evidence: Foreign publications did not spare compliments. The English found in Tocqueville an abundance of arguments against the American republic141 and recalled in reviews the precarious character of the experiment.142 The London and Paris Courier of 14 January 1836 asserted on its part: "Much, indeed, has been written by Englishmen respecting America, and a good deal by visitants from the continent of Europe. But with the solitary exception of the Démocratie en Amérique, by M. de Tocqueville, nothing absolutely has been written by a foreigner which approaches to an accurate delineation of our political organization." [...] My intention here is to present the principal features of Tocqueville’s biography during the years that preceded the Democracy. For more details, refer to R.-Pierre Marcel, Essai politique sur Alexis de Tocqueville (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1910); Antoine Rédier, Comme disait Monsieur de Tocqueville (Paris: Perrin, 1925); J.-P. Mayer, Prophet of the Mass Age: A Study of Alexis de Tocqueville (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1939); André Jardin, Alexis de Tocqueville (Paris: Hachette, 1984); Hugh Brogan, Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2007). [...] Tocqueville said yesterday [the note is in Beaumont’s hand]: