in their Religion If the eye be blind the body cannot chuse but be darkned and certainly there is nothing that hath prepared many of this Realm more to embrace the reformation than this blockishness of their own Clergy an excellent advantage to the Protestant Ministers could they but well humor it and likely to be a fair inlargement to their party if well husbanded Besides this the French Catholicks are not over earnest in their cause and so do lye open to the assaults of any politick enemy to deal with them by main force of argument and in the servent spirit of zeal as the Protestants too often do is not the way Men uncapable of opposition as this people generally are and furious if once thwarted must be tamed as Alexander did his Horse Bucephalus Those that came to back him with the tyranny of the spur and a cudgel he quickly threw down and mischieved Alexander came otherwise prepared for turning his Horse toward the Sun that he might not see the impatiency of his shadow he spake kindly to him and gently clapping him on the back till he had left his flinging and wildness he lightly leapeth into the saddle the Horse never making resistance Plutarch in his life relateth the storie and this the Morall of it CHAP. XII The correspondency between the King and the Pope This Pope An Omen of the Marriage of France with England An English Catholick's conceit of it His Holiness Nuntio in Paris A learned argument to prove the Popes universality A continuation of the Allegory of Jacob and Esau The Protestants compelled to leave their Forts and Towns Their present estate and strength The last War against them justly undertaken not fairly mannaged Their insolence and disobedience to the Kings command Their purpose to have themselves a free Estate The War not a War of Religion King James in justice could not assist them more than he did First forsaken by their own party Their happiness before the War The Court of the Edict A view of them in their Churches The commendation which the French Papists give to the Church of England Their Discipline and Ministery c. WE have seen the strength and subtilty as also somewhat of his poverties at home let us now see the alliance which this French Esau hath abroad in the world in what credit and opinion he standeth in the eye of Bâ—eâ—i the Romish Hittite the daughter of whose abominations he hath married And here I find him to hold good correspondency as being the eldest son of the Church and an equal poize to ballance the affairs of Italy against the potency of Spain Oâ— this ground the present Pope hath alwayes shewed himself very favorable to the French side well knowing into what perils a necessary and impolitick dependance on the Spanish party onely would one day bring the state Ecclesiastick As in the general so in many particulars also hath he expressed much affection unto him as first by taking into his hand the Valtolin till his Son of France might settle himself in some course to recover it secondly his not stirring in the behalf of the Spaniard during the last warrs in Italy and thirdly his speedy and willing grant of the dispensation of Madames marriage of which his Papacy was so large an Omen so fair a Prognostick Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illi The Lar or Angel Guardian of his thoughts hastened him in it in whose time there was so plausible a presage that it must be accomplished For thus it standeth Malachy now a Saint then one of the first Apostles of the Irish one much reverenced in his memory to this day by that Nation left behind him by way of prophesie a certain number of Motto's in Latine telling those that there should follow that certain number of Popes onely whose conditions successively should be hereby expressed in those Motto's according to that order he had placed them in Messingham an Irish Priest Master of the Colledge of Irish fugitives in Paris hath collected together the lives of all the Irish Saints which book himself shewed me In that volume and the life of that Saint are the several Motto's and the several Popes set down columewise one against the other I compared the lives of them with the Motto's as farre as my memory would carry me and found many of them very answerable as I remember there are thirty six Motto's yet to come and when just as many Popes are joyned to them they are of opinion for so Malachy foretold that either the world should end or the Popedom be ruined Amongst others the Motto of the present Pope is most remarkable and sutable to the cheif action likely to happen in his time being this Lilium Rosa which they interpret and in my mind not unhappily to be intended to the conjunction of the French Lillie and the English Rose To take from me any suspition of imposture he shewed me an old book printed almost two hundred years ago written by one Wion a Flemming and comparing the number of the Motto's with the Catalogue of the Popes I found the name of Vrban now Pope directly to answer it upon this ground an English Catholike whose acquaintance I gained in France made a Copy of Verses in French and presented them to the English Embassadors the Earles of Carlisle and Holland because he is my Friend and the conceit is not to be despised I begged them of him and these are they Lilia juncta Rosis Embleme de bon ' presage de l' alliance de la France avec l' Angleterre Ce grand dieu quid ' un oecl voit tout ce que les aâ—s Souos leurs voiles sacrez vont a nous yeax cathans Descouvre quelque fois ainsi qui bon luy semble Et les moux avenir et les biene tout ensemble Ainsc fit il iadis a ce luy qui primier Dans l' Ireland porta de la foye le laurier Malachie son nom qu' autymon de l' Eglise On verra soir un jour il qui pour sa devise Aura les Lys chenus ioints aux plus belles fleures Qui docent le pinâ—temps de leurs doubles couleurs CHARLES est le fleuron de la roso pour pree HENRITTE est le Lys que la plus belle pree De la France nâ—urit pour estrâ— quelque iour Et la Reine des flâ—ures et des roses l' amour Adorable banquet bien beu reux courâ—nne Que la bonte du ciel en parrage nous donne Heu reux ma partie heu reux mille fois Cela qui te fera reflorrier en les Roys With these verses I take my leave of his Holiness wishing none of his successors would presage worse luck unto England I go now to see his Nuntio to whose house the same English Catholike brought me but he was not at home his name is Ferdinando d' Espado a
raise and enhaunce up their rents to tax his Subjects on occasion and to prohibite them such pleasures as they think fit to be reserved for themselves In Grettanl in Picardie I saw a post fastened in the ground like a race-post with us and thereon an inscription I made presently to it as hoping to have heard news of sōe memorable battel there fought but when I came at it I found it to be nothing but a declaration of the Prince of Condes pleasure that no man should hunt in those quarters Afterward I observed them to be very frequent But not to wander through all particulars I will in some few of them onely give instance of their power here The first is Droict de Balliage power to keep Assizes or to have under them a Baillie and an Imperial seat of justice for the definition of such causes as fall under the compass of ordinary jurisdiction In this Court there is notice taken of treason robberies murthers protections pardons fairs markets and other matters of priviledge Next they have a Court of ordinary jurisdiction and therein a Judge whom they call Le Guarde de Justice for the decision of smaller business as debts trespass breach of the Kings peace and the like In this the purse is onely emptied the other extendeth to the taking away of the life for which every one that hath Hante Justice annexed to his feife hath also his particular Gibbet Nay which is wonderful methodical by the Criticisme of the Gibbet you may judge at the quality of him that owneth it for the Gibbet of one of the Noblesse hath but two pillars that of the Chastellan three the Barons four the Earls six the Dukes eight and yet this difference is rather precise than general The last of their jura Regalia which I will here speak of is the Command they have upon the people to follow them unto the warrs a Command not so advantagious to the Lord as dangerous to the Kingdom Thus live the French Princes thus the Noblesse thus those Sheep which God and the Laws hath brought under them they do not shear but fleece them and which is worse than this having themselves taken away the wooll they give up the naked carcass to the King Tonderi oves meas volo non deglubi was accounted one of the golden sayings of Tiberius but it is not currant here in France Here the Lord and the King though otherwise at odds amongst themselves be sure to agree in this the undoing and oppressing of the Paisant Ephraim against Manasseh and Masnasseh against Ephraim but both against Juda saith the Scripture The reason why they thus desire the poverty of the Commons is as they pretend the safety of the State and their own particulars Were the people once warmed with the feeling of ease and their own riches they would be presently hearkening after the Warrs And if no employment were offered abroad they would make some at home Histories and experience hath taught us enough of this humour in this kind it being impossible for this hot-headed and hare-brain'd people not to be doing Si extraneus deest domi hostem quaerunt as Justin hath observed of the ancient Spaniards A pretty quality and for which they have often smarted CHAP. XIV The base and low estate of the French Paisant The misery of them under their Lords The bed of Procrustes The suppressing of the Subject prejudicial to a State The Wisdom of King Henry the seventh The French forces all in the Cavillery The cruel Impositions laid upon the people by the King No Demain in France Why the trial by twelve men can be used onely in England The gabel of Salt The Popes licence for wenching The gabel by whom refused and why the Gascoines impatient of taxes The Taille and Taylon The Pancarte or aids the vain resistance of those of Paris The Court of aids The manner of gathering the Kings moneys The Kings Revenue The corruption of the French Publicans King Lewis why called the Just The moneys currant in France The gold of Spain more Catholike than the King The happiness of English Subjects BY that which hath been spoken already of the Nobless we may partly guess at the low estate of the Paisant or Country man of whom we will not now speak as Subjects to their Lords and how farre they are under their commandment but how miserable and wretched they are in their apparel and their houses For their apparel it is well if they can allow themselves Canvas or an outside of that nature As for Cloath it is above their purse equally and their ambition if they can aspire unto Fustian they are as happy as their wishes and he that is so arrayed will not spare to aim at the best place in the Parish even unto that of Church-Warden When they go to Plow or to the Church they have shooes and stockings at other times they make bold with Nature and wear their skins Hats they will not want though their bellies pinch for it and that you may be sure they have them they will alwayes keep them on their heads The most impudent custom of a beggarly fortune that ever I met with and which already hath had my blessing As for the Women they know in what degree Nature hath created them and therefore dare not be so fine as their Husbands some of them never had above one pair of stockings in all their lives which they wear every day for indeed they are very durable the goodness of their faces tels us that they have no need of a band therefore they use none And as concerning petticoats so it is that all have such a garment but most of them so short that you would imagine them to be cut off at the placket When the parents have sufficiently worn these vestures and that commonly is till the rottenness of them will save the labour of undressing they are a new cut out and fittted to the Children Search into their houses and you shall find them very wretched and destitute as well of furniture as provision No butter salted up against Winter no poudering tub no pullein in the rick barten no flesh in the pot or at the spit and which is worse no money to buy them The description of the poor aged couple Philemon and Baucis in the eigth book of the Metamorphosis is a perfect character of the French Paisant in his house-keeping though I cannot affirm that if Jupiter and Mercury did come amongst them they should have so hearty an entertainment for thus Ovid marshelleth the dishes Ponitur hic bicolor sincerae bacca Minervae Intubaque radix lactis Massa coacti Ovaque non acri leviter versata favellâ Prunaque in patulis redolentia mala canistris Hic nux hic mixta est rugosis carica palmis Et de purpurers collectae vitibus uvae Omnia fictilibus nitede They on the Table set Minerva's fruit The double coulour'd Olive
