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Alexis de Tocqueville

Page 86

by Professor Hugh Brogan


  27. Doyle, 1–43.

  28. OC II i 184–5, 230.

  29. ibid., 144–5.

  30. For the intendants see ibid., Book 2, passim (especially the author’s notes).

  31. ibid., 193.

  32. ibid., 245.

  33. ibid., 248.

  34. ibid., 217.

  35. ibid., 250.

  36. AT to Ampère, Paris, 17 February 1856, OC XI 309.

  37. Ampère to AT, 16 February 1856, ibid., 309; AT to GB, Paris, 17 February 1856, 6 and 17 March 1856, OC VIII iii 370, 375, 379; Reeve to AT, 4 March 1856, OC VI i 165.

  38. All this from Loménie, 425.

  39. AT to Reeve, Tocqueville, 25 January 1856, OC VI i 157; Senior, Journal, 18 May 1856 (CCT II 132–3, misdated); AT to Mme Swetchine, Tocqueville, 7 January 1856, OC XV ii 269; AT to Marie, [Paris], February 1856, OC XIV 594; AT and GB, correspondence, February–June 1856, passim, OC VIII 370–412.

  23. Retreating

  1. AT to Kergorlay, 21 September 1856, OC XIII ii 315.

  2. AT to HT, 28 May 1856, OC XIV 324–5; to Mme Swetchine, 12 June 1856, OC XV ii 273; to Kergorlay, 12 June 1856, OC XIII ii 296.

  3. AT to Edward Vernon Childe, Paris, [?18] June 1856, OC VII 170.

  4. See OC XIV, Correspondance familiale, Table de destinaires. Hervé’s books were Histoire philosophique du règne de Louis XV (1847) and Coup d’oeil sur le règne de Louis XVI (1850). Excerpts translated into English have been published in Palmer.

  5. AT to Corcelle, [Paris], 18 June 1856, OC XV ii 162–3. AT’s emphasis on his father’s religiosity must be taken more or less at face value, but it suggests that Hervé’s outlook changed markedly over the years.

  6. AT to Corcelle, ibid., 163; to Mme Swetchine, Tocqueville, 1 July 1856, ibid., 275.

  7. AT to Reeve, Paris, 14 June 1856, OC VI i 183.

  8. GB to AT, 25 January 1856, OC VIII iii 417; AT to GB, Tocqueville, 5 September 1856, ibid., 432.

  9. AT to Kergorlay, [September] 1856, OC XIII ii 312; to GB, 27 March 1857, OC VIII iii 469.

  10. AT to GB, 27 March 1857, OC VIII iii 469; to Mme Swetchine, 22 July 1856, OC XV ii 281; Léon Plée, Le Siècle, 18, 19, 21 and 27 July 1856: see LC 1185; AT to Plée, Tocqueville, 31 July 1856, ibid., 1186; to Ampère, Tocqueville, 21 October 1856, OC XI 351; to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 13 November 1856, OC XV ii 184.

  11. Senior, Journal, 8 May 1857; Guizot to AT, 30 June 1856 (Saint-Lô: AT 1668). In this letter Guizot first sketches the ideas that he was to elaborate in his 1861 address to the Académie Française.

  12. Mélonio, 100.

  13. GB to AT, 19 November 1856, OC VIII iii 449.

  14. Kergorlay to AT, 7 July 1856, OC XIII ii 298–9; 22 August 1856, ibid., 305; Mme Swetchine to AT, 13 August 1856, OC XV ii 287; AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 22 and 28 August 1856, OC XIII 305, 308–9; Kergorlay to AT, 1 September 1856, ibid., 311. For a list of Kergorlay’s improvements, see OC II i 325–33.

  15. AT to Gobineau, Tocqueville, 30 July 1856, OC IX 265–9.

  16. Gobineau to AT, 29 November 1856, ibid., 269–75.

  17. AT to Gobineau, Tocqueville, 24 January 1857, ibid., 277–8; to Mme Swetchine, Tocqueville, 11 February 1857, OC XV ii 313–16.

  18. AT to Gobineau, Tocqueville, 24 January 1857, OC IX 280–81.

  19. Gobineau to AT, 20 May 1857, ibid., 281.

  20. Harriet Grote to AT, 14 November 1856, Saint-Lô: AT 1648 (wrongly catalogued as from George Grote); J. S. Mill to AT, 15 December 1856, and AT to Mill, [Tocqueville], 19 December 1856, OC VI i 349–51.

  21. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 28 August 1856, OC XIII ii 307–8.

  22. AT to Mme Swetchine, Tocqueville, 11 February 1857, OC xv ii 309.

  23. Senior, Journal, April–May 1857 (CCT II 157–87); AT to GB, Tocqueville, 10 October 1856, OC VIII iii 440; 6 April 1857, ibid., 478.

  24. Monckton Milnes, ‘Alexis de Tocqueville’, Quarterly Review, vol. 110 (1861), 527; AT to Marie, [Paris, 26 May 1855], OC XIV 584, and n. 4.

  25. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 11 October 1856, OC XV ii 178; AT, ‘Idée originaire, sentiment général et primitif du sujet’, OC II ii 29; Tâtonnements (Nov. et Déc. 56), ibid., 173–4.

  26. Drescher, Tocqueville and England, 191–2. The main sources for this episode are AT’s letters to Marie from 19 June to 17 July 1857, OC XIV 596–626 (the letter of 17 July is badly misdated by the editor, p. 625); the journal of George Ticknor; the Hatherton diary; various letters exchanged with English friends, published in OC VI, all three volumes; and various letters from English men and women, preserved at Saint-Lô.

  27. AT to Mme de Pisieux, Tocqueville, 21 September 1857, LC 1263.

  28. AT to Marie, London, 20 [June 1857], OC XIV 598; [London, 2 July 1857], ibid., 613–14; Teddesley, 11 July 1857, ibid., 620–21; [Coleshill], Thursday, [16 July 1857], 624; to Radnor, Tocqueville, 19 August 1857, OC VI iii 265–6; diary of Lord Hatherton, 13 July 1857, Staffordshire Record Office D 260/M/F/5/26/72.

  29. Brodhurst, 138.

  30. AT to Marie, London, 1 July 1857, OC XIV 611; AT to Panizzi, Coleshill, 17 July 1857, OC VI iii 247–8; to Clarendon, [Tocqueville], 21 July 1857, ibid., 250–51; to W. Noel Sainsbury, [Tocqueville, 19 August 1857], ibid., 267–8; AT–Reeve letters, OC VI i 232–45 passim.

  31. AT to Marie, [London, 21–2 June 1857], OC XIV 599–601; Ticknor, Ticknor to W. H. Prescott, London, 13 July 1857, II, 366.

  32. Hatherton diary, 25 June 1857; AT to Marie, 20 June 1857, OC XIV 598; [25 June 1857], ibid., 605; Ticknor, II, 366, for an amusing corroboration of AT’s description of Macaulay, and 362–5, for AT in London; Lord Stanley, ‘Breakfast with De Tocqueville 6 July 1857’, Derby MSS Liverpool Record Office 920 DER 46/2. For a general account of AT’s relations with Americans in his last years see Hugh Brogan, ‘Alexis de Tocqueville and the Coming of the American Civil War’, 91–112.

  33. See OC VI i 353 for AT’s effusive comments on the Prince, and for Albert’s modestly sceptical reaction to the praise, which was forwarded to him by Lord Clarendon.

  34. AT to Marie, [London], 2 July 1857, OC XIV 614.

  35. Hatherton diary, 25 June 1857.

  36. AT to Marie, [London], 3 July 1857, OC XIV 615–16; J. M. Mottley to AT, 1 July 1857, Saint-Lô: AT 2061 (misdated in the catalogue); to AT, 7 July 1857, Saint-Lô: AT 2061 (misdated in the catalogue); to AT, 7 July 1857, Saint-Lô: AT 2063; AT to Marie [London], 10 July 1857, OC XIV 618–19; J. M. Mottley to AT, 22 July and 18 August 1857, Saint-Lô: AT 2064–5; bill to AT from Messrs Lenny & Co., 10 August 1857, for a ‘new Single Body Pony Basket Phaeton, with driving Seat in front for One, painted Blue’, Saint-Lô: AT 366. AT paid for this vehicle in September with a draft on his British bank, Barings.

  37. AT to Reeve, Tocqueville, 2 August 1857, OC VI i 228–9.

  38. AT to Ampère, Tocqueville, 21 November 1857, OC XI 395–7; Loménie to Ampère, 15 September 1857, ibid., 390–91, n.1.

  39. Loménie, 420–21.

  40. AT to Mme de Pisieux, Tocqueville, 21 September 1857, OC(B) VII 462.

  41. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 2 January 1858, OC VIII iii 527; Kergorlay to AT, 15 March 1858, OC XIII ii 334.

