so despised by his favourites, often so roughly treated by them.  He was quarrelsome in small matters, incapable of keeping any secret, suspicious, mistrustful; fond of spreading reports in his Court to make mischief, to learn what was really going on or just to amuse himself:  he fetched and carried from one to the other.  With so many defects, unrelated to any virtue, he had such an abominable taste, that his gifts and the fortunes that he gave to those he took into favour had rendered him publicly scandalous.  He neither respected times nor places.  His minions, who owed him everything, sometimes treated him most insolently; and he had often much to do to appease horrible jealousies.  He lived in continual hot water with his favourites, to say nothing of the quarrels of that troop of ladies of a very decided character—­many of whom were very malicious, and, most, more than malicious—­with whom Monsieur used to divert himself, entering into all their wretched squabbles.

The Chevaliers de Lorraine and Chatillon had both made a large fortune by their good looks, with which he was more smitten than with those of any other of his favourites.  Chatillon, who had neither head, nor sense, nor wit, got on in this way, and acquired fortune.  The other behaved like a Guisard, who blushes at nothing provided he succeeds; and governed Monsieur with a high hand all his life, was overwhelmed with money and benefices, did what he liked for his family, lived always publicly as the master with Monsieur; and as he had, with the pride of the Guises, their art and cleverness, he contrived to get between the King and Monsieur, to be dealt with gingerly, if not feared by both, and was almost as important a man with the one as with the other.  He had the finest apartments in the Palais Royal and Saint Cloud, and a pension of ten thousand crowns.  He remained in his apartments after the death of Monsieur, but would not from pride continue to receive the pension, which from pride was offered him.  Although it would have been difficult to be more timid and submissive than was Monsieur with the King—­for he flattered both his ministers and his mistresses—­he, nevertheless, mingled with his respectful demeanour the demeanour of a brother, and the free and easy ways of one.  In private, he was yet more unconstrained; always taking an armed chair, and never waiting until the King told him to sit.  In the Cabinet, after the King appeared, no other Prince sat besides him, not even Monseigneur.  But in what regarded his service, and his manner of approaching and leaving the King, no private person could behave with more respect; and he naturally did everything with grace and dignity.  He never, however, was able to bend to Madame de Maintenon completely, nor avoid making small attacks on her to the King, nor avoid satirising her pretty broadly in person.  It was not her success that annoyed him; but simply the idea that La Scarron had become his sister-in-law; this