against a tumultuary multitude and count my self strong enough having you on my side and knowing you to be as vigorous a friend of mine as I am Sir Your c. From Balzac 15. Feb. 1633. To Mounsieur Gaillard LETTER XXXVII SIR I Am unfortunate but I am not faulty I was assured you had written to me but I received not your Letters You have been my defendour and I have been a long time without knowing to whom I was bound for defending me whether it were a man or an Angel that was come to my succour These are honest subtelties and generous supererogations This is to deceive in charity and to his advantage that is deceived This is to bring again that good time wherein Knights unknown came to Freemen that were oppressed without telling their names or so much as lifting up the Beavers of their Helmets You have done in a manner the like you have hidden your self under a borrowed shape thereby to take away from a good action all apparence of vain glory and to let them that are interessed see that you are virtuous without looking for reward For my self I do not think I am bound to follow the intention of this scrupulous virtue If you have a will to shun noise and the voice of the people yet you cannot refuse the acknowledgement of an honest man nor let me from paying what I owe you Because you are modest I must not therefore be ungratefull as I am not by my good will I assure you You possess my heart as absolutely as you have justly purchased it I am yours by all the sorts of right not forgetting that of the wars I will even believe that my enemy hath gotten a full victory to the end I may more justly call you my Redeemer and that you may have the Crown that was due to him had saved a Citizen Mounsieur Borstill whose wisdom and integrity you know will answer for the truth of my words and for my self I shall need no surety when I shall be able to testifie unto you by my actions that there is not in the World a man more than my self Sir Your c. From Balzac 22. April 1630. To Mounsieur the Master Advocate in the Parliament LETTER XXXVIII SIR I Have too great a care of your reputation to seek to have you be found a liar It shall not lie upon me that you be not a man of your word and that your friend is not contented and seeing it is expected to see this present day what I have written of his company It is not fit to put off till to morrow the effect of your promise or that he should languish in the expectation of so small a thing It is true my book is not here and my memory is not now so faithfull that I dare trust it to deliver that I gave it to keep yet I conceive after I have stirred it up in your name which is so dear unto me I shall finde enough to satisfie your desire and receive from it this good office I seem therefore to remember I said that after so many years that the Christian Muses have been in France he is the onely man hath entertained them with honour and hath built a Pallace for this soveraign science to which all other are subject and inferiour He hath drawn her our of an obscure and close mansion where like the poor Socrates she discoursed in prison of the supream felicity to place her a seat worthy of her and to set up a stately and sumptuous race for the exercise of her Children From hence we may apprehend the dignity and merit of our Sorbon for which a man the fullest of business in all the World hath yet had so particular a care amidst the most violent agitation of his thoughts that the design of the house he erects for her hath found place in his breast amidst the Forts and Rampires of Rochell If our predecessors the Gaules next to their Gods gave the second place of honour to their Druides who shewed them but a dim and confused light of the state of our Souls after this life what respect then what reverence can be too great for those venerable Fathers who teach us by a knowledge most infallible what the chief and supream good is who discover to us in certainty the things that are above the Heavens who make us true relation of that admirable Common-wealth of happy Citizens that live without bodies and are immaterial and who deliver to us the wonders of the intellectual World more pertinently and more directly than we relate to blinde men the ornaments of this visible World With them are had the springs of pure Doctrine where with others but onely Brooks and Streams with them are had resolutions of all doubts remedies for all poisons with them time wrongs not antiquity nor doth old age either need painting or fear tainting with them this sixteenth age of the World beholds Christianity preserved and kept in its first lustre Seing the memory of the most part of the Romane Lords is perished together with their Baths their Aqueducts their Races their Amphitheaters whereof the very ruins are themselves ruined and lost I finde that M. the Cardinal understands more than ever they did and goes a straighter way to eternity travelling in a place where his travel can never perish and leaving the care of his name to a company that of necessity shall be immortal and shall speak of his magnificence as long as there shall be speaking of sin and grace of good and evil Angels of the pains and rewards of the life to come I believe I have not spoken any further of it and I think I could not have spoken less it is lawfull for us to set a price upon our own and if an ancient Writer said that more worthy men came forth of Isocrates School than out of the Trojan Horse why may not we say as much of Albertus Magnus and of Saint Thomas Me thinks I hear out Countrey men speak of nothing else but of the Lycaeum and of the Academy and it is now five and twenty years that I have beaten my brains about the Gymnosophists the Brachmanes and the Rabbins but when all is done we should remember that we are Christians and that we have Philosophers that are nearer to us and ought to be dearer to us than all they I am glad occasion hath been offered me to put my opinion hereof in writing and thereupon to let you know I make no mystery of my writings and especially with you to whom I have opened my very heart and whose I am wholly without reservation Sir Most humbly c. At Paris 4. July 1633. LETTERS of MOUNSIEUR de BALZAC LIB II. To my Lord the Earle of EXETER LETTER I. SIR IF you had wholly misliked my book I had wholly defaced it but seeing some parts of it seemed to you not unsound I have thought it sufficient to cut off the corrupt part
altogether alone without assistance and all the ornament allowed them is onely freedome of conceptions the fecundity of language and that they passe not promiscuously But as concerning the Subjects they are common to both kinds of writings and it is an errour to imagine there are some particular to the one that the other cannot touch upon the same without injury thereunto Upon the matter Panegyrick discourses Apologies Consultations Judgements upon Morall actions whether good or bad opinions and censures upon occurrents of those which please and those we ought to detest yea even indifferent accidents briefly whatsoever may fall into discourse and under reason are the objects of Letters So we see the greatest and most important mysteries of our religion have been left unto us in Letters All the wisdome of the Pagans is contained in those of Seneca and we owe to those Cicero wrote to his friends the knowledge of the secrets and certain inducements which caused the greatest revolutions the world hath ever known to wit the shaking and subversion of the Roman Reipublicke we are therefore to confesse Oratorical Treatises to have no other subject then Letters and that if there be any difference it is none other then what is observed between our ancient Seas and those not discovered unto us till in our fathers times The latter are no lesse deep then the other they are capable of the like shipping their ebbes and floods are neither more just nor lesse uncertain and all the difference discovered between them is onely this that the winds tosse not those in like sort as it doth ours and in that they are seldome or never subject either to stormes or tempests In like manner it being within the power and capacity of Letters to treat of the same things how much more eminent and excellent soever one may conceive them to be then any other kind of writings yet do they not indeed receive those extraordinary motions which appear in Orations since neither the like height of excesse nor the same Enthusiasmes or raptures are herein found In a word it is a more middle beauty and a more calm eloquence And surely if the subject we make use of be as illustrious as the person before whom we are to handle it were it not as much as to abuse both the one and the other to come short in our expressions Since the action ought neither to be publick nor generall if you intend to performe it negligently and not to allow it all the ornaments whereof it is capable And who can doubt that Cicero being to make an Oration before Cesar after the change of the Common-wealth had not a greater apprehension and prepared not himself with more studious care then if he had onely spoken to that beast with an hundred heads he had so often led after his own Phantasie and whereof he was in so full possession so long before as to cause them to take the part best pleasing unto him In these last occasions and in the presence of this man alone he knew with whom he had to do Now had he been timerous or fearfull to fail before his Master yet impute not this apprehension of his to proceed either out of consideration he had of his greatnesse nor from the reflections upon those things he came to accomplish But it was in that he considered him as a man no lesse versed in the art of well-speaking then himself and who had heretofore contributed to the study of this science so many rare gifts of spirit and so many faire endowments of nature that had he not afterward esteemed it more noble to conquer men by armes then to convince them by arguments and if of the two most excellent exercises this of his life fortune and the famousnesse of his courage had not caused him to make choise of the former he might easily have disputed for the glory of the latter with him Or were it so that this excellent Oratour might at this day return into the world and were personally or by his Pen to discourse with those two great Cardinalls to whom the most part of these Letters are addrest it is not probable coming to know them as we do that he would imploy and contribute a more exact study and solicitude then when he was onely to please a multitude of ignorant Plebeians and to speak to all that rabble of ancient Rome we shall yet again be amazed at the perfection of these Letters some whereof are written to the King and appointed to be read as in truth they were with admiration in full counsell and a great part of the rest addressed to the most eminent persons of our age To speak truth we may justly say this is the first time any thing of perfection hath appeared in our language so that if of all our ancient eloquence there be ought worthy of esteem in any equality with this it may be that with much labour you shall produce some one Letter For of all such who have hitherto written we may affirme that the most fortunate among them when they made choise of subjects able to subsist of themselves have not been absolutely condemnable and that amidst their writings the solidity of learning and the savagenesse of language to wit the good and evill did equally appear But when at any time they fell upon subjects where eloquence onely swayed the Scepter there truly it was where fortune forsook them and where the feeblenesse of their proper forces was manifestly perceived if they were not some way assisted by strange tongues Some of them to say the truth have doubted what way they were to take and have striven to shew it to others though themselves were not in it In a word the greatest glory those gained who have written with most perfection and purity is onely that which nature hath reserved for women to which sex eminent actions being denied it seemeth they perform sufficient if they abstain from evil doing But to say that any hath joyned Art to abundance and mingled mildnesse with Majesty or hath raised his stile without either loosing himself or straying from his subject that is it which in truth we could not see till this present And questionlesse these brave and generous formes of discourse and those great and strange conceptions wherewith these Letters were so curiously limed and so plentifully graced have been very slenderly known in proceeding ages This very order and this number whereof every tongue is not capable and wherein ours owes nothing to the Latine and which appeares in all his words though diversly and as their gender requires do right haply appear in this place though the most part of writers before him have esteemed these perfections of small importance yet notwithstanding without the helpe of these two great secrets nether ornaments of Art nor graces of Nature can be but in part pleasing nor can all the reasons the World can alledge perswad a Very woman resoluing to resist And to
