Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
Picardy by the River of Some and on the West it is bounded with the Ocean and the little River Crenon which severeth it from a corner of Britain It extendeth in length from the beginning of the 9th degree of longitude to the middle of the 23. viz. from the Cape of St. Saviour West to the Port town of St. Valeria East For breadth it lieth partly in the 49th partly in the 50th degree of latitude So that reckoning 60. miles to a degree we shall find it to contain 270. English miles in length and 60 English miles in breadth where it is narrowest Amongst the Nations it was accounted a part of Gallia Celtica the name Neustria This new title it got by receiving into it a new Nation A people that had so terribly spoiled the Maritine Coasts of England France and Belgia that a furore Normannorum was inserted into the Letany Originally they were of Norway their name importeth it Anno 800. or thereabouts they began first to be accounted one of the plagues of Europe 900. they seated themselves in France by permission of Charles the Balde and the valour of Rollo their Captain Before this they had made themselves Masters of Ireland though they long held it not and Anno 1067. they added to the glory of their name by the Conquest of England You would think them a people not onely born to the warrs but to victory But Vt frugum semina mutato solo degenerant sic illa genuina feritas eorum amaenitate mollita est Florus spake it of the Gaules removed into Asia it is appliable to the Norwegians transplanted into Gallia yet fell they not suddenly and at once into the want of courage which now possesseth them During the time they continued English they attempt the Kingdom of Naples and Antioch with a fortune answerable to their valour Being once oppressed by the French and inslaved under that Monarchy they grew presently Crest fall'n and at once lost both their spirits and their liberty The present Norman then is but the corruption of the ancient the heir of his name and perhaps his possessions but neither of his strength nor his manhood Bondage and a fruitful soil hath so emasculated them that it is lost labour to look for Normans in Normandy There remaineth almost nothing in them of their Progenitors but the remainders of two qualities and those also degenerated if not bastards a penurious pride and an ungoverned doggedness Neither of them become their fortune or their habit yet to those they are constant Finally view him in his rags and dejected countenance and you would swear it impossible that those snakes should be the descendents of those brave Heroes which so often triumphed over both Religions foyling the Saracens and vanquishing the Christians But perchance their courage is evaporated into wit and then the change made the better Ortelius would seem to perswade us to this conceit of them and well might do it if his words were Oracle Le Gens saith he speaking of this Nation sont de plus accorls subtills d' esprit de la Gaule A Character for which the French will little thank him who if he speak truth must in matter of descretion give precedency to their vassals But as Imbat a French Leader said of the Florentines in the fifth book of Guicciardine Non supena done consistesse lingeque tanto celebrare de Fiorâ—ntini so may I say of the Normans for my part I could never yet find where that great wit of theirs lay Certain it is that as the French in general are termed the King's asses so may these men peculiarly be called the Asses of the French or the veriest Asses of the rest For what with the unproportionable rents which they pay to their Lords on the one side and the immeasurable taxes laid upon them by the King on the other they are kept in such a perpetuated course of drudgery that there is no place for wit or wisdom left amongst them Liberty is the Mother and Nurse of those two qualities and therefore the Romans not unhappily expressed both the condition of a Free-man and a discreet and modest personage by this one word Ingenuous Why the French King should lay a greater burden upon the backs of this Nation than their fellows I cannot determine Perchance it is because they have been twice conquered by them once from King John and again from Henry the sixth and therefore undergo a double servitude It may be to abate their natural pride and stubbornness Likely also it is that being a revolting people and apt to an apostasie from their Allegiance they may by this meanes be kept impoverished and by consequence disabled from such practises This a French Gentleman of good understanding told me that it was generally conceited in France that the Normans would suddenly and unanimously betray their Country to the English were their King a Cathâ—like But there is a further cause yet of their beggarliness and poverty which is the litigiousness and frequent going to law as we call it Ortelius however he failed in the first part of the Character in the conclusion of it hath done them justice Mais en generall saith he its sont scavans an passible en prosses pluideries They are pretty well versed in the querks of the Law and have wit more than enough to wrangle In this they agree exactly well with the Inhabitants of our Country of Norfolke Ex infima plebe non pauci reperiuntur saith Mr. Cambden qui si nihil sit litium lites tamen ex ipsis jaris apicibus serere callent They are pretty fellows to find out quirks in Law and to it they will whatsoever it cost them Mr. Cambden spake not at random or by the guess for besides what my self observed in them at my being once among them in a Colledge-progress I have heard that there have been no less than 340. Nisi prius's tried there at one Assises The reason of this likeness between the two Nations I conjecture to be the resemblance of the site and the soyl both lie upon the Sea with a long and spacious coast both enjoy a Country champain little swell'd with hils and for the most part of a light and sandy mould To proceed to more particulars if there be any difference between the two Provinces it is onely this that the Country of Normandy is much better and the people of Norfolk are somewhat the richer For indeed the Country of Normandy is enriched with a fat and liking soil such a one quae demum votis respondet avari Agricolae which may satisfie the expectation of the Husbandman were it never so exorbitant In my life I never saw Corn-fields more large and lovely extended in an equal level almost as far as eye-reach The wheat for I saw little Barley of a fair length in the stalk and so heavy in the ear that it even bended double you would think the grain had a desire to kiss
the Purple Robe the Sponge a peice of his Shrowd the Napkin wherewith he was girt when he washed his Disciples feet the Rod of Moses the head of St. Blase St. Clement and St. Simeon and part of the head of John Baptist Immediately under this recital of these Reliques and venerable ones I durst say they were could I be perswaded there were no imposture in them there are set down a Prayer and an Antheme both in the same Table as followeth ORATIO Quaesumus Omnipotens Deus ut qui sacra sanctissimae redemptionis nostrae insignia temporaliter veneramur per haec indesinenter munite aeternitatis gloriam consequamur dominum nostrum c. De sacrosanctis Reliquiis Antiphonae Christo plebs debita tot Christi donis praedita Jucunderis hodie Tota sis devota Erumpens in Jubilum depone mentes nubilum Tempus est Laetitiae Cura sit summota Ecce Crux Lancea Ferrum Corona spine◠Arma Regis gloriae tibi offerantur Omnes terrae populi laudent actorem seculi Per quem tantis gratiae signis offererantur Amen Pretty divinity if one had time to examine it These Reliques as the Table enformeth us were given unto St. Lewis Anno 1247. By Baldwin the second the last King of the Latines in Constantinople to which place the Christians of Palaestine had brought them during the time that those parts were harrowed by the Turks and Saracens Certainly were they the same which they are said to be I see no harm in it if we should honour them The very reverence due to antiquity and a silver head could not but extort some acknowledgement of respect even from a heathen It was therefore commendably done by Pope Leo having received a parcel of the Cross from the Bishop of Hierusalem that he entertained it with respect Particulam Dominicae Crucis saith he in his 72. Epislte cum eulogiis dilectionis tuae Veneranter accepi To adore and worship that or any other Relique whatsoever with prayers and Anthems as the Papists you see do never came within the minds of the Ancients and therefore St. Ambrose calleth it Gentilis error vanitas impiorum This was also Hierom's religion as himself testifieth in his Epistle to Ruparius Nos faith he non dico martyrum reliquias sed ne Solem quidem Lunam non Angelos c. colimus adoramus Thus were those two Fathers minded towards such Reliques as were known to be no others than what they seemed Before too many Centuries of years had consumed the true ones and the imposture of the Priests had brought in the false Had they lived in our times and seen the supposed Reliques of the Saints not honoured onely but adored and worshipped by the blind and infatuated people what would they have said or rather what would they not have said Questionless the least they could do were to take up the complaint of Vigilantius the Papists reckon him for an Heretick saying Quid necesse est tanto honore non solum honorare sed etiam ador are illud nescio quid quod in vasculo transferendo colis Presently without the Chappel is the Burse la Gallerie des Merchands a rank of shops in shew but not in substance like to those in the Exchange at London It reacheth from the Chappel unto the great Hall of Parliament and is the common through-fare between them On the bottom of the stairs and round about the several houses consecrated to the execution of justice are sundry shops of the same nature meanly furnished if compared with ours yet I perswade my self the richest of this kind in Paris I should now go and take a view of the Parliament House but I will step a little out of the way to see the place Daulphin and the little Chastelet This last serveth now onely as the Gaole or common prison belonging to the Court of the Provost of the Merchants and it deserveth no other employment It is seated at the end of the bridge called Petit pont and was built by Hugh Aubriot once Provost of the Town to repress the fury and insolencies of the Scholars whose rudeness and misdemeanours can no way be better bridled Omnes eos qui nomen ipsum Academiae vel serio vel ioco nominassent haereticos pronunciavit saith Platina of Pope Paul the second I will say it of this wilderness that whosoever will account it as an Academy is an Heretick to Learning and Civility The place Daulphin is a beautiful heap of building scituate nigh unto the new bridge It was built at the encouragement of Henry the fourth and entituled according to the title of his Son The houses are all of brick high built uniform and indeed such as deserve and would exact a longer description were not the Parliament now ready to sit and my self summoned to make my appearance CHAP. VIII The Parliament of France when began Of whom it consisted The Dignity and esteem of it abroad made sedentary at Paris appropriated to the long Robe The Palais by whom built and converted to seats of Justice The seven Chambers of Parliament the great Chamber the number and dignity of the Presidents The Duke of Biron afraid of them The Kings seat in it The sitting of the Grandsigneur in the Divano The authority of the Court in causes of all kinds and over the affairs of the King This Court the main pillar of the liberty of France La Tournelle and the Judges of it The five Chambers of Enquests severally instituted and by whom In what causes it is decisive The form of admitting Advocates into the Court of Parliament The Chancellor of France and his authority The two Courts of Requests and Masters of them The vain envy of the English Clergy against the Lawyers THe Court of Parliament was at the first instituted by Charles Marcell Grandfather to Charlemaine at such time as he was Maior of the Palace unto the lazy and retchless Kings of France In the beginning of the French Empire their King did justice to the people in person Afterwards banishing themselves from all the affairs of State that burden was cast upon the shoulders of their Maires An Office much of the nature with the Praefesti Praetorio in the Roman Empire When this Office was bestowed upon the said Charles Marcell he partly weary of the trouble partly intent about a business of a higher nature which was the estating of the Crown in his own Posterity but principally to indear himself to the Common people ordained the Court of Parliament Anno 720. It consisted in the beginning of twelve Peers the Prelates and Noblemen of the best fashion together with some of the principallest of the Kings Houshold Other Courts are called the Parliament with the addition of place as of Paris at Roven c. This onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Parliament It handled as well causes of State as those of private persons For hither did the Embassadours of mighty Princes
