Lord that this kinde of writing which I propose to my selfe is without comparison the most painefull of all other and that it is a hard matter to continue long in an action that must be violent and to be violent in an action that must continue long This prayse belongs properly to Oratours I meane such as know how to perswade how to please in profiting and can make the people capable of the secrets of Governing a Common-wealth For as for Phylosophers that have written of this argument their discourse is commonly so dry and meager that it appeares their intention was rather to instruct than to please and besides their style is so thornie and cumbersome that it seemes they meant to teach none but the learned And in this there is no more difficulty than there is in healing of men that be in health And for a man to make himselfe obscure there needs no more but to stay upon the first notions we have of truth which are never either wholly pure nor well unfolded and which falling from the imagination upon paper leave upon it such a confusion that it resembles rather an informed abortion than a perfect production Besides in the composition of a History especially where the Politiques have to doe an Authour is carried and borne out by his matter and the things being all made to his hand which ease him of the paines of invention as the order of the time easeth him of the care of disposing he hath little to doe for his part but onely to contribute words which is by some made so small a matter that when Menander was pressed by some friends to publish a worke of his that he had promised He made answer it shall presently come forth for it is in a manner all finished and ready there wants nothing but to make the words But in the perswasive kinde of writing besides that there must be a better choice made and a stricter order used in placing the words than in simple Narrations which for all their lustre and riches of expression require no more but plainnesse and fit termes they which desire to attaine perfection or indeed to doe any thing at all of worth endeavour all they can to put in use and reduce to action the most subtile Idaea's of all Rhetorick to raise up their understanding to the highest poynt of things to search out in every matter the verities lesse exposed to view and to make them so familiar that they who perceived them not before may by their relation come as it were to touch them Their designe is to joyne pleasure to profit to mingle daintinesse and plenty together and to fight with Armes not onely firme and strong but also faire and glittering They endeavour to civilize Learning drawing it from the Colledge and freeing it from the hands of Pedants who marre and sully it in handling and to say the truth adulterate and corrupt it abusing this excellent and delicate thing in the sight of all the world They seeke not to avoide Rockes by turning aside from them but rather by slyding gently over them and rather to escape places of danger than to shunne them And to make it appeare that nothing is so sowre or bitter but that it may be sweetned and allayed by Discourse Finally they suffer themselves sometimes to be transported with that reasonable sury which Rhetoricians have well knowne though it goe beyond their Rules and Precepts which thrust an Oratour into such strange and uncouth motions that they seeme rather inspired than to be naturall and with which Demosthenes and Cicero were so possessed that the one of them sweares by those that dyed at Marathon and of his owne authority makes them Gods the other askes questions of the Hilles and Forrests of Alba as if they had eares and were able to heare him But if I were one that did come any thing neere so noble an end which I neither will nor dare beleive and that I were able to make strangers see that all things in France are changed for the better since the happy Reigne of our King who no lesse augmenteth our spirits than he encreaseth our courage yet it is not I that should merit the glory of this but I must wholly attribute it to the happinesse of my time and to the force of my object Howsoever my Lord if I cannot be taken into the List of learned and able men at least I cannot be denyed a place amongst honest men and loyall servants and if my abilities be worthy of no consideration with you at least my zeale and affection are better worth than to be rejected With which meditation I am sometimes so ravished that I doubt not but my resentments must needs content you and that it is no unpleasing recreation to you to cast your eye upon a Philosopher in choler And though true love content it selfe with the testimony of its owne Conscience and that I give you many proofes of my most humble service which I assure my selfe will never come to your knowledge yet for your satisfaction I desire you might heare me sometimes in the place where you are and might see with what advantage I maintaine the publike cause in what manner I controll false Newes that runs about and how I stop their mouthes that will be talking in disparagement of our affaires It is certaine that it is not possible our State should be more flourishing than it is or that the successe of the Kings Armes should be more glorious than it is or that the Peace of the People should be more assured than it is or that your Government should be more judicious than it is and yet we meete with certaine spirits that are troubled with their owne quietnesse are impatient of their owne felicitie cannot be held in any good beliefe but by prosperities that are supernaturall and longer than they see miracles give no credit to any thing If present affaires be in good termes then they cast out feares of those to come and when they see the events prove happie then they fall affrighting us with Presages They take an Oath to esteeme of no persons but forreyners of no things but farre set They admire Spinola because he is an Italian and their enemie they cannot abide to praise the King because he is a Frenchman and their Master They will hardly be drawne to confesse that the King hath overcome though they see before their eyes an infinite number of Townes taken of Factions ruinated eternall Monuments of his Victories and more easily the King hath gotten the applause of all Europe than these mens approbation They would perswade us If they could that he had raised his Siege before Rochell That he had made a shamefull Peace with the Protestants and that the Spaniards had made him run away They doe all they can to exterminate his History and to extinguish the greatest light that shall ever shine to posteritie I doubt not but they cast a malicious
LETTERS OF Mounsieur de BALZAC 1.2.3 and 4th parts Translated out of French into English BY Sr RICHARD BAKER Knight and others Now collected into one Volume with a methodicall table of all the letters LONDON Printed for John Williams and Francis Eaglesfield At the Crown and Marigold in S. Pauls Churchyard 1654. LETTERS OF Mounseur de BALZAC Translated into English by Sr. RICHARD BAKER and others LONDON Printed for John Williams and Francis Eâ—glesfeild at the Crown and Marigold in St. Pauls Church-yard 1655. To the Honourable the Lord OF NEVVBURGE ONE OF HIS MAJESTIES most honourable Privie Councell and Chancellour of the Dutchy of Lancaster MY Lord I may perhaps be thought besides the boldnesse to be guilty of absurdity in offering a Translation to him who so exactly understandeth the Originall one who if he had a mind to see how it would look in English were able to set a much fairer gloss upon it then I have done yet my Lord this absurdity may have a good colour for it may not be unpleasing to you to see your own perfection in the glasse of anothers imperfection seeing even the best Diamonds seem to take a pleasure in having of foiles Besides I have my choice of another colour for being to to passe a world of hazard in the censure of the world I am willing to passe the pikes at first and account this done having once passed yours And towards it my Lord I have two comforts one for the Reader that the Authours gold is so much over weight that though much be lost in the melting yet it holds out weight enough still to make it currant the other for myself that by this meanes I may have a testimony remaining in the world how much I honour you and in how high a degree I most affectionately am Your Lordships humble Servant RICHARD BAKER TO THE LORD CARDINALL OF RICHELIEV My LORD I Here present you Mounsieur Balzac's Letters which may well be termed new ones even after the eighth Edition for though they have long since been in possession of publick favour yet I may justly say this is the first time their Authour hath avouched them The advantagious Judgement you have delivered of him and the ardor wherewith all France hath followed your approbation well deserveth his best endeavours toward the perfectionating so excellent things I have been solicitous to draw him to this labour to the end the world might know that if I be not worthy the share I have in his respects yet that I have at least been wise enough to make right use of my good fortune and to cause it to become serviceable to the glory of my Countrey But truly were he master of his body or did his maladies afford him liberty of spirit he would not suffer any but himself to speak in this cause and his pen performing no slight acts would have consecrated his own labours and the wonders they have produced But since evils have no prefixed time of durance and in that all the good interims which hereafter may befall him are wholly to be imployed in his Book The Prince I esteemed it to small purpose to attend his health in this businesse and that it was now no longer any time to deferre the purging of these curious Letters from such blemishes as ill impressions had left upon them They shall therefore non appear in the parity wherein they were conceived and with all their naturall ornaments Besides I have added divers letters of his not as yet come to light which may serve as a subject of greater satisfaction to all men and be as a recompense of the honour wherewith he hath collected the former And truly my Lord had it been possible to place in the Frontispiece of this Book a more illustrous name then yours or should Mounsieur de Balzac's inclination and mine have been farre from any such intention yet would not the order of things or the law of decency have permitted any other reflection then what I now make I speak not at this present of that dazeling greatnesse whereunto you are elevated nor of that so rare and necessary vertue which rightly to recognize the greatest King on earth hath esteemed himself not to be over able I will only say I had reason to submit an eloquence produced in the shade and formed in solitarinesse to this other eloquence quickned both with voice and action causing you to reign in sovereignity at all assemblies Certainly my Lord you are more powerfull by this incomparable quality then by the authority wherein the King hath placed you The only accent of your voice hath a hidden property to charm all such as hearken unto you none can be possessed with any so wilfull passions who will not be appeased by the reasons you propound and after you have spoken you will at all times remain master of that part of man no way subject to the worlds order and which hath not any dependency upon lawfull power or tyrannicall usurpation This is a truth my Lord as well known as your name and which you so solidly confirmed at the last assembly of the Notables as that in the great diversity of humours and judgements whereof it was composed there was peradventure this only point well resolved on That you are the most eloquent man living This being true I can no way doubt but the perusall of this Book I offer unto you will extraordinarily content you and that you will be pleased to retire thither sometimes to recreate your spirits after agitation and to suspend those great thoughts who have for their object the good of all Europe It is a book my Lord wherein you shall find no common thing but the Title where entertaining some particular person Mounsieur de Balzac reades Lessons to all men and where amidst the beauty of Complements and dexterity of Jeasting he often teacheth of the most sublime point of Philosophy I mean not that wrangling part thereof which rejecteth necessary verities to seek after unprofitable ones which cannot exercise the understanding without provoking passions nor speak of moderation without distemper and putting the soul into disorder But of that whereby Pericles heretofore made himself master of Athens and wherewith Epaminondas raised himself to the prime place of Greece which tempereth the manners of particulars regulateth the obligation of Princes and necessarily bringeth with it the felicity of all States where they command This book will make it apparent even to your enemies that your life hath been at all times equally admirable though not alwayes alike glorious How you have conserved the opinion of your vertue even in the time of your hardest fortunes and how in the greatest fury of the tempest and in the most extreme violence of your affairs the integrity of your actions hath never been reduced to the only testimony of your conscience To conclude It is in this Book my Lord where I suppose you will be pleased to read the