know not to whom they may safely encharge their Treasures But the true reason is for that an honest man is by so much more difficultly found then an Eunuch by how much Miracles are more rare than Monsters Great Fortitude is requisite for the attaining of honesty but the will onely sufficeth to become covetous and the most harmless have hands and may happen to have temptations Were it my part to play the reformer and to preach before the Prelates I would enlarge my self upon this Subject but in the condition wherein I stand it is sufficient I approve not the ill and have a good opinion of the present State provided the report be current that there is now no obstacle between the King and the Queen his Mother likely to hinder them from meeting and that things are reduced to those terms wherein Nature hath placed them Then will the face of the State shortly resume the same beauty the late King bestowed thereon and God will with a full hand pour his Graces upon so just a Government Though my Lord the Cardinal of Richelieu were onely near publick affairs without touching them there is no question but he would bring a blessing to all France and though he intimated nothing to the King yet that he would at least inspire whatsoever were necessary for the good of his Subjects and Dignity of his Crown I will reserve to speak as I ought of this rare Virtue till my great Work come to light Where I will render every man his right and condemn even those as culpable whom the Parliaments crouch unto There shall it be where I will canvass the Court of Rome which I always separate from the Church with as much force and freedom as he used from whose mouth we have seen lightning to issue and Thunder to be thrown out There is not any thing of so fair assemblance whose deformities I unmask not There is nothing of eminencie from one end of the World to the other I over-turn not I will discover the defects of Princes and States I will expugne Vice wheresoever it is hidden and with what Protection soever it is palliated To conclude I will pass as severe a Judgement as was that of the Areopagites in times past or of the Inquisition at this present Yet my Lord in this my common censure I will take a particular care of the Queen Mothers reputation and will let all the World see that what heretofore others have called Virtue is the natural habitude of this great Princess In the place for others appointed for Afflictions and Calamities She shall together with the King receive onely Flowers and Crowns and as her innocencie had saved her from the general deluge had she then lived so will it cause her to Tryumph in my Story amidst the ruins of others I have not the faculty of Flattering but the Art onely to speak the Truth in good terms and the Actions you see had need be more eminent than those you have read of if I equal them not by my Words This being thus my Lord as I hope you doubt not imagine in what terms I will Justifie the R. D. L. R. and in what sort I will intreat her Enemies if I have a minde to it I will make it one day appear that C. C. hath been as cruel a Monster as those who devour whole Cities and denounce War against all Humane and Divine things One will imagine by the marks I give him that R. was a Magician which dayly pricked some Image of Wax with needles and who disturbed the repose of all Princes Courts of his time by the force of his Charms The truth is I will do great matters provided my courage quail not on his part whence I expect it should come and to whom by a kinde of strict Obligation I am excited to undertake this Judgement which will be no less famous than that of Michael Angelo At our next meeting I will more particularly acquaint you with the whole design of my work with its order ornaments and artifice you shall there see whether or no I make good use of those hours I sometimes obtain from the Tyranny of my Physicians and lingring Maladies In the interim do me the honour to love me still nor think I speak the Court-language or that I complement with you when I assure you I am more than any man living My Lord Your most humble servant BALZAC The 28. of December 1622. Another Letter to the Lord Bishop of Air. LETTER XII My Lord IT must needs be your Oath of Fealty doth yet continue and that the Ceremony you are imployed in be longer than I imagined since I have no news from you for I must freely confess unto you I am not so slightly perswaded of my self as to have any thought as that you neglect me Besides I am certain that publick Faith and what hath ever been sworn upon Altars and the Gospels are not more inviolable than your word and that it will stand good though Heaven and Earth should start Besides I can less conjecture that you are hindred by want of health whereof I hope you enjoy so large a treasure as it is like to continue as long as the World lasteth It were a wrong to me should you alleadge sickness and no less than to wrangle with me for a thing in such manner appropriated to my self as I cannot communicate it to any other I will therefore imagine whatsoever you will have me to think you may love me if you please without taking the pains to tell me so But for my part how importunate soever I am herein yet am I resolute to write unto you till you cut off my hands and to publish so long as I have a tongue that I am Sir Your most humble and most affectionate servant BALZAC The 16. of December 1622. To the Lord Bishop of Air from BALZAC LETTER XIII My Lord YOu cannot loose me how little care soever you take to keep me The Heavens must necessarily infuse new affections in me and utterly alter my inclinations if they intend to inhibite me to be your servant Yet doth it not a little grieve me you do not testifie what I know you believe and that having the power to make me happy by the least of your Letters I have more trouble to impetrate this favour than I should finde in the obtaining of three Declarations from the King and as many Briefs from his Holiness But all this notwithstanding I cannot be perswaded you place me among matters of meer indifferency or that you no longer remember what you have promised with so large protestations which I hold to be most Authentical I rather for the satisfaction of my thoughts will be confident you have resolved to love me in secret thereby to avoid all jealousie and will believe there is more cunning than coldness in your silence were it otherwise had I really lost your Favours certainly I would not survive so deep a
at your Nativity we require not a more certain presage of the end of our evils nor is there any so sick or far strucken in years who hopeth not to survive these intestine troubles But we are not to imagine that victory and peace are two opposite things though they be different for is the one which assureth the other and setleth it in state not to be any further either troubled or threatned by any When all is done I finde it were much to oblige these malecontents to give a sure repose to their distrustfull spirits and at once to rid them of all their hopes and fears when they shall no longer need to trouble themselves with making assemblies and that their lives shall be free from the fear of punishments When I say both they and we shall enjoy common security it is not to be doubted but their condition will be much bettered it being a much fairer fortune to be cast on shore by a storm in a craised Vessel then to be still in the power of windes and Sea-wracks The word of Kings ought not to contradict the functions of Regality nor can they oblige themselves to leave their Subjects in miserable estate or to do contrary to what they ought And in conscience since the ruine of Rebellion is written in Heaven in the same sort as is the day of Judgement and the Worlds dissolution were it not as much as to resist Gods will and to oppugne his providence should we so soon grow weary of well-doing or refuse to finish a work the event whereof is infallible There is nothing so easie for a great Prince as either to finde or conceive faults nor doth any man doubt that dissimulation is just when it tends to the advantage and avail of the deceived If a mad man were capable of remedies were it not lawfull to cure him without asking his consent were it fit a Father should suffer his Son to be drowned for fear of pulling him out by the hair Are we to suffer the State to perish for that we cannot preserve it by ordinary ways No my Lord we ought not there is no consideration can cause that thing to change its nature which of it self it just and the Laws of necessity do dispence with us for those of formality Now to return to my first discourse and to what particularly regardeth your Lordship seeing your absence from Court hath at all times threatned more miseries unto us then the apparition of Comets and other irregularities in Nature and since to be miserable it is sufficient to be at odds with you There is not any of your enemies can escape the Divine justice nor is there any doubt but you will generally finde all those spirits favourable unto you whom you have formerly convinced or that your propositions shall not be received as assured Conquests The best is there are now no more any usurpers near the King who seek to ingross his favours to their own advantages and bereave men of those benefits which ought to be as common to them as the fire or aire His Majesties heart is open to all his subjects he receives truth at what hand soever it comes unto him This being so my Lord may we not rest confident you shall not lose one word and that your virtue whereof the World is uncapable shall at length be found the onely means the King hath to redress and re-establish his affairs Neither time travail nor cost ought divert him from this design It is a work will be nothing so costly as to raise a Favorite and it being a thing all Christendom exacteth of him as an Hereditary debt the King his Father hath left to be discharged And truely it is most certain that the face of States hath been changed and whole Provinces conquered with less cost then divers Pagan Princes have imployed in erecting of Idols and causing them to be adored by their people But to leave this Italian severity you formerly reproved in me and lest you should accuse me for warring against the dead I will for your sake pardon their memorie nor will I farther dilate my self upon so odious a Subject Yet is this but half of what I intended to speak unto you at Coignac if in that short abode you made there and the continual press hindring the freedom of my Speech unto you it had been permitted me to have had a longer audience But my Lord what I could not perform by word of mouth I will continue by my Letters if you please to do me the honour as to command them or if my words which you have heretofore made choice of for the conception of your High thoughts in bewailing present miseries and publick ingratitude be as pleasing unto you as I am perfectly Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC The 18. of Nov. 1623. The Duke of Espernon his Letter to the French King penned by BALZAC LETTER XVIII SIR I Understand by the Letter it pleased your Majesty to do me the honour to write unto me that upon the opinion wherewith some have possessed you concerning the continuance of the German Wars you judge it expedient for the good of your service I should not as yet leave this Frontire Whereunto Sir I can give your Majesty no other answer but that having at all times gathered out of your commands what my duty obliged me unto and having never proposed other end to my actions then the good of your state I should be carefull of straying from that design in an occasion wherein I might imagine your service depended on my obedience But at this present Sir the tranquility of France groweth to be so general your affairs so powerfully established and the honour of your Amity so precious among all your neighbouring Princes that as there is nothing in this Kingdom which doth not bend under your Authority so is there not any Prince abroad who doth not respect your power or who conserveth not himself by your Justice And as concerning the troubles of Bohemia besides that time hath evaporated the first heat of spirits and that they begin to retire from those extremities wherein formerly they involved themselves the imagined danger is so far removed hence as we cannot conceive the least apprehension even for those who are not our next neighbours that way It is certain Sir that on this side the Rhine all things seem to be at rest under the shade of your State and the ancient Allies of this Crown who are nearest any danger expect the end of War without fearing it should come any further towards them or that out of all this noise there will arise any more then one War These considerations then do no way oblige me to stay in these parts where things are in so good estate as they may well nigh subsist of themselves besides the residence my Son of Valette shall make there in my absence being sufficient to give order to all occurrents concerning
