good opinion than if I enjoyed the favours of all earthly Princes and all the wealth of their Territories and Kingdoms Truely this is the first time since I writ unto you from Lions I have made use of my hands and I have received a hundred Letters from my Friends without answering one Hereby my Lord you see there is no other consideration your self excepted of force to cause me to break silence since for all others I have lost the use of speaking Yet I beseech you to think notwithstanding all this my affection to be neither penurious nor ambitious The riches I crave at your noble hands are purely spiritual and I am at this present in an estate wherein I have more need to settle some order for the affairs of my Conscience than to reflect upon the establishment of my worldly Fortunes But my Lord to change discourse and a little to retire my self from my pains what do you thus long at Rome Doth the Pope dally with us and will he leave to his successour the glorie of the best Election can be made Is he not affraid lest it be given out he hath some intelligence with his Adversaries and that he taketh not the advice of the holy Ghost in what concerneth the Churches Honour for Gods cause bring us with speed this news provided it be the same the King demands and all good men desire I hope it shall not be said you have spoken Italian all this while to no purpose or that you can accuse his predictions as erronious who never falsified his word with you and who is perfectly My Lord Your most humble servant BALZAC The 2. of July 1622. To the Lord Bishop of Air. For the true understanding of this Letter it is necessarie to be acquainted with the Gibbrige the French residing at Rome use to speak who frame a new kinde of Language to themselves composed of Italian words having onely French terminations LETTER IX My Lord I Think you will never be weary of going to Cortege and that you will for ever have an apprehension of the Crepuscule all the days of your life for it is that you have long enough caused the curtains of your Carroach to be drawn in presence of those of Cardinals and that you may well be ere now acquainted with the Court of Rome even from the Papale subjects to those who desire to be admitted into the first degrees of sacred Orders For my part I should soon be weary in seeing daily one and the same thing and in beginning the day from the first hour of night What can there be so pleasing in the place where you are that should deserve to stay you there In fair weather the Sun is dangerous half the year they breath nothing but smoak and in the rest it raineth so frequently that it seemeth some Sea hangeth over the Citie of Rome But it may be you take pleasure in seeing the Pope a body over shaken and trembling with age and infirmities who hath no other thing than Ice in his veins and Earth in his Visage I cannot imagine how this object can afford you any great contentment or that you are much taken with the society and Company of the great multitude of my Lords his assistants partaking of the one and the other signature Nor can it be Carriofile whom you so often over-rule who should intreat you to stay there for the furtherance of his affairs For being as he is a Popeline who of the Family of the Cardinal Ludovisio who affords him his full share it cannot be but well with him I conclude therefore my Lord that I cannot guess the cause of your stay if you take not the pains to tell me For to imagine Monsieur de Luzon not to be as yet a Cardinal were no less than to wrong the Kings credit and to judge amiss of publick acknowledgement I am here at the Antipodes where there is not any thing but Air the Earth and a River One had here need make above ten days journeys to finde a man wherefore having in this place no other communication but with the dead I can relate no other news unto you but of the other World Is it not true that he who would have burnt his shirt had it known his secrets would hardly have been drawn to make his general confession and that Alexander the Great would with much difficulty have been induced to purchase Paradise by humility What say you of poor Brutus who killed his Father thinking to confound a Tyrant and no less to repent himself at his death in having loved Virtue than if he had followed an unfaithfull Mistress Do you not yet remember the first Consels whose words smelt of Garlick and green roasted meat think you not they made use of their hands instead of feet being rough and durty as they were and wore Shooes instead of Gloves These men were not acquainted either with Sugar Musk or Amber-greice They had not as then any gods of Gold or Goblets of Silver They were ignorant in all sorts of sciences save onely to make War and to have domination over men I lately read how in Venice in former times men of greatest quality usually married with common women and that either the good Husbandry or the mutual correspondency was such among the Citizens that one Wife served three brothers Think you that Francis the first is called Great for having vanquished the Swisses or to distinguish him from his Grandchild or by reason of his great nose Give me reason why Selim slew his Father his Brothers and Nephews and after all this died but once Were it not that I fear to be wearisom unto you I should never make an end of my news yea I should be sufficiently stored to entertain you my whole life-time But it is high time that unprofitable speeches give place to Pious Cogitations and that I leave you among your Myrtles and Orange-trees where you are never better accompanied than when you are alone I will here conclude rather out of discretion then for want of matter But this shall not be till after I have said that of all those who have any share in your favours there is not any who is therein more proud of his good Fortune than my self or more really than I am My Lord Your most humble and most affectionate servant BALZAC The 25. of Sept. 1622. To the Lord Bishop of Air from BALZAC LETTER X. My Lord THese times are fatal for abating those heads appearing above others and for changing the face of things and questionless if this course still continue the King will either be forced to seek out a new people or to resolve himself for a solitary Reign All the Court is black with mournings there is not a French-man who doth not either weep or is bewailed and War causeth onely slight sorrows yet even among those whose loss we lament there are always some we willingly leave and whose Catastrophe may serve us
a happy man to be of that number and you may believe me that I am not troubled about it seeing there is good hope I may have a benefit by it my self and that your prayers may draw me after you I doubt not but they are of great power and efficacy and doubt as little that I am my self of the number of those you hold dear unto you but as one that hath more need then any other I conjure you to double them unto me who am in heart and Soul Sir My dear Cosin Your c. From Balzac 4. of May 1633. To Mounsieur d'Andilly Counsellour of the King in his Counsels LETTER XXXII Sir I Perceive that Mounsieur the great Master is a great extender of expositions and hath tied you to explain your self in a matter whereof I never doubted Herein he hath exceeded his Commission and done more than he had in charge to do I seek no new assurance of your friendship this were to shew a distrust in the old whereas the foundation already laid is such that makes me forbear even ordinary duties for fear I should make shew to need them and as if I would hold by any other strength then your own inclination Care and diligence and assiduity are not alwayes the true marks of sincere affections which I speak as well in your behalf as my own Truth walks now adayes with a less train men use not to make open profession of it but rather to confess it as a sin her enemies are strong and open her adherents weak and secret yet Sir if she were in more disgrace and were driven out of France by Proclamation I should believe you would be her receiver and to finde her out I should go directly to Pompone I therefore never doubted of your love this were to shew a distrust of your word past to me I marvelled that knew nothing of it and that you let him take possession of his government without recommending unto him your friends there To satisfie my self in this point I said in my minde that certainly this proceeded from the great opinion you had of his justice and that conceiving there would not be with him any place for grace or favour you would not do me a superfluous office This is the interpretation I made of an omission which in appearance seemed to accuse you and this is the conjecture I made of your silence before I came to know the cause Now I see I was in the wrong to imagine you had such subtil considerations or that you were restrained by such a cowardly wisedom which dares not assure the good to be good least such assuring should corrupt it For my part I renounce a prudence that is so dastardly and scrupulous that fears to venture a word for a virtuous friend because this friend is a man and may perhaps lose his virtue You do much better than so and I am glad to finde you not so jealous of the glory of your judgement but that you can be contented to be slighted and scorned when it is for the benefit of a friend you love let us leave flegm and coldness to old Senatours and never make question whether we ought to call them infirmities of age or fruits of reason There are good qualities for enabling men to judge of criminal causes but are nothing worth for making men fit to live in society and he of whom it was said that all he desired he desired extreamly seems to me a much honester man than those that desire so coldly and are so indifferent in their desires If you were not one of these violent reasonable men and had not some of this good fire in your temper I should not have your approbation so good cheap That which now galls you would not at all touch you and things which now descend to the bottom of your Soul would pass away lightly before your eyes I hear came yesterday a man to see me who is not so sensible of the pleasures of the minde and took great pitty of me and my Papers he told me freely that of all knowledges which require study he made reckoning of none but such onely as are necessary for life and that he more valued the stile of the Chancery than that of Cicero he more esteemed the penning of a Chancery Bill than the best penned Oration that ever Cicero writ I thought this at first a strange complement but thinking well of it I thought it better to seem to be of his opinion then undertake to cure a man uncureable I therefore answered him that the Patriarch Calarigitone so famous for the peace of Vervins was in a manner of his minde who being returned from his Embassage and asked what rare and admirable things he had seen at Paris made mention of none but their Cooks shops saying to every body as it were with exclamation Veramente quelle rostisseries sono Cosa stupenda as much as to say that there are Barbarians elsewhere then at Fez and Morocco One half of the World doth not so much as excuse that which you praise our merchandise is cried down long since and to bring it into credit again and put it off there had need return into the World some new Augustus and Antoninus saith that whilest he waits for the resurrection of these good Princes he is resolved to rest himself and not to publish his Verses till they shall be worth a Pistole a piece I fear it will be long ere we shall see this Edition come forth for my self who make no such reckoning of my Prose I have no purpose to make merchandise of it yet desire I not neither to tire my hands with writing continually to no profit I mean to make hereafter no other use of my Pen then to require my friends to let me hear of their healths and to assure you Sir that I am no mans more Than your c. At Balzac 12. June 1633. To Mounsieur Conrart LETTER XXXIII Sir I Had a great longing to see and you have done me a special kindeness to send it me over Yet I must tell you that your sending it gets him a greater respect with me then his own deserving and if you appoint me not to make some reckoning of him all that I shall do for his own sake will be but to bear with him A man had need be of sanguine complexion and in a merry vein before that should be moved to laugh at his poor jests Melancholick men are too hard to be stirr'd that which goes to the Centre of other mens hearts stayes without doors in theirs at least it toucheth but very weakly the outside and oftentimes I am so sadly disposed and in so sullen an humour that if a jeaster be not excellent I cannot think him tolerable nor indure to hear him It is certain the Italians are excellent in the art of jesting and I could mark you out a passage in Boccace that would have made and all his predecessours
