soul praying that the mercy of God may open heaven to it and that earth may be light on my ashes Cruel and yet welbeloved Philippin at least love me being dead since that sacrificing to you my life I give you the most pleasing service that I have ever given you I am weaâ—ier of life then of writing O my dear Lord and husband my soul is going content if thou permit it to draw with its last ascent this free sigh ' Since my vow'd Faith here cannot make the least ' Impression on thy unrelenting breast ' Lo I my Soul do cheerfully resigne 'To Death who hath more charity then thine She thought to have leâ—t her life ending her long Letter For grief and love two strong passions with the extreme pain which affected her body made such an impression as she thought verily to have lost her senses with her blood But by her youth and good constitution the care of her parents help of physitians and perfections of remedies the great Conductor of the world which reserved her for a more sad spectacle preserved her for this time The End of the Third Book ELISE OR Innocencie guilty The Fourth Book WHen this writing subscribed with the blood of this languishing creature came to the hands of Philippin he felt in his soul strange convulsions as what Tygre had not been moved at so much sweetness and humility For comparing in his memory the paradise of tranquillity passed with the hâ—ll of unquietness present he grieves for her being dead whom he had afflicted living But these touches were like the weak pushes of those which wake out of a sound sleep but being drowsie fall incontinently down upon their pillow from which they cannot raise themselves but with great pain His heart was so glued to his present voluptuousness that he had almost forgot the remembrance of his past happiness the clouds hindred him from knowledge of the brightness of this vertue that like a torch casts greater flames by how much the more it draws neer the end Even as an Antient said We slight a present good so Vertue most in sight is hated but ador'd when lost If she court us we flie and grown more coy Disdain those pleasures which we most enjoy These characters imprinted some kind of pitty in this courage before deaf to all that could be said and drew some tears from his eyes but those small drops falling on his hard heart did no more penetrate then rain falling on rocks on the contrary this water like the flood of the Sycionians that dries the wood seemed to redouble his obstinacie and to produce the same effects as the small showers that the vehement heat of the sun draws from the clouds in the hottest of summer which rather burns the leafs of plants then any way refreshes them For fearing his compassion should give jealousie to Isabel or shadow her with some doubt of his affection he is angry with his pitty holding cruelty for a great vertue Proud Isabel at the report of the pitteous news of Elise's death which the messenger assured her thought she should have swouned with extreme joy and contentment esteeming that this obstacle being removed nothing could hinder Philippin from healing the shame of her love by marriage She gives thanks to heaven as if it had been guilty of her fault and bound to repair it by so bloody a means by which you may note the humours of these creatures that are many times so impudent to mingle divinity with their misdeeds Pyrrhe is presently advertised at Vaupre who much rejoices for the ensuing wedding of his daughter and the house of Philippin in stead of wearing blacks for the decease of their Mistress are imployed in feasting and joy of a nuptial pomp to honour a marriage with small honour consummated Philippin receives a double joy by this death seeing himself delivered of her which he could not have been but by it and in possession of her which he could not make his legitimate wife as long as Elise had lived He saw himself possessed with great wealth by Scevole by the means of Dalimene which if he should have restituted or been deprived of would have been his utter ruine He imagines to be gotten above all his pretensions And as the loadstone hath no force to draw to it that iron that is rubbed with garlick even so his heart invironed with the stinking garlick of dishonest voluptuousness cannot be moved to any pitty towards poor Elise whose love trains her to death Accursed be the flames and plots of those Projectors who so fruitlesly expose Themselves to plots so abortive and forlorn They die before they are begot or born For as they were preparing for these nuptial feasts with great diligence news came to them of the recovery of Elise which turned all their joy into smoke and buried all their designs Oh how vain and light is humane understanding Philippin hates the life of her whom he lamented being dead Isabel is in despair Pyrrhe in fury and Herman afflicted all deceived because prevented of their hopes and pretensions Certainly God would have it so and reserve Elise for misfortunes more cruel to make his glory shine on the depth of an apparent ignominie But the rage of Philippin rests not there For being pressed by Pyrrhe to keep his word with him having removed his Appeal to Rome to make that sentence void which had confirmed his marriage with Elise he imploies his uttermost means to remove all lets and hindrances to prove it of no effect not forgetting any diligence or earnestness in the pursuit thereof But if he were a violent undertaker he hath to do with a better defendant For Scevole being upheld by the most equitable right in the world knew better how to handle these Process-weapons then himself This hinders not nevertheless but this labyrinth of contestations ingenders a marvellous long proceeding during which years slide away Philippin is always in possession of Isabel by whom he had some children which were brought up as legitimate The whilst he is lost in his debauches and by these ill proceedings offends again with new outrages the goodness of the chaste Elise which cruel persecution carries him to an action more inconsiderate then malicious and which will cost him his life You must understand that Elise being a Maid had been sought in marriage by a Gentleman well qualified and of a reasonable good estate whom we will call Andronico for some reasons which make this name proper to him of which this is the principal that among his qualities he had one which drew his title from the Apostle who was brother to S. Peter with this being very valiant having had many encounters in which he was still victorious this name methinks agrees well to make all these things darkly understood This young Andronico after a long pursuit because of a secret dislike Scevole had of men of the sword not willing to give his daughter but to a
the mouth of fame not without jealousie the income parable vertues of Elise but when she knew the preheminence of beauty she herself had of her this temperated this passion in her heart she is resolved of a perpetual spining and to spend her days in the violent exercises of hunting so fit for the preservation of chastity Was it despight or a despair to reconquer Philippin which had healed her it is so as she hath â—ained her first air and fashion The Gentlemen thereabouts to honour this new marriage of Elise make meeting at Bellerive where many courses and tornies are practised and where Isabel is in company of her father and brothers and did perform wonders She comes in company of her mother Valentine to see Elise and her mother Sophie which came to help her in her houshold-government This visit filled all the neighbourhood with joy and content seeing this quarrel alogether extinguished There Elise sees Isabel with the eyes of a Dove full of meekness like Simplicity it self using her with those courtesies so extremely obliging that shewed plainly the goodness of her heart But the other more malitious beheld her as one which did robbed her of her treasure dissembling nevertheless with much art the thoughts of her heart although she felt much grief within distilling from her lips a beam of enamelled words O how contrary were the thoughts of these two Rivals the one full of vertue admired and loved the graces which God had endued her with the other with a jealous envy consulted often with her glass to see what advantage her complexion had of that of her supplanter Timoleon who fears from the eyes of this Basilisk to his son a new wound worse the first hath always an eye on the actions of Philippin who trembling under the eyes of his father like a scholar under the rod of his master to hinder all suspition governs his looks and discourse in such a fashion that he speaks but of ordinary things in the ears of all nor beholds this object but as a thing indifferent nor seems too much reserved nor to appear artificious or constrained but with a mediocrity of freedom makes them think him without a design thus he deceives the eyes of this Argus that watcheth him All this is but artificial within although without he makes no shew of any thing but simplicity But even as the fire of thunder the more it is inclosed in the clouds the greater is