added, "I am only giving you
+my first and personal impression; but I am going to dine with Thiers,
+and I will send you a note this evening to let you know our final
+decision."
+
+This note came while we were there; it said briefly that the opinion
+expressed by Duvergier before dinner was also that of Thiers, and that
+the idea which we had suggested must be abandoned. We broke up at once:
+the die was cast!
+
+I have no doubt that, among the reasons for Thiers' and Duvergier's
+refusal, the first place must be given to this, which was not expressed:
+that if the Ministry fell quietly, by the combined effect of a part of
+the Conservatives and ourselves, and upon an order of the day presented
+by us, we should come into power, and not those who had built up all
+this great machinery of the banquets in order to attain it.
+
+
+2
+
+ _Dufaure's conduct on the 24th of February 1848._
+
+Rivet told me to-day (19 October 1850) that he had never talked with
+Dufaure of what happened to him on the 24th of February; but that he had
+gathered the following from conversation with members of his family or
+of his immediate surroundings:
+
+On the 23rd of February, at about a quarter past six, M. Mole, after
+concerting with M. de Montalivet, sent to beg Dufaure to come and see
+him. Dufaure, on his road to M. Mole's, called on Rivet and asked him to
+wait for him, because he intended to come back to Rivet on leaving M.
+Mole. Dufaure did not return, and Rivet did not see him till some time
+after, but he believed that, on arriving at Mole's, Dufaure had a rather
+long conversation with him, and then went away, declaring that he did
+not wish to join the new Cabinet, and that, in his opinion,
+circumstances called for the men who had brought about the movement,
+that is to say, Thiers and Barrot.
+
+He returned greatly alarmed at the appearance of Paris, found his wife
+and mother-in-law still more alarmed, and, at five o'clock in the
+morning of the 24th, set out with them and took them to Vauves. He
+himself came back; I saw him at about eight or nine o'clock, and I do
+not remember that he told me he had taken this morning journey. I was
+calling on him with Lanjuinais and Corcelles; but we soon separated,
+arranging to meet at twelve at the Chamber of Deputies. Dufaure did not
+come; it seems that he started to do so, and in fact arrived at the
+Palace of the Assembly, which had, doubtless, been just at that moment
+invaded. What is certain is that he went on and joined his family at
+Vauves.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+ MY CONVERSATION WITH BERRYER, ON THE 21ST OF JUNE, AT AN
+ APPOINTMENT WHICH I HAD GIVEN HIM AT MY HOUSE. WE WERE BOTH MEMBERS
+ OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+
+I thus opened the conversation:
+
+"Let us leave appearances on one side, between you and me. You are not
+making a revisionist but an electoral campaign."
+
+He replied, "That is true; you are quite right"
+
+"Very well," I replied; "we shall see presently if you are well advised.
+What I must tell you at once is that I cannot join in a manoeuvre of
+which the sole object is to save a section only of the moderate party at
+the next elections, leaving out of the calculation many others, and
+notably that to which I belong. You must either give the moderate
+Republicans a valid reason for voting for the Revision, by giving it a
+republican character, or else expect us to do our best to spike your
+guns."
+
+He agreed, but raised difficulties that originated with the passions and
+prejudices of his party. We discussed for some time what was to be done,
+and at last we came to the policy which he was following.
+
+This is what I said to him on this subject, of which I particularly wish
+to retain the impression. I said:
+
+"Berryer, you are dragging us all, in spite of ourselves, into a plight
+for which you will have to bear the sole responsibility, you may be
+quite sure of that. If the Legitimists had joined those who wished to
+fight against the President, the fight might still be possible. You have
+dragged your party, in spite of itself, in an opposite direction;
+henceforth, we can no longer resist; we cannot remain alone with the
+Montagnards; we must give way, since you give way; but what will be the
+consequence? I can see your thought, it is quite clear: you think that
+circumstances render the President's ascendancy irresistible and the
+movement which carries the country towards him insurmountable. Unable to
+fight against the current, you throw yourselves into it, at the risk of
+making it more violent still, but in the hope that it will land you and
+your friends in the next Assembly, in addition to various other sections
+of the party of order, which is not very sympathetic with the President.
+There alone you think that you will find a solid resting-place from
+which to resist him, and you think that, by working his business to-day,
+you will be able to keep together, in the next Assembly, a group of men
+able to cope with him. To struggle against the tide which carries him at
+this moment is to make one's self unpopular and ineligible and to
+deliver the party to the Socialists and the Bonapartists, neither of
+whom you wish to see triumph: well and good! Your plan has its plausible
+side, but it fails in one principal respect, which is this: I could
+understand you if the election were to take place to-morrow, and if you
+were at once to gather the fruits of your manoeuvre, as at the
+December election; but there is nearly a year between now and the next
+elections. You will not succeed in having them held in the spring, if
+you succeed in having them held at all. Between now and then, do you
+imagine that the Bonapartist movement, aided, precipitated by you, will
+cease? Do you not see that, after asking you for a Revision of the
+Constitution, public opinion, stirred up by all the agents of the
+Executive and led by our own weakness, will ask us for something more,
+and then for something more still, until we are driven openly to favour
+the illegal re-election of the President and purely and simply to work
+his business for him? Can you go as far as that? Would your party be
+willing to, if you are? No! You will therefore come to a moment when you
+will have to stop short, to stand firm on your ground, to resist the
+combined effort of the nation and the Executive Power; in other words,
+on the one hand to become unpopular, and on the other to lose that
+support, or at least that electoral neutrality, of the Government which
+you desire. You will have enslaved yourselves, you will have immensely
+strengthened the forces opposed to you, and that is all. I tell you
+this: either you will pass completely and for ever under the President's
+yoke, or you will lose, just when it is ripe for gathering, all the
+fruit of your manoeuvre, and you will simply have taken upon
+yourself, in your own eyes and the country's, the responsibility of
+having contributed to raise this Power, which will perhaps, in spite of
+the mediocrity of the man, and thanks to the extraordinary power of
+circumstances, become the heir of the Revolution and our master."
+
+Barrot seemed to me to rest tongue-tied, and the time having come to
+part, we parted.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Many of the actors in the Revolution of 1848 are comparatively unknown
+in England. I did not wish to encumber these Recollections with
+foot-notes; and I have preferred, instead, to amplify the following
+Index by giving, in the majority of cases, the full names and titles of
+these participants, with the dates of their birth and death.
+
+A. Teixeira de Mattos.
+
+
+ A
+
+ Abdul Medjid, Sultan of Turkey (1823-1861), on question of Hungarian
+ refugees, 373.
+
+ d'Adelsward, in the National Assembly, 162.
+
+ Ampere, Jean Jacques (1800-1864), character of, 87.
