Bellegarde LETTER LXV My Lord MR de Chaudebonne is guilty of the boldnesse I take to write to you as being the only comfort he could give me in the affliction he sees me almost orewhelmed with T' is true my my Lord the trouble I take not to have found you here I number among the greatest I have met with in this Country I prepared my self for this banishment the more out of some hopes I might spend it in your Company and doubted not to find France where-ever you were But this would have been too great a comfort for a man destined to unhappiness nor is Fortune ever so favourable to those shee persecutes In the interim my Lord I look on it as a good presage that shee is pleased we should be at some reasonable distance from you and have some faith shee will be reconciled with us if shee once afford us the happiness of your presence For to be ingenuous My Lord I cannot imagine shee hath absolutely forsaken you and there needs no more then her sex to argue shee cannot have you and that shee will shortly see you again But though you want her you are not without that extraordinary prudence and height of courage which attends you every where and which you have not long since so nobly expressed that I question whether those unfortunate years have not been more advantagious to you then others I could easily My Lord spin out this discourse to a great length but I would not be thought indiscreet in the management of the freedome is allow'd me To my Lord Cardinal de la Valette LETTER LXVI My Lord I would gladly know how long it is since you questioned whether the four last Books of the Aeneids were written by Virgil or not and whether Terence be the true Author of Phormio I should not ask so confidently but you know that in Triumphs Soldiers are wont to jest with their Commanders and that the joy of a Victory permits that freedome which without it might not be assum'd Confesse therefore freely how long it is since you have thought on little Erminia in the Verses of Catullus or those of Monsieur Godeau But My Lord though you had forgotten all the rest you should ever be mindful of his Benedicite for no man had ever so much cause to say it as you or was so highly oblig'd to render thanks to the Lord of Hoasts To do you right the Conduct and Fortune whereby you have secur'd us is one of the greatest Miracles ever were seen in War and all the circumstances so extravagant that I should put them into the Chapter of Apparent falsities were there not so many witnesses and that I am satisfied nothing of Miracle can happen to you which ought not to be believ'd The joy wherewith all you love here are fill'd at this news is a thing beyond all representation But can you imagine My Lord that those Persons who were heretofore ravish'd at your singing and Poetry must needs be now infinitely satisfied when they hear it said that you raise sieges take Cities and defeat Armies and that the greatest hope of good successe in our Affairs lyes in you I assure you this is entertain'd here with the greatest resentment you could wish and which is more then you think your Armes gain Victories more desireable then all those you can have beyond the Rhine How amibitious soever you may be that consideration should engage you to return for assure your self My Lord a Battle is not now the noblest thing that may be gain'd and you will acknowledge your self that there may be a Rose or a Shoe-String fit to be preferr'd before nine Imperial Ensigns I am My Lord Your c. Paris Oct. 23. 1635. To the same LETTER LXVII My Lord I Have shewn Monsr de St. H Monsr de St. R and Monsr de St. Q that passage of your Letter where you speak of my Lord 's menial Servants I am to acquaint you that they have taken it very ill and am consident that Mr des Ousches to whom I have not yet communicated it will be of the same opinion So that were I to arme my self against your menaces you may easily judge I shall not want Friends and that my writing to you now proceeds not so much from fear as from a sincere Affection and a natural inclination I have to obey you Besides those I have named this place affords a many other gallant Persons such as it were a little more dangerous to quarrel with who take it not well I should take paines for your diversion and think it unreasonable you should take any wanting their presence And truly my Lord since your absence smothers all their enjoyments it were but just you should with no other then that of seeing them again and that in the mean time you would not admit any divertisement I can assure you that whatever is taken here at this time hinders them not from thinking on you and making continual wishes for your return The cold and snows of the Mountains of Alsatia benumb them and make them tremble even in the greatest Assemblies and the fear of the ambushes of the Cravates perpetually Alarms them in the midst of Paris But what is most remarkable and which will haply seem incredible to you is that I have observ'd M. de B M. de R melancholy in the midst of the Bal and that upon your account and sighing in the height of the Musick What judgment My Lord or what advantage you will make of it I know not but for my part let them do what they can hereafter I am confident they shall never be able to give you a higher expression of their affection Taking out the other day the last Letter you honour'd me with and reading that passage where you tell me that you were upon your departure instead of saying into Alsatia I read Thracia Iron-armes who you know is not wont to be easily mov'd at any thing grew as pale as a clout and said full of amazement into Thracia Sr. and another who stood by and is a little better acquainted with the Globe then the other could not but be a little disturb'd I would gladly entertain your Lordship with somthing concerning your Spouse but I know not what to say of her for whatever shall be said of her will be incredible and there is not any thing in her exceeds not the limits of description Whatever you have observ'd in her that might raise love or admiration is augmented hourly and there are daily discover'd in her new Treasures of beauty wit and generosity But with all I dare assure you shee hath in your absence behav'd herself with all the circumspection you could wish I know there is a certain report which questionless hath raised in you some jealousy for I am not ignorant of the humours of your Africans and it is true there is a young gallant of a good family and who may one day come to
Mademoiselle Servant one of the Ladies of Honour to her Royal Highness LETTER CXVII Madam I Am so well acquainted with your Eloquence that I humbly beg your assistance to render the acknowledgements I ought to the most excellent and most generous Princess in the World I am certainly even orewhelm'd with her favours and must confess there 's not any thing below Heaven so full of charme or so amiable as the Mistress you I thought to have said we serve and iudeed there is not any thing I would not contemne that I might use that expression The first time I ever heard her I was presently of opinion that of all the understandings in the World there was not a greater then hers but the tenderness shee is pleas'd to have for me I am astonished at above all things and cannot sufficiently admire that at the same time when shee is burthened with highest thoughts shee can also entertain those that are so low and that a mind which ordinarily is soaring about the loftiest things can be guilty of so great condescensions As to the balls have been given me this morning they have wrought a wonderful effect in me and were it not that they had touch'd the hand of her Royal Highness I see not whence the miracle should proceed I did but kisse the Paper wherein they were and I find my self very much better I shall henceforth look on it as an antidote against all kinds of mis-fortunes and unless it be one I know not any which so pleasant a remedy cannot cure me of That you may not put your self to too nice a scrutiny to find out my meaning I were better explain it and tell you that it is the grief I take that I cannot see her enough and am destin'd to live at a great distance from the only person that deserves to be waited on If you consider it strictly this mis-fortune is greater then all the rest and it is very hard for a man to be tender of his honour and not to take it so much to heart as to dye of it To the Count de Guiche LETTER CXVIII My Lord THough it must be thought an ordinary thing to see you do glorious actions and that it is fifteen years that you have been talk'd of at this rate yet can I not avoid being extreamly surpriz'd when I hear of any new performances of your Valour and your Reputation being so precious to me as it is I am extreamly pleas'd that from time to time it is renew'd and multiply'd daily Those who are guilty of the greatest ambitions of honour would be satisfy'd with what you have acquir'd within these late years and would sit still with the esteem you are in with all the World But for ought I can see My Lord you set no limits to your self as to this point and as if you were jealous of the glory you have already acquir'd and what you have done heretofore you seem every year to exceed your self and to do something beyond your former atchievements For my part what passion soever I may have for your past actions I shall not besorry they should be Eclips'd by those you are yet to effect and that your exploits in Flanders should darken all you have perform'd in France Germany and Italy All my fear is that these great aspirations at Glory should carry you beyond your due bounds as to matter of hazard and accordingly what you did in the last Battel wherein the Marshal de la Meilleray defeated the Enemy as it affords me much cause of rejoycing so does it at the same time put me into some fear The expressions you there made of your conduct and your courage find matter if general admiration here and indeed my Lord if we consult Romances we shall hardly find any thing more noble or more worthy celebration But yet give me leave to tell you that since the invention of inchanted Armes is lost and the custome that Hero's should be invulnerable absolutely abolish'd a man is not allowed to do such actions as these often in his life and Fortune who hath deliver'd you for this time is but bad security for the future Be pleas'd therefore to consider that Fortitude hath it's extreams as well as all the other Vertues and that as they are so it also ought to admit the attendance of Prudence This if seriously consulted will not permit a Maâ—shal of the Field and a Master de Camp of the Guard should become a Voluntier and a Forlorne so as to expose to all hazards a person of your concernment and to venture so cheap a commodity of so great Value I know not my Lord whether you will take this freedome of mine in good part but I am certain you cannot say I interpose in a businesse wherein I am nothing concern'd and will find there is not any more then I am if you make any râ—flection on the passion wherewith I have ever been My Lord Your c. Paris Oct. 6. 1640. To my Lord Marquess de Pisany LETTER CXIX My Lord WEre it possible I could be so ingrateful as to forget you yet the noise you make at the present is so great that it were a very hard matter I should not call you to mind and use all the endeavours I could to preserve my self in the esteem of a person of whom I hear all the World speak with so much advantage I have been extreamly glad to hear what honour you have gain'd in the last engagement before Arras and though I am long since acquainted with the qualifications of your heart and mind and have ever had that opinion of you which all others have now yet must I confess my weakness me thinks the general esteem wherein you now are adds something to the inclinations I have to honour you and I feel in my self a certain vanity of passion for a man burthen'd with the applause and acclamations of all the World The satisfaction it is to me would certainly be absolute were it not disturb'd by the fear I am in to lose you But I know how dangerous a vertue Fortitude is and it is the common report that you are as ill a Husband of your person as you are of all things else This my Lord puts me into perpetual alarms and the fate which hangs on me to lose the best and most valuable of my friends puts me into so much the greater apprehension for you To allay this all I have is a secret confidence in your good Fortune my heart tells me that you have a great journey yet to go and a many things to do and that the friendship you are pleas'd to honour me with will be more Fortunate to me then that of some others I wish it both for your sake and my own and that with all my Soul as also that I may be happy enough one day to demonstrate to you how much and how passionately I am Your c. To Monsieur de Serisantes Resident for
before nay by these late pieces of yours you have gain'd the honour of having excell'd him who had out-gone all others I cannot in the mean time but think it strange that having so much reason to be content as you have yet you cannot be so and that all Great Persons expressing their satisfaction of you there wants only your own All France is become your Audience and there is not any one that hath arriv'd to reading looks indifferently on you All those who any way concern themselves in the glory of this Nation are not more inquisitive to know what the Marshal de Crequi does then what you do and we have more then two Generals who make not so much noise amidst an Army of thirty thousand men as you do in your solitude You are not then to wonder that so great Reputation should be attended by much envy but bear it patiently if the same Judges before whom Scipio was found a Criminal and who condemn'd Aristide's and Socrates allow you not by a joint sentence all your merits can pretend to It was ever a Custome with the people to hate the same excellencies in any man which they admire in him every thing that is out of their Road being offensive whence they are more ready to bear with a common Vice then an extraordinary Vertue So that if that Law which ordered the banishment of such as were over-powerful either as to Authority or Reputation were still in force among us I beleeve the greatest burthen of the publique Envy would fall upon your shoulders and that the Cardinal of Richelieu would not run so great a hazard as your self But be it your care that you call not that your misfortune which is properly that of the Times and complain not any longer of the injustice of men since that all those who own any worth are of your side and that among those you have found a Friend whom it is not impossible but you may lose once more At least give me leave to assure you I shall do all that lies in my power to put you into a capacity of doing it since it is now become so great a vanity to be numbred among yours I have hitherto made so publique a profession thereof that if it should happen I cannot but love you less then I was wont assure your self you will be the only man to whom I shall presume to acknowledge it and that to all the world besides I shall as I have ever express my self SIR Yours c. To my Lord Marquiss de Rambouillet Ambâ—ssador for the King in Spain LETTER III. My LORD I could never have beleeved it possible that I should give you any cause to complain of me or that ever Libels should be written against me in Madrid And to deal ingenuously I should not easily have been appeas'd for the one or the other if when I receav'd that unhappy tidings I had not at the same time met with an account of your well-fare and the great Reputation you dayly gain among a sort of men who before they saw you could not admire any thing but themselves But since I number all your happinesses amongst my own I must think it absolutely unlawful for me to be sad at a time when all the world speaks so advantagiously of you nor can I do less then rejoice as often as I hear it said here that you have taught the Spaniards humility and that they have as much honour for you as if you were of the blood of the Guzman's or that of the Mendoza's You may therefore hence conclude my Lord that my soul is more tender then you make it and that I have this at least common with all the vertuous that I concern my self in whatever good fortune happens to you 'T is true I had once resolv'd to smother this sentiment so as not to communicate it even to you For amidst those great affairs whereof you have now your hands full I thought it a breach of the publique peace to occasion the least diversion of your thoughts by any unnecessary address and how much liberty soever you might have given me to do it yet should I not have had confidence enough to make use of it if I had not another extraordinary adventure to acquaint you with Be pleas'd then to know my Lord that upon Sunday the twenty first instant about twelve at night the King and the Queen his Mother having assembled the whole Court there was seen at one end of the great Hall in the Louure where nothing appear'd before a great brightness brake forth on a suddain and immediately there appear'd amidst an infinite number of Lights a company of Ladies cover'd all over with Gold and precious Stones and seem'd as it were newly descended from Heaven But there was one amongst the rest so easily observable as if she had been all alone and I have a certain faith that humane eyes never saw any thing so excellent She was the very same my Lord that upon another occasion had been so much admir'd under the name and in the habit of Pyramus and that had another time appear'd among the Rocks of Rambouilllet with the bow and countenance of Diana But imagine not that you can represent to your self above half her Beauty if you measure it only by what you have seen and know that this night the Fairies had shed on her those secret advantages of Beauty which make a difference between Women and Goddesses For even when she had mask'd her self with the rest in order to the Ball which they were to represent and consequently had lost the advantage her face gave her over them the Majesty of her stature and carriage rendred her as remarkable as before and whithersoever she went she drew along with her the eyes and hearts of the whole presence In so much that renouncing the errour I was in in beleeving she could not dance excellently well I now confess it was only she that could And this very Judgment was so generally given by all present that those who cannot endure to hear her praises must needs banish themselves from the Court This my Lord acquaints you that while you receive great honours where you are you miss great enjoyments here and that Fortune how nobly soever she may employ you elsewhere does you no small injury when ever she takes you from your own house For in fine now that you have gone over the Pyrenean Mountains if you should passe that Sea which separates Europe and Africa and proceeding further would visit that other side of the World which Nature seems to have dispos'd at a great distance purposely for the greater safety of her Wealth and Treasure you should not find there any thing so rare as what you have left behind you and indeed all other parts of the earth cannot afford you what may equal that you have left at Paris This puts me into â—belief that your absence will be as short as may be and
so I might go to Ruel and wait on you two and I assure your self you should have the better half The advice you give me will make me grow weary of Mademoiselle Madam and Mademoiselle be pleas'd to present my most humble Services to the Ladies on whom you have bestow'd me I wish Madam were one for I was infinitely taken with her the other day But consider I pâ—ay how much I am at your devotion Though I know them not yet am I not without some inclination for them and though I have never lov'd two persons at the same time yet I see I shall do any thing you shall impose on me To Monsieur Arnaud under the name of the sage Icas LETTER LXXX SIR THough I were ignorant of your being a great Magician and having the science of commanding Spirits yet the power you have over mine and the Charmes I find in what you have written to me would have convinc'd me there might be somewhat supernatural in you With the assistance of your Characters I have seen in a little piece of paper Temples and Goddesses and you have shewn me in your Letter as in an enchanted Glasse all the persons I love Above all I have observ'd with much delight the Piece wherein you represent amidst the shades the brightest light of our agâ— and let me know the affection is born me by a Person who can not at this day be equall'd no not by any that you know though you are acquainted with what is past and to come But Sir let me entreat you who can discover what is most hidden and need only say speak Spirits erect a figure to know what 's become of that Creature and do me the favour to let me have what you shall learn of him It is certainly a curiosity fit to be satisfy'd and I promise you not to reveal the Secret for I shall in that as in all other things obey your commands so to express my self Your c To my Lady Marchioness de Rambouillet LETTER LXXXI Madam WIthout citing either sacred or prophane History whatever you write is excellent I lay up the least Notes that fall from your hands as I would the leaves of a Sybil and I study therein that height of Eloquence which all the World seeks after and would be but necessary to speak worthily of you And if it be true as you say that I have done it and it be possible ehat I have given you your due praise I may presume to have perform'd the hardest thing in the World and which as much as lay in my power was most in my wishes For I assure you Madam I have not endeavour'd any thing more possionately then to acquaint the World with two the greatest examples that ever were of an accomplish'd vertue and a perfect affection by letting it know how much you are esteem'd and how much I am Madam Your c To my Lord Cardinal de la Valette LETTER LXXXII MY LORD I Saw divers reasons not to expect any Letters from you so soon and easily inferr'd that a person who had so many things to do could not write much I was content to hear your name and Victories cry'd up here every week and to buy all the news I could learn of you But certainly it was time you did me the honour I have receiv'd the insolence of some people beginning to grow insupportable to me who presumptuously gave out that the time of their Prophesies was come and that I should shortly be rank'd among them as a private person Nay there wanted not those who took this occasion to tempt my fidelity You cannot easily believe my Lord what advantages I have been proffered to induce me to quit your party this winter and to let out my clawes against you twice a week And yet though these offers have been made by the most enchanting mouth in the world yet have I slighted them with that constancy I am obliged to have for a man of whom I have received all things and whom I find otherwise so much to my humour that though hee had ever hated me yet could I not but respect and serve him So that though I have at Paris those engagements which they never want who aspire not to the conduct of Armies and are not capable of those high passions which at this present take up the better part of your soul yet am I ready to take my leave of all here when ever you shall command me and shall quit to wayt on you a person that is young sprightly and black To do this I only want a handsome pretence and if your enemies as I believe will needs have their walls between you and them and oblige you to a siege I shall not fail to be with you besides that not to flatter you I had rather be besieger then besieged and the Spaniards are gotten so neer Paris that though I did not leave it for your sake I should for my own All the Bridges neer it are broken down they are ready every hour to draw up the chains and at the same time when we are terrible on the bankes of the Rhine we are not our selves safe on those of the Seine Amidst the trouble this disorder causes in me I must confesse my Lord it is some comfort to me to see that at a time when our affaires are declining on every side they prosper on yours and while our Army in Picardy shrinks into its Garrisons that we have in Burgundy moulders away in its Trenches and that we are not much more fortunate in Italy you have seized Galas in his Trenches you take places while he lookes on and may be only called the Conquerour and the Victorious In a word not to represent things otherwise then they are all the progress we have made this year is due to your conduct Te copias te consilium tuos Praebente Divos Be pleas'd therefore my Lord to command me to come and share in your prosperity and to wayt on our good Fortune in that place only where itâ—now is Besides that without any great pretence to valour the exploits of Monsieur de Simpleferre suffer me not to sleep and I have fasten'd to the hilt of my sword three of the little Flemmish Lady's Letters which I entend to thrust into the body of some Germane Sed quid agâ— Cum mihi fit incertum tranquillo ne fis animo an ut in bello in aliquâ majusculâ curâ negotione versere labor longiùs Cum igitur mihi erit exploratum te libenter esse visurum scribam ad te pluribus I have not much stuck to put in this because it is Cicero's and shall thrust as much Latine as I can into my Letters since you tell mee you read nothing else in them for truly it were great pitty you should lose yours But if you are so unfortunate as to forget it I promise you my endeavours to recover it this winter I will acquaint you
principally send them you To my Lord D' Avaux Sur-intendant of the Finances and Plenipotentiary for the peace LETTER CXLVII My LORD YOu would not be a little pleas'd with your departure hence if you knew how extreamly you are regretted here It is not certainly neer so great a pleasure to be at Paris as to be wish'd there as you are and though you were now as much in love with it as ever yet the general complaints of all the Vertuous might raise in you a certain satisfaction that you aâ—e not here When I reflect on your life my Lord methinks that great person whom his indulgent Fortune sirnamed the Taker of Cities deserv'd not the title with as much justice as you for if it be true that there is no better way to reduce them then by taking in the hearts of the Citizens the World never knew such another Poliorcetes and we may number Hambrough Coppenhagen Stockholme Paris Venice and Rome it self among your Conquests You cannot easily believe what sadnesse this place hath put on for your departure For my own part my Lord I am so disorder'd at it that nothing affords me the least diversion To do you right in what other person could I meet with such an excesse of wit knowledge and vertue Where could I meet with such excellent discourses a conversation so advantageous and such noble entertainment Since your departure here I could never meet with any meat which were not too much salted nor any man which were not too little Omnia aut insulsa aut salsa nimis I cannot meet with any thing my palate quarrels not at nec convivium ullum nec conviva ullus placet Of this Attick salt whereof I have eaten above a Bushel with you and which as Quintilian saies Quandam facit audiendi sitim Paris cannot shew so much as one corne Non est in tanto corpore mica salis To be free with you my Lord it proves very unfortunately for me to have met you here more experienc'd more knowing and more vertuous then ever and withal in a capacitie and willing to honour and oblige me I now dearely buy the four thousand Livers pension you have bestow'd on me and if you stay longabroad I cannot acknowledge my self oblig'd by your presence Vah quenquámne hominem in animo instituere auâ— parare quod sit charius quà m ipse est sibi But I presume too much on your goodnesse by entertaining you so long Yet must I needs tell you before I make an end that the Queen receiv'd your Cabinet verie kindlie and esteems it according to its worth and hath commanded me to return you her thankes For four or five daies after there came not either Princesse or Dutchesse to her to whom she shew'd it not She shewed it particulaâ—ly to Mademoiselle La Princesse to whom she spoke exceeding great things of you It is but jâ—st my Lord I should tell you who laid the foundations of my Fortune and buâ—lt it up to this happinesse that the Queen hath been pleas'd to allow me the pension of 1000. Crownes which she had promis'd me since your being here and hath charg'd it on the Abbie of Conches whereof she hath approved the resignation which the Abbot hath made of it to one of the children of Monsieur de Maisons I am My Lord Your c. Paris Dec. 13. 1643. To Monsieur Costart LETTER CXLVIII SIR I Must not take it ill that you should be as sloathful as I but because you were not wont to be so and that it is long since I received any letter from you I fear me the last I sent came not to your hands in which I answered all your expressions of Poiton gave you my judgement of the passages out of Salust Ausonius If you desire for the future as much time to return your answers as I am wont to take I have nothing to say against it and yet methinks it is not just that you and I should be subject to the same Rule since we are Nec cantare pares nec respondere parati The other day â— communicated that passage of Terence Heâ— alterum to Monsieur de Chavigny and told him that you had propos'd it to me as also the exposition you made of it and that for my part I could not subscribe thereto The next day he told me that he thought there should be an interrogation Ex homine hunc natum dicas Do you think him the issue of a man would you not take him rather for a beast For my part I can finde no fault with it onelie am in some doubt how a man suppos'd to be alone can use interrogation as if he spoke to a third person Be pleased to send me your opinion of it for I told him I would acquaint you with his and we shall both expect your answer You may also consult with Monsieur de Balzac about it I shall shew Monsieur de Chavigny both your answer and his if you send it me I repeated to him the other day the Verses Monsieur de Balzac made for Monsieur Guyeâ— he was extreamlie taken with them and express'd an extraordinarie esteem and affection for him commending his Wit his Humour his Workes his Broaths for he tells me he hath eaten of them He is certainlie a man of a transcendent wit and passionatlie loves all those that have any and it may be he will satisfie our friend that he remembers him when he least thinks on it Farewel Sir I am Your c. Paris Nov. 22. To Monsieur de Chaveroche LETTER CXLIX SIR KNowing what lecherie you have for a Law-suit and what love for me I conceive I shall make a request to you which you will not take amisse when I make the heartiest entreaties I can that you would take the trouble upon you of informing your self of a Businesse of my sisters to direct her with your advice and assist her with your credit I recommend her to you as one of whom I have the greatest confidence in the world and whom I think the best able to advise her in this occasion I believe Mademoiselle de Rambouillet will not spare any sollicitation for both of you for I now make her businesse yours and if you will be serious in it as I hope you will I doubt not but the issue will be such as is expected For requitall I promise never to call you Hogge again and will bestow on you the first Chappell whereof I shall have the disposall For to tell you that this obligation will adde any thing to the passion I have to serve you were to abuse you since it is certain that I am long since as much as possibly I can be Sir Yours c. Once more SIR let me intreat you to do miracles in this Businesse To my Lady Marchionesse de Vardes LETTER CL. MADAME YOu may easily perceive that we are in a great disorder here insomuch that we know not where to
