He was indeed well acquainted with Rome, and was, for a layman, deeply read in theological controversy.

[275] But he had none of the address which his post required; and, even had he been a diplomatist of the greatest ability, there was a circumstance which would have disqualified him for the particular mission on which he had been sent.
He was known all over Europe as the husband of the most shameless of women; and he was known in no other way.

It was impossible to speak to him or of him without remembering in what manner the very title by which he was called had been acquired.

This circumstance would have mattered little if he had been accredited to some dissolute court, such as that in which the Marchioness of Montespan had lately been dominant.

But there was an obvious impropriety in sending him on an embassy rather of a spiritual than of a secular nature to a pontiff of primitive austerity.