the earth its Mother or that it purposed by making it self away into the ground to save the Plow-man his next years labour Thick it groweth and so perfectly void of weeds that no garden can be imagined to be kept cleaner by art than these fields are by nature Pasture ground it hath little and less meadow yet sufficient to nourish those few Cattel they have in it In all the way between Diepe and Pontois I saw but two flocks of Sheep and then not above forty in a flock Kine they have in some measure but not fat nor large without these there were no living for them The Noblest eat the flesh whiles the Farmer feeds on Butter and Cheese and that but sparingly But the miserable states of the Norman paissant we wiil deferre till another opportunity Swine also they have in pretty number and some Pullen in their backsides but of neither an excess The principal Rivers of it is Seine of which more hereafter and besides this I saw two rivulets Robee and Renelâ—e In matter of civil Government this Country is directed by the Court of Parliament established at Roven for matters Military it hath an Officer like the Lieutenants of our Shires in England the Governour they call him The present Governour Mounsieur Duc de Longueville to whom the charge of this province was committed by the present King Lewis the thirteenth Anno 1629. The Laws by which they are governed are the Civil or Imperial augmented by some customes of the French and others more particular which are the Norman One of the principallest is in matters of inheritance the French custom giving to all the Sons an equality in their estate which we in England call Gavel-kind The Norman dividing the estate into three parts and thereof allotting two unto the eldest brother and a third to be divided among the others A Law which the French account not just the younger brothers of England would think the contrary To conclude this general discourse of the Normans I dare say it is as happy a Country as most in Europe were it subject to the same Kings and governed by the same Laws which it gave unto England CHAP. II. Diepeâ— the Town strength and importance of it The policy of Henry the fourth not seconded by his Son The custom of the English Kings in placing Governours in their Forts The breaden God there and strength of their Religion Our passage from Diepe to Roven The Norman Inns Women and Manners The importunity of Servants in hosteries The saucy familiarity of the attendants Ad pileum vocare What it was amongst the Romans and jus pilearum in the Universities of England IVne the 30th at six of the clock in the morning we landed at Diepe one of the Haven Towns of Normandy seated on an arm of the Sea between two hils which imbrace it in the nature of a bag this secureth the Haven from the violence of the weather and is a great strength to the Town against the attempts of any forces which should assault it by Sea the Town lying within these Mountains a quarter of a mile up the channel The Town it self is not uncomely the streets large and well paved the houses of an indifferent height and built upright without any juttings out of one part over the other The Fortifications as they say for we were not permitted to see them are very good and modern without stones within earth On the top of the hill a Castle finely seated both to defend the Town and on occasions to command it The Garrison consisteth of sixty men in pay no more but when need requireth the Captain hath authority to arm the Inhabitants The present Governour is the Duke of Longueville who also is the Governour of the Province intrusted with both those charges by Lewis the thirteenth 1619. An action wherein he swarved somewhat from the ensample of his Father who never committed the military command of a Country which is the Office of a Governour and the custody of a Town of war or a Fortress unto one man The Duke of Biron might have as great a courtesie from that King as the most deserving of his subjects he had stuck close to him in all his adversities received many an honourable fear in his service and indeed was Fabius and Scipio both the sword and buckler of the French Empire In a word he might have said to this Henry what Silius in Tacitus did to Tiberius Suum militem in obsequio mansâ—sse cum alii ad sedetiones prolaberentur neque daraturum Tiberii imperium si iis quoque Legionibus cupido novandi fuisset yet when he became petitioner to the King for the Cittadel of Bourg seated on the confines of his Government of Burgogne the King denied it The reason was because Governours of Provinces which commanded in chief ought not to have the command of places and fortresses within their Government there was also another reason and more enforcing which was that the petitioner was suspected to hold intelligence with the Duke of Savoy whose Town it was The same Henry though he loved the Duke Espernon even to the envy of the Court yet even to him also used he the same caution Therefore when he had made him Governour of Xanictoigne and Angoulmois he put also into his hands the Towns of Mets and Boullogne places so remote from his seat of Government and so distant one from the other that they did rather distract his power than encrease it The Kings of England have been well and for a long time versed in this Maxime of State Let Kent be one of our ensamples and Hampshire the other In Kent at this time the Lieutenant or as the French would call him the Governour is the Earl of Montgomery yet is Dover Castle in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham and yet Quinborough in the custody of Sir Edward Hobby Of which the one commandeth the Sea and the other the Thames and the Medway In Hampshire the Lieutenant is the Earl of Southampton but the Government of the Town and Garrison of Portsmouth is intrusted to the Earl of Pembroke Neither is there any of the best Sconces or Block-houses on the shore side of the Country which is commanded by the Lieutenant But King Lewis now raigning in France minded not his Fathers actions when at the same time also he made his Confident M. Luines Governour of Picardy and of the Town and Cittadel of Amiens The time ensuing gave him an insight of that state-breach for when the Dukes of Espernon Vendosme Longueville Magenne and Nemours the Count of Soisons and others sided with the Queen Mother against the King the Duke of Longueville strengthened this Dieppe and had not peace suddenly followed would have made good maugre the Kings forces A town it is of great importance King Henry the fourth using it as his Asylum or City of Refuge when that League was hottest against him For had he been further distressed
in these later they onely consummate strength so say the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquid ad perfectionem partium sed ad perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this Profession is the eleventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth of Papyrius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confest him to be born in the thirteenth month And Avicen a Moor of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a Child born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of Women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernatural causes Vt extra ordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the furthest understand ten moneths compleat the Child is born And Vlpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a Child born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of its pretended Father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived taking it in the most favourable construction after the conception of the Mother and by no meanes after the death of the Father and so can it no way if I were first President advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extreamly sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken Anno 1552. to be little prone to Women in the general They therefore that would seem to know more than the vulgar reckon him as one of the by-blows of Henry the fourth but this under the Rose yet by way of conjecture we may argue thus First from the Kings care of his education assigning him for his Tutor Nicholas de Februe whom he also designed for his Son King Lewis Secondly from his care to work the Prince then young Mollis aptus agi to become a Catholike Thirdly the age of the old Henry of Conde and the privacy of this King with his Lady being then King of Navarre in the prime of his strength and in discontent with the Lady Margaret of Valoys his first Wife Adde to this that Kings love to fair Ladies in the general and we may see this probability to be no miracle For besides the Dutchess of Beaufort the Marchioness of Verneville and the Countess of Morret already mentioned he is beleived to have been the Father of Mr. Luines the great Favorite of King Lewis And certain it is that the very year before his death when he was even in the winter of his dayes he took such an amorous liking to the Prince of Conde s Wife a very beautiful Lady and Daughter to the Constable Duke of Montmorencie that the Prince to save his honour was compelled to flie together with his Princess into the Arch-Dukes Country whence he returned not till long after the death of King Henry If Marie de Medices in her Husbands life time paid his debts for him which I cannot say she onely made good that of vindicate· And yet perhaps a consciousness of some injuries not onely moved her to back the Count of Soison's and his faction against the Prince and his but also to resolve upon him for the Husband of her Daughter From the Princes of the bloud descend we to the Princes of the Court and therein the first place we meet with Mr. Barradas the Kings present Favourite a young Gentleman of a fresh and lively hew little bearded and one whom the people as yet cannot accuse for any oppression or misgovernment Honours the King hath conferred none upon him but onely Pensions and Offices He is the Governour of the Kings Children of Honour Pages we call them in England a place of more trouble than wealth or credit He is also the Master of the Horse or le grand Escuire the esteem of which place recompenceth the emptiness of the other for by vertue of this Office he carryeth the Kings Sword sheathed before him at his entrance into Paris the Cloth of Estate carryed over the King by the Provosts and Eschevins is his Fee No man can be the Kings Spur maker his Smith or have any place in the Kings Stables but from him and the like This place to note so much by the way was taken out of the Constables Office Comes stabuli is the true name to whom it properly belonged in the time of Charles the seventh Besides this he hath a pension of 500000. Crowns yearly and had an Office given him which he sold for 100000. Crownes in ready money A good fortune for one who the other day was but the Kings Page And to say truth he is as yet but a little better being onely removed from his Servant to his play-fellow with the affairs of State he intermeddleth not if he should he might expect the Queene Mother should say to him what Apollo in Ovid did to Cupid Tibi quia cum fortibus armis Mi puer ista decent humeros gestamina nostros For indeed first during her Sons minority and after since her redentigration with him she hath made her self so absolute a Mistress of her mind that he hath entrusted to her the entire conduct of all his most weighty affairs for her Assistant in the managing of her greatest business she hath pieced her self to the strongest side of the State the Church having principally since the death of the Marshall D' Anere Joneane assumed to her Counsails the Cardinal of Richileiu a man of no great birth were Nobility the greatest Parentage but otherwise to be ranked among the Noblest Of a sound reach he is and of a close brain one exceedingly well mixt of a Lay Vnderstanding and a Church Habit one that is compleatly skilled in the art of men and a perfect Master of his own mind and affections Him the Queene useth as her Counseller to keep out frailty and the Kings name as her countenance to keep off envy She is of a Florentine wit and hath in her all the vertues of Katherine de Medices her Ancestor in the Regencie and some also of her vices only her designes tend not to the ruine of her Kingdome and her Children John de Seirres telleth us in his Inventaire of France how the Queene Katherine suffered her Son Henry the third a devout and simple Prince to spend his most dangerous times even uncontrolled upon his Beades whiles in the meantime she usurped the Government of the Realm Like it is that Queene Mary hath