LETTERS OF Affaires LOVE and COVRTSHIP WRITTEN To several persons of Honour and Quality By the Exquisite Pen OF Monsieur de VOITURE A member of the Famous FRENCH ACADEMY established at PARIS by Cardinall de Richelieu English'd by J. D. LONDON Printed for T. Dring and J. Starkey and are to be sold at their shops at the George in Fleet street near Cliffâ—rds Inne and the Miter at the West end of St. Pauls Church 1657. TO THE Worthily Honoured GEORGE BOSWELL Esquire SIR WEre I to make this Addresse to a person unacquainted with my Authour and the Work I now publish it were haply pardonable in me to give it and him the greatest Elogies a piece and person of so much worth might justly claime Nor were it hard to imagine what I might did I make it my businesse say of one of the most eminent members of the FRECNH ACADEMY an Association of VVits such as no age till this ever saw a man so rarified by Travell and experience into the noblest heights of an elaborate Eloquence and one so versed in Criticisme that hee could raise beauty and lustre out of the ruines and rubbish of the mâ—st ancient Authours But Sir since my application is to you whose correspondence with Learning is so universall the trouble is spar'd and if there be any thing remarkable by way of account of him it is but fit it were done pro more in another place Nor is there in this any more necessity I should though I might easily take the occasion celebrate this kinde of writing as the most advantageous of any It is in a manner the Cement of all society the foundation and superstructure of all Friendship and conversation the remedy of absence the Intelligentiall part of all Loves which which layes the plots and carries on the designes of united hearts at the greatest distance in a word it is the generall Agent of all inclinations and passions and what out of the roughnesse of Barbarisme hath raised man to the highest Gentilesses courtships and civilities My designe therefore is not to make but renew your acquaintance with the exquisite de VOITVRE yet farre from a presumption that your entertainment of him in this language will be proportionable to your esteem of him in his owne But if I may measure it by the infinite affection and consequently the generall indulgence and patronage you have for all Learning that you will afford it such as it may in some sort deserve is I must confesse a confidence I know not how to avoid but presses so much upon me that it contributes not a little to that it is in me thus publickly though with tâ—e greatest submissions and respects to expresse my self SIR Your most humble Servant J. DAVIES To the Generall READER WHen I have given my Authour the great recommendations he might but justly claime and that the present work beare not a sufficient proportion thereto I know what it will signifie by interpretation with the many That it is done purposely to ensnare the Reader and gain the more reputation to the work or amounts to no more then a compliance with the custome whereto all that employ themselves in Translations are strictly tributary that is to say something of their Authours This indeed is easily imagined but for my part what I have to say of mine seems at least to me to be the effect of a certain necessity or if you will have it so a convenience that I should give some account of him For certainly when there is so much briguing and courtship used to procure Letters of Naturalization here by persons that have lived long among us for me to naturalize a person who only took occasion to see this Country some three and twenty yeares since and never thought of travelling into it again so long after his death without the least satisfaction given whether he be such as may be made a free Denizen and enjoy the priviledges of an English man were certainly a presumption I know not how to answer The person I sollicit for is very famous in his own Country but one of the most eminent Members of the FRENCH ACADEMY a Consort of wits assembled together to harmonise the language of that Country and amidst their contributory Labours to all Learning in general to endeavour the cultivation thereof so farre as to make it capable of the highest Eloquence and ornament But this haply is a recommendation not calculated for the meridian of the ordinary capacity which â—xpecting to find him more particularly characterized I have thought fit to take him asunder and consider him in his severall qualities and perfections He was excellently well furnished with all those qualities which are any way requisite or advantageous to Conversation having a certain confident familiarity whence all he did or said was attended with a more then ordinary grace His carriage was full of mildnesse affability and complaisance far from all animosity deriving neither reputation nor envie from other mens works but judging of things soberly without prejudice or passion When any discourse was advanced about any point of Learning or that he was to give his judgement of some opinion he did it to the infinite satisfaction of all the Audience with a certain Gallantry which spoke him much free from the supercilious contentiousnes of the Schools Insomuch that many imagine his Wit and Genius naturally expressed under the name person of Callicrates in the third Volume of the Grand Cyrus He was an excellent pattern of a good and reall Friend which disposition of his Heart attended by those others of his mind gained him so great a number and that of so great ones He never contracted friendship with any he had once convinced of falshood whence it came to passe that laying the foundation of his affections on vertue and not on Fortune they were not shaken by disgraces These endowments though they are not so frequent in Courts yet do they often bring men thither They at least forced our Authour and gained him a reputation there such as that by the means of Monseigneur d' Avaux sometimes his Fellow-Collegian but always his Friend and Patron the doors of Lords and Princes were open to him Nay nature seemed to requite the smalnesse of bulk she had bestowed on him with certain letters of recommendation writ in a character that purchased him the esteem and caresses of the greatest and raised him to acquaintances much beyond what a Courtier of his birth and quality could have expected This would be thought a fair step to publish charges and employments but his Genius directed him to other things as having a great dis-inclination for whatever was of Affaires by reason of the distraction and attendance incident hereto Yet I know not how it happened he was a kind of Master of the Ceremonies to the Duke of Orleans his businesse being the introduction and entertainment of those Ambassadors that came to visit his Highnesse He was also
that as soon as his Majesties affairs shall give you leave you will return hither to enjoy those Goods which none but your self can be worthy of But my Lord I am not satisfi'd whether we are not over confident of a Nation that hath made so great usurpations upon us to have trusted you in their power and accordingly fear the Spaniards will be as loath to part with you as la Valteline This fear certainly would put me into a far greater disorder were I not confident that those of the Councel of Spain have not since your coming into the Country been Masters of their own resolutions and that you have already made too many servants there to stand in fear of any violence We may then hope that as soon as the Sun which scorches men and dries up Rivers shall begin to re-assume his heat you will return hither and overtake the Spring which you had already pass'd over there and gather Violets after you have seen the fall of Roses For my part I expect this season with much impatience not so much because it furnishes us with Flowers and fair weather as that it brings your return and I promise you I shal not think it pleasant if it come without you I am of opinion you will easily believe what I say for I am confident you allow me to be so good as that I should passionately wish a felicity wherein so many are concern'd besides that you know how particularly I am My Lord Yours c. Paris March 8. To my Lord Duke de Bellegarde with an Amadis LETTER IIII. My LORD IN a time when there is such a confusion in History I thought I might presume to send you Fables and that being in a place where you only study a remission of your spirits you might afford some of those hours you spend among the Gentlemen of your Province to entertain Amadis I hope considering the solitude you are in he will find you some pleasant diversions by the relation of his Adventures which certainly must be the noblest in the World till you shall think fit to acquaint it with your own But what ever we may read of him we must acknowledg your Fortunes are as extraordinary as his and that of all those Enchantments which he hath dissolv'd there is not any one which you could not have master'd unless it be haply that of the Ark of the faithful Lovers In a word my Lord you have rais'd in France a more amiable and a more accomplish't Roger then he Greece or that of Ariosto and this without any enchanteâ— Arms without the assistance of Alquif or Urganda and without any other charms then those of your own person you have had both in War and Love the greatest successes imaginable Besides if we consider that exactness of courtesie which could never degenerate those powerful graces whereby you gain the affections of all that see you and that height and constancy of mind which would never permit you to decline into any breach of duty or civility it will be hard not to conclude you descended from the Race of the Amad's And I am of opinion if you 'l beleeve me that the History of your Life will be one day added to those many Volumes we have of theirs You have been the Ornament and Esteem of three several Courts you have so behav'd your self that you have had Kings to your Rivals yet not to your enemies and at the same time possess'd their favour and that of their Mistresses and in an Age wherein Discretion Civility and true Gallantry were banished this Court you have given them a Retreat in your self as in a Sanctuary where they have been admir'd by all the world though not imitated by any And truly one of the chiefest reasons whereby I was perswaded to send you this Book was to let you know what advantage you have even over those who have been dressed up by imagination to be the patterns of others and how far the inventions of Italians and Spaniards come short of your Vertue In the mean time my humble suit to you is that you would be assured among all the affections it hath gain'd you it hath not rais'd in any so much admiration and true passion as it hath in me and consequently that I am much beyond what I am able to express and with all manner of respect My Lord Yours c. To Madam de Saintot with an Orlando Furioso in French Translated by du Rosset LETTER V. MADAM THis certainly is the noblest Adventure that ever Orlando was engag'd in nay when he alone defended the Crown of Charlemaigne and snatch'd Scepters out of the hands or Kings he could not pretend to any thing so glorious as now that he hath the honour to kiss yours The Title of Furioso under which he hath wandred all over the earth must not divert you from granting him that favour nor frighten you from affording him your presence for I am confident he will be civiliz'd by being near you and that he will forget Angelica assoon as he shall have seen you This at least I know by experience that you have already done greater Miracles then this and that you have sometime with one word cur'd a greater madness then his And certainly it were far beyond all that Ariosto hath said of it it he should not acknowledge the advantage you have over the Lady and confess if she were plac'd near you that she would address her self with much more necessity then ever to the Vertue of her Ring This Beauty who of all the Knights in the world met not with any compleatly arm'd who never smite the eyes of any one whose heart she wounded not and who by her love burnt up as many parts of the world as the Sun enlightens was but a faint draught of those Miracles which we are to admire in you All the Colours all the Adulterations of Poetry have not been able to represent her so fair as we finde you it being a thing even beyond the reach even of Poetical extravagance for to say truth it is much more easie to imagine Chambers of Chrystal and Palaces of Diamonds And all the enchantments of Amadis which you look on as so incredible cease to be such when once compar'd to yours At the first sight to fix the most obstinate minds and settle such as are at the greatest distance from slavery to kindle in them a certain love that submits to reason yet knows not what hope or desire means to Crown with Glory and Delight those souls whom you have depriv'd of all rest and Liberty and to dismiss those infinitely satisfied whom you do not any ways oblige these are effects more strange and more remote from probability then Hippogryphs and flying Chariots or whatever our Romans furnish us with that is yet more wonderful I should make a greater Book then that which I send you if I continue this Discourse but this Knight who could never be brought
midle Region of the air They fell upon me pell-mell pecking at me as fast as they could and that so violently that I thought my self stabb'd in a hundred places vvith Ponyards and one of them having fastened on my Leg pursu'd me so importunately that it let me not alone till I vvas fallen into the blanket This put my persecutors into a certain fear of returning me to the mercy of my Enemies for there vvas an infinite number of them got together that hung still in the air expecting I should be sent among them They carried me therefore to my Lodging in the same blanket so bruis'd that it vvas impossible I could be more And to deal ingenuously this exercise is somevvhat violent for a man of so much vveaknesse as I am You may judg Madam vvhat Tyranny there vvas in this action and hovv great reason you have to disallovv it and to be free vvith you since you are borne vvith such endovvments as dispose you to command it concerns you in time to accustom your self to hate injustice and to take the oppressed into your protection It is therefore my humble suit Madam that you vvould declare this manner of proceeding illegal and such as you must disapprove and for reparation of my Honour and strength to order that a large Canopy be set up for me in the blevv-Chamber at Rambouillet-House vvhere I may be attended and treated magnificently for eight days by the tvvo young Ladies vvho have been the cause of all my misfortune and that at one corner of the chamber there shall be Svveet-meats made that one of them shall constantly blovv the fire the other shall not do any thing but put Syrup upon plates to cool it and bring me of it as often as I shall call for it Thus Madam shall you do an act of Justice vvorthy so great and so excellent a Princesse as you are and I shall be oblig'd vvith more respect and reality then any man in the World to be Madam Yours c. To my Lord Cardinal De la Vallette LETTER XI My LORD I Am novv satisfy'd that the ancient Cardinals assume a great authority in comparison of such as are but lately admitted to the dignity since that though I have written divers times to you and not receiv'd any thing from you you yet quarrell at my sloth But in the mean time I meet with so many persons of good quality who tell me that you honour me too much in the remembrances you are pleas'd to afford me and that accordingly I am oblig'd to write to you and send you my most humble thanks that I am resolv'd to follow their advice not minding any concernment of my own therein Be pleas'd then to know my Lord that six dayes after the Eclipse and fifteen dayes after my death Madam La Princesse Madam de Burbon Madam du Vigcan Madam Aubry Mademoiselle de Rambouillet Mademoiselle Paulet Monsieur de Chaudebonne and my self left Paris about six of the Clock in the evening to go to La Barre where Madam du Vigean was to entertain Madam la Princesse at a Collation We met not with any thing by the way worth the observation save that at Ormessan we saw a Dog which came to the boot of the Coach and fawn'd upon me You may be pleas'd to take notice my Lord that as often as I say we met we saw we went c. I speak in the quality of a Cardinal From thence we arriv'd at la Barre and came into a Hall strew'd all over with Roses and Flowers of Oranges The Princesse much admiring that piece of magnificence would needs visit the walks in the interim between that and supper-time The Sun was then setting in a cloud of Gold and Azure and scattered no more of his beams then would suffice to shed a pleasant and gentle light the Air had dismiss'd all wind and heat and Heaven and Earth in a certain competition to Madam du Vigean would needs entertain the noblest Princesse in the world Having pass'd through a spacious Court and large Gardens full of Orange-trees she came into a wood into which Day had not been admitted for a hundred years till that hour that it came in along wâ—th her At the end of a spacious walk as far as we could see we found a Spring which alone was guilty of a greater liberality of water then all those of Tivoli About it were dispos'd four and twenty Violins which had much ado to drown the noise which the falling of the waters made Being come near it we discover'd in a hollow Seat which was within a Palisado of fruit-trees a Diana about the age of eleven or twelve years and more beautiful then the Forrests of Greece and Thessaly had ever seen her She carry'd her Bow and Arrows in her eyes and had about her all the Beams of her brother In another Seat not far from it there was one of her Nymphs handsom and gentile enough to be of her retinue those who give not much credit to Fables thought them to be Mademoiselle de Burbon and the Virgin Prianda and indeed they were very much like them All the company stood in a profound silence as admiring so many objects which at the same time charm'd both eyes and ears when on a sudden the Goddess issues out of her Seat and with a grace beyond all representation began a Bal which lasted for some time about the Spring What is most remarkable my Lord is that amidst so much pleasure which should absolutely take up and surprize the minds of those engag'd therein there wanted not remembrances of you and it was the general acknowledgment of all That there was something defective to so great enjoyments in that you and Madam de Rambouillet were not there Whereupon I took a Harp and sung Pues quiso me suerte dura Que falt ando mi Sennor Tambien faltasse mi dama And went through the rest so melodiously and so mournfully that there was not one in the company who shed not abundance of tears and this had lasted a long time had not the Violins suddenly struck up a Saraband so full of life that all rise up as jocund as if nothing had been and so leaping dancing vaulting turning and tumbling we came into the house where we found a Table so well furnish'd as if it had been serv'd in by Fairies This my Lord is such a circumstance of the adventure as cannot be describ'd and certainly there are no colours or Figures in Rhetorick can represent six Bisques which were the first entertainment of our eyes But this was particularly remarkable that there being only Goddesses at the Table and two Demi-Gods that is to say Monsieur de Chaudebonne and my self they all fed and that neither more nor lesse heartily then if they had been really mortal And indeed to say truth never was there a handsomer service and among other things there were twelve sorts of Fâ—esh so disguiz'd no man
those that see you cannot doubt but you are extreamly belov'd by those whom you so particularly oblige thereto But Sir amongst all the afflictions you have gain'd I dare professe there is not any attended with more respect and esteem then mine and that I am as indeed I ought more then any man Sir Yours c Lisbon Oct 22. 1633. To my Lord Marquess de Montausier who was since kill'd in La Valteline LETTER XLVI SIR I Have read your Letter with all the content and satisfaction that could be expected by any one from a person so costive as to writing and withal so deserving Methinks now there is not any thing which I may not promise my self from your Friendship since you have for my sake taken a little pains and you could never have given me a greater assurance you will make good those words you have sent me then that you have written them Only I cannot but be troubled to think that amidst all these expressions of tenderness there is some occasion for which you could with me hang'd To be free with yon Sir methinks it speaks some flaw in the affection you bear me and I think without standing much on punctilio's I ought to take it ill However I run so much hazard of it otherwise and I wish with so much passion that you had all your merits can pretend to that if there wanted nothing else to gain a Kingdom I deal sincerely with you I think I should be as willing you should have it as you can be your self I should more easily pardon Fortune that affront then what she puts upon you in not granting what you might justly claim and denying you the title she hath bestow'd on Monsieur du Bellay But since the businesse sticks not there and that it is possible I may have a hundred Crowns of Martyrdom yet you not get one of Soveraignety another course must be taken and without hazarding the lives of your friends you must owe this honour to none but your self I assure you that while I ramble through so many Kingdomes I ever think of you and shall endeavou to lay some plot which you may one day put in execution Not long since I saws even Kingdomes at one sight whereof there were four in Africa which I wish'd yours and which it is a great pity you should suffer to continue in the hands of the Moors But if you like not the air of Barbary there is newes come that the Island of Madera is upon some thoughts of revolting and that it will bestow it self on the first that shall maintain it against the Tyranny of the Spaniards Imagine with your self I pray you the pleasure there is in having a Kingdom of Sugar and if it be not likely our conversation there will be full of sweetness How great and powerful soever the charmes and engagement of Paris may be yet if I mistake you not they cannot divert you from laying both hands on such an opportunity and that if any thing stays you it must be the inconveniences of Travel and the trouble it is to rise betimes in the morning But Sir Conquerours cannot alwayly till eleven of the clock Crownes are not gain'd without toile nay even those that are made of Laurels and Myrtles are bought at a dear rate and Glory expects that her Suitors should suffer for her I must needs confess it is almost a miracle to me that Fame should not have brâ—ught some tidings of you before I had the honour to receive them from your self and me thinks I am farther then I thought I could have gone when I consider I am in a Country where you are not known Suffer not a reputation so just as yours to admit any limits nor stop at the bottom of the Pyrenean mountaines over which that of so many others hath flown come your self and make it's way and if the Gazette sayes nothing of you let History do it As for that which some would needs oblige you to take ill from me which is that I had given you the quality of a Squire I assure you Sir you had no great reason to be offended at it I shall make it appear to you that Amadis de Gaule under the title of the Squire of the Sea accomplish'd his noblest adventures and that Amadis of Greece while he was yet called the Squire of the burning Sword kill'd a great Lion and reliev'd King Magadan but these are artifices of the Gentlewoman you know who having sworn my ruine is troubled to see me under the protection of one of the bravest men on earth It will therefore be hard for her to force me out of yours for I professe to you Sir and this I speak more seriously then all the rest it shall ever be my endeavour by all sorts of devoits and humble services to deserve the honour of your affection Methinks it were a great want of judgment generosity and vertue not to love perfectly a person in whom all these are in so high a degree and therefore I who extreamly esteem these qualities wherever I find them must needs acknowledg them particularly in you where they are associated with so many other graces and attended by so much Civility Be therefore I beseech you assur'd that as I understand you better then any man so shall I ever have a greater honour for you and while I am worth any thing shall never be other then My Lord Your c Lisbon Oct. 22. 1633. To my Lord Marquesse de Pisany LETTER XLVII My LORD IF I have any esteem for the two Letters you have so much commended it is that they have procur'd me the honour to receive one of yours the very sight whereof confirm'd me in the judgment I had long since made of you that you should one day raise a jealousie in the Lady your Sister and me and deprive us of the reputation of writing well to which you laid aside we might have pretended But since so many other wayes invite you to honour be pleas'd to allow us the other and propose not to your self a thing so difficult as to imitate in all things your noble Father who not satisfy'd with the reputation of one of the stoutest men in France would needs adde to it that of writing and speaking better then any other If you are so resolv'd my Lord no doubt but you may arrive to it as well as he but beside the abundance of pains it will cost you you neglect an opportunity to oblige us and to give us an extraordinary confidence of your affection by slighting for our sakes a glory whereof you might claim so great a part There are others more solid and more worthy you whereto you should aspire But if neverthelesse you think there is nothing so inconsiderable as that a vertuous man should despise it and that glory is that only whereof he ought not to be liberal I must confess I have nothing to object against so just an apprehension The
affection your noble Sister hath for you I know to be such that I am confident she will soon pardon you the wrong you may haply do her herein And for my part I shall suffer my self to be orecome since it will be by you and for the glory you shall take from me I will participate of yours as much as may amount to that of My Lord Yours c Lisbon Oct. 22. 1633. To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER XLVIII MADAM IT is a great pitty you do not take pleasure in doing good oftner since that when you undertake it none can effect it with so much obligation as you do I have received as I ought the intentions you had to put a complement upon me and you have not only eas'd me much of my misfortune but have put me in some doubt whether I should call it so and telling me the goodnesse you have for me shall last no longer then my unhappinesse you have almost forc'd me into a wish it may never end See Madam what powerful charms you lay on me two things so opposite as your presence and your absence and whereof one is certainly one of the greatest goods and the other one of the greatest ills in the world you have by the bare pronouncing of three words so chang'd that that I know not which is the good which the ill and consequently whether of them I should rather wish However since I must needs be tormented one way or other I had rather suffer neer you and how hard-natur'd soever you may be methinks you cannot do me a greater injury then that of not seeing you I must confesse Madam I fear you beyond what you can imagine and more then any thing in the world But if the respect I owe you permits me to expresse my self so I love you much more then I fear you Though you frighten me a little sometimes yet I cannot but be pleas'd to see you under all the shapes into which you put your self and if you should be chang'd once a week into a Dragon yet even in that condition should I be in love even with your scales and your clawes According to the prodigies I find in your person I believe this Metamorphosis may one day happen and where you tell me that three daies in a moneth you are not to be convers'd with methinks it signifies some disposition thereto I am of Monsieur de C opinion that you will come to some strange end and I hope time will at length shew us what we should think of you In the mean time be as you will it must be confess'd you are a most amiable creature and while you shall continue under the shape of a Gentle-woman the world shall not offord another so accomplish'd or so much to be esteem'd as you nor any man who can be as much as I am Madam Yours c. Lisbon Oct. 22. 1633. Madam I humbly beseech you to still your Dwarfe with a Complement instead of an Answer to the challenge he hath sent me which is I will have nothing to do with any that relate to you and for his Mistress's sake and his own I infinitely esteem him and desire his Friendship To Monsieur Gourdon at London LETTER XLIX Sir I Have had more leasure then I could have wish'd to send you what you desired of me at my coming away The winds are so far from carrying away my promise that they have given me occasion to keep it They have staid me here already eight days which I should have thought very long and tedious if I had not brought from London imaginations that should last longer then that I assure you you are much concern'd therein and that the best I have had have been employ'd on you or the things I have seen by your means You will haply guesse hence that I speak not of the Tower nor yet of the Lyons which you brought me to the sight of In one Person you have shewn me more treasures then there are there and withall more Lyons and more Leopards It will not be hard for you to judge that I speak of the Countesse of Carlile for there is not any other of whom may be said so much good and so much ill How dangerous soever it may be to think of her yet have I not been able to forbear and to be sincere with you I would not give that representation which I have of her in my mind for any thing though the most perfect I have seen in the world Shee is I must confess a person full of enchantment and there were not any other under Heaven should command so much affection as she did she but know what it is and carry about her the sensitive Soul as well as the rational But considering the conditions we know her to be of we can say no more of her then that she is the most amiable of all those things that are not good and the most delightful poison that ever Nature produc'd I stand in such an awe of her wit that it had almost diverted me from sending you these Verses for I know she can judge what is good what ill in any thing and that all the Goodness which should have been in her wil is diverted into her Judgement But it matters not much if she condemn them I dare not wish them better since they were made before I had the honour of her acquaintance and I should be much troubled to have praisâ—d or disprais'd any one to perfection for I reserve both for her For your part Sir I trouble you not with excuses but such as are allowable on the contrary I conceive you very much in my debt and ought very much to acknowledge it that I am overcome to send you such as are not What ever they are I dare assure you they are the first I ever writ twice If you knew to what a height of sloth I am arriv'd you would acknowledge my complyance herein no small argument both of the power you have over me and how passionately I desire to be Sir Yours c. Dover Dec. 4. 1633. To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER L. MADAM BE your Letter ever so full of threatning yet can I not but consider the excellency of it and admire with what artifice you join Beauty and Terrour together As the skins of Serpents presents us with Gold and azure so you would enamel the most poisonous expressions with the livelyest colours of Eloquence and when I read them I cannot but be delighted with the same things I am frightned at You begin very soon to make good your promise to me that I was not to expect your favour any longer than while I wanted that of Fortune Now that she seems to have rock'd me into a little rest you will needs disturbe it and thereby shew me that though I have escap'd Seas and Pirates yet am I not safe and that you are more to be fear'd then all yet could I not believe
