What he wanted was valets and not councillors...

The ministers were simply head-clerks of the bureaus.

The Council of State served only to give form to the decrees emanating from him; he ruled even in petty details.

Everybody around him was timid and passive; his will was regarded as that of an oracle and executed without reflection....

Self-isolated from other men, having concentrated in his own hands all powers and all action, thoroughly convinced that another's light and experience could be of no use to him, he thought that arms and hands were all that he required."] [Footnote 1256: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France.