Alexis de Tocqueville
Page 84
59. AT, [‘Allocution à la suite de son élection le 2 mars 1839’], OC III ii 56–7; AT to E. Stoffels, Valognes, 7 March 1839, OC(B) V 439.
15. Writing Democracy
1. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, XI, 459.
2. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, 11 March 1839, OC XIV 205; AT to E. Stoffels, Valognes, 7 March 1839, OC(B) V 440.
3. See Saint-Lô, ‘Vie courante et voyages’, AT 365–6.
4. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 10 March 1839, OC XV i 125.
5. AT, ‘Rapport fait au nom de la commission chargée d’examiner la proposition de M. de Tracy, relative aux esclaves de colonies’, OC III i 41–78.
6. AT to Édouard de Tocqueville, 3 July 1859, OC XIV 209; Marcel, 315 n.1; Chateaubriand to AT, 7 July 1839.
7. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 19 October 1839, OC XV i 139.
8. Alphonse de Lamartine, speech in the Chamber of Deputies, 10 January 1839. I have used the account in Whitehouse, II, 62–5.
9. AT to Léon Faucher, Tocqueville, 1 September 1839, OC XI 85; to Corcelle, [Tocqueville, 4 September 1839], OC XI i 134–5.
10. Royer-Collard to AT, 28 October 1839, OC XI 89.
11. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 23 October 1839, OC XIII i 390; AT to Royer-Collard, Tocqueville, 21 October 1839, OC XI 86; AT to J. S. Mill, 11, rue de Castellane, Paris, 14 November 1839, OC VI i 326–7; Reeve to AT, 22 February 1840, ibid., 54–5.
12. AT to Mill, 14 November 1839, OC VI 326–7.
13. See Schleifer, 26.
14. AT to Reeve, 2 March 1838, OC VI i 42.
15. OC I ii 11–15.
16. ibid., 53.
17. ibid., 57.
18. AT, ‘Second mémoire sur le paupérisme’, OC XVI 148–57.
19. OC I ii 313–14.
20. ibid., 313.
21. Rédier, 45–9. Rédier gives the date as November 1841.
22. OC I ii 277–8.
23. ibid., 173–5.
24. Jules Michelet to AT, 27 April 1840, Saint-Lô: AT 1979.
25. OC I ii 258.
26. ibid., 307.
27. ibid., 336–7.
28. ibid., 104.
29. Esprit des lois, book II, ch. 4.
30. See AT to Lord Radnor, London, May 1835, OC VI iii 38–43.
31. OC I ii 328.
32. Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’.
33. OC I ii 258–69.
34. ibid., 105–6.
35. ibid., 109–11.
36. ibid., 112.
37. ibid., 310.
38. ibid., 7. AT always planned to include the ‘Avertissement’, and first drafted it in 1836. For this first draft and his subsequent revisions see the Pléiade edition, 1084–6.
39. OC I ii 8.
40. See AT to Kergorlay, 10 November 1836, OC XVIII i 418; Schleifer, 25–6. Eduardo Nolla, in his invaluable critical edition of the Démocratie, seems to show that Kergorlay’s substantive influence was greatest in the chapter on democratic ambition: see Nolla (ed.), De la démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Vrin, 1990), II, 203.
41. OC I ii 149, 319.
42. ibid., 29.
43. ibid., 27–30.
44. ibid., 35–8.
45. ibid., 201 n.1.
46. ibid., 200–205, ch. VII: ‘Influence of Democracy on the Family’.
47. ibid., 206.
48. ibid., 207–8.
49. ibid., 219.
50. ibid., 214.
51. ibid., 213.
52. ibid., 209.
53. ibid., 210–11.
54. ibid., 212 n.1.
55. ibid., 215–16; Jardin, Tocqueville, 249.
56. OC I ii 339.
57. Mélonio, 66. The book is an indispensable study of the reception of AT’s writings in his own country. Crook, 166–98, is excellent on the reception of DA in Britain. Curiously, in spite of the avalanche of American monographs on AT in the last fifty years or so, there seems to be no comparable study of his reception in the United States. Phillips Bradley devotes a few useful pages to the subject in his edition of Democracy in America (2 vols., New York: Knopf, 1945), I xl–lii.
