"The Abbe de Polignac, after his adventures in Poland and the exile which followed them, came back to the surface. He was a tall man, very well made, with a handsome face, much cleverness, and above all, grace and polished manners; all kinds of knowledge, a most agreeable way of expressing himself, a touching voice, a gentle eloquence, insinuating, manly, exact in terms, charming in style, a gift of speech that was wholly his own; all about him was original and persuasive; amusing in narratives; possessed of a smattering of all the arts, all the manufactures, all the professions. In whatever belonged to his own, that is, learning and the ecclesiastical calling, he was rather less versed. … In other respects he was wholly occupied with his own ambition, without friendship, without gratitude, without any feeling except for himself; false, lax, indifferent to the means of success; without restraint from God or man, but always with a cloak of delicacy which gave him dupes; above all, a libertine, more from facility, coquetry, ambition, than from natural debauchery; so that while the heart was false and the soul not upright, his judgment was nil, his actions erroneous, his mind inaccurate, which, in spite of the most gracious and deceptive exterior, caused the failure in his hands of every enterprise intrusted to him.