He had beaten women and they beat him.

They regarded themselves simply as avengers of ladies in distress, breaking the bloody whip of a German bully; just as Cobbett had sought to break it when it was wielded over the men of England.

The boorishness was in the Germanic or half-Germanic rulers who wore crosses and spurs: the gallantry was in the gutter.

English draymen had more chivalry than Teuton aristocrats--or English ones.
I have dwelt a little on this Italian experiment because it lights up Louis Napoleon as what he really was before the eclipse, a politician--perhaps an unscrupulous politician--but certainly a democratic politician.

A power seldom falls being wholly faultless; and it is true that the Second Empire became contaminated with cosmopolitan spies and swindlers, justly reviled by such democrats as Rochefort as well as Hugo.