The pretensions of the Condés had been the cause of one of Mazarin's first anxieties. They were vast pretensions, they were unquestionably just, and they were ably sustained by the father of the great Condé, "Monsieur le Prince," a superior personage whose appearance belied his character. People of his own age remembered him as a handsome man; but debauchery, avarice, and self-neglect had changed the distinguished courtier and made him a repulsive old man, "dirty and ugly."[113] He was stoop-shouldered and wrinkled, with great, red eyes, and long, greasy hair, which he wore passed around his ears in "love-locks." His aspect was formidable. Richelieu was obliged to warn him that he must make a serious attempt to cleanse his person, and that he must change his shoes before paying his visits to the King.[114] His spirit was as sordid as his body. "Monsieur le Prince" was of very doubtful humour; he was dogged, snappish, peevish, coarse, contrary, and thoroughly rapacious. He had begun life with ten thousand livres of income, and he had acquired a million, not counting his appointments or his revenues from the government.[115] His friends clutched their pockets when they saw him coming; but their precautions were futile; he had a way of getting all that he desired. Everything went into his purse and nothing came out of it; but where his purse was not concerned Monsieur le Prince was a different man; there he "loved justice and followed that which was good."[116] He was a rigorous statesman; he defended the national Treasury against the world. His keen sense of equity made him a precious counsellor and he was an eminent and upright judge. His knowledge of the institutions of the kingdom made him valuable as State's reference; he knew the origins, the systems, and the supposititious issues of the secret aims of all the parties.