October Anno 1603. They not onely gave audience to Ambassadours and received Letters from forrain Princes but also importuned his Majesty to have a general liberty of going into any other Countreys and assigning at their Counsel a matter of especial importance And therefore the King upon a foresight of the dangers wisely prohibited them to go to any Assemblies without a particular licence upon pain to be declared Traytors Since that time growing into greater strength whensoever they had occasion of business with King Lewis they would never treat with him but by their Embassadors and upon especial Articles An ambition above the quality of those that profess themselves Sorbonets and the onely way as Du Seirres noteth to make an estate in the State but the answers made unto the King by those of Alerack and Montanbon are pregnant proofs of their intent and meaning in this kind The first being summoned by the King and his Army the 22. of July Anno 1621. returned thus that the King should suffer them to enjoy their liberties and leave their fortifications as they were for them of their lives and so they would declare themselves to be his subjects They of Montanbon made a fuller expression of the general design Disobedience which was that they were resolved to live and die in the Vnion of the Churches had they said for the Service of the King it had been spoken bravely but now rebelliously This union and confederacy of theirs King Lewis used to call the Common-wealth of Rochell for the overthrow of which he alwayes protested that he had onely taken Arms and if we compare circumstances we shall find it to be no other In the second of April before he had as yet advanced into the Feild he published a Declaration in favour of all those of the Religion which would contain themselves within duty and obedience And whereas some of Tours at the beginning of the warrs had tumultuously molested the Protestants at the burial of one of their dead five of them by the Kings especial commandement were openly executed When the warr was hottest abroad those of the Gospel at Paris lived as securely as ever and had their accustomed meetings at Charentan So had those also of other places Moreover when tidings came to Paris of the Duke of Mayens death slain before Montanbon the Rascal French according to their hot headed dispositions breathed out nothing but ruine to the Hugonots the Duke of Montbazon Governour of the City commanded their houses and the streets to be safely guarded After when this Rabble had burnt down their Temple at Charentan the Court of Parliament on the day following ordained that it should be built up again in a more beautiful manner and that at the Kings charge Add to this that since the ending of the warrs and the reduction of almost all their Towns we have not seen the least alteration of Religion Besides that they have been permitted to hold a National Synod at Clarenton for establishing the truth of their doctrine against the errors of Arminius Professor of Leiden in Holland All things thus considered in their true being I cannot see for what cause our late Soveraign should suffer so much envy as he did for not giving them assistance I cannot but say that my self hath too often condemned his remissness in that cause which upon better consideration I cannot tell how he should have dealt in Had he been a meddler in it further than he was he had not so much preserved Religion as supported rebellion besides the consequence of the example To have assisted the disobedient French under the colour of the liberty of Conscience had been onely to have taught that King a way into England upon the same pretence and to have troad the path of his own hazard Further he had not long before denyed succor to his own children when he might have given upon a better ground and for a fairer purpose and could not now in honour countenance the like action in another For that other denial of his helping hand I much doubt how farre posterity will acquit him though certainly he was a good Prince and had been an happy instrument of the peace of Christendom had not the later part of his raign happened in a time so full of troubles So that betwixt the quietness of his nature and the turbulencies of his later dayes he fell into that miserable exigent mentioned in the Historian Miserrimum est cum alicui aut natura sua excedenda est aut minuenda dignitas Add to this that the French had first been abandoned at home by their own friends of seven Generals whom they had appointed for the seven circles into which they divided all France four of them never giving them incouragement The three which accepted of those inordinate Governments were the Duke of Rohan his Brother Mr. Sonbise and the Marquess la Force the four others being the Duke of Tremoville the Earl of Chastillon the Duke of Lesdiguier and the Duke of Bovillon who should have commanded in cheif So that the French Protestants cannot say that he was first wanting unto them but they to themselves If we demand what should move the French Protestants to this rebellious contradiction of his Majesties commandements we must answer that it was too much happiness Causa hujus belli eadem quae omnium nimid faelicitas as Florus of the Civil warrs between Caesar and Pompey Before the year 1620. when they fell first into the Kings dis-favour they were possessed of almost an hundred good Towns well fortified for their safety besides beautiful houses and ample possessions in the Villages They slept every man under his own Vine and his own Fig-tree neither fearing nor needing to fear the least disturbance with those of the Catholike party they were grown so intimate and entire by reason of their inter-marriages that a very few years would have made them incorporated if not into one faith yet into one family For their better satisfaction in matters of Justice it pleased King Henry the fourth to erect a chamber in the Court of Parliament of Paris purposely for them It consisted of one President and sixteen Counsellors their office to take knowledge of all the Causes and Suits of them of the Reformed Religion as well within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris as also in Normandy and Brittain till there should be a Chamber erected in either of them There were appointed also two Chambers in the Parliament of Bourdeaux and Grenoble and one at Chasters for the Parliament at Tholoza These Chambers were called Les Chambres de l' Edict because they were established by a special Edict at the Town of Nantes in Brittain April the eighth Anno 1598. In a word they lived so secure and happy that one would have thought their felicities had been immortal O faciles dare summa Deos eademque tuerâ— Difficiles And yet they are not brought so low but that they may
be found more children in the towne than fathers this walk and the night are shrewdly suspected to be accessories a greater incnovenience in mine opinion than an English Kiss There is yet a fourth walk in this towne called L'estappe a walk principally frequented by Merchants who here meet to confer of their occasions It lieth before the house of Mr. Le Comte de St. Paul the Governour and reacheth up to the Cloister of St. Croix of the buildings of which Church I could never yet hear or read of any thing but that which is meerly fabulous for the Citizens report that long since time out of minde there appeared a Vision to a holy Monk which lived thereabouts and bad him dig deep in such a place where he should finde a piece of the Holy Crosse charging him to preserve that blessed relique in great honour and to cause a Church to be built in that place where it had been buried Upon this warning the Church was founded but at whose charges they could not inform me so that all which I couâ—d learn concerning the foundation of this Church is that it was erected by Superstition a Lie The Superstition is apparent in the worshipping of such rotten sticks as they imagine to be the remnants of the Crosse their calling of it holy and dedicating of this Church unto it Nay they have consecrated unto it two Holy-dayes one in May and the other in September and are bound to salute it as often as they see it in the streets or high wayes with these words Ave salus totius Seculi arbor salutifera Horrible blasphemy and never heard of but under Antichrist Cruces subeundas esse non adorandas being the lesson of the Ancients As for the Miracle I account it as others of the same stamp equally false and ridiculous This Church in the yeare 1562. was defaced and ruined by the Hugonots who had entred the town under the conduct of the Prince of Conde An action little savouring of Humanity and lesse of Religion the very Heathens themselves never demolishing any of the Churches of those towns which they had taken but in this action the Hugonots consulted only with rashnesse and zealous fury thinking no title so glorious as to be called the Scourge of Papists and the overthrowers of Popish Churches Quid facerent hostes captâ crudelius urbe The most barbarous enâ—mies in the world could not more have exercised their malice on the vanquâ—shed And this I peâ—swade my selfe had been the fate of most of our Churches if that Fictâ—on had got the upper hand of us but this Church notwithstanding is likely now to survive their madnesse being Henry the fourth begâ—n the repairing of it and his Son Lewis hath siâ—ce continued it so that the Quire is not quite finished and the workmen are in hand with the rest What should move the Hugonots to this execution I cannot say except it were a hate which they beare unto the name and perhaps not that unlikely We read how the Romans having expelled the Kings banished also Collatinus their Consul a man in whom they could finde no fault but this that his sirname was Tarquinius Tantum ob nomen genus regium saith Florus Afterwards quam invisum fuerit Regis nomen is very frequent in the stories of those times Among those which had been of the Conspiracy against Julius Caesar there was one named Cinna a name so odious among the people that meeting by chance with one of Caesars friends and hearing that his name was Cinna they presently murthered him in the place For which cause one Cassius which was also the name of one of the Conspirators published a writing of his name and pedâ—gree shewing therein that he neither was the Traytor nor any kin to him The reason of his action Dion giveth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ne si nominis causâ occideretur With a like heat it may be were the French Protestants possessed against the name of the Crosse For they not onely ruined that Temple but beat downe also all those little Crosses betwixt Mount Mactre and St. Denis though now King Lewis hath caused them to be re-edified And what troubles the French party here in England have raised because of that harmlesse ceremony of the Crosse Notius est quam ut stylo egeat and therefore I omit it This Church is the Seat of a Bishop who acknowledgeth the Archbishoprick of Seines for his Metropolitan The present Bishop is named Franciscus de Anbespins said to be a worthy Scholar and a sound Polititian though he were never graduated farther than the Arts of his revenue I could learn nothing but of his privileges this namely that at the entrance of every new Bishop into this Church he hath the liberty of setting free of any of the Prisoners of the Gaole though their crime be never so mortall For the originall of this indulgence we are beholding to St. Aâ—gnan once Bishop here and who defended the city against Atella the Huanne At his first entrance into the towne saith the Story after he was invested Bishop he besought Agrippinus the Governor that for his sake he would let loose all his Prisoners Vt omnes quos pro variis criminibus poenalis carâ—er detinebat inclusos sibi in introitus gratiam redderet resolutos When the Governour had heard this request he denied it and presently a stone falleth on his head no man knew from whence Wounded and terrified with this the Governour granteth hiâ— desire recovereth his health and ever since the custome hath continued For the truth of this story I intend to be no Champion for I hold it ridiculous and savouring too much of the Legend but this I am certain of that every new Bishop maketh a solemn and majestick entry into the City and at his entry releaseth a Prisoner Let us follow the Bishop into his Church and we shall finde him entertained with an high Masse the ceremonies whereof are very pretty and absurd To goe over them all would require a volume I will therefore mention those onely wherein they diffâ—r from other Masses and they are two the one Fantasticall the other Heathenish for as soon as the Priest at the Altar hath read a certain lesson but what his voyce was not audible enough to tell me out marcheth the Dean or in his absence the senior Chanoin out of the Church before him two or three Torches and a long Crosse silvered over after him all those of the Church and lastly the Lay-people both men and women so that there is none left to keep possession but the Priest at the Altar and such strangers as come thither for curiosity they went out at one door and just circuited the Quire and the body of the Church afterwards they return to their places and the Priest proceedeth I have seen many a dumb shew in a Play just like it This onely is the difference that here we had no interpreter nor Chorus