your Letter directed to King Chiquitto In Astaranax's Hell I have met with my own and have wandred in it three days and three nights yet could not see at all I am extreamly troubled at it for above all things I would have had King Georgia's Comb and it is above two years that I have long'd â—or it Nor are you to believe you have gotten that I propos'd to you the Queen of China's Combes are not so easily come by you must first be pleas'd to send in writing the name of the Piâ—are and tell me sincerely whether you named him without laughing for there lyes all the difficulty But since you pretend so much to Divination be pleas'd to imagine Madam all I should adde if I durst make this Letter any longer Guesse how much I now love you beyond what I did two years since and how passionately I am Madam Yours c Brussels Jan. 6. 1634. To my Lord Cardinal de la Vallette LETTER LI. MY LORD I Cannot but imagine when you writ the Letter you have been pleas'd to honour me with it was your opinion that he esteem I have ever had for you had gain'd you some reputation in the world that upon all occasions I had given you extraordinary assurances of the honour of my Friendship and that in consequence thereof I had lent you 2000. Crowns upon a Business of great importance and at a time when your credit lay extreamly at stake At least according to the rate that you thank me and speak of your self and me I have some ground to think that not minding what you did you mistook one for the other and unawares put your self in my place Otherwise my Lord you had not writen as you have unless it be haply that not conceiving there can be any greater good in the world then to do it to others you think your self oblig'd to those who give you occasion to oblige them and imagine you have receiv'd the good offices which you have done If it be so I must need confess there is not any man you are so much oblig'd to as my self and that I deserve all those returns you afford me since I have given you greater occasions then any man to exercise your Generosity and to do those actions of Goodness which certainly are to be esteem'd beyond all the wealth you have or can ever bestow on me Amidst the great number of good offices I have receiv'd from you and so many favours you have been pleas'd to shed on me I assure your Lordship there is not any I more highly esteem then the Letter you have honoured me with But if amidst the many things I have wâ—th so much satisfaction observed therein there be any passage hath entertained me with more pleasure then ordinary be pleased to give me leave to tell you it is that where I conceive you speak of these two persons which at this day make up the most inestimable part of the world and to whom if they be not compared one to another there is not any thing under Heaven that may When ever I do but think my self in their remembrances there ensues for that moment a cessation of all my sufferings and when I represent to my self the faces of the one or the other me thinks that of my Fortune is changed and that imagination forces out of my mind the obscurity it is clouded with and fils it with light But a greater happiness is that being so far from ever hoping to merit the honour of their good inclinâ—tions I cannot but think my self much interessed therein and am so happy as to believe what you tell me as to that particular I am well acquainted with one My Lord who were not so easily perswaded were he in my place and who after so great a distance for two years would not live in so much tranquillity and so great confidence According to the satisfaction this faith affords me be you judge whether I am to be much bemoaned and if there be not a many whom the world calls happy are much less such then I Were it not for this I would not certainly ward that distraction which presents it self here of all sides nor oppose the melancholy of Monsieur de C which I am fain to beat up perpetually and which to tell you truely is greater then is imagined Besides that he is got into an humour to let his beard grow which already reaches his girdle he is fallen into a tone much more severe then ever and sounds somewhat like Astolfos Horn unless it be on some discourse concerning the immortality of the Soul or the Chief Good or to carve up some of the most important Questions of Moral Philosophy he can hardly be gotten to open his mouth If Democritusâ—hould â—hould revive notwithstanding his great Philosophy he would not endure him because of his Laughing humour He hath undertaken to reform Zeno's doctrine as being too mild and he will institute a Sect of Stoicks Recollects So that My Lord you desire not any thing advantageous for the Nations over which you wish him Governour To Monsieur Godeau since Bishop of Grasse LETTER LII SIR YOu ought to have allow'd me some time to recover our Language before I should be oblig'd to write to you it being not handsome that when I had been so long a stranger and am now but just come out of Barbary I should direct Letters to one of the most eloquent of all France This consideration occasion'd my sâ—lence hitherto but though I avoided answering your challenges I cannot but make some return to your civilities and notwithstanding all my evasions you have found some other means to bring me to reason My condition indeed is such that it is much more honourable for you to have reduc'd me after this manner then to have taken me in by force It had been no great reputation to you to overthrow a man already cast down and on whom Fortune hath bestow'd so many blowes that the least can force him to the ground The obscurity whereinto she hath cast us admits not of any art or defence it would haply fall out otherwise if not quite contrary to what you say if you had set before my eyes the Sum you speak of and as dejected as you see me I might be confident enough to fight you if that light were equally divided between us 'T is a greater advantage to have that of your side then all the heavens beside All the beauties that shine through whatever you do proceed only from hers and they are her raies which produce in you so many flowers To do you justice I have never thought any thing so pleasant as those which are the productions of your mind I have seen some of them on the borders of the Ocean and in places where Nature could not force out a passe I have receiv'd Posies made of them that have even in deserts entertain'd me with the deliciousness of Italy and Greece Though they
startled at such an emergency and that of Monsieur Mignon afflicted and cast down Philosophy which hath remedies for all other misfortunes knows not any to qualifie the least losse may happen to a man in the esteem of Madam Rambouillâ—t For how great an Enemy soever it may be to the passions yet I cannot disapprove what may be had for so rare a person not think it much a man should do that for her sake which she would have done for Vertue 's I know not Madam whether she can as easily instruct me not to love you but what likelyhood is there I should ever learn it when Monsieur de Chaudebonne is my Tutor therein I do not I must confesse much hope it but am resolv'd what misfortune soever it may procure me ever to remain Madam Yours c. Brussels June 30. 1634. To the Same LETTER LIX MADAM I am extreamly troubl'd that you can give me no greater hope of peace and that you are never at a loss as to wit so much as when you are to do me some good For knowing it as I do capable of all things I must needs think the default rather to be in your will and while I shall find you so litle favourable to me I shall have cause to believe you are not so good as you pretend to be I fear me the assurance your Brother gives of your Justice will prove rather an argument of your Tyranny which once strengthened takes away the liberty even of complaint Were he as far from you as I am he would haply be of my opinion and were I in his place it may be I should be of his In the mean time Madam whether it be an absolute peace or only a Truce that you afford me I am glad to make my advantage of it I have already perform'd one of the conditions on which you give it me M.D. having propos'd another way to me how to write to her I could not but make use of it though I was much desirous my Letter should have pass'd through your hands for I hop'd it might have been better'd thereby and was resolv'd earnestly to entreat you to correct it It 's not above four daies since it was sent Monsieur Frotta who is yet here having with much sollicitation taken charge of it For Alcidalis I shall not leave him till I have brought him into Africk which I hope will be very suddenly for we see Land already But Madam I cannot make him happy till I am become such my self I cannot bring him to see Zelida till I have met with Monsieur Mandat and it must be another spirit then what I have at present to expresse his joy and his good fortune To be free with you next to his Story what you relate to me concerning Martha hath pleas'd me as much as any I ever heard but it is but the beginning thereof her Fortune shall not stop there nor would I swear that we shall not one day see her Queen of Mauritania All which notwithstanding I despair not but she may be hang'd but it will not be so soon I am infinitely glad for what she hath procur'd you from the Dutchess of Savoy and that honours attend you from all parts of the world I could also have easily gotten you one of the Mustachoes of the King of Morocco and a handful of the beard and two of the grinding teeth of the King of Fez. But since the death of his Majesty of Sweden I conceived you would no longer hazard your Friendship among that sort of people which obliges me to be more reserv'd for I remember you have often blam'd me for engaging you alwayes to Lovers such as you care not for If I am discreet for your concernments Madam I must be such for my own what opportunity soever Fortune may favour me with I shall have a care not to be trapann'd by her and I shall live longer then I expected if the Prophecy of the sage Enchantresse prove true I humbly beseech her to believe she cannot more justly assume that title with any one then with mee to say truth whatever she does enchants me I have spent a whole day in reading the four lines she hath written to me I shall take her advice and avoid Gradafilea as I would Scylla and Charybdis Give me leave to return my most humble thanks to my Lord Cardinal de la Valette for the remembrance he hath honour'd me with in a Letter to the Count de Brion as also to tell you how far I am troubled at the indisposition of Mademoiselle Paulet Her favour which you tell me should not last above twenty four hours will put me into one for many dayes nor shall I shake it off till I have had other newes M. d'A would not pardon me the freedom which you will if she saw how ineffectuall her advice proves and that I cannot avoid speaking of other persons in your Letters She would utterly despaire of any good of me and would with much more reason then ever conclude me defective as to gallantry but though she place you above all this world affords if she knew what rank you have in my inclinations I assure you she would find me as much as might be desired Madam Yours c. March 3. To my Lord Marquesse of Sourdeac at London LETTER LX. MY LORD THough the crosseness of my Fortune should have hardned me for all sorts of Afflictions yet can I not digest that of not receiving somthing from you and me thinks the want of your Letters is a misfortune able to shake the constancy of a Vertuous man I have with much impatience these many days expected that you would honour me with an answer of the last I writ to you and which I put into the hand of your noble Lady But now my patience is quite spent and I can no longer adjourn an humble suite that you would put me out of paine and acquaint me by Letter what accident hath hitherto depriv'd me of that happiness You see my Lord what assurance I have in your words and how great confidence I repose in your goodness since I dare beg so boldly a favour I can never deserved if you had not promis'd it me and which I presse you to pay me with as much rigour as if it were a just debt though it be only an effect of your indulgence and liberality And since you have ever express'd so much inclination to that Vertue I think you will not be a little pleas'd to see that in spight of Fortune you can still practise it and that it is in your power to do him a Courtesie who desires it of you All I can assure you is that it shall be well employ'd and duely acknowledg'd and that you shall not in any thing make a greater demonstration of your Goodness then by assuring me of the honour of your affection and giving me leave to pass every where under the quality of My Lord Your
a good estate who waits upon her often but I assure you that all this notwithstanding she hath no other apprehensions then those of a most discreet and most reserv'd Woman and such as you your self may have instilled into her To be free with you my Lord if your heart be not grown brawny among the Swedes the remembrance of all these Persons might raise in you a great desire of returning and how strong soever the charms of Fame may be you should not think them stronger then theirs Hasten therefore your return as much as you can and for a while at least let them be the objects of your ambition for though Fortune attended you with victory even to Prague I do not conceive you really in her favour while shee keeps you at a distance hence There are no Conquests beyond the Rhine not beyond Danuhius can absolutely satisfy you and all Germany cannot ballance the suburbs of one City that is on this side I am My Lord Your c To the Same LETTER LXVIII MY LORD YOu think it seems there 's no more to do then to write and speak as slightly of it as may be expected from a man that hath nothing else to do then to command twelve thousand men and oppose thirty but if you were taken up with the sight and consideration of three or four Persons that are here you would find abundance of other employment for your thoughts Were you in my place you would think time as precious as I do I would to Heaven you were that it might be seen how well you would come off with the assistance of that Conduct which you are so much celebrated for and that miraculous prudence whereby you have escaped so many other dangers For I am to acquaint your Lordship that when you have put a period to the War you are now engag'd in you will be drawn into another more dangerous one here you shall deal with an Adversary more gallant and more stubborn then the German and you who have delivered so many millions of Souls will have much a do to escape your self There is no retreat to be thought on and there needs no more to make a total rout then the very sight of them There is among the rest a certain Iron-arme the most terrible Creature the Sun this day beholds There is no armour can keep off his blows he crushes whatsoever he but touches nor are all the cruelties of the Croates comparable to his I doubt not but your Lordship knows whom I speak of and that you have had some engagements with them already but conceive not you shall find them such as you left them Their forces are encreased very much lately and their power is come to that height that they are grown irresistible there passeth not a day but they get something though they venture for it to the gates of Paris they take they kill they plunder all wherever they come and while you are employed to defend the Frontiers they set the heart of the Kingdom on fire Yeâ— I would not this should frighten you from returning but having known no fear in all those engagements wherein any other would entertain not any in these for though they put all to the Sword yet they may haply afford you Quarter and if you fall into their hands they will treat you with as much mildnesse as may be expected by a Prisoner of your quality By as much as I can learn they hope to see you in that condition for me thinks they should not be so much over-joyed at your Victories as I perceive they are if they thought not they would augment the Glory of theirs but they will be transported to see at their feet the Reducer of Galas and â—oleâ— the World know that he who hath been the Buckler of all France was not able to ward off their blows On the other side I know they are excessively impatient of your return and am confident France affords not another man whose Company they are more desirous of I send you this intelligence My Lord that you may accordingly provide to make your party good or at least not to be so much enaâ—mouâ—'d of the tittle of a Conquerour as not to expect to lose it here For my part happen what will I must confesse I wish you here for I shall not much enjoy my self till I have the honour to see you and to entertain you at your own fâ—re side with the cares the disquiets and the Alarms you have given to all those that love you I am My Lord Your c To the Same LETTER LXIX My Lord YOu must needs admit somthing of mortification amidst your Triumphs in that having alwayes the satisfaction to entertain the Children of Mars you have a minutes patience for the entertainment of a Child of the Muses We cannot at Paris endure you should live so pleasantly at Ments and not being able to hinder your enjoyments yet we endeavour what we can to interrupt them Yet should I not have presum'd it had I not been commanded by a certain Lady who will not be deny'd any thing and whom even those to whom Armies and their Generals submit would make no great difficulty to obey I assure your Lordship that when ever I imagine a sight of you with eight or ten great Commanders about you I much pitty Terence Virgil and my self and am extreamly troubled for those who here are so ambitious of your frequent remembrances and yet I am confident there is no bastion about the place where you are so inconsiderable which you care not for more then you do for me However it is not for me to murmure I consider'd there were a many others who had greater reason to quarrel nor was I desirous to be at difference with a man who they say hath the disposal of all the Marshal de la Forcès Troops But now that I am forc'd to this confidence and that there are some here who will maintain what I write I shall presume to tell you that it is a very sad thing that your affection which not long since was divided among the most excellent Persons in the World is now become the pillage of a sort of Soldiers I can hardly contain my self nay I am at a losse of all discretion when I think that the place which the most adorable Creature in the World had in your heart is now taken up for the Quarters of Colonel Ebron that Madam de C and Madam de R have theirs taken up by some Commissary or Major and that you have bestowed mine on some wretched Lanspresado This consideration my Lord puts us all here into an inexpressible sadness there is but one person hath a greater constancy then the rest and would perswade us not to believe you can be guilty of so great an injustice Shee I speak of is a Gentle-woman of fair-hair'd of a very clear complexion more cheerful and more beautiful then the fair weather of this
season and indeed such as you shall not find three so handsome in all the Country of Mâ—ssin Shee hath Eyes wherein all the light in the World seems to unite and centre a complexion that darkens all things a mouth which all those of the World beside cannot sufficiently commend as being full of attraction and charms and is never shut or opened but with the keyes of wit and judgement By the description I make of her you will easily conclude her a beauty far different from that of Queen Epicharis but if shee be not so much an Egyptian as shee yet hath shee as good a Talent as to stealing as the other For in her very infancy shee rob'd snow and Jvory of their whiteness and Pearls of their lustre and clearness shee took beauty and light from the Starâ—s and yet there passes not a day but shee gets some ray from the Sun and is not asham'd to deck herself with it before all the World Not long since in an assembly at the Louvre shee took away the grace and the lustre from all the Ladies nay from the Diamonds that cover'd them and spar'd not even the Jewels of the Crown on the Queen's head but took from them what was most beautiful and most glittering In the mean time though all the World perceives her violence none opposes it shee does what she pleases without any fear of punishment and though there are those at Paris who take Dukes and Peeres the next day after they are married yet are there not any will presume to lay hold on her But though she have a cruelty for all the World yet me thinks shee hath a great mildness for what concerns you shee hath commanded me to tell you shee hath not those distrusts of you which others have and in requital thereof shee desires you to send her six triumphant Arches of those are left of your entrance four dozen of publick acclamations and the Poetical works of the Landgrave of Hesse I advise you to answer her desire exactly and above all things to hold a fair correspondence with her for if shee once endeavour to do you a mischief your Life-Guard and your Troop will not secure your person Mets is not a place strong enough to shelter you from her power But my Lord I consider not that I entertain you too long amidst the great affairs you have and that if I should make my Letter any longer I fear you would put off the reading of it till this peace were concluded I should indeed be much troubled you did not see the end of it since what concerns me most is that there you should not find the most sincere professions I make to you That of all those whom you have so much obliged there cannot be any with more zeal and respect then I am My Lord Yours c To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet with a dozen fancies of English Riband for a Discretion he had lost to her LETTER LXX To apprehend the wit and humour of this Letter note the French word Galen is ambiguous signifying either a Fancy or knot of riband and a Gallant and that a Discretion is a Wager which lost it is refer'd to the Discretion of the Looser to pay what he pleases there having been nothing named before MADAM SInce Discretion is one of the principal qualities of a Gallant I conceive that when I send you a dozen I am much more then out of your debt Be not afraid to entertain so great a number though you would never yet receive one for I assure you you may be confident of these as such as shall not divulge the favours you do them How glorious soever it may be to receive of yours yet hath it been no small matter to have found so many of this humour in a time when they are all so full of vanity which indeed occasioned so long a journey as to fetch them from beyond the Sea I need not tell you Madam that they are not the first of that Country that have been well entertained in France But these certainly are the most fortunate that ever came thence and if you but give them a reception they need not envy those who have waited on Princesses and Queens For to do you right Madam the Earth affords not any thing above you and whoever were plac'd in your mind might presume to be in the highest place in the world I speak confidently for a man that payes a Discretion but be pleased to consider that one Love-letter is little enough for a dozen Gallants and that those for whom I write at least those of their Country have such a strange way to expresse themselves that they seem to discourse of Love when they do but complement Take it not amisse that being their Secretary I have in some sort imitated their stile and be assur'd that had I been only to speak for my self I should have been content to tell you Madam that I am with all manner of respect Yours c To the Same LETTER LXXI MADAM I could never believe it possible that the receipt of a Letter from you should add to my affliction nor that you could ever have sent me such bad news as that you might not comfort me up at the same time I thought my unhappiness at such a point as could not admit of any addition and that since you were able sometimes to strengthen my patience to endure the absence of your Lady-Mother and your own there could not be any mis-fortune which you would not have encouraged me to suffer But give me leave to tell you that I have found the contrary in the affliction I have for the death of Madam Aubry which hath been heavy enough to crush me and wanted not much of spending the remainders of my patience You may easily judge Madam what an excessive grief it must needs be to me to have lost a friend so good so considerable and so accomplished as shee and one that having alwayes given me so many expressions of her affection would needs do something when shee had not many hours to continue here But though I reflected not on my own concernments yet could I not but infinitely regret a person by whom you were infinitely lov'd and who among many particular endowments had that of knowing you as much as may be and esteeming you above all things Yet I must confesse that if this disturbance can admit any remission it is to reflect on the constancy shee expressed and the fortitude wherewith shee hath suffer'd a thing whereof the name would make her tremble at any time I am extreamly comforted to understand that at her death shee had those qualities which only she wanted in her life and that shee so opportunely found courage and resolution When I consider it seriously it is somewhat against my conscience to bemoane her and me thinks it speaks an over-interessed affection to be sad because shee hath left us to better her condition and is
inconsiderately engage in the besieging of a place on which all Christendome had it's eyes and therefore as soon as I was assur'd that it was assaulted I was in a manner confident it would be taken For to speak impartially we have sometimes observ'd my Lord Cardinal himself mistaken in those things which he hath entrusted to the conduct of others but in the enterprises whereof he would see the execution himself and which he hath encourag'd with his presence we have never known him miscarry I therefore was satisfy'd that he would over-master all difficulties and that he who had taken Rochel in spight of the Ocean would easily reduce Corbie notwithstanding the Rains and the Winter But since it comes so pertinently in my way to speak of him and that it is three months since I durst presume to do it give me leave now and take it not ill if amidst the remission this news hath wrought in your Spirits I take my time to tell you what I think I am not of their opinion who endeavouring as you say to convert Eloges into Briefs scrue up all my Lord Cardinal's Actions into Miracles celebrate his prayses beyond what those of men might or ought to aspire to and out of a desire of having too great things believ'd of him advance those that are incredible But neither am I guilty of that malicious baseness as to hate a man because he is above all others nor am I carry'd away with the torrent of general hatreds and affections which I know to be many times unjust I consider him with a judgement which passion forces not to bend either way and I look on him with the same eyes that Posterity shall But when within two hundred years those who come after us shall find in our History that the Cardinal of Richelieu hath dismantled Rochel overthrown Heresy and by one single Treaty as it were with a Trammel taken in thirty or fourty of it's Cities at a cast when they shall understand that in the time of his Ministry the English were beaten and broken Pignerol conquer'd Casal reliev'd all Lorraine joyn'd to this Crown the greatest part of Alsatia reduc'd under our power the Spaniards defeated at Veillane and Avoin and shall observe that while he had the steerage of our affairs France had not a neighbour of whom it got not either places or â—attails if they have any French blood left in their Veins or any love for the glory of their Country can these things be possibly read and not raise in them an affection for him and in your judgement will they love or esteem him the lesse because in his time that Revenue of the Hostel de Ville was paid some what later then it should have been or that there were some new Officers thrust into the Exchecquer All great things cost dear great attempts prove too violent and strong remedies weaken but if we are to look on States as immortal and to consider the future advantages as present if we cast up a right we shall find this man who they say hath ruin'd France hath sav'd it many millions by the bare reducing of Rochel which for these two thousand years in all minorities of Kings all discontents of Grandees and all opportunities of revolt would have been sure to rebel and consequently oblig'd us to eternal expence This Kingdome had but two kinds of Enemies that it had need fear the Huguenots and the Spaniards My Lord Cardinal coming to the helm of affairs designs the ruin of both Could he attempt any thing more glorious or more advantageous He hath effected one and hath not yet accomplished the other but if he had fail'd in the former those who now cry out that it was a precipitate resolution unseasonable and beyond our force to think to break and give a check to that of Spain as we yet find by experience would they not also have condemn'd the design of destroying the Huguenots would they not have said that it was to no purpose to re-assume an enterprise wherein three of our Kings had mis-carried of which the late King durst not think on And would they not have concluded as falsly as they now do in the other business that the thing was not feisible because it had not been done But let us consider I pray whether it may be attributed to him or to Fortune that he hath not effected that design Let us consider what course he took to do it and what Engins he set on work Let us see whether he wanted much of overturning the great Tree of the House of Austria and if he shak'd not to the very Roots that trunk which with two of it's boughs covers the North and the East and ore-shadowes the rest of the Earth He went under the Pole to find out the Heros who seem'd to be destin'd to put the axe to it and lay it on the ground He was the Spirit that animated that thunder which hath fill'd Germany with fire and lightning the noise whereof hath been heard all over the World But when this Tempest was blown over and that Fortune had diverted the stroak did he sit down content Did he not afterward put the Empire into greater hazard then it had been by the losse of the Battles of Leipsic and Lutzen His policy and his intrigues got us presently an Army of 40000 men in the very bowels of Germany with a General who had all the qualities requisite to work a change of State But if the King of Sweden would hazard himself beyond what a person of his designs and quality should and if the Duke of Fridland's design was discover'd because not put timely in execution could he charme the bullet that took away the former in the midst of his Victory or make the latter invulnerable to the thrusts of a Partisan And if after all this to bring all things to a total ruin those who commanded the Army of our Allyes before Norlinghen gave Battle at an unseasonable time was it in my Lord Cardinal's power being 200 leagues off to change that resolution and stop the precipitation of those who for an Empire for that was the prize of that Victory would not expect three dayes You see then that to secure the House of Austria and to divert his designs which are now thought so temerarious Fortune was forc'd to do three miracles that is to bring about three great accidents which in all likelihood should not have happened the death of the King of Sweden that of the Duke of Fridland and the losse of the Battle of Norlinghen You will tell me that he ought not to quarrel with Fortune for crossing him herein since shee hath been such a faithful Servant of his in all other that it was shee by whose assistance he took places before they were besieg'd who hath made him a fortunate Commander of Armies without experience who hath as it were alwayes led him by the hand and delivered him out of those precipices into
