him and for his Daughter of whom you write me so much good I cannot stay my self from vowing to you that she is not altogether unworthy of it and perhaps would have deserved an Air with three couplets of your making if she had appeared in the time when you were the great Chaunter of France But now that you have changed your course of life there is no looking for any thing from you but spiritual discourse and Christian Meditations which yet will serve as fitly for a Sex to which devotion belongs no less than beauty Bring therefore to us the Original of your piety and of your Divinity at least shew some sorrow that you cannot do it that I may see my affection is not scorned and that I am not without revenge Sir Your c. From Balzac 1. of Decemb. 1634. Another to him LETTER XLI SIR IF you hold your old wont you will tax me with ignorance and write me a man of another World one delivered me but yesternight observations upon the process of the Marshall of and I set my self to reading all the time my Groom set himself to sleeping In very truth they gave me an excellent rellish and I vow unto you I never read a stile more subtile nor that hid its Art more cunningly I entreat you to send me word who the Authour is and to whom I am beholding for so pleasing a night It must needs be some man who understands two things equally well affairs and how to write one that partakes of the life of a Schollar and of a Courtier like to that God of whom the Poets say he is of the one and other World Vtroque facit commercia mundo From the knowledge of Books he draws the vigour and force of his phrase and from the practise of the Court the colours and sweetening of his matter He speaks the language of the Closet and brings proofs of the Pallace but in such sort that neatness doth not weaken his reasons and his force is so tempered that even Ladies may be judges of the process Once again I entreat you to send me the name of this sage Observer and besides to give me account what grace I stand in with Mounsieur de I was told in no very good grace neither I nor my writings neither If I made but little reckoning of him I should easily comfort my self for this disgrace but in truth it would grieve me much to be condemned by a judgement to which I should make a conscience not to subscribe and I rather believe there are many defects in my writings than that in his taste there is any defect of reason Assure him Sir if you please that I am at least capable of Discipline and am apt enough to follow any method he shall prescribe me for attaining a proportion of knowledge to content him Let him but tell me my faults and see how quickly I will mend them let him but say what it is in my stile that offends him and see how ready I shall be to give him satisfaction If my Hyperboles displease him I will blot them out of my Letters the next time they are printed I will truely confess all I have ever used and make a solemne vow never to use more Yet it cannot be truely said that to use this Figure is a matter that deserves blame for not to speak of humane Authours we should then blame the Son of God for saying It is easier for a Cammel to go through a needles eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven But I will not seek to save my self by so supream an authority In this I will respect our Saviour but not follow him I will believe that such examples are far above all humane imitation and will not attempt it no more than to walk upon the water and to go forty dayes without eating In good earnest I would do any thing to give contentment to a man that gives contentment to M. the Cardinal and hath perswaded the King of Sweden If he will play the Tyrant with those that seek his favour let him I refuse not hence forward the hardest conditions he can lay upon me and to gain his protection I renounce with all my heart my very liberty It is now four and twenty hours since I laid my eyes together It is time therefore that I bid you good morrow or good night take which of them you please and believe me alwayes Sir Your c. From Balzac 4. December 1634. To Mounsieur the Master Advocate in the Parliament LETTER XLII SIR YOu know I have fed upon the fruits of Pomponne even beyond the rules of temperance and I told you there that they are generally excellent yet I now especially declare my self in favour of the last you sent me and finde them far surpassing the Amber Pear or all other kindes which I cannot name It is true I affect especially the Tree it self that bears them and I account the meanest of the Leaves no meaner than Jewels yet their own goodness is such that though they grew in the Garden of or grew upon a stock that Father had planted yet I should not for all that but highly esteem them and take a pleasure in their taste In a word to leave speaking in Allegory and not to flounder my self in a Figure into which you have most maliciously cast me I say Sir that in all your Presents I see nothing but excellent and least you should think I meant to exempt my self from giving a particular account of my judgement by speaking in general terms I let you know that in the first place the two lines spoken of at the end of the discourse please me infinitely and next to this that place which is written upon occasion of that France is too good a Mother to rejoyce in the loss of her Children and that the victories gotten upon our selves are fit to wear mourning and be covered with black vails All that could have been said upon this Argument would never have been comparable to this ingenious silence And as he hath dexterously shunned a passage so tender so he enters as bravely and as proudly upon a matter that will bear it when speaking of he saith that having overcome the waves and the windes that opposed his passage and traversed the fires of so many Canons of the Enemies with a few poor Barks he made his way through a Forrest of great ships and despising all the English Forces made a small Island to be the Grave of the glorie of that great Queen of the Northern Islands And a little after where he saith that God who bestows his favours upon Nations by measure seeing that the admirable valour of ours would easily Conquer the whole World if it had Prudence equal to its courage seems therefore to have given us as a Counterpoise to the greatness of our spirits a kinde of impetuosity and impatience which to our Armies have oftentimes been fatal
the very bottom of my heart will I doubt not most willingly adde his testimony to my protestations that I truly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Sept. 1630. To Monsieur de L'orme Physitian in ordinary to the King and Treasurer of France at Burdeaux LETTER XXIX SIR it is not now onely that I make a benefit of your friendship I have had profit by it a long time and you have often been my advocate with so great force and so good successe that they who had before condemned me were glad to revoke their sentence as soon as they heard you speake yet all this while you did but onely speake well of me now you begin to doe well for me it is you whom this year I may thank for my pension Without you Sir my warrant would never have perswaded my partner it would presently have been rejected and he still have continued inexorable But it must be confessed there is no wiâ—de beast but you can tame no matter so bad but you can make good as you heal maladies that are incurable so you prevaile in causes that are desperate and if you finde never so little life and common sense in a man you are able to restore him to perfect health and make him become a reasonable man I desire not to have the matter in any better terms than you have set it I am glad I shall not need to invocate M. the Cardinall for my dispatch and that Monsieur hath promised not to faile to pay me in September If he should pay it sooner I should be faine to desire you this favour to keep it for me till that time Now I onely intreat you to draw from him a valuable at assurance of it and for so many favours and courtesies done me I shall present you with something not altogether so bad as those I have already shewed you and seeing one cannot be called valiant for having the better of a coward neither can I be accused of vanity for saying I have exceeded my selfe I am therefore bold to let my Letter tell you thus much that if my false Pearles and counterfeit Diamonds have heretofore deceived you I doe not think that the shew I shall make you of my new wares will use you any better Yet my meaning is not to praeoccupate your judgement who neither of my selfe nor of my writings will have any other opinion than what you shall please to allow me Since the time I have wanted the honour of seeing you I have made a great progresse in the vertue of humility for I am now proud of nothing but of my friends affections Let me therefore never want yours I intreat you as you may believed I will all my life most passionately be Sir Your c. At Balzac 8. Decemb. 1629. To my Lord LETTER XXX MY Lord I hope you will not take it ill that I put you in minde of a man to whom you have heretofore made demonstration of your love and that after a long intermission of these petty duties which are then troublesome when they are frequent you will give me leave to tell you that I have indeed omitted them but more by discretion than by negligence I know Sir you have no time to lose and to put you to the reading of unprofitable words what were it but to shew an ignorance how much the King imployes you and how the present affaires goe It is therefore the respect I bear to your continuall imployments that hath caused my silence and I should be very absurd if in the assiduity of your cares I should present you with little pleasing amusements and should look for an answer to some poore complement when you have so many commandements of importance and so many orders of necessity to deliver forth It is enough for me that you do me the honour to cast your eyes upon the protestation I make you that in all the extent of your command there is not a soule more submisse nor more desirous to beare your yoak than mine is and that as much as any in the world I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 10 Aug. 1630. To Monsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XXXI SIR you need not wonder to see your name in the Book I send you Lovers you know leave marks of their passion every where and if they were able would fill the whole earth with their cyphers and devices It is a custome as ancient as the world for with that began writing also and at first for want of paper men graved the names of those they loved upon the barks of trees If any man wonder I should be in love with a Preacher why wonders he not at that Romane of whom a Greciaâ— said that he was not onely in love with Cato but was enchanted with him You have done as much to many others in this country and I have here as many Rivals as you have Auditors Yet there is not the same object of all our affections they run after your words and hang at your mouth but I go farther and discover in your heart that which is better than your eloquence I could easily resist your Figures and your Arguments but your goodness and your freeness take me captive presently I therefore give you the title of a perfect friend in your Encomium because I account this a more worthy quality than to be a perfect Oratour and because I make most reckoning of that vertue in a man which humane society hath most need of For other matters remember your self in what terms I did speak to you of the business you write of and that onely to obey you I have been contented to alter my opinion I was well assured the enterprise would never take effect but I thought it better to faile by consenting than by obstinacy and rather to take a repulse than not to take your counsell I have known a long time that fortune means me no good and the experience I have of her hath cured me of the malady of hope and ambition Make me not fall into a relapse of these troublesome diseases I beseech you but come and confirm my health you Sir that are a soveraign Physitian of souls and who are able to see in mine that I perfectly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 10. Feb. 1635. To Monsieur de Piles Cleremont LETTER XXXII SIR having heard of the favourable words you used of me at the Court I cannot any longer forbeare to give you thanks nor stay till our next meeting from telling you how highly I esteem this favour I cannot but confess I did not look to finde so great a graciousness in the country of maliciousness and seeing that the greatest part even of honest men have so much love for themselves that they have but little or none left for strangers I thought with my selfe that the infection of the world might have lightly touched you and that either you had no passions in you at
