Alexis de Tocqueville - Places

The family chateaux

The chateau de Tocqueville

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It was only after long and costly renovation and restoration work, directed by the masterly hand of Marie, that the couple managed to turn "the old family hovel" into something habitable and worthy of welcoming their closest friends each summer. Jean-Jacques Ampère, Francisque de Corcelle and Gustave de Beaumont were regular visitors to the chateau de Tocqueville, where they spent long evenings in the library, accompanied by the master of the house, in discovering the many treasures that Alexis's predecessors had accumulated.

« My beloved Tocqueville! In my imagination it figures solely as a place of peaceful asylum and happiness. It is the port for every storm. I have never been as happy for as long anywhere else. »

(Letter to Marie Mottley, 1837)

Tocqueville loved to spend his days outdoors, whether visiting local farmers or planning, with Marie the many arrangements that would be required to improve the chateau's park, once the work on the main house was completed. It is striking that Tocqueville set aside a large share of his will, apart from other desires concerning the future of his various literary works, to authorize Marie to continue to implement any changes that she deemed necessary in the arrangements of the gardens of the chateau de Tocqueville...  
What more proof is required of his attachment to the place, which was a focus of his faithfulness to the land of his ancestors, and which he was the first to consider to be a part of himself?

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