It was there that he wrote the following passage, which allows us to judge just how far removed from reality the man was:
The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times. It was a war on the side of good sense and sound interests, to bring peace and security to all. It was purely pacific and conservative. It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the beginning of security. A new horizon, and new labours would have opened up, full of well-being and prosperity or all. The European system was established; all that remained was to organize it . . . In this way Europe would have become in reality but a single people and every man travelling anywhere would have found himself in a common fatherland... Paris would have become the capital of the world and the French the envy of the nations.