Alexis de Tocqueville

by Professor Hugh Brogan

  23. AT to Chabrol, ibid.

  24. Jardin, Tocqueville, 44–6.

  25. Le Sueur to AT, 16 July 1822, GWP copy, Yale: Beinecke.

  26. Bertier de Sauvigny, 316; Jardin, Tocqueville, 63.

  27. AT to Sophie Swetchine, Tocqueville, 26 February 1857, OC XV ii 315.

  28. Goldstein, 5–11, contains a particularly sensitive and careful discussion of AT’s religious beliefs, especially of the question of whether he can reasonably be called a Christian.

  29. De la démocratie en Amérique, OC I i 310–13.

  30. AT to E. Stoffels, Paris, 22 October 1823, OC(B) V 411.

  31. See Jardin, Tocqueville, 33.

  32. AT to Lord Radnor, London, [3] May 1835, OC VI iii 40.

  33. Source mislaid.

  34. Jardin, Tocqueville, 58–9.

  35. Kergorlay to AT, Paris, 16 May 1823. We do not have AT’s reply. Kergorlay kept very few of his friend’s letters at this period.

  36. Jardin, Tocqueville, 59.

  37. Kergorlay to AT, 13 August 1822, OC XIII i 56.

  38. Kergorlay to AT, 16 May 1823, OC XIII i 56.

  39. AT to Hubert de Tocqueville, Saint-Cyr, 12 January 1854, OC XIV 291–2.

  40. AT to E. Stoffels, Paris, 7 August 1823, OC(B) V 410; Stoffels to AT, [Metz], 26 August 1823, PT.

  41. E. Stoffels to AT, Metz, 22 April 1824, PT.

  42. These three letters from Kergorlay to AT are in OC XIII i 81–7.

  43. Kergorlay to AT, Metz, 14 January 1827, ibid., 94.

  44. Kergorlay to AT, Metz, 21 July 1828, ibid., 141.

  45. AT to Kergorlay, Versailles, 7 September 1828, ibid., 143.

  46. AT to Kergorlay, Strasbourg, 16 July 1836, ibid., 380–81.

  4. First Flight

  1. Le Sueur to AT, Paris, 1 January 1823, Saint-Lô.

  2. AT to Kergorlay [Amiens, 1824], OC XIII i 69–72.

  3. OC(B) V 297 n.2.

  4. AT to Kergorlay, [Amiens], ‘Ce 29 [1824]’, OC XIII i 72–4. This letter, like its predecessor, exists only in defective copies, which has necessitated a small amount of editing, indicated by square brackets. At this period £1 sterling was worth twenty-four French francs. It is not quite clear whether AT’s calculations refer to expenses for both travellers, or for only one. If the latter, then the total cost would be rather higher.

  5. Gustave de Beaumont, ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, OC(B) V 25.

  6. Mougin to AT, Metz, 7 January 1824, Saint-Lô: AT 268, and [? 5 April 1826], Jardin, Tocqueville, 61. Jardin gives no date for the second letter, which I have not seen in the original.

  7. ‘Thèse de Licence de Droit Français d’Alexis de Tocqueville: De l’action en nullité ou en rescission’, OC XVI 33–7.

  8. Beaumont, ‘Notice’, OC(B) V 4.

  9. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, Versailles, 5 July 1827, OC XIV 45.

  10. See OC(B) V, 4–6, 127–59, reprinted in OC V i, Voyages en Sicile et aux États-Unis 37–54, except for the passage about Rome. The only English version is that in MLR. AT gave the MS to Eugène Stoffels; Beaumont borrowed it from the Stoffels family for his edition of Tocqueville’s works, and presumably returned it when he had done with it. It has not been seen since.

  11. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi (Paris: Garnier, 4th edition) XV, 95; Senior, Journal, 20 May 1857 and 26 April 1858; GB to his wife Clémentine, 22 March 1859, Yale: ‘il l’a lu & en porte absolument le même jugement que nous: de l’intérêt, de talent, et l’immoralité même.’

  12. Jardin, Tocqueville, 60.

  13. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 4 September 1837, OC XIII i 472.

