"Speaking of the affairs of Italy, 'We others,' he said, * see nothing in those temporal functions ful- filled in Rome by ecclesiastics; but it matters little to us how those priests arrange things among them- selves, provided that something is set up which will last and that you constitute the power in such a way that it can stand.' " Hereupon Lamoriciere, wounded by this super- cilious tone, which smelt somewhat of the autocrat and betrayed a sort of rivalry as between pope and pope, began to defend Catholic institutions.
" ' Very well, very well,' said the Emperor, ending the conversation, ' let France be as Catholic as she pleases, only let her protect herself against the insane theories and passions of innovators.' " Though hard and austere in the exercise of his power, the Tsar was simple and almost bourgeois in his habits, keeping only the substance of sovereign power and rejecting its pomp and worries. On the 17th of July, the French Ambassador at St Peters- burg wrote to me: " The Emperor is here; he arrived from Warsaw JLEXis DR 'i'jChur.v u.i.i: without suite of an\- kind, in an ( ordinal),i >,:: — his carria^^^e had broke down hixiy Ira- ts ir.:n. here — so as to be in time tor the b'^niprr^^' -..i:,'. day, which has just taken place. 1 b- did the i..,.[- ney with extraorchnar\- rapidiu, in iwd d.ivs ane a half, and he leaves a^ain to inoiTow. b^\'r\ i.n- here is touched with this contra>i ^A jK.wcr and simplicity, with the siL;"ht of this Soverei-n whd,.:!i. r hurling one hundred and twent\- tliousaml mm (,ii to the battle-field, races aloni;' the road.^ hk--.i feld-jiiger, so as not to miss his wife'.-. s,iini\-da\. Nothing is more in keeping witli tlie spirit ot ihc Slavs, among whom one might sa\- tliat tlic prniei- pal element of civilization is the spirit ol' lamiK.
It w^ould, in fact, ije a great mistake to tlnnh [ii.u the Tsar's immen.^e i)o\ver was onI\ ba-^i-d np. ^n force. It w^as founded, abo\-e all, on the wishes and the ardent sympathies ot the Rii^slan^. b'lr tlic principle of the sovereignt)' of ihe ju-oplc lie-.,ii die root of all irovernment, whate\-er ma\- be said!'> du- contrary, and liu'ks ijeni^-ath the leasi mdcpi ndi m institutions. The Russian nobhs had ad' 'pn d liw principles and still more the \ ii e^ ot J'.urMpc; but the people were not in toucii widi mir W'si.ipd with the new spirit which animated n. IIh \.iw in the Emperor not only iheii- I.iwtuI I'rmce, iia:;;:e envoy of God, and almost (iod 1 llmselt.
In the midst of this b^iiroj)e which I ha\ e C\^ ],n ti d, the position of hh-ance was one ot wiahue..iiid 340 RECOLLECTIONS OF embarrassment. Nowhere had the Revolution suc- ceeded in estabHshing a regular and stable system of liberty. On every side, the old powers were rising up again from amid the ruins which it had made — not, it is true, the same as when they fell, but very similar. We could not assist the latter in establishing themselves nor ensure their victory, for the system which they were setting up was anti- pathetic, I will say not only to the institutions created by the Revolution of February, but, at the root of our ideas, to all that was most permanent and unconquerable in our new habits. They, on their side, distrusted us, and rightly. The great part of restorers of the general order in Europe was therefore forbidden us. This part, moreover, was already played by another: it belonged by right to Russia, and only the second remained for us. As to placing France at the head of the in- novators, this was to be still less thought of, for two reasons: first, that it would have been absolutely impossible to advise these latter or to hope to lead them, because of their extravagance and their de- testable incapacity; secondly, that it was not possible j to support them abroad without falling beneath their blows at home. The contact of their passions and I doctrines would have put all France in flame, revolu- ' tionary doctrines at that time dominating all others. Thus we were neither able to unite with the nations, who accused us of urging them on and then betray- ing them, nor with the princes, who reproached us I , ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 34, with shaking their thrones. We were reduced to accepting the sterile good-will of the English: it was the same isolation as before February, with the Continent more hostile to us and England more lukewarm. It was therefore necessary, as it had been then, to reduce ourselves to leading a small life, from day to day; but even this was difficult The French Nation, which had made and, in a certain way, still made so great a figure in the world, kicked against this necessity of the time: it had remained haughty while it ceased to be prepon- derant; it feared to act and tried to talk loudly; and it also expected its Government to be proud, without, however, permitting it to run the risks which such conduct entailed.