without levity it accuseth innocencie without calumny And to say truth Painters and Stage-players are no way culpable of those murthers we see represented in Pictures or presented upon Theaters since therein the most cruel is the most just None can justly accuse those of falsity who make certain glasses which shew one thing for another Errour in some cases being more gracefull then truth In a word the life even of the greatest Sages is not altogether serious all their sayings are not Sermons nor is all they write either their last Testament or the confession of their Faith What can I say more Can you imagine me to be so curious as to condemne the gust of all that great multitude who flock to hear you every morning Are you perswaded that I and the people can never be of one minde That will oppose my self to the belief of honest men to the approbation of Doctors and to their authority who are eminent above others No Father I allow no such liberty to my spirit assure your self I esteem you as I ought I commend your zeal and learning yea were it truer then ever it was that to compose tedious Volumnes is no less then to commit great sins Yet if you oblige me to judge of yours by that you sent unto me I say it is very excellent in its kinde and that I will no way hinder you from obtaining a Rank among the Fathers of these modern ages But my testimony will not I hope become the onely fruit of your labours I wish with all my heart the conversion of Turks and Infidels may crown your indeavours I am perswaded all the honour this World can affoard ought to be esteemed as nothing by those who onely seek for the advancement of Gods glorie I will therefore no farther dilate my self upon this Subject nor wrong holy things by prophane praises my intention is onely to let you know I assume not so poor a part in the Churches interest as not to be extraordinarily well pleased with those who are serviceable thereto and that I am right glad besides the propension I have to esteem your amity so powerfull a perswasion as Religion is doth yet further oblige me Yours BALZAC To the Cardinal of Vallette LETTER IV. My Lord THe Letter you pleased to send me from Rome caused me to forget I was sick and I presumed to solace my self after three years of saddess ever since news was brought me of Lucidors death and the success of that fatal combate wherein you could not but be a loser on which side soever the advantage happened My Lord I doubt not but your spirit though altogether stout and couragious to support your proper misfortunes is yet mollified by the relation of their miseries who love you and where there is question rather of shewing your good nature or your constancy you will quit one virtue to acquire another I know well that in the number of your goods you reckon your friends in the first rank allowing onely the second place to your dignities and to fifty thousand Crowns rent which accompanies them and consequently I assure my self you believe you are as it were grown poor by the loss of a man who had relation unto you But I am likewise most certain how after the passing certain unpleasant dayes out of the love you bare him and having affoardeth him sufficient Testimonies of your affection he now expecting no further acknowledgement or service you will at length call to minde that it is the publick to whom you owe your cares and passions and that you are not permitted farther to afflict a spirit which is no longer yours Since the misery of this age is so general as it leaveth no one house without tears nor any one part of Europe without trouble and since Fortune is not of power to conserve even her own workmanships who are many of them fallen to ground it must needs so happen my Lord that being of the World you are to taste of the fruits it produceth and that you purchase at some hard rate the good successes daily attending you But truely the place where you are and the great designs taking you up may well furnish you with so strong and solide consolations as they need leave no work for others and my Eloquence would come too late should I imploy it after your reason which hath formerly perswaded you there being now neither precept nor Counsel in all humane wisdom unproposed to your view and since neither Seneca nor Epiotetus can say any thing save onely your thoughts I had much rather send you divertisements no way distastefull then to present you any remedies which doubtless will prove importunate These writings my Lord here inclosed shall not enter as strangers into your Cabinet they will not talk unto you of the five Praedicables of Porphiry nor of Justinians Novelles or the numbers of Algebra But you may there recreate and repose your spirits at your return from Audiences Congregations and the Consistory I could well have bestowed upon them a more eminent title then what they have I could out of these composures have framed Apologies Accusations and politick discourses yea had I pleased never so little to have extended some of my Letters they might have been called books But besides my design aiming rather to please then importune and that I tend to the height of conceptions and not at the abundance of words When I treat with you my Lord I suppose my self to be before a full assembly and do propose to my self never to write any thing unto you which Posterity ought not to read Now if sometimes from your person I pass to others or if I commend those whom I conceive are deserving I assure my self I therein performing an act of Justice and not of subjection you will be no way displeased with what I do and well hope I may conserve your favours without violating humane Laws or separating my self from civil society Your most humble servant BALZAC The 15. of July 1629. To the Cardinal of Vallete LETTER V. My LORD THough innocency be the felicity of the afflicted and that I finde in my self the satisfaction he can expect who hath not offended yet can I not so easily comfort my self And the remedies my Phylosophy affoard me are for meaner misfortunes then the loss of your favours All I can contribute to my consolation out of the assurance I have of mine innocency is the liberty I have taken to tell you so and to complain of the injustice you have done me if you have so much as suffered any to accuse me I need not seek colours to palliate my actions or words it is sufficiently known their principal objects have ever been the glory of your name and the desire to please you I beseech you likewise to call to remembrance that hard times have not hindred me from imbarking my self where my inclination called me and that I have served my Lord your Father
for an enemy or for a friend But your Letter hath given me assurance of my condition I account it as the Letters Pattents of my naturalizing and where I was afraid to be held a Barbarian I see my self suddenly become a Roman For since there is now no more use that can serve for the Law nor people that can serve for the Judge of a dead language I have therefore recourse to you Sir in whom I seem to see the very face of the most pure antiquity and who after the dissolution of the body of the Common-wealth doth yet preserve the spirit The Gothes and Vandals have boasted falsly that they left in it nothing remarkable I finde still the full Majesty of the language in your writings and your stile hath in it not onely the Aire and Garb of that good time but the very courage and the virtue You draw your opinions from the same Well and I see no cause that any man can have to contradict them It is certain that to gain belief one must keep himself within the bounds of likelyhood and present to posterity examples which it may follow and not Prodigies with which it may be frighted Words that are disproportionable to the matter seem to savour of that Mountibanks strain who would have it believed he could make a statue of a Mountain and would perswade us that a man were a mile long There are some mens works not much less extravagant than this Mountibanks design and most men seem to write with as little seriousness and with as little care to be believed And though men make a conscience in dealing with particular persons yet when they come to deal with the publick they seem to think themselves dispensed with and that they owe more respect to one neighbour than to whole Nations and to all ages to come You know notwithstanding that this is no new vice and not to make a troublesom enumeration of the ancient adorers of favour Is not that base flattering of Velleim come even to us and was he not a Bond slave that desired one should know he was in love with his Chain I could curse the ill fortune of good Letters that hath bereft us of the book which Brutus writ of vertue and in lieu hath left us the infamous possession which that villain makes of his loosness and how he had more care of the dregs of a corrupted Court than of upholding the main structure of the Latine Philosophy If it had been his fortune to have out-lived Sejanus I doubt not but he would have taken from him all the praises he had given him to make a present of them to his successour Macron and if the gaps and breaches of his book were filled up one should see he had not forgotten so much as a Groom in all Tiberius house of whom he had not written Encomiums We live in a Government much more just and therefore much more commendable the raign of our King is not barren of great examples It is impossible the carriage of M. the Cardinal should be more dextrous more sage more active than it is yet who knows not that he hath found work enough to do for many ages and Battails enough to fight for many Worthies That he hath met with difficulties worthy of the transcendent forces of himself far exceeding the forces of any other it is necessary that time it self should joyn in labour with excellent Master-workmen to produce the perfection of excellent works The recovery of a wasted body is not the work of onely one potion or once opening a vein the reviving a decayed estate requires a reiteration of endeavours and a constancy of labours The salving of desperate cases goes not so swift a pace as Poets descriptions or Figures of Orators We must therefore keep the extension of our subject within certain bounds and not say that the victory is perfected as long as it leaves us the evills of War and that there remains any Monster to be vanquished seeing even poverty is yet remaining which is one of the greatest Monsters and in comparison whereof those which Hercules subdued were but tame and gentle With time our Redeemer will finish his work and he that hath given us security will give us also no doubt abundance But seeing the order of the world and the necessity of affairs affords us not yet to taste this happines it shall be a joy unto me to see at least the Image of it in your History to return and re-enter by your means into these three so rich and flourishing years after which the peace hath shewed it self but by fits and the Sun it self hath been more reserved of his beams and not ripened our fruits but on one side You shall binde me infinitely unto you to grant me a sight of this rare Peece and to allow me a Key of that Temple which you keep shut to all the World besides I assure my self I shall see nothing there but that which is stately and Magnificent specially I doubt not but the roof it self is admirable and that your words do Parallell the subject when you come to speak of the last Designs of our deceased King and of the undoubted revolution he had brought upon the state of the World if he had lived And though in this there be more of divination than of knowledge and that to speak of such things be to expound Riddles yet in such cases it is not denied to be Speculative and I do not believe that Lyvie recounting the death of Caesar did lightly pass over the Voyage he intended against the Parthians and that he stayed not a little to consider the new face he would have put upon the Common-wealth if death had not prevented him If all my affairs lay here yet I would make a journey to Paris expresly for this and to read a discourse made after the fashion of this Epitaph which pleased me exceedingly He had a design to win Rhodes and overcome Italy I should have much ado to hold in my Passion till then but now I stand waiting for your Tertullian that I may learn of him that patience which he teacheth that I saint not in waiting till it be printed what a croud there will be to see him when he shall be in state to be seen and when he shall come abroad under your corrections like to those glorious bodies which being cleansed from all impurity of matter do glister and shine on every side This is an Authour with whom your Preface would have made me friends if I had otherwise been fallen out and that the hardness of his phrase and the vices of his age had given me any distaste from reading him But it is long since that I have held him in account and as sad and thorny as he is yet he hath not been unpleasing to me Me thinks I finde his writings that dark light or lightsom darkness which an ancient Poet speaks off and I look upon the obscurity