  14. Bertier de Sauvigny, 354.

  15. Beaumont, ‘Notice’, OC(B) V 5–6.

  16. ibid.

  17. I am not the first to point out the likeness: see Henry Reeve, ‘Introductory Notice’.

  18. AT to Kergorlay, Rome, 20 January 1827, OC XIII i 96. This shard is the only surviving letter to any correspondent from AT’s Italian journey.

  19. AT to Édouard and Alexandrine de Tocqueville, Versailles, 15 March 1830, OC XIV 55.

  5. Pupillage

  1. Jardin, Tocqueville, 30.

  2. ibid.

  3. Rédier, 41–2.

  4. Jardin, Tocqueville, 31.

  5. See Beaumont’s heavy hints, ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, OC(B) V 7.

  6. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, 5 July 1827, OC XIV 47; AT to Kergorlay, 23 July 1827, OC XIII i 107.

  7. AT to GB, 1828 or 1829, OC VIII i 73.

  8. For all this, see Jardin, Tocqueville, 79–81.

  9. Beaumont, ‘Notice’, OC(B) V 8.

  10. AT to GB, 8 May 1830, OC VIII i 98.

  11. AT to Kergorlay, 23 November 1827, OC XIII i 118.

  12. Jardin, Tocqueville, 32.

  13. AT to GB, 18 March 1829, OC VIII i 77.

  14. AT to GB, 30 August, 15 September and 19 September 1829, OC VIII i 80–87.

  15. ‘Affaire Montagnac contre La Guérivière’, February 1828, OC XVI 48.

  16. See OC I i 210–11.

  17. See OC XVI 37–76, passim.

  18. See above, 65–6.

  19. AT to P.-P. Royer-Collard, 6 December 1836, OC XI 29.

  20. AT, ‘Notes sur la Révolution Française de Thiers’, OC XVI 537–40; AT to Camille d’Orglandes, 29 November 1834, LC 311: ‘It will soon be ten years since I conceived most of the ideas which I have [just] laid before you. As they were not agreeable to me, I [resisted] them at every point before admitting their truth.’ The dates do not precisely match, but ‘il y a bientôt dix ans’ is not very exact, and it is difficult to believe that AT had progressed very far in his thought before he read Thiers.

  21. Jardin, Tocqueville, 33.

  22. AT to Kergorlay, 7 July 1828, OC XIII i 139.

  23. AT to GB, 6 October 1828, OC VIII i 49–50.

  24. Jardin, Tocqueville, 60; AT: ‘Conversations assez curieux ... avec M. Guizot et Boinvilliers’, OC XVI 402.

  25. AT to GB, 6 October 1828, OC VIII i 49–71, passim.

  26. AT to his father, ‘this Thursday’ [1828?], OC XIV 48–9.

  27. ‘Introduction’, OC XVI 9.

  28. AT to GB, 6 October 1828 (`Lingard’ letter), OC VIII i 57.

  29. ibid., 54–6.

  30. Johnson, 322.

  31. Kergorlay to AT, 19 April 1829, OC XIII i 167.

  32. Guizot, vol. I, i 27.

  33. See Johnson, 22–3.

  34. AT to GB, 30 August 1829, OC VIII i 80–81.

  35. `Séance du 9 Mai 1829: tableau du règne de Charlemagne, une des rédactions les plus soignées’, OC XVI 450.

  36. `Séance du 6 décembre 1829’, ibid., 482–3.

  37. ibid., 449, 472, 479.

  38. AT to GB, 25 October 1829, OC VIII i 93.

  39. AT to GB, 5 October 1828, ibid., 48–9.

  40. ibid., 48.

  41. AT to GB, 8 May 1830, ibid., 99–101 and n.3. Beaumont was by far the more smitten of the two young men. In his vastly amusing memoir of the July Revolution (unpublished: Yale, Beinecke) he describes how Amélie gave him much-desired rest and recreation during the crisis.

