This war has never been popular, nor is it popular, yet we bear all its cost with a cheerfulness admirable when you consider the sorrows which it occasions, aggravated by the distress produced by the dearness of bread. If, instead of the Crimea, the seat of war had been the Rhine, with a definite purpose, the whole nation would have risen, as it has done before.
But the object of the war is unintelligible to the people. They only know that France is at war, and must be made, at any price, to triumph.
I must confess, that I myself, who understand the object for which all this blood is shed, and who approve that object, do not feel the interest which such great events ought to excite; for I do not expect a result equal to the sacrifice.
I think, with you, that Russia is a great danger to Europe. I think so more strongly, because I have had peculiar opportunities of studying the real sources of her power, and because I believe these sources to be permanent, and entirely beyond the reach of foreign attack. (I have not time now to tell you why.) But I am deeply convinced that it is not by taking from her a town, or even a province, nor by diplomatic precautions, still less by placing sentinels along her frontier, that the Western Powers will permanently stop her progress.
A temporary bulwark may be raised against her, but a mere accident may destroy it, or a change of alliances or a domestic policy may render it useless.
I am convinced that Russia can be stopped only by raising before her powers created by the hatred which she inspires, whose vital and constant interest it shall be to keep themselves united and to keep her in. In other words, by the resurrection of Poland, and by the re-animation of Turkey.
I do not believe that either of these means can now be adopted. The detestable jealousies and ambitions of the European nations resemble, as you say in your letter, nothing better than the quarrels of the Greeks in the face of Philip. Not one will sacrifice her passions or her objects.
About a month ago I read some remarkable articles, which you perhaps have seen, in the German papers, on the progress which Russia is making in the extreme East. The writer seems to be a man of sense and well informed.
It appears that during the last five years, Russia, profiting by the Chinese disturbances, has seized, not only the mouth of the Amoor, but a large territory in Mongolia, and has also gained a considerable portion of the tribes which inhabit it. You know that these tribes once overran all Asia, and have twice conquered China. The means have always been the same—some accident which, for an instant, has united these tribes in submission to the will of one man. Now, says the writer, very plausibly, the Czar may bring this about, and do what has been done by Genghis Khan, and, indeed, by others.
If these designs are carried out, all Upper Asia will be at the mercy of a man, who, though the seat of his power be in Europe, can unite and close on one point the Mongols.
I know more about Sir G. Lewis's book[1] than you do. I have read it through, and I do not say, as you do, that it must be a good book, but that itisa good book. Pray say as much to Sir George when you see him, as a letter of mine to Lady Theresa on the subject may have miscarried.
It is as necessary now for friends to write in duplicate from town to town, as it is if they are separated by the ocean and fear that the ship which carries their letters may be lost. I hear that our friend John Mill has lately published an excellent book. Is it true? at all events remember me to him.
Adieu, my dear Senior. Do not forget us any more than we forget you.Kindest regards to Mrs. Senior, and Miss Senior, and Mrs. Grote.
[Footnote 1: The work referred to was probably that on theEarly History of Rome.—ED.]
Paris, April 1, 1856.
I write a few lines to you at Marseilles, my dear Senior, as you wished.[1] I hope that you will terminate your great journey as felicitously as you seem to me to have carried it on from the beginning. The undertaking appears to have been a complete success. I wish that it might induce you next year to cross over the ocean to America. I should be much interested in hearing and reading your remarks upon that society. But perhaps Mrs. Senior will not be so ready to start off again; so, that I may not involve myself in a quarrel with her, I will say no more on the subject.
I am longing to see you, for beside our old and intimate friendship I shall be delighted to talk with such an interesting converser, and, above all, to find myself again in the company of (as Mrs. Grote calls you) 'the boy.' You will find me, however, in all the vexations of correcting proofs and the other worries connected with bringing out a book.[2] It will not appear till the end of this month.
I can tell you no more about politics than you may learn from the newspapers. Peace, though much desired has caused no public excitement The truth is that just now we are notexcitable. As long as she remains in this condition France will not strike one of those blows by which she sometimes shakes Europe and overturns herself.
Reeve has been and Milnes still is here. We have talked much of you with these two old friends. Good bye, or rather, thank God,à bientôt.
A thousand kind remembrances to Mrs. Senior.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Senior was on his return from Egypt.—ED.]
