218 MEMOIRS OF THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON.

The youth of this prince made every one tremble. Stern and
choleric to the last degree, and even against inanimate objects;
impetuous with frenzy, incapable of suffering the slightest re-
sistance even from the hours and the elements, without flying
into a passion that threatened to destroy his body; obstinate
to excess; passionately fond of all kind of voluptuousness, of
women, with even a worse passion strongly developed at the
same time; fond not less of wine, good living, hunting, music,
and gaining, in which last he could not endure to be beaten;
in fine, abandoned to every passion, and transported by every
pleasure; oftentimes wild, naturally disposed towards cruelty;
barbarous in raillery, and with an all-powerful capacity for
ridicule. He looked down upon all men as from the sky, as
atoms with whom he had nothing in common; even his brothers
scarcely appeared connecting links between himself and human
nature, although all had been educated together in perfect
equality. His sense and penetration shone through everything.
His replies, even in anger, astonished everybody. He amused
himself with the most abstract knowledge. The extent and
vivacity of his intellect were prodigious, and rendered him in-
capable of applying himself to one study at a time.

So much intelligence and of such a kind, joined to such
vivacity, sensibility, and passion, rendered his education diffi-
11 § , cult. But God, who is the master of all hearts, and whose

divine spirit breathes where ho wishes, worked a miracle on
this prince between his eighteenth and twentieth years. From
this abyss ho came out affable, gentle, humane, moderate, pa-
tient, modest, penitent, and humble; and austere, even more
than harmonised with his position. Devoted to his duties,
feeling them to be immense, he thought only how to unite the
duties of son and subject with those he saw to bo destined for
himself. The shortness of each day was his only sorrow. All
liis force, all his consolation, was in prayer and pious reading.
He clung with joy to the cross of his Saviour, repenting sincerely
of his past pride. The King, with his outside devotion, soon
saw with secret displeasure his own life censured by that of a
prince so young, who refused himself a new desk in order to