number doth so multiply in France it is almost arrived to an infinity These have not one half hours intertainment for thee without telling thee the King is raising puissant forces how such a one is out of credit with his faction another is a great searcher into and medler in State-matters and how a third diveth into all the intricacies of Court-businesses If you can have the patience to bear them yet a while longer you shall strait understand how the President Jannin was the man who had the truest intentions of all the Ministers of Justice That it is expedient to shew a Master-piece of State to give reputation to the present current of affairs That the Kings Authority was interessed in this action and that those who sought to cry down the present government rather aimed at their particular advantages then redress of disorders See here the stile wherewith they persecute me even to my poor Viâ—lage and which is a cause I loath State and publick affairs Tire 〈◊〉 therefore my cars at thine arrival lest you turn mine adversary with intention to assault me with these huge words If you know not that theâ—e follies have not always the same aspect and that theâ—e are as well serious follies as slight ones I would admonish thee in this place Now though a men at twenty can have no great experience of the World yet have you a sufficient clear judgement to keep your self from being deluded by the appearance of good or by the outward luster of evil I had need of more time then the bearer allows me and of more words then a Letter is capeable of sufficiently to instruct thee what thou oughtest to do and what to avoid or to learn thee a Science wherein my self do study in teaching thee I will therefore onely say since I am hastned to make an end that before all other things thou art to offer thy whole will to God if thou beest not able to give the rest and to have at least good designs if it be not as yet in thy power to do any good deeds I well know it is no slender task to undertake to guard our selves from evil where inticements are extraordinary and the danger extream and where thou wilt tell me that if God will hinder thee from loving beauty he had need make thee blinde I having no pleasing answer to make thee hereto my dear Hydaspe I refer thee to thy Confessor intreating thee to consider how if the King in the flower of his age wherein we see him and in the midst of an infinity of objects offering themselves to give him content is yet notwithstanding so firm in the resolution to virtue that he as easily surmounteth all voluptuous irregularities as he doth his most violent rebels and is not any way acquainted with forbidden pleasures nor doth glut himself even with lawfull ones If as I say this truth be generally avowed I beseech thee tell me why continency may not be placed among things possible But I much fear there is no means to gain this for granted at thy hands since thou believest as others do that to be chaste were no less then to usurp upon the possession of married wives Yet at the least Hydaspe if this body of thine being of sufficient ability to send Collonies into each corner of the World and to people the most desart places will needs be imployed I intreat thee to stay there without being transported with the debauches of the mouth which have no other limits then the loss of reason and ruine of health I should be in utter despair were it told me that my brother drinks as much as though he were in a continual Feaver and were as great a purveyer for his panch as if he were to enter into a besieged Citty I confess thy inclination doth of it self sufficiently divert thee from these Germain virtues and that thou art not much less sober than my felf who have passed over three years without suppers and who would willingly feed onely upon Fennill and pick-tooths if I thought I could thereby recover health Yet truely this doth not hinder me from haveing some apprehension when I consider how the examples of great ones doth often give Authority to vice and that to keep our selves upright in the midst of corruption is not an effect of the ordinary force of men Consider then once again Hydasp that we are powerfully to resist temptations Have an eye to the interest thou hast to contain thy self within the limits of an orderly life and be well advised whether thou couldst be contented to be of the proportion of those good fellows whose spirits are choaked in their own grease and who become such comely creatures that if their bodies were pierced there would nothing pass forth of their wounds but Wine and Porridge Besides â—aking profession as thou dost to be a man of thy word be not offended 〈◊〉 I summon thee to observe what thou hast promised me or that I â—â—â—ly tell thee that if thou fallest again to the old game I shall have 〈◊〉 subject to assure my self of thy fidelity in other thy former proâ—â—â—â—s Were thou the King of the Indies or thy life endless I would not â—â—rbid thee this exercise but since we have scarce leasure enough in 〈◊〉 World to attain virtue nor over great possessions to secure us from â—â—â—verty believe me Hydasp it is very dangerous to suffer ship-wrack on 〈◊〉 and besides the expence of money which we esteem as dear 〈◊〉 â—s as life to lose our sences likewise and our time the last whereâ—â—â—â—â—â—recoverable is both shamefull and sinfull Having here admoâ—â—â—â— thee well near though confusedly and scatteredly of those things 〈◊〉 â—â—ghtest to flie it were requisite I should likewise advise thee of 〈…〉 fit for thee to follow and to cause if I could good laws to 〈…〉 â—â—vil manners But it is fit to take time to deliberate upon a 〈◊〉 of such importance and truely to speak herein to purpose all the wit I have joyned with that of others were no more than sufficient Yours BALZAC The 1. of Jan. 1624. To Hydasp from BALZAC LETTER IV. MY dear Hidasp if God had conferred a Kingdom upon me with condition not to have me sleep more than I do I should prove the most vigilant Prince living nor should I need either Guards or Sentinels about my person Surely there is not any my self excepted for whom night was not made since when the windes are calm and all nature quiet I alone watch with the Stars But I much fear lest God will not be satisfied herewith since I fore-see so many miseries ready to rowl upon me as I have no small apprehension to become more wretched to morrow than I am at this present The onely countenance of Hydasp would refresh me and cause my pain to be in some sort pleasing But since there are now at least a dozen great Cities and a hundred leagues of Snow between us I have
so long as he proposed onely men for his object and spared to speak of holy things But when I heard say he exceeded the bounds of inferiour matters and banded himself even against what is transcendent to Heaven I instantly quitted all acquaintance with him and thought the onely pleasure I could do him was to pray to God to restore him to his right sences and to take pitty on him as he did of the Jews who crucified our Saviour Hereafter I will be better advised then to weary you with so long a discourse or to tire my self in troubling you But truely I thought I could do no less after three years silence esteeming this not to be over much for a man who is so slow a pay-master for so many Letters he oweth you Yet cannot I conclude before I inform you of some particulars touching the place where I am at this present and of my imployments here First there is no day passeth wherein I see not the rising and setting of the Sun and how during that time I withdraw my self from all other distractions to enjoy the purity of that fair light Behold here in this present state wherein I am all the Courtship I use and the onely subjection I oblige my self unto When I desire to take the air at other hours of the day I must indeed confess my eys have no objects so vast as the Sea or Appenines not do I behold Rome under my feet as formerly I have done Yet do I on all sides discover so pleasing a prospect as thouge it fill not the capacity of my spirit so much as did the other yet doth it far more content me Painters come forty days journeys hence to study in my Chamber and if nature cause her greatness to appear even from the bottom of the deepest Abysses and darkest downfalls she hath no less placed her rarest perfections under my windows Moreover I am plunged in abundance up to the eys but my riches are tacked to the twigs and branches of Trees for as Summer hath made me plentifull so will Winter reduce me to my former poverty In the mean time I make Feasts of Figgs Mellons yea out of the very Muscadine Grapes I eat there issueth liquor enough to make half a Kingdom drunk and the thing whereat happily you will wonder is that I put all this into a sick mans stomack to whom well-nigh all good things are forbidden yet have I found a means to reconcile my surfets with my Physical receits and in one and the same day I both enjoy pleasure and endure pain for I nourish my Feaver with excellent fruits and purge it with Rubarbe but howsoever I cannot hazard my health in more innocent debauches since I perform them without troubling the tranquility either of earth or air or without bereaving any thing of life The first men the World produced attained to extream age with such pure cates as mine are for as of all bloudy meats they onely used Cherries and Mulberries so was the simplicity of their lives accompanied with a perfect reposedness Nature as yet being void of all Monsters There was as then no mention either of Geryon or Minotaure nor of φφφφ The Inquisition and Parliament were onely in the Idea of things and of the two parts of Justice there was that onely known which gave merits their due rewards BALZAC From BALZAC 1623. Another Letter from Balzac to Mounsieur de Bois Robert LETTER VIII YOur Letter of the fifteenth of the last Moneth came to my hands as I was ready to seal these Presents You might have just cause to tax me should I let them go unanswered or if this dead man appearing in your presence did not give you thanks for the many excellent words you have used in the adorning his Funeral Oration I should be but too proud if others were of your opinion or were infected with the like errour you are but I much fear you will not for the present herein finde a party equal to that of the League and do much doubt if all of a contrary conceit should be declared Criminals there would hardly be any acquitted in this Kingdom Howsoever I hold my self much obliged unto you in conferring so liberally that upon me you so well know I want and for bestowing all your colours and mercurial mixtures to make me seem beautifull I will be well advised how I fall out with him who flatters me and in the love I bear my self I shall at all times suffer a rival with much satisfaction Since a certain Gentleman in Germany pleaseth himself in being stiled King of Jerusalem and since those who have no real Patrimonies tickle themselves with meer Titles and Arms by the like reason may I imagine my