which he was fallen and in a word who hath made him appear valiant wise and circumspect Let us consider him in the displeasure of Fortune and see whether he were defective as to wisdome conduct or courage Our affairs were not over successful in Italy and as it is the fate of France to gain Battels and loose Armies ours was extreamly weakned since our late Victory over the Spaniards We were not much more fortunate before Dole where the continuance of the siege gave us occasion to expect no good successe of it when intelligence came that the Enemy was gotten into Picardy that he had immediately taken la Capelle le Castelet and Corbie and these three places which should have found them work for divers months had hardly kept them eight dayes All is a fire even to the banks of the River Oise we could see from our suburbs the smoke of the Towns they burnt us all take alarm and the Metropolis of the Kingdom is in disturbance Upon this news comes from Burgundy that the siege of Dole was rais'd and from Xainâ—onge that 15000 peasants are revolted and keep the Field and that it was much fear'd Poicto and Guyenne might follow their example Ill news come one in the neck of another Heaven is all overcast the tempest falls on us of all sides and there appears not from any the least beam of good Fortune Amidst all this obscurity was not my Lord Cardinal as well sighted as before did he loose fight of the North Star in all this Tempest hath he not held the rudder with one hand and the compasse with the other hath he got into the skiff to save himself and when the great Vessel he was in seem'd neer a wrack hath he not been as willing to perish with it as any other Is it Fortune that led him out of this Labyrinth or was it his own prudence constancy and magnamity Our enemies are not fifteen Leagues from Paris and his are within it Every day discovers some plots laid to ruin him France and Spain conspire as a man may say against him alone Amidst all this what face hath that man put upon it who they say was startled at the least ill success and who had caus'd Haure de Grace to be fortify'd to cast himself into it upon the first frown of Fortune Yet all hath not forc'd him to step back his thoughts were taken up with the hazards of the State and not his own and all the change could be seen in him in all this time was that where before he was not wont to go abroad without a Guard of two hundred he is now content with the attendance of five or six Gentlemen It must certainly be acknowledg'd that an adversity born with so much courage and gallantry is to be preferr'd before much prosperity and Victory I thought him not so victorâ—ous the day he entred Rochel as he seem'd to me then and the journeys he made from his own House to the Arsenal I look on as more glorious for him then those he made beyond the Mountains and which brought along with them Pignerol and Suze Open therefore your eyes I beseech you to so much light envy not any longer a man who can with so much Fortune be reveng'd of his enemies and cease to wish him ill who can turn it to his glory and bear it with so much courage Forsake your party before it forsake you nor are they a small number of those that were dis-affected to my Lord Cardinal that are converted by the last Miracle he did And if the War shall end as there is some ground to hope it will not be long ere he reduce all the rest Being wise as he is so much experience must needs have taught him what is best and he will direct all his designs to render this State the most flourishing of any after he hath made it the most terrible He will bethink him of an Ambition more noble then any other and which no man reflects on which is to become the best and best-belov'd man in the Nation and not the most powerful and most fear'd He knows that the noblest and most ancient Conquests are those of Hearts and affections That Lautel is a fruitless plant which affords at best but a shade and is not to be compar'd to the fruits and harvests which are the Crowns of Peace He sees that it merits not so much elogy to add a hundred Leagues to the Frontiers of a Kingdom as to take off one peny of the Tax and that there is lesse reputation and true glory to defeat 100000 men then to settle and secure twenty millions So that this great Intelligence who hath hitherto been employ'd in finding out wayes to defray the charges of the War in raising men and mony in taking of Cities and gaining Battails will be henceforth taken up wholly in introducing setling peace wealth and abundance The same head that was deliver'd of Pallas arm'd shall restore her with her Olive peaceable mild and knowing and attended by all those Arts which ordinarily accompany her We shall have no more new Edicts but such as tend to the regulation of Luxury and settling Commerce Those great vessels that were built to carry our Armes beyond the streights shall be employ'd in convoying our Merchants and keeping the Sea open where we shall have no War but with Pirates Then shall my Lord Cardinal's enemies have nothing to say against him as they have hitherto been unable to do any thing The Citizens of Paris shall be his Guards and he will find how much more pleasant it is to hear his praises in the mouth of the people then in that of Poets Prevent that time I conjure you and delay not your being one of his Friends till you are forc'd to it But if you will needs persist in your opinion it is not my endeavour to force you out of it but withal be not so unjust as to take it amiss that I have maintained mine and I promise you I will patiently read whatever you shall write to me when the Spaniards shall have once more re-taken Corbie I am Sir Yours c Paris Dec. 24. 1636. To Madam LETTER LXXV MADAM SInce yesterday hath seem'd longer to me then the three last months wherein I had not seen you and that there is not any one here will be troubled with my Letters give me leave to write to you and to tell you that I never was so deeply in love Three or four things of those you said to me that day have so taken up my thoughts that I have not been able to apprehend any of those have been told me since Besides what you seemingly granted me and which you did meerly to oblige me is like to prove my ruin and I find by experience that when it was your intention to give me liberty you cast me into Prison This makes a brighter fire then the aromatick wood you had prepar'd for me and it
with the most excellent passages of Virgil Horace and Torence I will explain the most difficult and will shew you the secret graces and the most undiscover'd beauties of those Authoâ—s In a word I shall return you all you have lent me c. My Lord since the writing of this Letter comes a Messenger who hath brought news of your being at Colmar I assure you this news hath caused greater rejoicing in the Court then all the Bals either prepared or preparing and particularly seven or eight persons are infinitely elevated at it The absence of Friends may indeed be born with when they do such things as you do and there is not any one of those who have greatest affection for you that could rather have wished you here To be free with you my Lord it is a glorious action to relieve the Kings Aâ—lyes in spight of winter and enemies and that you who bear no part in the publick rejoycings are hee only who justifies and gives us occasion to celebrate them To the Same LETTER LXXXIII My Lord I Know no reason you have to quarrel with me unlesse it be that having your armes ready you could fall out with all the world and foreseeing that the Spaniards will not find you work long you seek out occasions of new differences It 's a hard thing to be a Conquerour and just at the same time and I perceive Fortitude and Justice are two vertues seldome lodge together in the same inne It is not many dayes since I writ you a letter so large that I thought you would not have found no leasure to read it and I do not find my self guilty of having slipped any occasion I had to discharge my duty Though I should not my Lord consider the infinite obligations I owe you and were not to give some account of my self to the person of most honour I have ever known yet could I not avoid writing to you as being loath to give any cause of discontent to a man who at present is the most to be feared of any in France Under pretence that you have a many things lye on your hands that you do the business of a Labourer a Soldier and a General while you are employed about the fortifying of a Camp and the taking of a City to see order and justice observed in an Army and to make disciplinable a Nation that had never yet been so you imagine that all others are at leasure and that none but your self takes any paines In the mean time I assure you that if I had nothing else to do here then to hearken to those that tell news of you and return it to others that enquire I should not be much lesse employed then you are and have very little time to write to you Some who in other yeares were content with two or three houres discourse of you spend now six in speaking of you without the least weariness Those who are dissatisfied with the Government and those who are for it are equally inquisitive to know what you do and there are not any to whom you are indifferent but those to whom France is such While I write this my Lord I hear the Treaty with Landrecis is concluded and that you are to march into it next Sunday I praise God and rejoyce with you that you have convinced strangers it is not impossible but that we may take some of their places and that you have dissolved the inchantment which had hindred us from it for so many yeares Lovain Valentia and Dole had perswaded our enemies that we should never get any thing of them and that the most we could do was to recover what they had taken from us The most inconsiderable places seem'd to become impregnable assoo as we came before them our Armies which did well enough upon all other occasions were ruined and absolutely disheartned assoon as they were engaged in a siege and how great and victorious soever your Fortune hath been yet was there no ditch so shallow no work so weak but gave it some check In fine my Lord you have exchanged that ill destiny you have satisfyed those that would have sent you back to Dole that they mistook you You have as I may say made your Cannon be heard as far as Brussels and the noise hath made the Cardinal Infant to retreat as far as Gaunt instead of advancing to the relief of a place which you were going to take from him But what I look on as most considerable in this Action is the Order diligence and security wherewith it was done The very day you opened your Trenches it might have been said Landrecis was ours and though Picolomini and all his Forces which were such a terrour to us the last year had brought along with them thither all the power of the Empire they could not have taken it out of your hands We were not wont to take that course for the reducing of places and it may be said that the first siege you laid was the first regular one that hath been seen in France M hath been very earnest with me to go along with him but I have excused my self pretending affairs of great consequence which I made him believe I had to do here The affairs of so great consequence is a siege I have laid to a place that is very pleasant and excellently well scituated I have drawn my lines of circumvallation about it after the way of Holland and yours and Picolomini should not hinder me from taking it Things being carryed on so far it would have troubled me extreamly to raise the siege for that among Conquerours such as we are is a thing insupportable Iuly 3. 1634. To my Lord Marquesse de Pisany LETTER LXXXIV MY LORD I Am very glad you are become the hardest man in the World and that neither labour watching diseases nor the lead and steel of the Spaniards can do you any injury I could not believe that a man bred with Ptisan and Barley-water could have such a hard skin nor indeed that there were any Characters that could produce such an effect However this may happen I am confident it cannot be natural and yet I shall not be troubled at it for I would rather see you a Sorcerer then in the condition of poor Attiehy or Grinville how well soever you might be embalm'd To be free with you what cause soever there be of death me thinks there is still something of lowness in being dead Avoid it before my Lord as much as you can and I beseech you hasten your return for I can be no longer without your company and it is in this principally that I am perswaded you use charmes that I who am very indifferent as to those that are absent have perpetual desires for you and have something to say to you on all occasions At least those wherein I wish you are as inviting and less dangerous then those wherein you are daily engaged If you will then
sight The more endear'd any one is to me the greater likelihood me thinks there is that I should lose him Which if so Madam be pleas'd to consider what fear I should be in for you and if I may not conceive that if Fortune were to do me a worse turn then shee hath lately done me it must be that shee will have some design upon you I am extreamly impatient to get once out of these fears and this place to have some enjoyment of my self neer you after so great sufferings or at least some little rest after so much disturbance I am Madam Your c To my Lady Marchioness de Sablé LETTER LXXXVIII MADAM I Wish I had not so soon had the sight of the Letters you sent to Mademoiselle de Rambouillet and to For it was my hope that preventing your writing and venturing my stock voluntarily in that Trade I should have given you so signal an expression of my affection as what I have received from you of yours But what you have written to me is so obliging that I must confess I dare not pretend to any worthiness to answer it and that the sloathfullest person in the World being in my condition would do as much as I do Certainly Madam those who will not allow you to have the tenderness you ought must needs acknowledge that if you are not the most amorous person in the World yet are you the most obliging True friendship hath not more kindness then there is in your words and all even appearances of affection become you so well that the most perfect souls cannot but be satisfy'd therewith Yet can I not but imagine there is some charme in them for me and though 〈◊〉 know you have in the adulterations of friendship the Secret that Monsieur hath for Rubies and that when you please you can give a little paste the lustre of a precious stone yet am I confident that what you have made with me is very substantial and that there is not any thing more true or more firm For my part I may safely say that I have ever honour'd and lov'd you beyond any other whatsoever but nothing comparably to what I do now and I dare not burthen this Letter with the sentiments I have for you least if it mis-carry it should be taken for a love-Letter I do not think that passion can pretend to greater sensibility and tenderness then what I daily feel in my self for you Yet I cannot personate the agitations of extravagant Lovers nor put out my tongue like Iscaron But certain it is that since I left you I am troubled with such fits of melancholly as almost distract me insomuch that all the World wonders at it nay in some hours of the day Father Tranquillus and the little Iesuit would make no difficulty to exorcise me for if I have known any divertisement it hath been to entertain all people with discourse of you It was discover'd that I had been at your House and at Loudun so that to see me prov'd a general curiosity and I was examin'd as one return'd from Heaven or Hell I told them Madam that you were as handsome as you were four years since But when I would have told them that you were grown a greater wit they thought I related things incredible and there I lost all credit And yet it cannot be deny'd but miracles are done in you which never were in any for the World never afforded any one that gain'd beauty by the small Pox and was refin'd by a Country conversation Mademoiselle de Rambouillet was extreamly pleas'd with your Letter I took it for one of the best you ever writ and was not a little glad to see what was so much to my advantage so excellently well written What assurance soever I had my self of your affection yet is it a pleasure to me to see your liberality of it towards others and confesse that effeminate vanity you say I am guilty of was mov'd at it Adieu Madam after five Pages I am loath to give you over as being Your c. Madam be pleas'd to let me know whether you have observed that that as being wherewith I have concluded my Letter be one of those conclusions whereof we have had some discourse To my Lord Cardinal de la Valette LETTER LXXXIX My Lord ARe you not still troubled that you suspected not that those of Verceil wanted powder or that wanting it they were not able to make good the place or that you have with eight or nine thousand forced twenty thousand into very good Works certainly you make no great use of your reason if that vexation find you work still were you in hopes to do things impossible that you are not satisfy'd that you have done all that might be Your Lordship will pardon me if I tell you so much but certainly it suits not well with a grave person to be so disordered for a thing wherein he hath not fail'd and me thinks it takes away much from the merit of a mans duty when he is not satisfy'd that he hath done it You brought a handful of people to the relief of a place besieg'd by a numerous Army you found the lines drawn about it and all the works in such a posture as that it was thought you could not have gotten a single man into the City to give them any intelligence and yet contrary to the hopes and opinions of all the World you have gotten in eighteen hundred Could any thing be done more resolutely better design'd or more fortunately executed It was you that brought things to that passe Fortune hath done the rest and if shee hath done ill why should you torment your self so much Accustome not your self I beseech you to so much familiarity with her but as well in good success as in the contrary distinguish between what shee hath done and what you have Hence it will happen that you will never have any either too high or too low thoughts of your self If you will needs be accountable for all events and cannot be satisfied but when all your own wishes can suggest comes to passe you must certainly wage a War upon very hate conditions and expect Fortune should do as much for you as shee did for Alexander and somewhat more then shee hath done for Caesar Besides you are ungrateful to your own if you quarrel with her about this last accident and it is a kind of injustice to think it a great mis-fortune to have miss'd a great prosperity You in the mean time talk as if through your own owersight you had lost ten Battels and a hundred Cities and you seem to be enraged at the losse of a place which in the opinion of all the World was given over from the beginning The taking of Verceil hath much prejudiced the Kings affairs but your reputation suffers not at all in it If the relief you have put into it hath not proved effectual it deserves never the lesse
the winds if you have any command over them be pleas'd to lock them all up at that time praeter Japyga But for that there 's no great danger if he be somewhat high I matter not for a little roughness of the Sea so I may make the more speed for I am in haste to be at Paris and to see you there I am Your c. Rome Nov. 15. 1638. To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER XCVII Madam I Must crave my Lady your Mother's Pardon I never was so weary of Rome There passes not a day but I see something 〈◊〉 that 's admirable some Master pieces of the best Masters that ever were Gardens where the Spring is at this present Edifices which the World cannot parallel and ruins more noble then even those And yet all this cannot shake off sadness nor hinder that even while I see them I wish my self hence The most excellent pieces of painting Sculpture and etching of Anâ—llus Praxiteles and of Papardelle please me not I should wonder at this did I not know the reason of it that is that who hath been accustom'd to see you cannot well enjoy himself when he does not To deal truely with you Madam I have the same consideration of you as of my health I never know your true value till I have lost you and though when you are present I observe not that moderation which might gain me a good constitution with you yet as soon as you are once gone I make a thousand wishes for you I acknowledge the World affords not any thing more precious and find by experience that all the delicacies of the Earth are bitter and unpleasant without you I took more pleasure to see with you two or three Walk at Ruel then I have had to see all the Vineyards at Rome or should to see the Capitol though in it's former magnificence and that Jupiter Capitolinus were there in person But that you may know I am not in jest but in very good earnest as ill as I am about eight dayes since taking a walk in the morning with the Chevalier de Jars I had fallen down all along had he not received me in his arms and the next day in the evening I swounded in my Lady d'Estree's Chamber The Doctors tell me they are melancholly vapours and that these accidents are not to be slighted For my part seeing they took me two dayes together and that I was in danger of something worse I have neither play'd the Fool nor Mad-man have taken the Antimony which I had from Monsieur Nerli In a word it hath given me great case and I intend to take four dozes with me which I shall entreat my Lady Dutchess of Aiguillon to take for there is no Ripopé near so effectual and this must be used till he who hath bestow'd it on me have found out the Aurum potabile which he pretends to do once within a year I hope to leave this City within these eight dayes You will wonder Madam I should continue so long in a place which I seem to be so weary of but I have been stay'd here hitherto by some occasions I shall acquaint you with and which I could not avoid But I assure you once more I never was in so much disorder nor ever had so great a desire to see you Be pleas'd I humbly beseech you to believe me and assure your self of my being much beyond what I can express Madam Your c. Rome Nov. 25. 1638. To my Lord Bishop of de Lisieux LETTER XCVIII My Lord I Would very gladly have been my self the Bearer of the enclosed and have give my humble thanks for the favour of your recommendations of me to the person who sends it Besides that having gone through my devotions at Rome I would try whether I might not advantage my self more at Lisiex where I may learn to gain those Pardons I have receiv'd from the Pope I believe this journey would prove more advantageous to me then what I have lately taken fâ—r my Lord there 's nothing so certain as that I never see you but I am better for some dayes and never come near you but I feel my good Angel resuming new Forces and disposing of me with more assurance It is long since I am convinced in my thoughts that if God hath decreed my conversion he will make use of no other means then that of your discourses and your example and that if he should send a voyce from Heaven to call me home again it shall come through your mouth Hence it is that me thinks the will I have to serve you in some sort sanctifies me and that I cannot be absolutely profane when I have so much respect and affection for so reverend a person I must at least attribute it to you that I am guilty of one rational passion among so many that are not such and that I am not so absolutely irregular but there is one part of my Soul untainted Though I do not find it the best employments I might and am a very ill Husband thereof yet I doubt not but I have secured for ever the part you have in it nor can I ever forfeit or engage the place you have therein It is great enough my Lord to save one day all the rest and I despair not but shortly it will be wholly your own You daily purchase something in it and want not much of having an interest there greater then that of all the World besides Be pleas'd to make all your own and be as proud of the acquest as if it were that of some unbelieving Country whereof you had been design'd to destroy the Idols I am in some hopes it will so come to passe and reflecting on the great favours you have done and confident that you cannot be mistaken I look on all the good you have said of me as a Prophecy and believe I shall be such hereafter as you assur'd Cardinal Barbelin I was then I cannot well expresse the noble entertainment he made me upon your recommendation and the affection he seems to have for whatever you concern your self in You are my Lord almost as well known in Italy as in France and certainly I have not met with any thing at Rome whereby I have been so much edified as the esteem and passion I found there for you But above all Cardinal Barberin seems to be your absolute friend and to have for your vertue that affection and respect which you shed into the hearts of all those who follow your example He hath burthen'd me with some thing particular to you from him which I reserve till I have the honour to see you and be in a capacity to essure you my self that I am beyond any My Lord Your c. Paris Jan. 15. 1639. To Monsieur de Lyonne at Rome LETTER XCIX Sir THough you have caused me the most restless hours I have had in all my journey and have treated me at Rome worse
then any yet assure your self I have not seen any man I so much desire to see again or have greater inclinations to serve It seldome happens that he who ruins a man gains his friendships you have had that good Fortune with me and your Genius hath in all things such an influence over nine that I have not been able to make my party good either way but that while you have gotten my money you have withal gain'd my heart and made your self Master of my affections And if I am so happy as to have any place in yours that gain takes away the sence of all my losses and makes me think my self the gainer in what hath past between us Your acquaintance though it hath cost me very dear hath not stood me in more then 't is worth and I should not stick to give as much to find such another in Paris This granted Sir you may be assur'd I shall do any thing that may secure the honour I esteem so much and that I shall not easily lose a friend I have purchased at so dear a rate I have done all you desir'd in the business you writ to me about and shall be as dutiful to you in all your other Commands for I am with the greatest earnestness and affection I ought Yours c. Paris Feb. 7. 1639. To my Lord Cardinal de la Valette LETTER C. My Lord IF you but reflect on the passion you saw I sometime had for Renaut and Roger you cannot doubt of that I now have for your concernments since you do in your shirt what they could but do with enchanted armes Were you a Fairy you could not hazard your self more freely then you have done as having carry'd Valour to it's uttermost limits and to the highest point they could have done who can pretend to no other Vertue I must needs acknowledge my Lord that if the War had been ended by this last performance whereof you have been the principal cause and that you had no more to do then to come and Triumph I should be extreamly elevated at what is reported of you here and with much satisfaction sit down to write your History But when I consider that there are other occasions wherein you may run the same hazards and that I am not assur'd of what shall happen at the end of the Book I cannot without some disturbance participate of that glory which all the World gives you and the fear of what 's to come takes away much of the enjoyments of things present I leave therefore to those who have not so great affection for you as I have and to whom you are not so necessary as to me to employment of celebrating your praises For my part all I can do at the present is humbly to beseech you to be more tender of the most Illustrious person of this age and not to rely so much on Fortitude as to injure Justice This will advise you not to hazard so freely the wealth of all the World and be so carelesse of a Life wherein all the excellent and vertuous are concern'd and which is more considerable to France then the whole Country you defend I am My Lord Your c To My Lord LETTER CI. My Lord THough you had left Paris upon some design or something relating to your enjoyments or your Glory I think it would nevertheless have caused me some trouble and raise in me a quarrel with your concernments but the cause of your departure being so unfortunate and strange as it is I may say there could not any thing have happened of so great affliction to me nor could Fortune have done what I should think more unjust or more insupportable since it hath disturb'd the enjoyments of all here and that a many who are not so much obliged to you as I am are sensible of that disaster I hope my Lord you will do me the honour not to doubt but I have the greatest resentment I ought and that it was not necessary I should acquaint you with so much by writing However I thought it my duty to make this acknowledgement and I expect to find some ease in assuring you there is not any one can be more tender of your enjoyments or with greater sincerity My Lords Your c To Monsieur LETTER CII Sir YOu had done better to have danc'd a Coranto lesse and sent me a Letter and the time of one of your Galliards had been better spent in writing to me It hath been reported here that in the same Ball you began it thirty times over 't was indeed well danc'd for a great Commander and a man that would pretend to some trouble that he had left Paris If you continue thus I now wash my hands of all your affairs and find that the Ladies of Lorraine are more obliged to send you fruits then those of the Court I know not Sir how you understand it nor what advantage you find in it but for my part me thinks to dance at Mets is not to dance in cadence and I dare swear it affords not twenty more amiable and greater Beauties then three or four here who sometimes speak of you and who take it not well you should mind your enjoyments so much in their absence But if you are grown so great a dancer and cannot by any means forbear it they entreat you not to dance Galliards altogether but to call for some graver dances as your Brawl's and Pavines I thought it my duty Sir to give you this advice you may take it as you please but for my part I shall ever be Sir Your c To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER CIII MADAM YHE news of the raising of the Siege at Thurin was to me the most welcome that ever I received And yet it was some trouble to me to lose thereby an opportunity to express the real affection I have for my Lord Cardinal de la Valette for I was resolv'd to get into the Town and bring him some encouragement by the news I should tell him of you The Count de Guiche whom I acquainted with my design told me that the ordinary reward of such as were surpriz'd in such attempts was hanging yet was I nothing startled and being fortify'd by some Reasons of Mademoiselle de la Trimouille in case I should have come to the Wheel in Italy I thought it no great matter to be hanged there But it had been a pleasant spectacle if the Cardinal de la Valette walking on the Walls should have known me upon the Ladder The troth on 't is wanting your presence a man would not stick to hang himself for a half penny and feeling a great weight on his stomack it were better be strangled then endure it You Madam who have never wanted your self or felt the grief which attends a separation from the most amiable person in the World cannot imagine the misery of it But if you please I will tell you how it comes to passe The