superfluous and abrogation of unprofitable Edicts c. He hath the keeping of the Kings geeat Seal and by vertue of that either passeth or putteth back such Letters Pattents and Writs as are exhibited to him He hath under him immediately for the better dispatch of his Affairs four Masters of the Requests and their Courts Their Office and manner of proceeding is the same which they also use in England in the persons there is thus much difference that in Franee two of them must be perpetually of the Clergy One of their Courts is very ancient and hath in it two Presidents which are two of the Masters and fourteen Counsellers The other is of a later erection as being founded Anno 1580. and in that the two other of the Masters and eight Councellers give sentence Thus have I taken a veiw of the several Chambers of the Parliament of Paris and of their particular Jurisdictions as far as my information could conduct me One thing I noted further and in my mind the fairest ornament of the Pallace which is the neatness and decency of the Lawyers in their apparrel for besides the fashion of their habit which is I assure you exceeding pleasant and comely themselves by their own care and love to handsomeness adde great lustre to their garments and more to their persons Richly drest they are and well may be so as being the ablest most powerfull men under the Princes la Noblesse in all the Country An happiness as I conjecture rather of the calling than of the men It hath been the fate and destiny of the Law to strengthen enable its professors beyond any other any Art or Science the Pleaders in all Common-wealths both for sway amongst the people and vague amongst the Military men having alwaies had the preheminence Of this rank were Pericles Phochion Alcibiades and Demosthenes amongst the Athenians Antonius Mar. Cato Caesar and Tullie amongst the Romans men equally famous for Oratory and the Sword yet this I can confidently say that the several States above mentioned were more indebted unto Tullie and Demosthenes being both meer Gown men than to the best of their Captaines the one freeing Athens from the Armies of Macedon the other delivering Rome from the conspiracy of Catiline O fortunatum natam me Consule Romam It is not then the fate of France only nor of England to see so much power in the hand of the Lawyers and the case being general me thinks the envy should be the less and less it is indeed with them than with us The English Clergy though otherwise the most accomplisht in the World in this folly deserveth no Apologie being so strangely ill affected to the Pleaders of this Nation that I fear it may be said of some of them Quod invidiam non ad causam sed personam et ad valantatem dirigant A weakness not more unworthy of them than prejudicial to them for fostering between both Gownes such an unnecessary emulation they do but exasperate that power which they cannot controle and betray themselves to much envy and discontentedness A disease whose care is more in my wishes than in my hopes CHAP. IX The Kings Pallace of the Louure by whom built the unsutableness of it The fine Gallery of the Queene Mother The long Gallery of Henry the fourth his magnanimous intent to have built it into a Quadrangle Henry the fourth a great builder his infinite project upon the Mediterranean and the Ocean Lasalle des Antiques The French not studious of Antiquities Burbon House The Tuilleries c. WE have discharged the King of one Pallace and must follow him to the other where we shall find his residence It is seated in the west side of the Town or Ville of Paris hard by Porte neufue and also by the new Bridge An House of great fame and which the Kings of France have long kept their Courts in It was first built by Phillip Augustus anno 1214. and by him intended for a Castle it then serving to imprison the more potent of the Noblesse and to lay up the Kings Treasury for that cause it was well moated and strengthened with walls and draw Bridges very serviceable in those times It had the name of Louure quasi L'oeuure or the work the Building by way of excellencie An Etymologie which draweth nigher to the ear than the understanding or the eye And yet the French writers would make it a miracle Du Chesne calleth it superbe bastiment qui n' a son esgal en toute la Christiente and you shall hear it called in another place Bastiment qui passe muiourd huy en excellenee et en grandeur tous les autres Brave Eligies if all were Gold that glistered It hath given up now its charge of money and great prisoners to the Bastile and at this time serveth only to imprison the Court. In my life I never saw any thing more abused by a good report or that more belyeth the rumours that go of it The ordinary talk of vulgar travellers and the bigg words of the French had made me expect at the least some prodigie of Architecture some such Majestical house as the Sunne Don Phoebus is said to have dwelt in by Ovid. Regia solis erat sublimibus alta columnis Clara micante auro flammasque imitante pyropo Cuius ebur nitidum c. Indeed I thought no fiction in Poetry had been able to have parralell'd it and made no doubt but it would have put me into such a passion as to have cryed out with the young Gallant in the Comidie when he saw his Sweet heart Hei mihi qualis erat talis erat qualem nunquem ego vidi But I was much deceived in that hope and could find nothing in it to admire much less to envy The Fable of the Mountaine which was with child and brought forth a Mouse is questionless a Fable This House and the large fame it hath in the world is the Morall of it Never was there an House more unsuitable to it self in the particular examination of parts nor more unsutable to the Character and esteem of it in the general survey of the whole You enter into it over two Draw-bridges and thorough three Gates ruinous enough and abundantly unsightly In the Quadrangle you meet with three several fashions of buildings of three several ages and they so unhappily joyned one to the other that one would half beleeve they were clapped together by an Earthquake The South and West parts of it are new and indeed Prince like being the work of Francis the first and his Son Henry had it been all cast into the same mould I perswade my self that it would be very gratious and lovely The other two are of ancient work and so contemptible that they disgrace the rest and of these I suppose the one to be at the least a hundred years older than his partner such is it without As for the inside it is farre
onely of Amiens could I meet with any antient Character which also was but a Gothish Dutch Letter and expressed nothing but the name and vertue of a Bishop of the Church in whose time it was So little also did I perceive them to be inclining to be Antiquaries that both neglects considered si Verbis audaciadetur I dare confidently averre that one Cotton for the Treasury and one Selden now Mr. Camden is dead for the study of Antiquities are worth all the French As for these five peices in La salle des Antiques they are I confess worthy our observation and respect also if they be such as our trudgeman informed us At the further end of it the Statua of Diana the same as it is said which was worshipped in the renowned Temple of Ephesus and of which Demetrius the Silver-smith and his fellow Artists cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Of a large and manly proportion she seemeth to be Quantum quale latus quam juvenile femur As Ovid of his Mistriss She is all naked save her feet which are buskin'd and yet she hath a scarfe or linnen roul which coming over her left shoulder and meeting about her middle hung down with both ends of it a little lower In the first place towards the right hand as we descended towards the door was the Statua of one of the Gods of Aethiopia as black as any of his people and one that had nothing about him to express his particular being Next unto him the Effigies of Mercury naked all except his feet and with a pipe in his mouth as when he inchanted Argos Nam que reperta Fistula nuper erat Saith the Metamorphosis Next unto him the portraiture of Venus quite naked and most immodestly apparreld in her hand her little Son Cupid as well arrayed as his Mother sitting on a Dolphin Last of all Apollo also in the same naked truth but that he had shooes on He was portrayed as lately returned from a Combat perhaps that against the Serpent Python Quem Deus arcitenens nunquam talibus armis Ante nisi in damis caprisque fugacibus usus Mille gravem telis exhausta pane pharetra Perdidit effuso per vulnera nigra veneno The Archer-God who e're that present tide Ne're us'e those arms but ' gainst the Roes and Deer With thousand shafts the earth made to be dy'de With Serpents bloud his quiver emptied cleer That I was in the right conjecture I had these reasons to perswade me the Quiver on the Gods right shoulder almost emptied his warlike belt hanging about his neck his garments loosly tumbling upon his left arm and the slain Monster being a water-serpent as Pithon is fained to be by the Poets All of these were in the same side of the wall the other being altogether destitute of ornament and are confidently said to be the statues of those Gods in the same forms that they were worshipped in and taken from their several Temples They were bestowed on the King by his Holiness of Rome and I cannot blame him for it It was worthy but little thanks to give unto him the Idols of the Heathen who for his Holiness satisfaction had given himself to the Idols of the Romans I beleive that upon the same terms the King of Enggland should have all the Reliques and ruines of Antiquity which can be found in Rome Without this room the Salle des Antiques and somewhat on the other side of the Louure is the House of Burbon and old decayed fabrick in which was nothing observable but the