All that he displayed, during the Fronde, of address, combination, intrigue, and resolution, would barely have sufficed to preserve his name in history, if he had not devoted his leisure in his retirement to writing his _Memoires_.
Vigorous, animated, always striking, often amusing, sometimes showing rare nobleness and high-mindedness, his stories and his portraits transport us to the very midst of the scenes he desires to describe and the personages he makes the actors in them.

His rapid, nervous, picturesque style is the very image of that little dark, quick, agile man, more soldier than bishop, and more intriguer than soldier, faithfully and affectionately beloved by his friends, detested by his very numerous enemies, and dreaded by many people, for the causticity of his tongue, long after the troubles of the Fronde had ceased, and he was reduced to be a wanderer in foreign lands, still Archbishop of Paris without being able to set foot in it.

Having retired to Commercy, he fell under Louis XIV.'s suspicion.

Madame de Sevigne, who was one of his best friends, was anxious about him.

"As to our cardinal, I have often thought as you," she wrote to her daughter; "but, whether it be that the enemies are not in a condition to cause fear, or that the friends are not subject to take alarm, it is certain that there is no commotion.