is notice. The perfect absence of
publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the
bar--for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to
be reported--give full room for conversational exaggeration. Bad as
things are, they are made still worse. Now this we cannot bear. It hurts
our strongest passion--our vanity. We feel that we are _exploites_ by
Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers. The
injury might be tolerated, but not the disgrace.

'Every Government in France has a tendency to become unpopular as it
continues. If you were to go down into the street, and inquire into the
politics of the first hundred persons whom you met, you would find some
Socialists, some Republicans, some Orleanists, &c., but you would find no
Louis Napoleonists. Not a voice would utter his name without some
expression of contempt or detestation, but principally of contempt.

'If then things take their course--if no accident, such as a fever or a
pistol-shot, cut him off--public indignation will spread from Paris to
the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army,
and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.'

'And what power,' I said, 'will start up in his place?'

'I trust,' answered Tocqueville, 'that the reins will be seized by the
Senate. Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying,
"A time may come when we shall be wanted." Probably the Corps Legislatif
will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such
bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.'

'But what,' I said, 'would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the
fever?'

'The immediate consequence,' answered Tocqueville, 'would be the
installation of his successor. Jerome would go to the Tuileries as easily
as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end. We might bear Louis
Napoleon for four or five years, or Jerome for four or five months.'

'It has been thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jerome
dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a
military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.'

'That,' said Tocqueville, 'is one of the few things which I hold to be
impossible. Nero may be followed by another attempt at a Republic, but if
any individual is to succeed him it must be a prince. _Mere_ personal
distinction, at least such as is within the bounds of re