never want Panegyricks and Sonnets that the Court will never be without Sharks and Cheaters that virtue will ever be the most beautifull the most unprofitable thing in the World And what can you write in the general of affairs that hath not relation to one of these points And for my own particular what can I hear but that either some book is written against me or that my Pension is like to be ill paid or that I shall not be made an Abbot unless I be my self the Founder of the Abby such news would be terrible to a man more interressed than my self but to me they are in a manner indifferent and trouble me no more than if you should tell me it will be foul weather all this Moon or that the water is grown shallow in our River or that a Tree in my Wood hath been overturned with Tempest I have had heretofore some pretentions to Church preferments but now they are all reduced to this one preferment of being a good Christian and so long as they cast not upon Balzac the term of an Apostata for the rest I am well content with my present condition and certainly desires so moderate cannot chuse but be succesfull and I will never believe that ill fortune any more than good will seek after me so far as this or that it is possible for him to fall that stands so low yet if any Devil enemy of my advancement should envy my retiring and if any promoter should lay to my charge that to get out off I would corrupt I make my self this promise Sir that you will stand strongly in defence of your innocent friend and that in so just a protection you will embark also that excellent personage of whom you speak in your Letter I am as you know unhappy enough not to know her but seeing the honest men of Greece have used to adore upon adventure and built Altars to unknown Deities it may as well be lawfull for me to use devotion to this Saint upon the credit of the people of Rome who have now these three years looked upon her as upon one of the true Originals whereof they revere the Statues they all agree in this that since the Porciaes and the Corneliaes there never was any thing seen comparable to this and that those divine women which were the domestical Senate of their husbands and the rivals of their virtue have no other advantage over this French Lady but that they died in an age of funeral Orations You send me word that you finde her in the same estate you left her and that she is now as fresh and amiable as ever she was and I easily believe it this long continued state of youth is no doubt the recompence of her extraordinary virtue the calm within sweetens and clears the Air without and from the obedient passions of her minde there riseth neither winde nor cloud to taint the pureness of her complexion As there are certain temperate Climates which bring forth Roses all the year long and where it is counted for a wonder that such a day it was cold or snowed so are there likewise certain faces priviledged preserved to the end of old age in the happy estate of their infancy and never lose the first blossoming of their beauty But it is not for a man buried in the darkness of a Desart to talk of the most illustrious matter that is in the World it befits me rather to read that over again which you have written than to add any thing to it and for fear least any word should scape from me that is not Courtly and which may marre all I have said already without further discourse I assure you that I am Sir Your c. From Balzac the 8. of August 1633. To Mounsieur de la Nauue Counsellour to the King in his great Chamber LETTER XIV SIR I Take great joy to hear you harken after me and that you need no remembrancer to put you in minde to be mindefull of me This thought of yours is so much the more dear unto me because it comes from a heart that hath none vain or casual but makes choise of the Objects it beholds and of the Images it receives to be thought of by you is to be worthy of being thought of This ought to be the ambition of men that are worth ought and a virtue that is not approved of you shews there is something in that is defective If then I have this mark I have the seal and confirmation of the true good I have both the good fortunes that of virtue and that of your favour and herein at least I have some resemblance of an honest man There are some whom blinde chance hath lifted up above you of whom I cannot speak in this manner one may set their blame and their praise in equal degree of indifferency and there is no Obligation to follow them in their opinions but when they get it by constraint or else by purchase All their greatness is in their Titles there scarce appears upon them one little beam of it in dayes of Ceremony and if they will have us to respect them they must be fain to send a Herauld to put us in minde For you Sir it is not onely upon the Bench that the World reveres you but your authority follows you wheresoever you are she accompanies you even in your ordinary conversation you cannot so disguise your self but that I shall alwayes take you for my Judge and this gravity of your countenance which changes every word you speak into a Decree and gives a dignity to your very silence may serve to verifie that Paradox of the Stoikes That a wise man can never be a private person and that Nature her self makes him a Magistrate Mounsieur Coeffeteat and my self have often had long discourses about this point and it is not as we would have it and as we wish that a man should be left at the bottom of the stairs whose merit we see ascended to the top but this is the destiny of the best things either they are wholly neglected or at most but half known and I have seen in the same place a Munkey set upon the top of a Piramis and a Master piece of Phydias suffered to stand upon a very mean Base but the satisfaction of your conscience and the testimony of your good report ought to be your comfort for all such events There are illustrious lives of divers fashions but those like yours which cast a sweet and pleasing light please me much better than those that thunder and lighten It is not the noise and the flashes that make the fair dayes it is a calm and clear air and a life led in tranquility and judgement which is the work of reason is preferrable before one half or the great success the World admires which are but the extravagancies of fortune See here the decree of a Countrey Philosopher and matter of
his account and from his principles I have drawn my conclusions and in a conference I had sometimes with him he seemed to me a better man than I have set him forth In such sort Sir that I am not of a minde to contradict you In your writing of him to me you say nothing which is not of my knowledge and in my writing of him to you I do nothing but follow your conceits Never fear that the common errours will deprave his spirit he hath laid too sure a foundation in the knowledge of truth he is too strongly confirmed in the good Sect. Having often and seriously meditated on the condition of humane affairs he values them just as much as they are worth but he adds nothing by opinion he hates neither riches nor authority this were the peevish humour of the Cynicks to hate a thing that in it self is lovely he makes use of them after the manner of the Academy and of the Lycaeum which never thought them impediments to happiness but rather aids and furtherances to virtue Or may we not say more probably that he hath drawn his doctrines from a Spring nearer hand and that he hath not gone out of himself to finde out the truest wisdom He hath examples at home which may serve him for Idaeas of perfection and Sages in his own race which are Artists of virtuous life Whilest he governs himself by their Rules he may well pass by all forraign doctrines and having his deceased Uncle before his eyes he need not care to have Socrates for a myrrour Quippe malim unum Catonem quam trecentos Socratas The memory of this illustrious personage is in such veneration through all France and his name hath preserved so excellent an Odour in the prime Tribunal of Christendom that it is not now so much the name of a family as it is the name even of integrity and constancy it self Remember the Epigram of that Grecian whose Manuscript I shewed you which saith that in a place at Athens when one named Plutarch there was an Echo answered Philosophy as taking the one for the other making no difference between the two By the like reason the Muses might use the same figure and act the like miracle in favour of this new Pillar of justice They never need to use reservations nor fear too deep engaging themselves whatsoever they lay forth before hand for his glory shall all be allowed them again in the reckoning Having been bred up in their bosom and being entred into their Sanctuary he will never suffer them to stand waiting and catch cold at his gate nor that a Switzer shall keep them out from entring his base Court They shall never have I assure my self that unhappy advantage to have given him all and receive back nothing from him again to have enriched his minde with a thousand rare knowledges and then hardly get him to seal them an acquittance Let us now come to the other part of your Letter and assay to satisfie your Doctour concerning his Objection He findes fault with me because I praise the Pope for his beauty and sayes that such praise is for women and youth and belongs not to old men and Priests First Sir I answer he wrongs me in changing my terms for I make a great difference between beauty and a good Visage of this I spake in the person of the Pope and should never have thought I had committed a sin though I had spoken of the other also As concerning age you know there are beautifull old men though there be not beautifull old Women and you remember that ancient personage who by report of History was of equal pleasing to all companies through all the ages of his life As concerning the quality besides that God rejected in sacrifice all lean and unsound Oblation he required also to have handsome Priests and you may shew your friend in the books of Moses that not onely the lame and pore-blinde but even the flat nosed were excluded from being Ministers in sacrificing But if being as he is a prophane Doctour the holy Scriptures do not please him yet he might have remembred that old word of the Tragick Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon which I had an eye when I said This Visage worthy of an Empire And yet more being a Gascogne Doctor I wonder he never read the Panegyrick which a Countrey man of his pronounced at Rome before the Emperour Theodosius where he should have found these words Augustissima quaeque species plurimum creditur trahere de Coelo sive enim Divinus ille animus venturus in corpus dignum prius mereatur hospitium sive cum venerit fingit habitaculum pro habitu suo sive aliud ex alio crescit cum se pariajunxerunt utraque majora sunt parcam Arcanum Coeleste rimari Tibi istud soli pateat imperator cum Deo consorte secretum Illud dicam quod intellexisse hominem dixisse fas est talem esse debere qui a gentibus adoratur cui toto orbe terrarum privaeta vel publica vota redduntur a quo petit Navigaturus serenum Peregrinaturus reditum Pugnaturus auspicium Virtus tua meruit imperium sed virtuti addidit forma suffragium Illa praestitit ut oporteret te principem fieri haec ut deceret In this discourse there are some terms which yet may seem fitter for a Pope than for an Emperour and here is to be noted that Theodosius was no young man when Latinus Pacatus praised him thus for his beauty for it was after his defeat of the Tyrant Maximus and when after many victories obtained against the Barbarians he was in full and peaceable possession of his glory Sometime before this Gregory Nazianzen had upbraided the Emperour Julian for his ill favoured Visage for the ill feature of his face and for other deformities of his body of which nevertheless he was not guilty Though one might here question the holy Oratour whether in doing this he did well or no Yet from hence we may at least gather that the qualities contrary to these he blames ought justly and may be lawfully made account of and that such praises which reflect upon the Creatours glory are much more Christian than those accusations which trench upon the scorning of his knowledge Your friend therefore is certainly more severe than he need to be He is much to blame to reject in this sort the blessings of Heaven and the advantages of birth and to imagine that holiness cannot be examplar and Apostolick unless it be pale and lean and look like one were starved These are the dreams of Tertullian who will have it that our Saviour was in no sort beautifull and therein gives the lie to all Antiquity and to the tradition of the whole Church He draws a Picture for him which is not onely injurious to his Divine but dishonourable also â—o his humane nature This in my opinion is one of his greatest errours
the Stoick Philosophers to forfeit their gravity But there are not two Boccaces nor two Ariostoes there are many that think themselves pleasant when they are indeed ridiculous I would our good would leave his wrangling about controversies and fall to this kinde of writing in which in my opinion he would proveÌ„ excellent This would draw his Genius out of Fetters and give it the extent of all humane things to play in onely he should spare the Church for her eldest Son sake and forbear the Pope for M. the Cardinals sake one of the Princes of his Court These are respects you ought to have untill your conversion furnish you with other more religious and change this your honest civility into a true devotion If we be not bound to speak of mens religion reverently yet we are bound to speak seriously and evâ—n at this day we call Lucian an Atheist for scoffing at those Gods who we know were false For the rest Sir I pray take heed you shew not my Letter to he would give me a terrible check in behalf of he would not indure I should speak so insolently of an Author approved by the Academy De gli insensati de Perouse and indeed I had not spoken as I did but that I dare trust your silence and know that to discover a secret to you is to hide it Make much of this rare virtue and never leave it and be pleased to believe me that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 13. of June 1633. To the same another LETTER XXXIV SIR I Am going to a place where in speaking good of you I shall finde no contradiction and where your virtue is so well known that if I say nothing of it but what I know I am sure I shall tell no news I bring along with me the last Letter you writ unto me and mean to be earnestly intreated by Mounsieur before I yield to grant him a Coppy As for Madam she should entertain an enemy upon this pasport and though she were resolved to give me no audience yet she would never deny it to the reader of your writings I know of what account you are in her heart and how much I ought to fear least all the room there be taken up before hand with your favour Yet such opinion I have of her justice that I willingly make her Arbitratour of our difference and require her to tell whether she think I have done wrong to in desiring him to give over his going to Law and to pass the rest of his dayes in more quiet and sweet imployments The art of jesting whereof I speak is no enemy to the art of morality whereof you speak rather it is the most subtle and most ancient way