self to be the man you will needs have me and receive from your courtesie the qualities my Nativity hath not affoarded me But to disblame both of us I beseech you hereafter to have more care of my modesty and not to put me in danger either to lose it or not to believe you It is no less then to wrong the Angels to call other spirits then theirs divine yea all the Celestial Court is sensible of suffering that name to fall to ground For my part I am so far from freeing my self of humane defects as I do absolutely avow there is not any more imperfect than I am no not so much as blinkards and maimed persons I espie faults enough on which side soever I see my self and my wit is so disfurnished of forreign perfections as I hold no man for learned if he be not adorned with those abilities whereof I am ignorant yea even in that whereof you suppose me to have a perfect understanding I have in truth no more than meer doubts and conjectures so as if there were a man of perfect Eloquence to be found at the Worlds end I would go in pilgrimage on purpose to see one contrary to N. N. To speak truely there is great difference between filling the ear with some pleasing sound and expressing the fancies of Artizans and Clowns according to Grammatical rules and in reigning over the spirits of men by force of reason and to share the government of the World with Conquerours and Lawfull Kings I have not the presumption to suppose I am arrived at this point but I likewise think few have attained thereto and the Phylosophers Stone were with more ease to be extracted than the Eloquence I propose to my self It is as yet a kinde of Terra incognita and which hath not been discovered together with the Indies The Romans themselves could onely recover the bare image as they did of those Territories over which they Triumphed by a false Title Yea Greece her self how vainly soever she boasted thereof yet seized she onely upon the shadow not seeing the substance So as upon the matter divers have possessed others with that conceit being first deceived themselves and are obliged to the restitution of an ill
must affirm you shall seem over much to neglect your own quiet if you let slip to favourable an occasion to procure it It is time Clorinda you make it appear what you are and that we begin the Historie of our adventures If you love all things will be easie for you there is no more difficulty to passe the Alpes then to go up into your Chamber Nor doubt you that the Sea-waters will become sweet if you be not satisfied in that they be smooth But I am much affraid I shall not receive from you the satisfaction I expect You will tell me as you use we must let Nature work and that she will soon revenge us of our enemies I suppose Clorinda all this may happen but it is no reason we should be obliged to the Tyrants death for our liberty but to our own resolutions The 30. of July 1620. BALZAC To Lydia from BALZAC LETTER XXII I Am almost mad to understand thou were seen laugh to day Is this true love Lydia to be merry in my absence and to be the same woman thou art when I am with thee Yet should I have been satisfied hadst thou been contented onely to have made thy self merry with thy looking-glass so the man in iron had not been in my place I never saw him but once and surely he is either a Sor or else all the rules of Physiognomy are false yet because he calls himself Captain thou permits him to persecute thee with his complements and art at the point to yield If he touch thee Lydia all the water in the Sea is little enough to purifie thee and if thou allowest him the rest have a care least in his sleep he take thee for an Enemy and instead of his imbraces strangle thee To the Baron of Amblovile from BALZAC LETTER XXIII My Lord I Attend you here in the season of Jasmins and Roses and do send you a taste of the pleasures of Rome for fear you be poysoned therewith upon your first approach We are here in the Countrey of curiosities and to be happy in this place it sufficeth not to be blinde The Sun hath yet heat enough to ripen us Reasins and to affoard us Flowers all the Winter falls upon the neighbouring Mountains to the end we may not want Snow in August But if you desire I should divert my discourse unto more serious matters and conceal nothing from you I must tell you there is no place under Heaven where Virtue is so near a Neighbour to Vice or where good is so mingled with Evil We here behold miracles on the one side and monsters on the other and at the same time when some Discipline themselves others run to debauches of all kindes Besides there is as profound a peace here as in that part of the Air elevated above the Windes and Storms Idleness in this place is an honest mans ordinary vocation and to save half the World no man will rise hastily from Table for fear of troubling digestion If you chance to see any with skars in their faces do not thereupon imagine they have purchased them either in Wars or in defence of their honour for these are onely their Mistresses favours but in recompence of such refractory humours you shall see that here the sanctity whereof doth illustrate the whole Church It is their fervent prayers which impetrate all advantages over Enemies It is their fastings which cause fruitfulness to flow upon the Earth It is their innocency which conserveth the culpable from Eternal ruin In a word there are here such excellent examples of Virtue and so intising allurements to Vice that I will not marvel if you turn honest man here and I will likewise willingly pardon you if you do not so Truly as new Spain is the Province of Gold and as Affrick affoards Lions and France Souldiers so is Italy the mother of those things you best love When you shall see these Female Creatures in their own Countrey and compare their beauty with the bad fashion of the masculine Italians I doubt not but it will seem to you as well as to my self these Divine Women to have been created by themselves or to be Queens who have married their Grooms The most part of those beyond the Mounts have no more beauty then needs must to excuse them from being esteemed ugly and if there be some one whose face you could fancy this shall happily be some desolate Palace or some well favoured beast But here for the most part they are born Eloquent and I will tell you before hand that in one and the same person you shall finde both your Master and Mistress For my part I ingeniously confess I do no longer live under Clorinda's regency and all that is permitted me in this place is onely sometimes to honour her memory I expect you should at this passage accuse me of levity and disloyalty and that you could willingly revile me But do you not think my sighs must needs be surbated in going every day four hundred leagues Besides being so far from her as I am what know I whether I love a dead body or an Infidel I have not received any favours from her which are not rather marks of her virtues then demonstrations of her love And had she lost all her liberality in that kinde she could hardly miss it I am therefore onely obliged to my word not to her affection And as for that I should over-esteem her if I made more reckoning thereof then some Princes do of theirs and I should shew my self over superstitious if I valued what I onely whispered in her ear to be of greater efficacie then Letters Pattents and Edicts It is a point decided in Ovids Theology that an hundred false Oaths from an amorous person amount not to half a deadly sin and that it is onely the God of Poets whom we offend by our perjury in that point Now I will be judged by her self whether I having bestowed my service upon her she should take it ill if another did reward me or that I love rather to be happy then otherwise or desire rather to possess Lucretia then to desire Clorinda Will she have her tyranny extend even to the Churches patrimony and that the Pope share his temporal Authority with her I do not believe she hath any such pretentions For my part I would she knew I can no longer behold any beauty but naked nor recive any but warm and moist kisses I will tell you the rest upon the banks of Tyber and in these precious ruins whither I go to muse once a day and to tread in their steps who have led Kings in Triumph If there were any means there to finde a little of Sylla's good fortune or of Pompeis greatness instead of the Medals we now and then meet with I should have a farther subject to invite you hither Notwithstanding if you be yet your self and that by solemn vow you have forsaken the World and the vanities
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
instead of wounding them with injuries It was that great Cardinal who triumphed over all humane spirits and whose memory shall ever be sacred so long as there remain any Altars or that oblation is offered on earth It was I say the Cardinal of Perron who was able to shew Epicurus himself something more sublime and transcendent then this life and cause his fleshly Soul to be capeable of the greatest secrets of Christian Religion Though this man had a dignity equal in height to the greatest Conquerors and Monarchs Yet had he in what concerned Religion an heart as humble as that of decreped men and Infants How often hath he with those two different qualities imposed silence upon all Philosophy and spoken of Divine matters with as great perspicuity as though he had already been in Heaven or had seen the same Devine verity wholy discovered whereof here on earth we have onely a confused understanding and imperfect knowledge To tell you in plain terms but for the works of this Devine person which I as highly esteem as the victories of the late King his Master and wherein I desire alwayes to leave mine eyes when I am necessitated to give over reading I had been much troubled to retire my self from the tracing the book you sent me since any mischief doth so easily catch hold of me when I come near it as I can hardly look upon a begger without taking the itch and my imagination is so tender and delicate as it is sensible and afflicted at the sight of any base object yet thanks be to God and the Antidote I continually take I am the better armed against the conspiracie you intended against me and have yet life in me after having been under a fools hands longer then I desired But by what I can gather he is notwithstanding in good repute in the place where you are and likely enough to finde store of such as will follow him in that he is head of an evil partie I can hereunto answer you nothing save onely that between this place and the Pyrenean Mountains good wits do sometimes stray from common opinion as from a thing too vulgar and do often take counterfeit virtues yea even those who have not any resemblance to the right for perfect verities But when I consider how there is scarce any kinde of beast which hath not heretofore been adored among Idolaters nor any disease incident either to the body or minde of man whereunto Antiquitie hath not erected Temples I do not at all marvel why divers men do sometimes esteem of those who are no way deserving or why simple people should hold Sots in high reputation since they have addressed incense to Apes and Crocadiles The thing I most vex at herein is that both your self and I are in some sort obliged to the Author of the book you sent me and that I have received the beginnings of my studies and first tincture of Learning from the last and least estimable of all men For my part I protest before all the World I am not for all that guilty either of the follies he will fall into or of any such as he hath formerly committed and that having had much ado to purifie my understanding from the ordures of the Colledge and to quit my self from perverse studies I have now no other pretention but to follow such as can no way be reproachable unto me Howsoever I should not reject Chastity though my Nurse had died of the Pox and it may sometimes happen that a bungling Mason may lay some few