the lightning it shoots forth so the more there was constraint the more dangerously he lanched his looks on this Amazon heretofore so passionately desired yet nevertheless he felt great contention in himself betwixt reason and his desire For when Reason was mistress favoured by the absence of Isabel and the sight of so many vertues which shined in all the parts of his Elise he tryed with a sponge to forget and deface the form of this Face the idea of which tormented him Sometime being alone to strengthen him in this just war of Reason against Desire animating himself to follow the part of vertue by these fair words ensuing Most vain and fruitless are my long desires Fed and fomented by a world of fires Which burn my soul the air in which I breath Rendring me like a sacrifice of death Desires in troops assail poor me opprest And Viper-like feed on my tender breast Inhumane thoughts possess my soul the high And active flame of my great thoughts doth fâ—ie Beyond all fear and through disdains wide gate Transport my sense above the reach of fate Confirm that Object which you did first grace Help to conduct and guide him to his place And those disdains which with such joy abound May happily be returned safe and sound That with you that bright Shrine of her may go To whom such homage I did lately shew Or let her stay and be esteem'd so foul And loathsom that the faculties of my soul May abhor her best perfections and contemn The quite forgotten thoughts of her or them Poor Philippin thou speakest well now that thy reasons are strengthened by the services of thy Elise which kept thee master of thy desires but when the law of sense rebels against that of thy understanding sowing revolts seditions and contradictions in the city of thy exterior 't is then that losing courage thou returnest into thy first frensies yet fight thy self and thou mayst become a reasonable vanquisher vanquish thy passion The whilst these active visits passed under colour of civility being made more frequent then Timoleon could have desired the hunting served often for a pretext but another cause is the subject The cunning old man intends to get before this misfortune and not to fall from a fever to a hotter ill cut off all new beginnings of loves Although his son be not much advanced in years yet marriage having given him more liberty it would be unfit to exercise upon him the same commandments and rigorous cruelty which he used to him being a youth Remedy there is none better then that Physitians practise in the cure of cathars and rheums diverting them when they cannot dry them We have said that Monte-gold is a very fair Castle and of strength and importance which was within three days journy of Bellerive at the foot of the Pyrene mountains Under pretext to shew it to his daughter-in-law he brings all his train and that of his sons 'T was Philippin who was disoriented but more Isabella who at this last sight had so increased her flames whether it were by temptation or otherwise that thus being deprived it had almost cast her into her grave she judged this remove was caused against her she knew no remedy but to flie to patience Philippin was somwhat astonished at first for this absence and remains sad and pensive some time But this light fire which began to burn about his heart kindled by the sight of this object this absence made his relenting less For as one wins by the losing of others so there is no doubt but absence revives as presence kills The holy and sincere love of Elise won him so strongly that his reason was quite renewed for if Vertue as an Antient saith would ravish altogether the heart if it were but visible why should it not ravish his shewing so visibly in the person of the chaste Elise Oh if he had made in this time a happy provision of wisdom or if he had tasted seriously and solidly this butter and honey of discretion which makes one distinguish good from evil he might well have known the extreme difference which is between a vertuous affection just and holy and a bruitish passion unlawfull and dishonest For in stead of the precious balm of this as the sweet smell of a flowry field pleasing both heaven and earth God and men giving to those which savoured as they ought a taste of the pleasures of Paradise the infamous exhalation of the other defames the proper authors scandalizes their neighbours
redouble their torment we must not approach a smoaking torch with fire if we will not have it lighted The greatest secret the Apostle knows to prevent fornication is to flie those which love peril will perish Elise why dost not thou by thy wisdom find some invention to prevent this disaster which thou goest to gather in this funeral-voyage But when a misfortune will follow one says a grave Antient it seems his wisdom is shadowed and his judgment blinded not being able to prevent his headlong ruine Being come to Bellerive all the Gentlemen thereabouts but especially those which held of Timoleon as his vassals came to render their last obedience to the sâ—pulchre of their Lord. O dead ashes is it possible that from the midst of this coldness should come forth so many coals as to burn the heart of thy miserable successor The fair Amazon now as free as a man by the death of Valentine which was gone to God during this residence at Gold-mount being become unseparable company to her brother Harman and Pyrrhe her father came with them to the funerals of Timoleon which was her honour and the happiness of Philippin for the appear'd clothed in a mourning habit so advantagious to her natural graces that one would have said what she had done simply to honour the funeral pomp and wearing the mourning for her mother made with such art seem'd exceedingly to grace her Mourning hath the property to make the fair appear more fair and the unpleasing more deformed then they are Under these black vailâ— Isabel lanched forth looks more shining then the forerunner of thunder lightning sent from a dark black cloud And for a pittifull encounter Elise which had no beauty but in her vertues shewed with an extreme disadvantage to her natural disposition under these mourning habits withall being much affected for the loss of her father-in-law whom she honoured infinitely and loved with an incomparable affection Nothing defaces so much the beauty of the face as a true and sincere grief For to appear fair and pleasing she must have been content too and happy So that just as the bargain is half made with the second merchant when we are displeased with the first the desires of Philippin revolted against reason by this enterview of which the one rubbed with the wings of sadness hath lost her ordinary effect to draw the iron of his heart the other armed with a thousand drawing spirits raised and transported him in a moment from his true being Their looks messengers of their intentions made their hearts speak which were reduced to ashes by these sparkles framed by this unhappy collection The furious Lion roaring and watching without cease to devour us that Dragon that seduces us by these artificious idea's filling our thoughts with malicious illusions that Spirit sworn against our salvation which loses no time to indammage us covering the eyes of Philippin with double deceit made this illegitimate object appear far more pleasing then she was and on the other side made her which he should and ought justly to have loved appear hideous to him that he conceived a secret horror against her not being able to comprehend with himself how he had continued so long And truly her grief and the estate she was in which we hold will make the most fair seem unpleasant with this habit so little favorable to the mediocrity of the form of Elise contributed to this dislike of Philippin The other strangely insolent by the knowledge of her preheminences like a Peacock with her tail covering and crowning herself with pride throws shame upon other birds glorying in her victory and loaden with trophies of her new conquest retires home triumphing leaving Philipin in the most strange unquietness that can be imagined When we throw a stone into a still water it multiplies the circles infinitely This sight forms a thousand impressions in the soul of this young man till now so peaceable and quiet O Philippin 't is here thou shouldst resist this evil which fights against thee 't is here thou oughtst to take antidotes against this poison which slides through thy veins and will trouble the rest of thy bones and the health of thy flesh If thou dissemblest thy intrails will become rotten and old and the spiritual gangrene giving death grace is unavailable But unfortunate thou flatterest thy misfortunes and angrest thy ulcers with scratching Prevent these shelves and flie that fatal shore Where nought hath less of life or of death more He will do nothing his sickness pleases him better then his health he prefers a tempest before a calm and death before life the prison before liberty This Syren hath sung him asleep in so deep a lethargie as it quite transformed him although a captived will yet voluntarily he yields to this servitude and holds it his greatest happiness He foresaw many ills which threatned this change but he shuts the eyes of his judgment not to take knowledge of them What doth comport with conscience or comply With honour he disdains whose thoughts grow high By contradiction while he will gainsay That which he ought not loathing what he may Thus the huntsman always altered with a new prey leaves that which he had already taken to follow â—iercely that he hath not Here is this young Lord respected like a new star rising in the horison of this Country his Vassals come to give him homage whilst he meditates how to make himself Companion to his Vassal He appears free and yet is more a slave then when he was under the jurisdiction of his father A horse broke loose without either bit or bridle a ship without a stern a cloud full of black water of blind passion blown by the wind of covetous ills Already he receives the innocent embraces of Elise against his heart and as sick men that loath the meats which they have been greedy of during their healths so that which was here to fore his contentment is now become insuppportable His eyes armed with scorn never looked on her but to disdain her her presence is odious her prudence suspect her care and good huswifery avaritiousness her modesty a beastly defect And as all we see through a coloured glass appears of the same colour as the middest that deceives our sight even so not considering her vertues but on the contrary judging by this secret change which will shortly change into a formal hatred she appears odious to him like vice it selfs Whose Beauty mockt his dreaming soul like Lies Pourtraying Truth forth in a false disguise Already this Leah although fruitfull is nothing to the imagination of possessing a fair Rachel all the hony that he had heretofore gathered in the company of Elise changed into bitter forgetfulness Elise easily perceives this coldness but as she was good and simply discreet she threw the cause upon the death of Timoleon which she thought affected Philippin although her grief were far greater then his for that loss whose boiling
him like the shadow the body The guilty may well be in places of security says a wise Antient but not in assurance for they always see the knife of vengeance divine or humane hanging and shaken over their heads their sleeps are troubled with a thousand fearfull visions as if they had drunk the juice of the herb called Ophinsa Their own thoughts serve them for a hangman to torment them with horror of their faults that they enjoy no quiet but it passes suddenly from them This far remove hath not appeased the rage of Pyrrhe and Herman seconded in all his designs by him which would not be appeased these are the importunate stingings which shout threats and invective speeches in the ears of Philippin These angry elfs which promise nothing less to themselves prick him to death esteeming they had reason to take the life of him that had ravished their honour they make about Gold-mount a thousand secret meetings accompanied with strangers resolving to spend the remnant of their fortunes in this quarrel To the greatest the least enemies are redoubtable there needs but a little Viper to pluck down a great Bull. If they would but have retired he would very willingly have made them a bridge of gold but they cruelly desirous of his blooâ— would not be satisfied but with his life which he is not resoâ—â—â— to abandon O how great are the multitude of evils which inviron the tabernacle of the sinner This miserable man sees himself possessed within with a domestick devil so much the more dangerous that he esteems her an Angel of light adoring his prison and his shackles and besieged without by these furious revenges which are as sowed to his choler of whom he thinks to have always their knife in his throat See what it is to serve strange gods and to abandon himself to unlawful passions which make continual wars without truce and give no rest night nor day O how pittifull and bitter a thing it is to forsake the way of vertue and how assured he is of shipwrack that loses the Tramontane of the grace of God His case is desperately forlorn Who laws of GOD and Church doth scorn And to his own will doth confine The laws both moral and divine Vast seas of trouble do surround His soul whose joy in grief is droun'd Though outwardly he surfeiteth in bliss Within the Chaos of a black abyss And blacker Conscience worm-like gnaws and bites Imbittering all his pleasures and delights Conscious of odious crimes he dares not stare On the bright Sun o're-clouded with despair Which racks his soul so hourly that each breath Presents pale horror and eternal death Nor pomp nor power nor prowess can withstand The stroke of vengeance or the dreadfull hand Of Heaven where 't is his pleasure to decree Or doom us damn'd who can pronounce us free Where conscience doth accuse our Crimes there do Appear both Judge and Executioner too What can one hope for but disasters Would you not say that the mercy of God shining upon the lines of his justice cals him by these â—â—rplexities in which he now finds himself But this Pharoah â—â—dned by all these wonders is not converted but persevering in this abominable train he dies in his sin precipitated into the red sea of a bloody trespass Yet nevertheless he obtains some respite to accomplish the measure of his pain by the excess of his fault For after hiving besought the Justices of those places to deliver him from the pursuits of the father and son which had conjured his ruine by the same arms he would have imployed for his defence he feared to have been taken forasmuch as Scevole seemed to favour the party of Pyrrhe counselling him to declare he had no intent against Philippin as for his Concubine which he would retire as being his daughter to take away the scandal and shame of his house Thus Philippin saw himself in midst of his enemies and that justice on his shoulders which he had besought for his defence VVho sees not in this a just judgment of God only this blind Lover takes no knowledge of it so strong are the inchantments wich which Isabel charmed him that besides the despight to see herself pursued and so shamefully qualified by her father losing all respect and natural love both to father and brother counsels Philippin to make an assembly of his vassals and friends and to cut all his enemies in peeces But as an antient Consul said to an Emperor It is more easie to commit a murther of an adultery then to defend it These crimes are not so easily justified as they are practised there are few friends that will venture their lives goods and honours in hazard of so vile a business when it comes in question to set upon the justice of the Prince they will think thrice Other crimes being more particular are more easie to obtain pardon but that which is publike and lesae majestatiâ— according to the rules of the best Politicks ought to be irremissible 't is a baseness which it were impiety to pardon or to pitty those who commit it ought to perish for an example Nor is there one of the neighbours of Philippin that will second him in an enterprise so unreasonable so dangerous and full of ruine On the contrary they complain of his cruelty and lament the misery of Elise detesting Isabel as a monster cause of all the misfortunes of this young Lord and the ruine of his house By the impossibility to revenge himself and withstand he shrinketh and doubting that this quarrel being in the heat Scevole should take occasion to persecute him he sees himself brought to a shamefull capitulation coming again to â—â—â—ers and submission to Pyrrhe promising that he would diâ—â—ndamage him of all his pretended wrongs having been beaâ—â—n and forced to pay for his amendment and to procure the advancement of Herman protesting to appeal to Rome the sentence which had confirmed his marriage with Elise and to imploy his uttermost means to break it swearing never to have other wise but Isabel whom he esteemed his legitimate Bride ordaining his subjects to hold and esteem her by that quality He sees Herman in secret upon whom he hath same kind of power helped by the tears and supplications of his sister he wins him so as he brings his father to this agreement who upon hope to cover his honour somwhat by this promise returns to Vaupre leaving Philippin in peace at Gold-mount But we shall find in the end it was but a peace dissembled according to the speech of the wise man which says Peace peace where there is no peace The whiles this miserable Lord respires if a man troubled with a thousand fears within can have any repose although freed of outward combats We will take this time to go to the Town to see what Elise doth also the long ceremonious formality of the Ecclesiastical justice in these appeals by reason of the distance of places