your affection If what you expressed to me at my departure be not quite lost you will not deny me this favour especially having in your necessity so excellent a Secretary as him you are wont to make use of I have understood you did me the honour to drink my health but as it is now there are requisite stronger remedies then that to restore it and it is only from you that I can expect any But from the reflection I make on the love you have for whatever belongs to you and the protection I have sometimes seen you afford your subjects I raise a confidence that you will not forsake me who am as much your vassal as if I had been born in your Town of Essars and withal do put particularly professe my self My Lord Your c To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER CXIV Madam IT must needs be acknowledg'd that I am remarkable for the sincerity of my friendship 't is a grief to me that I see you not as if it were a loss of great consequence to me and me thinks I spend not my time so well here as when I have the honour to be near you Amiens in your absence seems lesse pleasant to me then Paris and though I can every day visit Ladies that speak the Language of Picardy excellently well yet I do not think my self ever the happier for it The conversation of my Lord Duke de C Monsieur de T and Monsieur de whom I meet here often affords me no entertainment at all Sometimes I think it very tedious to continue three hours together in the Kings Chamber nay I find no diversion in the Society of Monsieur Libero Monsieur Compiegne and twenty more excellent persons I have no acquaintance with who very much celebrate my parts and tell me they have seen of my works I have seen the King play at Hoc all this afternoon and yet find not the least remission of my Spirits and though I go constantly thrice a week a Fox-hunting I find no great sport in it though there be in the company a hundred Dogs as many Horns which together make a hideous noise such as whereof the terrour would break your tender Ears To be short Madam the Recreations of the greatest Prince in the World divert me not and when I want your sight I am insensible even of the enjoyments of the Court You are certainly very ungrateful if you render me not the like but suspicious wretch that I am I fear me you take your pleasure sometimes with the Princesse and Mademoiselle de Bourbon nay haply since your coming to Grosbois you have not so much as wish'd your self five or six times at Amiens If it be so you may recompence it with this favour that you will be pleas'd to perswade their Highnesses to honour me with some few remembrances that I may not be thought the lesse considerable by them for being in a place where I see the King and my Lord Cardinal twice every day And yet Madam you are not to expect ever the more news from me for I have not any to acquaint you with My Lord Fabert came hither yesterday mâ—rning and went away at one in the afternoon with Orders to our Generals He told me that Monsieur Arnault hath playd the Devil with his hinder feet in a battle that happened near l'Esle and that the Marshal de Brezê hath written it to the King as I hear by Monsieur de Chavigny 'T is reported here that our Armies are returning and that we shall not return so soon I pray be pleas'd to chide a little at it and honour me so far as to believe me sincerely and as much as you can desire Madam Your c. Amiens Sept. 10. 1640. To my Lord Cardinal Mazarin LETTER CXV My Lord BY a Letter from Madam de V. I have understood the favour your Eminence was pleas'd to do me and with what extraordinary kindness and what assurances of good inclinations you have thought fit to grant me since then my Lord I may thence infer that amidst the affairs of greatest consequence your E. condescends to a remembrance of your most inconsiderable Servants and that while you are employ'd in the highest things you neglect not the lowest I have a certain confidence you will excuse the boldness I take to return you my most humble thanks and that you will be pleas'd to take the pains to read the profession I make that besides the respects and veneration which we all owe a person who hath and doth still add to the Glory of this State I shall through all the actions of my life ever own a most particular inclination to express my self My Lord Your c To my Lady Dutchess of Savoy LETTER CXVI Madam AFter so many consolatory Letters as there hath been but too much occasion to write to your Royal Highness I should be very loath to let slip an occasion to write you one of congratulation These come to you so seldome that I think they must needs be very welcome when they do and were there nothing else to recomend them certainly the novelty should make them acceptable It is long since Madam that I have expected what now begins to appear and thought the mis-fortune of the most accomplished and most amiable Princess that ever was too great a disorder in the World to last long How great soever the Malice and envy of Fortune seemed to be towards you and what fate soever might crosse your affairs yet was I still guilty of an imagination that so much goodness generosity and constancy and so many Divine qualities as your R. H. is furnish'd with could not be long unfortunate and that at length Heaven would be forc'd to do some miracle for a person on whom it had bestow'd so many There is much reason to believe Madam that that of the taking of Turin will be seconded by a many others and that the great success which hath happen'd in your Dominions is a certain Politick Symptome that there will be a change of all things and such a general settlement as naturally ought to be But what you should the more rejoyce at in this happy revolution is that there 's nothing so certain as that your concernment therein multiplies the joy of all here and that your R. H. is so well beloved that the more generous part of the Court do as much rejoyce for the interest you have in this prosperity as for the advantage accrews to the Crown of France and the great acquests of Glory which his Majesties Armies have made thereby I doubt not Madam but your R. H. is satisfy'd that amidst the publick joy I have some particular matter of rejoycing whereof no other can be equally sensible if you but honour me so much as to reflect on the extraordinary passion I have for whatever you are concern'd in and the inclination and obligation wherewith I am Madam Your c. Paris Oct. 4. 1640. To
the King with the Queen of Sweden LETTER CXX SIR YOur little Ode I look on as a great work and makes me concâ—ive that though you there mention your debauches you are sometimes sober at Stockholm The fruits of Greece and Italy are not fairer then those you bring forth under the North nor can I but wonder how the Muses were able to follow you thither You may safely brag that you have carry'd them further then ever Ovid did nor indeed did ever man shew them so many Countries as you have But if you derive these Enthusiasmes from the Wine my advice is that you alwayes venture to drink at the same rate Dulce periculum est O Lenaec se qui Deum Cingentem viridi tempora pampino And you may say Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus Vidi docentem Sir I am not able to tell you how infinitely I was pleasâ—d to find Oil of Jasmine Spanish Gloves and English Ribands in Latine Verses To do you but justice all from the beginning to the end is admirably pleasant Insigne recens adhuc Indictum ore alio But since I understand not Latine the best in the World be pleas'd to explain your self as to those words mâ—ntis acerbus dolor It puzzles me very much I shall not pretend to any concernment in your secrets any further then you give me leave but take it not ill if I do in your interests since I am most sincerely Sir Your c. Paris Dec. 15. 1640. To Monsieur de Maison-blanche at Constantinople LETTER CXXI Sir YOu would certainly do very ill to turn Turk for I assure you you have abundance of Friends in Christendom and your reputation is here so great that were your condition mine I should rather come away thence and enjoy the fruits of it then command fourty thousand Ianizaries marry the Grand Seigneur's Daughter and be strangled a while after I know not what kind of Bâ—auties you have in Asia but I assure you five or six of the handsomest Ladies in all Europe are fallen in love with you and provided you are nothing diminish'd whereas you meet there with Maids that entreat you to buy them you shall sell your self here at what rate you please To deal freely with you your Letters never made so much noise in London as they do now in Paris the General discourse is of them all desire them and if the Grand Seignor knew how considerable you are among the Christians he would dispose of you for your life into one of the Towers of the Black-Sea Madam the Princesse ask'd me the other day whether you were really so great a Wit as was reported not above four days before Mademoiselle de Bourbon put the same question to me and there 's not any but is astonish'd at the noise you at the present make in the world For to deal truly with you your Physiognomy discovers not all that is excelâ—ent in you and it is a miracle that by your looks you were once taken for an Ingeneer It would never be guess'd at by your nose what you are worth and to esteem you proportionably to your merits presupposes a conversation and acquaintance with you such as I have or never to have seen you or known you but by your Letters They are no question pleasant beyond all imagination and I am never thought such by those who have any affection for me unless I bring along with me some one of them But particularly Monsieur and Madam de Rambouillet the young Lady their Daughter and the Marquesse of Pasany are ravish'd with them and accordingly have an extraordinary esteem and abundance of respects for pou Be it therefore your care to preserve them by writing to me as often and as pleasantly as you can this you will find no hard task the place where you are will furnish yon with new things though it were for these ten years I wish it were so easie for me to entertain you and that by describing our Garments Actions manner of life our food the fashions and Beauties of our women I could write such Letters as you would take any delight to read But unless it be the Ceremonies of our Religion I believe you have not forgot any thing that 's done here so that all I have further to say to you is that I honour you perfectly and love you heartily and that you know it as well as my self For if I should relate to you after what manner we relieved Casal and how we took Arras and Turin What entertainment could it find you who are accustomed to your Armies of three hundred thousand men and who have yet the taking of Babylon fresh in your memory I shall therefore tell you but one thing which yet you will be astonisht at The Prince of Orâ—nge is now â—â—aten every year five or six times and the Count Harcourt doth those things now which the late King of Sweden were he a live would envy him for Farewel Sir what ever may happen continue your affection to me and honour me so much as to assure your self that I am as far as I ought and withal manner of passion Sir Your c. To Monsieur de Chavigny LETTER CXXII SIR YOu may hereby perceive how consâ—derable the Interest and reputation I have with you is Monsieur Esprit who is coming to Court with a Letter of recommendation to you from M thought it not unnecessary to be further recommended by me and I who am a little given to vanity have chosen rather to undertake it then to tell him I durst not Sir you may assure your self he is one of the best natur'd men in the World one whose mind and Soul are of a makinâ— such as you would wish of a free disposition very discreet very learned a great Divine and a good Philosopher with all these qualifications he is not one of those that contemne wealth and out of a confidence that he should make very good use hereof he would not take it amisse if he could get an Abbacy to obtain which Madam d'Aigâ—illon writes in his behalf to my Lord Cardinal This will ly upon his Eminence to do but upon you to find him noble entertainment and that is all he expects After the Character I have given you of him I think it very unnecessary to add the humble supplication I make to you on his behalf nor can I give you any reason why I do but that it is his desire and that I am wont to do any thing he would have me But Sir having acquainted you with his Interests I conceive it is according to the rules of friendship I should be mindful of my own and most humbly beg your confidence that I am Sir Your c. Paris Jun. 2. 1641. To the Count de Guiche LETTER CXXIII My Lord AFter the finishing of one great siege and two small ones and an aboad of fifteen dayes in Flanders without Equipage do you not think it an extraordinary
refreshment to go and besiege Bapaume and to begin a fresh in the Month of September as if nothing had been done all the year before Me thinks the Knights heretofore had a much easier time of it then those that live in these dayes for as to those the breaking of four or five Lances in a week and now and then a brush of fighting or haply a combat was the main of their work All the time besides they took their progresses in fair Forrests and Flowery Meadows most commonly with a young Lady or two and from Perion King of the Gaules to the last of the race of Amalis I do not remember I have read of so much as one troubled with drawing lines of Circumvallation or giving Orders for a Trench Fortune My Lord is certainly the greatest Cheat in the World Many times when shee Loads men with honours and employments shee makes them very unhappy presents and ordinarily sells us at very dear rates what shee seems to give us For in fine without any consideration of the hazard of Iron and Lead a thing not worth the speaking of but supposing you alwayes fought under inchanted Armes yet can you not avoid it but the War must cut of the best part of your best dayes it hath robbed you of six Months of this year nay from you whom it hath been pleas'd to perserve a live it hath taken away within these fifteen years above the one half of your life And yet my Lord it must be acknowledg'd that those who pursue it with so much glory as you do must certainly find great enjoyments in it and doubâ—ess this general consent of a whole people with that of the more excellent and more vertuous to raise one man above all the rest is a thing of so mâ—ch insinuation that there is no generous Soul which is not surpriz'd with it nor no hardship which that does not represent as supportable For my part my Lord who pretend to have been acquainted with the inconveniences of War as well as your self I must needs confesse your Reputation comforts me for your absence and what pleasure soever it may be to hear you speak yet I prefer before it that of hearing you spoken of However I cannot but wish your sudden coming hither to enjoy the fruits of the Glory you have acquir'd that after so many hard marches as you have had you may take the pleasure all this Winter what weather soever it be to go twice or thrice a week from Paris to Ruel and from Ruel to Paris Then shall I have the leasure to tell you what Alarms I have been in for your sake and acquaint you with the affection wherewith I am My Lord Your c. Paris Oct. 15. 1641. To the same Upon his promotion to the charge of Marshal of France This Letter was written eight dayes after the precedent LETTER CXXIV My Lord OF all that I said to you prejudicial to War I now make my recantation and since the honour you have received is deriv'd from it all controversy between me and it is absolutely decided I have indeed long since been of opinion that so great valour and Services in a man of your quality and a person so much in the respects of all the World could not but meet with sudden rewards and acknowledgemets But there being a vast difference between the things that are to be and the things that effectually are I could not but be extreamly glad to hear that that had been done for you which needs must and this news I was as sensible of and as much surpris'd at as if I had not expected it It is out of all Question my Lord that the principal recompence of your actions is the reputation they have gain'd you but yet it should be no slender satisfaction to you to ascend at your age to the highest degree that the Fortune of War can raise men to But if on the other side you consider how many dangers you have run through to arrive to this what hazards you have been put to and how many gallant men you saw fall who yet run the same race with you you will think your self somewhat obliged to Fortune that hath preserv'd you thus long and hath not opposed your vertue Among the many reasons I have to congratulate your happiness there is one particular satisfaction which you cannot have your self and which truely at least in my opinion surpasses all the rest to discover by the unforc'd and unsuspected judgements of all the World that your glory is free from all envy and to see there is not any one who is not as glad of your prosperity as if he were concern'd in it The publick rejoycing at this particular good Fortune of yours is to me a presage that it will be seconded by a many more which it may produce and I hope you will shortly add to the honour you have received from the King that reputation which â—ou only can and which indeed is the most solid and most real I think you doubt not but I heartily wish it since you know how much I am a thousand wayes obliged to be with all manner of respect and passion My Lord Your c. To Monsieur Costart LETTER CXXV Sir THere 's not any thing in your Letter I am not extreamly pleas'd with but was not without jealousy able to read the enjoyments you took upon the Banks of the River of Chaâ—ente in so much that I who upon all other occasions am as glad of your advantages as if they were my own and who have not the least envious thought for your reputation your learning nor your wit cannot but envy your having eight dayes conversation with Monsieur de Balzac I doubt not but you knew how to make your advantages of that happiness for of all the men I know you are he that can best do it Deorum Muneribus sapienter uti You may enterpret that Sapienter as you please either in it's proper signification or the Metaphorical for if a man entertains Balzac with good discourses it 's supposed it cannot be done without good Dinners and I doubt not but you have an admirable Palate for the one as well as the other Monsieur de Balzac is no lâ—sse eloquent at a Banquet then he is in his Books He is Magister dicendi caenandi He hath a certain science of making good cheer which he deserves to be no lesse esteem'd for thâ—n his Rhetorick and among other things he hath found out a kind of Broth which I value beyond Pliny's Panegyrick or the longest Oration in all Isocrates All this hath been extreamly well bestow'd on you for it is not enough to say that you are sapiens but you are as Eniâ—â— expresses it sapienti potens I say not but you may be as good in the other sence nec enim sequitur cui cor sapiat ei non sapiat palatus This I must tell you we are oblig'd to
ora The truth is they play'd him very unhandsome tricks but it hath happen'd well for mankind that as he was extreamly given to melancholly so he could not weep much for if he had shed but three tears what should have become of us omnia pontus erant It might be said on this occasion that he wept bitterly but tell me I pray if you can Did he weep both the Sea and the fish in it Immania Cete Tritonesque citos Pontique exercitus omnes I had forget to give you an account of your passage of Seneca Valde me torfit illa podagra adeoque impliciti videntur hi pedes ut ad illos utrosque dextros explicandos nullum dextrum pedem habeam Unless it be his meaning that the Gout turn'd the left foot which ought to be inward outward and that being so turn'd on the same side as the right foot he says utrosque dextros But it could not be meant that the right foot was turn'd to the left side for then he had said utrosque Sinistros It is certainly very hard to be understood if you can find any better explication Si quid dextro pede concipis Let me know it I have heard of your sickness but with much disturbance though I knew it not till it was over and was astonish'd to understand the danger I was in when I knew nothing of it Dear Sir I beseech you rest satisfy'd this World wants that I should value love or esteem more then I do you May I perish if ever I am so pleas'd with my own thoughts as when I think which I do often that Fortune will find out some way that we may spend the remainder of our dayes together and that I may have you in serijs â—ocisque amicum omnium horarum I profess there is not any thing I wish so much and that I am and ever shall be your Servant with as much passion as when I saw you every morning I make this profession to you on the eve of a journey of six months which I am to take for I go hence with the King for Catalonia Be pleas'd therefore to forbear writing till you hear of his Majesty's return I should be much more impatient to come back if I thought to find you here in the Summer I advise you to do all you can that it may be so Qui benè latuit bene vixit is a precept you have nothing to do with let alone Panaque Sylvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores You are a debtor to the Publick and it were but fit such a man as you were known to all the World omnis autem peregrinatio you know obscura est Hasten therefore your return I beseech you once more and as soon as your term shall be expir'd let me find you here or M or some and take heed ne quid temporis addatur ad hanc provincialem molestiam I send you a Book which Mademoiselle de Courmay presents you with Farewel Sir be pleas'd to continue me in your affection and remembrances and assure your self I shall be while I live and most sincerely Your c. Paris Jan. 24. 1643. Your infoelix Theseus I look on as an extream happy man and am almost confident that Hercules did not deliver him out of Hell more fortunately or more gloriously then you do To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER CXXVIII Madam HAd I been without my I should certainly have been extreamly troubled to be depriv'd the honour of your sight and I believe I should have thought on you more heartily then ever I did for to tell you truth I felt my self extreamly dispos'd thereto and never was so much afflicted at a departure from you But it is beyond your faith Madam what strange diversion afford a man and what an excellent remedie they are against a great passion one while a Horse falls lame another a wheel is broken sometimes they are lodg'd for a whole night in a Bogg and I profess all can be done with them is that they make a man think three or four times a day on her whom he thinks his best friend But now that we shall travel more gently and are to embarque upon the Rhosne I shall discharge my duty of thinking on you better and if I am not mistaken I shall come to Avignon the most passionate man in the World For your part Madam who take no greater journeys then from your own house to the suburbs of St Germain and are not troubled with such ill wayes as we are you are not by any means to be excused if you honour me not so much as to think on me sometimes since I must needs tell you yon are more oblig'd to do it then ever and if you are not often in my thoughts it is when you are with so much sincerity and such resentments as wherewith I am confident you would be satisfy'd Besides who knows but I do often reflect on you and that I express my self thus modestly because I dare not tell you all In this uncertainty I humbly desire you Madam to believe only what Monsieur Arnaud shall acquaint you with for I have ordered him to explain my intentions to you and to tell you since it is his profession to make Orispianes how much I am and after what manner Madam Yours c. Lyons Feb. 23. 1642. The Resolution my Lord Cardinal had taken to go upon the Rhosne is chang'd upon this account that walking the day before yesterday upon the Quay he saw a Boat full of Souldiers very near being cast away some who leap'd out the Boat into the water being drown'd which his Eminence hath no great mind to be because it would prove prejudicial to the designs he hath upon the Roussillon To the same LETTER CXXIX Madam I Wish you had seen me the other day that you might have known what condition I was in from Vienna to Valentia The day was newly deliver'd of the Sun nor was he but weakely able to guild the Mountain-tops when we were gotten upon the Rhosne It was one of those fair dayes which Apollo does sometimes adorne himself withal and which are never seen at Paris but in the height of Summer Those who were of my company entertain'd themselves one while with the sight of the Mountains of Dauphine which were some ten or twelve Leagues on the left hand all covered with Snow another the Hills on both sides the Rhosne loaden with Vines and Valleyes as far as sight could reach burdened with Trees which were green and flourishing For my part while all were thus employed I got up alone upon the Cabbin of boughs which cover'd our Vessel and while they were admiring at the things that were about them I began to consider what I had left behind I fix'd my right Elbow on the covering of our Barke which supported my head the left hand being carelessely stretch'd out wherein was a Book which I had taken only as a pretence for my
retirement I looked earnestly on the River which yet I saw not There fell immediately tears of no small bulk from my eyes my sighes were so violent as if they brought some part of my Soul out along with them and ever and anon there slipp'd from me certain words pronounced with so much disorder and confusion that those who were about me could not well hear them and which I shall acquaint you with when you please What I now write to you would have been capable of more advantage and ornament if I could have put it into verse for I professe to you the Nymphs of the Waters were troubled at my affliction the God of the River had a compassion for me but all this cannot be well express'd in prose The result is that I remain'd seven hours in that posture without moving either hand or foot I wish Madam you had but seen me thus in any exercise of Religion it would have rais'd no small devotion in you in so much that the Master of our Vessel said he had in his time carryed ten thousand men from Lyons to Beaucaire but had never seen any that seem'd to be so much out of his senses Having dressed up this fine story it just now comes into my mind that you will haply imagine there is not a word true of it and that what I have said is meerly matter of invention to fill up a Letter Though it were really so Madam yet am I still excusable for to deal freely with you a man is many times much at a losse what to say nor can I conceive how without some such inventions as these persons who hold not any correspondence either as to love or affairs can often write one to another and yet to be ingenuous with you all I have told you of my resvery my sighing and my sadness is punctually true Only as to the resentment which the Nymphs and the God of the Rhosne had thereof I am not over confident I spent a whole morning in these thoughts without the least remission During that time I must confess I thought three or four times on Mademoiselle the rest I wholly bestow'd on the Lady your Mother and your self I had promis'd you that if we went by water I should come out of your debt as to that point and indeed I have done so much that if I fall into the same posture again the Sun that first shines on me in Languedoc will enflame me into extravagance It is already so hot in Avignon that we can hardly endure it The Spring hath overtaken us already there 's every where abundance of Fleas and Violets I wish you both with all my heart for Madam as I shall be glad you should not sleep too much in my absence so can I not but wish you whatever I see that is handsome and beautiful and remain Madam Yours c. Avignon Shrove Munday 1642. It was certainly a rare sight the last night to see the streets of Avignon full of Candles Lanterns and Torches at all the Windows to see my Lord Cardinal who made his entrance at seven at night It was as light as at Mid-day and if the Pope had come hither himself he could not have been more nobly receiv'd They gave him thousands of benedictions a commodity the people of this Country is extreamly liberal of because it is a Papal Territory The Jews of Avignon are very well Monsieur the Vice-Legat full and sat enough and the Count d'Alais somewhat more then he To my Lord President de Maisons LETTER CXXX My Lord IT is too great a goodness in you to take the pains to write to me and to treat me with so much civility as if I were not before the most oblig'd man in the World to you I beseech you and that most humbly and most earnestly not to take trouble on your self any more You have not for the most part much to acquaint me with but for my part besides the obligation of my duty to write to you the occurrences which from time to time happen here furnish me with something to say to you Nevertheless my Lord I must needs confess I was infinitely satisfy'd with the last Letter you were pleas'd to send me and when ever you have such pleasant news to tell me I dare not refuse the honour you do me in the communication thereof I am extreamly glad of the great acquaintance and friendship you have since my departure made with Mademoiselle de Rambouillet I understand it no more by your Letters then by hers shee never writes to me but shee mentions you and that with all the affection and esteem due to you I cannot my Lord but acknowledge it an extraordinary satisfaction to me that you and Madam de Rambouillet pitty me for the indiscretion I was guilty of and it shall be a remembrancer to me for the future besides the solemne protestation I lately made to the same purpose to Monsieur de Chavigny I am also to be glad that you have had the reputation to keep Madam fifteen dayes and what is more to cut off all accesse from others all I have to quarrel at is that you do not dispose of her till that now shee is in a mind to be reform'd and in the state of repentance However I advise you not to let fall your suit for time Fortune and the addresses of a person of Honour may work a great change in Affairs Having once spoken of those things I conceive your Lordship will find no great pleasure in any news I can entertain you with hence but to avoid importunity I shall tell you all in a word which is no more then that I am My Lord Your c. Narbonne May 10. 1642. To the same LETTER CXXXI My Lord IT is certainly an excesse of kindness in you to give me thanks for any thing who shall never be able to do enough for you and should be still in your debt though I had hazarded my life a hundred times in your service For this kindness my Lord and the proffer you are pleas'd to make me I return you thousands of most humble acknowledgements and am extreamly elevated to see that amidst affairs as well of the greatest as least consequence you take all occasions to give me assurances of the friendship you are pleas'd to honour me with Though I have play'd almost to dotage and extravagance yet have I kept so much wit about me as to reserve mony enough to clear me from this place and am troubled at nothing so much as that I have given you so ill an assignation and put into your hands a Creditor little better then my self On the other side my Lord I cannot expresse the extraordinary joy I take at the great friendship you have made with the whole Family of Rambouillet Mademoiselle de Rambouillet never writes to me but shee sends me some thing concerning you expressing the great esteem shee hath for you and that you
