or with purpose to imploy him in any important negotiation for the good of his affairs his onely ambition is to have him make a book whereby it might appear how those of M M M. are lineally descended from Julius Caesar I should be glad he would yet aim at some higher or more eminent race and that he would purchase a second fable at the like rate he payed for the first I would willingly give him his choice of the Medes Persians Greeks or Troians which of these he would have of his Kindred and without the relying upon the Authority of tradition or testimonie of Stories I would draw his descent from Hector or Achilles which he best liked There are certain Princes who are necessarily to be deceived if you mean to do them acceptable service being far better pleased to be entertained with a plausible lie than to be advertised of an important truth I hold my self right happy you are not of this humour for whatsoever I say I suppose it would be very hard for me to be of a fools minde though he were a Monarch I intend not to steal your favours but to purchase them legally and having ever believed flattery to be as mischievous a means to gain affection as charms and sorcery I cannot speak against my conscience and were not this true I tell you I would not assure you that I am Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC From Rome this 10. of December 1622. To the Lord Cardinal de Valette from BALZAC Letter VI. My Lord HOw great soever the subject of my sorrows be yet do I finde in your Letters sufficient to make me happy in my hard fortune The last I received hath so much obliged me that but for the displeasing news coming unto me which tempered my joy my reason had not been of sufficient force to moderate it But at this time the death of my poor Brother being incessantly before mine eys taketh from me the taste of all good tidings and the prosperity even of the Kings affairs seem displeasing unto me finding my self to bear upon me the mournings of his Victorie Yet since in this fatal agitation of Europe it is not I alone who bewail some loss and since your self have not been able to preserve all that was dear unto you I should seem very uncivil if I presumed to prefer my private interest before yours or reflect upon my particular affliction having one common with yours It is long since I have not measured either the felicities or fatalities of this World but by your contentments or discomforts and that I behold you as the whole workmanship God hath made Wherefore my Lord I willl lay aside whatsoever concerns my self to enter into your resentments and to tell you since you cannot make unworthy elections it must needs be that in death of your Friends you can suffer no small losses Notwithstanding as you transcend sublunary things and in that all men draw examples out of the meanest actions of your life I assure my self they have acknowledged upon this occasion that there is not any accident to surmount against which you have use of all your virtue Afflictions are the gifts of God though they be not of those we desire in our prayers and supposing you should not approve this proposition yet have you at all times so little regarded death as I cannot believe you will bewail any for being in a condition your self esteems not miserable My Lord it sufficeth you conserve the memory of those you have loved in consequence of the protestation you pleased to make unto me by your Letter And truly if the dead be any thing as none can doubt they cannot grieve for ought in this World wherein they still injoy your favours In the mean time I take this to my self and am most happy in having conferred my dutifull affections upon a man who setteth so high a value upon those things he hath lost For any thing my Lord I perceive there is small difference between good works and the services we offer you they having their rewards both in this life and the other your goodness being illimitable as is the desire I have to tell you I am Your most humble and most faithfull servant BALZAC From Rome the 29. of Decemb. 1621. To the Lord Bishop of Valette from BALZAC LETTER VII MY LORD THough I be not in state either to perform any great exploit upon the person of any man nor have any great force to defend my self yet cannot I touch upon the Count Mansfield without taking it to heart and joyning my good affections to the Kings forces If this were the first time the Germans had exceeded their limits and sent their Armies to be overthrown in France the novelty of these Barbarous faces and of those great lubberly swat-rutters might easily have affrighted us But upon the matter we have to do with known enemies and who will suffer us to take so sufficient advantages over them besides those we naturally injoy as without being forced to make use of Arms we may defeat them onely by their own evil conduct I do not wonder there are men who willingly forsake Frost and Snow to seek their living under a more pleasing and temperate climate than their own and who quit bad Countreys as being well assured the place of their banishment shall be more blissefull unto them than that of their birth Onely herein it vexeth me in the behalf of the Kings honour to see him constrained to finish the remainder of the Emperours victories upon a sort of beaten Souldiers and who rather fly the fury of Marques Spinola than follow us These great Bulwarks whose neighbour I am seeming rather the Fabricks of Gyants than the fortifications of a Garrison-Town will not ever be looked upon with amazement one day I hope there will appear nothing in their places but Cabbins for poor Fishermen or if it be requisite the works of Rebellion should still remain and the memory of these troublesome people indure yet longer we shall in the upshot see them remove Mountains and dive into the Earths foundations to provide themselves a Prison at their own charge But withall my Lord I beseech you let there be no further speech made of occasions or expeditions and let a Peace be concluded which may continue till the Worlds end let us leave the War to the Turk and King of Persia and cause I beseech you that we may lose the memorie of these miserable times wherein Fathers succeed their Children and wherein France is more the Countrey of Lans â—â—ghts and Swisses than ours Though Peace did not turn the very Desarrs into profitable dwellings as it doth or caused not the quarries or flints to become fruitfull though it came unaccompanied without being seconded with security and plenty yet were it necessary onely to refresh our forces thereby to enable us the longer to endure War As I was ending this last word I heard
number doth so multiply in France it is almost arrived to an infinity These have not one half hours intertainment for thee without telling thee the King is raising puissant forces how such a one is out of credit with his faction another is a great searcher into and medler in State-matters and how a third diveth into all the intricacies of Court-businesses If you can have the patience to bear them yet a while longer you shall strait understand how the President Jannin was the man who had the truest intentions of all the Ministers of Justice That it is expedient to shew a Master-piece of State to give reputation to the present current of affairs That the Kings Authority was interessed in this action and that those who sought to cry down the present government rather aimed at their particular advantages then redress of disorders See here the stile wherewith they persecute me even to my poor Viâ—lage and which is a cause I loath State and publick affairs Tire 〈◊〉 therefore my cars at thine arrival lest you turn mine adversary with intention to assault me with these huge words If you know not that theâ—e follies have not always the same aspect and that theâ—e are as well serious follies as slight ones I would admonish thee in this place Now though a men at twenty can have no great experience of the World yet have you a sufficient clear judgement to keep your self from being deluded by the appearance of good or by the outward luster of evil I had need of more time then the bearer allows me and of more words then a Letter is capeable of sufficiently to instruct thee what thou oughtest to do and what to avoid or to learn thee a Science wherein my self do study in teaching thee I will therefore onely say since I am hastned to make an end that before all other things thou art to offer thy whole will to God if thou beest not able to give the rest and to have at least good designs if it be not as yet in thy power to do any good deeds I well know it is no slender task to undertake to guard our selves from evil where inticements are extraordinary and the danger extream and where thou wilt tell me that if God will hinder thee from loving beauty he had need make thee blinde I having no pleasing answer to make thee hereto my dear Hydaspe I refer thee to thy Confessor intreating thee to consider how if the King in the flower of his age wherein we see him and in the midst of an infinity of objects offering themselves to give him content is yet notwithstanding so firm in the resolution to virtue that he as easily surmounteth all voluptuous irregularities as he doth his most violent rebels and is not any way acquainted with forbidden pleasures nor doth glut himself even with lawfull ones If as I say this truth be generally avowed I beseech thee tell me why continency may not be placed among things possible But I much fear there is no means to gain this for granted at thy hands since thou believest as others do that to be chaste were no less then to usurp upon the possession of married wives Yet at the least Hydaspe if this body of thine being of sufficient ability to send Collonies into each corner of the World and to people the most desart places will needs be imployed I intreat thee to stay there without being transported with the debauches of the mouth which have no other limits then the loss of reason and ruine of health I should be in utter despair were it told me that my brother drinks as much as though he were in a continual Feaver and were as great a purveyer for his panch as if he were to enter into a besieged Citty I confess thy inclination doth of it self sufficiently divert thee from these Germain virtues and that thou art not much less sober than my felf who have passed over three years without suppers and who would willingly feed onely upon Fennill and pick-tooths if I thought I could thereby recover health Yet truely this doth not hinder me from haveing some apprehension when I consider how the examples of great ones doth often give Authority to vice and that to keep our selves upright in the midst of corruption is not an effect of the ordinary force of men Consider then once again Hydasp that we are powerfully to resist temptations Have an eye to the interest thou hast to contain thy self within the limits of an orderly life and be well advised whether thou couldst be contented to be of the proportion of those good fellows whose spirits are choaked in their own grease and who become such comely creatures that if their bodies were pierced there would nothing pass forth of their wounds but Wine and Porridge Besides â—aking profession as thou dost to be a man of thy word be not offended 〈◊〉 I summon thee to observe what thou hast promised me or that I â—â—â—ly tell thee that if thou fallest again to the old game I shall have 〈◊〉 subject to assure my self of thy fidelity in other thy former proâ—â—â—â—s Were thou the King of the Indies or thy life endless I would not â—â—rbid thee this exercise but since we have scarce leasure enough in 〈◊〉 World to attain virtue nor over great possessions to secure us from â—â—â—verty believe me Hydasp it is very dangerous to suffer ship-wrack on 〈◊〉 and besides the expence of money which we esteem as dear 〈◊〉 â—s as life to lose our sences likewise and our time the last whereâ—â—â—â—â—â—recoverable is both shamefull and sinfull Having here admoâ—â—â—â— thee well near though confusedly and scatteredly of those things 〈◊〉 â—â—ghtest to flie it were requisite I should likewise advise thee of 〈…〉 fit for thee to follow and to cause if I could good laws to 〈…〉 â—â—vil manners But it is fit to take time to deliberate upon a 〈◊〉 of such importance and truely to speak herein to purpose all the wit I have joyned with that of others were no more than sufficient Yours BALZAC The 1. of Jan. 1624. To Hydasp from BALZAC LETTER IV. MY dear Hidasp if God had conferred a Kingdom upon me with condition not to have me sleep more than I do I should prove the most vigilant Prince living nor should I need either Guards or Sentinels about my person Surely there is not any my self excepted for whom night was not made since when the windes are calm and all nature quiet I alone watch with the Stars But I much fear lest God will not be satisfied herewith since I fore-see so many miseries ready to rowl upon me as I have no small apprehension to become more wretched to morrow than I am at this present The onely countenance of Hydasp would refresh me and cause my pain to be in some sort pleasing But since there are now at least a dozen great Cities and a hundred leagues of Snow between us I have