the good of your affairs I assure my self your Majesty will be so impartial as to be pleased to reflect upon the necessity of my particular occasions and that suffering me to retire my self to my own house you will at least permit me to enjoy a favour usually inflicted on others as a punishment I doubt not Sir but you will condiscend to the desire I have to undertake this voyage and I presume you will be pleased to consider that I being ingaged in two hundred thousand Crowns for your service after the sight of your royal bounty in all sorts of hands it were small reason I receiving nothing should still in this place stand as a meer cypher for the honour of France or that I ruine my self with a rich shew onely to continue strangers in the opinion they have of the magnificent greatness of your Crown Yet Sir having never believed I could sustain any great detriment by the loss of a thing I so slightly esteem as I do worldly substance I intend not in this place to complain of my poverty But to speak truth since all my words and actions are by many mis-interpreted and that having affoarded my dutifull attendance to the service of three great Kings I yet finde much difficulty to defend my so long a loyalty against Calumny I am with much sorrow constrained to say that if I stood firm in my duty even when disobedience was crowned with rewards and have maintained your Authority when by some it was abused by others contemned It is no small injury to me to imagine I will now begin to fail in my loyalty at this age wherein I am or suffer my self to be reproached by posterity whereto I study to annex the last actions of my life But I see well Sir it is long since the hatred of dishonest French-men hath been fatal unto me and that it hath been born with me inseparably From the first hour I appeared in the World there was never either peace or truce unviolated to my prejudice and as though I were excepted out of all treaties though War be ended yet that made against me endureth At this present Sir it sufficeth not I perform my charge without omitting or forgetting any thing due to your service or that the innocencie of my actions be generally acknowledged but I am driven to those streights as to be forced to give account of my very thoughts there being not any my self excepted from whom satisfaction is required for the fault he hath not as yet committed If we lived in a Countrey where virtue were avoided as not concurrent with the times or adverse to the State and where a great reputation were more dangerous then an inglorious one I should not need to make much search for the cause of my misfortunes but I well know the conduct you use hath more honourable and honest grounds and that your Majesty hath no pretention to reign with more assurance then the King your Father did before you It is from him Sir you may learn how you are to distinguish wounded innocencie from wicked impudencie and to know it is ordinary to draw honest men into suspicion thereby to make them unserviceable In following his example you shall finde out the truth though never so closely hidden or what shadow soever they cast over the same to disguise it And truely Sir since this great Prince in bestowing your Origin upon you hath together therewith conferred his most Royal inclinations I will never believe that to follow a stranger passion you will lose those perfections so proper and natural unto you or that for me alone your Majesty hath any other spirit then for the rest of men Truely if when you were not yet at your own liberty such hath been the natural goodness of your gracious disposition as you have at all times resisted violent counsels nor have ever permitted your Authority should be imployed to the ruine of your subjects there is small appearance that having now by publick and solemne act obliged your self to reign alone and your bounty finding not any obstacle to hinder the same you would disturb the old age of one of your best servants or deny to his gray hairs that rest nature requires at your hands I ought to hope at least for this recompence for my long and faithfull services since your Majestie may bestow it without incommodateing your affairs and besides I having never expected other reward of worthy actions then the onely contentment to have performed them I shall hold my self sufficiently happy to receive from my conscience the testimonies which whilest I live it will affoard me that I have been really am and ever will to the end remain Sir Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull subject and servant Espernon From Mets 7. of Jan. 1619. Another Letter to the French King from the Duke of Espernon penned by the same BALZAC LETTER XIX SIR HAving long attended at Mets the occasions not to be unusefully there and not finding any thing either in the conduct of my present life or in the memorie of my fore-passed time which might justly cast me into a worse condition then the rest of your subjects I have presumed that the Laws of this Kingdom and my Births prerogative might permit me to make use of publick liberty and to partake of that peace you have purchased to the rest of your subjects Nevertheless Sir your Majesties will doth so regulate mine that I had not removed had not the cause of my stay there ceased and the difficulties of the Bohemian War been utterly removed But haveing had perfect intelligence by the relations the Duke of Lorain hath received from those parts that the affairs there begin to be well setled the overture thereof beginning with the suspension of War on both sides I could not imagine the good of your service did any way oblige me to remain longer in a place out of all danger in time of peace and which will make good use of the Empires weakness if the War continue considering likewise that if there be any part of your State less sound then the rest and where your Authority had need with more then ordinary care to be conserved it is questionless in the Province whither I am going which bordering upon such neighbours as all honest men may justly suspect and being a people composed of divers parts have at all times been either troubled or threatned with changes yea at this present Sir the most common opinion is that the assembly now holden at Rochel is no way pleasing unto you and that if you have been drawn to give any asscent thereto it hath rather been a connivency to the necessity of time then conformable to your will Whereupon Sir if your Majesty please to reflect upon the miseries of your State where out at least you have drawn this advantage that even in the very spring of your age you have attained great experience You shall plainly see
not so far exhausted you but there yet remains bloud sufficient to bestow part thereof in your Mistresses service and to fill the World with your offences so long as the ruines of your head may be repaired and your beauty budd again with the next Roses there is nothing lost hitherto but indeed if instead of your former head you carried the figure of a rusty Murrion or rotten Pumpian I should much pitty you in such a plight and would presently add you to the number of decayed buildings Now when all is done Philander it is but a little water and earth mingled together we study to conserve with all the maximes of wisedom and all the rules of Phisick Let us reflect I pray you upon our better part and hereafter labour as well to cure our selves of Vice as of the Feaver It is that image of God we defaced by our own hands we ought to repair and our first innocency is the thing it behoveth us to ask at his hands rather then our former health For my part I am absolutely resolved to lead a new life and to take no other care but for my Souls health and to procure the same for others And truely it were far better to consecrate this great Eloquence of ours to his glorie who gave it us then tâ—â—mploy it in commending fools and in making our selves to be pâ—â—â—â—d among Children The P. E. whom happily you know and wâ—â—â—ath one of the best and most polite wits of all his company 〈…〉 ms me all he can in this my design and every hour of his comâ—â—â—y is as much to me as eight dayes of reformation yet is he not a 〈◊〉 who professeth that pale virtue which affrighteth all men and is â—â—â—patible with humane infirmities but quite contrary he flatterâ—â—… me in reprehending my errours and instead of the pennance I 〈…〉 he is contented to enjoyn me honest recreations Your broâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you more about eight dayes hence and will give you 〈◊〉 â—ccâ—mpt both of my actions and intentions believe him as truth it 〈◊〉 and besides assure your self further upon my word he is worth â—ome Doctor and an half and hath a good wit without speaking of his zeal and virtue BALZAC The 17. of January 1623. To Olympa from BALZAC LETTER XV. I Am much troubled to finde the cause of your tears to impute them to the death of your Husband is happily but the bare pretext It is not to be imagined that death which causeth the most beautifull things to become offensive to the dayes brightness and affrighteth those who formerly admired them should make that man pleasing unto you who was never so to any Yet you seem with him to have lost all and do so cunningly counterfeit the afflicted I can hardly believe what I see Can it be possible you should be thus pestered to support your good fortune with patience or be really so sorrowfull for the loss of a poor gouty fellow for whose over-long living I should rather have thought it fit to comfort you But if this be not thus what do you with all this great mourning wherein you plunge your self and this mid-night never removing from your Chamber I must confess I was never more astonished then to finde such an Equipage of sadness about you accompanied with such elaborate actions and so constrained countenances and without jesting Olympa after this I have seen there remaineth nothing for the full expression of a fained passion but onely to wear black smocks and to be attended by Moors Yet is it time or never to return to your right sences and to conclude your Comedy let me intreat you to leave off all these sower faces to fools Cast off this black vail which hinders me from seeing you and consider that five foot of ground is worth you two thousand pounds by the year To raise such a rent the revenues of half some Kingdom were hardly sufficient nor can you tax me for not speaking herein the truth since I have it from your own mouth Is it not almost incredible so small a corner of earth should yield so large