Born in an age still drunk with the glory of Napoleon, but himself
infused with ideas of popular liberty; chained to the chariot of
circumstances, and made to swell the sawdust-magnificence of unpopular
kings and the ridiculous success of Napoleon III., the greatest impostor
of all history, this Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers went through a
life the bare retrospect of which would actually tire the mind. In his
old age this little lover and critic of greatness--this man who could
show the weaknesses of Napoleon Bonaparte so clearly that one would feel
the critic must be the superior of Napoleon--this squeak-voiced orator,
must have felt that whatever greatness might come to him in history was
well-earned--that the way had indeed been long!