Shortly after this Lord Brougham made a flying visit to London. A note in the Journal is:-- _February 26th_.--I dined at Lord Brougham's, and met Dr. Lushington, Lord Glenelg, Lord Broughton; all--with our host--over 80. But the state of Tocqueville's health continued, for Reeve, the most engrossing personal consideration, and just at this time the deadly malady took a favourable though delusive turn. Tocqueville--says M. de Beaumont [Footnote: Gustave de Beaumont: _Oeuvres et Correspondance inedites d'Alexis de Tocqueville_ (1861), tome i. p. 116.]--hoped for the best. 'How could he do otherwise when all around him was bursting into life? and so he kept on his regular habits, his schemes, his work. He read, and was read to; he wrote a great many letters, and devoured those which he received in great numbers. There was not one of his friends who did not receive at least one letter from him during the last month of his life.' The following is his last letter to Reeve. The writing is painfully bad, the letters often half formed, or crowded one on top of another; even the orthography is imperfect; but the words and ideas flow in full volume. Cannes. le 25 fevrier. Cher Reeve,--Il y a un siecle que je ne vous ai ecrit. Je n'etais pas libre de le faire. Le mois de janvier tout entier s'est passe au milieu de la crise la plus douloureuse. Je ne crois pas qu'il y ait aucun mois de ma vie qui merite mieux que celui-la d'etre marque d'une croix noire dans l'histoire de mon existence privee. Jetons dans l'oubli, s'il est possible, des jours et surtout des nuits si cruels, et bornons-nous a demander a Dieu de n'envoyer rien de semblable desormais, soit a moi, soit a mes amis. Depuis trois semaines j'occupe fevrier a reparer les mefaits de janvier. Je vais aussi bien que possible: mes forces sont en grande partie revenues. Les bronches semblent en voie de guerison rapide. Ainsi n'en parlons plus.