is worth the trouble of being observed for its own sake, and no effort
is required to suppress one's ulterior motives. Freed from all
prejudice, curiosity becomes scientific and may be completely
concentrated on the secret forces, which guide the wonderful process.
These forces are the situation, the passions, the ideas, the wills of
each group of actors, and which can be defined and almost measured.
They are in full view; we are not reduced to conjectures about them,
to uncertain divination, to vague indications. By singular good
fortune we perceive the men themselves, their exterior and their
interior. The Frenchmen of the ancient régime are still within visual
range. All of us, in our youth, (around 1840-50), have encountered one
or more of the survivors of this vanished society. Many of their
dwellings, with the furniture, still remain intact. Their pictures and
engravings enable us to take part in their domestic life, see how they
dress, observe their attitudes and follow their movements. Through
their literature, philosophy, scientific pursuits, gazettes, and
correspondence, we can reproduce their feeling and thought, and even
enjoy their familiar conversation. The multitude of memoirs, issuing
during the past thirty years from public and private archives, lead us
from one drawing room to another, as if we bore with us so many
letters of introduction. The independent descriptions by foreign
travelers, in their journals and correspondence, correct and complete
the portraits, which this society has traced of itself. Everything
that it could state has been stated, except,

* what was commonplace and well-known to contemporaries,

* whatever seemed technical, tedious and vulgar,

* whatever related to the provinces, to the bourgeoisie, the