a revenew I doubt not but divers will suppose it bears Pearls or Diamonds But I had almost forgot the most important business I am to impart unto you and whereupon I first intended to write I must therefore say you are to have a special care never to repair the loss you have lately received assuring your self there is no one man in the World worthy to enjoy you privatively you shall be answerable for those excellent qualities Nature Art have conferred upon you for the commanding of men if you say you cannot live without submitting your self to one Herein Olympa you ought not suffer the vain ambition to be wise to a great Signiour to transport you or the advantage of entring into the Loover in Carroch to cause you quit the happiness you have to be Queen of your self How much Gold soever one bestow in fetters and how glorious soever the servitude be yet assure your self they are but a couple of bad matters Of late there was not any part of your body whereof another was not master he would examine your very dreams and thoughts It was not in your power to dispose of one single hair nay he robbed you of your very name See here Olympa what it is to have a Husband and what you torment your self for with such prodigal tears Me thinks it were all you could or ought to do were he revived or if the news of his death were doubtfull Yours BALZAC The 22. of July 1622. To Crysolita from BALZAC LETTER XVI I Must needs disabuse you Crysolita and inform you better in the History of that old Haxtris you supposed to be a very Saint First you are to understand she is extracted out of her Mothers sins nor was ever any Yirginity so britle as that she brought into this World It is very likely she hath lost all remembrance of any such matter But people of those dayes stick not openly to affirm that the first time she had liberty to go abroad at her coming home she mist her Gloves and Maiden-head After this her beauty augmenting with riper years she drew the eyes of all Italy upon her and sold than fifty times at Court she had formerly lost at School But since then she is arrived to an experience far surpassing that of the Lord Chancellour or the Popes Datary when I shall tell you she knoweth whether there be more pleasure in a circumcised Courtizan then in a Christian and that she hath experienced the activity of Indians and Muscovites yet shall I relate but half the story So it is that now after she hath filled Limbo with her paricidial leachery and been three-score years a Lectoress in vice she would make you confident of her conversion Yet am I credibly informed that not having now any thing worth the losing she is turned Solicitress to entice others to vice nor
without levity it accuseth innocencie without calumny And to say truth Painters and Stage-players are no way culpable of those murthers we see represented in Pictures or presented upon Theaters since therein the most cruel is the most just None can justly accuse those of falsity who make certain glasses which shew one thing for another Errour in some cases being more gracefull then truth In a word the life even of the greatest Sages is not altogether serious all their sayings are not Sermons nor is all they write either their last Testament or the confession of their Faith What can I say more Can you imagine me to be so curious as to condemne the gust of all that great multitude who flock to hear you every morning Are you perswaded that I and the people can never be of one minde That will oppose my self to the belief of honest men to the approbation of Doctors and to their authority who are eminent above others No Father I allow no such liberty to my spirit assure your self I esteem you as I ought I commend your zeal and learning yea were it truer then ever it was that to compose tedious Volumnes is no less then to commit great sins Yet if you oblige me to judge of yours by that you sent unto me I say it is very excellent in its kinde and that I will no way hinder you from obtaining a Rank among the Fathers of these modern ages But my testimony will not I hope become the onely fruit of your labours I wish with all my heart the conversion of Turks and Infidels may crown your indeavours I am perswaded all the honour this World can affoard ought to be esteemed as nothing by those who onely seek for the advancement of Gods glorie I will therefore no farther dilate my self upon this Subject nor wrong holy things by prophane praises my intention is onely to let you know I assume not so poor a part in the Churches interest as not to be extraordinarily well pleased with those who are serviceable thereto and that I am right glad besides the propension I have to esteem your amity so powerfull a perswasion as Religion is doth yet further oblige me Yours BALZAC To the Cardinal of Vallette LETTER IV. My Lord THe Letter you pleased to send me from Rome caused me to forget I was sick and I presumed to solace my self after three years of saddess ever since news was brought me of Lucidors death and the success of that fatal combate wherein you could not but be a loser on which side soever the advantage happened My Lord I doubt not but your spirit though altogether stout and couragious to support your proper misfortunes is yet mollified by the relation of their miseries who love you and where there is question rather of shewing your good nature or your constancy you will quit one virtue to acquire another I know well that in the number of your goods you reckon your friends in the first rank allowing onely the second place to your dignities and to fifty thousand Crowns rent which accompanies them and consequently I assure my self you believe you are as it were grown poor by the loss of a man who had relation unto you But I am likewise most certain how after the passing certain unpleasant dayes out of the love you bare him and having affoardeth him sufficient Testimonies of your affection he now expecting no further acknowledgement or service you will at length call to minde that it is the publick to whom you owe your cares and passions and that you are not permitted farther to afflict a spirit which is no longer yours Since the misery of this age is so general as it leaveth no one house without tears nor any one part of Europe without trouble and since Fortune is not of power to conserve even her own workmanships who are many of them fallen to ground it must needs so happen my Lord that being of the World you are to taste of the fruits it produceth and that you purchase at some hard rate the good successes daily attending you But truely the place where you are and the great designs taking you up may well furnish you with so strong and solide consolations as they need leave no work for others and my Eloquence would come too late should I imploy it after your reason which hath formerly perswaded you there being now neither precept nor Counsel in all humane wisdom unproposed to your view and since neither Seneca nor Epiotetus can say any thing save onely your thoughts I had much rather send you divertisements no way distastefull then to present you any remedies which doubtless will prove importunate These writings my Lord here inclosed shall not enter as strangers into your Cabinet they will not talk unto you of the five Praedicables of Porphiry nor of Justinians Novelles or the numbers of Algebra But you may there recreate and repose your spirits at your return from Audiences Congregations and the Consistory I could well have bestowed upon them a more eminent title then what they have I could out of these composures have framed Apologies Accusations and politick discourses yea had I pleased never so little to have extended some of my Letters they might have been called books But besides my design aiming rather to please then importune and that I tend to the height of conceptions and not at the abundance of words When I treat with you my Lord I suppose my self to be before a full assembly and do propose to my self never to write any thing unto you which Posterity ought not to read Now if sometimes from your person I pass to others or if I commend those whom I conceive are deserving I assure my self I therein performing an act of Justice and not of subjection you will be no way displeased with what I do and well hope I may conserve your favours without violating humane Laws or separating my self from civil society Your most humble servant BALZAC The 15. of July 1629. To the Cardinal of Vallete LETTER V. My LORD THough innocency be the felicity of the afflicted and that I finde in my self the satisfaction he can expect who hath not offended yet can I not so easily comfort my self And the remedies my Phylosophy affoard me are for meaner misfortunes then the loss of your favours All I can contribute to my consolation out of the assurance I have of mine innocency is the liberty I have taken to tell you so and to complain of the injustice you have done me if you have so much as suffered any to accuse me I need not seek colours to palliate my actions or words it is sufficiently known their principal objects have ever been the glory of your name and the desire to please you I beseech you likewise to call to remembrance that hard times have not hindred me from imbarking my self where my inclination called me and that I have served my Lord your Father
flatteries fools and cheaters of Old men corrupted by their Ancestors and who corrupt their children Of slaves who cannot live out of Servitude of poverty among virtuous persons and ambitious covetousness in the Souls of great persons But now that you have broken the bars through which I could onely receive some light impression of truth I distinctly see this general corruption and do humbly acknowledge the injury I offered to my Creator when I made Gods of his creatures and what glorie I sought to bereave him of c. BALZAC The 12. of January 1626. To Mounsieur de la Marque Letter VII I Know not what right use to make of your praises if I receive them I lose all my humility and in rejecting them I give that as granted which I am taxed for Upon the edge of these two extreamities it is more laudable to suffer my self to fall on my friends side and to joyn in opinion with honest men then to lean to that of Lysander since all men agree that his censure is ever opposite to the right and that he is the wisest man in France who resembles him the least There would be some errour in the reputation I aim at were I not condemned by him Think it not therefore strange that injuries are blown upon me by the same mouth which uttereth blasphemies against the memorie of ÏÏÏ and remember this old Maxim that fools are more unjust then some sinners The best is that for one Enemy my Reputation raiseth against me it procures me a thousand protectors so as without stirring hence I get victories at Paris nor finde I any Harmony so pleasing as what is composed of one particular murmure mingled with general acclamations There are sufficient in your Letter to cause me to retract the Maxims of my ancient Philosophy At the least they oblige me to confess that all my felicity is not within my self things without me entring towards the composition of perfect happiness I must freely confess unto you mine infirmity I should grow dumb were I never so short a time to live among deaf persons and were there no glorie I should have no eloquence But it is time I return to the task I have undertaken and that instead of so many excellent words you have addressed unto me I onely answer you that I am Your most humble servant BALZAC To Mounsieur Tissandier LETTER VIII AT my return from Poiton I found your packet attending me at my house but thinking to peruse your Letters I perceived I read my â—anegyrick I dare not tell you with what transport and excess of joy I was surprized thereupon fearing to make it appear I were more vain then usually women are and affect praises with the like intemperance as I do persumes Without dissembling those you sent me were so exquisite as be it you deceive me or I you there never issued fairer effects either from injustice or errour I beseech you to continue your fault or to persevere in your dissimulation For my part I am resolute to make you full payment of what I owe you and to yield so