Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. 1

M. De Tocqueville is one of the greatest, perhaps the very greatest, of the political philosophers of the present day. Alone of all his contemporaries, his best works will bear a comparison with those of Machiavelli and Bacon. Less caustic and condensed than Tacitus, less imaginative and eloquent than Burke, he possesses the calm judgment, the discriminating eye, and the just reflection, which have immortalised the Florentine statesman and the English philosopher. Born and bred in the midst of the vehement strife of parties in his own country, placed midway, as it were, between the ruins of feudal and the reconstruction of modern society in France, he has surveyed the contest with an impartial gaze. He has brought to the examination of republican institutions in the United States, the eye of calm reason and the powers of philosophic reflection. The war-cries, the illusions, the associations of neither party have been able to disturb his steady mind. Though a man of rank, descended, as his name indicates, of an ancient family, he is not bigoted in favour of the old régime; though belonging to a profession where strenuous efforts can alone ensure success, he is not blind to the dangers of the new order of things. The feudal ages, with their dignified manners, glorious episodes, and heart-stirring recollections, are not lost upon him, but they have not closed his eyes to the numerous evils which they brought in their train. Modern times, with their general activity, vast achievements, and boundless anticipations, have produced their full effect on his thoughtful mind; but they have not rendered him insensible to the perils with which they are fraught. He is a Burke without his imagination—a Machiavelli without his crimes.

M. De Tocqueville, it is well known, is a firm believer in the progress of society to a general system of equality and popular government. He thinks that, for better or for worse, this tendency is inevitable; that all efforts to resist it are vain, and that true wisdom consists in accommodating ourselves to the new order of things, and making the transition with as little confusion and individual distress as may be. America he considers as the type of what Europe is to become; though he has grievous misgivings as to the final result of such a prostration of the great interests of society as has there taken place, and is too well-read a scholar not to know that it was in the institutions of the Byzantine empire that a similar levelling resulted in ancient times. But being thus a devout believer, if not in the doctrine of perfectibility, at least in that of ceaseless progress towards democracy, his opinions are of the highest value when he portrays the perils with which the new order of things is attended. Alone of all the moderns, he has fixed the public attention upon the real danger of purely republican institutions; he first has discerned in their working in America, where it is that the lasting peril is to be apprehended. Passing by the bloodshed, suffering, and confiscations with which the transition from aristocratic ascendency to democratic power is necessarily attended, he has examined with a scrutinising eye the practical working of the latter system in the United States, where it had been long established and was in pacific undisputed sovereignty. He has demonstrated that in such circumstances, it is not the weakness but the strength of the ruling power in the state which is the great danger, and that the many-headed despot, acting by means of a subservient press and servile juries, speedily becomes as formidable to real freedom as ever Eastern sultaun with his despotic power and armed guards has proved.

The works of this very eminent writer, however, are by no means of equal merit. The last two volumes of his "Democratie en Amerique" are much inferior to the first. In the latter, he sketched out with a master hand, when fresh from the object of his study, the practical working of democratic institutions, when entirely free from all the impediments which, it was alleged, concealed or thwarted their operation in the Old World. He delineated the results of the republican principle in a new state, without a hereditary nobility, established church, or national debt; unfettered by primogeniture, pauperism, or previous misgovernment; surrounded by boundless lands of exceeding fertility, with all the powers of European knowledge to bring them into cultivation, and all the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race to carry out the mission of Japhet—to replenish the earth and subdue it. The world had never seen, probably the world will never again see, the democratic principle launched into activity under such favourable circumstances, and when its practical effect, for good or for evil, could with so much accuracy and certainty be discerned. The study and delineation of such an experiment, in such circumstances, and on such a scale, by a competent observer, must have been an object of the highest interest at any time; but what must it be when that observer is a man of the capacity and judgment of M. De Tocqueville?

