I quite agree,’ he continued, ’with Thiers as to the necessity of this war.  Your interests may be more immediate and greater, but ours are very great.  When I say ours, I mean those of France as a country that is resolved to enjoy constitutional government.  I am not sure that if Russia were to become mistress of the Continent she would not allow France to continue a quasi-independent despotism under her protectorate.  But she will never willingly allow us to lie powerful and free.

’I sympathise, too, with Thiers’s fears as to the result.  I do not believe that Napoleon himself, with all his energy, and all his diligence, and all his intelligence, would have thought it possible to conduct a great war to which his Minister of War was opposed.  A man who has no heart in his business will neglect it, or do it imperfectly.  His first step would have been to dismiss St.-Arnaud.  Then, look at the other two on whose skill and energy we have to depend.  One is Ducos, Minister of Marine, a man of mere commonplace talents and character.  The other is Binneau, Minister of Finance, somewhat inferior to Ducos.  Binneau ought to provide resources.  He ought to check the preposterous waste of the Court.  He has not intelligence enough to do the one, or courage enough to attempt the other.  The real Prime Minister is without doubt Louis Napoleon himself.  But he is not a man of business.  He does not understand details.  He may order certain things to be done, but he will not be able to ascertain whether the proper means have been taken.  He does not know indeed what these means are.  He does not trust those who do.  A war which would have tasked all the powers of Napoleon, and of Napoleon’s Ministers and generals, is to be carried on without any master-mind to direct it, or any good instruments to execute it.  I fear some great disaster.

‘Such a disaster might throw,’ he continued, ’this man from the eminence on which he is balanced, not rooted.  It might produce a popular outbreak, of which the anarchical party might take advantage.  Or, what is perhaps more to be feared, it might frighten Louis Napoleon into a change of policy.  He is quite capable of turning short round—­giving up everything—­key of the Grotto, protectorate of the orthodox, even the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus—­to Nicholas, and asking to be repaid by the Rhine.

’I cannot escape from the cauchemar that a couple of years hence France and England may be at war.  Nicholas’s expectations have been deceived, but his plan was not unskilfully laid.  He had a fair right to conjecture that you would think the dangers of this alliance such as to be even greater than those of allowing him to obtain his protectorate.

’In deciding otherwise, you have taken the brave and the magnanimous course.  I hope that it may prove the successful one.

‘I am sorry,’ continued Tocqueville, ’to see the language of your newspapers as to the fusion.  I did not choose to take part in it.  I hate to have anything to do with pretenders.  But as a mere measure of precaution it is a wise one.  It decides what shall be the conduct of the Royalist party in the event—­not an improbable one—­of France being suddenly left without a ruler.