Not that Philippe of Orleans lacked many of the qualities that go to the making of a ruler and a man.  He had proved himself, in Italy and in Spain, one of the bravest of his country’s soldiers, and an able, far-seeing leader of armies; and he had, as his Regency proved, no mean gifts of statesmanship.  But his kingly qualities were marred by the taint of birth and early environment.

Such good qualities as he had he no doubt drew from his mother, the capable, austere, high-minded Elizabeth of Bavaria, who to her last day was the one good influence in his life.  To his father, Louis XIV.’s younger brother, who is said to have been son of Cardinal Mazarin, Anne of Austria’s lover, and who was the most debased man of his time in all France, he just as surely owed the bias of sensuality to which he chiefly owes his place in memory.

And not only was he thus handicapped by his birth; he had for tutor that arch-scoundrel Dubois—­the “grovelling insect” who rarely opened his mouth without uttering a blasphemy or indecency, and who initiated his charge, while still a boy, into every base form of so-called pleasure.

Such was the man who, amid the ruins of his country, inaugurated in France an era of licentiousness such as she had never known—­an incomprehensible mass of contradictions—­a kingly presence with the soul of a Caliban, statesman and sinner, high-minded and low-living, spending his days as a sovereign, a role which he played to perfection, and his nights as a sot and a sensualist.

It was doubtless Dubois who was mostly responsible for the baseness in the Regent’s character—­Dubois who had taught him a contempt for religion and morality, the cynical view of life which makes the pleasure of the moment the only thing worth pursuing, at whatever cost; and who had impressed indelibly on his mind that no woman is virtuous and that men are knaves.  And there was never any lack of men to continue Dubois’ teaching.  He gathered round him the most dissolute gallants in France, in whose company he gave the rein to his most vicious appetites.  His “roues” he dubbed them, a title which aptly described them; although they affected to give it a very different interpretation.  They were the Regent’s roues, they said, no doubt with the tongue in the cheek, because they were so devoted to him that they were ready, in his defence, to be broken on the wheel (la roue)!

Each of these boon-comrades was a past-master in the arts of dissipation, and each was also among the most brilliant men of his day.  The Chevalier de Simiane was famous alike for his drinking powers and his gift of graceful verse; De Fargy was a polished wit, and the handsomest man in France, with an unrivalled reputation for gallantry; the Comte de Noce was the Regent’s most intimate friend from boyhood—­brother-in-law he called him, since they had not only tastes but even mistresses in common.  Then there were the Marquis de la Fare, Captain of Guards and bon enfant; the Marquis de Broglio, the biggest debauchee in France, the Marquis de Canillac, the Duc de Brancas, and many another—­all famous (or infamous) for some pet vice, and all the best of boon-companions for the pleasure-loving Regent.