FRANCE PAINTED to the LIFE By a Learned and Impartial Hand Quid non Gallia parturit ingens LONDON Printed for William Leake at the Crown in Fleet-street betwixt the two Temple Gates 1656. TO THE READER HIstories are like Iewels not valued by their bulk but their beauty and lustre Real worth exceeds words yet this History is furnished with both t is rare for the matter method truth and use It needs no Apologie it s own furniture will sufficiently praise it especially amongst the Ingenuous and Learned here is a solid and pleasant relishment for any that desire forrain rarities The Pen-man managed his time with advantage And it may be said that a Judicious Reader may see France in this Book as well as by travel Nothing worthy observation hath escap'd the Author what hath was not worth his Pen. Thou hast as it came to hand without any adulteration a true Copy of his conceptions and labours without addition or diminution Take hereof a serious view thereby thou shalt inform thy judgement please thy fancy and be rendred able to discourse of the several places and passages therein mentioned equally with those who have in person surveyed them FRANCE Painted to the Life The First Book The beginning of our Journey the nature of the Sea a Farewell to England ON Thursday the 28th of June at the time when England had received the cheif beauty of France and the French had seen the cheif beauties of England we went to Sea in a Bark of Dover The Port we arrived at Diepe in Normandy the hour three in the afternoon the wind fair and high able had it continued in that point to have given us a waftage as speedy as our longing Two hours before night it came about to the Westward and the tide also not befriending us our passage became tedious and troublesome The next day being dedicate to the glory of God in memory of St. Peter we took the benifit of the ebb to assist us against the wind This brought us out of the sight of England and the floud ensuing compelled us to our anchor I had now leisure to see Gods wonders in the deep wonders indeed to us which had never before seen them but too much familiarity had made them none other than the Saylers play-fellows The waves striving by an inbred ambition which should be the highest which foremost precedency and super-eminency was equally desired and each enjoyed it in succession The wind more covetous in appearance to play with the water than disturbe it did onely rock the billow and seemed indeed to dandle the Ocean You would at another time have thought that the Seas had onely danced at the Winds whistle or that the Wind straining it self to a treble and the Seas by a disdiapason supplying the base had tuned a Coranto to our Ship For so orderly we rose and fell according to the time and note of the billow that her violent agitation might be thought to be nothing but a nimble Galliard filled with Capers The nimbleness of the waves and correspondency of our Bark unto them was not to all our company alike pleasing what in me moved onely a reverend and awful pleasure was to others an occasion of sickness their heads giddy their joynts enfeebled their stomacks loathing sustenance and with great pangs avoiding what they had taken In their mouthes nothing so frequent as that of Horace Illi robur aes triplex Circa pectus erat qui fragilem truci Commisit pelago ratem Hard was his heart as brass which first did venture In a weak Ship on the rough Seas to enter Whether it be that the noisom smels which arise from the saltness and tartness of that Region of waters poisoneth the brain or that the ungoverned and unequal motion of the Ship stirreth and unsettleth the stomack or both we may conjecture with the Philosphers rather than determine This I am sure of that the Cabbins and Deck were but as so many Hospitals or Pest-houses filled with diseased persons whilst I and the Marriners onely made good the hatches here did I see the scaly Nation of that Kingdom solace themselves in the brim of the waves rejoycing in the light and warmness of the day and yet spouting from their mouthes such quantity of waters as if they had purposed to quench that fire which gave it They danced about our vessel as if she had been a moving May-pole and that with such a delightful decorum that you never saw a Measure better troaden with less art And now I know not what wave bigger than the rest tossed up our Ship so high that I once more ken'd the coast of England an object which took such hold on my senses that I forgot the harmless company which sported below me to bestow on my dearest Mother this and for ought I could assure my self my last Farewell England adiew thy most unworthy Son Leaves thee and grieves to see what he hath done What he hath done in leaving thee the best Of Mothers and more glorious than the rest Thy sister Nations Had'st thou been unkind Yet might he trust thee safer than the Wind. Had'st thou been weak yet far more strength in thee Than in two inches of a sinking Tree Say thou wert cruel yet thy angry face Hath more love in it then the Seas embrace Suppose thee poor his zeal and love the less Thus to forsake his Mother in distress But thou art none of those No want in thee Onely a needless Curiositie Hath made him leap thy Ditch O let him have Thy blessing in his Voyage and hee 'l crave The Gods to thunder wrath on his neglect When he performs not thee all due respect That Nemesis on him her scourge would pluck When he forgets those breasts wich gave him suck That Nature would dissolve and turn him earth If thou bee'st not remembred in his Mirth May he be cast from Mankind if he shame To make profession of his Mothers name Rest then assur'd in this though some times he Conceal'd perhaps his Faith he will not thee CHAP. I. Normandy in general the Name and bounds of it The condition of the ancient Normans and of the present Ortelius Character of them examined In what they resemble the Inhabitants of Norfolk The Commodities of it and the Government THe next ebb brought us in sight of the sea-coast of Normandy a shoar so evenly composed and levelled that it seemeth the work of Art not Nature The Rock all the way of an equal height rising from the bottom to the top in a perpendicular and withal so smooth and polished that if you dare beleive it the work of Nature you must also think that Nature wrought it by the line and shewed an art in it above the imitation of an Artist This wall is the Northern bound of this Province the South part of it being confined with Le-Maine la Beausse l' Isle du France On the East it is divided from
Patients and yet from all parts he was much sought unto Hope of cure and a charitable opinion which they had of themselves had brought unto him divers distressed Damsels which I am confident had no interest in his miracle In the same Inn Alehouse I should say where we were to be harboured there had put in a whole covey of these Ladies Errant Pilgrims they called themselves and had come on foot two dayes journey to clear their eye-sight They had white vails hanging down their backs which in part covered their faces yet I perceived by a glimpse that some of them were past cure though my charity durst allow them Maids it was afraid to suppose them Virgins yet so far I dare assure them they should recover their sight that when they came home they should see their folly At that time what with too much watching on ship-board what with the tartness of the water and the violence of the wind working upon me almost forty hours together whilst I lay on the hatches mine eyes had gotten a rheum and redness My Hostess good woman perswaded me to this holy and blessed Wight but I durst not venture not that I had not as good a claim to my virginity as the best there but because I had learned what a greivous sentence was denounced on Ahaziah King of Israel for seeking help of Beelzebub the God of Ekron When I hap to be ill let mine amendment come in God's Name Mallem semper profanus esse quám sic religiosus as Minutius Felix of the Roman Sacrifices let my body still be troubled with a sore eye then have such a recovery be a perpetual eye-sore to my conscience Rather than go on pilgrimage to such a Saint let the Papists count me for an Heretick Besides how durst I imagine in him an ability of curing my bodily eyes who above seventy years had been troubled with a blindness in the eyes of his soul Thou Fool said our Saviour almost in the like case first cast out the beam of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brothers eye The next morning August the third I left my Pilgrims to try their fortunes and went on in our journey to Paris which that day we were to visit My eyes not permitting me to read and mine ears altogether strangers to the French chat drave my thoughts back to Roven and there nothing so much possessed me as the small honour done to Bedford in his Monument I had leisure enough to provide him a longer Epitaph and a short apology against the envy of that Courtier which perswaded Charles the eighth to deface the ruines of his Sepulcher Thus So did the Fox the coward'st of the Heard Kiâ—k the dead Lion and profane his Beard So did the Greeks about their vanquisht Hoast Drag Hector's Reliques and torment his Ghost So did the Parthian slaves deride the head Of the great Crassus now betray'd and dead To whose victorious Sword not long before They would have sacrific'd their lives or more So do the French assault dead Bedford's spright And trample on his ashes in despite But foolish Curio cease and do not blame So small an honour done unto his Name Why griev'st thou him a Sepulcher to have Who when he liv'd had made all France a Grave His Sword triump'd through all those Towns which lie In the Isle Main Aniou Guyen Normandy Thy Fathers felt it Oh thou worst of men If Man thou art do not endeavour then This Conqueror from his last Hold to thrust Whom all brave minds shall honour in the dust But be not troubled Bedford Thou shalt stand above the reach of malice Though the hand Of a French baseness may deface thy name And tear it from thy Marble Yet shall Fame Speak lowdly of thee and thy acts Thy praise A Pyramis unto it self shall raise Thy brave Atchievements in the time to come Shall be a Monument above a Tombe Thy name shall be thy Epitaph and he Which once reads Bedford shall imagine thee Beyond the power of Verses and shall say None could express thy Worth's a fuller way Rest thou then quiet in the shades of Night Nor vex thy self with Curio's weaker spright Whilst France remains and Histories are writ Bedford shall live and France shall Chronicle it Having offered this unworthy yet grateful sacrifice to the Manes of that brave Heroe I had the more leisure to behold Mante and the Vines about it being the first that ever I saw They are planted like our Hop-gardens and grow up by the help of Poles but not so high They are kept with little cost and yeild profit to an Husbandman sufficient to make him rich had he neither King nor Landlord The Wine which is pressed out of them is harsh and not pleasing as much differing in sweetness from the Wines of Paris or Orleans as their language doth in elegancy The rest of the Norman Wines which are not very frequent as growing onely on the frontiers towards France are of the same quality As for the Town of Mante it seemeth to have been of good strength before the use of great Ordinance having a wall a competent ditch and at every gate a Draw-bridge They are still sufficient to guard their pullen from the Fox and in the night time to secure their houses from forrain burglaries Once indeed they were able to make resistance to a King of France but the English were then within it At last on honourable terms it yeilded and was entred by Charles the seventh the second of August Anno 1449. The Town is for building and bigness somewhat above the better sort of Market Towns here in England The last Town of Normandy towards Paris is Pontoise a Town well fortified as being a borderer and one of the strongest bulwarks against France It hath in it two fair Abbeys of Maubuisson and St. Martin six Churches parochial whereof that of Nostre-dame in the suburbs is most beautiful The name it derives from a bridge built over the River of Oyse on which it is scituated and by which on that side it is well defended the bridge being strengthened with a strong gate and two draw-bridges It is commodiously scituate on the rising of an hill and is famous for the siege laid before it by Charles the seventh Anno 1442. but more fortunate unto him in the taking of it For having raised his armes upon the Duke of Yorkes coming to give him battel with 6000. men onely the French Army consisting of double the number he retired or fled rather unto St. Deuis But there hearing how scandalous his retreat was to the Parisians even ready to mutiny and that the Duke of Orleance and others of the Princes stirred with the ignominiousness of his flight began to practise against him he speedily returneth to pontoise and maketh himself Master of it by assault Certainly to that fright he owed the getting of the Town and all Normandy the