doth give us leisure She living retired with her father under the wings of her mother Sophy with as much will and obedience as when she was a Maid Oh if she had not tempred the rage of her fathers anger against Philippin what would he not have done to have brought this deboist son-in-law to his duty and obedience See but what a good disposition she is of to procure all good to him which had used her so cruelly and so shamefully sent her away But it may be her goodness was not commendable in this for hindring the course of justice which reduces sometime to good the most desperate for fear of punishment So that being patient and hoping that this foolish love would be past over quickly out of the fancy of this cruel man whom though lost as he was she loved as her life she inspires patience into Scevole although he had much ado to suffer these outrages We have told you how she was great with child and because she did not nourish the fruit in her body but with bread of grief and â—ink of tears we must not wonder if brought to bed before 〈◊〉 time a son came into the world without life for grief had stifled it in his mothers womb Philippin being both its father and deaths-man This pittiful creature thought to carry with herself that she had brought forth into the sepulchre Too happy Elise if dying thus thou hadst not been reserved to a trespass unworthy thy fair life I will leave take to speak of her excellent vertues which she practised during this horrible travel which she thought should have put her in her grave what holy and Christian thoughts sustained her courage during these assaults She receives all the Sacraments of the Church with that devotion that edified all those which saw these actions they thought their hearts would have cleft with pitty She asks a thousand pardons of her parents filled with grief to see her in this estate Committing to her sister Leonore the pardon she demanded of Philippin whose cruelties she even honoured in this extreme agony She lost so much blood as she thought verily to have rendred up her soul by this flux the Physitians believing no less But as this languishing death is rather tedious then violent leaving their judgments with a great clearness and understanding she had leisure to write this Letter in her extremities which she would have subscribed with her blood to touch with pitty the insensible heart of her welbeloved Adversary VVe will report it thus NOw that this soul of mine is ready to leave the miserable body that could never find grace before your eyes and being now at point to flie into the arms of the welbeloved heavenly Bridegroom Permit thrice beloved and most lovely Philippin to this wretched Elise to open her heart unto thee which hath always been entirely and invariably thine that in taking of you and of the world my last leave I may present before you for my farewell these dying words since after so many sweet testimonies of friendship we must part the remembrance of which is death in the most cruel death it self that I should prove change in a courage which had promised me never should be capable of infidelity It is long since I would have left my life if the laws of God had not forbid my passage which I go to free with as little grief as life being deprived of your favour is pleasing to me Alas must I for having honoured â—â—u so religiously endure that usage more fit for an infidel I will not contest with you if it be with reason that I have fâ—â— the effects so contrary to their cause For your will being my rule and my reason makes me against my judgment believe that all you have done to me rigorously I feel is full of equity and justice So that examining my conscience upon the duties I was bound to give you and finding my self not guilty of any thing I think that for a punishment of my other sins God hath permitted you to take my respects for wrongs and my humilities for outrages Had I been treated in the form of offenders I should have understood the cause of my punishment before undergone But I was struck with thunder before the lightning appeared and sooner condemned then heard The which I say not to complain for fear to turn this complaint into an offence to hurt you in thinking to s atisfie you humbly asking pardon for all I have failed in to your service For although my duty and condition bound me to give you all sort of obedience and fidelity it is true I was more carried by my love then for any other consideration of civil respect I think without vanity being the creature in the world which hath best loved you and which thinks not to have given other subject to offend you but the excess of her ardent affection But almost the perfection of love is in excess who sees not but this fault carries its excuse in its accusation and if blamed is commendable It may be if she had not been so fervent in affection you had esteemed her more but her extremity made you less accept it so that you have no way heretofore comprehended it but like a weak vapour dispersed as soon as risen since in a moment it is dead in your remembrance Alas what is become of that happy time in which not having other care but to please you you seemed to study nothing but to content me in yielding me love for love in which consisted the feast of our felicities Whither are those fair dayes gone in which you received no contentment but by my me nor did any thing but by my counsel as I lived not but for you nor breathed not but to please you Times and dayes too happy and whereof the sweet enjoying is converted for a fault to my memory Alas must I for having been invariable be so lightly changed and a fading beauty with so little consideration be preferred before a solid goodness But why do I lose my self in this complaint having had a des ign to sâ—â—ther it in my soul for fear to offend you All I fear is that this Letter should trouble by pitty the repose my ashes desire to contribute to your new flames Happy beyond my merit if I may do you service by my death by making the unjust legitimate Of all my ills I accuse my ill fortune not attributing them to any but to my own faults not deserving of you but that just hatred with which you have pursued my indignities That which comforts me in the griefs that bury me is that the cause of my sufferings lightens my grief I apprehend only that this paper soils not with some shadow of reproach and with some touch of ingratitude so many perfection as I have always loved and honoured in your person for which the least supportable rigors have seemed not only tolerable but sweet my affection
sweetening their bitterness I will not represent the pains I now endure being they sever the miseries of my soul and body but I assure you they seem far lighter to me then those I felt when by your command I was separated from you and then I had more understanding to feel it then now to express it It Would be to offend their extremities to think to speak them And if they might be resisted I would not for that being of a nature communicable their contagion might pass into your soul by conpassion and I desire that my death may be a subject of rejoycing to you Permit me only to qualifie all the injuries the world esteems you have done me with the title of good renouncing the reward due to all the services I have rendred you so that satisfying my passion in serving you I have contented my self it lies not in me that you lose not the remembrance if it troubles never so little your joy if my humilities are of any consideration before you methinks they will deserve the credit to be forgot So much I fear as nothing more that the image of my imperfections should again trouble your fancy For I believe if there rests any feeling in bones laid in the tomb the tranquility of mine will be troubled if I thought that pitty might find place in your heart which I have experimented so void of love what a pain would it be to me if I believed only that you would grieve for having killed me For although I ought not to desire a fairer monument then the thoughts of your soul yet acknowledging my unworthiness I dare not apprehend so stately an inclosure because I know I should not rest without causing your unquietness I 'll content my self with the glory that I die for you if I dare say for you for since that I lived but for you is it not giving you that which I owe that I render you my life Nor is this death presented to taxe you or to change into wrong to you that which to me is a high degree of honour only I shew you with all kind of humility that if in honouring you I have been so unhappy to displease you I have not been so miserable to offend you Your opinion shall be such as you please but it shall be permitted me to believe that as I could not address my avows to a more accomplished subject perhaps hereafter you may more acknowledge And although this effect hath not seconded my intention my intention hath had nevertheless its effect which had no other design but to testifie my fidelity I know well that in all I have done but what I ought but as I think not to have failed so it must be confessed that giving all I ought to whom I ought all is no little proof of zeal Happy if I had shewed by the loss of my life that of the holy affections which you have sworn before God and his Angels Be happy at least in my disaster to have endured without desert that you would have me suffer Live