Gondi considered himself sacrificed to the Church—for which he had no vocation—and did his utmost, by the libertinism of his early life, to render his ordination impossible; but in vain. Although he had abducted his own cousin, and been the hero of numberless scandals, the Archbishopric of Paris was considered a sinecure in the family of Gondi, and Archbishop and Cardinal he must be in spite of his inclination and of his excesses. In politics he was a republican, formed on the pattern of Cato and of Brutus, whose lives he had studied at the Sorbonne. He loved to be compared to Cicero and to Cataline, and to believe himself called on to revolutionize France after the fashion of a factious conspirator of old Rome. He longed to be anything belligerent, agitative—tribune, general, or demagogue. "Ancient Rome," he said, "honoured crime, therefore crime was to be honoured." "Rather let me be the leader of a great party than an emperor!" exclaimed he, in the climax of one of his thrilling perorations. The mild precepts of the gospel were clearly little to his taste. He had mistaken not only his vocation but his century. He should have lived in the Middle Ages; and as an ecclesiastical prince-militant led armies into battle, conquered territories, and made laws to subject peoples. Yet underlying the wild enthusiasm of his language, and the reckless energy of his actions, there was a kindly, almost gentle temper that imparted to his character a certain incompleteness which accounts for the falling off of his later years. Grand, noble as was De Retz, Mazarin ultimately beat him and remained master of the situation.