publick a testimonie of the esteem I hold of you as my reputation hereafter shall be onely serviceable to yours oblige me so far as to accept this Letter for assurance of what I will perform and if you finde me not so serviceable as I ought to be blame those troublesom persons who are alwayes at my Throat forcing me to tell you sooner then I resolved that I am Your most humble and faithfull servant BALZAC The 5. of August 1625. To Mounsieur de Faret LETTER IX THere is not any acknowledgement answerable to my Obligations unto you If I owe you any honour I am farther indepted unto you then my life comes to Truely to be sensible of another mans sufferings sooner then himself or to assume a greater share in his interests then he doth I must confess is as much as not to love in fashion or not to live in this age It is likewise a long time since I have been acquainted that the corruption environing you doth not at all infect you and how among the wicked you have conserved an integrity suiting the Raign of Lewes the twelfth Nay happily we must search further and pass beyond the Authentick Historie It is onely under the Poets Charlemain where a man of your humour is to be found and that the combat of Roger hath been the victorie of Leon. Without more particularly explaining my self you understand what I would say and I had much rather be indebted to your support then to the merit of my cause or to the favourable censure I have received from the Publick Certainly truth it self cannot subsist or finde defence without assistance yea even that concerning the Religion and which more particularly appertaineth to God then the other seaseth not on our Souls but by the entermise of words and hath need to be perswaded to have it believed You may hereby judge whether the good Offices you affoarded me were not usefull unto me or whether or no my just cause happened succesfully into your hands But I must defer the thanks due unto you upon this occasion till our meeting at Paris to the end to animate them by my personal expression Be confident in the interim though pitty it self would stay me in my Cell yet you are of power to cause me to infringe my heremetical vow besides you have set such a luster upon that great Citie and have punctuated unto me so many remarkable things and novelties thereof in the Letter you pleased to send me as I should shew my self insensible of rarities and not possessed with an honest curiositie had I not a desire to return thither I therefore onely attend some small portion of health to strengthen me to part hence and to go to enjoy with you our mutual delights I mean the conversation of Mounsieur de Vaugelas who is able to make me finde the Court in a Cottage and Paris in the plains of Bordeaux Adieu Mounsieur love me alwayes since I am with all my Soul Your most humble and affectionate servant BALZAC The 12. of Decemb 1625. To Mounsieur Coeffeteau Bishop of Marseilles LETTER X. IT is now fifteen dayes since I received any news from you yet will I believe the change of air hath cured you and if you as yet walk with a staff it is rather I hope for some mark of your authority then for any support of your infirmity If this be so I conjure you to make good use of this happy season yet remaining and not to lose these fair dayes hastning away and which the next Clouds will carry from us I give yon this advice as findeing it good and because there is not any thing doth more fortifie feeble persons then the Sun of this moneth whose heat is as innocent as its light Adamantus hath had his share of the unwholesom influence raigning in these parts The Feaver hath not born him
flash which pleaseth instantly as beauty doth and makes things to be lovely before one knows they are good Your words are no way unworthy of your Authour they neither weaken his conceits by stretching them out at length nor scatter the sence by spreading it out in breadth But contrariwise the powerfull spirit which was streightened within the bounds of a concise stile seems to breath at ease in this new liberty and to encrease it self as much as it spreads it self he seems to pass from his fetters into triumph and to go forth of the prisons of Rome where Nero shut him up to enter into a large Kingdom into which you bring him with royal magnificence There are some so curious palats they cannot relish the language of the Son of God and are so impudent as to accuse the holy Scriptures of clownishness and Barbarisme which made Mounsieur who died Archbishop of Benevent that he durst not say his Breviary for fear to mar his good Latin by contagion of the bad and least he should take some tincture of impurity that might corrupt his eloquence I will not speak at this time what I conceive of his scruple onely I say that if in the vulgar Translation there be Barbarism yet you have made it civil and if our good Malherb should come again into the World he would finde nothing in your Paraphrase that were not according to the strictness of his rules and the usage of the Court whereof he spake so often Some other time we will confer about the Preface and the Letters I received which I have in a manner all by heart but especially I have culled out these dear words to print in my memory and to comfort my spirits A little patience will crown you all their throws seem like those of sick men a little before they die in which I think there is neither malice nor force if you can but dispise them Prefer the better side before the greater and the Closet before the Theater Honest persons are for you and I make account you care not much for pleasing others The people have often times left Terence for dancers upon the Rope and banished Philosophers to gratifie Jesters I have nothing to add to this and will take heed how I sow Purple with pack-thâ—ead I content my self Sir at this time to assure you that I passionately am Sir Your c. From Balzac 10. of May 1632. To Mounsieur de Thibaudiere LETTER XXIII SIR I Will not raise to you the price of my tears though I have shed them for you eight dayes together I content my self to tell you that I am now comforted since the news of your death it changed into tidings of your hurt and that I am made assured you may be quitted of it for a little pain and a little patience I know well that virtue is more happily imployed in well using honest pleasures than in patient bearing troublesom crosses and that without an absolute distemper in the taste one can never finde any sweetness in pain yet you shall confess unto me that there is a kinde of contentment in being lamented and though the joyes of the minde be not so sensible as those of the body yet they are more delicate and more subtill at least you have come to know of what worth you are by the fear which all honest men were in to lose you and that in a time when half the World is a burthen to the other and every one reserves his lamentation for his own miseries yet all in general have mourned for you in such sort Sir that you have had the pleasure to hear your own Funeral Oration and to enjoy the continuance of a happy life after receiving the honours done to worthy men after death If the War of Italy continue till Winter I will come and learn from your own mouth all the particulars of your adventures and I shall then know if your Philosophy have not been moved and waxed pale at the sight of the Probe and of the Rasour In the mean time do me honour to be mindefull of him who exceedingly honours you and to keep for me that part in your affection which you have promised me since I truely am Sir Your c. At Balzac 29. of July 1630. To Mounsieur Gyrard Secretary to my Lord the Duke de Espernon LETTER XXIV SIR I Had heard that before which you sent me word of by your footman and had rejoyced already for the new Dignity of Mounsieur the President Segnior It seems you think he is made Lord Keeper of the Scales for none but for you and that no Feast for the joy of it should be kept any where but at Cadillac Within these four dayes you shall see it kept all the Countrey over it is a favour the King hath done the whole Realm It is not so much for the purity of the air and for the fruitfulness of the earth that we ought to call it a happy year as for the election of worthy Magistrates I therefore take a joy in this news as I am a subject of the Kings and this is the first Right I claim in it but beyond this I have a second Right of rejoycing in that I am interessed in the advancement of a modesty which I know and make account to be made happy by the prosperity of him of whose honesty I am assured I put not forth this last word at adventure I am ready to make it good against whosoever shall think it rash and I know he hath preservatives against all the poysons of the Court and a judgement that cannot be corrupted with all the bribes of Fortune There is nothing of so high a price for which he would be willing to leave his virtue if he had lived in Neroes time he had been a constant Martyr but living now under a just Prince he will prove a profitable Officer To preserve a life which is to continue but a few dayes he would not obscure that life which ought to last in the memory of many ages and the least spot upon his honour would be more insupportable to him than the effusion of all his bloud He knows that in the administration of Justice being the interpreter of God he cannot work of himself that this Divine Act ought to be a general Suspension from all humane affections and that in the exercise thereof he is no longer at his liberty to shew love or hatred revenge or gentleness He considers that he makes not law but onely declares it that he is a Minister and not a Master of his Authority and that the Soveraignty is in the Law and not in himself This is the reason why in every cause he censures he bethinks himself of his own proper cause which shall one day be censured he so judgeth as if Posterity were to take a review of his judging and as though the present time were but subalternate to the future Thus I have heard him to make
him and for his Daughter of whom you write me so much good I cannot stay my self from vowing to you that she is not altogether unworthy of it and perhaps would have deserved an Air with three couplets of your making if she had appeared in the time when you were the great Chaunter of France But now that you have changed your course of life there is no looking for any thing from you but spiritual discourse and Christian Meditations which yet will serve as fitly for a Sex to which devotion belongs no less than beauty Bring therefore to us the Original of your piety and of your Divinity at least shew some sorrow that you cannot do it that I may see my affection is not scorned and that I am not without revenge Sir Your c. From Balzac 1. of Decemb. 