Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermath

By Alexis De Tocqueville, Olivier Zunz and Arthur Goldhammer

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Souvenirs was his extraordinarily lucid and trenchant analysis of the 1848 revolution in France. Despite its bravura passages and stylistic flourishes, however, it was not intended for publication. Written just before Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s 1851 coup prompted the great theorist of democracy to retire from political life, it was initially conceived simply as an exercise in candid personal reflection. In Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermath, renowned historian Olivier Zunz and award-winning translator Arthur Goldhammer offer an entirely new translation of Tocqueville’s compelling book.

The book has an interesting publishing history. Yielding to pressure from friends, Tocqueville finally approved its publication, although only after those portrayed in the work—most, unflatteringly—had died. After Tocqueville’s death, his grandnephew published a redacted version, but it was not until 1942 that French editors restored the potentially offensive passages.

Goldhammer’s is the first English translation to do justice to Tocqueville’s original uncensored masterpiece of analytical description, stylistic subtlety, vivid social panorama, and incisive critique of political blundering and cowardice. Zunz’s introduction—and his addition of several of Tocqueville’s ancillary speeches, occasional texts, and letters—round out a unique volume that significantly enhances our understanding of the revolutionary period and Tocqueville’s role in it. In this new edition, Zunz highlights the persistent influence of the United States on the life and work of a man who tirelessly, albeit futilely, promoted the American model of government for the New French Republic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9780813939025

Alexis De Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was born in Verneuil, France. A historian and political scientist, he came to the United States in 1831 to report on the prison system. His experiences would later become the basis for his classic study Democracy in America.

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Recollections

PART 1

Written in July 1850 (at Tocqueville)

CHAPTER 1

[Origin and character of these recollections.—General features of the era prior to the revolution of 1848.—Precursors of that revolution.]

June 1850.

Estranged for the time being from the theater of affairs and unable, on account of the precarious state of my health, even to engage in sustained study, I am reduced, in the midst of my solitude, to reflecting for a moment on myself, or, rather, on recent events in which I played a part as actor or witness. The best use I can make of my leisure, I think, is to retrace those events, describe the men I saw take part in them, and thus, if I can, fix and engrave on my memory the vague features that define the imprecise physiognomy of my time.

In taking this decision I have made another to which I will adhere no less faithfully: these recollections will be a form of intellectual relaxation and not a work of literature. I write them for myself alone. This text will be a mirror in which I shall enjoy looking at myself and my contemporaries, not a painting intended for public viewing. My best friends will know nothing of it. My only purpose in writing it is to secure for myself a solitary pleasure, the pleasure of contemplating in solitude a true portrait of human society; to discern man’s virtues and vices as they really are, to understand his nature, and to judge it. I wish to preserve the freedom to portray without flattery both myself and my contemporaries, in total independence. I wish to lay bare the secret motives that led me and my colleagues and others to act as we did, and when I have understood those motives, to describe them. In short, because I wish to express my recollections honestly, they must remain entirely secret.

I do not intend to delve further into the past than the revolution of 1848 or to pursue the story beyond my exit from the ministry on October 30, 1849. Only between these two dates is there any grandeur to the events I wish to describe, and only then did my position afford me a clear view of them.

I lived, though somewhat aloof, in the parliamentary milieu of the last years of the July Monarchy, yet I would find it difficult to recount the events of that time, which remain so close and yet so blurred in my memory. I lose the thread of my recollections in the labyrinth of petty incidents, petty ideas, petty passions, idiosyncratic views, and contradictory projects in which the public figures of that time wasted their lives. Only the general aspect of the era sticks in my mind: because I often contemplated it with curiosity mingled with fear, I clearly perceived its characteristic features.

