repair to have their audience and dispatch and hither were the Articles agreed upon in the National Synods of France sent to be confirmed and verified Here did the Subjects tender in their homages and oaths of fidelity to the King And here were the Appeals heard of all such as had complained against Comtes at that time the Governors and Judges in their several Counties Being furnished thus with the prime and choisest Nobles of the Land it grew into great estimation abroad in the world insomuch that the Kings of Sicily Cyprus Scotland Bohemia Portugal and Navarre have thought it no disparagement unto them to sit in it And which is more when Frederick the second had spent so much time in quarrels with Pope Innocent the fourth he submitted himself and the rightness of his cause to be examined by this Noble Court of Parliament At the first institution of this Court it had no settled place of residence being sometimes kept at Tholoza sometimes at Aix la Chapelle sometimes in other places according as the Kings pleasure and the case of the people did require During the time of its peregrination it was called Ambulatorie following for the most part the Kings Court as the lower Sphears do the motin of the Primum Mobile But Philip le Belle he began his raign An. 1280. being to take a journey into Flanders and to stay there a long space of time for the settling of his affairs in that Countrey took order that his Court of Parliament should stay behind him at Paris where ever since it hath continued Now began it to be called Sedentary or settled and also peu a pen by little and little to loose much of its lustre For the Cheif Princes and Nobles of the Kings retinue not able to live out of the air of the Court withdrew themselves from the troubles of it by which means it came at last to be appropriated to those of the long Robe as they term them both Bishops and Lawyers In the year 1463. the Prelates also were removed by the Command of Lewis the eleventh an utter enemy to the great ones of his Kingdom onely the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of St. Denis being permitted their place in it Since which time the Professors of the Civil Law have had all the swaying in it cedeunt arma togae as Tully The place in which this Sedentary Court of Parliament is now kept is called the Palaâ—e being built by Philip le Belle and intended to be his Mansion or dwelling house He began it in the first year of his reign Viz. Anno 1286. and afterwards assigned a part of it to his Judges of the Parliament it being not totally and absolutely quitted unto them till the dayes of King Luwis the tenth In this the French Subjects are beholding to the English by whose good example they got the ease of a Sedentary Court Our Law Courts also removing with the King till the year 1224. when by a Statute in the Magna Charta it was appointed to be fixt and a part of the Kings Pallace in Westminster allotted for that purpose Within the Virge of this Pallace are contained the seven Chambers the Parliament That called le grand Chambre five Chambers of Inquisition or des Enquests and one other called la Tournelle There are moreover the Chambers des aides des accompts de l'ediect des Monnoyes and one called la Chambre Royal of all which we shall have occasion to speak in their proper places these not concerning the common Government of the People but onely the Kings Revenues Of these seven Chambers of Parliaments le grand Chambre is most famous and at the building of this House by Philip le belle was intended for the Kings bed It is no such beautiful place as the French make it that at Roven being farre beyond it although indeed it much excells the fairest room of Justice in Westminster So that it standeth in a middle rank between them and almost in the same proportion as Virgil between Homer and Ovid. Quantum Virgilius magno concessit Homero Tantum ego Virgilio Naso Poeta mâ—o It consisteth of seven Presidents Councellers the Kings Atturney and as many Advocates and Proctors as the Court will please to give admission to The Advocates have no settled studies within the Pallace but at the Barre but the Procureurs or Atturneys have their several Pewes in a great Hall which is without this Grand Chambre in such manner as I have before described at Roven A large building it is faire and high roofed not long since ruined by casualty of fire and not yet fully finished The names of the Presidents are 1. Mr. Verdun the first President or by way of excellencie le President being the secâ—nd man of the long Robe in France 2. Mr. Sequer lately dead and likely to have his Son succeed him as well in his Office as his Lands 3. Mr. Leiger 4. Mr. Dosammoi 5. Mr. Sevin 6. Mr. Baillure and 7. Mr. Maisme None of these neither Presidents nor Councellers can goe out of Paris when the Lawes are open without leave of the Court It was ordained so by Lewis the twelfth Anno 1499. and that with good judgement Sentences being given with greater awe and business managed with greater Majesty when the Bench is full and it seemeth indeed that they carry with them a great terrour For the Duke of Biron a man of as uncontrolled a spirit as any in France being called to answer for himself in this Court protested that those scarlet Robes did more amaze him than all the red Cassocks of Spain At the left hand of this Grand Chambre or golden Chamber as they call it is a Throne or Seate Royall reserved for the King when he shall please to come and see the administration of Justice amongst his people At common times it is naked and plain but when the King is expected it is clothed with blew purple Velvet semied with Flowers de lys On each side of it are two forms or benches where the Peers of both habits both Ecclesiastcal and Secular use to fit and accompany the King but this is little to the ease or benefit of the Subject and as little available to try the integrity of the Judges his presence being alwayes fore-known and so they accordingly prâ—pared Farre better then is it in the Court of the Grand Signeur where the Divano or Counsell of the Turkish Affaires holden by the Bassa's is hard by his bed Chamber which looketh into it The window which giveth him this enterveiwe is perpetually hidden with a curtaine on that side of the partition which is towards the Divano so that the Bassa's and other Judges cannot at any time tell that the Emperour is not listening to their Sentences An action in which nothing is Turkish or Mahometan The authority of this Court extendeth it self to all Causes within the Jurisdiction of it not being meerly Ecclesiastical It is a Law
Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
superfluous and abrogation of unprofitable Edicts c. He hath the keeping of the Kings geeat Seal and by vertue of that either passeth or putteth back such Letters Pattents and Writs as are exhibited to him He hath under him immediately for the better dispatch of his Affairs four Masters of the Requests and their Courts Their Office and manner of proceeding is the same which they also use in England in the persons there is thus much difference that in Franee two of them must be perpetually of the Clergy One of their Courts is very ancient and hath in it two Presidents which are two of the Masters and fourteen Counsellers The other is of a later erection as being founded Anno 1580. and in that the two other of the Masters and eight Councellers give sentence Thus have I taken a veiw of the several Chambers of the Parliament of Paris and of their particular Jurisdictions as far as my information could conduct me One thing I noted further and in my mind the fairest ornament of the Pallace which is the neatness and decency of the Lawyers in their apparrel for besides the fashion of their habit which is I assure you exceeding pleasant and comely themselves by their own care and love to handsomeness adde great lustre to their garments and more to their persons Richly drest they are and well may be so as being the ablest most powerfull men under the Princes la Noblesse in all the Country An happiness as I conjecture rather of the calling than of the men It hath been the fate and destiny of the Law to strengthen enable its professors beyond any other any Art or Science the Pleaders in all Common-wealths both for sway amongst the people and vague amongst the Military men having alwaies had the preheminence Of this rank were Pericles Phochion Alcibiades and Demosthenes amongst the Athenians Antonius Mar. Cato Caesar and Tullie amongst the Romans men equally famous for Oratory and the Sword yet this I can confidently say that the several States above mentioned were more indebted unto Tullie and Demosthenes being both meer Gown men than to the best of their Captaines the one freeing Athens from the Armies of Macedon the other delivering Rome from the conspiracy of Catiline O fortunatum natam me Consule Romam It is not then the fate of France only nor of England to see so much power in the hand of the Lawyers and the case being general me thinks the envy should be the less and less it is indeed with them than with us The English Clergy though otherwise the most accomplisht in the World in this folly deserveth no Apologie being so strangely ill affected to the Pleaders of this Nation that I fear it may be said of some of them Quod invidiam non ad causam sed personam et ad valantatem dirigant A weakness not more unworthy of them than prejudicial to them for fostering between both Gownes such an unnecessary emulation they do but exasperate that power which they cannot controle and betray themselves to much envy and discontentedness A disease whose care is more in my wishes than in my hopes CHAP. IX The Kings Pallace of the Louure by whom built the unsutableness of it The fine Gallery of the Queene Mother The long Gallery of Henry the fourth his magnanimous intent to have built it into a Quadrangle Henry the fourth a great builder his infinite project upon the Mediterranean and the Ocean Lasalle des Antiques The French not studious of Antiquities Burbon House The Tuilleries c. WE have discharged the King of one Pallace and must follow him to the other where we shall find his residence It is seated in the west side of the Town or Ville of Paris hard by Porte neufue and also by the new Bridge An House of great fame and which the Kings of France have long kept their Courts in It was first built by Phillip Augustus anno 1214. and by him intended for a Castle it then serving to imprison the more potent of the Noblesse and to lay up the Kings Treasury for that cause it was well moated and strengthened with walls and draw Bridges very serviceable in those times It had the name of Louure quasi L'oeuure or the work the Building by way of excellencie An Etymologie which draweth nigher to the ear than the understanding or the eye And yet the French writers would make it a miracle Du Chesne calleth it superbe bastiment qui n' a son esgal en toute la Christiente and you shall hear it called in another place Bastiment qui passe muiourd huy en excellenee et en grandeur tous les autres Brave Eligies if all were Gold that glistered It hath given up now its charge of money and great prisoners to the Bastile and at this time serveth only to imprison the Court. In my life I never saw any thing more abused by a good report or that more belyeth the rumours that go of it The ordinary talk of vulgar travellers and the bigg words of the French had made me expect at the least some prodigie of Architecture some such Majestical house as the Sunne Don Phoebus is said to have dwelt in by Ovid. Regia solis erat sublimibus alta columnis Clara micante auro flammasque imitante pyropo Cuius ebur nitidum c. Indeed I thought no fiction in Poetry had been able to have parralell'd it and made no doubt but it would have put me into such a passion as to have cryed out with the young Gallant in the Comidie when he saw his Sweet heart Hei mihi qualis erat talis erat qualem nunquem ego vidi But I was much deceived in that hope and could find nothing in it to admire much less to envy The Fable of the Mountaine which was with child and brought forth a Mouse is questionless a Fable This House and the large fame it hath in the world is the Morall of it Never was there an House more unsuitable to it self in the particular examination of parts nor more unsutable to the Character and esteem of it in the general survey of the whole You enter into it over two Draw-bridges and thorough three Gates ruinous enough and abundantly unsightly In the Quadrangle you meet with three several fashions of buildings of three several ages and they so unhappily joyned one to the other that one would half beleeve they were clapped together by an Earthquake The South and West parts of it are new and indeed Prince like being the work of Francis the first and his Son Henry had it been all cast into the same mould I perswade my self that it would be very gratious and lovely The other two are of ancient work and so contemptible that they disgrace the rest and of these I suppose the one to be at the least a hundred years older than his partner such is it without As for the inside it is farre