from henceforth free by my death leaving me this contentment in my misery to believe that it brings you comfort I will endure it in honouring you All that comes from your hands cannot but be received by me I adore the hand of God which corrects me by yours which mingles gall with that too much honey I tasted in possessing of you and severs me from all delights of the world to make me aspire to the eternal At least dear Philippin acknowledg my fidelity in this sincere testimony that I render you To honour even your cruelty to the last period of my life and to cherish your disdain in the midst of the pangs of death I ought to do it since I confess I did not deserve so great an alliance as you I was not worthy but of your refuse I had consented to my repudiation if the Christian laws in this case were not inviolable espousing a Monastery to leave you at liberty in your desires but honour and justice have withstood it nor could I obtain of my father to give you this contentment to the prejudice of me and my fame If I did presume in taking that great honour to be your Companion not deserving the title of the meanest of your servants think but with your self what command my friends might have of me a Maiden since your father the memory of whom is a blessing to me had so absolute a power on your will This is to the end you may excuse not so much my presumption as my obedience and amongst the illustrious dignities which honour you and of which I participated you know I never did forget my self nor have thought to be but what I was From henceforth I quit this place too great for me to that happy Creature which possesses you I am not to acknowledge her merits yet esteem your judgment in your election not only excusing your change but approving it For although I yield to her all the preheminencies of grace and beauty as long as I live I will never yield either to her or to any person in the world that of affection that if she be better beloved of you then I was you shall never be by her as you have been and are still by me now that death breaks our first bonds rendring the second as I desire them more pleasing the splendor of this fair day will shine brighter after the obscurity of my night My will would have procured you this marriage during my life to have pleased you and have been a purchaser of my own ruine by solliciting it against my self But it is in vain for us to wrastle against the laws of God All that tears sighs from me and troubles the clearness of my constancie in these extremes is the loss of this poor Infant which as fruit disgraced is fallen by the wind of your anger from the arch which bore it seeing it could not ripen under the rays of your favour it hath seen the night of death before the day of life being deprived of the light of the star which only could have illustrated his darkness But that most afflicts me is this little innocent Dalimene which I leave on the earth the subject of your disdains For Gods love dear Philippin let not the indignity of the Mother prejudice the fortune of this poor creature since heaven would to shew you how strongly your idea was graven in my heart that she bears in her forehead the lively image of those graces that nature hath stamped on yours not having any sign of those defects which have deprived me of the happiness of your love Let her childish voice move you to pitty and since she is blood of your blood in her have compassion not of her nor me but of your self And lastly I conjure you by all that is most holy in heaven and earth to have at least as a Christian some feeling of chariâ—y for my
the mouth is most sharp to wounds and as there is nothing more scalding then oil when it is hot so these outrages coming from your mouth are so much more grievous by how much I have received consolation and gratification Must I be so unhappy to see the fire of my wounds come from the place from whence I expected my healing Is it possible after such a metamorphosis that you retain the name of that Elise that professed so much love to me then when it was less lawfull to love me of that Elise which I so devoutly honoured and against all these contradictions I cherish yet more then my proper life I cannot tell more how to name you nor know not what term to find expressing enough in any idiom that can set forth as it ought such an inconstancie At least Madam let me know the reason that hath caused so long time your pitty to be deaf at my prayers and after this knowledge let heaâ—en cut my life by the knife of your cruelty when it pleases him This is the smallest favour I may hope of you seeing I can draw so much from cruelty it self there is nothing more just then to make known to an offender the cause of his suffering nor any thing more unjust then to conceal it from him If a small cloud can take from our eyes the sight of the sun that is so great replied Elise it is easie with a small fault to shadow out one of a greater importance But that God that sees all and which knows the secrets of hearts and dives into the dark corners of our reins that is served with things of smaller appearance to make known the most covered and which can draw the light of the truth from midst of the thickest obscurities of falshoods will also be served with my goodness and the consideration of that love which I have heretofore born thee for to give thee means to shun a shamefull punishment and to withdraw thee quickly from this place where 't is wonder that thou causâ— have so much assurance having committed so great a fact my silence and thy retreat will be more safe then my discourse and thy stay I would to God you had not done that which I dare not tell you because I have not forehead enough to blush for the loss of thine Content your self that my honour being tiâ—d to your life not to lose the one I will conserve the other although the one is as precious to me as the other is detestable In all this there was much said yet nothing of what should have been said And what is he that would not wonder at these delays and at the length of these circumlocutions For since Passion is a labyrinth it is no marvel if it have many turnings Andronico having had some feeling of the reports which ran to his disadvantage upon the death of Philippin doubts it might be about this accusation comforts himself in the hope to see an end of this Mine that threatned a great descent after it had taken wing being founded on the truth of his innocence So that for fear to anger this woman knowing there is nothing more fierce then a Bee when it is moved which puts her life in the wound she makes and never stings that she rests not wounded to death he fains to be ignorant of the end of this her fury in saying to her That when one endures a pain deserved it is made so much the more tolerable that one believes to extinguish a sin is to suffer without desert it would be hard but more insupportable to suffer innocently and again in being ignorant of the cause of his sufferance And then kneeling down at the feet of Elise with a voice somthing higher then before or then the place where he was and the presence of Sophie although not neer seemed to permit him Madam says he I will die here or learn from your mouth what can be the cause that puts me into so fierce a disgrace nor will I ever leave you till you give me this satisfaction to let me know of what death I shall die for I take heaven to witness I find not my self guilty of any thing that may be prejudicial to you I beseech you not to give way to calumnies and reports to the prejudice of my sincerity Elise surprised to see him in this estate and before her mother did not know on what side to turn her wherefore intreating him to rise which he refused to do she says to him softly Content yourself that I cannot speak without offending mine honour and your life And that in the midst of the hatred with which I detest your vileness I reserve this spark of my antient affection for the conservation of them both to which I found my self bound not so much for any good I wish you but for the respect I owe my modesty Madam replied the unfortunate Andronico this is not to give me light but to plunge me into a new obscurity I beseech you discover these riddles and not to tell me again in other terms the same thing you have already told me for what can he fear that doubts not death but on the contrary if I lose your favour I desire it to free me of a life which will be more troublesom then it being deprived of your love All that astonishes me is your honour which you say is engaged to my conservation and in that it may be you have said better then you think For when the purity of my intentions shall be known the greatness of my affections the sincerity of my soul and how many dangers I have run to give you proof of my service and that you have recompenced me with despair that will take my life it will be hard for you to remove this stain of ingratitude which like an eternal infamy will remain on the pureness of your understanding If ever it happen not that I attempt but only think any thing that might never so little prejudice your honour for the conservation whereof I 'll spend a thousand lives I desire that the heavens never pardon me any fault May I be rais'd by fortune or cast down By fate being object of thy smile or frown Though the disastrous destinies should combine To annihilate and ruine me and mine Nought can divorce my affection or divert Th'unfain'd devotion of a faithsull heart It will be easie for me to resolve to die after being deprived of that I held dearer then life What do I say Truly it will be harder to me to resolve to live or rather to outlive such a loss yet to lose my life without knowing the cause for which I die this is that I cannot resolve on if I do not bury my self with the quality of the maddest of all humane creatures Wherefore I intreat you to permit me to press you with all sort of importunity to declare to me the ground of my condemnation otherwise I shall believe that the
