Ampere, my wife, and I constantly talk of you.  If you could overhear us I think you would not be very much dissatisfied.  They insist upon being very particularly remembered to you, and as for me I beg you to believe in my most sincere attachment.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

Compiegne, January 22, 1855.

It was a long time since I had seen your handwriting, my dear Senior, and I was beginning to complain of you; your letter therefore was a double pleasure.

I see that you have resumed your intention of visiting Algiers, and I am anxious that you should carry it into effect.

I hope that we shall be in Paris when you pass through.  We put off our departure from day to day; not that we are kept by the charms of our present abode; the house is too small for us and scantily furnished, but I find it such a favourable retreat for study, that I have great difficulty in tearing myself away from it.

I hear, as you do, with great satisfaction of the mutual good feeling of our armies in the Crimea.  It far exceeds my expectations.

But I am not equally pleased with your management of the war.  The English ought to know that what has passed and is passing there has sensibly diminished their moral force in Europe.  It is an unpleasant truth, but I ought not to conceal it from you.  I see proofs of it every day, and I have been struck by it peculiarly in a late visit to Paris, where I saw persons of every rank and of every shade of political opinion.  The heroic courage of your soldiers was everywhere and unreservedly praised, but I found also a general belief that the importance of England as a military Power had been greatly exaggerated; that she is utterly devoid of military talent, which is shown as much in administration as in fighting; and that even in the most pressing circumstances she cannot raise a large army.

Since I was a child I never heard such language.  You are believed to be absolutely dependent on us; and in the midst of our intimacy I see rising a friendly contempt for you, which if our Governments quarrel, will make a war with you much easier than it has been since the fall of Napoleon.

I grieve at all this, not only as endangering the English alliance, which, as you well know, I cherish, but as injuring the cause of liberty.

I can pardon you for discrediting it by your adulation of our despotism, but I wish that you would not serve despotism more efficaciously by your own faults, and by the comparisons which they suggest.

It seems also difficult to say what may not be the results of your long intimacy with such a Government as ours, and of the contact of the two armies.  I doubt whether they will be useful to your aristocracy.

Remember me to Lord Lansdowne and to the Lewises, who added such pleasure to our German tour.

Compiegne, February 15, 1855.

I conclude that this frightful weather is still keeping you in London, my dear Senior.  I am comforted by the fact that I myself shall not reach Paris before the 28th.