I defer, therefore, until we meet, the expression of feelings and opinions which cannot be safely transmitted through the post, and only repeat how eager I am for our meeting.

Kind regards to Mrs. Senior.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[Footnote 1:  General Espinasse.]

Tocqueville, February 21, 1858.

I received your letters with great pleasure, my dear Senior, and I think with still greater satisfaction that I shall soon be able to see you.

I shall probably arrive in Paris, with my wife, at about the same time as you will, that is to say, about the 19th of next month.  I should have gone earlier if I were not occupied in planting and sowing, for I am doing a little farming to my great amusement.

I am delighted that you intend again to take up your quarters at the
Hotel Bedford, as I intend also to stay there if I can find apartments.

I hope that we shall be good neighbours and see each other as frequently as such old friends ought to do. A bientot!

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[Mr. Senior ran over to England for a few weeks instead of remaining in Paris.  The meeting between the two friends did not, therefore, take place till April.—­ED.]

CONVERSATIONS.

Paris, Saturday, April 17, 1858.—­We had a discussion at the Institut to-day as to a bust to fill a niche in the anteroom.  Rossi was proposed.  His political merits were admitted, but he was placed low as to his literary claims as an economist and a jurist.  Dupin suggested Talleyrand, which was received with a universal groan, and failed for want of a seconder.  Ultimately the choice fell on Dumont.

‘Nothing that is published of Talleyrand’s,’ said Tocqueville to me as we walked home, ’has very great merit, nor indeed is much of it his own.  He hated writing, let his reports and other state papers be drawn up by others, and merely retouched them.  But in the archives of the Affaires etrangeres there is a large quarto volume containing his correspondence with Louis XVIII during the Congress of Vienna.  Nothing can be more charming.  The great European questions which were then in debate, the diplomatic and social gossip of Vienna, the contemporary literature—­in short, all that one clever homme du monde could find to interest and amuse another, are treated with wit, brilliancy, and gaiety, supported by profound good sense.  When that volume is published his bust will be placed here by acclamation.’

Monday, April 19.—­I dined with Lanjuinais, and met Tocqueville, Rivet, Dufaure, Corcelle, Freslon, and one or two others.

They attacked me about the change of sentiment in England with respect to Louis Napoleon.

‘While he was useful to you,’ they said, ’you steadily refused to admit that he was a tyrant, or even an usurper.  You chose to disbelieve in the 3,000 men, women, and children massacred on the Boulevards of Paris—­in the 20,000 poisoned by jungle fever in Cayenne—­in the 25,000 who have died of malaria, exposure, and bad food, working in gangs on the roads and in the marshes of the Metidja and Lambressa.’