may be better satisfy'd with the sentiments my Lord Marquess of Pisany hath for you I send you a scrip of the least Letter he writ to me For Monsieur de Charigny you are certainly oblig'd to have many respects for him he is ready upon all occasions to speak of you with all the esteem and affection imaginable he acquaints all his friends with your friendship towards him and promises it to those whom as the dearest he hath the greatest inclinations to oblige He told me the other day that you had written him the handsomest and most obliging Letter in the World but being engaged in Company he had not the leasure to shew it me Three dayes since he took his journey hence towards the Army to be present at the Ceremony of the Order which the King granted yesterday to the Prince of Mourgues and returns to morrow Of the Kings return there is not any certainty I shall my Lord in that business take the greatest care I can as I would in all things you command me The hopes of taking in Perpignan so soon are very much remitted they now give out it will not be before the 25th of the next month Monsieur de Turene told me he would lay two hundred pieces that it would be taken before June were past Whenever Monsieur de Chavigny goes to the Army he lodges at Monsieur des Noyers it is now the greatest friendship in the World but withal the most reall and most sincere I am My Lord Your c. Narbonne May 22. 1642. To Monsieur Chapelain LETTER CXXXII SIR THough I am well furnished with confidence yet dare I not return to Paris without sending you an answer and am indeed asham'd I have been so long in your debt as to that part of my duty but I must withal freely tell you that fore-seeing I should have occasion to write to you to acquaint you with what judgement should be made of the Verses you sent I delay'd it as long as I could out of a design to save my self a Letter If you are but just you must not think it strange that a man should be a little fearful when he is to write to a Doctor as you are and certainly when I do but reflect that it is to the most judicious person of our age the maker of the Imperial Crown the Metamorphoser of Lionne and the Father of the Maid that I write my hair stands up and makes me look like a Hedge-Hog but when on the other side I consider that this Letter is directed to the most indulgent of mankind to the excuser of all faults the commender of all labours to a dove to a Lamb my hair lyes down as smooth and as flat as the feathers of a drown'd Chicken and I fear you not so much as the wagging of a stâ—aw I shall therefore tell you Sir gentle as you are that the Verses of Monsieur de Balzac have not yet been seen by my Lord Cardinal O Coelum O Terras O Maria Neptuni Will you cry out Is this the account is made of the Sons of Iupiter Is this a treatment befitting the greatest wit in the world Frange miser calamos vigilataque praelia dele You have indeed reason to say all this but you are to believe that a many other things were to be thought on all this journey and that if Apollo whom you know had come in person to Narbonne with all his light and lustre about him he would have been received but in the quality of Chyrurgion I have spoke of it a hundred times to Monsieur de Chavigny who ever answered me that for Monsieur Balzac's sake it must be reserv'd for a time when the spirits of his Eminency were less distracted with affairs and more fit to entertain things of that nature He hath commanded me to entreat you on his behalf to return the greatest acknowledgments possible to our friend for the Epigrams he made for him wherewith he is infinitely satisfy'd to say truth they are the handsomest in the world As for the Verses directed to my Lord Cardinal they are absolutely Virgilian with a little more Enthusiasme then the Authour is wont to have and for my part had I both my Arms broken on the Wheel I should take a pleasure to hear them If it be any shame that he for whom they were made hath not yet seen them the greatest part of it will fall on Monsieur de la Victoire whose care it principally was For my part I have contributed thereto all the care and affection I ought and abating all thoughts of the powerfulness of your recommendation and the passion I have to serve Monsieur de Balzac I should I profess have solicited with no less ardency for a man risen out of the bottome of Sweden that should have sent hither what you have All the offence I have committed is that I have not written to you sooner but you have pardon'd me far greater and consequently will this since I am Sir Your c. Avignon June 11. 1642. To Mademoiselle de Rambouillet LETTER CXXXIII MADAM THere 's nothing so certain as that I should have an extraordinary affection for you if I should never see you again for it being but two Moneths since I left you it is double to what it was and encreases dayly so much that If I see you not suddenly I question not but it will defie all limits To say truth besides the satisfaction it is to have spent some time without any contestation with you and pass'd over a Lent without any dispute about the Almond-milk your Letters Madam have I must needs confess contributed much to make me judge more favourably of you and think you more amiable The two you have honoured me with have rais'd in me new matter of astonishment and as if I never had been acquainted with your perfections and that every one to speak freely hath some little indignation at the reading of those things which he might have written yet I have I assure you been extreamly pleas'd with them they have dispell'd all my afflictions they have in a manner cut'd me of all misfortunes and have infus'd into me a joy which I could not have expected here but by enchantment or miracle Of both which there is so much in what ever you write that I wonder not at all that they have wrought this effect in me but only that they have enflam'd with an extraordinary impatience to see you again since there is not any man who had the advantages of his wit and senses and knew you to be so mischeivous as I do but would rather desire to be alwayes at a distance of two hundred Leagues from you were it only but to receive of your Letters It should on the other side be your wish that I sate down content with this honour and that I came not neer you for doubtless being far from you the services I do you are greater and you ought to
consider them accordingly And certainly when I reflect on all those I have done you since I left Paris all the discourse I had concerning you with Monsieur de Roussillon the assurance I gave of your affection to the Count d' Aleix the professions I made to his Lady that she was one of those Persons for whom you had the greatest honour and respects the miracles I related of you to Madam de Saint Simon and the expressions wherewith I assur'd the Lords Deputies of Marscilles of the good inclinations you had for them and their City methinks the main end of my travelling up and down the world is to procure you Servants to keep up your correspondecies and to dilate your reputation Meeting yesterday with my Lord President F in the Kings Chamber he fell into discourse of your excellencies I told him that he was very much in your liking and that it was long since that I had discover'd your particular inclination for him He is handsome and believ'd it and I assure you Madam as also Monsieur de Chaveroche that if ever you have any business in the Parliament of Grenoble the first President will be your infallible friend I am infinitely pleas'd to see what you acquaint me with of the Mistresses of my Lord Marquess of St. M It is I must confess a great joy to me and to be absolutely a person of Honour it was but fit he should enter into that kind of life To say truth to fasten any thing on his mind that should possess the place of that person which was there it were little enough to thrustin seven at a time and yet he will have much a do in seven others to find all those perfections he admir'd in one In the mean time I cannot but think it strange and to deal freely with you cannot understand a possibility that a man can love seven persons at a time for my part I could never when I was most prodigal of my love go beyond six and it must certainly be very infamous to love seven But Madam since I perceive he is so much addicted to talking and I grown so melancholy I believe for my part that our souls were chang'd when he embrac'd me last that I took my leave of him for ever since I have been in perpetual disquiet always wish'd my self out of the places where I was nay me thinks I have loved Mademoiselle du Vigâ—an more then ordinary I know not whether this proceeds from the honour she hath done me in her remembrances or from a necessity there is that an affection so well grounded should encrease dayly but I could wish that where he hath hitherto lov'd the gentlest nature in the world he had made his addresses to that other you know who expects when any one hath declar'd himself for her service that he persevere and dye in it were it only to see what would have been the issue of it And certainly it were but expedient that for the advantage and edification of all the world besides an unconstant man should be punished once in his life I call him unconstant though he hath done nothing but what was desired of him but it should not have been in his power to do it and both for his reputation sake and the respects I have for him I wish he had dy'd rather But we shall one day see these Gallants unmercifully dealt with in the other world For my part who am a sinner as well as others I have been miraculously converted and dare affirm that my soul is in Paradice as to that point But Madam what is it that you tell me of the Marriage of Mademoiselle de V and the Count de G and where hath fortune been ransacking for these two persons to join them together I have much joy to wish for that of Mademoiselle de G and the Count de F there is a friend of ours who wil be very at that Wedding and I am sorry I cannot be at it my self All the news is that those of Colioure capitulate you will find by the Letter I send you that I forgot not the delivery of yours to Madam de Lesdiguieres I have been now writing these four hours is it not in your judgement time that I should tell you that I am Madam Your c To Monsieur Esprit LETTER CXXXVI SIR IT may be said of your letter as of the Sun's chariot could you have imagin'd that the chariot of the Sun and your letter had any thing common Materiam superabat opus To tell you truth I could not have believ'd it possible that the Countess de T should have found me so much pleasure that M. la V. D could have been so pleasant or that any good could have been made of Madam de C when in the mean time you have dress'd them up so as that I have been extreamly pleas'd to see them all and you have embalm'd these bodies so well that I should not be much more taken with the most young and most healthy Hence it may be inferr'd that a good workman doth miracles in all kinds of matter and this which next to the first matter was the most naked and the most indigent of all hath receiv'd from you so excellent a form that you have made it as it were another compositum It is only you can make Mercury of any kind of wood this whereof any other but your self could have made nothing but ashes is so well dispos'd and imploy'd with so much industry that Cedar and Calambon is not comparable to it You Swallows have a miraculous faculty with a little earth and straw for you know Et mirè luteum garrula fingit opus to do such things as are not less to be admir'd then the Master-pieces of the most regular Architecture A hop certainly would in your hands become a rose Qaeicquid calcaveris hic rosa fiet One Swallow such as you are is enough to make a Summer But assure your self I honour you as much as if you were an Eagle or if you please an Austrich and am Your c. Nismes June 17. 1642. To Monsieur Costart LETTER CXXXV Sir COnsider I pray whether I deal not favourably and ingenuously with you since so specious a pretence as that of a great journey perform'd with so much precipitation for we are come in six dayes from Paris to Grenoble by Coach hinders me not from giving you an answer I received your last Letter a quarter of an hour before my departure I rejoyce at your prosperities as much as if they were my own and while I am unfortunate in whatever I desire I think my self fortunate when you are so For I cannot say that Fortune is absolutely my enemy since shee is your friend and I forgive her all the mischief shee hath done me in requital of the favour shee doth you You will be astonish'd at what I shall tell you and truely I am asham'd to tell you M is more unmerciful
of the affection you have for me and neither Paeris nor the Court cannot afford me greater enjoyments then what I should find with you and to assure you that I am with extraordinary passion My Lord Your c To my Lord Marquess de St Maigrin LETTER CXXXVIII My Lord I Have been three whole dayes in suspence whether you were alive or not with what affliction you may easily imagine Amidst this alarm I receiv'd as very good news that of your imprisonment and I could not be much troubled at the losse of your liberty when I had been so much in doubt of that of your life Nor indeed my Lord can I not but acknowledge that if your destiny had been in my hands you should have had no other then what you have and as I should have been extreamly afflicted that you had been found among the dead so should I not have been well pleas'd you had clearly escaped Fortune hath pitch'd on the mean I desir'd and I believe I jump with your thoughts of it for I conceive you would not have enjoy'd your self much in a liberty which you must have purchas'd by a retreat When I am got to Paris if you please to send for me by a Drumme as one of your menial Servants I shall not disown the relation but be ready to wait on you I am extreamly impatient for the relation of your Adventures and now I think you are at leasure to make it I wish with all the passion that may be you may alwayes meet with good ones and if having six or seven Mistresses to grieve for you have any time to spare to think on me I humbly beseech only to honour me so far as to remember that I am My Lord Your c To Monâ—ieur de Chavigny LETTER CXXXIX Sir I Professe it is out of pure considerations of friendship that I write to you and that I cannot but tell you that I languish away here for want of your company After I had made such haste to get out of Italy I grow wearier of Paris then ever I was of Turin and having very excellent accommodations of Lodging in Crequi-House it happens often that I wish the Chamber of la Grave and that of Novalaize nay sometimes my own bed at la Souchiere I took more pleasure the day that the wind and rain put my nose into a pleasant posture then I do now in the fairest dayes of all and to tell you all in a word I should be content to entertain M four hours every night conditionally I might enjoy you but one half hour in the day Seriously Sir I cannot imagine otherwise of my self then that I am fallen into a Pit whence fourty fadome of Rope will hardly get me out nor is there any but you that can do it and therefore till you are return'd I shall continue there crying and roaring after a sad manner There passes not a day over my head wherein I make not some addition to the affection I bear you and whether it be that I have more leasure to reflect on my self and consider the obligations I ow you or that conversing with other men I make greater discoveries of the extraordinary difference there is between you and them I have greater respects for you then when I was upon my journey when yet I had greater for you then for my self You will pardon me that I tell you this with so much freedome and not think it strange that speaking with much passion I express my self the lesse considerately Notwithstanding all this liberty I have in my Soul the humblest respect I ought to have for you and that honouring you sincerely proportionably to your merits I am beyond what I can express and as much as I can be Sir Your c To my Lord President de Maisons LETTER CXXXX My Lord MAdam de Marsilly is perswaded that I have some credit with you and I am guilty of so much vanity as not to tell her shee is mistaken Shee is a person very well belov'd and esteem'd by all the Court and hath a great influence over the Parliament If shee have good successe in one business wherein shee hath chosen you for Judge and shall be satisfy'd that I have contributed any thing thereto you cannot imagine what abundance of reputation this will raise me in the World and what esteem with all the vertuous and more considerable sort of people I propose no more to gain what just favour you can do but my own interests for I know my Lord that I need not mention any thing of yours since that without it I durst promise you her friendship That indeed is a bribe might corrupt the most upright Judges in the World and is a temptation proportionable to your great Vertue but you gaine it justly since shee demands nothing but justice of you 'T is a thing I may also claim of you which yet amounts to no more then the continuance of the affection you have formerly borne me if you are but satisfy'd of my being My Lord Your c To my Lord Duke d'Anguien upon the success of the Battel of Rocroy M DC XLIII LETTER CXLI My Lord SInce I am now far from your Highness and that you cannot put me on any imployment I am resolv'd to give you an account of all the thoughts I have had of you of a long time and which I durst not trouble your acquaintance withal for fear of slipping into the inconveniences wherein I had observ'd those entangled who had presum'd upon the like freedome with you But my Lord the things you do are too great to admit of silence and it were very unjust you should think to do such Actions and that there should be no more said of them If you but knew how all at Paris are broke loose into discourse concerning you I am consident it would make you blush and you would be withal astonish'd to see with how little respect and lesse fear to displease you all the World talks of what you have done To be free with you my Lord I know not what your thoughts run upon and it was certainly an excesse of confidence and an extraordinary violence in you to have at your age baffled two or three old chieftains whom you should have respected though it were but for their Antiquity brought the poor Count de Fontain to be meat for worms though one of the bravest men in all Flanders and whom the Prince of Orâ—nge durst never meddle with taken 16 pieces of Canon that belong'd to a Prince who is Uncle to the King and Brother to the Queen one with whom you never had the least difference and defeated the best Troops of Spain after they had with so much mildness given you passage I know not what Father Meusnier will say of it but all this is disconsonant to good manners and contains in my judgement much matter of Confession I had indeed often heard that you were guilty of an inconvincible
obstinacy and that it was not safe to dispute any thing with you but I must confess I should not have believ'd it could have arriv'd to this height for if you continue thus you will become insupportable to all Europe so far will the Emperour and the King of Spain be from being able to oppose you But my Lord not to meddle at all with matters of Conscience and to mind only those of Policy I congratulate your Highness the gaining of the greatest Victory and of greatest consequence of any hath happen'd in this age and that without being important you do those actions that are such in so high a degree France whom you have clear'd from those storms it stood in fear of is astonish'd to see you at the entrance of your life do an action such as wherewith Caesar would have been glad to crown all his and which returns to your royal Ancestors more lustre then you had deriv'd from them You now verify my Lord what was heretofore said that Vertue comes to the Caesars before it's time for you who are a true Caesar in disposition and science a Caesar in diligence in vigilance in courage Caesar per omnes casus Caesar have eluded the judgements and exceeded the hopes of all men you have discover'd that experience is only requisite for ordinary Souls that Heroical Vertue is acquir'd by other wayes that it knows no degrees and that the Master-pieces of Heaven are in their perfection even from their beginnings Having done this you may easily imagine what entertaiment and caresses you are to expect from the Grandees of the Court and how the Ladies are transported to understand that he whom they have seen triumph in the Bals does the same thing amidst Armies and that the handsomest head in France is the best and best settled There 's not any even to Monsieur de Beaumont but speak favourably of you all those who were revolted against you and complained that you were still mistaken acknowledge that for this time you are in the right and seeing the great number of Enemies you have defeated there is not any one who fears not to be of it Give me leave O Caesar to be thus free with you receive the Elogies which are due to you and permit that we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's To my Lord Marquess de Montausier Prisoner in Germany LETTER CXLII My LORD YOu would not be troubled that you were taken if you knew how much you are bemoan'd There is certainly less pleasure in being at Paris then to be there wish'd for as you are the affliction which all of quality are in for you being to be preferr'd before the noblest liberty in the world If you cannot at the present be convinc'd of this truth for in the condition you are in you look as if you could not understand reason I shall one day clear it up to you here and make you acknowledge that you ought not to number among your misfortunes an accent that raises you the affection and respects of all the most amiable persons in France In this general sentiment of all the world I do not my Lord think it to much purpose to trouble you at present with my own for what probability is there you should afford me any consideration among Princesses Princes Ministers of State and great Ladies and particularly among the young Ladies who are much to be preferr'd before the others the Ministers Princes and Princesses When you have bestow'd your thougets some considerable time on all those persons I humbly beseech you to believe that the world affords not another who concernes himself more in your good and bad fortunes then I do or can be with greater passion My Lord Your c. To the Same LETTER CXLIII My LORD THough I am the most confident man in the world of your friendship and that the freedom which shines through all your actions removes all distrust of your affection in those to whom you had promis'd it yet can I not but be extreamly satisfy'd when ever you assure me of your love as thinking all the security can be given me for a thing whence I derive so much pleasure and advantage little enough The satisfaction I took in the reading of your Letter is the greatest I have had ever since I left Paris and unless it be the acknowledgments you therein make me there is not any thing I am not infinitely sensible of I am therefore to assure youâ— Lordship that I receive dayly new satisfactions that I have at length suffer'd my self to be overcome by your favour and have lost that hardness of heart that had too long made a separation between us Though I make some difficulty to reflect on that time yet I must needs acknowledg it is some pleasure to me to remember it so to multiply my joy by comparing it with this nay I hope I am not too free in what I say there are some intervals wherein I cannot wish it should have fallen out otherwise For besides that the enjoyment of a Good is the greater by as much as as there was a fear of loosing it and that the friendships which after some interruption are renewed have something of ardency and eagerness which those that are constant and of a long standing have not this misunderstanding hath given me occasion to receive a signal expression of your goodnes by letting me know with what mildness and affection you have entertained me as soon as I came neer you At lâ—ast this advantage I am confident to make of it that having once discover'd what fault I committed in the ill management of the honour of your respects and found by experience how hard it is for me to be without them I shall for the future arme my self against all failings of that nature and shall not suffer any thing whatsoever to divert me from being My Lord Your c. To my Lord Duke d'Anguien when he pass'd the Rhine with those Troops which were to join the Marshal de Guebriant MDCXLIII For the understanding of this Letter you are to note that before my Lord Dukes departure from Paris being among a company of Ladies with whom he convers'd very familiarly they diverted themselves with divers little recreations and particularly that of the Fishes wherein the duke was the Pike The Author making also one in the sport under the name of the Carpe took occasion thence to write to him this piece of ingenious Raillery LETTER CXLIV GOod morrow Gossip Pike good morrow Gossip I was indeed in a manner perswaded that the waters of the Rhine could not stop you and knowing your strength and what pleasure you take in swimming in the deep waters I was satisfied you would not be startled at those you have now pass'd but that you would do it with as much glory as you had accomplssh'd so many other adventures I am nevertheless to rejoyce that you have done it much more fortunately then we
did conceive you would as also that without the loss of a single Scale to you or yours the bare noise of your name hath dispers'd whatever should have oppos'd you Though you have been hitherto excellent in all the Sawces have been made for you yet must it be acknowledg'd that the Sawce of Germany gives you a noble tast and that the Lawrel which is put into it makes you tast admirably well The Emperors people who thought to have fry'd you and eaten you without salt have indeed done it all backward and there is certainly some pleasure to see that those who made it their brags that they would make good the Rhine are not over confident of keeping Danubius Dâ—-Fish how to do you bestir your self there is no water so troubled so deep or so swift which you dare not venture your self headlong into Indeed Gossip it must needs be confess'd you have satisfy'd the Proverb that says young flesh and old fish for though you are but a young Pike you have a certain consistency which the oldest Sturgeons have not and you perform such things as they durst not attempt Nor indeed can you imagine what extent your reputation is of there are no Ponds no Springs no Brooks no Rivers no Seas where your victories are not celebrated no standing water where you are not thought upon no running water where your noise is not heard your name pierces to the Centre of the Sea and swims on the superficies of the Waters and the Ocean which limits all the world does not your glory The other day my Gossip Turbot my Gossip Gurnard my self and some other fresh-water fish supp'd together at my Gossip Smelts where was brought us up at the second course an ancient Salmon who had compass'd the world more then once was then newly come from the West-Indies and had been taken in France for a spy as he followed a Bark laden with salt He told us there were not any abysses so deep where you were not known and feard and that the Whales of the Atlantick Sea sweated again and were nothing but water all over as soon as they had but heard you nam'd He would have continu'd his relation but the scalding-Broth he was in prevented it so that he could not without much difficulty express himâ—elf The same intelligence in a manner was brought us by a shoal of fresh Herings that came from the coasts of Norway These assur'd us that the Sea of that Country was frozen this year two Moneths before the ordinary time out of a fear the news that was brought thither by certain shee Mackarels of your advancing towards the North had caus'd there and had told us that the greate Fishes who you know devour the small were afraid you would serve them as they did others that the greatest part of them retir'd under the Bear out of an opinion you would not come thither that all both great and small were in alarme and disturbance and particularly certain Congres who already roar'd out as if they had been flead alive and made the Rivers eccho again To do you right Gossip you are certainly a terrible Pike and under the correction of the Hippotames the Sea wolves nay and the Dolphins too the greatest and most considerable Inhabitants of the Ocean are but poor Crabs in comparison of you and if your proceedings prove proportionable to your beginnings you will swallow up both the Sea and the Fishes In the mean time your glory being at such a point that it cannot ascend higher or dilate it self further it is in my judgment high time you should after so much toil and weariness come and refresh your self in the waters of the Sein and remind your enjoyments with abundance of pretty Tenches handsome Perches and honest Trouts who expect you here with no small impatience But how great soever the passion they have for you may be it is not comparable to mine nor approches the desires I have of being in a capacity to express my self to my wishes Your most humble and most dutiful servant and Gossip The CARP To my Lord Marquesse of Pisany who lost all his money and baggage at play at the siege of Thionville LETTER CXLVI My LORD IF I am not misinform'd whoever should affirme you were much troubled with horse flesh at the siege of Thionville ' would do you no small injury the Devil a horse had you to keep there I have been also told that you considering with your self that many Armies have been heretofore lost through their Baggage have fairely rid your self of all yours and that having often read in the Romane Histories See the fruits of great reading that the greatest services their Cavallerie ever did were when they voluntarily alighted and rush'd on foot into the brunt of the most doubtful Battels you have accordingly resolv'd your Horses should not be near you and have taken such an excellent course that you have not so much as one left The eminent Person foots it now You will haply find it somewhat inconvenient but certainly it must be acknowledg'd there 's no small honour in it that you may say as well as Bias Bias an old Gentleman you are well acquainted with that you carry all you own about you We do not meane thereby a quantity of unnecessary accommodations nor a number of Horses nor yet any great abundance of Gold and Silver but honesty generosity magnanimity constancy in dangers obstinacy in dispute a contempt of forraigne languages ignorance of false dice and an unheard of indifference for the losse of fraile and perishable goods These qualities are peculiar and essential to you such as neither Time nor Fortune can deprive you of And whereas Euripides who was as you know or know not one of the gravest Authors of all Greece writes in one of his Tragedies that mony was one of the evils that came out of Pandora's box and it may be the most pernicious I cannot but admire in you as a divine quality the incompatibility there is between you and it and look on it as an excellent qualification of a great and transcendent soul the antipathy it hath against that corrupter of Reason the venome of minds and the author of so many disorders injuries and violences But yet my Lord I should wish your Vertue were not so high-flowne that there were some correspondence between you and this enemy of mankinde and that you would make such a peace with him as we do with the great Turk out of considerations of policy and Commerce Since then a man cannot well be without it and imagining that as I play'd for you at Narbonne so have you for me at Thionville I sent you a hundred pistolls being somewhat more or lesse than what you are out upon my account and that they may not have the same fate as the others I shall entreat you not to fowle your hands with them but to put them into those of the French for whose encouragement I
