Carlyle saw affinities between the character of Cromwell and that of Bismarck, but the only resemblance between the two men is physical. One may question how far Cromwell was a believer: he certainly had as little respect for sacred words as he had for cathedrals and kings, and he juggled with texts of Scripture as it suited his purpose. Bismarck has never canted. His acknowledgments of Divine mercies have only been expressed where national triumphs were concerned—never where his own personal enterprises had to be lauded. On the other hand, he has evinced strong religious scruples under circumstances when few men would have credited him with such. He has spent more sleepless hours from thinking over the deposition of George V. of Hanover than Cromwell did from fretting over Charles I.'s execution. He reconciled that deposition with the dictates of his reason, but not with those of his faith in the inviolability of kings. When it had been decided to annex Hanover, the Crown lawyers were instructed to draw up a report of legal justifications for this measure; but when Bismarck had read half through this document, he threw it aside with irritation: “Better nothing than that—it reminds me of Teste's Memorandum on the confiscation of the estates of the Orleans family.”[34] Again Bismarck, while making it the chief occupation of his life to study how the Plebs might be managed, has never stooped to such immoral means for this purpose as the French officials of the Second Empire employed. He was deeply interested in Napoleon III.'s experiments with universal suffrage. The whole system of plébiscites, official candidatures, prefectoral newspapers, and electoral districts, so arranged that peasant votes should neutralise those of Radical working-men, seemed to him “very pretty,” as he once told a disgusted Republican refugee. But the encouragement given by De Morny, De Persigny, and others to every kind of immorality that could amuse the people—frivolous newspapers, improper novels and plays, gambling clubs, and outrageous fashions in dress—this was a very different affair. De Morny was fond of quoting the anecdote about Alcibiades having cut off the tail of his dog to give the Athenians something to talk about, and during Bismarck's short stay in Paris as Ambassador in 1862, he and the Prussian statesman had more than one conversation about the art of ruling. Bismarck had the frankness to say that he looked upon the comedies of Dumas the younger, and indeed on most French plays of the lighter sort, as grossly corrupting to the public morals. “_Panem et circenses_,” smiled De Morny. “_Panem et saturnalia_,” muttered Bismarck.