On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an unfortunate influence on their history.
Unfortunately the fruits of his diligence and foresight were dissipated by the follies of his two immediate successors, Emerich (1196-1204) and Andrew II., who weakened the Ar royal power in attempting to win support by lavish grants of the crown domains on the already over-influential magnates, a policy from which dates the supremacy of the semi-savage Magyar oligarchs, that insolent and self-seeking class which would obey no superior and trampled ruthlessly on every inferior.
Less reprehensible, though equally self-seeking, were his dealings with the emperor, which aimed at a family alliance between the Jagiellos and the Habsburgs on the basis of a double marriage between the son and daughter of Wladislaus, Louis and Anne, and an Austrian archduke and archduchess; this was concluded by the family congress at Vienna, July 22, 1515, to which Sigismund I.
The state which was most self-seeking in its railway politics was Hanover, which separated the eastern and western parts of the kingdom of Prussia.
In private life Bezborodko was a typical Catharinian, corrupt, licentious, conscienceless and self-seeking.