composed of Christal or as if I were some necessary matter for the good of all men Yet my Lord you have so great power over me that I will strain my self to shew my obedience and to give you an account of my leasure since you please to think I ought not to deprive the World thereof It is better to utter glorious dreams than to labour in gross designs and there are certain Acts of the spirit so excellent that Princes are too poor and their power too slender to afford them their full merit But my Lord you have often given so great testimonies of me that if I should not have some presumption it were fit I lost my memory wherefore out of the assurance you give me that my Stile doth not stray from that perfection which men imagine but never saw nor have attained unto I will enter upon a design which shall amaze our vulgar wits and cause those who have hitherto supposed they surmount others to see I have found what they seek for Whatsoever I do I will at least have you at all times present to my thoughts thereby to oblige my self not to come short before so great an example nor will I forget the place where at this present I am to the end not to omit any thing worthy the Ancient Rome It is impossible at once to have so glorious objects and degenerous thoughts or not to be transported with all those Triumphs of times past and with the glory of our age But this is not the place where I intend to speak it being of too small extent to receive so illimitable a subject It shall therefore suffice in conclusion of this my Letter to tell you that since upon your advice all posterity dependeth and the whole Court expecteth from you what they are or are not to believe I cannot chuse my Lord but to esteem my self right happy even amidst my greatest miseries if you still continue unto me your equal Judgement with the honour of your favours BALZAC From Rome this 10. of April 1623. To the Lord Cardinal of Richelieu from Monsieur Balzac LETTER V. My Lord MY purpose was at my arrival in France to have presented my Service unto you in the place of your Residence that I might have had the honour to see you but my health having not been such as to afford me the free disposition of my self I am forced to defer my contentment in that kinde and to intreat to hear some news from you till I be able to go to understand them from your Self In the interim the better to chear my Spirits I will believe they are as good as I wish them and will imagine this Collick of yours whereof I had so great apprehension shall be drowned in the fountain of Pougues This truly is so generally desired and sought for at Gods hands by so many mouths that I am confident he will not in this point leave the felicity he hath prepared for our times unperfect and that he loveth the World too well to deprive it of the good you are to Perform Armies being defeated new forces may be set on foot and a second Fleet may be rigged after the first perish But if we should want your Lordship the World would not last long enough to be able to repair such a loss And the King might have just cause to bewail the same in the midst of his greatest Triumphs He hath indeed an inexhaustable Kingdom of men The Wars do daily afford him Captains The number of Judges is not much inferiour to that of Criminals It is onely of wise men and such as are capable to guide the Stern of States whereof the scarcity is great and without flattery to finde out your Equal herein all Nature had need put it self into Action and that God long promised the same to mankind before he be pleased to produce him I say nothing my Lord I am not ready to swear in verification of my belief or which I confirm not by the Testimony of your very Enemies The authority of Kings is not so Sovereign as that is you exercise over the Souls of such as hearken unto you Your spirit is right powerfull and daily imployed in great affairs and which refresheth it self in agitation of ordinary occurrents You are destinated to fill the place of that Cardinal which at this present maketh one of the beautifull parties of heaven and who hath hitherto had no Successour though he have had Heirs and Brothers This being thus who will doubt that publick Prayers are to be offered for so precious and necessary a health as yours or that your life ought to be dear unto you within you are to conserve the glory of our age As for me my Lord who am assaulted on all sides and to whom nothing is remaining save hope being the onely benefit of those who are deprived of all others since my misfortune will needs make me that publick sacrifice which is to be charged with the pains of all the people and pay for all the World I could be well content you should send me your Collick and that it come to accompany the Feaver the Scyatica and the Stone Since of so many diseases there can but one Death be composed Nor is it time any longer to be a good husband of what is already lost But I will not enter further into this discourse whereof I shall finde no end and it were to small purpose to tell you he is the most wretched man in the World who so much honoureth you for fear you should reject my affection as some fatal thing and least it avail me not at all to protest that I am my Lord Your most humble and most obedient Servant BALZAC Septemb. 4. 1622. To the Lord Cardinal of Richelieu LETTER VI. MY LORD AFter the sealing of these presents a messenger passed by this place by whom I understand that the Pope hath created you a Cardinal I make no question but you received this news as a matter indifferent unto you and that your spirit being raised above the things of this World you behold them with one and the same Aspect Yet since herein the publick good meeteth with your particular interest and that for your sake the Church rejoyceth even in all the most irksome Prisons of Europe it is not reasonable you should deprive your self of a contentment no less chast than those heaven it self affordeth us and which proceedeth from the same cause All good men my Lord ought in these times to desire great Dignities as necessary means to undertake great matters If they do otherwise besides that God will demand a strict account from them of those his graces whereof they have made no good use the World hath likewise just subject of complaint seeing them abandon it as a prey to the wicked and that their desire of ease causeth them to forsake the publick good This my Lord is to let you know you are to reserve your
of his writing as I should look upon a piece of Ebone that were well wrought and polished This hath been ever my opinion of him As the beauties of Africa do not therefore leave to be Amiable because they are not like to ours and as Sophonisbe would have carried the prize from many Italian faces so the wits of the same Countrey do not leave to please though their eloquence be a forreiner and for my part I prefer this man before many that take upon them to be imitators of Cicero Let it be granted to delicate ears that his stile is of Iron but then let it be granted also that of this Iron many excellent Armours have been forged that with it he hath defended the honour and innocency of Christianity with it he hath put the Valentinians to flight and hath pierced the very heart of Marcion You see I want not much of declaiming in his praise but to avoid this inconvenience I think best to break off abruptly I am neither good at making Orations nor at venting of Complements I am a bad Advocate and as bad a Courtier yet I entreat you to believe that I very truely am Sir Your c. To Mounsieur du Moulin LETTER III. SIR no modesty is able to resist the praises that come from you And I vow unto you I took a pleasure to suffer my self to be corrupted with the first lines of your Letter But it must be one that knows himself less then I do that dwels long in this errour After a pleasing dream one is willing to awake and I see well enough that when you speak so much in the praise of my work you make not use of the whole integrity of your judgement You do me a favour I cannot say you do me justice you seem to have a will to oblige me to you by hazarding to incurre the displeasure of truth Now that you are your self at the Goal you encourage with all your forces those that are in the race and to perswade them to follow you make them believe they shall go beyond you An admirable trick of Art I must confess and which at first I did not discover But whatsoever it be and from what ground soever this wonderfull commendation of yours proceeds I esteem it not less than an ambitious man doth a Crown and without piercing into your purpose I take a joy in my good fortune which is not small Sir to be loved of you whom I have alwayes exceedingly esteemed and whom I have a long time looked upon in the Huguenot party as an excellent Pylot that affronts a great Fleet being himself but in Pinnace The right and authority is on our side the plots and Stratagems on yours and you seem not less confident in your courage than we in our cause It is certain that this is the way to give a sedition the shew of a just War and to a multitude of mutiners the face of a well ordered Army By this you keep many in a good opinion of that which hath now lost the attractive grace of Novelty and though it be now bending to its declination yet it cannot be denied but that it holds still some colour and some apparance by the Varnish of your writings and that never man hath more subtilly covered his cause from shew of weakness nor more strongly upheld his side from ruine than your self Si Pergama Dextra Defendi possent etiam hac Defensa fuissent This is my ordinary language when it comes in my way to speak of you I am not of the passionate humour of the vulgar which blancheth the liberty of their judgement and findes never any fault in their own side nor virtue in the opposite For my self from what cloud soever the day break I account it fair and assure my self that at Rome honest men commended Hannibal and none but Porters and base people spake basely of him It is indeed a kinde of sacriledge to devest any man whatsoever he be of the gifts of God and if I should not acknowledge that you have received much I should be injurious to him that hath given you much and in a different cause wrong an indifferent Benefactour It is true I have not alwayes flattered the ill disposed French and was put in some choler against the Authors of our last broils but observing in your writings that our Tenets are alike and that the subjection due to Princes is a part of the Religion you profess I have thought I might well speak by your consent as much as I said and in so doing be but your Interpreter Whether the tempest rise from the Northern winde or from the Southern it is to me equally unpleasing and in that which concerns my duty I neither take Counsel from England nor yet from Spain My humour is not to wrestle with the time and to make my self an Antagonist of the present it is pain enough for me onely to conceive the Idea of Cato and Cassius and being to live under the command of another I finde no virtue more fitting than obedience If I were a Switzer I would think it honour enough to be the Kings Gossip and would not be his subject nor change my liberty for the best Master in the World but since it hath pleased God to have me born in chains I bear them willingly and finding them neither cumbersom nor heavy I see no cause I should break my teeth in seeking to break them It is a great argument that Heaven approves that government which hath continued its succession now a dozen ages an evil that should last so long might in some sort seem to be made Legitimate and if the age of men be venerable certainly that of states ought to be holy These great spirits which I speak of in my work and which have been of your party should have come in the beginning of the World to have given Laws to new people and to have setled an establishment in the politick estate but as it is necessary to invent good Laws so certainly it is dangerous to change even those that are bad These are the most cruel thoughts that I entertain against the heads of your party in this sort I handle the adverse side and take no pleasure to insult upon your miseries as you seem civilly to charge me who have written that the King should be applauded of all the World if after he hath beaten down the pride of the Rebels he would not tread upon the calamity of the afflicted The persecutors of those who submit themselves are to me in equal execration with the violatours of Sepulchers and I have not onely pitty of their affliction but in some sort reverence I know that places strucken with lightning have sometimes been held Sacred The finger of God hath been respected in them whom it hath touched and great adversities have sometimes rather given a Religious respect than received a reproach But thus to speak of the good success of the
then to be despaired of when they throw their Medicines on the ground and account of Potions as of Poysonings It is not therefore our fault if they be not cured we have active power enough to work but it must be upon a matter that is apt disposed I expect hereupon a Decree from your politicks and remain Your c. At Balzac 1 July 1635. To Monsieur D'Espernon Marshall of the Kings Armies LETTER XLVI SIR my complements are very rare and I take no great care for preserving your friendship I account you so true of your word that I cannot doubt of having your love seeing you have done me the honour to let me have your promise It is to no purpose to solicite Judges that cannot be corrupted it is enough for procuring their favour that the cause be good You see therefore I doe not much trouble my selfe to commend mine unto you and I present my selfe so seldome before you that if you had not an excellent memory you had certainly forgot me long ago I pray you not to do me good offices for knowing that you let slip no occasion of doing good I may be sure to have my part of your good deeds though you have none of my prayers Your new Acquests at the Court make you not leave that you have on this side the Loyre your friends that are alwayes with you take not up all your heart there is some place left for your friends farther off of which number I am one and more in love Sir with the contemplative life than ever I am alwayes under ground and buried with my trees and they must be very strong cords and very violent commandements that should remove me yet I am contented to give my thoughts a liberty and my spirit is often in the place where you are and my absence is not so idly bestowed but that I can make you a reckoning of it I speak to you in this manner because I know you are no hater of delightfull knowledges and have an excellent taste to judge of things Though by profession you be a Souldier yet I refuse you not for a Judge in our peacable difference being well assured there are not many Doctours more accomplisht or of a sounder judgâ—ment than your selfe This quality is no opposite to true valour the Romanes whose discipline you seek to reestablish used to lead with them the Muses to War and in the tumult of their Armies left alwayes place for these quiet excercises Brutus read Polybius the night before the battell at Phlilippi and his Uncle was at his book he very houre before he meant to die Never therefore fear doing ill when you follow the example of such excellâ—nt Authors none will ever blame you for imitating the Romanes unless perhaps the Crabates or other Enemies as well of Humanity as of France But to be thus blamed by Barbarians is an infallible mark of merit for they know no points of vertue but such as are wild savage and imagine that roaring and being furious are far more noble things than speaking and reasoning I leave them to their goodly imaginations and come to tell you that though you Letter to my Sister be dated from the