I be alwayes forced to passe two Seas to fetch it when I need it I hope your justice will doe me reason and that Heaven will at last heare the most ardent of all my prayers but in the meane time whilst I stay waiting for so perfect a contentment I would be glad to have of it now and then some little taste which if it be not in your power to give mee at least lend it mee for some few dayes and come and sit as supreme President over both my French and Latin I promise you I will never appeale from you to any other onely for this once give mee leave to tell you that the word Ludovix which you blame as too new seemes to me a more Poeticall and pleasing word than either the Aloysius of the Italians or our Ludovicus and besides It savours of the Antiquitie of our Nation and of the first language of the Gaules witnesse these words Ambiorix Eporedorix Orgetorix Vercingetorix c. In which you see the Analogie to be plaine yet more than this I have an Authoritie which I am sure you will make difficultie to allow you know Monsieur Guyet is a great Master in this Art but perhaps you know not that hee hath used this very word Ludovix before I used it for I tooke it from excellent Verses of his Non tulit hoc Ludovix justa puer acer ab ira Etpatriae casum sic videamus ait For other matters Sir you may adde to that which was last alledged in the cause of Madam Gourney this passage out of the divine Jerusalem where Aladin calles Clorinda the Intercessour of Sophronia and of her lover Habbian vita Rispose libertade E Nulla a tanto Intercessor si neghi I kisse the hands of that faire creature you love and am with all my soule Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Septemb. 1635. To my Lord the Earle of Port. LETTER X. SIR I have received a letter from you since your being in England but not being able to read the Gentlemans hand that writ it to me for want of a decipherer I have been forced to bee uncivill till now and have therefore not answered you because indeed I know not whom to answer but now that this Gentleman whose name is a mysterie in his letters is by good fortune come againe into this countrey I can by no meanes suffer him to part without some testimonie of the account I make of your favour and the desire I have to preserve it by all the possible meanes I can I will make you Sir no studied Protestations nor send complements to a man that is borne in the Countrey of good words I will onely say there are many respects that make your person deaâ—… unto mee and that besides the consideration of your vertue which gives mee just cause to honour you that also of the name you beare and of the ranke you hold are things that exceed the value of indifferencie I love all them that love France and wish well to our great Prince of whom in truth I have heard you speake so worthily that as often as I remember it it stirres mee up to doing my dutie and to profit by so good an example If hee had been seconded in Italy wee should have seene all we could have hoped But God himselfe saves none but such as contribute themselves to their salvation Saguntum was taken while the Senatours were deliberating and a wisedome that is too scrupulous commonly doth nothing for feare of doing ill The most part of Italians are themselves the workmen to make their owne fetters they lend the Spaniard their blood and their heares to make a slave of their countrey and are the particides of their mother of whom they might have been the redeemers But of all this wee shall talke more at Paris if you come thither this Winter as I am put in hope you will In the means time doe mee the honor to let me have your love and to believe mee there is none in the world more truely than I Sir Yours c. At Balzac 10 Sept. 1630. To my Lord the Bishop of Nantes LETTER XI MY Lord the joy I take in the recoverie of your health is not yet so pure but that it alwayes represents unto me a terrible Image of your last sicknesse The imagination of a danger thogh past gone yet makes my momorie afraid I looke upon it rather in safetie than with assurance We missed the loosing you but very narrowly and you were upon the poynt to leave us Orphans I speake it seriously and without any flattery at all all the victories we have gotten or shall get would never be able to make us amends for such a losse you would have made our conquest turne to mourning M. the Cardinall would have found something to complaine of in his great felicitie and would have watred his triumph with his teares Let it not be Gods will to lay this crosse upon our time and if it be a crosse inevitable yet let it be deferred to our posteritie It is necessarie the Phoâ—…nix should live out her age and that the world should be allowed time for enjoying the possession and so profitable and sweet a life as yours It is true the world is not worthy of you but my Lord the world hath need of you your vertue indeed should long since have beene crowned but that your example is still necessarie and the more happie ones there be in heaven the fewer honest ones will be left upon earth Love therefore your selfe a little for our sakes begin now at last to studie your health which hitherto you have neglected and make a difference hereafter between cold and heate betweene good and bad aire between meates that are sweet and those that are bitter Though you take no care of your health for your owne sake yet you must take care of it for the common good For I beseech you my Lord tell me what should become of the cause of the poore what of the desolation of widowes what of the innocencie of men oppressed I speak not of the hope of such as hope for preferment by you for though I write to you my Father and call you Monsieur yet I am none of that number I desire nothing from you at this time but that which you may give me without asking it of another your love and good will is the onely object of my present passion I renounce with all my heart all other things in the world so I may keepe but this and shall never complaine of my shipwracke if it leave me so solid a planke as this to rest upon Beâ—… pleased to doe me the honour to believe it and that I am with all my soule My Lord Your c. At Balzac 15. June 1635. To Monsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XII SIR I have been in extasie to heare of your health and that you keepe your bodie in that reasonable
as it There have strangers beene Marshalls of France but their accent hath alwayes discovered they were not naturall and they have found it more easie to merit the leading of our Armies and to gaine the favour of our King then to learne our language and attaine a true pronouncing But Sir seeing in your person there is seene an Ambassadour of eighteene yeares old and a wisedome without experience there is not so great a wonder in the world as your selfe nor any thing incredible after this It is fit onely that you make more account than you doe of this so rare and admirable a quality and that you should use it according to its merits and not employ it upon base subjects that are not worthy of it Otherwise how good an Artist so ever you be you will be blamed for making no better choise of your Materialls and my selfe who draw so much glory from our fault had yet much rather see you employ your excellent language in treating of Princes interests and the present estate of Europe then in advancing the value of a poore sicke man who prayes you to keepe your valuing for and askes you nothing but pitty or at most but affection if this be to merit it that I passionately am Sir Your c. From Balzac 6. Novem. 1629. To him another LETTER XIX SIR I remember my promise upon condition you forget not yours and that in case you come within sixe miles of Balzac you will allow mee the halfe dayes journey I require It is not any hope I have to send you away well satisfied either with your Hoste or with your lodging that makes mee to make this request but it is Sir for my owne benefit for you know very well we never have commerce together but all the gaine remaines of my side I finde that in your conversation which I seeke for in vaine in my neighbours Libraries and if there fall out any errours in the worke I am about the faults must be attributed to your absence Leave mee not therefore I entreate you to my owne senee and suffer mee to be so proud as to expect one of your Visits if you goe to Santoigne or otherwise to prevent it if you stay at Lymousin There are some friendships that serve onely to passe away the time and to remedy the tediousnesse of solitarinesse but yours Sir besides being pleasant is withall I vow no lesse profitable I never part from you that I bring not away pleasuros that last and profit that doth you no hurt I make my selfe rich of that you have too much and therefore as you ought not to envie me my good fortune which costs you little so you ought to beleeve also that as long as I shall love my selfe I shall be Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Decem. 1629. Another to him LETTER XX. SIR at that time when Mistris parted from hence I was too much out of order to present my selfe before a wise man and I chose rather to be failing in the rules of civilitie then to be importunate upon you with my Compliments Now that I am a little at qulet and can fall to worke indifferent well I must needes tell you that the confidence I have of your love sweetens all the bitternesse of my spirit and that in my most sensible distasts I finde a comfort in thinking of this It is certaine Sir the world is strangely altered and good men now a dayes cannot make a troope This is the cause that seeing you are one of this little flocke which is preserved from infection and one of those that keepe vertue from quite leaving us I therefore blesse incessantly Madam Desloges for the excellent purchase I have made by her meanes and proclaime in all places that shee discovered me a treasure when she brought me first to be acquainted with you If I husband it not and dresse it with all the care and industry it deserves it is not I assure you for want of desire but so sweete and pleasing duties have no place amidst the traverses of a life in perpetuall agitation and your ordinary conversation is reserved for men more happy than I. I waite therefore for this favour from a better fortune than the present as also occasions by which I may testifie that I possionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. Febru 1630. To him another LETTER XXI SIR although I am ravished with your eloquence yet I am not satisfied but you remaine still unjust and I not well pleased I see what the matter is you are so weary of your Pennance at Lymousin that you have no minde to come and continue it in Angoumois You like better to goe in a streight line to the good then to goe to it by the crooked change of evill and preferre a safe harbour before an incommodious creeke Wherein Sir I cannot blame your choise onely I complaine of your proceeding and finde it strange you should disguise your joy for escaping a badde passage and that you are content to be unhappy at Rochell because you will not venture to be unhappy here These high and Theologicall comparisons which you draw from the austeritie of Anchorets concerning workes of supererogation concerning Purgatory and Hell make me know you are a mocker and can make use of Ironies with the skill and dexterity of Socrates Take heede I be not revenged upon this Figure of yours by another and returne your Hyperboles For this once I am resolved to suffer all hereafter perhaps I shall helpe my selfe with my old Armes But howsoever the world goe and in what stile soever I write unto you you may be sure I speake seriously when I say that I very firmely am Sir Your c. At Balzac 9. Septem 1630. To him another LETTER XXII SIR I am exceedingly beholding to you for remembring mee and for the good newes you have so liberally acquainted me withall If the loved Suger as well as they love salt they should have enough of it never to drinke any thing but Hyppocras nor to eate any thing but Comfits Without jeasting I vow these are excellent Rebells and their simplicitie is more subtill than all the Art and Maximes of Florence These Mariners reade Lessons now to the inhabitants of Terra firma and are become the Paedagouges of Princes There is nothing of theirs that troubles mee but the proposition of their Truce They should reject it as a temptation of the devill and I dare sweare it was never set a foote but to gaine time and opportunity The good will the Spaniard makes shew to beare them is the baite they shew upon the hooke they hide hee seekes not after them but to catch them and he makes shew of kindnesse because hee could doe no good with force Though I have not read the Booke you spake to me of yet I doubt not of its worth and goodnesse I know the Authour is a man of great learning and experience and one that hath beene
is false to say The Gothes and Vandalts could justly bragge they left nothing of any worth behinde them I finde still the full Majestie of the language in your writings and your stile hath in it not onely the Ayre and Garbe of that good time but the very Courage and the Vertue You draw your Opinions from the same Well and I see no cause that any man can have to contradict them It is certaine that to gaine beleefe one must keepe himselfe within the bounds of likelihood and present to posterity examples which it may follow and not Prodigies with which it may be frighted Words that are disproportionable to the matter seeme to savour of that Mountibankes straine who would have it beleeved he could make a statue of a Mountaine and would perswade us that a man were a mile long There are some mens workes not much lesse extravagant than this Mountibanks designe and most men seeme to write with as little seriousnesse and with as little care to be beleeved And though men make a conscience in dealing with particular persons yet when they come to deale with the Publike they seeme to thinke themselves dispensed with and that they owe more respect to one neighbour than to whole Nations and to all Ages to come You know notwithstanding that this is no new vice and not to make a troublesome enumeration of the antient adoters of Favour Is not that base delight of Velleim come even to us and was he not a Bondslave that desired one should know he was in love with his Chaine I could curse the ill fortune of good letters that hath bereft us of the booke which Brutus writ of vertue wherein wee might have seene the infamous profession he makes of unmanlinesse to have more care of the orders of a corrupted Court than of upholding the maine structure of the Latine Philosophie If it had beene his fortune to have outlived Sejanus I doubt not but hee would have taken from him all the praises hee had given him to make a present of them to his successour Macron and if the gappes and breaches of his booke were filled up one should see he had not forgotten so much as a Groome in all Tiberius house of whom he had not written Encomiums Wee live in a Government much more just and therefore much more commendable the raigne of our King is not barren of great examples It is impossible the cariage of M. the Cardinall should bee more dextrous more sage more active than it is yet who knowes not that hee hath found worke enough to doe for many Ages and battailes enow to fight for many Worthies That hee hath met with difficulties worthy of the transcendent forces of himselfe farre exceeding the forces of any other it is necessary that Time it selfe should joyne in labour with excellent Master-workemen to produce the perfection of excellent workes The recovery of a wasted body is not the worke of onely one potion or once opening a veine the reviving a decayed estate requires a reiteration of endeavours and a constancy of labours The salving of desperate cases goes not so swift a pace as Poets descriptions or Figures of Orators Wee must therefore keepe the extension of our subject within certaine bounds and not say that the victory is perfected as long as it leaves us the evills of warre and that there remaines any Monster to bee vanquished seeing even poverty is it selfe one of the greatest Monsters and in comparison whereof those which Hercules subdued were but tame and gentle With time our Redeemer will finish his worke and he that hath given us security will give us also no doubt abundance But seeing the order of the world and the necessity of affaires affoords us not yet to tast this happines it shall bee a joy unto mee to see at least the Image of it in your History to returne and re-enter by your meanes into these three so rich and flourishing yeares after which the peace hath shewed it selfe but by fits and the Sunne it selfe hath beene more reserved of his beames and not ripened our fruits but on one side You shall binde mee infinitely unto you to grant me a sight of this rare Peece and to allow me a key of that Temple which you keepe shut to all the world besides I assure my selfe I shall see nothing there but that which is Stately and Magnificent specially I doubt not but the Pallace it selfe is admirable and that your words doe Parallell the subject when you come to speake of the last Designes of our deceased King and of the undoubted revolution he had brought upon the state of the world if he had lived And though in this there be more of divination then of knowledge and that to speake of such things be to expound Riddles yet in such cases it is not denyed to be Speculative and I do not beleeye that Lyvie recounting the death of Caesar did lightly passe over the Voyage he intended against the Parthians and that he stayed not a little to consider the new face he would have put upon the Common-wealth if death had not prevented him If all my affaires lay here yet I would make a journey to Paris expressely for this and to reade a discourse made after the fashion of this Epitaph which pleased me exceedingly He had a Designe to winne Rhodes and overcome Italy I should have much a doe to hold in my Passion till then but now I stand waiting for your Tertullian that I may learne of him that patience which he teacheth that I faint not in waiting till it Printed and in state to be seene and till he come abroad under your Corrections like to those glorious bodies which being clensed from all impurity of matter doe glister and shine on every side This is an Authour with whom your Preface would have made me friends if I had otherwise beene fallen out and that the hardnesse of his phrase and the vices of his age had given me any distaste from reading him But it is long since that I have held him in account and as sad and thorny as he is hath not beene unpleasing to me Me thinkes I finde in his writings that darke light or light some darkenesse which an ancient Poet speakes off and I looke upon the obscurity of his writing as I should looke upon a peece of Ivory that were well wrought and polished This hath beene ever my opinion of him As the beauties of Africa doe not therefore leave to be Amiable because they are not like to ours and as Sophonis be would have carryed the prize from many Italian faces so the wits of the same Country doe not leave to please though their eloquence be a forreiner and for my part I preferre this man before many that take upon them to be imitators of Cicero Let it be granted to delicate Eares that his stile is of Iron but then let it be granted also that of this Iron many excellent Armours
