removed from his heart But as youth is like soft wax that receives all forts of impressions and keeps not one so Philippin promises what one would have him being resolv'd not to maintain any thing that the apprehension of fear makes him say his love being far stronger then his fear When retired from his fathers sight like a Criminal from the Tribunal of his Judge it was then he blamed himself of weakness and want of courage and giving himself a thousand injurious names accusing his fearfulness and protesting a new loyalty and service to this Idol which swam in his fancy he rubbed his sore and invenomed his wound by this constraint disanuling all he had said in prejudice of his promise he renews his meetings and secret practises with Herman But being sold by his Lacquays in whom he trusted most who for hansel of their treachery put many of his letters and those of Isabels into the hands of Timoleon by which he understood that reciprocal promises had been given on both sides which made him enter into such an extream choler as he had never had the like sometime threatning to ruine Pyrrhe and all his house and then to be revenged on his son for this disobedience as also to publish the shame of Isabella Being transported to these extremities by his choler he calls his son the second time and after having reviled him with all the outragious speeches that could be imagined esteemed this relapse worse then his first fault This young Lyon having taken courage for the shame of his last flight like him which said of himself If I fled at the first encounter it was to return the second time to fight with more resolution setting aside those invective speeches of his father which his duty bound him to endure after some holy protestations of the honour and reverence which he would always give him he told him plainly and in a fashion of that height more then the spirit of Timoleon could endure that he would lose a thousand lives rather then to fail in the least point of his love that his honour was engaged by word and by writing and that his soul should never receive other impression but that of Isabella's the which was a Gentlewoman and of that birth as she could receive no reproach for her Nobility having no other wants but the goods of fortune esteeming rather to chuse a wife which had vertues and perfections in abundance then one with great wealth which should have nothing more unpleasing then herself and that this affection of his was led rather by reason then passion honour and marriage having been the end of his pretensions and if there Were any thing worthy reprehension it was his carriage not any thing in Isabella or Herman and for himself he was resolved never to leave their friendships for all the violence could be used on him chusing rather to suffer the extremity of cruelty and the worst of indignities which should be like flames to purifie his fidelity to the proof And as God lives answered Timoleon we will see whose head is best yours or mine How now Gallant what scarce born and are you at your defiance with me I 'll make thee as supple as glove and to bend to my will and break that stubborn will of yours though it cost me my life and goods and yours too I will teach you the duty of a son and the authority of a father said he And so turning from him he commanded to put Philippin in a chamber which served for a prison to the end to teach this young bird to sing another tune Philippin goes very joyfully contented to give a testimony of his firmness and constancie of his flames But that which put him in an extream agony was to hear that his father having searched his chamber and his secret Cabinet wherein were his sweetest tyes amongst a thousand Letters seised of the Promise of Isabella at which he made a trophie of mockery and laughter and would have made a sacrifice of it and of his choler to the fire For now as being transported what says he not against his father and his ill fortune and against heaven Truly those things which ought not to be repeated but throughly blamed Yet nevertheless comforting himself upon the word of his Mistress which he esteemed beyond all the writings in the world he resolves upon the common remedy of all the ills of the world Patience Not but that the wearisomness of a prison was extreamly sensible to this stirring spirit active and full of heat yet in this extream youth which is nothing but fire and life the tediousness is redoubled by being deprived of news which served at least in this his constraint of liberty to diminish his flame Before he hoped all and feared nothing now fears all and hath no hope But in the faith of the brother and sister He fears that those Letters should come to the hand of Pyrrhe and Valentine they would not take occasion to ease their childrens ill His thoughts are so troubled as when he rests in this prison he thinks he is invironed with a thousand thorns he suspects all which come near him as he had reason being made so many spies by Timoleon's means He wants wherewith to corrupt them this metal which changes courages fails him and his servants whom his father had made his dare not yield to pitty this young Lord. He thinks to entertain them with discourse yet seeing pitty dead in some and affection in others refused all to entertain himself with his own private thoughts the onely recreation that accompanied him which in stead of diverting him nourished his displeasures 'T is Musick which hath that property to make them merry which are content and those which are sad more melancholy He plays reasonable well on the Lute and sings well enough for a young Cavalier who was more given to violent exercises then to these sweet and peaceable One day for to expell the grief he felt in these words expressing Hopeless and helpless in my sad distress I sink my griefs admitting no redress Thus the imprisoned Philippin comforted himself the best it was possible But at last being not able to bear this weak and melancholy life nor having any with whom he might freely converse his thoughts giving way to the vehemencie of his desires he was constrained to yield himself to the mercy of a sickness which brought him so low as within a foot of his grave had it not been for his youth good temper and strong disposition with the help of the Physitians and good means applied he was even at the last point to lose his life and that most affected the sad father to see at point of death his onely son Knowing the cause which brought him to this pittifull estate he repented a thousand times the cruelties he had used an hundred times he promised him but with words far from the thoughts of heart to give him Isabel to wife
