"His concealed sadness,the bitter disenchantment from which he suffered,had not led him into philosophical deserts of incredulity;this brave statesman was religious,without ostentation;he always attended the earliest mass at Saint-Paul's for pious workmen and servants.Not one of his friends,no one at Court,knew that he so punctually fulfilled the practice of religion.He was addicted to God as some men are addicted to a vice,with the greatest mystery.Thus one day I came to find the Count at the summit of an Alp of woe much higher than that on which many are who think themselves the most tried;who laugh at the passions and the beliefs of others because they have conquered their own;who play variations in every key of irony and disdain.He did not mock at those who still follow hope into the swamps whither she leads,nor those who climb a peak to be alone,nor those who persist in the fight,reddening the arena with their blood and strewing it with their illusions.He looked on the world as a whole;he mastered its beliefs;he listened to its complaining;he was doubtful of affection,and yet more of self-sacrifice;but this great and stern judge pitied them,or admired them,not with transient enthusiasm,but with silence,concentration,and the communion of a deeply-touched soul.He was a sort of catholic Manfred,and unstained by crime,carrying his choiceness into his faith,melting the snows by the fires of a sealed volcano,holding converse with a star seen by himself alone!
"I detected many dark riddles in his ordinary life.He evaded my gaze not like a traveler who,following a path,disappears from time to time in dells or ravines according to the formation of the soil,but like a sharpshooter who is being watched,who wants to hide himself,and seeks a cover.I could not account for his frequent absences at the times when he was working the hardest,and of which he made no secret from me,for he would say,'Go on with this for me,'and trust me with the work in hand.