We talked of the Empress, and of the possibility of her being Regent of France.

‘That supposes,’ I said, ’first, that Celui-ci holds his power until his death; and, secondly, that his son will succeed him.’

‘I expect both events,’ answered Tocqueville.  ’It is impossible to deny that Louis Napoleon has shown great dexterity and tact.  His system of government is detestable if we suppose the welfare of France to be his object; but skilful if its aim be merely the preservation of his own power.

’Such being his purpose, he has committed no great faults.  Wonderful, almost incredible, as his elevation is, it has not intoxicated him.’

‘It has not intoxicated him,’ I answered, ’because he was prepared for it—­he always expected it.’

‘He could scarcely,’ replied Tocqueville, ’have really and soberly expected it until 1848.

’Boulogne and Strasbourg were the struggles of a desperate man, who staked merely a life of poverty, obscurity, and exile.  Even if either of them had succeeded, the success could not have been permanent.  A surprise, if it had thrown him upon the throne, could not have kept him there.  Even after 1848, though the Bourbons were discredited, we should not have tolerated a Bonaparte if we had not lost all our self-possession in our terror of the Rouges.  That terror created him, that terror supports him; and habit, and the dread of the bloodshed and distress, and the unknown chances of a revolution, will, I think, maintain him during his life.

’The same feelings will give the succession to his heir.  Whether the heir will keep it, is a different question.’

Sunday, April 12.—­Tocqueville drank tea with us.  I asked him if he had seen the Due de Nemours’ letter.

‘I have not seen it,’ he answered.  ’In fact, I have not wished to see it.  I disapprove of the Fusionists, and the anti-Fusionists, and the Legitimists, and the Orleanists-in short, of all the parties who are forming plans of action in events which may not happen, or may not happen in my time, or may be accompanied by circumstances rendering those plans absurd, or mischievous, or impracticable,’

‘But though you have not read the letter,’ I said, ’you know generally what are its contents.’

‘Of course I do,’ he replied.  ’And I cannot blame the Comte de Chambord for doing what I do myself—­for refusing to bind himself in contingencies, and to disgust his friends in the hope of conciliating his enemies.’

‘Do you believe,’ I asked, ’that the mere promise of a Constitution would offend the Legitimists?’

‘I do not think,’ he answered, ’that they would object to a Constitution giving them what they would consider their fair share of power and influence.

’Under Louis Philippe they had neither, but it was in a great measure their own fault.

’They have neither under this Government, for its principle is to rest on the army and on the people, and to ignore the existence of the educated classes.