When viewed in perspective and as a whole, our history from 1789 to 1830 struck me as a pitched battle that raged for forty-one years between the Ancien Régime, with its traditions, memories, and hopes, epitomized by the aristocracy, and the new France, led by the middle class. Eighteen thirty, it seemed to me, ended this first period of our revolutions, or, rather, our revolution, for there was only one—it was always the same, despite the vagaries of fortune and individuals, this revolution whose beginnings our parents witnessed and whose end in all likelihood we will not live to see. All that remained of the Ancien Régime was destroyed forever. By 1830 the triumph of the middle class was definitive, and so complete that all political power, all franchises, all prerogatives, and the entire government were confined and somehow squeezed within the narrow limits of the bourgeoisie, legally excluding everything below it and in fact all that had once stood above. The bourgeoisie became not only society’s sole ruler but also its financier. It occupied all places, vastly increased the number of places to be occupied, and became accustomed to living almost as much off the public exchequer as off the fruits of its own industry.

No sooner had this great event taken place than political passions suddenly cooled, events were drained of all significance, and the nation’s wealth grew rapidly. The particular spirit of the middle class became the general spirit of the government. The middle-class spirit dominated foreign policy as well as domestic affairs; it was an active, industrious spirit, often dishonest, generally circumspect, occasionally bold for reasons of vanity and egotism, timid by temperament, moderate in all things except the taste for well-being, and mediocre, a spirit that, if mixed with that of the people or the aristocracy, can work wonders but that alone will never yield anything but a government without virtue and without greatness. Master of everything as no aristocracy ever was or perhaps ever will be, the middle class, which should be called the governmental class, immured in its power and before long in its selfishness, made government resemble private industry. Each member of government dwelt on public affairs only insofar as they could be turned to private profit, readily forgetting the people while reveling in his own private prosperity.

Posterity, which sees only glaring crimes and usually overlooks vices, may never know the extent to which government then came to resemble an industrial firm, in which every operation is carried out with an eye to the profit stockholders may derive from it. These vices stemmed from the natural instincts of the ruling class, its absolute power, and the enervation and even corruption of the age. King Louis-Philippe did much to encourage them. He was the accident that made the disease fatal.

Although this prince sprang from the noblest race in Europe, whose hereditary pride he concealed in the depths of his soul, and surely looked upon no other man as his equal, he nevertheless possessed most of the qualities and defects more commonly associated with the subaltern ranks of society. He had proper manners and wanted those around him to have them as well. He was disciplined in his conduct, simple in his habits, and moderate in his tastes. By nature he was a friend of the law and an enemy of all excess, temperate in his actions if not his desires. He was humane without being sentimental, greedy and mild. He had no raging passions or ruinous weaknesses, no glaring vices, and of kingly virtues only one: courage. He was extremely polite but without discernment or grandeur—the politeness of a merchant rather than of a prince. He had little taste for literature or the arts but loved industry with a passion. His memory was prodigious and apt to retain the smallest details with tenacity. His conversation—prolix, diffuse, original, vulgar, anecdotal, replete with small facts, savory and sensible—yielded all the satisfaction one can find in the pleasures of the intellect when delicacy and nobility are wanting. His mind was distinguished but limited and hampered by his soul’s lack of elevation and breadth. Enlightened, subtle, supple, and tenacious, fixed exclusively on the utilitarian and filled with such profound contempt for truth and such complete disbelief in virtue that his intelligence was consequently dimmed, he not only failed to see the beauty that truth and honesty always exhibit but also failed to understand that they can frequently be useful. He had a profound understanding of men, but only of their vices. In religion he had the incredulity of the eighteenth century, and in politics the skepticism of the nineteenth. An unbeliever himself, he had no faith in the belief of others. He loved power and dishonest courtiers as naturally as if he had been born to the throne. His ambition, limited only by prudence, was never fully satisfied nor out of control and always remained close to the earth.

This portrait resembles any number of princes, but what distinguished Louis-Philippe was the analogy, or rather the kinship and consanguinity, that existed between his flaws and those of his era, which made him an attractive as well as a singularly dangerous and corrupting prince for his contemporaries and, in particular, for the class in power. Had he headed an aristocracy, he might have exerted a beneficial influence. As leader of the bourgeoisie, he encouraged its natural bent, pushing it in a direction in which it was all too inclined to go already. His vices wedded its vices, and this union, from which he initially drew strength, ultimately demoralized his partner and led both to ruin.

Although I was never admitted to this prince’s councils, I was fairly frequently in his presence. The last time I saw him at close quarters was shortly before the catastrophe of February. I was then director of the Académie française and had to discuss a matter pertaining to that body with the king. After dealing with the issue that had brought me, I was about to take my leave, but the king detained me, sat down, invited me to sit as well, and addressed me familiarly: Since you are here, Monsieur de Tocqueville, let’s chat. I’d like to hear you speak about America. I knew him well enough to know that this meant I am going to speak about America. He did in fact speak, interestingly and at considerable length, during which time I had neither the opportunity nor the desire to utter a word, because I was truly interested in what he had to say. He described places as if he beheld them before his eyes. He recalled the distinguished men he had met forty years earlier as if he had left them the day before. He mentioned their first and last names and their ages at the time and recounted their stories and ancestry and offspring with marvelous precision and endless details, without being boring. Then, without pausing for breath, he turned from America to Europe and discussed our foreign and domestic affairs in terms I thought incredibly intemperate, since I had no right to his confidence; he said terrible things about the emperor of Russia, whom he called Monsieur Nicolas, characterized Lord Palmerston in passing as a rascal, and concluded with a lengthy disquisition on the recent Spanish marriages and the embarrassment these had caused him in England.¹ The queen is very put out with me, he said, "and quite annoyed, but none of their whining will stop me from driving my own carriage." Although this expression dated from the Ancien Régime, I doubted that Louis XIV ever used it after agreeing to the Spanish succession. Furthermore, I think Louis-Philippe was mistaken and, as he might have put it, the Spanish marriages played an important part in overturning his carriage.

After three-quarters of an hour, the king rose, thanked me for the pleasure our conversation had given him (though I had not spoken four words), and bid me farewell, clearly delighted with me as we usually are delighted with anyone in whose presence we think we have shined. That was the last time I spoke with him.

Le ventre législatif [the legislative belly], Chamber of Deputies, by Honoré Daumier, 1833

When addressing the most important state bodies, this prince really did improvise his responses, even in the most critical moments. In such circumstances he spoke as volubly as in conversation, but with less felicity and fewer barbs. Usually, a deluge of commonplaces was delivered with gestures as insincere as they were exaggerated and considerable effort to appear moved, with abundant beating of the breast. In such moments he often became obscure, because he plunged ahead boldly, with head lowered, as it were, embarking on long sentences whose extent he did not anticipate and whose end he could not see and from which he exited abruptly and violently, emptying his words of meaning and leaving his thought unfinished. In general, his style on formal occasions recalled the sentimental jargon of the late eighteenth century, reproduced with ready fluency and blatant inaccuracy: Jean-Jacques² retouched by a (pedantic) nineteenth-century scullery maid. I am reminded of the day when the Chamber of Deputies visited the Tuileries and I found myself standing in front, quite exposed. I almost caused a scandal by bursting out laughing when Rémusat, my colleague in both the Académie and the legislature, maliciously whispered in my ear, in a grave and melancholy tone while the king was speaking, this exquisite judgment: Right now, the good citizen is obliged to feel agreeably moved, but the academician is in agony.

In a political world so structured and led, what was most lacking, especially at the end, was political life itself. Within the limits established by the constitution, there was little chance that political life would ever see the light or survive for long if it did. The old aristocracy was vanquished, the people were excluded. Since all affairs were dealt with by members of a single class in accordance with the interests and views of that class, there was no battlefield on which major parties could clash. The singular homogeneity of positions, interests, and consequently views that prevailed in what M. Guizot called le pays légal³ deprived parliamentary debate of all novelty and reality and therefore of all true passion. I spent ten years of my life in the company of very great minds that, though perpetually agitated, never rose to the level of true passion and exhausted their perspicacity in a vain search for issues about which they could truly disagree.

