The Pere Tellier, in fact, was chosen as successor of Pere La Chaise, and a terrible successor he made.  Harsh, exact, laborious, enemy of all dissipation, of all amusement, of all society, incapable of associating even with his colleagues, he demanded no leniency for himself and accorded none to others.  His brain and his health were of iron; his conduct was so also; his nature was savage and cruel.  He was profoundly false, deceitful, hidden under a thousand folds; and when he could show himself and make himself feared, he yielded nothing, laughed at the most express promises when he no longer cared to keep to them, and pursued with fury those who had trusted to them.  He was the terror even of the Jesuits, and was so violent to them that they scarcely dared approach him.  His exterior kept faith with his interior.  He would have been terrible to meet in a dark lane.  His physiognomy was cloudy, false, terrible; his eyes were burning, evil, extremely squinting; his aspect struck all with dismay.  The whole aim of his life was to advance the interests of his Society; that was his god; his life had been absorbed in that study:  surprisingly ignorant, insolent, impudent, impetuous, without measure and without discretion, all means were good that furthered his designs.

The first time Pere Tellier saw the King in his cabinet, after having been presented to him, there was nobody but Bloin and Fagon in a corner.  Fagon, bent double and leaning on his stick, watched the interview and studied the physiognomy of this new personage his duckings, and scrapings, and his words.  The King asked him if he were a relation of mm. le Tellier.  The good father humbled himself in the dust.  “I, Sire!” answered he, “a relative of mm. le Tellier!  I am very different from that.  I am a poor peasant of Lower Normandy, where my father was a farmer.”  Fagon, who watched him in every movement, twisted himself up to look at Bloin, and said, pointing to the Jesuit:  “Monsieur, what a cursed --------!” Then shrugging his shoulders, he curved over his stick again.

It turned out that he was not mistaken in his strange judgment of a confessor.  This Tellier made all the grimaces, not to say the hypocritical monkey-tricks of a man who was afraid of his place, and only took it out of, deference to his company.

I have dwelt thus upon this new confessor, because from him have come the incredible tempests under, which the Church, the State, knowledge, and doctrine, and many good people of all kinds, are still groaning; and, because I had a more intimate acquaintance with this terrible personage than had any man at the Court.  He introduced himself to me in fact, to my surprise; and although I did all in my power to shun his acquaintance, I could not succeed.  He was too dangerous a man to be treated with anything but great prudence.