Omen For being built by Lewis of Burbon the third Duke of that branch he caused this Motto ESPERANCE to be engraven in Capital Letters over the door signifying his hopes that from his loyns should proceed a King which should joyn both the Houses and the Families and it is accordingly happened For the Tuilleries I have nothing to say of them but that they were built by Catherine de Medices in the year 1564 and that they took name from the lime-kils and tile-pits there being before the foundation of the house and the garden the word Tuillerie importing as much in the French language I was not so happy as to see them and will not be indebted to any for the relation CHAP. X. The person age and marraige of King Lewis Conjectural reasons of his being issueless Jaqueline Countess of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all married and his alliances by them His natural Brethren and their preferment His lawful Brother the title of Monsieur in France Monsieur as yet unmarried not like to marry Mont-Peusiers Daughter That Lady a fit Wife for the Earl of Soisons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the Line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a Child may be born in the eleventh moneth King Henry the fourth a great Lover of fair Ladies Monsieur Barrados the Kings Favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinal of Richilieu The Queen Mother a wise and prudent Woman THe King is the soul of the Court without his presence it is but a Carcass a thing without life and honour I dare not so farre wrong the Louure as to make it but a common house and rob it of the fruition of its Prince and therefore will treat of him here though during my aboad in France he lay all the while in Fountain Bleau For person he is of the middle stature and rather well proportioned than large His face knoweth little yet of a beard but that which is is black and swarthy his complexion also much of the same heiw carrying in it a certain boysterousness and that in a further measure than what a graceful Majesty can admit of So that one can hardly say of him without a spice of Courtship what Paterculus did of Tiberius Quod visus praetulerit principem that his countenance proclaimed him a King But questionless his greatest defect is want of utterance which is very unpleasing by reason of a desperate and uncurable stammering which defect is likely more and more to grow upon him At this time he is aged twenty four years and as much as since the 27 day of September last which was his birth day an age which he beareth not very plausibly want of beard and the swarthiness of his complexion making him seem elder At the age of eleven years he was affianced to the Lady Anna Infanta of Spain by whom as yet he hath no children It is thought by many and covertly spoken by divers in France that the principal cause of the Queens bartenness proceedeth from Spain that people being loath to fall under the French obedience which may very well happen she being the elder Sister of the King For this cause in the seventh article of marriage there is a clause that
break off the Assembly Upon the receit of this Letter those of the Assembly published a Declaration wherein they verified the meeting to be lawful and their purpose not to dismiss themselves till their desires were granted This affront done to the King made him gather together his forces yet at the Duke of Lesdiguiers request he allowed them twenty four dayes respite before his Armies should march towards them He offered them also very fair and reasonable conditions such almost as their Deputies had sollicited but far better than those which they were glad to accept when all their Towns were taken from them Profectâ— meluctabilis fatorum vis cujus fortunam mutare constituit ejus corrumpit consilia It holds very rightly in this people who turned a deaf ear to all good advise and were resolved it seemeth not to hear the voice of the charmer charmed he never so sweetly In their Assembly therefore they make Laws and Orders to regulate their disobedience as that no peace should be made without the consent of the general Convocation about paying of the Souldiers wages for the detaining of the Revenues of the King and the Clergy and the like They also have divided France into seven circles or parts assigning over every circle several Generals and Lieutenants and prescribed Orders how those Generals should proceed in the warr Thus we see the Kings Army levied upon no sleight grounds His regal authority was neglected his especial Edicts violated his gratious proffers slighted his revenues forbidden him and his Realm divided before his face and alotted unto Officers not of his own election Had the prosecution of his action been as fair as the cause was just and legal the Protestants onely had deserved the infamy But hinc illae lachrymae the King so behaved himself in it that he suffered the sword to walk at randome as if his main design had been not to correct his people but to ruine them I will instance onely in the tyrannical slaughter which he permitted at the taking of Nigrepelisse a Town of Queren where indeed the Souldiers shewed the very rigor of severity which either a barbarous Victor could inflict or a vanquished people suffer Nec ullum saevitiae genus omisit ira Victoria as Tacitus of the angred Romans For they spared neither man nor woman nor child all equally subject to the cruelty of the Sword and the Conqueror the streets paved with dead carcasses the channels running with the bloud of Christians no noise in the streets but of such as were welcoming death or suing for life The Churches which the Gothes spared in the sack of Rome were at this place made the Theaters of lust and bloud neither priviledge of Sanctuary nor fear of God in whose House they were qualifying their outrage Thus in the Common places At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu Miscetur Penitusque eavae clangoribus aedes Faeminiis ululant As Virgill in the ruine of Troy But the calamities which befel the men were merciful and sparing if compared with those which the women suffered when the Souldiers had made them the Subjects of their lust they made them after the subjects of their fury in that onely pittiful to that poor and distressed Sex that they did not let them survive their honours Such of them who out of fear and faintness had made but little resistance had the favour to be stabbed but those whose virtue and courage maintained their bodies valiantly from the rape of those villains had the secrets of Nature Procul hinc este cast ae misericordes aures filled with Gun-powder and so blown into ashes Whether O Ye Divine Powers is humanity fled when it is not to be found in Christians or where shall we find the effects of a pittiful nature when men are become so unnatural It is said that the King was ignorant of this barbarousness and offended at it Offended I perswade my self he could not but be unless he had totally put off himself and degenerated into a Tyger but for his ignorance I dare not conceive it to be any other than that of Nero an ignorance rather in his eye than in his understanding Subduxit oculos Nero saith Tacitus jussitque scelera non spectavit Though the Protestants deserved affliction for their disobedience yet this was an execution above the nature of a punishment a misery beyond the condition of the crime True it is and I shall never acquit them of it that in the time of their prosperity they had done the King many affronts and committed many acts of disobedience and insolency which justly occasioned the warr against them For besides those already recited they themselves first brake those Edicts the due execution whereof seemed to have been their onely petition The King by his Edict of Pacification had licensed the free exercise of both Religions and thereupon permitted the Priests and Jesuites to preach in the Towns of Caution being then in the hands of the Protestants On the other side the Protestants assembled at Loudan straitly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuits or any of any other Order to preach in their Towns although licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess When upon dislike of their proceedings in that Assembly the King had declared their meetings to be unlawful and contrary to his peace and this Declaration was verified against them by the Parliament they notwithstanding would not separate themselves but stood still upon terms of capitulation and the justifiableness of their action Again whereas it happened that the Lord of Privas Town full of those of the Religion dyed in the year 1620. and left his Daughter and Heir in the bed and marriage of the Viscount of Cheylane a Catholike this new Lord according to law and right in his own Town changed the former Garrison putting his own servants and dependants in their places Upon this the Protestants of the Town and Country about it draw themselves in Troops surprize many of the Towns about it and at the last compelled the young Gentleman to fly from his inheritance an action which jumping even with the time of the Assembly at Rochell made the King more doubtful of their sincerity I could add to these divers others of their undutiful practises being the effects of too much felicity and of a fortune which they could not govern Atqui animus meminisse horret luctuque refuget These their insolencies and unruly acts of disobedience made the King and his Council suspect that their designs tended further than Religion and that their purpose might be to make themselves a free Estate after the example of Geneva and the Low Country-men The late power which they had taken of calling their own Synods and Convocations was a strong argument of their purpose so also was the intelligence which they held with those of their faith at the Synod at Sappe called by the permission of Henry the fourth on the first of
