ared 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 however, he could be brought to exercise his
sense by remembering that he was no longer young, he became fascinating
beyond idea, from the finished ease and grace of his manner, and the
polished and piquant style of his discourse; still I speak of him as
a mere man of outward show, for the duke's attainments were certainly
superficial, and he possessed more of the jargon of a man of letters
than the sound reality. Among other proofs of consummate ignorance he
was deficient even in orthography, and was fool enough to boast of
so disgraceful a fact, as though it conferred honor on him; perhaps,
indeed, he found that the easiest way of getting over the business.

He possessed a most ignoble turn of mind; all feelings of an elevated
nature were wanting within him. A bad son, an unkind husband, and a
worse father, he could scarcely be expected to become a steady