have been forged that with it he hath defended the honour and innocency of Christianity with it he hath put the Valentinians to flight and hath pierced the very heart of Marcyon You see I want not much of declayming in his Praise but to avoid this inconvenience I thinke best to breake off abruptly I am neither good at making Orations nor at venting of Complements I am a bad Advocate and as bad a Courtier yet I entreate you to beleeve that I am very truely Sir Your c. To Mounsieur du Moulin LETTER III. SIr no modesty is able to resist the Praises that come from you And I vow unto you I tooke a pleasure to suffer my selfe to be corrupted with the first lines of your Letter But it must be one that knowes himselfe lesse then I doe that dwels long in this errour After a pleasing dreame One is willing to awake and I see well enough that when you take such advantage to speake of my Travell you make not use of the whole ability of your Iudgement You doe me a favour I cannot say you doe me justice you seeme to have a will to oblige me to you by hazarding to incurre the displeasure of Truth Now that you are your selfe at the Goale you encourage with all your forces those that are in the race and to perswade them to follow you make them believe they shall goe beyond you An admirable tricke of Art I must confesse and which at first I did not discover But whatsoever it be and from what ground soever this wonderful coÌ„mendation of yours proceeds I esteeme it not lesse then an ambitious man doth a Crowne and without piercing into your purpose I take a joy in my good Fortune which is not small Sir to be loved of you whom I have alwaies exceedingly loved and whom I have a long time looked upon in the Huguenot Party as an excellent Pylot that affronts a great Fleete being himselfe but in a Pinnace The Right and Authority is on our side the Plots and Stratagems on yours and you seeme not lesse confident in your courage then we in our cause It is certaine that this is the way to give a sedition the shew of a just warre and to a multitude of mutiners the face of a well ordered Army By this you keepe many in a good opinion of that which hath now lost the attractiveÌ„ grace of Novelty and though it be now bending to its declination yet it cannot be denyed but that it holds still some colour and some apparance by the Varnish of your writings and that never man hath more subtilly covered his cause from shew of weakenesse nor more strongly upheld his side from ruine then your selfe Si Pergama Dextra Defendi possent etiam hac Defensafuissent This is my ordinary language when it comes in my way to speake of you I am not of the passionate humour of the vulgar which blancheth the liberty of their judgement and finds never any fault in their owne side nor vertue in the opposite For my selfe from what cloud soever the day breake I account it faire and assure my selfe that at Rome honest men commended Hanniball and none but Porters and base people spake basely of him It is indeed a kinde of sacriledge to devest any man whatsoever he be of the gifts of God and if I should not acknowledge that you have received much I should be injurious to him that hath given you much and for difference of the cause wrong our Benefactor that is indifferent It is true I have not alwaies flattered the ill disposed French and was put in some choler against the Authors of our last broyles but observing in your Bookes that our intendments are alike and that the subjection due to Princes is a part of the Religion you professe I have thought I might well speake of your conformity herein as much as I say and in so doing be but your Interpreter Whether the tempest rise from the Northerne winde or from the Southerne it is to me equally unpleasing and in that which concernes my duty I neither take Councell from England nor yet from Spaine My humour is not to wrestle with the Time and to make my selfe an Antagonist of the Present it is paine enough for me onely to conceive the Idea of Cato and Cassius and being to live under the command of another I find no vertue more fitting then obedience If I were a Switzer I would thinke it honour enough to be the Kings Gossip and would not be his subject nor change my liberty for the best Master in the world but since it hath pleased God 〈◊〉 have me borne in chaines I beare them â—…illingly and finding them neither cumberâ—…me nor heavy I see no cause I should breake â—…y teeth in seeking to breake them It is a â—…reat argument that Heaven approoves that â—…overnement which hath continued its succesâ—…on now a dozen Ages an evill that should last 〈◊〉 long might in some sort seeme to be made â—…egitimate and if the age of men be venerable â—…ertainely that of estates ought to be holy These great Spirits which I speake of in my â—…orke and which are of your Party should â—…ave come in the beginning of the world to â—…ave given lawes to new people and to have â—…etled an establishment in the politicke estate â—…t as it is necessary to invent good lawes so â—…ertainely it is dangerous to change even those â—…at are bad These are the most cruell thoughts â—…at I entertaine for the heads of the party in â—…is sort I handle the adverse side and take no â—…easure to insult upon your miseries as you â—…eme civilly to charge me who have written â—…at the King should be applauded of all the â—…orld if after he hath beaten downe the pride â—…f the Rebels he would not tread upon the â—…alamity of the afflicted The persecutors of â—…ose who submit themselves are to me in eâ—…uall exeÌ„cration with the violatours of Sepulâ—…hers and I have not onely pitty of their afâ—…iction but insome sort reverence I know â—…at places strucken with lightning have someâ—…mes beene held Sacred The finger of God hath beene respected in them whom it hath touched and great adversities have sometimes rather given a Religious respect then received a reproach But thus to speake of the good successe of the Kings Armes were to speake improperly Both sides have gained by his victory All the penalty that hath beene imposed upon you hath beene but this to make you as happy as our selves and you are now in quiet possession of that happinesse for which before your Townes were taken you were but suppliants Our Prince will put no yoke upon the consciences of his Subjects he desires not to make that be received by force which cannot well be received but by perswasion nor to use such remedies against the French which are not good but against the Moores If the King of Sweden use his prosperity in this manner and soile not
so pure a Grace with proscriptions and punishments I make you a faithfull promise to doe that which you desire me to doe to employ all my cunning and all my engines to erect a statue to the memory of his Name You touch the right string of my inclination when you pray me to praise and to magnifie that Prince If all the Crownes that are wrought upon his Scarfe should be changed into so many Kingdomes they could never in my opinion sufficiently recompence so rare a vertue nor be able to fill so vaste a Spirit as his is As I expect nothing but great from his valour so from his honesty I hope for nothing but good and although in Spaine it be currant that he is certainely Antichrist yet I am â—…either so devout to beleeve such a fable nor â—…o fearefull to be afraide of such a deame I onâ—…y answer some scrupulous persons who queâ—…tion me about this Prince that our King hath â—…n him a second to stand by him and such a one â—…s a fitter could never be found to strike an amasement into the house of Austria and to â—…ivert it from the care it takes of our affaires But I will stay my selfe here for this time and â—…ot enter upon a subject which I reserve for the â—…earest houres of my leasure it is better to make 〈◊〉 stand at the porch of holy places then to enter â—…nto them without preparation Besides my disâ—…ourse may seeme already long if not too long â—…or a beginning of acquaintance pardon I beâ—…eech you the contentment I take to be this way with you which makes me forget both â—…our employments and my owne custome It â—…s not any desire I have to be troublesome to â—…ny much lesse to make Sermons to my friends â—…ut your selfe gave me the Text I have handâ—…ed and I cannot doubt but that having openâ—…d unto you the bottome of my heart without â—…issimulation you will give my liberty the credit of your beliefe and with this I solemnely â—…ssure you that I truely am Sir Your c. To Mounsieur the Abbot of Baume LETTER IV. SIR I am true if not liberall and I send you that I promised though I cannot send you what I would This is neither a mooveable for the use of your house nor an ornament to beautifie your closet it is matter of discourse onely for two or three dayes at your table and a Novelty that will quickly grow stale But if your selfe have any better opinion of it and that you account it of any value I am contented that you leave my stile to the mercy of any that will arrest it so you please to justifie my intentions to men that are reasonable and not suffer in the Country where you are that an honest man should bee oppressed with the hatred against his side If I were a revoulted Spaniard and that the words I write did come from the mouth of a Fugitive they might with good reason bee taken in ill part and we finde that a Graecian at Athens was once punished for serving the Persians to bee their Interpreter but I desire you to consider that the cause I maintaine is the cause of my Prince and Country which I could not maintaine coldly without a kinde of treason We punish Prevaricatours and Traytors but true and lawfull enemies wee prayse and I cannot thinke that M. the Cardinall of Cueva will thinke the worse of my passion for the publike liberty who hath shewed himselfe the like passion for one particular mans Regency I am not afraid that a good action should make me lose his favour or that being himselfe extreamely just hee should not more esteeme of my zeale which is naturall and honest than the choller of Doctor Boucher a mercenary man and a Pentioner to a stranger It will be no Novelty to say that of Spaine which hath beene alwayes said of great Empires and that rapine and cruelty is a reproach even to Eagles and Lyons To be a Tyrant and an Vsurper is it not in other termes to be a Grandee and a Conqueror And are not violence and severity vices that exceed the reach of vertue and which makes our morality ridiculous I blame sometimes the counsailes of Kings but I never lay hands upon their royalty and if I seeke to cut off superfluities and excesses it cannot therfore be justly sayd I teare that off which I seeke to prune Crownes are to me sacred even upon Idolaters heads and I adore the marke of God in the person of the great Cham and of the great Mogoll Having now made this declaration which yet is more expressly delivered in my booke I hope there will be no place left for calumnie and I promise to my selfe that for my sake you will whip the Spaniards in point of generousnesse and shew them that she hath shewed her selfe principally to doe a favour to enemies and to mingle things which seeme hard to bee mingled courtesie and warre together I demand not these good offices from you I expect them from your friendship and I doubt not but you will continue it to me in spight of all the spightfulnesse and bitternesse of the opposites seeing I know you are free from those petty passions of vulgar spirits and that you know I am Sir Your c. To Mounsieur Bouthillier Counsellor of the King in his Counsailes and Secretary of his commands LETTER V. SIR I vow I am one of the worst Courtiers of France and to justifie Fortune for having little favoured me I will accuse my selfe for having little courted her yet for the love of you I have used an extraordinary endeavour My affection hath gone beyond my action and I have put my selfe to the venture to goe as farre as Gascogny to seeke you out If you had gone by Cadillac as I was told you would you had found me at the waters side at your disimbarking and I should have put hard with the best of the Country to have had the honour to offer you my service first of any but God did not thinke me worthy of my desires It was his pleasure I should make a journey of fifty leagues not to see you and I conceive my happinesse to be such that if I should goe to Paris with the like intention God would presently inspire the Kings heart to send you away in some Embassage Be pleased therefore Sir to spare me this travaile I dare undertake no second voyage for feare least such a thought onely should remoove you from the station where all the good of life is seated and out of which a man can have no contentment but what he can get by the force of Reason and Philosophie It sufficeth me that I have this one way left me to present you my Complements and that from time to time I can make you reade that your Idaea is the deare company of my solitude your reputation the comfortable trouble of my repose In the estate I now am in this
doe not thinke there are questions enow in the world to put unto him In one day I have heard him discourse with Gentlemen about hunting and husbandry with Iesuits about Divinitie and the Mathematicks with Doctors of lesse austere profession about Rhetoricke and Poetrie without ever borrowing a forreigne terme where the naturall were the fitter and without ever flying to authority where the case in question were to be decided by reason To answer a premeditated oration from point to point upon the suddaine and to send backe our oratours more perswaded by his eloquence then satisfied with their owne this I have seene him oftentimes doe and no man ever came to visit him whose heart hee did not winne with his words or at least left in it such an impression as is wont to bee the first elementing and foundation of love No libertie can be so sweete as so reasonable a subjection such a yoake is more to be valued then the Mayor of Rochels Halberds and when one is once assured of the sufficiencie of his guide it is afterwards but a pleasure to bee led In lesse then one weeke hee hath new made all spirits here hath fortified the weake hath cleared the scrupulous and hath given to all the world a good opinion of the present and a better hope of the time to come I vow unto you I never saw a man that had a more pleasing way of commanding nor better knew how to temper force and perswasion together I have indeede knowne some not unfit to command but it hath beene in a Gally not in a City such might serve for excellent followers but are never good to make Governours they understand not the Art of governing Freemen there are even some beasts of so generous a disposition that it would be rudenesse to carry a hard hand over them much more whom one might leade in his garter to curbe them besides a bridle with a Cavasson They thinke that power cannot subsist but by severity and that it growes weake and scorned vds it be not frightfull and injurious This method and manner of governing is not like to come from the schoole and discipline of M. the Cardinall from whom nothing is ever seene to come that relisheth not of the mildenesse of his countenance and receiveth not some impression from the clearenesse of his eyes All that have the honour to come neare about him are knowne by this Character weare all the same livery though they bee of different deserving There is not so sullen an humorist that is not mollified by his presence nor so dull an understanding that he makes not pregnant with a word of his mouth this you know and I am not ignorant of hee makes powerfull use of weake instruments and his inspirations lift up spirits to such a highth as their owne nature could never carry them Hee needes in a man but a small seede of reason to draw from him exceeding effects of prudence and he instructs so effectually the grossest spirits that what they want in themselves they get by his instructions These are workes which none can doe but he materialls which none but he can put in frame yet I thinke I may say without offence that this is more of his choyse then of his nature To spirits that languished for