Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859 Part 30

'On what other footing,' I asked, 'could we put them? On what other footing does the North put them? Have they ventured, or will they venture, to hang a single seceder?'

'At least,' she said, 'you might have expressed more sympathy with the North?'

'I think,' I answered, 'that we have expressed as much sympathy as it was possible to feel. We deplore the combat, we hold the South responsible for it, we think their capricious separation one of the most foolish and one of the most wicked acts that have ever been committed; we hope that the North will beat them, and we should bitterly regret their forcing themselves back into the Union on terms making slavery worse, if possible, than it is now. We wish the contest to end as quickly as possible: but we do not think that it can end by the North subjugating the Southerns and forcing them to be its subjects.

'The best termination to which we look forward as possible, is that the North should beat the South, and then dictate its own terms of separation.

'If they wish to go farther than this, if they wish us to love or to admire our Northern cousins in their political capacity, they wish for what is impossible.

'We cannot forget that the Abolitionists have been always a small and discredited party; that the Cuba slave trade is mainly carried on from New York; that they have neglected the obligations formally entered into by them with us to co-operate in the suppression of the slave trade; that they have pertinaciously refused to allow us even to inquire into the right of slavers to use the American flag; that it is the capital of the North which feeds the slavery of the South; that the first act of the North, as soon as the secession of the South from Congress allowed it to do what it liked, was to enact a selfish protective tariff; that their treatment of us, from the time that they have felt strong enough to insult us, has been one unvaried series of threats, bullying, and injury; that they have refused to submit their claims on us to arbitration, driven out our amba.s.sadors, seized by force on disputed territory, and threatened war on every pretence.'

'It is true,' said Beaumont, 'that during the last twenty years American diplomacy has not been such as to inspire affection or respect But you must recollect that during all that time America has been governed by the South.'

'It is true,' I said, 'that the presidents have generally been Southerns, but I am not aware that the North has ever disavowed their treatment of us. This is certain, that throughout the Union, insolence to England has been an American statesman's road to popularity.'

_Monday., August _19.--We walked in the afternoon over the commons overlooking the sea, and among the shady lanes of this well-wooded country.

We came on a group of about twelve or thirteen reapers taking their evening meal of enormous loaves of brown bread, basins of b.u.t.ter, and kegs of cider.

M. Roussell, the farmer in whose service they were, was sitting among them. He was an old friend and const.i.tuent of Tocqueville, and for thirty years was Maire of Tocqueville. He has recently resigned. He rose and walked with us to his house.

'I was required,' he said, 'to support the prefect's candidate for the _Conseil general_. No such proposition was ever made to me before. I could not submit to it. The prefect has been unusually busy of late. The schoolmaster has been required to send in a list of the peasants whose children, on the plea of poverty, receive gratuitous education. The children of those who do not vote with the prefect are to have it no longer.'

I asked what were the wages of labour.

'Three francs and half a day,' he said, 'during the harvest, with food--which includes cider. In ordinary times one franc a day with food, or a franc and a half without food.'

'It seems then,' I said, 'that you can feed a man for half a franc a day?'

'He can feed himself,' said M. Roussell, 'for that, but I cannot, or for double that money.'

The day labourer is generally hired only for one day. A new bargain is made every day.

The house was not uncomfortable, but very untidy. There are no ricks, everything is stored in large barns, where it is safe from weather, but terribly exposed to vermin.

A bright-complexioned servant-girl was in the kitchen preparing an enormous bowl of soup, of which bread, potatoes, and onions were the chief solid ingredients.

'Roussell,' said Beaumont, 'is superior to his cla.s.s. In general they are bad politicians. It is seldom difficult to get their votes for the nominee of the prefect. They dislike to vote for anyone whom they know, especially if he be a gentleman, or be supported by the gentry. Such a candidate excites their democratic envy and suspicion. But the prefect is an abstraction. They have never seen him, they have seldom heard of his name or of that of his candidate, and therefore they vote for him.

'Lately, however, in some of my communes, the peasants have adapted a new practice, that of electing peasants. I suspect that the Government is not displeased.

'The presence of such members will throw discredit on the _Conseils generaux_, and, if they get there, on the _Corps legislatif,_ much to the pleasure of our democratic master, and they will be easily bribed or frightened. Besides which the fifteen francs a day will be a fortune to them, and they will be terrified by the threat of a dissolution. I do not think that even yet we have seen the worst of universal suffrage.'

'What influence,' I asked, 'have the priests?'

'In some parts of France,' said Beaumont, 'where the people are religious, as is the case here, much. Not much in the north-east, where there is little religion; and in the towns, where there is generally no religion, their patronage of a candidate would ruin him. I believe that nothing has so much contributed to Louis Napoleon's popularity with the _ouvriers_ as his quarrel with the Pope. You may infer the feelings of the lower cla.s.ses in Paris from his cousin's conduct.'

'I study Prince Napoleon,' said Ampere, 'with interest, for I believe that he will be the successor.'

'If Louis Napoleon,' I said, 'were to be shot tomorrow, would not the little prince be proclaimed?'

'Probably,' said Ampere, 'but with Jerome for regent, and I doubt whether the regency would end by the little Napoleon IV. a.s.suming the sceptre.