Army in Germany yet it is eloquent enough to come from the Academy of M. the Cardinall it neither smells of Gunpowder nor of Le pais de adieu pas I know by certaine marks I have observed in it that your Books are part of your Bâ—ggage and I finde nothing in it that is worthy of blame but onely the excessive praises you bestow upon me and if you were not a stout champion and able to maintain it with your sword you would certainely ere this have had the lie given you a thousand times for praising me so I should be very sorry to be a cause of so many petty quarrells and so unworthy of your courage a Forraign war hath need of your spirit make not therefore any Civil for my sake I desire no such violent proofs of your affection it serves my turn that you love me quietly and if you so please secretly too to the end that our friendship being hidden may lie in covert from injuries and that possessing it without pomp I may enjoy it without envy I reckon it alwayes amongst my solidest goods and will be sure never to lose it if perfect faithfulness will serve to keep it and if it will suffice to be as I most passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 4 Jan. 1635. To Monsieur de Reussines LETTER XLV MY deare Brother I have upon this last occasion received nothing from you but the offices I expected I know you to be jusâ— and generous and one that will alwayes religiously pay whatsoéver you owe either to bloud or friendship yet this hinders me not from being obliged to you and to your good Birth for it This hath bestowed a friend upon me which I never took pains either to look out or to make it is a present of Nature which I should have taken if she had given me my choyce I desire you to believe that I never stood lesse in neede of comfort than now I oppose nothing against the rage of a thousand adversaries but my scorn I am Armor of proof against all the tales from the Suburbs St. Honoré and from all the Libells of the street St. Iaques They increase daily in sight and if the heat of their spirits do not abate there will shortly be a little Library of follies written against me But you never yet heard of such a gravity as I have nor of a mind that could take such rest in the midst of storms and tempests as I do and this I owe to Philosophy under whose covert I shelter my self it is not only higher than mountains where we see it rain and hail below us but it is stronger also than a Fortress where we may stand out of danger make mouths at our enemies All that hurts me in the warre of is that which concernes the interest of others it grieves me extreamly that his cruelty should leave me and fall upon my friends I wish I could have bought out the three lives that touch the honour of with a third Volumn of injuries done to my selfe and where no body else should have any part and I may truly say that this is the onely blow which that perfidious enemy hath given me that goes to my heart and the onely of all his offences that I have felt I intreat you to let my friend know of my grief and to make sure unto me this rare personage by all the cares and good offices your courtesie can devise His vertue ought to be inviolable to detraction but detraction will not spare vertue it selfe but takes a delight in violating the best things I have reason to place him in this rank and considering him as one of the most accomplisht works of Nature I must needes consider withall that Nature it selfe is
LETTERS OF Mounsieur de BALZAC 1.2.3 and 4th parts Translated out of French into English BY Sr RICHARD BAKER Knight and others Now collected into one Volume with a methodicall table of all the letters LONDON Printed for John Williams and Francis Eaglesfield At the Crown and Marigold in S. Pauls Churchyard 1654. LETTERS OF Mounseur de BALZAC Translated into English by Sr. RICHARD BAKER and others LONDON Printed for John Williams and Francis Eâ—glesfeild at the Crown and Marigold in St. Pauls Church-yard 1655. To the Honourable the Lord OF NEVVBURGE ONE OF HIS MAJESTIES most honourable Privie Councell and Chancellour of the Dutchy of Lancaster MY Lord I may perhaps be thought besides the boldnesse to be guilty of absurdity in offering a Translation to him who so exactly understandeth the Originall one who if he had a mind to see how it would look in English were able to set a much fairer gloss upon it then I have done yet my Lord this absurdity may have a good colour for it may not be unpleasing to you to see your own perfection in the glasse of anothers imperfection seeing even the best Diamonds seem to take a pleasure in having of foiles Besides I have my choice of another colour for being to to passe a world of hazard in the censure of the world I am willing to passe the pikes at first and account this done having once passed yours And towards it my Lord I have two comforts one for the Reader that the Authours gold is so much over weight that though much be lost in the melting yet it holds out weight enough still to make it currant the other for myself that by this meanes I may have a testimony remaining in the world how much I honour you and in how high a degree I most affectionately am Your Lordships humble Servant RICHARD BAKER TO THE LORD CARDINALL OF RICHELIEV My LORD I Here present you Mounsieur Balzac's Letters which may well be termed new ones even after the eighth Edition for though they have long since been in possession of publick favour yet I may justly say this is the first time their Authour hath avouched them The advantagious Judgement you have delivered of him and the ardor wherewith all France hath followed your approbation well deserveth his best endeavours toward the perfectionating so excellent things I have been solicitous to draw him to this labour to the end the world might know that if I be not worthy the share I have in his respects yet that I have at least been wise enough to make right use of my good fortune and to cause it to become serviceable to the glory of my Countrey But truly were he master of his body or did his maladies afford him liberty of spirit he would not suffer any but himself to speak in this cause and his pen performing no slight acts would have consecrated his own labours and the wonders they have produced But since evils have no prefixed time of durance and in that all the good interims which hereafter may befall him are wholly to be imployed in his Book The Prince I esteemed it to small purpose to attend his health in this businesse and that it was now no longer any time to deferre the purging of these curious Letters from such blemishes as ill impressions had left upon them They shall therefore non appear in the parity wherein they were conceived and with all their naturall ornaments Besides I have added divers letters of his not as yet come to light which may serve as a subject of greater satisfaction to all men and be as a recompense of the honour wherewith he hath collected the former And truly my Lord had it been possible to place in the Frontispiece of this Book a more illustrous name then yours or should Mounsieur de Balzac's inclination and mine have been farre from any such intention yet would not the order of things or the law of decency have permitted any other reflection then what I now make I speak not at this present of that dazeling greatnesse whereunto you are elevated nor of that so rare and necessary vertue which rightly to recognize the greatest King on earth hath esteemed himself not to be over able I will only say I had reason to submit an eloquence produced in the shade and formed in solitarinesse to this other eloquence quickned both with voice and action causing you to reign in sovereignity at all assemblies Certainly my Lord you are more powerfull by this incomparable quality then by the authority wherein the King hath placed you The only accent of your voice hath a hidden property to charm all such as hearken unto you none can be possessed with any so wilfull passions who will not be appeased by the reasons you propound and after you have spoken you will at all times remain master of that part of man no way subject to the worlds order and which hath not any dependency upon lawfull power or tyrannicall usurpation This is a truth my Lord as well known as your name and which you so solidly confirmed at the last assembly of the Notables as that in the great diversity of humours and judgements whereof it was composed there was peradventure this only point well resolved on That you are the most eloquent man living This being true I can no way doubt but the perusall of this Book I offer unto you will extraordinarily content you and that you will be pleased to retire thither sometimes to recreate your spirits after agitation and to suspend those great thoughts who have for their object the good of all Europe It is a book my Lord wherein you shall find no common thing but the Title where entertaining some particular person Mounsieur de Balzac reades Lessons to all men and where amidst the beauty of Complements and dexterity of Jeasting he often teacheth of the most sublime point of Philosophy I mean not that wrangling part thereof which rejecteth necessary verities to seek after unprofitable ones which cannot exercise the understanding without provoking passions nor speak of moderation without distemper and putting the soul into disorder But of that whereby Pericles heretofore made himself master of Athens and wherewith Epaminondas raised himself to the prime place of Greece which tempereth the manners of particulars regulateth the obligation of Princes and necessarily bringeth with it the felicity of all States where they command This book will make it apparent even to your enemies that your life hath been at all times equally admirable though not alwayes alike glorious How you have conserved the opinion of your vertue even in the time of your hardest fortunes and how in the greatest fury of the tempest and in the most extreme violence of your affairs the integrity of your actions hath never been reduced to the only testimony of your conscience To conclude It is in this Book my Lord where I suppose you will be pleased to read the
For my part I am far from thinking I have totally lost your favours left I should wrong your judgement which conferred them upon me and blame the best eys in the World for having heretofore been blinde I will rather suppose if you send me no news it is because you think I know what will be done some ten years hence and that I am brimfull of the Roman Court and of the Italian affairs Truely I know the present Pope and I have ever believed there is not any humane wit more capable to carry so ponderous a felicity or to let us again behold the primitive beauty of religion and the golden age of Gods Church I know how at Rome idleness is day and night in action and that the complements and ceremonies there put you to more trouble then you should finde in governing the whole World if God had less it to your conduct Me thinks I yet see this great Tyrant with so many heads I mean the Signoury of Venice together with all those petty Soveraigns who would hazard more men in hanging one single person then the King would venture in two battails or at the taking in of four Cities But my Lord all this with the rest doth but slightly touch my spirit and as you are the sole worldly cause which affoordeth me either joy or discomfort so it is from you onely I expect good or ill news I have made your affection in such sort necessary for my lifes contentment that without it I should finde defects even in felicity it self and should have an imperfect feeling of the most happy successes could befall me Restore therefore if so you please or continue this your ancient favour towards me which I cannot possibly forbear And since you are part of that body to which God hath given infalibility and snce it is forbidden to call the certainty of your wisdom into the least question condemn not I beseech you what you have formerly made as though your Italian favours were some other things then your French ones Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC The 10. of Decemb 1623. Balzac his Letter to Mounsieur du Planty LETTER XII SIR SInce you cannot be here till after the Feast and for that I presume you have no purpose to oppose the Election of the Pope being cannonically chosen I will advise you to stay your journey till the Spring be past and the Snows melted yet truely you are in such esteem here as if you come not the sooner I verily think you will be sent for and and that the Court of Rome will commence suite with the Loover to have my Lord the Cardinals presence It is therefore fitting if so he please that he undertake this voyage and put of State business and the War to others to live here in the midst of Glorie and Triumphs In the mean time I may so near as I can inform my self both of men and affairs thereby to give you the better instructions at your coming Now to the end to affoord you a taste of what I know observe what I say for I will tell you strange things There is a certain great man here who entertaineth six Astrologers in Pension to let him understand from time to time who shall be Pope Another takes large fees on both sides finding it the onely way to bring his Clients to composition A third hath the most extravagant virtue you ever heard of he leads a far more plesant life then the Duke of Ossuna and having read in holy Writ how the wisdom of the World is folly in Gods sight he imagines he should offend his conscience if he were over wise Here are Princes in this place who in full peace pardon neither Age nor Sex There are others who keep their beds though they be well able to ride post and who use all Physick possible to look pale to be feaverish and full of Cathars and who make use of all the secrets in Physick to have a megar aspect In conclusion the highest place in this World is that whether the more easily to arrive it is necessary to be lame and take short steps so as a sound Pope is commonly made out of a sickly Cardinal At our next meeting I will inform you of the rest and will in one half hour infuse into you all the experience I have hitherto gotten But if I have not this contentment so soon as I desire fail not I pray you to let me here news of your health and the rest of our good friends But especially I beseech you to assure Mounsieur de Mauroy that I am passionatly his servant and that I finde here much subtility and dissimulation but not many so pure and true virtues as his are BALZAC From Rome 10. of February 1621. A Letter to Mounsieur de la Magdelene from BALZAC LETTER XIII SIR I Am extreamly glad you are not of the number of those whom the King hath lost before S. John d' Angely Conserve your self therefore so far forth as your Honour and Courage will suffer or permit and content your self to have tasted what War is which if you please to be advised by me you should do well never more to behold but with Flanders spectacles You are bound to execute good Actions but you are to perform many and permanently and to be a better husband of a worthy mans life than that of an ordinary Souldier of the Guards At leastwise so long as you continue at the assembly of the Clergy you shall be serviceable to the Church at your own ease and there shall commonly be ten days journey between you and danger Though I were not any more of this World then those who lived before the late King or who are to come into the World after the decease of this yet should I not fear to hazard my self in this sort and to keep all my bloud for the Publick as readily as the most valiant Jesuite of France It is in this sort I have learned to speak in this Court where honest men are so wedded to their particular interests and do so little reflect upon the general affairs as they think there is nothing beyond the tips of their upmost hairs suppose the World endeth at their feet The C. I. dreams of no other thing but how to fortifie himself with men and mony against the C. B. whom he taketh for the Turk an Heretick And say what you will the fifty Abbies he hath gotten in one year is that portion of the Church which pleaseth him better then all the rest Behold in what terms we stand at this present instead of procuring the conversion of Nations and to seek the means to set the Levant at liberty a P. thinks he hath worthily acquitted himself of his charge so long as he provides to make his Nephew a greater man then his Predecessours was But that I fear lest my zeal should over-far transport me or that you should become
