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
mixture of colours that no art could have expressed it self more delectable If you have ever seen an exquisite Mosaical work you may best judge of the beauty of this Valley Add to this that the River Seine being now past Paris either to embrace that flourishing soyl or out of a wanton desire to play with it self hath divided it self into sundry lesser channels besides its several windings and turnings So that one may very justly and not irreligiously conceive it to be an Idaea or representation of the Garden of Eden the River so happily separating it self to water the ground This Valley is a very large circuit And as the Welch-men call Anglesea Mon Mam Gymry that is the Mother of Wales so may we call this the Mother of Paris for so abundantly doth it furnish that great and populous City that when the Dukes of Bary and Burgundie besieged it with 100000. men there being at that time three or 400000. Citizens and Souldiers within the wals neither the people within nor the enemy without found any want of provision It is called the Valley of Montmorencie from the Town and Castle of Montmorencie seated in it But this Town nameth not the Valley onely it giveth name also to the ancient family of the Dukes of Montmorencie the ancientest house of Christendom He stiled himself Lepremier Christien plus vicil Baron du' France and it is said that his Ancestors received the faith of Christ by the preaching of St. Denis the first Bishop of Paris Their principal houses are that of Chantilly and Ecqucan both seated in the Isle This last being given to this present Dukes Father by King Henry the fourth to whom it was confiscated by the condemnation of one of his Treasurers This house also and so I beleive it hath been observed to have yeilded to France more Constables Marshals Admirals and the like Officers of power and command than any three other in the whole Kingdom insomuch that I may say of it what Irenicus doth of the Count Palatines the names of the Countries onely changed Non alia Galliae est familia cui plus debent nobilitus The now Duke named Henry is at this present Admiral of France The most eminent place in all the Isle is Mont-Martyr eminent I mean by reason of its height though it hath also enough of antiquity to make it remarkable It is seated within a mile of Paris high upon a Mountain on which many of the faithful during the time that Gaule was heathenish were made Martyrs Hence the name though Paris was the place of apprehension and sentence yet was this Mountain commonly the Scaffold of execution It being the custom of the Ancients neither to put to death nor bury within the wals of their Cities Thus the Jews when they crucified our Saviour led him out of the City of Hierusalem unto Mount Calvary unto which St. Paul is thought to allude Hebr. 13. saying Let us therefore go forth to him c. Thus also doth St. Luke to omit other instances report of St. Stephen Acts 7. And they cast him out of the City and stoned him So in the State of Rome the Vestal Virgin having committed fornication was stifled in the Campus Sceleritatus and other Malefactors thrown down the Tarpeian rock both scituate without the Town So also had the Thessalians a place of execution from the praecipice of an hill which they called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Corvi whence arose the Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be hanged As they permitted not execution of Malefactors within their wals so neither would they suffer the best of their Citizens to be buried within them This was it which made Abraham to buy him a field wherein to bury his dead and thus we read in the seventh of Luke that the Widow of Naims Son was carried out to be buried This custom also we find among the Athenians Corinthians and other of the Graecians qui inagris suis saith Alexander ab Alexandro aut in fundo suburbano ceuinavito aut patrio solo corpora humari consuevere Amongst the Romans it was once the fashion to burn the bodies of their dead within their City This continued till the bringing in of the Laws of Athens commonly called the Laws of the twelve Tables one of which Laws runneth in these words In urbe ne sepelito neve drito After this prohibition their dead corps were first burned in Campus Martius and their Urnes covered in sundry places of the field The frequent Urnes or sepulchral stones digged up amongst us here in England are sufficient testimonies of this assertion Besides we may find in Appian that the chief reason why the rich men in Rome would not yeild to the Law called Lex Agrariae for that Law divided the Roman possessions equally among the people was because they thought it an irreligious thing that the Monuments of their fore-fathers should be sold to others The first that is registred to have been buried in the City was Trajane the Emperor Afterward it was granted as an honorary to such as had deserved well of the Republique And when the Christian Religion prevailed and Church-yards those dormitories of the Saints were consecrated the liberty of burying within the wals was to all equally granted On this ground it not being lawful to put to death or bury within the Town of Paris this Mountain was destinate to these purposes then was it onely a Mountain now it is enlarged unto a Town It hath a poor wall an Abbey of Benedictine Monks and a Chappel called La Chapelle des Martyrs both founded by Lewis the sixth called The Gross Amongst others which received here the Crown of Martyrdom none more famous than St. Denis said to be Dionisius Areopagita the first Bishop of Paris Rusticus his Arch-preist and Eleutherius his Deacon The time when under the raign of Domitian the person by whose command Hesubinus Governour of Paris the crime for not bowing before the Altar of Mercury and offering sacrifice unto him Of St. Denis being the Patron or Tutelary St. of France the Legend reports strange wonders as namely when the Executioner had smitten off his head he caught it between his arms and ran with it down the hill as fast as his legs could bear him Half a mile from the place of his execution he sate down rested and so he did nine times in all even till he came to the place where his Church is now built There he fell down and died being three milee English from Mount Martyr and there he was buried together with Rusticus and Eleutherius who not being able to go as fast as he did were brought after by the people O impudentiam admirabilem verè Romanam and yet so far was the succeeding age possessed with a beleif of this miracle that in the nine several places where he is said to have rested so many handsom crosses of stones there are erected all of a making To the
neither the said Infanta nor the Children born by her to the King shall be capable to inherit any of the estates of the King of Spain and in the eighth article she is bound to make an act of renunciation under her own hand-writing as soon as she cometh to be twelve years old which was accordingly performed But this being not sufficient to secure their fears it is thought that she was some way or other disabled from conception before ever she came into the Kings embraces A great crime I confess if true yet I cannot say with Tully in his defence of Ligarius Novum crimen Caie Caesar hec tempus mauditum Jaqueline Countess of Holland was Cozen to Philip Duke of Burgundie Her being fruitful would have debarred him from those estates of Holland Zealand and West-Freezland therefore though she had three Husbands there was order taken she should never have Child with her two first Husbands the Duke would never suffer her to live and when she had stollen a wedding with Frane of Borselle one of her servants the Dukes Physitians gave him such a potion that she might as well have married an Eunuch upon this injury the poor Lady died and the Duke succeeded in those Countries which by his Grand-child Marie were conveyed over into the House of Austria together with the rest of his estate I dare not say that that Family hath inherited his practises with his lands and yet I have heard that the Infanta Isabella had the like or worse measure afforded her before she was bedded to the Arch-duke Albertus A diabolical trick which the prostitutes of the heathen used in the beginnings of the Gospel and before of whom Octavius complaineth quod originem futuri hominis extinguant paricidium faciunt antequam pariunt Better luck than the King hath his Sister beyond the mountains I mean his eldest Sister Madame Elizabeth married to the King of Spain now living as being or having been the Mother of two Children His second Sister Madame Christian is married to Amadeo Victor Principe Maior or heir apparent of the Duke of Savoy to whom as yet she hath born no issue The youngest Henrietta Mariae is newly married to his most Excellent Majesty of England to whom may she prove of a most happy and fruitful womb Et pulchra faciat te prole parentem Of these alliances the first were very profitable to both Princes could there be made a marriage between the Kingdoms as well as the Kings But it is well known that the affections of each people are divided more unconquerable mountains than their dominions The French extreamly hating the proud humour and ambition of the Spaniard We may therefore account each of them in these marriages to have rather intended the perpetuity of their particular houses than the strength of their Empires and that they more desired a noble stock whereon to graft posterity than power The alliance with Savoy is more advantagious though less powerful than that of Spain For if the King of France can keep this Prince on his party he need not fear the greatness of the other or any of his faction The continuall siding of this House with that of Austria having given many and great impediments to the fortune of the French It standeth so fitly to countenance the affairs of either King in Italy or Germany to which it shall incline that it is just of the same nature with the estate of Florence between Millain and Venice of which Guicciaraine saith that Mantennero le coseâ—d Italia bilanâ—iate On this reason King Henry the fourth earnestly desired to match one of his Children into this Countrey and left this desire as a Legacie with his Council But the alliance of most use to the State of France is that of England as being the nighest and most able of all his neighbours An alliance which will make his Estate invincible and incompassed about as it were with a wall of brass As for the Kings bastard Brethren they are four in number and born of three several beds The eldest is Mr. Alexander made Knight of the Order of St. John or of Malta in the life time of his Father He is now Grand Prior of France and it is much laboured and hoped by the French that he shall be the next Master of the Order a place of great command and credit The second and most loved of his Father whose lively image and character he is said to be is Mr Caesar made Duke of Vendosme by his Father and is at this time Governor of Brittain a man of a brave spirit and one who swayeth much in the affairs of State His Father took great care for his advancement before his death and therefore married him to the Daughter and Heir of the Duke of Mercuer a man of great possessions in Brittain It is thought that the inheritance of this Lady both by her Fathers side and also by her Mothers who was of the Family of Marsegues being a stock of the old Ducal tree is no less than 200000. Crowns yearly Both these were born unto the King by Madame Gabriele for her excellent beauty surnamed labelle Dutchess of Beauforte a Lady whom the King most entirely affected even to the last gasp and one who never abused her power with him so that we may truly say of her what Velleius flatteringly said of Livia the Wife of Augustus Ejus potentiam nemo senset nisi levatione periculi aut accessione dignitatis The third of the Kings natural Brethren is Mr. Henry now Bishop of Metz in Lorraine and Abbot of St. Germans in Paris As Abbot he is Lord of the goodly Fairbourg of St. Germans and hath the profits of the great Fair there holden which make a large revenue His Bishoprick yeildeth him the profits of 20000. Crowns and upwards which is the remainder of 60000. the rest being pawned to the Duke of Lorraine by the last Bishop who was of that family The Mother of this Mr. Henry is the Marchioness of Verneville who before the death of the King fell out of his favour into the prison and was not restored to her liberty till the beginning of the Queen Mothers Regency The fourth and youngest is Mr. Antonie born unto the King by the Countess of Morret who is Abbot of the Churches of Marseilles and Cave hath as yet not fully six thousand pound a year when his Mother dieth he Will be richer The Kings lawful Brother is named John Baptist Gaston born the 25th of April Anno 1608. A Prince of a brave and manlike aspect likely to inherit as large a part of his Fathers spirit as the King doth of his Crown He is entituled Duke of Aniou as being the third Son of France but his next elder Brother the Duke of Orleance being dead in his childhood he is vulgarly and properly called Monsieur This title is different from that of Daulphin in that that title is onely appropriated to the Heir
consisteth of two Presidents twenty Counsellors or Assistants and as many Advocates as the Court will admit of The prime President is termed Mr. De Riz by birth a Norman upon the Bench and in all the places of his Court he taketh precedency of the Duke of Longueville When there is a Convention of the three estates summoned the Duke hath the priority We said even now that from the sentence of this Court there lay no appeal but this must be recanted and it is no shame to do it St. Austin hath writ his Retractions so also hath Bellarmine Once in the year there is an appeal admitted but for one man onely and that on this occasion There was a poysonous Dragon not far from Roven which had done much harm to the Country and City Many wayes had been tried to destroy him but none prospered At last Roman afterwards made a St. then Arch-bishop of the Town accompanied with a theif and a murderer whose lives had been forfeited to a sentence undertaketh the enter prise Upon sight of the Dragon the theif stole away the murderer goeth in and seeth that holy man vanquish the Serpent armed onely with a Stoale it is a neck habit sanctified by his holiness of Rome and made much after the fashion of a tippet with this Stoale tyed about the neck of the Dragon doth the murderer lead him prisoner to Roven To make short work the Name of God is praised the Bishop magnified the murderer pardoned and the Dragon burned This accident if the story be not Apocrypha is said to have hapned on Holy Thursday Audom or Owen successor unto St. Roman in memory of this marvellous act obtained of King Dagobert the first he began his raign Anno 632. that from that time forwards the Chapter of the Cathedral Church should on every Ascension day have the faculty of delivering any Malefactor whom the Laws had condemned This that King then granted and all the following Kings to this time have successively confirmed it I omit the ceremonies and solemnities wherewith this Prisoner is taken out of his Irons and restored to liberty It is not above nine years agone since a Baron of Gascoyne took occasion to kill his Wife which done he fled hither into Normandy and having first acquainted the Canons of Nostredame with his desire put himself to the sentence of the Court and was adjudged to the Wheele Ascension day immediately comming on the Canons challenged him and the Judge according to the custom caused him to be delivered But the Normans pleaded that the benefit of that priviledge belonged onely to the Natives of that Country and they pleaded with such fury that the Baron was again committed to prison till the Queen Mother had wooed the people pro eâ saltem vice to admit of his repreival I deferred to speak of the language of Normandy till I came hither because here it is best spoken It differeth from the Parisian and more elegant French almost as much as the English spoken in the North doth from that of London or Oxford Some of the old Norman words it still retaineth but not many It is much altered from what it was in the time of the Conqueror few of the words in which our Laws were written being known by them One of our company gave a Littletons tenures written in that language to a French Doctor in the Laws who protested that in three lines he could not understand three words of it The religion in this Town is indifferently poysed as it is also in most places of this Province The Protestants are thought to be as great a party as the other but far weaker the Duke of Longueville having disarmed them in the beginning of the last troubles CHAP. IV. Our journey between Roven and Pontoise the holy man of St. Claire and the Pilgrims thither My sore eyes Mante Pontoise Normandy justly taken from K. John The end of this Book IVly the second we took our farewell of Roven better accommodated than when we came thither yet not so well as I desired We are now preferred ab asinis ad equos from the Cart to the Waggon The French call it a Coach but that matters not so would they needs have the Cart to be Chariot These Waggons are ordinary instruments of travel in those Countries much of kin to a Graves-end Barge you shall hardly find them without a knave or a Giglot A man may be sure to be merry in them were he as certain of being wholesome This in which we travelled contained ten persons as all of them commonly do and amongst these ten one might have found English Scots French Normans Dutch and Italians a jolly medley had our religions been as different as our Nations I should have thought my self in Amsterdam or Poland If a man had desired to have seen a brief or an Epitome of the world he could no where have received such satisfaction as by looking on us I have already reckoned up the several nations I will now lay open the several conditions There were then to be found among these passengers Men and Women Lords and Serving-men Schollars and Clowns Ladies and Chamber-maids Priests and Lay-men Gentlemen and Artificers people of all sexes and almost of all ages If all the learning in the world were lost it might be found in Plutarch so said Budaeus If all the Nations in the world had been lost they might have been found again in our Waggon so I Seriously I think our Coach to have been no unfit representation of the Ark a whole world of men and languages might have grown out of it But all this while our Waggon joggeth on but so leasuresy that it gave me leave to take a more patient view of the Country then we could in the Cart. And here indeed I saw sufficient to affect the Country yea to dote on it had I not come out of England The fields such as already I have described every where beset with Apple-trees and fruits of the like nature you could scarce see any thing which was barren in the whole Country These Apples are both meat and drink to the poor Pesant for the Country is ill provided with vines the onely want I could observe in it and Beer is a good beverage at a Gentlemans table Sider then or Perry are the poor mans Clarret and happy man is he which can once or twice in a week aspire so high above water To proceed Through many a miserable Village Duburgs they call them and one Town somewhat bigger then the rest called Ecquille we came that night to St. Claire ten French miles from Roven A poor Town God wot and had nothing in it remarkable but an accident There dwelt a Monk grown into great opinion for his sanctity and one who had an especial hand on sore eyes yet his ability herein was not general none being capable of cure from him but pure Virgins I perswade my self France could not yeild him many