a little parcell and thus did the English Saxon being the most prevailing of the rest impose the name of English on all the people of the Heptarchy Et dedit imposito nomina prisca jugo And good reason the vanquished should submit themselves as well unto the appellation as the Lawes of the Victor The French then are possessors of some part of old Gallia and masters of the rest possessors not of their Cities onely but their conditions a double victory it seemeth they enjoyed over that people and took from them at once both their Qualities and their Countries Certainly whosoever will please to peruse the Commentaries of Caesar de Bello Gallice he will easily guess him an Historian and a Prophet He will rather make himself beleeve that he hath Prophicied the character of the present French then delivered one of the ancient Gaules And indeed it is a matter worthy both of wonder and observation that the old Gaules being in a manner all worn out should yet have most of their condition surviving in those men which now inhabit that Region being of so many several Countries and originals If we dive into Natural causes we have a speedy recourse unto the powerfull influence of the Heavens for as those celestial bodies considered in the general do work upon all sublunary bodies in the general by light influence and motion so have they a particular operation on particulars an operation there is wrought by them in a man as born at such and such a minute and again as born under such and such a climate the one derived from the setting of the houses and the Lord of the Horoscope at the time of his nativity the other from that Constellation which governeth as it were the Province of his birth and is the Genius or Deus tutelaris loci Hinc illa ab antiquo vitia saith an Author moderne rather in time than judgement et patriae sorte dur antia quae totas in historiis gentes aut commendant aut notant Two or three Authors by name of paralel will make it clear in the example though it appear not obscure in the search of causes Primus Gallorum impeâ—us major quà m virorum Secundus minor quam foeminarum saith Florus of the Gaules What else is that which Mr. Dallington saith of the French when he reporteth that they begin an action like thunder and end it in a smoak Their attempts on Naples and Millaine to omit their present enterprize on Genoa are manifest proofs of it Neither will I now speak of the battaile of Poâ—cctiers when they were so forward in the on-set and furious in the flight ut sunt Gallorum subita ingenia saith Caesar and I think these people are well known to be as hair-brain'd as the other ever were Juvenal calleth Galliam foecundum Causidicorum and amongst the modern French it is related that there are tryed more Law cases in one year than have been in England since the Conquest Of the ancient Germaines the next neighbours and confederates of the Gaules Tacitus hath given us this note Diem noctemque continaure potando nulli probrum and presently after de jungendis affinitatibus de bello denique et pace inconviviis consuttant Since the times of Tacitus hath Germany almost shifted all her old inhabitants and received new â—lonieâ— of Lombards Sueves Gothes Sclavonians Hunn's Saxons Vandals and divers other Nations unknown to that writer yet still is that exhorbitancie of drinking in fashion and to this day do the present Germaines consult of most of their affairs in their cups if the English have borrowed any thing of this humor it is not to be thought the vice of the Country but the times To go yet higher and further the Philosopher Anacharsis and he lived six hundred and odd years before Christ noted it in the Greeks that at the beginning of their feasts they used little goblets and greater towards the end when they were almost drunken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Laertius reporteth it Sr. George Sandis in that excellent discourse of his own travells reporteth the same custome to continue still amongst them notwithstanding the length of time and all those changes of State and People which have since happened Their Empire indeed they have lost their Valour and all other Graces which set them out in the eye of the World and no marvail these were not National conditions but personall endowments I conclude this digression with the words of Barklay Haeret itaque in omnì gente vis quaedam inconcussa quae hominibus pro conditione terrarum in quibus nascâ— contigerit sua fata dimiserit The present French then is nothing but an old Gaule moulded into a new name as rash he is as head strong and as hair-brain'd A Nation whom you shall winne with a feather and loose with a straw upon the first sight of him you shall have him as familiar as your sleep or the necessity of breathing In one hours conference you may indear him to you in the second unbutton him the third pumps him dry of all his secrets and he gives them you as faithfully as if you were his Ghostly Father and bound to conceale them sub sigillo confessionis when you have learned this you may lay him aside for he is no longer serviceable If you have any humor in holding him in a further acquaintance a favour which he confesseth and I beleeve him he is unworthy of himself will make the first separation he hath said over his lesson now unto you and now must find out some body else to whom to repeate it Fare him well he iâ— a garment whom I would be loath to wear above two dayes together for in that time he will be thred bare Familiare est hominis omnia sibi remittere saith Velleius of all it holdeth most properly in this people He is very kind hearted to himself and thinketh himself as free from wants as he is full so much he hath in him the nature of a Chynois that he thinketh all men blind but himself In this private self conceitedness he hateth the Spaniard loveth not the English and contemneth the German himself is the onely Courtier and compleat Gentleman but it is his own glass which he seeth in Out of this conceit of his own excellencie and partly out of a shallowness of brain he is very lyable to exceptions the least distaste that can be draweth his sword and a minutes pause sheatheth it to your hand afterwards if you beat him into better manners he shall take it kindly and cry Serviteur In this one thing they are wonderfully like the Devil meekness or submission makes them insolent a little resistance putteth them to their heeles or makes them your Spaniels In a word for I have held him too long he is a waling vanitie in a new fashion I will give you now a taste of his Table which you shall find in a measure furnished I speak not of the
Paisant but not with so full a manner as with us Their Beef they cut out into such chops that that which goeth there for a laudable dish would be thought here a Vniversity Commons new served from the Hatch A Loyne of Mutton serves amongst them for three rostings besides the hazard of making pottage with the rump Fowl also they have in good plenty especially such as the King found in Scotland to say truth that which they have is sufficient for nature and a friend were it not for the Mistriss or the Kitchin wench I have heard much fame of the french Cookes but their skill lyeth not in the neat handling of Beef or Mutton They have as generally have all this Nation good fancies and are speciall fellowes for the making of puff pastes and the ordering of banquets Their trade is not to feed the belly but the pallat It is now time you were set down where the first thing you must do is to say your own Grace private Graces are as ordinary there as private Masses and from thence I think they learned them That done fall to where you like best they observe no method in their eating and if you look for a carver you may rise fasting When you are risen if you can digest the sluttishness of the Cookery which is most abominable at first sight I dare trust you in a Garrison follow him to Church and there he will shew himself most irrereligious and irreverent I speak not of all but the general At a Masse in Cordeliers Church in Paris I saw two French Papists even when the most sacred Mistery of their faith was celebrating break out into such a blasphemous and athiestical laughter that even an Ethnick would have hated it it was well they were known to be Catholiques otherwise some French hot head or other would have sent them laughing to Pluto The French Language is indeed very sweet and delectable it is cleared of all harshness by the cutting and leaving out the consonants which makerh it fall off the tongue very volubly yet in mine opinion it is rather elegant than copious and therefore is much troubled for want of words to find out Periphrases It expresseth very much of it self in the action the head body and shoulders concurre all in the pronouncing of it and he that hopeth to speak it with a good grace must have something in him of the Mimick It is enriched with a full number of significant Proverbs which is a great help to the French humor in scoffing and very full of Courtship which maketh all the people complemental the poorest Cobler in the village hath his Court cringes and his eau bemste de Cour his Court holy water as perfectly as the Prince of Conde In the Passadoes of their Courtship they expresse themselves with much variety of gesture and indeed it doth not misbecome them were it as gracious in the Gentlemen of other Nations as in them it were worth your patience but the affectation of it is scurvy and ridiculous Quocunque salutationis artificio corpus inflestant putes nihil ist â institutione mages convenice Vicinae autem gentes ridiculo errore deceptae eiusdem Venustatis imitationem ludieram faciunt et ingratam as one happily observed at his being amongst them I have heard of a young Gallant Sonne to a great Lord of one of the three Brittish Kingdomes that spent some years in France to learn fashions at his return he desired to see the King and his Father procured him an enterveiwe when he came within the presence Chamber he began to compose his head and carryed it as though he had been ridden with a Martingale next he fell to draw back his leggs and thrust out his shoulders and that with such a graceless apishness that the King asked him if he meant to shoulder him out of his Chair and so left him to act out his complement to the hangings In their Courtship they bestow even the highest titles upon those of the lowest condition This is the vice also of their common talk the begger begitteth Monsieurs and Madames to his Sonnes and Daughters as familiarly as the King were there no other reason to perswade me that the Welch or Brittaynes were the defendants of the Gaules this onely were sufficient that they would all be Gentlemen His discourse runneth commonly on two wheeles Treason and Ribaldry I never heard people talk less reverently of their Prince nor more sawcily of his actions scarce a day passeth away without some seditious pamphlet printed and published in the disgrace of the King or of some of his Courtires These are every mans money and he that buyeth them is not coye of the Contents be they never so scandalous of all humors the most harsh and odious Take him from this which you can hardly do till he hath told all and then he falleth upon his ribaldry without these crutches his discourse would never be able to keep pace with his company Thus shall you have them relate the stories of their own uncleanness with a face as confident as if they had no accident to please their hearers more commendible Thus will they reckon up the several profanations of pleasure by which they have dismanned themselves sometimes not sparing to descend unto particulars A valiant Captaine never gloried more in the number of the Cities he had taken then they do of the several women they have prostituted Egregiam verò Laudem et spolia ampla Foolish and most perishing wretches by whom each several incontinency is twice committed first in the act and secondly in the boast By themselves they measure others and think them Naturals or Simplicians which are not so conditioned I protest I was fain sometimes to put on a little impudencie that I might avoid the suspition of a gelding or a sheep-biter It was St. Austins case as himself testifyeth in the second Book of his Confessions Fingebam me saith the good Father fecisse quod non feceram ne caeteris viderer abiectior But he afterwards was sorry for it and so am I and yet indeed there was no other way to keep in a good opinion of that unmanly and ungoverned people CHAP. II. The French Women their persons prating and conditions the immodesty of the French Ladies Kissing not in use amongst them and the sinister opinion conceived of the free use of it in England The innocency and harmlesness of it amongst us The impostures of French Pandors in London with the scandall thence arising The peccancy of our old English Doctor More of the French Women Their Marriages and lives after Wedlock An Elegie to the English Ladies I Am now come to the French Women and it were great pitty they should not immediately follow the discourse of the Men so like they are one to the other that one would think them to be the same and that all the difference lay in the apparel for person they are generally of an
