Year: 1865

Do Tocquevllle on the Duration of Imperial


Government in Franco.


The new volume of De Tocqueyille's letters,
just published in Paris, contains the follow
ing, dated February 27, 1853, and addressed 10
M. de Beaumont: .'--e is' = ~ s-'i sai .a


81 cannot tell you, my dear friend, how
much your last letter has interested me, and
how entirely l agree with most of your obSer-
Vations, amongst others with that on the val
ne of liberty. Like you, 1 have never been
entirely convinced that liberty alone can give
to human society in general, and to the indi-
ylduals which compose it in particular, all the
prosperity and all the greatness of which cur
race is capable. Every day confirms me more
in this belief; my own observations,s the lapse
oflife, the recollections of history, the events
OF the present day, foreign nations, our own,
all combine to give to these opinions Of our
youth the force of absolute conviction


THAT liberty is the sine qua non to form
great and virile nation is to my mind evidence
itself. On. this point have a faith which
should be glad to have on many others. But
how difficult it is to establish liberty firmly in
nations which have lost the use and even the
true conception of it'll How powerless are in
stitutions when they are not foSteIed 'by the
ideas and habits OF the people! / have always
thought that to make France q free nation lin
the true sense of the word THAT enterprise
to which we have devoted our lives to the ex-
tent of our small abilities Il have always
thought / say, that this enterprise was grand
but rash one. / think it every day more
rash, but more gra1id also; and so much so,
that were / to be born again, / should still pre-
fer to risk everything in this hazardous under
taking rather than bow under necessity to
serve. VIII others be more fortunate than we
have been? l know not; but ask myself
whether in our time we shall see in France o
free nation, at least what you and / mean by
the word. That does not mean that we shall
not see revolutions.


Nothing, believe me, is settled. An unfore-
seen circumstance, new turn given to affairs,
any accident whatsoever, may bring on extra
ordinary events to force every man from his re-
trea. Il was to that alluded in my last let
ter, and not to the establishment of regular
liberty. But what makes me fear that moth
ing viii for long time make US free, is that
we not the desireto be So; r, e 3 y
Not, 5ed, that am one of those who say
that e are a decrepit and corrupt nation,
destined to perpetual servitude Those who,
with this notion, exhibit the vices of the Ro-
man empire, and complaeently imagine that
we are to reproduce them on smaller scale,
are people who seem to me to live in books
and not in the reality oftheir age. l i....,. u


"We are not decrepit nation, but nation
worn and terrified by anarchy. We are want
ing in the sound ana lofty conception OF free
dom; but we are worth more than our pres
ent destiny. We are not yet ripe for the def 4
mite and regular establishment of despotsm
and the government will find this out if ever
it attains sufficient security to discourage con-
spiraces, to cause anarchical parties to drop
their arms, and to crush them from the scene.
The government would then be aStonished, in
the hey day OF Its triumph, to tind a stratum
of bitterness and opposition beneath that lay


u. IL 4 !
cover the surface of France.


Il sometimes think that the only chance of
seeing strong love of liberty revive in France
is in the tranquil and apparently definite es-
tablishment of absolute power. Observe the
working of all our revolutions; it can now be
described with great precision. The expert
ence of seventy years has proved that the
people alone cannot make revolution; as
long as that necessary element of revolutions
works alone, it is powerless. 1t does not be-
come irresistible till portion OF the educated
classes has joined it; and these classes vii on
ly lend their moral support or their material
cooperation to the people when they cease to
fear it. Hence it is that at the very moment
when each of the governments we have had
in the last sixty years appeared to be the
strongest, that it caught the disease by which
it was 10 perish. The restoration began to
die the day when nobody talked any longer Of
killing it, and so with the July monarchy.
think it will be so with the present govern
ment. Paul NJ. de Beaumont's youngest son,
then child), will tell me it am mistaken. E