thereof assure your self that it is in this Countrey where felicity doth attend you and that being once in this place you will esteem all those as banished persons whom you have left behinde you in France BALZAC The 25. of December 1621. To the Count of Schomberg from BALZAC LETTER XXIV My LORD I Send you the papers you have formerly seen and whereto you have attributed so much as I should be ashamed to assent thereto were it not that I hold it less presumption to believe I have merited the same then to imagine I can have a flatterer of your fashion I had need be elevated to a more soveraign fortune then the state of Kings to expect complacency from a man who could never be procured to approve evil and of whose disfavour one can hardly finde other cause then the onely truth he hath declared Howsoever it be since you are now in Lymosin and take not any journey in those parts without having a thousand old debates to reconcile and as many new ones to prevent it is very propable that after so painfull an imployment and so great disquiet of minde my book will fall into your hands just at such time as you cannot finde any thing more tedious unto you then what you come from treating of For should I presume that in your pleasant walks of Duretal where all your minutes are pleasing and all your hours precious there could be any time spare for me and my works it were as much as to be ignorant of the diversions there attending you or not to be acquainted with the great affluence of noble company daily repairing thither to visite you But were it so that you had none with you save onely the memory of your fore-passed actions your solitariness hath no need of books to make it more pleasing nay if all this were not yet if you desire to seek contentment out of your self you cannot finde any more pleasing then in the presence of your Children and particularly of that Divine daughter of yours from whom I daily learn some miracle It is therefore in her absence and in solitary walks where I have the ambition to finde entertainment and to receive gracious acceptance In all other places without presuming either to pass for Oratour or Poet it shall highly suffice me in being honoured with the assurance that I am My Lord Your most humble servant BALZAC The 25. of May 1624. A Letter from the Count of Schomberg to Mounsieur de BALZAC LETTER XXV SIR THe stile you travail in causeth the Pens of all such who attempt an answer to fall out of their hands and Eloquence may so properly be called yours that it is no marvel though others have but a small share therein I would therefore have you know that if I understand any thing in Letters yours do obscure whatsoever hath hitherto been esteemed of in our Language and that without flattering you there can be no diversion so pleasing which ought not to give place to the perusing of those Lines you sent me This occupation is worthy the Cabinets of Kings and of the richest Eare curtins of France and not as you would have it of my solitarie retirements in Lymosin from whence I am ready to be gone with resolution never to retire from the affection I have promised you whence you shall at all times draw effectual proofs whensoever you please to imploy them for your service Sir Your most affectionate servant SCHOMBERG The 1. of June 1624. The Letters of MOUNSIEUR de BALZAC The fourth Book To my Lord Mashall of Schomberg LETTER I. My Lord I Should be insensible of publick good and an enemy to France had I not as I ought a true taste of the good news your Foot-man brought me I will not mention the Obligations I owe you being no small ones if that be not a slight matter to be esteemed by you But since I make profession to honour virtue even in the person of one departed or an enemy and at all times to side with the right were there onely my self and Justice for it you may please to believe I complain in your behalf for the miseries of our times and that I am most joyfull to see you at this present where all the World mist you Certainly your retirement from Court hath been one of the fairest pieces of your life during which you have made it apparent you are the same in both fortunes since I can witness that no one word then passed from you unsuitable to your resolution Yet this rare virtue being there hidden in one of the remote corners of the World having but a very small circuit to dilate it self must necessarily be contented with the satisfaction of your conscience and slender testimonies In the mean time the authority of your enemies hath been obnoxious to all honest eyes There was no means to conceal from strangers the States infirmities or what reason to affoard them for the disgrace of so irreproachable a Minister nor was there any who grieved not that by your absence the King lost so many hours and services For my part my Lord reflecting upon you in that estate it seemed to me I saw Phidias or some other of those ancient Artists their hands bound and their costly materials as Marble Gold or Ivory taken from them But now that better time succeed each thing being again reduced to its place it is time to rejoyce with all good French men that you shall no more want matter and that the King hath at length found how unusefull your absence hath been to his affairs Truely be it that he content himself to govern his people wisely or that the afflictions of his poor Neighbours set near his heart and that his Justice extend further then his Jurisdiction No man doubts whatsoever he doth but you shall be one of the principal instruments of his designs and that as well Peace as War have equal use of your conduct All men have well perceived you have not contributed any thing to the administration of the Kings treasure save onely your pure spirit to wit that part of the Soul separated from the terrestrial part being free from passions which reasoneth without either loving or desiring and that you have managed the Riches of the State with as great fidelity as one ought to govern another mans goods with as much care as you conserve your own and with as great scruple as we ought to touch sacred things But in truth it is no great glory for that man to have been faithfull to his Master who knows not how to deceive any And did I believe you were onely able to abstain from ill I would barely commend in you the Commencements of virtue I therefore pass further and am assured that neither the fear of death which you have slighted in all shapes and under the most dreadfull aspects it could possibly appear nor complacency which often overpasseth the best Counsels to transport it self to
flash which pleaseth instantly as beauty doth and makes things to be lovely before one knows they are good Your words are no way unworthy of your Authour they neither weaken his conceits by stretching them out at length nor scatter the sence by spreading it out in breadth But contrariwise the powerfull spirit which was streightened within the bounds of a concise stile seems to breath at ease in this new liberty and to encrease it self as much as it spreads it self he seems to pass from his fetters into triumph and to go forth of the prisons of Rome where Nero shut him up to enter into a large Kingdom into which you bring him with royal magnificence There are some so curious palats they cannot relish the language of the Son of God and are so impudent as to accuse the holy Scriptures of clownishness and Barbarisme which made Mounsieur who died Archbishop of Benevent that he durst not say his Breviary for fear to mar his good Latin by contagion of the bad and least he should take some tincture of impurity that might corrupt his eloquence I will not speak at this time what I conceive of his scruple onely I say that if in the vulgar Translation there be Barbarism yet you have made it civil and if our good Malherb should come again into the World he would finde nothing in your Paraphrase that were not according to the strictness of his rules and the usage of the Court whereof he spake so often Some other time we will confer about the Preface and the Letters I received which I have in a manner all by heart but especially I have culled out these dear words to print in my memory and to comfort my spirits A little patience will crown you all their throws seem like those of sick men a little before they die in which I think there is neither malice nor force if you can but dispise them Prefer the better side before the greater and the Closet before the Theater Honest persons are for you and I make account you care not much for pleasing others The people have often times left Terence for dancers upon the Rope and banished Philosophers to gratifie Jesters I have nothing to add to this and will take heed how I sow Purple with pack-thâ—ead I content my self Sir at this time to assure you that I passionately am Sir Your c. From Balzac 10. of May 1632. To Mounsieur de Thibaudiere LETTER XXIII SIR I Will not raise to you the price of my tears though I have shed them for you eight dayes together I content my self to tell you that I am now comforted since the news of your death it changed into tidings of your hurt and that I am made assured you may be quitted of it for a little pain and a little patience I know well that virtue is more happily imployed in well using honest pleasures than in patient bearing troublesom crosses and that without an absolute distemper in the taste one can never finde any sweetness in pain yet you shall confess unto me that there is a kinde of contentment in being lamented and though the joyes of the minde be not so sensible as those of the body yet they are more delicate and more subtill at least you have come to know of what worth you are by the fear which all honest men were in to lose you and that in a time when half the World is a burthen to the other and every one reserves his lamentation for his own miseries yet all in general have mourned for you in such sort Sir that you have had the pleasure to hear your own Funeral Oration and to enjoy the continuance of a happy life after receiving the honours done to worthy men after death If the War of Italy continue till Winter I will come and learn from your own mouth all the particulars of your adventures and I shall then know if your Philosophy have not been moved and waxed pale at the sight of the Probe and of the Rasour In the mean time do me honour to be mindefull of him who exceedingly honours you and to keep for me that part in your affection which you have promised me since I truely am Sir Your c. At Balzac 29. of July 1630. To Mounsieur Gyrard Secretary to my Lord the Duke de Espernon LETTER XXIV SIR I Had heard that before which you sent me word of by your footman and had rejoyced already for the new Dignity of Mounsieur the President Segnior It seems you think he is made Lord Keeper of the Scales for none but for you and that no Feast for the joy of it should be kept any where but at Cadillac Within these four dayes you shall see it kept all the Countrey over it is a favour the King hath done the whole Realm It is not so much for the purity of the air and for the fruitfulness of the earth that we ought to call it a happy year as for the election of worthy Magistrates I therefore take a joy in this news as I am a subject of the Kings and this is the first Right I claim in it but beyond this I have a second Right of rejoycing in that I am interessed in the advancement of a modesty which I know and make account to be made happy by the prosperity of him of whose honesty I am assured I put not forth this last word at adventure I am ready to make it good against whosoever shall think it rash and I know he hath preservatives against all the poysons of the Court and a judgement that cannot be corrupted with all the bribes of Fortune There is nothing of so high a price for which he would be willing to leave his virtue if he had lived in Neroes time he had been a constant Martyr but living now under a just Prince he will prove a profitable Officer To preserve a life which is to continue but a few dayes he would not obscure that life which ought to last in the memory of many ages and the least spot upon his honour would be more insupportable to him than the effusion of all his bloud He knows that in the administration of Justice being the interpreter of God he cannot work of himself that this Divine Act ought to be a general Suspension from all humane affections and that in the exercise thereof he is no longer at his liberty to shew love or hatred revenge or gentleness He considers that he makes not law but onely declares it that he is a Minister and not a Master of his Authority and that the Soveraignty is in the Law and not in himself This is the reason why in every cause he censures he bethinks himself of his own proper cause which shall one day be censured he so judgeth as if Posterity were to take a review of his judging and as though the present time were but subalternate to the future Thus I have heard him to make
