How he revelled in his conquests he makes abundantly clear in the Memoirs he left behind him—­surely the most scandalous ever written—­in which he recounts his love affairs, in long sequence, with a cold-blooded heartlessness which shocks the reader to-day, so long after lover and victims have been dust.  He revels in describing the artifices by which he got the most unassailable of women into his power—­such as the young and beautiful Madame Michelin, whose religious scruples proved such a frail barrier against the assaults of the young Lothario.  He chuckles with a diabolical pride as he tells us how he played off one mistress against another; how he made one liaison pave the way to its successor; and how he abandoned each in turn when it had served its purpose, and betrayed, one after another, the women who had trusted to his nebulous sense of honour.

A profligate so tempted as the Duc de Richelieu was from his earliest years, one can understand, however much we may condemn; but for the man who conducted his love affairs with such heartlessness and dishonour no language has words of execration and contempt to describe him.

From his earliest youth there was no “game” too high for our Don Juan to fly at.  Long before he had reached manhood he counted his lady-loves by the score; and among them were at least three Royal Princesses, Mademoiselle de Charolais, and two of the Regent’s own daughters, the Duchesse de Berry and Mademoiselle de Valois, later Duchess of Modena, who, in their jealousy, were ready to “tear each other’s eyes out” for love of the Duc.  Quarrels between the rival ladies were of everyday occurrence; and even duels were by no means unknown.

When, for instance, the Duc wearied of the lovely Madame de Polignac, this lady was so inflamed by hatred of her successor in his affections, the Marquise de Nesle, that she challenged her to a duel to the death in the Bois de Boulogne.  When Madame de Polignac, after a fierce exchange of shots, saw her rival stretched at her feet, she turned furiously on the wounded woman.  “Go!” she shrieked.  “I will teach you to walk in the footsteps of a woman like me!  If I had the traitor here, I would blow his brains out!” Whereupon, Madame de Nesle, fainting as she was from loss of blood, retorted that her lover was worthy that even more noble blood than hers should be shed for him.  “He is,” she said to the few onlookers who had hurried to the scene on hearing the shots, “the most amiable seigneur of the Court.  I am ready to shed for him the last drop of blood in my veins.  All these ladies try to catch him, but I hope that the proofs I have given of my devotion will win him for myself without sharing with anyone.  Why should I hide his name?  He is the Duc de Richelieu—­yes, the Duc de Richelieu, the eldest son of Venus and Mars!”