sary, had so long obliged him to conceal.

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