And, in fact, after all, you have lost little.  I wrote to you only what I have a hundred times said to you.  We have lived so much together, and with such perfect mutual confidence, that it is difficult for either of us to say anything new to the other.

Besides, on reading over again, with attention, your note of our last conversation,[2] I have nothing to alter.  All that I could do would be to develope a little more my opinions, and to support them by additional arguments.  I feel more and more their truth, and that the progress of events will confirm them much more than any reasonings of mine can do.

We are annoyed and disturbed, having the house full of workmen.  I am trying to warm it by hot air, and am forced to bore through very old and very thick walls; but we shall be repaid by being able to live here during the winter.

I am amusing myself with the letters which our young soldiers in the East, peasants from this parish, write home to their families, and which are brought to me.  This correspondence should be read in order to understand the singular character of the French peasant.  It is strange to see the ease with which these men become accustomed to the risks of military life, to danger and to death, and yet how their hearts cling to their fields and to the occupations of country life.  The horrors of war are described with simplicity, and almost with enjoyment.  But in the midst of these accounts one finds such phrases as these:  “What crop do you intend to sow in such a field next year?” “How is the mare?” “Has the cow a fine calf?” &c.  No minds can be more versatile, and at the same time more constant.  I have always thought that, after all, the peasantry were superior to all other classes in France.  But these men are deplorably in want of knowledge and education, or rather the education to which they have been subjected for centuries past has taught them to make a bad use of their natural good qualities.

It seems to me that Lord John’s resignation will enable your Cabinet to stand, at least for some time.  All that has passed in England since the beginning of the war grieves me deeply.  Seen from a distance, your Constitution appears to me an admirable machine which is getting out of order, partly from the wearing out of its works, partly from the unskilfulness of its workers.  Such a spectacle is useful to our Government.

I asked you some questions, which you have not answered.  Is Mrs. Grote returned from Germany?  Is she well?  Has she received my letter addressed to her at Heidelberg?  The last question is always doubtful when one writes from France.

I send you a letter from the Count de Fenelon, which I think will interest you.  You will give it me back when we meet.

I am very curious to know what you will think of Egypt; and I hope that we shall be established in Paris when you return.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[Footnote 1:  On the 18th June, 1855, the French and English made an unsuccessful assault on Sebastopol.—­ED.]