To Vardes succeeds another noble, Count Roger Bussy de Rabutin, who, though he is not accused of such baseness as that of which Vardes was guilty, was by no means a model of delicacy and virtue. He seems, indeed, to have been of opinion, that honour and honesty were not necessary qualities in the persons whom he had about him; for, in his Memoirs, he coolly describes one gentleman, who was of his train, as having all his life been a cutpurse; and another, on whom he bestows praise for some things, as being addicted to every vice, and no less familiar with robbery and murder than with eating and drinking. Such being his laxity of principles, it is no wonder that he sometimes participated in disgusting orgies, and was even suspected of feeling a more than parental love for Madame de la Rivière, his daughter. Bussy de Rabutin was born in 1618, entered the army when he was only twelve years of age, served in all the campaigns between 1634 and 1663, and attained the rank of lieutenant-general. His bravery was undoubted, but his vanity, arrogance, and satirical spirit, made him numerous enemies among his brother officers. On one occasion he lampooned Turenne, and that great general, deviating from his usual magnanimity, avenged himself by writing to the king, that “M de Bussy was the best officer in the army—for songs.” In 1641, Bussy was an inmate of the Bastile for five months. The defective discipline of his regiment, and its having engaged in smuggling salt, was the ostensible cause of his imprisonment; he himself assigned as the reason, that his father was hated by Desnoyers the minister. The same faults by which his companions in arms had been converted into foes, proved his ruin at court. He wrote a libellous work, called “The Amorous History of the Gauls,” which was published in 1665, and excited a general outcry among the personages whom it describes. Bussy affirms, that it was sent to the press without his consent, and even with malignant alterations and additions, by an unfaithful mistress, to whom he entrusted the manuscript. This production was made the pretext for committing him to the Bastile; but it is said that his real offence was a song, in which he ridiculed the king’s passion for the Duchess of la Vallière. His imprisonment lasted twenty months, and he candidly owns, in his Memoirs and Letters, that it was not very patiently endured. By dint of importunity, seconded by an illness with which he was attacked, he at length recovered his liberty. During his captivity, he was compelled to resign, for a much less sum than it cost him, the major-generalship of the light cavalry. But though Bussy was released, he was not pardoned; he was banished to his estate. Notwithstanding his abject supplications, which were incessantly renewed, he remained an exile for sixteen years. At last, in 1682, he was graciously permitted to re-appear at court. His happiness was, however, still incomplete; for the courtiers soon