  42. AT to Freslon, Tocqueville, 12 January 1858, OC(B) VII 478.

  43. AT to Mme de Pisieux, Tocqueville, 24 July 1855, OC(B) VII 369–70; to Mme de Grancey, Tocqueville, 15 November 1857, ibid., 466–7; Grosclaude, 776–7.

  44. AT, ‘Idée originaire’. This was ‘to be re-read occasionally to keep me on the high road of my thought, 1856’. The date is in the manuscript, and unquestioned by either of its editors, André Jardin (OC II ii 29) and Françoise Mélonio (ARP 1130); otherwise I would feel great difficulty in accepting it.

  45. AT to Hubert de Tocqueville, Tocqueville, 7 February 1858, OC(B) VII 481–3.

  46. AT to Reeve, [Tocqueville], 22 September 1857, OC VI i 236.

  47. AT to Hatherton, Tocqueville, 6 March 1858, OC VI iii 289–90; to Reeve, Tocqueville, 30 January 1858, OC VI i 254–5. I am reminded of E.
M. Forster’s remark, two generations later, that the British Empire would be the first in history to be lost simply because of bad manners.

  48. AT to Marie, Sunday morning, [April 1858], OC XIV 637. AT seldom or never put proper dates on his letters to his wife, which has often led his editors into error. Specifically, the dates conjectured in OC XIV for his April 1858 letters seem to me palpably inaccurate (I do not rely on them), but it is difficult to suggest convincing alternatives.

  49. ibid., 639.

  50. Senior, Journal, 20 April 1858. I have lightly edited this passage for readability.

  51. AT to Marie, [Paris], Thursday morning, [?14 April 1858], OC XIV 633 (this date suggested by the editors of vol. XIV seems correct); AT to Marie, Sunday morning, 18 [April, 1858], ibid., 638; to Marie, Wednesday morning, [April 1858; Jardin and Benoît suggest 5 May, but by then AT was back at Tocqueville], ibid., 647.

  52. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 21 May 1858, OC VIII iii 570; AT, ‘Rapport sur un ouvrage de M. Th. Sedgwick’, OC XVI 243–7; AT to GB, Tocqueville, 17 June 1858, OC VIII iii 576.

  53. GB to AT, 19 June 1858, OC VIII iii 578; AT to Mme de Circourt, Tocqueville, 23 June 1858, OC XVIII 478; to Senior, Tocqueville, 30 June 1858, OC VI ii 213 (CCT II 211); to GB, Tocqueville, 4 July 1858, OC VIII iii 583.

  54. AT to GB, [Tocqueville], Thursday, 12 August 1858, OC VIII iii 593; to Ampère, Tocqueville, 30 August 1858, OC XI 409; to Freslon, 8 July 1858, OC(B) VI 444; Milnes to his wife, 10 August 1858, and to Marie de Tocqueville, 25 May 1859, OC VI iii 300 n.1.

  55. AT to Hubert de Tocqueville, Tocqueville, 9 September 1858; to Marie, Paris, Monday, [13 September 1858], OC XIV 652 and n.2; to Marie, Paris, September–October 1858, OC XIV 654–62 passim.

  56. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, [Paris], Monday morning, [18 October 1858], OC XIV 355; to Marie, [Paris], Friday morning, [?1 October 1858], ibid., 657; to Marie, [Paris], Monday morning, [4 October 1858], ibid., 662.

  57. AT to Marie, [Paris], Wednesday morning, [6 October 1858], ibid., 667.

  58. AT to Ampère, Paris, 6 October 1858, OC XI 411; to GB, Paris, 23 October 1858, OC VIII iii 600.

  59. AT to Freslon, Paris, 11 October 1858, OC(B) VI 459.

  60. AT to Marie, [Paris], Wednesday morning, [6 October 1857], OC XIV 667; to GB, Paris, 23 October 1858, OC VIII iii 600.

  24. Cannes

  1. AT to Charles Stoffels, 22 October 1831; see p. 50.

  2. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, Aix [en Provence], 1 November 1858, and Cannes, 6 November 1858, OC XIV 356–7; to GB, Cannes, 11 November 1858, OC VIII iii 603; to Adolphe de Circourt, Cannes, 8 November 1858, OC XVIII 502.

