I entered the Chamber reluctantly. All my family
were convinced that a political man not in the Chamber was nothing. So
I let myself be persuaded. Tocqueville required no persuasion, he was
anxious to get in, and when in it was difficult to persuade oneself to go
out. We always hoped for a change. The King might die, or he might be
forced--as he had been forced before--to submit to a liberal Ministry
which might have been a temporary cure, or even to a Parliamentary reform
which might have been a complete cure. Duchatel, who is a better
politician than Guizot, was superseding him in the confidence of the King
and of the Chamber.
'In fact, the liberal Ministry and Parliamentary reform did come at last,
though not until it was too late to save the Monarchy.
'If Tocqueville had retired in disgust from the Chamber of Deputies, he
might not have been a member of the Constituent, or of the Legislative
Assembly. This would have been a misfortune--though the shortness of the
duration of the first, and the hostility of the President during the
second, and also the state of his health, prevented his influencing the
destinies of the Republic as much as his friends expected him to do, and
indeed as he expected himself.
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