+
+ Andryane, in the Chamber of Deputies, 72.
+
+ Arago, Etienne, on the barricades, 387.
+
+ Austria, her relations with Hungary and Russia, 335.
+ ---- Tsar's views on, 337.
+
+ Austrians, in Italy, 333.
+ ---- submits to the influence of Russia, 352 (_foot-note_).
+ ---- and Piedmont, 353.
+ ---- demands Hungarian refugees from Turkey, 361.
+
+
+ B
+
+ Baden, revolution put down in, 342.
+ ---- Tocqueville interferes on behalf of the rebels (_foot-note_),
+ 342.
+
+ Banquets, the, affair of, 18.
+
+ Banquet in Paris, forbidden by Government, 30.
+ ---- Rivet's statement in regard to, 390
+
+ Barbes, Armand (1810-1870), in the National Assembly, 164.
+ ---- goes to the Hotel de Ville, 168.
+ ---- impeached by the Assembly, 173.
+
+ Barricades, the, construction of, 47.
+
+ Barrot, Camille Hyacinthe Odilon (1791-1873), alliance of, with
+ Thiers, 19.
+ ---- replies to Hebert in Chamber of Deputies, 28.
+ ---- recoils from Banquet in Paris, 31.
+ ---- sent for by Louis-Philippe, 45.
+ ---- on the Revolution, 59.
+ ---- and the barricades, 74.
+ ---- in Committee of Constitution, 243, 246, 250, 255.
+ ---- tries to form a new Cabinet, 267.
+ ---- succeeds, 277.
+ ---- with Beaumont, &c., 379.
+ ---- his version of the abdication of Louis-Philippe, 385.
+
+ Bastide, gets the Assembly to appoint Cavaignac Military Dictator,
+ 204.
+
+ Beaumont, Gustave de la Bonniniere de (1802-1866), Tocqueville's
+ conversation with, 41.
+ ---- is sent for by Louis-Philippe, 45.
+ ---- tells Tocqueville of abdication of Louis-Philippe, 58.
+ ---- meets Tocqueville, 74.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- in Committee of the Constitution, 252.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and political friends, 267.
+ ---- sent as Ambassador to Vienna, 321.
+ ---- letter of Tocqueville to, on the Hungarian refugees, 370.
+ ---- his account of the abdication of Louis-Philippe, 379.
+
+ Beaumont, Madame de, notice of, 41.
+
+ Bedeau, General Marie Alphonse (1804-1863), on the Place Louis XV, 51.
+ ---- character of, 52.
+ ---- nearly killed in Insurrection, 227.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+
+ Berlin, Persigny sent to, 323.
+
+ Berryer, Pierre Antoine (1790-1868), his discussion with Tocqueville
+ on the proposed Constitution, 394.
+
+ Billault, Auguste Adolphe Marie (1805-1863), in the Chamber of
+ Deputies, 74.
+ ---- and banquets, 390.
+
+ Blanc, Jean Joseph Louis (1811-1882), in the National Assembly, 166.
+
+ Blanqui, Louis Auguste (1805-1881), in the National Assembly, 163.
+
+ Blanqui, Adolphe Jerome (1798-1854), anecdote of, 197.
+
+ Bloomfield, John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield, Lord (1802-1879),
+ British Minister at St Petersburg, 374.
+ ---- snubbed by Nesselrode, _idem_.
+
+ Broglie, Achille Charles Leonce Victor Duc de (1785-1870), his
+ seclusion, 106.
+ ---- and foreign affairs, 330.
+
+ Buchez, Philippe Benjamin Joseph (1769-1865), in the National
+ Assembly, 162.
+
+ Bugeaud, Thomas Robert Marshal, Marquis de la Piconnerie, Duc d'Isly
+ (1784-1849), in favour of the Duchesse d'Orleans, 72.
+ ---- dying of cholera, 290.
+ ---- his ambition, 380.
+
+ Buffel, Minister of Agriculture, 276.
+
+
+ C
+
+ Cabinet, Members of the, 278.
+
+ Cavaignac, General Louis Eugene (1802-1857), in the Insurrection of
+ June, 195.
+ ---- made Military Dictator, 204.
+ ---- Tocqueville votes for, 263.
+ ---- speech of, 297.
+
+ Chamber of Deputies, the, state of in 1848, 10.
+ ---- Tocqueville's speech in, on 27th January 1848, 14.
+ ---- Speeches in, by Hebert and Barrot, 28.
+ ---- state of, on 22nd February, 33.
+ ---- state of, on 23rd February, 36.
+ ---- Guizot in, 36.
+ ---- state of, on 24th February, 56.
+ ---- Tocqueville's estimate of its utility, 58.
+ ---- Duchesse d'Orleans in, 60.
+ ---- invaded by the people, 62.
+
+ Chambers, one or two? debate on, in the Committee of the Constitution,
+ 242.
+
+ Changarnier, General Nicolas Anne Theodule (1793-1877), Rulhiere's
+ jealousy of, 279.
+ ---- sent for, 295.
+ ---- puts down insurrection, 298.
+
+ Champeaux, his relation with Lamartine, 147.
+ ---- his relation with Tocqueville, 149.
+
+ Charles X., King of France and Navarre (1757-1836), flight of, in
+ 1830, 85.
+
+ Chateaubriand, Francois Rene, Vicomte de (1768-1848), death of, 230.
+
+ Committee for the Constitution, appointed, 233.
+ ---- proceedings of, 235.
+
+ Considerant, Victor, appointed on
+ Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- escapes after insurrection, 299.
+
+ Constituent Assembly, prohibits Government from attacking Rome, 288.
+
+ Coquerel, Athanase Laurent Charles (1795-1875), in the Committee of
+ the Constitution, 246.
+
+ Corbon, on the Committee of the Constitution, 257.
+
+ Corcelles, with Lanjuinais and Tocqueville on the boulevards, 48.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- in the Insurrection of June, 191.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+
+ Cormenin, Louis Marie de la Haye, Vicomte de (1788-1868), appointed a
+ Commissioner for Paris, 206.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 232.
+ ---- in the Committee of the Constitution, 247, 257.
+
+ Council General, the, meets at Saint-Lo, 125.
+
+ Courtais, General, in the National Assembly, 171.
+ ---- impeached by Assembly, 173.
+
+ Cremieux, Isaac Adolphe (1796-1880), in the Chamber of Deputies, 65.
+ ---- appointed a Commissioner for Paris, 206.
+ ---- what Janvier said of him, 210.
+
+
+ D
+
+ Degousee, in the National Assembly, 159.
+
+ Dembinski, General Henry (1791-1864), flees to the Turks, 361.
+
+ Dornes, appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 235.
