Alexis de Tocqueville

by Professor Hugh Brogan

  This remark is enough to show why, for Tocqueville, the country had as little bearing on his new work as medieval Florence or ancient Athens.

  He felt much more enthusiastic when, after getting back to France in early September, he and Marie went to stay with Le Peletier d’Aunay at Mareil, for d’Aunay was a convert to decentralization: ‘The more he experiences provincial freedom and the status which it confers on its representatives, the more his love of centralization gives way to a reasoned liking for local independence. Almost all deputies are simultaneously members of the conseils-généraux; an excellent thing.’ Tocqueville began to think of standing for a conseil-général himself, in the election which was about to take place.* He travelled to Nacqueville to see if there was an opening for him in the Cotentin, and he actually drafted an election address. It is charmingly written, but its arguments are sadly thin. It would not do; nor would his candidacy. He sent Marie, in his father’s care, to Baugy, and followed her a few days later. It was time he returned to his book.23

  As he had remarked to Comte Molé more than a year before, he had always intended to follow up his volumes on equality, laws and institutions with a study of the influence of equality on American civil society, on ideas and manners. He had begun to jot down preliminary thoughts before his mother’s death, but did not do more until the spring of 1836: he had first to write the article on eighteenth-century France. By April he was hard at work, groaning about ‘that damned Démocratie’ to Henry Reeve, and explaining to John Mill that until it was complete he could write no more articles. As usual he plunged into his work mind, heart and soul, and being so emotionally committed inevitably suffered moments of disagreeable panic, when he thought it was all worthless: ‘A thousand times happier are those who are always self-satisfied; they are of course intolerable to other people, but to themselves they are deliciously enjoyable.’ His progress was slower than he would have liked, but by the time he left for Switzerland he seems to have sketched the whole of what became Book One of the 1840 Démocratie – ‘The Influence of Democracy on the Life of the Mind in the United States’.24

  He arrived at Baugy after his travels on 15 October 1836 and resumed work two days later. He found it difficult to get back into harness, and regretted that the long interruption meant that the book could not possibly be finished by the spring, as he had hoped: it would not appear for a year, at soonest. He decided that if Marie was healthy (Baugy, being damp, like Tocqueville, was bad for her rheumatism) and if his work went well he would stay where he was indefinitely, ‘for I must say I dread Paris’. Before long he settled down, and by November was working a steady seven hours a day; but he seemed to himself to be making little real progress, partly because he was so self-consciously trying to do his best (very necessary, since he would no longer be taking the public by surprise). He missed the stimulus and advice of both Beaumont and Kergorlay. He tried hard but vainly to get Mill, who was visiting Paris, to come to Baugy, ‘for my subject is beginning to weigh on my mind like a nightmare on a sleeper’s stomach ... As you know, I never take up my pen with the set intention of following a system and arriving by brute force at my goal; I give myself over to the natural movement of ideas, letting myself be led in good faith from one conclusion to another.’ So he had no notion of when he would finish, and greatly wished to talk over his ideas with Mill, who unfortunately had returned to England before receiving this letter. But the work, though difficult, went on cheerfully, or so he told Reeve: ‘I have never worked at anything with so much ardour; I think of my subject all day and night and flatter myself that I have become totally unsociable. I would never have imagined that a subject which I have already handled in so many ways could show so many new aspects.’ It is impossible to say exactly how far he got that autumn, but it is reasonable to guess that he wrote most of Book Two, ‘The Influence of Democracy on American Attitudes and Opinions’. He had to leave Baugy for Paris in December, and regretted it.25

  Well he might. He seems to have made comparatively little progress during the next few months, though he read a chunk of the book to Beaumont and Clémentine in January (Clémentine scolded her husband for not being enthusiastic enough). In March he had a long conversation with Kergorlay, who gave him a deeply disturbing account of the state of the French army since the July Revolution. Tocqueville did not wholly believe it, but it was enough to inspire his gloomy pages about democratic armies in Book Three. In late May 1837 he and Marie left for Tocqueville, where he hoped to find the tranquillity he needed to finish what was beginning to seem an interminable task. To some extent he did so, but in June first Marie and then he himself fell ill: in his case it was an attack of his old intestinal trouble which he blamed on Thiers, who had given them an excessively rich dinner at the wrong time of day before they left Paris. Then the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, a general election was announced, and Tocqueville plunged into the quest for a seat.* He was unsuccessful, but by early December, when the vote took place, the Démocratie had been neglected for five months or so. Matters did not immediately improve: in December he had to sacrifice a fortnight to jury-duty in Paris.26

