REVOLUTION was already growling
audibly in the depths of the world; meteoric-electric coruscations
heralding it, all round the horizon. Strange enough to note, one
of Friedrich's last visitors was Gabriel Honore Riquetti, Comte de
Mirabeau. These two saw one another; twice, for half an hour each time.
The last of the old Gods and the first of the modern Titans;--before
Pelion leapt on Ossa; and the foul Earth taking fire at last, its vile
mephitic elements went up in volcanic thunder. This also is one of the
peculiarities of Friedrich, that he is hitherto the last of the
Kings; that he ushers in the French Revolution, and closes an Epoch of
World-History. Finishing off forever the trade of King, think many; who
have grown profoundly dark as to Kingship and him.

The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a century,
quite submerged Friedrich, abolished him from the memories of men;
and now on coming to light again, he is found defaced under strange
mud-incrustations, and the eyes of mankind look at him from a singularly
changed, what we must call oblique and perverse point of vision. This is
one of the difficulties in dealing with his History;--especially if you
happen to believe both in the French Revolution and in him; that is to
say, both that Real Kingship is eternally indispensable, and also that
the destruction of Sham Kingship (a frightful process) is occasionally
so. On the breaking-out of that formidable Explosion, and Suicide of his
Century, Friedrich sank into comparative obscurity; eclipsed amid the
ruins of that universal earthquake, the very dust of which darkened all
the air, and made of day a disastrous midnight. Black midnight,
broken only by the blaze of conflagrations;--wherein, to our terrified
imaginations, were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly
portents, stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must be
owned the figure of Napoleon was titanic; especially to the generation
that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by him.
In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge scale; if not
greater than anything in human experience, at least more grandiose. All
was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to the shilling-gallery; and
there were fellows on the stage with such a breadth of sabre, extent of
whiskerage, strength of windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder, as
had never been seen before. How they bellowed, stalked and flourished
abou