the head being said to be within it By this representation he seemeth to have had a very reverend and awful countenance though I perswade my self that the rich Crown Miter which he there weareth and certainly they are of an high value never belonged to him in his life On each side of the head are two Angels supporting it reported to be the work of one Ely Le plus artiste orfeure de son temps the cunningst Gold-smith of his time who afterwards was made Bishop of Noyon and Sainted Concerning Reliques I shall have occasion to speak further when I come to the holy Chappel in Paris somewhat now of the honour due unto the memory of Martyrs I am none of those that think the memories of those Heroes of the Primitive times not to be honoured in the dust Neither would I assault their shrines with an irreverent finger On the other side they shall never have my prayers directed to them nor my devotions nor can I think it lawful to give the remnants of them any bodily observance though I do and will honour yet I dare not worship them St. Austin hath cut out the mid-way between the Papists and the Zelots in the eighth book of his most excellent work de Civitate Dei and his path it is best to follow Honoramus sane memorias eorum tanquam Sanctorum hominum Dei qui usque ad mortem suorum corporum pro veritate certarunt And a little after he sheweth the end of these memorials viz. Vt ea celebritate Deo vero gratias de eorum victoriis agamus nos ad imitationem talium coronarum eorum memoriae revocatione adhortemur One Relique there is of which this use cannot possibly be made and what do you think that should be but the Lanthorn which Judas used when he went to apprehend his Master A pretty one I confess it is richly beset with studs of Christal through which all the light cometh the main of it being of a substance not transparent Had it been shewed me within the first Century of years after the Passion I might have perhaps been fooled into a beleif for I am confident it can be no elder Being as it is I will acknowledge it to be a Lanthorn though it belonged not to Judas From the Reliques of Martyrs proceed we to those of Kings and amongst those there is nothing which will long detain an English man He that hath seen the Tombs at Westminster will think those to be but trifles if he consider the workmanship or the riches and the magnificence The cheif of those mean ones which are there are those of Henry the second and Katherine de Medices his Wife in a little Chappel of her own building both in their full proportion and in their royal habiliments exceeding stately Here is also a neat Tomb of the same Henry built all of brass and supported by four brass pillars His statue of the same mettal placed on the top of it and composed as if at his prayers The rest are more in tale than weight but the chiefest beauties of the Church are in the Treasury which was not mine happiness to see As I am imformed the most remarkable things in it are these The Swords of Joan the Virgin Charles the great Rowland his Cozen and that of Henry the fourth when he was crowned His Boots Crowns and Scepters as those of his Son now raigning A Cross of three foot high made of pure gold A Crown Scepter and golden Ball given by Pope Adrian to Carolus Magnus A golden Crown of a larger size be decked with adamants and other pretious stones given by Charles Martell after his victory over the Saracens A very fair Chalice all of gold in which St. Denis is said to have consecrated the Sacramental Wine The others of lesser note I purposely omit for having not seen them I am loath to go any further upon trust And so I leave St. Denis a Church so richly furnished that had I seen all the rarities and glory of it that onely dayes content had deserved our journey Sed haec infaelici nimia Not to continue this discourse any further by way of journal or gesta dierum some few dayes after we had wearied our selves with the sight of Paris we went to see some of their Majesties houses in the Country and here we passed by Madrit so called of the King of Spains house at Madrit after the form of which it is built The Founder of it was Francis the first who being taken prisoner at the baâ—tel of Paviâ— Anno 15â—5 and thence carried into Spain had no less than a twelve-moneths leisure to draw that platform A fine contrived house it seemed to be but our journey lay beyond it One league beyond it lay Ruall a small Town belonging to the Abbey of St. Denis In the corner of this Town the Queen Mother hath a fine summer house abundantly adorned with retired walks and a most curious variety of Water-works For besides the forms of divers glasses pillars and geometrical figures all framed by the water there were birds of sundry forts so artificially made that they both deceived the eye by their motion and the ear by their melody Somewhat higher in the midst of a most delicious garden are two Fountains of admirable workmanship In the first the Portraitures of Cerberus the Bore of Calidon the Naemean Lyon and in the navel of it Hercules killing Hydra In the other onely a Crocodile full of wild and unruly tricks and sending from his throat a musick not far different from Organs Had your eyes been shut you would have thought your self in some Cathedral Church this melody of the Crocodile and that other of the Birds so exactly counterfeiting the harmony of a well ordered Quire And now we are come into the Grove a place so full of retired walks so sweetly and delectably contrived that they would even entice a man to melancholy because in them even melancholy would seem delightful The trees so interchangeably folded the one within the other that they were at once a shelter against wind and sun yet not not so sullenly close but that they afforded the eye an excellent Lordship over the vines and verdures of the earth imprisoned within them It seemed a Grove an Orchard and a Vineyard so variously enterwoven and mixed together as if it had been the purpose of the Artist to make a man fall in love with confusion In the middle of the wilderness was seated the house environed round about with a moat of running water the house pretty and therefore little built rather for a banquet than a feast It was built and thus enriched with variety of pleasures by Mr. de Ponte Taylor to King Henry the fourth and was no question the best garment he ever cut out in his life Dying he gave it to Mr. Landerbone once his servant and now his Son by adoption of whom the Queen Mother taking a liking to it
consisteth meerly of Doctors of Divinity neither can any of another profession nor any of the same profession not so graduated be admitted unto it At this time their number is about seventy their allowance a pint of Wine their pint being but a thought less than our quart and a certain quantity of bread daily Meat they have none allowed them unless they pay for it but they pay not so much for five Sols which amounteth to six pence English a day they challenge a competency of flesh or fish to be served to them at their Chambers These Doctors have the sole power authority in conferring degrees in Divinity The Rector and other Officers in the University having nothing to do in it To them alone belongeth the examination of the Students in that faculty the approbation and bestowing of the honours and to their Lectures do all such assiduously repair as are that way minded All of them in their turns discharge this office of reading and that by six in a day three of them making good the Pulpit in the forenoon and as many in the afternoon These Doctors also are accounted together with the Parliament of Paris the principal pillars of the French liberty whereof indeed they are exceeding jealous as well in matters Ecclesiastical as Civil When Gerson Chancellor of Paris he died Anno 1429. had published a book in approbation of the Council of Constance where it was enacted that the authority of the Council was greater than that of the Pope the Sorbonne Doctors declared that also to be their doctrine Afterwards when Lewis the eleventh to gratifie Pope Pius the second purposed to abolish the force of the Pragmatick Sanction the Sorbonnists in the behalf of the Church Gallican and the Vniversity of Paris magnis obsistebant animis saith Sleidan in his Commentary a papâ provacabant ad Concilium The Council unto which they appealed was that of Basil where that Sanction was made So that by this appeal they verified their former Thesis that the Council was above the Pope And not long since Anno viz. 1613. casually meeting with a Book written by Becanus entituled Controversia Anglicana de potestate Regis Papae they called an Assembly and condemned it For though the Main of it were against the power and supremacy of the King of England yet did it reflect also on the authority of the Pope over the Christian Kings by the by which occasioned the sentence So jealous are they of the least circumstances in which the immunity of their Nation may be endangered As for the government of the Vniversity it hath for its cheif Director a Rector with a Chancellor four Procurators or Proctors and as many others whom they call his Intrantes to assist him besides the Regents Of these the Regents are such Masters of the Arts who are by the consent of the rest selected to read the publike Lectures of Logick and Philosophy Their name they derive a regendo eo quod in artibus rexerint These are divided into four Nations Viz. 1. The Norman 2. The Picard 3. The Germain 4. The French Under the two first are comprehended the Students of those several Provinces under the third the Students of all Forrain Nations which repair hither for the attainment of knowledge It was heretofore called Natio Anglica but the English being thought unworthy of the honour because of their separation from the Church of Rome the name and credit of it was given to the Germains That of the French is again subdivided into two parts that which is immediately within the Diocess of Paris and the rest of Gallia these four Nations for notwithstanding the subdivision above mentioned the French Nation is reckoned but as one choose yearly four Proctors or Procurators so called Quia negotia nationis suae procurant They choose also four other Officers whom they call les Intrants in whose power there remaineth the delegated authority of their several Nations And here it is to be observed that in the French Nation the Procurator and Intrant is one year of the Diocess of Paris and the following year of the rest of France the reason why that Nation is subdivided These four Intrants thus named have amongst them the election of their Rector who is their supreme Magistrate The present Rector is Mr. Tarrisnus of the Colledge of Harcourte a Master of the Arts for a Doctor is not capable of the office The honour lasteth onely three moneths which time expired the Intrants proceed to a new election though oftentimes it happeneth that the same hath the lease of his authority renewed Within the confines of the University he taketh place next after the Princes of the Bloud and at the publike exercises of Learning before the Cardinals otherwise he giveth them the precedency But to Bishops and Arch-bishops he will not grant it upon any occasion It was not two moneths before my being there that there happened a shrewd controversie about it The King had then summoned an assembly of twenty five Bishops of the Provinces adjoyning to consult about some Church affairs and they had chosen the Colledge of Sorbonne to be their Senate-House When the first day of their sitting came a Doctor of the House being appointed to preach before them began his Oration with Reverendissime Rector vos Amplissimi Praesulei Here the Arch-bishop of Roven a man of an high spirit interrupted him and commanded him to invert his stile He obeyed and presently the Rector riseth up with Impono tibi silentium which is an Injunction within the compass of his power Upon this the Preacher being tongue-tied the controversie grew hot between the Bishops and the Rector both parties very eagerly pleading their own priority All the morning being almost spent in this altercation a Cardinal wiser than the rest desired that their question for that time might be laid aside and that the Rector would be pleased to permit the Doctor to deliver his Sermon beginning it without any Praeludium at all To which request the Rector yeilded and so the contention at that time was ended But Salus Academiae non vertitur in istis It were more for honour and profit of the Vniversity if the Rector would leave of to be so mindful of his place and look a little to his office for certainly the eye and utmost diligence of a Magistrate was never wanting more and yet more necessary in this place Penelopes suiters never behaved themselves so insolently in the house of Vlisses as the Academicks here do in the houses and streets of Paris Nos numerus sumus fruges consumere nati Sponsi Penelopes nebulones Alcinoque c. Was never the mouth of any of these when you hear of their behaviour you would think you were in Turkey and that these men were the Janizaries For an Angel given among them to drink they will arrest whom you shall appoint them double the money and they will break open his house and ravish