stones in the building of the Loover or at the Queen-mothers Pallace LETTER XXV THe Letter newly delivered unto me from you is but three moneths and an half old it is an age wherein men are yet young yet some Popes have not reigned so long and in the state wherein the Churches affairs have often stood You might have written unto me at the beginning of one Papacy and I had received yours at the end of another howsoever I can no way better imploy my patience then in attending my good fortune and as it was the use to be invited a year before-hand to the Sybarites Feasts so is it fitting you make me long attend the most perfect content I enjoy in this World I doubt not but T. T. seeketh all occasions to do me ill offices and that my absence affoardeth him much advantage to wrong me but on the other side I cannot think men will more readily believe mine enemies words then mine own actions or that it is sufficient onely to slander an honest man to make him presently wicked It is true what he saith that I am not very usefull for Aâ—amanta's service I will at all times readily yield that quality to his Coach-horses and to the Mules that carrie his Coffers Yet am I too well acquainted with the Generositie of that Signiour to think he doth more esteem the bodie then the Soul or to suppose that a Farmer should be of higher consideration with him then a man of worth What confession of Faith soever R. makes I will not imagine he can ever be really altered I had rather both for mine own contentment and his honour belive it is onely a voyage he hath made into the Adversaries Countrey to the end to bring us some news and to give us account of what passeth at Charenton Surely I suppose I should not wrong him so much in holding him for a Spie among Enemies as to call him a forsaker of his side and a Fugitive from that Church whereto he hath at least this obligation if he will confess no other that it is she who made him a Christian You may do me a courtesie to make me acquainted with the cause moving him to forsake us and to go from those Maxims he hath so often preached unto me That a wise man dies in the Religion of his Mother That he never alters his opinion That he never repents himself of his sorepassed life therein That all Novelties are to him suspicious It is long since I knew that no mans cause can be bad in the hands of Mounsieur d' Andilly and that he betters all the affects he interessed himself in my protection the 1. day he saw my works so as it is not any more my self whom he commends but his own judgement which he is bound to defend Yet will I not desist from being much obliged unto him For I supposing one affoards me a favour when at any time he doth me Justice you may well think I have right particular and most tender sensibilities for those courtesies I receive but they are in special regard with me when they come from a person of so high estimation in my thoughts as he is and of whom I should still have much to say after I had related how amidst the corruption of this age and in the authority Vice therein hath gained he hath notwithstanding the fortitude to continue an upright man and blusheth
for an enemy or for a friend But your Letter hath given me assurance of my condition I account it as the Letters Pattents of my naturalizing and where I was afraid to be held a Barbarian I see my self suddenly become a Roman For since there is now no more use that can serve for the Law nor people that can serve for the Judge of a dead language I have therefore recourse to you Sir in whom I seem to see the very face of the most pure antiquity and who after the dissolution of the body of the Common-wealth doth yet preserve the spirit The Gothes and Vandals have boasted falsly that they left in it nothing remarkable I finde still the full Majesty of the language in your writings and your stile hath in it not onely the Aire and Garb of that good time but the very courage and the virtue You draw your opinions from the same Well and I see no cause that any man can have to contradict them It is certain that to gain belief one must keep himself within the bounds of likelyhood and present to posterity examples which it may follow and not Prodigies with which it may be frighted Words that are disproportionable to the matter seem to savour of that Mountibanks strain who would have it believed he could make a statue of a Mountain and would perswade us that a man were a mile long There are some mens works not much less extravagant than this Mountibanks design and most men seem to write with as little seriousness and with as little care to be believed And though men make a conscience in dealing with particular persons yet when they come to deal with the publick they seem to think themselves dispensed with and that they owe more respect to one neighbour than to whole Nations and to all ages to come You know notwithstanding that this is no new vice and not to make a troublesom enumeration of the ancient adorers of favour Is not that base flattering of Velleim come even to us and was he not a Bond slave that desired one should know he was in love with his Chain I could curse the ill fortune of good Letters that hath bereft us of the book which Brutus writ of vertue and in lieu hath left us the infamous possession which that villain makes of his loosness and how he had more care of the dregs of a corrupted Court than of upholding the main structure of the Latine Philosophy If it had been his fortune to have out-lived Sejanus I doubt not but he would have taken from him all the praises he had given him to make a present of them to his successour Macron and if the gaps and breaches of his book were filled up one should see he had not forgotten so much as a Groom in all Tiberius house of whom he had not written Encomiums We live in a Government much more just and therefore much more commendable the raign of our King is not barren of great examples It is impossible the carriage of M. the Cardinal should be more dextrous more sage more active than it is yet who knows not that he hath found work enough to do for many ages and Battails enough to fight for many Worthies That he hath met with difficulties worthy of the transcendent forces of himself far exceeding the forces of any other it is necessary that time it self should joyn in labour with excellent Master-workmen to produce the perfection of excellent works The recovery of a wasted body is not the work of onely one potion or once opening a vein the reviving a decayed estate requires a reiteration of endeavours and a constancy of labours The salving of desperate cases goes not so swift a pace as Poets descriptions or Figures of Orators We must therefore keep the extension of our subject within certain bounds and not say that the victory is perfected as long as it leaves us the evills of War and that there remains any Monster to be vanquished seeing even poverty is yet remaining which is one of the greatest Monsters and in comparison whereof those which Hercules subdued were but tame and gentle With time our Redeemer will finish his work and he that hath given us security will give us also no doubt abundance But seeing the order of the world and the necessity of affairs affords us not yet to taste this happines it shall be a joy unto me to see at least the Image of it in your History to return and re-enter by your means into these three so rich and flourishing years after which the peace hath shewed it self but by fits and the Sun it self hath been more reserved of his beams and not ripened our fruits but on one side You shall binde me infinitely unto you to grant me a sight of this rare Peece and to allow me a Key of that Temple which you keep shut to all the World besides I assure my self I shall see nothing there but that which is stately and Magnificent specially I doubt not but the roof it self is admirable and that your words do Parallell the subject when you come to speak of the last Designs of our deceased King and of the undoubted revolution he had brought upon the state of the World if he had lived And though in this there be more of divination than of knowledge and that to speak of such things be to expound Riddles yet in such cases it is not denied to be Speculative and I do not believe that Lyvie recounting the death of Caesar did lightly pass over the Voyage he intended against the Parthians and that he stayed not a little to consider the new face he would have put upon the Common-wealth if death had not prevented him If all my affairs lay here yet I would make a journey to Paris expresly for this and to read a discourse made after the fashion of this Epitaph which pleased me exceedingly He had a design to win Rhodes and overcome Italy I should have much ado to hold in my Passion till then but now I stand waiting for your Tertullian that I may learn of him that patience which he teacheth that I saint not in waiting till it be printed what a croud there will be to see him when he shall be in state to be seen and when he shall come abroad under your corrections like to those glorious bodies which being cleansed from all impurity of matter do glister and shine on every side This is an Authour with whom your Preface would have made me friends if I had otherwise been fallen out and that the hardness of his phrase and the vices of his age had given me any distaste from reading him But it is long since that I have held him in account and as sad and thorny as he is yet he hath not been unpleasing to me Me thinks I finde his writings that dark light or lightsom darkness which an ancient Poet speaks off and I look upon the obscurity
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
Head which is so full of reason and understanding This is that which hinders me from inviting you to come hither where He is ever in the slavery of Ceremonies and Complements and playes the coward with such a contradiction of his spirit that one could not imagine He hath the Soul of a Rebel and the submission of a slave if you may believe him he hath no ambition yet he consents to that of another and dies of a sickness that is not his own See what is to be a sycophant and to be undutifull by obedience But you Sir have raised your mindes above these vulgar considerations and when I think upon the Stoicks Wiseman who onely was free was rich was a King me thinks I see you foretold long ago and that Zeno was but the Figure of Mounsieur Descartes Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas Atque metus omnes inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus Either you are this happy man or he is not to be found in the World and the conquest of truth for which you labour with so great force and industry seems to me a more noble business than all that is done with so great bruit and tumult in Germany and Italy I am not so vain to pretend I should be a companion of your travel herein but I shall at least be a spectator and shall enrich my self with the rellicks of the prey and with the superfluity of your abundance Think not that I make this proposition by chance I speak it in great earnest and if you stay never so little in the place where you are you shall finde me a Hollander as well as your self and my Masters the States shall not have a better Citizen nor one more passionate for liberty than I am Although I love extreamly the air of Italy and the soyl that bears Orenges yet your virtue is able to draw me to the Banks of the frozen Sea and even to the uttermost Border of the North. It is now three years that my imagination goes in quest after you and that I even die with longing to be united to you and never to part from you again and to testifie unto you by a continual subjection that I passionately am Sir Your c. At Paris 25. of April 1631. To Mounsieur de la Motte-Aigron LETTER XXX Sir I Have heard of the happy accomplishment of your marriage and that it hath been one of the great solemnities of Rochell I have celebrated it