more graceful and would be pleasing at the entrance were the Gaurd Chamber reformed Some Hugonot Architect which were not in love with the errours of Antiquity might make a pretty room of it a Catholick Carpenter would never get credit by it for whereas the provident thrift of our fore fathers intended it for the House would else be too narrow for the Kings retinue both for a room of safety and of pleasure both for Bellmen and Dancers and for that cause made up some six ranks of seats on each side That sparingness in the more curious eyes of this time is little King like Country wenches might with an indifferent stomack abuse a Galliard in it or it might perhaps serve with a Stage at one end to entertain the Parisiens at a Play or with a partition in the middle it might be divided into pretty plausible Cockpits But to be employed in the nature it is now either to solace the King and Lords in a dance or to give any forraign Ambassadour his welcome in a Masque is little sutable with the majesty of a King of France The Chambers of it are well built but ill furnished the hangings of them being somewhat below a meanness and yet of these here is no small scarcity for as it is said of the Gymnosophists of India that Vnadomus et mansioni sufficit et sepulturae so may we of this Prince The same Chamber serveth for to Iodge him feed him also to confer discourse with his Nobility But like enough it is that this want may proceed from the several Courts of the King the Monsieur the Queene Mother and the Queene Regnant being all kept within it Proceed we now to the two Galleries whereof the first is that of the Queene Mother as being beautified and adorned exceedingly by Catherine de Medices Mother to Henry the third and Charles the ninth It containeth the Pictures of all the Kings of France and the most loved of their Queens since the time of St. Lewis They stand each King opposite to his Queen she being that of his Wives which either brought him most estate or his Successor The tables are all of a just length very fair and according to my little acquaintance with the Painter of a most excellent workmanship And which addeth more grace to it they are in a manner a perfect history of the State and Court of France in their several times For under each of the Kings pictures they have drawn the potraitures of most of their Lords whom valour and true courage in the field ennobled beyond their births Under each of the Queens the lively shapes of the most principal Ladies whose beauty and vertue had honoured the Court. A dainty invention and happily expressed At the further end of it stand the last King and the present Queen Mother who fill up the whole room The succeeding Princes if they mean to live in their pictures must either build new places for them or else make use of the Long Gallery built by Henry the fourth and which openeth in to that of the Queen Mother A Gallery it is of an incredible length as being above 500. yards long and of a breadth and height not unproportionable A room built rather for oftentation than use and such as hath more in it of the Majesty of ist Founder than the Grace It is said to have been erected purposely to joyn the Louure unto the house and garden of the Tuilleries an unlikely matter that such a stupendious building should be designed onely for a cleanly conveyance into a Summer-house Others are of opinion that he had a resolution to have the House quadrangular every side being correspondent to this which should have been the common Gallery to the rest which design had it taken effect this Palace would at once have been the wonder of the world and the envy of it For my part I dare be of the last mind as well because the second is in part begun as also considering how infinitely this King was affected to building The place Daulphin and the place Royal two of the finest piles of Paris were erected partly by his purse but principally by his encouragement The new Bridge in Paris was meerly his work so was also the new Palace and the most admirable Water-Works of St. Germanenlay this long Gallery and the Pesthouse owe themselves wholly unto him and the house of Fountain bleau which is the fairest in France is beholding to him for most of its beauty Adde to this his fortifications bestowed on the Bastile and his purpose to have strengthened Paris according to the modern art of Towns and you will find the attribute of Parietaria or Wall-floure which Constantine scoffingly gave unto Trajane for his great humour of building to be due unto this King but seriously and with reverence Besides the general love he had to building hâ— had also an ambition to go beyond ensample which also induceth me further to beleive his intent of making that large and admirable quadrangle above spoken of to have been serious and real For to omit others certain it is that he had a project of great spirit and difficulty which was to joyn the Mediterranean Sea and the Ocean together and to make the navigation from the one to the other through France and not to pass by the straight of Gibraltare It came into counsel Anno 1604. and was resolved to be done by this meanes The River of Garond is navigable from the Ocean almost to Tholoza and the Mediterranean openeth it self into the land by a little River whose name I know not as high as Narbonne Betwixt these two places was there a navigable channel to have been digged and it proceeded so far towards being actuated that a workman had undertaken it and the price was agreed upon But there arising some discontents between the Kings of France and Spain about the building of the Fort Fuentis in the Countrey of the Grisons the King not knowing what use he might have of treasure in that quarrel commanded the work not to go forward However it is to be commended in the attempt which was indeed Kingly and worthy his spirit and praise him in his heroick purpose and design Quem si non tenuit magnis tamen excidit ausis But the principal beauty if I may judge of this so much admired Palace of the Louure is a low plain room paved under foot with brick and without any hangings or tapestry on the sides yet being the best set out and furnished to my content of any in France It is called La salle des Antiques and hath in it five of the ancientest and venerablest pieces of all the Kingdom For the Nation generally is regardless of antiquity both in the monuments and in the study of it so that you shall hardly find any ancient inscription or any famous ruine snatched from the hand of time in the best of their Cities and Churches In the Church
chief of the Clergy-men is the little or no dependency they have on the Pope and the little profits they pay unto their King Of the Pope anon To the King they pay onely their dismes or tithes according to the old rates a small sum if compared unto the payments of their neighbours it being thought that the King of Spain receiveth yearly one half of the Living of the Churches But this I mean of their Livings onely for otherwise they pay the usual gabels and customs that are paid by the rest of the Kings Leige-people In the general assembly of the three Estates the Clergy hath authority to elect a set number of Commissioners to undertake for them the Church which Commissioners do make up the the first of the three Estates do first exhibite their greivances and petitions to the King In a word the French Church is the freest of any in Christendom that have not yet quitted their subjection to the Pope as alwayes protesting against the Inquisition not subjecting themselves to the Council of Trent and paying very little to his Holiness of that plentiful revenue wherewith God and good men have blessed it The number of those which the Church-land maintaineth in France is tantum non infinite therefore the intrado and revenues of it must needs be uncountable There are numbred in it as we said before twelve Archbishopricks an hundred and four Bishopricks To these add five hundred and fourty Archpriorities one thousand four hundred and fifty Abbies twelve thousand three hundred and twenty Priorities the sixty seven Nunneries seven hundred Covents of Friers two hundred fifty nine Commendams of the Order of Malta and one hundred and thirty thousand Parish Priests yet this is not all Their reckoning was made in the year 1598. since which time the Jesuits have divers Colledges founded for them and they are known to be none of the poorest To maintain this large wilderness of men the Statists of France who have proportioned the Country do allow unto the Clergy almost a fourth part of the whole For supposing France to contain two hundred millions of Arpens a measure somewhat bigger than one Acre they have allotted to the Church for its temporal revenue forty seven millions of them In particular of the Archbishops Bishops Abbots and Parish Priests they of Aulx Alby Clumai and St. Estiennes in Paris are said to be the wealthiest The Archbishop of Aux in Gascoyne is valued at 400000. liures or 40000 li. English yearly The Bishop of Alby in Languedoc is prized at 100000. Florens which is a fourth part of it a great part of the revenue arising out of Saffron The Abbot of Clumac in the Dutchy of Burgundy is said to be worth 50000 Crowns yearly the present Abbot being Henry of Lorreine Archbishop of Rhemes and Abbot of St. Denis The Parish Priest of St. Estiennes is judged to receive yearly no fewer than eight thousand Crowns a good intrado As for the vulgar Clergy they have little tithe and less glebe most part of that Revenue being appropriated unto Abbies and other religious Houses The greatest part of their meanes is the Baisemen which is the Church offerings of the people at Christnings Marriages Burials Dirges Indulgences and the like which is thought to amount to almost as much as the temporal estate of the Church An Income able to maintain them in good abundance were it not for the greatness of their number For reckoning that there are as we have said in France one hundred and thirty thousand Parish Priests and that there are onely twenty seven thousand four hundred Parishes it must of necessity be that every Prrish one with another hath no fewer than four Priests too many to be rich But this were one of the least injuries offered to the French thrift and would little hinder them from rising if it were not that the goodliest of their preferments are before their faces given unto Boyes and Children An affront which not onely despaireth them of the honours due unto their callings but dishearteneth them in their studies and by consequence draweth them to debauched and slanderous courses Quis emim virtutem exquireret ipsam Praemia si tollas The Clergy therefore Anno 1617. being assembled at the house of Austin Friers in Paris as every two years they use to do being to take their leaves of the King elected the Bishop of Aire to be their Spokesman and to certifie his Majesty of their greivances In performing which business the principal thing of which he spake was to this purpose That whereas his Majesty was bound to give them Fathers he gave them Children that the name of Abbot signifieth a Father and the function of a Bishop was full of fatherly authority yet Erance notwithstanding was now filled with Bishops and Abbots which are yet in their Nurses arms or else under their Regents in Colledges Nay more that the abuse goeth before the being Children being commonly designed to Bishopricks Abbacies before they were born He also made another Complaint that the Sovereign Courts by their decrees had attempted upon the authority which was committed to the Clergy even in that which concerned meerly Ecclesiastical discipline and government of the Church To these Complaints he gave them indeed a very gratious hearing but it never went further than a hearing being never followed by redress The Court of Parliament knew too well the strength of their own authority and the King was loath to take from himself those excellent advantages of binding to himself his Nobility by the speedy preferring of their Children And so the Clergy departed with a great deal of envy and a little of satisfaction Like enough it were that the Pope would in part redress this injury especially in the point of Jurisdiction if he were able but his wings are shrewdly clipped in this Country neither can he flie at all but as farre as they please to suffer him For his temporal power they never could be induced to acknowledge it as we see in their stories Anno 1610. the Divines of Paris in a Declaration of theirs tender'd to the Queen Mother affirm the supremacy of the Pope to be an erroneus doctrine and the ground of that hellish position of deposing and killing of Kings Anno 1517. when the Council of Luteram had determined the Pope to be the Head of the Church in causes also temporal the Vuniversity of Paris testified against it in an Apoligie of theirs dated the twelfth of March the same year Leo decimus saith the Apologie in quidam coetu non tamen in spiritu Domini congregato contra fidem Catholicam c. sacrum Basiliense Concilium damnavit In which Councill of Basill the supremacy of the Pope was condemned Neither did the Kings of France forget to maintain their own authority And therefore whereas Pope Boniface the eighth had in a peremptory Letter Written to Phillip le Belle King of France stiled himself Dominus totius
