'the people will not have an opportunity of using that
instrument. All the great elective bodies have some years before them.'

'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'and therefore their rage will break
out in a more direct, and perhaps more formidable, form. Depend on it,
this Government can exist, even for a time, only on the condition of
brilliant, successful war, or prosperous peace. It is bound to be rapidly
and clearly victorious. If it fail in this, it will sink--or perhaps, in
its terrors and its struggles, it will catch at the other alternative,
peace.

'The French public is too ignorant to care much about Russian
aggrandisement. So far as it fancies that the strength of Russia is the
weakness of England, it is pleased with it. I am not sure that the most
dishonourable peace with Nicholas would not give to Louis Napoleon an
immediate popularity. I am sure that it would, if it were accompanied by
any baits to the national vanity and cupidity; by the offer of Savoy for
instance, or the Balearic Islands. And if you were to quarrel with us for
accepting them, it would be easy to turn against you our old feelings of
jealousy and hatred.'

We saw vast columns of smoke on the other side of the river. Those whom
we questioned believed them to arise from an intentional fire. Such fires
are symptoms of popular discontent. They preceded the revolution of 1830.
They have become frequent of late in this country.

_Monday, April_ 10.--Tocqueville and I drove this morning to
Azy-le-Rideau, another Francis I. chateau, on an island formed by the
Indre. It is less beautifully situated than Chenonceaux; the river Indre
is smaller and more sluggish than the Cher; the site of the castle is in
a hollow, and the trees round it approach too near, and are the tall and
closely planted poles which the French seem to admire. But the
architecture, both in its outlines and in its details, is charming.
It is of white stone, in this form, with two curtains and four
towers. The whole outside and the ceilings and cornices within are
covered with delicate arabesques.

O ______________ 0
| |______________| |
0 \ | |
\ | |
\| |
| |
0

Like Chenonceaux, it escaped the revolution, and is now, with its
furniture of the sixteenth century, the residence of the Marquis de
Biancourt, descended from its ancient proprietors.

As we sauntered