He and all the Rohans would have
lived on it; they would have turned my confidence to their gain,
and as they were for the most part sharpers, or something akin to
it, my name would soon have been mixed up with some dirty transaction.
His family was a hydra of avarice, and would alone have swallowed
up all the wealth of France. If the king had taken one of the Rohan
family for his mistress, I believe that the finance department
would not have sufficed for one year's expenditure of this prodigal
family. I had no objection to the prince de Soubise coming to
supper with me, but I did not feel myself disposed to give him
any control over my mind. I should have been ill-guided by a
man who had no government of himself.
If M, de Soubise did not depart satisfied, madame de Marsan, his
relative, to whom he related the bad success of his attempt, was
not more so. She was a woman to have governed a kingdom, had she
been allowed to do so. There was in her woman's head a capacity
superior to that of all the men of her family. She had a great deal
of ambition, and all her actions were the results of a premeditated
plan. She would have ruled the king, the princes, the princesses,
favorites, mistresses, the court, the city, the parliaments, and the
army! Nothing would have been impossible to her; she was adequate
to any thing.
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