The characteristic of his genius, so well defined, so ill understood, was less audacity than justness.

Beneath the grandeur of his expression is always to be found unfailing good sense.

His very vices could not repress the clearness, the sincerity of his understanding.

At the foot of the tribune he was a man devoid of shame or virtue: in the tribune he was an honest man.

Abandoned to private debauchery, bought over by foreign powers, sold to the court in order to satisfy his lavish expenditure, he preserved, amidst all this infamous traffic of his powers, the incorruptibility of his genius.