then to be adopted into the family of the Fabians or the Marcelli you shall also hear by him that since your departure from hence you have been I may say solemnly invocated and most honourable commemoration hath been made of you in all our innocent disorderly wakes Our Curate believes verily that your presence hath brought a blessing to the fruits of our Parish and we look for better Harvests then our neighbours who had not the happiness thereof as we had There is therefore just cause that every week we make a feast upon the day of your coming to Balzac Et ut tibi tanquam futuro in posterum loci Genio non uno poculo libetur If this kinde of acknowledgement will content you I shall perfectly acquit my self of performing my duty having learned in Lorrain and the Low Countreys the means of testifying that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 6. of June 1633. Another to him LETTER XXVII SIR THough I know the good deserts of are not unknown unto you and that you need no forraign commendation to increase your respects towards him yet I cannot hold from doing a thing superfluous assure you by these few lines that it will be no blemish to your judgement to let him have your Testimony of his piety Ever since the time he renounced his errour he hath continued firm and stedfast in the doctrine you taught him of an erroneous Christian you made him an Orthodox and your hand is too happy to plant any thing that doth not prosper He is therefore your workmanship in Christ Jesus and otherwise so perfect a friend of mine that I know not if in the order of my affections I ought not to set him in equal rank with my own brother This at least I know that the least of his businesses is the greatest of mine and I will not onely part your savour between him and me but will become your debtour for the whole my self alone I am now polishing those writings which I had condemned but that you asked their pardon and since it is your will they should not perish I revoke my sentence and I am resolved your self shall be the other person of my Dialogue after the example of that Roman you love so well whose books of Philosophy are commonly his conferences with Brutus or other Sages the true and natural judges of such matters yet Sir it is impossible for me to dissemble any longer a grief I have at my heart and to end my Letter without letting you see a little cut you have given me there you made me a promise to come back by Balzac and now you have taken another way Thus the wise men of the East dealt with Herod yet I am neither Tyrant nor enemy to the Son of God This kinde of proceeding is far unlike the Belgick sincerity and it is not fit for Saints to mock poor sinners But how unkindely soever you deal with me I can never turn Apostara and should you prove more cruel I should yet never be Sir But your c. From Balzac 15. Octob. 1633. To LETTER XXVIII SIR SInce you have taken pleasure in obliging me I will not have you have the grief to lose your Obligation nor that my incompetent acknowledgement should make you have the less stomack for doing good I know your goodness is clear and free from all forraign respects and hath no motive but it self it is not at any mans prayers that the Sun riseth neither doth he shine the more for any mans thanks your courtesies are of like condition Your favours have not been procured by my making suit and as of my part nothing hath gone before the kindenesses I have received so on your part I assure my self you expect not that any thing should follow them yet something must be done for examples sake and not to give this colour for shewing little courtesie to such as complain that men are ungratefull The place where you are is full or such people all commerces are but Amusements and to make men believe the whole World is given to deceive and it is a great merit in you that you can follow so forlorn and solitary a thing as truth is in a Countrey where Divines maintain her but weakly and where she dares scarce be seen in a Pulpit doth it not shew an extraordinary courage to take upon him to distribute her amongst the pretenders and that in open Theater It is no mean hardiness to be good at the Court to condemn false Maxims where they have made a Sect and where they have gotten the force of Laws I have been assured you make profession of this difficult virtue and that in the greatest heat of calumny and the coldest assistance that ever a poor innocent had you have been passionately affected in my behalf being altogether unknown unto you but by the onely reputation of my ill fortune and even at this present you are taking care of some affairs of mine which I in a manner had abandoned and upon the report you heard of my negligence you make me offer of your pains and industry The onely using your name were enough for all this I might well spare my own unprofitable indeavours where my negligence being favoured by you shall without all doubt be crowned You have heard speak of that Grecian whom the love of Philosophy made to forget the tilling of his ground and of whom Aristotle said that he was wise but not prudent He found a friend that supplied the defect of his own ill husbandry and repaired the ruins of his house If my estate were like his I should expect from you the like favour but I ask not so much at this time All that I desire now hath promised me a dozen times over and I see no reason to distrust an Oracle He is neither inspired by any false Deity nor hath made me any doubtfull answer to that resisting my self upon this foundation there seems to have been a kinde of Religion in my negligence and I am not altogether in so much blame as would make you think me He is I deny not an Authour worthy to be credited and his testimony ought to be received but yet he hath not the gift of not erring and never believe him more than when he assures you that I am Sir Your c. From Balzac 9. of Febr. 1630. To Mounsieur du Pleix the Kings Historiographer LETTER XXIX Sir Since the time that persecution hath broken out into flames against me I never received more comfortable assistance than from your self and I account your strength so great that I cannot doubt of the goodness of a cause which you approve You were bound by no Obligation to declare your self in my behalf and you might have continued Neutral with decency enough but the nobleness of your minde hath passed over these petty rules of vulgar Prudence and you could not endure to see an honest man oppressed without taking him into your
with magnificence enough and not without bestowing some publike largesse I never knew you go a forraging that you returned not home laden with booty and your Voyages have alwayes enriched your followers I pretend my selfe to have a feeling of this and though farre removed from the place where you act them yet I doe not meane that my absence should cause me to lose my share in the distribution of your good deeds Cease not Sir I entreat you to bind me unto you and to deserve well of our language Fill our Closets with the fruits of your brain and since you can do it make us to gather more sheaves of Corn than the best workmen hitherto have left us eares My devotion stands waiting continually for your Christian workes and I entreat you they may be done in such a volume that we may carry them handsomely with us to Church That which I have seen of them doth so exceedingly please me that I would be a Poet for nothing else but with some indifferent grace to praise them and to say Verses blesse him that makes such blessed Verses If I did not love you well I should envy you the conversation of Monsieur Chaplaine of which in a fortnight I received not one small spark by the ordinary Post Thus I do but taft of that whereof you make full meales yet remember I have as good right in him as your selfe and though I trust you with the keeping him yet I do not quit my part in him To him and you both I am most affectionately Your c. To Monsieur Conrat LETTER V. SIR had undertaken to have answered to every point of your eloquent Letter but when I had spent a whole moneth about it I could not satisfie my selfe with my undertaking That which I had written was not worthy me thought that I should Father it and I began to thinke I should doe you a great courtesie to save you the reading of an ill Oration But seeing of evills the least are the best you shall have cause to be pleased with this complement which will cost you no more but one looke to looke over and never put you to the labour of turning over the leafe I have this onely to say at this time that the report which was spread of my death hath not killed me and that in despight of rumour and mortall Presages I intend to be happy by your meanes and not to forgoe the good fortune presented to me in your person so I call your excellent friendship with which no burden is heavy no calamity dolorous For I know I shall finde in you that ancient generousnesse whereof Monsieur de la Nove and Monsieur de Ferres made profession I account when I discover secrets to you I hide them and shall have no jealousie of my honour when I have put it into your hands In such sort Sir that my soule should be a very hard temper if it did not feele a kind of tickling in so present and great adventages and if I should not most perfectly be as you oblige me to be Your c. To my Lord the Bishop of Nantes LETTER VI. SIR I was upon the point of sending my footman to you when I saw your footman enter my Lodging who brought me news exceeding joyfull and now I depend no longer upon Fortune since another besides her self can make me happy and am so indeed as much as I would wish and should never know the value of your friendship if I made it not the bounds of my ambition To complaine of forturne and to be your favorite are things that imply a mortall contradiction it is an easie matter to comfort a pension ill paid when a man is in possession of store of treasure and having neither the gift of impudency nor of hypocrisie it is not for me to prosper in an age which esteeme them most that are owners of these qualities It is enough for me that M. the Cardinall doth me the honour to wish me well and condemnes not your judgement of me all other disgraces from whence soever they come I am prepared to beare and take for a favour the contempt that is linked to the profession of vertue But it is too much to say of me that which Seneca said to Cato Catonem saeculum suum parùm intellexit These are transcendencies of Mr. de Nantes and impostures of love He stretcheth all objects to infinity and all his comparisons are beyond proportion The Sunne and the Starres are common things with him and he can find noting in Nature godly enough to serve for a similitude of that he loves It is this deceitfull passion hath made you believe that I am of some great worth and that my barren soile is fruitfull in high conceits But Sir I count all this nothing if this love of yours peswade you not to come and stay a while in it and to be mindfull of your word I have put Monsieur in hope hereof and make my selfe sure since you have made me a solemne promise knowing that Truth is resident upon the mouth of Bishops Dixisti venies Grave immutabile sanctis Pondus adest verbis vocem fata sequuntur The Authour of these Verses shall be your fourth suppliant it is one that hath been of your old acquaintance and was accounted the Virgil of his time I make use of him upon this occasion because perhaps you will make more reckoning of him than of mee who yet am more than any man in the World Sir Your c. Another to my Lord Bishop of Nantes LETTER VII SIR I speake Latine but once a yeare and yet as seldome as it is it comes more upon hazard than out of knowledge and holds lesse of learning than of rapture vouchsafe therefore to take it in good part that in my setled braines I answer you in the vulgar Tongue and tell you that never Eares were more attentive nor more prepared to hearing than those of our family when I read your Letter before them they were not satisfied to have onely a litterall interpretation and to make me their Grammarian but I must declaime upon it and make a Paraphrase as large as a Commentary If you will know the successe I can truly say that all the company was well satisfied but I may tell you all that they were ever ravished with admiration of your bounty specially my Niece who in the greatest vanity that sex is capable of never durst imagine she should ever have the honour to be praysed in Latin and should serve for an Argument of commendation to the greatest Doctor of our age Shee saith this is a second obligation you bind her in to make her a Romane after you have made her your daughter and to give her so noble a Country after giving her so worthy a Father And yet to these two favours I can adde a third which she forgot methinkes Sir shee fattens and grows up with these prayses you give her shee