The latter volumes of the same work, however, have dipped into more doubtful matters, and have brought forward more questionable opinions. The inquisitive mind, philosophic turn, and deep reflection of the author, indeed, are every where conspicuous; but his opinions do not equally as in the first two volumes bear the signet mark of truth stamped upon them. They are more speculative and fanciful; founded rather on contemplation of future, than observation of present effects. When De Tocqueville painted the unrestrained working of democracy on political thought and parties, as he saw it around him in the course of his residence in America, he drew a picture which all, in circumstances at all similar, must at once have recognised as trustworthy, because it was only an extension of what they had witnessed in their own vicinity. But when he extended these effects so far as he has done in his later volumes, to manners, opinions, habits, and the intercourse of the sexes, the attempt seemed overstrained. The theory, beyond all question just to a certain point, was pushed too far. M. De Tocqueville's great reputation, accordingly, has been somewhat impaired by the publication of his last two volumes on democracy in America; and it is to the first two that the philosophic student most frequently recurs for light on the practical working of the popular system.

Perhaps, too, there is another, and a still more cogent, reason why the reputation of this philosopher has not continued so general as it at first was. This is his impartiality. Both the great parties which divide the world turned to his work on its first appearance with avidity, in the hope of discovering something favourable to their respective views. Neither were disappointed. Both found numerous facts and observations of the very highest importance, and having a material bearing on the points at issue between them. Enchanted with the discovery, each raised an Io Pæan; and in the midst of a chorus of praise from liberals and conservatives, M. De Tocqueville took his place as the first political philosopher of the age. But in process of time, both discovered something in his opinions which they would rather had been omitted. The popular party were displeased at seeing it proved that the great and virtuous middle classes of society could establish a despotism as complete, and more irresistible, than any sultaun of Asia: the aristocratic, at finding the opinion of the author not disguised that the tendency to democracy was irresistible, and that, for good or for evil, it had irrevocably set in upon human affairs. But present celebrity is seldom a test of future fame; in matters of thought and reflection, scarcely ever so. What makes a didactic author popular at the moment is, the coincidence of his opinions with those of his readers, in the main, and the tracing them out to some consequences as yet new to them. What gives him fame with futurity is, his having boldly resisted general delusions, and violently, and to the great vexation of his contemporaries, first demonstrated the erroneous nature of many of their opinions, which subsequent experience has shewn to be false. "Present and future time," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "are rivals; he who pays court to the one, must lay his account with being discountenanced by the other." We augur the more favourably for M. De Tocqueville's lasting fame, from his being no longer quoted by party writers on either side of the questions which divide society.

M. de Tocqueville calls the history he has recently published, and which forms the subject of this article,—"A Philosophic History of the Reign of Louis XV."2 We regret the title: we have an instinctive aversion to soi-disant philosophic histories. Those that really are so, invariably shun the name. Robertson, in his first volume of Charles V.; Guizot in his "Civilisation Européenne;" Sismondi, in his "Essais sur les Sciences Sociales," and the last volume of his "Republiques Italiennes," have carried the philosophy of history to the highest perfection; but none of them thought of calling their immortal works "Philosophic Histories." Schlegel has written an admirable book not improperly styled "the Philosophy of History;" but it avowedly is not a history, but a review of the general conclusions which seemed deducible from it. Bossuet entitled his celebrated work, "Histoire Universelle," without a word of philosophy. In truth, philosophy, though a corollary from history, is not its primary object. That is, and ever must be, the narrative of human events. Not but what the noblest and most important lessons of philosophy may and should be deduced from history; but they should be deduced, not made the main object of the work. The reason is obvious: history is addressed to the great body of mankind; to most of whom, narrative of event, if told in an agreeable manner, may be made an object of interest; but to not one in twenty of whom general or philosophic conclusions ever can be a matter of the smallest concern. History, in truth, is much more nearly allied to poetry, oratory, and painting. The drama is but the expansion of its touching scenes,—painting, the representation of its fleeting events. Even to the few who are gifted by nature with the power of abstract thought, it is often hazardous to push matters to a conclusion too openly. Lingard evinced the profound knowledge of the human heart by which the Church of Rome has ever been distinguished, when, in his skilful narrative, he concealed the Roman Catholic save in the facts which he brought forward. It is well to enlist self-love on the side of truth. No conclusions are so readily embraced, as those which the reader flatters himself he himself has had a large share in drawing. Like the famous images which were withheld from the funeral of Junia, they are only the more present to the mind that they are withdrawn from the sight.