Furthermore, the supremacy that Louis-Philippe acquired by capitalizing on the errors and especially the vices of his adversaries meant that to disagree too much with his thinking was to forfeit any chance of success; this reduced the differences between the parties to mere shades of opinion, and political conflict to quibbles over words. I do not know if any parliament (including the Constituent Assembly, by which I mean the authentic one, that of 1789) ever assembled a more varied and brilliant array of talents than ours in the final years of the July Monarchy. I can assert, however, that those great orators repeatedly bored one another, and worse yet, bored the entire nation. France gradually came to think of battles in the Chambers as intellectual jousts rather than serious debates, and of what divided the various parliamentary parties—majority, center left, and dynastic opposition—as quarrels among children of a single family bent on cheating one another out of their share of an inheritance. The accidental discovery of a few striking instances of corruption hinted at hidden corruption everywhere, persuading the nation that the whole governing class was corrupt and thus fostering a quiet contempt that the people in power took for trusting and satisfied submission.

The country was then divided into two parts, or, rather, two unequal realms. In the upper part, which by design was supposed to encompass all political activity, lethargy, impotence, immobility, and boredom prevailed. In the lower part, however, political life had begun to manifest itself in the form of sporadic fevers, whose symptoms were apparent to any attentive observer.

King-Louis Philippe’s metamorphosis into a pear, by Charles Philipon, 1830—first sketch of a theme that Daumier, who worked closely with Philipon, developed

I was one of those observers, and although I was far from imagining that the catastrophe was so imminent or that it would be as terrible as it was, I felt a growing anxiety and became increasingly convinced that we were headed toward a new revolution. This represented a significant change in my thinking, because the universal apathy and abjection that had followed the revolution of July had for a long time led me to believe that I was destined to spend my life in a tranquil but listless society. Anyone who looked at how the country was governed strictly as an insider would have been convinced of this. The machinery of liberty was manipulated to give great power to the monarchy, power almost absolute and close to despotic, yet effortlessly achieved thanks to the workings of a carefully contrived and well-oiled machine. Quite proud of the advantage he derived from this ingenious mechanism, King Louis-Philippe was convinced that as long as he refrained from interfering with this admirable instrument, as Louis XVIII had done, and allowed it to operate according to its own rules, he would remain safe from any danger. His sole mission was to keep the machinery in running order and to use it as he saw fit, oblivious of the society on which it had been erected. In this he resembled the man who refused to believe that his house had been set ablaze as long as its key remained in his pocket. Since I did not share his interests or concerns, I was able to penetrate the institutional mechanisms and the welter of insignificant daily facts to consider the state of the country’s mores and opinions. I clearly perceived any number of signs that generally herald the approach of revolution, and I began to believe that in 1830 I had mistaken the end of an act for the end of the play.

Francois Guizot, by Honoré Daumier, 1833

A brief text I wrote at the time but never published, along with a speech I gave at the beginning of 1848, attests to my concerns.

Several of my parliamentary friends met in October 1847 for the purpose of deciding what course to take in the upcoming legislative session. It was agreed that we would publish a program in the form of a manifesto, and I was assigned to write the text. Later, the idea of publishing it was abandoned, but I had already written the document as requested. Having come across it among my papers, I offer the following excerpt. After describing the lethargic state of parliament, I added:

. . . A time will come when the country again finds itself divided between two great parties. The French Revolution, which abolished all privileges and nullified all exclusive rights, nevertheless allowed one to remain: the right of property. Owners of property should be under no illusion about the strength of their position, however, nor should they imagine that the right of property is an impregnable rampart just because it has never yet been breached, for our era is like no other. When the right of property was merely the fons et origo⁴ of many other rights, it was easily defended, or, rather, it was not attacked. It then stood as society’s outer wall, and all other rights served as defensive outposts. No blow ever struck the wall itself. Today, however, the right of property is merely the last vestige of a destroyed aristocratic world, and it stands alone, an isolated privilege in the midst of a leveled society, unprotected by numerous other more contestable and hated rights, and is therefore in greater peril. Now it must absorb alone, daily, direct and constant shocks of democratic opinion. . . .