1634. Another to him LETTER XLI SIR IF you hold your old wont you will tax me with ignorance and write me a man of another World one delivered me but yesternight observations upon the process of the Marshall of and I set my self to reading all the time my Groom set himself to sleeping In very truth they gave me an excellent rellish and I vow unto you I never read a stile more subtile nor that hid its Art more cunningly I entreat you to send me word who the Authour is and to whom I am beholding for so pleasing a night It must needs be some man who understands two things equally well affairs and how to write one that partakes of the life of a Schollar and of a Courtier like to that God of whom the Poets say he is of the one and other World Vtroque facit commercia mundo From the knowledge of Books he draws the vigour and force of his phrase and from the practise of the Court the colours and sweetening of his matter He speaks the language of the Closet and brings proofs of the Pallace but in such sort that neatness doth not weaken his reasons and his force is so tempered that even Ladies may be judges of the process Once again I entreat you to send me the name of this sage Observer and besides to give me account what grace I stand in with Mounsieur de I was told in no very good grace neither I nor my writings neither If I made but little reckoning of him I should easily comfort my self for this disgrace but in truth it would grieve me much to be condemned by a judgement to which I should make a conscience not to subscribe and I rather believe there are many defects in my writings than that in his taste there is any defect of reason Assure him Sir if you please that I am at least capable of Discipline and am apt enough to follow any method he shall prescribe me for attaining a proportion of knowledge to content him Let him but tell me my faults and see how quickly I will mend them let him but say what it is in my stile that offends him and see how ready I shall be to give him satisfaction If my Hyperboles displease him I will blot them out of my Letters the next time they are printed I will truely confess all I have ever used and make a solemne vow never to use more Yet it cannot be truely said that to use this Figure is a matter that deserves blame for not to speak of humane Authours we should then blame the Son of God for saying It is easier for a Cammel to go through a needles eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven But I will not seek to save my self by so supream an authority In this I will respect our Saviour but not follow him I will believe that such examples are far above all humane imitation and will not attempt it no more than to walk upon the water and to go forty dayes without eating In good earnest I would do any thing to give contentment to a man that gives contentment to M. the Cardinal and hath perswaded the King of Sweden If he will play the Tyrant with those that seek his favour let him I refuse not hence forward the hardest conditions he can lay upon me and to gain his protection I renounce with all my heart my very liberty It is now four and twenty hours since I laid my eyes together It is time therefore that I bid you good morrow or good night take which of them you please and believe me alwayes Sir Your c. From Balzac 4. December 1634. To Mounsieur the Master Advocate in the Parliament LETTER XLII SIR YOu know I have fed upon the fruits of Pomponne even beyond the rules of temperance and I told you there that they are generally excellent yet I now especially declare my self in favour of the last you sent me and finde them far surpassing the Amber Pear or all other kindes which I cannot name It is true I affect especially the Tree it self that bears them and I account the meanest of the Leaves no meaner than Jewels yet their own goodness is such that though they grew in the Garden of or grew upon a stock that Father had planted yet I should not for all that but highly esteem them and take a pleasure in their taste In a word to leave speaking in Allegory and not to flounder my self in a Figure into which you have most maliciously cast me I say Sir that in all your Presents I see nothing but excellent and least you should think I meant to exempt my self from giving a particular account of my judgement by speaking in general terms I let you know that in the first place the two lines spoken of at the end of the discourse please me infinitely and next to this that place which is written upon occasion of that France is too good a Mother to rejoyce in the loss of her Children and that the victories gotten upon our selves are fit to wear mourning and be covered with black vails All that could have been said upon this Argument would never have been comparable to this ingenious silence And as he hath dexterously shunned a passage so tender so he enters as bravely and as proudly upon a matter that will bear it when speaking of he saith that having overcome the waves and the windes that opposed his passage and traversed the fires of so many Canons of the Enemies with a few poor Barks he made his way through a Forrest of great ships and despising all the English Forces made a small Island to be the Grave of the glorie of that great Queen of the Northern Islands And a little after where he saith that God who bestows his favours upon Nations by measure seeing that the admirable valour of ours would easily Conquer the whole World if it had Prudence equal to its courage seems therefore to have given us as a Counterpoise to the greatness of our spirits a kinde of impetuosity and impatience which to our Armies have oftentimes been fatal
the soule for as for the true respect and the passion which hath residence in the heart I assure you I have that in me for you as pure and entyre as ever and that he that calls you his Soveraigne yet honours you not more perfectly than I doe Monsieur de will I doubt not be my witnesse herein and will tell you that what part soever I be forced to play amongst jeasters and merry companions yet under my players cloathes there will alwayes be found an honest man I have been sensible Madam of the losse which hath had and have not been sparing to speake of his unfortunate vertue yet I never thought he needed any comforting for it for seeing he sees that God spares not his own Images and that his neerest friends have their disgraces and troubles he ought not to thinke any thing strange that happens in this inferiour world and upon inferiour persons what consideration soever may otherwise make them deare unto him If you have vouchsafed to keepe the Letters I have written to you I humbly entreat you to send them to me that I may see what volume I can make for the impression that is required of me but Madam it shall be if you please upon this condition that parting with the Letters you shall never let your memory part with the truths they containe but hold undoubtedly that I very firmely am though I doe not very often say I am Madam Your c. 25. Decemb. 1630. Another to her LETTER XXXVII MAdam my labour is happie since it is never from before you and since I am told you make it your ordinary entertainment The end of all fayre Pictures and good Books is but onely to please your eyes and to delight your spirit and the good you have not yet set a price upon is not yet come to its utter most perfection I have therefore all that an ambitious man could wish for I may perhaps have fortune from others but glory I can have from none but you and another perhaps may pay me but none but you can recompense mee The paines I have hitherto taken have beene but ill requited I have tilled a ground that brings me forth but thornes yet Madam since they blossome for your service I am contented to be pricked by them and I love the cause of my disgraces if they proove a cause of your recreations The first Newes you shall heare will tell you what I meane and that my patience never makes my persecutours weary You shall see Madam that there is no conscience made to contradict you and that the same which you call excellent and admirable hath yet 〈◊〉 Paris found enemies and at Bruxells hangmen I will say no more at this time but that I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 6. Jan. 1631. Another to her LETTER XXXVIII MAdam I writ unto you about six weekes since but my packet not being delivered where I appointed it I perceive some curious body hath seazed on it and sought for secrets which he could not find The losse is not great to lose nothing but a few untoward words and small comforting would serve me for so small a crosse yet because they were full of the passion I owe to your service and carried in them the markes of my dutie I cannot but be troubled they câ—me not to your hands and that my mis-fortune gives you cause to complaine of my negligence I dare not undertake to cleere my selfe altogether for though in this I committed no fault yet I cannot forget some other faults committed before The truth is Madam I have been for some time so continually taken up with businesse that I have beene wanting in the principall obligations of a civill life and I have drunke besides so many bitter potions and tasted so many bitter Pills that I should but offend you with my complements which could not choose but carrie with them at least some tincture of my untoward humour What pleasure could you have taken to see a medley of choler and Melancholy powred out upon paper and in stead of pleasing Newes to read nothing but pittifull Stories and mortall Predictions But enough of this unpleasing matter I expect here within three or foure dayes my Lord the Bishop of Nantes and I would to God Madam you could be here at that time and that you were at leisure to come and taste the doctrine of this rare personage I have heard you say heretofore you never saw a more holy countenance than his and that his very looke was a Prologue of perswasion This conceit makes me hope that he is the man whom God hath ordained to be your Converter and to bring you into the bosome of our Church Beleeve me Madam and you shall not be deceived trust that enemy who wounds nor but onely to draw out the bloud that causes a Feaver and never make difficultie to commit your selfe to one that intends your freedome The triumph which the world makes you feare is no way injurious to those that be the captives nor like unto that of which Cleopatra tooke so sad an apprehension but in this case the vanquished are they that are crowned and all the glory and advantage of the victory rests on their side I am not out of hope to see so good a dayes worke and seeing you are rather layd asleepe in the opinion of your mother than obstinate in a wrong cause I intreat you that you will not be frighted with phrases Wee will not use this hard terme to say you have abjured your haeresie wee will onely say you are awaked out of your slumber and if our deare friend Monsieur du Moulin would doe so too then would be the time of a great festivall in Heaven and the Angels would rejoyce at the prosperitie of the Church My zeale Madam is not out of ostentation for it is most true that such a change is one of my most violent wishes and to see you say your prayers upon your beads I would with all my heart give you a payre made of Diamonds though I am not rich yet I hope you doubt not of the truth of these last words and that I am with all my soule Madam Your c. At Balzac 7. May. 1632. Another to her LETTER XXXIX MAdam it hath beene as much my shame as my glory to read your Letter having so ill deserved it and the remorse of the fault I committed makes mee that I dare not yet rejoyce in the honour I received You are good and gracious even to the not hating of evill actions Your delinquents not only obteine impunitie but you allow them recompence and idlenesse hath more respect with you than deligent service with ordinary Masters This is the faelicite of the Golden age where Plentie had no neede of tilling and where there was reaping without sowing Yet Madam I must not so abandon my cause that I forbeare to alledge the good it hath in it it is long since
