Of all the conspicuous men in the land, he was the only one whose worst enemy had never hinted through the whole course of his public career, that his hands had known contamination.

His honor was ever untarnished by even a breath of suspicion.

The Cardinal could accuse him of pecuniary embarrassment, by which a large proportion of his revenues were necessarily diverted to the liquidation of his debts, but he could not suggest that the Prince had ever freed himself from difficulties by plunging his hands into the public treasury, when it might easily have been opened to him.
It was soon, however, sufficiently obvious that as desperate a struggle was to be made with the many-headed monster of general corruption as with the Cardinal by whom it had been so long fed and governed.

The Prince was accused of ambition and intrigue.

It was said that he was determined to concentrate all the powers of government in the state council, which was thus to become an omnipotent and irresponsible senate, while the King would be reduced to the condition of a Venetian Doge.