when he fled from his father and resided six years together
with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, were of great service to him; for there
he learned to be complaisant to such as he had occasion to use, which
was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a
powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but
he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees of his
indiscretion, and made sufficient reparation for his folly and error
by regaining those he had injured. Besides, I am very confident that
if his education had not been different from the usual education of
such nobles as I have seen in France, he could not so easily have
worked himself out of his troubles: for they are brought up to
nothing but to make themselves ridiculous, both in their clothes and
discourse; they have no knowledge of letters; no wise man is suffered
to come near them, to improve their understandings; they have
governors who manage their business, but they do nothing themselves:
nay, there are some nobles who tho they have an income of thirteen
livres, will take pride to bid you "Go to my servants and let them
answer you," thinking by such speeches to imitate the state and
grandeur of a prince; and I have seen their servants take great
advantage of them, giving them to understand they were fools; and if
afterward they came to apply their minds to business and attempted to
manage their own affairs, they began so late they could make nothing
of it. And it is certain that all those who have performed any great
or memorable action worthy to be recorded in history, began always in
their youth; and this is to be attributed to the method of their
education, or some particular blessing of God....

Of all diversions he loved hunting and hawking in their seasons; but
his chief delight was in dogs. In hunting, his eagerness and pain were
equal to his pleasure, for his chase was the stag, which he always ran
down. He rose very early in the morning, rode sometimes a great
distance, and would not leave his sport, let the weather be never so
bad; and when he came home at night he was often very weary, and
generally in a violent passion with some of his courtiers or huntsmen;
for hunting is a sport not always to be managed according to the
master's direction; yet in the opinion of most people, he understood
it as well as any prince of his time. He was continually at these
sports, lodging in the country villages to