in this case I think I have reason rather to ask justice at your hands and tell you that if you take the paines to consider my words as I meant them and not have my enemies correct them you will easily grant they contain nothing contrary to the orthodox Doctrine or that is not maintainable in all the Schools of Christendom This being so my dear Cousin I doubt not but you will strongly defend my cause at least my person and will be pleased to assure the Gentlemen of your fraternity that having always accounted their Colledge as the Oracle of true Doctrine and as the interpreter of the Church in this Kingdome I could not wish a more sweet or glorious fruit of my travails than to see them entertained by so learned holy Personages that my greatest ambition is but to merit their good acceptance to deserve their favourable censure and if for obtaining this I have not either happinesse enough or not enough sufficiency I have at least dociblenesse enough to learne of them that which I know not and to confesse that in their learned conferences they possesse the secret and certainty of all holy points whereof we in our private meditatoins have but suspitions and conjectures that if I were assaulted by strangers I could perhaps make a shift to resist and that with successe but that I prefer obedience which I owe before a victory which I might get that I desire not to contest with my fathers nor pretend to have reason against their authority to which I submit my self in such sort that I am resolved to assure my self of nothing but upon their word and credit and from henceforth to acknowledge no truth but that which they shall please to teach me I leave it to you to augment to reforme or embellish this complement as you shall think fit I make you Master of the whole businesse and never meane to disavow any thing you shall doe being absolutely Sir my dear Cousin Your c. At Balzac 18 Jan. 1632. To Monsieur de Vougelas Gentleman in Ordinary to my Lord the Kings onely Brother LETTER XXXVIII SIR I humbly intreat you to take for your selfe all the excuses you make to me and to believe that I have alwayes a love answerable to your vertue though I say it not so often as by the lawes of civility I am bound to do Since the coming hither to Monsieur de you have been the most ordinary and most pleasing subject of all our conference and I am much more curious to heare of your studies than to heare all the newes of the great World Yet I intend not hereby to ask it of you with importunity and to engage you againe in a commerce of unprofitable words which would but wrong your necessary imployments I am well enough satisfied with the assurance I have of your love and am well contented you should keep your complements for those you love not so well when I shall finde my selfe to stand in need of you I am not grown so bashfull but that I can use the liberty I have long used and trouble you againe by my freenesse Hitherto it hath afforded you nothing but trouble and it was your evil Angel that inspired you with a desire at first to be acquainted with me But one day perhaps I shall be more happy and for so many and great favours you have done me it may be you may draw from me some small argument of acknowledgement In the mean time Sir I desire you not to cast upon me a reputation which I am not able to maintaine make no more mocks at my pratling and hide the shame of your friend which your other friend hath published He onely is guilty of the fault that was done and you may well think I was not so impudent to send false Latin to the University of Paris as much as to deliver false Money to the Mint and think to make Mint-men take it for currant It shall suffice me that you approve of the French I mean to bring you or at least that you make it worthy of your approving by making it new with your corrections If Monsieur Faret be returned from Brescia you shall make me beholding to you to assure him from me of the continuation of my service I make infinite account of him and am with all my soule Sir Your c. At Balzac 15. May. 1629. To Monsieur Gerard Officiall of the Church of Angaulesmr LETTER XXXIX SIR my last Letters are great Books and I have nothing to adde but only that I intreat you to take the pains to read them over again and to draw them into heads for the help of your memory which though I know to be very excellent yet I know also it is extreamly full of businesse and that I am but the five and twentieth of your Clients I set downe nothing so precisely but that I leave you liberty to change my orders if you finde them not fit and to saile with the winde Nothing but good success can be expected from your sterning you will so manage I assure my self my resentments with Monsieur de and make him see so much respect and modesty in my grief that he will perhaps be sorry be ever disobliged me I assure my selfe also that when you fall upon my Chapter where I treat with Monsieur de that you will not carry your self as onely my instrument and as one that hath charge of me but that you will doe as an honest man should that is perswaded to it by the truth and interessed in the cause of oppressed innocency Concerning the perfumes I desired of you I could wish you would bring me a shop-full but you must use some body else to chuse them for you for you know them not your selfe but onely by name and you may perhaps have the oyle of Nuts given you for the oyle of Jasmin and Gingerbread for Sweet-balls So it is that pretty things are unknowne of great personages you would think you should doe your selfe wrong to descend to such pedling wares and of an Ambassadour and a Philosopher become a Merchant and an Apothecary yet Aristippus would be dealing in things that you think scorn of and said that he and the King of Persia were the two unfortunate Ones whom Diogenes pittied You send me word that Monsieur de hath great Designs in the Common-wealth of Letters and that he is resolved be an Authour and a Preacher both at once If you remove him not from so dangerous a resolution your shall seee Books that will be the Funerals of common sense and let but the name be changed and it will be said of his Sermons as an excellent man of our time said of the Sermons of Fryer Lazarus Feâ— de zele moins de Science Faisoit que Lazare bossu Preschant des Cas de conscience N'stoit quasi pas apperceu As much as to say that though the Clock did ring out a great while
you will heare the vowes of those who wish your hapinesse I would think it fit you should not make your selfe a spectacle for the vulgar nor suffer your entertainment to be a recreation for idle persons It deserves not to be approached unto without preparation and that they should examine themselves well who present themselves before it All spirits at all times are not capable of so worthy a communication and therefore let men say what they will I account the reservations you make of your selfe to be very just and it cannot be thought strange that being as you are of infinite value you take some time to possesse your selfe alone and not to lose your right of reigning which admits as no division so no Company To use it otherwise Madam would not be a civiltie or a courtesie but indeed an ill husbanding of your spirit and a wastfull profusion of those singular graces of which though it be not fit you should deprive them that honour you yet it is fit you should give them out by tale and distribute them by measure It is much better to have lesse generall designes and to propose to ones selfe a more limited reputation than to abandon ones spirit to every one that will be talking and to expose it to the curiositie of the people who leave alwayes a certain taynt of impuritie upon all things they looke upon by such vicious sufferance we find dirt and mire carried into Ladies Closets if there come a busie fellow into the Countrey presently honest women are besieged there is thronging to tell them tales in their eares and all the world thinks they have right to torment them and thus saving the reverence of their good report though they be chaste yet they be publike and