Perhaps M. de Tocqueville meant, by prefixing this title to his work, to prepare his readers for what they were to expect. He does not aim at making a very interesting narrative. Though possessed, as the extracts we shall give will abundantly testify, of considerable power of description, and rising at times into strains of touching eloquence, it is not his object to render his work attractive in either of these ways. Had it been so, he would have chosen a different subject; he would have selected the glories of Louis XIV. which preceded the disasters of the Revolution; the glories of the empire, which followed it. His turn of mind is not dramatic; he is neither poetic in his imagination, nor pictorial in his description. Considering the close connexion between these arts and history, these are very great deficiencies, and must ever prevent his work from taking its place beside the masterpieces in this department of literature. It will not bear a comparison with the dramatic story of Livy, the caustic nerve of Sallust, the profound observation of Tacitus, or the pictorial page of Gibbon. But, regarded as a picture of the moral causes working in society, anterior to a great and memorable convulsion, it is entitled to the highest praise, and will ever be viewed as a most valuable preliminary volume to the most important period of European history.

M. de Tocqueville possesses one most important quality, in addition to his calm judgment and discriminating sagacity. His moral and religious principles are not only unexceptionable, but they are founded on the soundest and most enlightened basis. Humane without being sentimental—moral but not uncharitable—religious but not fanatical—he surveys society, its actors and its crimes, with the eve of enlightened philanthropy, experienced reason, and Christian charity. He is neither a fierce, imperious Romish bigot like Bossuet, nor a relentless Calvinistic theologian like D'Aubigné, nor a scoffing infidel like Voltaire. Deeply impressed with the vital importance of religion to the temporal and eternal welfare of mankind, he is yet enlightened enough to see that all systems of religious belief have much to recommend them, and rejects the monstrous doctrine that salvation can be obtained only by the members of any particular sect. He sees much good in all religions; much evil in many of their supporters. He is a Roman Catholic; but he is the first to condemn the frightful injustice of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; he does not doom the whole members of the Church of England to damnation, as so many of our zealous sectarians do the adherents of the Church of Rome.

It is a remarkable and most consolatory circumstance, that these just and enlightened views on the subject of religion, and its beneficial influence on society, are now entertained by all the deepest thinkers and most brilliant writers in France. There is not an intellect which rises to a certain level now in that country—not a name which will be known a hundred years hence, which is not thoroughly Christian in its principles. That, at least, is one blessing which has resulted from the Revolution. Chateaubriand, Guizot, Lamartine, Vilmain, De Tocqueville, Michelet, Sismondi, Amadée Thierry, Beranger, Barante, belong to this bright band. When such men, differing so widely in every other respect, are leagued together in defence of Christianity, we may regard as a passing evil whatever profligacy the works of Victor Hugo, Eugène Sue, and Sand, pour forth upon the Parisian world and middle classes throughout France. They, no doubt, indicate clearly enough the state of general opinion at this time. But what then? Their great compeers, the giants of thought, foreshadow what it will be. The profligate novels, licentious drama, and irreligious opinions of the middle class now in France, are the result of the infidelity and wickedness which produced the Revolution. The opinions of the great men who have succeeded the school of the Encyclopedie, who have been taught by the suffering it produced, will form the character of a future generation. Public opinion, of which we hear so much, is never any thing else than the re-echo of the thoughts of a few great men half a century before. It takes that time for ideas to flow down from the elevated to the inferior level. The great never adopt, they only originate. Their chief efforts are always made in opposition to the prevailing opinions by which they are surrounded. Thence it is that a powerful mind is always uneasy when it is not in the minority on any subject which excites general attention.