want of roome to stirre themselves in hee hath given scope and imployment and where he hath found a vertue neglected to make it as bright as it was solid he hath not forborne to crowne it with his friendship There is not a mouth in all his Province that blesseth not his Election and every man beleeves to have received from him that power which he hath procured to him who will not use it but for our good Amongst the showtes of exultation which waite upon him in all places where he goes the joy of the people is not so fixed upon present objects but that it mounts to a higher cause and gives thankes to the first moover of the good influences which the lower heavens powre downe upon us And in effect if Caesar thought hee tooke a sufficient revenge of the Africans for their taking part with the enemy by placing Salust to be their Governour who did them more hurt by his private Family then a Conqueror would have done with all his Army by the contrary reason wee may gather that the true Father of his Country hath had a speciall care of us in advancing M. de Brassac to the government of this Province and meant herein to honour the memory of his abode there and to make happy that Land where perhaps he first conceived those great designes which hee hath since effected I should not have spoken so much in this point if I did not know that you mislike not in mee these kinds of excesse and if it were not the vice of Lovers now adayes to speake of the object of their love without all limits Besides I have beene willing to make you forget the beginning of my Letter by the length of the middle and by a more pleasing second discourse to take from you the ill taste I had given you by the first And so adue Mounsieur Choler never feare that I will provoke you againe it was my evill Angell that cast this temptation upon me to make me unhappy I might have beene wise by the example of whom you handled so hardly in presence of I shall be better advisde hereafter and will never be Sir But your c. From Balzack 16. of Aprill 1633. To Mounsieur de Soubran LETTER XIII SIr if you take mee for a man hungry of Newes you do not know me and if I have asked you for any it is because I had none to tell you and because I must have something to say I have done it against the streame of my resolution quite which is to quit the world both in body and minde but custome is a thing we often fall into by flying it and we sweare sometimes that we will not sweare I desire so little to learne that I know not that I would be glad to forget that I know and to be like those good Hermites who enquired how cities were made and what kind of thing a King or a Commonwealth was I am well assured that Paris will not be removed out of its place that Rochell will not be surprized againe by Guiton that petty Princes will not devest great Kings that favour will never want Panegyricks and Sonnets that the Court will never be without Sharkes and Cheaters that Vertue will ever be the most beautifull and the most unprofitable thing in the world And what can you write in the generall of affaires that hath not relation to one of these points And for my owne particular what can I heare but that either some Booke is written against me or that my Pension is like to be ill paid or that I shall not be made an Abbot unlesse I be my selfe the Founder of the Abby
am in heart and soule Sir my deare Cosin Your c. From Balzack 4. May 1633. To Mounsieur D' Andilly Counsellor of the King in his Counsels LETTER XXXII SIR I perceive that Mounsieur the great Master is a great extender of Expositions and hath tied you to explaine your selfe in a matter whereof I never doubted Herein hee hath exceeded his Commission and done more than hee had in charge to doe I seeke no new assurance of your friendship this were to shew a distrust in the old whereas the foundation already laidis such that makes me forbeare even ordinary duties for feare I should make shew to neede them and as if I would hold by any other strength then your owne inclination Care and diligence and assiduitie are not alwayes the true markes of sincere affections which I speake in your behalfe as my owne Truth walkes now a dayes with a lesse traine men use not to make open profession of it but rather to confesse it as a sinne her enemies are strong and open her adherents weake and secret yet Sir if she were in more disgrace and were driven out of France by Proclamation I should beleeve you would be her receiver and to finde her out I should goe directly to Pompone I therefore never doubted of your love God keepe me from so evill a thought onely I marvelled that knew nothing of it and that you let him take possession of his government without recommending unto him your friends there To satisfie my selfe in this point I said in my minde that certainely this proceeded from the great opinion you had of his justice and that conceiving there would not be with him any place for Grace or Favour you would not doe me a superfluous office This is the interpretation I made of an omission which in appearance seemed to accuse you and this is the conjecture I made of your silence before I came to know the cause Now I see I was in the wrong to imagine you had such subtill considerations or that you were restrained by such a cowardly wisedome which dares not assure the good to be good least such assuring should corrupt it For my part I renounce a prudence that is so dastardly and scrupulous that feares to venture a word for a vertuous friend because this friend is a man and may perhappes lose his vertue You doe much better than so and Pam glad to find you not so jealous of the glory of your judgement but that you can be contented to be slighted and scorned when it is for the benefit of a friend you love let us leave fleame and coldnesse to old Senatours and never make question whether wee ought to call them infirmities of age or fruits of reason These are good qualities for enabling men to judge of criminall causes but are nothing worth for making men fit to live in societie and he of whom it was said that all he desired hee desired extremely seemes to mee a much honester man than those that desire so coldly and are so indifferent in their desires If you were not one of these violent reasonable men and had not some of this good fire in your temper I should not have your approbation so good cheape That which now galls you would not at all touch you and things which now descend to the bottome of your soule would passe away lightly before your eyes There came yesterday a man to see me who is not so sensible of the pleasures of the minde and tooke great pitty of me and my Papers hee told me freely that of all knowledges which require study he made reckoning of none but such onely as are necessary for life and that he more valued the stile of the Chancâ—…ry than that of Cicero he more esteemed the penning of a Chancery Bill than the best penned Oration that ever Cicero writ I thought this at first a strange compliment but thinking well of it I thought it better to seeme to be of his opinion then undertake to cure a man uncureable I therefore answered him that the Patriarch Calarigstone so famous for the peace of Uervins was in a manner of his minde who being returned from his Embassage and asked what rate and admirable things hee had seene at Paris made mention of none but their Cookes shoppes saying to every body as it were with exclamation Ueramente quelle rostisseries sono Cosa stupenda as much as to say that there are Barbarians elsewhere then at Fez and Morocco One halfe of the world doth not so much as excuse that which you praise our merchandise is cried downe long since and to bring it into credit againe and put it off there had neede returne into the world some new Augustus and Antoninus saith that whilst he waites for the resurrection of these good Princes hee is resolved to rest himselfe and not to publish his Verses till they shall be worth a Pistole a peece I feare it will be long ere we shall see this Edition come forth for my selfe who make no such reckoning of my Prose I have no purpose to make merchandise of it yet desire I not nither to tire my hands with writing continually to no profit I meane to make hereafter no other use of my Penne then to require my friends to let mee heare of their healths and to assure you Sir that I am no mans more Than yours c. At Balzac 12. Iune 1633. To Mounsieur Conrart LETTER XXXIII SIR I had a great lon ging to see and you have done me a speciall kindnesse to send it mee over Yet I must tell you that your sending it gets him a greater respect with me then his owne deserving and if you appoint me not to make some reckoning of him all that I shall doe for his owne sake will bee but to beare with him A man had neede be of a sanguine complexion and in a merry veine before that should be mooved to laugh at his poore jests Melancholicke men are too hard to be stird that which goes to the Centre of other mens hearts stayes without doores in theirs at least it toucheth but very weakely the outside and oftentimes I am so sadly disposde and in so sullen an humour that if a Ieaster be not excellent I cannot thinke him tollerable nor indure to heare him It is certaine the Italians are excellent in the art of jeasting and I could marke you out a passage in Boccace that would have made and all his predecessours the Stoick Philosophers to forfeit their gravitie But there are not two Boccaces nor two Ariostoes there are many that thinke themselves pleasant when they are indeede ridiculous I would our good would leave his wrangling about controversies and fall to this kinde of writing in which in my opinion hee would prove excellent This would draw his Genius out of Petters and give it the extent of all humane things to play in onely he should spare the Church for her eldest sonnes sake and
as a medicine that pleases Many men feare more the bitternesse of the potion that is given them then the annoyance of the infirmitie that offends them we would faine goe to health by a way of pleasure and he should bee a much abler man that could purge with Raspices then he that should do it with Rhubarbe Our Gentleman by his leave is none of these for commonly hee neither instructs nor delights he neither heales nor flatters their passions that reade him hee hath neither inward treasure nor outward pompe and yet I can tell you as beggarly and wretched as hee is hee hath beene robbed and ransacked in France Hee could not save himselfe from our Theeves and you may see some of his spoiles which I present you here My fidling Doctor in his visage various Had twice as many hands as had Briareus There was not any morsell in the dish Which he with eyes and fingers did not fish And so forth You see wee live in a Country where even Beggars and Rogues cannot passe in safetie though they have nothing to lose yet they lose for all that and men pull the hayres â—…en from them that are bald There is no condition so ill but is envied of some no povertie so great which leaves not place for injuries Cottages are pillaged as well as Pallaces and though coverousnesse looke more after great gaines yet it scornes not small But all this while you must remember that my discourse is allegoricall and that I speake of Poets and not of Treasures I am Sir Your c. From Balzac 25. Septemb. 1633. To my Lord the Mareschall Deffiat LETTER XXXV SIR though I know your life is full of businesse and that it hath neither festivall nor day of rest yet I am so vaine as to fancy to my selfe that I shall be able to suspend this your continuall action and that the recreation I send you shall finde some place amidst your affaires you are not one to be wrought upon you know the true value of things and soe in Arts those secrets which none but Artists themselves see There is no thinking therefore to deceive you by a shew of good and by false flashes of reputation no way to gaine estimation with you but by lawfull wayes and rather by seeking commendation from ones selfe then testimony from others This is the cause that I come alwayes directly to your selfe and never seeke to get a favour by canvasing and suite which is not to be gotten but by merit If my Booke be good that will be a sollicitour with you in my behalfe and if it make you passe some houres with any contentment you will let me understand it when you have read it Howsoever I hope you will grant that the Pension which the King gives me is no excesse that needs reformation and feare not to bee accused of ill husbandry if you please to pay me that which is my due There have beene heretofore in the place that you are now in certaine wilde unlettered persons who yet made show of valuing humane learnings and to respect those graces in others which were wanting in themselves forcing their humour and sweetning their countenances to winne the love of learned men and eithér out of opinion or out of vanitie have revered that which you ought to love out of knowledge and for the interrest you have in it I say for the interest because besides the vertues of peace having in you the vertues of warre it concernes you not to leave your good atchievements to adventure but to cast your eyes upon such as are able to give your merits a testimony that may be lasting I dare not say that I my selfe am one of that number but thus much I can assure you most truly that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Octob. 1633. To Mounsieur Granier LETTER XXXVI SIR I have received your Letter of the 27. of the last month but it makes mention of a former which never came to my hands and it must needes be that Fortune hath robbed me of it for feare I should be too happie and should have two pleasures in Sequence This is an accident which I reckon amongst my misfortunes and I cannot sufficiently complaine of this Violatour of the law of Nations who hath beene so cruell as to breake our Commerce the very first day of our entring into it and to make mee poore without making himselfe rich I am more troubled for this losse than for all that shall be said or written against mee Slander hath a goodly catch of it to be at warre with mee it shall never make me yeeld it is an evill is it not a glory for a private man to be handled in such manner as Princes and their Officers are And is it not a marke of greatnesse to be hated of those one doth not know I never sought after the applause of which cannot chuse but have corrupt affections in such sort that when they praise me I should aske what fault I had done Though their number were greater than you make it this would be no great novelty to me who know that truth goes seldome in the throng and hath in all times beene the Possession but of a few Even at this day for one Christian there are sixe Mahometans and there was a time when Ingemuit orbis se Arrianum esse miratus est If God suffer men to be mistaken in matters of so great importance where their salvation is at stake why should I expect hee should take care to illuminate them in my cause which no way concernes them and to preserve them from an errour which can doe them no hurt Whether I be learned or ignorant whether my eloquence be true or false whether my Pearles be Orientall or but of Venice what is all this to the Common-wealth There is no cause the publicke should trouble it selfe about so light a matter and the fortunes of France depend not upon it Let the Kings subjects beleeve what they list let them enjoy the libertie of conscience which the Kings Edicts allow them A man must be very tender that can be wounded with words and hee must be in a very apt disposition to dâ—…e that lets himselfe be killed by Philarchus or Scioppius his Penne. For my selfe I take not matters so to heart nor am sensible in so high a degree The good opinion of honest mindes is to me a soveraigne remedy against all the evills of this nature I oppose a little choise number against a tumultuary multitude and count my selfe strong enough having you on my side and knowing you to be as vigorous a friend of mine as I am Sir Your c. From Balzac 15. Februa 1633. To Mounsieur Gaillard LETTER XXXVII SIR I am unfortunate but I am not faulty I was assured you had written to me but I received not your letters You have beene my defendour and I have beene a long time without knowing to whom I was bound for
