Take him for all in all--allowing
to other men superior excellence in single departments--where can we find
a man on the whole so perfect as he was?
I am well aware that he has not escaped disparagement, and that the
animadversions of his contemporary, St. Simon, have been more than
repeated in the suspicions of the over-skeptical historian Michelet. True,
that the courtesy that won the hearts alike of master and servant, the
high-born lady who sought his society and the broken-spirited widow who
asked his Christian counsel, has been ascribed to a love of praise that
rejoiced in every person's homage, or a far-sighted policy that desired
every person's suffrage. True, that his self-denial has been called a deep
self-interest that would win high honors by refusing to accept the less
rewards. True, that his piety has sometimes been called sentimentalism,
and an alloy of baser emotion has been hinted at as running through some
of his letters to enthusiastic devotees. True, that he has been called
very politic and ambitious. We claim for him no superhuman perfection. Nor
do we deny that he was a Frenchman, whilst we maintain that he was every
inch a man.
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