Note 264 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

Indeed he does not conceal this even in his memoirs. He says (Mém. vol. i. p. 3), he had ‘l'âme peut-être la moins ecclésiastique qui fût dans l'univers.’ At p. 13, ‘le chagrin que ma profession ne laissoit pas de nourrir toujours dans le fonds de mon âme.’ At p. 21, ‘je haïssois ma profession plus que jamais.’ At p. 48, ‘le clergé, qui donne toujours l'exemple de la servitude, la prêchoit aux autres sous le titre d'obéissance.’ See also the remark of his great friend Joly (Mém. de Joly, p. 209, edit. Petitot, 1825); and the account given by Tallemant des Réaux, who knew De Retz well, and had travelled with him, Historiettes, vol. vii. pp. 18-30. The same tendency is illustrated, though in a much smaller degree, by a conversation which Charles II., when in exile, held with De Retz, and which is preserved in Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 806, and is worth consulting merely as an instance of the purely secular view that De Retz always took of political affairs.