established by Charles the first Anno 1537. For the levying and gathering up of rhese taxes you must know that the whole Country of France is divided into twenty three generalities and Counties as it were and these again into divers Eslections which are much like unto our Hundreds In every of the Generalities there are ten or twelve Treasurers nine Receivers for the Generality and as many Controulers besides all under Officers which are thought to amount in all to thirty thousand men When the King levieth his taxes he sendeth his Letters Patents to the principal Officers of every Generality whom they call Les genereaux des Aides and they dispatch their warrant to the Ezlenzor Commissioners These taxing every one of the Parishes and Villages within their several divisions at a certain rate send their Receivers to collect it who account for it to their Controulers by them it ascendeth Ezleie from him to the Receiver general of that Generality next to the Controuler then to the Treasurer afterwards to the General des Aides and so Per varios cesus per tot discrimina rerum Tendimus in Latium By all these hands it is at last conveyed into the Kings purse in which several passage necesse est ut aliquid haereat it cannot be but it must needs have many a shrewd snatch Insomuch that I was told by a Gentleman of good credence in France that there could not be gathered by the several exactions above specified anâ— other devices of prowling which I have omitted less than eighty five millions a year whereof the King receiveth fifteen onely A report not altogether to be sleâ—ghted considering that a President of the Court of Accompts made it evident to the Assembly at Blois in the time of King Henry the fourth that by the time that every one of the Officers had had his share of it there came not to the Kings Coffers one teston which is one shilling four pence of a Crown So that by reckoning five testons to a Crown or Escue as it is but two pence over these Officers must collect five times the money which they pay to the King which amouteth to seventy five millions and is not much short of that proportion which before I spake of The Kings revenues then notwithstanding this infinite oppression of his people amounteth to fifteen millions some would have it eighteen which is also a good improvement in respect of what they were in times afore Lewis the eleventh as good a Husband of his Crown as ever any was in France gathering but one and an half onely but as you count the flow so also if you reckon the ebb of his treasures you will find much wanting of a full sea in his Coffers it being generally known that the Fees of Officers Pensions Garrisons and the men of Arms draw from him yearly no fewer than six of his fifteen millions True it is that his Treasure hath many good helps by way of Escheat and that most frequently when he cometh to take an account of his Treasurers and other Officers An action so abominable full of base and unmannly villanies in their several charges that the Publicans of old Rome were milk and white broth to them For so miserably do they abuse the poor Paisant that if he hath in all the world but eight Sols it shall go hard but he will extort from him five of them Non missura cutim nisi plena cruoris hirudo He is just of the nature of the Horsleach when he hath once gotten hold of you he will never let you go till he be filled and which is most strange he thinks it a greater clemency that he hath left the poor man some of his money than the cruelty was in wresting from him the rest Nay they will brag of it when they have taken but five of the eight Sols that they have given him three and expect thanks for it A kindness of a very theevish nature it being the condition of Robbers as Tully hath observed Vt commemorent iis se dedisse vitam quibus non ademerint Were the people but so happy as to have a certain rate set upon their miseries it could not but be a great ease to them and would well defend them from the tyranny of these theeves but which is not the least part of their wretchedness their taxings and assemblings are left arbitrary and are exacted according as these Publicans will give out of the Kings necessities So that the Country man hath no other remedy than to give Cerberus a crust as the saying is and to kiss his rod and hug his punishment By this meanes the Quaestors thrive abundantly it being commonly said of them Fari bouvier au jourd huy Cheualier to day a Swineheard to morrow a Gentleman and certainly they grow into great riches Mr. Beaumarchais one of the Treasurers Mr. de Viâ—â—ry who slew the Marquess de Ancri married his onely Daughter having raked unto himself by the vâ—lâ—ainous abuse of his place no less than twenty two millions of Liures as it is commonly reported but he is not like to carry it to his grave the King having seised upon a good part of it and himself being condemned to the Gallows by the grand Chamber of Parliament though as yet he cannot be apprehended advanced to the ladder And this hath been the end of many of them since the raign of this present King whom it may be for this cause they call Lewis the Just This fashion of affixing Epithites to the names of their Kings was in great use heretofore with this Nation Carolus the Son of Pipin was by them surnamed Le magne Lewis his Son Le Debonaire and so of the rest since the time of Charles the sixth who was by them surnamed the Beloved it was discontinued and new revived again in the persons of King Henry the fourth and his Son King Lewis but this by the way It may be also he is called the Just by way of negation because he hath yet committed no notable act of injustice for I wink at his cruel and unjust slaughter at Nigrepelisse It may be also to keep him continually in mind of his duty that he may make himself worthy of that attribute Vere Imperator sui nominis as one said of Severus Let us add one more misery to the State and Commonalty of France and that is the base and corrupt money in it for besides the Sol which is made of Tin they have the Double made of Brass where of six make a Sol and the Deneir whereof two make a Double a Coin so vile base of value that one hundred and twenty of them go to our English Shilling These are the common Coins of the Country Silver and Gold not being to be seen but upon holy-dayes As for their Silver it is most of it of their new coining but all exceedingly clipt and shorn their Gold being most of it Spanish In my little being in
Picardy by the River of Some and on the West it is bounded with the Ocean and the little River Crenon which severeth it from a corner of Britain It extendeth in length from the beginning of the 9th degree of longitude to the middle of the 23. viz. from the Cape of St. Saviour West to the Port town of St. Valeria East For breadth it lieth partly in the 49th partly in the 50th degree of latitude So that reckoning 60. miles to a degree we shall find it to contain 270. English miles in length and 60 English miles in breadth where it is narrowest Amongst the Nations it was accounted a part of Gallia Celtica the name Neustria This new title it got by receiving into it a new Nation A people that had so terribly spoiled the Maritine Coasts of England France and Belgia that a furore Normannorum was inserted into the Letany Originally they were of Norway their name importeth it Anno 800. or thereabouts they began first to be accounted one of the plagues of Europe 900. they seated themselves in France by permission of Charles the Balde and the valour of Rollo their Captain Before this they had made themselves Masters of Ireland though they long held it not and Anno 1067. they added to the glory of their name by the Conquest of England You would think them a people not onely born to the warrs but to victory But Vt frugum semina mutato solo degenerant sic illa genuina feritas eorum amaenitate mollita est Florus spake it of the Gaules removed into Asia it is appliable to the Norwegians transplanted into Gallia yet fell they not suddenly and at once into the want of courage which now possesseth them During the time they continued English they attempt the Kingdom of Naples and Antioch with a fortune answerable to their valour Being once oppressed by the French and inslaved under that Monarchy they grew presently Crest fall'n and at once lost both their spirits and their liberty The present Norman then is but the corruption of the ancient the heir of his name and perhaps his possessions but neither of his strength nor his manhood Bondage and a fruitful soil hath so emasculated them that it is lost labour to look for Normans in Normandy There remaineth almost nothing in them of their Progenitors but the remainders of two qualities and those also degenerated if not bastards a penurious pride and an ungoverned doggedness Neither of them become their fortune or their habit yet to those they are constant Finally view him in his rags and dejected countenance and you would swear it impossible that those snakes should be the descendents of those brave Heroes which so often triumphed over both Religions foyling the Saracens and vanquishing the Christians But perchance their courage is evaporated into wit and then the change made the better Ortelius would seem to perswade us to this conceit of them and well might do it if his words were Oracle Le Gens saith he speaking of this Nation sont de plus accorls subtills d' esprit de la Gaule A Character for which the French will little thank him who if he speak truth must in matter of descretion give precedency to their vassals But as Imbat a French Leader said of the Florentines in the fifth book of Guicciardine Non supena done consistesse lingeque tanto celebrare de Fiorâ—ntini so may I say of the Normans for my part I could never yet find where that great wit of theirs lay Certain it is that as the French in general are termed the King's asses so may these men peculiarly be called the Asses of the French or the veriest Asses of the rest For what with the unproportionable rents which they pay to their Lords on the one side and the immeasurable taxes laid upon them by the King on the other they are kept in such a perpetuated course of drudgery that there is no place for wit or wisdom left amongst them Liberty is the Mother and Nurse of those two qualities and therefore the Romans not unhappily expressed both the condition of a Free-man and a discreet and modest personage by this one word Ingenuous Why the French King should lay a