Alexis de Tocqueville

by Professor Hugh Brogan

  20. AF to J.-F. Hervieu, 19 January 1849, OC X 502; to Clamorgan, Paris, 16 March 1849, ibid., 519; Jardin, ‘Introduction’, OC III iii 24.

  21. He filled at least one notebook with his German observations (see OC XII 280) but it is lost.

  22. See Rivet to AT, OC XII 280–81 n.2; Barrot, II, 274; Dansette, 277.

  23. Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby (1844), ch. VI.

  24. OC XII 199–206; Senior, Journal, 27 July 1849 (CCT I 65–6): Senior had begun a journal of his foreign journeys and conversations in 1848, and kept it up for the rest of his life, an invaluable source for AT’s last ten years; Falloux, I, 467–80.

  25. Senior, Journal, 17 April 1858, CCT II 193; 23 October 1849, CCT I 69–70; OC XII 234–6.

  26. For these and other matters of the kind see OC XII 244–6, and Jardin, Tocqueville, 444–6.

  27. See Senior, Journal, 17 February 1851 (CCT i 231–2) and Jardin, Tocqueville, 438.

  28. Senior, Journal, 31 March 1852 (CTG I 53).

  29. AT to GB, Paris, 12 October 1849, OC VIII ii 200.

  30. See, for example, AT’s letters to Corcelle and Beaumont at this time, passim.

  31. Senior, Journal, 29 January 1851 (CCT I 195).

  32. Falloux, I, 557.

  33. Corley, 87.

  34. AT to Corcelle, Paris, 2 November 1849, OC XI ii 14; Jardin, Tocqueville, 449–50.

  35. AT to GB, Paris, 4 November 1849, OC VIII ii 232.

  36. ibid., 233.

  37. GB to AT, 4 January 1850, OC VIII ii 263; AT to Reeve, Paris, 15 November 1849, OC VI i 109; AT to Denise de Blic, Paris, 10 November 1849, OC XIV 252.

  38. AT to Corcelle, 1 August 1850, OC XV ii 28; Jardin, Tocqueville, 451; AT to Reeve, Paris, March 1850, OC VI i 112; AT to K. de Circourt, 31 March and 5 April 1850; Senior, Journal, 14 May 1850 (CCT I 80). For the doctors’ inconsistent verdicts see AT to E. Stoffels, Paris, 28 April 1850, OC(B) V 460, and AT to Mathilde de Kergorlay, 9 October 1850, OC XIII ii 228. Anne P. Kerr sensibly suggests that although the crisis broke out in March, AT had probably begun to feel unwell in February (OC XVIII 31 n.6).

  39. GB, ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, OC(B) V 112; Senior, Journal, May 1850, passim (CCT I 73–94).

  40. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 7 June 1850, OC XV ii 23.

  41. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 14 June 1850, OC VIII ii 274–6.

  42. OC XII 29.

  43. ibid., 61–2.

  44. AT to Ampère, Tocqueville, 26 July 1850, OC XI 187; Senior, Journal, August 1850 (CCT I 99–144); AT to Clamorgan, 17 September 1850 (two letters) and 28 October 1850, OC X 546–50.

  45. Senior, Journal, 26 August 1850 (CCT I 141).

  46. AT to Clamorgan, Tocqueville, 9 July 1850, OC X 545; OC XII 267–76.

  47. AT to Corcelle, Dijon, 1 November 1850, OC XV ii 34; AT to GB, Naples, 24 November 1850, OC VIII ii 326–7.

  48. AT to Corcelle, Naples, 28 November 1850; AT to Armand Dufaure, Sorrento, 22 December 1850, LC 705–7; AT to GB, Naples, 24 December 1850, OC VIII ii 328.

  49. Senior, Journal, 11 December 1850 (not in CCT); 25 January 1851 (CCT I 178–82); AT to GB, Sorrento, 26 February 1851, OC VIII ii 377–8; Ampère, ‘Appendice’, OC XI 444.

  50. Senior, Journal, December 1850–February 1851, passim (CCT I 178–243).

  51. AT to Kergorlay, Sorrento, 15 December 1850, OC XIII ii 229–34.

  52. Senior, Journal, 13 December 1850 (JFI ii 6).

  53. Kergorlay to AT, 19 January 1851, OC XIII ii 234–8; AT, ‘Sorrente, Décembre 1850 – Napoléon’, OC II ii 301.

  54. AT noted on the cover of the manuscript that it was written at Sorrento ‘by fits and starts’ between November and March. This must be a slip: he did not settle in Sorrento until December, and the letter to Kergorlay of 15 December makes it plain that he did not immediately take up his task.