[Footnote 2: TheAncien Régime.]
Paris, May16.—M. de Tocqueville has scarcely been visible since my return to Paris. Madame de Tocqueville has been absent. She returned yesterday, and they spent this evening with us.
Tocqueville is full of his book, which is to appear in about a week. His days and nights are devoted to correcting the press and to writing notes—which he thought would be trifling, but which grow in length and importance.
The object of the work is to account for the rapid progress of the Revolution, to point out the principal causes which enabled a few comparatively obscure men to overthrow in six weeks a Monarchy of many centuries.
'I am inclined,' I said, 'to attribute the rapidity with which the old institutions of France fell, to the fact that there was nolex lociin France. That the laws, or rather the customs, of the different provinces were dissimilar, and that nothing was defined. That as soon as the foundations or the limits of any power were examined, it crumbled to pieces; so that the Assembly became omnipotent in the absence of any authority with ascertained rights and jurisdiction.'
'There is much truth in that,' answered Tocqueville, 'but there is also much truth in what looks like an opposite theory—namely, that the Monarchy fell because its power was too extensive and too absolute. Nothing is so favourable to revolution as centralisation, because whoever can seize the central point is obeyed down to the extremities. Now the centralisation of France under the old Monarchy, though not so complete as its Democratic and Imperial tyrants afterwards made it, was great. Power was concentrated in Paris and in the provincial capitals. The smaller towns and the agricultural population were unorganised and defenceless. The 14th of July revealed the terrible secret that the Master of Paris is the Master of France.'
Paris, May18.—I spent the day at Athy, the country-seat of M. Lafosse,[1] who had been my companion in our Egyptian journey.
'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of the Empress?'
'Nothing,' he answered, 'but what is favourable; all her instincts and prejudices are good. Lesseps, who is nearly related to her, has many of her letters, written during the courtship, in which she speaks of her dear Louis with the utmost affection, and dwells on the hope that if ever she should become his wife, she may be able to induce him to liberalise his Government.'
'And now,' he said, 'tell me what you heard in England about our Canal?'
'I heard nothing,' I answered, 'except from Maclean. He told me that he thought that the Maritime Canal, if supplied from the sea, would become stagnant and unwholesome, and gradually fill. That that plan was formed when the levels of the two seas were supposed to differ, so that there would be a constant current.
'"Now that the equality of their levels has been ascertained," he said to me, "the only mode of obtaining a current is to employ the Nile instead of the sea." "But can the Nile spare the water?" I asked. "Certainly," he answered. "An hour a day of the water from the Nile, even when at its lowest, would be ample." "And what do the other engineers say?" I asked. "Randall," he replied, "agrees with me. The others are at present for the salt water. But we are to meet in time and discuss it thoroughly."'
'It is not the opinion of the engineers,' answered Lafosse, 'that I want, but that of the politicians.
'We are told that Lord Palmerston threatens to prevent it as long as he is Minister. This makes us very angry. We think that we perceive in his opposition his old hatred of France and of everything that France supports or even favours—feelings which we hoped the Alliance had cured.
'The matter,' he continued, 'was to have been brought before the Congress. Buol had promised to Nigrelli to do so, and Cavour to Lesseps and Paleocapa. But after the occupation of Italy, and the Belgian press, and the rights of Neutrals had been introduced, the Congress got impatient, and it was thought inexpedient to ask them to attend to another episodical matter. The Emperor, however, did something. He asked Ali Pasha, the Turkish Minister, what were the Sultan's views. "They will be governed," said Ali Pasha, "in a great measure by those of his allies." "As one of them," said the Emperor, "I am most anxious for its success." "In that case," replied Ali Pasha, "the Sultan can have no objection to it in principle, though he may wish to annex to his firman some conditions—for instance, as to the occupation of the forts at each end by a mixed garrison of Turks and Egyptians." The Emperor then turned to Lord Clarendon. "What are your views," he asked, "as to the Suez Canal?" "It is a grave matter," answered Lord Clarendon, "and one on which I have no instructions. But I believe it to be impracticable." "Well," replied the Emperor, "but supposing for the sake of the argument, that it is practicable, what are your intentions?" "I cannot but think," answered Lord Clarendon, "that any new channel of commerce must be beneficial to England. The real difficulty is the influence which the Canal may have in the relations of Egypt and Turkey." "If that be the only obstacle," replied the Emperor, "there is not much in it, for Ali Pasha has just told me that ifwemake no objection the Sultan makes none. We cannot be more Turkish than the Turk."'
'I am most anxious,' added Lafosse, 'that this stupid opposition of yours should come to an end. Trifling as the matter may seem, it endangers the cordiality of the Alliance. The people of England, who do not know how jealous andpassionnéswe are, cannot estimate the mistrust and the irritation which it excites. That an enterprise on which the French, wisely or foolishly, have set their hearts, should be stopped by the caprice of a wrong-headed Englishman, hurts our vanity; and everything that hurts our vanity offends us much more than what injures our serious interests.
'If the engineers and the capitalists decide in favour of the scheme, you will have to yield at last. You had much better do so now, when you can do it with a good grace. Do not let your acquiescence be extorted.'
[Footnote 1: M. Lafosse died many years ago. He was a friend of M. deLesseps, by whom he and Mr. Senior were invited to join the expedition toEgypt—ED.]
Paris, May19.—After breakfast I spent a couple of hours with Cousin.
'You have been in England,' he said, 'since you left Egypt. What is the news as to our Canal? Will Palmerston let us have it? You must stay a few weeks in Paris to estimate the effect of your opposition to it. We consider Palmerston's conduct as a proof that his hatred of France is unabated, and the acquiescence of the rest of your Cabinet as a proof that, now we are no longer necessary to you, now that we have destroyed for you the maritime power of Russia, you are indifferent to our friendship.
'I know nothing myself as to the merits of the Canal. I distrust Lesseps and everything that he undertakes. He has much talent and too much activity, but they only lead him and his friends into scrapes. I daresay that the Canal is one, and that it will ruin its shareholders; but as I am anxious we should not quarrel with England, I am most anxious that this silly subject of dispute should be removed.'
'Louis Napoleon,' he continued, 'professed to wish that you should allow the Sultan to give his consent; but I doubt whether he is sincere. I am not sure that he is not pleased at seeing the Parisians occupied by something besides his own doings, especially as it promotes the national dislike of England. Now that the war is over we want an object. He tries to give us one by launching us into enormous speculations. He is trying to make us English; to give us a taste for great and hazardous undertakings, leading to great gains, great losses, profuse expenditure, and sudden fortunes and failures. Such things suityou; they do not suitus. Our habits are economical and prudent, perhaps timid. We like the petty commerce of commission and detail, we prefer domestic manufactures to factories, we like to grow moderately rich by small profits, small expenditure, and constant accumulation. We hate thenouveaux riches, and scarcely wish to be among them. The progress for which we wish is political progress—not within, for there we are satisfied to oscillate, and shall be most happy if in 1860 we find ourselves where we were in 1820—but without. I believe that our master'ssortieagainst Belgium was a pilot balloon. He wished to see what amount of opposition he had to fear from you, and from Belgium, and how far we should support him. He has found the two former greater than he expected. I am not sure that he is dissatisfied with the last.'
I spent the morning at H.'s. He too attacked me about the Canal.
'Do entreat,' he said, 'your public men to overrule their ill-conditioned colleague. I told you a year ago, the mischief that you were doing, but I do not think that you believed me. You may find too late that I was right.'
I repeated to him Ellice's opinion that the commerce of England would not use the canal.
'I have heard that,' he said, 'from Ellice himself, but I differ from him. I agree with him, indeed, that your sailing vessels will not use the canal, but I believe that a few years hence you will have no purely sailing vessels, except for the small coasting trade. Every large ship will have a propeller; and with propellers, to be employed occasionally, and sails for ordinary use, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea are very manageable. I believe that the canal will be useful, and particularly to you. But whatever be the real merits of the scheme, for God's sake let it be tried. Do not treat us like children, and say, "We know better what is good for you than you do yourselves. You shall not make your canal because you would lose money by it."'
'What did you hear,' I said, 'about the Congress?'
'I heard,' he answered, 'that Clarendon was very good, and was the best, and that Walewski was very bad, and was the worst.'
'Can you tell me,' I said, 'the real history of the Tripartite Treaty?'
'I can,' he answered. 'There was an old engagement between the three Powers, entered into last spring, that if they succeeded in the war, they would unite to force Russia to perform any conditions to which she might submit.
