236 MEMOIES OF THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON.

I have so often spoken of Marshal Catinat, of his virtue,
wisdom, modesty, and disinterestedness; of the rare superiority m

of his sentiments, and of his great qualities as captain, that
nothing remains for me to say except that he died at this
time very advanced in years, at his little house of Saint
Gratien, near Saint Denis, where he had retired, and which he
seldom quitted although receiving there but few friends. By
his simplicity and frugality, his contempt for worldly dis-
tinction, and his uniformity of conduct, he recalled the memory JL
of those great men, who after the best-merited triumphs, peace-
fully returned to their plough, still loving their country and
but little offended by the ingratitude of the Kome they had so
well served. Catinat placed his philosophy at the service of
his piety. He had intelligence, good sense, ripe reflection; and I
he never forgot his origin; his dress, his equipages, his furniture, J
all were of the greatest simplicity. His air and his deportment |
were so also. He was tall, dark, and thin; had an aspect |
pensive, slow, and somewhat mean; with very fine and ex- I
pressive eyes. He deplored the signal faults that he saw *
succeed each other unceasingly; the gradual extinction of all :'
emulation; the luxury, the emptiness, the ignorance, the con-
fusion of ranks; the inquisition in the place of the police: he
saw all the signs of destruction, and he used to say it was only ;
a climax of dangerous disorder that could restore order to the i
realm.

Vend6me was one of the few to whom the death of the- \

Dauphin and the Dauphine brought hope and joy. He had " 1

deemed himself expatriated for the rest of his life. He saw, v/

now, good chances before him of returning to our Court, and of
playing a part there again. He had obtained some honour in
Spain; he aimed at others even higher, and hoped to return to
France with all the honours of a Prince of the Blood. His
idleness, his free living, his debauchery had prolonged his stay
upon the frontier, where he had more facilities for gratifying A,

his tastes than at Madrid. In that city, it is true, he did not
much constrain himself, but he was forced to do so to some
extent by courtly usages. He was, then, quite at home on the