composed of Christal or as if I were some necessary matter for the good of all men Yet my Lord you have so great power over me that I will strain my self to shew my obedience and to give you an account of my leasure since you please to think I ought not to deprive the World thereof It is better to utter glorious dreams than to labour in gross designs and there are certain Acts of the spirit so excellent that Princes are too poor and their power too slender to afford them their full merit But my Lord you have often given so great testimonies of me that if I should not have some presumption it were fit I lost my memory wherefore out of the assurance you give me that my Stile doth not stray from that perfection which men imagine but never saw nor have attained unto I will enter upon a design which shall amaze our vulgar wits and cause those who have hitherto supposed they surmount others to see I have found what they seek for Whatsoever I do I will at least have you at all times present to my thoughts thereby to oblige my self not to come short before so great an example nor will I forget the place where at this present I am to the end not to omit any thing worthy the Ancient Rome It is impossible at once to have so glorious objects and degenerous thoughts or not to be transported with all those Triumphs of times past and with the glory of our age But this is not the place where I intend to speak it being of too small extent to receive so illimitable a subject It shall therefore suffice in conclusion of this my Letter to tell you that since upon your advice all posterity dependeth and the whole Court expecteth from you what they are or are not to believe I cannot chuse my Lord but to esteem my self right happy even amidst my greatest miseries if you still continue unto me your equal Judgement with the honour of your favours BALZAC From Rome this 10. of April 1623. To the Lord Cardinal of Richelieu from Monsieur Balzac LETTER V. My Lord MY purpose was at my arrival in France to have presented my Service unto you in the place of your Residence that I might have had the honour to see you but my health having not been such as to afford me the free disposition of my self I am forced to defer my contentment in that kinde and to intreat to hear some news from you till I be able to go to understand them from your Self In the interim the better to chear my Spirits I will believe they are as good as I wish them and will imagine this Collick of yours whereof I had so great apprehension shall be drowned in the fountain of Pougues This truly is so generally desired and sought for at Gods hands by so many mouths that I am confident he will not in this point leave the felicity he hath prepared for our times unperfect and that he loveth the World too well to deprive it of the good you are to Perform Armies being defeated new forces may be set on foot and a second Fleet may be rigged after the first perish But if we should want your Lordship the World would not last long enough to be able to repair such a loss And the King might have just cause to bewail the same in the midst of his greatest Triumphs He hath indeed an inexhaustable Kingdom of men The Wars do daily afford him Captains The number of Judges is not much inferiour to that of Criminals It is onely of wise men and such as are capable to guide the Stern of States whereof the scarcity is great and without flattery to finde out your Equal herein all Nature had need put it self into Action and that God long promised the same to mankind before he be pleased to produce him I say nothing my Lord I am not ready to swear in verification of my belief or which I confirm not by the Testimony of your very Enemies The authority of Kings is not so Sovereign as that is you exercise over the Souls of such as hearken unto you Your spirit is right powerfull and daily imployed in great affairs and which refresheth it self in agitation of ordinary occurrents You are destinated to fill the place of that Cardinal which at this present maketh one of the beautifull parties of heaven and who hath hitherto had no Successour though he have had Heirs and Brothers This being thus who will doubt that publick Prayers are to be offered for so precious and necessary a health as yours or that your life ought to be dear unto you within you are to conserve the glory of our age As for me my Lord who am assaulted on all sides and to whom nothing is remaining save hope being the onely benefit of those who are deprived of all others since my misfortune will needs make me that publick sacrifice which is to be charged with the pains of all the people and pay for all the World I could be well content you should send me your Collick and that it come to accompany the Feaver the Scyatica and the Stone Since of so many diseases there can but one Death be composed Nor is it time any longer to be a good husband of what is already lost But I will not enter further into this discourse whereof I shall finde no end and it were to small purpose to tell you he is the most wretched man in the World who so much honoureth you for fear you should reject my affection as some fatal thing and least it avail me not at all to protest that I am my Lord Your most humble and most obedient Servant BALZAC Septemb. 4. 1622. To the Lord Cardinal of Richelieu LETTER VI. MY LORD AFter the sealing of these presents a messenger passed by this place by whom I understand that the Pope hath created you a Cardinal I make no question but you received this news as a matter indifferent unto you and that your spirit being raised above the things of this World you behold them with one and the same Aspect Yet since herein the publick good meeteth with your particular interest and that for your sake the Church rejoyceth even in all the most irksome Prisons of Europe it is not reasonable you should deprive your self of a contentment no less chast than those heaven it self affordeth us and which proceedeth from the same cause All good men my Lord ought in these times to desire great Dignities as necessary means to undertake great matters If they do otherwise besides that God will demand a strict account from them of those his graces whereof they have made no good use the World hath likewise just subject of complaint seeing them abandon it as a prey to the wicked and that their desire of ease causeth them to forsake the publick good This my Lord is to let you know you are to reserve your
as a consolation for the rest Without further ambiguity the man is seized on who grew lean by the well-fare of others and who was one of those pale and sober persons born for the Ruine of States there is some appearance he died as well of the Purples of M. L. C. D. R. as of his own and that you sent him his first surfeit from Rome where he truely considering how there was no longer any favour to follow nor Favorite to flatter he would leave to live any longer as though he had no further affairs in this World Howsoever it be we are herein to acknowledge the finger of God and to confess he doth sometimes punish Malefactours without observing the forms of Justice at least it cannot be denied but God loveth the Queen extraordinarily since he reserveth to himself the revenge of all her injuries nor will let any thing remain in the World which may prove distastefull unto her If she desired the Sea should be calm in the most stormy days of Winter or two Autumnes to happen each year I am confident of Natures change in conformity to her will nor is there any thing she cannot obtain of Heaven which granteth the very prayers she hath not as yet begun I am here some hundred and fifty leagues from these fine things where I study to solace my self as much as possibly I can and to this end I make my self drunk every day But to free you from any sinister opinion of what I say I assure you it is onely with the water of Pougues which surely would be Ink were it black so that I surfeit without sinning against the rules of Sobrietie and any frolicks are as Austeer as the Minimes fastings I have a great desire to enter covenants with my Physicians whereby it might be granted that all agreeable things should be wholesom and that one might speedily recover his health by the scent of flowers instead of their Medicines which are ordinarily second miseries succeeding the former yet without spending much time or trouble I have made all impossibilities passible with me and in the case I am I would swallow fire were it prescribed me for the recovery of my health It is no small advantage not to be reduced to these tearms no more than you are and not to know what it is to suffer or complain So is it for the general good of the whole World that GOD hath given you this vigorous health to imploy it in the service of Kings and in your Vigilancy over the conduct of people As for me who should not happily make so good use thereof as I ought and who am far more inclinable to Vice than to Virtue I hold it convenient I be always crazie and that GOD take from me the means to offend him whereof otherwise I should infallibly make but over-much use I write not at this present to M. it is all I can do to finish this Letter in hast and to tell you what you long since knew that I am my Lord Your most humble passionate Servant BALZAC October the 15. 1622. To the Lord Bishop of Air from BALZAC LETTER XI MY LORD I Am infinitely glad to understand by your Letters of your safe return into France and that you have now no further use of Cyphers for the expression of your minde to my Lord the Cardinal of Richelieu I shall at your pleasure I hope understand the particulars of your Voyage and what you have seen at Naples and Venice worthy your content This is not out of any great curiosity I have for these things or that I admire dumbe Marble or Pictures being no way so beautifull as the Persons These trifles are to be left for the Vulgar with whom the same Objects limit their imagination and sight and who of all times reflect meerly upon the present and of all things onely upon the appearance but for my part I am of a contrary opinion There are not in the whole World any Palaces so sumptuous or of so high a structure which are not far under my thoughts and I conceive in my spirit a poor hermitage to the foundation whereof many more materials are projected than were requisite for establishing a Republick You see here my Lord how in some sort I play the Prince amidst my poverty and with what insolency I scorn what the World so much admireth I am as haughty as though I were a Minister of State or as if this last change in the Kingdom had been made for me alone yet you know well that I call not my self L.M.D.L.V. and how if there had been none but my self to assault my Lord the Comte of Schambergs Virtue it still had continued in the same place where it hath been reverenced of all men Each man hath his several censure concerning this great news but whatsoever they can say I assure my self there can nothing befall that Lord whereto he is not at all times prepared and that he hath lived too long not to know that Fortune taketh special delight in dallying with the affairs of France and hath from all Ages made choice of our Court as the Theater of her follies If he had not been provided of the government of this Citie and what time the King commanded him to come thence his fall had been more fearfull then it was but it is Gods will that Augolesme should be the fatal retreat of the afflicted and truely all things well considered it is no great down-come to light upon a Mountain Now truely if there be any thing amiss in the administration of the Kings monies he cannot be taxed for introducing this errour for he found it there and besides the necessity of the times have ever resisted his good intentions and have hindred the appearance of what he had in his heart for the reformation of disorders It is now necessary the King undertake so glorious a design and set his hand to that part of the State which hath more need of redress than all the rest But he is first to begin by the moderation of his Spirit and he shall after gain their loyalty who serve him If those Princes our Elders have seen had considered that the Coyn coming into their Exchecquers was no less than the bloud and tears of their poor Subjects whom they have often forced to fly into Forrests and pass the Seas to save themselves from Taxes and impositions they would have been more scrupulous and cautelous how they had touched upon so dreadfull undertakings at least they would not have been at once both indigent and unjust nor have amazed all the Princes of Europe who could never conceive why they borrowed their own moneys of their Treasurers who receive their revenews as they purchase their own strong places from their Governours who command therein Truely it is very strange the Great Turk can intrust his Wives to the vigilancy of others and assure themselves their Chastity shall thereby be conserved yet that Kings
