Alexis de Tocqueville

by Professor Hugh Brogan

  His study of America proves that all this is perfectly possible.

  This manifesto* reveals a great deal about Tocqueville. In its rejection of the ancien régime it shows his political and historical realism: whatever his sympathies, he could not endorse the reactionary longings of the legitimists. In its prescriptions it shows his hopes for France under the July Monarchy:† hopes which were to be greatly disappointed, but which he did not abandon even after Louis-Philippe’s fall. It betrays the limitations of his democratic faith: even after his American journey he could not believe that undiluted government of the people, by the people, could be a success – they needed guidance. The only political issue which he tackles head-on is anticlericalism: he argues passionately that ‘religion’ (by which he usually means the Catholic Church) does not need to be supported by political authority, is indeed much better without it, for liberty and equality are its true friends; and he also insists that republicanism, if it knew its own interest, would make an ally of religion.42 Here Tocqueville implicitly criticizes both the Restoration and the July Revolution; and here we can see how deep a mark America made upon his thought.

  His reference to ‘manly, mutual confidence’ requires comment (in other passages he writes of ‘male virtue’). There is no mystery about what he meant: virtue had been a commonplace of traditional republican thought (which Quentin Skinner wants us to call Neo-Roman) since the Renaissance. In Tocqueville’s time the idea had been most strikingly expressed in the Social Contract of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in the portentous canvases of J.-L. David’s neo-classical period, in which solemn warriors strike attitudes of devotion to their fatherland; or in Greenough’s semi-nude statue of George Washington.* The notion seems to have been that in Utopia citizens and statesmen alike would be animated only and at all times by stern considerations of the public weal, at least when assembled in the forum: all considerations of personal or local interest would be banished. When the personal did intrude it had to be subsumed in the public: Lucretia’s rape was to be punished not as a crime against a woman but as an act of tyranny – it was not to be avenged as a matter of family honour. Brutus was to be admired for unflinchingly sentencing his sons to death as conspirators, not blamed for having brought them up badly. It hardly needs saying that the ideal was unworkable: ‘nothing straight can ever be built with the crooked timber of humanity’ – Isaiah Berlin’s advocacy has made Kant’s remark a cliché. It was not a cliché which occurred to Tocqueville when writing the 1835 Démocratie, or for some years afterwards. He required only the most mythically Neo-Roman behaviour from citizens and their representatives, and was ruthless in condemning any lapses. In short, he was as yet fundamentally mistaken about the nature of politics, which is as natural a dimension of human life as eating, drinking, sex or commerce; a universal process by which human beings adjust to reality – especially the reality of other people – and adjust reality to themselves. It is messy, never wholly successful, and necessarily incomplete. It is the opposite of Utopia, and it may be observed that if it is the difficulty of Utopianism which has made so many Utopians into totalitarians, its impossibility has made many others into democrats. Tocqueville in 1835 had not yet glimpsed this.

  Neither in the Démocratie nor anywhere else did he express the slightest political interest in female virtue. He seems to have been entirely deaf to any question of women’s rights, and in this was manifestly inferior to his great contemporary and friend John Stuart Mill. As usual, Tocqueville was not alone in his obtuseness: Frenchwomen were not to get the vote until 1944; but even in 1835 he could have discussed the issue. It was being debated in America, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s Rights of Women had been published over forty years previously. Tocqueville’s silence on this matter (and on others to be discussed in due course) shows how much he was a creature of his time and place, and how much the limitations of the July Monarchy were his also, though he so often deplored them.

  The Introduction, then, summarizes or implies Tocqueville’s political creed as well as his historical vision, and shows clearly what he hoped to achieve by his book. He wanted to launch a new kind of liberalism and help to steer it. He was claiming a place not just among France’s authors but in her governing elite. The rest of his life would be the story of how his ambition fared.

  Up to a point he had calculated shrewdly; the Introduction was certain to fascinate the salons and academies of Paris. Both in the questions it asked (‘Where are we?’, ‘Where are we going?’) and in the suggestions it made it spoke to the central preoccupations of the day. But it is surely impossible to feel that it did full justice to the extraordinary masterpiece which Tocqueville had written. The message of the Démocratie is indeed superbly summarized in the Introduction, but as important as the book’s message was its method, and its findings were perhaps more important than either. The Démocratie is the greatest book ever written on the United States. Tocqueville could not make that claim, but his readers have repeatedly made it for him; and that, surely, was an achievement to outstrip any other.