of retailing it And that which would fright men being used in the natural form delights and wins them sometimes being used under a more pleasing mask Men loath a wisedom that is drie and altogether raw it must have a little seasoning such a kinde of sawce as Socrates was wont to make it that Socrates I say whom all the Families of Philosophers account their Founder and acknowledge for their Patriarch The story sayes he never used to speak in earnest and the age he lived in called him the scoffer In Platoes book you shall finde little else of him but jesting with disorderly persons you shall see him counterfet a Lover and a Drunkard thereby to claw them whom he would take He shuns the stile of the Dogmatists or to speak definitively of things as thinking it an instrument of Tyranny and a yoak that oppresseth our liberty In short he handles serious matters so little seriously that he seems to think the shortest way to perswade was to please and that virtue had need of delight to make way for her into the Soul Since his time there have come men who contented not themselves with laughing but make profession of nothing else and have made it their recreation to play upon all the actions of humane life Others have disguised themselves into Courtiers and Poets and left their Dilemmaes and their Syllogismes to turn jeasters and to get audience in privy Chambers We see then the World had not alwayes been sad before Ariosto and Bernia came into it they were not the men that brought it first to be merry jeasting is no new invention it was the first trade that wise men used who thereby made themselves sociable amongst the people Theophrastus who succeeded Aristotle thought it no disparagement to Philosophy nor that there was in it any uncomeliness unfit for his school Lycaeum he is excellent at descriptions and counterfeitings and his Characters are as so many Comedies but that they be not divided into Acts and Scenes and that they represent but onely one person Seneca as solemne and of as sullen humour as he was otherwise yet once in his life would needs be merry and hath left us that admirable Apotheosis of Claudius which if it were lost I would with all my heart give one of his books de Beneficiis to recover again and a much greater ransom if it were possible to get it entire No doubt but you have heard speak of the Caesars of the Emperour Julian that is to say of the sports of a severe man and of the mirth of a melancholick man And from whence think you had the Menippaean Satyrs their names Things so much esteemed of by antiquity and under which title the learned Varro comprised all wisedom divine and humane even from Menippus the Philosopher who was of a Sect so austere and so great an enemy to vice that Justus Lipsius doubts not to set it in comparison with the most strict and reformed order of the Church I am much deived but Madam will not be found so scrupulous as you but will give her voice in favour of an opinion authorised by so great examples And indeed Sir why should you not like that our friend should reserve some mirth and some pleasure for his old age and having declaimed and disputed abroad all day should come at night to have some merry talk in his own lodging why should you think it amiss that after so many wars and cumbats I should counsel him to refresh himself with a more easie and less violent kinde of writing and to afford us such wares as may be received as well at Rome as at Geneva These thirty years he hath been a Fencer upon Paper and hath furnished all Europe with such spectacles why should he not now give over a quarrel that he is never able to compose He may in my opinion honestly say it is enough and content himself to have outlived his old adversaries without staying to look for new Having had to do with Mounsieur Coeffeteau and with Cardinal Perron it would be a shame for him to meddle now with a dizzy headed father or with the Antick of Roan and a poor ambition it would be in my judgement to erect Trophies of
Philosophy is in your writings all painted and perfumed After you have purged it from the rust of Barbarians and from the poyson of Sophisters you make with it a wholesom and delightfull lancing and no man seeks to ward your blows because they heal and tickle With these rare knowledges you should entertain your friends and not with the fruits of our Orchard nor with those of my studies which are as vulgar the one as the other But yet seeing they please your taste and that you demand of me particularly the last piece you saw of my making I have intreated who carries it to Paris to deliver it unto you in the place where you are By your example I call it my dissertation because we live in a Countrey of liberty and where faults of this nature are not under the Jurisdiction of the Kings Commission But I durst not be so bold at the Court where there is no longer any favour for naughty words nor safety for innovatours of our language Remember therefore that I speak under Benedicite and in our most strait confidence and imitate herein that Queen who in publick called her Son by the name of her Husband but in private by the name of her favorite much after this sort do I having conceived my work from the acquaintance I have with the Latin I let it in truth carry a French title but in secret and speaking in the ear I give it the name of his Father It is now three moneths that M. de Nants hath been in Britanie and M. de Tholouze in Languedoc Upon the first opportunity I will not fail to send them your rare Presents and let them know in what height of account you hold them both Do me the like office to Mounsieur Bourdelot and assure him that I have great pretensions upon his learning and that I ground my self much upon his honesty Hereafter one of them shall be my treasure in the necessities of my spirit the other my sanctuary against the malice of the World For you Sir it is impossible for me to express the high opinion I conceive of you when the question is to speak of your virtue I cannot finde words that give me satisfaction and therefore at this time you shall have from me but the common conclusion of all my Letters that I am Sir Your c. From Balzac 15. December 1633. To Mounsieur de Aigue bere Commander of a Company in Holland LETTER XXXVII Sir YOur Letter hath stayed here a long time for me if I had been here at its first arrival I had sooner testified to you the joy with which I received it and the especial account I make of the meanest of your favours I seek not after new acquaintance I had rather I could forgo one half of those I have already but for yours I vow unto you I have much desired it and you had attractives for me even in the Melancholy of my Quartan Ague I discovered a great worth under the veil of your disvaluing your self and saw well that you sought rather to go safely and solidly than to go in pomp and state and had more care to nourish your minde than to set it out in colours I do not therefore take you for a simple Captain of Holland who takes nothing but Stoccadoes and Circumvallation and studies such other words in that Countrey to come afterwards and fright us with them here in France I know you possess no less the virtues of peace than those that make a noise and handle iron and that you are a man of the Library as well as of the Arsenal Mounsieur Huggens I assure my self is of the same minde and I doubt not but having observed you in both these kindes he relisheth as well your spirit as he values your courage I am very glad of the correspondence that is between you of which if you please I shall make use hereafter for the safety of our Commerce But Sir I have another more important request to make unto you and I earnestly entreat you to do for me with my Lord the good offices which I have right to hope your goodness will afford me It hath been written to me from Paris that he had some sinister conceit of me and indeed the coldness of his countenance the last time I had the honour to do him reverence seemed to shew as much This misfortune comes not to me by any fault of mine for I swear unto you Sir that I have alwayes carried towards him a most religious respect and have never spoken of him but as of a man of very extraordinary parts It must needs be that this is some rellick of those impressions which hath left in him and that he judgeth of me by the report of my Enemies I will not move questions against the memory of a dead man nor blame the passion of a great worthy There have been some moved with motives less reasonable that have wept for their Dogs and built Tombs for beasts they loved In that I acknowledge the good fortune of but you know better than any other what his honesty was and you ought upon this occasion to give your uttermost Testimony in behalf of calumniated innocency I conjure you to do it effectually and from what Coast soever the evil come take into your protection an honest man who passionately is Sir Your c. From Balzac 3. of February 1633. Another to him LETTER XXXVIII SIR I Have received in one Packet a Letter from you of the four and twentieth of March and another from Mounsieur Huggens of the fifteenth of December I give you a thousand thanks for each of them and complain not that I stayed a while for the latter seeing if it had come a readier way it had perhaps not come so safe a way neither contains it any news whereof the knowledge might not be forborn without any danger no matter in it that either concerns the life of the Prince or the good of the state It might have come time enough ten years hence for it speaks of nothing but of Kings and Common-wealths that have been long ago Our commerce hath no object but our books and I have no reason to complain of a slowness that does a favour to my negligence But my good neighbour suffers me to be idle no longer she will have me hereafter make use of her messengers and by consequent ease you of your conveying them Yet for my part I exempt you not altogether but if you return into Holland at the time you have appointed you shall do me the favour to remember the note I send you I intreat you also to demand of our friends in that Countrey what reason they have to bring into our language a new fashion of speaking and which by the communication you have with them is gotten into the Letter you sent me If you say my Masters the States you may as well say Mounsieur the Councel and Madam the Assembly
this when suddenly a great light shined in my Chamber and dazeled mine eys even as I lay in my bed And not to hold you long in suspense the Name of the Angel I mean was Madam d' Estissac who thus appeared unto me and willing to make the world see how much she hath profited in Religion runs after all occasions to put her Christian vertues in practise This somwhat abates the vanity I should otherwise have taken in her visit for I see it is rather charitie than courtesie and I am so much beholding to my infirmitie for it that shee made a doubt whether I were sicke enough to merit it as much as to say a Paralitick should have had this courtesie from her sooner than I. They must be great miseries that attract her great favours pietye which teacheth the fayrest hands of the world to bury the dead may well get of the fairest eyes that ever were some gracious looks to comfort the afflicted What ere it be I have found by experience that no sadness is so obstinate and clowdie but pleasing objects may dissolve and pierce nor any Philosopher so stony and insensible but may be softned and awaked by their lightest impression I verily thinke another of her visits would have set me on my legges and made me able to goe but shee thought me not worthy of a whole miracle and therefore I must content my selfe with this beginning of my cure I enforme you of these things as being one that reverenceth their cause and as one loves me too well to make slight of the goods or evills I impart unto him This last words of my Letter shall serve if you please for a corrective to the former I revoke it as a blasphemie and will never beleeve that all the Magick in Paris is able to make you forget a man whom you have promised to love and who passionately is Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. July 1633. Another to him LETTER XXI SIR this is the first opportunitie I could get to write unto you and to comfort my selfe for your absence by this imperfect way which is the only meanes left mee to enjoy you These are but shadowes and figures of that true contentment I received by your presence but since I cannot be wholly happie I must take it in good part that I am not wholly miserable I will hasten all I can to finish the businesse I have begun thereby to but my selfe in state to see you and if my mind could goe as fast as my will I should my selfe be with you as soone as my Letter It is true there cannot be a more delicate and daintie place than this where I live banished and a friend of ours said that they who are in exile here are farre happier than Kings in Muscovia but being separated from a man so infinitely deere unto mee I doe not thinke I could live contented in the fortunate Islands and I should be loath to accept of felicitie it selfe if it were offered me without your company Wherefore assure your selfe that as soone as I can rid my selfe of some importunate visits which I must necessarily both receive and give I will not lose one moment of the time that I have destinated to the accomplishment of and will travaile much more assiduously than otherwise I should doe seeing it is the end of my travaile that only can give me the happinesse of your presence In the meane time I am bound first to tell you that I have seene here and then to give you thankes for the good cheare he hath made me He believes upon your word that I am one of much worth and gives me Encomiums which I could not expect from his judgment but that you have corrupted it by favouring me too much I earnestly entreat you to let me heare from you upon all occasions and to send me by the Post the two books which I sent for to Monsieur if you have not received them of him already but above all I desire you that we may lay aside all meditation and art in writting our Letters and that the negligence of our stile may be one of the marks of the friendship between us and so Sir I take my leave and am with all my soule Your c. At Balzac 2. Decemb. 