think also he that paies is bound and that it is my dutie some way or other to find you entertainment since I am paid for it Yet were it a great liberalitie in you who studie the vertue so much if to the obligation you have alreadie cast on me you would adde that of writing to me sometimes For I professe it is onelie you can inspire me with wit and methinks I am at a greater losse of it then ever since I have have not had the honour to see and hear you If you pretend your being a Plenipotentiary to exempt you from answering Papinianus had the charge of all the affaires of the Roman Empire and yet I can shew a hundred places in great books Papinianus respondit and respondit Papinianus They were the most politick and the most experienced that were wont to answer and thence comes responsa sapientum prudentum responsa Even the Oracles themselves and you can be no more gave answers nay even things inanimate do sometimes endeavour to make some answer Answers are forced from Waters Woods and Rocks Three words which you may say will afford me matter of writing for many leaves Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum This will cost you no time or if it do there needs only that time and Wit you spend in the evenings with your servants Your Lordship will pardon my importunitie for to deal freely with you I have an infinite desire to hear from you and if your Letters were to be had for monie your four thousand franks had been long since spent and so I should have returned all I had received from you We have had much adoe to be paid this year and yet I have made a shift to get mine By what Monsieur de Bailleul often tells me I inferre he expects some acknowledgement from you I beseech you when you write to him though sometimes you are also to seek what to say to him present him with something that he may know you are sensible of the service he hath done you Monsieur de will be shortly with you his wife an excellent and lovely creature is hghly in the Queens favour Be pleased to give him occasion to speak well of you at his return I am in no ordinary favour with the King and not in disgrace with the Queen But now I grow tediou and it is a question whether I transgresse not on your leasure I humbly kisse your hands and remain MY LORD Your c. To Monsieur d'Emery controller Generall of the Finances LETTER CLXVIII SIR THough you were unwilling I should speak of your other Leters yet must you needs give me leave to celebrate that you writ to Monsieur d'Arses upon my account and to tell you that France affords but very few that could do the like And particularly that passage where you say thar to contract my Businesse you will advance your monie methinks is one of the neatest expressions I ever read and how modest soever you may be yet you will acknowledge that to offer twentie eight thousand franks for a friend is a noble kind of expression and that there are very few can make use of that stile and can expresse themselves after that manner At least Sir give me leave to tell you that had it been debated among all the Wits of the Academy it would not have been resolved to write after that manner and that among the many excellent humours we light on there is not any like thaâ— It is to speak seriouslie a most noble and most high To my Lord Duke d' Anguien LETTER CLXIX MY LORD IF I have seemed backward in the congratulation of a successe which hath cost you the losse of the Marquess of Pisany you will not I hope think it strange and doubt not of your Highnesses pardon if upon this occasion I have been more taken up with grief then joy It is no article of my faith my Lord who would cheerfullie sacrifice my life to your service that those who have lost theirs in it have mis-spent them but could heartilie wish my self in their condition rather then be so unhappy as to be obliged to weep in one of your Victories In the mean time my Lord since I have to encounter one of the saddest afflictions could fall upon me it is no small alleviation that you have so fortunately and so gloriously trampled on so many hazards and that heaven hath been pleased to be tender of a person to whom I might address all the respect and zeal which I may have vowed to all those I shall or may ever loose My prayers to it my Lord are that it would be more carefull of your life then you are your selfe and start me out some occasion to satisfie your Highnesse how much and how passionatelie I am Your c To my Lord Marshall de Grammont LETTER CLXX MY LORD THe grief I took at the death of the Marquesse of Pisany which is the greatest I ever had to deal with took away nothing of my afflâ—ction for your imprisonment but since at a time when I thought my self uncapable of joy the news of your Libertie hath found it reception It is indeed some comfort to me amidst so much disturbance to see that all my passions are not unfortunate and that Fortune is not so cruel as to take away all the persons that are dearest â—o me I were yet to learn my Lord one of the best qualities that you owne and how much above all men you are capable of a true and perfect friendship if I were not satisfied that you were as sensible of that misfortune as my self And though you should have been long since hardened to accidents of this nature and accustomed to lose the friends you most esteem yet I am confident the losse of this hath extremelie troubled you and that you will ackowledge you never made any that you ought to put on more sorrow for For my part who was acquainted with the very secrets of his heart and know the greatest esteem he had for any thing in the world was for you I should neglect my dutie to his memorie and frustrate the intentions I have ever to observe his inclinations and the designes he had if upon his account I should not force my self into your service more then ever and adde somewhat to the affection wherewith I have ever honoured you Of this my Lord I question the possibilitie but it is my dutie to do what I can towards it and withall to professe that if the passion I have for you cannot admit any augmentation it shall never decrease and that I shall ever be MY LORD Yours c To Monsieur de Chantelou LETTER CLXXI. SIR A Mistresse and a suit at Law will certainlie find a man too much businesse at a time but if you had pleased to take the Law-suit into your care and recommend the Mistresse to me though I am infinitelie pleased with all your commands I must confesse I should
be the more cautious out of a respect to those who love you and grow a better husband of a life whereon those of so manie others depend Amongst the manie praiers have been made for it be pleased to believe there cannot any be more fervent then mine and that of all those who have a veneration of your Highnesse I am beyond any My LORD Your c To my Lord Duke de la Trimoville LETTER CLXXVI My LORD YOu are not satisfied to be ever conferring new benefits on me but you do it with some new insinuation and accompany them with circumstances of so much obligation that it must be confessed onelie you know how to do it I render your Lordship thousands of humblest thanks for all the favours you have been pleased to do me I would to the acknowledgement of my Nephew which I send you gladlie adde some publick act of Gratitude whereby the World might be satisfi'd both of the obligation you have done me and the resentment wherewith I have received it But since that cannot be I humblie beseech your Lordship to be satisfied with the securitie I here give you to be while I live at your service with all requisite fidelitie and that nothing shall make a deeper impression in my heart and inclinations then the memorie of your kindnesses And though I know that the judgement you make of the Verses I sent you is too much in my favour yet can I not but acknowledge that I am not a little proud of it What you have been pleased to acquaint me with of it and what you have written of me to your Ladie I am more sensible of then I can expresse To be free with you there 's nothing more obliging my interest is so inconsiderable to me that I preferre the honour of your approbation before all the good you have done me nay all that you can ever do me In the mean time your Lordship will give me leave to tell you that the praises you give me are such and â—uched in such termes that I should wish rather I knew how to commend then be commended after that rate and should be more proud to give then receive such praises I shall endeavour to deserve them the best I can and if no otherwise I shall at least make it my businesse to merit the honour of your affection by the singular fidelitie and the extraordinarie respect wherein I shall ever be My LORD Your c To my Lord d' Avaux LETTER CXXLVII My LORD CAn there be any thing more high and excellent then the beginning of your Letter It is not certainlie so honourable not to make a default as it is to excuse it so handsomelie Nay this freedom of acknowledging in your selfe those dâ—fâ—ults which need not any excuse cannot proceed but from excellent grounds and a soul rich liberal and justlie confident I know not whether so ingenuous an exordium hath absolutelie gain'd me but it hath drawn me into a beliefe of all you build upon it and I have read your Letter thrice over with great satisfaction I observe in it certain beauties a certain politensse and grace which puts me in mind of what Quintilian saies Messalâ— nitidus candidus quodam modo prae se ferens in dicendo nobilitatem suam But with your favour you have not been equallie ingenious in accusing me the latter part of your Letter is much weaker then the other and contrarie to what Cicero saies de coelo meliùs objiciente crimina quà m defendente bonam sinistram habes malam dextram First if it be without any cause or dissatisfaction that you have not vouchsafed me an answer for so manie months and have denied me a note of three lines t is a proceeding my Lord not consonant to your wonted goodness especiallie in a time when what you have done for me seem'd to oblige you to treat me with more civilitie that it might not be thought you relied too much upon the kindnesse you had done For in fine though I esteem your courtesies yet I rather wish your caresses and if it be not possible to be both among your servants and your friends at the same time I doubt not but you will honour me so much as to believe I should not be troubled about the choice But if it proceed from any dissatisfaction you have of me that you have been so long silent I cannot but be the more astonish'd that you should suffer your heart to be so long burden'd with a grudge against me who from my infancie have lov'd honour'd and esteem'd you with such constancie and perfection that notwithstanding a manie great and honourable friendships I have contracted since never any of my friends but have thought and observed that of all men you were he for whom I had the greatest inclinations and with whom then any I would rather spend the rest of my life But notwithstanding all this and a friendship of five and twentie years if there be a report which you take offence at you think me the author of it because it hath some relation to the interpretation I made of your riddle And this must seem more probable to you then that a manie that are here or with you such as daily invent other Stories should also advance this Your Letter I was extreamlie taken with that zeal which I have in all things for you prevailed with me to read it to two of my friends and discover to them the conjecture I made of the blank line Neither they nor I thought that interpretation any way prejudicial to you nor can think so yet But we must not dispute it any longer with you you ought to have the greatest care of your own reputation and I commend that modestie provided I be not thought guiltie of any extravagance If my Lord the esteem you have for me proceeds onelie from the report that I pretend to something of wit and that I can sometimes write a handsome Letter you esteem me for the qualitie I think most inconsiderable Those of my acquaintance here honour me for my great professions of friendship candour faith and discretion Of all which if you have not found the experience in me you must needs have observed the seed of them even from my youth In a word I have much reason to take it ill that you have thought me so dis-circumspect as to give entertainment to a calumnie since you call it so and that having thought me guiltie of it you have not rather pardon'd it me For to be free with you you have not half the love for me you should have if you have not a remission for a many others Be pleased to plead my cause better another time before your self and to look on me as a person who hath a passion for you beyond all example and is absolutly My LORD Your c To the Same LETTER CLXXVIII My LORD THough I were guilty of some remainders of anger towards you the first
first atchievements paralleled you with Alexander and seeing your dailie riâ—ing things the troth is my Lord we know not where to place either you or our selves and cannot find any thing to say which is not below you Eloquence which magnifies the least things cannot with all its advantages reach the height of those you have done nay what in other subjects she calls call Hyperboles is but an indifferent manner of speaking to expresse our thoughts of you It is certainlie not easilie comprehensible in your Highness that you should adde something every summer to that glory which the precedent Winters seemed uncapable of addition and that having over-grown so great beginnings and afterwards as great progresses the last things you do are still the most glorious For my part my Lord I contribute that joy to your prosperities I ought but foresee that what addes to your present reputation will derogate from what you are to expect from future ages and that within a small time so many great and considerable Actions done in the neck one of another will render your life incredible hereafter and will make Posteritie look on your Historie as a Romance Be pleased then my Lord to set some limits to your Victories though it were only to accommodate your self to the capacity of mankind and not exceed their belief Mind then for a while remission and securitie and let France who in the midst of her triumphs is ever in alarme for your life peaceably enjoy the fruits of that glory you have gained her In the mean time be pleased to be assured that among so many millions do admire you and blesse heaven for you there cannot any do it with more joy zeale and veneration then My LORD Your Highnesse's most c. To my Lord d' Avaux LETTER CLXXXIV My LORD THough I were so excellently qualified as that it might be said of you and me cantare pares yet will not any say respondere parati I received your Letter but yesterday and I answer it to day yours make not that haste but as if you lived in some remote corner of the East-Indies I have them after the expectation of some yeares For my part I admire you Vt unum Scilicet egregii mortalem altique silentâ— And cannot apprehend how a person who hath so much advantage in speaking can take so much pleasure to be silent The three first lines of your Letter and what you say of this months being extremelie spent is beyond any thing our Academie could do But with what salt have you seasoned your last Course May I die if ever any thing took me more Poor Monsieur de Lieure who had been in my thoughts these twentie years presented himself all his guests and all his house with incredible satisfaction and brought along with him all the fashions of that time It happens indeed very fortunatelie for the Wits that you have had the management of greater affaires then we and that Claudium Memmium ab institutis studiis deflexerit cura terrarum How am I plagued my Lord when I read what you write to me that I am not near you and what a spight do I find that Fortune hath done me by disposing me at such a distance from a person so precious of a Wit so full of entertainment Not to mention the lustre pompe and hopes here in this only I place all happinesse Ille si fas est superare Divos Qui sedens adversus identidem te Spectat audit My Ladie Marchionesse de Montausier hath caused me to read severall times what you writ concerning her and of a many Letters that have come to her from all parts she saies nothing hath been sent equallie excellent She hath charged me to tell you that she is extremelie pleased that you approved of her marriage which she would not have thought well of had you not confirmed it with your consent and that she would have asked it had you been here but in your absence she inferred from the many expressions of affection which to her knowledge my Lord Marquesse had received from you that you would not oppose a thing he was desirous to effect She and the Marquesse her husband have enjoyned me to return you thousands of acknowledgements and to assure you of their most humble services But my Lord I am very glad you have a servant who finds all the world â—â—lk and that I am better known in strange Countries then Monsieur Falandre and Monsieur Coiffier I should have sent you the 〈…〉 werâ— read to you Namque tu solebas Nostras esse aliquid putare nugas And what greater approbation could I desire then yours But Verebar ne te haec deprehenderent in curâ aliquâ majusculâ as Cicero saies and then I considered what that other saies Multa quidem nobis facimus mala saepè Poetae Vt cum tibi librum Sollicito damus aut fesso The generall Peace will not raise more joy then all Vertuous and great Minds have conceived at the accommodation between you and Monsieur Servient I believe it is as you write si quis est qui neminem bona fide putet redire posse non vestram hic perfidiam arguit sed indicat suam If you can procure the continuance of it there cannot be any thing better Si quidem herclè possis nihil priùs neque fortiùs Thousands of most humble thanks for the care you have had of my affaires I am as I ought My LORD Your c To the same LETTER CLXXXV My LORD SHould I receive yearlie your four thousand livers without so much as making a great A or putting my hands to do any thing in order to your service you were the likeliest man in the world to suffer it nay you would be so pleased meerlie because it would exempt you from affording me a few lines which your Goodnesse obliges you to honour me with some times For my part I should be also well satisfied were it not something too dishonourable besides that it were a great ease to me You cannot imagine my Lord what wearinesse there is in writing to a person who answers not I have been these three moneths writing to you and have not been able to make an end of my Letter and when I had with much adoe got two periods together I am presentlie disturbed and say to my self ah woe is me I am got into the quagmire as the Counsellor was wont to say of whom you told me the storie And yet what ever come of it I must needs write for to tell you truth I am ashamed I can no better deserve your mony it being some trouble to my conscience to enrich my self so unjustly In the mean time be pleased to rest satisfied that notwithstanding my constant and confident addiction to silence my heart speaks all possible respect passion and esteem for you and I am dailie confirmed in the judgement I had of you even from my youth which
est Occipiti coeco especiallie as to your part my Lord whom France Spain Italy and Germany look upon it is but just you should live so Nos numerus sumus fruges consumere nati Sponsi Penelopae nebulones In the meane time for one word I have let slip which is no more then that I had some engagement here you crie out O coelum O Terras O Maria Neptuni when it would be inferred that minxi in patrios cineres or am guiltie of some enormous crime Patrue mi patruissime nihil feci quod succenseas And certainlie were â— you in my place so obscure a person as I am and that you were neere a handsome Ladie that entertained you noblie I question much whether your Lordship with all your austeritie would fall out with her And therefore I shall not be frightned at any thing you shall say Miserorum est neque Amori dare ludum aut ex animari metuentes patruae verbera linguae And that Nec turpem senectam degere neâ— cytharâ carentem which you have taught me how do you understand it that I must play on the Guitarre at threescore much to the purpose Lambin expounds it that a man must be amorous as long as he can and he is a man of no weak judgement But this is a huge long Letter Tibi ingentem epistolam impegi And yet ere I conclude I must make you a thousand complements from Madam de Sable and Madam de Montausier I have onelie shewed them those passages of your Letter where you speak of Madam de Longueville For the rest never any shall set eye on it though it were onelie for that of the ten Lustres you need not feare I shall shew it any I am thought here to be but fortie seven yeares of age I beseech you let me be no more at Munster nay if you please deme unum deme etiam duos I had forgot to tell you that these Ladies have commanded me to let you know that if you speak as you write they pitie not Madame de Longueville and that it is not impossible to be well any where so you be there I wish you were â—ensible how highlie they esteem you they are satisfied the world affords not any other that dares pretend to so much wit and I told them I knew as much five and twentie years since But I am too tedious Ne me Crispini sâ—rinia Lippi Compilâsse putes verbum non amplius addam Paris Jan. 9. 1647. To my Lady Dutchesse de Longueville at Munster LETTER CLXXXX MADAME HAving hitherto forborne to write to your Highnesse meerly out of respect I extremelie troubled that I am forced to it by so sad an occasion as obliges me at the present I doubt not Madame but you are infinitelie troubled at the losse of your noble Father at a time when you received from him the greatest expressions of his affâ—ction and that not being accustomed to such discourtesies of Fortune this hath extremely surprized you But my hope is that what equalitie of mind which never suffered you to do or say any thing but in its due measure will guide you in this occasion and that you will regulaâ—e your grief and tears as you have done all the actions of your life Nor indeed Madame is it any more then just that a person so celestiall as you are should comply with the will of heaven and having received so much from it be content it should take something from you And it seems it would needs take the time of your absence to do it and hath permitted this misfortune to happen when you were at a great distance that your eyes might not be the witnesses of that mourning which was to fill your house My prayers to God are that he would restore it to joy by your sudden return thither and that he would afford us the Pecce with your Highnesse without which there is no living both which are the earnest desires of all the world but especiallie of MADAME Your c. To the Prince of Condé LETTER CXCI. My LORD IT is onlie to discharge my dutie not to comfort you that I presume to write to you I am too well acquainted with the extent and excellencies of your mind to imagine that another can give you any reason for it which you saw not your self before Besides my Lord I think a mind employed to purchase the quiet of all Europe is uncapable of being disordered at the death of a single person how great soever he might be and that the constancie of your soule which hath manifested it self on all occasions will not be wanting in this But the kindnesses you have ever honoured me with obliging me to conceive my selfe in whatever you are I have thought it but my dutie to let you know what sympathie I have for your affliction as also to renew the profession which I have so often made to be with all manner of respect My LORD Your c. To Monsieur Costart Who having laughed at certain fault which the Authour had committed while he spoke Latine to an Ambassadour three daies after he sent him this Epistle LETTER CXCII SI vales benè est ego autem vereor ur valeas heri enim si non agro ut certè anxio animo domum te recepisti neque ego meherculè sine molestiâ eram quando te felicitatis meae conscium authorem in his aerumnis videbam versari Scio quà m morosi sint qui amant quà m omnibus vel minimis offensâ—s obnoxii sed si te novi is es qui citissimè sanari potes fortassis quidem jam haec nox Catullus tuus tibi dedit consilium ut destinatus obdures suasit Quomodo igitur te habeas quâ mente sis tranquillâ aut sollicitâ vigilarisne lassus an naso tantum vigilaris fac me certiorem Ego mi Costarde tibi persuadeas velim me à nullo plus velle amari quà m à te si ita placet mandaturum quid inimicae nostrae quidni enim mea est si tua ut res suas sibi habeat Tu quid velis vide me ama Be pleased to correct this Epistle and to tell me freelie whether out of the sixth form where you saw me not long since I may not go into some higher I am Your c. To the same LETTER CXCIII BEne exolvisti mi Costarde quod mihi de te promiseram â—e pro onyce cadum redditurum cadum quidem similem illi Sulpitiano spes donare novas largum amaráque curarum eluere efficacem Illa enim tua Epistola quam tu ponderosam ego magni ponderis nomino nescio quomodo me invitum renitentem in tantâ dolendi causâ gaudere compulit quod non tempus non literae non ipsa quae poterat esse luctus satietas fecerant tua lepida faceta lepidissima facerissima omnibus Atticis Romanis nostris salibus condîta fecit
glad that he hath judged it for me as that he hath judged aright for I shall henceforth concern my self so much in him as to make it a matter of congratulation that he is so able a judge in things of this nature I am verie glad that you studie Etymologies so much you have almost found that of the besiâ—les and it is no ill beginning but it comes from bini circuli or â—is circuli That of Monsieur Crassot which you laugh at I like well enough nor shall I quarrel much with that of Vigenere but I will give you des mules kibes for his slippers and you shall acknowledge that that word is derived from mulaei which were calcei regum Albanorum rubri coloris Thus you have now what I should have written to you long since but I have so much businesse and of that nature that I doubt not of your pardon when you know it Res misera est pulchrum esse hominem nimis But be a little more ventrous and let not Pegasus and Bellerophon frighten you take it from me all is but fables Aude hospes contemnere opes te quoque dignum Finge Deâ By the next return I will send you the decision upon the words of your Nobilitie at the present I have not the leasure I am Sir Your c I forgot to explicate to you the passage of Quintus Curtius at least according as I understand it and certainlie it is verie difficult There was not saies he any earth under the walls whereon to fasten the scaling-ladders nor had Alexander any Ships nay though he had had yet when they would have planted the ladders upon the Sips which moved and tossed up and down it could have been done with such diligence but that those upon the Walls would have had time enough to force back with darts those who would have scaled and those who were in the Ships To my Lord d'Avaux LETTER CXCVI. My LORD IT is an extraordinarie satisfaction to all that love you to see the attendance of Madam de Longueville so full and so free of your praises that it might be thought they had not seen in all Germany but your self and were returned to Paris for no other businesse then to discourse of you I meet upon several occasions some I have no acquaintance with who complement me and make me proffers of their services upon your account women and maids that will needs take me by the neck for your sake But above all their Mistresse gives you those praises you may justlie claime and after such a manner that it is imposible any other can do the like It is long since that your Lordship hath heard me say that everie woman hath her humour but there 's not any can pretend to so exact a one as she and I am extreamlie pleased that it absolutelie concurres with mine as to what concerns you All the World knowes that you are a great Ambassadour a great Minister of State and a great Man Et pueri dicunt but as to what they call a Vertuous man and a Gallant man if I may presume to understand anything of it no man ever arrived to that height which you have and yet this Truth is not so well known to any as to Madam de Longueville and my self She hath a verie high esteem for your integritie your prudence your magnificence and your magnanimitie She much celebrates the great credit and veneration you were in all over Germany but above all she takes infinite delight to speak of the delicacie and beautie of your mind of the acutenesse you have in judging of excellent things the facilitie to dispense them and all the recommendable qualities which are rare even in Plenipotentiaries and which she saies she never could discover in any one besides your self In a word she knowes you as well as if she had looked through into your heart whether she have been there I know not She hath not mentioned a syllable to me of the Letters I writ to you though she does me the honour to speak to me with much freedome and that I have often put her upon that subject What ever you read here my Lord is somewhat too gentle and may very well admit of a corrective but those Lustres and Olympiads which you have so well represented to me heretofore doth not this occasion put you in mind of them Acknowledge then that there are certain emergencâ—eâ— wherein the greatest soules and the most vigilâ—nt prudence may be guiltie of some failing Paris May 16. 1647. To the same LETTER CXCVII DVpliciter delectatus sum tuis literis quod ipse risi te ridere posse intellexi For ought I perceive jucundissime Domine for why may not I give you the same title as Pliny in his preface does Trajan You Plenipotentiaries spend your time very merrily at Munster you have taken up an humour to laugh but once in six monethâ— You do very well to hugge time while yon have it and not to slight those enjoyments of life which Fortune is pleased to bestow on you You lie there at rack and manger up to the eares in papers allwayes reading writing correcting proposing comparing making Orations and consulting ten or twelve houres every day fitting in good easie and warm chaires while we poor rogues here are walking running trudging up and down playing watching and tormenting our selves out of a wretched life But amidst all your metriment be pleased to acknowledge my Lord whether it be not more unpleasant living at Munster since the deporture of Madame de Longueville Certain it is that it is fairer weather at Paris since her coming thither Purior hic campos Aether lumine vestit Purpureo Such is the pleasure of Fortune and the World Hic apicem rapax Fortuna eum stridore acuto Sustulit hic posuisse gaudet You have returned her a greater beautie and a greater wit then you had received her from us and notwithstanding her great bulk she sets the greatest part of mankind here afire Arcanus hinc terror sanctáque reverentia quid sit illud quod tantum perituri rident I wish you heard what she sayes of you and with what esteem and friendship she expresses her selfe if you did though you are not subject to any passions is it Monsieur Cornifice Vlfelt that maintaines that opinion yet certainly you would run some hazard She thanks you for your notice as to the marriage she was not assured of any thing before and hath commanded me to make you thousands of complements from the truest heart in the world Your Italian and his elegance I am infinitely taken with seriously my Lord you frighten me Tot linguae totidemora sonant There is something monstrous in it that mouth with twelve springs attributed to Pindar may it not with as much justice be to you But into what a bysse did you dive for se no vi piace prestarmi quella fede and by what
