Probably they would not have made one if they had not
admitted Garibaldi and his band two days before we appeared before their
gates.'
I mentioned to Tocqueville Beaumont's opinion that France will again
become a republic.
'I will not venture,' he answered, 'to affirm, with respect to any form
whatever of government, that we shall never adopt it; but I own that I
see no prospect of a French republic within any assignable period. We
are, indeed, less opposed to a republic now than we were in 1848. We have
found that it does not imply war, or bankruptcy, or tyranny; but we still
feel that it is not the government that suits us. This was apparent from
the beginning. Louis Napoleon had the merit, or the luck, to discover,
what few suspected, the latent Bonapartism of the nation. The 10th of
December showed that the memory of the Emperor, vague and indefinite, but
therefore the more imposing, still dwelt like an heroic legend in the
imaginations of the peasantry. When Louis Napoleon's violence and folly
have destroyed the charm with which he has worked, all eyes will turn,
not towards a republic, but to Henri V.'
'Was much money,' I asked, 'spent at his election?'
'Very little,' answered Tocqueville.
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