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The Life of Marie de Medicis — Volume 1 by Julia Pardoe
page 64 of 434 (14%)
while the intelligence which reached him of the presumed treachery of
the Duc de Biron, by compelling his removal to Blois, where he could
more readily investigate the affair, completed a cure already more than
half accomplished. There the sensual monarch abandoned himself to the
pleasures of the table, to high play, and to those exciting amusements
which throughout his whole life at intervals annihilated the monarch in
the man: while the circle by which he had surrounded himself, and which
consisted of M. le Grand[57], the Comte de Lude[58], MM. de Thermes[59],
de Castelnau[60], de Calosse, de Montglat,[61] de Frontenac,[62] and de
Bassompierre,[63] was but ill calculated to arouse in him better and
nobler feelings. Ambitious, wealthy, witty, and obsequious, they were
one and all interested in flattering his vanity, gratifying his tastes,
and pandering to his passions; and it is melancholy to contemplate the
perfect self-gratulation with which some of the highest-born nobles of
the time have in their personal memoirs chronicled the unblushing
subserviency with which they lent themselves to the encouragement of the
worst and most debasing qualities of their sovereign. Even before his
departure for Blois, and during the period of his temporary retirement
from the Court, while Henry still wore the mourning habits which he had
assumed in honour of his dead mistress, the more intimate of his
associates could discover no means of consolation more effective than by
inducing him to select another favourite.

"All the Court," says a quaint old chronicler, himself a member of the
royal circle, "were aware that the King had a heart which could not long
preserve its liberty without attaching itself to some new object, a
knowledge which induced the flatterers at Court who had discovered his
weakness for the other sex to leave nothing undone to urge him onward in
this taste, and to make their fortunes by his defeat." [64]

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