greater burden upon the backs of this Nation than their fellows I cannot determine Perchance it is because they have been twice conquered by them once from King John and again from Henry the sixth and therefore undergo a double servitude It may be to abate their natural pride and stubbornness Likely also it is that being a revolting people and apt to an apostasie from their Allegiance they may by this meanes be kept impoverished and by consequence disabled from such practises This a French Gentleman of good understanding told me that it was generally conceited in France that the Normans would suddenly and unanimously betray their Country to the English were their King a Cathâ—like But there is a further cause yet of their beggarliness and poverty which is the litigiousness and frequent going to law as we call it Ortelius however he failed in the first part of the Character in the conclusion of it hath done them justice Mais en generall saith he its sont scavans an passible en prosses pluideries They are pretty well versed in the querks of the Law and have wit more than enough to wrangle In this they agree exactly well with the Inhabitants of our Country of Norfolke Ex infima plebe non pauci reperiuntur saith Mr. Cambden qui si nihil sit litium lites tamen ex ipsis jaris apicibus serere callent They are pretty fellows to find out quirks in Law and to it they will whatsoever it cost them Mr. Cambden spake not at random or by the guess for besides what my self observed in them at my being once among them in a Colledge-progress I have heard that there have been no less than 340. Nisi prius's tried there at one Assises The reason of this likeness between the two Nations I conjecture to be the resemblance of the site and the soyl both lie upon the Sea with a long and spacious coast both enjoy a Country champain little swell'd with hils and for the most part of a light and sandy mould To proceed to more particulars if there be any difference between the two Provinces it is onely this that the Country of Normandy is much better and the people of Norfolk are somewhat the richer For indeed the Country of Normandy is enriched with a fat and liking soil such a one quae demum votis respondet avari Agricolae which may satisfie the expectation of the Husbandman were it never so exorbitant In my life I never saw Corn-fields more large and lovely extended in an equal level almost as far as eye-reach The wheat for I saw little Barley of a fair length in the stalk and so heavy in the ear that it even bended double you would think the grain had a desire to kiss
the Purple Robe the Sponge a peice of his Shrowd the Napkin wherewith he was girt when he washed his Disciples feet the Rod of Moses the head of St. Blase St. Clement and St. Simeon and part of the head of John Baptist Immediately under this recital of these Reliques and venerable ones I durst say they were could I be perswaded there were no imposture in them there are set down a Prayer and an Antheme both in the same Table as followeth ORATIO Quaesumus Omnipotens Deus ut qui sacra sanctissimae redemptionis nostrae insignia temporaliter veneramur per haec indesinenter munite aeternitatis gloriam consequamur dominum nostrum c. De sacrosanctis Reliquiis Antiphonae Christo plebs debita tot Christi donis praedita Jucunderis hodie Tota sis devota Erumpens in Jubilum depone mentes nubilum Tempus est Laetitiae Cura sit summota Ecce Crux Lancea Ferrum Corona spine◠Arma Regis gloriae tibi offerantur Omnes terrae populi laudent actorem seculi Per quem tantis gratiae signis offererantur Amen Pretty divinity if one had time to examine it These Reliques as the Table enformeth us were given unto St. Lewis Anno 1247. By Baldwin the second the last King of the Latines in Constantinople to which place the Christians of Palaestine had brought them during the time that those parts were harrowed by the Turks and Saracens Certainly were they the same which they are said to be I see no harm in it if we should honour them The very reverence due to antiquity and a silver head could not but extort some acknowledgement of respect even from a heathen It was therefore commendably done by Pope Leo having received a parcel of the Cross from the Bishop of Hierusalem that he entertained it with respect Particulam Dominicae Crucis saith he in his 72. Epislte cum eulogiis dilectionis tuae Veneranter accepi To adore and worship that or any other Relique whatsoever with prayers and Anthems as the Papists you see do never came within the minds of the Ancients and therefore St. Ambrose calleth it Gentilis error vanitas impiorum This was also Hierom's religion as himself testifieth in his Epistle to Ruparius Nos faith he non dico martyrum reliquias sed ne Solem quidem Lunam non Angelos c. colimus adoramus Thus were those two Fathers minded towards such Reliques as were known to be no others than what they seemed Before too many Centuries of years had consumed the true ones and the imposture of the Priests had brought in the false Had they lived in our times and seen the supposed Reliques of the Saints not honoured onely but adored and worshipped by the blind and infatuated people what would they have said or rather what would they not have said Questionless the least they could do were to take up the complaint of Vigilantius the Papists reckon him for an Heretick saying Quid necesse est tanto honore non solum honorare sed etiam ador are illud nescio quid quod in vasculo transferendo colis Presently without the Chappel is the Burse la Gallerie des Merchands a rank of shops in shew but not in substance like to those in the Exchange at London It reacheth from the Chappel unto the great Hall of Parliament and is the common through-fare between them On the bottom of the stairs and round about the several houses consecrated to the execution of justice are sundry shops of the same nature meanly furnished if compared with ours yet I perswade my self the richest of this kind in Paris I should now go and take a view of the Parliament House but I will step a little out of the way to see the place Daulphin and the little Chastelet This last serveth now onely as the Gaole or common prison belonging to the Court of the Provost of the Merchants and it deserveth no other employment It is seated at the end of the bridge called Petit pont and was built by Hugh Aubriot once Provost of the Town to repress the fury and insolencies of the Scholars whose rudeness and misdemeanours can no way be better bridled Omnes eos qui nomen ipsum Academiae vel serio vel ioco nominassent haereticos pronunciavit saith Platina of Pope Paul the second I will say it of this wilderness that whosoever will account it as an Academy is an Heretick to Learning and Civility The place Daulphin is a beautiful heap of building scituate nigh unto the new bridge It was built at the encouragement of Henry the fourth and entituled according to the title of his Son The houses are all of brick high built uniform and indeed such as deserve and would exact a longer description were not the Parliament now ready to sit and my self summoned to make my appearance CHAP. VIII The Parliament of France when began Of whom it consisted The Dignity and esteem of it abroad made sedentary at Paris appropriated to the long Robe The Palais by whom built and converted to seats of Justice The seven Chambers of Parliament the great Chamber the number and dignity of the Presidents The Duke of Biron afraid of them The Kings seat in it The sitting of the Grandsigneur in the Divano The authority of the Court in causes of all kinds and over the affairs of the King This Court the main pillar of the liberty of France La Tournelle and the Judges of it The five Chambers of Enquests severally instituted and by whom In what causes it is decisive The form of admitting Advocates into the Court of Parliament The Chancellor of France and his authority The two Courts of Requests and Masters of them The vain envy of the English Clergy against the Lawyers THe Court of Parliament was at the first instituted by Charles Marcell Grandfather to Charlemaine at such time as he was Maior of the Palace unto the lazy and retchless Kings of France In the beginning of the French Empire their King did justice to the people in person Afterwards banishing themselves from all the affairs of State that burden was cast upon the shoulders of their Maires An Office much of the nature with the Praefesti Praetorio in the Roman Empire When this Office was bestowed upon the said Charles Marcell he partly weary of the trouble partly intent about a business of a higher nature which was the estating of the Crown in his own Posterity but principally to indear himself to the Common people ordained the Court of Parliament Anno 720. It consisted in the beginning of twelve Peers the Prelates and Noblemen of the best fashion together with some of the principallest of the Kings Houshold Other Courts are called the Parliament with the addition of place as of Paris at Roven c. This onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Parliament It handled as well causes of State as those of private persons For hither did the Embassadours of mighty Princes
onely of Amiens could I meet with any antient Character which also was but a Gothish Dutch Letter and expressed nothing but the name and vertue of a Bishop of the Church in whose time it was So little also did I perceive them to be inclining to be Antiquaries that both neglects considered si Verbis audaciadetur I dare confidently averre that one Cotton for the Treasury and one Selden now Mr. Camden is dead for the study of Antiquities are worth all the French As for these five peices in La salle des Antiques they are I confess worthy our observation and respect also if they be such as our trudgeman informed us At the further end of it the Statua of Diana the same as it is said which was worshipped in the renowned Temple of Ephesus and of which Demetrius the Silver-smith and his fellow Artists cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Of a large and manly proportion she seemeth to be Quantum quale latus quam juvenile femur As Ovid of his Mistriss She is all naked save her feet which are buskin'd and yet she hath a scarfe or linnen roul which coming over her left shoulder and meeting about her middle hung down with both ends of it a little lower In the first place towards the right hand as we descended towards the door was the Statua of one of the Gods of Aethiopia as black as any of his people and one that had nothing about him to express his particular being Next unto him the Effigies of Mercury naked all except his feet and with a pipe in his mouth as when he inchanted Argos Nam que reperta Fistula nuper erat Saith the Metamorphosis Next unto him the portraiture of Venus quite naked and most immodestly apparreld in her hand her little Son Cupid as well arrayed as his Mother sitting on a Dolphin Last of all Apollo also in the same naked truth but that he had shooes on He was portrayed as lately returned from a Combat perhaps that against the Serpent Python Quem Deus arcitenens nunquam talibus armis Ante nisi in damis caprisque fugacibus usus Mille gravem telis exhausta pane pharetra Perdidit effuso per vulnera nigra veneno The Archer-God who e're that present tide Ne're us'e those arms but ' gainst the Roes and Deer With thousand shafts the earth made to be dy'de With Serpents bloud his quiver emptied cleer That I was in the right conjecture I had these reasons to perswade me the Quiver on the Gods right shoulder almost emptied his warlike belt hanging about his neck his garments loosly tumbling upon his left arm and the slain Monster being a water-serpent as Pithon is fained to be by the Poets All of these were in the same side of the wall the other being altogether destitute of ornament and are confidently said to be the statues of those Gods in the same forms that they were worshipped in and taken from their several Temples They were bestowed on the King by his Holiness of Rome and I cannot blame him for it It was worthy but little thanks to give unto him the Idols of the Heathen who for his Holiness satisfaction had given himself to the Idols of the Romans I beleive that upon the same terms the King of Enggland should have all the Reliques and ruines of Antiquity which can be