'
[Footnote 1: This article is republished in the _Historical and
Philosophical Essays_. Longmans: 1865.--ED.]
_Wednesday, May_ 13.--Tocqueville came in after breakfast, and I walked
with him in the shade of the green walls or arcades of the Tuileries
chestnuts.
We talked of the Montijos, which led our conversation to Merimee and V.
'Both of them,' said Tocqueville, 'were the friends of
Countess Montijo, the mother.
'V. was among the last persons who knew Eugenie as Countess Theba. He
escorted her to the Tuileries the very evening of her marriage. There he
took his leave of her. "You are now," he said, "placed so high that I can
only admire you from below." And I do not believe that they have met
since.
'Merimee took a less sentimental view of the change. He acknowledged his
Empress in his former plaything, subsided from a sort of stepfather into
a courtier, and so rose to honour and wealth, while V. is satisfied to
remain an ex-professor and _un homme de lettres_.'
* * * * *
We met Henri Martin, and I asked Tocqueville what he thought of his
History.
'It has the merit of selling,' he said, 'which cannot be said of any
other History of France.
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