et of the
soldier as vigorously as the sword of the general. His head, rather
thrown backwards, rose well from his shoulders, and turned on his neck
with ease and grace, like all elegant men. These haughty motions of his
head made him look taller under the tricoloured cockade. His brow was
lofty, well-turned, flat at the temples, and well displayed; his muscles
set in play by his reflection and resolution. The salient and
well-defined angles announced sensibility of mind beneath delicacy of
understanding and the most exquisite tact. His eyes were black, large,
and full of fire; his long lids, beginning to turn grey, increased their
brilliancy, though sometimes they were very soft; his nose, and the oval
of his countenance, were of that aquiline type which reveals races
ennobled by war and empire; his mouth, flexible and handsome, was almost
always smiling; no tension of the lips betrayed the effort of this
plastic mind--this master mind, which played with difficulties, overcame
obstacles; his chin, turned and decided, bore his face, as it were, on a
firm and square base, whilst the habitual expression of his countenance
was calm and expansive cheerfulness. It was evident that no pressure of
affairs was too heavy for him, and that he constantly preserved so much
liberty of mind as enabled him to jest alike with good or bad fortune.
He treated politics, war, and government with gaiety. The tone of his
voice was sonorous, manly, and vibrating; and was distinctly heard above
the noise of the drum, and the clash of the bayonet. His oratory was
straightforward, clever, striking; his words were effective in council,
in confidence, and intimacy: they soothed and insinuated themselves like
those of a woman. He was persuasive, for his soul, mobile and sensitive,
had always in its accent the truth and impression of the moment. Devoted
to the sex, and easily enamoured, his experience with them had imbued
him with one of their highest qualities--pity. He could not resist
tears, and those of the queen would have made him a Seid of the throne;
there was no position or opinion he would not have sacrificed to a
generous impulse; his greatness of soul was not calculation, it was
excessive feeling. He had no political principles; the Revolution was to
him nothing more than a fine drama, which was to furnish a grand scene
for his abilities, and a part for his genius. A great man for the
service of events, if the Revolution had not beheld him