+
+ Dufaure, Jules Armand Stanislas (1798-1881), Tocqueville's
+ conversation with, 17.
+ ---- character of, 40.
+ ---- tells Tocqueville of his interview with Louis-Philippe, 47.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- converses with Tocqueville, Thiers, Barrot, Remusat, and
+ Lanjuinais, 203.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- conduct of, in the Committee, 243, 255.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+ ---- made Minister of the Interior, 272.
+ ---- with the President, 296.
+ ---- rupture with Falloux, 307.
+ ---- speech in Assembly, 310.
+ ---- character of, 313.
+ ---- with the President, 322.
+ ---- and banquets, 390.
+ ---- his conduct on 24th February 1848, 393.
+
+ Duchatel, Charles Marie Tannequi, Comte (1803-1867), Minister of the
+ Interior, character of and conversation with, 23.
+ ---- want of tact in his speech on the banquets, 27.
+ ---- flight of, 136.
+
+ Dupin, Andre Marie Jean Jacques (1783-1865), speech of, in the Chamber
+ of Deputies, 62.
+ ---- in the Committee of the Constitution, 243.
+
+ Duvergier de Hauranne, Prosper (1798-1881), interview with, 22.
+ ---- with Beaumont, &c., 379.
+ ---- refuses to compromise on the banquet, 392.
+
+ Duvivier, killed in Insurrection, 227.
+
+
+ E
+
+ England, Tocqueville's estimate of the policy of, 359.
+ ---- on question of Hungarian refugees in Turkey, 366.
+
+
+ F
+
+ Falloux, Alfred Frederic Pierre, Comte de (1811-1886), proposes the
+ dissolution of the National Workshops, 193.
+ ---- Minister of Public Instruction, 273.
+ ---- leader of majority in the Cabinet, 281.
+ ---- his influence with Louis Napoleon, 303.
+ ---- intercourse with Tocqueville, 305.
+ ---- rupture with Dufaure, 307.
+ ---- with the President, 322.
+ ---- on the question of the Hungarian refugees, 369.
+
+ Faucher, Leon (1803-1854), Minister of the Interior, 266.
+
+ Feast of Concord, the, proposal to hold, and celebration of, 174.
+
+ France, state of, when Tocqueville becomes Minister of Foreign
+ Affairs, 339.
+
+ Frederic William IV., King of Prussia (1795-1861), the Tsar's opinion
+ of, 337.
+ ---- his character and his aims for Germany, 346.
+ ---- his coquetting with revolt, 351.
+ ---- submits to the influence of Russia, 352 (_foot-note_).
+
+
+ G
+
+ General Election, the, antecedents of, 105.
+ ---- new, 265.
+
+ Germany, state of, 333.
+ ---- Confederation of States in, 347.
+ ---- views of Baron Pfordten in regard to, 348.
+ ---- views of Tocqueville in regard to, 349.
+ ---- views of Tsar in regard to, 350, 353.
+
+ Goudchaux, Michel (1797-1862), appointed a Commissioner for Paris,
+ 206.
+ ---- his conduct in that capacity, 213.
+
+ Guizot, Francois Pierre Guillaume (1787-1874), opinion of, 9.
+ ---- in Chamber of Deputies, 36.
+ ---- resigns Government, 36.
+ ---- opinion of, on the Revolution, 79.
+ ---- flight of, 136.
+
+
+ H
+
+ Havin, Leonor Joseph (1799-1868), chairs meeting for Tocqueville, 122.
+ ---- and Barrot, 389.
+
+ Hebert, Minister of Justice, character of and speech by, 28.
+
+ Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord (1809-1885), Tocqueville
+ breakfasts with, 184.
+
+ Huber, in National Assembly, 167.
+
+ Hungary, revolting against Austria, 335.
+ ---- Tsar's views on, 337.
+ ---- Tocqueville's instructions concerning, 360.
+
+
+ I
+
+ Insurrection of June, nature of narrative of, 187.
+
+ Italy, the Tsar's views on, 338.
+
+
+ K
+
+ Kossuth, Louis (1802-1894), flees to the Turks, 361.
+
+
+ L
+
+ Lacordaire, Jean Baptiste Henri Dominique (1802-1861), in the National
+ Assembly, 161.
+
+ Lacrosse, character of, 280.
+
+ La Fayette, Edmond de, and his life-preserver, 175.
+
+ Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis Prat de (1790-1869), in the Chamber of
+ Deputies, 62, 66.
+ ---- reads out the list of the Provisional Government, 70.
+ ---- gets embarrassed in the Chamber of Deputies, 71.
+ ---- his conduct and character, 145.
+ ---- Tocqueville's relations with, 147.
+ ---- his connexion with Champeaux, 147.
+ ---- his speech in the Assembly, 151.
+ ---- his sudden departure from the Assembly, 159.
+ ---- reappears in National Assembly, 171.
+ ---- at the Feast of Concord, 180.
+ ---- shot at in the Insurrection of June, 194.
+
+ Lamartine, Madame de, notice of, 154.
+
+ Lamennais, Hugues Felicite Robert de (1782-1855), appointed on
+ Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+
+ Lamoriciere, General Christophe Leon Louis Juchault de (1806-1865),
+ character of, 91.
+ ---- in Insurrection of June, 192, 220.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+ ---- sent as Ambassador to Russia, 303.
+ ---- letter about the Tsar of Russia, 336.
+ ---- instructions of Tocqueville to, 360.
+ ---- letter of, to Tocqueville, 364.
+ ---- letter of Tocqueville to, on Hungarian refugees, 370.
+ ---- conduct of, in regard to them, 372.
+
+ Lanjuinais, Victor Ambroise de (1802-1869), Tocqueville in company of,
+ 42.
+ ---- with Tocqueville and Corcelles on the boulevards, 46.
+ ---- sits with Tocqueville in the National Assembly, 142.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+ ---- joins the Council, 274.
+ ---- on the question of the Hungarian refugees, 369.
+
+ Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste (1807-1874), in the Chamber of
+ Deputies, 65, 71.
+ ---- character of, 150.
+ ---- in the National Assembly, 163.
+ ---- has to escape from the National Assembly, 173.
+ ---- demands the indictment of Louis Napoleon, 292.
+ ---- escapes after the Insurrection, 299.
+
+ Legitimists, views and condition of, 302.
+
+ Lepelletier d'Aunay, Tocqueville meets, 213.
+
+ Louis Napoleon, Prince President of the French Republic (1808-1873),
+ elected to the National Assembly, 183.
+ ---- President of the Republic, 270.
+ ---- character of, 283.
+ ---- orders the attack on Rome, 289.
+ ---- attacked in Assembly, 292.
+ ---- puts down Insurrection, 298.