granted to Sir Giles Mompesson was just one of the French Offices As for Monopolies they are here so common that the Subject taketh no notice of it not a scurvy petty book being printed but it hath its priviledge affixed ad imprimendum solum These being granted by the King are carried to the Parliament by them formally perused and finally verified after which they are in force and vertue against all opposition It is said in France that Mr. Luines had obtained a Patent of the King for a quart d' Escu to be paid unto him for the Christning of every Child throughout the Kingdom A very unjust and unconscionable extortion Had he lived to have presented it to the Court I much doubt of their denial though the onely cause of bringing before them such Patents is onely intended that they should discuss the justice and convenience of them As the Parliament hath a formality of power left in them of verifying the Kings Edicts his grants of Offices and Monopolies so hath the Chamber of Accompts a superficial survey of his gifts and expences For his expences they are thought to be as great now as ever by reason of the several retinues of Himself his Mother his Queen and the Monsieur Neither are his gifts lessened The late warrs which he mannaged against the Protestants cost him dear he being fain to bind unto him most of his Princes by money and Pensions As the expences of the King are brought unto this Court to be examined so are also the gifts and pensions by him granted to be ratified The titulary power given to this Chamber is to cut off all those of the Kings grants which have no good ground and foundation the Officers being solemnly at the least formally sworn not to suffer any thing to pass them to the detriment of the Kingdom whatsoever Letters of Command they have to the contrary But with this Oath they do oftentimes dispense To this Court also belongeth the Enfranchisement or Naturalization of Aliens Anciently certain Lords Officers of the Crown and of the Privie Council were appointed to look into the Accompts now it is made an ordinary and soveraign Court consisting of two Presidents and divers Auditors and after under Officers The Chamber wherein it is kept is called La Chambre des Comptes it is the beautifullest piece of the whole Palace the great Chamber it self not being worthy to be named in the same day with it It was built by Charles the eighth Anno 1485. afterwards adorned and beautified by Lewis the twelfth whose Statua is there standing in his Royal Robes and the Scepter in his hand he is accompanied by the four Cardinal-Virtues expressed by way of Hieroglychick very properly and cunning each of them have in them its particular Motto to declare its being The Kings Portraicture also as if he were the fifth Virtue had its word under-written and contained in a couple of verses which let all that love the Muses skip them in the reading are these Quatuor has comites fowro caelestia dona Innocuae pacis prospera sceptra gerens From the King descend we to the Subjects ab equis quod aiunt ad asinos and the phrase is not much improper the French Commonalty being called the Kings Asses These are divided into three ranks or Classes the Clergy the Nobless the Paisants out of which certain Delegates or Committees chosen upon an occasion and sent to the King did anciently concurre to the making of the supreme Court for justice in France it was called the Assembly of the three Estates or Conventus Ordinum and was just like the Parliament of England but these meetings are now forgotten or out of use neither indeed as this time goeth can they any way advantage the State For whereas there are three principal if not sole causes of these Conventions which are the disposing of the Regency during the non-age or sickness of a King the granting aids or subsidies and the redressing of grievances there is now another course taken in them The Parliament of Paris which speaketh as it is prompted by power and greatness appointeth the Regent the Kings themselves with their Officers determine of the taxes and as concerning their grievances the Kings ear is open to private Petitions Thus is that title of a Common-wealth which went to the making up of this Monarchy escheated or rather devoured by the King that name alone containing in it both Clergy Princes and People so that some of the French Counsellors may say with Tully in his Oration for Marcellus unto Caesar Doleoque cum Respublica immortalis esse debeat eam unius mortalis anima consistere yet I cannot but withal affirm that the Princes and Nobles of France do for as much as concerneth themselves upon all advantages fly off from the Kings obedience but all this while the poor Paisant is ruined Let the poor Tennant starve or eat the bread of carefulness it matters not so they may have their pleasure and be accompted firm Zealots of the Common liberty and certainly this is the issue of it the Farmer liveth the life of a slave to maintain his Lord in pride and laziness the Lord leadeth the life of a King to oppress his Tennant by fines and exactions An equality little answerable to the old platforms of Republicks Aristotle genius ille naturae as a learned man calleth him in his fourth book of Politicks hath an excellent discourse concerning this disproportion In that chapter his project is to have a correspondency so far between Subjects under the King or people of the same City that neither the one might be over rich nor the other too miserably poor They saith he which are too happy strong or rich or greatly favoured and the like cannot nor will not obey with which evil they are infected from their infancy The other through want of these things are too abjectly minded and base for that the one cannot but command and the other but serve and this he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City inhabited onely by slaves and tyrants That questionless is the most perfect and compleat form of Government Vbi veneratur potentem humilis non timet antecedit non contemnit humiliorem potens as Velleius But this is an happiness whereof France is not capable their Lords being Kings and their Commons Villains And to say no less of them than in truth they are the Princes of this Country are little inferior in matters of Royalty to any King abroad and by consequence little respective in matter of obedience to their own King at home Upon the least discontent they will draw themselves from the Court or put themselves into Arms and of all other comforts are ever sure of this that they shall never want partizans neither do they use to stand off from him fearfully and at distance but justifie their revolt by publike declaration and think the King much indebted to them if upon fair terms and an
French by that door making their entry into this Province out of which at last they thrust the English Anno 1450. So desperate a thing is a frighted Coward This Country had once before been in possession of the English and that by a firmer title than the Sword William the Conqueror had conveyed it once over the Seas into England it continued an appendix of that Crown from the year 1067. unto that of 1204. At that time John called Sáns terre third Son unto King Henry the second having usurped the States of England and the English possessions in France upon Arthur heir of Britain and Son unto Geofrey his elder brother was warred on by Phillip Augustus King of France who sided with the said Arthur In the end Arthur was taken and not long after found dead in the ditches of the Castle of Roven Whether this violent death happened unto him by the practises of his Uncle as the French say or that the young Prince came to that unfortunate end in an attempt to escape as the English report is not yet determined For my part considering the other carriages and virulencies of that King I dare be of that opinion that the death of Arthur was not without his contrivement Certainly he that rebelled against his Father and practised the eternal imprisonment and ruine of his Brother would not much stick this being so speedy a way to settle his affairs at the murther of a Nephew Upon the first bruit of this murther Constance Mother to the young Prince complained unto the King and Parliament of France not the Court which now is in force consisting of men only of the long Robe but the Court of Pairrie or twelve Peers whereof himself was one as Duke of Normandy I see not how in justice Philip could do less than summon him an Homager being â—lain and an Homager accused To this summons John refused to yeild himself A counsel rather magnanimous than wise and such as had more in it of an English King than a French Subject Edward the third a prince of a finer mettal than this John obeyed the like warrant and performed a personal homage to Philip of Valoys and it is not reckoned among his disparagements He committed yet a further error or solaecisme in State not so much as sending any of his people to supply his place or plead his cause Upon this none appearance the Peers proceed to sentence Il fur par Arrest la dire Cour saith Du' Chesne condemne pour attaint et convainuc du crime de parricide de felonnie Parricide for the killing of his own Nephew and felony for committing an act so execrable on the person of a French vassal and in France Jhon de Sienes addeth a third cause which was contempt in disobeying the Kings commandement Upon this verdict the Court awarded Que toutes les terres qu' il avoit par deca de mourerient acquises confisques a la corronne c. A proceeding so fair and orderly that I should sooner accuse King John of indiscretion than the French of injustice when my estate or life is in danger I wish it may have no more sinister a trial The English thus outed of Normandy by the weakness of John recovered it again by the puissance of Henry But being held onely by the sword it was after thirty years recovered again as I have told you And now being passed over the Oyse I have at once freed the English and my self of Normandy here ending this Book but not that dayes journey The Second Book or FRANCE CHAP. I. France in what sense so called the bounds of it All old Gallia not possessed by the French Countries follow the name of the most predominant Nation The condition of the present French not different from that of the old Gaules That the Heavens have a constant power upon the same Climate though the Inhabitants be changed The quality of the French in private at the Church and at the Table Their Language Complements Discourse c. IVly the third which was the day we set out of St. Claire having passed through Pontoise and crossed the River we were entred into France France as it is understood in his limitted sense and as a part onely of the whole For when Meroveus the Grandchild of Pharamond first King of the Francones had taken an opportunity to pass the Rhene having also during the warres between the Romans and the Gothes taken Paris he resolved there to set up his rest and to make that the head City of his Empire The Country round about it which was of no large extent he commanded to be called Francia or Terra Francorum after the name of his Francks whom he governed In this bounded and restrained sense we now take it being confined with Normandy on the North Campagne on the East and on the West and South with the little Province of la Beausse It is also called and that more properly to distinguish it from the whole continent the Isle of France and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Isle I know not any thing more like it then the Isle of Elie the Eure on the West the Velle on the East the Oyse on the Northward and a vein riveret of the Seine towards the South are the Rivers which encircle it But the principall environings are made by the Seine and the Marne a river of Champagne which within the main Island make divers Ilets the waters winding up and down as desirous to recreate the earth with the pleasures of its lovely and delicious embraces This Isle this portion of Gaule properly and limitedly stiled France was the seate of the Franks at their first coming hither and hath still continued so The rest of Gallia is in effect rather subdued by the French than inhabited their valour in time having taken in those Countries which they never planted So that if we look apprehensively into Gaule we shall find the other Nations of it to have just cause to take up the complaint of the King of Portugal against Ferdinand of Castile for assuming to himself the title of Catholique King of Spain eius tam non exiguâ parte penes reges alios as Mariana relateth it Certain it is that the least part of old Gallia is in the hands of the French the Normans Britons Biscaines or Gascoynes the Gothes of Languedoc and Provence Burgundians and the ancient Gaules of Poictou retaining in it such fair and ample Provinces But it is the custome shall I say or fate of lesser and weaker Nations to loose their names unto the stronger as Wives do to their Husbands and the smaller Rivers to the greater Thus we see the little Province of Poland to have mastered and given name to the Pruteni Marovy and other Nations of Sarmatia Europaea as that of Moseo hath unto all the Provinces of Asiatica Thus hath Sweden conquered and denominated almost all the great Peninsula of Scandia where it is but