owne sexe and ours too and hath spared nothing to make you compleat the better part of Europe admires you and in this point both Religions are agreed and no contesting between Catholique and Protestant The Popes Nuntio hath presented our beliefe even to your person all perfumed with the complements and civilities of Italie Princes are your Courtiers and Doctors your Schollers and is this Madam that you call to be unfortunate and that which you take for a just cause to complaine I humbly intreat you to speak hereafter in more proper termes and to acknowledge Gods favours in a more gratefull manner I know well that your loyaltie hath suffered by your brothers Rebellion and that in the publike miseries you have had some private loss but so long as you have your noble heart and your excellent spirit left you it is not possible you should be unfortunate for indeed in these two parts the true Madam Desloges is all entire and whole It is I Madam that have just cause to say I am unfortunate who am never without paine never without griefe never without enemies and even at this very time I write from a house of griefe where my mother and my sister being sicke on one hand and my selfe on the other I seeme to be sick of three sicknesses at once yet be not afraid least this I send you should be infectious as though I had a designe to poyson you with my presents for I have not yet medled with any of the Musque fruits which I hope you shall eat I have not durst so much as to come neere them least I should chance to leave some light impression of my Feaver upon them They are originally Natives of Languedoc and not so degenerated from the goodnesse of their auncestors but that you will find them I hope of no unpleasing taste and besides Madam they grow in a soyle that is not hated of Heaven and where I can assure you your Name is so often rehearsed and your vertue so highly esteemed that there is not an Eccho in all our woods but knowes you for one of the perfectest things in the world and that I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 20. Septemb. 1629. To LETTER XXVII MAdam see here the first thankes I give you for you know that having never done me but displeasures I have never yet returned you but complaints but now at last you have been pleased to begin to oblige me and after so many sentences of death which you have pronounced against me and after so many cruelties which I have suffered you have bethought your selfe ten yeares after to send me one good newes which truly is so pleasing to me that I must confesse you had no other way to reconcile your selfe unto me and I cannot forbeare to blesse the hand that brought mee a Letter from Madam Desloges though they were dyed in my bloud and had given me a thousand wounds The sense of former injuries hath no competition with so perfect a joy and of two passions equally just the more violent is easily overcome of the more sweet You have hastened the approach of my old age and made gray one halfe of my haire you have banished mee this Kingdome and forced me to flie your tyranny by flying into another Country finally it is no thanks to you that I have not broken my owne necke and made matter for a Tragedie and yet foure lines of Madam Desloges have the force to blot out all this long story of my mis-fortunes and willingly with all my heart I forget all the displeasures I have received for this good office you now affoord me I make you this discourse in our first language that I may not disobey Monsieur de who will have me write but will not have me write in any other stile for in truth and to speake seriously now that he leaves me at libertie I must confesse unto you Madam that I am exceedingly bound unto you for the continency I have learned by being with you and good examples you have given me your medicines are bitter but they heale you have banished me but it is from prison and if my passions be cooled by the snow of my head I have then never a white hayre which I may not count for one of your favours I therefore recant my former complaints and confesse my selfe your debtour of all my vertue The time I have imployed in your service hath not been so much the season of my disorderd life as it hath been an initiating me into a regular life which I meane to lead Your conversation hath been a schoole of austeritie unto me and you have taught me never to be either yours or any others but only in our Lord Madam Your c. At Balzac 10. Octob. 1629. To Madam Desloges LETTER XXVIII MAdam my evill Fortune gives one common beginning to all my Letters I am impatient even to death to have the honour to come and see you but now that I am well the ayre is sicke and all the Country drowned There is no land to be seene between this and Lymousin and the mischiefe is that there is no navigation yet found out for so dangerous a voyage This bindes me to waite till the waters be fallen and that God be pleased to remember his Covenant with Noah As soone as this shall be I will not fayle to performe my vow and to come and spend with you the happiest day of all my life In the meane time Madam give me leave to tell you that I am not yet well recovered of the extasie you put me in by writing unto me such excellent things that I could not reade them with a quiet minde nor indeeed without a â—inde of jealousie All Frontignon would be sufficiently paid with that you write of a dozen paltry Muske fruits I sent you and you prayse my writtings with words which have no words worthy of them but your own This of one side makes me eâ—vious and of the other side interessed and if the honour I receive by your flattering Eloquence did not sweeten the griefe of being overcome it would trouble me much that I had no better defended the advantages of our sexe but should suffer it to lose an honour which the Greeks and Latines had gotten for it Yet take heed you hazzard not your judgement too freely upon the unce taintie of humane things you esteeme well of a Prince who is not yet borne you should have seene his Horoscope from the poynt of his conception before you should speak of him in so loftie termes But besides that nothing is lesse assured than the future and nothing apter to deceive than hope Consider Madam I beseech you that you favour an unfortunate man and that Faction oftentimes carries it away from truth It will be hard for you your selfe alone to withstand an infinite multitude of passionate men and it may be said to you as was said to those of Sparta upon occasion of
the great Armie of the Parsians that you can never vanquish as long as they can die Herein there is nothing to be feared but for your selfe for as for me I finde in your favour all I seeke for and having you of my side I care not what fame can doe having once your testimony I can easily slight hers and all her tongues put together can never say any thing for me that is worth the least lyne of your delicate Letter It is at this time the delight and joy of my spirit I am more in love with it than ever I was with and if she shew you that which I write to her you shall finâ—e I make not so much reckoning of my ancient mistris as I do of youâ— new messenger and that I desire all the world should know that I perfectly am Madam Your c. At Balzac 13. Octob. 1629. Another to her LETTER XXIX MAdam I will not take upon me to give you thankes for the good cheare you made me for besides that I have none but Country Civilities and when I have once said your humble servant and your servant most humble I am then at the end of my complements and can goe no further It were better yet to let you hold your advantage entire and owe you that still which I can never pay I forbeare to speake of the dainties and abundance of your Table enough to make one far that were in a Consumption nor I speake not of the delicacy of your perfumes in which you laid me to sleep all night to the end that sending up sweet vapours into my braine I might have in my imagination none but pleasing visions But Madam what but Heaven can be compatable to the dainties of your Closet and what can I name to represent sufficiently those pure and spirituall pleasures which I tasted in your Conversation It is not my designe to take idly nor to set my stile upon the high straine you know I am bound to avoyd Hyperboles as Mariners to avoyd Sands and Rockes but this is most true that with all my heart I renounce the world and all its pompes as long as you please to inhabit the Desart and if you once determine to stay there still though I have sent to Paris to hyre me a lodging yet I resolve to breake off the bargaine and meane to build me an Hermitage a hundred paces from your abode from whence Madam I shall easily be able to make two journeys a day to the place where you are and shall yeeld you a subjection and an assiduitie of service as if I were in a manner of your houshold There shall I let nothing fall from your mouth which I shall not carefully gather up and preserve it in my memory There you shall doe me the favour to resolve me when I shall have doubts set me in the right way when I goe astray and when I cannot expresse my selfe in fit termes you shall cleare my clouds and give order to my confusednesse It shall be your eares upon which I will measure the cadences of my sentences and upon the different motions of your eyes I will take notice of the strength or weaknesse of my writings In the heare of the travaile and amidst the joyes of a mother that lookes to be happily delivered I will expose the Infant to the light of your jugement to be tryed and not hold him for legitimate till you approve him Sometimes Madam we will reade your Newes and the divers Relations that are sent you from parts of Christendome Publike miseries shall passe before our eyes without troubling our spirits and the most serious actions of men shall be our most ridiculous Comedies Out of your Closet we shall see below us the the tumults and agitation of the world as from the top of the Alpes we stand and safely see the raine and hayle of Saevoy After this Monsieur de Borstell shall come and reade us Lectures in the Politiqâ—es and Comment upon Messer Nicolo unto us He shall informe us of the affayres of Europe with as great certaintie as a good husband would doe of his familie He He shall tell us the Causes the Proceedings and the Events of the warre in Germany and therein shall give the lye a thousand times to our Gazets our Mercuries and such other fabulous Histories Wee will agree with him that the Prince he is so much in love withall is most worthy of his passion and that Sweden is no longer able to containe so great a vertue After the fashion of Plutarch he shall compare together the prime Captaines of our age alwayes excepting who admits of no comparison He shall tell us which is the better man the Italian or the Germane what meanes may be used to take off the Duke of Saxony from the house of Austria and what game the Duke of Bavaria playes when he promiseth to enter into the League and is alwayes harkening to that which he never meanes to conclude From these high and sublime Newes we will descend to other meaner and more popular subjects It shall be written to you whether the Kingdome of Amatonte be still in being and whether there appeare not a rising Sunne to which all eyes of the Court are turned Monsieur de shall send you word whether he persist in his pernicious designe to bring Polygamie into France and to commit nine Incests at once I meane whether he have a good word from those nine Sisters to all whom he hath solemnly made offer of his service Wee shall know whether the Baron of put Divines still to trouble whether Monsieur de have his heart still hardened against the ungreatfullnesse of the time and whether Monsieur de continue still in his wilfulnesse to punish mankinde by the suppression of his Bookes By the way of Lymoges we shall get the devises of Boissiere the Epigrammes of Maynard and other daynties of this nature The Stationer des Espies Meurs will furnish you plentifully with Romances and with that they call Belles Choses and if it come to the worst from the very Cinders of Philarcus there will spring up every moneth a new Phaenix of backbiting Eloquence that will find us recreation for one houre at least And these Madam are a part of those imployments in which I fancy in my minde we may spend our time all the time of the heat for when the return of Aprill shall bring againe the flowers and fayre dayes and invite you abroad a walking we must then looke us out some new pleasures and change our recreations we will have Swannes and other strange Birds to cover this water at once both quicke and still which washeth the seet of your wals we will fall a planting of trees and dressing the allies of your Garden wee will digge for Springs and discover treasures which lose themselves under ground which yet I value no lesse than veynes of silver because I judge of them without covetousnesse And finally Madam
the soule for as for the true respect and the passion which hath residence in the heart I assure you I have that in me for you as pure and entyre as ever and that he that calls you his Soveraigne yet honours you not more perfectly than I doe Monsieur de will I doubt not be my witnesse herein and will tell you that what part soever I be forced to play amongst jeasters and merry companions yet under my players cloathes there will alwayes be found an honest man I have been sensible Madam of the losse which hath had and have not been sparing to speake of his unfortunate vertue yet I never thought he needed any comforting for it for seeing he sees that God spares not his own Images and that his neerest friends have their disgraces and troubles he ought not to thinke any thing strange that happens in this inferiour world and upon inferiour persons what consideration soever may otherwise make them deare unto him If you have vouchsafed to keepe the Letters I have written to you I humbly entreat you to send them to me that I may see what volume I can make for the impression that is required of me but Madam it shall be if you please upon this condition that parting with the Letters you shall never let your memory part with the truths they containe but hold undoubtedly that I very firmely am though I doe not very often say I am Madam Your c. 25. Decemb. 