358 MEMOIRS OF THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON".

and soon of hatred. The more he advanced in years the more
this sentiment was confirmed in him. He wished to reign by
himself. His jealousy on this point unceasingly became weak-
ness. He reigned, indeed, in little things; the great he could
never reach: even in the former, too, he was often governed.
The superior ability of his early ministers and his early gene-
rals soon wearied him. He liked nobody to be in any way
superior to him. Thus he chose his ministers, not for their
knowledge, but for their ignorance; not for their capacity, but
for their want of it. He liked to form them, as he said; liked
to teach them even the most trifling things. It was the same
with his generals. He took credit to himself for instructing
them; wished it to be thought that from his cabinet he com-
manded and directed all his armies. Naturally fond of trifles,
he unceasingly occupied himself with the most petty details of
his troops, his household, his mansions; would even instruct
his cooks, who received, like novices, lessons they had known
by heart for years. This vanity, this unmeasured and un-
reasonable love of admiration, was his ruin. His ministers,
his generals, his mistresses, his courtiers, soon perceived his
weakness. They, praised him with emulation and spoiled him.
Praises, or to say truth, flattery, pleased him to such an ex-
tent, that the coarsest was well received, the vilest even better
relished. It was the sole means by which you could approach
him. Those whom he liked owed his affection for them, to
their untiring flatteries. This is what gave his ministers so
much authority, and the opportunities they had for adulating
him, of attributing everything to him, and of pretending to
learn everything from him. Suppleness, meanness, an ad-
miring, dependent, cringing manner—above all, an air of
nothingness—were the sole means of pleasing him.

This poison spread. It spread, too, to an incredible extent,
in a prince who, although of intellect beneath mediocrity, was
not utterly without sense, and who had had some experience.
"Without voice or musical knowledge, he used to sing, in. pri-
vate, the passages of the opera prologues that were fullest of
his praises! He was drowned in vanity; and so deeply, that