  55. OC XII 177–8. In fact Chateaubriand died a week after the fighting ceased, on 4 July 1848. AT has sharpened the rhetorical effect by inaccuracy.

  56. OC XII 83–4; Senior, Journal, 19 August 1850 (CCT I 112–14).

  57. OC XII 87.

  58. ibid., 86.

  59. The one exception is AT to Harriet Grote, Tocqueville, [25] June 1850, OC VI iii 135, where AT casts the same idea in the form of a general reflection on historical change. Written five or six months before the passage in the Souvenirs, the letter illustrates the steadiness with which he clung to his ideas, and shows that what he says in the Souvenirs was no mere passing thought.

  60. OC XII 96–7.

  61. ibid., 179.

  20. December

  1. Senior, Journal, 10 April 1857 (CCT II 158).

  2. AT to Hervé de Tocqueville, Paris, 1 December 1851, OC XIV 266.

  3. AT to Marie, [Saint-Lô, 4 September 1851], ibid., 563.

  4. OC XII 212; see also AT to Senior, Versailles, 27 July 1851, OC VI ii 133.

  5. See OC I ii 273–and 322–7, ‘Quelle espèce de despotisme les nations démocratiques ont à craindre’.

  6. See Bury and Toombs, 120–23.

  7. Dansette, 321–2.

  8. AT to GB, Versailles, 14 September 1851, OC VIII ii 407, comments on the people’s horror of the unknown, as he has just found it at the conseil-général of the Manche.

  9. See Duguit and Monnier, 246: ‘Constitution du 4 Novembre 1848, chapitre XI’.

  10. Senior, Journal, 8, 14 and 18 May 1851 (CCT I 249–56; 18 May conversation misdated); Bury and Toombs, 124.

  11. See Morny to Mme de Flahaut, 23 February 1851, Kerry, 86; AT, ‘Conversation que j’ai eue avec le Président de la République le 15 mai 1851’, OC III iii 422; OC XII 211.

  12. OC II iii 421–2. André Jardin questions AT’s sincerity in these remarks, thinking them too much like the rhodomantades of General Cavaignac, but they are consistent with everything else that he was saying at the time. For instance, the day before the interview he told Nassau Senior that if the president tried to achieve revision without the consent of the Assembly, ‘he will find himself in Vincennes.’ Senior, Journal, 14 May 1851 (CCT I 252).

  13. AT, ‘Note sur le Projet de Révision (Mai 1851)’, OC III iii 417–19.

  14. AT, ‘Procès-verbaux de la commission chargée d’examiner les propositions relatives à révision de la constitution ...’, OC III iii 423–4.

  15. AT, ‘Rapport fait par M. de Tocqueville, au nom de la Commission ...’, OC III iii 433–53. The section of the report read out by AT is about 5,000 words long.

  16. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Moscow: Books for Socialism, n.d.), 101; Dansette, 324.

  17. Senior, Journal, 18 May 1851 (CCT I 255, misdated); OC III iii 436, 441–2.

  18. AT to Clamorgan, [Paris], 28 June 1851, OC X 555; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (London: Penguin, 1967), 82; Marx, Brumaire, 113.

  19. Walter Bagehot, IV, 31–2; AT to Marie, Valognes, [23 August 1851], OC XIV 554–5; AT to Gobineau, [Versailles], 6 August 1851, OC IX 190.

  20. AT, ‘Rapport’, OC III iii 448; Marx, Brumaire, 102.

  21. See Southern, ‘Liberty’, 112–16.

  22. AT, ‘Intervention dans la discussion sur la révision de la constitution au Conseil-Général, 28 août 1851’, OC X 718; Henrik Ibsen, Pillars of the Community.

  23. AT to Clamorgan, Versailles, 27 September 1851, OC X 558; to Marie, [Saint-Lô, 31 August 1851], OC XIV 559.

  24. Simpson, 121.

  25. Rémusat, III, 483; AT to Mrs Grote, [8 December 1851], OC VI i 125: this letter enclosed another, to the editor of The Times (see p. 521).