+ ---- intrigues with Thiers and Mole, 315.
+ ---- in connexion with Tocqueville, 317.
+ ---- with Beaumont, Dufaure and Passy, 321-2.
+ ---- his general ignorance, 331.
+ ---- wishes to take Savoy, 332.
+ ---- Tocqueville and Berryer's discussion about the powers of, 394.
+
+ Louis-Philippe, King of the French (1773-1850), Tocqueville's
+ interview with, 7.
+ ---- his opinion of Lord Palmerston, _idem_.
+ ---- of the Tsar Nicholas, _idem_.
+ ---- refers to Queen Victoria, _idem_.
+ ---- influence of, 10.
+ ---- on the Banquets, 26.
+ ---- Sallandrouze, conversation with, 35.
+ ---- sends for Mole, 37.
+ ---- sends for Beaumont, 45.
+ ---- abdicates, 58.
+ ---- character of, and of his Government, 81.
+ ---- finally disappears from France, 105.
+ ---- Beaumont's account of abdication of, 379.
+
+ Lyons, insurrection in, 298.
+
+
+ M
+
+ Manche, la, department of, 114.
+ ---- proceedings in election of, 117.
+ ---- election of Tocqueville for, 263.
+
+ Marrast, Armand (1780-1852), and the Provisional Government, 71.
+ ---- suggests costume for National Representatives, 135.
+ ---- as Mayor of Paris, 227.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- conduct of, in the Committee, 241, 247, 255.
+ ---- appointed Secretary of the Committee, 256.
+
+ Martin, on the Committee of the Constitution, 254.
+
+ Middle Class, the, government of, 5.
+ ---- despair of, 133.
+
+ Mole, Matthieu Louis, Comte (1781-1855), sent for by Louis-Philippe,
+ 37.
+ ---- declines office, 45.
+ ---- opinion of, on the Revolution, 79.
+ ---- on General Election, 107.
+ ---- elected to the National Assembly, 182.
+ ---- refuses to take office, 267.
+ ---- intrigues with the President, 315.
+ ---- on Foreign Affairs, 330.
+ ---- and abdication of Louis-Philippe, 385.
+ ---- with Rivet and Dufaure, 393.
+
+ Montagnards, the description of, 137.
+ ---- separation of, from the Socialists, 154.
+ ---- crushed, 231.
+ ---- strengthened at the new election, 263.
+ ---- supporters of, 266.
+ ---- feelings towards the President, 292.
+
+ Montalembert, Charles Forbes Rene, Comte de (1810-1870), opposes the
+ Government scheme on railways, 190.
+
+ Montpensier, Antoine d'Orleans, Duc de (1824-1890), at the abdication
+ of Louis-Philippe, 384.
+
+
+ N
+
+ National Assembly, the, meets on 4th of May, 133.
+ ---- description of, 133.
+ ---- Tocqueville's opinion of, 142.
+ ---- speech of Lamartine in, 151.
+ ---- invaded by the mob, 160.
+ ---- breaks up, 168.
+ ---- National Guards take possession of, 170.
+ ---- addresses from provinces, in support of, 182.
+ ---- agrees to pension families of men killed in putting down the
+ Insurrection, 206.
+ ---- threatened, 228.
+ ---- state of the new Assembly, 265, 270, 291.
+
+ National Guard, the, invited by Radical party to the banquet in Paris,
+ 30.
+ ---- on the morning of the 24th February, 44.
+ ---- shouting "Reform," 49.
+ ---- Detachment of, in the Chamber of Deputies, 61, 72.
+ ---- disappearance of, 94.
+ ---- take possession of National Assembly, 170.
+ ---- at Feast of Concord, 178.
+ ---- in Insurrection of June, 200.
+ ---- shout "Long live the National Assembly," 207.
+ ---- eager to put down the Insurrection, 213.
+ ---- wounded of, being carried away, 226.
+ ---- surrounded, 294.
+ ---- three regiments of, cashiered, 309.
+
+ National Workshops, the, create anxiety in the Assembly, 181.
+ ---- Falloux proposes dissolution of, 193.
+ ---- supply weapons to insurgents in June, 198.
+
+ Negrier, killed in the Insurrection, 227.
+
+ Nemours, Louis Charles Philippe Raphael d'Orleans, Duc de (1814-1896),
+ thought of as Regent, 383.
+ ---- and Barrot, 388.
+
+ Nesselrode, Charles Robert, Count (1780-1862), snubs Lord Palmerston,
+ 374.
+
+ Nicholas I., Tsar of all the Russias (1796-1855), supports Austria
+ against Hungary, 335.
+ ---- his general policy, 336.
+ ---- Lamoriciere's letter about, 336.
+ ---- his family affection, 339.
+ ---- the real support of his power, 339.
+ ---- views of, on an United Germany, 350.
+ ---- demands Hungarian refugees from Turkey, 364.
+ ---- his irritation about Hungarian refugees, 373.
+
+ Normanby, Constantine Henry Phipps, Marquess of (1797-1863),
+ Ambassador in Paris, 368.
+
+ Novara, Battle of, 323.
+
+
+ O
+
+ D'Orleans, Helene, Duchesse (1814-1858), in the Chamber of Deputies,
+ 60.
+ ---- and the abdication of Louis-Philippe, 384.
+ ---- and Barrot, 389.
+
+ Oudinot, General Nicolas Charles Victor, Duc de Reggio (1791-1863), in
+ the Chamber of Deputies, 72.
+
+
+ P
+
+ Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Viscount (1784-1865) on Piedmont and
+ Austria, 359.
+ ---- snubbed by Nesselrode, 374.
+
+ Paris, Louis Philippe d'Orleans, Comte de (1838-1894), in the Chamber
+ of Deputies, 60.
+
+ Passy, character of, 272.
+ ---- with the President, 322.
+
+ Paulmier, Tocqueville dines with, on the 22nd February, 34.
+
+ Persigny, Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, Duc de (1808-1872), sent to
+ Berlin and Vienna, 323.
+
+ Piedmont and Austria, 353.
+
+ Portalis, character of, 42.
+
+ Presidency, condition of, discussed in the Committee of the
+ Constitution, 246.
+
+ Provisional Government, the, proclaimed, 59.
+ ---- Lamartine reads list of, in the Chamber of Deputies, 70.
+ ---- appoints a costume for National Representatives, 134.
+ ---- reports its proceedings to the National Assembly, 135.
+
+
+ R
+
+ Radetzky, Field-Marshal Johann Joseph Wenzel Anton Franz Carl, Count
+ (1766-1858), and Piedmont, 355.
+
+ Radical Party, state of the, in January 1848, 25.
+
+ Raspail, Francois Vincent (1794-1878), in the National Assembly, 162.
