his reconciliation in France.  The Grand Prieur held firm.  Charles prohibited him the palace.  He laughed at this, and went every day to the theatre, with his conquest, and placed himself opposite the King.  At last, Charles, not knowing what to do to deliver himself from his tormentor, begged our King to recall him, and this was done.  But the Grand Prieur said he was very comfortable in England and continued his game.  Charles, outraged, confided to the King (Louis XIV.) the state he was thrown into by the Grand Prieur, and obtained a command so absolute and so prompt, that his tormentor was afterwards obliged to go back into France.

M. d’Orleans admired this; and I know not if he would not have wished to be the Grand Prieur.  He always related this story with delight.  Thus, of ambition for reigning or governing, he had none.  If he made a false move in Spain it was because he had been misdirected.  What he would have liked best would have been to command armies while war lasted, and divert himself the rest of the time without constraint to himself or to others.  He was, in fact, very fit for this.  With much valour, he had also much foresight, judgment, coolness, and vast capacity.  It may be said that he was captain, engineer, and army purveyor; that he knew the strength of his troops, the names and the company of the officers, and the most distinguished of each corps; that he knew how to make himself adored, at the same time keeping up discipline, and could execute the most difficult things, while unprovided with everything.  Unfortunately there is another side of this picture, which it will be as well now to describe.

M. d’Orleans, by disposition so adapted to become the honour and the master-piece of an education, was not fortunate in his teachers.  Saint-Laurent, to whom he was first confided, was, it is true, the man in all Europe best fitted to act as the instructor of kings, but he died before his pupil was beyond the birch, and the young Prince, as I have related, fell entirely into the hands of the Abbe Dubois.  This person has played such an important part in the state since the death of the King, that it is fit that he should be made known.  The Abbe Dubois was a little, pitiful, wizened, herring-gutted man, in a flaxen wig, with a weazel’s face, brightened by some intellect.  In familiar terms, he was a regular scamp.  All the vices unceasingly fought within him for supremacy, so that a continual uproar filled his mind.  Avarice, debauchery, ambition; were his gods; perfidy, flattery, foot-licking his means of action; complete impiety was his repose; and he held the opinion as a great principle, that probity and honesty are chimeras, with which people deck themselves, but which have no existence.  In consequence, all means were good to him.  He excelled in low intrigues; he lived in them, and could not do without them; but they always had an aim, and he followed them with a patience terminated