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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31477	The innocent lady, or, The illustrious innocence being an excellent true history, and of modern times carried with handsome conceptions all along / written originally in French by the learned Father de Ceriziers of the Company of Jesus ; and now rendered into English by Sir William Lower, Knight.; Innocence reconnuë	Cerisiers, René de, 1609-1662.; Lower, William, Sir, 1600?-1662.	1654 (1654)	Wing C1679; ESTC R37539	69,822	175

Princes of Brabant Scarce had this little creature seen the first rays of the light but her parents gave her a second birth which rendered her a daughter of heaven from whence she received the fair name of Genevieva It is not my design to describe the great vertues of this little Princess nor to make appear the graces wch she possessed even when her mouth was fasten'd to the sweetnes of the breast no one can see the height of her perfection and be ignorant of the foundations of her piety The father and mother called her ordinarily their Angel in which certainly they were not deceived for she had the purity and innocence of them one sole thing rendered her unlike unto those divine spirits which is that they thrust men forward unto good by secret and invisible motions and she carries them thereunto by examples which have no lesse of force than of sweetnesse The Angels have attractions against which one hath much pain to conserve his liberty and Genevieva possessed graces too charming not to be inevitable One could not hate her devotion at lesse rate than being insensible VVe must not imagine that the ordinariy amusements of infancy should possesse her thoughts nothing partaked in the care of her devotion but the diverse means to entertain it and to encrease it The sweetest pleasure that she relished was the love of retirement and of solitude this inclination built her a little hermitage in the corner of a garden where nature seemed to have favoured her designe making to grow there store of trees whose delightfull shades permitted not the sunne himself to see the mysteries of her devotion It was there that she erected little Altars of Mosse and boughs it was there that she spent the greatest part of the day from which so sweet entertainment the pastimes of those her sex and age could not divert her VVhen her mother remonstrated to her that it was time to have more serious thoughts she answered modestly that hers had the fairest and greatest of all the objects notwithstanding that all her designes were within obedience and that she should not so soon command her any thing as she would conform her self wholly thereunto but if she would permit her inclinations to make the choice of her condition she could not find any kind of life more desirable than that which had drawn so many great and illustrious persons into solitude and which of the half of the world had made a desart It is the place said she where Kings and Princes and Empresses are gone to seek the traces and steps of their Saviour It is the place where Saint Iohn conserved the Innocence of his manners it is the place where poore vertue retires it self finding more safety amongst the wild beasts than in the towns where it meets with the cruelty of salvage creatures 'T is in a word the place where I imagine a perfect repose and where I could find my contentment if you would permit me there to seek it It is not Madame that I am not disposed to follow all the motions of your will but surely since you leave me the liberty of my thoughts I should think to displease you as much in dissembling my sense as in having one contrary to yours which cannot be but reasonable Oh Genevieva you know not from whence this inclination comes to you and wherefore heaven hath given it you a day will come that you shall follow the example of that incomparable penitent to whom Egypt hath given name though you may not imitate her debauchees it will be then that you shall acknowledge the Providence of God which disposeth of us by those means secret and unknown to all other but unto himself and which leadeth men to the point of felicity by those wayes which would seem to cast them headlong into the pit or depth of misfortune God hath a custome to give us from the birth certain qualities which make our good fortunes and the order of our life Those children amongst the Lacedemonians that came forth from the womb of their mothers with a Lance in hand and those others to whom nature had imprinted a sword in the arm carried on them the presages of the event and the signes of their Horoscopes The great Archbishop of Millain when he was a little infant acted the Prelate blessing his companions and imposing hands on them as if he had already been that which after he was to be All those that observed the devotions of our little Virgin penetrated not into the designes of God and saw not that which appeared not long time after Let us leave those sleight Devotions to the knowledge of him who knows the value thereof and who recompenses the merit come we to those noble actions which carry more day and light and which marketh more visibly the care with wch heaven watcheth upon the salvation of men If I enterprise to describe the great perfections of this great Saint I think not my self more obliged to touch them all than those who will put themselves