the corruption of this Age wherein well nigh all Spirits revolt from the Faith cannot be drawn to believe any truth to be greater than what he hath understood from his Nurse or Mother If in what concerneth not Religion I have sometimes had my private sence and opinion I do with my very heart leave the same to the end to reconcile my self with the Vulgar and least I should appear an enemy to my Countrey for a slight word or matter of small importance If φφφφ had held himself to this Maxim he might securely have lived among men nor had he been prosecuted with all extreamity as the most savage of all beasts But he rather chose to make a Tragical end than to expect a death wherewith the World was unacquainted or to execute onely ordinary actions So far as I can learn or if the report which passeth be current he had a conceit he might one day prove to be that false Prophet wherewith the declining age of the Church is threatned and though he be but of mean extraction and poor fortunes he was notwithstanding so presumptuous as to imagine himself to be the man who is to come with armed forces to disturb the quiet of consciences and for whom the infernal Ministers keep all the Treasures yet hidden in the earths entrails So long as he contented himself in committing onely humane faults writing as yet with an untainted Pen I often told him his Verses were not passable and that he was in the wrong to esteem himself an understanding man But he perceiving that the rules I propounded to him for bettering his abilities to be over-sharp and severe for him and finding small hope of arriving whether I desired to conduct him he perhaps thought best to seek out some other way to bring himself into a credit at Court hoping of a mean Poet to become a mighty Prophet So that as it is generally reported after he had perverted a number of silly Spirits and long shewed himself in the throng of the ignorant multitude he in conclusion did as one who should cast himself into a bottomless pit on purpose to gain the reputation of being an admirable Jumper My Lord you remember I doubt not what our joynt opinion hath been of such like persons and the weakness you shewed there was in the principles of their wicked Doctrine Now truely how extravagant soever my Spirit hath been I have yet ever submitted the same to the Authority of GODS Church and to the consent of Nations and as I have always held that a single drop of water would more easily corrupt then the whole Ocean So have I ever assured my self that particular opinions could never be either so sound or sollid as the general Tenets A silly man who hath no further knowledge of himself than by the relations of others who is at his wits end and wholly confounded in the consideration or reflection upon the meanest works of Nature who after the revolution of so many Ages is not able to assign the cause of a certain Rivers overflow nor of the intervales or good days of a Tertian Ague How dare he presume to speak confidently of that Infinite Majesty in whose presence the Angels themselves cover their faces with their Wings and under whom the very Heavens crouch even to the Earths lowest concavities There is no other thing remaining for us save the onely glory of Humility and Obedience within the limits whereof we ought to contain our selves And since it is most certain that Humane reason reacheth not to so high a pitch as to attain the perfection of Knowledge we ought instead of disputing or questioning points of Religion to rest satisfied in the adoration of the Mysteries for doubtless if we strive to enter further thereinto or search for a thing utterly unknown to all Phylosophy and concealed from the Sages of this World we shall by such prophane curiosity gain onely the dazeling of our eys and confusion of our sences God by the light of his Gospel hath revealed unto us divers Truths whereof we were utterly ignorant but he reserveth for us far greater Mysteries which we shall never comprehend but onely in that Kingdom which he hath prepared for his chosen Servants and by the onely vision of his Face In the mean time to the end to augment the merit of our Faith and the more to perfectionate our Piety his pleasure is that Christians should become as blinde Lovers and that they have not any other desires or hopes but for those things above the reach of their understandings and which they can no way comprehend by Natural reason So soon as the time you have prefixed me shall be expired and the Prime-roses make the Spring appear I will not fail to wait upon you and diligently to address my self to the collection of your grave and important Discourses and to become an honest man by hearing since that is the Sence appointed for the apprehension of Christian virtues and whereby the Son of God was conceived and his Kingdom established among men But it is needless to use any artifice or that you paint the place of your abode in so glorious colours thereby to invite me to come For though you preached in the Desart or were you hidden in such a corner of the World where the Sun did onely shine upon the steril Sands and steep Rocks you well know I should esteem my self happy where you are Your Company being of power to make either a prison or proscription pleasing unto me and wherein I finde the Loover and the whole Court will add to the description you have made of Air divers beauties which Geographers have not hitherto observed as being far greater than others though more secret Those Mountains which will not allow France and Spain to be one mans and under which the Rain and Thunder are framed will appear to me more huge than they formerly did when I first saw them your waters which heretofore cured divers diseases will even raise the dead if you once bless them and doubtless this people always bred up to bear Arms and who as the Fire and Iron is onely destinated for the use of War hath ere now mollified their fierce humour by the moderation of your milde conduct For my part Sir I make account to become a new man under your hands and to receive a second Birth from you Truely it would be a thing right happy to me and in it self famous if the like Spiritual health proceeding from the garments and shadows of the Apostles might happen unto me by approaching so holy a person and if being your workmanship and the Son of your Spirit I should instantly resemble a Father so happily endowed with all those rare qualities and perfections which are wholy deficient in me BALZAC To Mounsieur de la Motts Aigron LETTER XV. YEsterday was one of those Sunless days as you tearm them which resemble that beautifull blinde Maid wherewith Philip the
nourish my self with the spirit of Fruits and with a meat called jelly My Lord these are all the services I yield you in this place and all the functions of my residence near his holiness and I hold my self particularly obliged now the second time to thank you for this favour for by your means I injoy two things seldom suiting together a Master and Liberty and the great rest you allow me is not the least present you please out of your Nobleness to affoord me Your Graces most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC From Rome 15. of July 1621. To the Lord Cardinal de Valette from BALZAC LETTER V. My Lord WIthin the Deserts of Arabia nor in the Seas intrails was there ever so furious a Monster found as is the Sciatica And if Tyrants whose memories are hatefull unto us had been stored with such instruments for effecting their cruelties surely I think it had been the Sciatica the Martyres had indured for Religion and not the fire and biting of wilde beasts At every sting it carries a poor sick person even to the borders of the other World and causeth him sensible to touch the extremities of life And surely to support it long a greater remedy than Patience is no less than requisite and other forces than those of man In the end GOD hath sent me some ease after the receit of an infinite of remedies some whereof sharpned my grief and the rest asswaged it not But the violence of my pain being now past I begin to injoy such rest as weariness and weakness affoordeth to over-tired bodies And though I be in a state of health far less perfect than those who are found yet measuring it by the proximity of the misery I have indured and the comparison of those pains I have suffered I am right glad of my present Fortune nor am I so hardy to dare as yet complain of my great weakness remaining To speak truth I have no better legs than will serve to make a shew and should I undertake to walk the length of my Chamber my trouble would be no less than if I were to pass the Mountains and cross all Rivers I encounter But to the end to change Discourse and to let you see things in their fair shape you are to understand that in this plight wherein I stand being sufficient to cause you to pitty me four hundred leagues off I am on the one side become so valiant as not to fly though I were pursued by a whole Army and on the other so stately that if the Pope should come to visite me I would not conduct him so far as the Gates This is the advantage I draw from my bad legs and the remedies arising in my bed wherewith I indeavour to comfort my self without the help of Physicks You will I fear say I might well have forborn to entertain you with these impertinencies nor am I ignorant that perfect felicities such as yours desire not to be disquieted either by the complaints of the distressed or by the consideration of distastefull things But it is likewise true that the first loss we indure in pain falls upon our judgement and the body hath such a proximity with the Soul that the miseries of the one do easily slide into the other But what reason soever I have to defend my evil humour yet must it necessarily give way to your contentment and of the two passions wherewith I am assaulted obey the stronger I will therefore be no longer sad but for others and will hold it fit I make you laugh upon the subject of XXXXX to whom you lately addressed your Letters You may please to remember one of their names to be A. the other B yet it is not sufficient onely to know so much but I must likewise inform you somewhat of their shape and stature The first I speak of is so gross as I verily think he will instantly die of an Apoplexie and the other so little as I would swear that since he came into the World he never grew but at the hairs end afore any indifferent Judges an Ape would sooner pass for a man than this Pigmy nor will I believe he was made after the image of God left therein I should wrong so excellent a Nature Besides it were an easier task to raise the dead than to make this mans teeth white he hath a Nose at enmity with all others and against which there is no possible defence but Spanish Gloves What can I say more there is no part of his body that is not shamefull or wherein Nature hath not been defective Yet notwithstanding one of the fairest Princesses of Italie is by a solemn contract condemned to lodge night by night with this Monster When you chance to see this man together with the other great bellied beast who stuffs a whole Carroach you will presently suppose God never made them to be Princes and that it is not onely as much as to abuse the obedience of free persons but even to wrong the meanest Grooms to give them Masters of this stamp Now though the party you wot of do in some sort represent the latter person yet is there still some small difference between his actions and the others The great VVV is newly parted from this Court where he hath not received from his Holiness his expected contentment His design was to break the Marriage his Brother hath contracted upon some slight appearance of Sorcery wherewith he deemed to dazle the Worlds eye and ground the nullity of an action which was by so much the more free in that the parties who perform'd it sought not the consent of any to approve it In conclusion after the loss of much time and many words he is gone without obtaining any thing save onely the Popes benediction and as for me I remain much satisfied to see Justice so exact at Rome that they will not condemn the Devil himself wrongfully I have heard how in some places half hour Marriages are made the conditions whereof are neither digested into writing nor any memorie thereof reserved but of these secret mysteries there are no other witnesses save onely the Night and Silence And though the Court of Rome approveth them not yet doth she shut her eys fearing to see them I am resolved not to be long in the description of K.K.K. whom you know much better than my self Yet thus much I will say that since Neroes death there never appeared in Italie a Comedian of more honourable extraction And surely to make the Company at this present in France compleat his personage were sufficient He makes Verses he hath read Aristotle and understands Musick and in a word he hath all the excellent qualities unnecessary in a Prince I know here a German called S. to whom he giveth an annual pension of a thousand Crowns assigned unto him upon an Abbey during life this he hath done not that he intendeth to use his service in his counsel
