A
surprise, if it had thrown him upon the throne, could not have kept him
there. Even after 1848, though the Bourbons were discredited, we should
not have tolerated a Bonaparte if we had not lost all our self-possession
in our terror of the Rouges. That terror created him, that terror
supports him; and habit, and the dread of the bloodshed and distress, and
the unknown chances of a revolution, will, I think, maintain him during
his life.
'The same feelings will give the succession to his heir. Whether the heir
will keep it, is a different question.'
_Sunday, April_ 12.--Tocqueville drank tea with us. I asked him if he had
seen the Due de Nemours' letter.
'I have not seen it,' he answered. 'In fact, I have not wished to see it.
I disapprove of the Fusionists, and the anti-Fusionists, and the
Legitimists, and the Orleanists-in short, of all the parties who are
forming plans of action in events which may not happen, or may not
happen in my time, or may be accompanied by circumstances rendering those
plans absurd, or mischievous, or impracticable,'
'But though you have not read the letter,' I said, 'you know generally
what are its contents.
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