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Rh is for the moment tempted to forget all his crimes, and to feel that he honestly earned his success.

Take him, for instance, at the Council of State:

"Punctual at every sitting, prolonging the session four or six hours, discussing before and afterwards the subject brought forward . . . informing himself about bygone acts of jurisprudence, the laws of Louis XIV. and Frederick the Great. . . . Never did the Council adjourn without its members knowing more than they did the day before, if only through the researches he obliged them to make. Never did the members of the Senate and Corps Législatif, or of the tribunal, pay their respects to him without being rewarded for their homage by valuable instructions. He cannot be surrounded by public men without being the head of all, all forming for him a Council of State."

Here is another picture of him which tells the same tale:

What characterises him above them all,' is not alone the penetration and universality of his comprehension, but likewise and especially 'the force, flexibility, and constancy of his attention. He can work thirteen hours a day at a stretch, on one or on several subjects. I never saw him tired, I never found his mind lacking inspiration, even when weary in body, nor when violently exercised,