though they can spie the least fullying upon their ruffes yet they willingly suffer a manifest soiling of their noblest part You have done Madam a great act to have kept your self free from the tirannie of custome and to have so strongly fortified your selfe against uncivill assaylants that whilst the Louver is surprized your house remaines impregnable I cannot but magnifie the excellent order with which you dispose the houres of your life and I take a pleasure to thinke upon this Sanctuary of yours by the only reverence of vertue made inviolable in which you use to retire your selfe either to injoy more quietly your repose or otherwise to exercise your selfe in the most pleasing action of the world which is the consideration of your selfe If after this your happie solitude you come sometimes and cast your eyes upon the book I sent you you shall therein Madam doe me no great favour the things you shall have thought will wrong those you shall reade and so it shall not be a grace but an affront I shall receive I therefore humbly entreat you there may be some reasonable intermission between two actions so much differing Goe not streight from your selfe to me but let the relish of your owne meditation be a little passed over before you goe to take recreation in my worke To value it to you as a piece of great price or otherwise to vilifie it as a thing of no value might justly be thought in me an equall vanity They who praise themselves desire consent and seeke after others approbation they who blame themselves seeke after opposition and desire they may be contradicted This latter humilitie is no better than the others pride But to the end I may not seeme to goe to the same place by a third way and desire to be praysed at least with that indifferency I ascribe to you I entreat you Madam that you will not speake the least word either of the merit of my labour or in default of merit of the fashion of language I have used in speaking to you I meane not to put this Letter upon the score to speake plainly I entreat you to make me no answer to it so farre I am off from expecting thanks for it It is not Madam a present I make you it is an homage I owe you and I pretend not to oblige you at all but onely to acquit my selfe of the first act of veneration which I conceive I owe you as I am a reasonable creature and desiring all my life to be Madam Your c. At Balzac 4. May. 1634. To Monsieur Balthazar Councellour of the King and Treasurer Generall of Navarre LETTER XIX SIR I never deliberate upon your opinion nor ever examine any mans merit when you have once told me what to beleeve But yet if I should allow my selfe the libertie to do otherwise I could but still say that I find Monsieur de well worthy the account you hold him in and my selfe well satisfied of him upon his first acquaintance By further conversation I doubt not but I should yet discover in him more excellent things but it is no easie matter ever to bring us together againe For he is a Carthusian in his Garrison and I an Hermite in the Desart so as that which in our two lives makes us most like is that which makes us most unlikely ever to meet yet I sometimes heare newes of him and I can assure you he is but too vigilant in looking to his Charge hee hath stood so many Rounds and Sentinells that it is impossible he should be without rhumes at least till Midsomer These are to speake truly workes of supererogation for I see no enemy this Province need to feare unless perhaps the Persian or Tartarian the very Name of the King is generally fortification enough over all his Kingdome and as things now stand Vangirod is a place impregnable that if Demetrius came againe into the world he would lose his reputation before the meanest village of Beausse but this is one of your politician subtilties to make Angoulesme passe for a Frontier Towne and to give it estimation that it may be envied Doubt not but I shall give you little thankes for this seeing by this meanes you are cleane gone from us and I must be faine to make a journey of purpose into Languedoc if I ever meane to enjoy the contentment of embracing you and of assuring you that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. March 1633. To Monsieur de Serizay LETTER XX. SIR if you were but resident at Paris I should hope sometimes to heare of your Newes but now that you are bewitched there it will be an ungratefull worke for you to reade mine They are alwayes such as must be pittied In my way there are as many stones to dash against as in yours there are flowers and life it selfe is as evill that I suffer as it is a good that you enjoy you left me blind and may now find me lame my causes of complaining never cease they doe but change place and the favours I receive are so husbanded that I cannot recover an eye but by the losse of a leg I was yesterday in a great musing upon
LETTERS OF Mounsieur de BALZAC 1.2.3 and 4th parts Translated out of French into English BY Sr RICHARD BAKER Knight and others Now collected into one Volume with a methodicall table of all the letters LONDON Printed for John Williams and Francis Eaglesfield At the Crown and Marigold in S. Pauls Churchyard 1654. LETTERS OF Mounseur de BALZAC Translated into English by Sr. RICHARD BAKER and others LONDON Printed for John Williams and Francis Eâ—glesfeild at the Crown and Marigold in St. Pauls Church-yard 1655. To the Honourable the Lord OF NEVVBURGE ONE OF HIS MAJESTIES most honourable Privie Councell and Chancellour of the Dutchy of Lancaster MY Lord I may perhaps be thought besides the boldnesse to be guilty of absurdity in offering a Translation to him who so exactly understandeth the Originall one who if he had a mind to see how it would look in English were able to set a much fairer gloss upon it then I have done yet my Lord this absurdity may have a good colour for it may not be unpleasing to you to see your own perfection in the glasse of anothers imperfection seeing even the best Diamonds seem to take a pleasure in having of foiles Besides I have my choice of another colour for being to to passe a world of hazard in the censure of the world I am willing to passe the pikes at first and account this done having once passed yours And towards it my Lord I have two comforts one for the Reader that the Authours gold is so much over weight that though much be lost in the melting yet it holds out weight enough still to make it currant the other for myself that by this meanes I may have a testimony remaining in the world how much I honour you and in how high a degree I most affectionately am Your Lordships humble Servant RICHARD BAKER TO THE LORD CARDINALL OF RICHELIEV My LORD I Here present you Mounsieur Balzac's Letters which may well be termed new ones even after the eighth Edition for though they have long since been in possession of publick favour yet I may justly say this is the first time their Authour hath avouched them The advantagious Judgement you have delivered of him and the ardor wherewith all France hath followed your approbation well deserveth his best endeavours toward the perfectionating so excellent things I have been solicitous to draw him to this labour to the end the world might know that if I be not worthy the share I have in his respects yet that I have at least been wise enough to make right use of my good fortune and to cause it to become serviceable to the glory of my Countrey But truly were he master of his body or did his maladies afford him liberty of spirit he would not suffer any but himself to speak in this cause and his pen performing no slight acts would have consecrated his own labours and the wonders they have produced But since evils have no prefixed time of durance and in that all the good interims which hereafter may befall him are wholly to be imployed in his Book The Prince I esteemed it to small purpose to attend his health in this businesse and that it was now no longer any time to deferre the purging of these curious Letters from such blemishes as ill impressions had left upon them They shall therefore non appear in the parity wherein they