‘They are common enough with us,’ said Tocqueville.  ’We call them faux bonshommes.  H. was an instance.  He had passed a longish life with the character of a frank, open-hearted soldier.  When he became Minister, the facts which he stated from the tribune appeared often strange, but coming from so honest a man we accepted them.  One falsehood, however, after another was exposed, and at last we discovered that H. himself, with all his military bluntness and sincerity, was a most intrepid, unscrupulous liar.

‘What is the explanation,’ he continued, ’of Kossuth’s reception in England?  I can understand enthusiasm for a democrat in America, but what claim had he to the sympathy of aristocratic England?’

‘Our aristocracy,’ I answered, ’expressed no sympathy, and as to the mayors, and corporations, and public meetings, they looked upon him merely as an oppressed man, the champion of an oppressed country.’

‘I think,’ said Tocqueville, ’that he has been the most mischievous man in Europe.’

‘More so,’ I said, ‘than Mazzini?  More so than Lamartine?’

At this instant Corcelle came in.

‘We are adjusting,’ said Tocqueville, ‘the palm of mischievousness.’

‘I am all for Lamartine,’ answered Corcelle; ’without him the others would have been powerless.’

‘But,’ I said, ’if Lamartine had never existed, would not the revolution of 1848 still have occurred?’

‘It would have certainly occurred’ said Tocqueville; ’that is to say, the oligarchy of Louis Philippe would have come to an end, probably to a violent one, but it would have been something to have delayed it; and it cannot be denied that Lamartine’s eloquence and courage saved us from great dangers during the Provisional Government.  Kossuth’s influence was purely mischievous.  But for him, Austria might now be a constitutional empire, with Hungary for its most powerful member, a barrier against Russia instead of her slave.’

‘I must put in a word,’ said Corcelle,[2] ’for Lord Palmerston.  If Lamartine produced Kossuth, Lord Palmerston produced Lamartine and Mazzini and Charles Albert—­in short, all the incendiaries whose folly and wickedness have ended in producing Louis Napoleon.’

‘Notwithstanding,’ I said, ’your disapprobation of Kossuth, you joined us in preventing his extradition.’

‘We did,’ answered Tocqueville.  ’It was owing to the influence of Lord Normanby over the President.  It was a fine succes de tribune.  It gave your Government and ours an occasion to boast of their courage and of their generosity, but a more dangerous experiment was never made.  You reckoned on the prudence and forbearance of Austria and Russia.  Luckily, Nicholas and Nesselrode are prudent men, and luckily the Turks sent to St. Petersburg Fuad Effendi, an excellent diplomatist, a much better than Lamoriciere or Lord Bloomfield.  He refused to see either of them, disclaimed their advice or assistance, and addressed himself solely to the justice and generosity of the Emperor.  He admitted that Russia was powerful enough to seize the refugees, but implored him not to set such an example, and—­he committed nothing to paper.  He left nothing, and took away nothing which could wound the pride of Nicholas; and thus he succeeded.