heat of passion in love was far from thought of sorrowing for the death of his father The more she thinks to comfort him the more he is displeased the more she courts him the more he seems to be importuned and although she strives as much as may be to cover with a false joy a true sadness yet could he not hinder but his face his actions and words betrayed him making it appear to those which had least of apprehension that there was I know not what in his thoughts which tormented him Elise sees this and is in an agony inconceivable She thought it was a wrong to her husband to esteem he had any ill opinion of her she is too innocent to find in herself any subject of discontentment that she had ever given him and there is nothing she thinks less on then the true cause of this alteration Jealousie of Isabel she had none for she believes that time hath healed Philippin of this old impression But in the end the many matches made for hunting made her plainly see they were not without design and the other visits to Vaupre made her to know the fire by the smoak the beast by the foot but so late that the evil was almost without remedy On the other side Philippin was in extreme agonies for the way of the perverse is sowed with a thousand thorns All seemed contrary to his desires The cunning Isabel which saw she had returned him into her net and that she held him in her goal by means as full of subtilty as Elise was full of simple innocence who made as if she saw not that which she did but too well perceive Isabel seems not to take notice of that which doth clearly appear and by her flying and fained retiredness adds desire in Philippin to see her Industrious Galatee that drawest in flying and hidest in shewing thy self For coming to Bellerive to visit Elise and then he seeing her at Vaupre it was always in the presence of his wife or of her father or brother that he spake to her which was an extreme torment to this passionate This damosel full of vanity took pride tormenting him without giving him any hope to quench the least spark of this great fire in his breast Judge but the craft of this creature Here is a Tantalus dead with drougth in midst of waters and like the Page of Alexander he is constrained in silence to burn It serves him not to speak with Eyes language which she hath heretofore well understood now fains not to understand by a deafness as great and greater then that by which she is beloved The good of Philippin is his hurt For this liberty to see that which he desired redoubled his passion and makes him perish with a death and languishing grief by the object which is the cause All his study is to make known to this malitious creature the renewing of his antient flames but that in such a fashion that neither Elise Pyrrhe nor Harman understood any thing yet all see clearly like Eagles The jealousie of a wife is not to be feared The valour of Pyrrhe and Harman are not unknown to him although his Vassals they are noble and Gentlemen full of honour and that rather then abate the least point would lose a thousand lives Oh how true it is that evil men travel by ways stubled and full of stops and difficulties and attain much weariness in the end of their iniquities If once his courtings be but perceived by so many eyes as watch him all is lost there will be nothing but tempests within and shipwrack without If he but consider the end of his unjust pretension it is but an assured loss of his reputation and may be of his life For if Elise perceive it once farewell friendship and peace but that is the least he thinks of If either her father or brother should suspect any thing there 's no more frequenting nor visits no more duty nor acknowledgment A quarrel that would set all the Gentlemen upon him thereabouts and make him odious to Scevole and to all that knew the rare vertues of his wife And to revenge himself there is no hope He is too far in the business his passion holds his foot at his throat he is fallen and lost he is altogether undone To dissemble his ill he cannot any longer he cannot without death and to dye without daring to complain or make known who is the cause he cannot resolve Here is our Ixion on the wheel It is most true that a disordered spirit is his own hangman he gets much by ruling his actions and motions He loses his countenance at the aspect of the Basilisco whose sight kills him This moving he cannot hinder betrays He speaks to her enough but not enough as much as becomes him but not enough for 't is not that he would or cannot or dares not manifest to her She seeâ— him nevertheless and seems ignorant Learn the cunning of women by this same So that our passionate Philippin dies of a sickness obscure and hidden in midst of all these commodities and remedies that opportunity seems to present him In the end the imposthume grows That which he cannot intreat for with his tongue he borrows with his pen being an interpreter of his thoughts which cannot blush That makes known to the artificious Amazon what she knew already but as she loved her honour and was jealous of her reputation she struck against the rock of a chaste resolution these first points making all these considerations recoil before the impenitrable buckler of a holy cruelty The glory of having captived so great a courage left not to flatter her seconded with pride of a secret joy that she had in her hands the means to be revenged of Philippin for the wrong she thought he had done her in leaving her for one of meaner beauty And as there needs to infernal Archimedes but one point out of the earth for to raise all the earth it was by this large gate of vengeance that he convey'd into the soul of this maiden the Trojan horse the funeral-torch that put all her reputation in ashes What dost thou Isabel in stead of sending back his Pacquets thou receivest and concealest them without giving any notice to thy father or brother Ha! this is not the course of a wise Maiden which like the Mother of Pearl ought not to open but to receive the dew of heaven nor to receive other courtings but those of a legitimate marriage with the permission of her parents You will hide serpents in your breast and then complain you are stung very ill you let in the thieves and then complain of being robbed you put in fire and then are astonished if it burn you Where is your wisdom Isabella I well perceive you are of that unfortunate band that are not wise but in doing ill whilst you are parlied with you intend to yield you betray your self in capitulating with a Traitor
first and before her father she strongly dissembled the grief which pinched her very heart shewing so constant in apparence that you would have said this action of Philippin's was in different to her But when she was retired into her private Cabinet and this retreat without testimonies gave her liberty to recall her passion saying those words and using those actions which she ought neither to have done nor said if she had had but any reason left there wanted not much that her soul had not stollen from her in her abundance of tears and that the sobs and sighs had not stopped her breath I will not with a lazie pen fill the pages of this book with reciting the inutility of her complaints we must leave them to the divining of those souls outraged by feeling the like disgrace How many different projects rolled in her thoughts Sometime she would in a sute of her brothers go find out this perfidious Lord to grapple with him like a Fury revengetrix and to cover him with reproaches of his weakness and inconstancie But as she was of a great spirit the consideration of her honour held her within the bounds of modesty knowing well that such a habit would wrap her in an everlasting infamy But then shall she dye an obscure death not only deprived of enjoying her legitimate pretensions but also of revenge I assure you that between these two extremities her understanding was thrown into strange convulsions In this outrage she became invironed with so strong a melancholy that she would neither see any nor be seen of any if she could have separated herself from herself she would willingly have done it So she fell into a profound slumber forced by a thousand griefs nor thinking of ought but of displeasures which continually pelled her patience Sad specters did her soul affright With the black horrors of the night Which through the casements of her eyes Diffus'd a thousand jealousies So that the light being gone her sense did fail Hope did expire and her fear prevail A thousand thoughts of things transacted Of promises broke and kept distracted Her spirits so perplex'd with grief Th'admitted not the least relief Which like the 'larum of a Watch did keep Her mind in motion and debarr'd her sleep These crimes which from the horror of a black And clouded conscience all the senses rack Transcend those tortures which poor miscreants feel In setters chain'd or broken on the wheel Since crimes increase and make affliction higher Like heaped fewel on a flaming fire Frighted with dismal dreams she passeth ore The solitary night and doth deplore Her pitteous state so that her poor heart lyes Floting half-drown'd i' th' deluge of her eyes The sum of all her joyes being but to think Those joyes are shipwrack't and her soul must sink Thus the unfortunate Amazon tormenting herself without comfort nothing pleases her being so displeased with herself Nights are tedious to her having lost her accustomed repose and Day as unwelcome because it makes her see too cleerly her disaster This is not that Atalanta that destroyed by her valour the number of Bores in this our Thessaly The horror of the woods which heretofore were so pleasing while the eye of day looked favourably on her is now become most fearfull She troubles no more the dark solitary Forrests the assemblies of hunting are no more lightned with this star and that which most of all displeases is that every one spends their judgments and makes discourses according to their fancies of this her change of life and humour She hates the publike light but silence loves And lonely shades of solitary groves Her parents which knew the cause of grief yet having no remedy were much affected Valentine principally which saw the flowers fade in the face of this Virgin whom she loved so dearly was excessively tormented cursing the hour that ever she knew Philippin But Pyrrhe and Harman who knew that this strange manner of life gave occasion of talk to many men are touched with a more lively feeling Poor men if the thorns prick you being scarce shot forth how will you endure them when they become more hard and less corrigible she will be cause of your loss of life and honour But let us leave her desolate in her melancholy to see what is done in the City touching the marriage of Philippin There he is imbarqued by the commandment of his father in the research of Elise But how can we call it a research which is already agreed on by their friends Timoleon is agreed with Scevole who offers him a blank promising such a dowry as should quite disengage his house making his daughter his universal heir and putting her in possession of more then he could imagine Oraculons I dol who doth not adore Thy shrine and reverence the refulgent Oar He that said Liberty is a blessing he would not sell for all the good in the world is deceived in more then the half of the just price because in the world there are as many and more chains of gold then of iron For is it not gold which makes the servitude of idols against which the Apostle cries so loud Philippin goes to make experience who marries more to satisfie the covetous eyes of his father then for his own desires marries rather coffers and wealth then the person of a woman nor doth he go to this alliance but with one wing being there is nothing more displeasing then an affection ordained for interest and good of others Will being of a quality so free that commanded it is to put it in a swound Harsh law of that Authority which restrains And binds our dearest Liberty in chains What can we not defend our selves but must Submit to Tyrant-Duty though unjust 'T is sad yet teaches that we should obay Where Rigor and Severity bear sway So Timoleon judged it would very hard to draw such lively flames as the first by the beauty of this second makes Philippin take Elise as a sick man doth a medicine and as Laban gave Leah to Jacob without almost seeing her Not that she was unworthy to be considered not being so unpleasing but she might deserve the love of any but truly how she could be loved with the love of friendship I will not say but very hardly by that of love by a heart already enjoyed as was this of our young Courtiers He nevertheless sees her more satisfied with her vertue then amorous of her person and entertains her like a man whose affection is rather in his looks then in his heart It is a simple thing to make love by commandment in the end he enters like a fish into a net even as forced not having any will that the beginning should tie a knot of necessity which could not be broken but with the sharpness of death and with all the repentings in the world could not be dissolved during life for it is not in humane power to disjoyn those which the