  42. In, for example, his letter to Chabrol of 9 June 1831.

  43. AT to GB, 15 September 1829, OC VIII i 83–4.

  44. OC VI iii 37 n.2, 58 n.4, 59 n.2.

  45. Mansel, 144–9, 468–9 n.50.

  46. See Jardin, Tocqueville, 49. A portrait dated 1849 is preserved in the Tocqueville collection in the Beinecke Library, Yale. For another, see Manzini, 25.

  47. AT to GB, 8 May 1830, OC VIII i 99–101; Kergorlay to AT, 21 August 1829, OC XIII i 177. It is not certain that Marie had moved to Saint-Cloud.

  48. Rédier, 123–4.

  49. Cobb, 2.

  50. Kergorlay to AT, 14 January 1837, OC XIII ii 439; AT to Kergorlay, 26 January 1837, ibid., 445–6.

  51. AT, OC XII 149–50.

  52. AT to Marie, n.d., XIV 379–80. The original of this letter is lost. On the existing copy someon
e has written ‘D’Amérique’, but this is a mistake: AT uses the tutoyer, which he never did to Marie before their marriage, and the letter has in other respects a strongly conjugal air. Its true date is probably 1837, or later.

  6. July

  1. AT’s report to the Procureur-Général, Versailles, 7 May 1829, OC XVI 77–81.

  2. Pinkney, 262. See also Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon, especially 122–50.

  3. AT to Édouard and Alexandrine de Tocqueville, 8 August 1829, OC XIV 51.

  4. Guizot, I 342.

  5. See OC VIII i 84 n.5.

  6. Chateaubriand, Mémoires, II 2185.

  7. OC XIV 51 n.2.

  8. See AT to GB, 19 September 1829, OC VIII i 85–6; Jardin, Tocqueville, 78.

  9. AT to GB, 4 October 1829, OC VIII i 85–6; Jardin, 78.

  10. AT to his mother, 8 October 1829, OC XIV 52.

  11. AT to his mother, 28 October 1829, ibid., 53–4.

  12. AT to GB, 25 October 1829, OC VIII i 91–2.

  13. AT to E. Stoffels, Valognes, 7 March 1839, OC(B) V 441.

  14. Pierson, 24 n.

  15. Guizot, I 343.

  16. René Rémond, The Right Wing in France, 88–9.

  17. Guizot, I 349.

  18. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, 18 March 1830, OC XIV 55–8; Bertier de Sauvigny, 428–9; Boigne, iii 207.

  19. AT to E and A. de Tocqueville, 24 March 1830, OC XIV 59.

  20. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, 18 March 1830, OC XIV 58.

  21. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, 24 March 1830, ibid. 60.

  22. ibid.

  23. Kergorlay to AT, Toulon, 6 May 1830, OC XIII 184–5.

  24. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, 24 March 1830, OC XIV 60.

  25. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, Paris, 6 April 1830, ibid., 61–4.

  26. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, 29 April 1830, ibid., 65.

  27. AT to E. and A. de Tocqueville, Versailles, 6 May 1830, ibid., 67–8.

  28. AT to Lord Radnor, London, May 1835, OC VI iii 40.

  29. OX XVI 511–12, 515–16.

  30. ibid., 513–34.

  31. ibid., 525–7.

  32. ‘Conversations assez curieuses de moi-même avec MM. Guizot et Boinvilliers’, ibid., 403.

  33. ‘La Vérité, 1830, un mois avant la Révolution du 28 Juillet’, ibid., 400–402. AT later annotated this essay, ‘Très médiocre [his favourite dismissive word] mais curieux à cause de la date.’

  34. ibid., 404–5.

  35. AT to his mother, Nacqueville, 29 June 1830, OC XIV 69–71.

  36. Kergorlay to AT, Torre-Chica, 22 June 1830, ibid., 198–201.

  37. Kergorlay to AT, Algiers, 8 July 1830, ibid., 198–201.

  38. Bertier de Sauvigny, 442.

  39. ibid., 386–7, 443–4; Pinkney, 42–3, 75–81.

  40. Boigne, III 229; Bertier de Sauvigny, 445–6; Pinkney, 81–93; Mansel, 242.

  41. Boigne, III 232–3, 238.

  42. For my account of the July Days I have relied chiefly on Pinkney, Bertier de Sauvigny, Mansel and Pilbeam.

  43. Boigne, III 244.

  44. Bertier de Sauvigny, 448.

  45. Pinkney, 127–9.

  46. Bertier de Sauvigny, 449.

  47. Howarth, 146.

  48. Pinkney, 163.

  49. HT to AT, Paris, 27 July 1830, OC XIV 71; AT to Marie, [Versailles], 29 and 30 July, OC XV 375–6; Souvenirs, OC XII 86 n. 1. In this note (a passage which AT marked for deletion and which, accordingly, does not appear in the Lettres choisies edition) he misdates his encounter with the royal cortège: it was not on 30 July, as he says, but on the 31st.

  7. Upheaval

  1. OC VIII i 90.

  2. Boigne, IV 4; Chateaubriand, Mémoires, 2293.

  3. AT to Marie, 30 July 1830, OC XIV 375–6.

  4. Beaumont, ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, OC(B) V 14–15.

  5. See AT to Marie, ‘Lundi matin, 17 août 1830’, OC XIV 37?–77. This date is incorrect: as the editor points out, 17 August 1830 was a Tuesday. It is surely most likely that Tocqueville, full of emotion, mistook the day of the month, not that of the week; and in his letter to Hippolyte of 18 August he says he took the oath ‘the day before yesterday’.

  6. ibid.

  7. AT to Hippolyte de Tocqueville, Versailles, 18 August 1830, OC XIV 71–2.

  8. Henrion to AT, 25 September and 25 October 1830; AT to Henrion, 17 October 1830, Yale: Beinecke. The copyist, Bonnel, mistook Henrion for Kergorlay, which in turn misled Pierson (29–30). The letters are unsigned. Eventually André Jardin made the correct attribution.

  9. Jardin, Tocqueville, 88.

  10. Beaumont, ‘Notice’, OC(B) V 15.

  11. The matter has been thoroughly investigated by Pierson (197–205), by Jardin (119–21) and by Mélonio in her edition of the Voyages, 1359–60.

  12. Voyage au lac Oneida, OC V i 338.

  13. Rémond, Les États-Unis. I have drawn heavily on Rémond for information and ideas about everything bearing on his subject.

  14. Jardin, Tocqueville, 93; AT, 20 July 1831, OC V i 223.

  15. Rédier, 92–3.

  16. Rémond, Les États-Unis, 255–6.

  17. Chateaubriand, Voyages en Amérique, 872–3.

  18. Michel Chevalier, passim; Taylor; Chateaubriand, Voyages en Amérique, 874; and see F. J. Turner, ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’.

  19. Chateaubriand, ibid., 871–3.

  20. Rémond, Les États-Unis, 481–507.

  21. Chateaubriand, Mémoires, 2312–15.

  22. ‘... l’accueillit avec transport.’ Beaumont, ‘Notice’, 16.

  23. AT to Marie, Versailles, 23 August [1830?], ‘six heures du matin’, OC XIV 378. This letter exists only in a fragment copied from the original, no doubt years later, by Marie. If it was really written from Versailles then the year as copied – 1831 – must be wrong: in August 1831 AT was in America.

  24. AT to Marie, Le Ménil, Monday morning, 1830, OC XIV 377–8.

  25. E. de Chabrol to AT, 4 May 1831, Yale: Beinecke.

  26. Beaumont, ‘Notice’, 15.

  27. AT to his father, ‘Thursday [1828?]’, OC XIV 48. The book may have been John Howard’s classic State of the Prisons in England and Wales, first published in 1777, the founding text of modern penology, or, perhaps more probably, Dumont’s translation of Bentham’s writings on pains and penalties, published in 1829. At least we know that AT had read both authors by the end of October 1830 (see OC IV i 52 n.1).

  28. ‘Note sur le système pénitentiaire’, OC IV i 67.

  29. Michelle Perrot, ‘Introduction’, ibid., 11–12.

  30. Hervé de Tocqueville, ‘Note sur la Maison Centrale de Détention de Poissy’, ibid., ii 299–302.

  31. ‘Visite à la Maison Centrale de Poissy le 26 Septembre 1830’, ibid., i 453–61. This aidemémoire, later drawn upon for the ‘Note sur le système pénitentiaire’, is in GB’s hand, but it exactly expresses AT’s attitude.

