house of M. du Plessis Guenegaut, and by whom the Duke was frightened to
a great degree.

The reflections I had leisure to make upon my new dignity obliged me to
take great care of my hat, whose dazzling flame of colour turns the heads
of many that are honoured with it. The most palpable of those delusions
is the claiming precedence of Princes of the blood, who may become our
masters the next moment, and who at the same time are generally the
masters of all our kindred. I have a veneration for the cardinals of my
family, who made me suck in humility after their example with my mother's
milk, and I found a very happy opportunity to practise it on the very day
that I received the news of my promotion. Chateaubriant said to me,
before a vast number of people at my levee, "Now we will pay our respects
no more to the best of them," which he said because, though I was upon
ill terms with the Prince de Conde, and though I always went well
attended, I yet saluted him wherever I met him with all the respect due
to him on the score of so many titles. I said to him:

"Pray pardon me, monsieur; we shall pay our respects to the great men
with greater complaisance than ever. God forbid that the red hat should
turn my head to that degree as to make me dispute precedence with the
Princes of the blood. It is honour enough for a gentleman to walk side
by side with them." This expression, I verily believe, afterwards
secured the rank of precedence to the hat in the kingdom of France, by
the courtesy of the Prince de Conde, and his friendship for me.

Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, the most fantastical lady upon earth,
suspecting that I held a secret correspondence with the Queen, could not
forbear murmuring and threatening what she would do. She said I had
declared to her a thousand times that I could not imagine how it was