health The reasons I can give of my silence are much juster than I would they were and me thinkes three moneths continuing in a Feaver may well dispense with any obligation whatsoever of a civill life Yet seeing you will needs have me speake I cannot but obey you though I make use of a strangers hand to quarrel with you I cannot endure the dissimulation you shew in doubting of my affection and of the truth of my words I understand no jesting on that side these are Games that I am uncapable to learn and in matter of friendship I am of that tendernesse that I am even wounded with that which is perhaps intended but for a tickling I perceive I have beene complained upon to you but I entreat you to beleeve it hath been upon very false grounds and I require no better justifier than her owne conscience that accuseth mee Within a few dayes I will come my selfe in person and give you an account of all my actions and will trayne my selfe on to Paris in hope to enjoy the happinesse of your companie In the meane time be carefull not to cure the maladie you tell me of which brings us forth such goodly Sonnets and makes so well agree the two greatest enemies that are in Nature I meane Passion and Judgment so I bid you Farewill and am with all my heart Your c. At Balzac 25. August 1620. To Monsieur de Coignet LETTER XLVIII SIR I am much bound unto you for your writing to me and for sending me Newes that exceedingly pleaseth mee You may well thinke I have no minde to crosse my own good and to refuse giving my consent to the Earle of Exceters request To have so illustrious an Interpreter in England is more then a full revenge upon all the petty Scribes that oppose mee in France it is the crowning and triumph of my writings I am not therefore so a Philosopher that I place the honour he doth mee amongst things indifferent but rather to tell you plainly I have perhaps received too sensible a contentment in it and upon the poynt of falling againe into my old desire of glory of which I thought my selfe to have been fully cured I send you a word which I entreat you to deliver to him which shall witnesse for me how deare and glorious the markes he gives me of his love and account are unto me Otherwise Sir I doubt not but I owe a great part of this good fortune to the good opinion you have of me which is to be seene in every line of your Letter and that you have confirmed the English in this Error which is so much in my favour Onely I entreat you never to seeke to free them of this errour but so to deale with them that if you convert them from other it may still be with reservation of this The truth in question is of so small importance that it deserves not any curious examination and in which to be in a wrong beliefe makes not a man to be either lesse honest or more unfortunate Never therefore make scruple to oblige me seeing you shall oblige a thankfull man and one who is Sir Your c. At Balzac 12. June 1629. To Monsieur de Neusuic LETTER XLIX SIR If I were only blind I would try to make some answer to the good words of your Letter but the paine which my ill eyes put me to makes me uncapable of this pleasing contention and I cannot draw from my head in the state it now is any thing else but Water and Waxe And besides the unhappie blindnesse I speake of I am in such sort overflowed with Rheumes that if it were in the time of the old Metamorphoses I thinke verily I should be turned into a Fountaine and become the subject of some new Fable I have lost as well my smelling as my taste my Nose can make no difference betweene Spanish Leather and an old Cowes hide and I sneeze so continually that all my conversation is but to say I thanke you to them that say God helpe you Being in this estate doe you not wonder I write unto you and have the boldnesse to be sending Letters In truth never complement cost me so deare as this and if I would make use of the priviledge of sicke men I might very justly require a Dispensation but I had not the power to let your servant goe away without telling you that you are a very honest Impostour and that the Periguran you send is the most refined Frenchman that ever ranne afoot to Paris It must needs be that the people of your Village is a Colonie of the Louver that hath preserved the first puritie of their language amidst the corruption of their Neighbours There never were such fine things written upon the banke of Dordoune at least not since the death of de Montaigue yet I esteeme them not so much because they are so fine as because they come from you whose I passionately am At Balzac 25. Jan. 1633. Sir Your c. To Madam Desloges LETTER L. MAdam I am alwayes of your minde and like not Ladies that would be Cavaliers There are certain bounds that part us and mark us out our several duties and conditions which neither you nor we can lawfully passe And the lawes of Decencie are so ancient that they seeme to be a part of the ancient religion Moses hath extended the commandements of God even to the distinction of your apparell and ours and you know he expresly forbids to disguise our selves in one anothers cloathes Women must be altogether women the vertues of our sex are not the vertues of theirs and the more they seek to imitate men the more they degenerate from their owne kinde We have had some women amongst us that would ride Spanish horses would discharge Pistols and would be parties in maintaining quarrels M. the Marshall Scomberg shewed me once a letter which he writ to a Gentlewoman of at the end whereof are these words I kisse the hands of this valiant and pleasing Lady that is your second in the day and your wife at night This Lady might parhaps be valiant but to my humour she could not be pleasing If she had had a beard she could not have had a greater fault Women that are valiant are as much to blame as men that are cowards And it is as unseemly for Ladies to weare swords by their sides as for Gentlemen to have glasses hanging at their girdles I professe my selfe an enemy Madam to these usurpations of one sex upon another It strikes me with a kinde of horror when I read in histories of the ancient women Fencers whom the Romanes beheld with such pleasure in their Amphitheater and I account not Amazons in the number of women but of Monsters and Prodigies Sweetnesse and tendernesse are the qualities that belong to you and will your she Friend give over her claime to these that is to the succession of her mother and the priviledges of
Yet I have come to know and fame hath sounded in our desart the great battels that have been fought for the honour of France and how you have vanquished the spirits of strangers which is a greater victory than to vanquish their forces I have come to know that Italy hath vented out all her subtilties and imployed them to deceive us and yet could not and that these spirits which thought to reigne in all assemblies and to be masters of reason have not beene able to defend themselves against you but with spight and choller nor to complain of any thing but that you perswaded them to that which they came resolved never to do so as they which called us Barbarians and got alwayes as much by their Treaties as they lost by our Victories have found at last that there is wisdome on this side the Alpes as well as beyond and are driven to acknowledge that we had a man amongst us now able to hinder them from deceiving us as they had done They wondred to see a Servant that could not endure there should be a greater Master than his own that felt the least evils of his Country as if they were his proper wounds and thought it a hurt to himself if there were but an offer made to touch the Dignity of his Crowne but when they saw that you applyed remedies upon the sodaine to all inconveniencies which they thought you could never have avoyded that you not only answer'd all objections they made but prevented all they intended to make that you dived into their soules and took hold of their intentions there and at the first conference made answer to that which they reserved for the second then in truth their fleam turned into choller and then you quite routed all their humane Prudence and all their politick Maximes c. I am not able to dissemble the joy I take to heare that your good services are acknowledged that when divers counsels had been tryed yet yours at last was still faine to be followed and that in guiding the fortune of France you are no lesse President of all affaires of Europe It is true that of all externall contentments I have none so sensible to me as this but on the other side when I heare that your health is continually assaulted or at least threatned by some accident or other that the rest which the quietnesse of your Conscience ought to afford you keeps you not from having unquiet Nights and that in the midst of all your glory and good successes yet you oftentimes are as it were weary of your life then indeed c. And can it not be that you should come to heare the publique acclamations but in the unquietnesse of your watchings Nor of your praises but in your paines Must the Sense suffer and the Spirit rejoyce Must you be upon the rack when you are in your triumphs Must you do two contrary works at once and at the same time have need both of moderation and of patience If vertue could be miserable and that the sect which accounts nothing evill but paine nothing good but pleasure were not universally condemned Certainely the divine Providence would at this day be complained upon by places of all this Kingdome and all honest men would in your behalfe finde something amiss in the worlds government Bâ—t my Lord you know better than I that it is the happinesse of Beasts onely of which we must believe the body for as for ours which resides in our highest part it is as little sensible of disorders that are below her as they which are in Heaven are uncapable of offences by stormes of the aire or by vapours of the earth And this being so God forbid that I should judge of your condition by the state of your health and not think him perfectly happy whom I esteem Doe but imagine with your selfe that you have made a division of the infirmities of humane nature with other men and then you shall finde the advantage is on your side seeing there is in you but a smal portion of pain for infinite defects that are in others Yet I cannot but think that the term of your patience is neere expired and that the time to come is preparing contentments for you that are wholly pure and will make you young againe after the time as before the time you have made your self old The King that hath need of your long life makes no wishes in vaine and heaven heares not the prayers of the enemies of our state We know of no successour fit to undertake what you leave unfinished and if it be true that our Armies are but the armes of your head and that God hath chosen your counsaile for establishing the affairs of this age why should we feare a losse which hath no right to come but to our posterity he will not in this onely point leave imperfect the happinesse he hath promised us be loves men too well to deprive them of that good which you are borne to do them When Armies are defeated there may new be levied and a second Fleet may be set forth when the first is lost but if you my Lord should false uâ— c. It shall be in your time that people oppressed shall come fâ—om the worles end to seeke the protection of this Crown 〈◊〉 by your means our Allies shall be well payed for their losses that the Spaniards shall be no conquerours but the French shall be the fâ—eâ—rs of all the earth It shall be in your time that the holy seat shall have her opinions free the inspirations of the holy Ghost shall be no more oppugned by the cunning of our adversaries and that there shall be raised up couragious hearts worthy of ancient Italy and able to defend the common cause Finally my Lord I shall be by your wisdome that there shall be no more tyâ—anny in Christendome nor rebellion in this Kingdome That the people shall leave in their superiours hands both Liberty and Religion and that â—â—om this legall government and from this perfâ—ct obedience there shall arise that happinesse which Polititians seek foâ— and which is the end of all civill societies My hope is that all these things shall câ—me to passe thorough your wise government and that after you have made sure our peace and our neighbours you shall your selfe enjoy the benefit of your good deeds with pleasure and at your ease and shall see the state of things continuâ— flouâ—ishing whereof none but yoursâ—lfe have beene the Author I earnestly intreat you so to deale with Monsieuâ— de that he may rest contented with this and dispense with me for any new meditation which would require more leisure than I am like to have This bearer will deliver you the History of Queen Elizabeth which may serve you for a recreation to the end of the week and then I shall come and aske your opinion and desire you to give me some light of that time out of the