  We have no direct evidence as to what Beaumont thought of the manuscript brought to him in August 1834. Since it owed so much to him he is unlikely to have felt disappointed. No doubt he in turn showed his friend the still-incomplete manuscript of his novel, Marie, ou l’esclavage aux États-Unis. Tocqueville thought very well of it: he let stand, or now drafted, the puff for Marie which still appears in the Introduction to the Démocratie. For the rest, he enjoyed his country holiday, staying first with Beaumont’s sister, Mme de Sarcé, at her chateau, Gallerande, and then with the rest of the family at Beaumont-la-Chartre. Writing to Marie Mottley he had nothing but praise for the hospitality he was receiving, but both to her and to Kergorlay he expressed astonishment at the pleasure which the Beaumont family took in the petty details which made up the country round – ‘a life of potatoes’. He had no idea that before long he himself would be retiring rapturously to the country, but it is possible to think that potatoes already attracted him more than he realized: ‘I love to look at fields; at the sight of a fine summer evening in a remote and peaceful countryside; listening to the various sounds which are heard at long intervals, and the silence which follows them, I feel afresh a calm which goes straight to my turbulent heart.’ But it would only do for a holiday, he could never live shut in behind hedges, ‘I would prefer life’s roughest storms to such peacefulness.’ Perhaps, he thought, he was irritated by a happiness which he could never share: ‘I will never be happy, Marie, that is certain. There is no concord in me. With limited abilities I yet feel vast desires; with delicate health, an inexpressible need for action and emotion; with a taste for the good, passions which drive me away from it.’ Such men as he could never attain lasting happiness; but at least his love for Marie gave him a constant point of reference. There was his harbour, there his clear horizon, whatever clouds hid the sky overhead. ‘Yesterday evening I was happy enough to be at a gathering, I was among people I like in a place which I find agreeable, my mind was at peace, and I was in good health; but I felt that something was missing ... you.’43

  These tender sentiments left no trace on the bread-and-butter letter which Tocqueville sent to Beaumont’s father after his return with Gustave to Paris. He had had his usual bad luck with public transport:

  Not having been able to get seats in the Vendôme diligence, we were forced to smuggle ourselves onto the roof where, rolled about among the luggage, we passed the most disturbed and chilly night that can be imagined. I have never more clearly realized the advantages of my height.* People have no clear idea, I assure you, of the advantages of being short. While Gustave, with his long legs and arms, was like a semaphore in action, I contrived to nestle down into a small hole where perhaps I would be sleeping still but for a basket of chickens which suddenly interrupted a most pleasant dream by falling onto my nose. I let out a shriek, as you can well believe, but so did two or three of the cocks inside the basket, so I thought it wise to fall silent, in the hope
that they would imitate my self-control.44

  Back in Paris, Tocqueville turned seriously to the business of publication. Weeks ago he had discovered some of the drawbacks of dealing with Gosselin. ‘If the said G. had read my manuscript the result of my visit was scarcely flattering to me; for the more I answered his questions about the book the more I saw alarm beginning to run away with him.’ He said that on reconsideration he would print only 500 copies, and when challenged gave a typical publisher’s explanation:

  if he printed a thousand copies and the book did not sell, he would be certain of a loss; whereas, if a second impression were required, the cost of reprinting would only somewhat diminish his profit.45 He talked of publication in November (in the event the book was not put on sale until January). Tocqueville resigned himself to these arrangements; by the end of October he was busy correcting proofs.

  If he was relatively tranquil about Gosselin’s proceedings, it was perhaps because he had a larger anxiety. He wanted to test the water, and with this in mind circulated copies of his Introduction in his family (he may have felt that Beaumont’s verdict was not sufficiently objective). The response was instructive.

  Kergorlay, who had had a wretchedly boring, empty summer, jumped at the chance of being useful, and reported enthusiastically: ‘The whole, that is, your general ideas, their classification and their development, seems fine to me and hangs together ... to my mind the fundamental ideas are capital ones with both depth and novelty, whether in themselves or in the connections which you make between them.’ He made a number of suggestions for small improvements, many of which Tocqueville apparently adopted, and remarked that ‘nobility is your style’s characteristic’ (which must have pleased). He saw no need to tone down any remarks to appease any class of readers, no doubt meaning the legitimists (which must have reassured).46 Unfortunately Tocqueville’s other relations were less encouraging. They were legitimists to a man, and they did not find his demonstration of the utility of democracy and its compatibility with their beliefs and interests sufficiently persuasive. One wrote: ‘It is essential that Alexis take care not to attack the fallen Restoration and its unhappy, discrowned sovereigns. It would even perhaps be wise not to attack Louis-Philippe too strongly. Alexis is at the start of his career; it would be disagreeable if all the government’s newspapers were against him.’47 It is not known who wrote these remarks, perhaps the result of an astute reading between the lines; but perhaps Tocqueville took the hint. There is no overt attack on either Bourbon or Orleans in the Démocratie, though plenty of implied criticism.

  Perhaps the comment was written by Camille d’Orglandes, member of a Cotentin family that was linked to the Tocquevilles by two marriages (Louis de Rosanbo and Louis de Chateaubriand had both married Orglandes ladies). He certainly wrote a letter (now lost) about the Introduction which Tocqueville thought it necessary to answer at length. He felt that Orglandes had misunderstood the Introduction, so he repeated the argument as emphatically as possible: equality was on the way, it could not be averted, and therefore the political choice lay between democratic government (‘by which I do not mean a republic but a social system in which more or less everybody takes part in public business’) or between unlimited, because modern, absolutism. In a demoralized country like France there would be no bounds to its tyranny. ‘We have seen some fine preliminary sketches of such a regime under Bonaparte, and if L.P. had a free hand, he would show us a yet more perfect version of it.’ Both these choices were unattractive, but ‘between the two evils, I have chosen the lesser.’ It would be difficult but not impossible to make a democratic government succeed; he did not believe that God had willed equality of status simply to lead men into a despotism like that of Claudius or Tiberius. ‘It wouldn’t be worth the effort.’