to grieve for the Victory whereat all others rejoyce Besides I being of a profession onely exercised in private and repose I assure you the report of Cannons begins to trouble me for of all Wars those of Germany please me best in that I am thirty dayes journeys off Our Doctors say no less then I do the most zealous among them longingly expect a more quiet season fearing the ruine of the adverse part for the interest of their Arguments and Schollership and in very truth I cannot conceive what they should do with their controversies where there no longer any against whom thay could contend I write you this from the bank of the most beautifull River of the World but being so far from you I taste all pleasures imperfectly and were my Kinsman revived not seeing you there would still remain a kinde of affliction upon me which nothing but your presence is able to ease Without playing the Poet I can assure you I have taught your name to all the Rocks in my wilderness and it is written upon the Barks of all our Trees but you are no way obliged unto me in that I love you extraordinarily It is an action independant on my will or free election it being at this present as necessary for me as all other things are without which I cannot subsist And it is requisite I suffer my self to be transported by the force of my inclination which another would call his Destiny Be therefore when you please mine enemy you are assured I shall never be but. Your most humble and most faithfull servant BALZAC The 21. of September 1615. To the same LETTER XXI A Lame Foot-man would have made more haste then the Messenger did who delivered me your two Letters fifteen dayes after the latter of them was written Yet notwithstanding was he very wellcom and had it been Lysander himself bringing news from you he had been inviolable to all my Lackies and I had received him as my friend Truely there is not any discontent which is not lost in the joy I receive to be beloved by you and if the small displeasure they have done me were of power to offend me I should in your favours finde the remedy others seek for revenge I have as unmovedly read the Satyre made against me as I write this Letter and have onely accused my bad fortune which hath at all times chosen the most infamous of all men for mine enemies you cannot imagine how much I am ashamed of this unlucky accident and of the wrong I suppose I receive when at any time they give me the advantage in a comparison wherein Lysander cannot enter without having the better of it Yet Sir I am resolved to have patience provided the War you raise against me be onely feigned and that you speak not seriously for surely I would burn all my papers were they culpable of one single word displeasing unto you and my thoughts should be far different from my intention had I done any thing disgustfull unto you howsoever I crave pardon for the fault whereof you accuse me though I suppose I have not done you any so ill Offices to fair Ladies as it seems you would perswade me On the contrary if my testimony be seconded by their ascents there will not be hereafter any among them who will not look upon you as at one of their chiefest felicities and who will not sell all her Pearls to purchase one of your Nights Queens will come from the remotest parts of the World to taste the pleasure of your conversation and you shall be the third after Salomon and Alexander who shall cause them to come at the report of your Virtue As for devout persons I do not think they will rank Health and Strength in the number of Vices for by that reason they should hold all those for Saints whom the Courts of Parliament have declared as impotent and so fill Heaven with sick folks To say truth I cannot deny but I have given the Alarum to married men and I must say your visits will be suspicious to those who know you not but when they shall understand what I intend to publish in all places that you had rather die then violate with so much as one single thought the laws of true Friendship and that your fidelity is irreproveable In stead of avoiding you as an object of scandal they will propound you to their Wives as an example of Continency I could alleadge divers other things for my Justification but if you think I have been faulty I will not presume to imagine I am innocent and rather then contradict you I will sign the decree of my Death with mine own hand The 10. of Octob. 1625. To the same LETTER XXII THere is no other means to exceed the height of what you have written not to answer the civilities of your Letter but onely by rendring you all your own words I know not your meaning but to take the most unprofitable of your friends for your benefactor and to thank me for the ill I do you is no less then strangely to abuse the propriety of words especially for a man so perfectly acquainted with our language as your self or questionless it must needs be you suffer my persecutions with the like patience as good men receive those afflictions God layes upon them For as losses and diseases are presents and favours in terms of devotion so do you bestow pompous names upon poor matters you make your self believe you shall draw some advantage out of my Amity though in truth you extract nothing thence but charge nor doth it produce any better effects then Thorns And upon the matter what else are the pains and affairs I perpetually put upon you or what difference is there between the hatred of an Enemy and so troublelom an affection as mine It is I who disturb your rest who usurp your liberty who will not suffer you to have any leasure though that be the true possession of the wise It is no want of good-will in me that I change not all your kindeness into choller and make not a pleader and wrangler of the best tempered spirit Philosophy ever received from Nature I lay Ambushes for you at Paris at Fontainbleau and at S. Germains Yea should you think to hide your self at the Worlds end to avoid importunities I would undertake the voyage of Magellan to seek you out there yet are you well pleased with all this and I receive thanks instead of expecting ill words The care you have to oblige me exceeds all I can desire Good Offices come thick upon me when they proceed from your side and they are actions it seems you are pleased to convert into habitudes Without entring into infinities do I not of recent memorie owe to your testimonie all the good opinion your excellent friend can have of me and if he imagine I am worthy any estimation is it not you who sets a value upon my defects and
not at Christian virtues nor vanteth of Moral ones I hope to see him within few dayes and to take possession of some small corner in his House at Pompona which he hath provided for me there to breath at mine ease and to set my spirits sometimes at liberty In the interim you must needs know about what I busie my self and that I tell you I entertain a fool in whom I finde all the Actors in a Comedy and all sorts of extravagancies incident to the spirit of man After my books have busied me all the morning and that I am weary of their company I spend some part of the after-noon with him partly to divert my thoughts from serious things which do but nourish my Melancholy Ever since I came into this World I have been perpetually troublesome to my self I have found all the hours of my life tedious unto me I have done nothing all day but seek for night Wherefore if I desire to be merry I must necessarily deceive my self and my felicity is so dependant upon exterior things that without Painting Musick and divers other divertisements how great a Muser soever I am I have not sufficient wherewith to entertain my self or to be pleased Think not therefore that either my fool or my books are sufficient to settle my contentment nay rather if you have any care of me or if you desire I should have no leasure to be sad make me partaker of all the news hapning in the place where you are let me see the whole Court by your eyes cause me to assist at all Sermons by your ears give me accompt of the good and bad passages hapning this Winter and that there part not a post uncharged with a Gazetto of your stile as there shall not any go hence who shall not bring you some vision of my retiredness There runs a rumour in these parts that Mounsieur de Boudeville is slain but since there are not many more hard atchievements to be wrought then that it is too great a death to be believed upon the first report The 1. of November 1625. LETTER XXVI WEre I not confined to my bed I should my self have sollicited the business I have recommended unto you nor should I have suffered you thus far to oblige me in my absence But since I cannot possibly part hence and am here constrained to take ill rest being far more grievous unto me then agitation I humbly beseech you to suffer these Lines to salute you in my stead and to put you in remembrance of the request I made unto you Sir I am resolved not to be beholding to any but your self for the happy success whereof the goodness of our cause assureth us and in case your integrity should be interessed I would owe the whole to your favour For besides that you are born perfectly generous I do not at all doubt but the commerce you have with good books and particularly with Seneca hath taught you the Art To do good to all men But to the end the obligation I desire to owe you may be wholy mine own instead of referring it to the study of Morality to your bountifull inclination or to the Justice of my request I will rather imagine I shall be the sole cause of this effect and that you will act without any other assistance out of the love you bear me who am passionately Your most humble and most faithfull servant BALZAC Paris the 2. of May 1627. LETTER XXVII G X. X. is resolved to leave all worldly affairs in the state he found them and these great cares which should have extended themselves over the most remote parts of Christendom have not as yet passed the limits of his house He preserves his old age and prolongs his life by all the possible means he can imagine But it is thought he will not long make his successor attend and that his death will be the first news in the Gazetto Phisicians and Astrologers have concluded upon this point that he shall not see the end of Autumn For my part I never made any great difference between a dead person and an unprofitable one and if things less perfect ought to be post posed to more excellent ones it were a mockery to make choice of sick folks and cause them to be adored by those who are in health or to put soveraign power into their hands to the end onely to have them leave it to others But it is not my part to reform all things displeasing me in this World and I should be very ungratefull if I blamed that form of government wherein I finde my self very well In effect Sir speak no more to me of the North nor its neighbours I declare my self for Rome against Paris nor can I any longer imagine how a man can live happily under your Climate where Winter takes up nine Moneths of the Year and after that the Sun appeareth onely to cause the Plague and weak as it is forbears not to kill men There is not any place Rome excepted where life is agreeable where the bodie findes its pleasures and the spirit his where men are at the source of singular things Rome is the cause you are neither Barbarian nor Pagan since she hath taught you the civility of Religion She hath given you those Laws which Arm you against errour and those examples whereto you owe the good actions you perform It is from hence inventions and Arts are come to you and where you have received the Science of of Peace and War Painting Musick and Comedies are strangers in France but natural in Italie that great Virtue it self you so much admire in your Court is she nor Roman That Martchioness of whom so many marvels are related is she not Countrey-woman to the Mother of the Graches and the Wife of Brutus and in truth to possess all those perfections the World acknowledgeth in her was it not fitting she should be born in a place whereon Heaven defuseth all its Graces Truely I never ascend Mount Palatin or the Capitole but I change spirit and others then my ordinarie cogitations seaze upon me This aire inspireth me with some great and generous thing I formerly had not and if I muse but two hours upon the Banks of Tyber I am as understanding as if I had studied eight dayes It is a thing I wonder at that being so far off you make so excellent Verses and so near the Majestie of Virgils I suppose herefore none will blame me for having chosen Rome for the place of my abode or for preferring flowers before Snow and Ice If men choose Popes of three-score and ten years old and not of five and twenty the dayes are therefore neither sadder nor shorter nor have we any subject to complain of our Masters debility since we are thereto obliged for our quiet From Rome the 25. of March 1621. LETTER XXVIII IT is not to answer your excellent Letter I write you this but onely to let you
