Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859 Part 17

'Impossible,' said Tocqueville, 'unless he were a soldier. We tolerate from a man who has almost necessarily been deprived of a careful education much clumsiness and awkwardness of elocution. Soult did not speak much better than the Duke of Wellington, but he was listened to. He had, like the Duke, an air of command which imposed.'

'Was there,' I said, 'any personal quarrel between Soult and Thiers?'

'Certainly there was,' said Z., 'a little one. I will not say that Soult was in Spain a successful commander, or an agreeable colleague, or an obedient subordinate, but whenever things went wrong there, Soult was the man whom the Emperor sent thither to put them to rights. Great as Thiers may be as a military critic, I venture to put him below Napoleon.'

'I have been reading,' I said, 'Falloux's reception speech, and was disappointed by it.'

'In his speech and Brifault's,' said Circourt, 'you may compare the present declamatory style and that of thirty years ago. Brifault has, or attempts to have, the _legerete_ and the prettiness of the Restoration.

Falloux is _grandiose_ and emphatic, as we all are now.'

'Falloux,' said Z., 'made an excellent speech the first time that he addressed the Chamber of Deputies. The next time he was not so successful, and after that he ceased to be listened to.

'But in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, and indeed in the Legislative, he acquired an ascendency. In those a.s.semblies, great moral qualities and a high social position were rarer than they were among the Deputies, and in the dangers of the country they were more wanted. Falloux possesses them all. He is honest and brave, and in his province employs liberally and usefully a large fortune.'

'Were those the merits,' I asked, 'which opened to him the doors of the Academy?'

'Certainly,' answered Z. 'As a man of letters he is nothing, as a statesman not much. We elected him in honour of his courage and his honesty, and perhaps with some regard to his fortune. We are the only independent body left, and we value in a candidate no quality more than independence.'

'I am told,' I said, 'that Falloux is now an ultra-Legitimist.'

'That is not true,' said Z. 'He is a Legitimist, but a liberal one. He would tolerate no Government, whatever were its other claims, that was not const.i.tutional.'

'Your Academic ceremonies,' I said 'seem to me not very well imagined.

There is something _fade_, almost ridiculous, in the literary minuet in which the _recipiendaire_ and the receiver are trotted out to show their paces to each other and to the Academy. The new member extolling the predecessor of whom he is the unworthy successor, the old member lauding his new colleague to his face, and a.s.suring him that he, too, is one of the ornaments of the Society.'

'Particularly,' said ----, 'when, as was the case the other day, it is notorious that neither of them has any real respect for the idol which he is forced to crown. Then the political innuendoes, the under-currents of censure of the present conveyed in praise of the past, become tiresome after we have listened to them for five years. We long to hear people talk frankly and directly, instead of saying one thing for the mere purpose of showing that they are thinking of another thing. The Emperor revenged himself on Falloux by his ant.i.thesis: "_que le desordre les avait uni, et que l'ordre les avait separe_.'"

'How did Falloux reply to it?' I asked.

'Feebly,' said ----. 'He muttered something about _l'ordre_ having no firmer adherent than himself. In these formal audiences our great man has the advantage. He has his _mot_ ready prepared, and you cannot discuss with him.'

We talked of the French spoken by foreigners. 'The best,' said Circourt, 'is that of the Swedes and Russians, the worst that of the Germans.'

'Louis Philippe,' said Z., 'used to maintain that the best test of a man's general talents was his power of speaking foreign languages. It was an opinion that flattered his vanity, for he spoke like a native French, Italian, English, and German.'

'It is scarcely possible,' said Tocqueville, 'for a man to be original in any language but his own; in all others he is forced to say what he can, and that is generally something that he recollects.'

'I was much struck by that,' said Z., 'when conversing with Narvaez. He had been talking sensibly but rather dully in French, I begged him to talk Spanish, which I understand though I cannot speak. The whole man was changed. It was as if a curtain had been drawn up from between us.

Instead of hammering at commonplaces, he became pointed, and spirited, and eloquent.'

'Is he an educated man?' I asked.

'For a Spaniard,' answered Z., 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The want of book-learning contributes to his originality.'

'The most wonderful speaker in a foreign language,' said Sumner, 'was Kossuth. He must have been between forty and fifty before he heard an English word. Yet he spoke it fluently, eloquently, and even idiomatically. He would have made his fortune among us as a stump-orator.'

_Tuesday, April_ 28.--Tocqueville drank tea with us.

We talked rather of people than of things.

