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Alexis de Tocqueville

Page 83

by Professor Hugh Brogan


  28. ‘Dernières impressions sur l’Angleterre’, OC V ii 36–43.

  12. Writing America

  1. ‘Introduction’, OC I i 12.

  2. AT to Beaumont, Paris, 1 November 1833, OC VIII i 136.

  3. ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, OC(B) V 37.

  4. ibid., 37–8; AT to Kergorlay, [Paris, 11 November 1833], OC XIII i 344; Theodore Sedgwick, Diary, 28 November–2 December 1833, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  5. Schleifer, 293, n.19.

  6. ibid., 7.

  7. F. J. Lippitt, R. I., Tiverton, 24 July 1897, Yale: Beinecke.

  8. Sedgwick, Diary.

  9. Schleifer, 10; I infer the date of completion from AT’s letters, particularly AT to Beaumont, 14 July 1834, when he looks forward to carrying his gun and his finished manuscript to Beaumont-la-Chartre in mid-August (OC VIII i 142). J.-L. Benoît says flatly that he finished on 14 August 1834 (OC XIV 395 n.1).

  10. AT to Beaumont, Paris, 5, 14 July 1834, OC VIII i 139–43; Ancelot, 79; AT to Marie Mottley, Beaumont-la-Chartre, 23 August 1834, OC XIV 395 n.1; AT to Charles Stoffels, Baugy, 31 July 1834, LC 302.

  11. OC I i 331.

  12. See, for example, OC I i 20–21, on the West Indies as first discovered by Europeans: ‘Cà et là se montrent de petites îles perfumeés’, etc.

  13. See e.g. OC I i 157 (when he first uses the phrase ‘despotism of the majority’, but, at this stage, has only ‘the legislative body’ in mind).

  14. AT to Nassau Senior, [Paris], 24 March 1834, CCT i 1–2.

  15. OC I i 176.

  16. See ibid., 261–72.

  17. ibid., 263, 266.

  18. ibid., 413.

  19. ibid., 329.

  20. ibid., 256.

  21. See Schleifer, 10–12.

  22. AT to Camille d’Orglandes, [29 November 1834], LC 310.

  23. OC I i 199, 329.

  24. ibid., 203.

  25. ibid., 178.

  26. ibid., 190.

  27. ibid., 197.

  28. ibid., 230.

  29. Ibid., 240; John Quincy Adams to AT, Quincy, 12 June 1837, Massachusetts Historical Society (typed copy at Yale: Beinecke). AT’s reply is in OC VII 67–9.

  30. OC I i 236–40.

  31. ibid., 273–4.

  32. ibid., 266.

  33. ibid., 319 n. 8.

  34. ibid., 323.

  35. ibid., 329.

  36. ibid., 330.

  37. ibid., 331.

  38. ibid., 422.

  39. ibid., 6–7.

  40. ibid., 5.

  41. ibid., 7.

  42. ibid., 9–10.

  43. AT to Kergorlay, Paris, 21 September 1834, OC XIII i 356; AT to Marie Mottley, Beaumont-la-Chartre, 23 August 1834, OC XIV 394–6.

  44. AT to comte Jules de Beaumont, Paris, 18 September 1834, LC 306–7.

  45. AT to GB, Paris, 14 July 1834, OC VIII 140–41.

  46. Kergorlay to AT, [October] 1834, OC XIII 365.

  47. ‘Observations critiques’, Yale: Beinecke, CIII 6.

  48. AT to Camille d’Orglandes, [29 November 1834], LC 309–13.

  13. Fame

  1. AT to Eugène Stoffels, Paris, 16 February 1835, OC(B) V 426.

  2. GB, ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, 39.

  3. See GB, Marie, 2.

  4. E. Stoffels to AT, Metz, 26 January 1835, Saint-Lô: AT 2357; Kergorlay to AT, Fosseuse, 24 January 1835, OC XIII i 370–72.

  5. The Beinecke Library, Yale, Tocqueville-Beaumont Collection C XI a, holds the following reviews, apparently AT’s own collection of clippings: Courrier Français, 24 December 1834; Gazette de France, 3 and 13 February 1835; Le Bon Sens, 5 and 9 February 1835; L’Écho Francais, 11 February 1835; Gazette du Berri, 21 February 1835; Le Semeur, 25 February 1835; Journal des débâts, 25 March and 2 May 1835; Le Temps, 7 April 1835; Jo. général de l’instruction publique, 21 May 1835; Revue des deux mondes, 31 May 1835; Le National, 7 June 1835; Moniteur du commerce, 27 December 1835. Jardin, Tocqueville, 215–18, gives additionally Revue européenne, 1 April 1835; Revue républicaine, 10 May 1835; Constitutionnel, 18 May 1835; L’Ami de la religion et du roi, 25 and 29 August 1835, 8 September 1835; L’Européen, 25 November and 25 December 1835. There were probably others.

