though commercially a gainer,
is humiliated and irritated by the superiority claimed by Austria and
conceded to her.

'You cannot,' said Tocqueville, 'estimate the opinions of Germany without
going there. There is a general feeling among the smaller Powers of
internal insecurity and external weakness, and Austria is looked up to as
the supporter of order against the revolutionists, and of Germany against
Russia. Austria alone has profited by the general calamities. Without
actually drawing the sword she has possession of the Principalities, she
has thrust down Prussia into the second rank, she has emancipated herself
from Russia, she has become the ally of France and of England, and even
of her old enemy Piedmont, she is safe in Italy. Poland and Hungary are
still her difficulties, and very great ones, but as her general strength
increases, she can better deal with them.'

'Has not France, I said, 'been also a gainer, by becoming head of the
coalition against Russia?'

'Whatever we have gained,' answered Tocqueville, 'has been dearly
purchased, so far as it has consolidated this despotism. For a whole year
we have felt that the life, and even the reign, of Louis Napoleon was
necessary to us. They will continue necessary to us during the remainder
of the war. We are acquiring habits of obedience, almost of resignation.
His popularity has not increased. He and his court are as much shunned by
the educated classes as they were three years ago; we still repeat "que
ca ne peut pas durer," but we repeat it with less conviction.'

We passed the spring in Algeria, and returned to Paris the latter part of
May.

_Paris, May 26,_1855.--After breakfast I went to the Institut.

M. Passy read to us a long paper on the Art of Government. He spoke so
low and so monotonously that no one attended. I sat next to Tocqueville,
and, as it was not decent to talk, we conversed a little in writing. He
had been reading my Algiers Journal, and thus commented upon it:--

'Il y a tout un cote, particulierement curieux, de l'Algerie, qui vous a
echappe parce que vous n'avez pu ou voulu vous imposer l'ennui de causer
souvent avec les colons, et que ce cote-la ne se voit pas en parlant
avec les gouvernants; c'est l'abus de la centralisation. L'Afrique peut
etre consideree comme le tableau le plus complet et le plus
extraordinaire des vices de ce systeme.

'Je suis convaincu que seul, sans les Arabes, le soleil, le desert, et la
fievre, il suf