De Tocqueville’s Message For America (June 1959 | Volume: 10, Issue: 4)

De Tocqueville’s Message For America

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Authors: John Lukacs

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June 1959 | Volume 10, Issue 4

When the American republic was still young, and seemed in the European view to be a daring experiment that might or might not come to anything, Alexis de Tocqueville visited these shores and wrote a book, Democracy in America , which was accepted then and afterward as a brilliant examination of this strange new society. It remains a classic in its field; and now, a full century after its author’s death, a re-examination of what its author really had to say is very much in order.  

Accordingly, in this space which is ordinarily reserved for reviews of current books, AMERICAN HERITAGE in this issue turns to a consideration of Tocqueville and his message—a message which is as relevant today, in the time of this nation’s maturity, as it was when it was first written. This article was written by J. A. Lukacs, author of The European Revolution and professor of history at Chestnut Hill and La Salle Colleges, Philadelphia.

Alexis de Tocqueville died a hundred years ago, on April 16,1859, after years of increasing suffering, with his gloomy neurotic wife at his side, in a villa on a hill above Cannes. At that time Cannes and the Riviera were not yet fashionable places. The Tocquevilles had gone there from the foggy brume of Normandy, to profit from the Mediterranean air. It was of no use. His chest was ravaged beyond repair. Thus he succumbed, to be buried quietly in an unpretentious tomb tight against the wall of the parish church in the tiny village of Tocqueville, on the road from Valognes to Cherbourg, a couple of miles inland from the English Channel. The Marble has already grayed and some of the letters are hardly legible now.

One mile to the east lies the Tocqueville château. It is a very French château, with a very Norman courtyard. At least part of one wing, holding a tiny chapel, goes back to the fifteenth century. There is an enormous square pile of concrete, an abandoned German bunker, in the middle of the fields. The château was headquarters for a German military command, and the bunker is a leftover reminder of Hitler’s Atlantic “wall.” The cost of its removal would be exorbitant. Ahead of the courtyard there is a partly weedy pond, and the main part of the château is gutted by fire. Four years ago, when the present Comte de Tocqueville, a lateral descendant, was making some repairs, a blowtorch started a blaze and the central part burned out.

Yet the best room in the château, Alexis de Tocqueville’s erstwhile library, was saved in a miraculous way. It is a dark, big room, with a magnificent tapestry, packed full to the top with books and papers and folders; almost incredibly, that very mass of tightly packed papers somehow refused to catch fire. The flames stopped at the doorway; it is as if they had hesitated, blowing and licking around that portal until they turned