him into Gaole I have not heard that they can be hired to a murder though nothing be more common amongst them than killing except it be stealing Witness those many Carcasses which are found dead in a morning whom a desire to secur themselves and make resistance to their pillages hath onely made earth again Nay which is most horrible they have regulated their villanous practises into a Common-wealth and have their Captains and other Officers who command them in their night walks and dispose of their purchases To be a Gypsie and a Scholar of Paris are almost Synonime's One of their Captains had in one week for no longer would the gallows let him enjoy his honour stoln no fewer than eighty Cloaks Nam fuit Autolei tam piceata manus For these thefts being apprehended he was adjudged to the wheel but because the Judges were informed that during the time of his raign he had kept the hands of himself and his company unpolluted with bloud he had the favour to be hanged In a word this ungoverned rabble whom to call Scholars were to prophane the title omit no outrages or turbulent misdemeanours which possibly can be or were ever known to be committed in a place which consisteth meerly of priviledge and nothing of statute I could heartily wish that those who are so ill conceited of their own two Vniversities Oxford and Cambridge and accuse them of dissolutions in their behaviour would either spend some time in the Schools beyond Seas or enquire what news abroad of those which have seen them then would they doubtless see their own errors and correct them then would they admire the regularity and civility of those places which before they condemned of debauchedness then would they esteem those places as the seminaries of modesty and vertue which they now account as the nurseries onely of an impudent rudeness Such an opinion I am sure some of the Aristarchi of these dayes have lodged in their breasts concerning the misgoverning of our Athens Perhaps a Kinsman of theirs hath played the unthrift equally of his time and his money Hence their malice to it and their invectives against it Thus of old Pallas exurere classem Argivum atque ipsos potuit submergere ponto Vnius ob noxam furias Aiacis Oilei An injustice more unpardonable than the greatest sin of the Vniversities But I wrong a good cause with an unnecessary patronage yet such is the peccant humour of some that they know not how to expiate the follies of some one but with the calumny and dispraise of all An unmanly weakness and yet many possessed with it I know it is impossible that in a place of youth and liberty some should not give occasion of offence The Ark wherein there were eight persons onely was not without one Canaan And of the twelve which Christ had chosen one was a Devil It were then above a miracle if amongst so full a Cohort of young Souldiers none should forsake the Ensign of his General He notwithstanding that should give the imputation of cowardise to the whole Army cannot but be accounted malitious or peevish But let all such as have evil will at Sion live unregarded and die unremembred for want of some Sciolar to write their Epitaph Certainly a man not wedded to envy and a spiteful vexation of spirit upon a due examination of our Lycaea and a Comparison of them abroad with those abroad cannot but say and that justly Non habent Academiae Anglicanae pares nisi seipsas The principal cause of the rudeness and disorders in Paris had been cheifly occasioned by the great priviledges where with the Kings of France intended the furtherance and security of Learning Having thus let them get the bridle in their own hands no marvel if they grow sick with an uncontrouled licentiousness Of these priviledges some are that no Scholars goods can be seized upon for the payments of his debts that none of them should be liable to any taxes or impositions a Royal immunity to such as are acquainted with France that they might carry and recarry their utensiles without the least molestation that they should have the Provost of Paris to be the Keeper and Defender of their Liberties who is therefore stiled Le conservateur despriviledges Royaux de le Vniversite de Paris c. One greater priviledge they have yet than all these which is their soon taking of degrees Two years seeth them both novices in the Arts and Master of them so that enjoying by their degrees an absolute freedom before the folâ—ies and violencies of youth are broken in them they become so unruly and insolent as I have told you· These degrees are conferred on them by the Chancellor who seldom examineth further of them than hss Fees Those paid he presenteth them to the Rector and giveth them their Letters Patents sealed with the Vniversities seal which is the main part of the Creation He also setteth the Seal to the Authentical Letters for so they term them of such whom the Sorbonists have passed for Doctors The present Chancellor is named Petrus de Piere Vive Doctor of Divinity and Chanoin of the Church of Nostre-dame as also are all they which enjoy that Office He is chosen by the Bishop of Paris and taketh place of any under that dignity But of this ill managed Vniversity enough if not too much CHAP. VII The City of Paris in the place of old Lutetia The bridges which joyn it to the Town and University King Henries statua Alexanders injurious policy The Church and Revenues of Nostre-Dame The holy Water there the original making and vertue of it The Lamp before the Altar The heathenishness of both customs Paris best seen from the top of the Church The great Bell there never rung but in time of Thunder The baptizing of Bels. The grand Hospital and decency of it The place Daulphin the holy Chappel and Reliques there What the Ancients thought of Reliques The Exchange The little Chastelet A transition to thc Parliament THe Isle of Paris commonly called Isle de palais seated between the Vniversity and the Town is that part of the whole which is called la Cite the City The Epitome and abstract of all France It is the sweetest and best ordered part of Paris and certainly if Paris may be thought the eye of the Realm this Island may equally be judged the apple of the eye It is by much the lesser part and by as much the richer by as much the decenter and affordeth more variety of delightful objects than both the other It containeth an equal number of parish Churches with the Town and double the number with the Vniversity For it hath in it thirteen Churches parochial Viz. 1. La Magdalene 2. St. Geniveue des Ardents 3. St. Christofer 4. St. Pierre aux boeafs 5. St. Marine 6. St. Landry 7. St. Symphoryan 8. St. Denis de la charite 9. St. Bartellemie 10. St. Pierre des Assis 11. St. Croix
12. St. Marcial 13. St. German le Vieux Seated it is in the middle of the Seine and in that place where stood the old Lutetia Labienus cum quatuor legionibus saith Julius Caesar 7. Comment Lutetiam proficiscitur id est oppidum Parisioram positum in medio fluminâ—s Sequanae it is joyned to the Main Land and the other parts of this French Metropolis by six bridges two of wood and four of stone The stone bridges are 1. Le petit pont a bridge which certainly deserveth the name 2. Le pont de Nostre-Dame which is all covered with two goodly ranks of houses and those adorned with portly and antick imagery 3. Le pont St. Michell so called because it leadeth towards the gate of St. Michell hath also on each side a beautiful row of houses all of the same fashion so exactly that but by their several doors you could scarce think them to be several houses They are all new as being built in the raign of this present King whose Armes is engraven over every door of them The fourth and last bridge is that which standeth at the end of the Isle next the Louure and covereth the waters now united into one stream It was begun to be built by Katherine of Medices the Queen Mother Anno 1578. her Son King Henry the third laying the first stone of it The finishing of it was reserved to Henry the fourth who as soon as he had settled his affairs in this Town presently sent the workmen about it In the end of it where it joyneth to the Town there is a Water house which by artificial engines forceth up waters from a fresh spring rising from under the River done at the charges of the King also In the midst of it is the Statua of the said Henry the fourth all in brass mounted upon his barbed Steed of the same mertal They are both of them very unproportionable to those bodies which they represent and would shew them big enough were they placed upon the top of Nostre-dame Church What minded King Lewis to make his Father of so Gigantine a stature I cannot tell Alexander at his return from his Indian expedition scattered armours swords and horse-bits far bigger than were serviceable to make future ages admire his greatness Yet some have hence collected that the acts he performed are not so great as is reported because he strived to make them seem greater than they were It may also chance to happen that men in the times to come comparing the atchievements of this King with his brasen portraiture may think that the Historians have as much belyed his valour as his Statuary hath his person A ponte ad pontifices From the bridge proceed we to the Church the principal Church of Paris being that of Nostre-dame A Church very uncertain of its first Founder though some report him to be St. Savinian of whom I can meet with no more than his name But whoever laid the first foundation it much matters not all the glory of the work being now cast on Philip Augustus who pittying the ruines of it began to build it Anno 1196. It is a very fair and awful building adorned with a very beautiful front and two towers of especial height It is in length 174. paces and sixty in breadth and is said to be as many paces high and that the two towers are seventy yards higher than the rest of his Church At your first entrance on the right hand is the Effigies of St. Christopher with our Saviour on his shoulders A man the Legend maketh him as well as the Mason of a Gigantine stature though of the two the Masons workmanship is the more admirable his being cut out all of one Fair stone that of the Legendary being patched up of many fabulous ridiculous shreeds It hath in it four ranks of pillars 30 in a rank and forty five little Chappels or Mass-closets built between the outermost range of pillars and the wals This is the seat of the Arch-bishop of Paris for such now he is It was a Bishoprick onely till the year 1622. when Pope Gregory the fifteenth at the request of King Lewis raised it to a Metropolitanship But beside the addition of Honour I think the present Incumbent hath got nothing either in precedency or profit He had before a necessary voyce in the the Courts of Parliament and took place immediately after the Presidents he doth no more now Before he had the priority of all the Bishops and now he is but the last of all the Arch-bishops A preferment almost rather intellectual than real and perhaps his successors may account it a punishment For besides that the dignity is too unweildy for the Revenue which is but 600. liures or 600 li English yearly like enough it is that some may come into that See of Caesars mind who being in a small Village of the Alpes thus delivered his ambition to his followers Mallem esse hic primus quam Romae secundus The present possessour of this Chair is one Francis de Gondi by birth a Florentine one whom I have heard much famed for a Statesman but little for a Scholar But had he nothing in him this one thing were sufficient to make him famous to posterity that he was the first Arlh-bishop and the last Bishop of the City of Paris There is moreover in this Church a Dean seven Dignities and fifty Canons The Deans place is valued at 4000 liuree tâ—â—he Dignities at 3006. and the Canons at 2000. no great Intrado's and yet unproportionable to the Arch-bishoprick At Diepe as I have said I observed the first Idolatry of the Papists here I noted their first Superstitions which were the needless use of holy Water and the burning of Lamps before the Alter The first is said to be the invention of Pope Alexander the seventh Bishop of Rome in their account after Peter I dare not give so much credit unto Platina as to beleeve it of this Antiquity much less unto Bellarmine who deriveth it from the Apostles themselves in this Paradox he hath enemies enough at home his own Doctors being all for Alexander yet they also are not in the right The principall foundation of their opinion is an Epistle Decretory of the said Alexander which in it self carries its own confutation The citations of Scriptures on which this Superstition is thought to be grounded are all taken out of the Vulgar Translation Latine attributed to St. Hierome whereas neither was there in the time of Alexander any publick Translation of the Bible into Latine neither was St. Hierome born within 300. years after him Holy Water then is not of such a standing in the Church as the Papists would perswade us and as yet I have not met with any that can justly inform me at what time the Church received it Many corruptions they have among them whereof neither they nor we can tell the beginning It consisteth of two Ingredients Salt and Water each
enough to have made him fall down and worship him In One of those Towers there is a Ring of Bels in the other two onely but those for worth equal to all the rest The bigger of the two is said to be greater than that of Roven so much talked of as being eight yards and a span in compass and two yards and an half in depth the bowl also of the clapper being one yard and a quarter round Of a great weight it must needs be and therefore Multorum manibus grande levatur onus there are no less than four main ropes besides their several tayl ropes to ring it By reason of the trouble it is never rung but in time of thunders and these no mean ones neither Lesser Bels will serve the lesser tempests this is onely used in the horrider claps and such as threaten a dissolution of Nature But how well as well this as the smallest discharge that office experience would tell us were we void of reason yet so much do the people affiance themselves to this conceit of the power of them that they suppose it inherent to them continually after the Bishop hath baptized them which is done in this manner The Bell being so hanged that it may be washed within and without in cometh the Bishop in his Episcopal robes attended by one of his Deacons and sitting by the Bell in his chair saith with a loud voice the 50 53 56 66 69 85 and 129. Psalmes or some of them then doth he exorcize severally the Salt and the Water and having conjured those ingredients into an holy water he washeth with it the Bell both on the inside and the outside wiping it dry with a linnen cloath he readeth the 145 146 147 148 149 150 Psalms he draweth a cross on it with his right thumb dipped in hallowed oyl chrysome they call it and then prayeth over it His prayer finished he wipeth out the cross and having said over it the 48. Psalm he draweth on it with the same oyle seven other crosses saying Sanctificetur consecretur Domine Campana ista in nomine c. After another prayer the Bishop taketh another Censer and putting into it Myrrh and Frankincense setteth it on fire and putteth it under the Bell that it may all receive sume of it this done the 76. Psalm read some other prayers repeated the Bell hath received his whole and intire Baptisme and these vertues following viz. Vt per illius tactam procul pellantur omnes insidiae mimici fragor grandinum procella turbinum impetus tempestatum c. for so one of the Prayers reckoneth them prescribed in the Roman Pontifical authorized by Clement 8th A stranqe piece of Religion that a Bell should be baptized and so much the stranger in that those inanimate bodies can be received into the Church by no other ministery than that of the Bishop the true Sacrament being permitted to every Hedge-Priest Not farre from the West-gate of the Church of Nostre-dame is the Hosteldein or le grand Hospital de Paris first founded by King Lewis Anno 1258. It hath been since beautified and inlarged Anno 1535. by Mr. Anthony Prat Chancellor of France who augmented the number of the hospitallers and gave fair revenues for the maintaining of Surgeons Apothecaries and religious men amongst them Since that time the Provost and Eschevins of Paris have been especial Benefactors unto it At your first entrance into it you come into their Chappel small but handsome and well furnished After you pass into a large gallery having four ranks of beds two close to the wals and two in the middle The beds are all sutable the one to the other their vallance curtains and rugs being all yellow At the further end of this a door opened into another chamber dedicated onely to sick women and within them another room wherein women with child are lightned of their burden and their children kept till seven years of age at the charge of the Hospital At the middle of the first gallery on the left hand were other four ranks of beds little differing from the rest but that their furniture was blew and in them there was no place for any but such as were some way wounded and belonged properly to the Chirurgion There are numbred in the whole Hospital no less than seven hundred beds besides those of attendants Priests Apothecaries c. and in every bed two persons One would imagine that in such a variety of wounds and diseases a walk into it and a view of it might savour more of curiosity than discretion But indeed it is nothing less for besides that no person of an infectious disease it admitted into it which maketh much for the safety of such as view it all things are kept there so cleanly and orderly that it is sweeter walking there than in the best street of Paris none excepted Next unto those succeeded la Saincte Chapelle scituate in the middle of the Palais a Chappel famous for its form but more for its Reliques It was founded by Lewis the ninth vulgarly called St. Lewis Anno 1248. and is divided into two parts the Vpper and the Lower the Lower serving for the keeping of the Reliques and the Vpper for celebrating of the Mass It is a comely spruce Edifice without but farre more curious within the glass of it for the excellency of painting and the Organs for the richness and elaborate workmanship of the Case not giving way to any in Europe I could not learn the number of Chanoins which are maintained in it though I heard they were places of three hundred Crowns revenue As for their Treasurer le Threasurier as they call their Governor he hath granted him by especial priviledge the licence to wear all the Episcopal habits except the Crosier-staffe and to bear himself as a Bishop within the liberties of his Chappel In the top of the upper Chappel it is built almost in the form of a Synagogue there hangeth the true proportion as they say of the Crown of Thorns but of this more when we have gone over the Reliques I was there divers times to have seen them but it seemeth they were not visible to a Hugonots eyes though me thinketh they might have considered that my money was Catholick They are kept as I said in the lower Chappel and are thus marshalled in a Table hanging in the upper Know then that you may beleive that they can shew you the Crown of Thornes the bloud which ran from our Saviours breast his swadling Clouts and a great part of the Cross they also of Nostre-dame have some of it the chain by which the Jews bound him no small peice of the stone of the Sepulchre Sanctam taelam tabulae insertam which I know not how to English some of the Virgins milk for I would not have those of St. Denis think the Virgin gave milk to none other but to them the head of the Launce which peirced our Saviour