1630. Another to her LETTER XXXVII MAdam my labour is happie since it is never from before you and since I am told you make it your ordinary entertainment The end of all fayre Pictures and good Books is but onely to please your eyes and to delight your spirit and the good you have not yet set a price upon is not yet come to its utter most perfection I have therefore all that an ambitious man could wish for I may perhaps have fortune from others but glory I can have from none but you and another perhaps may pay me but none but you can recompense mee The paines I have hitherto taken have beene but ill requited I have tilled a ground that brings me forth but thornes yet Madam since they blossome for your service I am contented to be pricked by them and I love the cause of my disgraces if they proove a cause of your recreations The first Newes you shall heare will tell you what I meane and that my patience never makes my persecutours weary You shall see Madam that there is no conscience made to contradict you and that the same which you call excellent and admirable hath yet 〈◊〉 Paris found enemies and at Bruxells hangmen I will say no more at this time but that I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 6. Jan. 1631. Another to her LETTER XXXVIII MAdam I writ unto you about six weekes since but my packet not being delivered where I appointed it I perceive some curious body hath seazed on it and sought for secrets which he could not find The losse is not great to lose nothing but a few untoward words and small comforting would serve me for so small a crosse yet because they were full of the passion I owe to your service and carried in them the markes of my dutie I cannot but be troubled they câ—me not to your hands and that my mis-fortune gives you cause to complaine of my negligence I dare not undertake to cleere my selfe altogether for though in this I committed no fault yet I cannot forget some other faults committed before The truth is Madam I have been for some time so continually taken up with businesse that I have beene wanting in the principall obligations of a civill life and I have drunke besides so many bitter potions and tasted so many bitter Pills that I should but offend you with my complements which could not choose but carrie with them at least some tincture of my untoward humour What pleasure could you have taken to see a medley of choler and Melancholy powred out upon paper and in stead of pleasing Newes to read nothing but pittifull Stories and mortall Predictions But enough of this unpleasing matter I expect here within three or foure dayes my Lord the Bishop of Nantes and I would to God Madam you could be here at that time and that you were at leisure to come and taste the doctrine of this rare personage I have heard you say heretofore you never saw a more holy countenance than his and that his very looke was a Prologue of perswasion This conceit makes me hope that he is the man whom God hath ordained to be your Converter and to bring you into the bosome of our Church Beleeve me Madam and you shall not be deceived trust that enemy who wounds nor but onely to draw out the bloud that causes a Feaver and never make difficultie to commit your selfe to one that intends your freedome The triumph which the world makes you feare is no way injurious to those that be the captives nor like unto that of which Cleopatra tooke so sad an apprehension but in this case the vanquished are they that are crowned and all the glory and advantage of the victory rests on their side I am not out of hope to see so good a dayes worke and seeing you are rather layd asleepe in the opinion of your mother than obstinate in a wrong cause I intreat you that you will not be frighted with phrases Wee will not use this hard terme to say you have abjured your haeresie wee will onely say you are awaked out of your slumber and if our deare friend Monsieur du Moulin would doe so too then would be the time of a great festivall in Heaven and the Angels would rejoyce at the prosperitie of the Church My zeale Madam is not out of ostentation for it is most true that such a change is one of my most violent wishes and to see you say your prayers upon your beads I would with all my heart give you a payre made of Diamonds though I am not rich yet I hope you doubt not of the truth of these last words and that I am with all my soule Madam Your c. At Balzac 7. May. 1632. Another to her LETTER XXXIX MAdam it hath beene as much my shame as my glory to read your Letter having so ill deserved it and the remorse of the fault I committed makes mee that I dare not yet rejoyce in the honour I received You are good and gracious even to the not hating of evill actions Your delinquents not only obteine impunitie but you allow them recompence and idlenesse hath more respect with you than deligent service with ordinary Masters This is the faelicite of the Golden age where Plentie had no neede of tilling and where there was reaping without sowing Yet Madam I must not so abandon my cause that I forbeare to alledge the good it hath in it it is long since
1635. To Madam du Fos. LETTER LII MAdam my deer Cousin There is nothing heard in all quarters but benedictions and praises which our poor pleaders give you They invocate you as their Redeemer and if Themis be the goddess of good causes it seems you are the goddess of good success For my self I have known a long time that you are powerful in perswasion and never speak without prevayling This is the cause why I have promised Monsieur de not that you shal sollicit for him but that you shall speed for him and I am this day warranted of the Event I could tell you to make you respect him the more that he is able to thanke you in five or six languages that he hath a full Magazine of Astrolabes and Globes and that being but of a meane statute he hath yet by his knowledge in the Mathematicks found a meanes to make himselfe as high as Heaven But I will content my selfe to say that he is my friend and your Oratour that if my commendation and your own glory be deare unto you you cannot but very shortly send him backe with full satisfaction I promised to send you the two Sonnets you have heard so much spoken of but my bad memory makes me sayl in a part of my promise and I can send you but one and a halfe The one entire is this Tu reposois Daphnis au plus haut de Parnasse Couronné de louriers si touffus si vers Qu' ils sembloit te Couurir des orages divers Dont la rigueur du sort trouble nostre bonace Quand l' injuste Menaique a been eu cett ' audace D' employer les poysons sons sarabe couuerts Pour corrumpre ton Nom qui remplit l' univers Et me sprise du temps la fatale menace Mais si durant la paix tes Innocents Escrits Forcerent d' avouer les plus rares esprits Que Florence devoit ta Temple a ta memoire Ce style de combat Cet Efford plus qu' humain Fera voir a quel poynt tu peux mettre ta gloire Qu'and l' injure t' a mis les armes a la main The halfe one is this Quelque fois ma raison par des foibles discans M' incite a la revolte me promet secours Mais lors que tout de bon je me veur servir d' elle Apres beaucoup de peine et d' efforts impuissants Elle dit qu' vranie est seule aymable belle Et m' yrengage plus que ne font tous mes sens The Authour of this last Sonnet hath made one in Spanish which in the Court of Spaine goes under the Name of Lopez de Vega and another in Italian which Marino verily beleeved he had read in Petrarke It is a Spirit that changeth himselfe at pleasures and transformes himselfe into what shape he list yet he deserves better prayses than this and his Morall qualities are nothing behinde his Intellectual I will tell you his Name when it shall be lawfull to love him openly and and to make his Encomium without scruple But first it is needfull that Fortune which hath cast him upon an Enemies Countrey should bring him backe to Paris where both of us meane to waite upon or to make our Court and from thence I desire not ever to returne but onely to testifie to you more carefully than heretofore I have done that I am Madam my deare Cousin Your c. At Balzac 4. May. 1630. To Madam de Campagnole LETTER LIII MY most deare Sister I send you the Book which you required of me for my Neece and I beleeve that this and her Prayer-Booke may very well suffice to make up her whole Librarie she shall find in it a Devotion that is not too mysticall nor too much refined and which hath nothing but Morall and reasonable I like this popular Divinitie which meets us halfe way and stoops a little that we may not strayne our selves too much It follows the example of its Authour who made himselfe familiar with common people and put not backe so much as Curtisans and Publicans farre from making division in families and withdrawing women from obedience to their mothers and their husbands It commends this obedience as their principall vertue and calls it a second worship and a second religion I shall be glad to see my Neece make profession of a pietie so conformable to naturall reason and so good a counsellour of all other duties But let her not I pray climbe higher and undertake Meditations of her owne head Irenada whom I sent her hath taken this paines for her and hath meditated for her and for all other that shall read his Bookes There is nothing more dangerous than to mount up to Heaven without a helper and a guide and it is a great confidence one must have in his Spirit to let it goe so farre and be assured it will ever come backe againe It is not long agoe there was in a Towne of Spaine a Societie of devoted persons who continued in meditation so many houres a day leaving of all base workes to live as they sayd a more heavenly life but what thinke you became of it even a thousand domesticall disorders and a thousand publike extravagancies The less credulous tooke the pricke of a pinne for a Saints marke the more humble accounted their husbands prophane the wiser sort spake what came in their heads and made faces perpetually In so much that when in the moneth of May there did not past three or foure runne mad it was counted a good yeare It is fit to stay ones selfe upon the true vertue and not to follow the vaine Phantasmes of holinesse And it is farre safer to ground ones selfe upon a solid and certain reading than to goe wandring in a hollow and unsteady contemplation If I had more time you should have mors words but he that brings you the letter calls upon me for it and I can adde no more to it but that I perfectly am My deare sister Your c. At Balzac 15. Aprill 1635. Another to her LETTER LIIII MY dearest Sister all the world tells me that my Niece is fayre and you may beleeve I will challenge no man for saying so Beautie is in Heaven a qualitie of those glorious bodies and in Earth the most visible marke that comes from Heaven It is not fit therefore to slight these gifts of God nor to make small account of this sparke of the life to come It is not fit to be of so crosse an humour to blame that which is generally praysed Marke when a comely personage comes in place having but this advantage of her birth you shall presently see all that were talking to hold their peace and what noyse soever there was before you shall have all husht and an universall calme upon a suddaine you shall see a whole great multitude all busie in different matters to make presently but one body
infinitely bound unto you for the honour you have done me to remember me and for the paines you have taken to write in my behalfe to Monsieur de It is true your paines hath not had so good successe as I verily hoped it would for though he had given out that for his satisfaction he required no more but some small signe that it was your desire yet having received that signe he continues still in the same termes and holds the same rigorous course he did It makes me thinke my Lord that he knowes well enough of what worth your commendation is certainly if it had beene imployed for any other but my selfe it had found all the yeilding and respect it meriteth but indeed I cast unfortunatenesse upon all matters I deale in my evill Fortune suffers me not to make benefit of your love you have no sooner a thought to doe me good but presently a thousand impediments arise to hinder it You give me presents and doe not receive them You command I should be paid my pension and your command is not obeyd Not yours my Lord of which one might say Est fatum quodcunque votes You have read my Booke with pleasure and spoken of it with commendation and yet I suffer persecution for making it as much as to say for being a true Frenchman and a lover of publique Liberty For as for the objections they make against me they certainly are but colours and pretences If may words be not learned or eloquent they are yet sound and full of truth There is not one to be found in all my worke which a meane Advocate were not able to defend before the severest Tribunall in the world The makers of Libells who condemne them are the men of all other that first corrupt them I begin my Lord to be weary of this long and obstinate injustice my Philosophy beginnes to faile me in this case and I should be clean and altogether out of heart if I had noâ— your goodnesse to rely upon For this at this day is the common refuge of all oppressed innocents and no man invocates it in vaine I therefore make my selfe believe that it will at last send me also some faire dayes after so many storms and tempests raised against me by mine enemies and that after you have saved Nations and set Princes in their Thrones it will be no hard matter to relieve a poore private man who adores you and whom calumny seeks to ruine I know some my Lord whom you have made happy and yet scarce knew their names when you did me the honour to speak well of me And some I have knowne advanced by you that lay hidden in the throng when your selfe drâ—w me out and placed me amongst the few yet what get I by it For in truth I could never make any use of this advantage because indeed I could never serve you with such care and subjection as the forwardnesse of your favours obliged me to doe My indisposition hath alwayes hindred my good designes I have alwayes combated with weaknesse of body and never durst venture to beginne a life which I was not assured I was able to hold out This hath forced me my Lord to court you in a new fashion and to seeke to doe you service by my absence and ease and not trouble you with unseasonable officiousnesse and with many low curâ—sies to no purpose I am able to say unworthy as I am that I was the first man that preached the wonders of your life unto the people exhorted all Frenchmen to do their duties have in mine owne person given good example in the Provinces and have healed many spirits that were sick and ill perswaded of the present government I am not so well knowne by my name as by my forwardnesse in your service And when the spitefull rumour ranabroad of late many persons of quality can tell how grievously I tooke it and how I resolved to follow you to the worlds end if so be the unfortunatenesse of France should remove you from the Court Yet I am not troubled that I make you these proofes of my Fidelity though they would be lesse difficult to me than to entertaine you as now I doe with my interests which to say true is a cruell torture I put my selfe to It is not my desire you should have misfortunes to the end I might make use of my consolations nor it is my wish there should be disorders in my Countrey and disgrace to my Master to the end I might the better shew my selfe a good Frenchman and a loyall servant But yet my Lord why may I not be of some use in a calme and have a place as well in the joy as in the sorrow You alone are the Author of your victory but you alone cannot furnish your triumph but must have many Artificers to worke about it I have materials enough to make many large Fabricks but to undertake the worke I must entreat your Lordship I may have a little contentment or at least a little quiet The splendour of your person is so great that it sends forth beames of light to your remotest servants and the power which heaven hath given you is so redoubtable to all sorts of Tyrants that to give a period to my persecution there needs no more but that you give some signe you meane to protect me which favour I perswade my self you will not deny me for besides the common cause of being oppressed you have knowne a long time that I make a speciall profession to be My Lord Your c. At Balzac 5. Jan. 1632. To Monsieur Cytois Physitian to M. the Cardinall LETTER V. SIR my curiosity were undiscreet if I should aske you newes of occurrents in the Army but you cannot take it ill that I aske you news of my Lord the Cardinals health I learne the progresse of his glorious actions by the mouth of Fame but I must learne from you how he fares in his continuall agitation and whether the temper of his body feele no alteration by the violent motions of his spirit I conceive that God doubles his force when there is need and that he hath regard to the necessity of so many people that cannot misse him but I know also that he makes use of the second causes and that your cares and industry concur with this providence The services you doe to one particular man are obligations to all the world Never had any Science a more worthy or profitable imployment than yours hath And if the Romanes erected a statue to Antonius Musa for healing of him who oppressed their liberty why may not you justly expect a publick acknowledgement for preserving of him who makes us all both free and happy I send him the discourses which I humbly entreate you to take care they may come to no other hands but his and therefore that you will keepe them in your custodie that they may be safe untill I come my selfe to Paris I
