Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO M. DUFAURE. - Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2

Return to Title Page for Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory

TO M. DUFAURE. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO M. DUFAURE.

I have long been wishing to write to you, dear friend. I was prevented by my ignorance of your address. I have only just heard it from Rivet. He tells me that you return to Paris about the 25th. I should rejoice at this news if I were sure of being here myself at that time; but this is far from being the case.

Some of our mutual friends have no doubt told you that my health obliges me to spend the coldest part of the winter with Madame de Tocqueville in Italy. Though I have been set up in other respects by my stay in the country, my bronchia and larynx are still so weak and irritable, that the doctors are afraid of the next winter, and of the excitement and worry of public life. They offer me the choice between staying at home and taking no part in politics, with the chance of not getting well; or going away for some months, and giving myself up to complete rest and silence; after which, they say, that I shall probably return well, and able to resume my former life. I thought it wise to choose the latter course, and I think that you will approve.

Political considerations chiefly made me hesitate. I own that I should not be sorry to be away if the Assembly is to go on as it has done during the last year. But if a decisive crisis should take place in my absence, I should be grieved and disturbed. I do not think that an immediate crisis is probable. Reasoning only upon general principles, it would appear to be likely, and even imminent; but I am too well acquainted with the characters of the men on whom it depends to believe in its being so near.

I need not tell you how I regretted that you were not able to come to Cherbourg, and thence to accompany Lanjuinais to Tocqueville, where we should have been so glad to receive you.