indifferent stature their bodies straight and their wastes commonly small but whether it be so by nature or by much restraining of those parts I cannot say It is said that an absolute Woman should have amongst other qualities requisite the parts of a French Woman from the neck to the girdle but I beleeve it holdeth not good their shoulders and backs being so broad that they hold no proportion with their middles yet this may be the vice of their apparrel Their hands are in my opinion the comelyest and best ordered parts of them long white and slender were their faces answerable even an English eye would apprehend them lovely but here I find a pretty contradictory the hand as it is the best ornament of the whole structure so doth it most disgrace it whether it be that ill dyet be the cause of it or that hot blood wrought upon by a hot and scalding ayr must of necessity by such means vent itself I am not certain this I am sure of that scarce the tythe of all the maids we saw had their hands armes and wrests free from scabs which had overrunne them like a Leprosie Their hair is generally black and indeed somewhat blacker then a gratious loveliness would admit The Poets commend Leda for her black hair and not unworthily Leda fuit nigris conspicienda comis As Ovid hath it yet was that blackness but a darker brown and not so fearful as this of the French women Again the blackness of the hair is there accounted an ornament when the face about which it hangeth is of so perfect a complection and symmetrie that it giveth a lustre then doth the hair set forth the face as a shaddow doth a picture and the face becometh the hair as a field argent doth a sable bearing which kind of armoury the Heralds call the most fairest But in this the French Women are most unlucky Don Quixote did not so deservedly assume to himself the name of the Knight of the ill favoured face as may they that of the Damosells of it It was therefore a happy speech of a young French gallant that came in our company out of England and had it been spoken amongst the Ancients it might have been registred for an Apothegme That the English of all the people in the World were only Nati ad voluptates you have saith he the fairest Women the goodliest Horses and the best breed of Doggs under Heaven for my part as farre as I could in so short a time observe I dare in his first beleeve him Enland not onely being as it is stiled a Paradise for Women by reason of their priviledges but a Paradise also of Women by reason of their unmatchable perfections Their dispositions hold good intelligence with their faces you cannot say of them as Sueton doth of Galba Ingenium Galbae male habitat they suit so well the one with the other that in my life I never met with a better decorum But you must first here them speak Loquere ut te videam was the method in old times and it holdeth now You cannot gather a better Character of a French Woman than from her prating which is tedious and infinite that you shall sooner want earâ—s than she tongue The fastedious pratler which Horace mentioneth in his ninth Satyre was but a Puesne to her The writers of these times call the Sicilians gerrae Siculae and not undeservedly yet were they but the Scholers of the French and learned this faculty of them before the Vespers It is manners to give precedency to the Maistresse and she will have it if words may carry it for two things I would have had Aristotle acquainted with these Chartings first it would have saved him a labour in taking such paines about finding out the prepetual motion secondly it would have freed him from an Heresie with which his doctrine is now inserted and that is Quicquid movetur ab alio movetur their tongues I am certain move themselves and make their own occasions of discoursing when they are a going they are like a Watch you need not wind them above once in twelve hours for so long the thred of their tongues will be in spinning A Dame of Paris came in a Coach with us from Roven fourteen hours we were together of which time I le take my oath upon it her tongue fretted away a eleven hours and fifty seven minutes such everlasting talkers are they all that they will sooner want breath than words and they are never silent but in the grave which may also be doubted As they are endless in their talk so are they also regardless of the comyany they speak in be he stranger or of their acquaintance it much matters not though indeed no man is to them a stranger within an hour of the first sight you shall have them familiar more than enough and as merry with you as if they had known your bearing cloth It may be they are chast and I perswade my self many of them are but you will hardly gather it out of there behaviour Te tamen et cultus damnat as Ausonius of an honest Woman that carryed her self lesse modestly They are abundantly full of laughter and toying and are never without variety of lascivious songs which they spare not to sing in whose company soever you would think modesty were quite banished the Kingdom or rather that it had never been there Neither is this the weakness of some few it is an Epidemicall disease Maids and Wives are alike sick of it though not both so desperately The Galliards of the Mayds being of the two a little more tollerable that of the Women coming hard upon the confines of shamelesness As for the Ladies of the Court I can speak this but upon hear-say they are as much above them in their lightness as they are in their place and so much the worse in that they have made their lightness impudent for whereas the daughter of Pythagoras being demanded what shamed her most to discourse of made answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those parts which made her a Women these French Dames will speak of them even in the hearing of men as freely and almost as broadly as a Midwife or a Barbar Surgeon Nay I have heard a Gentleman of good credence relate that being at a Tilting he saw a Courtier going to remove a boy who very roguishly looked under a Ladies Cloathes but when her Ladyship perceived his intention she hindered him with this Complement Laisse Monsieur Laisse les yeux ne pas Larrons the boyes would steal nothing A very merciful and gentle Lady if that of Justin be still true Vera mulierum ornament a pudicitiam esse non vestes that modesty were the best apparrel of a Woman I am affraid many of the female sexe in France would be thinly clad or else go naked Being a people thus prone to a sudden familiarity and so prodigal of their tongues and company you would scarce
Kitchen wench but now so tricked up with scarfes rings and cross-garters that you never saw a Whitson Lady better rigged I should much have applauded the fellows fortunes if he could have married the Clothes but God be merciful to him he is chained to the Wench Much joy may they have together most peerless couple Hymen O Hymenaee Hymen Hymen O Hymenaee The match was well knit up among them I would have a French man marry none but a French woman Being now made Mistress of an house she can give her self a dispensation to drink Wine Before she had a fling at the bottle by stealth and could make a shift to play off her whole one in a corner as St. Austin in the ninth book of his Confessions reporteth of his Mother Monica Now she hath her draughts like the second Edition of a book augmented and revised and which is more published cum Privilegio Her house she keeps as she doth her self It would puzzle a strong judgement to resolve which of the two was the most nasty yet after ten of the clock you may come nigh her for by that time she hath not onely eaten but it may be her hall hath had a brushing If you be not careful of your time you shall commonly find her speechless her mouth being stopped with some of the reliques of last nights supper To five meals a day she is very constant and for variety sake she will make some of them at the street door She is an exceeding good soul as Sancho Pancha said of his Wife and one that will not pine her self though her heirs smart for it To her Husband she is very servile seldom sitteth with him at the table readily executing all his commands and is indeed rather a married servant than a Wife or a houshold drudge under the title of a Mistress Yet on the other side she hath freedome enough and certainly much more than a moderate wisedome would permit her It is one of her iura conjugalia to admit of Courtship even in the sight of her Husband to walk arm in arm about the streets or in the fields with her Privado to proffer occasions of familiarity and acquaintance at the first sight of one whose person she relisheth and all this sans suspecion without the least imputation A liberty somewhat of the largest and we may justly fear that having thus wholly in her own power the keys of the Cabinet she sheweth her Jewels to more than her husband Such are the French women and such lives do they lead both Maids and Married Then happy England Thy four Seas contain The pride of Beauties Such as may disdain Rivals on earth Such as at once may move By a strange power the envy and the love Of all their Sex besides Admit a Dame Of France or Spain pass in the breath of Fame And her own thoughts for Fair Yet let her view The common'st Beauties of the English crew And in despair shee 'l execrate the day Which bare her black and sigh her self away So pin'd the Phrygian Dames and hang'd the head When into Troy Paris his Helen lead But boast not Paris England now enjoyes Helens enough to sack a World of Troys So do the vulgar Tapers of the Skie Loose all their lustre when the Moon is nigh Yet English Ladies glorious Lights as far Exceed the Moon as doth the Moon a Star So do the common people of the Groves Grow hush't when Philomel recounts her Loves But when our Ladies sing even she forbears To use her tongue and turns her tongue to ears Nay more their beauties should proud Venus see Shee 'd blush her self out of her Deitie Drop into Vulcan's forge her raign now done And yeild to them her Empire and her Son Yet this were needless I can hardly find Any of these Land-stars but straight my mind Speaks her a Venus and me thinks I spye A little Cupid sporting in her eye Who thence his shaft more powerfully delivers Than e're did th' other Cupid from his quivers Such in a word they are you would them guess An harmony of all the Goddesses Or swear that partial Nature at their birth Had robb'd the Heavens to glorifie the earth Such though they are yet mean these graces biâ—â— Compar'd unto the vertues lodg'd within For needs the Jewels must be rich and pretious The Cask that keeps them being so delicious CHAP. III. France described The Valley of Montmorancie and the Dukes of it Mont-Martyr Burials in former times not permitted within the Wals. The prosecuting of this discourse by manner of a Journal intermitted The Town and Church of St. Denis The Legend of him and his head Of Dagobert and the Leper The reliques to be seen there Martyrs how esteem'd in St. Austin's time The Sepulchers of the French Kings and the Treasury there The Kings House of Madrit The Queen Mothers House at Ruall and fine devices in it St. Germanenly another of the Kings Houses the curious painting in it Gorrambery Window The Garden belonging to it and the excellency of the Water-works Boys St. Vincent and the Castle called Bisestre I Have now done with the French both Men and WomeÌ„ a people much extolled by many of the English Travellers for all those graces which may enoble and adorn both Sexes For my part having observed them as well as I could and traced them in all their several humours I set up my rest with this proposition that there is nothing to be envied in them but their Country To that indeed I am earnestly and I think not unworthily affected here being nothing wanting which may be required to raise and reward ones liking If Nature were ever prodigal of her blessings or scattered them with an over-plentiful hand it was in this Island into which we were entred as soon as we were passed over the bridge of Pontoise The first part of it lasting for three leagues was upon the plain of a Mountain but such a Mountain as will hardly yeild to the best Valley in Europe out of France On both sides of us the Vines grew up in a just length and promised to the Husband-man a thriving vintage The Wines they yeild are far better than those of Normandy or Gascoyne and indeed the best in the whole Continent those of Orleans excepted yet what we saw here was but as a bit to prepare our stomacks least we should surfeit in the Valley Here we beheld Nature in her richest vestments The fields enterchangeably planted with Wheat and Vines That had L. Florus once beheld it he would never have given unto Campania the title of Cereris Bacchi certamen These fields were dispersedly here and there beset with Cherry-trees which considered with the rest gave unto the eye an excellent object For the Vines yet green the Wheat ready for the sithe and the Cherries now full ripened and shewing forth their beauty through the vail of the leaves made such a various and delightsome