+
+ Revolutionaries, description of the, 137.
+ ---- in the National Assembly, 158.
+
+ Rivet, his conversation with Tocqueville, 389.
+ ---- consultation of, with Liberals, on the subject of the banquets,
+ 390.
+ ---- another conversation with Tocqueville, 392.
+ ---- with Mole and Dufaure, 393.
+
+ Rome, the French Army at, 263.
+ ---- difficulties about, 269.
+ ---- secret order to the army to attack, 291.
+
+ Rulhiere, character of, 279.
+
+
+ S
+
+ Saint-Lo, meeting of the Council General at, 125.
+
+ Sallandrouze de Lamornaix meets Tocqueville at dinner at Paulmier's,
+ 35.
+ ---- snubbed by Louis-Philippe, _idem_.
+
+ Sand, George (1804-1876), Tocqueville's conversation with, 183.
+
+ Sauzet, President of the Chamber of Deputies, 57.
+
+ Savoy, Louis Napoleon wishes to seize, 332.
+
+ Schwarzenberg, Felix Ludwig Johann Friedrich, Prince von (1808-1852),
+ and Tocqueville, 358.
+
+ Senard, President of the Assembly, 214.
+
+ Sicily, state of, 333.
+
+ Sobrier, in National Assembly, 167.
+
+ Socialism, influence of theories of, 97.
+ ---- Dufaure's conflict with, 312.
+
+ Socialists, the, description of, 137.
+ ---- separation of, from Montagnards, 154.
+
+ Switzerland, Tocqueville's correspondence with, on the subject of the
+ refugees, 343.
+
+
+ T
+
+ Talabot, and Thiers, 75.
+
+ Thiers, Louis Adolphe (1797-1877), alliance of, with Barrot, 19.
+ ---- sent for by Louis-Philippe, 45.
+ ---- wandering round Paris, 74.
+ ---- opinion of, on the Revolution, 79.
+ ---- on the General Election, 106.
+ ---- defeated at the General Election, 136.
+ ---- elected to the National Assembly, 182.
+ ---- addresses Barrot, Dufaure, Remusat, Lanjuinais and Tocqueville
+ in private, 202.
+ ---- with Lamoriciere, 225.
+ ---- refuses to take office, 267.
+ ---- with the President, 296.
+ ---- intrigues with the President, 315.
+ ---- on foreign affairs, 330.
+ ---- with Beaumont, &c., 379.
+ ---- advises Louis-Philippe to abdicate, 383.
+ ---- his interview with Barrot, 385.
+ ---- refuses to compromise on the banquets, 392.
+
+ Tocqueville, Charles Alexis Henri Maurice Clerel de (1805-1859), his
+ purpose in writing these memoirs, 3.
+ ---- his intercourse with Louis-Philippe, 7.
+ ---- his estimate of the state of France in January 1848, 9.
+ ---- picture of the state of the Chamber of Deputies in 1847, 12.
+ ---- his speech in the Chamber of Deputies, 29th January 1848, 14.
+ ---- remarks on this speech by Dufaure and others, 17.
+ ---- his position on the affair of the banquets, 19.
+ ---- his estimate of Duchatel, Minister of the Interior, 23.
+ ---- his thoughts on the policy of the Radical party, 25.
+ ---- his knowledge of how the affair of the banquets passed into an
+ insurrection, 30.
+ ---- in the Chamber of Deputies on 22nd and 23rd February, when the
+ gloom of the Revolution began to gather, 33.
+ ---- his estimate of the selfishness of both sides, 39.
+ ---- private conversation with Dufaure, 40.
+ ---- private conversation with Beaumont, 41.
+ ---- private conversation with Lanjuinais, 42.
+ ---- hears of the firing in the streets on 24th February 1848, 44.
+ ---- sees preparations for barricades, 46.
+ ---- meets a defeated party of National Guards on the boulevards,
+ and hears shouts of "Reform," 49.
+ ---- reflections which this occasions, 50.
+ ---- goes to Chamber of Deputies on 24th February, 51.
+ ---- recognises Bedeau on his way, 52.
+ ---- character of Bedeau and condition on that day, 53.
+ ---- appearance presented by the Chamber of Deputies, 56.
+ ---- sees the Duchesse d'Orleans and the Comte de Paris there, 60.
+ ---- tries to get Lamartine to speak, 63.
+ ---- his interest in the Duchess and her son, 69.
+ ---- seeks to protect them, 69.
+ ---- leaves the Chamber and meets Oudinot and Andryane, 72.
+ ---- contradicts an assertion of Marshal Bugeaud, 72.
+ ---- converses with Talabot about the movements of Thiers, 75.
+ ---- his reflections on the fate of the Monarchy, 80.
+ ---- spends the evening with Ampere, 87.
+ ---- goes to inquire about his nephews on the 25th February, 90.
+ ---- walks about Paris in the afternoon, 92.
+ ---- reflections on what he sees, 93.
+ ---- keeps in retirement for some days, 102.
+ ---- further reflections on the Revolution, 103.
+ ---- his own individual feelings and intentions, 107.
+ ---- resolves to seek re-election, 113.
+ ---- visits the Department of la Manche, 114.
+ ---- makes Valognes his head-quarters, 117.
+ ---- publishes his address to the electors, 118.
+ ---- meets the electors at Valognes, 120.
+ ---- addresses workmen at Cherbourg, 122.
+ ---- goes to Saint-Lo to the General Council, 125.
+ ---- his reflections on a visit to Tocqueville, 126.
+ ---- returns to Paris and finds himself elected, 129.
+ ---- his view of the state of politics and of Paris, 130.
+ ---- National Assembly meets, 133.
+ ---- his opinion of the Montagnards, 138.
+ ---- his estimate of the Assembly, 141.
+ ---- his character of Lamartine, 146.
+ ---- his intercourse with Champeaux, 149.
+ ---- his observation of the popular mind, 161.
+ ---- his interview with Tretat, 168.
+ ---- at the Feast of Concord, 175.
+ ---- conversation with Carnot, 176.
+ ---- anticipations of the Insurrection of June, 183.
+ ---- conversation with Madame Sand, 183.
+ ---- sees barricades of the Insurrection, 190.
+ ---- interview with Lamoriciere, 192.
+ ---- goes about Paris in time of insurrection, 197.
+ ---- describes the Assembly, 198.
+ ---- writes to his wife, 203.
+ ---- protests against Paris being declared in a state of siege, 205.
+ ---- elected a Commissioner for Paris, 206.
+ ---- as such, walks through Paris, 208.
+ ---- his scene with his porter, 215.
+ ---- his scene with his man-servant, 217.
+ ---- in the streets in the Insurrection, 219.
