ontemporary looker-on, has never yet been depicted in
true colours and with minute particulars. After having dived into the
social history of that century, as I have stated, his conviction is that
it was impossible that the revolution of 1789 should _not_ burst out.
Cause and effect were never more irrevocably associated than in this
terrible case. Nothing but the compulsory idleness and obscurity into
which Alexis has been thrown since December 1851 would have put even him
upon the researches in question. Few perhaps could have addressed
themselves to the task with such remarkable powers of interpretation, and
with such talents for exploring the connection between thought and action
as he is endowed with. Also he is singularly exempt from aristocratical
prejudices, and quite capable of sympathising with popular feeling,
though naturally not partial to democracy.

_February_ 15.--De Tocqueville came down in close carriage and sat an
hour and a half by fireside. Weather horrible. Talked of La Marck's book
on Mirabeau;[2] said that the line Mirabeau pursued was perfectly well
known to Frenchmen prior to the appearance of La Marck's book; but that
the actual details were of course a new revelation, and highly valued
accordingly. Asked what we thought of it in England. I told him the
leading impression made by the book was the clear perception of the
impossibility of effecting any good or coming to terms in any manner of
way of the revolutionary leaders with such a Court. That we also had long
suspected Mirabeau of being what he was now proved to have been--a man
who, imbued though he was with the spirit of revolutionary action and the
conviction of the rightfulness of demanding prodigious changes, yet who
would willingly have directed the monarch in a method of warding off the
terrible consequences of the storm, and who would, if the Court had
confided to his hands the task of conciliating the popular feelings, have
perhaps preserved the forms of monarchy while affording the requisite
concessions to the national demands. But the Court was so steeped in the
old sentiment of divine right, and moreover so distrustful of Mirabeau's
honour and sagacity (the more so as he was insatiable in his pecuniary
requisitions), that they would never place their cause frankly in his
hands, nor indeed in anyone else's who was capable of discerning their
best interests. Lafayette was regarded as an enemy almost (and was
'jaloused' by Mirabeau