were conceived and with all their naturall ornaments Besides I have added divers letters of his not as yet come to light which may serve as a subject of greater satisfaction to all men and be as a recompense of the honour wherewith he hath collected the former And truly my Lord had it been possible to place in the Frontispiece of this Book a more illustrous name then yours or should Mounsieur de Balzac's inclination and mine have been farre from any such intention yet would not the order of things or the law of decency have permitted any other reflection then what I now make I speak not at this present of that dazeling greatnesse whereunto you are elevated nor of that so rare and necessary vertue which rightly to recognize the greatest King on earth hath esteemed himself not to be over able I will only say I had reason to submit an eloquence produced in the shade and formed in solitarinesse to this other eloquence quickned both with voice and action causing you to reign in sovereignity at all assemblies Certainly my Lord you are more powerfull by this incomparable quality then by the authority wherein the King hath placed you The only accent of your voice hath a hidden property to charm all such as hearken unto you none can be possessed with any so wilfull passions who will not be appeased by the reasons you propound and after you have spoken you will at all times remain master of that part of man no way subject to the worlds order and which hath not any dependency upon lawfull power or tyrannicall usurpation This is a truth my Lord as well known as your name and which you so solidly confirmed at the last assembly of the Notables as that in the great diversity of humours and judgements whereof it was composed there was peradventure this only point well resolved on That you are the most eloquent man living This being true I can no way doubt but the perusall of this Book I offer unto you will extraordinarily content you and that you will be pleased to retire thither sometimes to recreate your spirits after agitation and to suspend those great thoughts who have for their object the good of all Europe It is a book my Lord wherein you shall find no common thing but the Title where entertaining some particular person Mounsieur de Balzac reades Lessons to all men and where amidst the beauty of Complements and dexterity of Jeasting he often teacheth of the most sublime point of Philosophy I mean not that wrangling part thereof which rejecteth necessary verities to seek after unprofitable ones which cannot exercise the understanding without provoking passions nor speak of moderation without distemper and putting the soul into disorder But of that whereby Pericles heretofore made himself master of Athens and wherewith Epaminondas raised himself to the prime place of Greece which tempereth the manners of particulars regulateth the obligation of Princes and necessarily bringeth with it the felicity of all States where they command This book will make it apparent even to your enemies that your life hath been at all times equally admirable though not alwayes alike glorious How you have conserved the opinion of your vertue even in the time of your hardest fortunes and how in the greatest fury of the tempest and in the most extreme violence of your affairs the integrity of your actions hath never been reduced to the only testimony of your conscience To conclude It is in this Book my Lord where I suppose you will be pleased to read the
a voice which desired my dispatch obliging me to end what I supposed I had but begun It is with much reluctation my Lord I am deprived of the onely contentment your absence affordeth me But since you could not receive this Letter were it any longer I am resolved to lose one part of my content to enjoy the other and to say sooner then I supposed that I am even absolutely Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull servant BALZAC The 16. of Sept. 1622. To the Lord Cardinal de Valette from BALZAC LETTER VIII My Lord YOu should oftner receive Letters from me could I over-master my pain but to say truth it leaveth me not one thought free to reflect upon any thing else and what desire soever I have to give you content yet am I not able to do any thing but at the Physicians good pleasure and at the Feavours leasure whilest the Court affordeth you all content and prepareth whatsoever is pleasant for you reserving distrusts and jealousies for others I here endure torments such as wherewith one would make conscience to punish Parricides and which I would not wish to my worst enemies If notwithstanding all this in obedience to the Counsel you give me in the Letter you did me the honour to write unto me I should make my self merrie I were necessarily to take my self for some other body and become a deeper dissembler than an honest man ought to be My Melancholly is meerly corporeal yet doth my spirit give place though not consent thereto and of the two parts whereof I am composed the more worthy is over-born by the more weighty Wherefore if the whole World should act Comedies to make me laugh and though St. Germans Fair were kept in all the streets where I pass the object of death ever present before my eys bereaving me of sight would likewise bar me of content and I should remain disconsolate amidst the publick Jubilations Yea if the stone I so much dread were a Diamond or the Phylosophers Elixar I should therein take small comfort but would rather beseech God to leave me poor if he please to bestow no better Riches upon me But when I have said all be it unto me as he shall please to appoint since I am well assured my maladies will either end or I shall not for ever hold out yet should I die with some discontent if it happen before I testifie my dutifull affection towards you and the sensibility I have of your noble favours But howsoever it fare with me I would willingly make a journey to Rome there to finish the work I promised you and which you command me to undertake for the honour of this Crown Certainly if I be not the cause to make you in love with our language and to prefer it in your estimation before our Neighbour Tongues I am afraid you will be much troubled to revolt from the Roman Empire and that it will not be for the Historie of Matthew or of Hallian you will change that of Salust and Livie I will not deceive you nor delude my self yet may I tell you that my head is full of inventions and designs and if the Spring for which I much long would afford me the least glimpse of health I would contest with any who should produce the rarest things I have an infinite of loose flowers which onely want binding up into Nosegays and I have suffered others to speak any time these six years on purpose to be think my self what I have to say But I well perceive the publick shall have onely desires and hopes and truely if I spring not afresh with the Trees in stead of so many books you expect from me you shall not read any thing of mine save onely the end of this Letter and the protestation I here make unto you to die Your most humble most obedient and most faithfull Servant BALZAC The 7. of January 1623. To the Lord Cardinal de Vallette from BALZAC LETTER IX My Lord THe hope which any time this three Moneths I have had of your determination to come into this Countrey hath hitherto hindred me from writing unto you or to make use of the onely means remaining for me to be near your person But since you have supposed the speedy quitting the Court to be as fatal as to die a sudden death and that no less fortitude or time is requisite to resolve to wean our selves from pleasing things than to surmount painfull ones I will by your permission resume the commerce the common rumour caused me to surcease and will not hereafter believe you can with any less difficulty get out Paris than can the Arsenac or Loover Were it not a place all stored with inchantments and chains and which is of such power to attract and retain men as it hath been necessary to hazard divers battels to drive the Spaniards further off one might well wonder at the difficulty you finde to convey your self thence But in truth all the World doth there finde both habitations and affairs and for you my Lord since in that Countrey our Kings both enter into their first infancy and grow old as being the seat of their Empire no man can justly blame you for making over-long abode there without accusing you of over-much love to your Master and for desiring to be near his person At Rome you shall tread upon stones formerly the gods of Caesar and Pompey and shall contemplate the ruins of those rare workmanships the antiquity whereof is yet amiable and shall dayly walk among Histories and Fables But these are the pastimes of weak spirits which are pleased with trifles and not the imployments of a Prince who delighted in sayling on rough Seas and who is not come into the World to let it rest idle When you have seen the Tyber on whose banks the Romans have performed the Apprentiships of their rare victories and begun that high design which they ended not but at the extream limits of the Earth When you shall ascend the Capitol where they supposed God was as well present as in Heaven and had there inclosed the fatality of the universal Monarchy After you have crossed that great Circus dedicated to shew pleasures to the people and where the bloud of Martyrs hath been often mingled with that of Malefactours and bruit beasts I make no doubt but after you have seen those and divers other things you will grow weary of the repose and tranquility of Rome and will say they are two things more proper for the Night and Church-yards than for the Court and the Worlds eye Yet have I not any purpose to give you the least distaste of a Voyage the King hath commanded you to undertake and whereof I well hoped to have been the guide if my crazy body would have seconded the motion of my Will But truely my Lord I am deeply ingaged in this business and when I look upon my self single I sometimes have a desire to make you
his account and from his principles I have drawn my conclusions and in a conference I had sometimes with him he seemed to me a better man than I have set him forth In such sort Sir that I am not of a minde to contradict you In your writing of him to me you say nothing which is not of my knowledge and in my writing of him to you I do nothing but follow your conceits Never fear that the common errours will deprave his spirit he hath laid too sure a foundation in the knowledge of truth he is too strongly confirmed in the good Sect. Having often and seriously meditated on the condition of humane affairs he values them just as much as they are worth but he adds nothing by opinion he hates neither riches nor authority this were the peevish humour of the Cynicks to hate a thing that in it self is lovely he makes use of them after the manner of the Academy and of the Lycaeum which never thought them impediments to happiness but rather aids and furtherances to virtue Or may we not say more probably that he hath drawn his doctrines from a Spring nearer hand and that he hath not gone out of himself to finde out the truest wisdom He hath examples at home which may serve him for Idaeas of perfection and Sages in his own race which are Artists of virtuous life Whilest he governs himself by their Rules he may well pass by all forraign doctrines and having his deceased Uncle before his eyes he need not care to have Socrates for a myrrour Quippe malim unum Catonem quam trecentos Socratas The memory of this illustrious personage is in such veneration through all France and his name hath preserved so excellent an Odour in the prime Tribunal of Christendom that it is not now so much the name of a family as it is the name even of integrity and constancy it self Remember the Epigram of that Grecian whose Manuscript I shewed you which saith that in a place at Athens when one named Plutarch there was an Echo answered Philosophy as taking the one for the other making no difference between the two By the like reason the Muses might use the same figure and act the like miracle in favour of this new Pillar of justice They never need to use reservations nor fear too deep engaging themselves whatsoever they lay forth before hand for his glory shall all be allowed them again in the reckoning Having been bred up in their bosom and being entred into their Sanctuary he will never suffer them to stand waiting and catch cold at his gate nor that a Switzer shall keep them out from entring his base Court They shall never have I assure my self that unhappy advantage to have given him all and receive back nothing from him again to have enriched his minde with a thousand rare knowledges and then hardly get him to seal them an acquittance Let us now come to the other part of your Letter and assay to satisfie your Doctour concerning his Objection He findes fault with me because I praise the Pope for his beauty and sayes that such praise is for women and youth and belongs not to old men and Priests First Sir I answer he wrongs me in changing my terms for I make a great difference between beauty and a good Visage of this I spake in the person of the Pope and should never have thought I had committed a sin though I had spoken of the other also As concerning age you know there are beautifull old men though there be not beautifull old Women and you remember that ancient personage who by report of History was of equal pleasing to all companies through all the ages of his life As concerning the quality besides that God rejected in sacrifice all lean and unsound Oblation he required also to have handsome Priests and you may shew your friend in the books of Moses that not onely the lame and pore-blinde but even the flat nosed were excluded from being Ministers in sacrificing But if being as he is a prophane Doctour the holy Scriptures do not please him yet he might have remembred that old word of the Tragick Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon which I had an eye when I said This Visage worthy of an Empire And yet more being a Gascogne Doctor I wonder he never read the Panegyrick which a Countrey man of his pronounced at Rome before the Emperour Theodosius where he should have found these words Augustissima quaeque species plurimum creditur trahere de Coelo sive enim Divinus ille animus venturus in corpus dignum prius mereatur hospitium sive cum venerit fingit habitaculum pro habitu suo sive aliud ex alio crescit cum se pariajunxerunt utraque majora sunt parcam Arcanum Coeleste rimari Tibi istud soli pateat imperator cum Deo consorte secretum Illud dicam quod intellexisse hominem dixisse fas est talem esse debere qui a gentibus adoratur cui toto orbe terrarum privaeta vel publica vota redduntur a quo petit Navigaturus serenum Peregrinaturus reditum Pugnaturus auspicium Virtus tua meruit imperium sed virtuti addidit forma suffragium Illa praestitit ut oporteret te principem fieri haec ut deceret In this discourse there are some terms which yet may seem fitter for a Pope than for an Emperour and here is to be noted that Theodosius was no young man when Latinus Pacatus praised him thus for his beauty for it was after his defeat of the Tyrant Maximus and when after many victories obtained against the Barbarians he was in full and peaceable possession of his glory Sometime before this Gregory Nazianzen had upbraided the Emperour Julian for his ill favoured Visage for the ill feature of his face and for other deformities of his body of which nevertheless he was not guilty Though one might here question the holy Oratour whether in doing this he did well or no Yet from hence we may at least gather that the qualities contrary to these he blames ought justly and may be lawfully made account of and that such praises which reflect upon the Creatours glory are much more Christian than those accusations which trench upon the scorning of his knowledge Your friend therefore is certainly more severe than he need to be He is much to blame to reject in this sort the blessings of Heaven and the advantages of birth and to imagine that holiness cannot be examplar and Apostolick unless it be pale and lean and look like one were starved These are the dreams of Tertullian who will have it that our Saviour was in no sort beautifull and therein gives the lie to all Antiquity and to the tradition of the whole Church He draws a Picture for him which is not onely injurious to his Divine but dishonourable also â—o his humane nature This in my opinion is one of his greatest errours