  6. Senior to AT, Lincoln’s Inn, 17 February 1835, VI ii 66–7; Saint-Lô: AT 364 (bills for the shipping costs).

  7. AT to Royer-Collard, Paris, [16 or 23 January 1835], OC XI 9; GB, ‘Notice’, 39.

  8. AT to François-René de Chateaubriand, [December 1834], Saint-Lô: AT 614. This MS is only an incomplete draft of the final letter, but it is clear from Chateaubriand’s reply that the letter sent was not significantly different. I suppose it may have been slightly less unctuous.

  9. Chateaubriand to AT, 11 January [1835], Saint-Lô: AT 1294. I owe M. André Tarniou warm thanks for helping me to decipher this document.

  10. Lehmann, 179–95, gives much the best modern account of Mme Récamier’s salon.

  11. Senior, Journal, 20 April 1858.

  12. AT to GB, [Paris], 1 April 1835, OC VIII i 132–3.

  13. Éduard Gans, Revue de Paris, 7 February 1836, 237–42: see OC VII 285 n. 4.

  14. Custine, 420–21.

  15. Laughton, i 48, 62; AT to E. Stoffels, [Paris], 16 February 1835, OC(B) V 426–7.

  16. AT to GB, [Paris], 1 April 1835, OC VIII i 132–3; Mélonio, 20.

  17. Mill, ‘De Tocqueville on Democracy in America’, 47–90; AT to J. S. Mill, ‘Au château de Baugy’, 3 December 1835, OC VI i 303.

  18. Sainte-Beuve, ‘Alexis de Tocqueville: De la démocratie en Amérique’. Le Temps, Tuesday, 7 April 1835, reprinted in Premiers Lundis, II 277–90 (nouvelle édition, Paris, 1894).

  19. La Gazette de France (feuilleton), 3 and 13 February 1835.

  20. ‘L.M.’, Moniteur du commerce, Sunday, 27 December 1835.

  21. See Jardin, Tocqueville, on L’Ami de la religion et du roi, 215.

  22. Le Semeur, 25 February 1835; Lammenais to AT, 9 February 1835, Saint-Lô: AT 1755.

  23. See Mélonio, 34. Mme Mélonio gives much the most thorough account of the reception of DA 1835, 27–54.

  24. Salvandy, Journal des Débâts, 2 May 1835; Léon Faucher, Le Courrier français, 24 December 1834; Rossi, Journal Général de l’Instruction publique, 21 March 1835; Corcelle, Revue des deux mondes, 31 May 1835, 739–61.

  25. Le Bon Sens, Journal de la démocratie, 5 February 1835; Mill, ‘De Tocqueville on Democracy in America’; London and Paris Courier, 14 January 1836; Le National de 1834, 7 January 1835; L’Écho français, 11 February 1835.

  26. See unidentified and undated clipping in the Yale archive, C XI a.

  27. GB, Marie, 1–2.

  28. Senior to AT, 5 March 1835, OC VI ii 72.

  29. GB, Marie, 366–71; Edward Pessen, ‘Tocqueville’s Misreading of America, America’s Misreading of Tocqueville’, Tocqueville Review, 1982, IV, i, 5–22 (and in other works).

  30. GB, Marie, 363–5 (sociability), 337–(women), 269–91 (religion).

  31. Michel Chevalier; for AT’s attitude, see AT to GB, Baugy, 3 December 1836, OC VIII i 176.

  32. AT to Mathieu Molé, Paris, August 1835, OC(B) VII 134–5.

  33. OC I i 12.

  34. This paragraph is all too conjectural, but it rests on the known sequence of events.

  35. AT to Molé, Paris, August 1835, OC(B) VIII 134–5; AT to Virginie Ancelot, London, 28 April 1835, LC 320; AT to Hervé de Tocqueville, London, 29 April 1835, OC XIV 175.