found in Rome Without this room the Salle des Antiques and somewhat on the other side of the Louure is the House of Burbon and old decayed fabrick in which was nothing observable but the Omen For being built by Lewis of Burbon the third Duke of that branch he caused this Motto ESPERANCE to be engraven in Capital Letters over the door signifying his hopes that from his loyns should proceed a King which should joyn both the Houses and the Families and it is accordingly happened For the Tuilleries I have nothing to say of them but that they were built by Catherine de Medices in the year 1564 and that they took name from the lime-kils and tile-pits there being before the foundation of the house and the garden the word Tuillerie importing as much in the French language I was not so happy as to see them and will not be indebted to any for the relation CHAP. X. The person age and marraige of King Lewis Conjectural reasons of his being issueless Jaqueline Countess of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all married and his alliances by them His natural Brethren and their preferment His lawful Brother the title of Monsieur in France Monsieur as yet unmarried not like to marry Mont-Peusiers Daughter That Lady a fit Wife for the Earl of Soisons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the Line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a Child may be born in the eleventh moneth King Henry the fourth a great Lover of fair Ladies Monsieur Barrados the Kings Favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinal of Richilieu The Queen Mother a wise and prudent Woman THe King is the soul of the Court without his presence it is but a Carcass a thing without life and honour I dare not so farre wrong the Louure as to make it but a common house and rob it of the fruition of its Prince and therefore will treat of him here though during my aboad in France he lay all the while in Fountain Bleau For person he is of the middle stature and rather well proportioned than large His face knoweth little yet of a beard but that which is is black and swarthy his complexion also much of the same heiw carrying in it a certain boysterousness and that in a further measure than what a graceful Majesty can admit of So that one can hardly say of him without a spice of Courtship what Paterculus did of Tiberius Quod visus praetulerit principem that his countenance proclaimed him a King But questionless his greatest defect is want of utterance which is very unpleasing by reason of a desperate and uncurable stammering which defect is likely more and more to grow upon him At this time he is aged twenty four years and as much as since the 27 day of September last which was his birth day an age which he beareth not very plausibly want of beard and the swarthiness of his complexion making him seem elder At the age of eleven years he was affianced to the Lady Anna Infanta of Spain by whom as yet he hath no children It is thought by many and covertly spoken by divers in France that the principal cause of the Queens bartenness proceedeth from Spain that people being loath to fall under the French obedience which may very well happen she being the elder Sister of the King For this cause in the seventh article of marriage there is a clause that
apparent being the Kings eldest Son living This limited to the Heir apparent being the Kings eldest Brother surviving if there be neither Son nor Brother then the next Heir apparent is stiled onely Le primier Prince du sang The first Prince of the bloud This title of Monsieur answereth to that of the Despote in the Greek Empire and in imitation of that it is thought to have been instituted Others of the French Princes are called Monsieurs also but with some addition of place or honour the Kings eldest Brother onely is called Monsieur sans quene as the French use to say that is simply Monsieur This young Prince is as yet unmarried but destinate to the bed of the young Dutchess of Mont-pensier whose Father died in the time of Henry the fourth Had the Duke of Orleance lived he had espoused her long ere this but it is generally beleived that this Prince is so affected He seeth his elder Brother as yet childless himself the next Heir to the Crown and it is likely he will look on a while and expect the issue of his fortune Some that speak of the affairs of the Court hold her to be a fit match for the young Count of Soisons a Prince of the bloud and a Gentleman of a fine temper The Lady her self is said not to be averse from the Match neither will the King not be inclinable unto him as hoping therein to give him some satisfaction for not performing a Court promise made unto him about marrying him to the young Madame now Queen of England As for the Count it cannot but be advantagious to him divers wayes partly to joyn together the two Families of Mont pensier and Soisons both issuing from the house of Burbon partly to enrich himself by adding unto his inheritance so fair an estate and partly by gaining all the Freinds and Allies of the Ladies kinred unto him the better to enable his opposition against the Prince of Conde The difference between them standeth thus Lewis the first Prince of Conde had by two Wives amongst other Children two Sons by his first Wife Henry Prince of Conde by the second Charles Count of Soisons Henry Prince of Conde had to his first Wife Mary of Cleve Daughter to the Duke of Nevers by whom he had no Children to his second Wife he took the Lady Katherine of Tremoville Sister to the Duke of Thovars Anno 1586. two years after his marriage he died of an old greif took from a poysoned cup which was given him Anno 1552. and partly from a blow given him with a Lance at the battel of Contras Anno 1587. In the eleventh moneth after his decease his young Princess was brought to bed of a young Son which is now Prince of Conde Charles Count of Soisons in the raign of Henry the fourth began to question the Princes legitimation whereupon the King dealt with the Parliament of Paris to declare the place of the first Prince of the bloud to belong to the Prince of Conde And for the clearer and more evident proof of the title twenty four physitians of good faith and skill made an open protestation of oath in the Coutt that it was not onely possible but common for Women to be delivered in the eleventh moneth On this it was awarded to the Prince This decree of Parliament notwithstanding if ever the King and his Brother should die childless it is said that the young Count of Soisons his Father died Anno 1614. will not so give over his title He is Steward of the Kings House as his Father also was before him a place of good credit and in which he hath demeaned himself very plausibly In case it should come to a tryal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which God forbid he is like to make a great party both within the Realm and without it without it by means of the House of Savoy having married his eldest Sister unto Don Thomazo the second Son of that Dukedom now living A brave man at armes and indeed the fairest fruit that ever grew on that tree next Heir of his Father after the death of Don Amadeo yet childless within the Realm the Lords have already declared themselves which happened on this occasion In the year 1620. the moneth of March the King being to wash the Prince of Conde laid hold on the towel chalenging that honour as first Prince of the bloud and on the other side the Count of Soisons seized on it as appertaining to his office of Steward and Prince of the bloud also The King to decide the controversie for the present commanded it to be given to Monsieur his Brother yet did not this satisfie For in the morning the Friends of both Princes came to offer their service in the cause To the Count came in general all the opposites of the Prince of Conde and of the Duke of Luines and Guise in particular the Duke of Maien the Duke of Vendosme the Dukes of Longueville Espernon Nemours the Grand Prior the Dukes of Thovars Retz and Rohan the Viscount of Aubetene c. who all withdrew themselves from the Court made themselves Masters of the best places in their Governments and were united presently into an open faction of which the Queen Mother declared her self head As for the Commons without whom the Nobility may well quarrel but not fight they are more zealous in behalf of the Count as being brought up alwayes a Papist and born of a Catholike kinred whereas the Prince though at this instant he be a Catholike yet non fuit sic ab initio he was born they say and brought up an Hugonot and perchance the alteration is but dissembled Concerning the Prince of Conde he hath a sentence of Parliament on his side and a verdict of Physitians both weak helps to a soveraignty unless well backed by the Sword And for the verdict of the Physitians thus the case is stated by the Doctors of that faculty Laurentius a Professor of Mâ—nt-pellier in Languedoc in his excellent Treatise of Anatomy maketh three terms of a Womans delivery Primus intermedius ultimus The first the seventh and eighth moneth after conception in each of which the Child is vital and may live if it be born To this also consenteth the Dr. of their Chair Hippocrates saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a Child born in the seventh moneth if it be well looked to may live We read also how in Spain the Women are oftentimes lightned in the end of the seventh moneth and commonly in the end of the eighth and further that Sempronius and Corbula both Roman Consuls were born in the seventh moneth Plinie in his natural History reporteth it as a truth though perhaps the Women that told him either misreckoned their time or else dissembled it to conceal their honesties The middle time terminus intermedius is the ninth and tenth moneths at which time Children do seldom miscarry In the former two moneths they had gathered life
in these later they onely consummate strength so say the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquid ad perfectionem partium sed ad perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this Profession is the eleventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth of Papyrius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confest him to be born in the thirteenth month And Avicen a Moor of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a Child born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of Women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernatural causes Vt extra ordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the furthest understand ten moneths compleat the Child is born And Vlpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a Child born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of its pretended Father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived taking it in the most favourable construction after the conception of the Mother and by no meanes after the death of the Father and so can it no way if I were first President advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extreamly sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken Anno 1552. to be little prone to Women in the general They therefore that would seem to know more than the vulgar reckon him as one of the by-blows of Henry the fourth but this under the Rose yet by way of conjecture we may argue thus First from the Kings care of his education assigning him for his Tutor Nicholas de Februe whom he also designed for his Son King Lewis Secondly from his care to work the Prince then young Mollis aptus agi to become a Catholike Thirdly the age of the old Henry of Conde and the privacy of this King with his Lady being then King of Navarre in the prime of his strength and in discontent with the Lady Margaret of Valoys his first Wife Adde to this that Kings love to fair Ladies in the general and we may see this probability to be no miracle For besides the Dutchess of Beaufort the Marchioness of Verneville and the Countess of Morret already mentioned he is beleived to have been the Father of Mr. Luines the great Favorite of King Lewis And certain it is that the very year before his death when he was even in the winter of his dayes he took such an amorous liking to the Prince of Conde s Wife a very beautiful Lady and Daughter to the Constable Duke of Montmorencie