'Is it true,' I asked, 'that the civil list is a couple of years' income in debt?'

I know nothing about it,' said Beaumont; 'in fact, nobody knows anything about anything, but it is highly probable. Everybody who asks for anything gets it, everybody is allowed to waste, everybody is allowed to rob, every folly of the Empress is complied with. Fould raised objections, and was dismissed.

Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 — Part 135

'She is said to have a room full of revolutionary relics: there is the bust of Marie Antoinette, the nose broken at one of the sacks of the Tuileries. There is a picture of Simon beating Louis XVII. Her poor child has been frightened by it, and she is always dwelling on the dangers of her position.'

Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 — Part 135

'So,' I said, 'did Queen Adelaide--William IV.'s Queen. From the passing of the Reform Bill she fully expected to die on the scaffold.'

Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 — Part 135

'There is more reason,' he answered, 'for the Empress's fears.'

'Not,' I said, 'if she fears the scaffold. Judicial murder, at least in that form, is out of fashion. Cayenne and Lambressa are your guillotines, and the Empress is safe from them.'

'But there are other modes of violent death,' he answered; 'from one of which she escaped almost by miracle.'

'How did she behave,' I asked, 'at the _attentat?_'

'Little is known,' he answered, 'except that the Emperor said to her, as he led her upstairs to her box: "Allons, il faut faire notre métier."'

'Then she is disturbed by religious fears. The little prince has been taught to say to his father every morning: "Papa, ne faites pas de mal à mon parrain." The Pope was his godfather.'

'If the Emperor dies, the real power will pass into the hands of Prince Napoleon. And very dangerous hands they will be. He has more talent than the Emperor, and longer views. Louis Napoleon is a revolutionist from selfishness. Prince Napoleon is selfish enough, but he has also passion. He detests everything that is venerable, everything that is established or legal.

'There is little value now for property or for law, though the Government professes to respect them. What, will it be when the Government professes to hate them?'

_Wednesday, August_ 14.--We talked at breakfast of Rome.

'Is there,' said Beaumont to Ampère, 'still an Inquisition at Rome?'