Life of Henry Reeve, vol 2 | Page 4

to law reform now. It is barely possible they may take it up hereafter. But surely the natural place for this statement is the 'Edinburgh Review,' and I should feel great comfort for the good cause if I thought you would thus help us. The matter in Sir E.'s book renders it very easy to show what has been done of late years.
Poor Tocqueville is one day a little better, another a little worse; but I have little or no hope of his getting through it.
Shortly after this Lord Brougham made a flying visit to London. A note in the Journal is:--
_February 26th_.--I dined at Lord Brougham's, and met Dr. Lushington, Lord Glenelg, Lord Broughton; all--with our host--over 80.
But the state of Tocqueville's health continued, for Reeve, the most engrossing personal consideration, and just at this time the deadly malady took a favourable though delusive turn. Tocqueville--says M. de Beaumont [Footnote: Gustave de Beaumont: _Oeuvres et Correspondance inédites d'Alexis de Tocqueville_ (1861), tome i. p. 116.]--hoped for the best. 'How could he do otherwise when all around him was bursting into life? and so he kept on his regular habits, his schemes, his work. He read, and was read to; he wrote a great many letters, and devoured those which he received in great numbers. There was not one of his friends who did not receive at least one letter from him during the last month of his life.' The following is his last letter to Reeve. The writing is painfully bad, the letters often half formed, or crowded one on top of another; even the orthography is imperfect; but the words and ideas flow in full volume.
Cannes. le 25 février.
Cher Reeve,--Il y a un siècle que je ne vous ai écrit. Je n'étais pas libre de le faire. Le mois de janvier tout entier s'est passé au milieu de la crise la plus douloureuse. Je ne crois pas qu'il y ait aucun mois de ma vie qui mérite mieux que celui-là d'être marqué d'une croix noire dans l'histoire de mon existence privée. Jetons dans l'oubli, s'il est possible, des jours et surtout des nuits si cruels, et bornons-nous à demander à Dieu de n'envoyer rien de semblable désormais, soit à moi, soit à mes amis. Depuis trois semaines j'occupe février à réparer les méfaits de janvier. Je vais aussi bien que possible: mes forces sont en grande partie revenues. Les bronches semblent en voie de guérison rapide. Ainsi n'en parlons plus.
I have just been reading an excellent article on the Catacombs, in the 'Edinburgh Review.' It is a subject which has always interested me, but very likely I should not have begun with this particular article if I had not known it was by you. Circourt wrote to me about it, and so deprived me of the pleasure of finding it out for myself, which I think I could have done. But, in any case, the article is exceedingly interesting ... Though I have been enjoying myself in following you underground, what is now going on on the earth's surface calls for close attention. I am here hard by one of the old military roads which have led into Italy from time immemorial, as at this day. I hear that great preparations are being made all along the valley of the Rhone and the neighbouring country. What I am sure of, because it is taking place under my very eyes, is, that the railway from Marseilles to Toulon is being pushed forward at an unheard of rate. It is the only link wanting to complete the chain of communication between Brest, Cherbourg, Paris, and Toulon. There was no expectation of this railway being finished before the middle of summer; but now it is understood that it will be ready within a few days--an instance of doing the impossible. Such efforts presuppose some great object which it is desired to accomplish at once.
I am told, perhaps incorrectly, that Prussia has decided to remain neutral--at first, at any rate; and, by the same authority, that Russia will be neutral, but in a spirit friendly to France. This would be very serious; for Russia gives nothing for nothing. If it is so, the Emperor's project would appear less silly. It would explain how an ambitious prince, whose throne is tottering, who is bound to excite the admiration of France and to gratify the national vanity, [Footnote: Fleury, one of the most faithful and attached of the Emperor's followers wrote in words almost identical (Souvenirs, tom. i. p. 330): 'C'était par une série de faits grandioses par des spectacles flattant l'orgueil et les instincts du pays, que Napoleon III allait, pendant de longues années, non seulement occuper, réjouir la France, mais encore fixer l'attention, l'étonnement et bien souvent l'admiration du monde.'] who is