this first as more ingenious and less infamous Who hath ravished the peace I felt in this sweet languishing for to draw me an innocent offering to the war of a sacrifice as bloody as unjust O Elise must thou be the scandal of thy blood the dishonour of ancestors What is become of thy pomps thy greatness and honours O my dearest Philippin was it not enough that I lost thee without seeing my self not only accused as the cause of thy loss but condemned as guilty of thy death Ha cruel Andronico that the honest respects thou hast heretofore offered me are become now hurtfull and that thy conversation heretofore so sweet is changed into cruel bitterness O how dearly do I pay the interest of my simplicity and inconsideration Ah barbarous thou knowest well the contrary of thy accusation But thou wast not satisfied with the life of the husband if thou dost not quench thy enraged thirst with the blood of his wife Yet if thou hadst done to me as to my husband thou mightst make me lose my life without tearing mine honour from me but thou must needs add this to the measure of thy insatiable cruelty Ah Judges why can you not see into my innocence One day but it will be too late the just heavens that see the outrage your injustice doth to me breaking the vail of a false accusation will let you see it and then you will render to my ashes the honour that you now ravish from me We would pursue further the end of these complaints yet more pitttifull then they can be imagined if we did not fear to beget pitty in these dungeons where inflexible cruelty makes its eternal residence The presence of a Dominican for the religious of this order as they are in great esteem every where so principally in this City where this sad adventure hapned tempering by his words the extreme grief of her who complains thus without comfort brought her in small time to acknowledge that this disaster was not hapned to her without some secret providence of God which could not turn but to her greater good so that she did not take that on the left which should be on the right nor seized not the brand there where it burned most Good Father quoth she it is not death that I fear knowing that is the end of all humane miseries On the contrary I have desired it heretofore with no less impatience against the outrages of my ill fortunes and if the laws of God did not forbid to have recourse to a voluntary trespass I should have fled it it as to a safe port But that this death makes me run a double infamy crimes of which I am accused although I be exempt both of the one and the other stain This is it that makes my griefs unconsolable and hinders me to frame in my soul a good resolution And that which is hardest to me is that the shame of this stain reflects on so many persons of quality to whom I have the honour to appertain in this place For to speak truth the grief of the death of my body is nothing comparable with this bitterness that assails at once all my understanding Madam replied the religious man If it be the cause that makes the martyr and not the pain if you are innocent of that that is imposed on you you ought not to fear the loss of your honour nor any shame for he that draws light from darkness knows well a time that his providence hath determined to make known your justification to those very same that have condemned you The disciples of an antient Philosopher grieving to see him condemned innocently Alas my friends said he would you have me die guilty That which you esteem a high point of desolation ought to be according to my judgment the strength of your consolation If you but cast your eyes upon the Example of Christians the Saviour crucified is there anything comparable to Innocence that defies all the most mortal enemies to reprehend it with any fault And can there be any grief equal to his suffering What his adversaries had procured to obscure his glory proves the height of his greatness and the gibber of the Cross before so ignominious is now the most precious ornament of crowns and diadems The judgment of men should not trouble you it is God that judges you and them and their judgments too They are ordinarily false in their ballances but the time will come that the hidden secrets of the dark shall be revealed and the thoughts of all hearts manifested and then every one shall be praised or blamed according as they have truly deserved Mean while Madam imploy this little time that remains to you of life not in inutile complaints for the cutting off your days not in protesting your innocence nor in exclaiming against your ill fortune nor in reprehending the sincerity of your Judges that have condemned you according to their laws that make the rule of their consciences since the Lord before whose tribunal you are going to appear will that we be at peace and accord with our enemies whilst we are in the way of this life otherwise he will not be pleased with the sacrifice you go to offer him of your heart and body Take heed you harden not your heart to day when you hear the voice of the heavenly Bridegroom that knocks at your ears by my tongue for it is written that those that have their hearts hardned will make an ill end This discourse was preferred with so much devotion by this good Friar whom we give the name of Symphorian that the courage of Elise strengthened on the one part against the assaults of death and ignominie was also sweetned on the other towards Andronico ready to pardon him her death without considering that she was more cause of the loss of this Gentlemans life then he had been of hers After having discharged her conscience in the ears of this good Father and protested before God and that tribunal of penitence where it is a fault inexpiable to lye unto the Holy Ghost that she was not any way consenting to the murder of Philippin yet nevertheless adores the will of God to whom she submitted herself with all her heart as to the rule of all justice She embraces the cross of him that would die on the tree dishonorably for her salvation The whilst Elise is thus disposing herself Andronico is brought to the same point of resignation and reconciliation by a venerable Priest whom we will name Cyrille who having seen that this Patient drew no other consolation of his death but the pleasure to be revenged of his enemy after having plucked from his heart this malicious humour with which if he should have dyed it had endangered his loss eternally Why but Father do I ill to rejoyce to see that this unworthy Elise is fallen into the pit she had prepared for me and that herself is brought into the precipice where