upon the water to take the river at his source Behold me then in the seventeenth year of our Genevieva but who can mark all the vertues of her soul and all the fair qualities of her body another pen but mine would say that nature had made the strokes of essay in all the other beauties of her Age to give in her an accomplished work of her power and industry and not to lye she seemed to be obliged thereto since it is not more unseemly to see a fair soul in an ill favoured body than to see a Diamond in the dirt or a Prince full of Majesty under the ruines of a Cottage and in the obscurities of a Prison That which I will say upon this subject is that she heeded not to encrease it nor to adde unto it these artifices by which deformity seems fair she had no other vermilion but that which an honest modesty set upon her cheeks no white but that of Innocence no scents but those of a good life she had also no ruines in her visage to repair with plaister no blacknesse to colour with white no stinks to cover with Musk and powder of Iris. All her graces were her own and not borrowed contrary to those maids who having not charms enough to make them loved have recourse unto the Shops of Merchants as unto naturall Magick to buy there what nature would not give them and to make themselves liked in spight of all her disfavours but surely as the clothes which are used here last not alwayes so this beauty loses it self and they observe with the swine the same difference which they see between the painted flowers and the naturall Although our Genevieva took so little care to conserve her graces and her perfections yet had she enough of them to make her self a great number of Idolaters if she would have contributed any thing to the misfortune of souls and discover that which Modesty

thought unchaste for being fair or the perfection of her body do injury to that of her soul could she not be seen without desire nor slandered without being convicted of a crime whereof her very thought was not culpable Should an apple render the wife of Theodosius criminall was that an inevitable misfortune to Queen Elisabeth loving the vertue of a Page to love an object that was not chast deserved Cunegonda to handle fire for proving that her heart burned not with any evil flame the daughter of the great Anthemius could not she do good to her sister without losing her reputation nor drive the Devil from her body without putting him into her soul who can conceive why God permitted that Marina should be punished for a sinne whereof she was not capable and which was as far from her will as from her sex Soft humane reason take heed how thou think that an essence all good and all perfect should produce any evill if there flow sharpnesse from that inexhaustible spring of sweetnesse it is either to wean our affection from the vanity of pleasures or to make our vertue merit in the martyrdome of sufferings Our griefs are not more sensible unto us than unto God if we are assaulted he resents it if we are wounded he complaineth he doth indeed seem sometimes not to know us but it is to the end to render us known to all posterity he permits detraction to spot our honour but to the end to dravv the rayes of our glory from our own obscurity you know it faire soules who glitter novv like so many Suns in that great day of eternity Is it not true that God loves not our abasement but to raise us up again our contempt but because it may be glorious to us Our losses but because vve may derive advantage from them our evils but because they doe us good The Bees suck honey aswell upon the Thyme and Wormvvood as upon the Roses the Lillies and holy soules make their infirmitie prosper as well as their good fortune but the first being of a nature more refined God vvill not be niggardly unto us of a favour vvhich vve can so vvell improve Who knoweth not that a great virtue hath sometimes thrust those who possessed it into presumption and that innocence mistaken and calumniated hath found its conservation in that which seemed to destroy it The life of the Nightingale which nourisheth not it self but with melody is very delightfull that of the Swan is not to be despised though he lives not but with melancholly God takes pleasure that we should lead a life like unto this sorowful Bird provided that we be so white in Innocence as he is in his plume he careth not to see us swime in the waters of our grief Nothing pleaseth him like our sighes he loves perfectly that musick of which himself gives the measure and indeed there are those visages who weep with so good a grace that they should never be without this ornament our eys ravish not those of God but by tears which he seeks with a great care and which he gathereth with an incredible joy The tears fall to the ground and mingle themselves with the dust but their restuction gos unto the firmament mounteth above the stars so as they are the pearls of heaven which form themselves in the salt waters of our bitternesses as a great Wit hath said It is the delicate wine of the Angels the delights of Paradise and the voice that goes even to the ear of God For this reason he commanded one of his Prophets that the apple of his eyes should appear unto him continually for as much as he takes an inexpressable content at the sweet violence with which they constrain him if we knew well to weep we should know to vanquish our enemies to drown our sins to ruin the devils to extinguish hell and sweetly to force heaven to the sense of our requests The sinner hath no stronger arms than in his eyes seeing that God himself may be wounded with them The Athenians offered plaints in one of their sacrifices for my part I believe that it was to that unknown divinity which the Apostle instructs them to be the true God for as much as they cannot present him an offering more acceptable then tears which are no sooner drop'd from our eyes but they enter into his heart How can he not love these liquid pearls these melted diamonds this subtle sweat of the soule that a●stils it self through the fires of love to the end to offer him an essence more precious a thousand times than that of the Iasmin I do not say that chastity plants it self in our hearts as the lillies who have no other seed but their tears and that vertues appear there onely when this dew of our eyes makes them to bud there After all this we should no more wonder if God takes pleasure in the sighes of an afflicted Innocence since we finde so remarkable an instruction in his example so advantagious a profit in his merit then if God will that we suffer is it not great reason to consent thereunto If our displeasures delight him ought we to seek out the cause thereof Alas we shut up the Birds in the Cages to the end to draw joy from their plaints Can it be that they are more ours than we are his that their liberty is more subject unto our tyrany than ours is to his Empire O how happy should a creature be if God taking pleasure in his tears he might weep eternally the History which we have to set forth can give rare examples of this truth and advance most profitable instructions from this practise To the Reader MY dear Reader in expecting a Work whereof I give you here but one of the least parts I conjure you to suspend your judgment upon this History and not to take the effects of an all adoreable Providence for the Fictions of a Romance Raderus in his Baviere Ericius Puteanus and many other Authors can warrant the principall circumstances thereof and I assure my self in time to make you understand that there is nothing in the whole piece which is not as true as divertising ERRATA or faults escaped in the printing PAg. 3. line 6. those her sex read those of her sex pag. 5. l. 24. the great perfections 1. the perfections p. 7. l. 16. exposed r. proposed p. 13. l. 18. part r. depart p. 23. l. 2. souldiers r. folds p. 26. l. 14. Narbonana r. Narbona p. 31. l. 28. as of a Come● r. as that of a Comet The Innocent Ladie OR The Illustrious Innocence IN one of the Provinces of the * Gaule Belgick which was sometime the countrey of the Tongrians about the time that the glory of the great Lodowick began to be obscured that the children of this Lion degenerated into beasts much lesse generous was born a daughter in the most illustrious family of the

these extremities without the least comfortto her grief but the liberty to lament it If her own sufferings were sensible unto her those of her child were insupportable and certainly I know no patience that could undergo so many evils and be silent The day seemed not to shine but to shew her the horrour of the place where she was the night filled her spirit with shadows as well as her eyes with darknesse Nothing represented it self to her imagination that was not full of affright and terrour the puffe of a Zephire the motion of a leaf formed to her monsters more terrible than those of Lybia The care of her Benoni augmented much her fears considering that he had already lain two nights at the foot of an oak having but the grasse for bed and a few boughes for defence All the accidents that might arrive unto her presented themselves to her thought to produce the same effects that grief could make there That which touched most sensibly her soul was to hear the third day this little creature whose sighings demanded the succour of her breasts but alas they were dry all what he could draw from thence was nothing but a little corrupted blood It was but then that she permitted thus her grief to speak My God my Saviour canst thou suffer that this Innocent dye for want of having one drop of water whilst the authors of his misery surfet with blessings where is that providence which makes thee to take care of the ravens and the worms If thy word deceive us not thou owest the same favour unto him that thou dost to those animals seeing his birth is no lesse considerable nor his condition worse than theirs Look upon pitifull Lord look upon this Infant his father hath acknowledged him no more than the raven his young behold him creeping upon the dust and take compassion of his evils either to finish them or to allay them wilt thou permit it to be said that the generall care of thy providence hath excepted this miserable from the infallible rule of thy mercies permittest thou that the Innocents perish with hunger whilst thy enemies abuse thy benefits and provoke thy Iustice it is in a manner the doing of evil to do good to the wicked and to hate vertue to see it persecuted without pity Where is it that my grief carries me pardon my Saviour pardon this blasphemy to my impatience it is sufficient that thou wilt a thing to render it just since it pleaseth thee that he dye I will it also In saying this she reposed her son on the earth retiring her eyes from that subject of so many miseries but as she had marched some paces into the wood the sweet murmure of a brook assured her that there was a spring near enough that place which obliged her to take again her son to seek it out having found it she refreshed the mouth of the Infant and retained his soul ready to quit his body for want of nourishment Behold one of the effects of Gods providence there must be also a retrait to these poore banished creatures Genevievieva found one near enough to the fountain it was a den whose entrance was covered with a thick bush where the mother and her sonne marked out their lodging for seven years Yet it was necessary to have some nourishment O goodnesse of heaven how sweet art thou and how amorous are thy cares whilst our poor Princesse wearied her spirit with this thought she heard a noise as if some horseman had brushed behind the bushes which made her afraid untill she saw appear a hind who without affright approached to her her astonishment encreased much more when she saw that this beast looked upon the Infant with compassion and coming near to the mother fawned upon her as if she would have said that God had sent her there to be her nurse Whereupon perceiving that her udder was full of milk she took her son and cherishing the beast with her hand put him to suck Oh! how necessary it is to have a good heart you may believe that Genevieva received this benefit with resentments of joy which wiped away all her passed sorrows The contentment of this first favour encreased much when she knew by experience that the hind came twice a day without receiving any other salary for her good offices but some handfulls of grasse and the caresses of the Countesse I could say that sometimes she spake unto her as if she had been endued with reason and that she gave her testimonies of amity as if she had been capable thereof Some one will be very glad to know why God ordinarily uses the service of hindes to nourish his servants in the desart this curiosity is commendable and it pleaseth me well to satisfie it a mean Lecture migh have made this observation and though we should have no other example but that of Saint Giles our question would have foundation enough It is certain that God can derive our nourishment from whatsoever thing it shall please him and that he who hath created four elements to this effect can serve himself with the least of their pieces to furnish us with delicates It is he that hath made honey to be sucked out of the stones it is he that nourished all the people of Israel with dew it is he that made three children to live in flames as so many Salamanders it is he that sent every day a raven to the great father of the desart Saint Paul it is he that can draw our life out of death it self and our nourishment from poyson which is the most certain ruine thereof Notwithstanding his conduct is sweet and taketh nothing of violence it is therefore he accommodates himself to the power of second causes and follows the inclinations thereof Those who have written the secrets of nature report that the hind never brings forth if the heaven serve not for Midwife to the birth of her fruit by a puisant clap of thunder from whence we derive two or three fair knowledges the first that it is no wonder the Harts Hinds are fearful beyond all other Animals since it is fear onely that puts them into the world the second serves to the question which we propose as a great personage hath observed The difficulty which the Hind hath to produce her fruit proceeds not but from its greatnesse whence it happeneth that the Fawn having followed his dam very little time forsakes her to go to pasture leaving the sweetnesse of the dugge for that of liberty The Hind having abundance of milk seeks to discharge her self thereof even so farre that they say she oftentimes suffers her self to be sucked by the animals of another kind to the end to ease her God who hath given her this inclination for her interest makes use thereof sometimes for our necessity thrusting her forward by a secret instinct to be prodigall to us of a good which would be dammageable unto her This was the

his infidelity in exposing him to the rage of his dogs which are the simbole of its contrary and then considering that his sinne had beginning from the infamous fires of love it seemed reasonable unto him to cover them with the ashes of his proper body or to quench them in the waters of the River All these punishments were great but his crime was no lesse Sifroy thought not to be sufficiently revenged if the effects of his vengeance had not had something of extraordinary At last having long wavered thereupon he concluded to make him dye in this manner There was in the Palatines Herd four of those salvage oxen which the black Forrest nourished which were brought by his Command and being coupled tail to tail the miserable Golo was tyed by the arms and legges which were presently separated from his body whose infamous reliques found their Tomb in the stomach of the Crows by a just judgement of God to the end that the body of so wicked a man might be so ill lodged after his death as his soul had been during his life Behold the punishment of a man who was not unfortunate but by too much good fortune See the ordinary fruits that falshood produceth behold the precipices whereunto a wicked Passion carries us behold the shipwracks whereinto the winds of prosperity drive us behold the sports of fortune which flatters not our hopes but to seduce them Deceive not your selves herein if she shew you a a fair visage remember that the Sirens do the same is she allures by her caresses the Panther doth it also if her amorous plaints invite you the sighs of the Crocodile should serve for your instruction if she shineth her brightnesse is no more aamible then that of the fals meteors miserable Golo I see thee added to the example of those whom this traitresse hath deceived O how happy had thy condition been if it had been lesse eminent and how thy life had been assured if favor had not exposed it let us seek I pray you the first step of his misfortune and we shall finde that it was the authority which he had acquired in his Masters house the second too great a liberty to behold that which he should not desire and the last a love without respect whence proceeded a demand without honour a pursuit without successe a hate without cause a calumny without judgment and a punishment without mercy on the other side if we look upon the innocent Countesse we shall see virtue smutted but for its glory constancy shaken but for its setlement sanctity despised but for her security and moreover we shall acknowledge that the triumphes of vice are short and its confusion very long and that it is not once onely that God hath withdrawn the innocent heads from the sword of the Executioner to the end to crown them Those who were found accomplices to Golo received punishments proportionable to their faults and those who had shewed themselves favorable to the affliction of Genevieva met with no lesse gratitude in her then the others of severity in the spirit of the Palatine that poor maid who had pity of the Countesse and had brought her ink found her benefit written otherwise than upō paper Death hindered Genevieva to recompense those who had given her life in not taking it away for as much as the one of them was deceased the other received all the acknowledgement of that good action These recompenses and pains were followed with the contentments of all those that loved virtue The little Benoni was he that found more fortune in this change the very pleasures of a Solitude made him to tast the delights of his house with more sweetnesse Never had he been so happy if he had not been miserable notwithstanding his spirit stayed not so much on his contentments that he took not the tincture of all the good qualities with which Nobility might advance his merit Nothing of low was observed in this little courage for having been brought up in poverty nothing of wildnesse for having been bred with the bears The father and mother took a singular pleasure in the good inclinations of this son aiding him wth their wholsom instructions From the accord and correspondence which was in this house was bred a generall peace every one of the servants had no lesse than a golden age I would say that they were fully satisfied and content There was not any person who thought not himself well recompensed for his passed sorrows Genevieva had onely more of merit than of recompence the World having made her suffer all her evils had not goods enough to render her that which was due unto her heaven therefore took care to think on the price of her patience You comprehend well that I would speak of the death of our Countesse God who would not honour the World longer with so great a vertue resolved to retire her to her originall but it was after having advertised her thereof One day as she was in prayer it seemed unto her that she saw a Troop of virgins and of holy women amongst which her good Mistris held the chief rank having all the others for Ladies of honour their Majesty ravished presently our Saint but their sweetnesse charmed her much more sensibly there was not one of them that gave her not Palms and Flowers and the Virgin holding in her hand a crown embroidered with precious stones seemed thus to speak unto her My daughter it is time to begin an eternity of pleasures behold the crown of Gold which I have prepared you after that of thorns which you have worn receive it from my hand Genevieva understood very well what this visit signified which caused in her an incredible satisfaction the subject whereof notwithstanding she would not declare to Sifroy for fear to cast a cloud on his joy Her prudence concealed from him the causes thereof but the disease which had lesse discretion told it him within a few dayes It was a little feaver which seised our incomparable Countesse and gave him a more clear expression of her revelation To describe unto you the contentment of Genevieva it would be a thing no lesse superfluous than it would be impossible to expresse the displeasures of Sifroy Must I lose said he a treasure which I have so little possessed It is true that I am unworthy thereof my God and that I cannot complain of injustice since you take not from me but what I hold of your pure mercy and not of my merit But alas had it not been more desirable not to have it all than to have it for a moment soft and fair Sifroy soft fair it is no time to deplore keep your tears for anon if you will give them to the justest grief of nature I deceive my self boldly empty all the humour of your eyes you should be asham'd to give so little of it to the losse you are to make Small griefs may be lamented but great