their enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he will join them in an attempt to get their fair share, that is, an equal share, of the property of the country and I am not sure that they are mistaken.'

'Nor am I,' said Beaumont. Celui-ci fully sympathises with their feelings, and I do not think that he has intelligence enough to see the absurdity of their theories.'

You do not deny him,' I said, 'intelligence?'

'Not,' said Beaumont, 'for some purposes, and to some extent, practical intelligence. His ends are bad, but he is often skilful in inventing and pertinacious in employing means for effecting those bad ends. But I deny him theoretic intelligence. I do not think that he has comprehension or patience to work out, or even to follow, a long train of reasoning; such a train as that by which economical errors and fallacies are detected.'

'Are there strikes,' I asked, 'among your workmen?' 'They are beginning,' said Beaumont. 'We have had one near us, and the authorities were afraid to interfere.'

'I suppose,' I said, 'that they are illegal?'

They are illegal,' he answered, and I think that they ought to be so. They are always oppressive and tyrannical. The workman who does not join in a strike is made miserable. They are generally mischievous to the combined workmen themselves, and always to those of other trades. Your toleration of them appears to me one of the worst symptoms of your political state of health. It shows among your public men an ignorance

1861.]

Tolerance of Strikes.

279

or a cowardice, or a desire of ill-earned popularity, which is generally a precursor of a democratic revolution.'

'It is certain,' said Ampère, 'that the masters are becoming afraid of their workmen. Péreire brings his from their residences to the Barrière Malesherbes in carriages. You are not actually insulted in the streets of Paris, but you are treated with rude neglect. A fiacre likes to splash you, a paveur to scatter you with mud. Louis Napoleon began with Chauvinism. He excited all the bad international passions of the multitude. He has now taken up Sansculotteism. Repulsed with scorn and disgust by the rich and the educated, he has thrown himself on the poor and ignorant. The passions with which he likes to work are envy, malignity, and rapacity.

'I do not believe that he feels them. He is what is called a good-natured man. That is to say, he likes to please everyone that he sees. But his selfishness is indescribable.

'No public interest stands in the way of his slightest caprice. He often puts me in mind of Nero. With the same indifference to the welfare of others with which Nero amused himself by burning down Rome, he is amusing himself by pulling down Paris.'

N. W. SENIOR.

[We left Tocqueville on the following day with great regret. The same party was never to meet again—the only survivors are Madame de Beaumont and myself and the Beaumonts' son, then a very intelligent boy of ten years old.

One day my father and I visited the little green churchyard on a cliff near the sea where Tocqueville is buried. The tomb is a plain grey stone slab-on it a cross is cut in bas-relief, with these words only:—

ICI REPOSE

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.

NÉ 24 FÉVRIER 1805. MORT 16 AVRIL 1859.

My father laid a wreath of immortelles on the tomb. -ED.]

APPENDIX.

MONTALEMBERT's speech was afterwards published in the Moniteur, but with considerable alterations. In Mr. Senior's journal in 1854 (which has not been published), he says, under the date of April 26, 'I called on Montalembert and took him my report of his speech. He has promised to add to it any notes that it may require. "The printed report," he said, "is intentionally falsified. Before it was struck off I asked to see the proofs. I was told that, as such an application was new, the President of the Bureau would meet and decide on its admissibility. They decided that it could not be granted."'

[The following is Mr. Senior's report, with M. de Montalembert's own corrections and additions in French.-ED.]

At length Montalembert rose. He stood near the extreme right, with his side towards the tribune, and his face towards the centre gallery, in which I sat. His voice and delivery are so good, and the house was so silent, that I did not lose a word. I believe that the following report is a tolerably accurate abridgment of his speech.

'Gentlemen, I must begin by expressing to you my deep gratitude for the attention which you have paid to this unhappy business. I am grieved at having occasioned the waste of so much public time. I am still more grieved at having been the occasion of division among my colleagues.'

[Note by Montalembert.—'J'aurais voulu faire plus qu'exprimer

le regret : j'aurais voulu me prêter à tous les arrangements qui m'ont été suggérés par des voix amies pour mettre un terme à cette discussion. Je n'aurais reculé devant aucun sacrifice qui eût été compatible avec l'honneur. Mais vous comprenez tous que sous le coup d'une poursuite, d'un danger, je ne puis rien désavouer, rien rétracter, rien retirer de ce que j'ai écrit, de ce que j'ai pensé. Si j'agissais autrement il vous resterait un collègue absous, mais déshonoré et dont vous ne sauriez que faire.']

• More than all I am grieved when I think of the time at which this has occurred. A time when we are engaged in an honourable and serious war-a war in which, with the great and faithful ally whom I have always desired, and the sympathy of all Europe, we are defending civilisation against an enemy, barbarous indeed, but so formidable as to require our undivided energy and our undivided attention.

'But you must recollect when that letter was written. It was in last September, in profound peace, when our whole thoughts were employed, and were properly employed, on our internal affairs.

'Aujourd'hui il en est autrement; l'état de guerre impose à tous les citoyens des devoirs spéciaux: il doit aussi imposer un certain frein à l'esprit de critique. Aucun Français, quel que soit sa foi politique, ne peut vouloir discréditer le pouvoir des dissidents, des mécontents, mais il n'y a plus d'émigrés, ni à l'intérieur, ni à l'extérieur.'

[Note by N. W. Senior.—This seems to be an allusion to a passage in Thiers's celebrated speech of the 17th of February, 1851. 'Il ne faut émigrer, ni au dehors, ni au dedans.']

['J'aurais su contenir les sentiments les plus passionnés de mon âme, plutôt que de paraître affaiblir en quoi que ce soit la main qui porte l'épée et le drapeau de la France. Ce n'est pas toutefois que j'admette que toute liberté de parole ou de presse soit incompatible avec l'état de guerre. L'Angleterre a conservé toutes ses libertés en faisant la guerre aux plus re