He had so formed his _entourage_ that he did not receive through private channels the current of faith and enthusiasm of which the public sources seemed dammed up.

He needed, but lacked, the added strength of collective faith.

The German terror still overhung us, and even the sympathetic public was very cautious; the enemy must not be encouraged, our friends must be supported, this was not the time for discord or agitations, the President must be trusted to do his best.

And in this drought the flower of the President's faith withered and dried up.
Thus it came to pass that the President countermanded the _George Washington_, which, in a moment of well-founded rage, he had ordered to be in readiness to carry him from the treacherous halls of Paris back to the seat of his authority, where he could have felt himself again.

But as soon, alas, as be had taken the road of compromise, the defects, already indicated, of his temperament and of his equipment, were fatally apparent.