of pride and timidity which your see in his private
life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner.
He always believed he had need of it; and this, com-
bined with his 'Maxims,' which show little faith in
virtue, and his habitual custom, to give up matters
with the same haste he undertook them, leads
me to the conclusion that he would have done far
better to have known his own mind, and have passed
himself off, as he could have done, for the most
polished courtier, the most agreeable man in private
life that had appeared in his century."

It is but justice to the Cardinal to say, that the
Duc is not painted in such dark colours as we should
have expected, judging from what we know of the
character of De Retz. With his marvellous power of
depicting character, a power unrivalled, except by St.
Simon and perhaps by Lord Clarendon, we should
have expected the malignity of the priest would have
stamped the features of his great enemy with the
impress of infamy, and not have simply made him
appear a courtier, weak, insincere, and nothing more.
Though rather beyond our subject, the character of
Cardinal de Retz, as delineated by Mdme. Sevigne, in
one of her letters, will help us to form a true conclu-
sion on the different characters of the Duc and the
Cardinal. She says:--
"Paul de Gondi Cardinal de Retz possesses great
elevation of character, a certain extent of intellect, and
more of the ostentation than of the true greatness of