was touched to the very quick for the death of yet seeing he is happier than they that mourn for him and that he hath left the world in an age when he yet knew it not I think it no wisdome to be obstinate in an ill grounded sorrow or to account that an evill to another which is the greatest good could have happened to my selfe Christianity will not let me say Optimum non nasci Bonum vero quam citissime interire but it hinders me not to believe that one day of my life with Bâ—ptisme is better than a whole age of iniquity I write this Letter to you from whither I am come to lodge after I had entertainâ—d my Lord untill night I conceived there was some necessity to deliver him your Letter with all speed and therefore I exposed my person to all the injuries of an incensed skie and ventured to make a voyage that would have frighted a stouter man than my selfe By this you may know that I count nothing difficult which reflects upon any interest of yours or which cencernes your contentment and I love you so much that I should not say so much if I had more craft in me than I have But my good Nature exceeds all other considerations of vulgar Prudence and I would not keep you from knowing what great power you have over me though I knew before-hand you would abuse this power For other things I am very glad to heare you begin to grow sensible of the charms of musique and that you go to the Consorts which are in reputation Yet I have seen the time when your eares were no learneder than mine and when you made no great difference between the sound of Lutes and the noyse of Bells See what it is to frequent good company and to live in a Country of neatnesse I that stirre not from the Village know no other musique but that of Birds and if sometimes I heare a more silver sound it comes from those noble Animalls which Monsier Heinsius praiseth so much and which by Lucians saying serve for Trumpets in the Kingdome of the Moone I give you a thousand thanks for your newes but especially for the last it is certaine that the choice of Monsieur de Belieure to the Ambassadour of Italy is a thing will be generally well liked men talk wonders already of his beginnings of the readinesse and Vivacity of his Spirit of the force and stayednesse of his Judgement besides some other excellent qualities of his Age from which we may hope for much And for my selfe who am one that love my Country exceedingly I cannot but exceedingly rejoice in this new fruitfulnesse which comes upon him at the latter end of his old age It doth me good to see famous deceased men to live againe in their excellent posterity and I doubt not of the good successe of a Negotiation where a Belieure a Thou or a Sillery is imployed These were our Heroes of the long Robe and the Princes of our Senate and now their children that I may continue to speak Latin in French are the Princes of our youth at least they are names more happy and that portend more good to France than the name of and no doubt she will have cause to thank M. the Cardinall for respecting races that are so deare unto her and for stirring up in the Kings minde the old inclinations of the deceased King his Father I fall asleep at this very time I am talking with you and am rather in case to make ill Dreames than good Discourses and so I take my leave of you my deare and perfect friend as I also am to you as much as possibly can be Sir Your c. At Balzac 4 Octob. 1634. To Monsieur Talon Secretary to my Lord the Cardinall De la Valette LETTER XLII SIR I took infinite pleasure to see my self in one of your Letters and Monsieur who imparted it to me can witnesse for me with what greedinesse I read that passage which concerned me I cannot say that he is here though it be true that he is not in Gascoigne for we enjoy nothing of him here but his Image he is so married that he would think it a disloyalty to his wife if he should dare to laugh when she is not by All his sociable humour he hath left with her and hath brought nothing to us but his Melancholy When I would make him merry he tels me I goe about to corrupt him All visites he makes in her absence though it be to Covents and Hospitals yet he calls them deboystnesse So as Sir you never saw man better satisfied with his present estate not a greater enemy to single life He is not contented to pitty you and me and to lament our solitude but he reproacheth us outragiously and calls us unprofitable members of the Common-wealth and such as are fit to be cut off As for me I make no defence for my selfe but your example I tell him let him perswade you to it first and he shall soone finde me ready to follow his counsell I hope we shall meete together ere long and then we shall not neede to feare his being too strong for us in our conferences when we two shall be against him alone Provide therefore Solutions for his Arguments but withall deny me not your assistance in other encounters where it may stand me instead You can never doe courtesies to a man more capable of acknowledgement nor that is more truely then I Sir Your c. At Balzac 12 Febr. 1633. Another to him LETTER XLIII SIR I am exceedingly well satisfied with the newes you send me and with the assurance you give me by your Letter of the continuation of your friendship Not that I was afraid I should lose it but because it is a pleasure to heare ones selfe called happy and that one cannot have too many titles for a possession which can never be too much valued I take not upon me to contend with you in Complements or to dispute of civility with you who live in the light of the world and have whole Magasins of good words For besides that I never had any skill of the Court it is now so long I have been a countryman that it were a miracle if I had not cleane forgot it all Pardon therefore a rudenesse which I cannot avoid and seeing I am not able to answer you give me leave to assaile you and require you to give a reason of the present state of things What can you say Sir of these wretched Flemmins who shut their gates against good Fortune when she would come into them and are in love with their Fetters and their Keepers I do not think there be truer slaves in all Asia and I do not wonder our arms can do no good in their Country seeing it is a hard matter to take a yoak from mens heads who prefer it before a Crown Soveraignty when it is offered Sick men are
make but a sorrie Souldier I thought that no body had any thing to say to me in Picardy and that the Kings Armie would not be the lesse compleat for my absence Loe now Sir I am arrived here this side of the Loire busie in fortifying as well as I may my village with Philosophy and intrenching my self against the Enemies with good books If the tempests which threaten the Frontiers of Bayon arrive at us we must think of another way of safetie and resolve in any case to passe the Sea and go and dwell in that Region of Peace and that happie Climate where your divine Princesse reigns But the good conduct and leading of the King her Brother and the good Fate of France Forbid us to harbor any thoughts of despair and the opinions of Sages that expect a calm and serenitie after a storm are far different from the Dialect of the vulgar that think that all storms are everlasting It shall be then a visit of complement in despight of Iohn de Werth that I shall perform and not a voyage of necessitie which I must make and I hope my words shall finde no evasion and that I shall tell you in London that which I say here that I am entirelie Sir Your c. Balzac 10. Sept. 1636. To Madam Desloges LET. XIV MAdam Take it not amisse that I do much rejoyce at your removal from Paris since that thereby I do regain the glorious beatitude of your Neighbor-hood and that I am now but fifteen Leagues distant from Virtue retired Monsieur d'Auvita did confirm this newes whereof I had otherwise an intimation formerlie and he hath farther assured me Madam of the good success of your journey and of your victorie in the Chamber of the Edict Since the guerdon of this Conquest lyeth in Aunix I believe it will repent you to have offended the Angoulmois some five years agone I say it is some pleasure to me to think that you will not digresse any more out of the Roade in contempt of us and now shortlie will be the time when you will dignifie those men with your presence which do so passionatelie desire to see you I am not so presumptuous as to alleage here my own wishes But me thinks Madam that the Duke of Rochefeucaut deserves one of your stages and if it be so I have reason to hope to be happy in some houres of the two or three dayes which you cannot denie to afford Him I was about to send to you to learn some newes of you But this excellent Bearer hath promised me to relate some at his return and you need not be troubled in that he did forbear that crude Oration that was provided for you This is a man Madam in whose month are Temples and Altars erected for you and who adores you in everie word he speaks He hath no vulgar conceit of your vertues and he being abâ—oâ— man of parts is worthie of that regard you beare to him I hope he will love me a little for love of you and that you will do so likewise and adde this favor to the infinite number that I owe you and which oblige me to be more then anie man in the world Madam Your c. Balzac 7. Octob. 1636. I send you Madam the complement which you desire to see it was sent ere this but was not received because my packet was lost Since that time I have never thought of it but your curiositie findes out things that are lost and I am so good a Courtier that none should have seen it besides your selfe To my Lord Keeper of the Seales Seguier since Chancellor of France LET. XV. MY Lord If I had not been advertis'd that it was my bounden dutie to write unto you I should not have thought it needful so to do And though I have ruminated as much as anie other upon the choice that the King hath made of your person I considered it as one of the felicities of his reigne and as a general influence of favor upon all the world Calling to mind the definition of Aristotle that calls justice the good of another I thought it not so congruous to congratulate with him that must be the Guardian of the Lawes touching a preferment that will put him to a perpetual care and vigilance But rather to partake in silence of the common felicitie of those people that shall whollie relie upon his watchfulness But my Lord since custom coÌ„mands it that coÌ„gratulatioÌ„s from the remotest parts of the Kingdom do post towards you I should be thought unworthie of that rank which I hold among your humble Servants if I did not sequester my self from the Crowd to deliver you a part some testimonie of my joy and to make you see that in places of silence and solitude there be not wanting acclamations for you and affections for the Countrey I shall therefore make bold to tell you that the joy which seiseth me at this time is mingled with a kind of vanitie and having accompanied you with my thoughts and eyes even unto the place of your advancement I do imagine I have in some sort conducted you whither the judgement of the Prince hath advanced you Wherefore my Lord in your promotion I do rejoyce for the good success of my Imagination and take no small pleasure to see my own Divinations verified Certainlie it is a matter of delight to see a Vertue so laborious and active as yours brought into the most wide and spacious Carreere that Fortune could make choice of and this is aspectacle worthie the sight of Heaven and of the blessed soule of the late Cato of your race The importance is my Lord that you begin in a verie good season for to continue long and that you are in the verdure and vigor of your age for to uphold the crazie and decrepit weaknesse of our State In this Elevation both of Merit and Dâ—gnitie each man will be your Adorer and Votary But you will give me leave to assure you that none will approach unto you with a purer and more dis-interessed Devotion then mine and that I am without much pomp and flourish yet in much sinceritie My Lord Your c. Balzac 1. April 1636. To Monsieur de Morins Counsellor of the King in the Court of the Edict at Agen. LET. XVI MY Lord You are noble enough to love a man without anie merits but I were too loose and forlorn if I were so loved and yet you have some cause to call me by that bad title and if Monsieur Girard hath not had a care of his friends reputation all circumstances condemn me It is true that my fault was but the omission of a Complement which had slipt out of my memorie and yet I avow to you that this omission is such a sin that hath a long time burdened my conscience and causeth such gripes and remorse Sir that except the same goodness that hath shewed me favor do grant me a pardon I