Henry the fourth his intent to fortifie the Town Why not actuated The Artifices and wealth of the Citizens The bravery of the Citizens described under the person of a Barber WE are now come to Paris whether indeed I should have brought you the same day we came from Pontoise It hath had in several ages two several names the one taken from the people the other from the scituation The name taken from the people is that of Paris Julius Caesar in his Commentaries making mention of the Nation of the Parisii and at that time calling the City Vrbem pacisiorum Amianus Marcellinus calleth it by the same name appellative for as yet the name of Paris was not appropriated to it As for these Parisii it is well known that they were a people of Gallia Celtica but why the people were so called hath been questioned and that deservedly Some derive them from a Son of Paris the Son of Priam but the humor of deriving all national originations from Troy hath long since been hissed out of the School of Antiquity The Berosus of John Annins bringeth them from one Paris King of the Celtae and this authority is alike authentical The bastards which this Annius imposed upon the ancient Writers are now taught to know their own Fathers Others deduce it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Greek word importing boldness in speech which is approved by William Breton in the first book of his Philippiades Finibus egressi patriis per Gallica rura Sedem quaerebant ponendis maembus aptum Et se Parisios dixerant nomine Graeco Quod sonat expositum nostris audacia verbis Leaving their native Soil they sought through Gaule A place to build a City and a Wall And call'd themselves Parisians which in Greek Doth note a prompt audacity to speak It is spoken of the Gaules who coming out of the more Southern parts here planted themselves Neither is it improbable that a Gallick Nation should assume unto it self a Greek name that language having taken good footing in these parts long before and sans time as himself testifieth in his Commentaries How well this name agreeth with the French nature I have already manifested in the character of this people both Men and Women But I will not stand to this Etymology The names of great Cities are obscure as those of their Founders and the conjecturall derivations of them are oftentimes rather plausible than probable and sometimes neither As for the antiquity of it it is said to have been built in the time of Amaziah King of Judah but this also is uncertain the beginnings of ancient Cities being as dark and hidden as their names Certain it is that it is no puisne in the world it being a strong and opulent Town in the dayes of Julius Caesar The other name of the City which indeed is the ancient and was taken from the scituation of it is Luâ—etia from Lutum Durt as being seated in an exceeding clammy and durty soyl To this also consenteth the above named William of Breton in his said first book of his Philippiades saying Quoniam tunc temporis illam Reddebat palus terrae pinguaedo lutosam Aptam Parisii posuere Lutetia nomen And since the Fens and clammy soyl did make Their City dirty for that reasons sake The Town the name Lutetia did take As for the Etymology of Munster who derived the name from Paris one of the Kings of Celtae it may for ought that I know deservedly keep company with that of Berosus already recited This name of Lutetia continued till the coming of the Franks into these parts who to endear the Nation of the Parisii and oblige them more faithfully to do them service commanded it for ever after to be called Paris But the scituation of the Town gave it not onely the name it gave it also as the custom of Godfathers is in England a Christening gift which is the riches of it and by consequence the preeminence In how delicate and flourishing a soyl it is scituate I have already told you in my description of the valley of Montmorencie wherein it standeth If you will beleive Comines in the first book of his History he will tell you that ' est la cite que iamais ie veisse environnâ—e de meilleux pais plantureux of all the Cities which ever he saw it is environned with the best and fruitfullest Country The River of Seine is also no question a great help to the enriching of it though it be not navigable to the Town yet it giveth free passage unto Boats of an indifferent bigg burden into which the Ships are unladen and so their commodities carryed up the water A profitable entercourse between the Sea and the City for the Merchants Of these Boats there are an infinite company which ply up and down the water and more indeed as the said Cominces is of opinion than any man can beleeve that hath not seen them It is in circuit as Boterus is of opinion twelve miles others judge it at ten for my part I dare not guesse it to be above eight and yet I am told by a French man that it was in compasse no less than fourteen Leagues within the Walls an untruth bigger than the Towne For figure it is circular that being according to the Geometricians of all figures the most capacious And questionless if it be true that Vrbs non in maenibus sed in civibus posita est Paris may chalenge as great a circuit as the most of Europe it being little inferiour to the biggest for the multitude of her inhabitants Joyn the compass and the populousness together and you shall hear the wisest of the French men say Que ce qu'est l' ame a la raisen et la prunet a locit cela mesme est Paris a la France Adde to this the virdict of Charles the fifth who being demanded which he thought to be the biggest City of France answered Roven and being then asked what he though of Paris made answer Vn Pà is that it was a whole Country the Emperour did well to flatter Francis the first who asked him these questions and in whose power he then was otherwise he might have given men good cause to suspect his judgement The truth is that Paris is a fayr and goodly Town yet withal it is no thing like the miracle that some make it Were the figure of London altered and all the houses of it cast into a ring I dare able it a larger and more goodly Town than Paris and that in the comparison it may give it at the least half a mile oddes For matter of strength and resistance certain it is that this City is exceeding well seated were it as well fortified It lyeth in a plain flat and levell and hath no hills nigh unto it from which it can any way be annoyed and for the casting and making of rowling Trenches I think the soyle is hardly serviceable If Art
and preferments of the French By these propositions to which the Jusuits in the end subscribed I know not with what mental reservation it is more than evident that they have left him no command neither over their consciences nor their persons So that all things considered we may justly say of the Papal power in France what the Papists falsly say of Erasmus namely that it is Nomen sine rebus In one thing onely his authority here is entire which is his immediate protection of all the Orders of Friers and also a superintendency or supreme eye over the Monks who acknowledge very small obedience if any at all to the French Bishops For though at the beginning every part and member of the Diocess was directly under the care and command of the Bishop yet it so happened at the building of Monestaries in the Western Church the Abbots being men of good parts and sincere life grew much into the envy of their Diocesan For which cause as also to be more at their own command they made suit to the Pope that they might be freed from that subjection Vtque intutelam Dive Petri admitterentur A proposition very plausible to his Holiness ambition which by this meanes might the sooner be raised to his height and therefore without difficulty granted This gap opened first the several Orders of Friers and after them the Deans and Chapters purchased to themselves the like exemptions In this the Popes power was wonderfully strengthened in having such able and so many props to uphold his authority it being a true Maxime in State Quod qui privilegia obtenent ad eadem conservanda teneantur authoritatem concedentis tueri This continued till the Council of Trent unquestioned where the Bishops much complained of their want of authority and imputed all the schismes and vices in the Church to this that their hands were tied Hereupon the Popes Legates thought it fit to restore to their jurisdiction their Deans and Chapters At that of the Monks and Monestaries they were more sticking till at the last Sebastian Pighinus one of the Popes Officers found out for them this satisfaction that they should have an eye and inspection into the lives of the Monks not by any authority of their own Sed tanquam a sede Apostolica delegati But as for the Orders of Friers the Pope would not by any means give way unto it They are his Janizaries and the strongest bulwarks of his Empire and are therefore called in a good Author Egregia Romanae Curiae instrumenta So that with them the Diocesan hath nothing to do each severall religious House being as a Court of Peculiars subject onely to the great Metropolitan of Rome This near dependance on his Holiness maketh this generation a great deal more regardless of their behaviour than otherwise it would be though since the growth of the reformation shame and fear hath much reformed them They have still howsoever a spice of their former wantonness and on occasions will permit themselves a little good fellowship And to say truth of them I think them to be the best Companions in France for a journey but not for acquaintance They live very merrily and keep a competent table more I suppose than can stand with their vow and yet far short of that affluency whereof many of our books accuse them It was my chance to be in an house of the Franciscans in Paris where one of the Friers upon the entreaty of our Friend had us into the Hall it being then the time of their Refectory a favour not vulgar There saw we the Brothers sitting all on a side and every one a pretty distance from the other their several commons being a dish of pottage a chop of mutton a dish of Cherries and a large glass of water This provision together with a liberal allowance of ease and a little of study keepeth them exceeding plump and in good liking and maketh them having little to take thought for maketh them as I said before passing good Company As I travelled to Orleans we had in coach with us three of these mortified sinners two of the Order of St. Austin and one Franciscan the merriest Crickets that ever chirped Nothing in them but mad tricks and complements and for musick they would sing like Hawks when we came to a vein of good Wine they would chear up themselves and their neighbour with this comfortable doctrine Vivamus ut bibamus et bibamus ut vivamus and for Courtship and toying with the Wenches you would easily beleeve it had been a trade with which they had not a little been acquainted Of all men when I am married God keep my wife from them and till then my neighbours On the other side the common Priests of France are so dull and blockish that you shall hardly meet with a more contemptible people The meanest of our Curats in England for spirit and discourse are very Popes to them for learning they may safely say with Socrates Hoc tantum scimus quod nescimus but you must not look that they should say it in Latine Tongues they have none but those of their Mother and the Masse Book of which last they can make no use unless the Book be open and then also the Book is fain to read it self for in the last Romanum Missale established by the authority of Pius the fifth and recognized by Clement the eighth Anno 1600. every sillable is diversly marked whether it must be sounded long or short just as the varifying examples are in the end of the English Grammer When I had lost my self in the streets of Paris and wanted French to enquire homeward I used to apply my self to some of this reverend habit But O soeclum insipiens et infacitum you might as easily have wrought water out of the flint as a word of Latine out of their mouthes Nor is this the disease of the vulgar Masse mumbler onely it hath also infected the right worshipful of the Clergy In Orleans I had business with a Chanoin of the Church of St. Croiz a fellow that wore his surplice it was made of Lawne and Lace with as good a credit as ever I saw any and for the comliness and capacity of his cap he might have been a Metropolitan perceiving me to speak to him in a strange Tongue for it was Latine he very learnedly asked me this question Num potestis loqui Gallica which when I had denied at last he brake out into another Interrogatory viz. Quandiu fuistis in Gallice To conclude having read over my Letter with two or three deadly pangs and six times rubbing of his temples he dismissed me with this cordial and truly it was very comfortable to my humor Ego necotias vestras curabo A strange beast and one of the greatest prodigies of Ignorance that ever I met with in mans apparrel Such being the Romish Priests it is no marvail if the French be no more setled and resolute
