Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/273

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 231 the same as the Emperor Napoleon, he imagined chap. that the great revoir of 1815 between the men and !_ the man of a hundred fights could be acted over again between modern French troops and him- self ; but it is plain that this belief had resulted from the undue mastery which he had allowed for a time to his ruling propensity, and not from any actual overthrow of the reason ; for, when checked, he did not, like a madman or a dare-devil, try to carry his venture through ; nor did he even, in- deed, hold on long enough to try, and try fairly, whether the Bonapartist sentiment to which he wished to appeal were really existent or not : on the contrary, the moment he encountered the shock of the real world he stopped dead ; and becoming suddenly quiet, harmless, and obedient, surrendered himself (as he always has done) to the first firm man who touched him. The change was like that seeming miracle which is wrought when a hysteric girl, who seems to be carried headlong by strange hallucinations, and to be clothed with the terrible power of madness, is suddenly cured and silenced by a rebuke and a sharp angry threat. Accepting a small sum of money * from the Sovereign whom he had been trying to dethrone, Prince Louis was shipped off to America by the good-natured King of the French. But if he was wanting in the quality which en- ables a man to go well through with a venture, his ruling propensity had strength enough to make him try the same thing over and over again.
 * £600.