unto it self following no Rule written in their Sentences but judging according to equity and conscience In matters criminal of greater consequence the process is here immediately examined without any preparation of it from the inferiour Courts as at the araignment of the Duke of Biron and divers times also in matter personall But their power is most eminent in disposing the affaires of State and of the Kingdome for such prerogatives have the French Kings given hereunto that they can neither denounce Warre nor conclude Peace without the consent a formall one at the least of this Chamber An Alieniation of the least of the Lands of the Crown is not any whit valued unless confirmed by this Court neither are his Edicts in force till they are here verified nor his Letters Pattents for the creating of a Peere till they are here allowed of Most of these I confess are little more than matters of form the Kings power and pleasure being become boundless yet sufficient to shew the body of Authority which they once had and the shaddow of it which they still keep yet of late they have got into their disposing one priviledge belonging formerly to the Conventus Ordinum or the Assembly of the three Estates which is the conferring of the Regency or protection of their Kings during their minority That the Assembly of the three Estates formerly had this priviledge is evident by their stories Thus we find them to have made Queene Blanche Regent of the Realm during the non-age of her Son St. Lewiis Anno 1227. that they declared Phillip le Valois successor to the Crowne in case that the widdow of Charles de belle was not delivered of a Son Anno 1328. That they made Charles the Daulphin Regent of France during the imprisonment of King John his Father Anno 1357. As also Phillip of Burgony during the Lunary Charles the sixth Anno 1394 with divers others On the other side we have a late example of the power of the Parliament of Paris in this very case for the same day that Henry the fourth was slain by Raviliae the Parliament met and after a short consultation declared Mary de Medices Mother to the King Regent in France for the Government of the State during the minority of her Son with all power and authority such are the words of the Instrument dated the 14. of May 1610. It cannot be said but this Court deserveth not onely this but any other indulgence whereof any one member of the Common-wealth is capable So watchful are they over the health of the State and so tenderly do they take the least danger threatned to the liberties of that Kingdome that they may not unjustly be called Patres Patriae In the year 1614. they seazed upon a discourse written by Suarez a Jesuite entitled Adversus Anglicanae sectae errores wherein the Popes temporal power over Kings and Princes is averred which they sentenced to be burnt in the Pallace yard by the publick Hangman The yeare before they inflicted the same punishment upon a vain and blasplemous discourse penned by Gasper Niopins a fellow of a most desperate brain and a very incendiary Neither hath Bellarmine himself that great Atlas of the Roman Church escaped much better for writing a Book concerning the temporal power of his Holiness it had the ill luck to come into Paris where the Parliament finding it to thwart the Liberty and Royalty of the King and Country gave it over to the Hangman and he to the Fire Thus it is evident that the titles which the French writers gave it as the true Temple of the French justice the Buttresse of Equity the Guardian of the Rights of France and the like are abundantly deserved of it The next Chamber in esteem is the Tournelle which handleth all matters Criminal It is so called from Tourner which signifieth to change or alter because the Judges of the other several Chambers give sentence in this according to their several turnes The reason of which Institution is said to be least a continual custome of condemning should make the Judges less merciful and more prodigall of blood An order full of health and providence it was instituted by the above named Phillip le Belle at the same time when he made the Parliament sedentary at Paris and besides its particular and original employment it receiveth Appeals from and redresseth the errours of the Provost of Paris The other five Chambers are called des Enquests or Camerae Inquasitionum the first and ancientest of them was erected also by Phillip le Belle and afterwards divided into two by Charles the seventh Afterwards of Processes being greater than could be dispatched in these Courts there was added a third Francis the first established the fourth for the better raising of a sum of money which then he wanted every one of the new Counsellers paying right dearly for his place The fifth and last was founded in the year 1568. In each of these severall Chambers there be two Presidents and twenty Counsellers beside Advocates and Proctors ad placitum In the Tournelle which is the aggregation of all the other Courts there are supposed to be no fewer than two hundred Officers of all sorts which is no great number considering the many Causes there handled In the Tournelle the Iudges sit on matters of life and death in the Chambers of Enquests they examine onely civil Affairs of estate title debts and the like The Pleaders in these Courts are called Advocates and must be at the least Licentiats in the study of the Law At the Parliaments of Tholoza and Burdeaux they admit of none but Doctors now the form of admitting them is this In an open and frequent Court one of the agedest of the Long Robe presenteth the party which desireth admission to the Kings Atturney General saying with a loud voice Paisse a Cour recevoir N. N. Licencie or Docteur en droict civil a l'office d' Advocate This said the Kings Atturney biddeth him hold up his hand and saith to him in Latine Tu jurabis observare omnes Reges Consuetudines he answereth Iuro and departeth At the Chamber door of the Court whereof he is now sworne an Advocate he payeth two Crownes which is forthwith put into the common Treasury appointed for the relief of the distressed-Widdows of ruined Advocates and Proctors Hanc veniam petimusque damusque It may be their own cases and therefore it is paid willingly The highest preferment of which these Advocates are capable is that of Chauncellor an Office of great power and profit The present Chauncellor is named Mr. d' Allegre by birth of Chartres he hath no settled Court wherein to exercise his authority but hath in all the Courts of France the supream place whensoever he will vouchsafe to visit them He is also President of the Councill of Estate by his place and on him dependeth the making of good and sacred Lawes the administration of Justice the reformation of
superfluous and abrogation of unprofitable Edicts c. He hath the keeping of the Kings geeat Seal and by vertue of that either passeth or putteth back such Letters Pattents and Writs as are exhibited to him He hath under him immediately for the better dispatch of his Affairs four Masters of the Requests and their Courts Their Office and manner of proceeding is the same which they also use in England in the persons there is thus much difference that in Franee two of them must be perpetually of the Clergy One of their Courts is very ancient and hath in it two Presidents which are two of the Masters and fourteen Counsellers The other is of a later erection as being founded Anno 1580. and in that the two other of the Masters and eight Councellers give sentence Thus have I taken a veiw of the several Chambers of the Parliament of Paris and of their particular Jurisdictions as far as my information could conduct me One thing I noted further and in my mind the fairest ornament of the Pallace which is the neatness and decency of the Lawyers in their apparrel for besides the fashion of their habit which is I assure you exceeding pleasant and comely themselves by their own care and love to handsomeness adde great lustre to their garments and more to their persons Richly drest they are and well may be so as being the ablest most powerfull men under the Princes la Noblesse in all the Country An happiness as I conjecture rather of the calling than of the men It hath been the fate and destiny of the Law to strengthen enable its professors beyond any other any Art or Science the Pleaders in all Common-wealths both for sway amongst the people and vague amongst the Military men having alwaies had the preheminence Of this rank were Pericles Phochion Alcibiades and Demosthenes amongst the Athenians Antonius Mar. Cato Caesar and Tullie amongst the Romans men equally famous for Oratory and the Sword yet this I can confidently say that the several States above mentioned were more indebted unto Tullie and Demosthenes being both meer Gown men than to the best of their Captaines the one freeing Athens from the Armies of Macedon the other delivering Rome from the conspiracy of Catiline O fortunatum natam me Consule Romam It is not then the fate of France only nor of England to see so much power in the hand of the Lawyers and the case being general me thinks the envy should be the less and less it is indeed with them than with us The English Clergy though otherwise the most accomplisht in the World in this folly deserveth no Apologie being so strangely ill affected to the Pleaders of this Nation that I fear it may be said of some of them Quod invidiam non ad causam sed personam et ad valantatem dirigant A weakness not more unworthy of them than prejudicial to them for fostering between both Gownes such an unnecessary emulation they do but exasperate that power which they cannot controle and betray themselves to much envy and discontentedness A disease whose care is more in my wishes than in my hopes CHAP. IX The Kings Pallace of the Louure by whom built the unsutableness of it The fine Gallery of the Queene Mother The long Gallery of Henry the fourth his magnanimous intent to have built it into a Quadrangle Henry the fourth a great builder his infinite project upon the Mediterranean and the Ocean Lasalle des Antiques The French not studious of Antiquities Burbon House The Tuilleries c. WE have discharged the King of one Pallace and must follow him to the other where we shall find his residence It is seated in the west side of the Town or Ville of Paris hard by Porte neufue and also by the new Bridge An House of great fame and which the Kings of France have long kept their Courts in It was first built by Phillip Augustus anno 1214. and by him intended for a Castle it then serving to imprison the more potent of the Noblesse and to lay up the Kings Treasury for that cause it was well moated and strengthened with walls and draw Bridges very serviceable in those times It had the name of Louure quasi L'oeuure or the work the Building by way of excellencie An Etymologie which draweth nigher to the ear than the understanding or the eye And yet the French writers would make it a miracle Du Chesne calleth it superbe bastiment qui n' a son esgal en toute la Christiente and you shall hear it called in another place Bastiment qui passe muiourd huy en excellenee et en grandeur tous les autres Brave Eligies if all were Gold that glistered It hath given up now its charge of money and great prisoners to the Bastile and at this time serveth only to imprison the Court. In my life I never saw any thing more abused by a good report or that more belyeth the rumours that go of it The ordinary talk of vulgar travellers and the bigg words of the French had made me expect at the least some prodigie of Architecture some such Majestical house as the Sunne Don Phoebus is said to have dwelt in by Ovid. Regia solis erat sublimibus alta columnis Clara micante auro flammasque imitante pyropo Cuius ebur nitidum c. Indeed I thought no fiction in Poetry had been able to have parralell'd it and made no doubt but it would have put me into such a passion as to have cryed out with the young Gallant in the Comidie when he saw his Sweet heart Hei mihi qualis erat talis erat qualem nunquem ego vidi But I was much deceived in that hope and could find nothing in it to admire much less to envy The Fable of the Mountaine which was with child and brought forth a Mouse is questionless a Fable This House and the large fame it hath in the world is the Morall of it Never was there an House more unsuitable to it self in the particular examination of parts nor more unsutable to the Character and esteem of it in the general survey of the whole You enter into it over two Draw-bridges and thorough three Gates ruinous enough and abundantly unsightly In the Quadrangle you meet with three several fashions of buildings of three several ages and they so unhappily joyned one to the other that one would half beleeve they were clapped together by an Earthquake The South and West parts of it are new and indeed Prince like being the work of Francis the first and his Son Henry had it been all cast into the same mould I perswade my self that it would be very gratious and lovely The other two are of ancient work and so contemptible that they disgrace the rest and of these I suppose the one to be at the least a hundred years older than his partner such is it without As for the inside it is farre
more graceful and would be pleasing at the entrance were the Gaurd Chamber reformed Some Hugonot Architect which were not in love with the errours of Antiquity might make a pretty room of it a Catholick Carpenter would never get credit by it for whereas the provident thrift of our fore fathers intended it for the House would else be too narrow for the Kings retinue both for a room of safety and of pleasure both for Bellmen and Dancers and for that cause made up some six ranks of seats on each side That sparingness in the more curious eyes of this time is little King like Country wenches might with an indifferent stomack abuse a Galliard in it or it might perhaps serve with a Stage at one end to entertain the Parisiens at a Play or with a partition in the middle it might be divided into pretty plausible Cockpits But to be employed in the nature it is now either to solace the King and Lords in a dance or to give any forraign Ambassadour his welcome in a Masque is little sutable with the majesty of a King of France The Chambers of it are well built but ill furnished the hangings of them being somewhat below a meanness and yet of these here is no small scarcity for as it is said of the Gymnosophists of India that Vnadomus et mansioni sufficit et sepulturae so may we of this Prince The same Chamber serveth for to Iodge him feed him also to confer discourse with his Nobility But like enough it is that this want may proceed from the several Courts of the King the Monsieur the Queene Mother and the Queene Regnant being all kept within it Proceed we now to the two Galleries whereof the first is that of the Queene Mother as being beautified and adorned exceedingly by Catherine de Medices Mother to Henry the third and Charles the ninth It containeth the Pictures of all the Kings of France and the most loved of their Queens since the time of St. Lewis They stand each King opposite to his Queen she being that of his Wives which either brought him most estate or his Successor The tables are all of a just length very fair and according to my little acquaintance with the Painter of a most excellent workmanship And which addeth more grace to it they are in a manner a perfect history of the State and Court of France in their several times For under each of the Kings pictures they have drawn the potraitures of most of their Lords whom valour and true courage in the field ennobled beyond their births Under each of the Queens the lively shapes of the most principal Ladies whose beauty and vertue had honoured the Court. A dainty invention and happily expressed At the further end of it stand the last King and the present Queen Mother who fill up the whole room The succeeding Princes if they mean to live in their pictures must either build new places for them or else make use of the Long Gallery built by Henry the fourth and which openeth in to that of the Queen Mother A Gallery it is of an incredible length as being above 500. yards long and of a breadth and height not unproportionable A room built rather for oftentation than use and such as