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Subject Area: Political Theory

TO COUNT MOLÉ. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2 [1861]

Edition used:

Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated from the French by the translator of Napoleon’s Correspondence with King Joseph. With large Additions. In Two Volumes (London: Macamillan, 1861). 2 vols.

Part of: Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, 2 vols.

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TO COUNT MOLÉ.

I will not delay for a single instant answering the letter which I have just received and eagerly read. I can scarcely describe to you how much I was touched, I may say, moved by it. I feel honoured by your esteem, and full of gratitude for your affection.

I cannot tell what political differences may yet be in store for us. But I feel perfectly confident that nothing will ever diminish the strong and sincere attachment which I have for you. Allow me to add, that my having been so long and so truly attached to you was the cause of the pang which my impression of your first letter cost me. The many proofs of kindness which you have bestowed on me during the last three years, had made me believe that I enjoyed your friendship. And I was the more convinced of this from a conversation which M. de Beaumont reported to me not long ago, and by which he himself had been much affected. When I read your letter I was afraid that I had been mistaken; and by the excited style of my reply you may judge of the value I set upon the prize which I feared to have lost. . . .