lue of a year; sober, serene,
peaceable, patient; a good man and a good prince; sleeping with his
wife, and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing
the conjugal bed to the bourgeois, an ostentation of the regular
sleeping-apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate
displays of the elder branch; knowing all the languages of Europe, and,
what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking
them; an admirable representative of the "middle class," but
outstripping it, and in every way greater than it; possessing excellent
sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting
most of all on his intrinsic worth, and, on the question of his race,
very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon; thoroughly
the first Prince of the Blood Royal while he was still only a Serene
Highness, but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king; diffuse in
public, concise in private; reputed, but not proved to be a miser; at
bottom, one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own
fancy or duty; lettered, but not very sensitive to letters; a gentleman,
but not a chevalier; simple, calm, and strong; adored by his family and
his household; a fascinating talker, an undeceived statesman, inwardly
cold, dominated by immediate interest, always governing at the shortest
range, incapable of rancor and of gratitude, making use without mercy of
superiority on mediocrity, clever in getting parliamentary majorities to
put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under
thrones; unreserved, sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve, but
with marvellous address in that imprudence; fertile in expedients, in
countenances, in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France!
Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming
more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a
disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns
everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely
repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves
politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society
from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious,
indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the
lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain,
bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard; singing the Ma