How mad to such a man must have seemed the Crusaders of previous centuries, or the chivalrous Princes of Northern Germany and Burgundy, who expended their force upon such unprofitable and impossible undertakings as the subjugation, for instance, of Switzerland! Not a single trait in his character reminds us of the Middle Ages, unless it be that he was said to care for reliques with a superstitious passion worthy of Louis XI.
Sismondi sums up the description of this extraordinary despot in the following sentences, which may be quoted for their graphic brevity: 'False and pitiless, he joined to immeasurable ambition a genius for enterprise, and to immovable constancy a personal timidity which he did not endeavor to conceal.

The least unexpected motion near him threw him into a paroxysm of nervous terror.

No prince employed so many soldiers to guard his palace, or took such multiplied precautions of distrust.

He seemed to acknowledge himself the enemy of the whole world.

But the vices of tyranny had not weakened his ability.