you says he how she cuts her throat with her own knife For if I had done this act which can never be proved nor found by me it must be by her perswasions and by the instigation of her promises Upon this the friends of Andronico present a request against Elise obtaining of the Justice that she might be in prison to justifie herself of the same crime Scevole who is confident of the innocence of his daughter and the strength of his authority and being just and a man of conscience although he feels a contradiction in this action that appears not very honorable nevertheless pressed by Elise herself who runs voluntarily to yield herself prisoner so much she is encouraged to be revenged of Andronico whose ruine she holds assured he contents to this imprisonment Here are our Lovers enemies in separated places runing with the bridle on their necks to their loss by the way of a reciprocal hatred Andronico sees himself accused of a murder he never so much as thought and pursued by her of whom he hoped the greatest felicities of life And Elise sees herself accused as consenting to this death bye him that she thought certainly had procured it At last their innocence is ecclipsed in the shadow of these dark dungeons where they learned to their cost that prisons are like quagmires which one gets not out of so easily as they slip in Andronico being examined denies absolutely to have done or caused this murder But having to do with so able a person as Scevole who knew so exactly to gather all these particularities that might make him guilty at last all the world seemed to conjure his death For all the words his threats his quarrels with Philippin are examined his frequenting the house of Scevole with Elise this Promise which she acknowledges to have been forced from her simplicity shewing reciprocally that of Andronico's which he had forced her to receive signed with his blood the presage of his hellish enterprise And not to make here a procedure of a process in law all the circumstances and conjestures of the time of the assassination of Philippin with his last words at his death that seemed to accuse Elise to have made him be killed by the hands of Andronico whom he call'd tâ—rritor All this makes him guilty in that sort that the Judges following that which was produced and proved in the end the opinion of all being changed by the prodâ—cing of this Promise of marriage went all for death there rested nothing but to confront him with Elise Now as there are many forms of contrary qualities in a cloud that produce the thunder that breaks all to powder the places where it falls Even so in this enterview after a thousand flashes of lightening sparkling no more of love but of hatred that flâ—w from their eyes the thunder of their words was understood that broke in a thousand peeces both their reputations and lives For Andronico having heard that after this confrontation he must lose his head carried by despair resolves to draw into his condemnation her that accused him with so much injustice and turning his antient affection into a mortal hatred it resolved to have for company in death her that he could no more hope for in life So that being in presence one of the other as Elise did represent to him what he had said to her at her fathers where it seemed he accused himself in terms obscure It is true answered Andronico with a tone furious and a look on one side that I did desire the death of Philippin and I have sought it and it doth not anger me to have done it so that it were according to the rules of honour that are observed amongst Gentlemen It displeases me that being dead as he is I am charged to have killed him thus but if that were it had not been but by thy perswasion ungratefull Elise For who knows not but it was for thee that I had quarrels with him that it was to deliver thee from tyrannie that I have exposed my life to hâ—zards How often hast thou sighed in mine ears the grief of thy â—â—râ—â—â—ude and wherefore but only to enflame mine anger by the pitty of thy disaster and to bâ—ing me to this shipwrack by 〈◊〉 â—eceiving song O disloyal Syrene My Lords says he to the judges full of despair if you find me guilty behold the caâ—â—â— of my evil shewing Elise for if I killed or made Philippin be killed it was this Fury made me do it Elise finding herself innocent laughs at this accusation but the judges told her there was rather occasion to weep for the strongest proof that was against Andronico being founded on the promise that he had drawn from her to marry him after the death of Philippin was not the same presumption as great against her that had received from the hands of Andrinico a writing of the same effect They find these accusations so connext that they cannot condemn nor absolve the one without the other Elise may weep and protest her innocence Andronico hath struck a stroke that will bring them both to death As much as Scevole understands in this science he finds himself swallowed in this business his credit nor his authority cannot stay this torrent that will overwhelm the honour of his house His prophecies prove true to the great grief of Elise who repents although too late to have preferred the violence of her unjust anger before the wholsom counsel of her father To end quickly this troublesom passage she finds herself innocent to be condemned as an infamous adulteress and as a cruel murderer of her own husband to lose her head with Andronico as complice of his dishonesty and murder of Philippin It is a soveraign decree that excepts no appeal being pronounced in the morning 't is executed at night where these unfortunate Lovers serve for a tragick spectacle to all the Town Scevole not able to drink of the bitterness of this chalice nor support the indignity of this affront absents himself his wife Sophie took such grief to the heart as in three days death lays her in her tomb Elise abandoned of the world hath no more recourse but to heaven She 's now come into the high sea of grief where a tempest promises her an assured shipwrack She hears her sentence which brought thunder with lightning and struck with an assault so little look'd for and so suddenly her understanding that she swouns with the horror and thought to have dyed for fear of death Happy in her pittifull misfortunes if this death had anticipated her shame Returning from this swoun her face painted with the colours of death her eyes sunk and heavy her lips pale and with a voice trembling and mingled with a thousand sighs she breathed forth her sad complaints Who hath done this impittiable duty to recall my soul into this miserable body to make it retire by a second separation more hard and cruel then
she had plunged my innocence To which this worthy Churchman answered That it was the work of a good and true Christian not to render evil for evil but good for evil by the example of him that being cursed cursed not again but being unjustly persecuted presented his cheâ—k to blows his face to be spit on and his body to the murderers without making more noise then a tender lamb whose throat is cut And that he must be more spaâ—ing of the time that was left him to acknowledge his faults That it was question of a minute whereon eternity did depend That it would be less judiciously done to losâ— a Kingdom that hath no end for a moment of ransom that it was better to swallow this draught of bitterness as a man of courage and not with cowardly fear and that it was the greatest of all baseness of the heart not to pardon an injury that revenge was the mark of a faint heart and effeminate a dangerous ulcer which invenomed his soul and made him bring forth a mortal canker Having now won thus much on the great courage of Andronico to pardon her his death that was the unjust cause of it it was easie for him to purge this soul which free noble and open of his own nature gives free passage to penitence which made an operation of a marvellous conversion a true change unto the right of God He confesses his sins with great compunction discovering all his heart with an extreme freedom adoring the hand of God laid heavy on his head and humbly kist the rod that chastised him to the end it might serve him for a rod of