These three virtues balanced his moral delinquencies.

To the popular awe in which the burghers held him there was added a large particle of distrust; for during the great rebellion he had served neither the Catholics nor the Huguenots; neither Richelieu, his enemy, nor De Rohan, his friend.

Catholics proclaimed him a Huguenot, Huguenots declared him a Catholic; yet, no one had ever seen him attend mass, the custom of good Catholics, nor had any heard him pray in French, the custom of good Huguenots.

What then, being neither one nor the other?
An atheist, whispered the wise, a word which was then accepted in its narrowest cense: that is to say, Monsieur le Marquis had sold his soul to the devil.
Perigny, it is not to be denied, was a sinister sound in the ears of a virtuous woman.

To the ultra-pious and the bigoted, it was a letter in the alphabet of hell.