The Recollections of Alexis de TocquevilleTocqueville, Alexis de
History
The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville, Alexis de
France -- History -- February Revolution, 1848
I shall say no more of the June combats. The recollections of the two
last days merge into and are lost in those of the first. As is known,
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the last citadel of the civil war, did not
lay down its arms until the Monday--that is to say, on the fourth day
after the commencement of the conflict; and it was not until the morning
of that day that the volunteers from la Manche were able to reach Paris.
They had hurried as fast as possible, but they had come more than eighty
leagues across a country in which there were no railways. They were
fifteen hundred in number. I was touched at recognizing among them many
landlords, lawyers, doctors and farmers who were my friends and
neighbours. Almost all the old nobility of the country had taken up arms
on this occasion and formed part of the column. It was the same over
almost the whole of France. From the petty squire squatting in his den
in the country to the useless, elegant sons of the great houses--all had
at that moment remembered that they had once formed part of a warlike
and governing class, and on every side they gave the example of vigour
and resolution: so great is the vitality of those old bodies of
aristocracy. They retain traces of themselves even when they appear to
be reduced to dust, and spring up time after time from the shades of
death before sinking back for ever.
It was in the midst of the days of June that the death occurred of a man
who perhaps of all men in our day best preserved the spirit of the old
races: M. de Chateaubriand, with whom I was connected by so many family
ties and childish recollections. He had long since fallen into a sort of
speechless stupor, which made one sometimes believe that his
intelligence was extinguished. Nevertheless, while in this condition, he
heard a rumour of the Revolution of February, and desired to be told
what was happening. They informed him that Louis-Philippe's government
had been overthrown. He said, "Well done!" and nothing more. Four months
later, the din of the days of June reached his ears, and again he asked
what that noise was. They answered that people were fighting in Paris,
and that it was the sound of cannon. Thereupon he made vain efforts to
rise, saying, "I want to go to it," and was then silent, this time for
ever; for he died the next day.
Such were the days of June, necessary and disastrous days. They did not
extinguish revolutionary ardour in France, but they put a stop, at least
for a time, to what may be called the work appertaining to the
Revolution of February. They delivered the nation from the tyranny of
the Paris workmen and restored it to possession of itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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