The reign of Louis XV. is peculiarly favourable for a writer possessed of the philosophic mind, calm judgment, and contemplative turn of M. de Tocqueville. It was then that the many causes which concurred to produce the Revolution were brought to maturity. We say brought to maturity: for, great as were the corruptions, enormous the profligacy of that reign, and of the regency which preceded it, it would be absurd to suppose that it was during them alone that the causes which produced the terrible convulsion began to operate. They were only brought to maturity—but the catastrophe undoubtedly was accelerated by the vices that succeeded the reign of Louis XIV., not so much by the evils they inflicted on the people, as by the corruption which they spread among the defenders of the throne. They paralysed the nobility by the fatal gangrene of individual selfishness; they prostrated thought by diverting it almost entirely to wicked and licentious purposes. Intellect, instead of being the guardian of order, the protector of religion, the supporter of morality, became their most fatal enemy; for its powers—and they were gigantic in that age—were all devoted to the spread of infidelity, the ridicule of virtue, the fomenting of passion. It is in this debauchery of the public mind by the example of royal and noble profligacy, and the power of vigorous and perverted talent, that the real causes of the Revolution are to be found. The working classes of themselves can never overturn a state—if they could, England would have been revolutionised in 1832. They may make a Jacquerie, but they cannot make a revolution. They may rear up a Jack Cade, a Wat Tyler, or a Jacques Bonhomme, but they will never produce a Robespierre or a Cromwell. It is the coincidence of general evils that make all the people feel sore, with corrupted manners, and licentious or selfish writers who make their leaders think wrong, which can alone overturn society. The first furnishes the private soldier, the last the officers to the army of revolution; or, what is the same thing, they withdraw them from that of religion and order.

The latter years of Louis XV. were so completely sunk in shameless debaucheries, the glory of France had been so long tarnished by the wretched choice which his mistresses had made of ministers to rule the state and generals to lead the armies, that the world has not unnaturally come to entertain an opinion in many respects exaggerated or erroneous, of his character. He had many good points; at first he was an unexceptionable sovereign. Though bred up in the licentious school of the Regent Orleans, he led in the outset a comparatively blameless life. The universal grief which seized the nation when he lay at the point of death at Metz, in 1744, proves to what extent he had then won the hearts of his subjects. His person was fine and well-proportioned; his manners were grace personified; he possessed considerable penetration when his native indolence would permit him to attend to public affairs; and he was not destitute, like his predecessor Charles VI., when roused by necessity, or the entreaties of a high-minded and generous mistress, of noble and heroic qualities. His conduct at Foutenoy, and during the few occasions when he made war in person, in company with Marshal Saxe, sufficiently proved this. Nay, what is still more extraordinary, he was at first a model of conjugal fidelity. Though married at nineteen to his Queen, Marie Leczinska, daughter of the king of Poland, who was six years older than himself, and possessed of no remarkable personal attractions, he resisted for long all the arts of the ladies of the court, who were vieing with each other for his homage, saying constantly to those who urged the beauty of any one upon him, "the Queen is handsomer." The Queen had already borne him nine children, before a suspicion even of his infidelities came to be entertained; and he was led into them at first, rather by the efforts of those around him than his own inclination. So timid was his disposition in these respects in early years—so strong the religious scruples to which throughout life he continued subject, that, on the first occasion on which he obtained an interview with his future mistress, Madame de Chateauroux, the visit passed over without the desired result, and on the second his valet had, literally speaking, to throw him into her arms. "C'est le premier pas qui coute." He became less scrupulous in subsequent years.

