It knows nothing of the passions which influence
these great, apparently slumbering, masses; indeed it takes care, by
stifling their expression, to prevent their being known. Universal
suffrage is a detestable element of government, but it is a powerful
revolutionary instrument'
'But,' I said, 'the people will not have an opportunity of using that
instrument. All the great elective bodies have some years before them.'
'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'and therefore their rage will break
out in a more direct, and perhaps more formidable, form. Depend on it,
this Government can exist, even for a time, only on the condition of
brilliant, successful war, or prosperous peace. It is bound to be rapidly
and clearly victorious. If it fail in this, it will sink--or perhaps, in
its terrors and its struggles, it will catch at the other alternative,
peace.
'The French public is too ignorant to care much about Russian
aggrandisement. So far as it fancies that the strength of Russia is the
weakness of England, it is pleased with it. I am not sure that the most
dishonourable peace with Nicholas would not give to Louis Napoleon an
immediate popularity.
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