Some things never change............

 

Guizot would become both a major historian and formidable statesman; he was also, like Royer-Collard, a significant presence in the young Tocqueville's life.  One of his first initiatives as Secrétaire général was to order what we would nowadays call a public opinion survey, pioneering a new role for local administrators.  The Bourbons had been in exile, and thus out of power, for so many years that they had to rediscover France.  In September 1814, Guizot instructed all prefects to inquire about the "hearts and minds of the masses, their general opinions, and general mentality and assumptions of each profession and each rank, and how they shaped public affairs in the département, especially regarding those opinions that are resistant to the authorities."  Guizot would eventually think of "governance of the public mind" as "the great challenge of modern society.

-Olivier Zunz, The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis De Tocqueville