and which most of all startles me in reading his books If he would have it that his watchings and abstinence had dried up his bloud and made him look gastly that to the burnt colour of Africk he added also that of burnt Melancholy and of overflowing choler it may perhaps be granted him yet I will not accuse either the Sun of his Countrey or the temperature of his body but leave every one in his natural estate and so should he have done But to go about to disfigure the most beautifull amongst the Children of men and to eclipse all the beams and lustre of a Divine countenance this is a sullen humour which no patience can bear with no charity can ever pardon You wondered at this strange opinion when I last shewed it unto you and I perceived you suspected I did him wrong now therefore to justifie my credit with you and to let you see I did it not to abuse you I send you here the passages I promised you to look out The first is in his book of Patience where Christ is called Contumeliosus sibi ipsi The second in his book against the Jews where he is said to be Ne aspectu quidem honestus but hear the third which will fright you to hear in his Tract of the flesh of Christ Adeo utâ—nec humanae honestatis corpus fuit â—acentibus apud nos quoque Prophetis de ignobili aspectu ejus ipsae passiones ipsaeque contumeliae loquuntur passiones quidem humanam carnem contumeliae vero inhonestam An ausus esset aliquis ungue summo perstringere corpus novum Sputaminibus contaminare faciem nisi merentem c. Let us see what Mounsieur Rigaut thinks of this and whether he be of these sharp and sour ones that would take from Heaven its stars and from the Earth its flowers Certainly my censurer is of this number for I perceive beauty offends him and he would easily subscribe to Tertullians opinion Yet say no more to him of all this but that which he must needs know and spare sending out a second Process against a man that hath too much of the first and deserves you should take some care of his quiet since he is from the bottom of his heart Sir Your c. From Balzac 10. of March 1633. To My Lord the Bishop of Nantes LETTER XXV SIR IT is told me from all parts that you speak of me as one that is dear unto you and of my ill fortune as of a thing that concerns you If this tenderness proceed from a soft effeminate spirit yet it would not be without merit and oblige me infinitely unto you but now that it comes from a feeling of the purest spirit in the World and the least capable of weakness how much ought I to esteem it and of how great price to value it It wants not much of making me love that grief which procures me so glorious a consolation and I vow unto you that to be pittied of you is a more pleasing thing than to be favoured of the Court. In that Countrey men go upon snares and ruines the best places there are so slippery that few can stand upright and if the miserable pretenders avoid a sudden falling it is by enduring a tedious tossing receiving perpetual affronts and returning perpetual submissions I therefore like much better to hide my self here with your good favour and my own good quiet than to bear a shew there with their frights and sour looks and I bless the windes and count my Shipwrack happy which hath cast me back upon my old home Some that were more sensible than my self would in this case complain of the World but I content my self to forget it I will neither have War nor commerce with the world I have sounded a retreat to all my passions as well those that be troublesom as those that be pleasing and I protest unto you Sir I should read with more delight a relation of one of your walks at Cadillac than the most delightsom passage of all the German History when I think upon you in company with me thinks I see Laelius come to visite Scipio and confirming him in the resolution he hath taken to stand aloof from the tumults and turbulencies of worldly affairs and by a quiet retreat to place his virtue and his glory in a sure hold I am extreamly glad of the honour he will do my Father to pass this way and bring you along with him and you may well think that after this I shall not reckon our Village inferiour to Tempe or to Tyvoly If it were not for the sit of an Ague which is now leaving me but very quickly to return I would go as far as Rochel to meet with this good fortune that I might be at the first opening of those Largesses of the Church which a mouth so holy and eloquent as yours must needs distribute But I am not happy enough to see you and gain a Jubilee both at once It must be your pleasure to be so gracious as to accept of such a complement as I am capable of and to rest assured with my assuring you by this messenger that I am and alwayes will be with all the forces of my Soul Sir Your c. At Balzac 13. May 1633. Another to the same LETTER XXVI SIR THere are some of your bounties I have cause to complain of they are such as cannot be acknowledged and in the least of your actions you are so great that if I take measure of my self by you I cannot appear but very little Your liberality makes me rich but withall it discovers my necessity there being no proportion between you and me how extream soever my possession be it can be no competent price for yours and in the Commerce that is between us I return you but Flints for Diamonds yet I present them to you but informa pauper is not as a Mountibank know I give you nothing though I keep nothing for my self I am well assured Sir that I honour you infinitely but am infinitely unsatisfied to offer you so mean a thing there is no reasonable man that doth not as much since so much is due to you for onely your virtue how much am I to pay you more for your affection Of this last moyity I am altogether Non-solvent my services my bloud are not all worth it and I confess unto you I shall never be able to deserve but these four words of your Letter Non discedo abs te Mi Fili sed avellor nor those Delicias in Christo meas nor this Dulce decus meum with which you graced me at another time Mounsieur Gyrard who knows all my secrets and offers to be an agent for me with you will tell you with a better grace how sensible I am of your so great favours and how proud of so illustrious an adoption as you are pleased to honour me with of which I make far greater reckoning
two such broken Bables it were better he left individuals and fell to judge of species in general and that he would consider other mens follies without partaking of them It were better to discredit vice by scorn then to give it reputation by invectives and to laugh with success then to put himself in Choler without profit Though there be many sorts of disciplining men and correcting their manners yet I for my part am for this sort and finde nothing so excellent as a Medicine that pleases Many men fear more the bitterness of the potion that is given them then the annoyance of the infirmity that offends them we would fain go to health by a way of pleasure and he should be a much abler man that could purge with Raspices then he that should do it with Rhubarbe Our Gentleman by his leave is none of these for commonly he neither instructs nor delights he neither heals nor flatters their passions that read him he hath neither inward treasure nor outward pomp and yet I can tell you as beggarly and wretched as he is he hath been robbed and ransacked in France He could not save himself from our Theeves and you may see some of his spoils which I present you here My fidling Doctor in his visage various Had twice as many hands as had Briareus There was not any morsel in the dish Which he with eyes and fingers did not fish And so forth You see we live in a Countrey where even Beggars and Rogues cannot pass in safety though