'
_Sunday, January_ 4.--I dined with the Tocquevilles alone. The only
guest, Mrs. Grote, who was to have accompanied me, being unwell.
'So enormous,' said Tocqueville, 'are the advantages of Louis Napoleon's
situation, that he may defy any ordinary enemy. He has, however, a most
formidable one in himself. He is essentially a copyist. He can originate
nothing; his opinions, his theories, his maxims, even his plots, all are
borrowed, and from the most dangerous of models--from a man who, though
he possessed genius and industry such as are not seen coupled, or indeed
single, once in a thousand years, yet ruined himself by the extravagance
of his attempts. It would be well for him if he would utterly forget all
his uncle's history. He might then trust to his own sense, and to that of
his advisers. It is true that neither the one nor the other would be a
good guide, but either would probably lead him into fewer dangers than a
blind imitation of what was done fifty years ago by a man very unlike
himself, and in a state of society both in France and in the rest of
Europe, very unlike that which now exists.'
Lanjuinais and Madame B.
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