58. Mélonio, 70.
59. AT to Sylvestre de Sacy, [1840], Jardin, 272–3: I have made my own translation of this document.
60. Ampère to AT, 24 September 1840, OC XI 136–44. The poem was published in the Revue de Paris, 20 September 1840, without the satirical section on AT’s ‘honest electors’ who are destroying his digestion with their long banquets and ‘antique abundance’.
61. AT to J. S. Mill, Paris, 3 May 1840, Mill to AT, 11 May 1840, OC VI i 327–9.
62. Mill, ‘De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [II]’; Crook, 176–86, is especially illuminating on Mill and Tocqueville.
16. Deputy
1. Senior, Journal, 20 May 1848, JFI I 110.
2. Souvenirs, OC XII 86, LC 800.
3. Rémusat, III, 262–3; AT to Marie, December 1841, OC XIV 444. To see the difference, compare AT’s speech of 30 November 1840, on the Eastern question (OC III ii 288–301), with that on the right of search, 20 May 1842 (ibid., 325–33).
4. AT to Marie, [Paris, 19 August 1842], OC XIV 471.
5. Custine, 426–7; Rémusat, IV 44–5.
6. Senior, Journal, 21 August 1850.
7. OC XII 103, LC 815–16.
8. Senior, Journal, 21 August 1850; OC XII 102, LC 815.
9. Kergorlay to AT, 27 July and August 1840, OC XIII ii 72–5.
10. AT to Odilon Barrot, 16 September 1842.
11. Jardin, Tocqueville, 388.
12. ibid., 391. Jardin’s lucid account of the Commerce episode (388–96) is admirably detailed.
13. GB to Chambolle, 5 December 1844, OC VIII 546–7; AT to GB, 9 December 1844, ibid., 548–50.
14. AT to GB, 13 or 20 December 1844, ibid., 555.
15. AT to Royer-Collard, Tocqueville, 15 August 1840, OC XI 89–90.
16. Rémusat, IV, 12–14.
17. AT to Paul Clamorgan, Paris, 17 December 1841, OC X 203–4. Here we see Clamorgan used as a sort of press officer: he was expected to make sure that AT’s statements got effective public circulation.
18. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 14 July 1842, OC XV i 156.
19. AT, ‘Allocution de Tocqueville après l’élection du 9 juillet 1842’, OC III ii 77; ‘Notes pour un Discours’, ibid., 208.
20. Rémusat, IV, 14.
21. AT to J.-F. Hervieu, [Paris], 8 January 1842, OC X 208.
22. Guizot to AT, 26 April 1842, Saint Lô: AT 1064; Guizot, ‘Reply to Lacordaire’, 24 January 1861, OC XVI 332–45.
23. See Johnson, 83–7, for an excellent discussion of the subject; see also Siedentop, passim, though I do not altogether agree with some of Dr Siedentop’s views.
24. Bury and Tombs, 79.
25. AT, ‘Premier Discours sur la question d’Orient’, 20 July 1839, OC III ii 265.
26. AT, ‘Second Discours sur la question d’Orient’, 30 November 1840, OC III ii 288–301.
27. AT to J. S. Mill, Paris, 18 December 1840, OC VI i 331.
28. J. S. Mill to AT, 9 August 1842, OC VI i 337; Henry Reeve to C. C. Greville, Christmas Day 1841, Laughton, i, 143; Nassau Senior to AT, 27 February 1841, OC VI ii 91.
29. GB, ‘Notice sur Alexis de Tocqueville’, OC(B) V 65.
30. OC XII 45–6, LC 762. The best discussion of AT’s political programme, if it may be given the name, is in Drescher, Dilemmas; valuable, if less comprehensive, is Drolet.