art ex rebus damnatis jam nullis can you extract beauties and graces never before known or heard of That with Julio Bertolini and Bartoloâ—aeo Dini was lost in the shipwrack of a thousaud other things which time hath made in my memory you have recovered it quasiiure postliminii and with how great satisfaction I cannot expresse I was I must confesse very much ashamed that my servant should see me break forth into a loud laughter at the reading of a Letter which he had understood was brought me from my Lord d' Avaux a man so grave so serious and looked upon with so much reverence by all the world Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare obsoletis nitorem fastiditis gratiam but with you is nothing easier as being able to do far greater things To the same LETTER CXCVIII. My LORD IT must needs be acknowledged you have in me a very strange kind of Clarke one that understands not a word of the Finances never goes to the office and thinks it much to writ once in six moneths to his Master but in requitall he is a good Gamester an ordinary Poet writes handsome Letters and sights duells at mid-night by torch-light I make the more haste to accuse my self meerly to prevent your reproofs for methinks I see you with your plenipotentiarie Countenance upbraiding me again with my Olympiads and saying Sperabam jam deseruisse adolescentiam Gaudebamâ— ecce autem de integro But I think it is not a greater shame for me not to be wiser in my old daies then others are in their youth Saleii Bassi vehemens poeticum ingenium fuit nec adhuc senectute maturum Yet must I needs confesse that I could not but a little blush at it nay so much that I durst not for some time write to you besides that in the disturbance I imagined you were in at the slow advancement of your designe I thought Letters so disserious as mine are would have proved importunate I am not ignorant my Lord what a great lover you are of my Countrie and consequently cannot doubt but you are much troubled at the difficulties which daily arise and so much recard the negotiation you are imployed in All I have to say to you as to that point is that you ought be sensible thereof only as to the publick interest without interposing your own The world is so well satisfied as to your good intentions that when ever any here quarrell at the slow progresse of the peace and those who are thought unjustly perhaps not to contribute all they can towards it it raises matter of discourse of you such as you would be extremelie glad to hear That certainlie is a strange constellation that forces on you allwayes the affections of all people there is not a Citizen but names you knowes you and celebrates your praises France hath trusted you with the small hope she had left for seeing that the peace could not be concluded without a miracle it is believed that it must be you shall do it and amidst the publick consternation you are looked at as a Sanctuarie In the mean all things are so changed here peoples hearts so cast down and so little of enjoyment that I think there is no great matter of choice between an aboad at Munster and Paris a man cannot meet with any who have not their complaints some that they cannot get their Salaries others that their pensions are shortned nay there want not Clarks that belong to the Revenue who say they are no better treated then other Saclé is seen among the rest When all things are lock'd up i' th' chest c. This if I mistake not is a fragment of a piece of our youthfull Poetrie That your Lordship may see whether I am any thing improved since that time I send you some verses I made three years since upon the Prince his sicknesse when he was in Germany I had some reasons not to communicate them to any nor is it many daies since I first shewed them They have been well approved here yet shall I not be satisfied till I know your judgement of them Be pleased to honour me so much as to let me know whether they are worth ought that in case they answer not expectation I may shake hands with Poetrâ—e and applie my self wholly to the businesse of the Revenue I cannot conclude this Letter without telling you that Madame de Longueville received lately one from you which she infinitely values and which hath been extremelie commended by all that saw it To do you justice it deserved no lesse it being impossible there should be any thing so handsome Nosti Antipho quà m elegans spectator formarum sim You know whether I understand any thing as to Beauties of of this nature France affords not another that can write at that rate To the same LETTER CXCIX My LORD YOu cannot give me a greater assurance of the setlednesse and tranquâ—ity of your soul then by sending such a Letter as that came last to my hands it seems to be drawn Medio de fonte Lepôrum So excellently well it is written and so easie to perceive that it is the production of a clear and undisturbed mind There is not certainly any thing could in my thoughâ—s raise you so great esteem as to see that notwithstanding the present posture of your affaires you can laugh in this manner This is called Diis frui iratis Fortunae minaci mandare laqueum Do you remember the time when you built her so glorious a Temple in verse You are sufficiently converted from that Idolatry and now you can as easily laugh at her And yet I think that for this time she will but threaten Those who pretend acquaintance with the Court hold that it is not safe to be exposed to the envie which one must needs run the hazard of by mis-intreating a person who at the opinion of all the world hath deserved so well of France Monseigneur de Longueville hath done me the honour to shew me the Letter you writ to him I found it handsome excellentlie handsome Certainly my Lord there is not of all the Wits of all those qui artem â—ractant musicam any that understands it so well as your self I am extremelie pleased that you have not disliked my verses ... In the mean time I am satisfied with your deferbuisse my Terence is not so correct as yours nor I as you But why will you enjoyn me to write to you once a moneth Is it not enough that I serve you by the Quarter Put me upon some employment in relation to your Affaires that so I may have something to entertain you with If you do not my Letters will prove nothing but skin and bones short and cold Neverthelesse I shall obey you and if I should not do it out of a consideration of the many obligations I owe you I could not for bear for your Parenthesis of Mousieur Voiture of Amiens ego
to me then ever more cruel then shee was in her Letters and what is lamentable and shameful both this resistance enflames me and I am fallen more deeply in love with her then ever you knew me O indignum facinus nunc ego Illam Scelestam esse me miserum sentio Et taedet amore ardeo prudens sciens Vivus vidensque pereo nec quid agam scio It is one of the reasons mov'd me to undertake this journey ut defatiger but I fear me I shall have the same Fortune with that other Do you who are more discreet and better acquainted with her give me some advice in this case and let me know whether you conceive shee will persist in the resolution which shee seems to have taken But deal freely with me and in such an adventure as this use not your ordinary compliance It will haply prove a kind of remedy to me to be perswaded that there is not any You are oblig'd above all others to deliver me out of this disturbance for besides that your affection to me ought to be greater then any man's you are in some sort the cause of all the afflictions I groan under at the present as who first brought me to the sight of her Te cum tuâ Monstratione magnum perdat Jupiter I speak it not in good earnest but me thought it came very pat to my purpose As to the word wherein you desire my judgement I can say as little to it as you though I reflected on it by the way as we came That 't is true does not signify much for my thoughts were wholly taken up with her Farewel get my heart from her as soon as you can that you may have it wholly to your self or if shee must keep it that it may be with some justice I am Sir Your c To the same LETTER CXXXVI Domine NOt to dissemble with you all your Latine cannot exempt you from simplicity and it is easily discover'd in you that the greatest Clarks are not alwayes the most polite I was strangely reconcil'd with M within one quarter of an hour after our meeting we had hardly exchang'd two or three reproaches but we embrac'd one another more heartily then ever Love sneez'd above two hundred several times that day sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left which brought him into a cold he hath been troubled with these thre weeks She gave me mille deinde centum deinde mille altera deinde secunda centum See now what you get by citing so unseasonably those two Epigrams for to tell you truth I conceive her very handsome about the nose and am of the judgment of her neighbours Sic meos amores There ought not such strict notice be taken of what falls from Lovers in their passion and though Phaedria coming upon the Stage speaks of Meretricum contumelias yet in the next scene he would soon quarrel with his ears that should affirm Thais was not a very honest woman Had you forgot your Publius Mimus Amantium irae that other who putting things in their order says injuriae suspectiones inimicitiae induciae bellum and then at last pax rursum According to the knowledge we have of your simplicity and the opinion which I know you have of that fierce and impersuasible Nature we concluded you would be cajoli'd thereby and that you would write a Letter that should find us abundance of good sport but to the end that you might oblige her and pretend a regret for having endeavour'd to get away the heart from her I assure you I had much adoe to perswade her to be guilty of that treachery towards you This is the reason that you have not receiv'd oftener from her and shee hath purposely forborn because you should not take her in a ly twice But we must do you that right as to acknowledge that if you are defective as to judgement you have to ballance it a great wit I am infinitely taken with your Letter There are some applications the most fortunate in the World or to say the better the most ingenious particularly that di boni and that fundi calamitas but quod me capere oportuerat haec intercipit how do you understand it by your explication of hem alterum I approve it not for Gnatho being in all probability elder then Thraso or at least coaetaneous what likelihood is there he would say that it should seem that Thraso had made the other haud ita jussi 't is an equivocation upon rectè jocularium in malum visu dignum I shall see Monsieur de since you command me to do it for that makes me more considerable then if I were a Bishop I admire the expression of Monsieur Pauquet I have often told you that his wit went beyond yours To deal freely with you I believe he dictates your Letters I wish he would also my answers But tell me whence came that Hemistick I never read it and cannot imagine it was ever apply'd on any occasion but the wheat that grew on the Bastions of Rochel I am Sir Your c. Paris Aug. 4. To my Lord Marquess de Roquelaure LETTER CXXXVII My Lord I know not what advantage I shall make of the honour of your friendship but it hath cost me already very dear there passes not a Campagne wherein for your sake I endure not many sad dayes and that the hazards you are engag'd in cause me not abundance of affliction when in the mean time I have a great joy to see that by a strange extravagance of Fortune you find a way to purchase glory in the worsted side and that in those engagements which are in a manner unfortunate to all others you make your self famous Things well consider'd you cannot in my judgement with any justice quarrel with Fortune for if shee be not on your side shee takes you into that whereof shee is and at the end of all fights I find you among the Victorious For my part I am more jealous of your liberty then your glory and must confess my self not at all troubled for your imprisonment and reflecting on what hath happened I have a greater affection for you when you are among the Spaniards then if you were of our side I wish my Lord you may receive from them all the good entertainment that your merits may claim and I do not in the least doubt but you shall for besides what is due to your condition there are those excellencies in your person which in three dayes gain the hearts of all that come near you and I make no difficulty but the enemies who have taken you are by this time your friends I would gladly were I permitted come and bear you Company with them for assure your self my Lord there is not any thing I would not heartily do to demonstrate to you how sensible I am of the honour you do me every where by the publick acknowledgements you make
my Lord you shall have no cause to complain any more of West-phalia as of a barbarous Countrie and where the Graces and Muses can finde no entertainment Is it not now that it may be said Quoquo vestigia figis Componit furtim subsequiturque Venus How excellent is that furtim if you consider it well But what intrigues are there between you and Father Chauaroche is he not a good honest fellow that minds his Religion well commendable as to Manners a good Wit and a great judgement He writes miracles here of you with a certain extravagance of passion and hath as great an affection for you as the Parson of St. Nicholas In the mean time I owe heaven thanks that amidst so many occasions of afflictions your health and your cheerful humour have constantlie kept you companie I wish you the continuance of both and my self in a capacitie to let the World know how much I am My LORD Your c. Paris Apr. 1. 1645. To my Lord Marshall de Schomberg LETTER CLXIV MY LORD IS â—t that you were afraid what you were to write to me should smell of the oyle that you had sent me your letter without doing me the honour of writing particularly to me And yet that which I have received since from you I look on as the better part of your present Without that operam oleum perdideras and you might have sent me all the Olives of Languedoc and yet not have made your peace with me If you think my Lord that I concern my self too much you will find that it is not for things of small consequence and if you consider well what value I set on the things you write you will not think it strange that I so passionately desire your letters as what I cannot be without The last I received brought me rest joy and health All these had shaken hands with me ever since your departure hence I hope your return will put me into a perfect good constitution and restore me to my Wits and strength which I must not expect without you Till this good fortune happens my only diversion is to discourse of you in all places at all times and upon all occasions Upon what terms my Lord I leave you to imagine but it is ever among persons who are over-joyed to hear me and who will be able to acquaint you in case you doubt of it that among the many who take a pleasure to speak well of you there 's not any does it more heartily then my self or is more passionately MY LORD Your c. Paris Aprill 7. 1645. To the same LETTER CLXV MY LORD HAd you been here you had dashed out one part of these verses and would have made me correct the other nor do I send them you but to let you see how destitute I am of all good advice nay of all wit when I have not the honour to be near you Be pleased to imagine by that My Lord what wishes I make for your return as being one that takes not much pleasure in being a fool nor yet in seeming such and if it concern me not much to desire you should stay no longer in Languedoc Those whose hearts you have carried away with you are not at such a losse as I am for your absence nor expect you with more impatience then I po Yet I meet one person who iâ— all places and on all occasions gives wonderfull expressions of an extraordinarie affection for you But my Lord you have made me such a courtier and so confident that notwithstanding all these fair appearances I think my affection towards you exceeds that of any other and to reform somewhat that freedome of speaking that I am with most respect and zeal My LORD Yours c Paris April 27. 1645. To Monsieur Costart LETTER CLXVI QVuid igitur faciam eámne infectâ pace ultrò ad eam veniens Would you give me this advice an potiùs ita me comparem I shall forbear the rest for your sake Without jesting Sir I stand in great need of your assistance at this present and wish you here to mind me from time to time of hei noster but you have not courage enough to give such bold advice I must take it of my self To be free with you this Ladie is too angry Non est sana puella nee rogare qualis sit solet haec imago nasum It may be she will not be so cruell at Paris as at she is more considerable there then here if I may trust your information Hanc provincia narrat esse bellam But your writing to me at the time you did was the best thing you ever did for if you had delayed it but two daies longer I should have been as angrie with you as I am with her and was resolved to have written to you in the stile you know And to deale plainlie with you I am not well satisfied with those you have written there cannot be any more abrubt or indifferent Unlesse it be that you have assured me of your health what do they contain that is pleasant Quâ solatus es allocutione All I am pleased with is that I conceive you spend your time verie merrilie since you can afford me so little of it but are you not the happiest man in the world that when you least expected it Fortune hath forced three weekes or a moneth on you Adeóne hominem venustum esse aut felicem quam tu ut scies What do you think of that venustum I think he there means him qui habet Venerem propitiam for the other signification is not verie pertinent Farwell Sir be assured I am assolutelie yours and as much as you can desire Yours c Paris Aprili 30. To my Lord d'Avaux LETTER CLXVII MY LORD YOu cannot imagine what a troublesome thing it is to be ever writing to a man that returns no answer I should as willingly talk to deaf man or a wall and yet they say walls have eares but when I am not answered I think I am not heard I have been above these six weeks a writing a Letter to you cannot do it But he who knowes not what to say His silence cannot well betray It may well be applied to me what Vibbius Crispus vir ingenii jucundi elegantis said to a young man who was troubled for an Exordium for an Oration he had made Nunquid inquit adolescens meliùs dicere vis quà m potes for to be ingenuous I would not write any thing to you nisi perfectum ingenio elaboratum industriâ nihil nisi ex intimo artificio depromptum Yet Cicero who was a great Master of words and of whom I have borrowed the lâ—st recited was troubled as well as I in such occasions me scripto aliquo lacesses saith he to one of his friends Ego enim meliùs respondere scio quâm provocare However my Lord according to the common saying he that is bound paies and I
make of it as that I may understand what you write to me and what you do I expect with impatience the gleanings of the harvest you have made in Poitou and that you would send me the best and choicâ—st of what you have learned The partnership there is between us is extraoodinarie confers enim rem industriam and I though I contribute nothing have my part of the profit The civill Lawyers call this Societatem Leoninam which the Lawes will not by anie means allow I know not what passage you mean to which you say I have not answered be pleased to let me know it I thought I had left nothing unanswered I almost subscribe to your interpretation of hem alterum but methinks it is somewhat disadvantageous to Terence I should be glad for his sake another might be sound But as to the Ladies who I told you knew not a word of Cicero pray give me your opinion of what Salust saies of Sempronia that she was Literis Graecis ac Latinis docta in another place he saies of Sylla Literis Graecis atque Latinis juxta atque doctissimè eruditus That a woman should commit faults in her own language if she be not well versed in it I nothing wonder at but that he does observe it in a man and that an eminent one I think verie strange and do you but imagine what praise it were to the Duke of Weymar that anie one should say in his commendation that he were verie knowing in the Germane Tongue Farewell I am Your c. Paris Sept. 20. In reading over my Letter I observe an equivocation in the beginning I come out of a Countrie where mine c for that mine might relate to Countrie and I mean only my Wit though I know you would not have taken the one for the other However I acknowledge it a fault Vitanda inprimis ambiguitas non haec solum quae incertum intellectum facit ut Chrematem audivi percussisse Demeam sed illa quoque quae etiamsi turbare non potest sensum in idem tamen verborum vitium incidit ut si quis dicat visum à se hominem librum scribentem Nam etiamse librum ab homine scribi pateat malè tamen composuerat fecerarâ—â—â— ambiguum quantum in ipso fuit I have chosen rather to write this then correct what I had once written To my Lord d' Avaux LETTER CLXXXVIII Myy LORD YOu do well indeed to quarrell at my complaints and to say O tu insulsè malè molestè vivis Per quem non licet esse negligentem The excellencie of your Letters sufficientlie excuses the impertunitie wherewith I beg them This last is admirable beyond anie I must acknowledge my self in your debt You verifie the proverb verie much that who is bound paies onlie I wonder that person in whom there seems to be great riches and who can easilie part with them is so hard to be brought to it We favourites of Apollo cannot but wonder that one who hath spent his whole life in Treaties should write such excellent Letters and should be glad that you Gentlemen of Affairs did not meddle with our Trade And certainlie it were but just you contented your selves with the glorie of having put a period to so many important negotiations and particularly that you are now engaged in for the disarming of all the severall Nations of Europe and not intrench upon that poor reputation which is gained by the disposall and Tacticks of words and the fortune of pleasant imaginations It is not over-honourable for a person of your Gravity and concernment to the publick to contend with us for Eloquence or make it your businesse while you are employed to reconcile the Swedes and the Imperialists and to ballance the interests of the earth to work an accommodation between Consonants that clash and to measure periods Why in Gods name do you not content your self with the making of excellent and sound dispatches such as those of the Cardinall d' Ossat or if you will be guilty of a greater ambition those of Cardinal du Perron but will needs trouble your self with such as cannot but raise in us all the indignation in the world You will pardon me that I tell you this with some disorder nothing but your Letter could have put me into it as what hath dissolved the cement of all friendship Qui volet ingenio cedere nullus erit Nec jam prima peto Mnesthaeus neq viâ—cere certo But I who would willinglie allow you some paces before me must need be vexed to be left so farre behind I shewed your Letter to one of my Friends an able understanding man intimately acquainted with M. and who hath an infinite esteem of his merit Having read it good God saith he how far is this man beyond had I seen this Letter in any hands but yours I should have sworne you had writ it 'T is for your mortification my Lord that I repeat these last words Et sibi Consul Ne placeat curru servus portatur eodem To give you my reall thoughts of it you never writ a handsomer or made a nobler discoverie of your abâ—lities nor have you been insensible of it your self when in the conclusion you presse me to acknowledge my self in your debt May I perish if I am not ashamed to answer it for to so many excellent and noble things what can I return you Pro molli viâ—la pro purpureo Hyacintho Carduus foliis surget paliurus acutis At least the assurances I have given your Lordshp of another mans approbation and the confusion you have put me into comes upon you more directlie then those of the last return You very pleasantlie shift off the praises I gave you about the Building of Monsieur Pepin where you tell me it is pity I had not seen the Coaches he sent you and that I should find you a person of as much Honour as before it is as handsomelie expressed as could be and that word must needs proceed from a Gallant spirit Cui benè in pulivere recalcitrat Hence I inferre you would not have suffered that more hyperbolical flattery then any I have been guiltie of Est major Coelo sed minor est Domino But it is to no great purpose for you to say that to have a handsome house is a thing not much considerable L. Opimii domus cum vulgo inviseretur à populo suffragata creditur domino ad Consolatum obtinendum saith Cicero And you see how he cries out himself pro domo suâ I must agree with you that the Edifice you are at work upon now that great Temple of Peace into which all the severall Nations of Christendome are to enter is much more worthy your endeavours and is the only design fit to employ your great Mind I am elevated my Lord at the Newes I hear of it and that it will have a contrarie fate to that other Magnificentiae verae
admiratio extat Templum Ephesiae Dianae ducentis Viginti annis à totâ Asiâ factum You use a great deal more expedition and indeed are a much better workman I should be extremelie desirous to be here at the return of Madame de Longueville after the conclusion of so happie a Peace What you tell me of this Princesse is handsome as her selfe and I preserve it purposelie to shew her one day No doubt but I shall judge more advantageously of you you by your own writings then by those of Gronovius or Jacobus Baldus which indeed are excellent and somewhat approach the character of the best part of Antiquity but I find not in them either the smoothnesse or wit of our ancient Authour and if you have made any greater discoveries you have found it only in your self Consider my Lord whether I am not happie to find in you the perfections which your Grand-father esteemed in Passerat and the patronage which Passerat sound in him Madame de Sablé and Madame de Montausier are ravished at some passages I have shewn them of your Letter and would needs have copies of that concerning Madame de Longueville Be free my Lord do you think it possible I say not in one single person but in whatever the world pretends to as most handsome and most amiable do you I say think it possible to meet with so much wit such graces and attractions as are in that Princesse Num tu quae tenuit dives Achaemenes Pinguis aâ—â— Phrygiae Mygdonias opes Permutate velis crine Lycimniae In the meane time be you upon your Guard She writes wonders of you here and of the friendship is between you both your correspondence with her is somewhat dangerous Incedis per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso But I can assure you her goodnesse is proportionable to her Beautie and the World affords not a more high and noble soul I had once resolved to give you a visit this Autumne nay had begged a journeie of the Court for under such a pilgrimage as that what can come neer an acknowledgement but an unhappie businesse since fallen out hath detained me such as findes me much trouble and keeps me in perpetual alarme yet it is not properlie a Businesse but Vna malarum quas amor curas habet Think not slightlie of it my Lord you will not take up the first stone but if I mistake not this is the tenth page I am upon Dii magni horribilem sacrum libellum I had forgot my self I crave your pardon and am My LORD Your c To the Same LETTER CLXXXIX VIs ergo inter nos quid possit uterque vicissim Experiamur I shall not hold my Lord the matth is unequal I should finde my selfe over-reached when I would have attempted it Cynthius aurem Vellit admonuit I shall take his advice and be more tender of my eares he is the God of good Counsel And indeed when I had considered the last things you were pleased to honour me with I thought you greater and stronger then ordinarie and was not at all troubled that you had outgone me when to do it you exceeded your self My own Letter and the two I received from you put me in minde of the three lines which Protogenes and Apelles drew by way of trial of skill The first you sent me was admirable and worthie so great a Master what I made upon it could not certainlie fall from an ordinarie hand but the last which you have now drawn Vltima linea rerum est It is incomparablie beyond all insomuch that I shall not presume to do any thing after it That I now take up the pen is onelie to give you in writing the confession I make that as well in the businesse of Eloquence as that of the Revenue I am but your Clarke as also to let you know once more the advantage you have over me I am not I must confesse insensible of the praises you are pleased to give me Nec enim mihi cornea fibra est But they are such so noble and so ingenious that to be free with you I should be much more proud to have bestowed them then to have received them and the same words you make use of to exalt me above all others satisfie me that I am infinitelie below you I wish I had here some bodie that were given to exclamations as confident and judicious as Monsieur de St. Romani for everie line of your Letter deserves a pulchrè bellè But particularlie the representation your Lordship hath made of our Princesse is so rich and noble that I have been more pleased with the sight of it then haplie I should have been with hers and you have found out a way to make an addition to those graces which before were infinite in her tali opere dum laudatur haud victo sed illustrato This is what Pliny saies of the Greek Verses which were made for Apelles's Venus whose work was certainlie much below yours as his Goddesse was lesse beautiful then yours You have represented her with all her attractions and charmes pinxisti quae pingi non possunt tonitrua fulgetra fulguraque But you will give me leave to tell you that it is hard that that person should not be Mistresse of a Soule where she is so well represented and that if you are not in love with her you should with the description you have made of her A certain face was by a Master drawn So lively and in such perfection The Painter fell in love with what h'd done But that it is otherwise you give me the best reasons in the World and do miracles were there but faith So many beauties and graces fill up yet do not disorder your imagination and it is long since you have enjoyned your eyes not to admit any thing into your minde but the representations of the noblest objects How handsomelie is this expressed but would you have me to be free with you I am afraid you either mistake me or are mistaken your self Coecum vulnus habes sed lato baâ—â—heus auro Protegit That Sun of Sweden to whom you compare her is if I may trust you verie hot qui in sole ambulant etiamsi non in id venerint colorantur I fear me it may be your fate Et figas in cute Solem It were strange say you that in an Assembly of Peace there should not be publick Faith enough for my preservation and that the Passeports of the Emperour and the King of Spain should not make Munster a place safe enough for me This my Lord is excellentlie well said and this period is haplie one of the neatest could have been written and deserves an exclamation That Munster is indeed a place of safetie but Madam de Longueville is there Portus ab accessu ventorum immotus ingens Ipse sed horrificis juxtà tonat Aetnaruinis The Fires and Snowes which this Princesse casts if you