since that the vail of absence is altogether necessary to a Father that knows his daughter is sacrificed innocently I say innocently Sir and in this word I beseech you to take part of the only consolation that accompanies me in the loss of my life It is now time to speak truth or never seeing I am going before the tribunal of him that will condemn all those that prefer falshood before truth and who will not acknowledge for legitimate children those that do not fix their eys upon the light of truth God under whose providence run all the moments of this mortal life permitting that at this present my innocence shall appear guilty yet will make known in another season this imaginary guilt to be apparently innocent And I conjure you by the agonies of any death to prolong your life untill that happy time by which the honor of your house that appears now to suffer some stain shall flourish more then ever I must confess that after the death of my husband from whence all my calamities have drawn their original nothing hath so much afflicted me as the pain I have seen you suffer for my occasion For since death had made me widow of the most noble Alliance I could have hoped for in the world I intended to have died to the world and to all the pomps thereof and to have confin'd my self to a Cloister there to have ended my dayes But since it hath pleased the divine wisdom to dispose otherwise be it that I live or die so I appertain to him for ever I pass not be it for ignominie or for reputation so I attain unto the celestial glory it is indifferent to me I believe now that Andronico is innocent of the crime which I accused him of more by suspition then any firm ground I had and it may be God permitted I should be wrapped in the same condemnation to punish my disloyalty thaâ— broke the right of a friendship as holy as it was vertuous for I desire not heaven to pardon me if even there passed between us other but that was worthy and honest or if in the writing that my facility drew from my hand I ever thought to prejudice Philippin in his honour or life The secret judgments of God are marvellous which sounds the depths of all secrets and by the greatness and majesty of him you will know in the end how the murder was done for God is too just to let this deed go unpunished For my self I repent me to have accused Andronico of whom I beseech you to love the memory as mine own and not to bear any hatred against his parents I am as much and more cause of his death then he of mine We have demanded pardon one of the other and pray all the world to pardon us We remit our honour as out lives into the hands of God sacrificing both to his greatest glory I beseech you Sir to implore his misericordia on our souls by your prayers and to â—ake care of little Dalimene since blood and nature require it of your fatherly goodness Farewel my dear Father Oh refuse not your holy benediction to this miserable creature that demands it at the last minute of her death being she is innocent of the cause of her condemnation which for the love of God she goes freely to suffer With the same hand and heart she drew these other lines for Sophie MADAM MUst my deplorable misfortunes bring death into the breast of her that gave me life Must I like a Viper open the bosom of her that gave me my being And must fortune insatiable of my miseries direct the stroke of my trespasses on the body of her that is as innocent of my faults as I am of that which causes my death by a secret judgment of God which I adore although ignorant of Madam the sharp cutting sword that is to sever my head from my body and my body from my soul will not be so sensible to me as the feeling of the grief that hath laid you in your bed for the sorrow of my loss and shame The compassion I have of your heart is more incomparably grievous then the pains I am to suffer If I might die often to deliver you from the torments and pains wherein your own goodness throws you if I should measure the grief you have to lose me by the dear affections you have alwais shewed me I see nothing so extreme as your unconsolable displeasures For knowing how tenderly you have brought up this wretched creature and how highly you esteem your honour I know not how to express nor conceive with what air you can support the loss of both Just Heaven which permittest crimes and hindrest them if thou sufferest that I die without being able to justifie my self of these two false infamies Adultery and cruel murder of my husband at least yet Thou that declarest things that are most dark make for the consolation of my dear mother that from the midst of my ashes may arise the light of my innocence without suffering that truth should not only be detained prisoner by injustice but also stifled with falshood Madam I desire not you should take pitty of my suffering but to cast your eys on my innocence I have no other justification then my protestations which I make in a point where falshood trains after it an eternal ruine You will not be so cruel and severe to me as my Judges And although an Adulteress and a Murderer cannot be purged by oaths yet I think you have had so long knowledge of my soul by my carriage to believe me in this truth which I profess with a dying voice I die innocent of the crime that is imposed on me as God shall love and save me Live Madam even till that day that he makes it appear in evidence from the midst of the clouds that hinder this clearness I have no more to add but to demand your motherly blessing which I ask with joyned hands for the last favour from you and ask it by your intrails that bore me and by the mercies of that good God in whom I put all my hopes Farewell my dearest Mother And remember in your prayers this poor Elise that will have no period to her trespass of more sweet imagination then the memory of Sophie as of the best mother in the world Time with an insensible course advanced with great paces the hour of execution of this Innocencie guilty Our Lovers are brought to the place with as much joy and gladness as if it had been to their wedding When they appeared on the bloody Theatre they were beheld with many eyes yet very different For many had compassion of their miseries by a natural feeling that touches the hardest hearts Others had them in horror not so much for their faults for to sin is a thing humane but because they published so loud their innocence this displeased them like Bats to whom light is unpleasing