that the Prince to save his honour was compelled to flie together with his Princess into the Arch-Dukes Country whence he returned not till long after the death of King Henry If Marie de Medices in her Husbands life time paid his debts for him which I cannot say she onely made good that of vindicate· And yet perhaps a consciousness of some injuries not onely moved her to back the Count of Soison's and his faction against the Prince and his but also to resolve upon him for the Husband of her Daughter From the Princes of the bloud descend we to the Princes of the Court and therein the first place we meet with Mr. Barradas the Kings present Favourite a young Gentleman of a fresh and lively hew little bearded and one whom the people as yet cannot accuse for any oppression or misgovernment Honours the King hath conferred none upon him but onely Pensions and Offices He is the Governour of the Kings Children of Honour Pages we call them in England a place of more trouble than wealth or credit He is also the Master of the Horse or le grand Escuire the esteem of which place recompenceth the emptiness of the other for by vertue of this Office he carryeth the Kings Sword sheathed before him at his entrance into Paris the Cloth of Estate carryed over the King by the Provosts and Eschevins is his Fee No man can be the Kings Spur maker his Smith or have any place in the Kings Stables but from him and the like This place to note so much by the way was taken out of the Constables Office Comes stabuli is the true name to whom it properly belonged in the time of Charles the seventh Besides this he hath a pension of 500000. Crowns yearly and had an Office given him which he sold for 100000. Crownes in ready money A good fortune for one who the other day was but the Kings Page And to say truth he is as yet but a little better being onely removed from his Servant to his play-fellow with the affairs of State he intermeddleth not if he should he might expect the Queene Mother should say to him what Apollo in Ovid did to Cupid Tibi quia cum fortibus armis Mi puer ista decent humeros gestamina nostros For indeed first during her Sons minority and after since her redentigration with him she hath made her self so absolute a Mistress of her mind that he hath entrusted to her the entire conduct of all his most weighty affairs for her Assistant in the managing of her greatest business she hath pieced her self to the strongest side of the State the Church having principally since the death of the Marshall D' Anere Joneane assumed to her Counsails the Cardinal of Richileiu a man of no great birth were Nobility the greatest Parentage but otherwise to be ranked among the Noblest Of a sound reach he is and of a close brain one exceedingly well mixt of a Lay Vnderstanding and a Church Habit one that is compleatly skilled in the art of men and a perfect Master of his own mind and affections Him the Queene useth as her Counseller to keep out frailty and the Kings name as her countenance to keep off envy She is of a Florentine wit and hath in her all the vertues of Katherine de Medices her Ancestor in the Regencie and some also of her vices only her designes tend not to the ruine of her Kingdome and her Children John de Seirres telleth us in his Inventaire of France how the Queene Katherine suffered her Son Henry the third a devout and simple Prince to spend his most dangerous times even uncontrolled upon his Beades whiles in the meantime she usurped the Government of the Realm Like it is that Queene Mary hath
break off the Assembly Upon the receit of this Letter those of the Assembly published a Declaration wherein they verified the meeting to be lawful and their purpose not to dismiss themselves till their desires were granted This affront done to the King made him gather together his forces yet at the Duke of Lesdiguiers request he allowed them twenty four dayes respite before his Armies should march towards them He offered them also very fair and reasonable conditions such almost as their Deputies had sollicited but far better than those which they were glad to accept when all their Towns were taken from them Profectâ— meluctabilis fatorum vis cujus fortunam mutare constituit ejus corrumpit consilia It holds very rightly in this people who turned a deaf ear to all good advise and were resolved it seemeth not to hear the voice of the charmer charmed he never so sweetly In their Assembly therefore they make Laws and Orders to regulate their disobedience as that no peace should be made without the consent of the general Convocation about paying of the Souldiers wages for the detaining of the Revenues of the King and the Clergy and the like They also have divided France into seven circles or parts assigning over every circle several Generals and Lieutenants and prescribed Orders how those Generals should proceed in the warr Thus we see the Kings Army levied upon no sleight grounds His regal authority was neglected his especial Edicts violated his gratious proffers slighted his revenues forbidden him and his Realm divided before his face and alotted unto Officers not of his own election Had the prosecution of his action been as fair as the cause was just and legal the Protestants onely had deserved the infamy But hinc illae lachrymae the King so behaved himself in it that he suffered the sword to walk at randome as if his main design had been not to correct his people but to ruine them I will instance onely in the tyrannical slaughter which he permitted at the taking of Nigrepelisse a Town of Queren where indeed the Souldiers shewed the very rigor of severity which either a barbarous Victor could inflict or a vanquished people suffer Nec ullum saevitiae genus omisit ira Victoria as Tacitus of the angred Romans For they spared neither man nor woman nor child all equally subject to the cruelty of the Sword and the Conqueror the streets paved with dead carcasses the channels running with the bloud of Christians no noise in the streets but of such as were welcoming death or suing for life The Churches which the Gothes spared in the sack of Rome were at this place made the Theaters of lust and bloud neither priviledge of Sanctuary nor fear of God in whose House they were qualifying their outrage Thus in the Common places At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu Miscetur Penitusque eavae clangoribus aedes Faeminiis ululant As Virgill in the ruine of Troy But the calamities which befel the men were merciful and sparing if compared with those which the women suffered when the Souldiers had made them the Subjects of their lust they made them after the subjects of their fury in that onely pittiful to that poor and distressed Sex that they did not let them survive their honours Such of them who out of fear and faintness had made but little resistance had the favour to be stabbed but those whose virtue and courage maintained their bodies valiantly from the rape of those villains had the secrets of Nature Procul hinc este cast ae misericordes aures filled with Gun-powder and so blown into ashes Whether O Ye Divine Powers is humanity fled when it is not to be found in Christians or where shall we find the effects of a pittiful nature when men are become so unnatural It is said that the King was ignorant of this barbarousness and offended at it Offended I perswade my self he could not but be unless he had totally put off himself and degenerated into a Tyger but for his ignorance I dare not conceive it to be any other than that of Nero an ignorance rather in his eye than in his understanding Subduxit oculos Nero saith Tacitus jussitque scelera non spectavit Though the Protestants deserved affliction for their disobedience yet this was an execution above the nature of a punishment a misery beyond the condition of the crime True it is and I shall never acquit them of it that in the time of their prosperity they had done the King many affronts and committed many acts of disobedience and insolency which justly occasioned the warr against them For besides those already recited they themselves first brake those Edicts the due execution whereof seemed to have been their onely petition The King by his Edict of Pacification had licensed the free exercise of both Religions and thereupon permitted the Priests and Jesuites to preach in the Towns of Caution being then in the hands of the Protestants On the other side the Protestants assembled at Loudan straitly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuits or any of any other Order to preach in their Towns although licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess When upon dislike of their proceedings in that Assembly the King had declared their meetings to be unlawful and contrary to his peace and this Declaration was verified against them by the Parliament they notwithstanding would not separate themselves but stood still upon terms of capitulation and the justifiableness of their action Again whereas it happened that the Lord of Privas Town full of those of the Religion dyed in the year 1620. and left his Daughter and Heir in the bed and marriage of the Viscount of Cheylane a Catholike this new Lord according to law and right in his own Town changed the former Garrison putting his own servants and dependants in their places Upon this the Protestants of the Town and Country about it draw themselves in Troops surprize many of the Towns about it and at the last compelled the young Gentleman to fly from his inheritance an action which jumping even with the time of the Assembly at Rochell made the King more doubtful of their sincerity I could add to these divers others of their undutiful practises being the effects of too much felicity and of a fortune which they could not govern Atqui animus meminisse horret luctuque refuget These their insolencies and unruly acts of disobedience made the King and his Council suspect that their designs tended further than Religion and that their purpose might be to make themselves a free Estate after the example of Geneva and the Low Country-men The late power which they had taken of calling their own Synods and Convocations was a strong argument of their purpose so also was the intelligence which they held with those of their faith at the Synod at Sappe called by the permission of Henry the fourth on the first of
October Anno 1603. They not onely gave audience to Ambassadours and received Letters from forrain Princes but also importuned his Majesty to have a general liberty of going into any other Countreys and assigning at their Counsel a matter of especial importance And therefore the King upon a foresight of the dangers wisely prohibited them to go to any Assemblies without a particular licence upon pain to be declared Traytors Since that time growing into greater strength whensoever they had occasion of business with King Lewis they would never treat with him but by their Embassadors and upon especial Articles An ambition above the quality of those that profess themselves Sorbonets and the onely way as Du Seirres noteth to make an estate in the State but the answers made unto the King by those of Alerack and Montanbon are pregnant proofs of their intent and meaning in this kind The first being summoned by the King and his Army the 22. of July Anno 1621. returned thus that the King should suffer them to enjoy their liberties and leave their fortifications as they were for them of their lives and so they would declare themselves to be his subjects They of Montanbon made a fuller expression of the general design Disobedience which was that they were resolved to live and die in the Vnion of the Churches had they said for the Service of the King it had been spoken bravely but now rebelliously This union and confederacy of theirs King Lewis used to call the Common-wealth of Rochell for the overthrow of which he alwayes protested that he had onely taken Arms and if we compare circumstances we shall find it to be no other In the second of April before he had as yet advanced into the Feild he published a Declaration in favour of all those of the Religion which would contain themselves within duty and obedience And whereas some of Tours at the beginning of the warrs had tumultuously molested the Protestants at the burial of one of their dead five of them by the