they have nothing to lose yet they lose for all that and men pull the hairs even from them that are bald There is no condition so ill but is envied of some no pvoerty so great which leaves not place for injuries Cottages are pillaged as well as Pallaces and though covetousness look more after great gains yet it scorns not small But all this while you must remember that my discourse is allegorical and that I speak of Poets and not of Treasurers I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. of Sept. 1630. To my Lord the Mareschall Deffiat LETTER XXXV SIR THough I know your life is full of business and that it hath neither festival nor day of rest yet I am so vain as to fancy to my self that I shall be able to suspend this your continual action and that the recreation I send you shall finde some place amidst your affairs you are not one to be wrought upon you know the true value of things and see in Arts those secrets which none but Artists themselves see There is no thinking therefore to deceive you by a shew of good and by false flashes of reputation no way to gain estimation with you but by lawfull wayes and rather by seeking commendation from ones self than testimony from others This is the cause that I come alwayes directly to your self and never seek to get a favour by canvasing and suit which is not to be gotten but by merit If my book be good it will be a sollicitour with you in my behalf and if it make you pass some hours with any contentment you will let me understand it when you have read it Howsoever I hope you will grant that the Pension which the King gives me is no excess that needs reformation and that none will accuse you of ill husbandry if you please to pay me that which is my due There have been heretofore in the place that you are now in certain wilde unlettered persons who yet made show of valuing humane learnings and to respect those graces in others which were wanting in themselves forcing their humour and sweetning their countenances to win the love of learned men and either out of opinion or out of vanity have revered that which you ought to love out of knowledge and for the interest you have in it I say for the interest because besides the virtues of peace having in you the virtues of war it concerns you not to leave your good atchievements to adventure but to cast your eyes upon such as are able to give your merits a testimony that may be lasting I dare not say that I my self am one of that number but thus much I can assure you most truly that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Octob. 1633. To Mounsieur Granier LETTER XXXVI SIR I have received your Letter of the 27. of the last moneth but it makes mention of a former which never came to my hands and it must needs be that fortune hath robbed me of it for fear I should be too happy and should have two pleasures in Sequence This is an accident which I reckon amongst my misfortunes and I cannot sufficiently complain of this Violatour of the Law of Nations who hath been so cruel as to break our Commerce the very first day of our entring into it and to make me poor without making himself rich I am more troubled for this loss than for all that shall be said or written against me Slander hath a goodly catch of it to be at war with me it shall never make me yield it is an evil is it not a glory for a private man to be handled in such manner as Princes their Officers are And is it not a mark of greatness to be hated of those one doth not know I never sought after the applause of which cannot chuse but have corrupt affections in such sort that did they praise me I should ask what fault I had done Though their number were greater than you make it this would be no great novelty to me who know that truth goes seldom in the throng and hath in all times been the Possession but of a few Even at this day for one Christian there are six Mahometans and there was a time when Ingemuit orbis se Arrianum esse miratus est If God suffer men to be mistaken in matters of so great importance where their salvation is at stake why should I expect he should take care to illuminate them in my cause which no way concerns them and to preserve them from an errour which can do them no hurt Whether I be learned or ignorant whether my eloquence be true or false whether my Pearls be Oriental or but of Venice what is all this to the Common-wealth There is no cause the publick should trouble it self about so light a matter and the fortunes of France depend not upon it Let the Kings subjects believe what they list let them enjoy the liberty of conscience which the Kings Edicts allow them A man must be very tender that can be wounded with words and he must be in a very apt disposition to die that lets himself be killed by Philarchus or Scioppius his Pen. For my self I take not matters so to heart nor am sensible in so high a degree The good opinion of honest mindes is to me a soveraign remedy against all the evils of this nature I oppose a little choise number
to lose after three score years pennance in the wilderness I wish I could have had the like favour and have died at the time when I was innocent being my self neither valiant nor ambitious I account those wars the best that are the shortest and that though in Paradise there be divers degrees and divers mansions yet there is not any that is not excellent good Conserve onely your goodly maker of Saints and you shall finde some of all sorts I mean of the one and the other Sex Religious and Seculars Gascoignes and French You know well I have appointed you here a Chamber and that you are my debtor of a visite now a whole year if you be a man of your word but I fear me you are not and that as your custom is you will content your self with praising my quiet course of life yet I would have you to flatter at least my spirit though it be but with some light hope of so perfect a contentment promise me you will come and make me happy though you break your promise I shall enjoy at least so much of good and in doing so you shall amuse me though you do not satisfie me I send you all I have of that admirable Incognito of whom there is so much talk and who hath made himself famous now these three years under the name of Petrus Aurelius I cannot for my life finde who he is Mounsieur de Filsac told me lately at Paris that of him that brought the leaves to Printing he could not possibly learn any more than this that he was a man who desires to serve God invisibly And in truth if you knew in what sort he carries his secrecy and with what care and cunning he hides himself you would confess he takes more pains to shun reputation than ambitious men take in running after it For from being a Plagiary to rob others of their glory who refuseth that which is his own and suffers a Phantasme to receive those acclamations and praises which belong to himself This is no man of the common mould even in the judgement of his adversaries and his writings savour not the compositions of this age They are animated with the spirit and vigour of the former times and represent us a Church we never saw Yet it seems in some passages he hath less of Saint Austins sweetness than of Saint Hieroms choler and that he is willinger to do that which justice onely permits him than that which charity counsels him I could wish he had shewed a little more respect to the gray hairs and rare merit of Father Sirmond or rather that he would have dulled the edge of his Arms and dealt with him in a gentler war But there is no means to bridle a provoked valour nor to guide a great force though with a great moderation All Saints are not of one temper it is enough for Religion to cut off vices and to purifie the passions Our moral Divinity acknowledgeth some innocent cholers and it is the beauty of Christs flock that there be Lions amongst the sheep and that as well the sublimest and strongest spirits as the basest and sweetest submit and prostrate themselves to the greatness of Christianity If I had learned nothing in his book but onely to know what respect men owe to a Character reverenced of the Angels