hath more in it of the Majesty of ist Founder than the Grace It is said to have been erected purposely to joyn the Louure unto the house and garden of the Tuilleries an unlikely matter that such a stupendious building should be designed onely for a cleanly conveyance into a Summer-house Others are of opinion that he had a resolution to have the House quadrangular every side being correspondent to this which should have been the common Gallery to the rest which design had it taken effect this Palace would at once have been the wonder of the world and the envy of it For my part I dare be of the last mind as well because the second is in part begun as also considering how infinitely this King was affected to building The place Daulphin and the place Royal two of the finest piles of Paris were erected partly by his purse but principally by his encouragement The new Bridge in Paris was meerly his work so was also the new Palace and the most admirable Water-Works of St. Germanenlay this long Gallery and the Pesthouse owe themselves wholly unto him and the house of Fountain bleau which is the fairest in France is beholding to him for most of its beauty Adde to this his fortifications bestowed on the Bastile and his purpose to have strengthened Paris according to the modern art of Towns and you will find the attribute of Parietaria or Wall-floure which Constantine scoffingly gave unto Trajane for his great humour of building to be due unto this King but seriously and with reverence Besides the general love he had to building hâ— had also an ambition to go beyond ensample which also induceth me further to beleive his intent of making that large and admirable quadrangle above spoken of to have been serious and real For to omit others certain it is that he had a project of great spirit and difficulty which was to joyn the Mediterranean Sea and the Ocean together and to make the navigation from the one to the other through France and not to pass by the straight of Gibraltare It came into counsel Anno 1604. and was resolved to be done by this meanes The River of Garond is navigable from the Ocean almost to Tholoza and the Mediterranean openeth it self into the land by a little River whose name I know not as high as Narbonne Betwixt these two places was there a navigable channel to have been digged and it proceeded so far towards being actuated that a workman had undertaken it and the price was agreed upon But there arising some discontents between the Kings of France and Spain about the building of the Fort Fuentis in the Countrey of the Grisons the King not knowing what use he might have of treasure in that quarrel commanded the work not to go forward However it is to be commended in the attempt which was indeed Kingly and worthy his spirit and praise him in his heroick purpose and design Quem si non tenuit magnis tamen excidit ausis But the principal beauty if I may judge of this so much admired Palace of the Louure is a low plain room paved under foot with brick and without any hangings or tapestry on the sides yet being the best set out and furnished to my content of any in France It is called La salle des Antiques and hath in it five of the ancientest and venerablest pieces of all the Kingdom For the Nation generally is regardless of antiquity both in the monuments and in the study of it so that you shall hardly find any ancient inscription or any famous ruine snatched from the hand of time in the best of their Cities and Churches In the Church
onely of Amiens could I meet with any antient Character which also was but a Gothish Dutch Letter and expressed nothing but the name and vertue of a Bishop of the Church in whose time it was So little also did I perceive them to be inclining to be Antiquaries that both neglects considered si Verbis audaciadetur I dare confidently averre that one Cotton for the Treasury and one Selden now Mr. Camden is dead for the study of Antiquities are worth all the French As for these five peices in La salle des Antiques they are I confess worthy our observation and respect also if they be such as our trudgeman informed us At the further end of it the Statua of Diana the same as it is said which was worshipped in the renowned Temple of Ephesus and of which Demetrius the Silver-smith and his fellow Artists cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Of a large and manly proportion she seemeth to be Quantum quale latus quam juvenile femur As Ovid of his Mistriss She is all naked save her feet which are buskin'd and yet she hath a scarfe or linnen roul which coming over her left shoulder and meeting about her middle hung down with both ends of it a little lower In the first place towards the right hand as we descended towards the door was the Statua of one of the Gods of Aethiopia as black as any of his people and one that had nothing about him to express his particular being Next unto him the Effigies of Mercury naked all except his feet and with a pipe in his mouth as when he inchanted Argos Nam que reperta Fistula nuper erat Saith the Metamorphosis Next unto him the portraiture of Venus quite naked and most immodestly apparreld in her hand her little Son Cupid as well arrayed as his Mother sitting on a Dolphin Last of all Apollo also in the same naked truth but that he had shooes on He was portrayed as lately returned from a Combat perhaps that against the Serpent Python Quem Deus arcitenens nunquam talibus armis Ante nisi in damis caprisque fugacibus usus Mille gravem telis exhausta pane pharetra Perdidit effuso per vulnera nigra veneno The Archer-God who e're that present tide Ne're us'e those arms but ' gainst the Roes and Deer With thousand shafts the earth made to be dy'de With Serpents bloud his quiver emptied cleer That I was in the right conjecture I had these reasons to perswade me the Quiver on the Gods right shoulder almost emptied his warlike belt hanging about his neck his garments loosly tumbling upon his left arm and the slain Monster being a water-serpent as Pithon is fained to be by the Poets All of these were in the same side of the wall the other being altogether destitute of ornament and are confidently said to be the statues of those Gods in the same forms that they were worshipped in and taken from their several Temples They were bestowed on the King by his Holiness of Rome and I cannot blame him for it It was worthy but little thanks to give unto him the Idols of the Heathen who for his Holiness satisfaction had given himself to the Idols of the Romans I beleive that upon the same terms the King of Enggland should have all the Reliques and ruines of Antiquity which can be found in Rome Without this room the Salle des Antiques and somewhat on the other side of the Louure is the House of Burbon and old decayed fabrick in which was nothing observable but the Omen For being built by Lewis of Burbon the third Duke of that branch he caused this Motto ESPERANCE to be engraven in Capital Letters over the door signifying his hopes that from his loyns should proceed a King which should joyn both the Houses and the Families and it is accordingly happened For the Tuilleries I have nothing to say of them but that they were built by Catherine de Medices in the year 1564 and that they took name from the lime-kils and tile-pits there being before the foundation of the house and the garden the word Tuillerie importing as much in the French language I was not so happy as to see them and will not be indebted to any for the relation CHAP. X. The person age and marraige of King Lewis Conjectural reasons of his being issueless Jaqueline Countess of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all married and his alliances by them His natural Brethren and their preferment His lawful Brother the title of Monsieur in France Monsieur as yet unmarried not like to marry Mont-Peusiers Daughter That Lady a fit Wife for the Earl of Soisons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the Line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a Child may be born in the eleventh moneth King Henry the fourth a great Lover of fair Ladies Monsieur Barrados the Kings Favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinal of Richilieu The Queen Mother a wise and prudent Woman THe King is the soul of the Court without his presence it is but a Carcass a thing without life and honour I dare not so farre wrong the Louure as to make it but a common house and rob it of the fruition of its Prince and therefore will treat of him here though during my aboad in France he lay all the while in Fountain Bleau For person he is of the middle stature and rather well proportioned than large His face knoweth little yet of a beard but that which is is black and swarthy his complexion also much of the same heiw carrying in it a certain boysterousness and that in a further measure than what a graceful Majesty can admit of So that one can hardly say of him without a spice of Courtship what Paterculus did of Tiberius Quod visus praetulerit principem that his countenance proclaimed him a King But questionless his greatest defect is want of utterance which is very unpleasing by reason of a desperate and uncurable stammering which defect is likely more and more to grow upon him At this time he is aged twenty four years and as much as since the 27 day of September last which was his birth day an age which he beareth not very plausibly want of beard and the swarthiness of his complexion making him seem elder At the age of eleven years he was affianced to the Lady Anna Infanta of Spain by whom as yet he hath no children It is thought by many and covertly spoken by divers in France that the principal cause of the Queens bartenness proceedeth from Spain that people being loath to fall under the French obedience which may very well happen she being the elder Sister of the King For this cause in the seventh article of marriage there is a clause that
apparent being the Kings eldest Son living This limited to the Heir apparent being the Kings eldest Brother surviving if there be neither Son nor Brother then the next Heir apparent is stiled onely Le primier Prince du sang The first Prince of the bloud This title of Monsieur answereth to that of the Despote in the Greek Empire and in imitation of that it is thought to have been instituted Others of the French Princes are called Monsieurs also but with some addition of place or honour the Kings eldest Brother onely is called Monsieur sans quene as the French use to say that is simply Monsieur This young Prince is as yet unmarried but destinate to the bed of the young Dutchess of Mont-pensier whose Father died in the time of Henry the fourth Had the Duke of Orleance lived he had espoused her long ere this but it is generally beleived that this Prince is so affected He seeth his elder Brother as yet childless himself the next Heir to the Crown and it is likely he will look on a while and expect the issue of his fortune Some that speak of the affairs of the Court hold her to be a fit match for the young Count of Soisons a Prince of the bloud and a Gentleman of a fine temper The Lady her self is said not to be averse from the Match neither will the King not be inclinable unto him as hoping therein to give him some satisfaction for not performing a Court promise made unto him about marrying him to the young Madame now Queen of England As for the Count it cannot but be advantagious to him divers wayes partly to joyn together the two Families of Mont pensier and Soisons both issuing from the house of Burbon partly to enrich himself by adding unto his inheritance so fair an estate and partly by gaining all the Freinds and Allies of the Ladies kinred unto him the better to enable his opposition against the Prince of Conde The difference between them standeth thus Lewis the first Prince of Conde had by two Wives amongst other Children two Sons by his first Wife Henry Prince of Conde by the second Charles Count of Soisons Henry Prince of Conde had to his first Wife Mary of Cleve Daughter to the Duke of Nevers by whom he had no Children to his second Wife he took the Lady Katherine of Tremoville Sister to the Duke of Thovars Anno 1586. two years after his marriage he died of an old greif took from a poysoned cup which was given him Anno 1552. and partly from a blow given him with a Lance at the battel of Contras Anno 1587. In the eleventh moneth after his decease his young Princess was brought to bed of a young Son which is now Prince of Conde Charles Count of Soisons in the raign of Henry the fourth began to question the Princes legitimation whereupon the King dealt with the Parliament of Paris to declare the place of the first Prince of the bloud to belong to the Prince of Conde And for the clearer and more evident proof of the title twenty four physitians of good faith and skill made an open protestation of oath in the Coutt that it was not onely possible but common for Women to be delivered in the eleventh moneth On this it was awarded to the Prince This decree of Parliament notwithstanding if ever the King and his Brother should die childless it is said that the young Count of Soisons his Father died Anno 1614. will not so give over his title He is Steward of the Kings House as his Father also was before him a place of good credit and in which he hath demeaned himself very plausibly In case it should come to a tryal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which God forbid he is like to make a great party both within the Realm and without it without it by means of the House of Savoy having married his eldest Sister unto Don Thomazo the second Son of that Dukedom now living A brave man at armes and indeed the fairest fruit that ever grew on that tree next Heir of his Father after the death of Don Amadeo yet childless within the Realm the Lords have already declared themselves which happened on this occasion In the year 1620. the moneth of March the King being to wash the Prince of Conde laid hold on the towel chalenging that honour as first Prince of the bloud and on the other side the Count of Soisons seized on it as appertaining to his office of Steward and Prince of the bloud also The King to decide the controversie for the present commanded it to be given to Monsieur his Brother yet did not this satisfie For in the morning the Friends of both Princes came to offer their service in the cause To the Count came in general all the opposites of the Prince of Conde and of the Duke of Luines and Guise in particular the Duke of Maien the Duke of Vendosme the Dukes of Longueville Espernon Nemours the Grand Prior the Dukes of Thovars Retz and Rohan the Viscount of Aubetene c. who all withdrew themselves from the Court made themselves Masters of the best places in their Governments and were united presently into an open faction of which the Queen Mother declared her self head As for the Commons without whom the Nobility may well quarrel but not fight they are more zealous in behalf of the Count as being brought up alwayes a Papist and born of a Catholike kinred whereas the Prince though at this instant he be a Catholike yet non fuit sic ab initio he was born they say and brought up an Hugonot and perchance the alteration is but dissembled Concerning the Prince of Conde he hath a sentence of Parliament on his side and a verdict of Physitians both weak helps to a soveraignty unless well backed by the Sword And for the verdict of the Physitians thus the case is stated by the Doctors of that faculty Laurentius a Professor of Mâ—nt-pellier in Languedoc in his excellent Treatise of Anatomy maketh three terms of a Womans delivery Primus intermedius ultimus The first the seventh and eighth moneth after conception in each of which the Child is vital and may live if it be born To this also consenteth the Dr. of their Chair Hippocrates saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a Child born in the seventh moneth if it be well looked to may live We read also how in Spain the Women are oftentimes lightned in the end of the seventh moneth and commonly in the end of the eighth and further that Sempronius and Corbula both Roman Consuls were born in the seventh moneth Plinie in his natural History reporteth it as a truth though perhaps the Women that told him either misreckoned their time or else dissembled it to conceal their honesties The middle time terminus intermedius is the ninth and tenth moneths at which time Children do seldom miscarry In the former two moneths they had gathered life