Endive root Raddish Cheese and to the board there came A dish of Eggs ne're roasted by the flame Next they had Nuts course Dates lenten Figs And Apples from a basket made with twigs And Plums and Grapes cut newly from the tree All serv'd in earthen dishes huswifelie But you must not look for this ohear often At Wakes or feast days you may perchance be so happy as to see this plenty but at other times onus omne patilla the best provision they can shew you is a piece of Bacon where with to fatten their pottage and now and then the inwards of Beasts killed for the Gentleman But of their miseries this me thinketh is the greatest that sowing so many acres of excellent Wheat in a year and gathering in such a plentiful vintage as they do they should not yet be so fortunate as to eat white bread or drink Wine for such infinite rents do they pay to their Lords and such innumerable taxes to the King that the profits arising out of these commodities are onely sufficient to pay their duties and keep them from the extremities of cold and famine The bread which they eat is of the coursest flower and so black that it cannot admit the name of brown and as for their drink they have recourse unto the next fountain A people of any the most infortunate not permitted to enjoy the fruit of their labours and such as above all others are subject to that Sarcasme in the Gospel This man planted a Vineyard and doth not drink of the fruit thereof Neo prosunt Domino quae prosunt omnibus artes Yet were their cases not altogether so deplorable if there were but hopes left to them of a better if they could but compass this certainty that a painful drudging and thrifty saving would one day bring them out of this hell of bondage In this questionless they are entirely miserable in that they are sensible of their present fortunes and dare not labour nor expect an alteration If industry and a sparing hand hath raised any of these afflicted people so high that he is but four or five shillings richer than his neighbour his Lord immediately enhanceth his rent and enformeth the Kings task-masters of his riches by which meanes he is within two or three years brought into equal poverty with the rest A strange course and much different from that of England where the Gentry take a delight in having their Tennants thrive under them and account it no crime in any that hold of them to be wealthy On the other side those of France can abide no body to gain or grow rich upon their Farms and therefore thus upon occasions rack their poor Tennants In which they are like the Tyrant Procrustes who laying hands upon all he met cast them upon his bed if they were shorter than it he racked their joynts till he had made them even to it if they were longer he cut as much of their bodies from them as did hang over so keeping all that fell into his power in an equality of stature I need not make further application of the story but this that the French Lords are like that Tyrant How much this course doth depress the military power of the Kingdom is apparent by the true principles of warr and the examples of other Countries For it hath been held the general opinion of the best judgements in matters of war that the main buttress and pillar of an Army is the foot or as the Martialists term it the infantry Now to make a good infantry it requireth that men be brought up not in a slavish or needy fashion of life but in some free and liberal manner Therefore it is well observed by the Viscount St. Albons in his history of Henry the seventh that if a State run most to Nobles and Gentry and that the Husbandmen be but as their meer drudges or else simple Cottagers that that State may have a good Cavilleria but never good stable bands of Foot like to Coppines wood in which if you let them grow too thick in the standerds they will run to bushes or briers and have little clean under wood Neither is it thus in Franne onely but in Italy also and some other parts abroad insomuch that they are enforced to employ mercenary Souldiers for their battalions of Foot whereby it cometh to pass in those Countries that they have much people but few men On this consideration King Henry the seventh one of the wisest of our Princes took a course so cunning and wholesome for the encrease of the military power of this Realm that though it be much less in territories yet it should have infinitely more Souldiers of its native forces than its neighbour Nations For in the fourth year of his raign there passed an Act of Parliament pretensively against the depopulation of Villages and decay of tillage but purposely to make his Subjects for the warrs The Act was that all houses of Husbandry which had been used with twenty acres of ground and upwards should be maintained and kept up so together with a competent proportion of Land to be used and occupied with them c. By this meanes the houses being kept up did of necessity enfarce a dweller and that dweller because of the proportion of Land not to be a beggar but a man of some substance able to keep hinds and servants and to set the Plow going An Order which did wonderfully concern the might and manhood of the Kingdom these Farmers being sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury and by consequence to prepare them for service and encourage them to high honours for Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi As the Poet hath it But this Ordinance is not thought of such use in France where all the hopes of their Armies consist in the Cavallery or the Horse which perhaps is the cause why our Ancestors have won so many battels upon them As for the French Foot they are quite out of all reputation and are accounted to be the basest and unworthiest company in the world Besides should the French people be enfranchized as it were from the tyranny of their Lords and estated in free hold and other tenures after the manner of England it would much trouble the Councill of France to find out a new way of raising the Kings Revenues which are now meerly sucked out of the bloud and sweat of the Subject Anciently the Kings of France had rich and plentiful demeasnes such as was sufficient to maintain their Majesty and greatness without being burdensome unto the Country Pride in matters of sumptuousness and the tedious Civil warrs which have lasted in this Country almost ever since the death of Henry the second have been the occasion that most of the Crown Lands have been sold and morgaged insomuch that the people are now become the Demain and the Subject onely is the revenue of the Crown
stubborn and churlish people very impatient of a rigorous yoak and such as inherit a full measure of the Beiseains liberty and spirit from whom they are descended Le Droit de fonage the priviledge of levying of a certain peice of money upon every Chimney in an house that smoaked was in times not long since one of the Jura Regalia of the French Lords and the people paid it without grumbling yet when Edward the black Prince returned from his unhappy journey into Spain and for the paying of his Souldiers to whoÌ„ he was indebted laid this fonage upon the people being then English they all presently revolted to the French and brought great prejudice to our affairs in those quarters Next unto the Gabel of Salt we may place the Taille and the Taillon which are much of a nature with the Subsidies in England being granted by the people and the sum of that certain shall please to impose them Anciently the Tailles were onely levied by way of extraordinary subsidie and that upon four occasions which were the Knighting of the Kings Son the Marriage of his Daughters a Voyage of the Kings beyond Sea and his Ransome in case he were taken Prisoner Les Tailles ne sont point deves de devoyer ordicmer saith Rayneau ains ont este accorded durant la necessite des Affaires Semblement Afterward they were continually levied in times of warr and at length Charles the first made them ordinary neither is it extended equally all of it would amount to a very fair revenue For supposing this that the Kingdom of France contained two hundred millions of acres as it doth and that from every one there were raised to the King two Sols yeerly which is little in respect of the taxes imposed on them that income alone besides that which levied on goods personal would amount to two millions of pounds in a year But this payment also lyeth all on the Paisant The greater Towns the Officers of the Kings House the Officers of Warrs the Presidents Counsellors and Officers of the Court of Parliament the Nobility the Clergy and the Schollars of the Vniversity being freed from it That which they call the Taillon was intended for the ease of the Country though now it prove one of the greatest burdens unto it In former times the Kings Souldiers lay all upon the charge of the Villages the poor people being fain to find them diet lodging and all necessaries for themselves their horses and their harlots which they brought with them If they were not well pleased with their entertainment they used commonly to beat their Host abuse his family and rob him of that small provision which he had laid up for his Children and all this Cum privilegio Thus did they move from one Village to another and at the last returned unto them from whence they came Ita ut non sit ibi villula una expers calamitatis istius quae non semel aut bis in anno hac nefandâ pressurâ depiletur as Sir John Fâ—rtescue observed in his time To redress this mischeif King Henry the second Anno 1549. raised his Imposition called the Taillon issuing out of the lands and goods of the poor Country man whereby he was at the first somewhat eased but now all is again out of order the miserable Paisant being oppressed by the Souldier as much as ever and yet he still payeth both taxes the Taille and the Taillon The Pancarte comprehendeth in it divers particular imposts but especially the Sol upon the Liure that is the twentieth penny of all things bought or sold corn sallets and the like onely excepted Upon wine besides the Sol upon the Liure he hath his several customs at the entrance of it into any of his Cities passages by Land Sea or River To these Charles the ninth Anno 1561. added a tax of five Sols upon every Maid which is the third part of a Tun and yet when all this is done the poor Vintner payeth unto the King the eighth penny he takes for that wine which he selleth In this Pancart is also contained the bant passage which are the tols paid unto the King for passage of men and cattel over his bridges and his City gates as also for all such Commodities which they bring with them A good and round sum considering the largeness of the Kingdom the thorough-fare of Lyons being farmed yearly of the King for 100000. Crowns Hereunto belong also the Aides which are a taxe also of the Sol on the Liure upon all sorts of fruits provision wares and Merchandize granted first unto Charles Duke of Normandy when John his Father was prisoner in England and since made perpetual For such is the lamentable fate of that Country that their kindnesses are made duties and those moneys which they once grant out of love are alwayes after exacted of them and paid out of necessity The bedrolle of all these impositions and taxes is called the Paneart because it was hanged up in a frame like as the Officers Fees are in our Bishops Diocesan Courts the word Pan signifying a frame or pane of wainscot These impositions time and custom hath now made tolerable though at first day they seemed very burdensome and moved many Cities to murmuring some to rebellion Amongst others the City of Paris proud of her ancient liberties and immunities refused to admit of it This indignity so incensed Charles the sixth their King then young and in hot bloud that he seized into his hands all their priviledges took from their Provost des Merchants and the Eschevins as also the key of their gates and the chains of their streets and making through the whole Town such a face of mourning that one might justly have said Haec facies Troiae cum caperetur erat This happened in the year 1383. and was for five years together continued which time being expired and other Cities warned by that example the imposition was established and the priviledges restored For the better regulating of the profits arising from these imposts the French King erected a Court Le Cour des Aides It consisted at the first of the general of the Aides and of any four of the Lords of the Councel whom they would call to their assistance Afterwards Charles the fifth Anno 1380. or thereabouts settled it in Paris and caused it to be numbred as one of the Soveraign Courts Lewis the eleventh dissolved it and committed the managing of his Aids to his Household servants as loath to have any publike Officers take notice how he fleeced his people Anno 1464. it was restored again And finally Henry the second Anno 1551. added to it a second Chamber composed of two Presidens and eight Counsellors One of which Presidents Mr. Cavilayer is said to be the best moneyed man of all France There are also others of these Courts in the Country as one at Roven one at Montferrant in Averyne one at Bourdeaux and another at Montpellier
