The habit of commanding, and the prompt obedience he had ever met
with, had palled upon his mind, and impressed him with feelings of
indifference for all things which thus appeared so easily obtained;
and this satiety and consequent listlessness was by many construed
into melancholy of disposition. He disliked any appearance of
opposition to his will; not that he particularly resented the
opposition itself, but he knew his own weakness, and feared lest
he should be compelled to make a show of a firmness he was
conscious of not possessing. For the clergy he entertained the
most superstitious veneration; and he feared God because he had a
still greater awe and dread of the devil. In the hands of his
confessor he confidently believed was lodged the absolute power
to confer on him unlimited license to commit any or every sin.
He greatly dreaded pamphlets, satires, epigrams, and the opinion
of posterity and yet his conduct was that of a man who scoffs at
the world's judgment. This hasty sketch may with safety be taken
as the portrait of Louis XV, although much might be added; yet for
the present I will confine myself to the outline of my picture,
which I shall have frequent occasion to retouch in the course of
my journal; it is my intention to present him in all possible lights
before the reader, and I flatter myself I shall produce a perfect
resemblance of the man I seek to depict. Let us now proceed to
consider the duc de Richelieu.

This nobleman, when in his seventy-second year, had preserved,
even in so advanced an age, all his former pretensions to notice;
his success in so many love affairs, a success which he never
could have merited, had rendered him celebrated; he was now a
superannuated coxcomb, a wearisome and clumsy butterfly; when