  3. AT to Édouard, Cannes, 13 November 1858, OC XIV 358. During the winter Auguste returned but was still too ill to be useful.

  4. AT to Édouard, ibid.; Hippolyte de Tocqueville to Émilie, Cannes, 17 November 1858, Saint-Lô: AT 317; AT to GB, Cannes, 11 November 1858, OC VIII iii 604–5.

  5. Lukacs, 157–8. This article was the first work to put our knowledge of AT’s end on a sound footing, and my debt to it is enormous.

  6. AT to Corcelle, Cannes, 22 November 1858, OC XV ii 234; to GB, Cannes, 23 November 1858, OC VIII iii 606–07; to Eugénie de Grancey, Cannes, 27 December 1858, LC 1327; to GB, Cannes, 24 December 1858, OC VIII iii 611.

  7. AT to GB, Cannes, 24 December 1858, OC VIII iii 611; AT to Kergorlay, Cannes, 29 November 1858, OC XIII ii 343–4; Kergorlay to AT, 25 December 1858, ibid., 345–6.

  8. AT to GB, Cannes, 3, 7 and 24 December 1858, OC VIII iii 607–13; to Ampère, Cannes, 5 December 1858, OC XI 415.

  9. GB to AT, 23 June 1858, OC VIII iii 582–3; AT to Corcelle, [Tocqueville], 21 September 1858, OC XV ii 227–8; ibid., 228–43 passim; AT to GB, Tocqueville, 4 July 1858, OC VIII iii 584.

  10. AT to Senior, Cannes, 12 December 1858, CCT II 216; to Circourt, Cannes, 19 December 1858, OC XVIII 513; to Ampère, Cannes, 30 December 1858, OC XI 417–18; Hippolyte to Édouard, 18 November 1858, Saint-Lô: AT 318. The Tocqueville archive also holds two versions of a letter written by Dr Sève to Édouard in late November. Sève tries to be reassuring, but his message is gloomy (Saint-Lô: AT 319, 320).

  11. AT to Émilie de Tocqueville, Cannes, 23 February 1859, OC XIV 366; GB to Clémentine, 21 January 1859, Yale: Beinecke (GB was repeating what he had been told by Édouard); Lukacs, 166, quoting documents prepared by the Sisters apparently to assist Lacordaire when, as AT’s successor in the Académie Française, he was preparing the éloge which he delivered at his reception on 24 January 1861.

  12. Lukacs, 168; Baunard, 349–52. Baunard was given a full account by Abbé Gabriel of his dealings with AT soon after the event, and noted them down at once. There are some unimportant discrepancies with the nuns’ report. I have assumed that the curé gave an accurate account of his own experience, and that the nuns did the same of theirs, and in this way reconciled their testimony.

  13. Lukacs, 166; AT to Edward Lee Childe, Cannes, 8 February 1859, OC VII 246; to Lanjuinais, Cannes, February 1859, LC 1328; to GB, Cannes, 15 February 1859, OC VIII iii 614–15; to Corcelle, Cannes, 5 February 1859, OC XV ii 240.

  14. AT to Corcelle, 9 February 1859, OC XV ii 240; to Édouard de Tocqueville, Cannes, [6 February and] 27 February 1859, OC XIV 364, 367; to Freslon, Cannes, 23 February 1859, LC 1329.

  15. AT to John Stuart Mill, Cannes, 9 February 1859, OC VI i 351–2.

  16. AT to Édouard, 6 February 1859, OC XIV 364; to Édouard, Thursday morning, [Cannes, 17 February 1859], OC XIV 365–6; to GB, [Cannes], 3 February 1859, OC VIII iii 613–14; to Kergorlay, Cannes, 5 February 1859, OC XIII ii 346–7; to Émilie de Tocqueville, Cannes, 23 February 1859, OC XIV 366–7; to GB, Cannes, 15 February 1859, OC XIV 366–7.

  17. AT to Ampère, Cannes, 3 March 1859, OC XI 419–21; AT to GB, Cannes, 4 March 1859, OC VIII iii 615–16.

  18. Marie to Clémentine de Beaumont, Cannes, 4 March 1859, Yale: Beinecke, CI b; Lukacs, 158.

  19. Lukacs, 166–7; Baunard, 349–52.

  20. GB to Clémentine, 12 March 1859, Yale: Beinecke, DIV r. While at Cannes GB wrote to his wife almost every day, and sometimes twice. The result was what amounts to a detailed diary of AT’s last illness. Held at Yale, it makes distressing reading. Yale: Beinecke also holds five drawings of the villa Montfleury and its neighbourhood made by GB at Cannes.