  36. Le Sueur to [Hervé?] and AT, [Paris], 29 September 1828, Saint-Lô: AT 278.

  37. AT to Alexandrine de Tocqueville, Hampstead, 22 May 1835, OC XIV 179–81; AT to Herbert Norman Evans (his doctor), same date, OC VI iii 43.

  38. For Reeve’s first meeting with AT and his book see Laughton, i, 42–50.

  39. AT to Marie Mottley, London, 5 May 1835, OC XIV 397.

  40. AT, notebooks: ‘Whigs’, 22 May 1835, OC V ii 51–2; AT to Hervé de Tocqueville,
London, 7 May 1835, OC XIV 178–9.

  41. For this theme see Drescher, Tocqueville and England, passim, and especially 35–62.

  42. AT to Molé, London, 19 May 1835, LC 325–30.

  43. Senior to AT, Lincoln’s Inn, 17 February 1835; AT to Senior, Paris, 21 February 1835, OC VI ii 66–71; see also CCT I 5–8.

  44. Camillo di Cavour, 24 March 1835, quoted in Levy, 14; for the original, see Cavour, Diario Inedito con note autobiografiche (Rome, 1888), 173.

  45. AT, ‘Mémoire sur le paupérisme’, Mémoires de la Société Académique de Cherbourg, 1835, 293–344, and OC XVI 117–39.

  46. See, for example, Himmelfarb, 147–52; Drolet, 135–47.

  47. OC IV i 319–22.

  48. AT to Senior, [Paris], 14 March 1835; Senior to AT, 18 March 1835, OC VI ii 73–5; see also CCT I 11–12.

  49. OC XVI 128.

  50. ‘Second Mémoire sur le paupérisme’, [1837], OC XVI 140–57.

  51. I owe this point to Michael Drolet, to whom my thanks. Édouard published half a dozen works on agricultural policy between 1836 and 1866, with such titles as ‘De l’intervention de l’esprit chrétien dans l’enseignement professionel de l’agriculture’.

  52. J. S. Mill to Joseph Blanco White, 15 April 1835, to Aristide Guilbert, 8 May, and to Blanco White, 19 May 1835, Earlier Letters i 259–63. Mill mentions his first meeting with AT in an unpublished letter to Guilbert, 5 June 1835 (Yale: Sterling) but says only ‘[I] like him exceedingly and I mean if possible to persuade him to write for the review.’

  53. AT, notebooks, ‘Conversation with John Mill’, 26 May 1835, OC V ii 53–4.

  54. AT, notebooks, ‘Conversation with J. A. Roebuck and J. S. Mill’, 29 May 1835, ibid., 56–8.

  55. AT to J. S. Mill, [London, 13 June 1835], OC VI i 293–4.

  56. AT to Kergorlay, Dublin, 6 July 1835, OC XIII i 377; to Virginie Ancelot, London, 19 June 1835, Ancelot 84–5.

  57. Quoted in Packe, 202.

  58. AT, parliamentary testimony, ‘Enquêtes sur la corruption électorale’, 22 June 1835, OC XVI 88–111: a translation of the official report of the committee, Parliamentary Papers, 19 February 1835–September 1835, VIII, 230–41. It is noteworthy that AT gave his evidence in French.

  59. AT to J. S. Mill, Coventry, Thursday morning, [25 June 1835], OC VI i 291.

  60. AT, notebooks, [Birmingham, 25–30 June 1835], OC VI ii 67.

  61. ibid., Manchester, 2 July 1835, 78–82.

  62. ibid., Liverpool, 4 or 5 July 1835, 84–5.

  63. AT to GB, Nacqueville, 26 August 1835, OC VIII i 154; AT, notebooks, conversation with Mr Kelly and Mr Wilson, 11 July 1835, OC V ii 99; ibid., 105.

  64. AT to Hervé de Tocqueville, Dublin, 16 July 1835, OC XIV 184.

  65. AT, notebooks, 26 July 1835, ‘Dinner with the Bishop of Kilkenny’ (here and elsewhere AT got the name of the diocese wrong), OC V ii 129; ibid., 27 July 1835, ‘Journey from Kilkenny to Cork’, OC V ii 135.

  66. ibid., 26 July 1835, OC V ii 128–9.

  67. ibid., ‘A Catholic Priest and a Protestant Minister in Ireland’, begun at Cork, 28 July 1835, OC V ii 136–51.