  26. Senior, Journal, 31 December 1851 (CCT II 9–10).

  27. OC XIV 565–6.

  28. Rémusat, III 484–5.

  29. ibid., 489; AT, to the editor of The Times, published 11 December 1851 (MLR II 176–92. The French original being lost, a retranslation from the English version was made for the Oeuvres complètes, VI i 119–29); OC XIV 271 n.3; Jardin, Tocqueville, 467.

  30. Maurice Agu
ilhon, 143–44; Corley, 107–8; René Arnaud, 113–21.

  31. MLR II 190.

  32. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, [7 December 1851], OC XIV 271–2. Édouard had written begging him to do nothing rash – just as Hervé had done in 1830 (see pp. 126).

  33. AT, ‘A Messieurs les Électeurs du Canton de Montebourg’, 29 April 1852, OC X 725–6; AT to GB, Paris, 1 May 1852, OC VIII iii 44–5.

  34. See AT to Rémusat, 22 March 1852, LC 1030–36.

  21. Writing History

  1. AT to HT, Tocqueville, 24 July 1852, OC XIV 283.

  2. AT to GB, Paris, 1 February 1852, OC VIII iii 18–21; AT to E. Lieber, Tocqueville, 4 August 1852, OC VII 143–5; Senior, Journal, 17 May 1853 (CCT II 36–9).

  3. See GB to AT, 9 March 1852, OC VIII iii 32–5.

  4. AT to GB, Paris, 7 March 1852, 22 April, OC VIII iii 32, 41.

  5. AT, ‘Discours prononcé à la séance publique annuelle de l’Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques du 3 Avril 1852 ...’, OC XVI 229–42. See GB to AT, 1 April 1852, OC VIII iii 36. The suppressed passage was eventually published at the very end of the Beaumont edition of AT’s works: see OC(B) IX 643–5. The MS is lost. See also AT to Mrs Phillimore, 20 June 1852, OC VI iii 148, and n.2.

  6. OC XVI 231.

  7. ibid., 233.

  8. AT to Mrs Grote, Paris, 3 April 1853, OC VI iii 145–6; to GB, Paris, 7 April 1852, OC VIII iii 39; to GB, Paris, 22 April 1852, ibid., 40.

  9. AT to Marie, Paris, [1 May 1852], OC XIV 573.

  10. GB to AT, 11 June [1852], OC VIII iii 49; AT to GB, Tocqueville, 15 June 1852, ibid., 51.

  11. AT to Mathilde de Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 20 July 1852, OC XIII ii 241–2.

  12. AT to Mme de Circourt, Tocqueville, 18 September 1852, OC XVIII 85.

  13. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 22 July 1852, OC XIII ii 244; AT, ‘Comment la nation en cessant d’être républicain était restée révolutionnaire’, OC II ii 292. AT in his haste misquotes Fiévée, who actually says that he retired to Champagne.

  14. AT to GB, [Tocqueville], 24 August 1852, OC VIII iii 71.

  15. OC II ii 271, 276.

  16. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 22 July 1852, OC XIII ii 244–5.

  17. Kergorlay to AT, 2 August 1852, ibid., 246–8; AT to Z. Gallemand, [Tocqueville, 20 August 1852], OC X 566; ibid., 568 n.2, 569 n.1; OC II ii 293–8.

  18. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 22 July 1852, OC XIII ii 243; to Édouard de Tocqueville, [Tocqueville], 17 September 1852, OC XIV 285; AT to Freslon, Tocqueville, 7 September 1852, LC 1052–3.

  19. Ampère to Marie, 14 October 1852, OC XI 213; AT to Senior, Paris, 13 November 1852, OC VI ii 155; to Corcelle, Paris, 21 November 1852, 17 November 1852, 1 January 1853, OC XV ii 62, 65, 68.

  20. AT to GB, Paris, 24 January 1853, OC VIII iii 83–4; to Hippolyte, end of December 1852, OC XIV 88; to GB, Paris, 24 January 1853, OC VIII iii 85; see Senior, Journal, 23 December 1851, and after that the ‘Correspondance Anglaise’ passim (OC VI i–iii).

  21. See AT to La Rive, Paris, 20 March 1853, OC VII 329–30; La Rive to AT, 26 March 1853, ibid., 330 n.3; AT to La Rive, [Paris], 29 March 1853, ibid., 330–31.

  22. AT to C. von Bunsen, Paris, 2 January 1853, OC VII 328–9; Bunsen to AT, 21 April 1853, cited in ibid., 329 n.4; L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution: fragments et notes inédites, OC II ii 243–65; AT to Bunsen, Paris, 23 May 1853, OC VII 332–3.