upon subjects that swerve from common Tenents and by pleasing fictions raise mens wonder though not win belief This makes phantasmes onely to unmake them again it hath varnishes disguises to alter the purity of any thing in the world it can shift sides without imputation of fickleness and accuse innocence without guilt of calumnie And certainly Painters and Stage-players are not guilty of those murthers that we behold in their Tables and on their Theaters but here he that is most cruel is reputed most just Those that make Glasses which present one object for another are not accused of Imposture and Error is sometimes comelier then the truth In a word the life of the greatest Sages is not evermore serious all their talke is not preaching and whatsoever they write is not their last Testament or a confession of their faith What shall I say more Think you that I am so delicate as to condemn all the tasts of the numerous multitude which throng to hear you every morning Do you imagine that the people and I can never concur in the same opinion and that I mean to oppose the general verdict of good men the approbation of Doctors and the authority of Superiors No good Father I do not allow that swinge and liberty to my understanding assure your self that I esteem you in that degree as I ought I applaud your zeal and learning and were it truer now then ever that to compose great Volumes is to commit great sins yet notwithstanding if you oblige me to judge of yours according to the portion which you did send me I speak boldly that it is most excellent in its kind and Mons Malherbe and I will not deny you a place in the Classe of Fathers of the latter age But our testimonies and Encomiums will not be the onely fruit of your labors I desire with all my heart that the conversion of Pagans and Infidels may be the approbation of it and I think that all the glory of this world should be accounted but ayre and emptiness by them that aim at nothing but the advancement of Gods glory Wherefore I need not enlarge my self any farther upon this subject nor wrong sacred things by prophane commendations my intention is onely to testifie to you that I claim not so small a part in the interests of the Church as not to be most hartily thankful to those that do her service and that I am right glad that besides the reasons that prompt me to esteem your friendship one so powerful as that of Religion doth yet farther oblige me thereunto TO MY LORD THE CHANCELLOR MY LORD THat Scorn and contempt that you were pleased lately to throw upon a Libel fram'd against Mons de Balzac and your denial then to license it for the Presse are a sufficient testimonie how much you do value the person of that man You did conceive that being as you are the supreme Dispenser of Justice you had in a sort violated that Justice in permitting such hard censures to passe upon that man whom you with so much reason approved and whom others cannot with any reason reprehend So that if there be any yet to be found that cannot fully perswade themselves to approve of this man by your example their obstinacy is sufficiently confuted by your Authority And if this cannot represse their sinister intents yet notwithstanding it prevents the effects of them and hinders that he be not persecuted in print This high favour which flowes from that esteem which you did alwaies bear to his writings did invite me to collect with all diligence these rare productions of his spirit for the contentation of yours And as it was not without his consent that one of his friends hath deposited this treasure in my hands so I do verily believe that this office of presenting them to you is also very comformable to his inclinations Your worth is so evidently known that none should imagine I could choose a Sanctuary more noble or more propitieus and the general current of mens affections to doe you service is so strong and high that I could not shun this Duty As for me I confesse I am exceedingly pleased with this occasion that presents it self to me for to make it appear to your Honour how apprehensive I am of the late favours which your Bounty hath conferred upon me Certainly my Lord my obligations unto you must bee infinitely great since when I have presented you with all that the Eloquence of this age hath most precious yet notwithstanding I must remain your debtor while I draw breath You shall meet here with Doctrines which the austerest Philosophy would not disdain to own and professe Among these severe speculations you shall see some flashes of wit break forth which will serve to entertain you with much delight I speak of the French Epistles for as for his Latine I referre them to the judgement of those that doe better understand the beauty and delicacy of that language I am content to believe that Cicero never entertain'd his friends with better grace and contentment nay that the very close and compacted style and the strong and vigorous expressions which Bâ—utus found wanting in the writings of that great Orator are here to be found But I fear I should detain you too long from the pleasure of these novel lectures if in commending â—aâ—e Epistles I should arrest you any longer in reading this poor one of mine Indeed my Lord for to speak nothing that were unworthy of you it were requisite that Mons de Balzac would lend me some of the graces of his style or as he will be ravisht with joy that I have made choice of you to be the Patron of his writings he would come himself to make the Dedication It sufficeth me if my designe and undertaking for to perform something that might be acceptable to your Greatnesse do not give you any distaste and that you believe that I am sincerely My Lord Your most humble and most obliged servant JOHN CAMUSAT TO MY LORD THE CHANCELLOR MY LORD I Have understood of your denial for the publishing of a Libel lately fram'd against me And though perhaps the harm that I should have received thereby would have been but small yet my obligation unto you never ceaseth to be great and this argueth a special care in you of my tranquillity not to suffer that any the least noise should disquiet it I know not my Lord if this be not to handle with too much nicenesse and tendernesse a man that makes profession of Philosophy it were enough that publick Authority should shelter me from the tempest without exempting me from the wind and dust and that it would guard my retrait from savage beasts without frighting away the flies also and such importunate Insects But my Lord the goodnesse which you reserve for me extends farther then to ordinary justice You take not onely care for my repose amidst the hurry and tumult of Europe
an affliction and you may believe that I do not rashly hazard a thing so precious as that I make not onely sincerity and zeal the companions of my friendship but discretion also and respect The persons whom I love are to me almost most in the same degree of veneration as those things which I adore I approach them not but with awe which accompanies Religion and it is certain that I am so fearful to attend them that least I should distast them with my sullenness I do force and fain smiles when I am most sad You shall know more of this in the progresse of my life and avouch that I know how to practise those maxims which I hold and approve my selfe with courage and constancy Sir Your c. Balzac 1. March 1632. To the same LET. L. SIR Since I have arrived here I have received the Letter which you did me the honor to write unto me which is a continuation of your courtesies and bounty and an entrance upon a commerce where I must take all and you give all While I expect to make benefit of your Prose I feast upon your verses which have disrelisht all that I took for excellent before I never saw boldness more discreet courage better maintained or sweetness lesse effeminate Thâ—se are Sir worthy Harbingers of your Damsel But you do her wrong to seem to doubt of her good Fate and do not believe the auspicious omens thaâ— appeared at her Nativity which promise long life If you have patience enough to consummate this work all the rest is sufficient your natural wit is strong and pregnant you have the perfection of Arts your Cabinet is a Magazin of Oâ—naments and riches to adorn the Subjâ—ct What more is wanting to you Be not nice any longer you are condemned to go forward with it except you mean to quit one passion for another and abandon Poeter for the Politicks wherein to tell you the truth I believe you will prove admirable I am of your opinion that 1500 verses at one breaâ—h go farre and that it would not be amisse to set more reasonable bounds to every Book But touching all this you may consult with Vida Francestorius and if they be not of the same opinion Scaliger may be the supernumerary Our Doctor saith that he hath not so much need of counsel as of aid and since things past fall not under deliberation it is no time now to know whether he hath err'd he desires you only to teach him how to deny it with some fair pâ—obability to perswade the people that Pericles is not fallen though the people saw it For my part I am confident of the good success of all your enterprises Having found the bel mâ—â—ivo in favor of the Poet Marini there is no such Monster which you cannot shape and make handsom and without doubt you have such precious Oyle that one drop thereof is sufficient to blanch a Moore It is Sir Your c. Balzac 1. Aug. 1632. To the same LET. LI. SIR My silence is not the effect of slouth and you may believe that it is against my will that I deprive my self of the contentment that I took in entertaining you The reasons that obliged me to silence were more just then I wisht they had been and a troublesom Defluxion which fell upon my eyes hath failed to charge you with a blind friend For in that case I think you could not have chosen but to have been my Guid and I did already make account to learn to sing that I might chant your Poem But by the great mercy of God I recovered my eye sight yesterday and you are freed from the sad office which my distressed Fortune might have required from your good nature Now that I do speak and do not rattle in the throat I must give you an account of the voyage that I made and I must tell you with as much ceremony and eloquence as heretofore that I have been to meet the Court as farre as Cadilliac I had the honor there to do my respects to my Lord But his sickness that took him the very day that he arrived thither and mine which would wait no longer to attach me did force me to take my way back to my Vâ—llage where I found your Messages and my Coffers I render you once more most humble thanks for the care you took to keep them for me and since you are pleased that I make use of you with such familiarity you must permit my thankful acknowledgement thereof The newes you wrote unto me concerning the sickness of was told me at Bordeaux when I was there and I swear unto you I have not slept a good sleep since This is as good a man as ever I was acquainted with and I do mainly esteem him because I know him to the very heart where without faining I have found nothing but what was noble and I dare speak it magnanimous I know that his out side hath been displeasing to many But men must not alwayes be judged by the lineaments of the face and that aversation is unjust which springs onely out of deformity I do much wonder that two words which I have written to my Stationer being half a sheep are flown out of his shop already I assure you I am no nor do not use to put on severity in reading these kinds of Relatiosn But in truth this here did give me much content and though I meet with some passages that might be altered without any harm and where a decorum was not so exactly observed as it might have been nevertheless to speak in the general the invention to my thinking was handsome the narration neat and smooth and the stile all favoring of the Court and Cabinet When you have read it I will think of it as you shall pronounce the sentence in the mean while I use the liberty allowed in points not yet decided and the interim that you are too good to agree with me until you have made the truth manifest unto me For the Dutch Orator remembered as leastwise that I spake nothing but touching his phrase for I do infinitely esteem his learning and judgement Be pleased therefore to manage this petty secret according to your ordinary prudence since I am so unfortunate that I cannot utter one word but it will straight finde strange Glosses and Commentaries and that there be people so charitable as to stir up warre against me and create me enemies in all parts of the world I have never received the Letter of Monsieur de neither did I need them to assure me of his love I know that he is good and noble wherefore relying hereupon it sufficeth me to understand that he is well and it is not material to me whether I learn this from him or from you I forgot to tell you that J received from Monsieur the Duke of many caresses and favors he hath used me like some great Personage or mighty Signor and J
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