Endive root Raddish Cheese and to the board there came A dish of Eggs ne're roasted by the flame Next they had Nuts course Dates lenten Figs And Apples from a basket made with twigs And Plums and Grapes cut newly from the tree All serv'd in earthen dishes huswifelie But you must not look for this ohear often At Wakes or feast days you may perchance be so happy as to see this plenty but at other times onus omne patilla the best provision they can shew you is a piece of Bacon where with to fatten their pottage and now and then the inwards of Beasts killed for the Gentleman But of their miseries this me thinketh is the greatest that sowing so many acres of excellent Wheat in a year and gathering in such a plentiful vintage as they do they should not yet be so fortunate as to eat white bread or drink Wine for such infinite rents do they pay to their Lords and such innumerable taxes to the King that the profits arising out of these commodities are onely sufficient to pay their duties and keep them from the extremities of cold and famine The bread which they eat is of the coursest flower and so black that it cannot admit the name of brown and as for their drink they have recourse unto the next fountain A people of any the most infortunate not permitted to enjoy the fruit of their labours and such as above all others are subject to that Sarcasme in the Gospel This man planted a Vineyard and doth not drink of the fruit thereof Neo prosunt Domino quae prosunt omnibus artes Yet were their cases not altogether so deplorable if there were but hopes left to them of a better if they could but compass this certainty that a painful drudging and thrifty saving would one day bring them out of this hell of bondage In this questionless they are entirely miserable in that they are sensible of their present fortunes and dare not labour nor expect an alteration If industry and a sparing hand hath raised any of these afflicted people so high that he is but four or five shillings richer than his neighbour his Lord immediately enhanceth his rent and enformeth the Kings task-masters of his riches by which meanes he is within two or three years brought into equal poverty with the rest A strange course and much different from that of England where the Gentry take a delight in having their Tennants thrive under them and account it no crime in any that hold of them to be wealthy On the other side those of France can abide no body to gain or grow rich upon their Farms and therefore thus upon occasions rack their poor Tennants In which they are like the Tyrant Procrustes who laying hands upon all he met cast them upon his bed if they were shorter than it he racked their joynts till he had made them even to it if they were longer he cut as much of their bodies from them as did hang over so keeping all that fell into his power in an equality of stature I need not make further application of the story but this that the French Lords are like that Tyrant How much this course doth depress the military power of the Kingdom is apparent by the true principles of warr and the examples of other Countries For it hath been held the general opinion of the best judgements in matters of war that the main buttress and pillar of an Army is the foot or as the Martialists term it the infantry Now to make a good infantry it requireth that men be brought up not in a slavish or needy fashion of life but in some free and liberal manner Therefore it is well observed by the Viscount St. Albons in his history of Henry the seventh that if a State run most to Nobles and Gentry and that the Husbandmen be but as their meer drudges or else simple Cottagers that that State may have a good Cavilleria but never good stable bands of Foot like to Coppines wood in which if you let them grow too thick in the standerds they will run to bushes or briers and have little clean under wood Neither is it thus in Franne onely but in Italy also and some other parts abroad insomuch that they are enforced to employ mercenary Souldiers for their battalions of Foot whereby it cometh to pass in those Countries that they have much people but few men On this consideration King Henry the seventh one of the wisest of our Princes took a course so cunning and wholesome for the encrease of the military power of this Realm that though it be much less in territories yet it should have infinitely more Souldiers of its native forces than its neighbour Nations For in the fourth year of his raign there passed an Act of Parliament pretensively against the depopulation of Villages and decay of tillage but purposely to make his Subjects for the warrs The Act was that all houses of Husbandry which had been used with twenty acres of ground and upwards should be maintained and kept up so together with a competent proportion of Land to be used and occupied with them c. By this meanes the houses being kept up did of necessity enfarce a dweller and that dweller because of the proportion of Land not to be a beggar but a man of some substance able to keep hinds and servants and to set the Plow going An Order which did wonderfully concern the might and manhood of the Kingdom these Farmers being sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury and by consequence to prepare them for service and encourage them to high honours for Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi As the Poet hath it But this Ordinance is not thought of such use in France where all the hopes of their Armies consist in the Cavallery or the Horse which perhaps is the cause why our Ancestors have won so many battels upon them As for the French Foot they are quite out of all reputation and are accounted to be the basest and unworthiest company in the world Besides should the French people be enfranchized as it were from the tyranny of their Lords and estated in free hold and other tenures after the manner of England it would much trouble the Councill of France to find out a new way of raising the Kings Revenues which are now meerly sucked out of the bloud and sweat of the Subject Anciently the Kings of France had rich and plentiful demeasnes such as was sufficient to maintain their Majesty and greatness without being burdensome unto the Country Pride in matters of sumptuousness and the tedious Civil warrs which have lasted in this Country almost ever since the death of Henry the second have been the occasion that most of the Crown Lands have been sold and morgaged insomuch that the people are now become the Demain and the Subject onely is the revenue of the Crown
and humanity certainly they much exceed the Parisians I was about to say all the French-men and indeed I not grudge them this Eulogie which Caesar giveth unto those of Kent and verifie that they are omnium incolarum longe humanissimi my selfe here observing more courtesie and affability in one day than I could meet withall in Paris during all my abode there The buildings of it are very suitable to themselves and the rest of France the streets large and well kept not yeilding the least offence to the most curious nostrill Parish Churches it hath in it 26. of different and unequall beeing as it useth to be in other places besides these it containeth the Episcopall Church of S. Croix and divers other houses of religious persons amongst which is St. Jacques of both which I shall speak in their due order Thus much for the resemblance of the Townes the difference betwixt them is this that Orleans is the bigger and Worcester the richer Orleans consisteth much of the Noblesse and of Sojourners Worcester of Citizens and Home-dwellers and for the manner of life in them so it is that Worcester hath the handsomer woman in it Orleans the finer and in my opinion the loveliest in all France Worcester thriveth the most on Cloathing Orleans on their Vine-presses And questionlesse the Wine of Orleans is the greatest riches not of the Towne onely but of the Countrey also about it For this cause Aâ—dre dis Chesne calleth it the prime Cellar of Paris Est une pars saith he si henreuse si secunde sur tout in vins quon la pent dice l'unde primiers celiers de Paris Those Vines wherein he maketh it to be so happy deserve no lesse a commendation than he hath given them as yeilding the best Wines in all the Kingdome such as it much moved me to mingle with Water they being so delicious to the Palate and the Epicurisme of the taste I have heard of a Dutch Gentleman who being in Italy was brought acquainted with a kinde of Wine which they there call Lachrymae Christi no sooner had he tasted it but he fell into a deep melancholy and after some seaven sighes besides the addition of two groâ—nes he brake out into this patheticall Ejaculation Dii boni quare non Christus lachrymatus esset in nostris regionibus This Dutchman and I were for a time both of one minde insomuch that I could almost have picked a quarrell with Nature for giving us none of this Liquor in England At last we grew friends again when I had perceived how offensive it was to the brain if not well qualified for which cause it is said that K. Lewis hath banished it his Cellar no doubt to the great grief of his drinking Courtiers who may therefore say with Martial Quid tantum fecere boni tibi pessima vina Aut quid fecerunt optima vina mali This towne called Genabum by Caesar was reedified by Aurelian the Emperour Anno 276. and called by his name Aurelianum which it still retaineth amongst the Latines It hath been famous heretofore for four Councels here celebrated and for being the seat royall of the Kings of Orleans though as now I could not heare any thing of the ruines of the Palace The same of it at this time consisteth in the Vniversity and its seat of Justice This town being one of them which they call Sieges Presidiaux Now these Seiges Presidiaux Seats or Courts of Justice were established in divers cities of the Realme for the ease of the people Anno 1551. or thereabouts In them all civill causes not exceeding 250 Liu'res in Money or 10. Liu'res in Rents are heard and determined soveraignly and without appeale If the summe exceed those proportions the appeale holdeth good and shall be examined in that Court of Parliament under whose jurisdiction it is Their Court here consisteth of a Baille whose name is Mr. Digion of twelve Counsellors two Lieutenants one civill the other criminall and a publique Notarie When Mr. Le Compte de St. Paul who is the Governour or Lieutenant Generall of the Province cometh into their Court he giveth precedency to the Baille in other places he receiveth it This institution of these Presidiall Courts was at first a very profitable ordinance and much eased the people but now it is grown burdensome The reason is that the offices are meere saâ—â—able and purchased by them with a great deale of money which afterwards they wrest againe out of the purses of the Paâ—sant The sale of Offices drawing necessarily after it the sale of Justice a mischief which is spread so far that there is not the worst under Officer in all the Realm Who may not say with the Captaine in the 22. of the Acts and the 28. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With a great summe of money obtained I this freedome Twenty yeares purchase is said to be no extraordinary rate and I have read that onely by the sale of Offices one of the Kings had raised in twenty yeares 139 millions which amounteth to the proportion of 7 millions yearly or thereabouts of all wayes to thrift and treasure the most unkindly In the yeare 1614. the King motioned the abolishing of the sales of this Market but it was upon a condition more prejudiciall to the people than the mischiefe For he desired in lieu of it to have a greater imposition laid upon Salt and upon the Aides which those that were Commissioners for the Câ—mmonalty would not admit of because then a common misery had been brought out of the State to make their particular miseries the greater and so the corruption remaineth unaltered This Towne as it is sweetly seated in respect of the aire so is it finely convenienced with the walks of which the chief are that next unto Paris gate having the wall on the one hand and a rank of Palm trees on the other the second that neere unto the bridge having the Water pleasingly running on both sides and a third which is indeed the principall on the East-side of the City it is called the Palle Malle of an exercise of that name much used in this Kingdome a very Gentleman-like sport not over violent and such as affordeth good opportunity of discourse as they walk from one mark to the other Into this walk which is of a wonderful length and beauty you shall have a clear evening empty all the towne the aged people borrowing legs to carry them and the younger armes to guide them If any young Dame or Monsieur walk thither single they will quickly finde some or other to link with them though perhaps such with whom they have no familiarity Thus do they measure and re-measure the length of the Palle Malle not minding the shutting in of the day till darkness hath taken away the sense of blushing at all houres of the night be it warm and dry you shall be sure to finde them thus coupled and if at the yeares end there
1594. John Chastell of Novice of this order having wounded King Henry the fourth in the mouth occasioned the banishment of this Society out of all France Into which they were not againe received till the yeare 1604. and then also upon limitations more strict than ever Into Paris they were not re-admitted untill Anno 1606. neither had they the liberty of reading Lectures and instructing the Youth confirmed unto them untill Anno 1621. which also was compassed not without great trouble and vexation Per varios casus tot discrimina rerum as Aeneas and his companions came into Latium In this Vniversity they have at this instant three Houses one of Novices a second of Institutors which they call the Colledge and a third of professed Jesuits which they stile their Monastery or the professed House of St. Lewis In their house of Novices they traine up all those whom they have called out of their Schooles to be of their order and therein imitate them in the art of Jesuitisme and their mysteries of iniquity There they teach them not Grammaticall construction or composition but instruct them in the paths of Vertue Courage and Obedience according to such examples as their Authors afford them But he that made the Funerall Oration for Henry the fourth Anno 1610. reported otherwise Latini Sermonis obtentu saith he impurissime Gallicae juventutis mores ingenuos foedant Bonarum artium praetextu pessimas edocent artes Dum ingenia excolunt animas perdunt c. In their College they have the same method of teaching which the others of their company use in Orleans A Colledge first given unto them by Mr. William Prat Bishop of Clermont whose House it was but much beautified by themselves after his decease for with the money which he gave unto them by his Will which amounteth as it was thought to 60000. Crowns they added to it the Court called de Langres in S. James's street An. 1582. Their Monastery or house of prayer or profession is that unto which they retire themselves after they have discharged their duties in the College by reading and studying publickly in their severall Classes when they are here their study both for time and quality is ad placitum though generally their onely study in it is Policy and the advancing of their cause And indeed out of this Trojan Horse it is that those firebrands and incendiaries are let out to disturb and set in combustion the affaires of Christendome Out of this Forge come all those Stratagems and tricks of Machiavillianisme which tend to the ruine of the Protestants the desolation of their Countries I speak not this of their house of Profession here in Paris either onely or principally wheresoever they settle they have a House of this nature out of which they issue to overthrow the Gospel Being once sent by their superiours a necessity is laid upon them of obedience be the imployment never so dangerous and certainly this nation doth most strictly obey the rules of their order of any whosoever not excepting the Capuchins nor the Carthusians This I am witnesse unto that whereas the Divinity Lecture is to end at the tolling of a Bell one of the Society in the College of Clermont reading about the fall of the Angells ended his Lecture with these words Denique in quibuscunque for then was the warning given and he durst not so farre trespasse upon his rule as to speak out his sentence But it is not the fate of these Jesuites to have great persons onely and Vniversities to oppose their fortunes they have also the most accomplisht malice that either the Secular Priests or their friends amongst whom they live can fasten upon them Some envy them for the greatnesse of their possessions some because of the excellency of their Learning some hate them for their power some for the shrewdnesse of their braines all together making good that saying of Paterculus that Semper eminentis fortunae comes est invidia True indeed it is that the Jesuites have in a manner deserved all this clamor and stomack by their own insolencies for they have not onely drawne into their owne hands all the principall affaires of Court and State but upon occasions cast all the storme and contempt they can upon those of the other Orders The Janizaries of the Turke never more neglectfully speak of the Asapi than these doe of the rest of the Clergie A great crime in those men who desire to be accounted such excellent Masters of their owne affections Neither is the affection borne to them abroad greater then that at home amongst those I mean of the opposite party who being so often troubled and frumped by them have little cause to afford them a liking and much lesse a welcome Upon this reason they were not sent into England with the Queen although at the first they were destinate to that purpose It was well known how odious that name was among us and so little countenance the Court or Countrey would have afforded them They therefore that had the governance of that businesse sent hither in their places the Oratorians or Fratres Congregationis Oratorii were a race of men never as yet offensive to the English further than the generall defence of the Romish cause and so lesse subject to envie and exception They were first entituled by Philip Nerius not long after the Jesuits and advanced and dignified by Pope Sixtus the fifth principally for this end that by their incessant Sermons to the People of the lives of Saints and other Ecclesiasticall antiquitie they might get a new reputation and so divert a little the torrent of the peoples affections from the Jesuits Baronius that great and excellent Historian and Bozius that deadly enemy to the soveraignty of Princes were of the first foundation of this new order I have now done with Orleans and the Jesuits and must prepare for my returne to Paris which journey I began the 13. of July and ended the day following We went back the same way that we came though we were not so fortunate as to enjoy the same company we came in formerly Instead of the good and acceptable society of one of the French Noblesse some Gentlemen of Germany and two Friers of the Order of S. Austin we had the perpetuall vexation of foure Tradesmen of Paris two Fulles de Joy and an old Woman The Artizans so slovenly attired and greazy in their apparell that a most modest apprehension could have conceived no better of them than that they had been newly raked out of the Scullery one of them by an inkhorne that hung by his side wouâ—d have made us believe that he had been â— Notary buâ— by the thread of his discourse we found out that hâ— was a Sumner so full of Ribaldry was it and so rankly did it savour of the French Bawdy court The rest of them talked according to their skill concerning the price of Commodities and whâ— was the most likely man
