[Footnote 1: This article is republished in the Historical and
Philosophical Essays. Longmans: 1865.—ED.]
Wednesday, May 13.—Tocqueville came in after breakfast, and I walked with him in the shade of the green walls or arcades of the Tuileries chestnuts.
We talked of the Montijos, which led our conversation to Mérimée and V.
'Both of them,' said Tocqueville, 'were the friends of
Countess Montijo, the mother.
'V. was among the last persons who knew Eugénie as Countess Théba. He escorted her to the Tuileries the very evening of her marriage. There he took his leave of her. "You are now," he said, "placed so high that I can only admire you from below." And I do not believe that they have met since.
'Mérimée took a less sentimental view of the change. He acknowledged his Empress in his former plaything, subsided from a sort of stepfather into a courtier, and so rose to honour and wealth, while V. is satisfied to remain an ex-professor and un homme de lettres.'
* * * * *
We met Henri Martin, and I asked Tocqueville what he thought of his
History.
'It has the merit of selling,' he said, 'which cannot be said of any other History of France. Martin is laborious and conscientious, and does not tell a story ill; but he is a partisan and is always biassed by his own likings and dislikings. He belongs to the class of theorists, unfortunately not a small one, whose political beau idéal is the absence of all control over the will of the people-who are opposed therefore to an hereditary monarchy-to a permanent President—to a permanent magistracy-to an established Church—in short, to all privileged classes, bodies, or institutions. Equality, not liberty or security, is their object. They are centralisers and absolutists. A despotic Assembly elected by universal suffrage, sitting at most for a year, governing, like the Convention, through its committees, or a single despot, appointed for a week, and not re-eligible, is the sort of ruler that they would prefer. The last five years have perhaps disgusted Martin with his Asiatic democracy, but his earlier volumes are coloured throughout by his prejudices against all systems implying a division of power, and independent authorities controlling and balancing one another.'
We talked of the Secret Police.