[248] Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy (1665-1746), was the son of the Marquis de Croissy, Colbert’s brother. After filling the post of Ambassador to England, he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1696. His Memoirs are an important source for the diplomatic history of the War of the Spanish Succession. Saint-Simon became intimate with him during the Regency and obtained from him much information.
[249] Camille d’Hostun, Comte de Tallart (1652-1728), received his Marshal’s bâton in 1703. A good strategist but a poor tactician, he was defeated and taken prisoner at Blenheim in 1704 and remained in England till 1711. For his portrait see III. 390-391.
[250] Ed. Chéruel, XI. 218-220; Boislisle, XXVI. 341-345. Cp. the short but even more severe estimate under the year 1722 (XIX. 12-13).
[251] See above, p. 46, [n. 86].
[252] Philippe, brother of the Duc de Vendôme, Grand Prior of France and Chevalier of the Order of Malta. He was very good-looking (in his youth), a brilliant conversationalist, extremely rich—he enjoyed the revenues of six abbeys—and a finished blackguard. For his portrait see Saint-Simon, III. 392: “Menteur, escroc, fripon, voleur, malhonnête homme jusque dans la moelle des os... le plus désordonné et le plus grand dissipateur du monde.” His supper parties at the Temple were notorious for their cynical debauchery. According to Saint-Simon he was carried to bed dead-drunk every night for thirty years.
[253] Guillaume Dubois, the son of an apothecary, was born at Brive in 1656. After being tutor in several private families, he was appointed first assistant-tutor and then tutor to the young Duc de Chartres and succeeded in winning his complete confidence. Compare the portrait drawn by Saint-Simon after his death (1723), IV. 138 ff. The Archbishopric of Cambrai, seven abbeys, and his stipends as first minister and head of the postal-service, gave him an income of 574,000 livres. “He had an extraordinarily lucid mind, a surprising power of work, and a determined will. No scruples troubled him.... He was a mixture of Gil Blas and Frontin” (Carré). The same writer points out that Fénelon gave him his friendship and esteem, and that Madame corresponded with him for fifteen years and evidently thought highly of him. But in 1721 she writes: “He has poisoned my whole life.”
[254] The Duke of Orleans’s first tutor.
[255] Cp. Corr. de Madame, II. 169.
[256] Armand-Charles de Gontaut, Marquis afterwards Duc de Biron.
[257] Charles-Eugène, Marquis afterwards Duc de Levis.