I thinke my selfe sufficiently honest if I be but indifferently uncivill and because I am apt to doe courtesies voluntarily I expect also voluntarily to receive them of you Sir especially who judge not friendshippe by the looke and knowes that superstition is more ceremonious then true pietie The new favours I have received from your Muses are to mee as they ought to be exceeding sensible yet thinke not that this makes me forget your former benefits and that I carry not in minde that it is you that gave me the first taste of good and the principles of vertue you doe but build upon the foundation you laid your selfe and give estimation to your owne paines Having beene my guide in a countrie which I know not it is for your honour it should be beleeved I have made some progresse there that so it may apppeare your directions are good Thus your Poeme hath in it a hidden art which few understand and I am but the colour of your designe You enjoy your selfe all the glory you have done me all the glory you have imparted to mee stayes still with your selfe and you have found out a way how to praise your self without speaking of your self and how to be liberall without parting from any thing If you come this Sommer to Paris I will give you account of an infinite number of things that will not dislike you and in revenge thereof I require to heare from you some newes of our male content Cui mos in trivijs humili tentare Veneno Ardua impositos semper Cervice rebelli Ferre duces Coeloque lovem violare Tonante I know not whether you will be able to bring the state into his favour but this I know it is no small worke for perswasion to effect seeing hee is no lesse obstinate in his errours then you strong in your Reasons Whatsoever he say of the time and of the carriage of things the impunitie with which he triumphs is a visible marke of the moderate goverment of this Kingdome and in any country but this his Head long before this time had paid for his tongue But I heare he is of so vile an humour that he is angry for his very liberty and thinks it is done in scorne that hee hath not all this while been put in the Bastyle He valewes himselfe to be worthy of an informer and of Commissioners and thinkes hee hath merit enough to be punisht in state Let us beare a little with his malady he is otherwise not evill nor of evill qualities It is onely the temperature of his body that is faulty and if Mounsieur Cytois can purge away his choller hee shall procure to M. the Cardinall a faithfull servant I expect hereupon an Epigramme of your making and am with all my soule Sir Your c. From Balzac 4. March 1631. To Mounsieur Colombiers LETTER VI. SIR I finde by the Letter which Mounsieur de Mantin writ unto you that you have done mee good offices with him and that upon your word hee takes mee for more than I am worthy It is your part now to make that sure unto him which you have warranted and to disguise mee with so much Art that may make good your first deceit by a second For to think that I shall be able to answer his expectation and satisfie your promise I know he expects too much and know you have promised too much that which hee speakes of me and of my writings seemes rather to come from the passion of a lover than from the integritie of a Judge and I ought to take it rather as a Present then as a Recompence I know besides that the placē from whence hee writes hath alwayes beenē the habitation of courtesie and that the sparke of the Court of Rome which hath rested there since it parted from thence hath left a light which gives an influence to the manners and spirits of the Country Yet distinction must be made betweene the civilities of Avignon which extend to all sorts of strangers the resentments of an able man which respect nothing but reason and a difference must be put betweene the honesty of a compliment and the Religion of a testimony Mounsieur Malherbe deceased who never gave any mans merit more than its due and but coldly praised the most praise-worthy things yet hath heretofore to me in so high a degree extolled this man of whom we speake that I could not but thinke it must needes be a very extraordinary Vertue that transported him so unwontedly and a very pressing verity that forced him to open himselfe so freely I have since beene confirmed in my judgement of him by divers persons of good qualitie and generally by the voyce of all our country But yet there is in this more cause for me to feare than hope Wise men doe but only taste an errour with which common people drinke themselves drunke They do not plunge themselves in false opinions they passe them lightly over and I am afraid you will ere long receive another letter in retractation of this he hath now written so much in my favour if the worst come to the worst and that there be no meanes for me to keepe all the good you have gotten me I yet may lawfully require to have a part left me which Mounsieur your brother in Law cannot honestly deny me I am unfit for the termes hee gives me I willingly returne them backe to himselfe Let him keepe his Admiring for Miracles or at least for the great stupendious workes of Nature I aspire not nor have any pretence to so high a degree of his account but I thinke I have right to his friendshippe and that both of you are my debters of some good will seeing I honour you both exceedingly and passionately am Sir Your c. From Balzac 20. Octob. 1632. To LETTER VII SIR I am not altogether prophane yet am but a simple Catechumene neither I adore your mysteries though I comprehend them not and dare not give my spirit that liberty which you give it Is it fit to be a judge of a Science of which it is yet but learning the Alphabet It scarce knowes visible Objects and runnes a hazard when it considers but the exteriour face of Nature as for that which is above it climbes not to it nor soares so high My curiositie is not so ventrous and concerning the condition of superiour things I wholly referre my selfe to the Sorbone Never thinke therefore that I will give my Censure of your Booke I have not yet discovered the bottome onely the barke I must tell you seemes very precious and I am ravished with the sound and harmony of things I understand not this kinde of Writing would have astonished Philosophers whom it could not have perswaded and if Saint Gregory Nazianzen had but shewed such a peece as this to Themistius he could not chuse but have beene moved with it and must needes have admired the probabilitie of Christianity
the oppression of one innocent cannot be unworthy of your sighes Yet I require from you none of these sadde offices your onely countenance is enough to give me comfort I doe not live but in the hope I have to see it and to get you to sweare once againe in presence of the faire Agnes and the rest of your chamber Divinities that you love me still After that if you will have us make a voyage in your Abby I shall easily cōdiscend Provided Sir that you promise me safety amongst your Monkes and that they be none of those that are angry at good language and have no talke but of Analysis and Cacozoale If you have any that be of this humour you are an unfortunate Abbot and you may make account to be never without suites First they will aske you a double allowance next they will question your Revenew and if you chance by ill happe to make a Booke you are sure to be presently cited before the Inquisition or at least before the Sorbonne God keepe you Sir from such Friers and send you such as I am who eate but once a day and who will not open my mouth unlesse it be to praise your good words and to tell you sometimes out of the abundance of my heart that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 26. Decem. 1631. To LETTER XLVI SIR I am able to live no longer if you be resolved to love me no longer and thinke not that the good you promise mee can countervaile the losse of that you take from me Keepe your estimation and your bountie for those that have nothing in them but Vanitie and Avarice I am endowed from heaven with better and more noble passions I like better to continue in my povertie then in your disgrace and will none of this cold speculative estimation which is but a meere device of Reason and a part of the Law of Nations if you give it me single and nothing else with it I must tell you I thinke my selfe worthy of something more and that the Letter I write to you was worthy of a sweeter answer then you sent me If therein I said any thing that gave you distaste I call that God to witnesse by whom you sweare I then wandred farre from my intention I meant to containe my complaints within so just bounds that you should not finde the least cause to take offence But I see I have beene an ill interpreter of my selfe and my rudenesse hath done wrong to my innocencie yet any man but your selfe would I doubt not have borne with a friend in passion and not so unkindly have returned choler for sorrow As for my pettish humour it is quickly over and there is not a shorter violence than that of my spirit whereas you have taken sixe whole weekes to disgest your indignation and in the end come and tell me you would doe me any good you can upon condition to love mee no longer I vow unto you it is a glorious act to doe good to all the world and to make even ungratefull men beholding But Sir if you thinke me one to whom you may give that name you doe me exceedingly much more wrong then it is in your power to doe mee right Neque decorum sapienti unde amico infamiam parat inde sibi gloriam quaerere I am wounded at the very heart with this you have written but since you will not suffer mee to complaine I must be faine to suffer and say nothing onely I will content my selfe to make a declaration contrary to yours and tell you I will never make you beholding to mee because I am not happy enough to be able to doe it but yet I will love you alwayes and will alwayes perfectly be Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. March 1633. To Mounsieur Trovillier Physitian of the Popes house LETTER XLVII SIR having alwaies made speciall reckoning of your friendship it is a great satisfaction to me that I receive assurance of it by your Letter I doubt not of your compassionating my disgraces and that the persecution raised against me hath touched you at least with some sence of griefe for even meere strangers to me did me these good offices and though the justice of my cause had not in it selfe beene worthy of respect yet the violence of my adversaries was enough to procure me favour and protectours There is no man of any generous spirit that found not fault with the bravadoes of your Philarchus nor a man of any wisedome that thought him not a Sophister Yet I cannot blame you for loving him seeing I know well you doe it not to prejudice mee that your affection corrupts not your judgement You are too intelligent to be deceived with petty subtilties and too strong to be broken with engins of Glasse but in truth being as you are a necessary friend to a number of persons of different qualities it cannot be but you must needes have friends of all prices and of all merit and that the unjust as well as the innocent are beholding to you You shall heare by Mounsieur when hee comes to Rome the little credit I have with the man you spake to me of to whom I present my service but onely once a yeare and that I doe too least I should forget my name and mistake my person If in any other matter which is absolutely in my owne power you will doe me the honour to employ me you shall see my course is not to use excuses and colours but that I truly am Sir Your c. At Paris 4. April 1631. To Mounsieur Gerard Secretary to my Lord the Duke D'Espernon LETTER XLIX SIR you cannot complaine nor be in miserie by your selfe alone I partake of all your good and evill and feele so lively a reflection of them that there needes but one blow to make two wounds And thus I am wounded by the newes you write and though your griefe be not altogether just yet it is sufficient to make me partake with you that it is yours We weepe for one not onely whom we knew not but whom we know to be happy one that in sixe weekes staying in the world hath gained that which St. Anthonie was afraid to lose after threescore yeares pennance in the Wildernesse I wish I could have had the like favour and have died at the time when I was innocent being my selfe neither valiant nor ambitious I account those warres the best that are the shortest and that though in Paradise there be divers degrees and diverse mansions yet there is not any that is not excellent good Observe onely your goodly making of Saints and you shall finde of all sorts I meane of the one and the other sexe Religious and Seculars Gascoignes and French You know well I have appointed you here a chamber and that you are my debtor of a visite now a whole yeare if you be a man of your word but I feare me you are not and that as
your custome is you will content your selfe with praising my quiet course of life yet I would have you to flatter at least my spirit though it be but with some light hope of so perfit a contentment promise me you will come and make me happy though you breake your promise I shall enjoy at least so much of good and in doing so you shal amuse me though you do not satisfie me I send you all I have of that admirable Incognito of whom there is so much talke and who hath made himself famous now these three yeares under the name of Petrus Aurelius I cannot for my life find who he is Mounsieur de Filsac told me lately at Paris that of him that brought the leaves to Printing hee could not possibly learne any more than this that he was a man who desires to serve God invisibly And in truth if you knew in what sort he carries his secrecie and with what care and cunning he hides himselfe you would confesse he takes more paines to shunne reputation then ambitious men take in running after it Farre from being a Plagiary to robbe others of their glory who refuseth that which is his own and suffers a Phantasme to receive those acclamations and praises which belong to himselfe This is no man of the common mould even in the judgement of his adversaries and his writings savour not the compositions of his age They are animated with the spirit and vigour of the former times and represent us a Church we never saw Yet it seemes in some passages he hath lesse of Saint Austins sweetnesse than of St. Hieroms choler and that he is willinger to doe that which justice onely permits him then that which charitie counsells him I could wish he had shewed a little more respect to the gray haires and rare merit of Father Sirmond or rather that hee would have laid aside his Armes and dealt with him in a gentler warre But there is no meanes to bridle a provoked valour nor to guide a great force though with a great moderation All Saints are not of one temper it is enough for Religion to cut off vices and to purifie the passions Our morall Divinitie acknowledgeth some innocent cholers and it is the beauty of Christs flocke that there be Lyons amongst the Sheepe and that as well the sublimest and strongest spirits as the basest and sweetest submit and prostrate themselves to the greatnesse of Christianitie If I had learned nothing in his booke but onely to know what respect men owe to a Character reverenced of the Angells I had not lost my time in reading him If Bishops be of such eminent authoritie shall we make any difficultie to call a Prelate My Lord and esteeme him lesse than a Grande of Spaine or then an Earle of England You will tell me more of this at your next meeting and I doubt not setting aside the interest of send it mee backe when you have read it and forget not the Chapters of honest Bernia I am more than I am able to expresse Sir Your c. At Balzac 15. Octo. 1634. To my Lord the Bishop of Nants LETTER LI. SIR I am now growne shamelesse and make no longer any conscience to be trouble some to you Yet hold on your course of goodnesse which hath from the very first beene so ready to me and freely makes me offer of that for which it ought to make me be a suitor I send you now foure leaves for Ruell and if you please to let three of your owne lines beare them company I doubt not but they will have a happy arrivall and that the skiffe will procure passage for the great vessell But because Fortune her selfe hath done one halfe of my discourse and that I have little commerce with any but Latines borne I humbly entreate you my Lord to be so good when I am fallen to helpe me to rise and not suffer me to goe astray in a Country where you are Prince I know you love your owne elections with more then naturall tendernesse and that you respect me as none of the least of your Creatures This is a cause why to keepe me in your favour and to ingage you in my interests I will not tell you to your face that you are the Chrysostome of our Church that you are privy to the most secret intentions of Saint Paul That there is neither Iew nor Gentile that hearing you speake of the greatnesse and Dignity of Christianity doth not willingly submit himselfe to follow Christ I will onely say it hath beene your will to be my Father and that I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 8. Ianua 1630. Another to him LETTER LII SIR you have a right to all occasions of doing good I see not therefore how I can forbeare to offer you one and to the end you may alwaies be meriting of thankes why I should not alwaies be craving new courtesies The bearer of this Letter is my neere Kinsman yet our friendship is neerer then our alliance and the knot which Nature made Vertue hath tyed I humbly entreate your Lordship to let him see you slight not things whereof I make such reckoning and to doe that for my sake which you would much willinger doe for his owne sake if he were knowne unto you He is a man of mettall and spirit and hath served the King in this Province having also had the honour to be in person before him in very famous actions At this time he is troubled against all right and reason and they that have drawne him from the exercise of his charge to make a walke to Paris have nothing to say but that they doe it of purpose to vex him And therefore their manner of fight with him is by flights and retreates and they cast so many bones of difficulty betweene his Iudges and him that it is impossible they should ever come to any issue They are not able to hinder his justification at last but they are able to delay and keepe him off a long time You Sir may save him this long journey and may breake this Project of Calumny if you please but to facilitate the overture he will propose unto you obtaining for him of only one quarter of an houres audience I assure my selfe he will not be loath to heare him being able to informe him of the state of things in these parts and which he will doe faithfully You shall therefore my Lord infinitely oblige him to take him into your protection and you may be pleased to remember that it is your deere sonne that makes this request unto you one whom in the extasie of your Fatherly affection you have sometimes called your glory and the ornament of this Age who yet accounts no quality he hath so glorious as that which he will never part with whilst he lives to be My Lord Your c. From Balzac 3. Aprill 1630. FINIS A SVPPLY TO THE SECOND PART OR THE THIRD PART