Kings especial commandement were openly executed When the warr was hottest abroad those of the Gospel at Paris lived as securely as ever and had their accustomed meetings at Charentan So had those also of other places Moreover when tidings came to Paris of the Duke of Mayens death slain before Montanbon the Rascal French according to their hot headed dispositions breathed out nothing but ruine to the Hugonots the Duke of Montbazon Governour of the City commanded their houses and the streets to be safely guarded After when this Rabble had burnt down their Temple at Charentan the Court of Parliament on the day following ordained that it should be built up again in a more beautiful manner and that at the Kings charge Add to this that since the ending of the warrs and the reduction of almost all their Towns we have not seen the least alteration of Religion Besides that they have been permitted to hold a National Synod at Clarenton for establishing the truth of their doctrine against the errors of Arminius Professor of Leiden in Holland All things thus considered in their true being I cannot see for what cause our late Soveraign should suffer so much envy as he did for not giving them assistance I cannot but say that my self hath too often condemned his remissness in that cause which upon better consideration I cannot tell how he should have dealt in Had he been a meddler in it further than he was he had not so much preserved Religion as supported rebellion besides the consequence of the example To have assisted the disobedient French under the colour of the liberty of Conscience had been onely to have taught that King a way into England upon the same pretence and to have troad the path of his own hazard Further he had not long before denyed succor to his own children when he might have given upon a better ground and for a fairer purpose and could not now in honour countenance the like action in another For that other denial of his helping hand I much doubt how farre posterity will acquit him though certainly he was a good Prince and had been an happy instrument of the peace of Christendom had not the later part of his raign happened in a time so full of troubles So that betwixt the quietness of his nature and the turbulencies of his later dayes he fell into that miserable exigent mentioned in the Historian Miserrimum est cum alicui aut natura sua excedenda est aut minuenda dignitas Add to this that the French had first been abandoned at home by their own friends of seven Generals whom they had appointed for the seven circles into which they divided all France four of them never giving them incouragement The three which accepted of those inordinate Governments were the Duke of Rohan his Brother Mr. Sonbise and the Marquess la Force the four others being the Duke of Tremoville the Earl of Chastillon the Duke of Lesdiguier and the Duke of Bovillon who should have commanded in cheif So that the French Protestants cannot say that he was first wanting unto them but they to themselves If we demand what should move the French Protestants to this rebellious contradiction of his Majesties commandements we must answer that it was too much happiness Causa hujus belli eadem quae omnium nimid faelicitas as Florus of the Civil warrs between Caesar and Pompey Before the year 1620. when they fell first into the Kings dis-favour they were possessed of almost an hundred good Towns well fortified for their safety besides beautiful houses and ample possessions in the Villages They slept every man under his own Vine and his own Fig-tree neither fearing nor needing to fear the least disturbance with those of the Catholike party they were grown so intimate and entire by reason of their inter-marriages that a very few years would have made them incorporated if not into one faith yet into one family For their better satisfaction in matters of Justice it pleased King Henry the fourth to erect a chamber in the Court of Parliament of Paris purposely for them It consisted of one President and sixteen Counsellors their office to take knowledge of all the Causes and Suits of them of the Reformed Religion as well within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris as also in Normandy and Brittain till there should be a Chamber erected in either of them There were appointed also two Chambers in the Parliament of Bourdeaux and Grenoble and one at Chasters for the Parliament at Tholoza These Chambers were called Les Chambres de l' Edict because they were established by a special Edict at the Town of Nantes in Brittain April the eighth Anno 1598. In a word they lived so secure and happy that one would have thought their felicities had been immortal O faciles dare summa Deos eademque tuerâ— Difficiles And yet they are not brought so low but that they may
granted to Sir Giles Mompesson was just one of the French Offices As for Monopolies they are here so common that the Subject taketh no notice of it not a scurvy petty book being printed but it hath its priviledge affixed ad imprimendum solum These being granted by the King are carried to the Parliament by them formally perused and finally verified after which they are in force and vertue against all opposition It is said in France that Mr. Luines had obtained a Patent of the King for a quart d' Escu to be paid unto him for the Christning of every Child throughout the Kingdom A very unjust and unconscionable extortion Had he lived to have presented it to the Court I much doubt of their denial though the onely cause of bringing before them such Patents is onely intended that they should discuss the justice and convenience of them As the Parliament hath a formality of power left in them of verifying the Kings Edicts his grants of Offices and Monopolies so hath the Chamber of Accompts a superficial survey of his gifts and expences For his expences they are thought to be as great now as ever by reason of the several retinues of Himself his Mother his Queen and the Monsieur Neither are his gifts lessened The late warrs which he mannaged against the Protestants cost him dear he being fain to bind unto him most of his Princes by money and Pensions As the expences of the King are brought unto this Court to be examined so are also the gifts and pensions by him granted to be ratified The titulary power given to this Chamber is to cut off all those of the Kings grants which have no good ground and foundation the Officers being solemnly at the least formally sworn not to suffer any thing to pass them to the detriment of the Kingdom whatsoever Letters of Command they have to the contrary But with this Oath they do oftentimes dispense To this Court also belongeth the Enfranchisement or Naturalization of Aliens Anciently certain Lords Officers of the Crown and of the Privie Council were appointed to look into the Accompts now it is made an ordinary and soveraign Court consisting of two Presidents and divers Auditors and after under Officers The Chamber wherein it is kept is called La Chambre des Comptes it is the beautifullest piece of the whole Palace the great Chamber it self not being worthy to be named in the same day with it It was built by Charles the eighth Anno 1485. afterwards adorned and beautified by Lewis the twelfth whose Statua is there standing in his Royal Robes and the Scepter in his hand he is accompanied by the four Cardinal-Virtues expressed by way of Hieroglychick very properly and cunning each of them have in them its particular Motto to declare its being The Kings Portraicture also as if he were the fifth Virtue had its word under-written and contained in a couple of verses which let all that love the Muses skip them in the reading are these Quatuor has comites fowro caelestia dona Innocuae pacis prospera sceptra gerens From the King descend we to the Subjects ab equis quod aiunt ad asinos and the phrase is not much improper the French Commonalty being called the Kings Asses These are divided into three ranks or Classes the Clergy the Nobless the Paisants out of which certain Delegates or Committees chosen upon an occasion and sent to the King did anciently concurre to the making of the supreme Court for justice in France it was called the Assembly of the three Estates or Conventus Ordinum and was just like the Parliament of England but these meetings are now forgotten or out of use neither indeed as this time goeth can they any way advantage the State For whereas there are three principal if not sole causes of these Conventions which are the disposing of the Regency during the non-age or sickness of a King the granting aids or subsidies and the redressing of grievances there is now another course taken in them The Parliament of Paris which speaketh as it is prompted by power and greatness appointeth the Regent the Kings themselves with their Officers determine of the taxes and as concerning their grievances the Kings ear is open to private Petitions Thus is that title of a Common-wealth which went to the making up of this Monarchy escheated or rather devoured by the King that name alone containing in it both Clergy Princes and People so that some of the French Counsellors may say with Tully in his Oration for Marcellus unto Caesar Doleoque cum Respublica immortalis esse debeat eam unius mortalis anima consistere yet I cannot but withal affirm that the Princes and Nobles of France do for as much as concerneth themselves upon all advantages fly off from the Kings obedience but all this while the poor Paisant is ruined Let the poor Tennant starve or eat the bread of carefulness it matters not so they may have their pleasure and be accompted firm Zealots of the Common liberty and certainly this is the issue of it the Farmer liveth the life of a slave to maintain his Lord in pride and laziness the Lord leadeth the life of a King to oppress his Tennant by fines and exactions An equality little answerable to the old platforms of Republicks Aristotle genius ille naturae as a learned man calleth him in his fourth book of Politicks hath an excellent discourse concerning this disproportion In that chapter his project is to have a correspondency so far between Subjects under the King or people of the same City that neither the one might be over rich nor the other too miserably poor They saith he which are too happy strong or rich or greatly favoured and the like cannot nor will not obey with which evil they are infected from their infancy The other through want of these things are too abjectly minded and base for that the one cannot but command and the other but serve and this he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City inhabited onely by slaves and tyrants That questionless is the most perfect and compleat form of Government Vbi veneratur potentem humilis non timet antecedit non contemnit humiliorem potens as Velleius But this is an happiness whereof France is not capable their Lords being Kings and their Commons Villains And to say no less of them than in truth they are the Princes of this Country are little inferior in matters of Royalty to any King abroad and by consequence little respective in matter of obedience to their own King at home Upon the least discontent they will draw themselves from the Court or put themselves into Arms and of all other comforts are ever sure of this that they shall never want partizans neither do they use to stand off from him fearfully and at distance but justifie their revolt by publike declaration and think the King much indebted to them if upon fair terms and an
He was a Prince of no heart to make a warriour and therefore Resistance was to him almost as much hugged as Victory It was Anthonies case in his Warre against the Parthians a Captain whose Launce King Lewis was not worthy to beare after him Crassus before him had been taken by that people but Anthonius made a retreat though with losse Hanc itaque fugam suam quia victus non exierat victoriam vocabat as Paterculus one that loved him not saith of him yet was King Lewis so puffed up with this conceit of victory that he ever after slâ—ighted his enemies and at last ruin'd them and their cause with them The Warre which they undertook against him they entituled the Warre of the Weale publick because the occasion of their taking Armes was for the liberty of the Countrey and the People both whom the King had beyond measure oppressed True it is they had also their particular purposes but this was the main and failing in the expected event of it all that they did was to confirme the bondage of the Realm by their owne overthrow These Princes once disbanded and severally broken none durst ever afterwards enter into the action for which reason King Lewis used to say that he had brought the Kings of France Hors Pupillage out of their Wardship a speech of more Brag than Truth The people I confesse he brought into such terms of slavery that they not long merited the name of Subjects but yet for this great boast the Nobles of France are the Kings Guardians I have already shewn you much of their potencie by that you may see that the French Kings have not yet sued their Outre le maine as our Lawyers call it Had he also in some measure broken the powerableness of the Princes he had then been perfectly his word's Master and till that be done I shall think his Successors to be in their Pupillage That King is but half himselfe which hath the absolute command onely of half his people The Battaile by this towne the common people impute to the English and so do many others which they had no hand in for hearing their Grandames talk of their Warres with our Nation and of the many Fields which we gained of them they no sooner heare talk of a pitch'd Field but presently as the nature of men in a fright is they attribute it to the English Good simple soules Qui nos non solum laudibus nostris ornare velint sed alienis onerare as Tullie in his Philippicks An humour just like unto that of little children who being once afrighted with the Tales of Robin Good-fellow do never after heare any noyse in the night but they streight imagine that it is he which maketh it or like the women of the villages neere Oxford who having heard the tragicall story of a Duck or a Hen killed and carried to the Vniversity no sooner misse one of their chickins but instantly they cry out upon the Schollars On the same false ground also hearing that the English whilst they had possessions in this Countrey were great builders they bestow on them without any more adoe the foundation and perfecting of most of the Churches and Castles in the Countrâ—y Thus are our Ancestors said to have built the Churches of Roven Amiens Bayon c. as also the Castles of Boys S. Vincennes the Bastile the two little Forts on the River side by the Louvre at S. Germaines and amongst many others this of Montl'herrie where we now are and all alike As for this Castle it was buâ—lt during the reigne of King Robert Anno 1015. by one of his servants named Thebald long before the English had any possâ—ssions in this Continent It was razed by Lewis the Grosse as being a harbourer of Rebells in former times and by that meanes as a strong bridle in the mouth of Paris nothing now standing of it save an high Tower which is seen a great distance round about and serveth for a Land-mark Two leaguâ—s from Montl'herrie is the twon of Chastres seated in the farthest angle of France where it confineth to la Beauss a town of an ordinary size somewhat bigger than for a market and lesse than would beseem a city A wall it hath and a ditch but neither serviceable further than to resist the enemy at one gate while the people run away by the other Nothing else remarkable in it but the habit of the Church which was mourning for such is the fashion of France that when any of the Noblesse are buried the Church which entombeth them is painted black within and without for the breadth of a yard or thereabouts and their coats of Armes drawn on it To goe to the charges of hanging it round with cloath is not for their profits Besides this countefeit sorrow feareth thieves dareth out-brave a tempest He for whom the Church of Chastres was thus apparelled had been Lord of the Towne by name as I remember Mr. St. Bennoist his Armes were argent three Crescents on a Mullet of the same but whether this Mullet were part of the Coat or a mark onely of difference I could not learn Thelike Funerall churches I saw also at Tostes in Normandie and in a Village of Picardie whose name I minde not nec operae pretium And now we are passed the confines of France a poore River which for the narrownesse of it you would think a ditch parting it from the Province of La Beausse La Beausse hath on the North Normandie on the East the Isle of France on the South the River of Loyer and on the West the Countreys of Tourein and le Main it lieth in 22 23 degree of Longitude and the 48 and 49 of Latitude taking wholly up the breadth of the two former and but part onely of each of the latter If you measure it for the best advantage of length you will finde it to extend from la Forte Bernard in the North west corner of it to Gyan in the South east which according to the proportion of degrees amounteth to 60 miles English and somewhat better for breadth it is much after the same reckoning The ancient inhabitants of this Province and the reason of the name I could not learn amongst the people neither can I find any certainty of it in my books with whom I have consulted If I may be bold to goe by conjecture I should think this countrey to have been the seat of Bellocassi a people of Gaule Celtick mentioned by Caesar in his Commentaries Certaine it is that in this Tract they were seated and in likelihood in this Province the names ancient and moderne being not much different in sense though in sound For the Franks called that which in Latine is pulcher or bellus by the name of Bell in the Masculine Gender Beu the Pronoune it and Beau as it were the Faeminine At this time Beau is Masculine and Belle Faeminine so that the name of Bellocassi
so I leave the Constable to take a veiw of his Province A man at this time beloved of neither parties hated by the Protestants as an Apostata and suspected by the Papists not to be entire To proceed July the twenty eighth we came unto Clermont the first Town of any note that we met with in Picardy A pretty nea Town and finely seated on the rising of an hill For the defence of it it hath on the upper side of it an indifferent large Castle and such as were the scituations of it somewhat helped by the strengths of Art might be brought to good service Towards the Town it is of an easie access to the fieldward more difficult as being built on the pendicular fall of a Rock In the year 1615. it was made good by Mr. Haroncourt with the Regiment of eight Companies who kept it in the name of the Prince of Conde and the rest of that Confederacy but it held not long For at the Marshal d' Ancres coming before it with his Army and artillery it was presently yeilded This warr which was the second Civil warr that had happened in the reign of King Lewis was undertaken by the Princes chiefly to thwart the designes of the Queen Mother and to crush the powerableness of her grand favourite the Marshall The pretence as in such cases commonly is was the good of the Common-wealth the occasion the cross Marriages then consummated by the Marshal between the Kings of France and Spain For by those marriages they seemed to fear the augmentation of the Spaniards greatness the alienation of the affections of their ancient Allies and by consequence the ruine of the French Empire But it was not the fate of D' Ancre to perish two years more of Command and insolencies his destinies allowed and then he tumbled This opportunity of his death ending the third Civil war each of which his faulty greatness had occasioned What the ambition of his designs did tend to I dare not absolutely determine though like enough it is that they aimed further than at a private or personal potency for having under the favour and countenance of the Queen Mother made himself Master of the Kings ear and of his counsels he made a shift to get into his own hands an authority almost as unlimitted as that of the old Mayre of the Palace for he had suppressed the liberty of the general Estates and of the Soveraign Court removed all the Officers and Counsellors of the last King ravished one of the Presidents of the great Chamber by name Mr. Le Jay out of the Parliament into the Prison and planted Garrisons of his own in most of the good Towns of Normandy of which Province he was Governour Add to this that he had caused the Prince of Conde being acknowledged the first Prince of the bloud to be imprisoned in the Bastile and had searched into the continuance of the lives of the King and his Brother by the help of sorcery and witchcraft Besides he was suspected to have had secret intelligence with some forrain Princes ill-willers to the State and had disgraced some and neglected others of the Kings Confederates And certainly those actions seem to import some project beyond a private and obedient greatness though I can hardly beleive that he durst be ambitious of the Crown for being a fellow of a low birth his heart could not but be too narrow for such an hope and having no party amongst the Nobility and being less gratious among the people he was altogether destitute of means to compass it I therefore am of opinion that the Spanish gold had corrupted him to some project concerning the enlargement of that Empire upon the French dominions which the cross Marriages whereof he was the contriver and which seemed so full of danger to all the best Patriots of France may seem to demonstrate And again at that time when he had put the Realm into this third combustion the King of Spain had an Army on foot against the Duke of Savoy and another in the Countries of Cleive and Juliers which had not the timely fall of this Monsieur and the peace ensuing prevented it might both perhaps have met together in the midst of France but this is onely conjectural CHAP. II. The fair City of Amiens and greatness of it The English feasted within it and the error of that action The Town how built seated and fortified The Cittadel of it thought to be impregnable not permitted to be veiwed The over-much openness of the English in discovering their strengths The watch and form of government in the Town Amiens a Visedamate and to whom it pertaineth What that honour is in France and how many there enjoy it c. THat night we went from Clermont to a Town called Bâ—etaul where we were harboured being from Clermont six French Leagues and from Paris twenty Our entertainment there such as in other places as sluttish and as inconvenient The next day being the twenty ninth about ten of the clock we had a sight of the goodly and fair City of Amiens A City of some English miles circuit within the wals which is all the greatness of it for without the wals it hath houses few or none A City very capacious and for that cause hath been many times honoured with the persons and trains of many great Princes Besides that once it entertained almost a whole Army of the English For King Lewis the eleventh having made an advantagious peace with our Edward and perceiving how ingrateful it was amongst the military men he intended also to give them some manner of satisfaction he sent therefore unto them three hundred Carts laden with the best Wines and seeing how acceptable a present that had proved he intended also to feast them in Amiens within half a league of which their Camp was lodged This entertainment lasted four dayes each street having in it two long tables and each table being furnished with very plentiful provision Neither were they denied entrance into any of the Taverns or Victualling-houses or therein stinted either in meats or drinks whatsoever was called for was defraied by King Lewis An action wherein if my opinion might carry it there was little of the Politician for there were permitted to enter into the Town so many of the English-men at once that had they been but so minded they might easily have made themselves as well Masters of the place as of the Kings person nine thousand are reckoned by Comminees to have been within together and most of them armed so that they might very easily have surprised the Gates and let in the rest of the Army Those of the French Kings Council feared it much and therefore informed both Princes the one of his Town the other of his honour But this jealousie was but a French distrust and might well have been spared the English being of that Generals mind that scorned to steal a Victory and of that generous