narch.

_February_ 16.--The current fallacy of Napoleon having made the important
alterations in the laws of France. All the eminent new enactments
originated in the Constituent Assembly, only that they set to work in
such sledgehammer fashion, that the carrying out their work became
extremely troublesome and difficult. Too abstract in their notions to
estimate difficulties of detail in changing the framework of
jurisprudence. De Tocqueville said philosophers must always originate
laws, but men used to active practical life ought to undertake to direct
the transition from old to new arrangements. The Constituent Assembly did
prodigious things in the way of clearing the ground of past abominations.
Napoleon had the talent of making their work take effect; understood
administrative science, but rendered the centralising principle far too
predominant, in the view to consolidate his own power afterwards. France
has felt this, to her cost, ever since.

Habit formerly (i.e. 300 years back) as prevalent in France as it is in
England of gentlemen of moderate fortune residing wholly or by far the
greater part of the year on their estates. They ceased to do so from
the time when the sovereign took from them all local authority, from the
fifteenth century or so. The French country-houses were excessively
thickly dotted over the land even up to the year 1600; quantities pulled
down after that period. Country life becoming flat after the gentlemen
ceased to be of importance in their political relations with their
districts, they gave up rural habits and took to living in the provincial
towns.

De Tocqueville had many conversations with M. Royer Collard respecting
the events of 1789. Difficult to get much out of men of our period
relative to their own early manhood. His own father (now 82) much less
capable of communicating details of former _regime_ than might have been
supposed. Because, says De Tocqueville, youths of eighteen to twenty
hardly ever possess the faculty or the inclination to note social
peculiarities. They accept what they find going, and scarcely give a
thought to the contemplation of what is familiar to them and of every
day's experience. Royer Collard was a man of superior mind: had a great
deal to relate. De Tocqueville used to pump him whenever an opportunity
occurred. Knew Danton well, used to discuss political affairs with him.
When revolution was fairly launched, saw him occasionally. Danton was
venal to t