distinctly then the rest I cannot say more elegantly yet partly for this reason partly because of the study of the Law and partly because of the sweetnesse of the aire the Town is never without abundance of strangers of all Nations which are in correspondency with the French but in the greatest measure it is replenished with those of Germany who have here a Corporation indeed do make among themselves a better Vniversity then the Vniversity This Corporation consisteth of a Procurator a Questor an Assessor two Bibliothecaries and twelve Counsellors they have all of them their distinct jurisdictions and are solemnly elected by the rest of the company every third moneth The Consulship of Rome was never so welcome unto Cicero as the office of Procurator is to a Dutch Gentleman he for the time of his command ordering the affaires of all his Nation and to say truth being much respected by those of the Towne it is his office to admit of the young comers to receive the moneyes due at their admission and to receive an account of the dispending of it of the Questor and the expiring of his charge The office of an Assessor is like that of a Clerk of the Councell and the Secretary mixt fot he registreth the Acts of their Counsells writeth Letters in the name of the House to each of the French Kings at their new coming to the Crown and if any Prince or extraordinary Ambassadour cometh to the town he entertaineth him with a Speech The Bibliothecaries look to the Library in which they are bound to remain three houres a day in their severall tuâ—nes a pretty room it is very plentifully furnished with choyce books and that at small charge for that it is here the custome that every one of the Nation at his departure must leave with them one of what kinde or price it best pleaseth him besides each of the Officers at the resigning of his charge giveth unto the new Questor a piece of gold about the value of a Pistolet to be expended according as the necessities of their state require which most an end is bestowed upon the increase of their Library Next unto this Cite des Littres as one of the French writers calleth Paris is their Counsell-house an handsome squire Chamber and well furnished In this they hold their consultations and in this preserve their Records and Priviledges the keeping of the one and summoning the other being meerly in the hands of the Procurator About the Table they have five Chaires for the five principall Officers those of the Councell sitting round the Chamber on Stools the arms of the Empire being placed directly over every of the Seats If it happen that any of them dye there they all accompany him to his Grave in a manner mixt so orderly of Griefe and State that you would think the obsequies of some great Potentate were solemnizing and to say truth of them they are a hearty and loving Nation not to one another onely but to strangers and especially to us of England Onely I could wish that in their Speech and Complement they would not use the Latine tongue or else speak it more congruously You shall hardly finde a man amongst them which can make a shift to expresse himselfe in that language nor one amongst an hundred that can doe it Latinely Galleriam Compaginem Gardinum and the like are as usuall in their common discourse as to drinke at three of the clock and as familiar as their sleep Had they bent their study that way I perswade my self they would have been excellent good at the Common Lawes their tongues so naturally falling on these words which are necessary to a Declaration but amongst the rest I took especiall notice of one Mr. Gebour a man of that various mixture of words that you would have thought his tongue to have been a very Amsterdam of Languages Cras mane 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non irous ad magnam Galleriam was one of his remarkable speeches when we were at Paris but here at Orleans we had them of him thick and threefold If ever he should chance to dye in a strange place where his Countrey could not be knowne but by his tongue it could not possibly be but that more Nations would strive for him than ever did for Homer I had before read of the confusion of Babel in him I came acquainted with it yet this use might be made of him and his hotch-potch of Languages that a good Chymicall Physitian would make an excellent medicine of it against the stone In a word to goe no more upon the particulars I never knew a people that spake more words and lesse Latine Of these ingredients is the Vniversity of Orleans compounded if at least it be lawfull to call it an Vniversity as I thinke it be not the name of Academie would beseem it better and God grant as Zancho Panca said of his wife it be able to discharge that calling I know that these names are indifferently used but not properly for an Academie the name is derived from a place neer Athens called Academia where Plato first taught Philosophie in its strict and proper sense is such a study wherein one or two Arts are professed as Law at Orleans and Bononia and Physick at Montpelleir and Padua An Vniversity is so called quòd Vniversae ibi traduntur disciplinae as the name importeth where Learning is professed in the Generality and in the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it The first the Germans call Schola illustris the latter Generale studium very opposite titles and in which there is little of a German CHAP. IV. Orleans not an University till the coming of the Jesuits Their Colledge there by whom built The Jesuits not Singers Their laudable and exact Method of teaching Their Policy in it Received not without great difficulty into Paris Their houses in that University Their strictnesse unto the Rules of their order Much maliced by the other Priests and Friers Why not sent into England with the Queen And of what order they were that came with her Our returne to Paris THe difference between an Vniversity and an Academy standing thus those which lived in our Fathers dayes could hardly have called Orleans an Vniversity a Shoole of Law being the name most fit for it At this time since the coming of the Jesuits that appellation may not misbecome it they having brought with them those parts of Learning which before were wanting in it but that hath not been of any long standing their Colledge being yet not fully finished By an Inscription over the gate it seemeth to be the work of Mr. Cagliery one of the Advocates in the Parliament of Paris a man of large practise and by the consequence of greatâ— possessions and who having no child but this Colledge is said to intend the fastening of his estate upon it In this house doe those of this order apply themsevles to the study of good Letters in
Julius Caesar at the time of his second expedition into Brittaine this Haven being then Portus Gessorianus This Tower which we now see seemeth to be but the remainder of a greater work and by the height and scituation of it one would guesse it to have been the Key or watch Tower unto the rest it is built of rude and vulgar stone but strongly cemented together the figure of it is six square every square of it being nine paces in length A compass to little for a Fortress and therefore it is long since it was put to that use it now serving onely as a Sea mark by day and a Pharos by night Vbi accensae noctu faces navigantium cursum dirigunt The English men call it the Old man of Boulogue and not improperly for it hath all the signes of age upon it The Sea hath by undermining it taken from it all the earth about two squares of the bottom of it the stones begin to drop out from the top and upon the rising of the wind you would think it were troubled with the Palsie in a word two hard winters seconded with a violent tempest maketh it rubbish what therefore is wanting of present strength to the Haven in this ruine of a Tower the wisdom of this age hath made good in a Garrison And here me thinks I might justly acâ—use the impolitick thrift of our former Kings of England in not laying out some money upon the strength and safety of our Haven Townes not one of them Portsmouth onely excepted being Garrison'd true it is that Henry the eighth did eâ—ect Block-Houses in many of them but what bâ—bles they are and how unable to resist a Flees royally appointed is known to every one I know indeed we were sufficiently Garrison'd by out Naâ—e could it either keep a watch on all particular places or had it noâ— sometimes occasion to be absent I hope our Kings are not of Darius mind in the storie quâ— gloriosius raâ—us est hostem 〈◊〉 quam non admittere neither will I take 〈◊〉 to give counsell onely I could wish that we were not inferiour to our neighbours in the greatness of our care since we are equal to the best of them in the goodness of our Country This Town of Boulogne and the Country about it was taken by Henry the eighth of England Anno 1545. himself being in person at the siege a very costly and chargeable victory The whole list of his Forces did amount to 44000. foot and 3000. horse Field Pieces he drew after him above a hundred besides those of smaller making and for the conveyance of their Ordinance baggage and other provision there were transported into the Continent above 25000. Horses True it is that his designes had a further aim had not Charles the Emperour with whom he was to join left the field and made peace without him So that judging onely by the success of the expedition we cannot but say that the winning of Boulonnois was a dear purchase and indeed in this one particular Sr. Walter Raleigh in the preface to his most excellent History saith not amiss of him namely that in his vain and fruitless expeditions abroad he consumed more treasure than all the rest of our victorious Kings before him did in their several Conquests The other part of his censure of that Prince I know not well what to think of as meerly composed of gall and bitterness Onely I cannot but much marvail that a man of his wisdom being raised from almost nothing by the Daughter could be so severely invective against the Father certainly a most charitable judge cannot but condemn him of want of true affection and duty to his Queen seeing that it is as his late Majesty hath excellently noted in his ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΟΠΔΩΡΟΠa thing monstrous to see a man love the Child and hate the Parents And therefore he may earnestly enjoyn his Son Henry to repress the insolencie of such as under pretence to tax a vice in the person seek craftily to stain the Race Presently after this taking Boulogne the French again endeavoured the regaining of it even during the life of the Conquerour but he was strong enough to keep his gettings After his death the English being engaged in a warr against the Scots and Kit having raised a rebellion in Norfolk they began again the reconquest of it and that more violently than ever Upon news of their preparations an Ambassage was dispatched to Charles the fifth to desire succours of him and to lay before him the infancy and several necessity of the young King who was then about the age of ten years This desire when the Emperour had refused to hearken to they besought him that he would at the least be pleased to take into his hands and keeping the Town of Boulogne and that for no longer time than until King Edward could make an end of the troubles of his Subjects at home An easie request yet did he not onely deny to satisfie the King in this except he would restore the Catholike Religion but he also expresly commanded that neither any of his men or munition should go to the assistance of the English An ingratitude for which I cannot find a fitting Epithite considering what fast friends the Kings of England have alwayes been to the united Houses of Burgundy and Austria what moneys they have helped them with and what sundry warrs they have made for them both in Belgium to maintain their authority and in France to augment their potency from the marriage of Maximilian of the Family of Austria with the Lady Mary of Burgundie which happened in they ear 1478. unto the death of Henry the eighth which fell in the year 1548. are just seventy years in which time onely it is thought by men of knowledge and experience that it cost the Kings of England at the least six millions of pounds in the meer quarrels and defence of the Princes of those Houses An expense which might seem to have earned a greater requital than that now demanded Upon this denial of the unkindful Emperour a Treaty followed between England and France The effect of it was that Boulogne and all the Country of it should be restored to the French by paying to the English at two dayes of payment 800000. Crowns Other Articles there were but this the principal and so the fortune of young Edward was like that of Julius Caesar towards his end Dum clementiam quam praestiterant expectant incauti ab ingratis occupati sunt The CONCLUSION A Generall censure of France and the French A gratulation to England The end of our journey ON wednesday the third of August having stayed in Boulogne three dayes for wind and company and not daring to venture on Calice by reason of the sickness there raging we took ship for England the day fair and the wind fitly serving us we were quickly got out of the harbour into the main And so I take my leave of France