Mrs. Grote, in a very kind and interesting letter, which I received from her yesterday, says, that Lord Brougham, on his late arrival in London, gave a lamentable description of my health.  If he confined himself to January, he was right.  It is impossible to exaggerate my sufferings during that month.  But, since that time, all has changed, as if from day to night, or rather from night to day.  To talk now of what I was in January is like making a speech about the Spanish marriages.

I am grieved to find that you have suffered so much this year from bronchitis.  I fear that your larynx can scarcely endure an English winter.  But it is very hard to be obliged to expatriate oneself every year.  I fear, however, that such must be my fate for some winters to come, and the pain with which I anticipate it makes me sympathise more acutely with you.

We know not, as yet, whether we are to have peace or war.  Whichever it be, a mortal blow has struck the popularity of Louis Napoleon.  What maintained him was the belief that he was the protector of our material interests:  interests to which we now sacrifice all others.  The events of the last month show, with the utmost vividness, that these very interests may be endangered by the arbitrary and irrational will of a despot.  The feelings, therefore, which were his real support are now bitterly hostile to him.

I feel, in short, that a considerable change in our Government is approaching.

Even our poor Corps legislatif, a week ago, refused to take into consideration the Budget, until it was informed whether it were to be a war budget or a peace budget.  Great was the fury of those who represented the Government.  They exclaimed that the Chamber misapprehended its jurisdiction, and that it had nothing to do with political questions.  The Chamber, however, or rather its committee on the Budget, held its ground, and extorted from the Government some explanations.

Adieu, my dear Senior.  Say everything that is kind to the Grotes, the Reeves, the Lewises—­in short, to all our common friends, and believe in the sincerity of my friendship.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[This was M. de Tocqueville’s last letter to Mr. Senior.  He died on the 16th of April.—­ED.]

Hotel Westminster, Rue de la Paix, April 25, 1859.

My dear Madame de Tocqueville,—­I was in the country, and it was only last Friday, as I was passing through London on my way to Paris, that I heard of the irreparable loss that we, indeed that France and Europe, have suffered.

It cannot alleviate your distress to be told how universal and deep is the sympathy with it—­quite as much in England as in France.

It has thrown a gloom over society, not only over that portion which had the happiness and the honour of intimacy with M.A. de Tocqueville, but even of his acquaintances, and of those too whose acquaintance was only with his works.