Louis XIV may not have been the best assessor of men's abilities and temperaments, but he was without question a shrewd judge of human motivation and he must surely qualify as one of history's great practical, political psychologists. Louis learned many lessons from Mazarin, but one of the most significant concerned the distribution of royal largesse. He had seen the cardinal, neither feared nor loved to any significant degree, at the mercy of many grands, forced to purchase their support by gifts, titles and administrative concessions at a very high price indeed. These people demanded material and honorific rewards for loyalty to the crown, and by and large Mazarin was forced to give in to them provided the queen mother, Anne of Austria, could be squared. Louis was well aware that the power of the monarchy rested upon a large degree of reciprocity, but he was determined to break any perceived automatic link between deed and reward. The bienfaits du roi would henceforth, from 1661, be distributed on the basis of Louis's caprice, at a time of his own choosing. Yet the king could not get away from the fact that his subjects sought both inducements for good service, and rewards – which in turn might encourage men to greater things and give hope to others. Dynastic loyalty to the Bourbon was not strong enough in itself to produce sufficient active effort on the crown's behalf.