  68. OC(B) VIII 402 n. 1; AT, notebooks, OC V ii 131–4; GB, L’Irlande, I, ch. 2, ‘Une mauvaise aristocratie est la cause première de tous les maux de l’Irlande’. 211–20.

  69. This is most noticeably true of the preface, L’Irlande, i–xx.

  70. AT to Marie Mottley, [1835], OC XIV 399.

  71. AT to Kergorlay, Dublin, 6 July 1835, OC XIII i 378; AT to Édouard and Alexandrine de Tocqueville, Dublin, 12 July 1835, OC XIV 181–3.

  72. AT to GB, Nacqueville, 26 August 1835, OC VIII i 153–5; AT to Mme de Grancey, Paris, 22 September 1835, OC(B) VII 136–7, 140–41.

  73. AT to Camille d’Orglandes, [Paris], 14 October 1835, LC 342–4; marriage contract, Saint-Lô: AT 3516.

  14. Into Politics

  1. OC XIII i 479.

  2. AT to GB, [Baugy], Monday morning, [12 January 1835], OC VIII i 150; to GB, Baugy, Saturday morning, [31 October 1835], ibid., 155.

  3. AT to GB, Baugy, 15 November 1835, ibid., 156.

  4. Kergorlay to AT, Paris, 7 November 1835, OC XIII i 378–9; Camille d’Orglandes to AT, 6 December 1835, Saint-Lô: AT 2098; AT to Sarah Austin, Baugy, 26 November 1835, in Ross, 121; reprinted, OC VI iii 49.

  5. AT to GB, Baugy, 15 November 1835, OC VIII i 157.

  6. Camille d’Orglandes to AT, [6 December 1835], Saint-Lô: AT 2098; AT to comtesse de Grancey, 11 January 1836, OC(B) VII 144–5; to Louis Bouchitté, 15 January 1836, ibid., 146–7; to J. S. Mill, Paris, 10 February 1836, OC VI i 307.

  7. AT to E. Stoffels, Paris, 11 January 1836, OC(B) VI 430–31. Jardin says that the comtesse did not attend the church wedding (Jardin, Tocqueville, 229).

  8. See marriage contract, article 4, Saint-Lô: AT 378; AT to Henry Reeve, Cherbourg, 17 April 1836, OC VI i 29; Senior, Journal, 18 August 1850. See also H. Reeve, ‘Introductory Notice’, I, xiii–xiv, although Reeve confuses Tourlaville and Tocqueville.

  9. F. Furet, ‘De Tocqueville and the problem of the French Revolution’, 153–5. I take this, the earliest opportunity, of saying that this indispensable essay contains the most brilliant and persuasive reading of AT’s Ancien Régime yet published.

  10. Many of AT’s bills are preserved at Saint-Lô. In a curious way they seem to bring him closer to us than do many of the other documents.

  11. Jardin, Tocqueville, 231; Hervé de Tocqueville, Mémoires.

  12. D. W. Brogan, Tocqueville: French Personalities and Problems (London, 1946), 204.

  13. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 5 October 1828, OC VIII i 49; to Reeve, Tocqueville, 10 June 1837, VI i 39; to Corcelle, 10 June 1837, XV 77–8; to Royer-Collard, Tocqueville, 29 June 1837, XI 34; to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 25 June 1838, XI i 100; to Édouard de Tocqueville, Tocqueville, 10 July 1838, OC XIV 200.

  14. Reeve to his mother, Tocqueville, 20 August 1844, Laughton, I, 167–8; Senior, Journal, 11 August 1861.

  15. See OC II i 31–66. Mill translated it himself, and it was published in what had become the London and Westminster Review, April 1836.

  16. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 5 July 1838, OC XIII ii 35; to Kergorlay, Nacqueville, 9 October 1838, ibid., 47; Rédier, 124–5.

  17. AT to Kergorlay, Baden, 5 August 1836, OC XIII i 387.

  18. E. Stoffels to AT, Metz, 16 July 1836, Yale: Beinecke, CI c.

  19. AT to E. Stoffels, Berne, 24 July 1836, OC(B) V 431–5; see also LC 352–5.

  20. Rémusat, IV, 44–5.

  21. AT to Kergorlay, Baden, 5 August 1836, OC XIII i 387; to GB, Interlaken, 8 September 1836, ibid., 164; to Royer-Collard, 25 August 1836, OC XI 18–19; ‘Notes sur Machiavel’, Baden, 1 August 1836, OC XVI 541–50; ‘Analyse de Platon’, [August 1836], ibid., 555–7 (the editor of this volume, Françoise Mélonio, dates this document ‘1836–1837?’, but to me it seems clearly to belong to the weeks in Baden).