1628. Another to him LETTER XXII SIR either you meane to mocke me or I understand not the termes of your Letter I come to you in my night gowne and my night cap upon my head and you accuse me for being too fine You take me for a cunning merchant who am the simplest creature in the world if another should use me thus I should not take it so patiently but what ere your designe be I count my selfe happie to be the subject of your joy and that I can make you merry though it be to my cost when I write to you I leave my selfe to the conduct of my penne and neither thinke of the dainties of our Court nor of the severitie of our Grammar that if there be any thing in my Letters of any worth it must needs be that you have falsified them and so it is you that are the Mountebanke and will utter your counterfeits for true Diamonds You know well that Eloquence is not gotten so good cheape and that to terme my untoward language by the name of this qualitie is a superlative to the highest of my Hyperboles Yet it seemes you stand in no awe of Father as though you had a priviledge to speake without controul things altogether unlikely for this first time I am content to pardon you but if you offend so againe I will enforme against you and promise you an honourable place in the third part of Philarchus The man you wrote of hath no passions now but wise and stayed he hath given over play and women and all his delight now is in his bookes and vertue Rejoyce I pray you at his happie conversion and if you be his friend so much and so much a Poet as to shew your selfe in publicke you may doe well to make a Hymne in prayse of Sicknesse as one hath heretofore done in prayse of Health for to speak truly it is his sicknesse that hath healed him and hath put into him the first meditations of his salvation I expect great Newes from you by the next Post and passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Decemb. 1628. To Monsieur Ogier LETTER XXIII SIR I cannot but confesse that men in misery never found a more powerfull Protectour than your selfe and that you seeme borne to be a defender of oppressed innocency The Fathers of the Minimme Order are as much beholding to you as my selfe whose right you have so strongly maintained that if I did not know you well I should verily think the Saint you speake of had inspired you And as by his prayers he gaines a jurisdiction over the fruitfulnesse of Princesses so by the same prayers he hath contributed assistance to
tyrant shee might perhaps be some amusment to him when he were cloyed with killing of men but withall shee might be sure to be the next object of his crueltie at the next fit of his wicked humour You know the Story of Mariamne our Theaters at this day sound forth nothing so much as the cryes of this poore Princesse he that puts her to death loved her above measure and after her death kneeled downe a thousand times before her image praying her to forgive him Poppea was first the Mistris afterwards the wife and alwayes the Governesse of Nero she had vanquished this Monster and made him tame yet at last he slipt from her and in an instant of his choler gave her a kicke upon the belly which was her death His unkle Caius dealt not so roughly with Caesonia yet in the greatest heat of his fire he made love to her in these termes This fayre bead shall be chopt off as soone as I but speak the word and told her sometimes that he had a great minde to put her on the racke to make her tell him why he loved her so much The meaning Madam of all this is that the tamest of all Tygers is a cruell Beast and that it is a most dangerous thing to be wooed with talons I have seene the Booke you writ to me of and find it not unpleasing particularly where speaking of the makers of Pasquius and of satyricall Poets he sayth that besides the golden age the age of silver of brasse and of iron so famous and so much talkt of in their Fables there is yet behinde to come an age of wood of which the ancient Poets never dreamt and in the miseries and calamities whereof they themselves shall have a greater part than any other If I goe abroad to morrow I hope to have the honour to see you In the meane time that I may observe good manners and not be wanting in formalities I will say I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 16. Aug. 1626. To LETTER XLV MY Lord besides the thankes I owe you for my self I have a speciall charge from Madam de to thanke you from her and to give you a testimonie of your Coachmans skill He is in truth a great man in his profession one might well trust him and sleepe from hence to Paris He glides by the brink of Praecipices and passeth broken bridges with an admirable dexteritie say what you can of his manners otherwise Pardon mee my Lord if I maintaine that they be no vices and that you doe him great wrong to reproach him with them in your Letter He doth that by designe which you thinke he doth by inclination and because he had heard that a man once overthrew the Commonwealth when he was sober he thinkes that to drinke well is no ill qualitie to well governing He takes otherwise no care for going astray seeing he hath a God for his guide and a God that was returned from the Indies before Alexander was come into the world After so long a voyage one may well trust Father Denys with a short walke and he that hath yoked Tygers may well be allowed to guyde horses Your Coach-man my Lord hath studied thus farre and if they who hold in their hands the reynes of the State to use the phrase of had beene as intelligent and dextrous as he they would have run their race with a better fortune and our age should not have seene the fall of the Duke of nor of the Earle of it is written to me from the Court that These are onely Newes I received by the last Post but I send you in their companie the Booke you desired which is as you know the Booke of the wickednesse of the world and the ancient originall of all the moderne subtilities The first Christians endeavoured to suppresse it and called it Mendaciorum Loquacissimum but men at this day make it their Oracle and their Gospell and seeke in it rather for Sejanus and Tigilinus to corrupt their innocency than for Corbulo or Thrasea to instruct them to vertue at our next meeting wee shall talke more hereof The great Personage I have praysed stands in doubt that his Encomium is at an end and presseth me to conclude that I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 4. June 1634. To LETTER XLVI SIR I am sorry to heare of the continuance of your maladie though I hope it be not so great as you make it These are fruits of this unseasonable time and I doubt not but your Fleame which overflowes with the rivers will also with the fall of the rivers returne againe to its naturall bounds I have had my part in this inundation and it would be no small commoditie to me that things should stay in the state they now are in for by this means my house being made an Island I should be lesse troubled than now I am by people of the firme Land But seeing upon the abating of the waters depends the abating of your Rheume I am contented with all my heart they shall abate as above all things desiring your health yet withall I must tell you there is care to be used you must absteine from all moyst meates forbeare the good cheare of Paris and follow the advise of an ancient sage who counselled a man troubled with your disease to change the rayne into drowth You see how bold I am to send you my praescriptions I entreat you to follow them but not to imitate me for in this matter of Medicines I confesse my selfe a Pharisee I commend a Julippe to others but I drinke my selfe the sweetest Wines But to speake of something else I cannot imagine why Monsieur de should keepe me languishing so long and haveing made me stand waiting three moneths after his time appointed should now require a further prorogation and a longer delay For my part I verily beleeve he spake not in earnest when he made you this untoward answer and that it was rather for a tryall of your patience than for an exercise He hath the reputation of so honest and just a man that I can make no doubt of that he hath promised to Monsieur de and I am perswaded he accounts himselfe more streightly tyed by his word than by his bond Monsieur de beleeves that I have fingred my money a yeare since and you know it is a summe provided to stoppe three or foure of my Persecutours mouthes who will never leave vexing you with their clamours day and night till they be satisfied It is therefore your part to use all meanes possible to content them at least if you love your libertie and take not a pleasure to be every morning saluted with extreame unpleasing good morrowes I expect hereupon to heare from you and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 17. Jan. 1630. To LETTER XLVII SIR you ate too just to desire such duties from a sicke friend as you would exact from one that were in
to be the true owners of things of which indeed we are but usurpers there is nothing secure against wrangling every thing is matter of suit in this wretched world yet I mean not so easily to yeild and give up my right for if I were nor able to write according to the rules of Art I must certainely be one of the most dull capacity and altogether uncapable of all discipline For did I learn nothing by seeing the Cardinall Perron Nothing by being a Scholler in the French tongue under Mr. Nicholas Geoffeâ—ean Nothing by a thousand conferences with the good man Malherbe And lastly Nothing by lodging with Father Baudoin Vel in bicipiti somniâsse Parnasso For one is as much as the other as you know well This man in truth is no ordinary Father his conceptions and productions are without intermission he fills our studies with his books he amends reforms embellishes the books of others he smells a Barbarisme or an incongruity seven miles off he hath counted by tale all the improprieties that are in he is admirable in knowledge and use of all particles and I am sure he loves me not so little to hide any secret or mystery of all his knowledge from me I intreat you to kisse his hands for me and to believe that I am most truly Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Aug. 1630. Another to him LETTER XLVIII SIR three dayes since I imparted my melancholy and my unquietnesse unto you and how much I was moved at the cruelty of I have since received your Letter of the ninth of this present which doth not indeed take all my paine from me because it declares not what is done against me but yet asswageth it a little because it declares that nothing is done against me that is deadly However I must put on a resolution for all events and comfort my self with Philosophy and with you you that are my true and faithfull friend and that stand between me and all the stones my enemies throw at me Your affection is no small help to me in these troublesome encounters and the tendernesse you shew to have of me bindes me in a very sensible obligation to you Concerning the ill will of it can do me no great hurt and pardon me if I do not think my honour is ingaged to make so bloody a warre upon him as you would have me The lesse shew is made of resenting petty injuries the better and the more readily they are repelled if I should think upon answering him I should but make a comment upon his gibâ—ish for them that understand him not and thereby bring his folly into the more credit and request When time and place servâ—s we will handle him as he deserves and doubt not but his lightness shall light heavily upon him onely doe you collect some common places upon this matter and remember your selfe of all that hath passed between to the end the History may not be lost I have had speech with the man whose whole life is nothing but a continuall meditation of death I never found him so austere nor so great an enemy of bravery as now his devotion respects neither right of nations nor lawes of civility I have not been able to get him to write to that person that loves him so dearly and complaines to you so often about it All the Answer he returnes to his long Letters are but these three words of the Gospel Noli amplius peccare which in sweeter and more courtly termes is as much as to say Lites heures au lieu de lire ses poulets Desile tes coliers faits-en des chapelets c. I received the other day a most elegant and gentle Letter from one Mounsieur Ytterius a Lawyer of Antwerpe but I know not by what meanes it came to my hands nor by what direction to return an answer Pray enquire after him and let our friends know that in spight of the Maâ—quesse of Aytona I have adherents in Flanders and therefore he neede not make his bragges for having burnt my booke at Brux â—s Scilicet illo igne vocem omnium Gentium libertatem Europae conscientiam generis humani abolere arbitrabatur By the next Post I will write to Monsieur Hottoman and will give Monsieur de la Pigeonnerio thanks for the verses you had of him to send me We have read them here in good company both of Males and Females and they all agree that the Fathers my adversaries are none of those Christian Ulysses's he speaks of that have nailed their Passions to the Crosse of Christ I forgot to ask you of