31. OC XII 30–31, LC 750–51.
32. OC XII 31–4, LC 751–4.
33. Collingham has a particularly lucid and informative discussion of the changes in politics brought about by the July Revolution.
34. AT, ‘Discussion de l’adresse’, Séance du 18 Janvier 1842, OC III ii 201; AT to Clamorgan, Paris, 14 March 1842, OC X 216 and n.2.
35. AT to Kergorlay, Tocqueville, 25 October 1842, OC XIII ii 108–9.
36. Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850 (Moscow, 1968), 28.
38. AT to Marie, Paris, 8–9 August 1842, OC XIV 463–4.
39. Rédier, 124.
40. AT to Sophie Swetchine, Tocqueville, 11 February 1857, OC XV ii 309.
41. Kergorlay to Marie, 7 March 1841, OC XIII ii 81.
42. AT to Kergorlay, [Tocqueville], 27 September 1843, ibid., 121.
43. Information from Françoise Mélonio.
44. AT to Marie, Algiers, 9 May 1841, OC XIV 418–19; OC V ii 191.
45. OC V ii 216–17.
46. OC III i 294 and nn.1, 2.
47. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, tr. Rex Warner (London, Penguin, 1954), book II, 132.
48. AT, ‘Rapport fait sur le Projet de Loi relative aux Crédits Extraordinaires demandés pour l’Algérie’, 24 May 1847, OC III i 329.
49. The best discussion of this topic is Richter, to which I am much indebted. Also very valuable is André Jardin, ‘Tocqueville et l’Algérie’. Both papers were written at the time of France’s defeat in the Algerian War, to their advantage.
50. See AT, ‘Travail sur l’Algérie (Octobre 1841)’, OC III i 213–14.
51. H. d’Ideville, Memoirs of Marshal Bugeaud, tr. Charlotte M. Yonge (London, 1884), II, 19–23.
52. AT to Marie, Toulon, 12 June 1841, OC XIV 435.
53. AT to Marie, Algiers, 22 May 1841, ibid., 425; GB, ‘Notice’, 25; AT to Marie, Montaganem, 17 May 1841, OC XIV 424–5.
54. AT to Marie, Algiers, 22–May 1841, OC XIV 429.
55. AT to Marie, Toulon, 12 June 1841, OC XIV 435; AT to Marie, Marseille, 13 June 1841, ibid., 437; AT to Marie, Avignon, 14 June 1841, ibid., 439.
56. AT to Marie, Paris, 21 June 1841, ibid., 440.
57. Quoted in Fumaroli, 740.
58. Dorothée de Dino, iii, 122.
59. OC XVI 231–n.1, quoting a memorandum by AT of a conversation with Royer-Collard on 8 January 1842.
60. AT, ‘Discours’, 21 April 1842, OC XVI 251–69.
61. Dino, II, 316.
62. ibid., III, 133.
17. February
1. From AT’s speech on his entry to the Académie Française, 21 April 1842, OC XVI 255.
2. Guillemin, 53.
3. For all this see OC XVI 288–303, 22 July 1847.
4. AT to GB, [?17] July 1847, OC VIII i 605; OC XII 34.
5. Whitehouse, Lamartine II, 174.
6. Howarth, 307.
7. OC XII 35; Johnson, 192.
8. AT to Nassau Senior, Tocqueville, 25 August 1847, OC VI ii 99; AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 29 September 1847, OC XI i 239.
9. AT to Corcelle, Tocqueville, 27 August 1847, OC XV 234–6; AT to GB, 23 August 1847, OC VIII i 608; GB to AT, 30 August 1847, ibid., 612; Whitehouse, II, 465.
10. AT to Prosper Enfantin, [Tocqueville], 10 November 1847, LC 591–2. The editors of the LC point out that this letter is known to us only through a draft in AT’s papers.
11. AT never names Proudhon, but to me it is inconceivable that he did not read What is Property? and it is Proudhonian doctrine that he attacks in his speeches; AT to Gobineau, Tocqueville, 5 September 1843, OC IX 46–7, mentions the Saint-Simonians.