+ ---- on his way to the Hotel de Ville, 225.
+ ---- his account of the Montagnards, Socialists, &c., 231.
+ ---- appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- his narrative of its proceedings, 234.
+ ---- on the duality of the Chambers, 242.
+ ---- on the conditions of the Presidency, 246.
+ ---- re-elected for la Manche, 263.
+ ---- leaves his wife ill at Bonn, 264.
+ ---- his opinion of the new Assembly, 264.
+ ---- his interview with Dufaure, &c., 267.
+ ---- ought he to enter the Ministry?, 268.
+ ---- accepts the Foreign Office, 273.
+ ---- intimacy with Lanjuinais, 275.
+ ---- his opinion of his colleagues, 278.
+ ---- his opinion of France and the Republic, 281.
+ ---- his opinion of Louis Napoleon, 284.
+ ---- speech in Assembly on the Roman expedition, 293.
+ ---- his letters to and from Considerant, 299.
+ ---- his view of affairs after the Insurrection, 301.
+ ---- sends Lamoriciere to Russia, 303.
+ ---- his difficulties with Falloux and Dufaure, 306.
+ ---- his advice to Louis Napoleon, 317.
+ ---- sends Beaumont to Vienna, 321.
+ ---- his view of Foreign and Domestic Affairs when he became Foreign
+ Minister, 325.
+ ---- his despatch to the French Minister in Bavaria (_foot-note_),
+ 342.
+ ---- his dealings with Switzerland about the refugees, 344.
+ ---- his observations on the Revolution in Germany, 345.
+ ---- his intervention between Austria and Piedmont, 353.
+ ---- his interposition in support of Turkey on the Hungarian
+ refugees question, 361.
+ ---- his instruction to Lamoriciere and Beaumont, 371.
+ ---- narrative of Beaumont to, on the abdication, 379.
+ ---- narrative of Barrot to, on the abdication, 385.
+ ---- Rivet and De Tocqueville's efforts to prevent Revolution, 389.
+ ---- discussion of, with Berryer on the Constitution, 394.
+
+ Tocqueville, Madame de, _nee_ Mottley, her report of firing in Paris,
+ 196.
+ ---- taken ill at Bonn, 264.
+
+ Tocqueville, Manor of, Tocqueville visits, 126.
+
+ Tracy, character of, 279.
+
+ Tretat, and Tocqueville, 168.
+
+ Turkey, refuses to surrender the Hungarian refugees, 362.
+
+
+ V
+
+ Valognes, town of, head-quarters in Tocqueville's election, 117.
+
+ Valognes, Tocqueville at, 130.
+
+ Vaulabelle, appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 235.
+
+ Victor Emmanuel II., King of Piedmont (1820-1878), ascends the throne
+ on the abdication of Charles Albert, 333.
+
+ Vieillard speaks at the meeting for the election of Tocqueville, 123.
+
+ Vienna, Beaumont sent as Ambassador to, 321.
+ ---- Persigny sent to, 323.
+
+ Vivien appointed on the Committee of the Constitution, 233.
+ ---- in the Committee of Constitution, 253.
+ ---- his interview with Tocqueville and his political friends, 267.
+
+
+ W
+
+ Wolowski, Louis (1810-1876), in the National Assembly on 15th
+ May, 158.
+
+
+
+
+ PRINTED BY
+ TURNBULL AND SPEARS
+ EDINBURGH
+
+
+
+
+ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF AUTHORS PAGE
+
+
+ Abbott, Angus Evan, 414
+
+ Alison, William, 413
+
+
+ Basile, Giovanni Battista, 415
+
+ Bate, Francis, 414
+
+ Beerbohm, Max, 414
+
+ Burton, Sir Richard, K.C.M.G., 414, 415
+
+
+ Cobban, J. MacLaren, 416
+
+ Common, Thomas, 415
+
+ Connell, F. Norreys, 414
+
+ Creswick, Paul, 414
+
+
+ Dearmer, Mrs Percy, 414
+
+ Dobson, Austin, 414
+
+ Donovan, Major C.H.W., 416
+
+ Dowson, Ernest, 414
+
+
+ Farrar, Evelyn L., 416
+
+ Farrar, Very Rev. Dean F.W., 416
+
+ Field, Michael, 414
+
+
+ Garnett, Dr Richard, 414
+
+ Gosse, Edmund, 414
+
+ Gray, John, 414, 415
+
+ Guiffrey, Jules J., 413
+
+
+ Haussmann, William A., Ph.D., 415
+
+ Herrick, Robert, 414
+
+ Hobbes, John Oliver, 414
+
+ Housman, Lawrence, 414
+
+ Hoytema, Th. van, 416
+
+
+ Image, Selwyn, 414
+
+
+ Jepson, Edgar, 414
+
+ Johnson, Lionel, 414
+
+ Jones, Alfred, 414
+
+
+ Langley, Hugh, 416
+
+ Le Gallienne, Richard, 414
+
+
+ MacColl, D.S., 414
+
+ Maeterlinck, Maurice, 414
+
+ Mann, Mary E., 414, 416
+
+ Marriott Watson, Rosamond, 414
+
+ Molesworth, Mrs., 414
+
+ Moore, T. Sturge, 414
+
+ Muther, Richard, 413
+
+
+ Nietzsche, Friedrich, 415
+
+
+ Oudinot, Marechale, Duchesse de Reggio, 413
+
+
+ Pain, Barry, 414
+
+ Plarr, Victor, 414
+
+ Powell, F. York, 414
+
+ Purcell, Edward, 414
+
+
+ Ricketts, Charles, 414
+
+ Rubens, Paul, 414
+
+ Ruvigny et Raineval, Marquis de, 416
+
+
+ Scull, W. Delaplaine, 414
+
+ Shannon, Charles Hazelwood, 414
+
+ Spalding, Thomas Alfred, 416
+
+ Stiegler, Gaston, 413
+
+ Strange, E.F., 414
+
+ Strange, Captain H.B., 414
+
+
+ Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander, 413
+
+ Tille, Alexander, Ph.D., 415
+
+
+ Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Comte, 414
+
+ Volz, Johanna, 415
+
+
+ White, Gleeson, 414
+
+ Widdrington, George, 416
+
+ Wood, Starr, 414
+
+
+ Zimmern, Helen, 415
+
+
+
+
+ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+ MEMOIRS OF MARSHAL OUDINOT, DUC DE REGGIO.
+ Compiled from the hitherto unpublished Souvenirs of the DUCHESSE DE
+ REGGIO by GASTON STIEGLER, and translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE
+ MATTOS. With Two Portraits in Heliogravure. _Demy 8vo, crimson
+ cloth extra, in a cover adorned with the Marshal's arms, gilt top,
+ 17s. net; 10 copies on Japanese vellum, L3, 3s. net._
+
+
+ THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK.