that I have long read in his very face so that you may well thinke I shall take no distast at your contentment as well for the reputation of my skill in Physnomie and Prognosticating as for that I perfectly am Madam Your c. At Balzac 2. Octob. 1631. To Monsieur de Gomberville LETTER XI SIR the mischance at the Tuilliries hath disquieted me all night and my unquietnesse would have continued still if you had not taken the paines to calme it The newes you send me gives me life A man cannot be innocent whom Madam de Maiso◅fort judgeth culpable shee is not one that will complaine where there is no fault and truly if she had taken the mischance of her page in another fashion than shee did I would rather have abandoned reason than maintaine it against her would not have trusted my owne testimony if shee rejected it You remember that but hearing her Name I fell downe in a trance and that the very sight of her livery strucke into me a religious horrour and a trembling respect which is not borne but to things divine And in this ranke I place so rare a beauty as hers is and though I be no man of the world yet I am not so very a stranger to the occurrents of the world but that I very well know shee is universally adored I must not alwayes passe for an Hermite this I am sure shee carries with her the desires and vowes of all the Court and shee leades in triumph those Gallants who have themselves triumphed over our enemies yet I know withall they depend more upon her by their owne passion than by her endeavours and follow without being drawne These are Captives whom shee trusts upon their word for their true imprisonment and whom shee suffers to be their owne Keepers In the course shee holds of honestie her favours are so morall or so light that either they content none but the wise because they desire no more than what is given them or none but the unwise because they take that to be given them which was never meant them so there are some perhaps well satisfied but it is by the force of their imagination and no body hath cause to be proud of a Fortune which no body possesseth As her vertue is as cleere as the fire that sparkles in her eyes so her reputation is as much without blemish as her beautie of this honest people give testimony by their words and Detractors by their silence Shee makes thornes that they cannot pricke and makes slander it selfe to learne good manners And therefore Sir I should be very unfortunate if I had been cause of displeasing her whom all the world endeavours to please and it would be a shame to our Nation that a Frenchman should beare himselfe unreverently towards her to whom very Barbarians beare a reverence If this mis-fortune had besallen me it is not the saving my Pages life should make me stand in the defence and I would never desire to augment my traine but to the end I might have the more sacrifices to offer upon the Altar of her choler But shee is too mercifull to punish meane Delinquents and too generous to give petty Examples shee reserves her justice for the Great ones and the Proud for those who having more tender senses are better able to feele the weight of her anger or els in truth her purpose is to shew me a particular favour by a publike declaration and to let the world see shee makes a reckoning of that of which the world makes none And knowing what the gratefulnesse of good Letters is shee is desirous to have them in her debt shee payes our studies before-hand for the fruit shee expects from them and obligeth the Art which can prayse the Obligation shee is made beleeve that I have some skill in this Art and I perceive I am not in so little respect with her as I thought and of this I am assured by the paines it cost you to make her take her Page againe that was hurt and by the civill language shee desired you to deliver from her It exceeded indeed all bounds of moderation and it seemes shee would not only for my sake protect an innocent but would be ready if need were to reward a delinquent For acknowledgment of which generous goodnesse all my owne spirit and all my friends put together can never be too much It is particularly your selfe to whom I must have recourse in this occasiō you Sir who set the Crown upon Beauties head who have the power to make Queenes at your pleasure and to whom Olympia and Yzatide are beholding for their Empire having bestowed so great glory upon persons that never were and set all France a running after Phantosmes you may well take upon you to defend the reputation of a sensible and living vertue and choose a subject that may be thankefull to you for your choice and this is a matter you cannot deny of which wee will talke more and conclude it after dinner in presence of the Lady that is interessed in it into whose presence I must entreat you to be my usher to bring me that so I may ever more and more be Sir Your most humble and most obliged servant c. At Paris 1. June 1631. To Monsieur de Villiers Hottoman LETTER XII SIR being equally tender of the good will you beare me and of the account you make of me I cannot choose but rest well satisfied with your remembring me and with the judgement you deliver of my writings you are not a man that will beare false witnesse and you have too much honestie to deceive the world but withall you have too much understanding to be deceived your selfe and one may well relie upon a wisedome that is confirmed by time and practise This is that which makes mee to make such reckoning of your approbation and such account of your counsell that I should be loath to be defective in the least tittle of contenting you It is farre from me to maintaine a point that you oppose I give it over at the first blow and yeeld at the first summons yet I could never have thought that of a jeast there should have been made a fault or that a poore word spoken without designe or ayming at any should have been the cause of so great complaints You know that in a certaine moderne Schoole there is a difference made Fra la virtu faeminile la Donnesca and it is held that to make love is more the vice of a woman than of a Princesse and lesse to be blamed in the person of Semirdmis or Cleopatra than in the person of Lucretia or Virginia I carry not my opinions so farre and I meane to be no Authour of so extravagant a Moralitie It may suffice that without descending from the thesis to the hypothesis I protest unto you I should be very sorry I had trenched upō the reputation of that great Queen or
but indeed an ill husbanding of your spirit and a wastfull profusion of those singular graces of which though it be not fit you should deprive them that honour you yet it is fit you should give them out by tale and distribute them by measure It is much better to have lesse generall designes and to propose to ones selfe a more limited reputation than to abandon ones spirit to every on◅ that will be talking and to expose it to the curiositie of the people who leave alwayes a certaine taynt of impuritie upon all things they looke upon by such vitious sufferance we find dirt and mire carried into Ladies Closets if there come a busie fellow into the Countrey presently honest women are besieged there is thronging to tell them tales in their eares and all the world thinkes they have right to torment them and thus saving the reverence of their good report though they be chast yet they be publike and though they can spie the feast sullying upon their ruffes yet they willingly suffer a manifest soyling of their noblest part You have done Madam a great act to have kept your selse free from the tyrannnie of custome and to have so strongly fortified your selfe against uncivill assay lants that whilst the Louver is surprized your house remaines impregnable I cannot but magnifie the excellent order with which you dispose the houres of your life and I take a pleasure to thinke upon this Sanctuary of yours by the onely reverence of vertue made inviolable in which you use to retyre your selfe either to enjoy more quietly your repose or otherwise to exercise your selfe in the most pleasing action of the world which is the consideration of your selfe If after this your happie solitnde you come sometimes and cast your eyes upon the Book I send you you shall therein Madam doe me no great favour the things you shall have thought will wrong those you shall reade and so it shall not be a grace but an affront I shall receive I therefore humbly entreat you there may be some reasonable intermission between two actions so much differing Goe not streight from your selfe to me but let the rellish of your owne meditation be a little passed over before you goe to take recreation in my worke To value it to you as a piece of great price or otherwise to vilifie it as a thing of no value might justly be thought in me an equall vanity They who praise themselves desire consent and seeke after others approbation they who blame themselves seeke after opposition and desire they may be contradicted This latter humilitie is no better than the others pride But to the end I may not seeme to goe to the same place by a third way and desire to be praysed at least with that indifferency I ascribe to you I entreat you Madam that you will not speake the least word either of the merit of my labour or in default of merit of the fashion of language I have used in speaking to you I meane not to put this Letter upon the score to speake plainly I entreat you to make me no answer to it so farre I am off from expecting thankes for it It is not Madam a Present I make you it is an homage I owe you and I pretend not to oblige you at all but onely to acquit my selfe of the first act of veneration which I conceive I owe you as I am a reasonable creature and desiring all my life to be Madam Your c. At Balzac 4. May 1634. To Monsieur Balthazar Councellour of the King and Treasurer Generall of Navarre LETTER XIX SIR I never deliberate upon your opinion nor ever examine any mans merit when you have once told me what to beleeve But yet if I should allow my selfe the libertie to do otherwise I could but still say that I find Monsieur de well worthy the account you hold him in and my selfe well satisfied of him upon his first acquaintanee By further conversation I doubt not but I should yet discover in him more excellent things but it is no easie matter ever to bring us together againe For he is a Carthusian in his Garrison and I an Hermite in the Desart so as that which in our two lives makes us most like is that which makes us most unlikely ever to meet yet I sometimes heare Newes of him and I can assure you he is but too vigilant in looking to his Charge hee hath stood so many Rounds and Sentinells that it is impossible he should be without rhumes at least till Midsomer These are to speake truly workes of supererogation for I see no enemy this Province need to feare unlesse perhaps the Persian or Tartarian the very Name of the King is generally fortification enough over all his Kingdome and as things now stand Vaugirad is a place impregnable that if Demetrius came againe into the world he would loose his reputatiō before the meanest village of Beausse but this is one of your politician subtleties to make Angoulesme passe for a Frontier Towne and to give it estimation that it may be envied Doubt not but I shall give you little thankes for this seeing by this meanes you are cleane gone from us and I must be faine to make a journey of purpose into Lauguedoc if I ever meane to enjoy the contentment of embracing you and of assuring you that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. March 1633. To Monsieur de Serizay LETTER XX. SIR if you were but resident at Paris I should hope sometimes to heare of your Newes but now that you are bewitched there it will be an ungratefull worke for you to reade ◅ine They are alwayes such as must be pittied In my way there are as many stones to dash against as in yours there are flowers and life it selfe is an evill that I suffer as it is a good that you enjoy you left me blind and may now find me lame my causes of complaining never cease they doe but change place and the favours I receive are so husbanded that I cannot recover an eye but by the losse of a legge I was yesterday in a great musing upon this when suddenly a great light shined in my Chamber and dazeled mine eyes even as I lay in my bed And not to hold you long in suspence the Name of the Angell I meane was Madam d' Estissac who thus appeared unto me and willing to make the world see how much shee hath profited in Religion runnes after all occasions to put her Christian vertues in practise This somewhat abates the vanity I should otherwise have taken in her visite for I see it is rather charitie than courtesie and I am so much beholding to my infirmitie for it that shee made a doubt whether I were sicke enough to merit it as much as to say a Paralitick should have had this courtesie from her sooner than I. They must be great miseries that attract her great favours pittie
which teacheth the fayrest hands of the world to bury the dead may well get of the fayrest eyes that ever were some gracious lookes to comfort the afflicted What ere it be I have found by experience that no sadnesse is so obstinate and clowdie but pleasing objects may dissolve pierce not any Philosopher so stony and insensible but may be softned and awaked by their lightest impression I verily thinke another of her visits would have set me on my legges and made me able to goe but shee thought me not worthy of a whole miracle and therefore I must content my selfe with this beginning of my cure I enforme you of these things as being one that reverenceth their cause and as one that loves me too well to make slight of the goods or evills I impart unto him This last word of my Letter shall serve if you please for a corrective to the former I revoke it as a blasphemie and will never beleeve that all the Magick in Paris is able to make you forget a man whom you have promised to love and who passionately is Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. July 1633. Another to him LETTER XXI SIR this is the first opportunitie I could get to write unto you and to comfort my selfe for your absence by this imperfect way which is the onely meanes left mee to enjoy you These are but shadowes and figures of that ture contentment I received by your presence bâ—… since I cannot be wholly happie I must take it in good part that I am not wholly miserable I will hasten all I can to finish the businesse I have begun thereby to put my selfe in state to see you and if my minde could goe as fast as my will I should my selfe be with you as soone as my Letter It is true there cannot be a more delicate and daintie place than this where I live banished and a friend of ours said that they who are in exile here are farre happier than Kings in Muscovia but being separated from a man so infinitely deere unto mee I doe not thinke I could live contented in the Fortunate Islands and I should be loath to accept of felicitie it selfe if it were offered me without your company Wherefore assure your selfe that as soone as I can rid my selfe of some importunate visits which I must necessarily both receive and give I will not loose one moment of the time that I have destinated to the accomplishment of and will travaile much more assiduously than otherwise I should doe seeing it is the end of my travaile that onely can give me the happinesse of your presence In the meane time I am bound first to tell you that I have seene here and then to give you thankes for the good cheare he hath made me He beleeves upon your word that I am one of much worth and gives me Encomiums which I could not expect from his judgement but that you have corrupted it by favouring me too much I earnestly entreat you to let mee heare from you upon all occasions and to send me by the Post the two books which I send for to Monsieur if you have not received them of him already but above all I desire you that we may lay aside all meditation and art in writing our Letters and that the negligence of our stile may be one of the marks of the friendship between us and so Sir I take my leave and am with all my soule Your c. At Balzac 2. Decemb. 1628. Another to him LETTER XXII SIR eyther you meane to mocke me or I understand not the termes of your Letter I come to you in my night gowne and my night cap upon my head and you accuse me for being too fine You take me for a cunning marchant who am the simplest creature in the world if another should use me thus I should not take it so patiently but what ere your designe be I count my selfe happie to be the subject of your joy and that I can make you merry though it be to my cost when I write to you I leave my selfe to the conduct of my penne and neither thinke of the dainties of our Court nor of the severitie of our Grammar that if there be any thing in my Letters of any worth it must needs be that you have falsified them 〈◊〉 so it is you that are the Mountebanke and will utter your counterfeits for true Diamonds You know well that Eloquence is not gotten so good cheape and that to terme my untoward language by the name of this qualitie is a superlative to the highest of my Hyperboles Yet it seemes you stand in no awe of Father as though you had a priviledge to speake without controll things altogether unlikely for this first time I am content to pardon you but if you offend so againe I will enforme against you and promise you an honourable place in the third part of Philarchus The man you wrot of hath no passions now but wise and stayed he hath given over play and women and all his delight now is in his Bookes and vertue Rejoyce I pray you at this happie conversion and if you be his friend so much and so much a Poet as to shew your selfe in publicke you may doe well to make a Hymne in prayse of Sicknesse as one hath heretofore done in prayse of Health for to speake truly it is his sicknesse that hath healed him and hath put into him the first meditations of his health I expect great Newes from you by the next Post and passionately am Sir Your c. At Bolzac 25. Decemb. 1628. To Monsieur Ogier LETTER XXIII SIR I cannot but confesse that men in misery never found a more powerfull Protectour than your selfe and that you seeme borne to be a defender of oppressed innocency The Fathers of the Minimme Order are as much beholding to you as my selfe whose right you have so strongly maintained that if I did not know you well I should verily think the Saint you speake of had inspired you And as by his prayers he gaines a jurisdiction over the fruitfulnesse of Princesses so by the same prayers he hath contributed assistance to this excellent worke you send mee After this it is not to be sufferd you should make shew of distast and tell me of your sloathfulnesse When fire shall cease to be active I will then beleeve you can be sloathfull but will never thinke you hate Bookes untill shall give over his suits in Law or if I must needs give credit to your words I then assure my selfe this distast could never come unto you but by your too great fare nor this wearinesse but by your too great labour I am my selfe a witnesse of your assiduitie in studie and you know how early soever I rise in the morning I alwayes find you in the chamber next to the Meteors which high region I conceive you have chosen that you may be the neerer to take in the inspirations
