Qualities valued in Parisian society. . Farming superior to that of Tocqueville. Miserable example of intolerance. Superiority of Protestant populations . Mischievous effects of English bigotry Duiness of English sermons . . Worldliness of English clergymen . . Protestantism not ascetic . . . Strength of religious feeling in England. Struggle between the President and the Assembly . . . Louis Napoleon learned to estimate free enterprise in England. He is determined to be his own sole Minister Assembly should have made a stand in 1849. .. Two modes in which it might coerce the President A dissolution impracticable . . Mistaken ideas of President's character. Aristocracy has suffered the most. Injurious effects of charity . Uncasiness of Tocqueville at want of news Hopes that the Assembly will win the day Presadent would destroy liberty . . Tocqueville would support the Constitution . Blunden of the Assembly . . . . Defects of the Constitution . . Interpellations addressed to the Ministry Fears that Representative body will prove still Revision of the Constitution. . MR. SENIOR'S INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE CONVERSATIONS, Written in 1859 I was honoured by the friendship of Alexis de Tocqueville for twenty-six years—from 1833 to 1859—but I did not attempt to preserve his conversations until 1848. In the May of that year I visited Paris, and I was so much struck by the strange things which I saw and heard, that I took notes of them, which swelled into a regular Journal. The practice once begun, I continued during my subsequent travels, and these volumes contain perhaps the most valuable part of my Journals—that which was contributed to them by M. de Tocqueville. Of course his conversation loses enormously by translation. Its elegance and finesse could not be retained, but its knowledge and wisdom were less volatile, and I have reason to hope that they have been, to a certain extent, preserved. In general I sent M. de Tocqueville my reports as they were written, and he corrected them before they were copied In one or two cases he made notes on the fair copy. That nothing of his might be lost I have reproduced the originals with his notes NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. ........ ......... Letters from 1834 to 1848. • Mr. Senior's criticisms on the Democratie'. menu . . . . · M. de Tocqueville's answer . . . . . . On M. de Beaumont's Marie' . . . . . • . . . . . the Democratie' . . ...... |