direction to bring him to the kingdom of God This worthy man pressed him hard to award this fault before that tribunal where falshood is a sacriledge and not lose himself in the way of Câ—in that denied the murder of his brother For as S. Peter said to Ananias one may easily deceive men by falshood but not God Yet still he firmly denies to have given any advice or had any design on the life of Philippin This at first aboard astonish'd Cyrille who carried by the vulgar opinion and violence of the conjecture doubts that an attempt so dishonest had hardened his heart by a foolish shame He gives him many examples on this subject But seeing on the one side his extreme earnestness in the accusation of the rest of his faults and a strong perseverance in the denial of the same he began to be perswaded he had not committed it Having then purged sufficiently his thoughts of his offence by a good absolution and having made him perform divers acts of contrition humility resignation and of renouncement of the world and submission to the will of God of patience hope faith and confidence in the goodness and mercies of God he raises him thus by little and little into the air of divine love Even as the heat of the fire loosens the flesh from the bones even so death that heretofore appeared so terrible to him seems now a sure and pleasing port where he may enjoy the eternity of peace which passes all understanding When these two hear to thus dissposed came to meet in the Chappel of the Prison whither these poor Patients were brought attending the hour of their suffering we must not marvel if their antient loves were renewed being they were not only prepared for pardon but also to charity which is no other thing but the â—ame dilection all cordial and sincere The Confessors after they had reconciled them to God reconciled them one unto the other with great facility For as the iron flies unto the loadstone as soon as the garlick is removed the presence of the diamond is taken away that gives it liberty to carry it self to that straw that draws it to it Even so those souls being delivered of the stinking garlick of hatred and the hard diamond of obstination were easily drawn to these acts of humility that without the assistance of grace one might rather desire then have hoped this condescension and to see their tears mingled whose blood must shortly be mingled upon a shamefull scaffold Here Elise confessed aloud that she had no other proof against Andronico for the death of Philippin but the common report and conjecture that the promise she had given in writing had brought him to that attempt to enjoy her in marriage There Andronico professed openly that as he had never so much as thought of that murder nor had ever been incited to it by Elise but only his despair had forced him to avouch this crime seeing he could not shun his punishment so by the same despair he had accused Elise to be guilty to make her perish for his revenge Some of the beholders esteemed these excuses as fained as they were most true And the Judges those inflexible Radamanthes mocked at these denials out of season The irrevocable sentence is pronounced by their mouths they have given it according to their consciences and conformable to the law Their ears are so accustomed to hear these excuses of offenders that they are to them as unnecessary songs for it is the custom of men to say they are innocent considering only their witnesses not their own consciences They imagine that this miserable pair being resolved to lose their lives intended to preserve some vain shadow of honour in saying they were innocent of so odious a crime but that being on the scaffold at the last hour of their death which is the rack of racks they would then declare all to the discharge of those that had judged and condemned them I will not here present the griefs of these two spirits being I think they cannot be comprehended nor express their complaints seeing their innocence was made guilty more by their inconsideration then by their malice Nor can describe their displeasure finding they were cause of one anothers loss You may judge that their griefs their complaints and displeasures were as pittifull as their affections were now sincere for in these extremities there is no more dissimulation no faining nor art and less colour it is no more but a plain simplicity Elise desires many times to take her last farewell of her parents But having heard that the news of her condemnation had caused her father to retire into the Country not being able to support the sight of so tragick a fortune of which there was no remedy And that the grief of this had given such an assault to the heart of Sohpie her mother that she was in bed sick unto death she obtains permission to write to them to make known unto them in these last words the feeling she had of their sorrows which was more incomparably then what she had of her own SIR I Complain not to see my self abandoned by you in an instant where the only hope consists in not expecting any I not only approve your retreat but should have counselled it if my advice had been demanded
since that the vail of absence is altogether necessary to a Father that knows his daughter is sacrificed innocently I say innocently Sir and in this word I beseech you to take part of the only consolation that accompanies me in the loss of my life It is now time to speak truth or never seeing I am going before the tribunal of him that will condemn all those that prefer falshood before truth and who will not acknowledge for legitimate children those that do not fix their eys upon the light of truth God under whose providence run all the moments of this mortal life permitting that at this present my innocence shall appear guilty yet will make known in another season this imaginary guilt to be apparently innocent And I conjure you by the agonies of any death to prolong your life untill that happy time by which the honor of your house that appears now to suffer some stain shall flourish more then ever I must confess that after the death of my husband from whence all my calamities have drawn their original nothing hath so much afflicted me as the pain I have seen you suffer for my occasion For since death had made me widow of the most noble Alliance I could have hoped for in the world I intended to have died to the world and to all the pomps thereof and to have confin'd my self to a Cloister there to have ended my dayes But since it hath pleased the divine wisdom to dispose otherwise be it that I live or die so I appertain to him for ever I pass not be it for ignominie or for reputation so I attain unto the celestial glory it is indifferent to me I believe now that Andronico is innocent of the crime which I accused him of more by suspition then any firm ground I had and it may be God permitted I should be wrapped in the same condemnation to punish my disloyalty thaâ— broke the right of a friendship as holy as it was vertuous for I desire not heaven to pardon me if even there passed between us other but that was worthy and honest or if in the writing that my facility drew from my hand I ever thought to prejudice Philippin in his honour or life The secret judgments of God are marvellous which sounds the depths of all secrets and by the greatness and majesty of him you will know in the end how the murder was done for God is too just to let this deed go unpunished For my self I repent me to have accused Andronico of whom I beseech you to love the memory as mine own and not to bear any hatred against his parents I am as much and more cause of his death then he of mine We have demanded pardon one of the other and pray all the world to pardon us We remit our honour as out lives into the hands of God sacrificing both to his greatest glory I beseech you Sir to implore his misericordia on our souls by your prayers and to â—ake care of little Dalimene since blood and nature require it of your fatherly goodness Farewel my dear Father Oh refuse not your holy benediction to this miserable creature that demands it at the last minute of her death being she is innocent of the cause of her condemnation which for the love of God she goes freely to suffer With the same hand and heart she drew these other lines for Sophie MADAM MUst my deplorable misfortunes bring death into the breast of her that gave me life Must I like a Viper open the bosom of her that gave me my being And must fortune insatiable of my miseries direct the stroke of my trespasses on the body of her that is as innocent of my faults as I am of that which causes my death by a secret judgment of God which I adore although ignorant of Madam the sharp cutting sword that is to sever my head from my body and my body from my soul will not be so sensible to me as the feeling of the grief that hath laid you in your bed for the sorrow of my loss and shame The compassion I have of your heart is more incomparably grievous then the pains I am to suffer If I might die often to deliver you from the torments and pains wherein your own goodness throws you if I should measure the grief