  This repetition of the Introduction has its own value; still more interesting is the justification which Tocqueville offers for writing his book:

  I am not quarrelsome by nature: when an opinion which I don’t share seems to me unimportant or when I am not entirely convinced that its opposite is true, I hold my peace. It was thus that I managed to live for a very long time among people who were greatly surprised at last to see me resolutely doing things which they thought had never crossed my mind. So it was not until after full consideration that I decided to write the book which I am about to publish ... [But] it will soon be ten years since I conceived most of the ideas which I have just expounded to you. As I did not find them agreeable, I turned them over again and again, from every point of view, before accepting them. I only went to America to clarify my misgivings. The penitentiary system was only a pretext; I used it as a passport. In the United States, I came across a thousand things which were unworthy of my attention, but I discovered others which brightly illuminated my understanding. I discovered facts of which the knowledge, I thought, was useful. I did not go there with the idea of writing a book,* the idea of a book came upon me there. I think that every man owes society his thoughts as well as his energies. When one sees one’s fellows in danger, it is a duty to try to rescue them.

  Tocqueville does not know if his book will succeed, do good or do harm (though he hopes not the last); but it had to be written. And he does not regret having written boldly, plainly and frankly: ‘if I find it very easy to keep quite quiet, as I have already said to you, once I do speak I always seek the clearest terms in the world’s clearest language, which is ours, to express my ideas. It is a habit which, when speaking in public, I have often wanted to shed, but I have never been able to.’ 48

  The chief note of this long letter is, surely, self-confidence. Before the event Tocqueville was nervous about legitimist criticism, but when actually confronted by it he merely reiterated his views and defended his style. It remained to be seen what other readers would say, and how he would react to their opinions. Meanwhile, with Beaumont’s help, he continued to work on his proofs. In December the finished volumes were distributed to the journals, the author’s friends and the bookshops.

  * I admit that in America I saw more than America; I sought an image of democracy itself there, of its leanings, its character, its prejudices, its passions; I wanted to understand it, if only so as to know at least what we ought to hope or fear concerning it.

  * By now she had apparently moved from Versailles to central Paris. Three years later, on the occasion of her marriage, she gives her address as the rue de Bellechasse, no distance from the rue de Verneuil.

  * AT’s monastic regime seems by now to have lightened somewhat.

  * Virginie Chardon (1792–1875) married J.A. Ancelot (who became a member of the Académie Française). She published memoirs entitled Un salon de Paris.

  * Some years ago I was asked to write an article about Tocqueville on Congress. The proposal fell through, which is just as well as it would have been difficult to find anything to say.

  † See above, p.209.

  * Perhaps this statement needs qualification. When AT discusses race and slavery he does not hesitate to use the word ‘tyranny’ to characterize American treatment of the Indians and the slaves (OC I i 332–52), and he is right to do so. But he makes little attempt to relate racist tyranny to his theory of tyranny of the majority: that was left to Beaumont in his Marie. And see below, p. 273.

  * It is tempting to suggest that AT’s disdainful arguments in favour of a commercial democracy were consciously set out to beguile his upper-class readers into accepting the political vision of Sieyès as stated, most famously, in his Qu’est-ce le Tiers État?, but it cannot even be shown that AT read Sieyès before 1835.

  * All French governments of the epoch were terrified of a revival of the revolutionary clubs such as the Jacobins and Cordeliers, which had flourished between 1789 and 1794. AT himself was to support the suppression of such clubs under the Second Republic.

  * It is a difficult expression to render in English, comprising as it does morals, manners and customs. As used by Tocqueville it is roughly equivalent to the Latin mos, mor
es (from which it derives) and this has led social scientists to try to domesticate mores (which some pronounce as if it rhymed with bores) as an English word. I do not think that they have succeeded, and shall use the word manners, originally the exact equivalent of moeurs, trying to extend or revive its meaning as Tocqueville extended moeurs; though when necessary I shall use the French word instead.

  * This sentence well illustrates the difficulties created by Tocqueville’s carelessness with the word démocratie and, to some extent, by the French language itself. He wrote: ‘Les volontés de la démocratie sont changeantes.’ Here, by démocratie, he certainly meant what others might call, according to taste, the people, the popular majority, the crowd, the masses or the mob. But la démocratie also connotes democracy as a system of government. Tocqueville ought to have asked himself whether he was making an observation about public opinion, in which case he was right but unoriginal, even trivial; or about democratic government, in which case he was probably wrong. Instead he wrote as if he could have it both ways, and was thus certainly misleading. Mob rule and democratic government are not the same thing, and democratic governments are not noticeably volatile.