'While you preserve your aristocracy, you will preserve your freedom; if that goes, you will fall into the worst of tyrannies, that of a despot, appointed and controlled, so far as he is controlled at all, by a mob.'[4]
Madame de Tocqueville asked me if I had seen the Empress.
'No,' I said, 'but Mrs. Senior has, and thinks her beautiful.'
'She is much more so,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'than her portraits. Her face in perfect repose gets long, and there is a little drooping about the corners of the mouth. This has a bad effect when she is serious, as everyone is when sitting for a picture, but disappears as soon as she speaks. I remember dining in company with her at the President's—I sat next to him—she was nearly opposite, and close to her a lady who was much admired. I said to the President, looking towards Mademoiselle de Montigo, "Really I think that she is far the prettier of the two." He gazed at her for an instant, and said, "I quite agree with you; she is charming." It may be a bon ménage'
'To come back,' I said, 'to our Eastern question. What is Baraguay d'Hilliers?'
'A brouillon,' said Tocqueville. 'He is the most impracticable man in France. His vanity, his ill-temper, and his jealousy make him quarrel with everybody with whom he comes in contact. In the interest of our alliance you should get him recalled.'
'What sort of man,' I asked, 'shall I find General Randon?'
'Very intelligent,' said Tocqueville. 'He was to have had the command of the Roman army when Oudinot gave it up; but, just as he was going, it was discovered that he was a Protestant. He was not so accommodating as one of our generals during the Restoration. He also was a Protestant. The Duc d'Angoulême one day said to him, "Vous êtes protestant, général?" The poor man answered in some alarm, for he knew the Duke's ultra-Catholicism, "Tout ce que vous voulez, monseigneur."'
[Footnote 1: My conversations with M. de Tocqueville during this visit were written out after my return from Paris and sent to him. He returned them with the remarks which I have inserted.—N.W. SENIOR.]
[Footnote 2: Le portrait va plus loin que ma pensée.—A. de
Tocqueville. The picture expresses more than my idea.]