uired; he reasoned with you as with his equal, and struck the most
able with surprise. Although he never forgot his own position, nor
allowed others to forget it, he carried no constraint with him, but put
everybody at his ease, and placed himself upon the level of all others.

He had the weakness to believe that he resembled Henry IV. in
everything, and strove to affect the manners, the gestures, the bearing,
of that monarch. Like Henry IV. he was naturally good, humane,
compassionate; and, indeed, this man, who has been so cruelly accused of
the blackest and most inhuman crimes, was more opposed to the destruction
of others than any one I have ever known, and had such a singular dislike
to causing anybody pain that it may be said, his gentleness, his
humanity, his easiness, had become faults; and I do not hesitate to
affirm that that supreme virtue which teaches us to pardon our enemies he
turned into vice, by the indiscriminate prodigality with which he applied
it; thereby causing himself many sad embarrassments and misfortunes,
examples and proofs of which will be seen in the sequel.

I remember that about a year, perhaps, before the death of the King,
having gone up early after dinner into the apartments of Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans at Marly, I found her in bed with the megrims,
and M. d'Orleans alone in the room, seated in an armchair at her pillow.
Scarcely had I sat down than Madame la Duchesse began to talk of some of
those execrable imputations concerning M. d'Orleans unceasingly
circulated by Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine; and of an incident
arising therefrom, in which the Prince and the Cardinal de Rohan had
played a part against M. d'Orleans. I sympathised with her all the more
because the Duke, I knew not why, had always distinguished and courted
those two brothers, and thought he could count upon them. "And what will
you say of M. d'Orleans," added the Duchesse, "when I tell you that since
he has known this, known it beyond doubt, he treats them exactly the same
as before?"

I looked at M. d'Orleans, who had uttered only a few words to confirm the
story, as it was being told, and who was negligently lolling in his
chair, and I said to him with warmth:

"Oh, as to that, Monsieur, the truth must be told; since Louis the
Debonnaire, never has there been such a Debonnaire as you."

At these words he rose in his chair, red with anger to the very whites of
his eyes, and blurted out his vexation aga