here in my particular with less pomp indeed and tumult but with as much joy and satisfaction of minde as they that sung the Hymonaeus Though perhaps you would not have it so yet your contentments are mine you have not any passion so proper to your self which is not common with me and play the cruel as long as you will I will have a share in that which is yours even then when you will not affoard to give it me At the worst I will love you still as I have ever done as a creature supreamly excellent though not supreamly just As there are some virtues that are fierce and scornfull so there are some sciences which have attractives amidst their difficulties and which draw us on in thrusting us back You are like these abstract knowledges Your merit sweetens all your rigours and how hard soever the persecution hath been which I have suffered yet I vow unto you I could never finde in my heart to hate the Tyrant I have still so great a care of his reputation that I would not be thought innocent for fear he should be blamed to have done me wrong and I had rather be a Prevaricatour and treacherous to my self than to seem I had cause of complaint against him We ought to condemne the memory of this disorder and to suppress this unfortunate Olympiade We ought to perswade our imagination that the matter is not so indeed but that it is onely dreamt When you shall please to remember your words I shall see your Verses and your friends Sermons In the mean time Sir if you will not have it be a meer liberality I send you something to exercise commutative justice and begin a traffick whereof the Toll is not agreed upon to be taken of right Never was a man so miserably busied as my self I am intricated with an infinite number of petty affairs which as you know are no less cumbersom than the great One thrust of a sword hurts not so much as a hundred pricks of a Pin and the Arabians have a saying It is a better bargain to be devoured of a Lion than to be eaten up of Flies If I had you I should have a Redeemer but your State-business is preferable before my interests and it is better I should want you than come to have you with the curses of the people I am and shall ever be At Balzac 29. July 1634. Sir Your c. To Mounsieur de Granier LETTER XXXI SIR THe day I parted from Paris I dreamt not of taking any journey but a news which I received made me take Horse within an hour after I received it This is that which hindred me from taking my leave and to use such compliments with you as in such cases are accustomed If I did not know you to be an enemy of the Tyranny of Ceremonies and that you as well as my self cut off from friendship all vain pomp and superfluities I should study for long excuses to justifie my journey but in so doing I should offer wrong to a wise man to think he had opinions like the vulgar and that he would not either give or take so good a thing as liberty I enjoy it as I would wish within these three or four dayes and I have received it at the Bank of the River where I left it the last year I banish from my minde all thoughts of the street Saint Jaques and dream not either of my Prince or Common-wealth either of enemies books or of my own I dream to say true continually of you and finde no image in my memory so pleasing as that which presents me the time of our being together I would willingly employ Atlante or Melisse to procure me a more solid contentment and to convey you and your Library hither in a night I cannot forget this dear retreat of your repose for I know that without this you would finde even in Tryvolie a want in your felicity and that without your books our fruits would be but sour and our good cheer but of ill taste unto you These are imaginations Sir with which I flatter my self whilest I stand waiting to return to Paris that I may there go finde out a happiness which cannot come hither to finde out me If in the mean time you please to send me some news whereof you know provincial spirits are extreamly greedy you shall give me means to make a whole Countrey beholding to me and you need but to dictate them to who will
of others evils Although the place to which she hath raised you cannot be more eminent nor more sure yet my disgraces may be cause that her prospect is not so fair or pleasant and how setled soever the peace of your minde be yet the Object of a persecuted friend may perhaps offend your eyes Our Mounsieur de Berville I assure my self dislikes not this kinde of wisdom he likes to have that husbanded and dressed which Zeno would have to be rooted out he knows that magnanimity hath its residence between effeminateness and cruelty and that the sweet and humane virtues have place between the Fierce and the Heroick Poets sometimes make the Demy Gods to weep and if an old womans death were cause enough to make Aeneas shed tears the oppression of one innocent cannot be unworthy of your sighes Yet I require from you none of these sad offices your onely countenance is enough to give me comfort I do not live but in the hope I have to see it and to get you to swear once again in presence of the fair Agnes and the rest of your Chamber Divinities that you love me still After that if you will have us make a voyage in your Abby I shall easily condiscend Provided Sir that you promise me safety amongst your Monks and that they be none of those who profess exquisite words and onely talk of Analysis and Caco-zeal If you have any that be of this humour you are an unfortunate Abbot and you may make account to be never without suites First they will ask you a double allowance next they will question your Revenew and if you chance by ill hap to make a Book you are sure to be presently cited before the Inquisition or at least before the Sorbon God keep you Sir from such Friers and send you such as I am who eat but once a day and who will not open my mouth unless it be to praise your good words and to tell you sometimes out of the abundance of my heart that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 26. of Decemb. 1631. To LETTER XLVI SIR I Am able to live no longer if you be resolved to love me no longer and think not that the good you promise me can countervail the loss of that you take from me Keep your estimation and your bounty for those that have nothing in them but Vanity and Avarice I am endowed from Heaven with better and more noble passions I like better to continue in my poverty than in your disgrace and will none of this cold speculative estimation which is but a meer device of reason and a part of the Law of Nations if you give it me single and nothing else with it I must tell you I think my self worthy of something more and that the Letter I write to you was worthy of a sweeter answer than you sent me If therein I said any thing that gave you distaste I call that God to witness by whom you swear I then wandred far from my intention I meant to contain my complaints within so just bounds that you should not finde the least cause to take offence But I see I have been an ill interpreter of my self and my rudeness hath done wrong to my innocency yet any man but your self would I doubt not have born with a friend in passion and not so unkindely have returned choler for sorrow As for my pettish humour it is quickly over and there is not a shorter violence than that of my spirit whereas you have taken five whole weeks to digest your indignation and in the end come to tell me you would do me any good you can upon condition to love me no longer I vow unto you it is a glorious act to do good to all the World and to make even ungratefull men beholding But Sir if you think me one to whom you may give that name you do me exceedingly much more wrong than it is in your power to do me right Neque decorum sapienti unde amico infamiam parat inde sibi gloriam quaerere I am wounded at the very heart with this you have written but since you will not suffer me to complain I must be fain to suffer and say nothing onely I will content my self to make a Declaration contrary to yours and tell you I will never make you beholding to me because I am not happy enough to be able to do it but yet I will love you alwayes and will alwayes perfectly be Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. of March 1633. To Mounsieur Trovillier Physician of the Popes House LETTER XLVII SIR HAving alwayes made especial reckoning of your friendship it is a great satisfaction to me that I receive assurance of it by your Letter I doubt not of your compassionating my disgraces and that the persecution raised against me hath touched you at least with some sence of grief for even meer strangers to me did me these good Offices and though the justice of my cause had not in it self been worthy of respect yet the violence of my adversaries was enough to procure me favour and protectours There is no man of any generous spirit that found not fault with the wits of your Philarchus nor a man of any wisdom that thought him not a Sophister Yet I cannot blame you for loving him seeing I know well you do it not to prejudice me and that your affection corrupts not your judgement You are too intelligent to be deceived with petty subtilties and too strong to be broken with engins of Glass but in truth being as you are a necessary friend to a number of persons of different qualities it cannot be but you must needs have friends of all prices and of all me it and that the unjust as well as the innocent are beholding to you You shall hear by Mounsieur when he comes to Rome the little credit I have with the man you spake to me of to whom I present my service but onely once a year and that I do too least I should forget my name and mistake my person If in any other matter which is absolutely in my own power you will do me the honour to imploy me you shall see my course is not to use excuses and colours but that I truly am Sir Your c. At Paris 4. of April 1631. To Mounsieur Gerard Secretary to my Lord the Duke d'Espernon LETTER XLVIII SIR YOu cannot complain nor be in misery by your self alone I partake of all your good and evil and feel so lively a reflection of them that there needs but one blow to make two wounds And thus I am wounded by the news you write and though your grief he not altogether just yet it is sufficient to make me partake with you that it is yours We weep for one not onely whom we knew not but whom we know to be happy one that in six months staying in the World hath gained that which St. Anthony was afraid