she had plunged my innocence To which this worthy Churchman answered That it was the work of a good and true Christian not to render evil for evil but good for evil by the example of him that being cursed cursed not again but being unjustly persecuted presented his cheâ—k to blows his face to be spit on and his body to the murderers without making more noise then a tender lamb whose throat is cut And that he must be more spaâ—ing of the time that was left him to acknowledge his faults That it was question of a minute whereon eternity did depend That it would be less judiciously done to losâ— a Kingdom that hath no end for a moment of ransom that it was better to swallow this draught of bitterness as a man of courage and not with cowardly fear and that it was the greatest of all baseness of the heart not to pardon an injury that revenge was the mark of a faint heart and effeminate a dangerous ulcer which invenomed his soul and made him bring forth a mortal canker Having now won thus much on the great courage of Andronico to pardon her his death that was the unjust cause of it it was easie for him to purge this soul which free noble and open of his own nature gives free passage to penitence which made an operation of a marvellous conversion a true change unto the right of God He confesses his sins with great compunction discovering all his heart with an extreme freedom adoring the hand of God laid heavy on his head and humbly kist the rod that chastised him to the end it might serve him for a rod of direction to bring him to the kingdom of God This worthy man pressed him hard to award this fault before that tribunal where falshood is a sacriledge and not lose himself in the way of Câ—in that denied the murder of his brother For as S. Peter said to Ananias one may easily deceive men by falshood but not God Yet still he firmly denies to have given any advice or had any design on the life of Philippin This at first aboard astonish'd Cyrille who carried by the vulgar opinion and violence of the conjecture doubts that an attempt so dishonest had hardened his heart by a foolish shame He gives him many examples on this subject But seeing on the one side his extreme earnestness in the accusation of the rest of his faults and a strong perseverance in the denial of the same he began to be perswaded he had not committed it Having then purged sufficiently his thoughts of his offence by a good absolution and having made him perform divers acts of contrition humility resignation and of renouncement of the world and submission to the will of God of patience hope faith and confidence in the goodness and mercies of God he raises him thus by little and little into the air of divine love Even as the heat of the fire loosens the flesh from the bones even so death that heretofore appeared so terrible to him seems now a sure and pleasing port where he may enjoy the eternity of peace which passes all understanding When these two hear to thus dissposed came to meet in the Chappel of the Prison whither these poor Patients were brought attending the hour of their suffering we must not marvel if their antient loves were renewed being they were not only prepared for pardon but also to charity which is no other thing but the â—ame dilection all cordial and sincere The Confessors after they had reconciled them to God reconciled them one unto the other with great facility For as the iron flies unto the loadstone as soon as the garlick is removed the presence of the diamond is taken away that gives it liberty to carry it self to that straw that draws it to it Even so those souls being delivered of the stinking garlick of hatred and the hard diamond of obstination were easily drawn to these acts of humility that without the assistance of grace one might rather desire then have hoped this condescension and to see their tears mingled whose blood must shortly be mingled upon a shamefull scaffold Here Elise confessed aloud that she had no other proof against Andronico for the death of Philippin but the common report and conjecture that the promise she had given in writing had brought him to that attempt to enjoy her in marriage There Andronico professed openly that as he had never so much as thought of that murder nor had ever been incited to it by Elise but only his despair had forced him to avouch this crime seeing he could not shun his punishment so by the same despair he had accused Elise to be guilty to make her perish for his revenge Some of the beholders esteemed these excuses as fained as they were most true And the Judges those inflexible Radamanthes mocked at these denials out of season The irrevocable sentence is pronounced by their mouths they have given it according to their consciences and conformable to the law Their ears are so accustomed to hear these excuses of offenders that they are to them as unnecessary songs for it is the custom of men to say they are innocent considering only their witnesses not their own consciences They imagine that this miserable pair being resolved to lose their lives intended to preserve some vain shadow of honour in saying they were innocent of so odious a crime but that being on the scaffold at the last hour of their death which is the rack of racks they would then declare all to the discharge of those that had judged and condemned them I will not here present the griefs of these two spirits being I think they cannot be comprehended nor express their complaints seeing their innocence was made guilty more by their inconsideration then by their malice Nor can describe their displeasure finding they were cause of one anothers loss You may judge that their griefs their complaints and displeasures were as pittifull as their affections were now sincere for in these extremities there is no more dissimulation no faining nor art and less colour it is no more but a plain simplicity Elise desires many times to take her last farewell of her parents But having heard that the news of her condemnation had caused her father to retire into the Country not being able to support the sight of so tragick a fortune of which there was no remedy And that the grief of this had given such an assault to the heart of Sohpie her mother that she was in bed sick unto death she obtains permission to write to them to make known unto them in these last words the feeling she had of their sorrows which was more incomparably then what she had of her own SIR I Complain not to see my self abandoned by you in an instant where the only hope consists in not expecting any I not only approve your retreat but should have counselled it if my advice had been demanded