'This engagement had been allowed to sleep; I will not say that it was forgotten, but no one seemed disposed to revert to it. But after the twenty-second Protocol, when Piedmont was allowed to threaten Austria, and neither England nor France defended her, Buol got alarmed. He feared that Austria might be left exposed to the vengeance of Russia on the north and east, and to that of the Italian Liberals on the South. An alliance with France and England, though only for a specified purpose, at least would relieve Austria from the appearance of insulation. She would be able to talk of the two greatest Powers in Europe as her allies, and would thus acquire a moral force which might save her from attack. He recalled, therefore, the old engagement to the recollection of Clarendon and Louis Napoleon, and summoned them to fulfil it. I do not believe that either of them was pleased. But the engagement was formal, and its performance, though open to misconstruction, and intended by Austria to be misconstrued, was attended by some advantages, though different ones, to France and to England. So both your Government and ours complied.'
Tuesday, May 20.—The Tocquevilles and Rivet drank tea with us.
I mentioned to Tocqueville the subject of my conversations with Cousin and H.
'I agree with Cousin,' he said. 'The attempt to turn our national activity into speculation and commerce has often been made, but has never had any permanent success. The men who make these sudden fortunes are not happy, for they are always suspected offriponnerie, and the Government to which they belong is suspected offriponnerie. Still less happy are those who have attempted to make them, and have failed. And those who have not been able even to make the attempt are envious and sulky. So that the whole world becomes suspicious and dissatisfied.
'And even if it were universal, mere material prosperity is not enough for us. Our Government must give us something more: must gratify our ambition, or, at least, our vanity.'
'The Government,' said Rivet, 'has been making a desperate plunge in order to escape from the accusation offriponnerie. It has denounced in the "Moniteur" thefaiseurs; it has dismissed a pooraide-de-campof Jérôme's for doing what everybody has been doing ever since thecoup d'état. When Ponsard's comedy, which was known to be a furious satire on theagioteurs, was first played, Louis Napoleon took the whole orchestra and pit stalls, and filled them with people instructed to applaud every allusion to thefaiseurs. And he himself stood in his box, his body almost out of it, clapping most energetically every attack on them.'
'At the same time,' I said, 'has he not forced the Orleans Company and the Lyons Company to buy the Grand Central at much more than its worth? And was not that done in order to enable certainfaiseursto realise their gains?'
'He has forced the Orleans Company,' said Rivet, 'to buy up, or rather to amalgamate the Grand Central; but I will not say at more than its value. The amount to be paid is to depend on the comparative earnings of the different lines, for two years before and two years after the purchase.'
'But,' I said, 'is it not true, first, that the Orleans Company was unwilling to make the purchase? and, secondly, that thereupon the Grand Central shares rose much in the market?'
'Both these facts,' answered Rivet, 'are true.'
'Do you believe,' I said to Tocqueville, 'H.'s history of the TripartiteTreaty?'
'I do,' he answered. 'I do not think that at the time when it was made we liked it. It suited you, who wish to preserve thestatu quoin Europe, which keeps us your inferiors, or, at least, not your superiors.Youhave nothing to gain by a change. We have. Thestatu quodoes not suit us. The Tripartite Treaty is a sort of chain—not a heavy one, or a strong one—but one which we should not have put on if we could have avoided it.'
'Do you agree,' I asked Tocqueville, 'with Lafosse, Cousin, and H. as to the effect in Paris of our opposition to the Suez Canal?'
'I agree,' he answered, 'in every word that they have said. There is nothing that has done you so much mischief in France, and indeed in Europe.
'I am no engineer; I should be sorry to pronounce a decided opinion as to the feasibility or the utility of the canal; but your opposition makes us believe that it is practicable.'
'Those among us,' I answered, 'who fear it, sometimes found their fear on grounds unconnected with its practicability. They say that it is a political, not a commercial, scheme. That the object is to give to French engineers and French shareholders a strip of land separating Egypt from Syria, and increasing the French interest in Egypt.'
'What is the value,' answered Tocqueville, 'of a strip of land in the desert where no one can live? And why are the shareholders to be French? The Greeks, the Syrians, the Dalmatians, the Italians, and the Sicilians are the people who will use the canal, if anybody uses it. They will form the bulk of the shareholders, if shareholders there are.
