THE BUC D'OKLEANS' LOVE OF DEBAUCHERY. 329

into debauchery, made him despise all duty and all decency,
and persuaded him that he had too much mind to be the dupe
of religion, which he said was a politic invention to frighten
ordinary intellects, and keep the people in subjection. He
filled him too with his favourite principle, that probity in man
and virtue in woman, are mere chimeras, without existence in
anybody except a few poor slaves of early training. This was
the basis of the good ecclesiastic's doctrines, whence arose the
licence of falsehood, deceit, artifice, infidelity, perfidy ; in a
word, every villainy, every crime, was turned into policy,
capacity, greatness, liberty and depth of intellect, enlighten-
ment, good conduct, if it could be hidden, and if supicions and
common prejudices could be avoided.

Unfortunately all conspired in M. d'Orleans to open his
heart and his mind to this execrable poison: a fresh and early
youth, much strength and health, joy at escaping from the yoke
as well at vexation at his marriage, the wearisomeness produced
by idleness, the impulse of his passions, the example of other
young men, whose vanity and whose interest it was to make
him live like them. Thus he grew accustomed to debauchery,
above all to the uproar of it, so that he could not do without
it, and could only divert himself by dint of noise, tumult, and
excess. It is this which led him often into such strange and
such scandalous debauches, and as he wished to surpass all his
companions, to mix up with his parties of pleasure the most
impious discourses, and as a precious refinement, to hold the
most outrageous orgies on the most holy days, as he did
several times during his Regency on Good Friday, by choice,
and on other similar days. The more debauched a man was,
the more he esteemed him; and I have unceasingly seen him
in admiration, that reached almost to veneration for the Grand
Prieur,—because for forty years he had always gone to bed
drunk, and had never ceased to keep mistresses in the most
public manner, and to hold the most impious and irreligious
discourses. With these principles, and the conduct that resulted
from them, it is not surprising that M. le Due d'Orleans was
false to such an extent, that he boasted of his falsehood, and