Tripartite Treaty is a sort of chain--not a heavy one, or a
strong one--but one which we should not have put on if we could have
avoided it.'

'Do you agree,' I asked Tocqueville, 'with Lafosse, Cousin, and H. as to
the effect in Paris of our opposition to the Suez Canal?'

'I agree,' he answered, 'in every word that they have said. There is
nothing that has done you so much mischief in France, and indeed in
Europe.

'I am no engineer; I should be sorry to pronounce a decided opinion as to
the feasibility or the utility of the canal; but your opposition makes us
believe that it is practicable.'

'Those among us,' I answered, 'who fear it, sometimes found their fear on
grounds unconnected with its practicability. They say that it is a
political, not a commercial, scheme. That the object is to give to French
engineers and French shareholders a strip of land separating Egypt from
Syria, and increasing the French interest in Egypt.'

'What is the value,' answered Tocqueville, 'of a strip of land in the
desert where no one can live? And why are the shareholders to be French?
The Greeks, the Syrians, the Dalmatians, the Italians, and the Sicilians
are the people who will use the canal, if anybody uses it. They will form
the bulk of the shareholders, if shareholders there are.

'My strong suspicion is, that if you had not opposed it, there never
would have been any shareholders, and that if you now withdraw your
opposition, and let the scheme go on until calls are made, the
subscribers, who are ready enough with their names as patriotic
manifestations against you as long as no money is to be paid, will
withdraw _en masse_ from an undertaking which, at the very best, is a
most hazardous one.

'As to our influence in Egypt, your journal shows that it is a pet
project of the Viceroy. He hopes to get money and fame from it. You
_imitate_ both his covetousness and his vanity, and throw him for support
upon us.'

_Paris, May_ 21--The Tocquevilles and Chrzanowski[1] drank tea with us.

We talked of the French iron floating batteries.

'I saw one at Cherbourg,' said Tocqueville, 'and talked much with her
commander. He was not in good spirits about his vessel, and feared some
great disaster. However, she did well at Kinburn.'

'She suffered little at Kinburn,' said Chrzanowski, 'because she ventured
little. She did not approach the batteries nearer than 600 metres. At
that distance there is little risk and little servic