The Duke d’Alençon, afterwards Duke of Anjou, and his brother Henry III. regarded each other with puerile hatred, a circumstance which led to the most absurd rivalry between themselves. Each bestowed his favour and time, and lavished his resources, on a band of young, handsome, swaggering gallants, to whom the King especially set the example of great extravagance, and, at the same time, effeminacy of dress. The freaks of folly they committed seem scarcely credible, for it is reported that they painted their cheeks, adorned their necks with the most outrageous frills of enormous dimensions, and curled their hair with a nicety and care which exceeded male pretensions. Indeed, Henry III. carried this absurdity so far as actually to appear accoutred in a female garb. “These acts of idiotcy,” writes Crowe,[6] “the people construed to be indicative not merely of perverted taste, but of degrading crime; and the King’s _mignons_ were the object of such universal execration that when they perished by the hands of each other, or of more invidious foes, and when Henry III. consoled himself for their loss by the performance of splendid funeral rites, and the erection of superb mausoleums, the public applauded the acts of vengeance by which these base parasites were slain.” But, contemptible as such conduct was, it certainly lacked the brutality of his predecessor, Charles IX., who, when engaged in the chase, is said to have pursued wild beasts more with the fury of their species than the excitement of man. Thus it is recorded that he would cut off the heads of donkeys, embowel pigs, and would take a pleasure in arranging their entrails butcher-fashion. Another of the freaks of Charles IX. consisted in his hiring ten young thieves, whom he brought to the Louvre, where he set them to rob the guests of their swords and jewellery, laughing heartily “as he witnessed their success, or saw the unconsciousness of the victims, or beheld their surprise and indignation after they had been despoiled.” These young thieves, says Dr. Doran, who were amply rewarded for the exercise of their ability, “rank among the most singular of hirelings paid to excite laughter in a gloomy king.” The Comte d’Artois, a brother of Louis XVI., was noted for his frivolous pursuits and his unbecoming follies. One anecdote about him shows the levity of his conduct; and, as it has been observed, a royal duke “who had tried the same jest in England would have been summoned before the next Justice of the Peace”:--