‘It is of recent date,’ said Corcelle.  ’In January and February 1849 he was inclined to interfere in support of the Roman Republic against the Austrians.  And when in April he resolved to move on Rome, it was not out of any love for the Pope.  In fact, the Pope did not then wish for us.  He told Corcelle that he hoped to be restored by General Zucchi, who commanded a body of Roman troops in the neighbourhood of Bologna.  No one at that time believed the Republican party in Rome to be capable of a serious defence.  Probably they would not have made one if they had not admitted Garibaldi and his band two days before we appeared before their gates.’

I mentioned to Tocqueville Beaumont’s opinion that France will again become a republic.

‘I will not venture,’ he answered, ’to affirm, with respect to any form whatever of government, that we shall never adopt it; but I own that I see no prospect of a French republic within any assignable period.  We are, indeed, less opposed to a republic now than we were in 1848.  We have found that it does not imply war, or bankruptcy, or tyranny; but we still feel that it is not the government that suits us.  This was apparent from the beginning.  Louis Napoleon had the merit, or the luck, to discover, what few suspected, the latent Bonapartism of the nation.  The 10th of December showed that the memory of the Emperor, vague and indefinite, but therefore the more imposing, still dwelt like an heroic legend in the imaginations of the peasantry.  When Louis Napoleon’s violence and folly have destroyed the charm with which he has worked, all eyes will turn, not towards a republic, but to Henri V.’

‘Was much money,’ I asked, ‘spent at his election?’

‘Very little,’ answered Tocqueville.  ’The ex-Duke of Brunswick lent him 300,000 francs on a promise of assistance as soon as he should be able to afford it; and I suppose that we shall have to perform the promise, and to interfere to restore him to his duchy; but that was all that was spent.  In fact he had no money of his own, and scarcely anyone, except the Duke, thought well enough of his prospects to lend him any.  He used to sit in the Assembly silent and alone, pitied by some members and neglected by all.  Silence, indeed, was necessary to his success.

Paris, January 2nd, 1852.—­I dined with Mrs. Grote and drank tea with the Tocquevilles.

‘What is your report,’ they asked, ’of the President’s reception in Notre Dame.  We hear that it was cold.’

‘So,’ I answered, ‘it seemed to me.’

‘I am told,’ said Tocqueville, ’that it was still colder on his road.  He does not shine in public exhibitions.  He does not belong to the highest class of hypocrites, who cheat by frankness and cordiality.’

‘Such,’ I said, ’as Iago.  It is a class of villains of which the specimens are not common.’