"He understood religion and knew how to make the most of it, knew every fold of the human heart as thoroughly as any man I ever knew, and could decide in an instant by what motive a man's action was guided in affairs of every sort. He had the art of taking precautions against the artifice of other men, without letting them be apparent. _He loved to gain an advantage_. He undertook few affairs which he did not succeed in carrying through, by temporizing when he could not gain his object in any other way. He knew how to avoid any danger of losing that which was due to him, and to grasp any opportunities which might benefit him in any way. In short," says Lenet blandly in conclusion, "he seems to me to have been a great man and a very extraordinary one." So be it! As for the prince's physical characteristics, they are thus described, in a private letter, by a more illustrious pen than Lenet's: "A face attractive at first sight; somewhat long, but with regular features; nothing of the power or of the marked peculiarity of feature of his son, the great Condé; smiling eyes; a face possessing no slight charm, with its frame of long hair; moustaches turned up at the ends; a long, heavy royale. Uncertainty in the shape of the forehead, which is of medium height, largely developed in the upper portion; some flabbiness in the cheeks. That smiling glance was one of those in which one can detect, with some attention, the lack of dignity and of serious faith, a petty, selfish disposition and much indifference. But that is the second impression; the first is not disagreeable. The best of his portraits bears the device: _Semper prudentia_."[4] The statue of Mercury, the god of sharpers, standing on the summit of the donjon, is even more eloquent. [Footnote 1: Raynal, _History of Berry_.] [Footnote 2: Memoirs of Monsieur Lenet.] [Footnote 3: Charlotte de la Trémouille, wife of the first Henri de Condé, was imprisoned eight years, then acquitted, but never exonerated.] [Footnote 4: Henri Martin. Unpublished letter.] XLI Monsieur Poulain, while not a physiognomist in the highest sense, was a shrewd observer none the less; but he was at first impressed only by the agreeable side of the prince's countenance. Monsieur de Condé received him alone in his closet, and invited him to sit. He displayed the greatest consideration for any man who wore a cassock.