of all the City to be made one of the next yeares Eschevins Of the two Wenches one so extremely impudent that even an immodest â—are would have abhorred her language and of such a shamelesse deportment that her very behaviour would have frighted Lust out of the most incontinent man living Since I first knew mankinde and the world I never observed so much impudency in the generall as I did then in her particular and I hope shall never be so miserable as to suffer two dayes more the torment of her and of her conversation In a word she was a wench borne to shame all the Friers with whom she had traffiqued for she would not be Casta and could not be Cauta and so I leave her A creature extremely bold because extremely faulty and yet having no good property to redeem both these and other unlovely qualities but as Sir Philip Sidney saith of the strumpet Baccha in the Arcadia a little counterfeit Beauty disgraced with wandring eyes and unweighed speeches The other of the young females for as yet I am doubfull whether I may call any of them women is of the same profession also but not halfe so rampant as her companion Haec habitu casto cum non sit casta videtur as Ausâ—nius giveth it of one of the two wanton Sisters by her carriage a charitable stranger would have thought her honest and to that favourable opinion had my self been inclinable if a French Monsieur had not given me her Character at Orleans besides there was an odde twinkling of her eye which spoyled the composednesse of her countenance otherwise she might have passed for currant so that I may safely say of her in respect of her fellow-harlot what Tacitus doth of Pompey in reference to Caesar viz. Secretior Pompeius Caesare non melior they were both equally guilty of the same sin though this last had the more cunning to dissemble it and avoyd the infamy and censure due unto it And so I am come to the old Woman which was the last of our goodly companions A woman so old that I am not at this day fully resolved whether she were ever young or no 't was well I had read the Scriptures otherwise I might have been prone to have thought her one of the first pieces of the Creation and that by some mischance she had escaped the Floud her face was for all the world like unto that of Sybilla Erythraea in some old print or that of one of Solomons two Harlots in the painted cloth you would not but have imagined her one of the Relikes of the first age after the building of Babel for her very complexion was a confusion more dreadfull than that of Languages as yet I am uncertain whether the Poem of our Arch-Poet Spencer entituled was not purposely intended on her sure I am it is very appliable in the Title but I might have saved all this labour Ovid in his description of Fames hath most exactly given us her Portraiture and out of him and the eighth book of the Metamorphosis you may take this view of her Nullus erat crinis cava lumina pallor in ore Labra incana situ scabri rubigine dentes Dura cutis per quaÌ„ spectari viscera possent Ventris erat pro ventre locus peÌ„dere putares Pectus a spinae tantummodo crate teneri Unhair'd pale-fac'd her eyes sunk in her head Lips hoary-white and teeth most rusty red Through her course skin her guts you might espie In what estate and posture they did lie Belly she had none onely there was seen The place where her belly should have been And with her Hips her body did agree As if 't were fastned by Geometry But of this our Companion as also of the rest of the Coach full Sunday-night and our arrival at Paris hath at the last delivered us Ablessing for which â— can never be sufficiently thankfull and thus Dedit Deus his quoque finem The Fourth Book Or PICARDY CHAP. I Our return towards England more of the Hugonots hate unto Crosses The Towns of Luzarch and St. Lowp The Country of Picardy and People The Picts of Brittain not of this Country Mr. Lesdiguier Governour of Picardy The Office of Constable what it is in France By whom the place supplied in England The Marble Table in France and Causes there handled Clermont and the Castle there The Warrs raised by the Princes against D' Ancre What his Designs might tend to c. IVly the twenty seventh having dispatched that business which brought us into France and surveyed as much of the Country as that opportunity would permit us we began our journey towards England in a Coach of Amiens better accompanied we were than when we came from Orleans for here we had Gentlemen of the choisest fashion very ingenuous and in mine opinion finer conditioned than any I had met withal in all my acquaintance with that Nation and which appeared to me somewhat marvellous we had no vexation with us in the shape of a French-woman to torment our ears with her discourse or punish our eyes with her complexion Thus associated we began to wag on towards St. Lowp where that night we were to be lodged The Country such as already I have described it in the Isle of France save that beyond St Denis it began to be somewhat more hilly by the way I observed those little cressets erected in the memory of St. Denis as being vainly supposed to be his resting places when he ran from Mountmartyr with his head in his hand which the zealous madness of the Hugonots had thrown down and were now reedifyed by King Lewis It could not but call to mind the hate of that Nation unto that harmless monument of Christs suffering the Cross which is grown it seemeth so exorbitant that the Papists make use of it to discover an Hugonot I remember that as we passed by water from Amiens to Abbeville we met in the boat with a berry of French Gentlewomen To one of them with that little French which I had I applied my self and she perceiving me to be English questioned my Religion I answered as I safely might that I was a Catholike and she for her better satisfaction proffered me the little cross which was on the toâ— of her beads to kiss I kissed it and ratheâ— should I desire to kiss it than many of their lip thereupon the rest of the company gave â—ome this verdict that I was un urai Christien et 〈◊〉 point un Hugonet But to proceed to our jourâ—ey The same day we parted from Paris we passed through the Town of Luzarch and came to that of St. Lowp The first famous onely in its owner which is the Count of Soisons the second in an Abbey there scituate built in memory of St. Lupus Bishop of Troyes in Campagne These Towns passed we entred into Picardy Picardy is divided into the higher which containeth the territories of Calais and Burlogne
neither the said Infanta nor the Children born by her to the King shall be capable to inherit any of the estates of the King of Spain and in the eighth article she is bound to make an act of renunciation under her own hand-writing as soon as she cometh to be twelve years old which was accordingly performed But this being not sufficient to secure their fears it is thought that she was some way or other disabled from conception before ever she came into the Kings embraces A great crime I confess if true yet I cannot say with Tully in his defence of Ligarius Novum crimen Caie Caesar hec tempus mauditum Jaqueline Countess of Holland was Cozen to Philip Duke of Burgundie Her being fruitful would have debarred him from those estates of Holland Zealand and West-Freezland therefore though she had three Husbands there was order taken she should never have Child with her two first Husbands the Duke would never suffer her to live and when she had stollen a wedding with Frane of Borselle one of her servants the Dukes Physitians gave him such a potion that she might as well have married an Eunuch upon this injury the poor Lady died and the Duke succeeded in those Countries which by his Grand-child Marie were conveyed over into the House of Austria together with the rest of his estate I dare not say that that Family hath inherited his practises with his lands and yet I have heard that the Infanta Isabella had the like or worse measure afforded her before she was bedded to the Arch-duke Albertus A diabolical trick which the prostitutes of the heathen used in the beginnings of the Gospel and before of whom Octavius complaineth quod originem futuri hominis extinguant paricidium faciunt antequam pariunt Better luck than the King hath his Sister beyond the mountains I mean his eldest Sister Madame Elizabeth married to the King of Spain now living as being or having been the Mother of two Children His second Sister Madame Christian is married to Amadeo Victor Principe Maior or heir apparent of the Duke of Savoy to whom as yet she hath born no issue The youngest Henrietta Mariae is newly married to his most Excellent Majesty of England to whom may she prove of a most happy and fruitful womb Et pulchra faciat te prole parentem Of these alliances the first were very profitable to both Princes could there be made a marriage between the Kingdoms as well as the Kings But it is well known that the affections of each people are divided more unconquerable mountains than their dominions The French extreamly hating the proud humour and ambition of the Spaniard We may therefore account each of them in these marriages to have rather intended the perpetuity of their particular houses than the strength of their Empires and that they more desired a noble stock whereon to graft posterity than power The alliance with Savoy is more advantagious though less powerful than that of Spain For if the King of France can keep this Prince on his party he need not fear the greatness of the other or any of his faction The continuall siding of this House with that of Austria having given many and great impediments to the fortune of the French It standeth so fitly to countenance the affairs of either King in Italy or Germany to which it shall incline that it is just of the same nature with the estate of Florence between Millain and Venice of which Guicciaraine saith that Mantennero le coseâ—d Italia bilanâ—iate On this reason King Henry the fourth earnestly desired to match one of his Children into this Countrey and left this desire as a Legacie with his Council But the alliance of most use to the State of France is that of England as being the nighest and most able of all his neighbours An alliance which will make his Estate invincible and incompassed about as it were with a wall of brass As for the Kings bastard Brethren they are four in number and born of three several beds The eldest is Mr. Alexander made Knight of the Order of St. John or of Malta in the life time of his Father He is now Grand Prior of France and it is much laboured and hoped by the French that he shall be the next Master of the Order a place of great command and credit The second and most loved of his Father whose lively image and character he is said to be is Mr Caesar made Duke of Vendosme by his Father and is at this time Governor of Brittain a man of a brave spirit and one who swayeth much in the affairs of State His Father took great care for his advancement before his death and therefore married him to the Daughter and Heir of the Duke of Mercuer a man of great possessions in Brittain It is thought that the inheritance of this Lady both by her Fathers side and also by her Mothers who was of the Family of Marsegues being a stock of the old Ducal tree is no less than 200000. Crowns yearly Both these were born unto the King by Madame Gabriele for her excellent beauty surnamed labelle Dutchess of Beauforte a Lady whom the King most entirely affected even to the last gasp and one who never abused her power with him so that we may truly say of her what Velleius flatteringly said of Livia the Wife of Augustus Ejus potentiam nemo senset nisi levatione periculi aut accessione dignitatis The third of the Kings natural Brethren is Mr. Henry now Bishop of Metz in Lorraine and Abbot of St. Germans in Paris As Abbot he is Lord of the goodly Fairbourg of St. Germans and hath the profits of the great Fair there holden which make a large revenue His Bishoprick yeildeth him the profits of 20000. Crowns and upwards which is the remainder of 60000. the rest being pawned to the Duke of Lorraine by the last Bishop who was of that family The Mother of this Mr. Henry is the Marchioness of Verneville who before the death of the King fell out of his favour into the prison and was not restored to her liberty till the beginning of the Queen Mothers Regency The fourth and youngest is Mr. Antonie born unto the King by the Countess of Morret who is Abbot of the Churches of Marseilles and Cave hath as yet not fully six thousand pound a year when his Mother dieth he Will be richer The Kings lawful Brother is named John Baptist Gaston born the 25th of April Anno 1608. A Prince of a brave and manlike aspect likely to inherit as large a part of his Fathers spirit as the King doth of his Crown He is entituled Duke of Aniou as being the third Son of France but his next elder Brother the Duke of Orleance being dead in his childhood he is vulgarly and properly called Monsieur This title is different from that of Daulphin in that that title is onely appropriated to the Heir