the great historian, to the Reeves,
and generally to all who are kind enough to remember my existence.

I delight in the prospect of meeting you in Paris; yet I fear that you
will find it dull. All that I hear from the great town shows me that
never, at least during the last two hundred years, has intellectual life
been less active.

If there be talent in the official circles, it is not the talent of
conversation, and among those who formerly possessed that talent, there
is so much torpidity, such want of interest on public affairs, such
ignorance as to what is passing, and so little wish to hear about it,
that no one, I am told, knows what to talk about or to take interest in.
Your conversation, however, is so agreeable and stimulating that it is
capable of reanimating the dead. Come and try to work this miracle.

A thousand remembrances.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

CONVERSATIONS.

_Paris, Hotel Bedford, April_ 9, 1857.--We reached this place last night.

The Tocquevilles are in our hotel. I went to them in the evening.

Tocqueville asked me how long I intended to remain.

'Four weeks,' I answered.

'I do not think,' he replied, 'that you will be able to do so. Paris has
become so dull that no one will voluntarily spend a month here. The
change which five years have produced is marvellous.

'We have lost our interest not only in public affairs, but in all serious
matters.'

'You will return then to the social habits of Louis Quinze,' I said. 'You
were as despotically governed then as you are now; and yet the _salons_
of Madame Geoffrin were amusing.'

'We may do so in time,' he answered, 'but that time is to come. At
present we talk of nothing but the Bourse. The conversation of our
_salons_ resembles more that of the time of Law, than that of the time of
Marmontel.'

I spent the evening at Lamartine's. There were few people there, and the
conversation was certainly dull enough to justify Tocqueville's fears.

_April_ 10.--Tocqueville drank tea with us.

We talked of the Empress, and of the possibility of her being Regent of
France.

'That supposes,' I said, 'first, that _Celui-ci_ holds his power until
his death; and, secondly, that his son will succeed him.'

'I expect both events,' answered Tocqueville. 'It is impossible to deny
that Louis Napoleon has shown great dexterity and tact. His system of
government is detestable if we suppose the welfare of France to be his
object; but skilful i