'My strong suspicion is, that if you had not opposed it, there never would have been any shareholders, and that if you now withdraw your opposition, and let the scheme go on until calls are made, the subscribers, who are ready enough with their names as patriotic manifestations against you as long as no money is to be paid, will withdrawen massefrom an undertaking which, at the very best, is a most hazardous one.
'As to our influence in Egypt, your journal shows that it is a pet project of the Viceroy. He hopes to get money and fame from it. Youimitateboth his covetousness and his vanity, and throw him for support upon us.'
Paris, May21—The Tocquevilles and Chrzanowski[1] drank tea with us.
We talked of the French iron floating batteries.
'I saw one at Cherbourg,' said Tocqueville, 'and talked much with her commander. He was not in good spirits about his vessel, and feared some great disaster. However, she did well at Kinburn.'
'She suffered little at Kinburn,' said Chrzanowski, 'because she ventured little. She did not approach the batteries nearer than 600 metres. At that distance there is little risk and little service. To knock down a wall two metres thick from a distance of 600 metres would require at least 300 blows. How far her own iron sides would have withstood at that distance the fire of heavy guns I will not attempt to say, as I never saw her. The best material to resist shot is lead. It contracts over the ball and crushes it.'
'Kinburn, however,' said Tocqueville, 'surrendered to our floating batteries.'
'Kinburn surrendered,' said Chrzanowski, 'because you landed 10,000 men, and occupied the isthmus which connects Kinburn with the main land. The garrison saw that they were invested, and had no hope of relief. They were not Quixotic enough, or heroic enough, to prolong a hopeless resistance. Scarcely any garrison does so.'
We talked of Malta; and I said that Malta was the only great fortification which I had seen totally unprovided with earth-works.
'The stone,' said Chrzanowski, 'is soft and will not splinter.'
'I was struck,' I said, 'with the lightness of the armament; the largest guns that I saw, except some recently placed in Fort St. Elmo, were twenty-four pounders.'
'For land defence,' he answered, 'twenty-four pounders are serviceable guns. They are manageable and act with great effect within the short distance within which they are generally used. It is against ships that large guns are wanted. A very large ball or shell is wasted on the trenches, but may sink a ship. The great strength of the land defences of Malta arises from the nature of the ground on which Valetta and Floriana are built, indeed of which the whole island consists. It is a rock generally bare or covered with only a few inches of earth. Approaches could not be dug in it. It would be necessary to bring earth or sand in ships, and to make the trenches with sand-bags or gabions.'
I asked him if he had read Louis Napoleon's orders to Canrobert, published in Bazancourt's book?
'I have,' he answered. 'They show a depth of ignorance and a depth of conceit, compared to which even Thiers is modest and skilful. Canrobert is not a great general, but he is not a man to whom a civilian, who never saw a shot fired, ought to give lectures on what he calls "the great principles" or "the absolute principles of war." He seems to have taken the correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph for his model, forgetting that Canrobert is to him what Napoleon was to Joseph. Then he applies his principles as absurdly as he enunciates them. Thus he orders Canrobert to send a fleet carrying 25,000 men to the breach at Aboutcha, to land 3,000 of them, to send them three leagues up the country, and not to land any more, until those first sent have established themselves beyond the defile of Agen. Of course those 3,000 men would be useless if the enemy werenotin force, or destroyed if theywerein force. To send on a small body and not to support them is the grossest of faults. It is the fault which you committed at the Redan, when the men who had got on to the works were left by you for an hour unsupported, instead of reinforcements being poured in after them as quickly as they could be sent.
'In fact,' he continued, 'the horrible and mutual blunders of that campaign arose from its being managed by the two Emperors from Paris and from St. Petersburg, Nicholas and Alexander were our best friends. Louis Napoleon was our worst enemy.
'There is nothing which ought to be so much left to the discretion of those on the spot as war. Even a commander-in-chief actually present in a field of battle can do little after the action, if it be really a great one, has once begun.
'If we suppose 80,000 men to be engaged on each side, each line will extend at least three miles. Supposing the general to be in the centre, it will take anaide-de-campten minutes to gallop to him from one of the wings, and ten minutes to gallop back. But in twenty minutes all may be altered.'
[Footnote 1: 'Chrzanowski has passed thirty years fighting against or for the Russians. He began military life in 1811 as a sous lieutenant of artillery in the Polish corps which was attached to the French army. With that army he served during the march to Moscow, and the retreat. At the peace, what remained of his corps became a part of the army of the kingdom of Poland. He had attained the rank of major in that army when the insurrection on the accession of Nicholas broke out. About one hundred officers belonging to the staff of the properly Russian army were implicated, or supposed to be implicated, in that insurrection, and were dismissed, and their places were supplied from the army of the kingdom of Poland. Among those so transferred to the Russian army was Chrzanowski. He was attached to the staff of Wittgenstein, and afterwards of Marshal Diebitsch, in the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 1829. In 1830 he took part with his countrymen in the insurrection against the Muscovites, and quitted Poland when it was finally absorbed in the Russian Empire. A few years after a quarrel was brewing between England and Russia. Muscovite agents were stirring up Persia and Affghanistan against us, and it was thought that we might have to oppose them on the shores of the Black Sea. Chrzanowski was attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople and was employed for some years in ascertaining what assistance Turkey, both in Europe and in Asia, could afford to us. In 1849 he was selected by Charles Albert to command the army of the kingdom of Sardinia.
'That army was constituted on the Prussian system, which makes every man serve, and no man a soldier. It was, in fact, a militia. The men were enlisted for only fourteen months, at the end of that time they were sent home, and were recalled when they were wanted, having forgotten their military training and acquired the habits of cottiers and artisans. They had scarcely any officers, or evensousofficers, that knew anything of their business. The drill sergeants required to be drilled. The generals, and indeed the greater part of the officers, were divided into hostile factions—Absolutists, Rouges, Constitutional Liberals, and even Austrians—for at that time, in the exaggerated terror occasioned by the revolutions of 1848, Austria and Russia were looked up to by the greater part of the noblesse of the Continent as the supporters of order against Mazzini, Kossuth, Ledru Rollin, and Palmerston. The Absolutists and the Austrians made common cause, whereas the Rouges or Mazzinists were bitterest against the Constitutional Liberals. Such an army, even if there had been no treason, could not have withstood a disciplined enemy. When it fell a victim to its own defects, and to the treachery of Ramorino, Chrzanowski retired to Paris.'—(Extracted from Mr. Senior's article in the 'North British Review.')
Chrzanowski died several years ago.—ED.]
Kensington, August 20, 1856.
My dear Tocqueville,—A few weeks after my return to London your book reached me—of course from the time that I got it, I employed all my leisure in reading it.
Nothing, even of yours, has, I think, so much instructed and delighted me. Much of it, perhaps, was not quite so new to me as to many others; as I had had the privilege of hearing it from you—but even the views which were familiar to me in their outline were made almost new by their details.
It is painful to think how difficult it is to create a Constitutional Government, and how difficult to preserve one, and, what is the same, how easy to destroy one.
* * * * *
Mrs. Senior is going to Wales and to Ireland, where I join her, after having paid a long-promised visit to Lord Aberdeen.
I like the conversation of retired statesmen, and he is one of our wisest. Thiers has just left us. I spent two evenings with him, but on the first he was engrossed by Lord Clarendon, and on the second by the Duc d'Aumale and by Lord Palmerston. They were curiousrapprochements, at least the first and third. It was the first meeting of Palmerston and Duc d'Aumale. I am very much pleased with the latter. He is sensible, well informed, and unaffected.
Kindest regards, &c.
Tocqueville, September 4, 1856.
I have read, my dear Senior, your letter with great pleasure. Your criticism delights me, for I rely on your judgment and on your sincerity. I am charmed that you have found in my book more than you had learned from our conversations, on my view of our history. We have known one another so long, we have conversed so much and so unreservedly, that it is difficult for either of us to write anything that the other will think new. I was afraid that what may appear original to the public might seem trite to you.
The Reeves have been with us; we have passed together an agreeable fortnight. I had charged Reeve to bring you, whether you would or not. Did he make the attempt? I am sure that you would have enjoyed your visit, and we should have rejoiced to have under our roof two such old friends as you and Reeve.
I am glad that you have printed your article; pray try to send it to me.