Never had France been looked upon with more anxiety than at the moment when the Cabinet had just been formed. The easy and complete victory which we had won in Paris on the 13th of June had extraordinary rebounds throughout Europe. A new insurrection in France was generally expected. The revolutionaries, half destroyed, relied only upon this occurrence to recover themselves, and they redoubled their efforts in order to be able to take advantage of it. The governments, half victorious, fearing to be surprised by this crisis, stopped before striking their final blow. The day of the 13th of June gave rise to cries of pain and joy from one end of the Continent to the other. It decided fortune suddenly, and precipitated It towards the Rhine.
342 RECOLLECTIONS OF The Prussian army, already master of the Pala- tinate, at once burst into the Grand- Duchy of Baden, dispersed the insurgents, and occupied the whole country, with the exception of Rastadt, which held out for a few weeks. ^ The Baden revolutionaries took refuge in Switzer- land. Refugees were then arriving in that country from Italy, France, and to tell the truth, from every corner of Europe, for all Europe, with the exception of Russia, had undergone or was undergoing a revolution. Their number soon amounted to ten or twelve thousand. It was an army always ready to fall upon the neighbouring States. All the Cabinets were alarmed at it.
1 Nothing was ever more despicable than the conduct of those revolutionaries. The soldiers who, at the commencement of the insurrection, had put to flight or killed their officers, turned tail before the Prussians. The ringleaders did nothing but dispute among themselves and defame one another instead of defending themselves, and took refuge in Switzerland after pillaging the public treasury and levying contributions upon their own country.
While the struggle lasted, we took strong measures to prevent the insurgents from receiving any assistance from France. Those among them who crossed the Rhine, in great numbers, received asylum from us, but were disarmed and placed in confinement. The victors, as it was easy to foresee, at once abused their victory. Many prisoners were put to death, all liberty was indefinitely suspended, and even the government which had been restored was kept in very close tutelage. I soon perceived that the French representative in the Grand-Duchy of Baden not only did not strive to moderate these violences, but thoroughly approved of them. I at once wrote to him as follows: " Sir, " I am informed that a number of military executions have taken place, and that many more are announced. I do not understand why these facts have not been reported by you, nor why you have not sought to prevent them, without even waiting for instructions.
ALEXIS DE TOC^IUEVILLE 3^3 Austria and especially Prussia, which had already had reason to complain of the Confederation, and even Russia, which was in no way concerned, spoke of invading Swiss territory with armed forces and acting as a police in the name of all the governments threatened. This we could not allow.
I first endeavoured to make the Swiss listen to reason, and to persuade them not to wait till they were threatened, but themselves to expel from their territory, as the Law of Nations required them to do, all the principal ringleaders who openly threatened neighbouring nations.
" If you in this way anticipate what they have the right to ask of you," I incessantly repeated to the We have assisted as much as we could, without taking up arms, in suppressing the rebellion; all the more reason for desiring that the victory to which we have given our aid should not be sullied by acts of violence of which France disapproves, and which we regard as both odious and impolitic. There is another point which causes us much anxiety, and which does not seem to excite your solicitude to the same degree: I refer to the political institutions of the Grand- Duchy. Do not forget that the object of the Government of the Republic in that country has been to assist in putting down anarchy, but not in destroying liberty. We can in no way lend our hand to an anti-liberal restoration. The Constitutional Monarchy felt the need to create or maintain free States around France. The Republic is still more obliged to do so. The Government therefore asks and imperi- ously insists that each of its agents shall faithfully conform to these necessities of our situation. See the Grand Duke, and give him to understand what are the wishes of France. We shall certainly never allow either a Prussian province or an absolute government to b* established on our frontier in the stead of an independent and con-. stitutional monarchy?"