should know that I perfectly am Madam Your c. At Balzac 13. Octob. 1629. Another to her LETTER XXIX MAdam I will not take upon mee to give you thankes for the good cheare you made mee for besides that I have none but Country Civilities and when I have once said Your humble servant and your servant most humble I am then at the end of my coÌ„plemnts and can goe no further It were better yet to let you hold your advantage entire and owe you that still which I can never pay I forbeare to speake of the dainties and abundance of your Table enough to make one fat that were in a Consumption nor I speake not of the delicacy of your perfumes in which you laid mee to sleepe all night to the end that sending up sweet vapours into my braine I might have in my imagination none but pleasing visions But Madam what but Heaven can be comparable to the dainties of your Closet and what can I name to represent sufficiently those pure and spirituall pleasures which I tasted in your Conversation It is not my designe to talke idly nor to set my stile upon the high straine you know I am bound to avoyde Hyperboles as Mariners to avoyde Sands and Rockes but this is most true that with all my heart I renounce the world and all its pompes as long as you please to inhabit the Desart and if you once determine to stay there still though I have sent to Paris to hyre me a lodging yet I resolve to breake off the bargaine and meane to build me an Hermitage a hundred paces from your abode from whence Madam I shall easily be able to make two journeys a day to the place where you are and shall yeeld you a subjection and an assiduitie of service as if I were in a manner of your household There shall I let nothing fall from your mouth which I shall not carefully gather up and preserve it in my memory There you shall doe me the favour to resolve me when I shall have doubts set me in the right way when I goe astray and when I cannot expresse my selfe in fit termes you shall cleere my clouds and give order to my confusednesse It shall be your eares upon which I will measure the cadences of my sentences and upon the different motions of your eyes I will take notice of the strength or weaknesse of my writings In the heate of the travaile and amidst the joyes of a mother that lookes to be happily delivered I will expose the Infant to the light of your judgement to be tryed and not hold him for legitimate till you approve him Sometimes Madam we will reade your Newes and the Relations that are sent you from all parts of Christendome Publike miseries shall passe before our eyes without troubling our spirits and the most serious actions of men shall be our most ridiculous Comaedies Out of your Closet we shall see below us the tumults and agitation of the world as from the top of the Alpes we stand and safely see the raine and hayle of Savay After this Monsieur de Borstell shall come and reade us Lectures in the Politiques and Comment upon Messer Nicholo unto us He shall informe us of the affayres of Europe with as great certaintie as a good husband would doe of his Familie He shall tell us the Causes the Proceedings and the Events of the warre in Germany and therein shall give the lye a thousand times to our Gazets our Mercuries and such other fabulous Histories Wee will agree with him that the Prince he is so much in love withall is most worthy of his passion and that Sweden is no longer able to containe so great a vertue After the fashion of Plutarch he shall compare together the prime Captaines of our age alwayes excepting who admits of no comparison He shall tell us which is the better man the Italian or the Germane what meanes may be used to take off the Duke of Saxony from the house of Austria and what game the Duke of Bavaria playes when he promiseth to enter into the League and is alwayes harkening to that which he never meanes to conclude From these high and sublime Newes we will descend to other meaner and more popular subjects It shall be written to you whether the kingdome of Amucant be still in being and whether there appeare not a rising Sunne to which all eyes of the Court are turned Monsier de shall send you word whether he persist in his pernicious designe to bring Polygamie into France and to commit nine Incests at once I meane whether he have a good word from those nine Sisters to all whom he hath solemnly made offer of his service Wee shall know whether the Baron of put Divines still to trouble whether Monsieur da have his heart still hardened against the ungratefulnesse of the time and whether Monsieur de continue still in his wilfulnesse to punish mankinde by the suppression of his Bookes By the way of Lymoges wee shall get the devises of Boissiere the Epigrammes of Maynâ—…d and other toyes of this nature The Stationer des Espies Meurs will furnish you plentifully with Romances and with that they call Belles Choses and if it come to the worst from the very Cindera of Philarchus there will spring up every moneth a new Phaenix of backbiting Eloquence that will find 〈◊〉 recreation for one houre at least And these Madam are a part of those imployments in which I fancy in my minde we may spend our time all the time of the heat for when the returne of Aprill shall bring againe the flowers and fayre dayes and invite you abroad awalking we must then looke us out some new pleasures and change our recreations wee will have swannes and other strange Birds to cover this water at once both quicke and still which washeth the feet of your Muses wee will fall a planting of trees dressing the allies of your Garden wee will digge for Springs and discover treasures which loose themselves under ground which yet I value no lesse than veynes of silver because I judge of them without covetousnesse And finally Madam we will fall abuilding that famous Bridge by which to enter your enchanted Palace and wherof the onely designe puts all the neighbouring Nobilitie already into a jealousie If you like of this course and of these Propositions and that my company may not be troublesome to you there remaines nothing to doe but that you command mee to come and I am instantly ready to quit all other affayres in the world and to come and testifie to you that I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 6. Novemb. 1629. Another to her LETTER XXX MAdam wee receive the Answers of Oracles without making reply perfect devotion is dumbe and if you had left me the use of my tongue I should then have had one part at least of my spirit free from this universall astonishment that hath surprized
he ought not to thinke any thing strange that happens in this inferiour world and upon inferiour I persons what consideration soever may otherwise make them deaâ—… unto him If you have vouchsafed to keepe the Letters I have written to you I humbly 〈◊〉 you to send them to me that I may see what volume II can make for the impression that is required of mee 〈◊〉 Madam it shall be if you please upon this condition that parting with the Letters you shall never let your memory part with the truthes they containe but hold undoubtedly that I very firmely am though I doe not very often say I am Madam Your c. 25. Decemb. 1630. Another to her LETTER XXXVII MAdam my labour is happie since it is never from before you and since I am told you make it your ordinary entertainment The end of all fayre Pictures and good Bookes is but onely to please your eyes and to delight your spirit and the good you have not yet set a price upon is not yet come to its uttermost perfection I have therefore all that an ambitious man could wish for I may perhaps have fortune from others but glory I can have from none but you and another perhaps may pay me but none but you can recompense mee The paines I have hytherto taken have beene but ill required I have tilled a ground that brings mee forth but thornes yet Madam since they grow for your service I am contented to be pricked by them and I love the cause of my disgraces if they proove a cause of your recreations The first Newes you shall heare will tell you what I meane and that my patience never makes my persecutours weary You shall see Madam that there is no conscience made to contradict you and that that which you call excellent and admirable hath yet at Paris found enemies and at Bruxells hangmen I will say no more at this time but that I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 6. Jan. 1631. Another to her LETTER XXXVIII MAdam I writ unto you about six weekes since but my packet not being delivered where I appointed it I perceive some curious body hath seazed on it and sought for secrets which he could not find The losse is not great to loose nothing but a few untoward words and small comforting would serve me for so small a crosse yet because they were full of the passion I owe to your service and carried in them the markes of my dutie I cannot but be troubled they came not to your hands and that my mis-fortune gives you cause to complaine of my negligence I dare not undertake to cleare my selfe altogether for though in this I committed no fault yet I cannot forget some other faults committed before The truth is Madam I have been for some time so continually taken up with businesse that I have beene wanting in the principall obligations of a civill life and I have drunke besides so many bitter potions and tasted so many bitter Pills that I should but have offended you with my complements which could not choose but carrie with them at least some tincture of my untoward humour What pleasure could you have taken to see a medley of choler and melancholy powred out vpon paper and instead of pleasing Newes to reade nothing but pittifull Stories and mortall Predictions But enough of this unpleasing matter I expect here within three or foure dayes my Lord the Bishop of Nantes and I would to God Madam you could be here at that time and that you were at leisure to come and taste the doctrine of this rare personage I have heard you say heretofore you never saw a more holy countenance than his and that his very looke was a Prologue of perswasion This conceit makes mee hope that he is the man whom God hath ordained to be your Converter and to bring you into the bosome of our Church Beleeve mee Madam and you shall not be deceived trust that enemy who wounds not but onely to draw out the bloud that causes a Feaver and never make difficultie to commit your selfe to one that intends your freedome The triumph which the world makes you feare is no way injurious to those that be the captives nor like unto that of which Cleopatra tooke so sadde an apprehension but in this case the vanquished are they that are crowned and all the glory and advantage of the victory rests on their side I am not out of hope to see so good a dayes worke and seeing you are rather layd asleepe in the opinion of your mother than obstinate in a wrong cause I intreat you that you will not be frighted with phrases Wee will not use this hard terme to say you have abjured your heresie wee will onely say you are awaked out of your â—…umber and if our deare friend Monsieur du Moulin would doe so too than would be the time of a great festivallâ—… Heaven and the Angels would rejoyce at the prosperitie of the Church My zeale Madam is not out of ostentation for it is most true that such a change is one of my most violent wishes and to see you say your prayers upon your Beads I would with all my heart give you a payre made of Diamonds though I am not rich yet I hope you doubt not of the truth of these last words and that I am with all my foule Madam Your c. At Balzac 7. May. 1632. Another to her LETTER XXXIX MAdam it hath beene as much my shame as my glory to reade your Letter having so ill deserved it and the remorse of the fault I committed makes mee that I dare not yet rejoyce in the honour I received You are good and gracious even to the not hating oâ—…evill actions Your delinquents not onely obteine impunitie but you allow them recompence and idlenesse hath more respect with you than diligent service with ordinary Masters This is the faelicitie of the Golden age where Plentie had no neede of tilling and where there was reaping without sowing Yet Madam I must not so abandon my cause that I forbe are to alledge the good it hath in it it is long since I writ unto you it is true but the cause hath beene for that these six moneths I have every day been upon comming to see you and according to the saying of the Oratour your acquaintance I have dispenced with my ordinary dyet in hope of a great Feast and to performe my devotion with the more solemnitie If Monsieur de have kept his word with mee he hath told you how often he hath found me upon the very poynt of comming but as many journeys as I intended to make so many crosse accidents alwayes happened to hinder them and the mis-fortune that accompanies me makes every dutie though never so casie to another impossible to me Yet Madam I have never ceased from doing continuall acts of the reverence I beare you and I never sweare but by your merit My
Coach and in Parkes inclosed where a multitude of beasts are kept prisoners and come to dye at Ladies feet such a recreation as this I doe not condemne being onely entertained with the eyes and may passe either for a spectacle or a walke and is as farre from agitation as from rest But this serves not her turne she calles these but lazie and sedentarie recreations and takes no pleasure but when it is with hazard of her life But what would be thought Madam if one should come and tell you shee is slaine with a fall by ranke riding or that shee hath met with a wilde Boare that was too hard for her In such cases therâ—… would not onely be no excuse for her death but it would bee a blot upon her memory for ever and to save her honour there must bee feigned some other accident in her Epitaph As for that other discoursing Lady you complaine of and whom I know she commits not in truth such extravagant faults as this doth yet shee hath her faults too and I can no more allow of women to bee Doctors than of women to bee Cavaliers She should take you for a pateme and make profit of the good example you give You know indeed an infinite number of excellent things but you make no open profession of your knowledge as shee doth and you shew you have not learned them to keepe a schoole You speake to her when shee preacheth to you and making popular answeres to her riddles and giving distinction to her confusion you doe her at least this good office to expound her to her selfe Neither in the tune of your voyce nor in the manner of your expressing is any thing seen in you but that which is naturall and French and although your spirit bee of an extreame high clevation and farre above the ordinarie reach yet you so accomodate it to the capacitie of all that heare you that whilest the meaner sort doe understand you the more able spirits doe admire you It is a great matter Madam to have gotten the knowledge of such excellent things but it is a greater matter so to hide them as if they were stollen and to call them as you doe by the name of your secret Truantingâ—… Your Canvas your Silke your Needles are seene but your papers are not seene and those women that are taken with men that are not their husbands are not more surprized than you are when you are found to have an Authour in your hand that is not French I know therefore Madam you cannot approve of one so contrarie to your selfe how faircâ—… shew soever you make nor will ever change the plainnesse of your words for her learned gybâ—…sh Pedanterie is not sufferable in a Master of Art how should it be borne withall in a woman And what patieuce can endure to heare one talke a whole day together Metamorphosis and Philosophiet to mingle the Idâ—…s of Plato and the Praedicables of Perphinic together to make no complyment that hath not in it a dozen Horizons and Hemispheares and at last when shee hath no more to say then to raile upon mee in Greeke and â—…cuseme me of Hyperbole and Caâ—…eale These be hâ—…rdevises she will have in two verses at least foure full points she hath 〈◊〉 designe to set on foot and bring into use againe the Strophes and Antistrophes she gives Rules both of Epick and Dramatick â—…esie and sayth she cannot endure a Comedic that is not within the law of foure and twentie hoâ—…es and this shee is going about to publish through all France If I had a mortall enemie I would desire no greater revenge of him than to wish him such a wife Nothing hath more confirmed not in my desire of solitude than the example of this Ladie and I see plainly that a single life is the best thing in the world seeing it lies in covert and is free from the cumber of this talking Ladie I expect by this bearer the Essayes you promised mee and am Madam Your c. At Balzac 20. Septemb. 