Sunday, January 4.—­I dined with the Tocquevilles alone.  The only guest, Mrs. Grote, who was to have accompanied me, being unwell.

‘So enormous,’ said Tocqueville, ’are the advantages of Louis Napoleon’s situation, that he may defy any ordinary enemy.  He has, however, a most formidable one in himself.  He is essentially a copyist.  He can originate nothing; his opinions, his theories, his maxims, even his plots, all are borrowed, and from the most dangerous of models—­from a man who, though he possessed genius and industry such as are not seen coupled, or indeed single, once in a thousand years, yet ruined himself by the extravagance of his attempts.  It would be well for him if he would utterly forget all his uncle’s history.  He might then trust to his own sense, and to that of his advisers.  It is true that neither the one nor the other would be a good guide, but either would probably lead him into fewer dangers than a blind imitation of what was done fifty years ago by a man very unlike himself, and in a state of society both in France and in the rest of Europe, very unlike that which now exists.’

Lanjuinais and Madame B., a relation of the family, came in.

Lanjuinais had been dining with Kissileff the Russian Minister.  Louis Napoleon builds on Russian support, in consequence of the marriage of his cousin, the Prince de Lichtenstein, to the Emperor’s daughter.  He calls it an alliance de famille, and his organs the ‘Constitutionnel’ and the ‘Patrie’ announced a fortnight ago that the Emperor had sent to him the Order of St. Andrew, which is given only to members of the Imperial family, and an autograph letter of congratulation on the coup d’etat.

Kissileff says that all this is false, that neither Order nor letter has been sent, but he has been trying in vain to get a newspaper to insert a denial.  It will be denied, he is told, when the proper moment comes.

‘It is charming,’ said Madame de Tocqueville, ’to see the Emperor of Russia, like ourselves, forced to see his name usurped without redress.’

Madame B. had just seen a friend who left his country-house, and came to Paris without voting, and told those who consulted him that, in the difficulties of the case, he thought abstaining was the safest course.  Immediately after the poll was over the Prefect sent to arrest him for malveillance, and he congratulated himself upon being out of the way.

One of Edward de Tocqueville’s sons came in soon after; his brother, who is about seventeen, does duty as a private, has no servant, and cleans his own horse; and is delighted with his new life.  That of our young cavalry officers is somewhat different.  He did not hear of the coup d’etat till a week after it had happened.

‘Our regiments,’ said Lanjuinais, ’are a kind of convents.  The young men who enter them are as dead to the world, as indifferent to the events which interest the society which they have left, as if they were monks.  This is what makes them such fit tools for a despot.’