And truly he was then very near that.

It was a melancholy business.

He was brought from the steamer to his bed in the hotel on a litter through the streets lined by the thousands who had gathered to see him, but who had been warned that his condition was such, that the excitement occasioned by any shouting would be perilous to him.

Amid dead silence his litter passed through the crowds who were longing to welcome him to the scene of his old triumphs! Truly it was more like a funeral procession than one of rejoicing.
It was very shortly before his death, which many people thought had been accelerated by that last effort to make his boundless popularity available for the propagation of Radicalism.
Peard's words reveal with exactitude the deficiency which lay at the root of all the blunders, follies, and imprudence which rendered his career less largely beneficent for Italy than it might have been.
"He had no judgment of character," and was too honest to believe in knavery.

It must be added that he was too little intelligent to detect it, or to estimate the consequences of it.