Editing Alexis de Tocqueville (section)

=== Opposition to Louis Napoleon ===
Tocqueville had supported Cavaignac against [[Napoleon III|Louis Napoléon Bonaparte]] for the presidential election of 1848. Opposed to Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup which followed his election, Tocqueville was among the deputies who gathered at the [[10th arrondissement of Paris]] in an attempt to resist the coup and have Napoleon III judged for "high treason" as he had violated the constitutional limit on terms of office. Detained at [[Vincennes]] and then released, Tocqueville, who supported the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Restoration]] of the [[Bourbons]] against Napoleon III's [[Second French Empire|Second Empire]] (1851–1871), quit political life and retreated to his castle ({{lang|fr|[https://www.chateaudetocqueville.com/ Château de Tocqueville]}}).<ref name="ReferenceA">Epstein, ''Alexis De Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide'' (2006), p. 160.</ref>

Against this image of Tocqueville, biographer Joseph Epstein concluded: "Tocqueville could never bring himself to serve a man he considered a usurper and despot. He fought as best he could for the political liberty in which he so ardently believed—had given it, in all, thirteen years of his life ... . He would spend the days remaining to him fighting the same fight, but conducting it now from libraries, archives, and his own desk."<ref name="ReferenceA" /> There, he began the draft of {{lang|fr|L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution}}, publishing the first tome in 1856 but leaving the second one unfinished.