it is tedious to them to stay in this place of assurance The whilst he thus goes temporising he was called to end his days in troublesom affairs as you shall hear After than Elise and Andronico more unfortunate then malicious had been punished for a fault they had not committed as the Psalmist says Paying with great extortion and rack-use What they ne'r truly borrowed with abuse Pyrrhe and Herman esteemed that the death of these innocents would be a satisfaction and covering to their fault lived though not with interior assurance for an ill conscience serves for a Judg and Hangman to it self yet at least with an exterior safety that promised them an apparent nonpunishment For they were not only exempt of the accusation of this matter but also of suspition to have attempted any thing against Philippin Pyrrhe repairs in part his honour by the ill usage wherewith he treated the miserable Isabel making it appear by it that her ill life had been extremely unpleasing to to him And this Maid being fallen from this high fate of prosperity where she had seen herself in the company of Philippin and now reduced to a prison in which besides the deprivation of liberty she experimented excessive cruelty not knowing where to find more patience to sustain the force of so cruel a persecution I will not fill these leaves with the multitude of her complaints with which she filled her dark cabbin that less deaf to her complaints then the ears of her father seemed to suffer at her pains by its eccho and â—ound And I believe if Pyrrhe had heard them he must have been of marble or have had pitty to have produced in the world a creature so miserably unfortunate But not content to stop his ears at her dolorous griefs and to the protestations she made to live better hereafter and to give him as much cause to love her in her repentance as she had given him to hate her for her dissolute life Nor would he that his eyes should see the pittifull estate she was reduced to for fear to have had some compassion on her An hundred times he had murdered her with his own hands if nature had not strongly resisted against such a crime and if the force of blood had not withstood so bloody a design But he believed that this perpetual imprisonment and the barbarous usage he exercised on this miserable Caitiff would in a short time deliver him of her whose life was as odious as her death desired And it may be God who hates hearts that are hardned and unpittifull already displeased with the murder of Philipin throws on the heads of Pyrrhe and Herman a judgment without mercy because they had been without mercy Although the Israelites among the Egyptians committed great sins and were carried to detestable idolatry for which the yoke of a cruel slavery fell on their heads yet in the midst of their wickedness calling on the mercy of God his eternal goodness hears their cryes and hasted to their deliverance Achab and Manasse were evil Princes but their prayers drawn from their hearts by the strength of their tribulations made incontinently their peace with God which inclined their aid It is true that Isabel cannot be excused in having stain'd the honour of her family by her ill carriage But it may be that being converted to God in midst of her fighs he heard favorably her complaints and resolved to pluck her from this chain to the end that being delivered from the hands of this tyrant she might give herself to his service in the quality of a Nun to serve in holiness and justice at the foot of his Altars even to the last hour of her life Now I desire that we should remark admire and adore this divine Conductor who brings her to this end by marvellous turnings and sweetness incomparable We have seen in the course of this history how Herman was induced by Pyrrhe to the murder of Philippin and how he was assisted by Roboald an antient servant of their house in this homicide and it was by this Roboald that love made traiâ—oâ— to himself that this crime is discovered which forgetfulness seemed to have wrapped up in a perpetual silence But how enters love into this heart it was by the gate of pitty false gate that deceivest ordinarily the most wise Pyrrhe discharges on him the keeping of Isabel O it is an ill charge for a man a fair Maid Yet in the beginning he executes with fidelity the commandment of his master which was To shut her up straitly to feed her poorly in brief to exercise on her all kind of cruelties But in the end the water of the tears of Isabel pursue this heart of stone and the Lover with the beauties of her face draws this breast of iron to a yielding condescension Such strength hath a pleasing form of which all the force is in the sweetness but as much loved as it is pleasing Beauty hath an ascendant power and invitable on the fiercest courages the most cruel Tygres may be tamed and made familiar by an amirable conversation Isabel in the beginning of her imprisonment by a high and arrogant humour contributed much to the ill usage that Roboald made her feel For there is nothing more odious and less insupportable to God and men then pride and cruelty But when experience Mistress of the least advised had taught her that as a bird taken in a snare the more it strives the more it fastens the knot and the more she desired to be free the stricter she was kept and that her despite drew on her a more severe punishment she begins to change her battery and to spin fine and to sow the skin of the Fox to that of the Lyon Her vain threats had served her to nothing it may be her smiles and the charms of her conversation would get her more advantage Of an angry and disdainfull she becomes plaintiff and a suppliant So that changing the fashion of her carriage she makes tender by little and little this savage courage that begins to use her with more sweetness from that to hearken to her then to behold her At last as a Man that cannot be always a Wolf to another Man but hath a secret advocate in his humanity that perswades him to mildness lets himself be taken by the ears and sees his heart ravished by the eyes For both pitty and beauty gave such assaults into the thoughts of Roboald that forgetting the faith he had sworne to his Master he esteems it would be impiety to obey him any longer in so savage and unnatural a commission to the prejudice of so many graces that appeared in the face of this fair Prisoner And certainly the advantages that affections of Love have of those of Friendship are such that those that are touched with the one make more difficulty to prejudice the other even till their faults seem not only pardonable but commendable and rather worthy of glory
