CHATEÂU DE TOCQUEVILLE, August
20, 1861.
My Dear Mr. Forbes,—I
write from a place in which your name is often mentioned, and always with great
gratitude. Madame de Tocqueville, after an illness of thirteen or fourteen
years, is better than I have seen her since 1848. The first use that she has
made of returning strength has been to unite a little party of her old friends,
— the Beaumonts, Ampere, and ourselves, — and we are passing charming mornings
in walking and driving, and evenings in talking and hearing Ampere read
Moliere, — which is better than most acting.
I find the general opinion in France and in England as to
your affairs identical.
It is a general conviction that the secession is one of the
wildest and wickedest acts that has ever been committed; that you will beat the
seceders, but that you will not so far conquer them as to make them your
subjects, or even portions of your federation; that having humiliated and
punished them you will dictate your own terms on which you will allow them to
go; that those terms will probably be that you will keep New Orleans and
Western Virginia; that you will deprive them of any right to territories, and
probably prohibit their having a slave trade. As you are fond of tariffs and
have not yet found out that they do more harm to the nation that makes them
than to the nation against which they are directed, we suppose that you will
enact against them a hostile tariff.
We all bitterly deplore the defeat at Bull's Run, believing
that it will prolong the war.
We also think that our conduct to you has been perfectly
right, and that your complaints of it are the childish folly of a democracy
which has never met with a check before, and like other spoilt children beats
the chair over which it has fallen. You will not agree with me, I know, for
even your good sense has not saved you altogether from participating in the
unreasonableness of those about you.
The state of this country is painful. France is a witch, who
has sold herself to the devil, on the condition that he shall give power to
hurt others. L. N.'s offer to her was made to our Saviour, when Satan, having
shown him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, said, “All this
will I give thee if thou wilt worship me.”
The indignation, shame, and depression of the higher and
educated classes is indescribable.
We intend to wander over the east and south of France, and
return to England in the beginning of October. Kindest regards.
Ever yours,
N. W. Senior.
SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and
Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 245-7
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