  21. GB to Clémentine, 21 March 1859, Yale: Beinecke.

  22. Jardin, Tocqueville, 531.

  23. GB to Clémentine, 4 April 1859 (two letters), Yale: Beinecke; GB to AT, La Chartre-sur-le-Loir (Sarthe), 13 April 1859, OC VIII iii 616–19; GB to Clémentine, [Paris], 16 April 1859, ibid., 619 n.9, original at Yale: Beinecke.

  24. AT to Ampère, Cannes, 9 April 1859, OC XI 423–44.

  25. See OC IX 13–14 n.5; Jardin, Tocqueville, 529. This important statement seems to have been suppressed at Marie’s insistence: she did not ever want to take the world into her confidence about the intimacies of her marriage.

  26. Édouard de Tocqueville, ‘Les Derniers Moments d’Alexis de Tocqueville’, 21 July 1866, La France; Lukacs, 169–70.

  27. Lukacs, 167, 167–n.36.

  28. The chief difficulty lies in allowing for the different points of view of our informants: the nuns, Beaumont, Édouard, the Abbé Gabriel and Dr Dujardin-Beaumetz; but careful reading reveals very substantial agreement not merely about the events of these weeks, but about their significance. The remaining problem is to know what to make of various uncorroborated statements: for instance, that Dupanloup conducted a Mass in AT’s room, and that AT discussed with GB receiving communion after he had done so. Since GB left Cannes on 5 April at the latest, and AT took communion on the 6th, this assertion is inexplicable, unless AT wrote GB a letter which is now lost.

  29. OC IX 13–14 n.5; Jardin, Tocqueville, 529.

  30. Jardin, Tocqueville, 532.

  31. Ampère to AT, 30 March 1859, OC XI 422–3; Jardin, Tocqueville, 531–2.

  Epilogue

  1. See Loménie, 428.

  2. Jardin
, Tocqueville, 533.

  3. Marie to R. Monckton Milnes, Tocqueville, 1 June (1859), Trinity College, Cambridge: Milnes papers.

  4. Mélonio, 113, 241 n. 5; The Times, 11 April 1859.

  5. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, 93–121.

  6. See Mélonio, 120–22.

  7. ‘Discours de M. Lacordaire prenant place au siège de M. de Tocqueville’, 24 January 1861, OC XVI 326.

  8. Réponse de M. Guizot’, ibid., 332–45; Sainte Beuve, Causeries, 127–9.

  9. See Mélonio, 116; Hugh Brogan, ‘Tocqueville and the Coming of the American Civil War’, 108–9.

  10. Senior, Journal, 12–20, August 1861 (CCT II 220–80). Edited for readability.

  11. Adapted from Le Misanthrope, Act I, scene 2: ‘Pour les trouver ainsi, vous avez vos raisons’, which AT misquotes in the Souvenirs: see OC XII 83.

  Bibliography

  I. Abbreviations

  This list explains the abbreviations used in the footnotes and endnotes. For full details of the books and archives mentioned see sections II and III of this bibliography.

  ARP Alexis de Tocqueville, L’Ancien Régime, Pléiade edition.

  AT Alexis de Tocqueville.

  CCT Nassau W. Senior, Correspondence and Conversations with Alexis de Tocqueville.

  DA Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique.

  CTG Nassau W. Senior, Conversations with M. Thiers, M. Guizot, etc.

  GB Gustave de Beaumont.

  HT Hervé de Tocqueville.

  JFI Nassau W. Senior, Journals kept in France and Italy.

  LA Gustave de Beaumont, Lettres d’Amérique.

  LC Alexis de Tocqueville, Lettres Choisies.

  MLR Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville.

  OC Oeuvres complètes d’Alexis de Tocqueville.

  OC(B) Oeuvres et correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville, edited by Gustave de Beaumont.

  Saint-Lô Saint-Lô, Manche, Departmental Archives, papers of Alexis de Tocqueville.

  Senior, Journal Nassau W. Senior, manuscript journal, National Library of Wales.

  SP Alexis de Tocqueville, Système pénitentiaire.

 

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