Politics and Social Changes 



which he had striven to master, and as the 

 vessel headed for the desolate Southern ocean, 

 it may be that a sense of his final and utter 

 failure at length came fully to his mind. And 

 who may measure the bitterness of this sense 

 to him ? " He knew no motive but interest — 

 he acknowleged no criterion but success — he 

 worshipped no God but ambition ; and with 

 an Eastern devotion he knelt at the altar of his 

 idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no 

 creed that he did not profess — there was no 

 opinion that he did not promulgate. In the 

 hope of a dynasty, he upheld the Crescent ; for 

 the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the 

 Cross ; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the 

 adopted child of the Republic ; and with a 

 parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the 

 crown and the tribune, he reared the throne of 

 his despotism. A professed Catholic, he im- 

 prisoned the Pope ; a pretended patriot, he 

 impoverished the country ; and under the 

 name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, 

 and wore without shame, the diadem of the 

 Caesars ! ** 



So did a contemporary sum up his worship 

 of success, and his subordination of means to 



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