12. Letter to Paul Ackermann, quoted in Woodcock, Proudhon, 58.
13. De la célébration du dimanche, quoted in Woodcock, Anarchism, 112–13.
14. Proudhon’s debt to AT has been no secret for the best part of a century: see Mayer, 147–8; Lambetti, 206 n.91; Mélonio, 41–2, 222–3; but so far as I know it has never received the sort of detailed examination and exposition which the subject deserves.
15. Quoted in Lefebvre, 50.
16. See OC XII 96.
17. OC III ii 731–44: ‘Note’; ‘Question financière’; ‘De la classe moyenne et du peuple’; [‘Fragments pour une politique sociale’].
18. OC III ii 736–7, 740–41. Readers of the Démocratie will remember that in 1835 AT thought that the days of great political parties based on distinct principles were over.
19. OC III ii 743–4.
20. OC XII 43; Guizot, VIII, 534.
21. Collingham, 401.
22. OC XII 32–3.
23. OC III ii 745–58.
24. OC XII 41.
25. ibid., 43.
26. Duveau, 5.
27. OC XII 51.
28. ibid., 53.
29. Guizot, VIII, 589.
30. OC XII 57.
31. GB wrote a memoir of 24 February, now in the Beinecke Library, Yale. It is a vividly written supplement to AT’s Souvenirs, and ought to be published.
32. OC XII 61.
33. ibid., 65–6.
34. ibid., 68.
35. GB, ‘24 February’.
36. ibid.; OC XII 68–9. These independent reminiscences confirm each other with beautiful precision at this point.
37. OC XII 69–70.
38. ibid., 70.
39. ibid., 77–8. Bugeaud was certainly present, but AT, who detested him, either failed to see the marshal or failed to remember that he had. He always denied that Bugeaud had been there. See Senior, Journal, 27 October 1849; Bugeaud, II 305–6.
40. OC XII 86–9; 125–6.
41. AT to Bouchitté, Paris, 1 May 1848, OC(B) VII 235–6.
42. Amann, 939.
18. June
1. OC XII 150.
2. Falloux, I, 270; OC XII 90.
3. AT to Clamorgan, [Paris], 25 and 27 February 1848, OC X 444–7.
4. OC I i xliv.
5. Mélonio, 67.
6. OC XII 93, 95; Woodcock, Proudhon, 118.
7. Sand, 8.
8. AT to Clamorgan, Paris, 11 March 1848, OC X 453.
9. AT to Clamorgan, Paris, 7 March 1848, ibid., 450.
10. AT to MT, [Valognes, 14 March 1848], OC XIV 507.
11. AT to MT, Tocqueville, 20 March 1848, ibid., 515.
12. AT to MT, Sunday, 26 March 1848, ibid., 523; AT, [Circulaire électorale], OC III iii 39–42.
13. AT to MT, Tocqueville, 20 March 1848, OC XIV 516.
14. AT, ‘Banquet populaire de Cherbourg’, 19 March 1848, OC III iii 43–6; AT to Marie, 20 March 1848, OC XIV 517; OC XII 111–12: he alleges that he can’t remember what he said. He attributes his success to the fact that he was improvising: ‘For it can’t be said too often that speeches are made to be heard and not read.’
15. OC XII 114; Loménie, 421.
16. AT to Clamorgan, 2 May 1848, OC X 459–60.
17. OC XII 177.
18. AT to Clamorgan [Paris, 7 April 1848], OC X 456.
19. OC III ii 757.
20. OC XII 115; AT to Senior, Paris, 10 April 1848, OC VI ii 101.
21. AT to GB, Tocqueville, 22 April 1848, OC VIII ii 12–13.
22. AT to Clamorgan, [Paris], 2 May 1848, OC X 460; AT to Mathilde de Kergorlay, April– May 1848, OC XIII ii 220.
23. Blanc, 417.
24. OC XII 149–50; see also James Pope-Hennessy, Monckton Milnes: the Years of Promise, 1809–1851 (London, 1949), 283–5.
25. See Senior, Journal, 16 May 1848 (conversation with AT), 20 May 1848 (conversation with GB); Guillemin, 333–52; Agulhon, 52–3, seems to give a qualified assent to Guillemin’s thesis.