'Circourt,' said Tocqueville, 'is my dictionary. When I wish to know what has been done or what has been said on any occasion, I go to Circourt. He draws out one of the drawers in his capacious head, and finds there all that I want arranged and ticketed.

'One of the merits of his talk, as it is of his character, is its conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and his affections are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man of whom that can be said?'

'What think you of Mrs. T-----?' I inquired.

'I like her too,' he replied, 'but less than I do Circourt. She has considerable talent, but she thinks and reads only to converse. She has no originality, no convictions. She says what she thinks that she can say well; like a person writing a dialogue or an exercise. Whether the opinion which she expresses be right or wrong, or the story that she tells be true or false, is no concern of hers, provided it be _bien dit_.'

'The fault of her conversation,' I said, 'seems to me to be, that while she is repeating one sentence she is thinking of the next, and that while you are speaking to her, she is considering what is to be her next topic.

I have noticed this fault in other very fluent conversers. They are so intent on the future that they neglect the present.'

'It is rather a French than an English fault,' said Tocqueville. 'The English have more curiosity and less vanity, than we have; more desire to hear and less anxiety to s.h.i.+ne. They are often, therefore, better _causeurs_ than we are. _Le grand talent pour le silence_, or, in other words, the power of listening which has been imputed to them, is a great conversational virtue. I do not believe that it was said ironically or epigrammatically. The man who bestowed that praise knew how rare a merit silence is.'

'May we not owe that merit,' I asked, 'to our bad French? We s.h.i.+ne most when we listen.'

'A great talker,' I continued, 'Montalembert, is to breakfast with us.

Whom shall I ask to meet him?'

'Not me,' said Tocqueville, 'unless you will accept me as one of the chorus. I will not take a _premier role_, or any prominent _role_, in a piece in which he is to act. I like his society; that is, I like to sit silent and hear him talk, and I admire his talents; and we have the strong bond of common hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different, or even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger. If we differed on only one subject, instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would pick out that single subject to attack me on. I am not sure that even as host you will be safe. He is more acute in detecting points of opposition than most men are in finding subjects of agreement. He avoids meeting you on friendly or even on neutral ground. He chooses to have a combat _en champ clos_.

'Take care,' he added, 'and do not have too many _sommites._ They watch one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps over the table.'

'We had two pleasant breakfasts,' I said, 'a fortnight ago. You were leader of the band at one, Z. at the other, and the rest left the stage free to the great actor.'

'As for me,' he answered, 'I often shut myself up, particularly after dinner, or during dinner if it be long. The process of digestion, little, as I can eat, seems to oppress me.

'Z. is always charming. He has an _aplomb_, an ease, a _verve_ arising from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse. He is a perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, _homme de lettres_, and _pere de famille_, falling back on literature and the domestic affections. As for me, I have intervals of _sauvagerie_, or rather the times when I am not _sauvage_ are the intervals. I have many, perhaps too many, acquaintances whom I like, and a very few friends whom I love, and a host of relations.

I easily tire of Paris, and long to fly to the fields and woods and seash.o.r.e of my province.'

We pa.s.sed to the language of conversation.

'There are three words,' said Tocqueville, 'which you have lost, and which I wonder how you do without,--Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle.

You are forced always to subst.i.tute the name. They are so mixed in all our forms that half of what we say would appear abrupt or blunt without them.

'Then the _tutoyer_ is a _nuance_ that you want. When husband and wife are talking together they pa.s.s insensibly, twenty times perhaps in an hour, from the _vous_ to the _tu_. When matters of business or of serious discussion are introduced, indeed whenever the affections are not concerned, it is _vous_. With the least _soupcon_ of tenderness the _tu_ returns.'

'Yet,' I said, 'you never use the _tu_ before a third person.'

'Never,' he answered, 'in good company. Among the _bourgeoisie_ always.

It is odd that an aristocratic form, so easily learned, should not have been adopted by all who pretend to be gentry. I remember being present when an Englishman and his wife, much accustomed to good French society, but unacquainted with this _nuance_, were laboriously _tutoyering_ each other. I relieved them much by a.s.suring them that it was not merely unnecessary, but objectionable.'

_May_ 2.--Tocqueville dined with us.

A lady at the _table d'hote_ was full of a sermon which she had heard at the Madeleine. The preacher said, sinking his voice to an audible whisper, 'I will tell you a secret, but it must go no farther. There is more religion among the Protestants than with us, they are better acquainted with the Bible, and make more use of their reading: we have much to learn from them.'