After some time, the executions ceased. The Grand Duke protested his attachment to constitutional forms, and his resolution to maintain them. This was for the moment all he was able to do, for he reigned only in name. The Prussians were the real masters.
344 RECOLLECTIONS OF representative in Paris of the Swiss Confederation, *' you can rely upon France to defend you against any unjust or exaggerated pretensions put forward by the Courts. We will rather risk war than permit them to oppress or humiliate you. But if you refuse to bring reason on your side, you must only rely upon yourselves, and you will have to defend your- selves against all Europe."
This language had little effect, for there is nothing to equal the pride and conceit of the Swiss. Not one of those peasants but believes that his country is able to defy all the princes and all the nations of the earth. I then set to work in another way, which was more successful. This was to advise the foreign Governments (who were only too disposed to agree) to refuse for a certain period all amnesty to such of their subjects as had taken refuge in Switzerland, and to deny all of them, whatever their degree of guilt, the right to return to their country. On our side, we closed our frontiers to all those who, after taking refuge in Switzerland, wished to cross France in order to go to England or America, including the inoffensive refugees as well as the ringleaders. Every outlet being thus closed, Switzerland remained encumbered with those ten or twelve thousand adventurers, the most turbulent and disorderly people in all Europe. It was necessary to feed, lodge, and even pay them, lest they should levy contributions on the country. This suddenly enlightened the Swiss as to the draw- ALEXIS DE rOCQUEVILLE 345 backs attendant upon the right of asylum. They could have made arrangements to have kept the illustrious chiefs for an indefinite period, in spite of the danger with which these menaced their neigh- bours; but the revolutionary army was a great nuisance to them. The more radical cantons were the first to raise a loud clamour and to ask to be rid of these inconvenient and expensive visitors. And as it was impossible to persuade the foreign Govern- ments to open their territory to the crowd of inof- fensive refugees who were able and willing to leave Switzerland, without first driving out the leaders who would have liked to stay, they ended by expel- ling these. After almost bringing all Europe down upon them rather than remove these men from their territory, the Swiss ended by driving them out of their own accord in order to avoid a temporary in- convenience and a trifling expense. No better example was ever given of the nature of demo- cracies, which, as a rule, have only very confused or very erroneous ideas on external affairs, and generally solve outside questions only by internal reasons.
While these things were happening in Switzer- land, the general aspect of affairs in Germany under- went a change. The struggles of the nations against the Governments were followed by quarrels of the Princes among themselves. I followed this new phase of the Revolution with a very attentive gaze and a very perplexed mind.
346 RECOLLECTIONS OF The Revolution in Germany had not proceeded from a simple cause, as in the rest of Europe. It was produced at once by the general spirit of the time and by the unitarian ideas peculiar to the I Germans. The democracy was now beaten, but I the idea of German unity was not destroyed; the needs, the memories, the passions that had inspired it survived. The King- of Prussia had undertaken to appropriate it and make use of it. This Prince, a man of intelligence but of very little sense, had been wavering for a year between his fear of the Revolution and his desire to turn it to account. He struggled as much as he could against the liberal and democratic spirit of the age; yet he favoured the German unitarian spirit, a blundering game in which, if he had dared to go to the length of his desires, he would have risked his Crown and his life. For, in order to overcome the resistance which existing institutions and the interests of the Princes were bound to oppose to the establish- ment of a central power, he would have had to summon the revolutionary passions of the peoples to his aid, and of these Frederic William could not have made use without soon being destroyed by them himself So long as the Frankfort Parliament retained its prestige and its power, the King of Prussia entreated it kindly and strove to get himself placed by it at the head of the new Empire. When the Parlia- ment fell into discredit and powerlessness, the King I ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 347 changed his behaviour without changing his plans. He endeavoured to obtain the legacy of this as- sembly and to combat the Revolution by realizing the chimera of German unity, of which the democrats had made use to shake every throne. With this in- tention, he invited all the German Princes to come to an understanding with him to form a new Con- federation, which should be closer than that of 181 5, and to give him the government of it. In return he undertook to establish and strengthen them in their States. These Princes, who detested Prussia, but who trembled before the Revolution, for the most part accepted the usurious bargain proposed to them. Austria, which the success of this proposal would have driven out of Germany, protested, being not yet in a position to do more. The two principal monarchies of the South, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, followed its example, but all North and Central Germany entered into this ephemeral Confederation, which was concluded on the 26th of May 1849 and is known in history by the name of the Union of the Three Kings.^ Prussia then suddenly became the dominating power in a vast stretch of country, reaching from Memel to Basle, and at one time saw twenty-six or twenty-seven million Germans marching under its orders. All this was completed shortly after my arrival in office.
