The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville

by Alexis de Tocqueville

"I should like to know why you did not take advantage of your friend M. Faucher's period at the Home Office to rid yourself of your prefect."

Falloux contained himself, although he was naturally, I believe, of a very hasty temper; he came and told me his troubles, and I saw the bitterest spleen trickling through the honey of his speech. I thereupon intervened, and tried to make Dufaure understand that this was one of those demands which one cannot refuse a colleague unless one wishes to quarrel with him. I spent a month in this way, acting as a daily intermediary between the two, and expending more effort and diplomacy than I had employed, during the same period, in treating the great affairs of Europe. The Cabinet was more than once on the verge of breaking up over this puny incident. Dufaure gave way at last, but with such bad grace that it was impossible to thank him for it; so that he gave up his prefect without getting Falloux in exchange.

But the most difficult portion of our rôle was the conduct which we had to display towards the old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of the majority, as I have already said.

These had at one and the same time general opinions which they wished to force through and a number of private passions which they desired to satisfy. They wanted us to re-establish order energetically: in this we were their men; we wanted it as much as they did, and we did it as well as they could wish, and better than they could have done. We had proclaimed the state of siege in Lyons and several of the neighbouring departments, and by virtue of the state of siege we had suspended six Paris revolutionary papers, cashiered the three regiments of the Paris National Guard which had displayed indecision on the 13th of June, arrested seven representatives on the spot, and applied for warrants against thirty others. Analogous measures were taken all over France. Circulars addressed to all the agents showed them that they had to do with a Government which knew how to make itself obeyed, and which was determined that everything should give way before the law. Whenever Dufaure was attacked on account of these different acts by the Montagnards remaining in the Assembly, he replied with that masculine, nervous, and sharp-edged eloquence of which he was so great a master, and in the tone of a man who fights after burning his boats.

The Conservatives not only wanted us to administrate with vigour; they wished us to take advantage of our victory to pass preventive and repressive laws. We ourselves felt the necessity of moving in this direction, although we were not willing to go as far as they.

For my part, I was convinced that it was both wise and necessary to make great concessions in this respect to the fears and the legitimate resentment of the nation, and that the only means which remained, after so violent a revolution, of saving liberty was to restrict it. My colleagues were of the same opinion: we therefore brought in successively a law to suspend the clubs; another to suppress, with even more energy than had been done under the Monarchy, the vagaries of the press; and a third to regulate the state of siege.

"You are establishing a military dictatorship," they cried.

"Yes," replied Dufaure, "it is a dictatorship, but a parliamentary dictatorship. There are no individual rights which can prevail against the inalienable right of Society to protect itself. There are imperious necessities which are the same for all governments, whether monarchies or republics; and who has given rise to these necessities? To whom do we owe the cruel experience which has given us eighteen months of violent agitations, incessant conspiracies, formidable insurrections? Yes, no doubt you are quite right when you say that, after so many revolutions undertaken in the name of liberty, it is deplorable that we should be once again compelled to veil her statue and to place terrible weapons in the hands of the public powers. But whose fault is it, if not yours, and who is it that serves the Republic best, those who favour insurrections, or those who, like ourselves, apply themselves to suppressing them?"

These measures, these laws and this language pleased the Conservatives without satisfying them; and to tell the truth, nothing would have contented them short of the destruction of the Republic. Their instinct constantly impelled them in that direction, although their prudence and their reason restrained them on the road.

But what they desired above all things was to oust their enemies from place and to instal in their stead their partisans or their private friends. We were again brought face to face with all the passions which had brought about the fall of the Monarchy of July. The Revolution had not destroyed them, but only made them the more greedy; this was our great and permanent danger. Here again, I considered that we ought to make concessions. There were still in the public offices a very large number of those Republicans of indifferent capacity or bad character whom the chances of the Revolution had driven into power. My advice was to get rid of these at once, without waiting to be asked for their dismissal, in such a way as to inspire confidence in our intentions and to acquire the right to defend all the honest and capable Republicans; but I could never induce Dufaure to consent to this. He had already held the Ministry of the Interior under Cavaignac. Many of the public servants whom it would be necessary to dismiss had been either appointed or supported by him. His vanity was involved in the question of maintaining them in their positions, and his mistrust of their detractors would in any event have sufficed to persuade him to oppose their representations. He accordingly resisted. It was, therefore, not long before he himself became the object of all their attacks. No one dared tackle him in the tribune, for he was too sturdy a swordsman there; but he was constantly struck at from a distance and in the shade of the lobbies, and I soon saw a great storm gathering against him.