Monsieur Seton and to desire you to call to him for the papers he promised me I regard him as one of the great Doctours of our age and make use of the riches of his spirit with so great privacy that he seems to be but as it were my Treasurer I know not how to make an end nor yet am willing to say more because I must reserve something for Monday next I therefore take my leave assuring you there is none more truly than I Sir Your c. At Balzac 7. Jan. 1631. To Monsieur Girrard Officiall of the Church of Angoulesme LETTER XLIX SIR I make use of you with the like liberty as I desire you would make use of me if therefore you have any spare time you may allow it to the affaires of but so as you allow it to mine first and that you make a difference between friendship and courtesie I doubt not but you will give your best advice to the Gentleman that is recommended to you and will set forward the best you can the design we have to make him one day an honest man I find the Booke more neatly and more correctly printed than I could have imagined and I would tell you that you are an able Grammarian but that I feare your Divinity would be angry for giving you so small a praise and so much vilified by the Messieurs or Masters The two Latin Tracts you sent me are as different of stile as they are of matter Any man that can but relish the antient purity will take the first of them for the work of some Roman that lived in the times of the republick but the other can be but the writing of some Gaule or Spaniard that came to declaim at Rome in the reign of the sixth or seventh Emperour One meets at the beginning with something that dazles and makes a faire shew of some great good to follow but at the bottome there is no such matter to be seen nothing but swelling and obscurity oftentimes false traines and eveâ—y where brags and bravadoes that are not tolerable It is a pleasure as I am told to heare this famous Author talk of himself he thinks his Pen as much worth as the King of Sweden's Sword and no less fatall to States and Princes He saith it is he that bestowes glory or dishonour makes men famous or infamous
doe not know whether this be either the cowardize of the age or the impatience of the Naetion or the fear of poverty and famine presented to their imagination or to speak more favourably of the present occasions a Christian tendernesse and common sense of humanity so vehemently doth all the world desire peace that I think Heaven cannot send a better Present to the Earth I think that should be imployed upon such a pious occasion and chosen one of the Agents for Coloigne If he would bring us that excellent Donative of Heaven he deserved to enter the Academy in triumph and that Monsieur the President should make the speech himself For my part I should receive him after such a Negotiation with more respect then if he came from commanding an Army And to tell you the truth the pacifick Angels doe please me farre better then the destroying Angels Think it not strange Sir that the desire of glory is not the passion of Villagers and that dreaming sometimes of the Crabbats I pitch upon the same though with the Poet Impius haec tam culta novalia Miles habebit Barbarus has segetes These are thoughts which are bred in my rural walke and which spring from lownesse of spirit into which I am apt to fall as soon as I have lost the sight of you Therefore be pleased to take the pains to fortifie me from time to time and to send me some preservatives against the bad news which flie about These would help to entertain good thoughts while we expect the conclusion of the Treatie and make my Neighbours know that a man cannot be ill inform'd that maintains intelligence with you and make them believe that I am indeed what I professe my self to be which is Sir Your c. Balzac 17. Octob. 1616. To my Lord the Earl of Excester LET. V. MY Lord having not enjoyed my health or as least having had no leisure at all since the time that your Letter was delivered me I could not any sooner render you thanks for the testimonies of your esteem and affection which you vouchsafed me therein I will not any way seem to suspect or doubt of a news that makes for me and I doe readily believe that my works that were sent you from the Queen your Mistresse have been your welcome home among your friends But herein I doe acknowledge their good fortune far beyond my deserts and the Influences that descend from the Court beyond all the favors they can receive from a Countrie Village Those hands so great and powerful that gave you this small Present do ennoble whatsoever they touch and are able to effect rarer transmutations than those which Alchymy boasts of with their mark a trivial Fable may passe for Authentick History and the Nether-Britton should surpasse the native Frenchman I have therefore my Lord no thought of deserving that Elogie which I owe to so illustrious a circumstance nor do I mean to glorie in the travails which my Book as you inform me hath made beyond the Rhine Your name being one of its principal Ornaments is that to which I must owe my frame in those Climates and it was upon your recommendation and credit that all the Courts in the North and some of their Schools too have entertain'd my Books I do here solemnlie promise you never to abuse this favor at leastwise never to write anie thing of your Iland that might give anie distast in the reading and that will not testifie particularlie of you that I am most intirelie My Lord Your c. Balzac Sept. 20. 1636. To my Lord the Duke de la Valette Governor and Lieutenant General for the King in Guyen LET. VI. My Lord I Do not mean to tempt your valor it were precipitate rashness to dare it yet I shall make bold to tell you that you have no lesse Art and dexteritie in conquering than in winning men and that in you that which intreats and perswades hath no lesse efficacie than that which commands and enforceth It doth nothing avail me to shun the world the better to enjoy my self in the desart Three words from your mouth make me lose all the freedom I enjoy there and I see my self surprized in that Sanctuary in which I thought to save my self I must confess my Lord that there is no such absolute independence over which you cannot claim some power that there is none so discontented and averse that you cannot allure or so wild and disorderlie that you cannot tame Since you have done me the honor as to write that you have sent me your heart I should betray verie tittle skill or judgement in rare and excellent things if I were not ravisht with such a present and if I did not esteem it above all that ambition can desire or Fortune bestowe It may be the hearts of Giants were more vast and lesse limited by reason but the hearts of the Heroes were not more noble or of any other elevation then yours is of and be that speaks of this speaks of a place hallowed and purged from all the vices of this age and where all the ancient Virtues have taken Sanctuary Loe here my Lord what gift you have sent after which I have nothing to wish for in this world which I have abandoned since this is the most pure and refin'd part of it in which goodness cohabits with power and greatness combines with love To which I must of necessitie stoop and yield and my heart were more vile than yours is generous if I were not My Lord Your c. Balzac Jan. 10. 1637. To Monsieur Drovet Doctor of Physick LET. VII SIR YOur sorrow is too accurate and studied to be true and an afflicted person that writes such brave things hath no great need of anie thing of mine to solace him I will therefore forbear a taske which I conceive to be so needless and will be contented to tell you that I know how to discover counterfet sorrows No man could act a Desperato better than you Panigarola made not such exclamations when he preacht that there will be signes in the Sun and in the Moon And it is a pleasure to see you write of the end of the world of the falling of the Starres and the final ruine of Nature and all this upon occasion of my Niâ—câ— laboring of a feaver This is to give Virgil the lie that calles your profession a dumb Science For indeed to finde so manie Ornaments and Tropes upon such a vulgar Theme could not be without having a Treasurie of words without teaching this Mute Rhetorick Yet me thinks you should husband manage this treasure more thriftilie have more care than you had of the modestie of a poor Maid Are you not afraid to make her fall into vain-glorie and marre all the pains of that good Father that guides her conscience if I did not furnish her with counter-poison you would infect her minde and cast her into a worse maladie
Masters of Antiquitie But the sport is to see you dispute and contend with them for their own victorie and to challenge them at the same carreeres and courses that they have gained their glorie by This kinde of imitation is more noble and hardie then invention it selfe and which you are verie capable to undertake How-ever if you shall stand in need of some aid I am readie to doe the Office of a Grammarian and to give you the literal interpretation of the Texts of such Authors which you meane to follow with a resolution to out-goe them I knew that herein I shall not betray any great care of their reputation nor do any good office to any of them But Sir there is nothing that I would not doe for you to whom I confesse infinite obligations and will be everlastinglie Sir A most humble c. Balzac 3. Sept. 1633. To Monsieur de St. Chartres LET. XI SIR The disorders of a crazie and ruinous bodie and the pains I suffer by it are the eternal hinderances of my devoir These also shall be if you please the ordinarie Apologies for my silence You may believe that I do not use to make great preparations for to treat with you in respect of the familiaritie we professe each to other and if I could have rendered you thanks sooner for your courtesies I would not have saved the expence of a few ragged lines so long a time I have received the Translation of your friend who doth me more honor then I can deserve I cannot sufficientlie acknowledge the pains that he was pleased to take for me being not ignorant how unpleasing a thing is Dependance I confesse that it is more than a probable argument of a mans love to submit himselfe to the fancie of a man that holds no superioritie over him This servitude is irksome and so heavie a yoak to good wits that they have seldom born it as they should and Victorius observes a number of passages of Aristotle which Ciceria did not understand in his translation And yet to understand an Author aright is not all things rendered in another language must retain the same degree of goodness if it be possible as was in the Original the strong must not be enfeebled not the well attired be devested or clad in raggs nor those that are well mounted be unhorsed and made to serve on foot Most Interpreters indeed deal with books in that manner and do violate the Lawes of sacred hospitality towards the persons of the noblest strangers that they meet with Commonlie they write French after the Latine mode and Latine after the French and I have seen more Authours stript and excoriated than Authours translated It is by your good favor that I am not of the number of those Martyrs but on the contrarie your friend hath done me many courtesies which I needed and furnisht me with a thousand Ornaments which I had not of mine own I am very much obliged unto him in this behalf and J owe you also much thanks for the regard you shewed to my Counsels preferring them before your first inclinations Accomplish Sir that which you have begun and let us see a Senatâ—r worthie the ancient Republick and the age of genuine and legitimate Romans In our time men do bear a great opinion of their eloquence and a certain Author whose name I have forgot talks of the purple of their language as well as of that of their gowns I doubt not but you will adorn them both with the one and the other livery And that you will make the driest thorns of their pettifogging Dialect look fresh and flourishing again if you will take the pains to dresse and manure them Monsieur Chaplain followes my counsel and thanks me in all his Letters for the friendship contracted between you Preserve Sir for me that good which I do for others and think me not unworthie of it since that I am with all my soul Sir Your c. Balzac 4. Nov. 1636. To Monsieur Baudoin LET. XII SIR I received the alarm of your sicknesse but your letter did soon settle and compose my mind if it be as you write but an attachment without grief I believe that I am not bound to keep much adoe in bemoaning you this necessarie rest and residence is good for something it doth at least priviledge a Philosopher from performing a thousand pettie Offices which do distract a Contemplative life and which a civil life doth seem to exact from him that hath the free use of his leggs So that in the state that you are in you do oblige the Publick in despight of you and doubt not but divers Nâ—tions do blesse your Gout that is the cause of your leasure since that indeed it doth not handle you rudelie and that J do as others reap much profit thereby I know not whether I ought to call it good or bad except my own interest should be more considerable then the libertie of my friend Hereupon I shall consult with my Moral Philosophy upon that part which treareth of Duties which you I am sure will not have called Offices You shall understand Sir in the mean while that I have received the second impression of my Letters and that my eyes are not so bad but that I could espie at the first glance that which they owe unto your care J should be uncivil not to say unknowing if J did not render you thanks for this favor and if that my Book having received better order and Oeconomy by your hands J did not confesse that it is you that did bestowe upon 't it s last graces We must confesse that you are an admirable Chymick to refine that with is grosse and drossie in my writings and that you are a great exterminator of our superfluous Characters But J should have been yet more deeplie ingaged unto you if that you had throughly plaid the Aristarchus and with that Hatchet which is so formidable to SSâ— which you deem unuseful you had hewn off my other faults as well as that of Orthography This shall be reserved for another time and for a work of greater consequence whereof you shall be the Judge upon condition Sir that you shew no pittie or favor in your censures and that my stile undergoe all the rigor of your lawes as long as my person be had in consideration and that J be still Balzac 25. Octob. 1636. Your c. To Monsieur de Coignet Gentleman in Ordinary to the most Illustrious Queen of great Brittain LET. XIII SIR J was much discontented that J parted from Paris without having the honor to bid you Adieu But it is verie difficult to live regularlie amidst such confusions and to be punctual in a time when all things are out of order I thought I had done much that I had not forgot my selfe being in the place where I was and that I did put six score leagues of Land between Me and John de Werth Being able to
