heir 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