Chapter 5

Louis XVIII. appeared to us in all the profundity of historic tradition; he showed himself with the favouritism of the ancient royalties. Does the heart of our isolated monarchs contain a void which they fill with the first object they light upon? Is it sympathy, the affinity of a nature analogous to their own? Is it a friendship which drops down to them from Heaven to console their greatnesses? Is it a leaning for a slave who gives himself body and soul, before whom one conceals nothing, a slave who becomes a garm…