--The Tocquevilles and Rivet drank tea with us.
I mentioned to Tocqueville the subject of my conversations with Cousin
and H.
'I agree with Cousin,' he said. 'The attempt to turn our national
activity into speculation and commerce has often been made, but has never
had any permanent success. The men who make these sudden fortunes are not
happy, for they are always suspected of _friponnerie_, and the Government
to which they belong is suspected of _friponnerie_. Still less happy are
those who have attempted to make them, and have failed. And those who
have not been able even to make the attempt are envious and sulky. So
that the whole world becomes suspicious and dissatisfied.
'And even if it were universal, mere material prosperity is not enough
for us. Our Government must give us something more: must gratify our
ambition, or, at least, our vanity.'
'The Government,' said Rivet, 'has been making a desperate plunge in
order to escape from the accusation of _friponnerie_. It has denounced in
the "Moniteur" the _faiseurs_; it has dismissed a poor _aide-de-camp_ of
Jerome's for doing what everybody has been doing ever since the _coup
d'etat_.
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