The intrigues of the French envoy in corrupting the knights of the order of St John were completely successful.
In 1781 he was imprisoned for a short time in the Bicetre on an accusation of corrupting the morals of his pupils, his real offence being the writing of satirical verse.
The habit of absolute rule, always dangerous, was peculiarly corrupting when it penetrated every department of daily life, and when no external interference checked individual caprice in its action on the feelings and fortunes of inferiors.
Subsequently he joined Henry of Navarre, whom he succeeded in withdrawing from the corrupting influence of the house of Valois (1576), and to whom he rendered valuable service, both as a soldier and as a counsellor, in the wars that issued in his elevation to the throne as Henry IV.
In the final judgment of the famous libel case of the Bombay Maharajas, before the Supreme Court of Bombay, in January 1862, these improprieties were severely commented upon; and though so unsparing a critic of Indian sects as Jogendra Nath seems not to believe in actual immoral practices on the part of the Maharajas, still he admits that "the corrupting influence of a religion, that can make its female votaries address amorous songs to their spiritual guides, must be very great."
