majesty!

When Cardinal de Monte was elected pope, before he left the conclave, he
bestowed a cardinal's hat upon a servant, whose chief merit consisted in
the daily attentions he paid to his holiness's monkey!

Louis Barbier owed all his good fortune to the familiar knowledge he had
of Rabelais. He knew his Rabelais by heart. This served to introduce him
to the Duke of Orleans, who took great pleasure in reading that author.
It was for this he gave him an abbey, and he was gradually promoted till
he became a cardinal.

George Villiers was suddenly raised from private station, and loaded
with wealth and honours by James the First, merely for his personal
beauty.[4] Almost all the favourites of James became so from their
handsomeness.[5]

M. de Chamillart, minister of France, owed his promotion merely to his
being the only man who could beat Louis XIV. at billiards. He retired
with a pension, after ruining the finances of his country.

The Duke of Luynes was originally a country lad, who insinuated himself
into the favour of Louis XIII. then young, by making bird-traps
(pies-grièches) to catch sparrows. It was little expected (says
Voltaire) that these puerile amusements were to be terminated by a most
sanguinary revolution. De Luynes, after causing his patron, the Marshal
D'Ancre, to be assassinated, and the queen-mother to be imprisoned,
raised himself to a title and the most tyrannical power.

Sir Walter Raleigh owed his promotion to an act of gallantry to Queen