He carried himself well in civil life and was of irreproachable private conduct.
His high birth, his legal learning - he was for a long time professor of canon law at Montpellier - and the irreproachable purity of his life, recommended him to Pope Gregory XI., who created him cardinal in 1375.
Clay's quick intelligence and sympathy, and his irreproachable conduct in youth, explain his precocious prominence in public affairs.
His personal morality was irreproachable, except that he inherited the Plantagenet taste for crooked courses and dissimulation in political affairs; even in this respect the king's reputation has suffered unduly at the hands of Matthew Paris, whose literary skill is only equalled by his malice.
If one accepts this twofold aim all Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable.