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
upon the Stoicks Wiseman who onely was free was rich was a King me thinkes I see you foretold long agoe and that Zeno was but the Figure of Mounsieur Descartes Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas Atque metus omnes inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus Either you are this happy man or heē is not to be found in the world and the conquest of truth for which you labour with so great force and industry seemes to mee a more noble businesse then all that is done with so great bruite and tumult in Germany and Italy I am not so vaine to pretend I should be a companion of your travell herein but I shall at least be a spectator and shall enrich my selfe with the rellicks of the prey and with the superfluitie of your abundance Thinke not that I make this proposition by chance I speake it in great earnest and if you stay never so little in the place where you are you shall finde mee a Hollander as well as your selfe and my Masters the States shall not have a better citizen nor one more passionate for libertie than I am Although I love extremely the aire of Italy and the soyle that beares Orenges yet your vertue is able to draw me to the bankes of the frozen sea and even to the uttermost border of the North. It is now three yeares that my imagination goes in quest after you and that I even die with longing to be united to you and never to part from you againe and to testifie unto you by a continuall subjection that I passionately am Sir Your c. At◅arisc ◅arisc 25. Aprill 1631. To Mounsieur de la Motte-Aigron LETTER XXX SIR I have heard of the happy accomplishment of your marriage and that it hath beene one of the great solemnities of Rochell I have celebrated it here in my particular with lesse pompe indeede and tumult but with as much joy and satisfaction of minde as they that sung the Hymenaeus Though perhaps you would not have it so yet your contentments are mine you have not any passion so proper to your selfe which is not common with me and play the cruell as long as you will I will have a share in that which is yours even then when you will not affoord to give it mee At the worst I will love you still as I have ever done as a creature supremely excellent though not supremely just As there are some vertues that are fierce and scornefull so there are some sciences which have attractives amidst their difficulties and which draw us on in thrusting us backe You are like these abstract knowledges Your merit sweetens all your rigours and how hard soever the persecution hath beene which I have suffered yet I vow unto you I could never finde in my heart to hate the Tyrant I have still so great a care of his reputation that I would not be thought innocent for feare he should be blamed to have done me wrong and I had rather be a Prevaricatour and treacherous to my selfe then to seeme I had cause of complaint against him We ought to condemne the memory of this disorder and to suppresse this unfortunate Olympiade Wee ought to perswade our imagination that the matter is not so indeede but that it is onely dreamt When you shall please to remember your word I shall see your Verses and your friends Sermons In the meane time Sir if you will not have it be a meere liberality I send you something to exercise commutative justice and beginne a trafficke whereof the Toll is not agreed upon to be taken of right Never was man so miserably busied as my selfe I am intricated with an infinite number of petty affaires which as you know are no lesse cumbersome than the great One thrust of a sword hurts not so much as a hundred prickes of a Pinne and the Arabians have a saying It is a better bargaine to be devoured of a Lyon than to be eaten up of Flyes If I had you I should have a Redeemer but your State-businesse is preferreable before my interests and it is better I should want you than come to have you with the curses of the people I am and shall never be Sir But your c. At Balzack 29. Iuly 1634. To Mounsieur de Granier LETTER XXXI SIR thē day I parted from Paris I dreamt not of taking any journey but a newes which I received made me take horse within an houre after I received it This is that which hindred me from taking my leave and to use such compliments with you as in such cases are accustomed If I did not know you to be an enemy of the tyranny of Ceremonies and that you as well as my selfe cut off from friendshippe all vaine pompe and superfluities I should study for long excuses to justifie my journey but in so doing I should offer wrong to a wise man to thinke hee had opinions like the vulgar and that hee would either give or take so good a thing as liberty I enjoy it as I would wish within these three or foure dayes and I have received it at the banke of the river where I left it the last yeare I banish from my minde all thoughts of the streete Saint Iaques and dreame not either of my Prince or Commonwealth either of enemies Bookes or of my owne I dreame to say true continually of you and finde no Image in my memory so pleasing as that which presents mee the time of our being together I would willingly employ Atlante or Melisse to procure me a more solid contentment and to convey you and your library hither in a night I cannot forget this deare retreate of your repose for I know that without this you would finde even in Tyvolie a want in your felicity and that without your Bookes our fruits would be but sowre and our good cheere but of ill taste unto you These are imaginations Sir with which I flatter my selfe whilst I stand waiting to returne to Paris that I may there goe finde out a happinesse which cannot come hither to finde out me If in the meane time you please to fend me some newes whereof you know provincicall spirits are extremely greedy you shall give me meanes to make a whole country beholding to me and you neede deliver them but onely to who will ease you of the paines of writing them In these I require not the straines of your understanding nor the politique Animadversiana which come from this accurate and Collineant judgement to use the barbarous eloquence of our friend it shall be enough for me that I may know in generall some part of that which passeth and may have some Epitome of the History which you send weekely to Mounsieur D'Andylly I humbly entreate you to assure him that I honour him continually with passion and assure your selfe also that I am Sin Your c. At Balzac 10. Septem 1631. To Mounsieur de la Nauve Commander of a
cause that every weeke we make a feast upon the day of your comming to Balzac Et ut tibi tanquam futuro in posterum loci Genio non uno poculo libetur If this kinde of acknowledgement will content you I shall perfectly acquit my selfe of performing my duty having learned in Lorraine and the Low Countries the meanes of testifying that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 6. of Iune 1633. Another to him LETTER XXVII SIR though I know the good deserts of are not unknowne unto you and that you neede no forreigne commendation to increase your respects towards him yet I cannot hold from doing a thing superfluous and assure you by these few lines that it will be no blemish to your judgement to let him have your testimony of his pietie Ever since the time he renounced his errour hee hath continued firme and stedfast in the doctrine you taught him of an erronious Christian you made him an Orthodox and your hand is too happy to plant any thing that doth not prosper He is therefore your workemanship in Christ Iesus and otherwise so perfect a friend of mine that I know not if in the order of my affections I ought not to set him in equall ranke with my owne brother This at least I know that the least of his businesses is the greatest of mine and I will not onely part your favour betweene him and me but will become your debtour for the whole my selfe alone I am now polishing those writings which I had condemned but that you asked their pardon and since it is your will they should not perish I revoke my sentence and I am resolved your selfe shall be the other person of my Dialogue after the example of that Roman you love so well whose bookes of Philosophie are commonly his conferences with Brutus or other Sages the true and naturall judges of such matters yet Sir it is impossible for me to dissemble any longer a griefe I have at my heart and to end my Letter without letting you see a little cut you have given me there you made me a promise to come backe by Balzac and now you have taken another way Thus the wise men of the East dealt with Herod yet I am neither tyrant nor enemy to the Sonne of God This kind of proceeding is farre unlike the Belgicke sinceritie and it is not fit for Saints to mocke poore sinners But how unkindly soever you deale with me I can never turne Apostata and should you proove more cruell I should yet never be Sir But your c. From Balzac 15. Octob. 1633. To LETTER XXVIII SIR since you have taken pleasure in obliging me I will not have you have the greefe to loose your obligation nor that my incompetent acknowledgment should make you have the lesse stomacke for doing good I know your goodnesse is cleare and free from all forreigne respects and hath no motive but it selfe it is not at any mans prayers that the Sunne riseth neither doth he shine the more for any mans thankes your courtesies are of like condition Your favours have not beene procured by my making suite and as of my part nothing hath gone before the kindnesses I have received so on your part I assure my selfe you expect not that any thing should follow them yet something must bee done for examples sake and not to give this colour for shewing little courtesie to such as complaine that men are ungratefull The place where you are is full of such people all commerces are but Amusements and to make men beleeve the whole world is given to deceive and it is a great merit in you that you can follow so forlorne and solitary a thing as truth is in a Country where Divines maintaine her but weakely and where shee dares scarce bee seene in a Pulpit doth it not shew an extraordinary courage to take upon him to distribute her amongst the pretenders and that in open Theater It is no meane hardinesse to be good at the Court to condemne false Maximes where they have made a Sect and where they have gotten the force of Lawes I have beene assured you make profession of this difficult vertue and that in the greatest heate of calumnie and the coldest assistance that ever a poore innocent had you have beene passionately affected in my behalfe being altogether unknowne unto you but by the onely reputation of my ill fortune and even at this present you are taking care of some affaires of mine which I in a manner had abandoned and upon the report you heard of my negligence you make mee offer of your paines and industrie The onely using your name were enough for all this I might well spare my owne unprofitable indeavours where my negligence being favoured by you shall without all doubt be crowned You have heard speake of that Grecian whom the love of Philosophâ—…e made to forget the tilling of his ground and of whom Aristotle said that hee was wise but not prudent Hee found a friend that supplied the defect of his owne ill husbandry and repaired the ruines of his house If my estate was like his I should expect from you the like favour but I aske not so much at this time All that I desire now hath promised me a dozen times over and I see no reason to distrust an Oracle Hee is neither inspired by any false Deitie nor hath made mee any doubtfull answer so that resting my selfe upon this foundation there seemes to have beene a kinde of Religion in my negligence and I am not altogether in so much blame as would make you thinke mee Hee is I deny not an Authour worthy to be credited and his testimony ought to be received but yet hee hath not the gift of not erring and never beleeve him more then when hee assures you that I am Sir Your c. From Balzac 9. of Feb. 1630. To Mounsieur du Pleix the Kings Historiographer LETTER XXIX SIR since the time that persecution hath broken out into flames against mee I never received more comfortable assistance then from your selfe and I account your strength so great that I cannot doubt of the goodnesse of a cause which you approve You were bound by no Obligation to declare your selfe in my behalfe and you might have continued Neutrall with decencie enough but the noblenesse of your minde hath passed over these petty rules of vulgar Prudence and you could not endure to see an honest man oppressed without taking him into your protection This is to shew mee too much favour in a Kingdome where Justice is no better than Mercenary and where paiment comes not but after long solliciting I know well that the soundest part is of my side and that my state is not ill amongst the wise but on the other side there are so many opposites on the By make warre upon mee that I am ready to leave my selfe to the mercy of the multitude and to be perswaded by the number of my enemies
keepe for mee your faithfulnesse is more then my negligence and I am more assured of your honestie then of my owne notwithstanding what certainty soever I have of your love it is no trouble to me to have new assurances Men that are well enough perswaded yet will goe to a Sermon and take a pleasure to heare that they know already For my selfe I can never be weary of reading a thing that gives mee satisfaction and though it were as feigned as it is true yet you write it with so good a grace that it would bee a pleasure to be so deceived yet it is fit to stay my selfe there and not to fall from joy into presumption how can you looke my spirit should containe it selfe within its bounds knowing that I am talked of at Rome and that my name is sometimes pronounced by the most eloquent mouth of Italy you should have concealed the expresse charge you had from M. the Cardinall of Bentivoglio to send me his History or at least for a temper to my vanitie you should have told mee at the same time that I must not impute a favour to my owne sufficiencie for which I am beholding to your good offices I may beleeve Sir that he had never had this thought of me if you had not stirred it up in him by some favourable mention you made of my person and I know he puts so great a trust in you that after you have once made a commendation hee would make a conscience to use his owne judgement in examining my worth From what ground soever my happinesse comes I am bound to acknowledge the visible cause and to that I destinate my first good dayes journey that God shall send me I will not faile to give thankes to M. the Cardinall and to give him an account of my reading that hee may see I know as well how to receive as hee to give In the meane time I offer him a present farre unworthy of the magnificence of his and which will shew him how with his hooke of Gold hee hath fished but grasse such as it is you shall doe mee a favour to present it to him and to let mee hold the possession I have in your love whose I am all my life Sir Your c. At Balzac 10. May 1634. To Mounsieur de Nesmond Controller of the Princes house LETTER XVII SIR my deare Cousin your Letter hath told me no newes it hath onely confirmed mee in my opinion and testified that you are alwayes good and alwayes doe mee the honour to love me You have qualities of greater luster then this but you have none of greater use and they that could live without your wisedome yet cannot beare the misse of your goodnesse My sister and I continue to implore it in a businesse which is already set on foote by your commendation and which attends a full accomplishment by your second endeavour It is neither without example nor without reason it needes but such an undertaker as your selfe and you may easily save it from rigorous justice if you will but lend a little ayd to its equity Of your will I make no doubt it is the continuall agitation of the court that makes me feare which drives men one way and their affaires another But if the heavens helpe us not wee are not like in hast to see it in any state of consistence it will bee alwayes floting like the Island of Greece untill a great birth shall make it stay and that God make sure the Kings victories by the Queenes fruitfulnesse In the meane time it is not fit you should stay at home but that you should make one in all voyages but you must not bee of these voyages that get many hoasts and few friends You are in a state of obliging and making men beholding to you by doing alwayes good and now for feare you should want matter to worke upon I offer you matter here to set you aworke Be pleased Sir my deare Cosin that I intreate you to deliver to the Letter I writ unto him and when you deliver it to testifie withall unto him that having the honour to bee to you as I am the things that touch me must needs concerne you Heretofore I have held good place in his confidence and to use the termes of a man you hate not Vetus mihi cum eo consuetudo cum privatus eraet Amici vocabamur Even lately at Paris hee offered mee courtesies that might have contented a prouder mans vanitie then mine and I received from him more good words then was possible for mee to returne him But these illustrious friendships require continuall cares and an assiduitie without cessation I know they are subject to a thousand inconveniences and that they grow cold if they be not stirred up and kindled continually Three words of your mouth spoken with a due accent may save me the solliciting of three moneths and my requests ought not to seeme uncivill seeing I desire nothing but this that should not doe mee the honour to make a promise and then leave there and think that enough To this purpose I send you a short instruction for and you may be pleased to be a meanes that hee cast his eyes upon it at such time as the businesse hee hath about your person shall permit him I would not sollicite you so boldly nor presse upon you so burdensome a familiarity if you had not your selfe made the overture first It is a persecution you have drawne upon your selfe by the liberall offers you made mee in your Letter and I conceive you speak as you meane as I doe in protesting that I honour you with my soule and am Sir my deare Cosin Your c. From Balzac 20. Octob. 1632. To Mounsieur de Borstell LETTER XVIII SIR I doe not know my selfe in your Letters you are like those Painters that care not for making a face like so they make it faire Certainely you thought upon some honester man than my selfe when you tooke the paines to write unto mee and your Idaea went beyond your subject or else you meant to excite mee to vertue by a new subtilty and the praises you give mee are but disguised exhortations They could not be Sir either more fine or more delicate and I doe not thinke that your pretended Barbarisme comes any thing behind the Grecian eloquence But tell me true Is it not as artificiall as Brutus his folly And are not you in plaine termes a Cosener to make us beleeve you come from that climate from whence the cold and foule weather comes Whereas it cannot be you should be borne any where but in the heart of Paris or if any place be more French then Paris that certainely must needes have beene your Cradle You speake too well not to speake naturally this garbe and this purity in which you expresse your selfe is not a thing that can be learned by Bookes you owe it to a neerer cause and study goes not so farre
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
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
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
though he had not knowne the secret These are not words that one reades and are painted upon paper they are felt and received within the heart They live and moove and I see in them the sinewes of the first Christians and the style of that Heroicke age where one and the same vertue gave life both to discourse and actions gave influence both to the soule and to the courage made both Doctours and also Martyrs Tell mee true Did you not purpose to your selfe a Patterne to follow Have you not beene at the Oracle of have you not received some inspiration from our excellent friend Me thinkes I meete with his very Character In certaine passages I observe some markes and traces of his spirit and when I reade them cannot sometimes forbeare crying out Sic oculus sic ille manus c. You neede not take offence at my suspition so noble a resemblance is an inferiority lifted up extremely high You are not therein his Apc but his Sonne There is nothing base nor meane in the imitation of so high and perfect an Idea and you know the example of Plato made Philo goe checke by jowle with him All I aske of you at Paris where you so liberally offer me all the good offices you can doe is but this that you will doe me the favour to assure that great personage of the great reverence I beare to his merits and what glory I count it to be counted his friend but I require withall the continuation of your owne love with which you can honour none that is more truely then I am Sir Your c. 25. Iuly 1630. To Mounsieur Coeffeteau Bishop of Dardanie LETTER VIII SIR since your departure from Mets there hath nothing hapneâ—… worthy of the History I promised you but onely that the Emperour as I heare hath presented to the view of brave spirits certaine new and very strange recreations by which hee hath gained a great opinion of his knowledge As to make the Images in a peece of Tapistry to walke and move to make all the faces in a roome to seeme to be double to make a river rise in a Hall and after streaming away without wetting of any make a company of Fayries appeare and dance a round these are his ordinary sports to use the phrase of our friend but the outside of his secret Philosophy Signior Mercurio Cardano sweares hee hath seene all this and more enough to finde you discourse for many meetings and if you appoint him to set hand to his Penne he will be a Philostratus to this Appolonius Hee hath told me as hee hath heard it from him that for certaine the heavens meuace France with a notable revolution and that the fall of hath not beene so much the end as the change of our mysteries For my selfe who know that God never makes Mountibanks of his Counsaile and that the vertue of the King is able to correct the malignity of the starres I laugh at the vanitie of such Presages and looke for nothing but happinesse from the ascendant and fortune of so great a Prince But to change this Discourse and this Mountibanke for another I have seene the man Sir that is all armed with thornes that pursues a Proposition to the uttermost bounds of Logicke that in most peaceable conversations will put forth nothing nor admit of nothing that is not a Dialemma or a Syllogisme To tell you true what I thinke of him he would please me more if hee had lesse reason this quarrelsome Eloquence affrights me more than it perswades mee They which commonly converse with him runne in my opinion the same fortune which they doe that live neere the falls of Nilus there is no overflowing like that of his words a man cannot safely give him audience a Headache for three dayes after is the least hurt hee can take that but heares him after dinner The Gentleman that brings you this Letter hath charge given him from all in generall to entreate you Sir not to forsake us in so important a matter but to come and free our companies from one of the greatest crosses that hath a long time afflicted civill societie You are the onely man in whom this Sophister hath some beleefe and therefore none but you likely to reduce him to common right and to bring his spirit to submit it selfe to Custome and Vsage You can if you please make it appeare unto him that an honest man proposes alwayes his opinions no otherwise than as doubts and never raiseth the sound of his voyce to get advantage of them that speake not so loud that nothing is so hatefull as a chamber Preacher who delivers but his owne word and determines withou warrant that it is fit to avoid gestures which are like to Threatnings and termes which carrie the stile of Edicts I meane that it is not fit to accompany his Discourse with too much action nor to affirme any thing too peremptorily Lastly that conversation reflects more upon a popular estate then upon a Monarchie and that every man hath there a right of suffrage and the benefit of libertie You know Sir that for want of due observing these petty rules many have fallen into great inconveniences and you remember one who maintained an argument at the Table with too great violence disturbed and drove Queene Margaret from her dinner Such men commonly spoile the best causes whilst they seeke to get the better not because their cause is good but because themselves are the Advocates Reason it selfe seemes to be wrong when it is not of their side at least not in its right place nor in its ordinary forme They disguise it in so strange a fashion that it cannot be knowne to any and they take away her authority and force by painting her in the colours and markes of folly Against these Ringleaders it is that wee desire you to come and to take the paines of applying your Exorcismes particularly upon you will have a thousand Benedictions if you can drive out of his body this devill of dispute and wrangling which hath begunne already to torment us Wee expect you at the end of the weeke and I remaine Sir Your c. From Mets 15. Augu. 1618. To my Lord the Earle of Brassac LETTER IX SIR that which I have written of you is but a simple relation of that I have seene of you and if there be any ornament in it It must needs be that either your selfe have put it there or else that Fortune hath lent it to me I had done it very innocently I assure you if I had spoken any thing well who was so ill prepared for it I should have hit a marke which I aimed not at and have drawne a Picture by the casuall falling downe of my Pensill My drift was to entertaine my friend who was accustomed to the negligence of my style and with whom if I committed any fault I was sure of Pardon Hee cries not out murther upon seeing
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
Company in Pyedmont LETTER XXXII SIR my deare Cousin I cannot endure you should be cmoe backe into France for nothing but and that hee should solely and without me possesse a happinesse which more belongs to mee than him His Letters speake nothing but of your conversations and of your feastings newes which he sends me rather to brave mee and to set mee in a longing then to give me any part in his good fortune and to justifie my stay at Paris I shall one day have meanes to be revenged of him for this malice I doubt not to have libertie to walke abroad when hee shall be tied to stay at home and to have my turne in feasting and making merry when hee shall stand waiting upon enterrements and goe exhorting men that are to be hanged Yet hee is all this while your Favorite in my absence though hee ncede not thinke mee absent unlesse hee will for if hee love mee enough to be troubled for losing mee hee may easily recover mee by looking upon your face This resemblance betweene you and mee is not the least of my vanities and I vow unto you I am proud of it in the highest degree every day I thanke my mother for it in my heart and doe a secret homage for it to Nature It were enough for mee to be taken for your Coppy but my gray haires tell mee to my shame that I am rather your Originall and put mee in minde of this untoward advantage I should not do much good to paint them unlesse withall I could discharge the pensivenesse that hath changed them for the tincture of this blots out all other It is fit therefore to be merry and to banish sorrow seeing this is the onely meanes to new make us and to make us able to resist old-age I resolve my selfe to do so though it be but to doe Fortune a spight and to take from her by my not grieving the pleasure she thinkes to take in her crueltie But this goodly resolution stands in neede of you my joy would be perfect if you would sometimes be a man of the Province and that there were any appearance of hope to see you at Condeville I know no reason you should scorme an Iland in which our Ariosto would have charmed his dearest Heroes and whereof hee would have made a thousand other strange devises if hee had beene able to discover it Venture to come thither this next Sommer I conjure you to it by the memory of and I will promise you though not the good fellowshippes of Paris yet at least the faire dayes of Pigneroll But I feare mee much you are not setled enough to undertake so high a designe nor good enough to come to civilize a clowne who yet is beyond all I can say Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. Ianua 1634. Another to him LETTER XXXIII SIR my deare Cousin the beginning of your Letter had frighted mee and I was taking Alarum at these words of death and Physitians but I recovered my spirits when I saw the first had failed of his blow and that you use not the other but to strengthen you in an estate they have already put you such dayes as this will prove more healthfull to you then all their Drugges and the sweetnesse which begins to spring from the puritie of the Elements is the onely medicine that heales without corrupting and cleanseth without fretting For my selfe I thinke not of dying when I have once gotten March over my head and me thinkes I finde my selfe renewed at the onely smelling of the Violets I make use of them to more then one service they serve me for Broaths as well as for Nosegayes I cannot bee perswaded that cold purgeth the Ayre or drives away sicknesse and I am glad at heart to heare the Duke of Feria is dead of the Purples in the moneth of Ianuary and that in Germany At least this will justifie the Summer and the hot Countries and will serve us for a proofe against when according to his custome he will pleade our adversaries cause I am more happy then I thought I was seeing you assure me that I am sometimes the subject of your conferences and though in this you run the hazard of being in the number of those Oratours who were blamed for making ill choyse of their subjects yet pardon mee if I account the testimony of your remembring me more deare unto mee then the glory of your well speaking and if I like rather you should talke of my idlenesse and of my walkes then to discourse of publicke affaires or voyages of Princes I regard not the estimation of the people I would give a great deale to buy out that with which I have gotten it but there are certaine friendships upon which onely I relie and to be razed out of all accounts in the state would be lesse grievous to me then to be blotted out of your memory Continue therefore these conferences which are so pleasing to mee and of which I am in spirit a partaker or rather deny me not these consolations which are so sweete unto mee and whose effect I feele a hundred miles off I cannot dissemble the neede I have of you I could not live if you did not love me but withall you could not love a man who is more passionately then I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 22. Febru 1634. Another to him LETTER XXXIIII SIR my deare Cosin I am exceeding glad to heare of your newes as for newes of the world I set so little by them and interest my selfe so little in generall affaires that I may boldly say I never yet read a whole Gazetta through you may thinke this a strange distaste of the present time and a remarkeable impatience specially in a man who complaines that Livies History is too short and wishes Herodotus would never make an end Things that wounded me heretofore at the very heart doe not now so much as superficially touch mee that which I accounted as my owne is now become a stranger to me and my heart is hardned against all accidents that happen if they concerne not either my selfe or my friends It is true the death of wrought in mee some compassion I can never hate men that are extraordinary it grieves me that cowardice should triumph over vertue and the lazie cause the valiant to bee murthered For this man it would not serve to take him at table it was necessary to come behinde him for else the most resolute of the conspiratours would never have had the courage to doe the act would never have a◅idden the splendor of that terrible countenance and would have thought he had alwayes heard this voyce Fallit te mensas inter quod credis Inermem Tot bellis quaesita viro tot caedibus armat Majestas aeternam Ducē Si admoveris or as sta Cannas et trebiā ante oculos Thrasymenaque bu Et Pauli stare in gentem mir aberis umbram Change but the Latin names
a treatie seeing treaties are not made with weapons in hand c. But that which pleaseth mee most of all because it toucheth indeede the string of my owne inclination is that which he speakes of the Marquesse of Rambovillet that there had beene Statues erected in honour of her vertue if she had fortuned to be borne in the beginning of her race For as you know Sir this illustrious woman is of Romane stocke Et de Gente Sabella of which Virgil speakes These are the passages I can call to minde having not the Originalls by me being taken from me by a neighbouring Lady who affects the King of Sweden with the like passion as Madame Rambovillet so elevated a spirit may chastly enough be loved of both sexes and let the slanderous History speake its pleasure I for my part thinke no otherwise of it then as the Queene of Sheba loved Salomon and as Nicomedes loved Caesar. I had begunne something for the triumph of this great Prince but his death made my Penne fall out of my hand and therefore you are like to have nothing from me at this time in revenge of your Sonnet For your French Prose I send you another which I will never beleeve to be Latin untill shall assure you it is to whom I entreate you to shew it from me Vir plane cum Antiquitate conferendus qui mihi est in hoc genere vnus curia Censor Quirites I have read many things of his with infinite satisfaction but I know hee hath certaine mysteries in his Writing which he lets not common people know and hath told me of a continuation hee hath written of the History of M. de Thou which is not imparted but to his speciall friends and which I am infinitely desirous to see but I am not a man that will enter by force upon any mans secrets and my discretion in such cases shall be alwayes graeter then my curiositie Opture licebit si potiri non licet If I should not presently make an end of my Letter I should kill you with Latine for I find my selfe in an humour that way and in this desert where I live I have no commerce but with such as speake all Latin I would perswade you to revive them in our language by an imitation which you are able to doe not much unlike those great examples I meane of Cicero of Salust and of Livie not of Cassiodore or Ennodius Ticinensis or Sidonius Apollinuris They that love this impuritie of stile are in a ficker state then they that love to eate coales and ashes Farre be it from us to have such disordered appetites and let us never be so foolish to preferre the corruption and decay of things before their prime and their maturitie I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 4. Febru 1633. Another to him LETTER XLIII SIR Hee that delivers you this Letter knowes as much of my newes as I my selfe and will make you ample relation of all that hath passed at He hath a businesse in the Parliament which is of no great difficulty and which may be spedde without any great Eloquence yet I addresse it to you but upon condition that you shall not imploy your whole force about it but that your labouring for him may be a refreshing to you from some other labour I heare with a great deale of pleasure of the progresse of your reputation and of the effects of my prefages The acclamations you cause in the Pallace are sounding in all places and wee are not so out of the world but that the Eccho of them comes to us But Sir I content not my selfe with clapping of hands and praising your well-speaking as others doe I desire to have some particular ground for which to give you thankes and am willing to be in your debt for compliment and reverence this shall be when you have spedde my friends suite and which shall be a cause if you please that I will now at the end of my Letter adde a superlative and say I am Sir Your most humble most faithfull c. At Balzac 2. Novem. 1633. Another to him LETTER XLIV SIR I make no secret of our friendship it is too honest to be hidden and I am so proud of it that I thinke my selfe of no worth but by it Mounsieur Iamyn acknowledgeth my good fortune herein and is himselfe in passion to get your acquaintance to which hee perswades himselfe I should not be his worst introductor and that by my meanes he might be admitted to your studies I will make my selfe beleeve that he mistakes me not and that for my sake you will adde to your accustomed courtesies a little extraordinarie They who saw Pericles how he thundred and lightened in the publike Assemblies were desirous to heare him in a quieter estate to know whether his Calme were as sweete and pleasing as his Tempest This man hath the like desire and though my recommendation were as indifferent to you as it is deere yet so honest a curiositie would deserve to be respected Hee is the sonne of one of my best friends and though perhappes you know it not you are the example that Fathers propose for imitation to their children and by whose name they excite to vertue all their youth I neede not say more to you of this onely be mindefull of our resolute and undaunted Maximes and in this age of malice doe not scorne the praise I give you for your goodnesse I kisse the hands of all your reloquent family and am Sir Your c. At Paris 16. Febru 2634. To Mounsieur de Caupeau ville Abbot of Uictory LETTER XLV SIR the time which my malady permits me I bestow upon you and make use of the respite of my sits to tell you I have received your last Letters and the new assurances of your friendshippe which is so much the dearer unto me because I know you use them with discretion and that there be not many things you greatly affect This makes for my glory that I can please so dainty a taste and that I can get good from one that is so covetous It is no small matter to draw a wise man out of himselfe and to make Philosophie compassionate of others evills Although the place to which she hath raised you cannot be more eminent nor more sure yet my disgraces may because that her prospect is not so faire or pleasant and how setled soever the peace of your minde be yet the Object of a persecuted friend may perhaps offend your eyes Our Mounsieur Berville I assure my selfe dislikes not this kinde of wisedome he likes to have that husbanded dressed which Zeno would have to be rooted out hee knowes that magnanimity hath its residence betweene effeminatenesse and crueltie and that the sweete and humane vertues have place betweene the Fierce and the Heroioke Poets sometimes make the Demy Gods to weepe and if an old womans death were cause enough to make Aeneas shed teares
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
may carry them handsomely with us to Church That which I have seene of them doth so exceedingly please mee that I would be a Poet for nothing else but withsome indifferent grace to prayse them and to say Verses blesse him that makes such blessed Verses If I did not love you well I should envie you the conversation of Monsieur Chaplaine from whom in fifteene dayes I have received but one small sparke of a Letter by the ordinary Post. Thus I doe but tast of that whereof you make full meales yet remember I have as good right in him as your selfe and though I trust you with the keeping him yet I doe not quit my part in him To him and you both I am most affectionately Your c. To Monsieur Conrat LETTER V. SIR I had undertaken to have answered to every point of your eloquent Letter but when I had spent a whole moneth about it I could not satisfie my selfe with my undertaking That which I had written was not worthy me thought that I should Father it and I began to thinke I should doe you a great courtesie to save you the reading of an ill Oration But seeing of evills the least are the best you shall have cause to thanke your selfe for this complement which will cost you no more but one looke to looke over and never put you to the labour of turning over the leafe I have this onely to say at this time that the report which was spread of my death hath not killed me and that in despight of rumour and mortall Presages I intend to be happy by your meanes and not to forgoe the good fortune presented to me in your person so I call your excellent friendship with which no burden is heavie no calamitie dolorous For I know I shall finde in you that ancient generousnesse whereof Monsieur de la Nove and Monsieur de Ferries made profession I account when I discover secrets to you I hide them and shall have no jealousie of my honour when I have put it into your hands In such sort Sir that my soule should be of a very hard temper if it did not feele a kind of tickling in so present and great advantages and if I should not most perfectly be as you oblige me to be Your c. To my Lord the Bishop of Nantes LETTER VI. SIR I was upon the point of sending my footman to you when I saw your footman enter my lodging who brought me newes exceeding joyfull and now I depend no longer upon Fortune since another besides her selfe can make me happie and am so indeed as much as I would wish and should never know the value of your friendship if I made it not the bounds of my ambition To complaine of fortune and to be your favourite are things that imply a morall contradiction it is an easie-matter to comfort a pension ill payd when a man is in possession of store of treasure and having neither the gift of impudency nor of hypocrisie it is not for me to prosper in an age which esteemes them most that are owners of these qualities It is enough for me that M. the Cardinall doth me the honour to wish me well and condemnes not your judgement of mee all other disgraces from whence soever they come I am prepared to beare and take for a favour the contempt that is linked to the profession of vertue But it is too much to say of mee that which Seneca said of Cato Catonem saeculum suum parùm intellexit These are transcendencies of M. de Nantes and impostures of his love He stretcheth all objects to infinitie and all his comparisons are beyond proportion The Sunne and the Starres are common things with him and he can finde nothing in Nature goodly enough to serve for a similitude of that he loves It is this deceitfull passion hath made you beleeve that I am of some great worth and that my barren soyle is fruitfull in high conceits But Sir I count all this nothing if this love of yours perswade you not to come stay a while in it and to be mindfull of your word I have put Monsieur in hope hereof and make my selfe sure since you have made me a solemne promise knowing that Truth is residentupon the mouth of Bishops Dixisti venies Grave immutabile sanctis Pondus adest verbis voceÌ„ fata sequuntur The Authour of these Verses shall be your fourth suppliant it is one that hath been of your olde acquaintance and was accounted the Virgill of his time I make use of him upon this occasion because perhaps you will make more reckoning of him than of me who yet am more than any man in the world Sir Your c. Another to my Lord Bishop of Nantes LETTER VII SIR I speake Latin but once a yeare and yet as seldome as it is it comes more upon hazard than out of knowledge and holds lesse of learning than of rapture vouchsafe therefore to take it in good part that in my setled braines I answer you in the vulgar tongue and tell you that never eares were more attentive nor more prepard to hearing than those of our family when I read your Letter before them they were not satisfied to have onely a literall interpretation and to make me their Grammaâ—…ian but I must declaime upon it and make a Paraphrase as large as a Commentary If you will know the successe I can truly say that all the company was well satisfied but to tell you all was even ravished with admiration of your bountie specially my Niece who in the greatest vanitie that sexe is capable of never durst imagine shee should ever have the honour to be praysed in Latin and should serve for an Argument of commendation to the greatest Doctor of our age Shee saith this is a second obligation you bind her in to make her a Romane after you have made her your daughter and to give her so noble a Country after giving her so worthy a Father And yet to these two favours I can adde a third which shee forgot methinkes Sir shee fattens and grows gracefull with these prayses you give her shee is fayrer by one halfe than shee was before And if from vertue there issue certaine beames which enlighten the objects that are neere it and that beautie flowes from goodnesse as from the Spring I need not then goe farre to seeke from whence this varnish of her looke this amiablenesse of her countenance is growne upon her It is certainly your late benediction that hath painted her and to speake it in the words of the Poet Formosam Pater esse dedit Lumenque Juventae Purpureum laetos oculis afflârat honores I have considered of the Letters whereof you pleased to send me a Copie and in my judgement you have all the reason in the world to rest satisfied with it They could never have been more in favour of you if you had endited them your selfe and our
of Heaven I thinke it long till I come and visit you there to take counsell of your Muses in a number of difficulties I have to propound unto you In the meanetime I have this to say that the Newes you send me hath even astonished me and it seemes to me a kinde of Enchantment Monsieur will shew you certaine Letters which I entreat you to consider of and by which you shall see that if I be deceived yet it is not grossely nor without much cunning used Make me beholding to you by opening your minde more particularly in this matter and by beleeving that I am with all my heart Sir Your c. At Balzac 4. Feb. 1629. Another to him LETTER XXIIII SIR there is no friendship in the world of more use than yours it is my Buckler in all my battailes it is my Consolation in all my calamities but specially it is my Oracle in all my doubts That which before I have your advice I propose to my selfe with trembling I soone as once I have your approbation I make it a Maxime and an Aphorisme and when have once consulted with you never did an Ignoramus take upon him to be some great Doctour better than I doe You have knowledge enough to serve your owne turne and your friends you are the God that inspires the Sibylle for my selfe I am no longer an Authour but an Interpretor and speake nothing of my selfe but preach onely your doctrine I give you a thousand thankes for your great magnificence in giving me so great a treasure and for the learned Observations you have been pleased to communicate unto me Assure your selfe I will cry them up in good place make your Name alledged solemnly for an Authoritie Gratefulnesse is the poore mans best vertue and seeing I cannot be liberall I will endeavour at least not to be unmindfull And so Sir I am most perfectly and more than any other in the world Your c. At Balzac 6. Mar. 1629. To Madam Desloges LETTER XXV MAdam being in a fit of a Feaver I heare you are at Oradour where I should have the honour to see you if the joy of so good Newes had the power to carry me thither and were able to give me the health which it is forward to promise me Being therefore not in case to assure you in person how sensible I am of your many courtesies give me leave to testifie unto you that I am not unmindfull of the very last you shewed me and that I give you thankes for the beginning of my amendment whereof you are the cause It is certaine that when I was burning in a most extreame fire I received a notable cooling and comfort to heare you but onely Named and this Madam is the first miracle you have done in this Countrey if you stay but a while here I hope we shall see many more and greater and that you will leave some excellent markes that you have beene here Our Desarts shall be no longer rude or savage having once been honoured by your presence the sweet ayre that breaths on the bankes of the Loyre shall spread it selfe hither and I doubt not but you will change all the choler of Lymousin into Reason and make our Lyons become men I doe not thinke there is any will oppose this truth unles perhaps who had the heart to part from you with drie eyes and could not finde teares to accompany yours I have told him of it to his shame before Monsieur de and both of us agree that in this occasion he might honestly enough have broken the lawes of his Philosophie might have lost his gravitie without any lightnesse Whilst wee were together they desired to see a part of my Prince which as yet I dare not call by so illustrious a Name for in truth Madam he can be but a private person untill such time as you proclaime him and that he receive investiture from his Soveraigne so I call your approbation which is with me in such respect and reverence that I should preferre it before Reason it selfe if they were two things that could be separated and that I were allowed to choose which I would have I would say more hereof but that methinks I have done a great worke to say so much for my head is in such violent agitation with the heat of my last fit that all I can doe at this time is but to set my hand to this Protestation that I honour you exceedingly and am as much as any in the world Madam Your c. At Balzac 25. August 1629. Another to her LETTER XXVI MAdam I am jealous of my Lacquies fortune who makes now a second journey to you and consequently shall be twice together twice as happy as I he should never have this advantage of me if to a journey to see you there went nothing but courage and if the rellicks of my disease which prey upon weaknes did not tyre me more than the extreame violence did when I had some strength to resist it By staying in my chamber I loose all the fayre dayes that shine in the garden all the riches of the fields are gathered without me I have no part in the fruits of Autumne whereof the Spring gave me such sweet hopes and I am promised health at winter when I shall see nothing but a pale Sunne a thread-bare Earth and dead sticks that have brought forth grapes but not for me to eate In this miserable estate I have no comfort but onely the Letter you did me the honour to write unto me which is so precious to me Madam that I even honour it with a kinde of superstition and am ready to make a chaine or bracelet of it to try whether the wearing it about me may not proove a better Remedy against my Feaver than all the other I have used There is but one word in it that I cannot endure being not able to conceive why you should call your selfe Unfortunate are you not afraid least God should call you to account for this word and charge you with ungratefulnesse for making so slight reckoning of his great benefits and Graces He hath lifted you up above your owne sexe and ours too and hath spared nothing to make you compleat the better part of Europe admires you and in this poynt both Religions are agreed and no contesting betweene Catholike and Protestant The Popes Nuntio hath presented our Beliefe even to your person all perfumed with the complements and civilities of Italie Princes are your Courtiers and Doctours your Schollers and is this Madam that you call to be unfortunate and that which you take for a just cause to complaine I humbly intreat you to speake hereafter in more proper termes and to acknowledge Gods favours in a more gratefull manner I know well that your loyaltie hath suffered by your brothers Rebellion and that in the publike miseries you have had some private losses but so long as you have your noble heart
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
it You are alwayes lifted up above the ordinary condition of humanitie and the divinenesse of your spirit is no longer an Article in question amongst people that are reasonable yet I must confesse you never shewed it more visibly than in the last Letter you writ unto me if at other times I have beene dazeled with some beame you have now made me starke blind with the fulnesse of your light Spare Madam I entreat you the weaknesse of my sight and if you will have me be able to endure your presence take some more humane forme and appeare not all at once in the fulnesse of that you are I were never able to abide such another flash of brightnesse My eyes are weary with looking upward and with considering you as you are a creature adorable and divine Hereafter I will not looke upon you but on that side you are good and gracious and will not venture to reason with you any more for feare I should to my owne confusion illustrate the advantage of your spirit over mine You shall have nothing from me hereafter but prayers and thankes and I will make you confesse that I sollicite better than I praise I therefore send you now Madam divers crosses at one time and persecute you with no lesse than three afflictions at once I meane three Letters of recommendation which I request from you in behalfe of I humbly entreat you to deliver them to this messenger and to write them in such a perswasive style as might be able to corrupt all the Catoes of Paris although indeed the cleernesse of our right hath more need of their integritie than of their favour I expect Madam this new courtesie from your goodnesse and am alwayes more than any in the world Your c. At Balzac 10. Decemb. 1629. Another to her LETTER XXXI MAdam in the state I am now in there is none but your selfe could make me speak and I never did a greater worke in my life than to dictate these foure untoward lynes my spirit is so wholly taken up with the consideration of my misery and flies all commerce and company in so violent a manner that if it concerned me not exceedingly you should know that finds himselfe infinitely obliged to your courtesies and my selfe no lesse than he I thinke verily I should have let depart without so much as bidding him Farewell Pardon Madam the weaknesse of a vulgar spirit which feeles no crosses light and falls flat downe at tho very first blow of adverse Fortune Perhaps in prosperitie I should carry my selfe better and I doe not thinke that joy could make me insolent but to say the truth in affliction I am no body and that which would not so much as leave a scratch upon the skin of a Stoick pierceth me to the very heart and makes in it most deepe wounds Griefe dejects me in such sort and makes me so lazie in doing my dutie and so unfit for all functions of a civill life that I wonder no longer at those that were turned into trees and rockes and lost all sence with onely the sence of griefe Yet Madam as often as I call to minde that I hold some part in your account and love I am forced to confesse that my melancholy is unjust and that I have no good foundation for my sadnesse This honour ought to be unto me a generall remedy against all sorts of affliction and the misery that you complaine of is not so much to be pittied as to be envied From thence it is that I draw all the comfort I am capable of humbly entreating you to beleeve you shall never pitie a man in misery that will be more gratefull than my selfe nor that is more passionately than I am Madam Your c. 31. Decemb. 1629. Another to her LETTER XXXII MAdam I receive but just now your Letters of the five twentieth of the last moneth and though I know not by whom to send an answer yet I can no longer hold from expressing my joy nor keepe my words from leaving my heart to fall upon this paper The last time I writ unto you I had heard of the unfaithfulnes of a friend of mine which struck me to the very heart since which time a better report hath somewhat quieted me but it is you Madam that have restored to me the full use of my reason and are a cause that I am contented to live Although corruption be in a manner universall and that there is no more any goodnesse to be found amongst men yet as long as you are in the world it is not fit to leave it quite but your vertue may well supply all its defects Besides Madam if it be true as you doe me the honour to write unto me that you account my interests as your owne this very consideration is enough to make them dearer to me than they were before and I am therefore bound to preserve my selfe seeing it seemes you would be loath to loose me One gracious word which I observed in your Letter hath wonne me to you in such sort that I have no longer any power of my selfe but what you leave me and in all your Empire which is neither meane nor consists of 〈◊〉 subjects I can assure you that you possesse nothing with more soveraigntie than my will If your occasions draw you to Aunix this next Spring I hope to have the honour to see you at Balzac where I am trimming up with all the care I can that it may be a little more worthy of your presence and that the amusement I shall thereby give you may keepe you from working the ill cheare you are like to finde in a Country village My sister is infinitely bound to you for the honour you doe her in remembring her and I am my selfe with all my soule Madam Your c. At Balzac 1. Febr. 1630. Another to her LETTER XXXIII MAdam my indisposition hathbin the cause of my silence and I thought it better to say nothing than to entertaine you with a troublesome discourse Besides I was in a continuall expectation of the performance of your promise and looked to have the honour to see you here in May. But seeing you have made my hopes recoyle and that you make your abode in Limousin for some longer time be pleased Madam that I send to bring me a true relation of the state of your health and to tell me if you use as you ought the shade of your woods and the freshnesse of your fountaines For my selfe who make my harvest at the gathering of Roses and Violets and who reckon the goodnesse of the yeare by the abundance of these delicate Flowers Now is the season for my humour and in one onely subject I finde cause enough to scorne and slight both the perfumes of the sheet St. Honore and the pictures of the faire St. Germain Thus I make my selfe happie at a very easie rate and have not so much as a thought of any
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
braine is drie in any other Argument and wordes are drawne from me one by one but when there is occasion to speake of you then I overflow in words upon this onely Text I take a pleasure to be Preaching and Monsieur de to whom I am alwayes before a harkener as soone as I beginne discourse of you becomes my auditour I can assure you Madam he honours you exceedingly and neither his ambassage to Rome from whence Gentlemen returne not commonly without a certaine conceit of soveraigntie nor the imployments of the State which make particular men thinke themselves the Publike have beene able to make him take upon him this ungratefull gravitie which makes Greatnesse ridiculous and even vertue it selfe odious He hath protested here before good companie that hee will never be found other and that Fortune should have an ill match in hand to thinke to corrupt him I used my ordinary rudenesse and intreated him to be mindfull of his word and to be one of our first examples of so rare a moderation You shall see Madam in a Letter I send you that which hereupon I am bound to say of him and I intreat you to maintaine for me that I am no common prayser and that if I were not perswaded of what I say it is not all the Canons of the Towne should make mee to say it It is onely the worth of things or at least the opinion I have of their worth that drawes from mee the prayses I give them If Monsieur de should returne to be a private person I should not respect him a jot lesse than now I doe and if you should be made Governesse of the Kings house I should not be a whit more than I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 30. Aprill 1633. Another to her LETTER XL. MAdam never trust me any more I promise that I cannot performe but though I be a deceiver I am an honest one my promises are alwayes true in my intention though oftentimes false in the Event I know not what to say of this unfortunatenesse nor to what knowne cause to attribute this long trayne of mischiefes It must needs be there is some Devill imployed to hinder voyages to Lymousin and that will not suffer me to goe thither to see you sometimes he rayseth up suites in Law against me sometimes puts me into a quarrell and when these be composed and that I am ready to take horse either he sends mee companie to divert mee or prickes my horse in shooing or puts a legge out of joynt for all these crosses have befallen mee as he that delivers you this Letter can be my witnesse But withall Madam he shall assure you that though I flie away by night and be carried in a chayre it shall not be long ere I will have the honour to come and see you In the meane time vouchsafe to accept from me the amusement of halfe an houre and be pleased to reade an Inscription which was lately found and taken forth of the ruines of an old Building It is engraven in Letters of Gold upon a Table of blacke Marble and seemes Prophetically to speake of you and mee If I were a man could make Verses you might doubt it were some tricke put upon you but my ignorance justifies mee and seeing as you know Poets are not made it were a strange thing I should be borne at the age of seaven and thirtie yeares I expect from you a Comment upon the whole Mystery and remaine Madam Your c. At Balzac 6. Jan. 1631. In Effigiem D. D. praestantissimae laudatissimae faeminae Hac est sequanico veniens à littore Nympha Hospite quâ Lemovix jure superbit ager Quis de fiderium Dominae mihi durius urbis Mitigat per quam non fera turba sumus Vindicat hāc sibi Thusca charis sibi musa latina Nec minus esse suam Graius Apollo velit Hanc sophiae Gens sancta colit dat jura disertis Princeps Grāmaticas temperat una Tribus Scilicet ut distent specioso sana tumore Vnascit fractis verba sonora modis Judicat urbano quid sit sale tingere ludos Et quid inhumano figere dente notas Novit ab agresti secernere plectra cicuta Vosque sacri vates non sociare malis Ergo quid infidi petitis suffragia vulgi Qui dve Palatinus quaeritur arte favor Quae canitis vivent si docta probaverit auris Et dabitur vestris versibus esse bonos At si quando canat taceas vel mascula Sappho Te meliùs salvo nostra pudore canit Another to her LETTER XLI MAdam my eyes are yet dazeled with the brightnesse of your Cabinet and I vow unto you the Night was never so fayre nor so delicately trimmed up as lately at your House Not when the Moone accomplishing her way Vpon her silver wayne beset with starres Within the gloomy world presents the day I have shewed our Ladies the Description of this proud and stately Night and of the rest of your magnificence which if it were in a severer Common-wealth than ours would be called a Profusive Wast they admire you in your house as well as in your Verses and agree with mee in this that Wisedome hath a hand in every thing and that after shee hath discoursed of Princes and matters of State shee descends to take care of her Hosts and lookes what is done in the Kitchin But from a vertue of their own they alwayes come to that of yours asking me continually for Newes of your entertainment and for Copies of your Letters and by this meanes the happinesse which I have from you is instantly made common to all the neighbourhood and yet stayes not there neither but spreads it selfe both farre and neere that when you thinke you write but to one particular man you write indeed to a whole Province This is not to write Letters but rather to set forth Declarations and Edicts I know Madam you were able to acquit your selfe perfectly in so noble an Imployment complements are below the dignitie of your style and if King Elisabett should come againe into the world you know of whom this is spoken no question but he would make you his chiefe Secretary of State Monsieuer de extolls you yet in a higher strayne and is infinitely desirous to see you in this Country Yesterday of his own accord he made himselfe your Tributary and hath bound himselfe to send you every yeare a reasonable number of his Loaves if you shall like them they will grow into more request than the Gloves of the Frangipani but because your people of Lymousin may take occasion to Equivocate here I entreat you to advertize them that this Perfumer hath thirtie thousand pound rent a yeare and holds the supremest dignitie of our Province and that this Glover is a Romane Lord Marshall of the Campe of the Kings Armies cousin to St. Gregory the Great and that which I value more than
nor suspect the integritie of the Judges that praeside there Moreover I confesse Sir it could never have a more happie Conception seeing your selfe was the first that spake it nor a more illustrious birth seeing M. the Cardinall was a Patron to it and therefore borne in Purple as were those Princes in Constantinople whom I would call Porphyrogenetes if the Academie had Naturalised this Forreigne word The honour it hath done me to make me a member of their body without binding me to part from hence and the place it hath given mee without taking away my libertie are two singular favours I received from it both at one time And to say the truth it is no small benefit to a man of the wildernesse that turnes his face sometimes towards the world and is not altogether devested of humane affections that hee may injoy together both the repose of solitude and yet flatter his imagination with the glory of so pleasing a Societie This I cannot doe without thanking you for so great a favour and if they understand not of my Resentment by your mouth they may have just cause to condemne me for one of little Gratefulnesse Lend mee therefore I beseech you Sir some five or six words I would aske you more but I know they are of that worth and so high in their account that these few will be enow not onely to satisfie for the complement I owe but for the Oration also it is expected I should make them You will not I hope denie mee the testimonie of your love and I require it of you by the memory of the other Obligations I owe you Atque per inceptes promissum muâ—… Jambos you know my meaning and that I have a long time beene and am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 15. Jul. 1635. To Monsieur de Bois Robert LETTER VI. SIR I heare you have beene seene at Paris from whence I conclude you are not at the warre in Flanders but are content to goe and give it your malediction upon the Frontiers If you would acquaint us with the passages of that Countrey you should infinitely oblige your old friend who feeds upon no other nourishment but Newes and takes no Newes to heart but those which concerne the King Hee is so carefull of the Reputation of his Armes that he cannot abido his victory should be spoken of with doubtlng To make him confesse wee have lost one man it is necessary there should be foure Regiments defeated and when he is spoken to of the Emperours ayde that this is a Remedie to be lookt for when the contrary part is dead To make this man a Present the Poet you wot of made lately some Verses upon the estate of affayres in Lorrayne and answers another Poet who had written that the King would never be able to hold it and that the relliek of affection which the Country beares to its ancient Duke would never suffer any familiaritie or friendship to reflect upon us The that are the Latins of this Countrey would make him beleeve that he hath found a meane between the Character of Catulus and that of Martiall and that hee hath avoyded the drinesse and harshnesse of the former times without engaging himselfe in the luxurie and intemperance of the latter times With these new Verses I send you the old Prose you desired and which hath lyen so long asleepe in my Closet Though they be writings of an old date yet you know they are alwayes in season and seeing they entreate of the soveraigne veâ—…tue that is of M. the Cardinall they entreate of a mattet that is immortall and can never loose the grace of being new Thermopylae and Platea are to this day the common places of the Graecians that are in the world and our remotest posteritie which shall more quickly enjoy the labours of this rare man than wee doe shall speake more often and more honourably of them than wee doe I beleeve the Letter to Monsieur Chastelet will not dislike you and that you will find something in it worth your reading I had word sent me from Paris that his style was too much paynted and too full of Figures for a military style but you shall see how in praysing him for the rest I justifie him in this and with what byace I defend the cause of worthy things I entreate you to aske him for me the last Libells of and to deliver them to to bring them to me You have heard by the cause I have to complaine of Monsieur de Delayes in such cases are very dangerous and if you have not already made an end of the matter I feare mee the Stocke that was appoynted for paying of me will goe some other way Doe herein what you shall thinke fittest and I shall remaine Sir Your c. At Balzac 15. Jul. 1635. Austrasia infaelix ne somnia blanda tuorum Neu memores Aquilas Imperiumque vetus Quamvis Titulos Nomen inutile Jactes Multusque in vano Carolus ore sonet Carolus ecce iterum Nostri virtute Capeti Concidit lapsas luget Egenus opes Vel solo Dixisse sat est capta Oppida nutu Atque ultro exutum terga dedisse Ducem Austrasia huic vilis nimiùm neglecta fuisti Nec te ita qui tenuit credidit esse suam Credidit hostiles fugitivus linquere terras Sed te qui propriam jam tueatur adest Ille Triumphata redijt qui victor ab Alpe Et per quem placidis Mincius errat agris Ille suo natus Juvenis succurrere saeclo Non tantùm Patriae sistere Fata suae Cur sequeris Funus VacuaÌ„ cur diligis umbraÌ„ Evereque colis diruta saxa domus Desere Fessa tuos supremâ clade jacentes To validam stantem Deseruere tui Prima mali patiens atque inter Gallica pridem Fulmina Arctoas non benè tuta minas Tandem pone animos ac Nostra assâ—…esce vocari Ni facias Ceoinit quae mihi Phoebus habe Alternis vertet te Celta Teuto ruinis Et nifi Pars uni es Praeda duobus eris To Monsieur Favereau Councellour of the King in his Court of Aydes LETTER VII SIR He whose Verses you commended beleeves upon your word that hee is a great Poet but I told him that your words are alwayes favourable and that hee should not flatter himselfe with an approbation which you never denyed to any He hath since that shewed mee other Verses which hee made for M. the Cardinall and intreated mee to shew you some of the places which I thought the most accomplished but upon this condition Sir that at least for this once you shall be a conscionable Judge and shall tell us upon your Oath whether you thinke this good or that bad Quid reforam OceanuÌ„ tibi ne vialentior obstet Oblitum solitus segniùs isse vices Et 〈◊〉 concordes siluisse ad Claffica ventos Surgeret ut tacito machina fixa mari
of your friendship I am infinitely beholding to you and make account to reape no small benefit by it for having a soule as you have full of vertue you make me a Present that is invaluable to bring mee in to so worthy a possession and whilest you offer me â—…eenesse and fiâ—…elity you offer me the two greatest rarities this age affords I beleeve you speake more seriously in Prose than you doe in Verse and that you are content to be a Poet but have no meaning to be a Sophister I likewise entreare you to beleeve that the least word I speake is accompanied with a Religion which I never violate and that there is nothing more true than the promise I here seale you most perfectly to be Sir Your c. At Balzac 6. Octob. 1635. To Mounsieur Souchote LETTER XXII SIR by your reckoning you have written to me thrice for nothing when indeede I knew not of your first Letters but by your last if I had received them you may be sure I should have answered them for though I be not very regular in observing compliments yet I am not so negligent of necessary duties that I should commit so many faults together How profound soever my slumber be yet I awake presently assoone as I am once stirred and specially when it is by so deare a name and by so pleasing a voyce as yours is Never therefore require me to give it in charge to some other to let you heare from me such a request would be an offence to our friendshippe an action fitter for a Tyrant than a Citizen it were to take me for the great Mogull who speakes to none but by an Interpreter I like not this savage statelinesse it is farre from me to use so little civilitie towards men of your worth when it is I that am beholding to you I pray let it not be my groome that shall thanke you for it I will take the paines my selfe to assure you I am wholly yours and whereas I did not bid you farewell at my going from Pariâ—… you must not take it for an argument of slighting your person but for an effect of the libertie I presume of and of the renouncing I have vowed to all vaine ceremonies They that are my friends give me this leave and you are too well acquainted with the soliditie of things to ground your judgement upon apparances neither doe I thinke you will require them of me who am as bad a courtier as I truely am Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Iuly 1630. To Mounsieur Tissandier LETTER XXIII SIR you shall receive by this bearer the rest of the workes of or to speake more properly the continuation of his Follies They are now as publike as those Du grand preuost diuin que vous auez visite autres fois dans les fame uses petites maisons Hee useth me still with the same pride and insolencie he was wont and you would thinke that hee were at the toppe of the Empyriall heaven and I at the bottome of hell so farre he takes himselfe to be above mee but I doubt not ere long his pride shall be abated and his insolencie mortified He shall shortly be made to see that he is not so great a man as he thinkes himselfe and if hee have in him but one sparke of naturall justice hee shall confesse he hath triumphed without cause and must be faine to give up all the glory he hath gotten unlawfully Turno tempus erit magno cum optaverit 〈◊〉 Intactum Pallanta Mounsieur de is still your perfect friend and he never writes to me but hee speakes of you He is at this present at Venice where he meditates quietly the agitation of all the world besides and where he enjoyes the honest pleasures which Italy affoords to speculative Philosophers But Sir what meane you by speaking of your teares and of the request you make unto me Doe you not mocke mee when you pray me to comfort you for the death of your Grandfather who had lived to see so many Families so many Sects so many Nations both to be borne and die a man as old as Hereâ—… it selfe the League was younger than hee which when the Cardinall of Lorraine first conceived hee caused a Booke to be printed wherein hee advertized France of the conception of this Monster You weepe therefore for the losses of another age it is Anchyses or Laertes you weepe for at least it is for a man who did but suffer life and was in a continuall combate with death He should long agoe have bin one of the Church Triumphant and therefore you ought to have beene prepared for either the losse or the gaine that you have made Mounsieur 〈◊〉 was not of your humour I send you one of his Letters where you shall see hee was as much troubled to comfort himselfe for the life of two Grandmothers that would not die as hee was for the death of a brother that died too soone I commend your good nature but I like not your Lamentations which should indeede do him you sorrow for great wrong if they should raise him againe to be in the state in which you lost him It may suffice to tell you that he is much happier than I for he sleepes and I wake and he hath no more commerce with men unreasonable and inhumane and that are but Wolfes to one another You know I have cause enough to speake thus but out of this number I except certaine choise persons and particularly your selfe whom I know to be vertuous and whose I am Sir Most humble c. At Paris 3. Decem 1628. The Letter of Peter Bembo to Hercules Strotius AVias ambas meas effoetas deplorat as que faeminas jam prope centum annorun mulieres mihifata reliquerunt unicum fratrem meum juvenem ac florentem abstulerunt spem solatiamea Quamobrem quo in â—…rore sim facilè potes existimare Heu me miserum Vale Id. Ian. 1504. Venetijs Another to him LETTER XXIV SIR if it had not beene for the indisposition of my body I had not stayed so many dayes from thanking you for your many courtesies but for these two moneths I have not stirred from my bed so cruelly handled with the Sciatica that it hath taken from me all the functions of my spirit and made mee utterly uncapeable of any cenversation otherwise you may be sure I should not voluntarily have deprived my selfe of the greatest contentment I can have when I have not your companie and that I should not have received three Letters from you without making you three Answers Now that I have gotten some quiet moments from the violence of my torture and that my paine is turned into lamenesse I cannot chuse but take you in hand and tell you in the first place that you are an ungratefull man to leave our Muses and follow some of their sisters that are neither so faire nor so worthy of your affection I
and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 10. Febr. 1633. Another to him LETTER XL. SIR I love you better than I thought since you parted from hence I have had a number of Alarums for you and though I stand in convert yet that keepes mee not from the foule weather of your voyage But I hope by this time you are upon returning and that shortly we shall sit by the fires side and heare you tell your adventures of Beausse and of Mantelan Whatsoever Mounsieur de have said unto you when you tooke leave of him I doe not thinke that in all the whole Discourse there can one passage be found that is subject to any badde interpretation if it be considered as a member depending upon the body and not as a piece that is broken off There may perhappes be found some proposition a little bold but never to goe so farre as rashnesse the Antecedents and the Consequents so temper it that if a man will not be too witty in another mans intentions hee can never make any doubt of mine It was never intended you know but onely to prove a Monarchie to be the best forme of governement and the Catholike Church to be the onely Spouse of Christ Neither yet doe I write so negligently but that I am ready to give a reason of that I write and am able to defend my opinions against those particular persons that oppugne them for as for the soveraigne authority you can witnesse for me with what humility I submit my selfe unto it The day after your departure Mounsieur de came to Balzac whom I kept with me three whole dayes I never saw man lesse interessed lesse ambitions lesse dazeled with the splendour of the Court and to speake generally better cured of all popular diseases By this I come to know the noblenesse and even the soveraigntie of reason when it is well schooled and instructed we neede not mount up to heaven to finde cause of scorne in the littlenesse of the earth the study of wisedome will teach it as well A wise man counts all things to bee below him Pallaces to him appeare but Cottages and Scepters but baubles it pitties him to see that which is called the greatnesse and fortune of Princes and from the heighth of his spirit Il void comme fâ—…rmis mâ—…rcher nos legions Dans ce petit aâ—…as de poussiere de bove Dont nostre vanite fait tant de regions I have at last found the Letter you required of me which I now send you by this Post our good father hath taken a coppie of it and saith it is fit to be kept for an eternall monument in our house and addes moreover that Erasmus never had so much honour done him by the Sorbone which instead of condemning my divinitie hath given a faire testimony in praise of my eloquence for so hee pleaseth to call the little ability I have in writing for it is his custome to make choyce of very noble termes for expressing of very vulgar qualities For your selfe Sir you know it very well and I intreate you to advertise our other friends that know it not that all this testimony and all this honour that is done me is happened to mee by a meare mistaking I had satisfied the desire of the Sorbone long before it if I had understood they desired any satisfaction from me but two Editions of my booke comming forth at one time my charitable neighbours in my absence delivered the Sorbone the lesse corrected Copy in which indeede my proposition was not so fully cleared unfoulded as was fit but never told them that in the other Copy I had cleane taken away all colour of wrangling and justified before hand that wherein I imagined they could finde any thing to say against mee I expect to heare by the next messenger of your comming to Paris and am with all my heart Sir Your c. At Paris 25. Ianu. 1632. Clarissimo Balzacio Facultas Theologiae Parisiensis S. REdditae sunt nobis ad Calendas Aprilis abs te Litterae vir clarissime omnibus quidem gratissimae non eo solum nomine quod multam in ordinem nostrum observantiam praese ferrent sed etiam vel maxime quod propensissimam tuam voluntatem immutandi ea quae in Principe tâ—…o offendere mentes Christianas possent Hunc in librum inquirendi Fama quae nec te latere potuit non tam occasionem nobis quam necessitatem attulit In quo sane uti nulla nisi disertissimo sic incogitanti quaedam excidisse deprehensa sunt ex eorum relatione quibus recensendi ejusdem delegata provincia fuerat Praecipua eaque maxime instituti nostri huic Epistolae subnectemus quae si judicabantur minus ad orthodoxa doctrine a nussim quadrare aequum tamen pro Christiana charitate ac dignitate tua duximus ut omnem judicij aequitatem amicae monitionis humanitas praecederet quo tu ipse operi tuo emendando quaqua operam dares Istud vero quam pro voto nostro succâ—…sserit vel ex eo intelleximus ipse quod tua sponte in idem consilium conspiraveris docilitatem facultati nostrae ad id tua Epistola pollicitus Quod maxime tibi gratulamur neque velimus tamen in Illud incumbas ordinis nostri duntaxat authoritate motus uti benevole recipis sed ipsius veritatis cui nunquam faelicius triumphant ingeâ—…ia quam dum cedunt summissis praesertim per religionis obsequium armis quorum usus quantum subsidii ad decertandum conferret tantum non posset non affere Impedimento ad victoriam siquidem hoc in genere Uincere nisi victi non possâ—…mus Nae tu etiam talem deinceps debebis Modestie tuae gloriam Cujus laude non minor inter Christianos audies quam inter mortales Facundia audiisti hactenus ejusdem merito lubentissimos laudatores habebis quos à lias multa urgente querimonia offâ—…oii ratio coegisset velinvitos esse Censores De Mandato D. D. Decani Magistrorum Sacrae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis Prt. Bouuot Apud Sorbonam Anno Christi 1632. Another to him LETTER XLI SIR my Philosophy is not of so little humanity but that I grieved exceedingly at the reading of your Letter and was touched to the very quicke for the death of yet seeing he is happier then they that mourne for him and that he hath left the world in an age when he yet knew it not I thinke it no wisedome to be obstinate in an ill grounded sorrow or to account that an evill to another which is the greatest good could have happened to my selfe Christianity will not let me say Optimum non nasci Bonum vero quam citissime interire but it hinders me not to believe that one day of life with Baptisme is better then a whole age of iniquity I write this letter to you from whether I am come to lodge after I had entertained my
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