1628. Another to her LETTER LI. MAdam I cannot possibly live aâ—…ie longer without hearing from you but I cannot heare of anie of whom to heare it and Leymonsins are as rare in these parâ—… as Spaniards since the warre was proclaimed I must therefore make use of a messenger whom you have raised to an Embassadour to the end hee may informe mee of your health and your friends My love of you drawes on a curiositie for all things that are yours and my 〈◊〉 will not be in quiet till I heare how my masters your children doe and what good newes you heare from them Particularly I desire to know whether you bee yet a Grand-mother in Holland and whether my Ladie your daughter in law have brought you Captaines or Senatours at least Madam they shall bee children much bound to their mother seeing besides their birth they shall owe her for their libertie a thing they should not doe to a Fleming of Bruxels I have seene the Cavalier you have so often spoken of and I thinke you judge verie rightlie of him Hee consists wholly of a Pickedevant and two Mustachoes and therefore utterly to defeate him there needes but three clippes of a paire of Cizers It is not possible to bring one to bee afraid of him Hee sayth that if he wore a Lions skinne and carried in one hand a Torch and in the other a Clubbe yet in such equipage hee would bee more ridiculous than redoubtable Hee beleeves hee hath choler enough but beleeves not hee hath any heart hee reckons him in the number of beasts that are skittish and resty but not that are cruell and furious And when I tell him he hath been often in the field hee answeres me it hath been then rather to feed than to fight You can if you please returne mee a hundred fold for this my untoward short relation and it will bee long of you if my man come not back laden with histories which must certainly have been written to you by the last Posts Take pitty upon the ignorance of your neighbours and doe me the honour to belâ—…ive I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 15. Aug. 1635. To Madam du Fos. LETTER LII MAdam my deere Cousin There is nothing heard in all quarters but benedictions and prayses which our poore pleaders give you They invocate you as their Redeemer and if Themis be the goddesse of good causes you it seemes are the goddesse of good successe For my selfe I have knowne a long time that you are powerfull in perswasion and never speake without prevayling This is the cause why I have promised Monsieur de not that you shall sollicite for him but that you shall speed for him and I am this day warranted of the Event I could tell you to make you respect him the more that he is able to thanke you in five or six languages that hee hath a full Magazine of Astrolabes aâ—…d Globes and
now I leave following it my selfe and put it wholly into your hands a place perhaps to which my ill fortune her selfe will beare a respect but if shee shall be opposite to your desire and prevaile above your favour yet at least I shal thereby know the force of destinie to which all other forces give place and which cannot be mastered by any force nor corrected by any industrie but yet it shall not hinder me from resting well satisfied seeing I shall in this receive much more from you then I am denied by him if I hold any part in your grace and favour which is already my comfort against whatsoever ill successe can happen It sufficeth me to bee happy with this kind of happinesse which is more deare to mee than all the happinesse the Court can give me being a man no more ambitious then I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 25. Decemb. 1634. To my Lord the Bishop of Poitiers LETTER XXVII MY Lord although Mounsieur de hath promised me to give you assurance of the continuation of my service yet I cannot forbeare to adde these few lines to his testimony and to tell you that which I tell to all the world that your vertue is a transcendent farre above the abilities and cariage of our age It is a match for antiquitie in its greatest purenesse and severitie When the Camilli and the Scipioes were not in imployment they reposed themselves and tooke their ease as you doe and when I consider sometimes the sweeteÌ„ life you leade at Dissay I conclude that all the imployments of the Pallace and all the intricacies of the Court are not worth one moment of a wise mans idlenesse It is well knowne that from your childhood you have despised vanitie even in her kingdome and that in an ayre where shee had attractives able to draw the oldest and most reluctant spirits All the pompe of Rome hath not so much as given you one temptation and you are so confirmed in a generous contempt that if good Fortune her selfe should come to looke you out you would scarce goe out of your Closet to meete her in your Chamber This is that I make such reckoning of in your Lordship and which I prefer before all your other qualities for those how great soever they be are yet but such as are common with many base and mercenarie Doctors where as this force and courage are things that cannot bee acquired in the noyse and dust of Schooles You found not these excellent qualities in the Vatican Library nor yet got them by reading of old Manuscripts you owe them indeede to Mounsieur your deceased father that true Knight without spot or wrinckle equally skilfull in the art of warre and in affaires of peace and that was the Heros of Muret of Scaliger and of Saint Mart. I propose not a lesse object for my worship then they did neither indeede is it lesse or lesse religious then theirs was and though you did not love mee as you doe and though you should denounce warre against me and become head of a faction to seeke my ruine yet I should not for all that forbeare to revere so rare a vertue as yours is but should stil remaine My Lord Your c. At Balzac 4. May 1630. To Mounsieur Guyet LETTER XXVIII SIR I feare not much to lose a thing I esteem but little but holding your friendship in that account I doe if I should not have it I should never see day of comfort more you must not therefore thinke it strange that I was mooved with the Alarum that was given mee for though I know my selfe to be innocent yet my unfortunatenesse is such that I conceive any bad newes to bee no more then my due Now that Mounsieur de hath quieted the agitation of my minde and hath assured me of your love I cannot forbeare to signifie unto you the joy I take telling you wit tall that so I may preserve a friend of your merit and worth I doe not greatly care for losing him that will leave me There is litle to be seene amongst men but malice weaknesse and even of good men the greatest part is scarce sound there is a cause why a firme and constant spirit as yours is is of wonderfull use in societie ' and it is no small benefit to them that are wearied overtoyled as I am to have a person to rest upon that cannot fall There is neede of courage to maintaine a friendship and indeede of prudence to performe the meanest duty of life t is nothing worth to have a sound will if the understanding bee defective our does a great matter to make vowes and sacrifices Nil veta furentem Nil delubrajuvant hee complaines without cause upon his tax and other inferiour matters this is to accuse innocents the evill no doubt comes from a higher place and it is the braine that is cause of all the disorder The knowledge I have hereof makes mee have compassion of him and excuse in a Doctor of three score yeares old those base shifting tricks that are not pardonable in a Schollar of eighteene Any man but my selfe would call his action a cowardice and a treason but I love to sweeten my griefe as much as I can I cannot become an enemy at an instant and passe from one extremity to another without making a little stay by the way I honour still the memory of our former friendship cannot wish ill to a man to whom I have once wisht well but this is too much I to complaine and you to quarrell doe me this favour I beseâ—… you to make choyse of something in your studie for a consolation of my solitude I have already the 〈◊〉 of Mounsieur the Admirall de la Volet but I would faine have the Epitaph of my Lady the Dutchesse of Esperâ—… and those admirable Elegies you shewed mee once In quibus 〈◊〉 es Tibullo â—…milis quam Tubullus sibi I intreate you to deliver them to Mounsieur who will see them safely delivered to mee if you please we will use him hereafter as our common correspondent who knowing me to the very bottome of my heart will I doubt not most willingly adde his testimony to my protestations that I truly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Septem 1630. To Mounsieur de L'orme Physitian in ordinary to the King and Treasurer of France at Burdeaux LETTER XXIX SIR it is not now onely that I make a benefit of your friendship I have had profit by it a long time and you have often bin my advocate with so great force and so good successe that they who had before condemned me were glad to revoke their sentence as soone as they heard you speake yet all this while you did but onely speake well of me now you begin to doe well for me it is you whom this yeare I may thanke for my pension Without you Sir my warrant would never have perswaded my partner
it would presently have beene rejected and he still have continued einexorable But it must bee confessed there is no wilde beast but you can tame no matter so bad but you can make good as you heale maladies that are incurable so you prevaile in causes that are desperate and if you finde never so little life and common sence in a man you are able to restore him to perfect health make him become a reasonable man I desire not to have the matter in any better termes then you have set it I am glad I shall not need to invocate M. the Cardinall for my dispatch and that Mounsieur hath promised not to faile to pay me in September If he should pay it sooner I should bee faine to desire you this favour to keepe it for mee till that time Now I onely intreat you to draw from him a valuable assurance of it and for so many favour 's and courtesies done me I shall present you with something not altogether so bad as those I have already shewed you and seeing one cannot bee called valiant for having the better of a coward neither can I bee accused of vanitie for saying I have exceeded my selfe I am therefore bold to let my Letter tell you thus much that if my false Pearles and my counterfeit Diamonds have heretofore deceived you I doe not thinke that the shew I shall make you of my new wares will use you any better Yet my meaning is not to preoccupate your judgement who neither of my felfe not of my writings will have any other opinion then what you shall please to allow me Since the time I have wanted the honour of seeing you I have made a great progresse in the vertue of humilitie for I am now proud of nothing but of my friends affections Let mee therefore never want yours I entreate you as you may beleeve I will all my life most passionately be Sir Your c. At Balzac 8. Decem. 1629. To my Lord LETTER XXX MY Lord I hope you will not take it ill that I put you in minde of a man to whom you have heretofore made demonstration of your love and that after a long intermission of these petty duties which are then troublesome when they are frequent you will give mee leave to tell you that I have indeede omitted them but more by discretion than by negligence I know Sir you have no time to lose and to put you to the reading of unprofitable words what were it but to shew an ignorance how much the King imployes you and how much the State needes you It is therefore the respect I beare to your continuall imployments that hath caused my â—…lence and I should be very absurd if in the assiduitie of your cares I should present you with little pleasing amusements and should looke for an answer to some poore compliment when you have so many commandements of importance and so many orders of necessitie to deliver forth It is enough for me that you doe me the honour to cast your eyes upon the protestation I make you that in all the extent of your command there is not a soule more submisse nor more desirous to beare your yoake then mine is and that as much as any in the world I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 10. Aug. 1630. To Mounsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XXXI SIR you neede not wonder to see your name in the Booke I fond you Lovers you know leave markes of their passion and if they were able would fill the whole earth with their Cyphers and devises It is a custome as ancient as the world for with that beganne writing also 〈◊〉 and at first for want of paper men graved the names of those they loved upon the baâ—… of treeâ—… If any man wonder I should be in love with a Preacher why wonders hee not at that Romane of whom a Grecian said that he was not onely in love with Cato but was enchanted with him You have done as much to otherâ—… in this country and I have as many Rivalls as you have auditors Yet there is not the same Object of all our affections they runne after your words and hang at your mouth but I goe further and discover in your heart that which is better than your eloquence I could easily resist your Figures and your Arguments but your goodnesse and your freenesse take me captive presently I therefere give you the title of a perfect friend in your Encomium because I account this a more worthy qualitie than to be a perfect Oratour and because I make most reckoning of that vertue in a man which humane societie hath most neeede of For other matters Remember your selfe in what termes I speake of the businesse you write of and that onely to obey you I have beene contented to alter my opinion I was well assured the enterprise would never take effect but I thought it better to faile by consenting than by obstiâ—…acie and rather to take a repulse than not to take your counsell I have known along time that fortune meanes me no good and the experience I have of her hath cured me of the malady of hope and ambition Make mee not fall into a relapse of these troublesome diseases I beseech you but come and confirme my health you Sir that are a soveraigne Physition of soules and who are able to see in mine that I perfectly am Your c. At Balzac 10. Febr. 1635. To Mounsieur de Piles Cleremont LETTER XXXII SIR having heard of the favourable words you used of me at the Court I cannot any longer forbeare to give you thanks nor stay till our next meeting from telling you how highly I esteeme this favour I cannot but confesse I did not looke to finde so great a graciousnesse in the country of maliciousnesse and seeing that the greatest part eveu of honest men have so much love for themselves that they have but little or none left for strangers I thought with my selfe that the infection of the world had but lightly touched you and that either you had no passions in you at all or at least but very coole and moderate but I see nâ—…w that you have more generousnesse in you than is fit to have amongst men that are interessed and that you put in practise the Maximes of our Ancestours and the Rules of your Epictetus It is I that am for this exceedingly bound unto you seeing it is I that receive the benefit of it that am the Object of your vertue You may then beleeve I have not so unworthy a heart as not to feele a resentment answerable to so great an Obligation at least Sir I hope to shew you that the Picture mine enemies have made of me is not drawne after the life and that their colours disfigure me rather then represent me I have nothing in me Heroicall and great I confesse but I have something that is humane and indifferent If I
