Kinglake's description of "Prince Louis Bonaparte," of his
character, his accomplices, his policy, his crimes, is perhaps
unequalled in historical literature; I know not where else to look
for a vivisection so scientific and so merciless of a great
potentate in the height of his power. With scrutiny polite,
impartial, guarded, he lays bare the springs of a conscienceless
nature and the secrets of a crime-driven career; while for the
combination of precise simplicity with exhaustive synopsis, the
masquerading of moral indignation in the guise of mocking laughter,
the loathing of a gentleman for a scoundrel set to the measure not
of indignation but of contempt, we must go back to the refined
insolence, the [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] of Voltaire.
He had well known Prince Napoleon in his London days, had been
attracted by him as a curiosity--"a balloon man who had twice
fallen from the skies and yet was still alive"--had divined the
mental power veiled habitually by his blank, opaque, wooden looks,
had listened to his ambitious talk and gathered up the utterances
of his thoughtful, long-pondering mind, had quarrelled with him
finally and lastingly over rivalry in the good graces of a woman.
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