  By January 1838†, however, he was again hard at work: Beaumont, who was writing his book on Ireland, spoke of them both as being ‘plunged in the abyss of literary production’, and Tocqueville himself wrote of living like a Benedictine in a monastery as he toiled away. Halfway through Book Three (‘The Influence of Democracy on Manners Properly So-called’) he began to enlist helpers as assiduously as he had for his first volume. He set his father to research the topic of honour under the ancien régime: the result was an essay of the greatest value.27 He still relied on Beaumont’s advice, but it was to be months before they could meet for a real deliberation. Much the most important collaborator at this stage was Kergorlay, who was always available. He was going through a wretched phase: in 1837 he seems to have had, or been on the brink of having, what used to be called a nervous breakdown. Chained by love and duty to his parents, he could seldom leave Fosseuse for long, where, much against his inclination, he struggled to restore a failing estate. His closest friends had all married and he felt that he ought to marry himself, but, apart from his misogyny, he found himself caught in the trap which Tocqueville had evaded: unable or unwilling to marry outside his caste, and unable to get behind the barriers of social convention, he bounced like a ball between the various well brought-up young ladies whom his family and friends put forward – Mademoiselle N, Mademoiselle X, Mademoiselle Z. Tocqueville said of one of them that he would willingly have slept with her, but would never have made her his wife. Kergorlay came to an agreement with none of them. He had no intellectual project to satisfy him, and middle age was advancing: he reported, almost deadpan, that he had run into Beaumont at a Parisian wig-maker’s. In the circumstances it is small wonder that he clung to his friendship with Tocqueville, and that he required constant reassurance: at this period their letters are full of affirmations that they loved each other as much as ever. Tocqueville could not entirely understand his friend: he remarked that in the Middle Ages Kergorlay would have been thought bewitched, but he was always willing to do what he could for him, and at the moment that meant enlisting his help with the Démocratie.28

  By mid-January, when Kergorlay came to stay, Tocqueville had reached his chapter on ambition in the United States, and, by his own account, was at a stand: ‘it was a real intellectual cul-de-sac, which [Kergorlay] got me out of in a few hours. That lad has in himself a veritable mine on which he alone cannot and does not know how to draw.’29 What this meant can be discovered from two remarkable letters which Kergorlay wrote during the next month on the same subject of democratic ambition, and on religion. In the first, he states so many characteristic Tocquevillean themes – France’s domination by revolution or the memory of revolution; men’s preference for equality of status to political liberty; the possibility of a new despotism rising on democratic foundations – that it is tempting to take literally the remark which
Tocqueville makes elsewhere, that Kergorlay was his master. Perhaps the truth is that Kergorlay was repeating ideas which the two men had already discussed, or even originated together. Still more striking is Kergorlay’s strictly logical approach: he does just what Tocqueville never does – he makes careful, convincing distinctions, and in so doing demonstrates that it is not anachronistic to object to certain aspects of Tocqueville’s procedures. Kergorlay even says, ‘the word democracy is detestably inapt for the usage we give it and must give it today.’ The great question is equality of status, which is poorly indicated by a word which really means government by the people.* He is also doubtful of generalizations covering republics and constitutional monarchies: they are all so various; and he thinks it is historically premature to have any views on large ambitions in democracies. Had Tocqueville followed Kergorlay’s advice, his book might have been less ambitious but more convincing.30

  Kergorlay is equally impressive when answering a now lost letter from Tocqueville on religious doubt. He has a robust way with him:

  Unlike you I don’t feel it impossible to live with doubt; I don’t know if this is because of my own nature or the consequence of my reasoning on the subject. But what does seem clear to me is that no man can have complete certainty on any subject; and I don’t see how that point can seem dubious to you or to any other man who knows how to think. All our faculties are limited; all are very imperfect instruments; how then could they arrive at certain results? I believe that life should be passed in discerning and classifying the different degrees of probability in our various branches of knowledge and that our actions should be the same as they would be if the most probable contentions had been entirely proved.

  To act energetically it is necessary to take probabilities for certainties, but too much should not be made of this technique: it is only a blindfold to prevent vertigo when crossing a bridge. He goes on to write a panegyric on philosophical doubt: ‘I believe, mon cher ami, that it is necessary to live with our lack of certainty, as if with guests who simply won’t leave, and that we must be patient with the drawbacks; we will never get back to blind belief; but it is very doubtful that we have lost by the change.’ Possibly Tocqueville would also have profited greatly had he been able to accept this advice.31

  Perhaps, superficially, he did: it was more than compatible with his reasons for abandoning Catholicism.* But like those reasons it could get no purchase on his innermost life: as he said in reply, ‘there are in me powerful instincts which your words cannot calm. It is, I admit, unreasonable to desire more or other than the common destiny of humanity, but such is the involuntary and all-powerful impulse of my soul.’32 (He had been reading Pascal.) A similar pattern can be seen in his response to Kergorlay’s other letter. Tocqueville was grateful for all the help and advice which he received, and readily appropriated ideas and information which he could use, but on some matters he was beyond influence or argument.

  By the middle of March he was once more in the state of mind which had marked the writing of the 1835 Démocratie.

  I have numberless highs and lows, am now in the seventh heaven, now flat on the floor, unable to see more than three feet in any direction. You must know what it’s like, no-one who meddles with writing doesn’t, but it happens to me more often than to many others, I think. And I find besides that these painful moments don’t bring with them sufficient compensation: I am never completely satisfied and I often despair.

