‘At least,’ said Madame de Tocqueville, ’till people are married.

’If a lover is cool enough to be without jealousy, he ought to pretend it.’

[Footnote 1:  Under the ancien regime even the married actresses were called Mademoiselle.—­ED.]

Sunday, August 18.—­After breakfast when the ladies were gone to church, I talked over with Ampere and Beaumont Tocqueville’s political career.

‘Why,’ I asked, ’did he refuse the support of M. Mole in 1835?  Why would he never take office under Louis Philippe?  Why did he associate himself with the Gauche whom he despised, and oppose the Droit with whom he sympathised?  Is the answer given by M. Guizot to a friend of mine who asked a nearly similar question, “Parce qu’il voulait etre ou je suis,” the true one?’

‘The answers to your first question,’ said Beaumont, ’are two.  In 1835 Tocqueville was young and inexperienced.  Like most young politicians, he thought that he ought to be an independent member, and to vote, on every occasion, according to his conscience, untrammelled by party connections.  He afterwards found his mistake.

’And, secondly, if he had chosen to submit to a leader, it would not have been Mole.

’Mole represented a principle to which Guizot was then vehemently opposed, though he was afterwards its incarnation—­the subservience of the Ministry and of the Parliament to the King.  In that house of 450 members, there were 220 placemen; 200 were the slaves of the King.  They received from him their orders; from time to time, in obedience to those orders, they even opposed his Ministers.

’This, however, seldom occurred, for the King contrived always to have a devoted majority in his Cabinet.

’It was this that drove the Duc de Broglie from the Government and prevented his ever resuming office.

’"I could not bear,” he said to me, “to hear Sebastiani repeat, in every council and on every occasion, ’Ce que le Roi vient de dire est parfaitement juste.’” The only Ministers that ventured to have an opinion of their own were those of the 12th of May 1839, of which Dufaure, Villemain, and Passy were members, and that of the 1st of March 1840, of which Thiers was the leader; and Tocqueville supported them both.

’When Guizot, who had maintained the principle of Ministerial and Parliamentary, in opposition to that of Monarchical Governments, with unequalled eloquence, vigour, and I may add violence, suddenly turned round and became the most servile member of the King’s servile majority, Tocqueville fell back into opposition.

’In general it is difficult to act with an opposition systematically and, at the same time, honestly.  For the measures proposed by a Government are, for the most part, good.  But, during the latter part of Louis Philippe’s reign, it was easy, for the Government proposed merely to do nothing—­either abroad or at home.  I do not complain of the essence of M. Guizot’s foreign policy, though there was a want of dignity in its forms.