ouvernement, et surtout de l'action commune et du melange
des deux armees. J'en doute, je vous l'avouerai, que l'aristocratie
anglaise s'en trouve bien, et quoique A B ait entonne l'autre jour une
veritable hymne en l'honneur de celle ci, je ne crois pas que ce qui
passe soit de nature a rendre ces chances plus grandes dans l'avenir'--_A
de Tocqueville_.

'I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic courage of your
soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the persuasion that
the importance of England had been overrated as a military Power properly
so called--a Power which consists in administering as much as in
fighting; and above all, that it was impossible (and this had never
before been believed), for her to raise large armies, even under the most
pressing circumstances. I never heard anything like it since my
childhood. You are supposed to be entirely dependent upon us, and from
the midst of the great intimacy which subsists between the two countries,
I see springing up ideas which, on the day when our two Governments cease
to be of one mind, will precipitate our country into a war against you,
much more easily than has been possible since the fall of the first
Empire. This grieves me, both on account of the duration of the English
Alliance (of which you know that I have always been a great partisan),
and no less, I own, for the sake of your free institutions. Passing
events are not calculated to raise them in our estimation. I forgive you
for discrediting your principles by the praise which you lavish on the
absolute government which reigns in France, but I would have you at least
not to do so in a still more efficacious manner by your own blunders and
by the comparisons which they suggest. It seems to me, however, very
difficult to predict the result to yourselves of the long and intimate
contact with, our Government, and, above all, of the united action and
amalgamation of the two armies. I own that I doubt its having a good
effect on the future of the English aristocracy, and although A.B. struck
up the other day a real hymn in its praise, I do not think that present
events are of a nature to increase its chance in the future.']

_Paris, Saturday, March_ 3.--Tocqueville called on us soon after
breakfast.

We talked of the loss and gain of Europe by the war. We agreed that
Russia and England have both lost by it. Russia probably the most in
power, England in reputation. That Prussia,