'He seems,' I said, 'to have lost his calmness.'
'Yes,' answered L. 'But under what a shock! And observe that though the greatest risk was encountered by _him_, the terror was greatest among his _entourage_. I do not believe that if he had been left to himself he would have lost his prudence or his self-possession. He did not for the first day. Passions are contagious. Everyone who approached him was agitated by terror and anger. His intrepidity and self-reliance, great as they are, were disturbed by the hubbub all round him. His great defects are three. First, his habit of self-contemplation. He belongs to the men whom the Germans call subjective, whose eye is always turned inwardly; who think only of themselves, of their own character, and of their own fortunes. Secondly, his jealousy of able men. He wishes to be what you called him, a giant, and as Nature has not made him positively tall, he tries to be comparatively so, by surrounding himself with dwarfs. His third defect is the disproportion of his wishes to his means. His desires are enormous. No power, no wealth, no expenditure would satisfy them. Even if he had his uncle's genius and his uncle's indefatigability, he would sink, as his uncle did, under the exorbitance of his attempts. As he is not a man of genius, or even a man of remarkable ability, as he is ignorant, uninventive and idle, you will see him flounder and fall from one failure to another.
'During the three years that Drouyn de L'Huys was his minister he was intent on home affairs--on his marriage, on the Louvre, on the artillery, on his _bonnes fortunes_, and on the new delights of unbounded expenditure. He left foreign affairs altogether to his minister. When Drouyn de L'Huys left him, the road before him was plain--he had only to carry on the war. But when the war was over, the road ended; neither he nor Walewski nor any of his _entourage_ know anything of the country in which they are travelling. You see them wandering at hazard. Sometimes trying to find their way to Russia, sometimes to England. Making a treaty with Austria, then attempting to injure her, and failing; attempting to injure Turkey, and failing; bullying Naples, and failing; threatening Switzerland, threatening Belgium, and at last demanding from England an Alien Bill, which they ought to know to be incompatible with the laws and hateful to the feelings of the people.