905. BONAPARTE (N.), Vanquished.—[further continued].
What is infinitely interesting
[in the letters you enclosed to me], is
the scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII. for
Bonaparte. What lessons of wisdom Mr.
[John Quincy] Adams must have read in that
short space of time! More than fall to the
lot of others in the course of a long life. Man,
and the man of Paris, under those circumstances,
must have been a subject of profound
speculation! It would be a singular addition
to that spectacle to see the same beast in the
cage at St. Helena, like a lion in the tower.
That is probably the closing verse of the chapter
of his crimes.—
To Mrs. John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 52.
Ford ed., x, 69.
(M.
1817)
