How Tocqueville settled on this plan is unclear, but there was a widespread sense in Restoration intellectual circles that the Old World could learn from the grand American "experiment" of democratic governance. George Washington was revered in France as a virtuous general who lived humbly, fought only when necessary, and relinquished his power at the end of his term—a kind of anti-Napoleon. Nobody drew the contrast better than Chateaubriand in his Voyage en Amerique, published in 1827 and widely excerpted in the French press. "Washington and Buonaparte both emerged from the republic's bosom; both were the children of freedom," Chateaubriand remarked but added, "Washington remained loyal to freedom, but Buonaparte betrayed it.
-Olivier Zunz, The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville
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