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WorkAlexis de Tocqueville

Recollections

The revolution of 1848 seen from inside the Assembly and the government, set down by a participant for no reader but himself.

by Alexis de Tocqueville509 passages held

  • French, the original language
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Original title
Souvenirs
First published
(published posthumously)
Original language
French

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Overview

Kept private by its author and then by his family, this account of the revolution of 1848 waited forty-two years for print. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote it between July 1850 and September 1851, and his great-nephew Christian de Tocqueville published it in 1893, with passages cut, after everyone it might hurt had died. Its argument is about how history happens. Against historians who explain everything by general causes, and politicians who see nothing but accident, Tocqueville held that large forces set the stage, while chance, temperament and small decisions settle what happens on it, and he tested that claim on the people around him, himself included. He had been close to all of it. On 27 January 1848 he warned the Chamber of Deputies that revolution was in the air, and within a month the July Monarchy had fallen; he then sat in the new Assembly through the June insurrection of the Paris workers and served five months as foreign minister in 1849. The book covers the February revolution and the April elections, the June Days, and that ministry, and leaves out the months in between. He wrote part of it in Sorrento, where he spent the winter recovering his health, and said at the outset that the pages were for himself alone. Its best-known pages include a portrait of King Louis-Philippe and an account of election day in April 1848 at Saint-Pierre-Église, near his family home in Normandy. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup of 2 December 1851 ended the Republic the book describes. The complete text appeared only in the twentieth century, in editions prepared by the scholar Luc Monnier.

Key concepts

What are general causes, and why won't Tocqueville explain everything by them?

General causes are the large forces that historians use to explain events as though they were inevitable. Tocqueville accepted that such forces set the stage for 1848, but refused to let them explain everything. In the Recollections they are necessary and not sufficient: they make a revolution possible, and something else decides what actually happens once it begins.

What part does chance play in politics, according to the Recollections?

A decisive but limited one. Against politicians who saw nothing but accident, Tocqueville held that chance works inside conditions it did not create: it cannot produce a revolution where none was prepared, but it settles when one comes, how it runs and who survives it. Accident, temperament and small decisions are therefore real causes, and a history that leaves them out is incomplete.

Why does the book treat character as a political cause?

Because temperament is one of the things that settles events once general causes have set the stage. If a king's hesitation or a minister's nerve can change how a crisis ends, then describing character is part of explaining history, not an ornament to it. That is why the portraits in the Recollections, including the famous one of Louis-Philippe, carry the book's argument.

Why does Tocqueville count himself among the people he judges?

Because his account of history requires it. If small decisions and temperament shape events, then his own choices in the Chamber, the Assembly and the foreign ministry were causes too, and could not be exempted. Writing for no reader but himself removed the usual reason for sparing oneself, so he tested his claim on his own conduct as on everyone else's.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

General Causes, Chance and Small Decisions

Is history made by great forces or by accident? Tocqueville refused both answers: large causes set the stage, while chance, temperament and small decisions settle what happens on it.

Historians explained everything by general causes, and politicians saw nothing but accident. Tocqueville, who had watched events from the Chamber, the Assembly and the foreign ministry, took his stand between them. Broad forces made a revolution possible; whether it came in February, how it ran and who survived it depended on temperament, luck and choices made in a room. He tested the claim on the people around him and did not exempt himself.

  • revolution
  • political change
  • political crisis
  • political judgment
  • collective action
  • political conflict

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Character in Politics, His Own Included

What does a political crisis reveal about the people who lead in it? Tocqueville judged king, colleagues and himself by one measure, in pages written for no reader but himself.

Because he meant the book for himself alone, Tocqueville could judge the actors of 1848 without the caution of a published memoir, and his great-nephew held it back until everyone it might hurt had died. The portrait of King Louis-Philippe is its most famous page. Ambition, fear and courage appear here as causes rather than decoration, since the book's argument gives temperament a real share in events. The same scrutiny is turned on the author's own conduct in the Assembly and in office.

  • political leadership
  • political ambition
  • political responsibility
  • political ethics
  • leadership
  • courage
  • fear
  • political rhetoric
  • political strategy
  • diplomacy

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February, the June Days and a Short-Lived Republic

What becomes of liberty when a regime falls in days and the streets decide the rest? The book follows the Second Republic from its sudden birth through civil war to the edge of its end.

On 27 January 1848 Tocqueville warned the Chamber of Deputies that revolution was in the air; within a month the July Monarchy had fallen. He saw the April elections at Saint-Pierre-Église, near his family home in Normandy, sat in the new Assembly through the June insurrection of the Paris workers, and served five months as foreign minister in 1849. The book stops in September 1851, and three months later Louis-Napoléon's coup ended the Republic it describes.

  • republicanism
  • political violence
  • civil war
  • socialism
  • popular sovereignty
  • political legitimacy
  • constitutionalism
  • political institutions
  • democracy
  • public opinion
  • social class

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Within this work

passages held
509
distinct concepts
643
by passages held, corpus-wide
#147

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “political leadership” and “revolution”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 23 pairings. 86 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
political leadershiprevolution17
political violencerevolution14
political powerrevolution10
political judgmentpolitical leadership8
political crisispolitical leadership7
political judgmentrevolution7
political leadershippolitical rhetoric6
political crisisrevolution5
political judgmentpolitical rhetoric4
political rhetoricrevolution4
political crisispolitical judgment3
political leadershippolitical power3
political leadershippolitical violence3
political leadershiprepublicanism3
political crisispolitical rhetoric2
political judgmentpolitical power2
political judgmentrepublicanism2
political powerrepublicanism2
republicanismrevolution2
political crisisrepublicanism1
political judgmentpolitical violence1
political rhetoricpolitical violence1
political rhetoricrepublicanism1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 1835 Democracy in America (De la démocratie en Amérique)

    The book that made Tocqueville's name, in two volumes of 1835 and 1840, drawn from his American journey of 1831–32; it carried him into the Académie française in 1841, at thirty-six.

     FR
  2. 1835 Memoir on Pauperism (Mémoire sur le paupérisme)

    Drawn from Tocqueville's visit to England in 1833, and read to the learned society of Cherbourg in 1835, the year the first volume of Democracy in America appeared.

     FR
  3. 1848 Speech on the Right to Work (Discours sur la question du droit au travail)

    On 12 September 1848, while he sat on the committee drafting the Second Republic's constitution, Tocqueville gave this speech urging the Constituent Assembly to keep a right to work out of it.

     FR
  4. 1856 The Old Regime and the Revolution (L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution)

    Where Democracy in America studied the American present, this book turns the same method on the French past; it is the only volume Tocqueville finished of a planned history of the Revolution.

     FR
  5. 1893 Recollections (Souvenirs) you are here FR
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