He entered eagerly on the Eastern
question, and agreed on all points with Faucher; admitted the folly and
rashness of the French, but deplored the over-caution which had led us to
refuse interference, at least effectual interference, and to allow
Turkey to sink into virtual subservience to Russia.
_Paris, Tuesday, May_ 17.--Tocqueville and I stood on my balcony, and
looked along the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de la Concorde, swarming
with equipages, and on the well-dressed crowds in the gardens below. From
the height in which we were placed all those apparently small objects, in
incessant movement, looked like a gigantic ant-hill disturbed.
'I never,' said Tocqueville, 'have known Paris so animated or apparently
so prosperous. Much is to be attributed to the saving of the four
previous years. The parsimony of the Parisians ended in 1850; but the
parsimony of the provinces, always great, and in unsettled times carried
to actual avarice, lasted during the whole of the Republic. Commercial
persons tell me that the arrival of capital which comes up for investment
from the provinces deranges all their calculations. It is like the sudden
burst of vegetation which you have seen during the last week.
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