know you have so absolutely acquired me to your service as you have left me no libertie to do what I desire when there is any question of performing your pleasure Since therefore you and your Printers have conspired against my quiet and that you determine to make my infirmities as publick as though you meant to lead me to the Hospitals or Church-porches I am contented with closed eyes to obey you and to put my reputation to adventure rather then seem to refuse a thing you have demanded of me Mounsieur the Priour of Chives to whom I communicate my most secret thoughts and in whose person you shall see that I know how to make good elections in delivering you this Letter may conclude it and acquaint you with the power I have given you over all my desires truely it hath no other bounds then impossibilities Since as for those which are onely unjust I believe I should make small scruple to violate the Laws for your sake and to testifie unto you that virtue it self is not more dear unto me then your friendship this is Your most humble and most affectionate servant BALZAC The 4. of January 1624. LETTER XXIX BEing now ready to alter my course of life and part hence to come to Court I held my self obliged to advertise you that herein I do what I have no minde unto and that they have pulled me out from a soil where I suppose I had taken Root It much afflicts me that I must forsake the company of my Trees and part from that pleasing solitude my good Fortune had chosen for me before I was born But since all the World drives me out and because what I call repose my friends term Pusillanimity I must suffer my self to be carried away with the press and to erre with others since they will not let me do well by my self Upon my Conscience it is not out of my own ambition that I am high-minded but out of my Fathers and if people of his time had not measured things by the events had not believed those onely to be wise who are fortunate I should not have busied my self in searching at Paris for what I ought to have found in my self But truely I have so great obligation to so good a Father and the care he hath taken to husband the good grain he hath cast into me and to finish me after he had framed me have been so great and passionate as there is no reason I should follow my private inclination by resisting his intention I go therefore since it is his pleasure to live among wilde beasts and to expose my self to hatred and calumny as though the Feaver and Sciatica were not sufficient to make me miserable At my first approach the Grammarians will call me into question because I put not the French word Mensonge into the feminine gender and do not believe the Jurisdiction they have over words is powerfull enough to cause this word to change Sex Those who have not as yet written will set pen to paper against me and the new Bridge will Eccho nothing but my name and their injuries I shall be much distasted to hear I am become an Author and that I perform indifferent good pieces The meaner sort of spirits will be much moved in that I have set so high a rate upon Eloquence and being unable to follow me they will throw stones to stay me The truth I have not dissembled will at once offend our adversaries and ill Priests debaucht persons will never forgive me the P. P. they have seen in my books and Hypocrites will wish me ill because I set upon vice even within the Sanctuary See here my dear friend the persecution prepared for me and of what sorts of people the Army of mine Enemies is composed In all apparence there is not any valour able to surmount so great a multitude and I should do much better to enjoy the peace of my village and to eat Mellons in security then to cast my self into this incensed troup and to engage my self in an endless War yet since all Grammarians are not worth one Philosopher and in that the better part hath often the advantage over the greater I am in hope Authority and Reason siding with me I shall easily get the upper hand of multitudes and injustice To tax me in these times wherein we are is as much as to give the lye to his Master and to condemne the opinion of the prime men of our age Those who govern at Rome and at Paris make my labours their delights and when at any time they lay aside the weight of the whole World they refresh themselves with my Works But if some bad Monks who in religious houses as Rats and other imperfect creatures may happily have been in the Ark seek to gnaw my reputation Mounsieur de Nantes and Mounsieur de Berille will conserve it and you know them for two men whom the Church in this age beholdeth as two Saints disâ—interred out of the memorie of her Annals or two of those Primative Fathers whose Souls were wholy replenished with Jesus Christ and who have established the Truth as well by their Bloud as Doctrine I have besides as an opposite to my Calumniators one of the most perfect Religious this day living I mean Father Joseph whose great Zeal is guided by as eminent an understanding and who hath the same passions for the general good of Christendom as Courtiers have for their particular interests This irreproachable witness knows I reverence in others the Piety I finde not in my self and if I perform not all the actions of a perfectly virtuous person yet have I at least all the sensibilities and desires Mounsieur the Abbot of St. Cyran who is not ignorant of any thing falling within the compass of humane understanding besides the more sublime gifts and illuminations wherewith he is adorned and who in a right profound Litterature hath yet a more resigned humility will answer for me in the same case and though all these strange forces should fail me have I not sufficient in the protection of the Bishop of Air and Mounsieur Bouthilier who do both of them love me as though I had the honour to be their Brother and who are so sage so judicious and so understanding in all things as it is not probable they would begin to erre by the good opinion they have of me I suppose that hereupon I may venter to go to Court and that with so powerfull assistance there are no enemies I need fear Yet will I once again tell you and I beseech you believe me I would not part hence were I permitted to stay and that it doth not a little trouble me to lose the sight of my paths and allies wherein I walk without being enforced to wear Bootes or have any apprehension of Carroaches From Balzac the 18. of October 1624. LETTER XXX I Am doubtfull to believe you speak in earnest in your Letter
Kings armies were to speak properly Both sides have gained by his victory All the penalty that hath been imposed upon you hath been but this to make you as happy as our selves and you are now in quiet possession of that happiness for which before your Towns were taken you were but suppliants Our Prince will put no yoke upon the consciences of his subjects he desires not to make that to be received by force which cannot be received but by perswasion nor to use such remedies against the French which are not good but against the Moors If the King of Sweden use his prosperity in this manner and soil not so pure a grace with proscriptions and punishments I make you a faithfull promise to do that which you desire me to do to employ all my cunning and all my Engines to erect a statue to the memory of his name You touch the right string of my inclination when you pray me to praise and to magnifie that Prince If all the Crowns that are wrought upon his Scarf should be changed into so many Kingdoms they could never in my opinion sufficiently recompence so rare a virtue not be able to fill so vaste a Spirit as his is As I expect nothing but great from his valour so from his honesty I hope for nothing but good and although in Spain it be currant that he is the true Antichrist yet I am neither so devout to believe such a fable nor so fearfull to be afraid of such a dream I onely answer some scrupulous persons who question me about this Prince that our King hath in him a second to stand by him and such a one as a fitter could never be found to strike an amusement into the house of Austria and to divert it from the care it takes of our affairs But I will stay my self here for this time and not enter upon a subject which I reserve for the dearest hours of my leasure it is better to make a stand at the porch of holy places than to enter into them without preparation Besides my discourse may seem already long if not too long for a beginning of acquaintance pardon I beseech you the contentment I take to be this way with you which makes me forget both your employments and my own custom which is not to be troublesom to any much less to make Sermons to my friends but your self gave me the Text I have handled and I cannot doubt but that having opened unto you the bottom of my heart without dissimulation you will give my liberty the credit of your belief and with this I solemnly assure you that I truely am Sir Your c. To Mounsieur the Abbot of Baume LETTER IV. SIR I Am true if not liberal and I send you that I promised though I cannot send you what I would This is neither a moveable for the use of your house nor an ornament to beautifie your closet it is matter of discourse onely for two or three dayes at your table and a Novelty that will quickly grow stale But if your self have any better opinion of it and that you account it of any value I am contented that you leave my stile to the mercy of any that will arrest it so you please to justifie my intentions to men that are reasonable and not suffer in the Countrey where you are that an honest man should be oppressed with the hatred against his side If I were a revolted Spaniard and that the words I write did come from the mouth of a Fugitive they might with good reason be taken in ill part and we finde that a Grecian at Athens was once punished for serving the Persians to be their Interpreter but I desire you to consider that the cause I maintain is the cause of my Prince and Countrey which I could not maintain coldly without a kinde of treason We punish Prevaricatours and Traitors but true and lawfull enemies we praise and I cannot think that M. the Cardinal of â—â—â—va will think the worse of my passion for the publick liberty who hath shewed himself the like passion for one particular mans Regency I am not afraid that a good action should make me lose his favour or that being himself extreamly just he should not more esteem of my zeal which is natural and honest than the choller of Doctor Bouâ—her a mercenary man and a Pentioner to a stranger It will be no Novelty to say that of Spain which hath been alwayes said of great Empires and that rapine and cruelty is a reproach even to Eagles and Lions To be a Tyrant and an Usurper is it not in other terms to be a Grandee and a Conquerour And are noâ— violence and severity vices that exceed the reach of virtue and which makes our morality ridiculous I blame sometimes the counsels of Kings but I never lay hands upon their royalty and if I seek to cut off superfluities and excesses it cannot therefore be justly said I tear that off which I seek to prune Crowns are to me sacred even upon Idolaters heads and I adore the mark of God in the person of the great Cham and of the great Mogoll Having now made this Declaration which yet is more expresly delivered in my book I hope there will be no place left for calumny and I promise to my self that for my sake you will whip the Spaniards in point of generousness and shew them that she hath shewed her self principally to do a favour to enemies and to mingle things which seem hard to be mingled courtesie and war together I demand not these good Offices from you I expect them from your friendship and I doubt not but you will continue it to me in spight of all the spightfulness and bitterness of the opposites seeing I know you are free from those petty passions of vulgar spirits and that you know I am Sir Your c. To Mounsieur Bouthillier Counsellor of the King in his Counsels and Secretary of his commands LETTER V. SIR I Vow I am one of the worst Courtiers of France and to justifie fortune for having little favoured me I will accuse my self for having little courted her yet for the love of you I have used an extraordinary endeavour My affection hath gone beyond my action and I have put my self to the venture to go as far as Gascogny to seek you out If you had gone by Cadillac as I was told you would you had found me at the waters side at your disinbarking and I should have put hard with the best of the Countrey to have had the honour to offer you my service first of any but God did not think me worthy of my desires It was his pleasure I should make a journey of fifty leagues not to see you and I conceive my happiness to be such that if I should go to Paris with the like intention God would presently inspire the Kings heart to send you away in some Embassage Be pleased therefore Sir
