re
beforehand to cover part of his failings, and thereby to avoid the
jumbling together of sin and devotion, than which nothing can be more
dangerous and ridiculous in a clergyman. This was my disposition, which
was not the most pious in the world nor yet the wickedest, for I was
fully determined to discharge all the duties of my profession faithfully,
and exert my utmost to save other souls, though I took no care of my own.

The Archbishop, who was the weakest of mortals, was, nevertheless, by a
common fatality attending such men, the most vainglorious; he yielded
precedence to every petty officer of the Crown, and yet in his own house
would not give the right-hand to any person of quality that came to him
about business. My behaviour was the reverse of his in almost
everything; I gave the right-hand to all strangers in my own house, and
attended them even to their coach, for which I was commended by some for
my civility and by others for my humility. I avoided appearing in public
assemblies among people of quality till I had established a reputation.
When I thought I had done so, I took the opportunity of the sealing of a
marriage contract to dispute my rank with M. de Guise. I had carefully
studied the laws of my diocese and got others to do it for me, and my
right was indisputable in my own province. The precedence was adjudged
in my favour by a decree of the Council, and I found, by the great number
of gentlemen who then appeared for me, that to condescend to men of low
degree is the surest way to equal those of the highest.

I dined almost every day with Cardinal Mazarin, who liked me the better
because I refused to engage myself in the cabal called "The Importants,"
though many of the members were my dearest friends. M. de Beaufort, a
man of very mean parts, was so much out of temper because the Queen had
put her confidence in Cardinal Mazarin, that, though her Majesty offered
him favours with profusion, he would accept none, and affected to give
himself the airs of an angry lover. He held aloof from the Duc
d'Orleans, insulted the late Prince, and, in order to support himself
against the Queen-regent, the chief minister, and all the Princes of the
blood, formed a cabal of men who all died mad, and whom I never took for
conjurers from the first time I knew them. Such were Beaupre,
Fontrailles, Fiesque, Montresor, who had the austerity of Cato, but not
his sagacity, and M. de Bethune, who obliged M. de Bea