. . . Political struggle will soon pit those who own property against those who do not. Property will be the great battlefield, and the main issues of politics will revolve around the extent of the changes to be made to the rights of property owners. We will once again see great public agitation and great parties.

How can anyone fail to be struck by the premonitory signs of this future? Does anyone believe that it is by chance, an effect of a passing caprice of the human mind, that all around us singular doctrines are emerging, with diverse names but all sharing one primary characteristic, namely, the negation of the right of property, the exercise of which all seek to limit, diminish, or weaken? Who does not recognize the latest symptom of that old democratic malady whose crisis may be at hand?

I was even more explicit and more insistent in a speech I delivered to the Chamber of Deputies on January 29, 1848, which was published in Le Moniteur on the 30th.

Here are the main passages:

. . . Some say there is no peril because there are no riots. Some say that since no material disorder has yet disturbed the surface of society, revolution is a long way off.

If I may say so, gentlemen, I think you are mistaken. Although there is indeed no visible disorder, disorder has penetrated deeply into people’s minds. Look at what is happening among the working classes, which I admit are quiet for the moment. They are not now tormented by explicit political passions to the same degree as in the past. But do you not see that their passions, once political, have become social? Do you not see that opinions and ideas are slowly spreading among them that will someday overturn not only laws, ministries, and governments but society itself, by undermining the base on which it now rests? Are you not listening to what is being said among them every day? Can you not hear the endless refrain, that those above them are incapable and unworthy of governing; that the present division of the goods of this world is unjust; and that the basis of property is unfair? Do you not think that when such opinions take root and spread nearly everywhere, striking deep roots in the masses, they must sooner or later—I know not when or how—issue in the most redoubtable of revolutions?

My deepest conviction, gentlemen, is this: I believe we are presently sleeping on a volcano. I am deeply convinced of this. . . .

. . . As I was saying, this evil will sooner or later lead—I know not how or by what means—to the most serious revolutions in this country. Of this you can be sure.

When I study other times, other eras, and other nations in search of the true cause of the governing class’s downfall, I take note of this or that event, this or that man, this or that accidental or superficial cause, but believe me when I say that the real cause, the effective cause that deprives men of power, is this: that they have become unworthy of wielding it.

Think, gentlemen, of the old monarchy. It was stronger than you are, stronger by dint of its origin. It was more strongly supported than you are by ancient customs, venerable mores, and long-standing beliefs. It was stronger than you, yet it collapsed into dust. And why did it collapse? Do you think some specific accident was responsible? Do you think it was the fault of some man, or of the deficit, or of the Tennis Court Oath,⁵ or Lafayette, or Mirabeau? No, gentlemen. There was another cause: it was that the ruling class had become, by virtue of its indifference, its selfishness, and its vices, incapable and unworthy of governing.

That was the true cause of its downfall.

Yes, gentlemen, if it is just in every era to voice such patriotic concerns, why is it not still more just to voice them in our own time? Do you not feel, by a sort of instinctive intuition that defies analysis yet stands beyond doubt, that the ground in Europe is once again trembling? Do you not feel—how shall I put this?—a wind of revolution in the air? No one knows who or what created this wind, or where it comes from, or, believe me, whom it may carry away. Yet in these times, as public mores become increasingly degraded—the word is not too strong—you do nothing.

I speak without bitterness, indeed, I think, without partisan spirit. I attack men against whom I feel no anger. But in the end I am obliged to let my country know my deep and considered opinion. So listen well. My deep and considered opinion is that public mores are becoming degraded. It is that the degradation of public mores will lead soon, perhaps imminently, to new revolutions. Do the lives of kings hang by stouter, less fragile threads than the lives of other men? Are you certain today that tomorrow will dawn? Do you know what will happen in France a year from now, a month from now, or perhaps even tomorrow? You have no idea, but what you do know is that the storm is on the horizon and headed toward you. Will you heed this warning?