+ By JULES J. GUIFFREY. Translated from the French by WILLIAM ALISON.
+ One Vol. folio. With Nineteen Etchings of Paintings (now etched for
+ the first time), Eight Heliogravures, and upwards of One Hundred
+ Illustrations in the Text. _Folio, grey buckram extra, adorned with
+ the painter's arms. Edition limited to 250 copies, numbered, L4,
+ 4s. net; 10 copies on Japanese vellum, L12, 12s. net._ (_Only two
+ copies remain unsold._)
+
+"A truly sumptuous and imposing volume."--_Globe._
+
+"A great book on a great painter."--_St James's Gazette._
+
+
+ THE HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING.
+ By RICHARD MUTHER, Professor of Art History at the University of
+ Breslau, Late Keeper of the Royal Collection of Prints and
+ Engravings at Munich. 2304 pages. Over 1300 Illustrations. _Three
+ Volumes imperial 8vo, dark blue cloth extra, with a cover design
+ by_ HOWARD STRINGER, _gilt top and lettering, other edges uncut,
+ L2, 15s. net; Library Edition, green half morocco, gilt top, L3,
+ 15s. net. This work is also published in 36 Parts at 1s. net, or in
+ 16 Parts at 2s. 6d. net._
+
+"There need be no hesitation in pronouncing this work of Muther the most
+authoritative that exists on the subject, the most complete, the best
+informed of all the general histories of Modern Art."--_Times_.
+
+"Not only the best, but the only history of Modern Painting which has
+any pretension to cover the whole ground."--_Times_ (_second notice_).
+
+"A monumental work ... of cyclopaedic value.... This author is distinctly
+cheering. He has no slavish and indiscriminate admiration for the old
+masters, and his enthusiasm and his hopes are with the art of his
+time.... There are many illustrations, a copious bibliography, and a
+good index.... It is incomparably the best work of its kind; in some
+respects, the only one of its kind."--_Daily News_.
+
+"A history as crowded and as stirring as a novel."--_Saturday Review_.
+
+"A great book on a great subject."--_Graphic_.
+
+"Not merely readable, but at times fascinating.... The book, although
+not an exhaustive record, is indispensable for one's shelves of
+reference, and worth careful reading."--_Studio_.
+
+
+ THE PAGEANT, 1897.
+ Edited by CHARLES HAZELWOOD SHANNON and GLEESON WHITE. With
+ Twenty-six Full-Page Illustrations (including a Woodcut in Four
+ Colours and Gold) and Ten Illustrations in the Text. _Crown 4to,
+ chocolate cloth extra, with a cover design by_ CHARLES RICKETTS,
+ _and a coloured wrapper by_ GLEESON WHITE, _6s. net_; _Large Paper
+ Edition (limited to 150 copies), L1, 5s. net. These copies contain
+ a special reproduction in photogravure of Rossetti's_ "Hamlet and
+ Ophelia."
+
+ _Contributions in Art by_--
+
+ SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A., PUVIS DE
+ CHAVANNES, GUSTAVE MOREAU, DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, REGINALD SAVAGE,
+ CHARLES HAZELWOOD SHANNON, CHARLES RICKETTS, LAURENCE HOUSMAN,
+ CHARLES CONDER, WALTER CRANE, WILL ROTHENSTEIN, WILLIAM STRANG,
+ LUCIEN PISSARRO.
+
+ _Contributions in Literature by_--
+
+ AUSTIN DOBSON, VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM, EDMUND GOSSE, Mrs MARRIOTT
+ WATSON, LIONEL JOHNSON, D.S. MACCOLL, F. YORK POWELL, VICTOR PLARR,
+ GLEESON WHITE, MICHAEL FIELD, ANGUS EVAN ABBOTT, CHARLES RICKETTS,
+ JOHN GRAY, W. DELAPLAINE SCULL, MAURICE MAETERLINCK, Dr RICHARD
+ GARNETT, T. STURGE MOORE, EDWARD PURCELL, SELWYN IMAGE, MAX
+ BEERBOHM, ERNEST DOWSON.
+
+
+ THE PAGEANT, 1896.
+ Edited by C.H. SHANNON and GLEESON WHITE. _Ordinary Edition, 6s.
+ net. Large Paper Edition, 150 Copies only. The price of the few
+ that remain for sale has been raised to L1, 5s. net._
+
+
+ THE PARADE, 1897.
+ A Gift-Book for Boys and Girls. Edited by GLEESON WHITE. With 35
+ Full-Page Illustrations; 3 Coloured Plates; 10 Head-and
+ Tail-Pieces; Illustrated Initials, Devices, &c. _Crown 4to, scarlet
+ cloth extra, with a Cover designed by_ PAUL WOODROFFE, _coloured
+ edges, 6s. net_.
+
+ _Contributions in Literature by_--
+
+ JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, Mrs MOLESWORTH, LAURENCE HOUSMAN, Sir RICHARD
+ BURTON, ALFRED JONES, E.F. STRANGE, EDGAR JEPSON, BARRY PAIN, Mrs
+ MARY E. MANN, F. NORREYS CONNELL, PAUL CRESWICK, Captain H.B.
+ STRANGE, ROBERT HERRICK, Mrs PERCY DEARMER, MAX BEERBOHM, RICHARD
+ LE GALLIENNE, PAUL RUBENS, VICTOR PLARR, STARR WOOD, FRANCIS BATE.
+
+ _Contributions in Art by_--
+
+ PAUL WOODROFFE, AUBREY BEARDSLEY, ALAN WRIGHT, Miss DE MONTMORENCY,
+ W.J. OVERNELL, HAROLD NELSON, LESLIE BROOKE, LAURENCE HOUSMAN,
+ ALFRED JONES, LEON SOLON, A.A. VAN ANROOY, G.A. GORDON, STARR WOOD,
+ Mrs PERCY DEARMER, MAX BEERBOHM, CHARLES ROBINSON, NICO JUNGMAN,
+ Miss MILNE, WILLIAM SHACKLETON, HENRY TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.
+
+
+ IL PENTAMERONE; OR, THE TALE OF TALES.
+ Being a Translation by the Late Sir RICHARD BURTON, K.C.M.G., of
+ "Il Pentamerone; overo lo Cunto de li Cunte, trattenemiento de li
+ peccerille," of GIOVANNI BATTISTA BASILE, Count of Torone (Gian
+ Alessio Abbattutis). _Two volumes, demy 8vo, black cloth gilt, L3,
+ 3s. net. Large Paper Edition, on hand-made paper (limited to 150
+ copies), royal 8vo, black cloth gilt_, L5, 5_s._ _net_.
