ther was a
journalist, both exhibit the defects of a period of journalism.

[Sidenote: Tocqueville.]

The last of the greater names calling for mention is that of Alexis de
Tocqueville, who was born, of a noble Norman family, at Verneuil, in
1805. Tocqueville was educated for the bar, and called to it after the
Restoration. But after the revolution of July he exchanged his
appointment in the magistracy for a travelling mission to America, to
examine the prisons and penitentiaries of the United States. He,
however, studied something else than prisons, and, in 1835, published
his famous work on 'Democracy in America.' He married an Englishwoman,
and soon afterwards entered the Chamber. During the Republic he occupied
positions of some importance. The Empire dismissed him from public life,
but gave him the opportunity of writing his second great book on the
_Ancien Regime_. His health was, however, weak, and he died, in 1859, of
consumption. The characteristics of Tocqueville as a historian (or
rather as a philosophic essayist on history) are great purity and
clearness of style, unusual logical power, and an entire absence of
prepossession. He is one of the few historians who have treated
democracy without either enthusiastic love for it on the one hand, or
fanatical dislike and fear of it on the other; and his two books are,
and are likely to remain, classics.

[Sidenote: Minor Historians.]

A very rapid survey must suffice for the remainder of the names in this
division. A. de Barante, among numerous other works of merit, is best
known by a careful and detailed history of the Dukes of Burgundy; J. A.
Buchon, Petitot, J. A. Michaud, and J. Poujoulat, produced invaluable
collections of the chronicles and memoirs in which France is so rich. J.
J. Ampere occupied himself chiefly with Roman history, and with the
history of France and French literature in the Gallo-Roman time. A.
Beugnot, besides other work, arranged a precious collection of feudal
law. Emile de Bonnechose wrote a good short history of France. Louis
Blanc (an important actor in the Revolution of 1848) produced an
elaborate and well-written history of the Revolution from the moderate
republican side, and afterwards reprinted from newspapers some curious
letters from England during his exile here. In opposition chiefly to
Thiers, P. Lanfrey, in a laborious history of Napoleon, entirely
overthrew the Napoleonic legend, and damaged, it would seem irreparably,