in stead of repelling them with force and my patience hath been such that many have called it want of courage If this be so you will grant me Sir that you trouble your self about that which cannot be that another mans praises should be insupportable to me when I have not been sensible of my own Calumnies I am not like to be in haste to hinder by my violence the making of friendship who have by my remisseness as it were consented to my own hatred There is no colour to think that I should complain of words seigned and such as declaimers use in sport who have not so much as spoken a word of the most cruel action that ever the most premeditated malice could bring forth Let our friend if he please make an Epitaph or a deifying of let him imploy all his Morter and all his Art to build him either a Sepulcher or a Temple and to speak after the manner of let him erect him a shrine and place him amongst his houshold saints I say nothing against all this nor condemne his proceeding whether it be that he honour the memory and merit of the dead or that he stand in awe of the credit and faction of his heirs I easily bear with these small spots in my friends and exact no more of them than they can well spare I know that Greek and Latine make not men valiant nor are things that descended to the bottom of the Soul they scarce reach to the uttermost superficies they stay commonly in the memory and in the imagination and polish the tongue without fortifying the heart I should therefore desire too much if I should desire at all that these goodly knowledges should get a new virtue for my sake and should work a greater effect in the spirit of than they wrought in the Poet Lucan whom fear constrained to accuse his Mother and to praise a Tyrant If it stay but upon me that this dear Childe should see the light after so many sower looks and so many throws I am ready my self to serve for a Midwife I am content it shall be published to day and to morrow be translated into all languages that the Author may not lose a day in his glory and that his glory be not bounded within River or Mountain Never fear that I will impair his ill nights or add the care of one process to his ordinary watchings if he have no other unquietness but what he is like to have from me he may be sure to enjoy a perpetual calm and a perfect tranquility if he be not awaked but by the noise you think I will make him he may sleep as long as Epimenides who going to bed a young man was fifty years elder when he rose Besides I have too much care of my own quiet to go about to trouble his and I love his contentmens too well not to procure it being to cost me nothing but the dissembling his weakness And this I entreat you Sir to assure him from me But knowing you to be wise and virtuous in the degree you are I doubt not but of your own head you will tell him that it becomes not a man of his gravity to countenance such petty things and in a point of Schollarship to use as much formality and ceremony as if it were the Negotiation of an Ambassador but much more that it is a base quality to juggle with his friends and after having said a truth which was not for all mens taste to make a Comment upon it of a Sophister I have read Tacitus and the books of and therefore should know the stile of Tyberius and the Art of Equivocation but I should be loath to seem ingenious to the prejudice of mine honour and to make use of poyson though I had one so subtil that would kill without leaving any mark to be seen I have loved man in affliction and have made use of men in misery Lightning hath not driven me from places which it hath made frightfull I have given testimony of my affection not onely where it could not be acknowledged but where it was in danger to be punished I am not now so dealt withall my self and yet if the justice of my cause were not as it is to be regarded me thinks the violence of my adversaries ought to procure me some favour doth not even honour oblige those that have any feeling of it not to joyn with the multitude which casts it self upon a single man Oppression hath alwayes been a sufficient ground for protection and noble mindes never seek better Title for defending the weake than the need there is of them and to take part with a stranger it is cause enough that many assault him and few assist him and such also I doubt not is your minde I am not less perswaded of the generousness of your minde than of the greatness of your spirit and assure my self you are not the less on my side because I have many persecutors as because also I am firmly Sir Your c. To Mounsieur Huggens Secretary to my Lord the Prince of Orange LETTER VIII SIR I Complain no more of fortune she hath done me at least some courtesie amongst her many injuries and since she suffers that you love me it is a sign she hath some care of amidst her persecutions this good news I have learned by a Letter of yours to M. the Baron of Saint Surin who will bear me witness that after I had read it I desired nothing more for perfecting my joy but that I might be such a one as you make me and be like my picture If this be the coal of Holland with which you make such draughts it surpasseth all the colours that we use here to paint withall and yet the beauty costs you nothing but you shall hardly make me believe it I know Gold and Azure and can easily distinguish it from coal I see Sir the Ambushes you lay for me The facility of your stile covers the force of it but weakens it not and under a shew of carelesness I finde true Art and Ornaments It serves not your turns to do better in the place where you are than we and shutting us out to hold possession of the ancient and solid virtue but you go about to take from us all that is any way passable in corrupt estates I mean the glory of language and not suffer us to have this little toy to comfort our selves withall for the loss of all our truer treasures After fifty years Victories you will now be perswading a parley and will make your selves masters of men by a more sweet and humane way than the former as much in effect as to be that you have sometimes been termed the brothers of the people of Rome and Heirs of the old Catoes who made profession of severity and yet were nor enemies of the graces This is to perfume Iron and Copper and to the liberty and discipline of Sparta to add the
faith seeing I assure you I will ever be Sir Your c. From Balzac the 5. of Febr. 1633. To LETTER XXI SIR SInce you will have me to write that in a Letter which I spake unto you by word of mouth this Letter shall be a second Testimony of the account I make of and of the feeling I have of the courtesies received from him During the time we had his company I considered him with much attention but in my conscience observed nothing in the motions of his spirit but great inclinations to great designs and to see him do wonders in the World you need wish him no more but matter of imployment He hath all the intendments of an honest man all the Characters of a great Lord by these he gains mens eyes in present and their hearts in expectation and afterwards brings more goodness forth than ever he promised and exceeds expectation with performance And in truth if this Heroick countenance had no wares to vent but vulgar qualities this had been a trick put upon us by nature to deceive us by hanging out a false sign The charge he exerciseth in the Church is no burden to him he hath in such sort accommodated his humour to it that in the most painfull functions of so high a duty there lies nothing upon his shoulders but ease and delight He embraceth generally all that he believes to be of the decency of his profession and is neither tainted with the heat which accompanies the age wherein he is nor with the vanity which such a birth as his doth commonly bring with it In a word the way he takes goes directly to Rome He is in good grace with both the Courts and the Pope would be as willing to receive the Kings commendation of him as the King would be to give it He hath brought from thence a singular approbation and hath left behinde him in all the holy Colledges a most sweet odour and that without making faces or making way to reputation by singularity For in effect what heat soever there be in his zeal he never suffers it to blaze beyond custom his piety hath nothing either weak or simple it is serious all and manly and he protesteth it is much better to imitate S. Charls than to counterfeit him Concerning his passion of horses which he calls his malady since he is not extream in it never counsel him to cure it it is not so bad as either the Sciatica or the Gout and if he have no other disease but that he hath not much to do for a Physician One may love horses innocently as well as Flowers and Pictures and it is not the love of such things but the intemperate love that is the vice Of all beasts that have any commerce with men there are none more noble nor better conditioned and of them a great Lord may honestly and without disparagement be curious He indeed might well be said to be sick of them who caused mangers of Ivory to be made for them and gave them full measures of pieces of Gold this was to be sick of them to bestow the best office of his state on the goodliest horse of his stable and to mock indeed reason it self and the speech of men to give them a neighing Consul You shall give me leave to tell you another story to this purpose not unpleasant It is of Theophylact Patriarch of Constantinople who kept ordinarily two thousand horses and fed them so daintily that in stead of Barley and Oats which to our horses are a feast he gave them Almonds Dates and Pistach nuts and more than this as Cedrenus reports he steeped them long time before in excellent Wine and prepared them with all sorts of precious odours One day as he was solemnizing his Office in the Church of Saint Sophia one came and told him in his ear that his Mare Phorbante had foaled a Colt with which he was so ravished that instantly without having the patience to finish his service or to put off his Pontifical Robes he left the mysteries in the midst and ran to his stable to see the good news he had heard and after much joy expressed for so happy a birth he at last returned to the Altar and remembred himself of his duty which the heat of his passion had made him to forget See Sir what it is to dote upon horses but to take a pleasure in them and to take a care of them this no doubt may make a man be said to love them and nevertheless not the less the wiser man Even Saints themselves have had their pleasures and their pastimes all their whole life was not one continued miracle they were not every day 24. hours in extasie amidst their Gifts their Illuminations their Raptures their Visions they had alwayes some breathing time of humane delight during all which time they were but like us and the Ecclesiastical story tells us that the great Saint John who hath delivered Divinity in so high a strain yet took a pleasure and made it his pastime to play with a Partridge which he had made tame and familiar to him I did not think to have gone so far it is the subject that hath carried me away and this happens very often to me when I fall into discourse with you My complements are very short and with men that are indifferent to me I am in a manner dumb but with those that are dear unto me I neither observe Rule nor Measure and I hope you doubt not but that I am in the highest degree Sir Your c. At Balzac 5. Jan. 1633. To Mounsieur Godeau LETTER XXII SIR THere is no more any merit in being devout Devotion is a thing so pleasing in your book that even prophane persons finde a rellish in it and you have found out a way how to save mens Souls with pleasure I never found it so much as within this week that you have fed me with the dainties of the ancient Church and feasted me with the Agapes of your Saint Paul This man was not altogether unknown to me before but I vow unto you I knew him not before but onely by sight though I had sometimes been near unto him yet I could never mark any more of him than his countenance and his outside your Paraphrase hath made me of his counsel and given me a part in his secrets and where I was before but one of the Hall I am now one of the Closet and see clearly and distinctly what I saw before but in Clouds and under shadows You are to say true an admirable Decipherer of Letters in some passages to interpret your subtilty is a kinde of Divination and all throughout the manner of your expressing is a very charm I am too proud to flatter you but I am just enough to be a witness of the truth and I vow unto you it never perswades me more than when it borrows your stile There reflects from it a certain
