returned thanks himself or called on his
minister to do so. Such, also, was his practice at supper, and, finding
that the members of his household could not, without much discomfort,
attend prayers so late as at bedtime--an hour, besides, which the
diversity of his occupations prevented from being regularly fixed--his
orders were that, so soon as supper was over, a psalm should be sung and
prayer offered. It cannot be told how many of the French nobility began to
establish this religious order in their own families, after the example of
the admiral, who used often to exhort them to the practice of true piety,
and to warn them that it was not enough for the father of a family to live
a holy and religious life, if he did not by his example bring all his
people to the same rule.

"On the approach of the time for the celebration of the Lord's Supper,
calling together all the members of his household, he told them that he
had to render an account to God, not only of his own life, but also of
their behavior, and reconciled such of them as might have had
differences.... Moreover, he regarded the institution of colleges for
youth, and of schools for the instruction of children, a singular benefit
from God, and called the school a seminary of the church and an
apprenticeship of piety; holding that ignorance of letters had introduced
into both church and state that thick darkness in which the tyranny of the
Pope had had its birth and increase.... This conviction led him to lay out
a large sum in building a college at Chatillon, and there he maintained
three very learned professors of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, respectively,
and a number of students.

"There could not be a stronger proof of his integrity, and of the
moderation of his desires with respect to the possession of property, than
that, notwithstanding the high offices he held, and the opportunities they
afforded, as is usual with courtiers, of attending to his own interests
and acquiring great wealth, he did not increase his patrimonial estates by
a single acre; and, although he was an excellent economist, yet the number
of persons of high rank, and, indeed, of all conditions, that came to
consult him on public affairs from all parts of France, obliged him to
draw largely on the savings effected by his good management; so that he
left to his heirs not less than forty thousand livres of debts, besides
six thousand livres of interest which he paid annually to his
creditors