gotten by practice and by conference The ayre of Italy which is so powerfull in ripening of fruits hath not been lesse favourable to the seeds of his spirit and having been at the spring-head of humane prudence I assure my selfe he hath drawn deepe of it and hath filled his minde with so many new and sublime knowledges that even his Father if it were not for the great love he beares him might not unjustly grow jealous at it This Madam is that happinesse I speak to you of and which I have alwayes wished to you and to which there can nothing be added but to see shortly so excellent an instrument set a worke and so able a man employed in great affaires When this shall be I shall then see the successe of my ancient predictions and of that I have long read in his very face so that you may well thinke I shall take no distast at your contentment as well for the reputation of my skill in Physnomy and Prognosticating as for that I perfectly am Madam Your c. At Balzac 2. Octob. 1631. To Monsieur de Gomberville LETTER XI SIR the mischance at the Tuilliries hath disquiâ—ted me all night and my unquietnesse would have continued still if you had not â—â—en the paines to calme it The newes you send me gives me life A â—â—an cannot be innocent whom Madam de Maisonfort judgeth culpable shee is not one that will complaine where there is no fault and truly if she had taken the mischance of her page in another fashion than she did I would rather have abandoned reason than maintaine it against her and would not have trusted my own testimony if she rejected it You remember that but hearing her Name I fell down in a trance and that the very sight of her livery struck into me a religious horrour and a trembling respect which is not borne but to things Divine And in this ranke I place so rare a beauty as hers is and though I be no man of the World yet I am not so very a stranger to the occurrents of the World but that I very well know she is universally adored I must not alwayes passe for an Hermite this I am sure she carries with her the desires and vowes of all the Court and shee leads in triumph those Gallants who have themselves triumphed over our enemies yet I know withall they depend more upon her by their own passion than by her endeavours and follow without being drawne These are Captives whom she trusts upon their word for their true imprisonment and whom she suffers to be their owne Keepers In the course she holds of honesty her favours are so morall or so light that either they content none but the wise because they desire no more than what is given them or none but the unwise because they take that to be given them which was never meant them so there are some perhaps well satisfied but it is by the force of their imagination and no body hath cause to be proud of a Fortune which no body possesseth As her vertue is as cleare as the fire that sparkles in her eyes so her reputation is as much without blemish as her beauty and of this honest people give testimony by their words and Detractors by their silence Shee makes thornes that they cannot prick and makes slander it selfe to learne good manners And therefore Sir I should be very unfortunate it I had been cause of displeasing her whom all the World endeavours to please and it would be a shame to our Nation that a Frenchman should beare himselfe unreverently towards her to whom very Barbarians would beare a reverence If this mis-fortune had befallen me it is not the saving my Pages life should make me stand in the defence and I would never desire to augment my traine but to the end I might have the more sacrifices to offer upon the Altar of her choler But she is too mercifull to punish mean Delinquents and too generous to give petty Examples shee reserves her justice for the Great ones and the Proud for those who having more tender senses are better able to feele the weight of her anger or else in truth her purpose is to shew me a particular favour by a publike declaration and to let the World see shee makes a reckoning of that of which the World makes none And knowing what the gratefulnesse of good Letters is shee is desiroâ—â— to have them in her debt shee payes our studies before-hand for the fruit she expects from them and obligeth the Art which can prayse the Obligation shee is made believe that I have some skill in this Art and I perceive I am not in so little respect with her as I thought and of this I am assured by the paines it cost you to make her take her Page againe that was hurt and by the civill language shee desired you to deliver from her It exceeded indeed all bounds of moderation and it seemes shee would not onely for my sake protect an innocent but would be ready if need were to reward a delinquent For acknowledgement of which generous goodnesse all my own spirit and all my friends put together can never be too much It is particularly your selfe to whom I must have recourse in this occasion you Sir who set the Crown upon Beautâ—es head who have the power to make Queens at your pleasure and to whom Olympia and Yzatide are beholding for their Empire having bestowed so great glory upon persons that never were and set all France a running after Phantasmes you may well take upon you to defend the reputation of a sensible and living vertue and choose a subject that may be thankefull to you for your choice and this is a matter yon cannot deny of which we will talke more and conclude it after dinner in presence of the Lady that is interessed in it into whose presence I must entreat you to be my Usher to bring me that so I may ever more and more be Sir Your most humble and most obliged servant c. At Paris 1. June 1631. To Monsieur de Villiers Hottoman LETTER XII SIR being equally tender of the good will you beare me and of the account you make of me I cannot chose but rest well satisfied with your remembring me and with the judgement you deliver of my writings you are not a man that will bearâ— false witnesse and you have too much honesty to deceive the World but withall you have too much understanding to be deceived your selfe and one may well rely upon a wisdome that is confirmed by time and practice This is that which makes me to make such reckoning of your approbation and such account of your counsell that I shall be loath to be defective in the least tittle of contenting you It it farre from me to maintaine a point that you oppose I give it over at the first blow and yield at the first summons yet I could never have thought
this when suddenly a great light shined in my Chamber and dazeled mine eys even as I lay in my bed And not to hold you long in suspense the Name of the Angel I mean was Madam d' Estissac who thus appeared unto me and willing to make the world see how much she hath profited in Religion runs after all occasions to put her Christian vertues in practise This somwhat abates the vanity I should otherwise have taken in her visit for I see it is rather charitie than courtesie and I am so much beholding to my infirmitie for it that shee made a doubt whether I were sicke enough to merit it as much as to say a Paralitick should have had this courtesie from her sooner than I. They must be great miseries that attract her great favours pietye which teacheth the fayrest hands of the world to bury the dead may well get of the fairest eyes that ever were some gracious looks to comfort the afflicted What ere it be I have found by experience that no sadness is so obstinate and clowdie but pleasing objects may dissolve and pierce nor any Philosopher so stony and insensible but may be softned and awaked by their lightest impression I verily thinke another of her visits would have set me on my legges and made me able to goe but shee thought me not worthy of a whole miracle and therefore I must content my selfe with this beginning of my cure I enforme you of these things as being one that reverenceth their cause and as one loves me too well to make slight of the goods or evills I impart unto him This last words of my Letter shall serve if you please for a corrective to the former I revoke it as a blasphemie and will never beleeve that all the Magick in Paris is able to make you forget a man whom you have promised to love and who passionately is Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. July 1633. Another to him LETTER XXI SIR this is the first opportunitie I could get to write unto you and to comfort my selfe for your absence by this imperfect way which is the only meanes left mee to enjoy you These are but shadowes and figures of that true contentment I received by your presence but since I cannot be wholly happie I must take it in good part that I am not wholly miserable I will hasten all I can to finish the businesse I have begun thereby to but my selfe in state to see you and if my mind could goe as fast as my will I should my selfe be with you as soone as my Letter It is true there cannot be a more delicate and daintie place than this where I live banished and a friend of ours said that they who are in exile here are farre happier than Kings in Muscovia but being separated from a man so infinitely deere unto mee I doe not thinke I could live contented in the fortunate Islands and I should be loath to accept of felicitie it selfe if it were offered me without your company Wherefore assure your selfe that as soone as I can rid my selfe of some importunate visits which I must necessarily both receive and give I will not lose one moment of the time that I have destinated to the accomplishment of and will travaile much more assiduously than otherwise I should doe seeing it is the end of my travaile that only can give me the happinesse of your presence In the meane time I am bound first to tell you that I have seene here and then to give you thankes for the good cheare he hath made me He believes upon your word that I am one of much worth and gives me Encomiums which I could not expect from his judgment but that you have corrupted it by favouring me too much I earnestly entreat you to let me heare from you upon all occasions and to send me by the Post the two books which I sent for to Monsieur if you have not received them of him already but above all I desire you that we may lay aside all meditation and art in writting our Letters and that the negligence of our stile may be one of the marks of the friendship between us and so Sir I take my leave and am with all my soule Your c. At Balzac 2. Decemb. 1628. Another to him LETTER XXII SIR either you meane to mocke me or I understand not the termes of your Letter I come to you in my night gowne and my night cap upon my head and you accuse me for being too fine You take me for a cunning merchant who am the simplest creature in the world if another should use me thus I should not take it so patiently but what ere your designe be I count my selfe happie to be the subject of your joy and that I can make you merry though it be to my cost when I write to you I leave my selfe to the conduct of my penne and neither thinke of the dainties of our Court nor of the severitie of our Grammar that if there be any thing in my Letters of any worth it must needs be that you have falsified them and so it is you that are the Mountebanke and will utter your counterfeits for true Diamonds You know well that Eloquence is not gotten so good cheape and that to terme my untoward language by the name of this qualitie is a superlative to the highest of my Hyperboles Yet it seemes you stand in no awe of Father as though you had a priviledge to speake without controul things altogether unlikely for this first time I am content to pardon you but if you offend so againe I will enforme against you and promise you an honourable place in the third part of Philarchus The man you wrote of hath no passions now but wise and stayed he hath given over play and women and all his delight now is in his bookes and vertue Rejoyce I pray you at his happie conversion and if you be his friend so much and so much a Poet as to shew your selfe in publicke you may doe well to make a Hymne in prayse of Sicknesse as one hath heretofore done in prayse of Health for to speak truly it is his sicknesse that hath healed him and hath put into him the first meditations of his salvation I expect great Newes from you by the next Post and passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Decemb. 1628. To Monsieur Ogier LETTER XXIII SIR I cannot but confesse that men in misery never found a more powerfull Protectour than your selfe and that you seeme borne to be a defender of oppressed innocency The Fathers of the Minimme Order are as much beholding to you as my selfe whose right you have so strongly maintained that if I did not know you well I should verily think the Saint you speake of had inspired you And as by his prayers he gaines a jurisdiction over the fruitfulnesse of Princesses so by the same prayers he hath contributed assistance to