cannot make attonemeat with my self But I am apt to believe that for the appeasing of my thoughts you will not run the hazard of your former benefits and that you will by your perseverance adde to my obligations Knowing this moreover that you are a right honest man I must necessarilie conclude that you are no Formalist or a man of Ceremonie and that you do not tie your self to those pettie observances and Rites which make the friendship of this age more perplext and difficult then sincere If Yours may be gain'd or merited by a true and perfect valuation of your worth I will not be an unfaithful Depositary beseeching you to believe that I am alreadie as much as anie man in the world Sir Your c. Balzac Feb. 20. 1636. To Monsieur de-Vaugelas Gentleman in Ordinary to Monsieur the Kings onely Brother LET. XVII SIR I did read my own thoughts in your Letter I subscribe unto all that you have writ unto me and confesse that in the Elogie of Monsieur Arnold the Abbat you do indeed but give your friend his due and lend him never a grain This is in truth a most accomplish't man and who at the age of 22 yeares was reputed wise even by the Italians that latelie thought wisdom was their own freehold He hath with his great knowledge mingled much goodnesse the sharpnesse of his understanding is tempered and allaied by the sweetnesse of his behaviour and his modestie doth represse and conceal much of his abilities He never pardons himself though he doth beare with all humane infirmities in others and that Pietie which he doth practise gives respect unto all but strikes a terror in none Loe Sir the testimonie which I add unto yours which I would bestow upon an enemie that deserv'd it but would not upon a friend that wanted merit His knowledge is attended on by other vertues and it hath furnisht him with excellent moralitie for without this it should be solitarie and of little use I tell you nothing of the late experiment I have found of it in your Letter which he wrote unto you besides that my best language would be far below my apprehension of it I know withall too well the power of his Rhetorick to contest with it since he hath got so manie advantages over me he must needs have that of civilitie and complements too and my silence must not be accounted anie more the effect of modestie but of the Eloquence of his Letter I send it you back because you would have it so and because you may make some use of it in your Cabinet but I shall reserve a Copy of it under your favor that it may afford some comfort and relief to my discontents I have seen the siege of Tyre the death of Darius the voyage of the Indians and I have read them with wonder All these seem to me so good French and so natural that it is impossible to pick out anie line there that doth savor of or shew anie affinitie with Latine or wherein the original Author hath anie advantage above the second What would you have more Sir or what sentence can you crave of me I have but one word to adde in commendation of your Travels The Alexander of Philip was invincible and that of Vaugelas is inimitable It is that to say no more that will deserve the affection of your incomparable Marchionesse and the fair Beavy or Troop that do often assemble at her house Monsieur calls Her a choice and resplendent Court and the great World refined and reformed and saith that there is no Tribunal so soveraign that we may not appeal from unto the Mansion of Rambouillet Since I cannot know what kind of work it is that my Stationer shall give you until this divine Romane Deme shall passe her censure upon it I dare not as yet declare my self for a Book which I must not acknowledge although I have composed it It sufficeth to tell you that I had an aim to speak French and to write some Letters which should not put Her to trouble of deciphering I did not heartilie desire that my Design might take effect and I should believe I had not gain'd a little by the commerce of manie years if what you shall present her with in my name may entertain her thoughts for a few howers the noblest labors of the understanding cannot aspire to a higher blisse than that Philosophy her selfe should betray too much presumption to think to take them up whollie and imploy them she cannot claim to be any more than her diversion and by-thought I shall be verie well contented Sir if I might serve for that purpose handsomlie and I should boast after this that I were though in my absence verie good companie That timorousnesse that did ever possesse me that I could not be so any other way and the fear of troubling the serenitie of another mans visage by the sullen clowdiness of mine have made me to refrain from all Feasts and Assemblies and hindered me from bringing heavie looks to those places which I esteem sacred and before those eyes which I do reverence So that it is a pure reverence in me that I abstain from acceptable and delightful conversation and from the pleasures of those Cabinets that appertain to them onlie that be happier than I. And I do chuse rather to adore a far off with awful regard then be importunatelie and saucilie familiar I leave it to you to excuse and justifie this timoriousnesse which proceeds from respect not from a Stoical ferocitie Add you will do me a favor if that while yon represent the best part of your friend you will take the pains to excuse the worst Whereunto I do earnestlie conjure you and to believe firmlie that I am Sir Your c. Balzac 26. Feb. 1636. To Monsieur dela Motte-Aigron LET. XVIII SIR The Indian Canes which you sent me were prettie but you have so embellisht them at Rothel that I doubt me they are not for my turn They are not made for a private mans use They are Emblems of soveraign command and a bolder Orator then I would render you thanks rather for your Scepters then your Canes By what name soever we call them they are the more precious to me because they came from You more then for anie other consideration and though you have not made me rich yet you have made me verie glorious It is a Maxime in Aristotle that Ambition is no more satisfied with benefits received then covetousnesse But me thinks he should have added when it receives from him from whom it desired to receive For all sorts of Benefactors do not far obliege those that are ambitious of the better sort onlie For my part I should believe that the Presents of Monsieur would pollute me and I would be as much asham'd of his favors as I glorie in yours In truth Sir I have quitted the Countrie and am come purposelie to the Town to shew them With them
thing that should not last and there is no accident that can menace and shake that friendship whereof vertue is the cause and you the Mediatrix I esteem that of this rare Personage as a treasure and I would be well pleased that he should know by your means that I admire the eloquence of his Degmatical and peaceable Divinity though I do not subscribe unto the Doctrine of his polemical writings I most humbly kisse your hand and remain Sir Your c. Balzac 16. Jan. 1637. To Monsieur De LET. XXXVII SIR Take pitty on a man that hath not the leasure to live that is alwayes busie and alwayes sickly whom a thousand griefs seize upon in his Chamber and a thousand persecutions throng upon from without Monsieur de knowes it well that I am no dissembler and will testifie unto you I assure my self that in the state that J am in I can but admire those letters to the which I should frame an answer I avow unto you Sir that it cost me some pains to decipher them But yet I do not complain of my travel which found most happy success I have discovered infinite rarities under the riddles of your Scribe and I did not mistake the graces though He had begrimmed them all over I send them back to you since it is your request and yet notwithstanding I cease not to detain them my memory is not so unfaithful but it preserves the better part of your fair compositions as well as of your excellent conversation It is certain that this gave me some gusts and appetites which I never had before you came hither I am not good Sir but by your goodness and if I have any degree of holy heat in me it is neither proper nor natural unto me I have it from your communication You are at this day one of those Authors whom I cite still with a grace and an Emphasis I do arm my self with your reasons against the enemies of truth and you are all my French Divinity What a harvest might be reapt think you of devour meditations and spiritual Treatises from lesse seed then are your Discourses and Letters A man might extract from them more sap and juice then from many Quaáragesimall Sermons of Spanish Postillers and were they but a little amplified they might serve for compleat Apologies of Christian Doctrine and solid refutations of unsound Philosophie Your acquaintance then is no small purchase and I owe you more thâ—n vulgar thanks for it But since you desire none other but my edification instead of minting fastidious complements for you I will labor to put your wholsome counsels to practise I will become a good man if I can that you may be celebrated in my works being not contented with words The curing of a disease doth sufficiently proclaim the soveraignty of the remedy and it is a far better way to magnifie your stile by performing actions of vertue which it doth propose as its end then to cry out Euge at every period There is no hopes to go beyond this Remember me if you please in your Sacrifices that is love me effectually after your way since I am after mine and that very sincerely Sir Your c. Balzac 30. Decemb. 1636. To Monsieur Girard Official of the Church of Angoulesme LET. XXXVIII SIR Your favor have exhausted my thanks I cannot chuse but acquaint you that I do repossesse my old pieces again and that your love is still ingenious in obliging those whom you affect I doubt not but that the courtesies that I have received from Monsieur de are the effects of your testimonies of me and I must ascribe all the contentment that I have received thereby to your preparation and induction There is no subject so vile and mean but gains price by your estimation You have found the trick or secret to make objects swell beyond their proportion ad infinitum and to stamp a man Illustrious though of a very abject condition I came to know him by the civilities of which are far different from the brevadoes of Are not these the most tyranical spirits in the world that should say that I could hinder that any Books should be written or published at a hundred leagues distance that is that I should maintain an Agent in all the Printing-houses of France that should prevent the publication of Antiphilarkes These Messieurs that have handled me in such a sort that fire and poyson would seem to an Italian too gentle tortures to revenge their crueltie are at this time offended for sooth that I should be furnished with so much as a Buckler and that I should be offered a Sanctuarie They demand a reason of me why a man whom I never knew should take compassion on Innocence opprest and could not endure the noise and insolence of their false triumphs which I should not do neither dear Friend if I would give vent and libertie to my grief and that nature suffered not in the suppression of so just complaint And yet I must continue to do her violence and deserve the approbation of Monsieur our Prelate I beg from you his good favors and desire you both to believe that I am affectionatelie Sir Your c. Balzac 20. March 1633. To the same LET. XXXIX Sir It is not your will that I sollicite but your Memory For amidst the presie of businesse of the whole Province which you do willinglie take the charge of mine happilie may slip out of your memorie without your fault The importance is to commence it with an opinion that it is feasible and with a resolution to carrie for if reason be urged timorouslie and if a man do not descend streight from generalities to particulars a thousand journies unto the will not be worth one and we should but take much pains to little purpose Monsieur de shall pardon me if I do not finde my selfe either hardlie or strong enough to undertake the work which he hath done me the honor to design me for and for such a taske a more peaceable and happy retreat and a more practis'd and expert quill then mine are requisite I have used my hand and minde to write but toyes and things unnecessarie For the future I purpose not to write any works of supererogation but what the Church prescribes and God doth reckon as meritorious I am extreamlie troubled at my Cousins mischance and the burning of his Study He cannot chuse but be verie sensible of this losse since it was the chiefest part of his wealth and thereby saâ— the Issues of his brain perish before his face without being able to redresse it This must be his comfort that he is young and laborious and that Fortune cannot ravish from him those true Gods which he is Master of The losse of a vessel is not valued if the Pilot be saved and Captains have been seen to triumph after the losse of many Armies Miser nudus Imperator invenit exercitum Our Advocate is