I had not lost my time in reading him If Bishops be Princes and if their Dignity be equal or Superiour to Kings shall we make any difficulty to call a Prelate My Lord and esteem him less than a Grand of Spain or than an Earle of England You will tell me more of this at your next meeting and I doubt not setting aside the interest of send it me back when you have read it and forget not the Chapters of honest Bernia I am more than I am able to express At Balzac 15. of October 1634. Sir Your c. To my Lord the Bishop of Nants LETTER XLIX SIR I Am now grown shameless and make no longer any conscience to be troublesom to you But you may thank your own goodness for it which hath from the very first been so ready to me and freely makes me offer of that for which it ought to make be a suitor I send you now four leaves for Ruel and if you please to let three of your own lines bear them company I doubt not but they will have a happy arrival and that the skiff will procure passage for the great vessel But because Fortune her self hath done one half of my discourse and that I have little commerce with any but Latines born I humbly entreat you my Lord to be so good when I am fallen to help me to rise and not suffer me to go astray in a Countrey where you are Prince I know you love your own elections with more than natural tenderness and that you respect me as none of the least of your Creatures This is a cause why to keep me in your favour and to ingage you in my interests I will not tell you to your face that you are the Chrysostome of our Church that you are privy to the most secret intentions of Saint Paul That there is neither Jew nor Gentile that hearing you speak of the greatness and Dignitie of Christianitie doth willinlgy submit himself to follow Christ I will onely say it hath been your will to be my Father and that I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 8. of Jan. 1630. Another to him LETTER L. SIR YOu have a right to all occasions of doing good I see not therefore how I can forbear to offer you one and to the end you may alwayes be meriting of thanks why I should not alwayes be craving new courtesies The bearer of this Letter is my near Kinsman yet our friendship is nearer than our alliance and the knot which Nature made virtue hath tied I humbly entreat your Lordship to let him see you slight not things whereof I make such reckoning and to do that for my sake which you would much willinger do for his own sake if he were known unto you He is a man of mettal and spirit and hath served the King in this Province having also had the honour to be in person before him in very famous actions At this time he is troubled against all right and reason and they that have drawn him from the exercise of his charge to make him walk to Paris have nothing to say but that they do it of purpose to vex him And therefore their manner of fight with him is by flights and retreats and they cast so many bones of difficulty between his Judges and him that it is impossible they should ever come to any issue They are not able to hinder his justification at last but they are able to delay and keep him off a long time You Sir may save him this long journey and may break this Project that Calumny sets on if you please but to
eye upon my Booke for presenting an image of those things which offend them so much And they who believe Fables and Romances and are in passion for an Hercules or an Achilles who perhaps never were They who reade with extasie of joy the actions of Rowland and of Reinold which were never done but upon Paper These men will finde no rellish in a true History because it gives testimony to the vertue of their naturall King They can like well enough that against the credit of all Antiquity Xenophon being a Graecian and no Persian should frame Cyrus a life after his owne fancie and make him die in his bed and amongst his Friends when yet he dyed in the warres and overcome by a woman and they can like well enough that Plinie should tell a lye in open Senate and praise Trajan for temperance and chastitie who yet was given to wine and to another vice so fowle that it cannot honestly be named but they can by no meanes like that I who am the Kings subject born should say that of him which no man can deny to be most true and that being to make a patern for Princes I should rather make choice of his life than either of that of Cyrus which is fabulous or that of Trajan which is not the purest that I may not speake of that of Caesar Bogia which is all blacke with licentiousnesse and crimes Heaven it selfe is not able to give this kinde of people a Governour to their minde He that was according to Gods owne heart should not be according to theirs They would not thinke Sâ—lomon wise enough nor Alexander valiant enough They are generally enemies of all sorts of Masters and accusers of all things the present time affords They make our heads ake with crying out that there was no necessity to make a war in Italy but if you had stayed still at Paris they would have cryed out much lowder that it had not been honest to suffer our allyes to perish Because some of our Kings have made unfortunate voyages beyond the mountaines therefore they will needs have it that our King though he follow not their counsels should yet fall into their misfortunes They accuse your conduct with old proverbs because they cannot with sound reasons They say Italy is the Church yard of the French and being not able to observe the least fault in all your carriage in that countrey they lay upon you the faults of our auncestors and charge you with the errour of Charles the eighth Yet I conceive that these mens sinne is rather of infirmity than of malice that they are rather passionate for their opinions than Pensioners of our enemies and that they have more need of helpe by Physick than of restraint by Law But it is a grievous thing to see how the busie-bodyes of our time speake the same language which Rebells did in times past and abuse the happinesse of liberty even against him who hath procured it unto us They come continually and tell me we are like to receive much prejudice by the discontent of such a Prince that is gone from our side And I answer them it is better to have a weake enemy to fight withall than a quarrelsome friend to make much of They will by all meanes that the King at any price should succour Cazall and I tell them that he hath succoured it already by his conquest of Savoy and that in the state as things now stand it cannot be taken but to be delivered back They are not contented that you performe actions that are extraordinary they looke you should performe some that are impossible And though there arise sometimes such difficulties in things that they cannot by any possibility be encountred I say not by defect in the undertaker but by reason of repugnancy in the subject yet they will not take for payment such reasons as wise men are satisfied withall but they would have the King doe that which the Turke and Persian joyned together were not able to doe Thâ—se things my Lord would put me extreamly into passion and I could never be patient at such excesse of ungratefulnesse if I did not remember that there hath sometimes beene a spirit so sullen and so sawcy that it dared to finde fault with the workes of God himselfe and was not afraid to say that if he had been of his counsell as well in the creation as in the government of the world he would have given him better advise than he tooke at first or than he now followes After so immense a folly you must not thinke it strange if there be some extravagants and the vulgar at all times hath beene found but an unjust Judge of vertue and yet for all that it hath never beene without admirers and now if those that have but little instinct and can doe nothing but murmure and doe not favour him it is for us my Lord to testifie unto you that reasonable men and such as know how to speare are of the better side At Balzac 4. Aug. 1630. Your most humble and most obedient servant BALZAC Another to him LETTER II. MY Lord hearing that Monsieur de meanes