in these later they onely consummate strength so say the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquid ad perfectionem partium sed ad perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this Profession is the eleventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth of Papyrius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confest him to be born in the thirteenth month And Avicen a Moor of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a Child born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of Women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernatural causes Vt extra ordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the furthest understand ten moneths compleat the Child is born And Vlpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a Child born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of its pretended Father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived taking it in the most favourable construction after the conception of the Mother and by no meanes after the death of the Father and so can it no way if I were first President advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extreamly sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken Anno 1552. to be little prone to Women in the general They therefore that would seem to know more than the vulgar reckon him as one of the by-blows of Henry the fourth but this under the Rose yet by way of conjecture we may argue thus First from the Kings care of his education assigning him for his Tutor Nicholas de Februe whom he also designed for his Son King Lewis Secondly from his care to work the Prince then young Mollis aptus agi to become a Catholike Thirdly the age of the old Henry of Conde and the privacy of this King with his Lady being then King of Navarre in the prime of his strength and in discontent with the Lady Margaret of Valoys his first Wife Adde to this that Kings love to fair Ladies in the general and we may see this probability to be no miracle For besides the Dutchess of Beaufort the Marchioness of Verneville and the Countess of Morret already mentioned he is beleived to have been the Father of Mr. Luines the great Favorite of King Lewis And certain it is that the very year before his death when he was even in the winter of his dayes he took such an amorous liking to the Prince of Conde s Wife a very beautiful Lady and Daughter to the Constable Duke of Montmorencie that the Prince to save his honour was compelled to flie together with his Princess into the Arch-Dukes Country whence he returned not till long after the death of King Henry If Marie de Medices in her Husbands life time paid his debts for him which I cannot say she onely made good that of vindicate· And yet perhaps a consciousness of some injuries not onely moved her to back the Count of Soison's and his faction against the Prince and his but also to resolve upon him for the Husband of her Daughter From the Princes of the bloud descend we to the Princes of the Court and therein the first place we meet with Mr. Barradas the Kings present Favourite a young Gentleman of a fresh and lively hew little bearded and one whom the people as yet cannot accuse for any oppression or misgovernment Honours the King hath conferred none upon him but onely Pensions and Offices He is the Governour of the Kings Children of Honour Pages we call them in England a place of more trouble than wealth or credit He is also the Master of the Horse or le grand Escuire the esteem of which place recompenceth the emptiness of the other for by vertue of this Office he carryeth the Kings Sword sheathed before him at his entrance into Paris the Cloth of Estate carryed over the King by the Provosts and Eschevins is his Fee No man can be the Kings Spur maker his Smith or have any place in the Kings Stables but from him and the like This place to note so much by the way was taken out of the Constables Office Comes stabuli is the true name to whom it properly belonged in the time of Charles the seventh Besides this he hath a pension of 500000. Crowns yearly and had an Office given him which he sold for 100000. Crownes in ready money A good fortune for one who the other day was but the Kings Page And to say truth he is as yet but a little better being onely removed from his Servant to his play-fellow with the affairs of State he intermeddleth not if he should he might expect the Queene Mother should say to him what Apollo in Ovid did to Cupid Tibi quia cum fortibus armis Mi puer ista decent humeros gestamina nostros For indeed first during her Sons minority and after since her redentigration with him she hath made her self so absolute a Mistress of her mind that he hath entrusted to her the entire conduct of all his most weighty affairs for her Assistant in the managing of her greatest business she hath pieced her self to the strongest side of the State the Church having principally since the death of the Marshall D' Anere Joneane assumed to her Counsails the Cardinal of Richileiu a man of no great birth were Nobility the greatest Parentage but otherwise to be ranked among the Noblest Of a sound reach he is and of a close brain one exceedingly well mixt of a Lay Vnderstanding and a Church Habit one that is compleatly skilled in the art of men and a perfect Master of his own mind and affections Him the Queene useth as her Counseller to keep out frailty and the Kings name as her countenance to keep off envy She is of a Florentine wit and hath in her all the vertues of Katherine de Medices her Ancestor in the Regencie and some also of her vices only her designes tend not to the ruine of her Kingdome and her Children John de Seirres telleth us in his Inventaire of France how the Queene Katherine suffered her Son Henry the third a devout and simple Prince to spend his most dangerous times even uncontrolled upon his Beades whiles in the meantime she usurped the Government of the Realm Like it is that Queene Mary hath
learned so much of her kinswoman as to permit this Son of hers also to spend his time in his Garden amongst his play fellows and his Birds that she may the more securely mannage the State at her discretion And to say nothing of her untrue or misbecoming her vertue she harh notably well discharged her ambition the Realm of France being never more quietly and evenly Governed theâ—n first during her Regencie and now during the time of her favour with the King For during his minority she carryed her self so fairly between the Factions of the Court that she was of all sides honoured the time of Marquessd ' Ancre onely excepted And for the differences in Religion her most earnest desire was not to oppress the Protestants insomuch that the warre raised against them during the Command of Mr. Luines was presently after his death and her restoring to grace ended An heroical Lady and worthy of the best report of posterity the frailty and weekness of her as being a woman not being to be accounted hers but her Sexes CHAP. II. The Religions struggling in France like the two Twins in the womb of Rebecca The comparison between them two and those in general A more peculiar Survey of the Papists Church in France In Policie Priviledge and Revenue The Complaint of the Clergie to the King The acknowledgement of the French Church to the Pope meerly titular The pragmatick Sanction Maxima tua fatuitas et Conventui Tridentino severally written to the Pope and the Trent Councill The tedious quarrels about Investitures Four things propounded by the Parliament to the Jesuit's The French Bishops not to meddle with Friers Their lives and Land The ignorance of the French Priests The Chanoins Latine in Orleans The French not hard to be converted if plausibly humoured c. FRom the Court of the King of France I cannot better provide for my self than to have recourse unto the Court of the King of Heaven and though the Poet meant not Exeat aulâ qui vult esse pius in that sense yet will it be no treason for me to apply it so And even in this Court the Church which should be like the Coat of its Redeemer without seam do I find rents and sactions and of the two these in the Church more dangerous than those in the Louure I know the story of Rebecca and the Children struggling in her is generally applyed to the births and contentions of the Law and the Gospell In particular we may make use of it in the present estate of the Church and Religions in France for certain it is that there were divers pangs in the womb of the French Church before it was delivered and first she was delivered of Esau the Popish faith being first after the struggling countenaaced by authority and he came out red all over like a hairy Garment saith the text which very oppositely expresseth the bloody and rough condition of the French Papist at the birth of the Reformation before experience and long acquaintance had bred a liking between them And after came his Brother out which laid hold on Esaus heel and his name was called Jacob wherein is described the quality of the Protestant party which though confirmed by publick Edict after the other yet hath it divers times endeavoured and will perchance one day effect the tripping up of the others heeles And Esau saith Moses was a cunning hunter a man of the field but Jacob was a plain man dwelling in Tents In which words the comparison is most exact A cunning Archer in the Scriptures signifieth a man of Art and Power mingled as when Nimrod in the 10th of Geneses is termed A mighty Hunter Such is the Papist a side of greater strength and subtilty a side of warre and of the field On the other side the Protestants are a plain race of men simple in their actions without craft and fraudulent behahaviour and dwelling in Tents that is having no certain abiding place no one Province which they can call theirs but living dispersed and scatterred over the Country which in the phrase of Scripture is dwelling in Tents As for the other words differencing the two Brethren and the elder shall serve the younger they are rather to be accounted a Prophesie than a Character we must therefore leave the Analogie it holds with the Rebecca of France and her two Sons to the event and prayer For a more particular insight into the strength and subtilty of this Esau we must consider it in the three main particular strengths of it Its policy priviledge revenue For the first so it is that the Popish Church in France is governed like those of the first and purer times by Arch-bishops and Bishops Archibishops it comprehendeth twelve and of Bishops an hundred and four Of these the Metropolitan is he of Rhemes who useth to annoint the Kings which office and preheminence hath been annexed to this seat ever since the time of St. Remegius Bishop hereof who converted Clovis King of the Franks unto the Gospel The present Primate is Son to the Duke of Guise by name Henry de Lorrein of the age of fourteen yeares or thereabouts a burden too unweildy for his shoulders Et quae non viribus istis Munera conveniunt nec tam puerilibus annis For the better government therefore of a charge so weighty they have appointed him a Coadjutor to discharge that great function till he come to age to take Orders His name is Gifford an English fugitive said to be a man worthy of a great fortune and able to bear it The revenues of this Arch-bishoprick are somewhat of the meanest not amouting yearly to above 10000. Crowns whereof Doctor Gifford receiveth onely two thousand the remainder going to the Cadet of Lorreine This trick the French learnt of the Protestants in Germany where the Princes after the reformation began by Luther took in the power and Lordships of the Bishops which together with their functions they divided into two parts The Lands they bestowed upon some of their younger Sons or Kinsmen with the title of Administrator the office and power of it they conferred with some annual pension on one of their Chaplains whom they stiled the Superintendent of the Bishoprick This Archbishop together with the rest of the Bishops have under them their several Chancellors Commissaries Archdeacons and other Officers attending in their Courts in which their power is not so general as with us in England Matters of Testament never trouble them as belonging to the Court of Parliament who also have wrested into their own hands almost all the business of importance sure I am all the causes of profit originally belonging to the Church The affairs meerly Episcopal and Spiritual are left unto them as granting licence for marriages punishing whoredom by way of pennance and the like To go beyond this were Vltra crepidam and they should be sure to have a prohibition from the Parliament Of their Priviledges the
man as he informed me able to discharge the trust reposed in him by his Master and one that very well affecteth the English Nation He hath the fairest Eglise and keepeth the largest retinue of any ordinary Embassadour in the Realm and maketh good his Masters supremacy by his own precedency To honour him against he was to take this charge his Holiness created him Bishop of Damiata in Egypt A place which I am certain never any of them saw but in a Map and for the profits he receiveth thence they will never be able to pay for his Crosier But this is one of his Holiness usual policies to satisfie his followers with empty titles So he made Bishop whom he sent to govern for him in England Bishop of Chalcedon in Asia and Smith also who is come over about the same business with the Queen Bishop of Archidala a City of Thrace An old English Doctor used it as an especial argument to prove the Universality of power in the Pope because he could ordain Bishops over all Cities in Christendom If he could as easily also give them the revenue this reason I confess would much sway me till then I am sorry that men should still be boyes and play with bubbles By the same authority he might do well to make all his Courtiers Kings and he were sure to have a most Royal and beggerly Court of it To proceed a little further in the Allegory so it is that when Jacob saw Esau to have incurred his Fathers and Mothers anger for his heathenish marriage he set himself to bereave his elder brother of his blessing prayers and the sweet smell of his Venison the sweet smelling of his sacrifices obtained of his Lord and Father a blessing for him for indeed the Lord hath given unto this his French Jacob as it is in the Text The dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth and plenty of corn and Wine Gen. 27. 5 28. It followeth in the 41. ver of the chapter And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his Father had blessed him and Esau said in his heart the dayes of mourning for my Father are at hand then will I slay my brother Jacob The event of which his bloudy resolution was that Jacob was fain to relinquish all that he had and fly unto his Vncle This last story expresseth very much of the estate of the French Church The Papists hated the Protestants to see them thrive and encrease so much amongst them this hatred moved them to a war by which they hoped to root them out all together and this war compelled the Protestants to abandon their good Towns and strong Holds and all their possessions and to fly unto their friends wheresoever they could find them And indeed the present estate of the Protestants is not much better than that of Jacob in Mesopotamia nor much different the blessing which they expect lyeth more in the seed than in the harvest and well may they hope to be restored to the love and bosome of their brethren of which as yet they have no assurance For their strength it consisteth principally in their prayers to God and secondly in their obedience to their King Within these two Fortresses if they can keep themselves they need fear none ill because they shall deserve none The onely outward strengths they have left them are the two Towns of Moutabon and Rochell the one deemed invincible the other threatned a speedy destruction The Duke of Espernon at my being there lay round about it and it was said that the Town was in very bad terms all the neighbouring Townes to whose opposition they most trusted having yeilded at the first sight of the Canon Rochell its thought cannot be forced by assaults nor compelled by a famine some Protestants are glad of it and hope to see the French Church restored to its former powerableness by the resistance of that Town meerly I rather think that the perverse and stubborn condition of it will at last drive the young King into a fury and incite him to revenge their contradiction on their innocent Friends now disarmed and disabled Then will they see at last the issue of their own peremptory resolutions and begin to beleive that the Heathen Historian was of the two the better Christian when he gave us this note Non turpe est ab eo vinci quem vincere esset nefas neque illi in honeste etiam summitti quem fortuna super omnes extulisset This weakness and misery which hath now befallen the Protestants was an effect I confess of the ill will which the other party bare them but that they bare them ill will was a fruit of their own grafting In this circumstance they were nothing like Jacob who in the hatred which his brother Esau had to him was meerly passive They being active also in the birth of it And indeed the lamentable and bloudy war which fell upon them they not onely endeavoured not to avoid but invited During the raign of Henry the fourth who would not see it and the troublesome minority of Lewis the thirteenth who could not molest them they had made themselves masters of ninety nine Towns well fortified and enabled for a siege A strength too great for any one faction to keep tother under a King which desires to be himself and so rule his people In the opinion of their potency they call Assemblies Parliaments as it were when and as often as they pleased There they consulted of the common affairs of Religion made new Laws of government removed and exchanged their general Officers the Kings leave all this while never so much as formally asked Had they onely been guilty of too much power that crime alone had been sufficient to have raised a war against them it not standing with the safety and honour of a King not to be the absolute commander of his own subjects But in this their licentious calling of Assemblies they abused their power into a neglect and in not dissolving them at his Majesties commandement they increased their neglect into a disobedience The Assembly which principally the war and their ruine was that of Rochell called by the Protestants presently upon the Kings journey into Bearne This general meeting the King prohibited by his especial Edicts declaring all them to be guilty of treason which notwithstanding they would not hearken to but very undutifully went on in their purposes It was said by a Gentleman of that party and one that had been employed in many of their affairs that the very zeal of some who had the guiding of their consciences had thrusted them into those desperate courses and I beleive him Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Being assembled they sent the King a Remonstrance of their greivances to which the Duke Lesdiguiers in a letter to them written gives them a â—e y fair and plausible answer wherein also he entreateth them to obey the Kings Edict and