  22. AT, ‘Remarques sur l’histoire Suisse’, Berne, 15 August 1836, OC V ii 175–7.

  23. AT to GB, Mareil, 22 September 1836, OC VIII i 167; AT, ‘A MM. les Electeurs des Cantons de Beaumont et des Pieux’, [October 1836], OC X 729–30.

  24. AT to Louis-Mathieu, Comte Molé, Paris, August 1835, OC(B) VII 136; to Reeve, Cherbourg, 17 April 1836, OC VI i 29; to J. S. Mill, Paris, 10 April 1836, ibid., 309; to Louis Bouchitté, Baugy, 26 May 1836, OC(B) VII 149.

  25. Schleifer, 24; AT to GB, Baugy, 16 October 1836, OC VIII i 171; to J. S. Mill, 19 November 1836, VI i 314; to Reeve, 21 November 1836, ibid., 35; to GB, [3 December] 1836, VIII i 176.

  26. GB to AT, 13 January 1837, OC VIII i 178; DA (Pléiade edition), 1163–4.

  27. GB to AT, 15 January 1838, OC VIII i 275; AT to Paul Clamorgan, Baugy, 12 January 1838, X 89–90; Hervé de Tocqueville to AT, 17 January 1838, Yale: Beinecke CVI: see also OC III 238–49 (‘De l’honneur aux États-Unis et dans les sociétés démocratiques’), DA (Pléiade) I 1150–53.

  28. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 5
July 1838, OC XIII ii 35; Kergorlay to AT, 16 August 1836, ibid., 396–7.

  29. AT to GB, Baugy, 18 January 1838, OC VIII i 279.

  30. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 4 September 1837, OC XIII i 472; Kergorlay to AT, 6 [February] 1838, ibid. ii 14–18.

  31. Kergorlay to AT, 2 March 1838, ibid., 19–24.

  32. AT to Kergorlay, Baugy, 2 March 1838, ibid., 28.

  33. AT to Corcelle, Baugy, 19 March 1838, OC XV i 97; to GB, Tocqueville, 8 July 1838, OC VIII i 310; to Édouard de Tocqueville, Tocqueville, 10 July 1838, OC XIV 199–200; to GB, Tocqueville, 19 October 1838, 5 November 1838, OC VIII i 321, 325–7.

  34. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 20 December 1838, OC XV i 106–7; to GB, [Paris], Thursday morning, [31 January 1839], OC VIII i 337.

  35. ibid., 337–8.

  36. Fumaroli, 735, 750.

  37. AT to GB, 31 January 1839, OC VIII i 337.

  38. AT to GB, [Paris], Friday morning, [1 February 1839], ibid., 338–9.

  39. Reeve, ‘Introductory Notice’, xxiv; Senior, Journal, 17 August 1850.

  40. GB to AT, 7 October 1837, OC VIII i 239; AT, ‘Deux lettres sur l’Algérie’, III i 129–53.

  41. AT, Souvenirs, OC XII 106.

  42. Pouthas, 25.

  43. Rémusat, IV, 45.

  44. Royer-Collard to AT, 15 June 1837, OC XI 32–3.

  45. AT to Molé, Tocqueville, 12 September 1837, OC(B) VI 73–5.

  46. Molé to AT, 14 September 1837, ibid., 75–8.

  47. Senior, Journal, 18 August 1861. Senior gets the year of the business wrong – he puts 1835 for 1837.

  48. AT to Molé, 18 September 1837, LC 390–93.

  49. See GB to AT, Paris, [22 September 1837], OC VIII i 280–88.

  50. AT to Molé, Tocqueville, 23 September 1837, OC(B) VI 79–80, LC 393 n.181.

  51. Jardin, Tocqueville, 292.

  52. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 12 November 1837, OC VIII i 262; to Hervé de Tocqueville, 30 October 1837, OC XIV 198.

  53. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 12 November 1837, OC VIII i 262–4.

  54. AT to GB, Baugy, 22 April 1838, ibid., 291–2.

  55. Guizot, IV, 288.

  56. Jardin and Tudesq, 125.

  57. See Senior, Journal, 18 August 1861; AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 20 December 1838, OC XV i 105.

  58. See OC III ii 51 n.3.

 

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