Abstract

‘We have the strong ground of common hatreds, though perhaps we hate on different or even opposite grounds’. Thus wrote Tocqueville the liberal of Montalembert the liberal Catholic. What lay in common was a desire for an extension of personal liberties, freedom of association, decentralisation, separation of Church and state; but, in recognizing the differences, Tocqueville tacitly acknowledges the areligious nature of his own plea for religion in modern society and asserts the aliberal nature of Montalembert’s dedication to liberal programmes. Both claimed to unite what the French had set asunder, religion and liberalism; both in fact degraded one end by using it as a tool of the other.