break off the Assembly Upon the receit of this Letter those of the Assembly published a Declaration wherein they verified the meeting to be lawful and their purpose not to dismiss themselves till their desires were granted This affront done to the King made him gather together his forces yet at the Duke of Lesdiguiers request he allowed them twenty four dayes respite before his Armies should march towards them He offered them also very fair and reasonable conditions such almost as their Deputies had sollicited but far better than those which they were glad to accept when all their Towns were taken from them Profectâ— meluctabilis fatorum vis cujus fortunam mutare constituit ejus corrumpit consilia It holds very rightly in this people who turned a deaf ear to all good advise and were resolved it seemeth not to hear the voice of the charmer charmed he never so sweetly In their Assembly therefore they make Laws and Orders to regulate their disobedience as that no peace should be made without the consent of the general Convocation about paying of the Souldiers wages for the detaining of the Revenues of the King and the Clergy and the like They also have divided France into seven circles or parts assigning over every circle several Generals and Lieutenants and prescribed Orders how those Generals should proceed in the warr Thus we see the Kings Army levied upon no sleight grounds His regal authority was neglected his especial Edicts violated his gratious proffers slighted his revenues forbidden him and his Realm divided before his face and alotted unto Officers not of his own election Had the prosecution of his action been as fair as the cause was just and legal the Protestants onely had deserved the infamy But hinc illae lachrymae the King so behaved himself in it that he suffered the sword to walk at randome as if his main design had been not to correct his people but to ruine them I will instance onely in the tyrannical slaughter which he permitted at the taking of Nigrepelisse a Town of Queren where indeed the Souldiers shewed the very rigor of severity which either a barbarous Victor could inflict or a vanquished people suffer Nec ullum saevitiae genus omisit ira Victoria as Tacitus of the angred Romans For they spared neither man nor woman nor child all equally subject to the cruelty of the Sword and the Conqueror the streets paved with dead carcasses the channels running with the bloud of Christians no noise in the streets but of such as were welcoming death or suing for life The Churches which the Gothes spared in the sack of Rome were at this place made the Theaters of lust and bloud neither priviledge of Sanctuary nor fear of God in whose House they were qualifying their outrage Thus in the Common places At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu Miscetur Penitusque eavae clangoribus aedes Faeminiis ululant As Virgill in the ruine of Troy But the calamities which befel the men were merciful and sparing if compared with those which the women suffered when the Souldiers had made them the Subjects of their lust they made them after the subjects of their fury in that onely pittiful to that poor and distressed Sex that they did not let them survive their honours Such of them who out of fear and faintness had made but little resistance had the favour to be stabbed but those whose virtue and courage maintained their bodies valiantly from the rape of those villains had the secrets of Nature Procul hinc este cast ae misericordes aures filled with Gun-powder and so blown into ashes Whether O Ye Divine Powers is humanity fled when it is not to be found in Christians or where shall we find the effects of a pittiful nature when men are become so unnatural It is said that the King was ignorant of this barbarousness and offended at it Offended I perswade my self he could not but be unless he had totally put off himself and degenerated into a Tyger but for his ignorance I dare not conceive it to be any other than that of Nero an ignorance rather in his eye than in his understanding Subduxit oculos Nero saith Tacitus jussitque scelera non spectavit Though the Protestants deserved affliction for their disobedience yet this was an execution above the nature of a punishment a misery beyond the condition of the crime True it is and I shall never acquit them of it that in the time of their prosperity they had done the King many affronts and committed many acts of disobedience and insolency which justly occasioned the warr against them For besides those already recited they themselves first brake those Edicts the due execution whereof seemed to have been their onely petition The King by his Edict of Pacification had licensed the free exercise of both Religions and thereupon permitted the Priests and Jesuites to preach in the Towns of Caution being then in the hands of the Protestants On the other side the Protestants assembled at Loudan straitly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuits or any of any other Order to preach in their Towns although licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess When upon dislike of their proceedings in that Assembly the King had declared their meetings to be unlawful and contrary to his peace and this Declaration was verified against them by the Parliament they notwithstanding would not separate themselves but stood still upon terms of capitulation and the justifiableness of their action Again whereas it happened that the Lord of Privas Town full of those of the Religion dyed in the year 1620. and left his Daughter and Heir in the bed and marriage of the Viscount of Cheylane a Catholike this new Lord according to law and right in his own Town changed the former Garrison putting his own servants and dependants in their places Upon this the Protestants of the Town and Country about it draw themselves in Troops surprize many of the Towns about it and at the last compelled the young Gentleman to fly from his inheritance an action which jumping even with the time of the Assembly at Rochell made the King more doubtful of their sincerity I could add to these divers others of their undutiful practises being the effects of too much felicity and of a fortune which they could not govern Atqui animus meminisse horret luctuque refuget These their insolencies and unruly acts of disobedience made the King and his Council suspect that their designs tended further than Religion and that their purpose might be to make themselves a free Estate after the example of Geneva and the Low Country-men The late power which they had taken of calling their own Synods and Convocations was a strong argument of their purpose so also was the intelligence which they held with those of their faith at the Synod at Sappe called by the permission of Henry the fourth on the first of
granted to Sir Giles Mompesson was just one of the French Offices As for Monopolies they are here so common that the Subject taketh no notice of it not a scurvy petty book being printed but it hath its priviledge affixed ad imprimendum solum These being granted by the King are carried to the Parliament by them formally perused and finally verified after which they are in force and vertue against all opposition It is said in France that Mr. Luines had obtained a Patent of the King for a quart d' Escu to be paid unto him for the Christning of every Child throughout the Kingdom A very unjust and unconscionable extortion Had he lived to have presented it to the Court I much doubt of their denial though the onely cause of bringing before them such Patents is onely intended that they should discuss the justice and convenience of them As the Parliament hath a formality of power left in them of verifying the Kings Edicts his grants of Offices and Monopolies so hath the Chamber of Accompts a superficial survey of his gifts and expences For his expences they are thought to be as great now as ever by reason of the several retinues of Himself his Mother his Queen and the Monsieur Neither are his gifts lessened The late warrs which he mannaged against the Protestants cost him dear he being fain to bind unto him most of his Princes by money and Pensions As the expences of the King are brought unto this Court to be examined so are also the gifts and pensions by him granted to be ratified The titulary power given to this Chamber is to cut off all those of the Kings grants which have no good ground and foundation the Officers being solemnly at the least formally sworn not to suffer any thing to pass them to the detriment of the Kingdom whatsoever Letters of Command they have to the contrary But with this Oath they do oftentimes dispense To this Court also belongeth the Enfranchisement or Naturalization of Aliens Anciently certain Lords Officers of the Crown and of the Privie Council were appointed to look into the Accompts now it is made an ordinary and soveraign Court consisting of two Presidents and divers Auditors and after under Officers The Chamber wherein it is kept is called La Chambre des Comptes it is the beautifullest piece of the whole Palace the great Chamber it self not being worthy to be named in the same day with it It was built by Charles the eighth Anno 1485. afterwards adorned and beautified by Lewis the twelfth whose Statua is there standing in his Royal Robes and the Scepter in his hand he is accompanied by the four Cardinal-Virtues expressed by way of Hieroglychick very properly and cunning each of them have in them its particular Motto to declare its being The Kings Portraicture also as if he were the fifth Virtue had its word under-written and contained in a couple of verses which let all that love the Muses skip them in the reading are these Quatuor has comites fowro caelestia dona Innocuae pacis prospera sceptra gerens From the King descend we to the Subjects ab equis quod aiunt ad asinos and the phrase is not much improper the French Commonalty being called the Kings Asses These are divided into three ranks or Classes the Clergy the Nobless the Paisants out of which certain Delegates or Committees chosen upon an occasion and sent to the King did anciently concurre to the making of the supreme Court for justice in France it was called the Assembly of the three Estates or Conventus Ordinum and was just like the Parliament of England but these meetings are now forgotten or out of use neither indeed as this time goeth can they any way advantage the State For whereas there are three principal if not sole causes of these Conventions which are the disposing of the Regency during the non-age or sickness of a King the granting aids or subsidies and the redressing of grievances there is now another course taken in them The Parliament of Paris which speaketh as it is prompted by power and greatness appointeth the Regent the Kings themselves with their Officers determine of the taxes and as concerning their grievances the Kings ear is open to private Petitions Thus is that title of a Common-wealth which went to the making up of this Monarchy escheated or rather devoured by the King that name alone containing in it both Clergy Princes and People so that some of the French Counsellors may say with Tully in his Oration for Marcellus unto Caesar Doleoque cum Respublica immortalis esse debeat eam unius mortalis anima consistere yet I cannot but withal affirm that the Princes and Nobles of France do for as much as concerneth themselves upon all advantages fly off from the Kings obedience but all this while the poor Paisant is ruined Let the poor Tennant starve or eat the bread of carefulness it matters not so they may have their pleasure and be accompted firm Zealots of the Common liberty and certainly this is the issue of it the Farmer liveth the life of a slave to maintain his Lord in pride and laziness the Lord leadeth the life of a King to oppress his Tennant by fines and exactions An equality little answerable to the old platforms of Republicks Aristotle genius ille naturae as a learned man calleth him in his fourth book of Politicks hath an excellent discourse concerning this disproportion In that chapter his project is to have a correspondency so far between Subjects under the King or people of the same City that neither the one might be over rich nor the other too miserably poor They saith he which are too happy strong or rich or greatly favoured and the like cannot nor will not obey with which evil they are infected from their infancy The other through want of these things are too abjectly minded and base for that the one cannot but command and the other but serve and this he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City inhabited onely by slaves and tyrants That questionless is the most perfect and compleat form of Government Vbi veneratur potentem humilis non timet antecedit non contemnit humiliorem potens as Velleius But this is an happiness whereof France is not capable their Lords being Kings and their Commons Villains And to say no less of them than in truth they are the Princes of this Country are little inferior in matters of Royalty to any King abroad and by consequence little respective in matter of obedience to their own King at home Upon the least discontent they will draw themselves from the Court or put themselves into Arms and of all other comforts are ever sure of this that they shall never want partizans neither do they use to stand off from him fearfully and at distance but justifie their revolt by publike declaration and think the King much indebted to them if upon fair terms and an
