March 25, 1852.
I send you, my dear Senior, an introduction to Lamoricière. This letter
will be short: you know that I do not write at any length by the post.
It will contain nothing but thanks for your long and interesting letter
brought by Rivet, who returned delighted with the English in general, and
with you in particular.
I see that the disturbed state of politics occasioned by Sir Robert
Peel's policy, is passing away, and that your political world is again
dividing itself into the two great sects, one of which tries to narrow,
the other to extend, the area of political power--one of which tries
to lift you into aristocracy, the other to depress you into democracy.
The political game will be simpler. I can understand better the
conservative policy of Lord Derby than the democratic one of Lord John
Russell. As the friends of free-trade are more numerous than those of
democracy, I think that it would have been easier to attack the
Government on its commercial than on its political illiberality.
Then in this great nation, called Europe, similar currents of opinions
and feelings prevail, different as may be the institutions and characters
of its different populations. We see over the whole continent so general
and so irresistible a reaction against democracy, and even against
liberty, that I cannot believe that it will stop short on our side of the
Channel; and if the Whigs become Radical, I shall not be surprised at the
permanence in England of a Tory Government allied to foreign despots.
But I ought not to talk on such matters, for I live at the bottom of a
well, seeing nothing, and regretting that it is not sufficiently closed
above to prevent my hearing anything. Your visions of 25,000 troops at
Cherbourg, to be followed by 25,000 more, are mere phantoms. There is
nothing of the kind, and there will be nothing. I speak with knowledge,
for I come from Cherbourg. I have been attending an extraordinary meeting
of our _Conseil général_ on the subject of a projected railway. My
reception touched and delighted me. I was unanimously, and certainly
freely, elected president.
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