+
+This is the only unabridged and unexpurgated edition of "Il Pentamerone"
+in the English language.
+
+
+ THE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
+ Edited by ALEXANDER TILLE, PH.D., Lecturer at the University of
+ Glasgow. Sole Authorized English and American Edition; issued under
+ the supervision of the "Nietzsche Archiv" at Naumburg. _Eleven
+ Volumes, medium 8vo, dark blue buckram extra, with a cover design
+ by_ GLEESON WHITE, L5, 19_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+ _The following Volumes are ready_:
+
+ Vol. XI. The Case of WAGNER; NIETZSCHE CONTRA WAGNER; THE
+ TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS; THE ANTICHRIST. Translated
+ by THOMAS COMMON. 10_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. VIII. THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Translated by ALEXANDER
+ TILLE, Ph.D. 17_s._ _net_.
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+ Vol. X. A GENEALOGY OF MORALS. Translated by WILLIAM A.
+ HAUSSMANN, Ph.D. POEMS. Translated by JOHN GRAY.
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+ Vol. IX. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. Translated by HELEN ZIMMERN.
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+ Vol. VI. DAWN OF THE DAY. Translated by JOHANNA VOLZ.
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+ Vol. II. INOPPORTUNE CONTEMPLATIONS, I. and II. Translated by
+ JOHANNA VOLZ. 7_s._ _net_.
+
+ Vol. III. INOPPORTUNE CONTEMPLATIONS, III. and IV. Translated by
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+
+ Vol. I. THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY. Translated by WILLIAM A.
+ HAUSSMANN, Ph.D. 7_s._ _net_.
+
+"Nietzsche is worse than shocking; he is simply awful: his epigrams are
+written with phosphorus or brimstone. The only excuse for reading him is
+that before long you must be prepared either to talk about Nietzsche, or
+else retire from society, especially from aristocratically minded
+society.... His sallies, petulant and impossible as some of them are,
+are the work of a rare spirit, and pregnant with its vitality."--MR
+GEORGE BERNARD SHAW in the _Saturday Review_.
+
+"Lurking behind the intellectual movements of Europe in philosophy as in
+everything else, England is just now beginning to hear of the existence
+of Friedrich Nietzsche."--MR ERNEST NEWMAN in the _Free Review_.
+
+"Nietzsche is, without doubt, an extraordinarily interesting figure ...
+the greatest spiritual force which has appeared since Goethe."--MR
+HAVELOCK ELLIS in the _Savoy_.
+
+
+ FEDERATION AND EMPIRE: A Study in Politics.
+ By THOMAS ALFRED SPALDING, LL.B., Author of "The House of Lords: a
+ Retrospect and a Forecast," "Elizabethan Demonology," &c. _Demy
+ 8vo, dark blue buckram extra_, 10_s._ 6_d._ _net_.
+
+
+ WITH WILSON IN MATABELELAND; OR, SPORT AND WAR IN ZAMBESIA.
+ By MAJOR G.H.W. DONOVAN (of the Army Service Corps). With a Map and
+ Numerous Illustrations from Photographs. _Demy 8vo, dark blue cloth
+ extra_, 18_s._
+
+
+ THE LEGITIMIST KALENDAR FOR 1895.
+ Edited by the MARQUIS DE RUVIGNY and RAINEVAL. With 8 Genealogical
+ Tables and a Portrait of the King and Queen of Spain, France, and
+ Navarre. _Crown 8vo, white art linen, limited to 500 copies_, 5_s._
+ _net_.
+
+"A real curiosity."--_Review of Reviews_.
+
+"It is just possible that the volume may one day obtain a success of
+curiosity, and be eagerly sought after by collectors of odd
+books."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
+ STORIES FROM THE BIBLE.
+ By EVELYN L. FARRAR. With an Introductory Chapter on the
+ Unspeakable Value of Early Lessons in Scripture, by her Father, the
+ Very Rev. F.W. FARRAR, D.D., Dean of Canterbury; and Twelve
+ Illustrations, printed in colour, and a Cover Design, by REGINALD
+ HALLWARD. _Crown 4to, dark green cloth extra_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THE HAPPY OWLS.
+ Told, Drawn, and Lithographed by T. VAN HOYTEMA. Containing Twenty
+ Pictures in four colours, drawn on the stone by the Artist. _Crown
+ 4to, picture boards_, 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THE PASSION FOR ROMANCE.
+ By EDGAR JEPSON, Author of "Sybil Falcon." _Large crown 8vo, gold
+ art canvas_, 6_s._
+
+
+ THE TIDES EBB OUT TO THE NIGHT.
+ Being the Journal of a Young Man, Basil Brooke. Edited by his
+ Friend, HUGH LANGLEY. _Large crown 8vo, crimson art canvas_, 6_s._
+
+
+ LADY LEVALLION.
+ By GEORGE WIDDRINGTON. _Crown 8vo, heliotrope cloth elegant_, 5_s._
+
+
+ WHEN ARNOLD COMES HOME.
+ By MARY E. MANN, Author of "Susannah." With a Frontispiece by ALAN
+ WRIGHT. _Crown 8vo, blue cloth elegant_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THE TYRANTS OF KOOL-SIM.
+ By J. MACLAREN COBBAN, Author of "The Red Sultan." New and Cheaper
+ Edition. With a Frontispiece by ALAN WRIGHT. _Crown 8vo, brown and
+ scarlet cloth extra_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+ THERE WAS ONCE A PRINCE.
+ By MARY E. MANN, Author of "When Arnold Comes Home." New and
+ Cheaper Edition. With a Frontispiece by ALAN WRIGHT. _Crown 8vo,
+ blue cloth_, 3_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+
+
+LONDON: H. HENRY & CO., LTD., 93 St Martin's Lane, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected. Questionable, vintage
+and British spellings have been left as printed in the original
+publication. Variations in spelling have been left as printed, unless
+otherwise noted in the following.
+
+Footnotes in the original text were marked at the page level, beginning
+at footnote 1 each time footnotes appeared on a page. Footnote numbers
+for the whole text have been replaced with sequential footnote numbers,
+from 1 to 36.
+
+Inconsistencies in the use of "St" and "St." as an abbreviation for
+"Saint" have been normalized in this transcription to "St".
+
+Page 238: Transcribed "likes" as "like". As originally printed: "likes
+the _roues_ of the Regency".
+
+Page 343 (footnote 19): The concluding sentence in a quoted letter by
+the author ends with a question mark in the original publication, a
+likely typesetting error for a period at the end of the sentence which
+would agree with the context. The punctuation has been left as printed
+in the original publication.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Recollections of Alexis de
+Tocqueville, by Alexis De Tocqueville
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