If this equivocal situation gave to the princes of this family some virtues, it gave them also corresponding vices.

More intelligent and more ambitious than the king's sons, they were also more restless.

The very restraint in which the policy of the reigning house kept them, condemned their idea or their courage to inaction, and forced them to misapply, in irregularities or indolence, the faculties with which nature had endowed them, and the immense fortune for which they had no other occupation: too great for citizens, too dangerous at the head of armies or in affairs, they had no place either amongst the people or at court; and thus they assumed it in opinion.
The Regent, a very superior man, long kept down by the inferiority of his part, had been the most brilliant example of all the virtues and all the vices of the blood of Orleans.

Since the Regent, the princes endowed, like himself, with natural wit and courage, had felt the glory of great actions in their early youth.

They had then again fallen back into obscurity, pleasures or devotion, by the jealousy of the reigning house.