’Now, no corruption that ever prevailed in the worst periods of Louis XV., nothing that was done by La Pompadour or the Du Barry resembles what is going on now.  Duchatel, whose organs are not over-acute, tells me that he shudders at what is forced on his notice.  The perfect absence of publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the bar—­for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to be reported—­give full room for conversational exaggeration.  Bad as things are, they are made still worse.  Now this we cannot bear.  It hurts our strongest passion—­our vanity.  We feel that we are exploites by Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers.  The injury might be tolerated, but not the disgrace.

’Every Government in France has a tendency to become unpopular as it continues.  If you were to go down into the street, and inquire into the politics of the first hundred persons whom you met, you would find some Socialists, some Republicans, some Orleanists, &c., but you would find no Louis Napoleonists.  Not a voice would utter his name without some expression of contempt or detestation, but principally of contempt.

’If then things take their course—­if no accident, such as a fever or a pistol-shot, cut him off—­public indignation will spread from Paris to the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army, and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.’

‘And what power,’ I said, ‘will start up in his place?’

‘I trust,’ answered Tocqueville, ’that the reins will be seized by the Senate.  Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying, “A time may come when we shall be wanted.”  Probably the Corps Legislatif will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.’

‘But what,’ I said, ’would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the fever?’

‘The immediate consequence,’ answered Tocqueville, ’would be the installation of his successor.  Jerome would go to the Tuileries as easily as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end.  We might bear Louis Napoleon for four or five years, or Jerome for four or five months.’

‘It has been thought possible,’ I said, ’that in the event of the Jerome dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.’

‘That,’ said Tocqueville, ’is one of the few things which I hold to be impossible.  Nero may be followed by another attempt at a Republic, but if any individual is to succeed him it must be a prince. Mere personal distinction, at least such as is within the bounds of real possibility, will not give the sceptre of France.  It will be seized by no one who cannot pretend to an hereditary claim.