Tocqueville was born in 1805, i.e. during the First Empire, and died in 1859, i.e. during the Second Empire. He completed his studies under the restored kingdom of the Bourbons, at the head of which were Louis XVIII. and then Charles X., and he became known under the so-called July Monarchy of the Citizen King Louis-Philippe. So, if one disregards the four years of the second Republic (1848–1852), Tocqueville’s France was always monarchical. The dynastic change of the year 1830 and the accompanying demand to swear allegiance to the new regime presented the public office-holding members of the Tocqueville family with a decisive choice. While, among others, the father Hervé refused the oath and preferred to give up his office, Tocqueville took the oath demanded of him, and justified this with the note that the options available were not “Monarchy of the Bourbons” and “Monarchy of the Orléans”, but “Monarchy of the Orléans” and “Republic”, a term that he equated with “chaos” at the time (cited in: DA 1, LX). In 1848, however, Tocqueville would reconcile himself with the Republic.