How much pure and uncontrolled emotion had to do with what ought to have been the reasoned judgments of his understanding we know on his own evidence.

He had sent the proof-sheets of a part of his book to Sir Philip Francis.

They contained the famous passage describing the French queen as he had seen her seventeen years before at Versailles.
Francis bluntly wrote to him that, in his opinion, all Burke's eloquence about Marie Antoinette was no better than pure foppery, and he referred to the queen herself as no better than Messalina.

Burke was so excited by this that his son, in a rather officious letter, begged Francis not to repeat such stimulating remonstrance.

What is interesting in the incident is Burke's own reply.