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 only by success, or by firm conviction that he could not reach what he aimed at, or unless, as he wandered thus in deep darkness, a glimmer of light came to him from some other cranny.  He passed thus his days in sapping and counter-sapping.  The most impudent deceit had become natural to him, and was concealed under an air that was simple, upright, sincere, often bashful.  He would have spoken with grace and forcibly, if, fearful of saying more than he wished, he had not accustomed himself to a fictitious hesitation, a stuttering—­which disfigured his speech, and which, redoubled when important things were in question, became insupportable and sometimes unintelligible.  He had wit, learning, knowledge of the world; much desire to please and insinuate himself, but all was spoiled by an odour of falsehood which escaped in spite of him through every pore of his body—­even in the midst of his gaiety, which made whoever beheld it sad.  Wicked besides, with reflection, both by nature and by argument, treacherous and ungrateful, expert in the blackest villainies, terribly brazen when detected; he desired everything, envied everything, and wished to seize everything.  It was known afterwards, when he no longer could restrain himself, to what an extent he was selfish, debauched, inconsistent, ignorant of everything, passionate, headstrong, blasphemous and mad, and to what an extent he publicly despised his master, the state, and all the world, never hesitating to sacrifice everybody and everything to his credit, his power, his absolute authority, his greatness, his avarice, his fears, and his vengeance.

Such was the sage to whom M. le Duc d’Orleans was confided in early youth!