nourish my self with the spirit of Fruits and with a meat called jelly My Lord these are all the services I yield you in this place and all the functions of my residence near his holiness and I hold my self particularly obliged now the second time to thank you for this favour for by your means I injoy two things seldom suiting together a Master and Liberty and the great rest you allow me is not the least present you please out of your Nobleness to affoord me Your Graces most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC From Rome 15. of July 1621. To the Lord Cardinal de Valette from BALZAC LETTER V. My Lord WIthin the Deserts of Arabia nor in the Seas intrails was there ever so furious a Monster found as is the Sciatica And if Tyrants whose memories are hatefull unto us had been stored with such instruments for effecting their cruelties surely I think it had been the Sciatica the Martyres had indured for Religion and not the fire and biting of wilde beasts At every sting it carries a poor sick person even to the borders of the other World and causeth him sensible to touch the extremities of life And surely to support it long a greater remedy than Patience is no less than requisite and other forces than those of man In the end GOD hath sent me some ease after the receit of an infinite of remedies some whereof sharpned my grief and the rest asswaged it not But the violence of my pain being now past I begin to injoy such rest as weariness and weakness affoordeth to over-tired bodies And though I be in a state of health far less perfect than those who are found yet measuring it by the proximity of the misery I have indured and the comparison of those pains I have suffered I am right glad of my present Fortune nor am I so hardy to dare as yet complain of my great weakness remaining To speak truth I have no better legs than will serve to make a shew and should I undertake to walk the length of my Chamber my trouble would be no less than if I were to pass the Mountains and cross all Rivers I encounter But to the end to change Discourse and to let you see things in their fair shape you are to understand that in this plight wherein I stand being sufficient to cause you to pitty me four hundred leagues off I am on the one side become so valiant as not to fly though I were pursued by a whole Army and on the other so stately that if the Pope should come to visite me I would not conduct him so far as the Gates This is the advantage I draw from my bad legs and the remedies arising in my bed wherewith I indeavour to comfort my self without the help of Physicks You will I fear say I might well have forborn to entertain you with these impertinencies nor am I ignorant that perfect felicities such as yours desire not to be disquieted either by the complaints of the distressed or by the consideration of distastefull things But it is likewise true that the first loss we indure in pain falls upon our judgement and the body hath such a proximity with the Soul that the miseries of the one do easily slide into the other But what reason soever I have to defend my evil humour yet must it necessarily give way to your contentment and of the two passions wherewith I am assaulted obey the stronger I will therefore be no longer sad but for others and will hold it fit I make you laugh upon the subject of XXXXX to whom you lately addressed your Letters You may please to remember one of their names to be A. the other B yet it is not sufficient onely to know so much but I must likewise inform you somewhat of their shape and stature The first I speak of is so gross as I verily think he will instantly die of an Apoplexie and the other so little as I would swear that since he came into the World he never grew but at the hairs end afore any indifferent Judges an Ape would sooner pass for a man than this Pigmy nor will I believe he was made after the image of God left therein I should wrong so excellent a Nature Besides it were an easier task to raise the dead than to make this mans teeth white he hath a Nose at enmity with all others and against which there is no possible defence but Spanish Gloves What can I say more there is no part of his body that is not shamefull or wherein Nature hath not been defective Yet notwithstanding one of the fairest Princesses of Italie is by a solemn contract condemned to lodge night by night with this Monster When you chance to see this man together with the other great bellied beast who stuffs a whole Carroach you will presently suppose God never made them to be Princes and that it is not onely as much as to abuse the obedience of free persons but even to wrong the meanest Grooms to give them Masters of this stamp Now though the party you wot of do in some sort represent the latter person yet is there still some small difference between his actions and the others The great VVV is newly parted from this Court where he hath not received from his Holiness his expected contentment His design was to break the Marriage his Brother hath contracted upon some slight appearance of Sorcery wherewith he deemed to dazle the Worlds eye and ground the nullity of an action which was by so much the more free in that the parties who perform'd it sought not the consent of any to approve it In conclusion after the loss of much time and many words he is gone without obtaining any thing save onely the Popes benediction and as for me I remain much satisfied to see Justice so exact at Rome that they will not condemn the Devil himself wrongfully I have heard how in some places half hour Marriages are made the conditions whereof are neither digested into writing nor any memorie thereof reserved but of these secret mysteries there are no other witnesses save onely the Night and Silence And though the Court of Rome approveth them not yet doth she shut her eys fearing to see them I am resolved not to be long in the description of K.K.K. whom you know much better than my self Yet thus much I will say that since Neroes death there never appeared in Italie a Comedian of more honourable extraction And surely to make the Company at this present in France compleat his personage were sufficient He makes Verses he hath read Aristotle and understands Musick and in a word he hath all the excellent qualities unnecessary in a Prince I know here a German called S. to whom he giveth an annual pension of a thousand Crowns assigned unto him upon an Abbey during life this he hath done not that he intendeth to use his service in his counsel
or with purpose to imploy him in any important negotiation for the good of his affairs his onely ambition is to have him make a book whereby it might appear how those of M M M. are lineally descended from Julius Caesar I should be glad he would yet aim at some higher or more eminent race and that he would purchase a second fable at the like rate he payed for the first I would willingly give him his choice of the Medes Persians Greeks or Troians which of these he would have of his Kindred and without the relying upon the Authority of tradition or testimonie of Stories I would draw his descent from Hector or Achilles which he best liked There are certain Princes who are necessarily to be deceived if you mean to do them acceptable service being far better pleased to be entertained with a plausible lie than to be advertised of an important truth I hold my self right happy you are not of this humour for whatsoever I say I suppose it would be very hard for me to be of a fools minde though he were a Monarch I intend not to steal your favours but to purchase them legally and having ever believed flattery to be as mischievous a means to gain affection as charms and sorcery I cannot speak against my conscience and were not this true I tell you I would not assure you that I am Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC From Rome this 10. of December 1622. To the Lord Cardinal de Valette from BALZAC Letter VI. My Lord HOw great soever the subject of my sorrows be yet do I finde in your Letters sufficient to make me happy in my hard fortune The last I received hath so much obliged me that but for the displeasing news coming unto me which tempered my joy my reason had not been of sufficient force to moderate it But at this time the death of my poor Brother being incessantly before mine eys taketh from me the taste of all good tidings and the prosperity even of the Kings affairs seem displeasing unto me finding my self to bear upon me the mournings of his Victorie Yet since in this fatal agitation of Europe it is not I alone who bewail some loss and since your self have not been able to preserve all that was dear unto you I should seem very uncivil if I presumed to prefer my private interest before yours or reflect upon my particular affliction having one common with yours It is long since I have not measured either the felicities or fatalities of this World but by your contentments or discomforts and that I behold you as the whole workmanship God hath made Wherefore my Lord I willl lay aside whatsoever concerns my self to enter into your resentments and to tell you since you cannot make unworthy elections it must needs be that in death of your Friends you can suffer no small losses Notwithstanding as you transcend sublunary things and in that all men draw examples out of the meanest actions of your life I assure my self they have acknowledged upon this occasion that there is not any accident to surmount against which you have use of all your virtue Afflictions are the gifts of God though they be not of those we desire in our prayers and supposing you should not approve this proposition yet have you at all times so little regarded death as I cannot believe you will bewail any for being in a condition your self esteems not miserable My Lord it sufficeth you conserve the memory of those you have loved in consequence of the protestation you pleased to make unto me by your Letter And truly if the dead be any thing as none can doubt they cannot grieve for ought in this World wherein they still injoy your favours In the mean time I take this to my self and am most happy in having conferred my dutifull affections upon a man who setteth so high a value upon those things he hath lost For any thing my Lord I perceive there is small difference between good works and the services we offer you they having their rewards both in this life and the other your goodness being illimitable as is the desire I have to tell you I am Your most humble and most faithfull servant BALZAC From Rome the 29. of Decemb. 1621. To the Lord Bishop of Valette from BALZAC LETTER VII MY LORD THough I be not in state either to perform any great exploit upon the person of any man nor have any great force to defend my self yet cannot I touch upon the Count Mansfield without taking it to heart and joyning my good affections to the Kings forces If this were the first time the Germans had exceeded their limits and sent their Armies to be overthrown in France the novelty of these Barbarous faces and of those great lubberly swat-rutters might easily have affrighted us But upon the matter we have to do with known enemies and who will suffer us to take so sufficient advantages over them besides those we naturally injoy as without being forced to make use of Arms we may defeat them onely by their own evil conduct I do not wonder there are men who willingly forsake Frost and Snow to seek their living under a more pleasing and temperate climate than their own and who quit bad Countreys as being well assured the place of their banishment shall be more blissefull unto them than that of their birth Onely herein it vexeth me in the behalf of the Kings honour to see him constrained to finish the remainder of the Emperours victories upon a sort of beaten Souldiers and who rather fly the fury of Marques Spinola than follow us These great Bulwarks whose neighbour I am seeming rather the Fabricks of Gyants than the fortifications of a Garrison-Town will not ever be looked upon with amazement one day I hope there will appear nothing in their places but Cabbins for poor Fishermen or if it be requisite the works of Rebellion should still remain and the memory of these troublesome people indure yet longer we shall in the upshot see them remove Mountains and dive into the Earths foundations to provide themselves a Prison at their own charge But withall my Lord I beseech you let there be no further speech made of occasions or expeditions and let a Peace be concluded which may continue till the Worlds end let us leave the War to the Turk and King of Persia and cause I beseech you that we may lose the memorie of these miserable times wherein Fathers succeed their Children and wherein France is more the Countrey of Lans â—â—ghts and Swisses than ours Though Peace did not turn the very Desarrs into profitable dwellings as it doth or caused not the quarries or flints to become fruitfull though it came unaccompanied without being seconded with security and plenty yet were it necessary onely to refresh our forces thereby to enable us the longer to endure War As I was ending this last word I heard