  23. OC II ii 15; AT to GB, Paris, 23 March 1853, OC VIII iii 95–6.

  24. AT to GB, Paris, 2 May 1853, ibid., 118; GB to AT, 9 February 1853, ibid., 87.

  25. AT to GB, [Paris], 8 April 1853, ibid., 102; GB to AT, 19 April 1853, ibid., 111.

  26. AT to GB, Les Trésorières, 4 June 1853, ibid., 128–9; 15 June, ibid., 131–2.

  27. Senior, Journal, 9 May 1853 (CCT ii 36); Charles de Grandmaison, ‘Alexis de Tocqueville en Touraine: préparation du livre sur l’Ancien Régime juin 1853–avril 1854, notes et souvenirs intimes’ (Paris, 1893).

  28. My entire account of AT in the archives at Tours is drawn from Grandmaison, passim.

  29. OC II i 115, 152, 156.

  30. Grandmaison, 5.

  31. AT to Freslon, Saint-Cyr near Tours, 9 June 1853, OC (B) VI 207–8; L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution, ‘Avant-propos’, OC II i 70–71.

  32. AT to Kergorlay, Saint-Cyr, 28 July 1853, OC XIII ii 256; AT to Mme de Circourt, Saint-Cyr, 2 September 1853, OC XVIII 103.

  33. AT to GB, Saint-Cyr, 27 October 1853, OC VIII iii 160; 16 February 1854, ibid., 188–9.

  34. For this account of Gobineau’s thought I have relied on Biddiss; J.-J. Chevallier’s introduction to OC IX; John Lukacs (ed. and tr.), Tocqueville: ‘The European Revolution’ and Correspondence with Gobineau (Garden City, NY, 1959), especially 179–87.

  35. Chevallier, OC IX 18; AT to GB, Saint-Cyr, 3 November 1853, OC VIII iii 164; to Gobineau, Saint-Cyr, 17 November 1853, OC IX 203.

  36. AT to Freslon, Saint-Cyr, 23 September 1853, OC(B) VI 233–4; AT to Kergorlay, [Saint-Cyr], 19 October 1853, OC XIII ii 268; to Rivet, Saint-Cyr, 23 October 1853 OC(B) VI 235–6; to GB, Saint-Cyr, 3 November 1853, OC VIII iii 164–5; to Freslon, Saint-Cyr, 3 November 1853, OC(B) VI 238; to Ampère, Saint-Cyr, 18 November 1853, OC XI 227; to Mrs Grote, Saint-Cyr, 22 November 1853, OC VI iii 161–2.

  37. For what immediately follows, and indeed for much else in this chapter, I am largely indebted to Robert T. Gannett Jr’s very valuable book Tocqueville Unveiled.

  38. Mrs Grote, ‘Notes relating to St. Cyr’, CCT II 48; Senior, Journal, 1 June 1860 (CGT II 351); AT, ‘Nécrologie de M. Le Peletier d’Aunay’, [6 April 1855], OC XVI 413–19.

  39. AT to Hubert de Tocqueville, Saint-Cyr, 7 March 1854, OC XIV 295.

  40. Gannett, 61–77, is particularly illuminating on the use which AT made of Burke as an antagonist and (surreptitiously) as a model.

  41. AT, Ancien Régime, title of chapter 2, Book 1, OC II I 83–6; ibid., chapter 5, Book 1, 95–6, where AT, ever anxious to be understood, repeats all his main points from his first four chapters.

  42. AT to GB, Paris, 33, place de la Ville-l’Évêque, 17 March 1856, OC VIII iii 379.

  43. AT to Theodore Sedgwick, Bonn, 17 July 1854, OC VII 156; to GB, Saint-Cyr, 27 May 1854, OC VIII iii 216.

  44. AT to Ampère, Saint-Cyr, 31 March 1854, OC XI 236–7; OC XII 249;

  45. D.A. Smith, ‘A Conversation with Tocqueville, 1854’, Tocqueville Review, vol. 10 (1989– 90), 239–43, transcribes the entry in George Cornewall Lewis’s diary for 7 August 1854.

  46. AT to Ampère, Bonn, 21 June 1854, 5 and 21 August, OC XI 245–52, passim.

  47. AT to Adolphe de Circourt, Wildbad, 1 September 1854, OC XVIII 199; to Ampère, Wildbad, 6 September 1854, OC XI 254; to George Cornewall Lewis, Wildbad, 19 September 1854, OC VI iii 170; OC II i 265–6.

