Tocqueville had now reached the summit of fame as an author.  He enjoyed the harvest of success, and his ambition was urged by it to new exertion.  But in the summer of 1858 he had an alarming attack of bleeding at the lungs, accompanied with a general prostration of strength.  In the autumn, his physicians ordered him to the South, and early in November he arrived at Cannes, where he was to spend the winter.  But neither change of climate nor tender nursing was sufficient to prevent his disease from progressing.  He suffered much, but he still hoped.  He became worse as the spring came on, and on the 16th of April, 1859, he died.  He was fifty-four years old, but he had lived a long life, if life be measured by thought and moral progress.

In his domestic life Tocqueville had been most happy, and it was in his own home that his character appeared in its most delightful aspect.  In society he was a converser of extraordinary brilliancy.  Few men were his rivals in this art, so well practised in Paris.  His flow of ideas was not more remarkable than the choiceness and vigor of his expression.  But he was not a tyrant in talk, and he was as ready to listen as to seek for listeners.  His social powers were at the service of his friends.  He was not of a gay temper, but he had a peculiar thoughtfulness for others which gave a charm to his manners far superior to that of careless vivacity.  M. de Beaumont speaks of him in his relations to his friends in words full of feeling:—­

“I have said that he had many friends; but he experienced a still greater happiness, that of never losing one of them.  He had also another happiness:  it was the knowing how to love them all so well, that none ever complained of the share he received, even while seeing that of the others.  He was as ingenious as he was sincere in his attachments; and never, perhaps, did example prove better than his how many charms good-wit adds to good-will (combien l’esprit ajoute de charmes a la bonte).

“Good as he was,” continues M. de Beaumont, “he aspired without ceasing to become better; and it is certain that each day he drew nearer to that moral perfection which seemed to him the only end worthy of man....  Each day he brought into all his sentiments and all his actions something of deeper piety, and stronger gratitude to God....  He was more patient, more laborious, more watchful to lose nothing of that life which he loved so well, and which he had the right to find beautiful, he who made of it so noble a use!  Finally, it may be said to his honor, that at an epoch in which each man tends to concentrate his regard upon himself, he had no other aim than that of seeking for truths useful to his fellows, no other passion than that of increasing their well-being and their dignity.”—­Vol.  I. p. 124.