‘Not me,’ said Tocqueville, ’unless you will accept me as one of the chorus.  I will not take a premier role, or any prominent role, in a piece in which he is to act.  I like his society; that is, I like to sit silent and hear him talk, and I admire his talents; and we have the strong bond of common hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different, or even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger.  If we differed on only one subject, instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would pick out that single subject to attack me on.  I am not sure that even as host you will be safe.  He is more acute in detecting points of opposition than most men are in finding subjects of agreement.  He avoids meeting you on friendly or even on neutral ground.  He chooses to have a combat en champ clos.

‘Take care,’ he added, ’and do not have too many sommites. They watch one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps over the table.’

‘We had two pleasant breakfasts,’ I said, ’a fortnight ago.  You were leader of the band at one, Z. at the other, and the rest left the stage free to the great actor.’

‘As for me,’ he answered, ’I often shut myself up, particularly after dinner, or during dinner if it be long.  The process of digestion, little, as I can eat, seems to oppress me.

’Z. is always charming.  He has an aplomb, an ease, a verve arising from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse.  He is a perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, homme de lettres, and pere de famille, falling back on literature and the domestic affections.  As for me, I have intervals of sauvagerie, or rather the times when I am not sauvage are the intervals.  I have many, perhaps too many, acquaintances whom I like, and a very few friends whom I love, and a host of relations.  I easily tire of Paris, and long to fly to the fields and woods and seashore of my province.’

We passed to the language of conversation.

‘There are three words,’ said Tocqueville, ’which you have lost, and which I wonder how you do without,—­Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle.  You are forced always to substitute the name.  They are so mixed in all our forms that half of what we say would appear abrupt or blunt without them.

’Then the tutoyer is a nuance that you want.  When husband and wife are talking together they pass insensibly, twenty times perhaps in an hour, from the vous to the tu.  When matters of business or of serious discussion are introduced, indeed whenever the affections are not concerned, it is vous.  With the least soupcon of tenderness the tu returns.’

‘Yet,’ I said, ‘you never use the tu before a third person.’

‘Never,’ he answered, ’in good company.  Among the bourgeoisie always.  It is odd that an aristocratic form, so easily learned, should not have been adopted by all who pretend to be gentry.  I remember being present when an Englishman and his wife, much accustomed to good French society, but unacquainted with this nuance, were laboriously tutoyering each other.  I relieved them much by assuring them that it was not merely unnecessary, but objectionable.’