It seems that you intend this winter to anchor in Rome. It increases my regret that I cannot be there. It is out of the question. My wife's health and mine are so much improved that the journey is not necessary, and business of all kinds keeps us at home. If you push on to Naples, you will, perhaps, enjoy the absence of the rascally king whom you and I found there five years ago. I applaud the virtuous indignation of the English against this little despot, and their sympathy with the unhappy wretches whom he detains arbitrarily to die slowly in his prisons, which, though not placed in the African deserts or the marshes of Cayenne, are bad enough. The interest which your great nation takes in the cause of humanity and liberty, even when that cause suffers in another country, delights me. What I regret is that your generous indignation is directed against so petty a tyrant.
I must say that America is apuer robustus. Yet I cannot desire, as many persons do, its dismemberment. Such an event would inflict a great wound on the whole human race; for it would introduce war into a great continent from whence it has been banished for more than a century.
The breaking up of the American Union will be a solemn moment in the history of the world. I never met an American who did not feel this, and I believe that it will not be rashly or easily undertaken. There will, before actual rupture, be always a last interval, in which one or both parties will draw back. Has not this occurred twice?
Adieu, dear Senior. Do not be long without letting us hear from you, and remember us affectionately to Mrs. Senior and to your daughter.
Ashton House, near Phoenix Park, Dublin, September 26, 1856.
My dear Tocqueville,—Your letter found me at Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, where we have been spending a fortnight with Lord Aberdeen.
It has been very interesting. Lord Aberdeen is one of our wisest statesmen.
* * * * *
I found Lord Aberdeen deprecating the war, notwithstanding its success, utterly incredulous as to the aggressive intentions attributed to Nicholas, and in fact throwing the blame of the war on Lord Stratford and, to a certain degree, on Louis Napoleon.
I found him also much disturbed by our Naples demonstration, believing it to be an unwarranted interference with an independent Government.
* * * * *
Ever yours,
Tocqueville, November 2, 1856.
I am grateful to you, my dear Senior, for your kindness in telling me what I most wished to hear. The judgments of such men as those with whom you have been living, while they delight me, impose on me the duty of unrelaxed efforts.
Your fortnight at Lord Aberdeen's amused me exceedingly, and not the least amusing part were the eccentricities of A.B.
There is one point in which the English seem to me to differ from ourselves, and, indeed, from all other nations, so widely that they form almost a distinct species of men. There is often scarcely any connection between what they say and what they do.
No people carry so far, especially when speaking in public, violence of language, outrageousness of theories, and extravagance in the inference drawn from those theories. Thus your A.B. says that the Irish have not shot half enough landlords. Yet no people act with more moderation. A quarter of what is said in England at a public meeting, or even round a dinner-table, without anything being done or intended to be done, would in France announce violence, which would almost always be more furious than the language had been.
We Frenchmen are not so different from our antipodes as we are from a nation, partly our own progeny, which is separated from us by only a large ditch.
I wonder whether you have heard how our illustrious master is relieving the working-people from the constant rise of house-rent. When they are turned out of their lodgings he re-establishes them by force; if they are distrained on for non-payment of rent, he will not allow the tribunals to treat the distress as legal. What think you, as a political economist, of this form of outdoor relief?
What makes the thing amusing is, that the Government which uses this violent mode of lodging the working classes, is the very same Government which, by its mad public works, by drawing to Paris suddenly a hundred thousand workmen, and by destroying suddenly ten thousand houses, has created the deficiency of habitations. It seems, however, that the systematic intimidation and oppression of the rich in favour of the poor, is every day becoming more and more one of the principles of our Government.
I read yesterday a circular from the prefect of La Sarthe, a public document, stuck up on the church-doors and in the market-places, which, after urging the landed proprietors of the department to assess themselves for the relief of the poor, adds, that their insensibility becomes more odious when it is remembered that for many years they have been growing rich by the rise of prices, which is spreading misery among the lower orders.
The real character of our Government, its frightful mixture of socialism and despotism, was never better shown.
I have said enough to prevent your getting my letter. If itshouldescape the rogue who manages our post-office, let me know as soon as you can.
Kindest remembrances,
Tocqueville, February 11, 1857.
I must ask you, my dear Senior, to tell me yourself how you have borne this long winter. I suppose that it has been the same in England as in Normandy, for the two climates are alike.
Here we have been buried for ten or twelve days under a foot of snow, and it froze hard during the whole time. How has your larynx endured this trial? I assure you that we take great interest in that larynx of yours. Give us therefore some news of it.