and goes as a guide before all the World which is far from saying that it stands not with her dignity to be an instrument of their conversion nor so much as once to take care what becomes of them It is you who assure us that she is content to lose her richest Vessels so as thereby she may gain to her the sacrilegious person who did steal them it is from you we learn that she is far from animating justice to ruin innocents who gives sanctuary of pardon to Delinquents I have heard speak of the sweet nature and sighing of the Dove but never of her cruelty nor of her roaring and to give her claws and teach her to love bloud would be no less than to make her a Monster this would be Sir to make love it self turn wilde and Metamorphose it into hate This would be to imitate the ancient Pagans who attributed to their gods all the passions and infirmities of men no man I hope shall be able to lay such prophanation to our charge we will be no corrupters of the most excellent purity no handlers of holy things with polluted hands no stretchers of our defects to the highest point of perfection They which do so in what part of the World soever they be are Anathemaes in your books accursed in your Sermons condemned by the rules of your Doctrine and by the examples of your life These false Saints do not serve Christ but serve themselves of Christ they sollicite their own affairs in his name and recommend it as his cause when it is their own suit Perswasion that they do well makes them more hardy in doing ill they call their choller zeal and when they kill they think they sacrifice Thanks be to God no part in the whole body of our Clergy is so unsound it is returned to its Oyl and to its Balm in whose place the civil wars had substituted deadly Aconite and bitter Wormwood The League is dead and Spain heart-sick our Oracles are no longer inspired by forraign Deities the spirit of love and charity animates all your Congregations and no doubt he that ought to be the mouth of the assembly will consider that Bishops are Ministers of mercy and not of justice and that to them our Lord said I leave peace with you but said not I leave vengeance with you howsoever the wisedom of M. the Cardinal will strip off all the Thorny prickles of passions and sweeten all the bitterness of figures before they arrive to come near the King This Divine spirit is far surmounting all Orations all deliberations and all humane affairs and in this he will easily finde a temper both to preserve the honour of the Church and yet not oppress the humility of him that submits both to give full satisfaction to the first order and yet not withdraw regard from the merit of the second both to make us see heads bowed and knees bended before the Altars and yet no houses demolished nor governments destroyed whereof the Altars should receive no benefit I am in hope you will do me the favour to inform me of the occurrents of the whole history whereof I doubt not but you are your self one of the principal parties and I expect by your Letters a true relation of all the news that runs about In the mean time Sir I trust you will not take it ill that I speak unto you of this great affair as a man that sees it afar off and whom you appoint sometimes to deliver his advise upon matters of which he hath but small understanding At your return we will renue the Commerce we have discontinued and since you will have it so I will once again play the Oratour and the Politician before you yet I fear me much you will scarce be suffered to keep your promise with me I see you are more born to action than to rest and that our rural pleasures are not worthy so much as to amuse so great a spirit as yours is I therefore wish you such as are worthy of you that is the solidest and the perfectest and such as glorious Atchievements and glorious actions leave behinde them and I love not my self so much that I am not much more Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. January 1630. To Mounsieur Arnaut Abbot of S. Nicholas LETTER III. SIR THe small service you desired of me is not worth considering but onely for the great thanks I have received for it I had altogether forgot it when I received your Letter which makes me yet forget it more in making me to remember it You have words that change things and in your language an impuissant willingness is an immortal obligation If you make so great account of good desires I marvel what price you set upon good deeds and if you thus bestow your complements without necessity I fear you will want them when you have need you should go more reserveldy to work and retain more providence for the future A man may be a good husband and yet not be covetous and seeing limits and bounds are fit in all cases they cannot be unfit in the case of courtesie Think not therefore Sir that herein you have done an act of acknowledgement you have gone far beyond the bounds of this virtue If there be a vice opposite to ungratefulness your too great officiousness hath made you fall into it and by the excess you have avoided the defect The interests of M. the Cardinal Bentivoglio have no need of recommending but amongst people that are not yet Civilized that which concerns his honour is no matter of indifferency to them that know his virtue and they that know it not are no better than Barbarians If to do him service I had not run whither you prayed me but to go and if I had not required an absolute suppression of that discourse whereof you required onely but a sweetning I had performed my duty but very weakly and had deserved blame in that for which you praise me Though his name were not resplendent in history nor his dignity in the Church yet he should have lustre enough in his very stile and writings and though he were not a Grand-childe of Kings and a Senatour of the whole earth yet I finde something in him more worth than all that I consider him without his Purple and devested of all external ornaments regarding onely those that are natural to him and which would make him most illustrious though he had but al black cap on his head and most eminent though he were but a private man These are advantages he hath over other men and which he communicates to this age of the World goods that he possesseth and I enjoy For I vow unto you that in this sad place whither my desire to please hath entrapped and where there is no talk but of Suits and quarrels I should not know in the World how to pass my time if I had not brought his book along with me This
inviolable and have the priviledge of sanctuary yet prophane persons stick not to lay hands on the Saints themselves and on their Altars and nothing is so sacâ—ed that can escape the hand of sacriledge Onely those persons that can revenge offences may venture to give offences and one that will give the lye must be of a condition to fight a Duell and maintaine it by Armes My Neece hath no great need of these precepts nor indeed of any forraigne instruction she cannot wander from the right if she goe not astray from her owne inclination nor can be troublesome to others if shee borrow not a vice which is none of her owne I have therefore represented to her the woman of the other day but after their example who shewed their slaves drunke to their Children and that is to make her afraid of filthy Objects and to make that hatefull to her which is not in it selfe lovely to confirme her in the principles which you have taught her and to draw her out some rules from her owne action She is I know naturally good but the best natures have need of some method to guide them and direction doth never any hurt to vertue she is able to keep her selfe in termes extremely obliging without ever falling into the basenesse of flattery She is able to please without colloguing and although she call not every thing by the right name nor be so very curious to speak in proper termes yet her stile shall not for that be the lesse liked nor her company the lesse desired she may call them wise that want the reputation of being valiant and women that are sad she may say they are serious If a man be not of a quick spirit she may say he is of a good judgement and if one be unfortunate in his actions she may yet say he hath a good meaning in his counsails But yet in this there is a measure to be held and a choyce must be made in laying her colours that she seeke not to disguise all sorts of subjects for there are some indeed that are not capable of disguising Those that are pale she may praise for their whitenesse but those that have a dropsie she must not praise for their fatnesse she may say that scruple is a bud of pietie but she must not say that prophanenesse is an effect of Phylosophie She may make a favourable construction of things doubtfull and sweeten the rigour of particular judgements but she must not contend against common sence nor be opposite to verities that are publicke and manifest She must make a difference betweene errours and crimes betweene a docible simplicitie and a presumptuous stupiditie betweene sots that are honest and those that are wicked And if she happen to be in company where some weake spirit is oppressed as the world is full of such that will triumph over the weak and take no pittie of any she must then by all meanes be a protectresse of such a one and make her selfe a Sanctuary for all those whom stronger adversaties would otherwise ruine This onely is to be observed that she so undertake the maintaining of weake causes that it may appeare by the tune of her voyce that it proceeds from excesse of goodnesse and not from want of knowledge and that she compassionates humane infirmities by an act of charity but makes not her selfe a party by false perswasion I am now at the end of my paper and should have beene a good while since at the end of my letter but I alwayes forget my selfe when I am with you and never thinke howers shorter than those I bestow upon your memorie And so my deare sister I bid you farewell not without great longing to see you and if you and all your company come not hither the next weeke I proclaime it to you that I am no longer At Balzac 10. July 1634. Your c. THE SECOND PART of the third Volume of the Letters of MONSIEUR DE BALZAC To my Lord the Cardinall Duke of Richelieu LETTER I. MY Lord being stayed here by some occasions I suffer this hard necessitie with a great deale of paine and account my selfe banished from my Countrey being so long a time deprived of your presence I deny not but the victorious and triumphant Newes that comes continually from the Armie gives me some resentment of joy and that the brute of your Name in all quarters toucheth me very sensibly but it is no perfect satisfaction to me to learne that by others relating which I ought to know as an eye-witnesse and I conceive so great a pleasure to consist in the sight of your glory that there is not a common souldier under your Command whose happinesse and good fortune I doe not envie But my Lord though I cannot serve you with my bodily actions yet I revere you day and night with the thoughts of my minde and in this so worthy an imployment I never thinke the noblest part of my selfe can doe service enough Your Lordship next to the King is the eternall object of my spirit I never turne my eyes from the course of your life and if perhaps you have Courtiers more officious than my selfe and such as doe their duties with greater ostentation and shew yet I am most sure you have no servant that is more faithfull and whose affection comes more truely from his heart and is fuller of life and vigour But to the end my words may not be thought vaine and without ground I send you now a proofe of that I say by which you shall perceive that a man that is himselfe perswaded hath a great disposition to perswade others and that a Discourse founded upon the things themselves and animated with the truth both stirres mens spirits with greater force and also begets a firmer beliefe than that which is but feigned and comes but in the nature of Declayming This my Lord is a part drawne out from the whole bodie and a piece which I have taken most paines to polish which I freely vow unto you that all the houres of a calmer leisure than mine and all the powers of a more elevated spirit than ordinary would have found work enough to bring to perfection In it there is handled Of the vertue and victories of the King Of the Justice of his Armes Of Royalty and Tyranny Of usurpers and lawfull Princes Of Rebellion chastened and liberty mainteined but because the Prince I speake of is a stirrer and makes no stay any where and that in following him I should imbarque my selfe in a world of severall subjects I have therefore prescribed to my selfe certaine bounds which in his actions I should never have met with and after the example of Homer who finished his Ilias with the death of Hector though that were not the end of the warre I have thought fit not to goe further than the taking of Size though this were but the beginning of the wonder we have seene of his You know my
