Alexis says that the reason why the great upheaving of that period has never been to this day sufficiently appreciated, never sufficiently explained, is because the actual living hideousness of the social details and relations of that period, seen from the points of view of a penetrating contemporary looker-on, has never yet been depicted in true colours and with minute particulars.  After having dived into the social history of that century, as I have stated, his conviction is that it was impossible that the revolution of 1789 should not burst out.  Cause and effect were never more irrevocably associated than in this terrible case.  Nothing but the compulsory idleness and obscurity into which Alexis has been thrown since December 1851 would have put even him upon the researches in question.  Few perhaps could have addressed themselves to the task with such remarkable powers of interpretation, and with such talents for exploring the connection between thought and action as he is endowed with.  Also he is singularly exempt from aristocratical prejudices, and quite capable of sympathising with popular feeling, though naturally not partial to democracy.

February 15.—­De Tocqueville came down in close carriage and sat an hour and a half by fireside.  Weather horrible.  Talked of La Marck’s book on Mirabeau;[2] said that the line Mirabeau pursued was perfectly well known to Frenchmen prior to the appearance of La Marck’s book; but that the actual details were of course a new revelation, and highly valued accordingly.  Asked what we thought of it in England.  I told him the leading impression made by the book was the clear perception of the impossibility of effecting any good or coming to terms in any manner of way of the revolutionary leaders with such a Court.  That we also had long suspected Mirabeau of being what he was now proved to have been—­a man who, imbued though he was with the spirit of revolutionary action and the conviction of the rightfulness of demanding prodigious changes, yet who would willingly have directed the monarch in a method of warding off the terrible consequences of the storm, and who would, if the Court had confided to his hands the task of conciliating the popular feelings, have perhaps preserved the forms of monarchy while affording the requisite concessions to the national demands.  But the Court was so steeped in the old sentiment of divine right, and moreover so distrustful of Mirabeau’s honour and sagacity (the more so as he was insatiable in his pecuniary requisitions), that they would never place their cause frankly in his hands, nor indeed in anyone else’s who was capable of discerning their best interests.  Lafayette was regarded as an enemy almost (and was ‘jaloused’ by Mirabeau as being so popular) on account of his popular sympathies.  De Tocqueville said that so diffused was the spirit of revolution at the period preceding the convocation of the Etats-generaux, that the elder Mirabeau, who