Your letter gave us fresh pleasure by announcing your intention of passing April and May in Paris. We shall certainly be there at the same time, and perhaps before. I hope that we shall see you continually. We are, you know, among the very many people who delight in your society; besides, we have an excellent right to your friendship.
I am looking forward with great pleasure to your Egypt. What I already know of that country leads me to think that of all your reminiscences it will afford the most novelty and interest.
I do not think that your visit to Paris will be a very valuable addition to your journals. If I may judge by the letters which I receive thence, society there has never been flatter, nor more insipid, nor more entirely without any dominant idea. I need not tell you that your opinion of our statesmen is the same as that which prevails in Paris, but it is of such an ancient date, and is so obvious, that it cannot give rise to interesting discussions.
A-propos of statesmen, we cannot understand how a man who made,inter pocula, the speech of —— on his travels can remain in a government. I think that even ours, though so long-suffering towards its agents, could not tolerate anything similar even if it should secretly approve. Absolute power has its limits. The Prince de Ligne, in a discourse which you have doubtless read, seems to me to have described it in one word by saying that it was the speech of agamin.
I am, however, ungrateful to criticise it, for I own that it amused me extremely, and that I thought that Morny especially was drawn from life; but I think that if I had the honour of being Her Britannic Majesty's Prime Minister, I should not have laughed so heartily. How could so clever a man be guilty of such eccentricities?
In my last letter to our excellent friend Mrs. Grote, I ventured to say that there was one person who wrote even worse than I did, and that it was you. Your last letter has filled me with remorse, for I could actually read it, and even without trouble. I beg, therefore, to make anamende honorable, and envy you your power of advancing towards perfection.
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I still think of paying a little visit to England in June. Adieu, dear Senior. Do not be angry with me for not writing on politics. Indeed I could tell you nothing, for I know nothing, and besides, just now politics are not to be treated by Frenchmen,in letters.
Tocqueville, March 8, 1857.
I still write to you, my dear Senior, from hence. We cannot tear ourselves away from the charms of our retreat, or from a thousand little employments. We shall scarcely reach Paris, therefore, before you. You will, therefore, yourself bring me the remainder of your curious journal. What I have already seen makes me most anxious to read the rest. I have never read anything which gave me more valuable information on Egypt and Oriental politics in general. As soon as I possibly can, I look forward to continuing its perusal.
The papers tell us that your Ministry has been beaten on the Chinese War. It seems to me to have been an ill-chosen battle-field. The war was, perhaps, somewhat wantonly begun, and very roughly managed; but the fault lay with distant and subordinate agents. Now that it has begun, no Cabinet can avoid carrying it on vigorously. The existing Ministry will do as well for this as any other. As there is no line of policy to be changed, the upsetting is merely to put in the people who are now out.
If the Ministry falls, the man least to be pitied will be our friend Lewis. He will go out after having obtained a brilliant triumph on his own ground, and he will enjoy the good fortune, rare to public men, of quitting power greater than he was when he took it, and with the enviable reputation of owing his greatness, not merely to his talents, but also to the respect and the confidence which he has universally inspired.
All this delights me; for I feel towards him, and towards all his family, a true friendship.
To return to China.
It seems to me that the relations between that country and Europe are changed, and dangerously changed.
Till now, Europe has had to deal only with a Chinese government—the most wretched of governments. Now you will find opposed to you a people; and a people, however miserable and corrupt, is invincible on its own territory, if it be supported and impelled by common and violent passions.
Yet I should be sorry to die before I have seen China open to the eyes as well as to the arms of Europe.
Do you believe in a dissolution? If so, when?
A thousand regards to Mrs. Grote, to the great historian, to the Reeves, and generally to all who are kind enough to remember my existence.
I delight in the prospect of meeting you in Paris; yet I fear that you will find it dull. All that I hear from the great town shows me that never, at least during the last two hundred years, has intellectual life been less active.
If there be talent in the official circles, it is not the talent of conversation, and among those who formerly possessed that talent, there is so much torpidity, such want of interest on public affairs, such ignorance as to what is passing, and so little wish to hear about it, that no one, I am told, knows what to talk about or to take interest in. Your conversation, however, is so agreeable and stimulating that it is capable of reanimating the dead. Come and try to work this miracle.
A thousand remembrances.