But in one place, at least, the actual form of words exists; and the actual form of words has been splendidly justified.

One man among the sons of men has been permitted to fulfil a courtly formula with awful and disastrous fidelity.

Political and geographical ruin have written one last royal title across the sky; the loss of palace and capital and territory have but isolated and made evident the people that has not been lost; not laws but the love of exiles, not soil but the souls of men, still make certain that five true words shall yet be written in the corrupt and fanciful chronicles of mankind: "The King of the Belgians." It is a common phrase, recurring constantly in the real if rabid eloquence of Victor Hugo, that Napoleon III.

was a mere ape of Napoleon I.That is, that he had, as the politician says, in "L'Aiglon," "le petit chapeau, mais pas la tete"; that he was merely a bad imitation.
This is extravagantly exaggerative; and those who say it, moreover, often miss the two or three points of resemblance which really exist in the exaggeration.

One resemblance there certainly was.