His contemptuous phrases are directed against obstacles: against things, persons, nations that oppose him or cannot serve his turn against his king, if his king is restive; but he respects his king: against your friends' country, because there is no fixing it to a line of policy, and it seems to have collapsed; but he likes that country the best in Europe after his own.

He is nearest to contempt in his treatment of his dupes and tools, who are dropped out of his mind when he has quite squeezed them for his occasion; to be taken up again when they are of use to him.

Hence he will have no following.
But let me die to-morrow, the party I have created survives.

In him you see the dam, in me the stream.

Judge, then, which of them gains the future!--admitting that, in the present he may beat me.