'Then he has a strong will, perfect self-reliance, and the most restless
activity. All these qualities give him great influence. He led the
_centre gauche_ into most of its errors. H---- used to say, "If you
want to know what I shall do, ask G----."

'Among the secondary causes of February 1848 he stands prominent. He
planned the banquets. Such demonstrations are safe in England. He
inferred, according to his usual mode of reasoning, that they would not
be dangerous in France. He forgot that in England there is an aristocracy
that leads, and even controls, the people.

'I am alarmed,' he continued, 'by your Reform Bill. Your new six-pound
franchise must, I suppose, double the constituencies; it is a further
step to universal suffrage, the most fatal and the least remediable of
institutions.[3]

'While you preserve your aristocracy, you will preserve your freedom; if
that goes, you will fall into the worst of tyrannies, that of a despot,
appointed and controlled, so far as he is controlled at all, by a
mob.'[4]

Madame de Tocqueville asked me if I had seen the Empress.

'No,' I said, 'but Mrs. Senior has, and thinks her beautiful.'

'She is much more so,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'than her portraits.
Her face in perfect repose gets long, and there is a little drooping
about the corners of the mouth. This has a bad effect when she is
serious, as everyone is when sitting for a picture, but disappears as