An application, inimical to the pleasures which generally attract that age, and which unlimited power very seldom refuses, attached him solely to the cares of government:  all admired this wonderful change, but all did not find their account in it:  the great lost their consequence before an absolute master, and the courtiers approached with reverential awe the sole object of their respects and the sole master of their fortunes:  those who had conducted themselves like petty tyrants in their provinces, and on the frontiers, were now no more than governors:  favours, according to the king’s pleasure, were sometimes conferred on merit, and sometimes for services done the state; but to importune, or to menace the court, was no longer the method to obtain them.

The Chevalier de Grammont regarded his master’s attention to the affairs of state as a prodigy:  he could not conceive how he could submit at his age to the rules he prescribed himself, or that he should give up so many hours of pleasure, to devote them to the tiresome duties, and laborious functions of government; but he blessed the Lord that henceforward no more homage was to be paid, no more court to be made, but to him alone, to whom they were justly due.  Disdaining as he did the servile adoration usually paid to a minister, he could never crouch before the power of the two Cardinals who succeeded each other:  he neither worshipped the arbitrary power of the one, nor gave his approbation to the artifices of the other; he had never received anything from Cardinal Richelieu but an abbey, which, on account of his rank, could not be refused him; and he never acquired anything from Mazarin but what he won of him at play.

By many years’ experience under an able general he had acquired a talent for war; but this during a general peace was of no further service to him.  He therefore thought that, in the midst of a court flourishing in beauties and abounding in wealth, he could not employ himself better than in endeavouring to gain the good opinion of his master, in making the best use of those advantages which nature had given him for play, and in putting in practice new stratagems in love.

He succeeded very well in the two first of these projects, and as he had from that time laid it down as the rule of his conduct to attach himself solely to the king in all his views of preferment, to have no regard for favour unless when it was supported by merit, to make himself beloved by the courtiers and feared by the minister, to dare to undertake anything in order to do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of innocence, he soon became one in all the king’s parties of pleasure, without gaining the ill will of the courtiers.  In play he was successful, in love unfortunate; or, to speak more properly, his restlessness and jealousy overcame his natural prudence, in a situation wherein he had most occasion for it.  La Motte Agencourt was one of the maids of honour to the queen dowager, and, though no sparkling beauty, she had drawn away lovers from the celebrated Meneville.