Tocqueville and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte: A paradoxical relationship

Deep political differences separated de Tocqueville and Louis-Napoleon. In 1848, the latter did however accept the legitimacy bestowed upon the President of the Republic by universal suffrage. In 1849, the former went from simple legal attachment to a sort of conditional (but sincere) support when he entered the latter’s government. During the following two years, when he was no longer minister, de Toqueville attempted to preserve legality in conditions which satisfied the President. The rupture produced by the coup d’Etat was not to be perceived as definitive, either by the enactor or by the thinker. The latter never abandoned hope for the liberalisation of the new regime.