Indeed, Lauzun, of whom La Bruyère has said, “that it is not permitted to dream as he lived,”[411] encountered, in his existence of ninety-one years, such diversities of fortune, such striking contrasts, such unheard-of revolutions, that there are few heroes of the imagination to whom one would have dared to ascribe similar adventures. Nothing is more singular than the destiny of this Gascon cadet, reduced at first to beg from the Surintendant, and then raised by Louis XIV. to the highest dignities; suddenly shut up in the Bastille and succeeding in issuing from it and marrying the legitimate granddaughter of Henri IV.; afterwards commanding an army, and next a prisoner for ten years at Pignerol; receiving his pardon, but refusing it; imprisoned for the third time, then exiled, banished apparently for ever from the presence of the King, whom he had coarsely insulted, and nevertheless succeeding “in finding his way back to Versailles, by passing through London,”[412] and there making a friend of James II.; fortune’s favourite and victim by turns, without ever being enlightened by its rebuffs, or satisfied by its favours! To obtain these he did not hesitate at any baseness,[413] and the extreme audacity which he sometimes gave proof of was all calculated. He had a certain boldness of mind, but not of heart, for he was naturally mean. Nothing, unless it be the servile humility of his beginning, equalled the insolence with which he avenged himself for his early abasement. Addicted to cruel raillery, prompt in witticisms,[414] he excelled in laying bare and flagellating the absurdities to which he piqued himself on being superior. “He is the most insolent little man,” says La Fare, “that has been seen for a century.”[415] Devoid of dignity and endowed with prodigious pliability, he did not hesitate to stoop to the lowest parts, and succeeded in affecting the qualities in which he was most deficient. But when, having gained his end, he threw aside the mask, and became simply himself again, he inspired contempt. Of all the women seduced by his jargon of gallantry and very deceitful appearances, he did not attach himself to one, and the cousin of Louis XIV., over whom he at first exercised so great a sway, died filled with hatred towards him, and ashamed of such an unworthy husband.[416]