owne sexe and ours too and hath spared nothing to make you compleat the better part of Europe admires you and in this point both Religions are agreed and no contesting between Catholique and Protestant The Popes Nuntio hath presented our beliefe even to your person all perfumed with the complements and civilities of Italie Princes are your Courtiers and Doctors your Schollers and is this Madam that you call to be unfortunate and that which you take for a just cause to complaine I humbly intreat you to speak hereafter in more proper termes and to acknowledge Gods favours in a more gratefull manner I know well that your loyaltie hath suffered by your brothers Rebellion and that in the publike miseries you have had some private loss but so long as you have your noble heart and your excellent spirit left you it is not possible you should be unfortunate for indeed in these two parts the true Madam Desloges is all entire and whole It is I Madam that have just cause to say I am unfortunate who am never without paine never without griefe never without enemies and even at this very time I write from a house of griefe where my mother and my sister being sicke on one hand and my selfe on the other I seeme to be sick of three sicknesses at once yet be not afraid least this I send you should be infectious as though I had a designe to poyson you with my presents for I have not yet medled with any of the Musque fruits which I hope you shall eat I have not durst so much as to come neere them least I should chance to leave some light impression of my Feaver upon them They are originally Natives of Languedoc and not so degenerated from the goodnesse of their auncestors but that you will find them I hope of no unpleasing taste and besides Madam they grow in a soyle that is not hated of Heaven and where I can assure you your Name is so often rehearsed and your vertue so highly esteemed that there is not an Eccho in all our woods but knowes you for one of the perfectest things in the world and that I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 20. Septemb. 1629. To LETTER XXVII MAdam see here the first thankes I give you for you know that having never done me but displeasures I have never yet returned you but complaints but now at last you have been pleased to begin to oblige me and after so many sentences of death which you have pronounced against me and after so many cruelties which I have suffered you have bethought your selfe ten yeares after to send me one good newes which truly is so pleasing to me that I must confesse you had no other way to reconcile your selfe unto me and I cannot forbeare to blesse the hand that brought mee a Letter from Madam Desloges though they were dyed in my bloud and had given me a thousand wounds The sense of former injuries hath no competition with so perfect a joy and of two passions equally just the more violent is easily overcome of the more sweet You have hastened the approach of my old age and made gray one halfe of my haire you have banished mee this Kingdome and forced me to flie your tyranny by flying into another Country finally it is no thanks to you that I have not broken my owne necke and made matter for a Tragedie and yet foure lines of Madam Desloges have the force to blot out all this long story of my mis-fortunes and willingly with all my heart I forget all the displeasures I have received for this good office you now affoord me I make you this discourse in our first language that I may not disobey Monsieur de who will have me write but will not have me write in any other stile for in truth and to speake seriously now that he leaves me at libertie I must confesse unto you Madam that I am exceedingly bound unto you for the continency I have learned by being with you and good examples you have given me your medicines are bitter but they heale you have banished me but it is from prison and if my passions be cooled by the snow of my head I have then never a white hayre which I may not count for one of your favours I therefore recant my former complaints and confesse my selfe your debtour of all my vertue The time I have imployed in your service hath not been so much the season of my disorderd life as it hath been an initiating me into a regular life which I meane to lead Your conversation hath been a schoole of austeritie unto me and you have taught me never to be either yours or any others but only in our Lord Madam Your c. At Balzac 10. Octob. 1629. To Madam Desloges LETTER XXVIII MAdam my evill Fortune gives one common beginning to all my Letters I am impatient even to death to have the honour to come and see you but now that I am well the ayre is sicke and all the Country drowned There is no land to be seene between this and Lymousin and the mischiefe is that there is no navigation yet found out for so dangerous a voyage This bindes me to waite till the waters be fallen and that God be pleased to remember his Covenant with Noah As soone as this shall be I will not fayle to performe my vow and to come and spend with you the happiest day of all my life In the meane time Madam give me leave to tell you that I am not yet well recovered of the extasie you put me in by writing unto me such excellent things that I could not reade them with a quiet minde nor indeeed without a â—inde of jealousie All Frontignon would be sufficiently paid with that you write of a dozen paltry Muske fruits I sent you and you prayse my writtings with words which have no words worthy of them but your own This of one side makes me eâ—vious and of the other side interessed and if the honour I receive by your flattering Eloquence did not sweeten the griefe of being overcome it would trouble me much that I had no better defended the advantages of our sexe but should suffer it to lose an honour which the Greeks and Latines had gotten for it Yet take heed you hazzard not your judgement too freely upon the unce taintie of humane things you esteeme well of a Prince who is not yet borne you should have seene his Horoscope from the poynt of his conception before you should speak of him in so loftie termes But besides that nothing is lesse assured than the future and nothing apter to deceive than hope Consider Madam I beseech you that you favour an unfortunate man and that Faction oftentimes carries it away from truth It will be hard for you your selfe alone to withstand an infinite multitude of passionate men and it may be said to you as was said to those of Sparta upon occasion of
doe you Homage by laying my Compositions at your feete than to make a Challenge as opposing them to yours rather to acknowledge the superioritie of your Eloquence and to goe in your Lyverie than to make my selfe youâ— Competitor and seeke to brave you with so rash a Comparison If you finde any rellish in Discourses so farre short of the force and merit of yours and if you thinke they may give my Masters of the Universitie any the least contentment I earnestly entreate you to present them a Copy and withall my humble submission to their judgement I know this Societie is at this day the supreme Tribunall that Censures all workes of the Braine and gives Rules to all other Tribunalls of France I neither doubt of the sufficiencie nor suspect the integritie of the Judges that praeside there Moreover I confesse Sir it could never have a more happie Conception seeing your selfe was the first that spake it nor a more illustrious birth seeing M. the Cardinall was a Patron to it and therefore borne in Purple as were those Princes in Constantinople whom I would call Porphyrogencies if the Academie had Naturalised this Forreigne word The honour it hath done me to make me a member of their body without binding me to part from hence and the place it hath given me without taking away my liberty are two singular favours I received from it both at one time And to say the truth it is no small benefit to a man of the wildernesse that turnts his face sometimes towards the world and is not altogether devested of humane affections that he may injoy together both the repose of solitude and yet flatter his imagination with the glory of so pleasing a Societie This I cannot doe without thanking you for so great a favour and if they understand not of my Resentment by your mouth they may have just cause to condemne me for one of little Gratefulnesse Lend me therefore I beseech you Sir some five or six words I would ask you more but I know they are of that worth and so high in their account that these few will be enough not onely to satisfie for the complement I owe but for the Oration also it is expected I should make them You will not I hope deny me the testimony of your love and I require it of you by the memory of the other Obligations I owe you Atque per inceptos promissum munus Iambos you know my meaning and that I have a long time beene and am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 15. Iul. 1635. To Monsieur de Bois Robert LETTER VI. SIR I heare you have beene seene at Paris from whence I conclude you are not at the warre in Flanders but are content to goe and give it your malediction upon the Frontiers If you would acquaint us with the passages of that Countrey you should infinitely obâ—ige your old friend who feeds upon no other nourishment but Newes and takes no Newes to heart but those which concerne the King He is so carefull of the Reputation of his Armes that he cannot abide his victory should be spoken of with doubting To make him confesse we have lost one man it is necessary there should be foure Regiments defeated and when he is spoken to of the Emperouâ—s ayde his answer is that this is a Remedie to be lookt for when the contrary part is dead To make this man a Present the Poet you wot of made lately some Verses upon the estate of affaires in Lorrayne and answers another Poet who had written that the King would never be able to hold it and that the rellicke of affection which the Countrey beares to its ancient Duke would never suffer any familiaritie or friendship to reflect upon us The that are the Latins of this Countrey would make him believe that he hath found a meane betweene the Character of Catullus and that of Martiall and that he hath avoided the drinesse and harshnesse of the former times without engaging himselfe in the luxurie and intemperance of the latter times With these new Verses I send you the old Prose you desired and which hath lyen so long asleepe in my Closet Though they be writings of an old dare yet you know they are alwayes in season and seeing they entreate of the soveraigne vertue that is of M. the Cardinall they intreate of a matter that is immortall and can never lose the grace of being new Thermopylae and Platea are to this day the common places of the Graecians that are in the world and our remotest posteritie which shall more quietly enjoy the labours of this rare man than we doe shall speake more often and more honouâ—ably of them than we doe I believe the Letter to Mounsieur Chastelet will not dislike you and that you will finde something in it worth your reading I had word sent me from Paris that his style was too much painted and too full of Figures for a military style but you shall see how in praysing him for the rest I justifie him in this and with what byasse I defend the cause of worthy things I entreate you to aske him for me the last Libells of and to deliver them to to bring them to me You have heard by the cause I have to complaine of Mounsieur de Delayes in such cases are very dangerous and if you have not already made an end of the matter I feare me the Stocke that was appointed for paying of me will goe some other way Doe herein what you shall thinke fittest and I shall remaine Sir Your c. At Balzac 15. Jul. 1635. Austrasia infaelix ne somnia blanda tuorum Neu mâ—mores Aquilas Imperiumque vetus Quamvis Titulos Nomen inutile jactes Multusque in vano Carolus ore sonet Carolus ecce iterum Nostri virtute Capeti Concidit lapsas luget Eugenus opes Vel solo dixisse sat est capta Oppidae nutu Atque ulrto exutum terga dedisse Ducem Austrasia huic vilis nimiùm neglecta fuisti Nec te ita qui tenuit credidit esse suam Credidit hostiles fugitivus linquere terras Sed te qui propriam jam tueatur adest Ille Triumphata rediit qui victor ab Alpe Et pâ—r quem placidis Mincius errat agris Ille suo natus Juvenis succurrere saeclo Non tantùm Patri sistere Fata suae Cur sequeris Fumo VacuaÌ„ cur diligis umbram Evereque colis diruta saxa domus Desere Fessa tuos supremasae clade jacentes Te validam stantem Deserutre tui Prima mali patiens atque inter Gallica pridem Fulmina Arctoas non benè tuta minas Tandem pone animos ac Nostra assuesce vocari Ni facias Cecinit quae mihi Phaebus habe Alternis vertet te Celta Teuto ruinis Et nisi Pars uniâ—es Praeda duobus eris To Monsieur Favereau Councellour of the King in his Court of Aydes LETTER VII SIR He whose