but you would have the world also shew a respect unto my retirednesse and that being sequestred from men I should be also placed beyond the level and teach of Detraction yet this fiend did pursue Saint Hierome even unto the gates of Bethlehem and to the foot of our Saviourss cradle there she found him as he relates himself although he had thought to hide himself If this insolent thing had no regard of an admirable sanctity and a place guarded with Angels me thinks a vulgar innocence retired within an ill fortified village must not expect any favourable treatie But to passe from common conditions to the learned Tribe If in all ages there arose seditious spirits that rebelled against the Chieftains of Arts and discipline and if in the memory of our Fathers it was spoken openly at Paris that Aristotle was a simple Sophister J think they deal courteously with me in this Countrie if they be contented to call mee a simple write That great blasphemer of the name of Aristotle my Lord was D. Ramus who afterward though he was a Catholique was taken for a Huguenot at the massacre And indeed some did believe that God permitted this to come to passe by a just judgement and that the Tutelar Angel of good Letters took the pretext of Religion for to revenge the injuries that were done to Reason There is one this day alive in Germanie a pettie Tyrant in Grammer an enemy of common and general verities and an accuser of Cicero who not long since hath put forth some observations where he prefers a bill against his own Judge and questions the precedencie ever allowed unto that Prince of Latine Antiquitie So that my Lord the universal consent of all the world strengthned by a prescription of 18. centuries of years is not a sufficient title for to warrant the reputation of that Roman against the prevaricating quirks of this Barbarian Indeed this is a businesse of no good example but yet since it is so and that it doth little avail Virtue to be consecrated by time and to be crowned by the people for to make it inviolable against the practises of some private Humors There is no reason that I should complain before so many Worthies that have been so ill intreated themselves and that I should be had in any consideration where Aristotle and Cicero are not in safetie an ordinary man should not make moan for suffering the same destiny which extraordinary Personages have undergone and I cannot with modestie desire or expect from you that you should reform the world for the love of me nay I know my Lord that this little disorder is of some good use in a Common-wealth and it were to be wished that malice would busie it self thus about things of small importance that it might not think of businesse of higher consequence Those that have hitherto bestowed their pains in depraving the sense of my words and in falsifying my works had perhaps ere this time forged mens Testaments and minted false coins And he that now desires from you a priviledge would have stood in need of a pardon it may be if it had not been for me It is better by far that injustice should exercise it self upon my books then that it should vex and implead against all that is good and sacred in a civil societie that unjust men should rather tosse and transpose words invert and pervert periods of speeches then remove the bounds of lands or demolish their Neighbours houses To say the truth this is the most innocent way that vice can employ it self in and I believe I have not a little deserved from the Commonwealth for keeping at work these ten years such an infinite number of idle companions who certainly would have been dangerous Common-wealths men if they had not chosen rather to have been ridiculous Censors It is well that the heat of their brains is exhaled out this way and that their intemperance takes this course and that to prevent their fury men give some scope and liberty to their folly Permit them therefore this exercise my Lord they cannot choose but make use of their time which they will imploy farre worse if you doe not permit them to imploy it thus-Permit giddy Youth to spend their heat and fury upon a senselesse subject and a dead Letter which is not capable either of joy or sorrow As long as these Pen-fincers onely begge the Seal of your Authority be no niggard of the Prince his grace and favour and abate something of your wonted severity and rigour If it were a new and unusual thing it may be I should be contented to have the first Libel which branded me with injuries be suppressed but since there is now a pretty Librarie of them I am in a manner well pleased it should swell and encrease and I take a delight to build me a monument with those stones which envy hath hurl'd at me without doing me harm I account it no disgrace to be censured by some men because I account it no credit to be favoured by them I intend not to canvasse for voices nor labour a mysterious secret whereby I may gain the general applause of the world I have obtained what I desired my Lord if I have obtained your approbation as being derived from an unerring principle and from an Intelligence most perfectly illuminated God hath bestowed on you a soveraign judgement before the King had committed to your hands his soveraign Justice And you were most powerful in Reason before you were so in Authority I need not have recourse to this knowing that the other is no way against me and I esteem it more glory to me to have pleased you then I would think it satisfaction to have my enemies proscribed by you Your speeches of me upon every occasion so full of respect your own pourâ—raiture that you bestowed upon me a year agoe for a pledge of your Affection your imparting to me the riches of your writings I mean those writings that were animated with the spirit of the State and were full of the greatnesse of your Masterie which seemed to mee so farre to transcend the strength and vigour of this age and so nearly resembling the Roman Majesty In a word my Lord each moment of that happy afternoon which I had the honour to passe away with in your closet are priviledges which I doe value above that which you denied a Fantasme or the successor of Philarchus I dare not rehearse my other obligations by which I stand bound unto you you have herein injoyned me silence and believe that your favours would lose something of their purity if my thanks should still attend them Neverthelesse you must not stifle in me the intentions of an honest man or smother the conceptions of grateful thoughts you have debarred me from divulging my acknowledgements but you shall not debarre me from acquitting that secret part of duty and from being at least in my soul and that while I
this they have handled me as though I had been dead indeed and have magined withall that they be my rightful Heyres ex asse having eized upon the first papers of mine that they could meet with I am omething apprehensive of this injury and it should grieve me if Monsieur should be the Author of it because I should then endure it with more impatience yet To say truth if this be not to wound and violate downright the Law of Nations it is at least to deflowre and taint it and you will confesse with me that it could not be pleasing unto me that the should be publisht without asking my consent thereunto Had it been so I should not have been perhaps very averse and I should have desired him onely to alter something for my sake and something for his own For though his understanding be passing good yet you know well that our Grammatians do not allow his stile for regular and though their scruples be ill grounded yet they must be considered That which I would fain have changed and where I thought I had some small interest was one word which nay ancient Enemie had alreadie miserablie mangled and which not wanting spirit and life in its natural place doth resemble those delicate plants which die as soon as they be transplanted from their own banks But remedie comes now too tardie I must comfort my selfe against this as well as other injuries This is but dallying to former wrongs and such pinches should well be born with by a man that never useth to complain of Treasons and Assassinates For your satisfaction Sir let it suffice that I have a perfect knowledge of your wisdom and honestie and that I would trust you with my life my honor and my fortunes If I had had so base a thought as to suspect you in this dealing I should believe that I were bound to do penance for my suspition I know that you are everie way virtuous and my firm friend as I am verie reallie Sir Your c. Balzac 10. Jan. 1634. To the same LET. XXXV SIR J have received your incomparable Book in the which after a long and tedious perusal my Grammer could finde no construction nor my Logick common sense This is not the first time that that poor Wit hath strayed so He hath been this long time ridiculous without being facetious and hath been a laughing-stock to the vulgar and an object of pitty to the wise The late Monsieur did use to call him the greatest enemy that ever Reason had between Cales and Bayonne and said he was a fool in two Sciences and in four Languages Neverthelesse if our friend shall think him worthie of some traces of his pen let us indulge him that exercise with this provisoe that he be not violent and that he put not himselfe to a heat that if it please him he do not deal seriously with him or arm himselfe at all points against an Adversary that deserves not any encounter but with pins As for the you wrong your selfe for to mistrust the moderation of my spirit In the estate that I have ordered and setled it in I have lesse passion then the King of the Stoicks and I must be excited for eight dayes together to the crueltie of hearing any man whatsoever for one half an houre It is not my intention to write against Monsieur but to discourse with him and I have not so little wit but that I can distinguish his person from his cause He hath obliged me with so good grace and spoken of me in such high language and sumptuous terms that I cannot doubt of his respect or his affection towards me And he shall likewise see my resentment of it through the whole file of my discourse wherein I am resolved to temper my self so discreetlie that if I perswade him not to my opinion I shall not make my proceedings odious and if I do not rest satisfied with what he faith I shall contradict him but obliquely and with a kind of Biasse which shall not be distastful unto him This will be perhaps the first example of modestie that hath been heard of among the disputants of this age and we will demonstrate to those of that side who talk outragiouslie in Problems of small importance that the altercations of honest men are without choler and that generous enemies live better together then malicious Burghers For the rest Sir I desire you to continue the pains that you have begun and to send me wherewith J may fortifie all the Approaches that are liable to assault and batterie I shall feare nothing being strengthned with so powerful succors and you will justifie my cause if it be good or give it a colour of justice if it be not so See what an enterprise it was in you to love me You could never have conceived a more pernicious design for your selfe It will repent you more then once and you will renounce at anytime I am sure the sory purchase which you have made in the acquaintance of a troublesome man Neverthelesse he is one that is most affectionatelie Sir Your c. Balzac 20 March 1634. To Madam Desloges LET. XXXVI MAdam It is now three moneths that I have expected Monsieur de Auvila that I might be informed of the state of your health But having latelie understood that it is not so currant as I could wish it and mine being not so firm that I could adventure upon a journie I have dispatched one towards you to learn the truth thereof It will be an incredible ease to my mind if I finde that it was be a false alarm or that your sicknesse by this time be over past I do hope for one of the two Madam because I do passionately desire it but I beseech you to believe that it is long of my crazie body that I am no sooner cleared of my fear and rid of the pain you put me to and that you do not see me in person instead of the Messenger that I have sent He hath in charge to present you with my fine Cuts or small Ingravery which I have newly received from Paris I thought meet to send you this dumb visit that it might not oblige you to any complement that might put you to trouble you do receive indeed more troublesom ones sometimes And if the fullenness of my countenance be an object of bad presage you will confesse that the perpetual silence that doth accompany it is a great Commodity at leastwise it can never be offensive to you since it leaves you still at quiet and demanding no ceremony from you it must perplex you lesse then the Antiquities and Originals of La Marche and Limousin Finally Madame it lyeth in you to preserve your bounties for me and maintain me in my possession I know that Monsieur de Alle is of infinite value and I believe I cannot loose him since it was you that gave him me you have too good a hand to do any