Of the Regent Orleans, who succeeded Louis XIV. in the government, and preceded Louis XV. in its abuse, M. de Tocqueville gives the following masterly character:—

"Nature had bestowed on the Duke of Orleans all those gifts which usually captivate mankind. His physiognomy was agreeable and prepossessing: to a natural eloquence he joined uncommon sweetness of manner. Brave, full of liveliness, his penetration was never at fault, and his abilities would have procured for him distinction at the head of councils or armies. Those Who were about his person became attached to him, because they found him amiable and indulgent. They lamented his faults, without ceasing to love him, carried away by the graces of his character and amiability of his manners, which recalled, they said, those of his grandfather, Henry IV. He had the good fortune, rare in princes, to preserve his friends to the hour of his death. He readily forgave offences and pardoned injuries. But the mind endowed with so many amiable qualities was destitute of that which can alone develop or turn them to good account—he had no force of character. Without the energy which prompts crime, he was equally without that which leads to virtue. After having lost his first preceptor, his ill fortune placed him in the hands of Dubois, the most corrupt of men. This Dubois, the son of an apothecary of Brives-la-Gaillarde, founded his hopes of fortune on the entire demoralisation of the prince committed to his care. Inspired by the genius of vice, he divined and encouraged the vices of others, and above all of his master. He taught him to believe that virtue is but a mask worn by hypocrisy, a chimera on which no one can rely in the business of life; that religion is a political invention, of use only to the lower people; that all men are cheats and deceivers, and pretended rectitude a mere cover for intended villany. Madame, the mother of the Regent, early discovered the character of this detestable man. 'My son,' said she, 'I desire nothing but the good of the state and your glory: I ask but one thing for your safety, and I demand your word of honour for it—it is never to employ that scoundrel the Abbé Dubois—the greatest miscreant on the earth: who would at any time sacrifice the state and you to the slightest interest of his own.' The Duke of Orleans gave his word accordingly, but he was not long of breaking it. Shortly after, he made Dubois a councillor of state. The debaucheries into which that man impelled him soon became all indispensable distraction for that soft and enervated mind, to which the ennui of a court was insupportable. He loved its scandal and rumours—even the report of incest was not displeasing to him. Every evening, he assembled his roués, his mistresses, some danseuses from the Opera, often his daughter the Duchess de Berri,3 and some persons of obscure birth, but brilliant for their talent or renowned for their vices. At these suppers the choicest viands, the finest wines, exhilarated the guests, all the disorders and scandal of court and the city were passed in review. They drank, they became intoxicated; the conversation became licentious; impieties of every sort issued from every mouth. At last, fatigued with satiety, the party was broken up: those who could walk retired to rest; the others were carried to bed;—and the next evening a similar scene was renewed."—(Vol. i. pp. 22-24.)

It may be conceived what an effect manners such as these pervading the head of a court, already sufficiently inclined to excitement and gratification, must have had upon the general tone of morals among the higher ranks. M. de Tocqueville portrays it in strong colours, but not stronger we believe than the truth:—

"The disorders of its head spread to all the branches of the royal family. There was not a princess who had not her lover—not a prince who had not his mistresses. This system soon descended from the palace to the hotels of the nobles. Conjugal fidelity was considered as a prejudice, fit only to be the subject of ridicule. Adultery became the fashion, intemperance a path to distinction—the seduction of women was deemed the great object of life, and conquests in that line were sought as the highest glory; minds absorbed in the frivolous pursuits of a man à bonnes fortunes, became incapable of attention to serious affairs. When a young woman appeared in the world, no inquiries were made as to the union which prevailed in her establishment, the sole point was what lover they were to give her. The men with pretensions in that line, the corrupted women, entered into a league to plunge her into crime; and in that abominable lottery, they fixed beforehand on the person to whom she was to fall. The example of the Duchess de Berri obtained many imitators. Sometimes devotion was mingled with debauchery, as if a feeble struggle was still kept up between the recollections of the past and the seductions of the present. Women of gallantry, ambitious debauchees, passed from their orgies to the cloister; and the abstinence of penitence furnished some respite to the pleasure of the world and the agitations of politics. Such was the society of the great world, under the regency. The impulse given to vice during that period, continued through that which followed it. Neither the good example given by Louis XV., during the first years of his youth, nor the grave habits of Cardinal de Fleury, could avail as a barrier to the inundation. It only abated something of its audacity; more veiled, it excited less public scandal."—(Vol. i. p. 31.)