  This was his state of mind throughout the spring and summer, and his task seemed never-ending. ‘The author’s trade is decidedly hard and hateful when practised as we do it,’ he wrote to Beaumont in July. ‘so, although you may well accuse me of swearing a drunkard’s oath, I affirm that after this work I shall study, but write no more, or at least nothing requiring a long haul.’ Nevertheless he was drawing near the end. A letter to Édouard two days later shows that he was well-launched on Book Four, ‘The Influence of Democratic Ideas and Feelings on Political Society’, which was largely to be devoted to centralization. He wrote on through the summer and early autumn and at last, on 10 October, told Beaumont that he had written the last word of the last chapter: ‘sing alleluia.’ But when Beaumont sent his congratulations Tocqueville pulled back: he was now plunged in revision, and had just destroyed the first hundred pages, which would have to be done all over again. Beaumont, in fact, seemed to be nearer publication than he was, and the idea agitated him extremely. He could not bear the thought that L’Irlande might be published before he and Beaumont met again and collated their texts, so that they could be sure of appearing as united in word as they were in heart. He couldn’t go to Paris before January, he must stay at Tocqueville to finish the revision (in his distress he began to repeat himself ). He was working as hard as he possibly could.33

  This last assertion was undoubtedly true: he desperately wanted to publish that winter, and had already begun negotiations with Gosselin. But by January 1839 it was necessary to return to Paris, and there he fell ill from overwork. On the last day of the month he wrote to Beaumont that unless he recovered soon he would give up the idea of publishing ‘in the spring’.34

  His letters also show that he was passionately anxious for a success, so he should have been encouraged by what happened on 29 January. He told Beaumont:

  I was astonished, confounded, confused and I don’t know what else the day before yesterday on seeing M. de Chateaubriand walk in to hear, said he, some of my manuscript. It was necessary to read to him. You can imagine that having made such a move, I don’t know why, he was not going to start criticizing. So he was immensely complimentary. I discount three-quarters of what he said, but enough remains to make me hope that his impression, although frightfully exaggerated in his remarks, really was favourable.35

  Tocqueville always found it difficult to be gracious about Chateaubriand, who was nevertheless genuinely proud of his kinsman. The 1835 Démocratie not only showed his influence, it confirmed many of his observations about America; and as Marc Fumaroli has pointed out, the 1840 Démocratie was to influence the ‘Conclusion’ of the Mémoires d’outre-tombe.36 His visit was no doubt prompted by genuine respect, but Mme Récamier or some other friend may have hinted that Tocqueville needed encouragement. Unfortunately his spirits were so low that the effect was not what was hoped for: ‘So at this moment I am like a horse to which, after having tied up its four legs, one applies a lick of the whip.’37

  A better cure for exhaustion and despondency was at hand. The very next day Tocqueville wrote to Beaumont again with great news: the Chamber was prorogued, and would soon be dissolved: an election was at hand. The horse rallied to the sound of the trumpet. Beaumont must immediately abandon Ireland and come to Paris to make the necessary political contacts, ‘for now is the time for our great wager, a wager disastrous to make at this moment, but which it would be still more disastrous to lose.’38 The Démocratie was again thrown aside, and Tocqueville rushed to the hustings. He was in Valognes in little more than a week after writing to Beaumont.

  To understand the political scene which Tocqueville now intended to enter, and the situation which gave him his opportunity, it is necessary to go back some years, and to analyse the position of the July Monarchy towards the end of its first decade.

  ‘A popular throne surrounded by republican institutions.’ La Fayette’s formula had seemed clear and attractive enough when he propounded it, but it proved exceedingly difficult to apply, and in the end its built-in contradictions were to destroy it. But only the most rigid determinist will argue that the July regime was certain to fail, and in its early years it achieved some solid successes, of which the most important were diplomatic. When the powers (including even Russia) realized that Louis-Philippe had no intention of renewing revolutionary war they were perfectly ready to accept him. He never attained such general acceptance at home. One of his first prime ministers, Casimir Périer, had such force of mind and character that he was able to keep the Chamber of Deputies, his colleagues,
and, not least, the King in order, but he died in the cholera epidemic of 1832 and no adequate replacement was ever found. The regime remained fragile to the last because except for the reckless Thiers none of its leaders ever admitted the necessity of broadening its support. It was a government of bourgeois notables who were not even united among themselves, which in the end was their undoing.

  But this danger lay out of sight in 1837, when Tocqueville first stood for the Chamber, and even in 1839, when he stood again. True, some sort of watershed was crossed between the two elections, at least so far as the Cotentin was concerned. In 1837 the contest was dominated by the past. Tocqueville, little more than a carpet-bag candidate, could not shake off the suspicions aroused by his name. His opponents successfully put it about that, as a noble, he must be a secret legitimist, who would revive the ancien régime and its abuses if he could; cats must catch mice, they said. It was preposterous, as the voters would have known had they read Tocqueville’s article on the ancien régime, but then the London and Westminster Review did not circulate in the Cotentin. Polydor Le Marois, the sitting deputy, Tocqueville’s chief opponent, brought up the matter of the ruined dovecote and warned that Tocqueville would bring back the pigeons.39 Matters were not helped by the conspicuous legitimism of Comte Hervé and of Hippolyte at Nacqueville. It is no wonder that Alexis lost. But by 1839 the issues had changed in his favour; the 700 or so electors knew him much better, and he was victorious.