'Louis Napoleon himself does not expect it. He often says that, in France, it is more than two hundred years since a sovereign has been succeeded by his son.

'On the whole,' continued Ampere, 'I had rather have Jerome than Louis Napoleon. He has more talent and less prudence. He would bring on the crisis sooner.

'On the 31st of October, 1849,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'I was in Louis Napoleon's company, and he mentioned some matter on which he wished to know my husband's opinion. I could not give it. "It does not much signify," he answered, "for as I see M. de Tocqueville every day, I will talk to him about it myself." At that very time, the _ordonnance_ dismissing M. de Tocqueville had been signed, and Louis Napoleon knew that he would probably never see him again.'

'I do not,' said Ampere, 'give up the chance of a republic. I do not wish for one. It must be a very bad const.i.tutional monarchy which I should not prefer to the best republic. My democratic illusions are gone. France and America have dispelled them: but it must be a very bad republic which I should not prefer to the best despotism. A republic is like a fever, violent and frightful, but not necessarily productive of organic mischief. A despotism is a consumption: it degrades and weakens, and perverts all the vital functions.

'What is there now in France worth living for? I find people proud of our Italian campaign. Why should the French be proud that their master's soldiers have been successful in a war as to which they were not consulted; which, in fact, they disapproved, which was not made for their benefit, which was the most glaring proof of their servility and degradation? We knew before that our troops were better than the Austrians. What have we gained by the additional example of their superiority?

'I fear,' I said, 'that a republic, at least such a republic as you are likely to have, would begin by some gross economical enormities--by the _droit au travail_, by the _impot progressif sur la fortune presumtee_, by a paper currency made a legal tender without limitation of its amount.'

'The last republic,' said Ampere, 'did some of these things, but very timidly and moderately. It gave to its paper a forced currency, but was so cautious in its issue, that it was not depreciated. It created the _ateliers nationaux,_ but it soon dissolved them, though at the expense of a civil war. Its worst fault was more political than economical: it was the 45 centimes, that is to say, the sudden increase by 45 per cent, of the direct taxes. It never recovered that blow. Of all its acts it is the one which is best recollected. The Provisional Government is known in the provinces as "ces gredins des quarante-cinq centimes." The business of a revolutionary government is to be popular. It ought to reduce taxation, meet its expenditure by loans, abolish octrois and prohibitions, and defer taxation until it has lasted long enough to be submitted to as a _fait accompli_.'

'I fear,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'that our working cla.s.ses are in a much worse frame of mind than they were in 1848. Socialist opinions--the doctrine that the profits of capitalists are so much taken fraudulently or oppressively from the wages of labourers, and that it is unjust that one man should have more of the means of happiness than another--are extending every day. The workpeople believe that the rich are their enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he will join them in an attempt to get their fair share, that is, an equal share, of the property of the country--and I am not sure that they are mistaken.'

'Nor am I,' said Beaumont '_Celui-ci_ fully sympathises with their feelings, and I do not think that he has intelligence enough to see the absurdity of their theories.'

'You do not deny him,' I said, 'intelligence?'

'Not,' said Beaumont, 'for some purposes, and to some extent, practical intelligence. His ends are bad, but he is often skilful in inventing and pertinacious in employing means for effecting those bad ends. But I deny him theoretic intelligence. I do not think that he has comprehension or patience to work out, or even to follow, a long train of reasoning; such a train as that by which economical errors and fallacies are detected.'

'Are there strikes,' I asked, 'among your workmen?'

'They are beginning,' said Beaumont. 'We have had one near us, and the authorities were afraid to interfere.'

'I suppose,' I said, that they are illegal?'

'They are illegal,' he answered, 'and I think that they ought to be so.

They are always oppressive and tyrannical. The workman who does not join in a strike is made miserable. They are generally mischievous to the combined workmen themselves, and always to those of other trades.

Your toleration of them appears to me one of the worst symptoms of your political state of health. It shows among your public men an ignorance or a cowardice, or a desire of ill-earned popularity, which is generally a precursor of a democratic revolution.'

'It is certain,' said Ampere, 'that the masters are becoming afraid of their workmen. Pereire brings his from their residences to the Barriere Malesherbes in carriages. You are not actually insulted in the streets of Paris, but you are treated with rude neglect. A _fiacre_ likes to splash you, a _paveur_ to scatter you with mud. Louis Napoleon began with Chauvinism. He excited all the bad international pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude. He has now taken up Sansculotteism. Repulsed with scorn and disgust by the rich and the educated, he has thrown himself on the poor and ignorant The pa.s.sions with which he likes to work are envy, malignity, and rapacity.

'I do not believe that he feels them. He is what is called a good-natured man. That is to say, he likes to please everyone that he sees. But his selfishness is indescribable.

'No public interest stands in the way of his slightest caprice. He often puts me in mind of Nero. With the same indifference to the welfare of others with which Nero amused himself by burning down Rome, he is amusing himself by pulling down Paris.'

N.W. SENIOR.

[We left Tocqueville on the following day with great regret The same party was never to meet again--the only survivors are Madame de Beaumont and myself and the Beaumonts' son, then a very intelligent boy of ten years old.