I am as far from not understanding the weight of these virtues as from not admiring them.

But the _opportunity_ for exercising them comes from the Emperor Napoleon, and it is good and just for us all to remember this while we admire the most.
"So at least I think; and the Italian official bodies have always admitted it, though individuals seem to me to be too much influenced by the suspicions and calumnies thrown out by foreign journals--English, Prussian, Austrian, and others--which traduce the Emperor's motives in diplomacy, as they traduced them in the war.

A prejudice in the eye is as fatal to sight as mote and beam together.
And there are things abroad _worse_ than any prejudices--yes, worse! "It is a fact that the Emperor used his influence with England to get the Tuscan vote accepted by the English Government.

Whatever wickedness he meant by _that_ the gods know; and English statesmen suspect ...

(or suspected a very short short time ago); but the deed itself is not wicked, and you and I shall not be severe on it whatever bad motive may be imputable.
"So much more I could write ...