The peculiarity of the whole affair was its needlessness

The peculiarity of the whole affair was its needlessness, and this underlines two characteristics of folly: it often does not spring from a great design, and its consequences are frequently a suprise. The folly lies in persisting thereafter. With acute if unwitting significance, a French historian wrote of the Revocation that "Great designs are rare in politics; the King proceeded empirically and sometimes impulsively." His point is reinforced from an unexpected source in a perceptive comment by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who cautioned, "In analyzing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial." This is a factor usually overlooked by political scientists who, in discussing the nature of power, always treat it, even when negatively, with immense respect. They fail to see it as sometimes a matter of ordinary men walking into water over their heads, acting unwisely or foolishly or perversely as people in ordinary circumstances frequently do. The trappings and impact of power deceive us, endowing the possessors with a quality larger than life. Shorn of his tremendous curled peruke, high heels and ermine, the Sun King was a man subject to misjudgment, error and impulse - like you and me.

- Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly.