"Amongst others," said he, after specifying several that I now forget, "you will see the Duke of Bouillon, brave, shrewd, yet hasty, always hurrying into danger with fearless impetuosity, and then finding means of escape with a coolness which, if exerted at first, would have kept him free from peril. He puts me in mind of a rope-dancer, whose every spring seems as if it would be his last, and yet he catches himself somehow when he appears inevitably gone. In his brother, Turenne, a very different character is to be met with, or rather, perhaps, the same character without its defects. What in Bouillon is rashness, in Turenne is courage; what is cunning in the one is wisdom in the other. I believe Turenne would sacrifice himself to his country; but if Bouillon were to erect an altar to any deity, it would be, I am afraid, to himself. Then there is the young and daring Jean de Gondi, who is striving for the archbishopric of Paris; the most talented man in Europe, but gifted or cursed with that strange lightness of soul which sports with everything as if it were a trifle--who would overthrow an empire but to re-model it, or raise an insurrection but to guide the wild horses that draw the chariot of tumult. Had he lived in the ancient days, he would have burnt the temple of the Ephesian goddess to build, in one olympiad, what cost two hundred years. His mind, in short, is like the ocean, deep and profound; that plays with a feather, or supports a navy; that now is rippling in golden tranquillity, and now is raging in fury and in tumult; that now scarce shakes the pebble on the shore, and now spreads round confusion, destruction, and death. In regard to the Count de Soissons, to whom you go, his character is difficult to know: but yet I think I know it. He has many high and noble qualities, and though at present he appears intolerably proud, yet that is a fault of his education, not of his disposition; he has it from his mother, and will conquer it, I doubt not. But there is one virtue he wants, without which talents, and skill, and courage are nothing--he wants resolution. He is somewhat obstinate, but that does not imply that he is resolute; and a man without resolution may be looked upon in the light of a miser: all the riches that nature can give are useless to him, because he has not the courage to make use of them." "You must have been a very keen observer," said I, "of those persons with whom you have mingled, and doubtless also of human life in general." "Life," replied he, "as life, is very little worth considering. It is a stream that flows by us without our knowing how. Its turbulence or its tranquillity, I believe, depend little upon ourselves. If there be rain in the mountains, it will be a torrent; if it prove a dry season, it will be a rivulet. We must let it flow as it will till it come to an end, and then we have nothing to do but die."