At which name this poor dying man seem'd to enjoy new life of such strength is the empire of Love in the most violent pangs of death His soul took strength at this feeble hope to encourage his body and by little and little the hopes of life came again but yet so leisurely he recovered as rather languishing then living they knew not what to do to restore him Timoleon having many houses had him conveyed from one to another to try if the change of air would give him health but it comes as heavy as lead although his sickness came post certainly it is easie to descend says the Poet but very hard to get up The farther he went from Bellerive the worse he was because he was further off Vaupre where was the only remedy of his longings and the only air that could recover him The end of the first Book ELISE OR Innocencie guilty The Second Book NOt far from the Pyrene Mountains amongst many very pleasant habitations there is a little Hill that for the beauty and fertility of it the inhabitants call Gold-Mount Here Timoleon hath a Castle that hath two properties which lightly are not found together being both strong and fair invironed with a pleasant country and accommodated with all the delights one can desire in a Country-house He commands Philippin to be removed thither and accompanies him himself But by reason they separated him from the Center of his affections all these sweet delights of this pleasant Country were to him bitter and unpleasing they are constrained to bring him back again to Bellarive where when as he began by little and little to get strength helped by the hope he had not to be any more crossed in his love Timoleon having made Scipion tell him that now he thought no more of those promises which he had made him that he did it but to cozen his disease he fell suddenly into such a terrible frensie that whereas in his first sickness they thought only of the loss of his life this second they thought to take away his wits for this troubled him so strangely and produced such unformed actions and fearfull words as none had ever heard tell of the like raving Here is Timoleon more afflicted then ever and the Physitians much troubled to find the cause of this new disease of body not any way considering the troubles of his mind but only by conjectures drawn from the sympathie of the two principal parts which compose our being they imagine that having been bred at Paris and at Court the air of the Country is not so natural as that of the Town for him and that his sadness causes these strange humours in his spirit Timoleon is perswaded the same and resolves to bring him to a place where the frequenting of company might divert him from these melancholy fits Billerive is but a dayes journey from one of the principal Cities in France where he may go without passing the bounds of his exile which was not limited but within his own Province There are more store of Physitians and remedies at hand and spiritual Comforters in greater number His rank and quality noted in the Country made him at first coming visited by many of the chiefest persons of remark Time which is the great Physitian of the affliction of the spirit having drawn away the clouds which suffocated the reason of Philippin renders him now more fit for consolation then he had been before and this house in Town seeming more like the life and air of the Court his first element gives him some ease of his many sufferings Here of a sudden he is returned to his senses and perfect health yet nevertheless always his heart returns towards Vaupre as loving that side of the North. Many visits he hath every day as much for the respect of his father as for the sweetness of his own conversation Though not quite healed of his wound nothing is so pleasing to him as to steal by himself sometimes to contemplate his thoughts in the object he could not see but with the eyes of his understanding As many men as attend him are as so many Watches so that he might say as the holy Scripture saith So many domesticks as many enemies Timoleon which saw this fire was covered with ashes not quite out pressed in part with desire to divert his son from this affection prejudicial to the greatness of his house and partly with desire to see him married which of necessity must be done sometimes consulting if he should send him into Italy or to travel into Spain or to imploy him in the Town in those exercises which young Noblemen ordinarily use His friends counselled him not to send him into those strange Countries so suddenly after his sickness it is his only son the light of his eyes the staff of his age this changing of Country will not change his affection as marriage would All conclude that marriage was a tye that would settle him in peace and bring him comfort and assure his house withdrawing him from all these youthfull passions Timoleon makes choise of this forced to it by his domestick necessities for his so long having been a Courtier living at a great height of expence had brought him much behind-hand and in great debts having been constrained to mortgage a good part of his estate A good portion would clear all this This deliberation made known there would not need much time to find a fit Match for him as being of so noble a house the best in that Town would be very proud of his alliance to match their daughter so honorably A Magistrate of a soveraign Company wonderfull rich having but two Daughters the eldest being married to one of the Officers of this Estate the second we will call Elise for two reasons for truly she bore the name of the famous Cousin visited by the Mother of our blessed Saviour when she was with child of the Forerunner of Messias and because methinks she hath somthing in her innocencie found fit to be compared to the Queen of Carthage whom the Prince of the Roman Poets that pleasing lyre hath taxed with having committed a fault with Aeneas of which she is revenged by those which have written the true history of her chaste carriage This younger was a Maid although but indifferently endowed with the gifts of nature in what concerns the face in so much as she was judged better for a Wife then for a Mistress but on the other side she was so endowed with vertue and with that which most esteem riches that this abundance of gold was able to make any one to think deformity it self fair Timoleon sees this Maid for his Son and like him which more considered her wealth then her form finds that this great portion would quite clear all his affairs and disengage all his house He speaks with Scevole thus we will name this Magistrate father of this Gentlewoman who is not slow in opening his eyes on