Gentleman, I beg you not to let the storm break. I do not ask, I beg. I would willingly kneel before you, so fervently do I believe that the danger is real and serious and so deeply do I believe that to point this out is not mere vain rhetoric. Yes, the danger is great! Avert it while there is still time. Take effective steps to correct the evil, not by attacking its symptoms but by going after the thing itself.

Some have spoken of changing the law. I am quite convinced that such changes are not only very useful but also necessary. Thus I believe in the usefulness of electoral reform and in the urgency of parliamentary reform. But I am not foolish enough, gentlemen, to be unaware that laws alone do not determine the fate of nations. No, great events come not from the mechanism of the law but from the spirit of the government. Keep the laws, if you wish. Although I believe you would be very wrong to do so, keep them. Even keep the men if it pleases you. I, for one, will not stand in your way. But for God’s sake, change the spirit of the government, for I repeat, that spirit is driving you into the abyss.

These somber predictions were met with insulting laughter from the majority. The opposition applauded vigorously, but for partisan reasons rather than out of conviction. The truth is that no one yet seriously believed in the danger I predicted, though the end was near. The inveterate habit that all our politicians had contracted during the lengthy parliamentary comedy—the habit of painting their feelings in lurid colors and exaggerating their ideas—made them more or less incapable of recognizing what was real and true. For years the majority insisted daily that the opposition was placing society in jeopardy, while the opposition repeated endlessly that the government’s ministers were destroying the monarchy. Both sides had so often asserted things they did not really believe that in the end they believed nothing, even when the event arrived that would prove them both right. Even my own friends believed that there was an element of rhetoric in my speech.

I recall that as I descended from the podium, Dufaure took me aside and told me, with that sort of parliamentary divination that was his sole claim to genius, You were a success, but you would have been an even greater success if you hadn’t gone so far beyond what the Assembly feels and hadn’t tried so hard to terrify us. Now that I am alone with my thoughts, I search my memory and wonder if I was indeed as frightened as I appeared to be, and I find that the answer is no. I recognize that the event justified me more promptly and completely than I had anticipated. No, I did not anticipate a revolution like the one we were about to witness. Who could have anticipated it? What I did anticipate more clearly than others, I think, was the general causes that were leading the July Monarchy to ruin. I did not foresee the accidents that would precipitate its downfall. Yet the days that stood between us and the catastrophe were passing rapidly.

CHAPTER 2

[Banquets—Security of the government.—Preoccupation of the leaders of the opposition.—Impeachment of ministers.]

I did not want to get involved in the agitation around the banquets. I had various reasons for refraining, some minor, others major. What I call minor reasons—and would readily call bad reasons, although they were honorable and would have been excellent in a private affair—had to do with my irritation and disgust with the character and maneuvering of the people behind that whole business. I nevertheless concede that our private feelings about individuals are a poor guide in politics. At the time, a close alliance was formed between M. Thiers and M. Barrot, and the two opposition factions, to which we in our parliamentary jargon referred as the center left and the left, actually fused. Nearly all the rigid and refractory minds so numerous in the latter party were tamed, calmed, or cowed by M. Thiers’s generous promises of offices. Indeed, I believe that for the first time M. Barrot himself was, if not exactly endorsing an argument of this sort, surprisingly engaging it. Thus, for whatever reason, the two leading figures of the opposition forged the closest possible alliance, and M. Barrot, whose strengths as well as weaknesses were invariably tinctured with traces of foolishness, did his best to secure the triumph of his ally, even at his own expense. M. Thiers had allowed him to engage in the business of the banquets. Indeed, I think M. Thiers pushed him into it while himself remaining aloof, eager for the result but reluctant to accept responsibility for such a dangerous agitation. Surrounded by his close allies, he stayed put, and silent, in Paris, while Barrot traveled all around the country for three months, delivering a lengthy speech in every town he visited. He reminded me of a beater in a hunting party, who raises a ruckus in order to drive the quarry closer to the hunter awaiting his chance to get off a good shot. I had little interest in joining the hunt. But my main reason for staying out of it was one that I often explained to those who tried to drag me off to political