  32. ‘Note’, ibid., 53.

  33. AT to C. Stoffels, 26 August and 4 October 1830, Jardin, Tocqueville, 89; AT to E. Stoffels, 21 February 1831, OC(B) V 41–3.

  34. AT to GB, 14 March 1831, OC VIII i 106.

  35. Pierson, 32.

  36. ibid., 38–9.

  37. ibid., 36.

  38. Charles Lucas, Inspecteur Général des prisons du Royaume, to AT and GB, March 1831, OC IV i 462–3.

  39. Pierson, 37–8.

  40. ibid., 43.

  8. A Voyage Out

  1. AT to his mother, on board the ship Le Havre, 26 April 1831, OC XIV 75. The notably ample sources for this chapter consist of Tocqueville and Beaumont’s letters home (OC XIV, LA); their travel notes – although GB’s do not survive in any quantity (OC V i, LA); SP (OC IV i–ii); DA (OC I i–ii); OC(B) VI, VII; the Yale archive; and Pierson.

  2. AT to his mother, 26 April 1831, OC XIV 77.

  3. AT, notes on shipboard conversations, Yale. These notes were omitted from
OC V i but included in the Gallimard edition of the Voyages (see pp. 197–98).

  4. GB to his father, 25 April 1831, LA 27–8.

  5. GB to his mother, 14 May 1831, LA 36.

  6. AT to his mother, New York, 14 May 1831, OC XIV 81–2.

  7. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, 28 May 1831, OC XIV 92.

  8. AT, notebooks, 13 May 1831, OC V i 292.

  9. ibid., 1 June 1831, OC V i 220.

  10. AT to his mother, 15 May 1831, OX XIV 84; AT, notebooks, ‘Premières Impressions’, OC V i 294.

  11. GB to his father, 16 May 1831, LA 43.

  12. GB to his brother Jules, 26 May 1831, LA 52.

  13. AT to Le Sueur, 28 May 1831; AT to Mme de Grancey, New York, 10 October 1831, OC(B) VII 71.

  14. AT to his father, Sing-Sing, 3 June 1831, OC XIV 101.

  15. Kergorlay to AT, 12 April 1831, OC XIII i 220.

  16. GB to Jules, 26 May 1831, LA 47.

  17. AT to Le Sueur, 28 May 1831, 97; GB to AT, Sing-Sing, May 1831, OC VIII i 107–8.

  18. AT, notebooks, Sing-Sing, 3 June 1831, OC XIV 100.

  19. AT to his father, Sing-Sing, 3 June 1831, OC XIV 100.

  20. See Hall, vol. I, 49–51. For Edward Livingston’s influence on AT’s penal thought, see LA 49 n.1.

  21. AT, notebooks, 7 June 1831, OC V i 59–60.

  22. AT to Chabrol, New York, 9 June 1831, Rédier, 97–101; see also Pierson, 129–131.

  23. AT to Alexandrine de Tocqueville, New York, 20 June 1831, OC XIV 108–9.

  24. AT to Édouard, New York, 20 June 1831, Yale: Beinecke.

  25. LA 42 n.1.

  26. AT to Kergorlay, OC XIII i 225–38. The OC, following the manuscript, gives the place and date of this letter as Yonkers, 29 June 1831, but this is a mistake – AT’s, no doubt: he and GB did not leave New York city until 30 June. Pierson’s detailed discussion of this letter (Pierson, 152–67) is still very valuable.

  27. See LA 76 n.4. Colwell’s was one of the American names which defeated AT and GB: they spelt it Calwell.

  28. AT to his father, Albany, 4 July 1831, OC XIV 113; GB to Jules, 4 July 1931; AT, notebooks, 11 July 1831, OC V i 162.

  29. See GB to his father, 16 May 1831, LA 40.

  30. AT to Chabrol, Auburn, 16 July 1831, Yale: Beinecke; LC 40.