Alexis de Tocqueville was an unlucky traveller. In 1826, aged 21, and on his first ever trip outside France, his ship bound for Palermo nearly sank in a violent storm off the Italian coast. Five years later, ten miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tocqueville’s steamboat actually did sink, into the half-frozen Ohio River. The future author of Democracy in America had to be rescued from a frigid reef by another passing boat.
Always struggling to find comfortable accommodation that did not strain his finances, on the first night of a trip to London in 1857 Tocqueville found a “horribly expensive” place to stay on Albemarle Street, only to be awakened in the middle of the night by water pouring down on his head through the floorboards from the flat above: amid a great storm, the upstairs neighbour had neglected to close the window.
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