Gustave de Beaumont - Journey To America

Journey To America

After receiving a commission from King Louis-Phillipe to inspect American prison systems along with Tocqueville, Beaumont set sail to America on the ship Le Havre in 1831 as Tocqueville's travelling companion. During their journey, their friendship grew and so did their intellectual involvement. At the conclusion of their 9 month study, they returned to France, and he and Tocqueville published their great political analysis Du système pénitentiare aux Etats-Unis, et de son application en France (two volumes, 1833). When the first edition was published, Beaumont, sympathetic to social injustice, was working on another book, Marie, ou l'esclavage aux Etats-Unis (two volumes, 1835), which was a social critique and novel describing the separation of races in a moral society and the conditions of slaves in America. Although the 1833 writing was successful, Tocqueville was given intellectual recognition, which was not the case with Beaumont. This was the first step in Beaumont's having to live in his friend's shadow in fame. Beaumont also wrote L'Irlande, sociale, politique, et religieuse (two volumes, (1839–42).

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