Major Monthault had sufficient political versatility and natural
baseness to be a busy actor in these scenes of perfidy and depravity;
but his talents were too limited to acquire distinction among men of
deep penetration, profoundly skilled in the art of fomenting and
managing the malignant passions; besides, the open scandal of his
profligate manners ill suited the decorous exterior of seeming saints.
His treachery to the Royal cause, therefore, only purchased him the
liberty of compounding for his estate at a less fine than was extorted
from persons of untarnished fidelity; and he was laid by as an
instrument equally mean and vile, incapable of further use. A bad heart
can never taste the pleasures which belong to tranquillity; and inaction
is torture to those who must shun reflection. Monthault had no resource
but in the indulgence of his brutal appetites. The beauty of Constantia
excited desire, while the avowed contempt with which she treated him
convinced him that the blandishments of flattery and persevering
assiduity would never remove the impressions which she had conceived to
his disadvantage.
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