. To say
that he was forgiving by nature would be an immense error; but that he
could put aside vengeance at the dictate of policy is very certain. He
could temporize, even after the reception of what he esteemed grave
injuries, if the offenders were powerful. He never manifested rancor
against the Duchess. Even after his fall from power in the Netherlands,
he interceded with the Pope in favor of the principality of Orange, which
the pontiff was disposed to confiscate. The Prince was at that time as
good a Catholic as the Cardinal. He was apparently on good terms with his
sovereign, and seemed to have a prosperous career before him. He was not
a personage to be quarrelled with. At a later day, when the position of
that great man was most clearly defined to the world, the Cardinal's
ancient affection for his former friend and pupil did not prevent him
from suggesting the famous ban by which a price was set upon his head,
and his life placed in the hands of every assassin in Europe. It did not
prevent him from indulging in the jocularity of a fiend, when the news of
the first-fruits of that bounty upon murder reached his ears. It did not
prevent him from laughing merrily at the pain which his old friend must
have suffered, shot through the head and face with a musket-ball, and at
the mutilated aspect which his "handsome face must have presented to the
eyes of his apostate wife." It did not prevent him from stoutly
disbelieving and then refusing to be comforted, when the recovery of the
illustrious victim was announced. He could always dissemble without
entirely forgetting his grievances. Certainly, if he were the forgiving
Christian he pictured himself, it is passing strange to reflect upon the
ultimate fate of Egmont, Horn, Montigny, Berghen, Orange, and a host of
others, whose relations with him were inimical.

His extravagance was enormous, and his life luxurious. At the same time
he could leave his brother Champagny--a man, with all his faults, of a
noble nature, and with scarcely inferior talents to his own--to languish
for a long time in abject poverty; supported by the charity of an ancient
domestic. His greediness for wealth was proverbial. No benefice was too
large or too paltry to escape absorption, if placed within his possible
reach. Loaded with places and preferments, rolling in wealth, he
approached his sovereign with the whine of a mendicant. He talked of his
property as a "misery," when he asked for boons,