I confess that, at the sight of this singular spectacle, 1 Of Prussia, Saxony and Hanover.— A.T. DE M.
348 RECOLLECTIONS OF my mind was crossed with strange ideas, and I was for a moment tempted to believe that the President was not so mad in his foreign policy as I had at first thought him. That union of the great Courts of the North, which had so long weighed heavily upon us, was broken. Two of the great Continental monarchies, Prussia and Austria, were quarrelling and almost at war. Had not the mo- ment come for us to contract one of those intimate and powerful alliances which we have been com- pelled to forego for sixty years, and perhaps in a measure to repair our losses of 1 8 1 5.-* France, by platonically assisting Frederic William in his enterprises, which England did not oppose, could divide Europe and bring on one of those great crises which entail a redistribution of territory.
The time seemed so well to lend itself to these ideas that they filled the imagination of many of the German Princes themselves. The more powerful among them dreamt of nothing but changes of frontier and accessions of power at the expense of their neighbours. The revolutionary malady of the nations seemed to have attacked the governments.
" There is no Confederation possible with eight and thirty States," said the Bavarian Foreign Minister, Baron von der Pfordten, to our Envoy. "It will be necessary to mediatize a large number of them. How, for instance, can we ever hope to re-establish order in a country like Baden, unless we divide it among sovereigns strong enough to make themselves ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 349 obeyed? In that case," he added, " the Neckar Valley would naturally fall to our share." ^ For my part, I soon dispelled from my mind, as mere visions, all thoughts of this kind. I quickly realized that Prussia was neither able nor willing to give us anything worth having in exchange for our good offices; that its power over the other German States was very precarious, and was likely to be ephemeral; that no reliance was to be placed in its King, who at the first obstacle would have failed us and failed himself; and, above all, that such extensive and ambitious designs were not suited to so ill-established a state of society and to such troubled and dangerous times as ours, nor to transient powers such as that which chance had placed in my hands.
I put a more serious question to myself, and it was this — I recall it here because it is bound con- stantly to crop up again: Is it to the interest of France that the bonds which hold together the German Confederation should be strengthened or relaxed? In other words, ought we to desire that Germany should in a certain sense become a single nation, or that it should remain an ill- joined conglomeration of disunited peoples and princes? There is an old tradition in our diplo- macy that we should strive to keep Germany divided among a large number of independent powers: and this, in fact, was self-evident at the time when 1 Despatch of the 7th of September 1849.
3 so RECOLLECTIONS OF there was nothing behind Germany except Poland and a semi-savage Russia; but is the case the same in our days? The reply to this question depends upon the reply to another: What is really the peril with which in our days Russia threatens the inde- pendence of Europe? For my part, believing as I do that our West is threatened sooner or later to fall under the yoke, or at least under the direct and irresistible influence of the Tsars, I think that our first object should be to favour the union of all the German races in order to oppose it to that influence. The conditions of the world are new; we must change our old maxims and not fear to strengthen our neighbours, so that they may one day be in a condition with us to repel the common enemy.
The Emperor of Russia, on his side, saw how great an obstacle an United Germany would prove in his way. Lamoriciere, in one of his private letters, informed me that the Emperor had said to him with his ordinary candour and arrogance: "If the unity of Germany, which doubtless you wish for no more than I do, ever becomes a fact, there will be needed, in order to manage it, a man capable of what Napoleon himself was not able to do; and if this man were found, if that armed mass developed into a menace, it would then become your affair and mine."