  48. AT to Corcelle, Clairoix par Compiègne (Oise), 2 October 1854, OC XV ii 120; to GB, Clairoix, 1 October 1854, OC VIII iii 240; to Corcelle, Clairoix, 23 October 1854, OC XV ii 122.

  49. AT to Corcelle, Clairoix, 23 October 1854, OC XV ii 122; to GB, Clairoix, 26 October 1854, OC VIII iii 244–6.

  50. The information in this paragraph is drawn almost entirely from Gannett, 138–41, 212–13, nn.25–48.

  51. AT to Circourt, Compiègne, 26 January 1855, OC XVIII 234; to Ampère, Tuesday, [16?

  23? January] 1855, OC XI 271; to Corcelle, 13 February 1855, OC XV ii 136; to GB, Compiègne, 8 March 1855, ibid., 281.

  52. OC VIII iii 262 n.1.

  22. Writing Revolution

  1. AT to Circourt, Tocqueville, 8 November 1855, OC XVIII 282.

  2. AT to GB, Paris, 23 April 1855, OC VIII iii 303; 25 May, ibid., 315; AT to Marie, [Paris, 26 May 1855], OC XIV 585; [27 May 1855], ibid., 586–7; AT to Madeleine [27 May 1855], ibid., 587.

  3. GB to AT, 18 January 1855, OC VIII iii 319–20; AT to GB, Beaufossé, 20 June 1855, ibid., 320–22; AT to Ampère, Tocqueville, 4 July 1855, OC XI 287.

  4. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 1 July 1855, O
C VIII iii 324; AT to Senior, Tocqueville, 30 June 1855, CCT II 124.

  5. AT to Ampère, Tocqueville, 12 July 1855, OC XI 289; to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 6 July 1855, OC XV ii 138; to Senior, Tocqueville, 25 July 1855, OC VI ii 182–3.

  6. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 4 August 1855, OC XI ii 143; ARP 1060; AT to GB, Tocqueville, 28 August 1855, OC VIII iii 336–7; to HT, Tocqueville, 25 November 1855, OC XIV 318; to Circourt, Tocqueville, 4 September 1855, OC XVIII 259; to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 16 October 1855 and 3 November 1855, OC XI ii 152, 153; to Ampère, Tocqueville, 27 December 1855, OC XI 304; to Circourt, Tocqueville, 2 January 1856, OC XVIII 297; to Hubert de Tocqueville, Tocqueville, 3 January 1856, OC XIV 322; to GB, Tocqueville, 7 January 1856, OC VIII iii 359; to Ampère, Tocqueville, 1 February 1856, OC XI 308.

  7. See OC XIII ii, 1853–6, passim; Kergorlay, ‘Essai littéraire sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, Le Correspondant, April 1861, OC XIII ii 351–67; and, especially, Kergorlay to AT, 7 July and 22 August 1856, 298–307.

  8. Herr, 107–19.

  9. AT, L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution, OC II i 69; AT to Senior, Saint-Cyr, 2 July 1853, OC VI ii 162; Thiers, I, v; Senior, Journal, 19 August 1850 (CCT I 112).

  10. Mélonio, 97–107; AT to Mrs Austin, Tocqueville, 29 August 1856, OC VI i 192.

  11. OC II i 69, 71. See Herr, 114–17, for an interesting Bonapartist view of the Ancien Régime.

  12. Hazareesingh, 13–14; Jones.

  13. AT to HT, [Tocqueville, 5 November 1855], OC XIV 314.

  14. Gannett, 143–4.

  15. OC II i 75–6.

  16. ibid., 75.

  17. ibid., 249.

  18. AT to GB, Paris, 22 February 1856, OC VIII iii 374.

  19. OC II i 73–4; Senior, Journal, 10 April 1854 (CCT II 83).

  20. OC I i 6; Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, Book II, chapter 4; OC II i 220.

  21. OC II i 166.

  22. Furet, in Furet and Ozouf.

  23. Senior, Journal, 22 May 1850 (CCT I 92–3). This conversation is especially interesting since it shows how early AT formed some of the ideas which underpin the Ancien Régime, and how closely they were linked to his fear of socialism: ‘Socialism & Communism are the same feelings logically carried out.’

  24. OC II i 150.

  25. ibid., 148.

  26. OC II i 106.