to question me about the Benefice you did me the honour to give me and that by vertue of his dispensation he hath sent to take possession I have conceived no better shelter to avoide this storme than under the greatnesse of your Name nor any safer defence against the forces of such an adversary than the respect of such a Protector as you are I require not in this any strayning of your Lordships power I know you are sparing of it in your owne proper interests and reserve it for occasions that are publicke and important I onely require the continuance of your love and that you would signifie to him that trâ—â—bles me you would be glad he would let me be at quiet Fâ—â— besides that to stand in suit with a man of his robe were as much as to fight with a Mâ—ster of Fence and to put ones whole right in hâ—zâ—rd It would trouble me my Lord though I were assured of successe to thinke I should owe any part of it to any other besides your selfe seeing I account it more glory to receive from you than to wâ—est from another Monsieur de may doe well to keepe his dispensation for a better maâ—ket and draw much more profit with a little patience And indeed I verily believe he lookes for nothing to make him surcease but for some demonstration from you of your desire and that he rather hath an ambition to be intreated by M. The Cardinall than any designe to take your gift from me I humbly intreate your Lordship to give him contentment in this poynt and not suffer me to fall at this first step of my Fortune and that I may not alwayes be unfortunate being as I am with all my soule At Balzac 8. Novem. 1631. Your c. Another to him LETTER III. MY Lord I am
the very bottom of my heart will I doubt not most willingly adde his testimony to my protestations that I truly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Sept. 1630. To Monsieur de L'orme Physitian in ordinary to the King and Treasurer of France at Burdeaux LETTER XXIX SIR it is not now onely that I make a benefit of your friendship I have had profit by it a long time and you have often been my advocate with so great force and so good successe that they who had before condemned me were glad to revoke their sentence as soon as they heard you speake yet all this while you did but onely speake well of me now you begin to doe well for me it is you whom this year I may thank for my pension Without you Sir my warrant would never have perswaded my partner it would presently have been rejected and he still have continued inexorable But it must be confessed there is no wiâ—de beast but you can tame no matter so bad but you can make good as you heal maladies that are incurable so you prevaile in causes that are desperate and if you finde never so little life and common sense in a man you are able to restore him to perfect health and make him become a reasonable man I desire not to have the matter in any better terms than you have set it I am glad I shall not need to invocate M. the Cardinall for my dispatch and that Monsieur hath promised not to faile to pay me in September If he should pay it sooner I should be faine to desire you this favour to keep it for me till that time Now I onely intreat you to draw from him a valuable at assurance of it and for so many favours and courtesies done me I shall present you with something not altogether so bad as those I have already shewed you and seeing one cannot be called valiant for having the better of a coward neither can I be accused of vanity for saying I have exceeded my selfe I am therefore bold to let my Letter tell you thus much that if my false Pearles and counterfeit Diamonds have heretofore deceived you I doe not think that the shew I shall make you of my new wares will use you any better Yet my meaning is not to praeoccupate your judgement who neither of my selfe nor of my writings will have any other opinion than what you shall please to allow me Since the time I have wanted the honour of seeing you I have made a great progresse in the vertue of humility for I am now proud of nothing but of my friends affections Let me therefore never want yours I intreat you as you may believed I will all my life most passionately be Sir Your c. At Balzac 8. Decemb. 1629. To my Lord LETTER XXX MY Lord I hope you will not take it ill that I put you in minde of a man to whom you have heretofore made demonstration of your love and that after a long intermission of these petty duties which are then troublesome when they are frequent you will give me leave to tell you that I have indeed omitted them but more by discretion than by negligence I know Sir you have no time to lose and to put you to the reading of unprofitable words what were it but to shew an ignorance how much the King imployes you and how the present affaires goe It is therefore the respect I bear to your continuall imployments that hath caused my silence and I should be very absurd if in the assiduity of your cares I should present you with little pleasing amusements and should look for an answer to some poore complement when you have so many commandements of importance and so many orders of necessity to deliver forth It is enough for me that you do me the honour to cast your eyes upon the protestation I make you that in all the extent of your command there is not a soule more submisse nor more desirous to beare your yoak than mine is and that as much as any in the world I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 10 Aug. 1630. To Monsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XXXI SIR you need not wonder to see your name in the Book I send you Lovers you know leave marks of their passion every where and if they were able would fill the whole earth with their cyphers and devices It is a custome as ancient as the world for with that began writing also and at first for want of paper men graved the names of those they loved upon the barks of trees If any man wonder I should be in love with a Preacher why wonders he not at that Romane of whom a Greciaâ— said that he was not onely in love with Cato but was enchanted with him You have done as much to many others in this country and I have here as many Rivals as you have Auditors Yet there is not the same object of all our affections they run after your words and hang at your mouth but I go farther and discover in your heart that which is better than your eloquence I could easily resist your Figures and your Arguments but your goodness and your freeness take me captive presently I therefore give you the title of a perfect friend in your Encomium because I account this a more worthy quality than to be a perfect Oratour and because I make most reckoning of that vertue in a man which humane society hath most need of For other matters remember your self in what terms I did speak to you of the business you write of and that onely to obey you I have been contented to alter my opinion I was well assured the enterprise would never take effect but I thought it better to faile by consenting than by obstinacy and rather to take a repulse than not to take your counsell I have known a long time that fortune means me no good and the experience I have of her hath cured me of the malady of hope and ambition Make me not fall into a relapse of these troublesome diseases I beseech you but come and confirm my health you Sir that are a soveraign Physitian of souls and who are able to see in mine that I perfectly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 10. Feb. 1635. To Monsieur de Piles Cleremont LETTER XXXII SIR having heard of the favourable words you used of me at the Court I cannot any longer forbeare to give you thanks nor stay till our next meeting from telling you how highly I esteem this favour I cannot but confess I did not look to finde so great a graciousness in the country of maliciousness and seeing that the greatest part even of honest men have so much love for themselves that they have but little or none left for strangers I thought with my selfe that the infection of the world might have lightly touched you and that either you had no passions in you at