Prev | Current Page 129 | Next

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859

"Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Volume 2"

Il me semble, du reste, bien difficile
de dire ce qui resultera pour vous meme du contact intime et prolonge
avec notre gouvernement, et surtout de l'action commune et du melange
des deux armees. J'en doute, je vous l'avouerai, que l'aristocratie
anglaise s'en trouve bien, et quoique A B ait entonne l'autre jour une
veritable hymne en l'honneur de celle ci, je ne crois pas que ce qui
passe soit de nature a rendre ces chances plus grandes dans l'avenir'--_A
de Tocqueville_.
'I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic courage of your
soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the persuasion that
the importance of England had been overrated as a military Power properly
so called--a Power which consists in administering as much as in
fighting; and above all, that it was impossible (and this had never
before been believed), for her to raise large armies, even under the most
pressing circumstances. I never heard anything like it since my
childhood. You are supposed to be entirely dependent upon us, and from
the midst of the great intimacy which subsists between the two countries,
I see springing up ideas which, on the day when our two Governments cease
to be of one mind, will precipitate our country into a war against you,
much more easily than has been possible since the fall of the first
Empire.


Pages:
117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141