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TO THE COMTESSE LOUIS DE KERGORLAY. - 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 THE COMTESSE LOUIS DE KERGORLAY.

Paris, May, 1848.

Almost simultaneously with the letters in which you, my dear cousin, told me how happy you were at receiving such good news of Louis, came one from Louis himself, telling me a little about Germany, and a great deal about you. He told me how long the days seemed away from you, how necessary you had become to his existence; his letter, in fact, was full of the deep and increasing happiness that he finds in his union with you. I cannot express to you, dear cousin, the joy with which I read, one after the other, these proofs of similar sentiments. I was glad that you were able to give them, glad, also, to receive them from each of you. I deserve the attachment you profess for me, by that which I have for you both.

If the newspapers you read, dear cousin, tell you that we are going on from bad to worse, that the confidence of the people in their rulers is nearly gone, that our financial difficulties are increasing, that want and misery become more prevalent, and that every day everything falls into a state of greater confusion, they must give you a correct notion of our condition. Such is, indeed, the present aspect of affairs, and if some great man does not fall from the clouds within the next few months to extricate us, I greatly fear that we shall not escape without going through the bitter experience of anarchy, civil war, and their ruinous consequences. Now, as I see no signs of this great man, and, in fact, have no faith in the sudden apparition of heroes, while I see round me swarms of mischievous pigmies, I am very uneasy and much alarmed. If so many of my friends and relations were not exposed to the storm, the eager interest awakened in me by the singular, at times imposing, scene before me, might, perhaps, almost reconcile me to it. I was so wearied by the monotony of the previous period, that I have no right to complain of the stormy variety of this. But to reason in this way, one must consider the events of this world as the passing scenes in a play, and to me they are far more. . . . Do not be too long without letting us hear from you. Give a kiss from me to Louis, if he has had the good taste to return to you, and believe in my most affectionate wishes.