Epoch of World-History. Finishing off forever the trade of King,
think many; who have grown profoundly dark as to Kingship and him.

The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a
century, quite submerged Friedrich, abolished him from the
memories of men; and now on coming to light again, he is found
defaced under strange mud-incrustations, and the eyes of mankind
look at him from a singularly changed, what we must call oblique
and perverse point of vision. This is one of the difficulties in
dealing with his History;--especially if you happen to believe
both in the French Revolution and in him; that is to say, both
that Real Kingship is eternally indispensable, and also that the
destruction of Sham Kingship (a frightful process) is occasionally
so. On the breaking-out of that formidable Explosion, and Suicide
of his Century, Friedrich sank into comparative obscurity;
eclipsed amid the ruins of that universal earthquake, the very
dust of which darkened all the air, and made of day a disastrous
midnight. Black midnight, broken only by the blaze of
conflagrations;--wherein, to our terrified imaginations,
were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly portents,
stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must be owned
the figure of Napoleon was titanic; especially to the generation
that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by
him. In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge
scale; if not greater than anything in human experience, at least
more grandiose. All was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to
the shilling-gallery; and there were fellows on the stage with
such a breadth of sabre, extent of whiskerage, strength of
windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder, as had never been seen
before. How they bellowed, stalked and flourished about;