to the other all his army, to call him nothing but
"Monseigneur," and "Your Highness." In time the gangrene spread, and
even lieutenant-generals and the most distinguished people did not dare
to address him in any other manner.

The most wonderful thing to whoever knew the King--so gallant to the
ladies during a long part of his life, so devout the other, and often
importunate to make others do as he did--was that the said King had
always a singular horror of the inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain;
and yet M. de Vendome, though most odiously stained with that vice--so
publicly that he treated it as an ordinary gallantry--never found his
favour diminished on that account. The Court, Anet, the army, knew of
these abominations. Valets and subaltern officers soon found the way to
promotion. I have already mentioned how publicly he placed himself in
the doctor's hands, and how basely the Court acted, imitating the King,
who would never have pardoned a legitimate prince what he indulged so
strangely in Vendome.

The idleness of M. de Vendome was equally matter of notoriety. More than
once he ran the risk of being taken prisoner from mere indolence. He
rarely himself saw anything at the army, trusting to his familiars when
ready to trust anybody. The way he employed his day prevented any real
attention to business. He was filthy in the extreme, and proud of it.
Fools called it simplicity. His bed was always full of dogs and bitches,
who littered at his side, the pops rolling in the clothes. He himself
was under constraint in nothing. One of his theses was, that everybody
resembled him, but was not honest enough to confess it as he was. He
mentioned this once to the Princesse de Conti--the cleanest person in the
world, and the most delicate in her cleanliness.

He rose rather late when at the army. In this situation he wrote his
letters, and gave his morning orders. Whoever had business with him,
general officers and distinguished persons, could speak to him then. He
had accustomed the army to this infamy. At the same time he gobbled his
breakfast; and whilst he ate, listened, or gave orders, many spectators
always standing round.... (I must be excused these disgraceful details,
in order better to make him known).... On shaving days he used the same
vessel to lather his chin in. This, according to him, was a simplicity
of manner worthy of the ancient Romans, and which condemned the splendour
and superfluity of the others.