you have to lose me by the dear affections you have alwais shewed me I see nothing so extreme as your unconsolable displeasures For knowing how tenderly you have brought up this wretched creature and how highly you esteem your honour I know not how to express nor conceive with what air you can support the loss of both Just Heaven which permittest crimes and hindrest them if thou sufferest that I die without being able to justifie my self of these two false infamies Adultery and cruel murder of my husband at least yet Thou that declarest things that are most dark make for the consolation of my dear mother that from the midst of my ashes may arise the light of my innocence without suffering that truth should not only be detained prisoner by injustice but also stifled with falshood Madam I desire not you should take pitty of my suffering but to cast your eys on my innocence I have no other justification then my protestations which I make in a point where falshood trains after it an eternal ruine You will not be so cruel and severe to me as my Judges And although an Adulteress and a Murderer cannot be purged by oaths yet I think you have had so long knowledge of my soul by my carriage to believe me in this truth which I profess with a dying voice I die innocent of the crime that is imposed on me as God shall love and save me Live Madam even till that day that he makes it appear in evidence from the midst of the clouds that hinder this clearness I have no more to add but to demand your motherly blessing which I ask with joyned hands for the last favour from you and ask it by your intrails that bore me and by the mercies of that good God in whom I put all my hopes Farewell my dearest Mother And remember in your prayers this poor Elise that will have no period to her trespass of more sweet imagination then the memory of Sophie as of the best mother in the world Time with an insensible course advanced with great paces the hour of execution of this Innocencie guilty Our Lovers are brought to the place with as much joy and gladness as if it had been to their wedding When they appeared on the bloody Theatre they were beheld with many eyes yet very different For many had compassion of their miseries by a natural feeling that touches the hardest hearts Others had them in horror not so much for their faults for to sin is a thing humane but because they published so loud their innocence this displeased them like Bats to whom light is unpleasing
it is tedious to them to stay in this place of assurance The whilst he thus goes temporising he was called to end his days in troublesom affairs as you shall hear After than Elise and Andronico more unfortunate then malicious had been punished for a fault they had not committed as the Psalmist says Paying with great extortion and rack-use What they ne'r truly borrowed with abuse Pyrrhe and Herman esteemed that the death of these innocents would be a satisfaction and covering to their fault lived though not with interior assurance for an ill conscience serves for a Judg and Hangman to it self yet at least with an exterior safety that promised them an apparent nonpunishment For they were not only exempt of the accusation of this matter but also of suspition to have attempted any thing against Philippin Pyrrhe repairs in part his honour by the ill usage wherewith he treated the miserable Isabel making it appear by it that her ill life had been extremely unpleasing to to him And this Maid being fallen from this high fate of prosperity where she had seen herself in the company of Philippin and now reduced to a prison in which besides the deprivation of liberty she experimented excessive cruelty not knowing where to find more patience to sustain the force of so cruel a persecution I will not fill these leaves with the multitude of her complaints with which she filled her dark cabbin that less deaf to her complaints then the ears of her father seemed to suffer at her pains by its eccho and â—ound And I believe if Pyrrhe had heard them he must have been of marble or have had pitty to have produced in the world a creature so miserably unfortunate But not content to stop his ears at her dolorous griefs and to the protestations she made to live better hereafter and to give him as much cause to love her in her repentance as she had given him to hate her for her dissolute life Nor would he that his eyes should see the pittifull estate she was reduced to for fear to have had some compassion on her An hundred times he had murdered her with his own hands if nature had not strongly resisted against such a crime and if the force of blood had not withstood so bloody a design But he believed that this perpetual imprisonment and the barbarous usage he exercised on this miserable Caitiff would in a short time deliver him of her whose life was as odious as her death desired And it may be God who hates hearts that are hardned and unpittifull already displeased with the murder of Philipin throws on the heads of Pyrrhe and Herman a judgment without mercy because they had been without mercy Although the Israelites among the Egyptians committed great sins and were carried to detestable idolatry for which the yoke of a cruel slavery fell on their heads yet in the midst of their wickedness calling on the mercy of God his eternal goodness hears their cryes and hasted to their deliverance Achab and Manasse were evil Princes but their prayers drawn from their hearts by the strength of their tribulations made incontinently their peace with God which inclined their aid It is true that Isabel cannot be excused in having stain'd the honour of her family by her ill carriage But it may be that being converted to God in midst of her fighs he heard favorably her complaints and resolved to pluck her from this chain to the end that being delivered from the hands of this tyrant she might give herself to his service in the quality of a Nun to serve in holiness and justice at the foot of his Altars even to the last hour of her life Now I desire that we should remark admire and adore this divine Conductor who brings her to this end by marvellous turnings and sweetness incomparable We have seen in the course of this history how Herman was induced by Pyrrhe to the murder of Philippin and how he was assisted by Roboald an antient servant of their house in this homicide and it was by this Roboald that love made traiâ—oâ— to himself that this crime is discovered which forgetfulness seemed to have wrapped up in a perpetual silence But how enters love into this heart it was by the gate of pitty false gate that deceivest ordinarily the most wise Pyrrhe discharges on him the keeping of Isabel O it is an ill charge for a man a fair Maid Yet in the beginning he executes with fidelity the commandment of his master which was To shut her up straitly to feed her poorly in brief to exercise on her all kind of cruelties But in the end the water of the tears of Isabel pursue this heart of stone and the Lover with the beauties of her face draws this breast of iron to a yielding condescension Such strength hath a pleasing form of which all the force is in the sweetness but as much loved as it is pleasing Beauty hath an ascendant power and invitable on the fiercest courages the most cruel Tygres may be tamed and made familiar by an amirable conversation Isabel in the beginning of her imprisonment by a high and arrogant humour contributed much to the ill usage that Roboald made her feel For there is nothing more odious and less insupportable to God and men then pride and cruelty But when experience Mistress of the least advised had taught her that as a bird taken in a snare the more it strives the more it fastens the knot and the more she desired to be free the stricter she was kept and that her despite drew on her a more severe punishment she begins to change her battery and to spin fine and to sow the skin of the Fox to that of the Lyon Her vain threats had served her to nothing it may be her smiles and the charms of her conversation would get her more advantage Of an angry and disdainfull she becomes plaintiff and a suppliant So that changing the fashion of her carriage she makes tender by little and little this savage courage that begins to use her with more sweetness from that to hearken to her then to behold her At last as a Man that cannot be always a Wolf to another Man but hath a secret advocate in his humanity that perswades him to mildness lets himself be taken by the ears and sees his heart ravished by the eyes For both pitty and beauty gave such assaults into the thoughts of Roboald that forgetting the faith he had sworne to his Master he esteems it would be impiety to obey him any longer in so savage and unnatural a commission to the prejudice of so many graces that appeared in the face of this fair Prisoner And certainly the advantages that affections of Love have of those of Friendship are such that those that are touched with the one make more difficulty to prejudice the other even till their faults seem not only pardonable but commendable and rather worthy of glory