The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville

representatives would be exposed to great danger in Paris. Several of these worthy people said to me, "If they attack the National Assembly, we will come and defend you."

colleagues belonged to the old dynastic Opposition: two only had professed republican principles before the Revolution, a

ave obtained an assembly after their hearts; if, on the other hand, they had boldly seized the dictatorship, they might have been able for some time to retain it. But they trusted themselves to the nation, and at the same time did all that was most likely to set the latter against them; they threatened it while placing themselves in its power; they alarmed it by the recklessness of their proposals and the violence of th

nts; whereas they were not in a position to do anything of the kind. In establishing universal suffrage they thought they were summoning the people to the assistance of the Revolution: they were only giving them arms against it. Nevertheless, I am far from believing that it was impossible to arouse revolutionary passions, even in the country districts. In France, every agriculturist owns some portion of the soil, and most of them are more or less involved in debt; it was not, therefore, the landlords that should have been at

now sadly and now rudely of the electors, whom it treated as ignorant, ungrateful blockheads, and enemies of their own good; it lost its temper wit

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here were no bonds, no sympathy between these two great sections; everywhere the idea of an inevitable and immediate struggle seemed at hand. Already the bourgeois and the peuple (for the old nicknames had been resumed) had come to blows, with varying fortunes, at Rouen, Limoges, Paris; not a day passed but the owners of property were attacked or menaced in either their capital or income: they were asked to employ labour without s

ctice in my relations with them the principles of fraternity that should guide all true democrats,

ope to settle the movement of the Revolution of February peacefully and gradually, and that it could only be stopped suddenly, by a great battle fought in the streets of Paris. I had said this im

et at all. I believe, in fact, that the more ardent of the demagogues were often tempted to do without it, but

trap. Both sides, with a common effort, went either beyond, or in the contrary direction to, the truth. Nevertheless, I think the cry was sincere enough; only it responded to diverse or even contrary thoughts. All at that time wished to preserve the Republic; but some wished to use it for purposes of attack, others for purposes of defence The newspapers spoke of the enthusiasm of the Assembly and of the public; there was a great deal of noise, but no enthusiasm at all. Everyone was too greatly preoccupied with the immediate future to allow himself to be carried beyond that thought by sentiment of any kind. A decree of the Provisional Government laid down that the representatives should wear the costume of the Conventionals, and especially the white waistcoat with turn-down collar in which Robespierre was always represented on the stage. I

ent among whom I had lived. With the exception of M. Thiers, who had been defeated; of the Duc de Broglie, who had not stood, I believe; and of Messrs Guizot and Duchatel, who had fled, all the famous orators and most of the better-known talkers of the political world were there; but they found themselves, as it were, out of their element, they felt isolated and suspected, they both felt and inspired fear, two contraries often to be met with in the political world. As yet they possessed none of that influence which their talents and experience were soon to restore to them. All the remainder of the Assembly were as much novices as though we had issued fresh from the Ancien Régime; for, thanks to our system of centralization, public

the highest benches; they were very uncomfortable up there; but it gave them the right to call themselves Montagnards, and as men always like to fe

heads, and the Socialists quite approved of the revolutionary proceedings of the others. However, they differed sufficiently among themselves to prevent them from always marching in step, and it was this that saved us. The Socialists were the more dangerous, because they answered more nearly to the true char

s now. It was as though I saw these Montagnards for the first time, so greatly did their idioms and manners surprise me. They spoke a lingo which was not, properly speaking, the French of either the ignorant or the cultured classes, but which partook of the defects of both, for it abounded in coarse words and ambitious phrases. One heard issuing from the benches of the Mountain a ceaseless torrent of insulting or jocular comments; and at the same time there was poured forth a host of quibbles and maxims; in turns they assum

ny of the Chambers elected in the days when it was a necessary condition, in order to be an elector or elected, that you should have money. And also there was a more numerous and more powerful religious party th

who were most interested in defending it, are the principal reasons which explain the presence of so great a number of landlords. The election of the ecclesiastics arose from similar causes,

the nobility: the same reverses, the same terrors, the same conversion; it was the same picture, only painted smaller and in less bright and, no doubt, less lasting colours. The clergy had facilitated this conversion by separating itself from all the old political parties, and entering into the old, true spirit of the Catholic clergy, which is that it should belong only to the Church. It readily, therefore, professed republican opinions, while at the same time it gave to long-establ

etting elected. The system of election adopted exercises a great influence only upon the class of ordinary individuals in the Assembly, who form the ground-work of every political body. These belong to very different orders and are of very diverse natures, according to the system upon which the election has been conduc

h those which I had seen. One met in it more men who were sincere, disinterested, honest a

nd, in fact, so long as it was necessary to fight, it was great, and only became contemptible after the vict

ar the speakers and to reach the tribune when I wished to speak myself. A large number of my old

over, although this monument of wood and plaster is probably destined to last longer than the Republic of which it was the cradle, I do not t

, with this difference, that this arena was square, not round. The consequence was that most of the listeners only caught a side glimpse of the speaker, and the only ones who saw him full face were very far away: an arrangement curiously calculated to promote inattention and dis

llegories on canvas or pasteboard with which the French love to adorn their monuments, in spite of their being insipid to those who can understand them and utterly incomprehensible to the mass of the people. The whole bore

e Socialists and the Montagnards, but was sincere in its desire to maintain and organize the Republic. I was with it on these two leading points: I had no monarchic faith, no affection nor regrets for any prince; I felt called upon to defend no cause save that of liberty and the dignity of mankind. To protect the ancient laws of Society against the innovators with the help of the new force which the republican principle might lend to the government;