I have sought by this means to give them
the habit of witnessing success without envy, and to gain it
without vanity." And what a fine and noble thing is this. "I have
tried on all occasions to lead the mind of Monseigneur to the
moral teaching of religion; I have used it as a restraint; I have
presented it as a hope."
The Duchess of Gontaut was proud of her pupil:--
"It will require time," she says, in this same letter, "kindness,
and tenderness to gain the confidence of Monseigneur. His features
show his soul; he talks little of what he undergoes; he has much
sensibility, but a power over himself remarkable at his age; I
have seen him suffer without complaint. The efforts that he has
made to overcome a timidity that I have tried hard to conquer,
have been noteworthy. I have been able to make him understand the
necessity, for a prince, of addressing strangers in a noble,
gracious, and intelligible fashion. I have always sought to remove
all means and all pretext for concealing his faults; bashfulness
leads imperceptibly to dissimulation and falsehood. I am happy in
affirming that Monseigneur is scrupulously truthful. I have
believed it requisite, by reason of the vivacity of his
disposition, and the high destiny awaiting him, to constrain him
to reflect before acting. The word JUSTICE has a real charm for
him; I have never seen a heart more loyal.
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