the Country though I casually saw much Gold I could onely see two pieces of French stamp the rest coming all from Spain as Pistolets Demi pistolets and double Pistolets Neither is France onely furnisht thus with Chastilian Coin it is happiness also of other Countries as Italy Barbary Brabant and elsewhere and indeed it is kindly done of him that being the sole Monopolist of the Mines he will yet let other Nations have a share in the mettal Were the King as Catholike as his money I think I should be in some fear of him till then we may lawfully take that ambitious title from the King and bestow it on his pictures the soveraignty of the Spanish gold is more universally embraced and more seriously acknowledged in most parts of Christendom than that of him which stampt it To this he which entituleth himself Catholike is but a prisoner and never saw half those Provinces in which this more powerful Monarch hath been heartily welcommed And yet if he will needs be King let him grow somewhat more jealous of his Queen and confess that his Gold doth royally deserve his embraces whom before this extent of its dominion the ancient Poets stiled Regina Pecunia True it is that by the frame and shape of this Empress you would little think her to be lovely and less worthy your entertainment the stones which little boys break into quoyts are a great deal better proportioned If a Geometrician were to take the angles of it I think it would quite put him besides his Euclide Neither can I tell to what thing in the world fitter to resemble it then a French Cheese for it is neither long nor square nor round nor thin nor thick nor any one of these but yet all and yet none of them No question it was the Kings desire by this unsightly dressing of his Lady to make men out of love with her that so he might keep her to himself but in this his hopes have cozened him for as in other Cuckoldings so in this some men will be bold to keep his Wife from him be it onely in spite These circumstances thus laid together and considered we may the clearer and the better see our own felicities which to exprese generally and in a word is to say onely this that the English subject is in no circumstance a French-man here have we our money made of the best and purest matal that onely excepted which a charitable consideration hath coined into farthings here have we our King royally and to the envy of the world magnificently provided for without the sweat and bloud of the people no pillages nor impositions upon any private wares no Gabels upon our Commodities Nullum in tam ingenti regno vestigal non in urbibus pontium vae discriminibus publicanorum stationes as one truly hath observed of us The moneys which the King wanteth to supply his necessities are here freely given him he doth not compel our bounties but accept them The Laws by which we are governed we impart are makers of each Peasant of the Countrey hath a free voice in the enacting of them if not in his person yet in his Proxie we are not here subject to the lusts and tyranny of our Lords and may therefore say safely what the Jews spake factiously that We have no King but Caesar the greatest Prince here is subject with us to the same law and we stand before the Tribunal of the Judge we acknowledge no difference here do we inhabit our own houses plow our own lands enjoy the fruits of our labour comfort our selves with the Wives of our youth and see our selves grow up in those Children which shall inherit after us the same felicities But I forget my self to endeavour the numbring of Gods blessings may perhaps be as great a punishment as Davids numbring the people I conclude with the Poet. O fortunati nimium bona si sua norint Agricolae nostri THE THIRD BOOK OR LA BEAVSSE CHAP. I. Our Journey towards Orleans the Towne Castle and Battaile of Montliherrie Many things imputed to the English which they never did Lewis the 11th brought not the French Kings out of Wardship The Towne of Chastres and mourning Church there The Countrey of La Beausse an old People of it Estampes The dancing there The new art of begging in the Innes of this Countrey Angervile Toury The sawcinesse of French Fidlers Three kindes of Musick amongst the Ancients The French Musick HAving abundantly stifled our spirits in the stink of Paris on Tuesday being the 12. of June we took our leave of it and prepared our selves to entertaine the sweet aire and winde of Orleans The day faire and not so much as disposed to a cloud save that they began to gather about noon in the nature of a Curtaine to defend us from the injury of the Sun the winde rather sufficient to fan the aire then to disturb it by qualifying the heat of that celestiall fire brought the day to an excellent mediocrity of temper You would have thought it a day meerly framed for that great Princesse Nature to take her pleasure in and that the Birds which cheerfully gave us their voices from the neighbouring bushes had been the lowd musick of her Court in a word it was a dâ—y solely consecrated to a pleasant journey and he that did not put it to that use mis-spent it Having therefore put our selves into our Waggon we took a short farewell of Paris exceeding joyfull that we yet lived to see the beauty of the fields againe and enjoy the happinesse of a free Heaven The Countrey such as that part of the Isle of France towards Normandy onely that the Corne fields were larger and more even On the left hand of us we had a side-glance of the Royall house of Boys and Vincennes and the Castle of Bifectre and about some two miles beyond them we had a sight also of a new house lately built by Mr. Sillerie Chancellor of the Kingdome a pretty house it promised to be having two base Courts on the hither side of it and beyond it a Parke an ornament whereof many great mansions in France are altogether ignorant Foure leagues from Paris is the town of Montl'herrie now old and ruinous and hath nothing in it to commend it but the carkasse of a Castle without it it hath to brag of a large and spacious plaine on which was fought that memorable battaile between Lewis the 11. and Charles le Hardie Duke of Burgoyne A battaile memorable onely for the running away of each Army the Field being in a manner emptyed of all the forces and yet neither of the Princes victorious Hic spe celer ille salute Some ran out of fear to dye and some out of hope to live that it was hard to say which of the Soldiers made most use of their heels in the combat This notwithstanding the King esteemed himselfe the Conqueror not that he overcame but because not vanquisht
so I leave the Constable to take a veiw of his Province A man at this time beloved of neither parties hated by the Protestants as an Apostata and suspected by the Papists not to be entire To proceed July the twenty eighth we came unto Clermont the first Town of any note that we met with in Picardy A pretty nea Town and finely seated on the rising of an hill For the defence of it it hath on the upper side of it an indifferent large Castle and such as were the scituations of it somewhat helped by the strengths of Art might be brought to good service Towards the Town it is of an easie access to the fieldward more difficult as being built on the pendicular fall of a Rock In the year 1615. it was made good by Mr. Haroncourt with the Regiment of eight Companies who kept it in the name of the Prince of Conde and the rest of that Confederacy but it held not long For at the Marshal d' Ancres coming before it with his Army and artillery it was presently yeilded This warr which was the second Civil warr that had happened in the reign of King Lewis was undertaken by the Princes chiefly to thwart the designes of the Queen Mother and to crush the powerableness of her grand favourite the Marshall The pretence as in such cases commonly is was the good of the Common-wealth the occasion the cross Marriages then consummated by the Marshal between the Kings of France and Spain For by those marriages they seemed to fear the augmentation of the Spaniards greatness the alienation of the affections of their ancient Allies and by consequence the ruine of the French Empire But it was not the fate of D' Ancre to perish two years more of Command and insolencies his destinies allowed and then he tumbled This opportunity of his death ending the third Civil war each of which his faulty greatness had occasioned What the ambition of his designs did tend to I dare not absolutely determine though like enough it is that they aimed further than at a private or personal potency for having under the favour and countenance of the Queen Mother made himself Master of the Kings ear and of his counsels he made a shift to get into his own hands an authority almost as unlimitted as that of the old Mayre of the Palace for he had suppressed the liberty of the general Estates and of the Soveraign Court removed all the Officers and Counsellors of the last King ravished one of the Presidents of the great Chamber by name Mr. Le Jay out of the Parliament into the Prison and planted Garrisons of his own in most of the good Towns of Normandy of which Province he was Governour Add to this that he had caused the Prince of Conde being acknowledged the first Prince of the bloud to be imprisoned in the Bastile and had searched into the continuance of the lives of the King and his Brother by the help of sorcery and witchcraft Besides he was suspected to have had secret intelligence with some forrain Princes ill-willers to the State and had disgraced some and neglected others of the Kings Confederates And certainly those actions seem to import some project beyond a private and obedient greatness though I can hardly beleive that he durst be ambitious of the Crown for being a fellow of a low birth his heart could not but be too narrow for such an hope and having no party amongst the Nobility and being less gratious among the people he was altogether destitute of means to compass it I therefore am of opinion that the Spanish gold had corrupted him to some project concerning the enlargement of that Empire upon the French dominions which the cross Marriages whereof he was the contriver and which seemed so full of danger to all the best Patriots of France may seem to demonstrate And again at that time when he had put the Realm into this third combustion the King of Spain had an Army on foot against the Duke of Savoy and another in the Countries of Cleive and Juliers which had not the timely fall of this Monsieur and the peace ensuing prevented it might both perhaps have met together in the midst of France but this is onely conjectural CHAP. II. The fair City of Amiens and greatness of it The English feasted within it and the error of that action The Town how built seated and fortified The Cittadel of it thought to be impregnable not permitted to be veiwed The over-much openness of the English in discovering their strengths The watch and form of government in the Town Amiens a Visedamate and to whom it pertaineth What that honour is in France and how many there enjoy it c. THat night we went from Clermont to a Town called Bâ—etaul where we were harboured being from Clermont six French Leagues and from Paris twenty Our entertainment there such as in other places as sluttish and as inconvenient The next day being the twenty ninth about ten of the clock we had a sight of the goodly and fair City of Amiens A City of some English miles circuit within the wals which is all the greatness of it for without the wals it hath houses few or none A City very capacious and for that cause hath been many times honoured with the persons and trains of many great Princes Besides that once it entertained almost a whole Army of the English For King Lewis the eleventh having made an advantagious peace with our Edward and perceiving how ingrateful it was amongst the military men he intended also to give them some manner of satisfaction he sent therefore unto them three hundred Carts laden with the best Wines and seeing how acceptable a present that had proved he intended also to feast them in Amiens within half a league of which their Camp was lodged This entertainment lasted four dayes each street having in it two long tables and each table being furnished with very plentiful provision Neither were they denied entrance into any of the Taverns or Victualling-houses or therein stinted either in meats or drinks whatsoever was called for was defraied by King Lewis An action wherein if my opinion might carry it there was little of the Politician for there were permitted to enter into the Town so many of the English-men at once that had they been but so minded they might easily have made themselves as well Masters of the place as of the Kings person nine thousand are reckoned by Comminees to have been within together and most of them armed so that they might very easily have surprised the Gates and let in the rest of the Army Those of the French Kings Council feared it much and therefore informed both Princes the one of his Town the other of his honour But this jealousie was but a French distrust and might well have been spared the English being of that Generals mind that scorned to steal a Victory and of that generous
which this Town is famous in the writers of both Nations is an enterviewe there given between our Edward the fourth and their Lewis the eleventh upon the concluding of their nine years truce a circumstance of no great moment in it self had not Phillip de Comminees made it such by one of his own observations Upon this meeting the Chancellor of England being Bishop of Ely made an oration to both Kings beginning with a prophesie which said that in this place of Pignigni an honourable peace should be concluded between both the Kingdomes On this ground which himself also is the onely man that related he hath built two observations the one I have not the original by me that the English men are never unfurnished with Prophesies the other that they ground every thing which they speak upon Prophesies How far those times were guilty of that humor I cannot say though sure I am we are not the onely men that were so affected Paulus Jovius in some place of his Histories I remember not the particular hath vindicated that quarrel for us and fastned the same imitation upon the French So true is that of the Fragaedian Quod quisque fecit patitur authorem scelus Reperit And now being past Pignigni I have lost the sight of the Church of Amiens The fairest fabrick and most rich to see That ere was guilty of mortalitie No present structure like it nor can Fame In all its bead rolles boast an equal name Let then the barbarous Egyptians cease So to extol their huge Pyramides Let them grow silent of their Pharus and Conceale the other triumphs of their Land And let the Charians henceforth leave to raise Their Mausolaea with such endless praise This Church alone doth them as much excell As they the lowest Cottages where dwell The least of men as they those urnes which keep The smallest ashes which are laid to sleep Nor be thou vext thou glorious Queen of night Nor let a cloud of darkness mask thy light That renown'd Temple which the Greeks did call The Worlds seventh wonder and the fair'st of all That Pile so famous that the World did see Two onely great and high thy Fame and Thee Is neither burnt nor perisht Ephesus Survives the follies of Herostratus Onely thy name in Europe to advance It was transported to the Realm of France And here it stands not robb'd of any grace Which there it had not altered save in place Cast thy Beams on it and t' will soon be proud Thy Temple was not ruin'd but remov'd Nor are thy Rights so chang'd but thou 'lt averre Ibis Christian is thy old Idolater But oh great God how long shall thy Decree permit this Temple to Idolatrie How long shall they profane this Church and make Those sacred Walls and Pavements to partake Of their loud sins and here that doctrine teach ' Gainst which the very stones do seem to preach Reduce them Lord unto thee make them see How ill this building and their Rites agree Or make them know though they be still the same This House was purpos'd onely to thy Name The next place of note which the water conveyed us to was the Town and Castle of Pont d' Armie a place now scarce vissible in the auines and belonging to one Mr. Queran it took name as they said from a Bridge here built for the transpoâ—tation of an Armie but this I cannot justifie Three Leagues down the River is the Town of Abbeville a Town conveniently seated on the Some which runneth through it It is of greater circuit within the walls than the Citie of Amiens and hath four parish Churches more in it but is not so beautifull nor so populous for the houses here are of an older stamp and there is within the Town no scarcity of wast ground I went round about the walls and observed the thinness of the houses and the largeness of the fields which are of that capacity and extent that for ought I could apprehend the Town needs never to be compelled by famine if those fields were husbanded to the best advantages the walls are of earth within and stone without of an unequal bredth and in some places ruiâ—ous A Castle it once had of which there is now scarce any thing remaining instead of which and in places more convenient they have built out three bastions very large and capacious and such which well manned needs not yeeld up on a summons There are also a couple of Mounts raised nigh unto the Wall at that place where the Country is most plain upon which good Ordinance would have good command but at this time there were none upon it without the walâ—s it is diversly strengthened having in some places a deep ditch without water in some a shallower ditch but well filled with the benefit of the benefit of the River the others only a marish and fennie levell more dangerous to the enemie and service to the Town than either of the rest and therefore never guarded by the Souldiers of the Garrison but the chief strength of it is five Companies of Swisses 100. men in a Company proper tall felâ—owes in appearance and such as one would imagine fit for the service It was my chance to see them begin their watch to which employment they advanced with so good order and such shew or stomack as if they had not gone to guard a sown but possess one Their watch was at Port de Boys and Port St. Valery the first thing â—ear unto Hesden a frontier Town of Artoys the other five Leagues only from the See and Haven of St. Valery from these places most danger was feared and therefore there kept most of their Souldiers and all their Ordinance The Captain is named Mr. Aille a Grison by birth and reported for a good Souldier besides him they have no Military Commander the Mayor of the Town contrary to the common nature of Towns of warre being there in highest authority A priviledge granted unto the Mayors hereof not long since as a reward due to one of their Integrities who understanding that the Governour of the Town held intelligence with the Arch Duke apprehended him and sent him to the Court where he receceived his punishment This Abbeville and so I leave it and in it the berry of French Lasses is so called quasi Abbatis Villa as formerly belonging to some Abbot July the last we took post-horse for Boulogne if at least we may call those Post-horses which we rode on As lean they were as Envis is in the Poet Macies in corporatota being most true of them Neither were they onely lean enough to have their ribs numbred but the very spur-gals had made such casements through their skins that it had been no greater difficulty to have surveyed their entrails A strange kind of Cattel in mine opinion and such as had neither flesh on their bones nor skin on their flesh nor hair on their skin Sure I am they were not so