Pacaturque aegro luxuriante dolor I have since received your learned Letter wherein you prescribe mee the order I must hold in using this wholesome disorder and teach me to drinke with art in truth you have more care of mee then I am worthy of my health is no matter of any such importance that it should be managed with such curiositie It is not worth the paines you have taken in treating of it so learnedly and writing these two leafes of paper you have sent me The publik which you will have to be interessed in it will acknowledge no such matter it hath no use in these turbulent times of contemplative Doctors The active life is that defends th◅ frontiers and repells the enemy and the lea◅ musket in the armie of M. the Cardinall of Va lette is at this time of more use then all th◅ Peripatetiks and Stoiks of this kingdome wee may therefore thinke that the publicke you talke off dreames not of me nor is engaged to preserve my idlenesse but it is you that love me and would therefore make mee of more worth then I am thereby to have the more colour for your loving me I am much bound ◅nto you for this favour yet I doubt whilst you set me at so high a price there is none will take me for such as you would vent me but I regard it not I bound my reputation by your account and desire no other Theater nor other world but you It sufficeth mee that in your spirit I enjoy the glory you give mee and sweetly possesse my good fortune which I know I merit not if you weigh it in the Skales of Scrupulous justice but which you will yet preserve to me if you have regard to the passion with which I testifie unto you that I am Sir Your c. At Paris 3. Septem 1635. To Mounsieur de Mesmes D'Avaur Ambassadour to the King at Venice LETTER XXXVI SIR if the persecut◅on continue I shall bee forced to give place to envie and to goe waite in the place where you are for a change to time which in this kingdome is so adverse unto me It is indeede my adversaries designe to make all sorts of governments my enemies and not to suffer me to breath at liberty either in Monarchie Aristocracie or Democracie You have seene his manifests printed which have flowne beyond the Alpes you know the cunning he useth to draw the publike state upon me and to make mee ill thought of as well by the Kings Allies as by his Subjects He goes about to banish mee out of all states to shut all places against me that are open even to fugitives and not to leave my innocencie one corner of the earth to be in safety yet Sir let him doe his worst and practise what hee can I hope you will beare me out to say that he shall never hinder me from having a place in your heart nor be able to take from mee this pleasing refuge And besides that Ambassadors houses enjoy the priviledges of the antient Sanctuaries and that there is neither justice nor violence but hath respect unto them I assure my selfe your onely affection will interesse it selfe for my safety without any other publique consideration and that you will defend me as a thing deare unto you though the defence of a man afflicted were not otherwise in it selfe a thing worthy the dignitie of an Ambassadour and wheresoever you shall have power to speake I shall be sure of a strong protection being as I am assured of your good word and this eloquent mouth which perswades the wise and makes that appeare which is just shall gaine no doubt a good opinion of my cause to the undertaker and a favourable censure of those judges at least that I acknowledge I expect this issue from your almighty Rhetoricke and hope Sir that in these troublesome incounters you will double your love and your good offices unto mee Though I should be worse intreated of the world and of fortune then I am and should have nothing before my eyes but lamentable successes and deadly presages yet you would remember how that Cato stood firme upon ruins and held himselfe constant to a side which the gods themselves had abandoned I doe not thinke my case is yet in this extremitie it hath yet subsistence and foundation and as it is not so badde but that an honest man may maintaine it with a good conscience so neither is it so weake but that a meane courage may undertake it without feare The Gentleman that brings you this Letter hath promised to make you a more amplē relation hereof and to informe you of my whole story I humbly intreat you to give him audience untill I come and crave it my selfe and that I assure you in your Pallace amongst your other Courtiers that I truly am◅ Sir Your c. At Paris 20. Decemb. 1627. To Mounsieur de Thure Doctor of the Sorbone and Chanon of the Church of Paris LETTER XXXVII SIR my deare Cousin the newes you sent me surprized me not I am so accustomed to receive disgraces that I finde in this nothing extraordinary it is true I am a little more sensible of it then of the former and the place from whence it comes makes mee take it a little more to heart yet seeing you seeme to compassionate my miserie I finde my selfe comforted of one halfe of it and having you for my Champion I feare not what my persecutors can doe against mee Suffer mee to call them so that sollicite your Colledge against me and make it lesse favourable to me then I had good right to hope for It is not their zeale of Religion nor interest of the publike that sets them on worke it is an old spight they beare mee which I could never master with all my long patience it is the hate of a dead man which lives still in his Tombe it is his rellicks that warre upon me and whereof some ill disposed French doe serve themselves to disgrace a worke which hath no other end but the honour and service of the King I never doubted of your good nature and I know if neede were your charitie would cover the multitude of my faults but in this ease I thinke I have reason rather to aske justice at your hands and to tell you that if you take the paines to consider my words as I meant them and not as my enemies corrupt them you will easily grant they containe nothing contrary to the orthodox doctrine or that is not maintaineable in all the Schooles of Christendome This being so my deare Cousin I doubt not but you will strongly defend my cause at least my person and will be pleased to assure my Masters of your fraternitie that having alwayes accounted their Colledge as the Oracle of true Doctrine and as the interpretor of the Church in this kingdome I could not wish a more sweet or glorious fruit of my travailes then to see them entertained
Lord untill nâ—…ght I conceived there was some necessity to deliver him your Letter with all speede and therefore I exposed my person to all the injuries of an incensed sky and ventured to make a voyage that would have frighted a stouter man then my selfe By this you may know that I count nothing difficult which reflects upon any interest of yours or which concernes your contentment and I love you so much that I should not say so much if I had more craft in me then I have But my good Nature exceedes al other considerations of vulgar Prudence and I would not keepe you from knowing what great power you have over me though I knew before hand you would abuse this power For other things I am very glad to heare you beginne to grow sensible of the charmes of musicke and that Consorts are in reputation with you Yet I have seene the time when your eares were no learneder then mine and when you made no great difference betweene the sound of Lutes and the noyse of Bells See what it is to frequent good company and to live in a Country of neatenesse I that stirre not from the Village know no other musicke but that of Birds and if sometimes I heare a more silver sound it comes from those noble Animals which Mounsieur Heinsius praiseth so much and which by Lucians saying serve for Trumpets in the Kingdome of the Moone I give you a thousand thankes for your newes but specially for the last it is certaine that the choice of Mounsieur de Belieure to be Ambassadour for Italy is a thing will be generally well liked men talke wonders already of his beginnings of the readinesse and Vivacitie of his Spirit of the force and stayâ—…dnesse of his Iudgement besides some other excellent qualities of his Age from which we may hope for much And for my selfe who am one that love my Countrie exceedingly I cannot but exceedingly rejoyce in this new fruitefulnesse which comes upon him at the latter end of his old age It doth me good to see famous deceased men to live againe in their excellent posteritie and I doubt not of the good successe of a Negotiation where a Belieure a Thou or a Sillery is imployed These were our Heroes of the long Robe and the Princes of our Senate and now their children that I may continue to speake Latine in French are the Princes of our youth at least they are names more happy and that portend more good to France then the name of and no doubt she will have cause to thanke M. the Cardinall for respecting races that are so deere unto her and for stirring up in the Kings the old inclinations of the Deceased King his Father I fall a sleepe alwaies when I am talking with you and am rather in case to make ill dreames then good discourses and so I take my leave of you my deare and perfect friend as I also am to you as much as possibly can be Your c. At Balzac 4. Octo. 1634. To Mounsieur Talon Secretary to my Lord the Cardinall De la Ualette LETTER XLII SIR I tooke infinite pleasure to see my selfe in one of your Letters and Mounsieur who imparted it to mee can witnesse for me with what greedinesse I read that passage which concerned me I cannot say that he is here though it be true that he is not in Gascognie for we enjoy nothing of him here but his Image he is so married that he would thinke it a disloyalty to his wife if hee should dare to laugh when shee is not by All his sociable humour he hath left with her and hath brought nothing to us but his Melancholy When I would make him merry he tels me I goe about to corrupt him All visites he makes in her absence though it be to covents and Hospitals yet he calls them De bauches So as Sir you never saw man better satisfied with his present estate nor a greater enemy to single life He is not contented to pitty you and me and to lament our solitude but he reproacheth us outragiously and cals us unprofitable members of the Common-wealth and such as are fit to be cut off As for me I make no defence for my selfe but your example I tell him let him perswade you to it first and he shall soone finde me ready to follow his counsell I hope we shall meete together ere long and then we shall not neede to feare his being too strong for us in our conferences when we two shall be against him alone Provide therefore Solutions for his Arguments but withall deny me not your assistance in other encounters where it may stand me instead You can never doe courtesies to a man more capable of acknowledgement nor that is more truely then I Sir Your c. At Balzac 12. Febru 1633. Another to him LETTER XLIII SIR I am exceedingly well satisfied with the newes you send me and with the assurance you give me by your Letter of the continuation of your Friendship Not that I was afraid I should lose it but because it is a pleasure to heare ones selfe called happy and that one cannot have too many titles for a possession which can never be too much valued I take not upon me to contend with you in Compliments or to dispute of civility with you who live in the light of the world and have whole Magasins of good words For besides that I never had any skill of the Couâ—… it is now so long I have beene a countriman that it were a miracle if I had not cleane forgot it all Pardon therefore a rudenesse which I cannot avoide and seeing I am not able to answer you give me leave to assaile you and require you to give a reason of the present state of things What can you say Sir of these wretched Flemmins who shut their Gates against good Fortune when she would come in to them and are in love with their Fetters and their Keepers I doe not thinke there be truer slaves in all Asia and I doe not wonder our Armes can doe no good in their Country seeing it is a hard matter to take a yoake from mens heads who preferre it before a Crowne and Soveraigntie when it is offered them Sicke men are then to be despaired of when they throw their medicines on the ground and account of Potions as of Poysonings It is not therefore our fault if they be not cured wee have active power enough to worke but it must upon a matter that is apt and disposed I expect hereupon a Decree from your politician and remaine Your c. At Balzac 1. Iuly 1635. To Mounsieur D'Espernon Marshall of the Kings Armies LETTER XLIV SIR my compliments are very rare and I take no great care for preserving your friendship I account you so true of your word that I cannot doubt of having your love seeing you have done me the honour to let mee have your promise It is to
no purpose to sollicite Judges that cannot be corrupted It is enough for procuring their favour that the cause be good You see therefore I doe not much trouble my selfe to commend mine unto you and I present my selfe so seldome before you that if you had not an excellent memory you had certainely forgot mee long agoe I pray you not to doe me good offices for knowing that you let slippe no occasion of doing good I may be sure to have my part of your good deedes though you have none of my prayers Your new Acquests at the Court make you not leave that you have on this side the Loyre your friends that are alwayes with you take not up all your heart there is some place left for your friends farther of of which number I am one and more in love Sir with the comtemplative life than ever I am alwayes under ground and buried with my trees and they must be very strong cords and very violent coÌ„mandements that should remove me yet I am contented to give my thoughts a libertie and my spirit is often in the place where you are and my absence is not so idly bestowed but that I can make you a reckoning of it I speake to you in this manner because I know you are no hater of delightfull knowledges and have an excellent taste to judge of things Though by profession you be a Souldier yet I refuse you not for a judge in our peaceable difference being well assured there are not many Doctours more accomplisht or of a founder judgement than your selfe This qualitie is no opposite to true valour the Romanes whose discipline you seeke to reestablish used to leade with them the Muses to warre and in the tumult of their Armies left alwayes place for these quiet exercises Brutus read Polybius the night before the battell at Philippi and his Vncle was at his Booke the very houre before he meant to die Never therefore feare doing ill when you follow the example of such excellent Authours none will ever blame you for imitating the Romanes unlesse perhappes the Crabates or other enemies as well of Humanitie as of France But to be thus blamed by Barbarians is an infallible marke of merit for they know no points of vertue but such as are wilde and savage and imagine that roaring and being furious are farre more noble things than speaking and reasoning I leave them to their goodly imaginations and come to tell you that though your Letter to my Sister be dated from the Army in Germany yet it is eloquent enough to come from the Academy of M. the Cardinall it neither smells of Gunpowder nor of Le pais de adieu pas I know by certain markes I have observed in it that your Bookes are part of your Baggage and I finde nothing in it that is worthy of blame but onely the excessive praises you bestow upon mee and if you were not a stout champion and able to maintaine it with your sword you would certainely ere this have had the lie given you a thousand times for praising me so I should be verry sorry to be a cause of so many petty quarrells and so unworthy of your courage a forraigne warre hath neede of your spirit make not therefore any Civill for my sake I desire no such violent proofes of your affection it serves my turne that you love me quietly and if you so please secretly too to the end that our friendshippe being hidden may lie in covert from injuries and that possessing it without pompe I may enjoy it without envie I reckon it alwayes amongst my solidest goods and will be sure never to lose it if perfit faithfulnesse will serve to keepe it and if it will suffice to be as I most passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 4. Ianu 1635. To Mounsieur de Roussines LETTER XLV MY deare brother I have upon this last occasion received nothing from you but the offices I expected I know you to be just and generous and one that will alwayes religiously pay whatsoever you owe either to Bloud or friendship yet this hinders me not from being obliged to you and to your good Birth for it This hath bestowed a friend upon me which I never tooke paines either to looke out or to make It is a present of Nature which I should have taken if shee had given me my choise I desire you to beleeve that I never stood lesse in neede of comfort than now Loppose nothing against the rage of a thousand adversaries but my scorne I am Armour of proofe against all the tales from the Suburbs St. Honoré and from all the Libells of the streete St. Iaques They encrease daily in sight and if the heate of their spirits doe not abate there will shortly be a little Library of follies written against me But you never yet heard of such a gravitie as I haue nor of a mind that could take such rest in the midst of stormes and tempests as I do and this I owe to Philosophie under whose covert I shelter my selfe it is not onely higher than mountaines where we see it raine and haile below us but it is stronger also than a Fortresse where wee may stand out of danger and make mouthes at our enemies All that hurts me in the warre of is that which concernes the interest of others it grieves me extremely that his crueltie should leave me and fall upon my friends I wish I could have bought out the three lives that touch the honour of with a third Volume of injuries done to my selfe and where no body else should have any part and I may truely say that this is the onely blow which that perfidious enemie hath given mee that goes to my heart and the onely of all his offenses that I have felt I intreate you to let my friend know of my griefe and to make sure unto me this rare personage by all the cares and good offices your courtesie can devise His Vertue ought to be inviolable to de traction but drtraction will not spare Vertue it selfe but takes a delight in violating the best things I have reason to place him in this ranke and considering him as one of the most accomplisht worke of Nature I must needes consider withall that Nature it selfe is sometimes calumniated Madame de enquires often after you and hath a great opinion of your heart and spirit You may be sure I say nothing in opposition to the account she holds you in but am rather glad to see my judgement confirmed by so infallible an authoritie see you be alwayes good and alwayes lay hold upon our antient Maximes and be assured I am and alwayes will be My deare brother Your c. At Paris 15. Ianu. 1628. To Mounsieur Breton LETTER XLVI SIR you are a man of yourword and something more You promiseâ—… lesse than you performe having undertaken to furnish me but with Gazets you extend your largesse to large volumes of Bookes This