But when Louis XIV. attained his majority, this king of the populace became the most submissive of his subjects. Lagrange-Chancel, in order to establish the theory which makes the Duke de Beaufort the Man with the Iron Mask, and explain his pretended detention at Pignerol, speaks “of his turbulent spirit, of the _rôle_ he had played in all the party movements of the time of the Fronde.”[180] He adds that “his office of High Admiral placed him daily in a position to thwart the great designs of Colbert, charged with the department of the Marine.” Nothing can be less exact, and in 1663, when Beaufort became High Admiral, the passions, kindled during the Fronde, were extinguished, the ambitious satisfied or quelled. The most turbulent chiefs, such as Rochefoucauld, were plunged in an idleness which was scarcely menacing. Those who had been the most hostile then made a display of their submission and servility. Whilst the Cardinal de Retz, in retirement at Commercy, was making up for his inaction and want of power by writing his immortal Memoirs, the Prince de Conti was espousing the niece of Mazarin, and Condé was gratefully receiving the order of the Holy Ghost from the King.[181] The most indocile and most arrogant of the nobility, who had disturbed the Regent’s authority, constrained the court to leave Paris, sent away Mazarin, and agitated the whole kingdom, now crowded the ante-chambers of Louis XIV. and disputed the signal honour of being present when he retired to bed, and of holding a candlestick on the occasion.