But when I put these questions to myself, the time had not come to solve them nor even to discuss them, for Germany was of its own accord irresistibly ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 35, returning to its old constitution and to the old anarchy of its powers. The Frankfort Parliament's attempt in favour of unity had fallen through. That made by the King of Prussia was destined to meet with the same fate.
It was the dread of the Revolution which alone had driven the German Princes into Frederic William's arms. In the measure that, thanks to the efforts of the Prussians, the Revolution was on all sides sup- pressed and ceased to make itself feared, the allies (one might almost say the new subjects) of Prussia aimed at recovering their independence. The King of Prussia's enterprise was of that unfortunate kind in which success itself interferes with triumph, and to compare large things with smaller, I would say that his history was not unlike ours, and that, like ourselves, he was doomed to strike upon a rock so soon as, and for the reason that, he had re-estab- lished order. The princes who had adhered to what was known as the Prussian hegemony seized the first opportunity to renounce it. Austria supplied this opportunity, when, after defeating the Hunga- rians, she was able to re-appear upon the scene of German affairs with her material power and that of the memories which attached to her name. This is what happened in the course of September 1 849. When the King of Prussia found himself face to face with that powerful rival, behind whom he caught sight of Russia, his courage suddenly failed him, as I ex- pected, and he returned to his old part. The 352 RECOLLECTIONS OF German Constitution of 1815 resumed its empire, the Diet its sittings; and soon, of all that great movement of 1848, there remained but two traces visible in Germany: a greater dependence of the small States upon the great monarchies, and an irreparable blow struck at all that remains of feudal institutions: their ruin, consummated by the nations, was sanctioned by the Princes. From one end of Germany to the other, the perpetuity of I ground-rents, baronial tithes, forced labour, rights of mutation, of hunting, of justice, which constituted a great part of the riches of the nobility, remained abolished.^ The Kings were restored, but the aris- tocracies did not recover from the blow that had been struck them.^ ^Private letter from Beaumont at Vienna, lo October 1849. — Despatch from M. Lef^bre at Munich, 23 July 1849.
^ I had foreseen from the commencement that Austria and Prussia would soon return to their former sphere and fall back in each case within the influence of Russia. I find this provision set forth in the instructions which I gave to one of our ambassadors lo Germany on the 24th of July, before the events which I have described had taken place. These instructions are drawn up in my own hand, as were all my more important despatches. I read as follows: " I know that the malady which is ravaging all the old European society is incurable, that in changing its symptoms it does not change in character, and that all the old powers are, to a greater or lesser extent, threatened with modification or destruction. But I am inclined to believe that the next event will be the strengthening of authority throughout Europe. It would not be impossible that, under the pressure of a common instinct of defence or under the common influence of recent occurrences, Russia should be willing and able to bring about harmony between North and South Germany and to recon- cile Austria and Prussia, and that all this great movement should merely resolve itself into a new alliance of principles between the three monarchies at the expense of the secondary governments and the liberty of the citizens. Consider the situation from this point of view, and give me an account of your observations."
f^ ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 353 Convinced at an early date that we had no part to play in this internal crisis in Germany, I only applied myself to living on good terms with the several contending parties. I especially kept up friendly relations with Austria, whose concurrence was necessary to us, as I will explain later, in the Roman business. I first strove to bring to a happy conclusion the negociations which had long been pending between Austria and Piedmont; I put the more care into this because I was persuaded that, so long as no lasting peace was established on that side, Europe would remain unsettled and liable at any moment to be thrown into great danger.
Piedmont had been negociating to no purpose since the battle of Novara. Austria at first tried to lay down unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, on her side, kept up pretensions which the state of her for- 7 tunes did not authorize. The negociations, several times interrupted, had been resumed before I took office. We had many very strong reasons to desire that this peace should be concluded without delay. At any moment, a general war might break out in this little corner of the Continent. Piedmont, more- over, was too near to us to permit us to allow that she should lose either her independence, which separated her from Austria, or her newly-acquired constitutional institutions, which brought her closer to us: two advantages which would be seriously jeopardized if recourse were had to arms.
I therefore interposed very eagerly, in the name 354 RECOLLECTIONS OF