The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in a large degree to their prestige. The best proof of this is that,should they by any circumstance lose their prestige,their infiuence disappears.
The prestige of these political leaders is individual,and independent of name or celebrity: a fact of which M. Jules Simon gives us some very curious examples in his remarks on the prominent men of the Assembly of 1848, of which he was a member:—