26. Senior, Journal, 16 May 1848.
27. Guillemin, 336; Blanc, 391–2.
28. Senior, ibid., 19 May 1848.
29. OC XII 141; Blanc, 391–7; Quentin-Bauchart, 11–18.
30. Senior, ibid., 16 May 1848; OC XII 135–7, 141.
31. OC XII 140 n.1.
32. ibid., 184. For the committee minutes see OC III iii 55–158.
33. OC XII 180.
34. ibid., 184, 191; see Max Farrand (ed.), The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, new edn., 4 vols. (Yale, 1966), passim.
35. OC XII 180, 185.
36. ibid., 189–90.
37. OC XII 189.
38. ibid., 180.
39. Senior, Journal, 20 May 1853: see CTG I 184–7; OC XII 180–82.
41. ibid., 173–4.
42. ibid., 171.
43. Falloux, I, 331–2, 334.
44. ibid., 335–6; Quentin-Bauchart, 29–30; de Luna, 136; Guillemin, 381 n.
45. De Luna, 136–7.
46. OC XII 156. It is not clear whether, in this passage, AT is referring to Louis Blanc’s speech in his own defence on 15 May, when he was nearly shouted down, or to that of 31 May, when the law officers asked the Assembly for leave to prosecute him (Blanc, 400, 404); his acquittal took place on 3 June; William Fortescue, Alphonse de Lamartine (London and New York, 1983), 184–5.
47. OC XII 156.
48. AT to Marie, [National Assembly], 24 and 25 June 1848, OC XIV 541–2; AT to Clamorgan, 24 June 1848, OC X 468–9.
49. AT to Z. Gallemand, 25 June 1848, OC X 470.
50. Jardin, Tocqueville, 416; Alexander Herzen, My Life and Thoughts, tr. Constance Garnett (London, 1924), III, 23–4.
51. OC XII 219; LC 929 n.15.
19. Retrospection
1. Arthur de Gobineau to AT, 8 September 1843, OC IX 56.
2. AT to Eugène Stoffels, Paris, 21 July 1848, LC 635.
3. OC XII 86–7.
4. Duguit and Monnier, 234 (‘Constitution du 4 novembre 1848’).
5. OC III iii 167 n.2.
6. ibid., 172.
7. ibid., 180.
8. ibid., 215.
9. ibid., 221–2. André Jardin proposes a small emendation of the French text at one point (p. 221: ‘instincts’ for ‘intérêts’): I have adopted it.
10. AT to GB, [Paris], 27 August 1848, OC VIII ii 32.
11. AT to GB, Paris, 24 September 1848, ibid., 53; to Clamorgan, Paris, 17 October 1848, OC X 484; de Luna, 405 n.17.
12. Ancelot, 156; AT to GB, [Paris, 23 October] 1848, OC VIII ii 76.
13. De Luna, 373.
14. AT to GB, [23 October] 1848, OC VIII ii 76.
15. De Luna, 382, 391; AT to GB, Paris, 8 December 1848, OC VIII ii 117. Cicero remarked of Octavian in 43 BC: ‘Laudandum, ornandum, tollendum’, translated by Anthony Everitt as ‘The young man must get praises, honours and the push’ (Cicero, 301). Within months Cicero was murdered, abandoned by Octavian to his enemies.
16. AT to GB, Paris, 27 October 1848, OC VIII ii 80; Rémusat, 374–6.
17. AT to Clamorgan, Paris, 22 January 1849, OC X 504; to GB, Bonn, 11 May 1849, OC VIII ii 128.
18. See, for example, AT to P.-M. Dudouy, [Paris, April 1849], OC X 528.
19. AT to George Grote, Paris, 27 February 1849, OC VI iii 117–19; AT, ‘Projet de circulaire électorale’, May 1849, OC III iii 257–61.