I pause for this man, before whom history has hitherto paused, without being able to discover the real place which should be assigned to him amongst the passing events.

An enigma to himself, he remains an enigma for posterity.

Was the real solution of this enigma ambition or patriotism, weakness or conspiracy?
Let facts reply.
Public opinion has its prejudices.

Struck by the immensity of the work it accomplishes; giddy, as it were, by the rapidity of the movement which urges things on, it cannot believe that a series of natural causes, combined by Providence with the rise of certain ideas in the human mind, and aided by the coincidence of the times, can of itself produce such vast commotions.

It seeks, then, the supernatural--the wonderful--fatality.