All Louis Napoleon's words and
looks, are, whether intentionally or not, misleading. Now that his having
direct issue seems out of the question, and that the deeper and deeper
discredit into which the heir presumptive is falling, seems to put _him_
out of the question too, we are looking to this journey with great alarm.
We feel that, for the present, his life is necessary to us, and we feel
that it would be exposed to many hazards. He ought to incur some military
risks, if he is present at a battle or an assault, and his courage and
his fatalism, will lead him to many which he ought to avoid. But it is
disease rather than bullets that we fear. He will have to travel hard,
and to be exposed, under exciting circumstances, to a climate which is
not a safe one even to the strong.'
'But,' I said, 'he will not be exposed to it long. I have heard thirty,
or at most forty, days proposed as the length of his absence.'
'Who can say that?' answered Tocqueville. 'If he goes there, he must stay
there until Sebastopol falls. It will not do for him to leave Paris in
order merely to look at the works, pat the generals on the back,
compliment the army, and leave it in the trenches.
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