'That army was constituted on the Prussian system, which makes every man serve, and no man a soldier. It was, in fact, a militia. The men were enlisted for only fourteen months, at the end of that time they were sent home, and were recalled when they were wanted, having forgotten their military training and acquired the habits of cottiers and artisans. They had scarcely any officers, or even _sous_ officers, that knew anything of their business. The drill sergeants required to be drilled. The generals, and indeed the greater part of the officers, were divided into hostile factions--Absolutists, Rouges, Constitutional Liberals, and even Austrians--for at that time, in the exaggerated terror occasioned by the revolutions of 1848, Austria and Russia were looked up to by the greater part of the noblesse of the Continent as the supporters of order against Mazzini, Kossuth, Ledru Rollin, and Palmerston. The Absolutists and the Austrians made common cause, whereas the Rouges or Mazzinists were bitterest against the Constitutional Liberals. Such an army, even if there had been no treason, could not have withstood a disciplined enemy. When it fell a victim to its own defects, and to the treachery of Ramorino, Chrzanowski retired to Paris.'--(_Extracted from Mr. Senior's article in the 'North British Review.'_)
Chrzanowski died several years ago.--ED.]
My dear Tocqueville,--A few weeks after my return to London your book reached me--of course from the time that I got it, I employed all my leisure in reading it.
Nothing, even of yours, has, I think, so much instructed and delighted me. Much of it, perhaps, was not quite so new to me as to many others; as I had had the privilege of hearing it from you--but even the views which were familiar to me in their outline were made almost new by their details.
It is painful to think how difficult it is to create a Constitutional Government, and how difficult to preserve one, and, what is the same, how easy to destroy one.
Mrs. Senior is going to Wales and to Ireland, where I join her, after having paid a long-promised visit to Lord Aberdeen.
I like the conversation of retired statesmen, and he is one of our wisest. Thiers has just left us. I spent two evenings with him, but on the first he was engrossed by Lord Clarendon, and on the second by the Duc d'Aumale and by Lord Palmerston. They were curious _rapprochements_, at least the first and third. It was the first meeting of Palmerston and Duc d'Aumale. I am very much pleased with the latter. He is sensible, well informed, and unaffected.