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 supported by merit, to make himself beloved by
the courtiers and feared by the minister, to dare to undertake anything
in order to do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of
innocence, he soon became one in all the king's parties of pleasure,
without gaining the ill will of the courtiers. In play he was
successful, in love unfortunate; or, to speak more properly, his
restlessness and jealousy overcame his natural prudence, in a situation
wherein he had most occasion for it. La Motte Agencourt was one of the
maids of honour to the queen dowager, and, though no sparkling beauty,