rightly judge of things No imployment is so honourable as their Leisure no ambition so worthily at worke as their vertue takes it rest You shall doe me a singular favour to let them know from me in how great reverence I hold them both and that never man entred the Gallery of Mounsieur de Thou better perswaded than I am of their incomparable merit I will sometimes expect to heare from you and will alwayes be with all my heart Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. Septem 1632. To Monsieur de Brye LETTER XIV SIR My deare Cousin I have received three of your Letters within these foure moneths the other you speake of are not yet come to my hands of which losse I am very sensible for being deprived of your conversation I cannot but exceedingly esteeme of that which represents it to me I have oftentimes told you that you are naturally eloquent but yet I must confesse you have gotten new graces by being in Ciceroes countrey and the Aire of Rome seemes to have purged your spirit of all vulgar conceits Monsieur de is in this of my opinion and you have written to us such excellent things that they were able to comfort us for your absence if we loved you but a little but in truth no Copy can be so good as the Originall and if you come not backe very shortly I could finde in my heart to goe as farre as Novana to have your company Your last Letter renues in me my old loves and makes me with so much pleasure remember the sweetest part of the earth that I even die with longing till I see it againe It is a long time that Italy hath had my heart and that I sigh after that happy cowardise with which the valiant reproach the wise If I could have lived as I would my selfe I had beene a citizen of Rome ever since the yeare 1620. And should now injoy that happinesse in possession which you but onely make me see in Picture but my ill fortune would not suffer me she keepes me in France to be a continuall object of persecution and though it be now foure yeares since I left the world and lost the use of my tongue yet hatred and envie follow me in to the woods to trouble my silence and pursue me even in Dennes and Caves I must therefore be faine to goe beyond the Alpes to seeke a sanctuary where I shall be sure to finde at least my old comforter who will be pleased to believe that I am more than any other in the world Sir Your most humble c. At Balzac 10. May 1635 To Mounsieur de Silhon LETTER XVI SIR I have word sent me from Paris that you make complaints aginst me but being well assured you have no just cause I imagine it is not done in earnest but that you take pleasure to give me a false Alarm Yet I must confesse this cooling word I heare spoken puts me to no little paine for though it make me not doubt of the firmnesse of your affection yet it makes me mistrust the malice of my Fortune I have beene for some time so unfortunate in friendship that it seemes there needes nothing but pretences to ridde me of them the sweetest natures grow soure and bitter against me and if this fit hold I shall have much adoe to keepe my owne brother of my side I would like as well to be a keeper of the Lyons as of such harsh friends for though I were more faithfull than Pylades and Acates put together yet they would finde matter of discontentment and my fidelity should be called dissimulation I cannot believe that you are of this number but if you be it is time for me to goe hide my selfe in the desarts of Thebâ—â—s and never seek conversation with men any more It is my griefe and indignation that write these last words for my patience is moved with the consideration of the wrong is done me and if you should deale as hardly with me as others have done it were fit I should resolve to live no longer in a world where goodnesse and innocency are so cruelty persecuted These sixe moneths I have received from you but onely one Letter to which I made no answer because it was delivered me but in April at which time you sent me word you should be in France Since therefore by your owne account you were gone from thence before the time I could write unto you would you I should have written into Italy to Monsieur de Silhon that was not there And that I should have directed my Letters to a name without either hands or eyes to receive and read them You are too wise to deale so unreasonably with me and I should call your former justice in question if you take it ill that I did not guesse or rather prophesie of the stay of your voyage and yet after a scrupulous examination of my conscience I can finde no other ground for your complaints but onely this and I am ashamed to charge so strong a spirit as yours with so weak a conceit I must have had a devill at command to send of my errands and to deliver you my Letters being so uncertaine as I was of the place of your abode and in truth if I had had such a messenger I had sooner thanked you than I doe for your excellent discourse and should not all this while have kept within the secret of my heart the just praises it deserves It hath taught me Sir an infinite number of good Maximes the stile pleaseth me exceedingly and I see in it both force and beauty thorough all the passages even that passage which did not so fully please me yet hath as fully satisfied me as the rest of the worke and though of my selfe I be blinde in the knowledge of holy things yet the lustre of your expressing and the facility of your method illuminate my sight When my health shall give me leave to goe from hence I will then for your Gold bring you Copper and will receive your corrections and advise with as much reverence and submission as any Novice but in the meane time I cannot chuse but put my hand to my wound and require you to give a reason of your doing I know not from whence should come this coldnesse in you seeing for my selfe I am all on fire nor how you with your great wisdome should be altered and growne another man seeing I continue still the same with nothing but my common sense Great spirits are above these petty suspitions which move the vulgar and I wonder you could conceive ill of my affection knowing how well you had preserved your owne If it be the jealousie of eloquence that provokes you I am willing with all my heart to leave you all the pretensions I can have to it and if you please I will make you a Surrender before witnesse Consider me therefore rather as youâ— follower who is willing to encrease your
more enemies in this solitude to molest him then the Gout and Stone It was ever the fate of eminent persons to have Antagonists and envy like the Athenian Ostracisme and persecutes the best A testy Frier under the name of Philarchus comes out of his Cloister and raiseth the Hue and Cry after him as an errand Thief and avoucheth that our Monsieur here is but a Mountebank and a Plagiary that struts in borrowed plumes and makes a great shew of the frippery and brokage of other Authors pudet haec opprobria c. But Balzac found a learned Apologist to refute these imputations so that this single encounter grew up into a faction and the Pen-men came so fast into the field that the Philarkes and Antiphilarks divided all France There happened some disgusts between him and Father Garesse a Jesuite and a man of able parts But the French King himself did so far tender the studious Repose of Mons de Balzac that by these altercations he might not be discouraged or diverted from greater designs He interposed his Authority to make a Reconciliation and because it makes for the honor of the parties litigâ—nt I have prefixed here the Kings Act and their mutual letters as I finde them at the beginning of Garasse his Somme Theologique And now judicious Reader Balzac stands at thy Tribunal expecting thy doom He hopes to finde more Candor and better dealings in England the Region of peace as he calls it than among his own presuming upon the goodness of his cause and thy justice I have adventured something upon thy censure If thou contractest thy brow it is no single fate thou condemnest at once a multitude of Dependents and Admirers of his virtues and among them in an humble distance F. B. AN ADVERTISEMENT OF Monsieur the KING Vnderstanding of the bad intelligence which by the unhappiness of the times hath gtown between Monsieur de Balzac and the Authour of this Book we could not but partake of the discontents of sundry honourable personages and judging it very reasonable that to men that continually do good services to the Commonwealth and from whom it should expect better yet hereafte should be divided in wills and affections We have endeavored to dispel those Clouds by the evidence of truth the business was not very difficult for us being we were to deal on the one side with a religious man who by the rule of his Profession takes a glory in despoyling himself of all interests and to desire the love of all the world on the other side with a man of a frâ—nk and noble courage whose discretion guided him to put a difference between the faults of men and the unhappiness of the age So that we thought fit to tye again the knot of friendship which by accident had been untied It is commonly an easier taske to reconcile old Friends than to make new ones Having then happily effected that business we thought that good men who are ever well affected to the sweetness of peace would gladly receive some authentick testimonies of their good intelligence and for this purpose we have got interchangeable letters under their own hands that confirm the sincerity of their hearts for to present them to the publick which cannot be distastful to any but to those that are pleased with nothing but disorders and contentions Johanni Ludovico Balzaco V. C. S. P. QVod ad te jam scribo V. C. mirari desines si me ut Religiosum tui amantem esse memineris animam puto manum hanc facile agnoveris sin minus saltem ignoveris quod utrunque gestum est Non nihil inter nos longi frigoris fuit seculi potius vitio quam vestro Septennium est fateor ex quo mutua inter nos Epistolarum missio interrupta cessavit ex hoc silentio torpor ex torpore glacies exorta vel patere suis ut ad te verbis scribat sapientissimus Hebraeorum Doctor dicatque Christallus gelavit ab aqua sed nosti quid rei est Christallus cui precium facit ipsa fragilitas vel frangatur vel indomita glacies benigno tepore solvatur favent omnia tempus amicorum vota communium imprimis desiderium meum Nolo retegere quod odiosum est rixarum inter nos argumenta fomites fatalia ista sunt dissolvendis amicitiis nata In litibus nullus ut nosti finis est dum Liticulas lis seminat unica plures Versiculos ad te extemperaneos rudes mitto sed scienti loquor occupationes meas Epistolarem in versu formam nihil enim ab Heroico retinet preter pedes quos habet formica etiam cum homine communes sed quo plures eo pejores Tibi uni prope datum est Heroicas gravesque literas condere scripsit Ovidius Heroidas sed Balzacus Heroicas Pluribus abstineo ne quod judicio dico adulationi imputet qui non norit me hujns criminis immunem imo hostem Caetera coram amantius fusius scis enim a Sapiente dictum mitte sapientem nihil ei dicas Regium Proxenetam nacti sumus hoc nomine totum dixi Vale me ama 50 Martii M.DCXXV ex domo Probat S. Geâ—mani DIc mihi quid temerè priscum turbavit aâ—â—orem Qui me corde tuo scriptum Balzace ferebat Atq unum ad nomen veteris gandebat amici Invenisse ratus quo se jactaret Orestem Cetâ—è ego qui cupipè rerum cognoscere causas Scrutarique vices librato examine novi Hoc demum pelagus non vestigabile contis Experior Sophiaeque meo se curta supellex Objicit ingenio misera deludit amantem Nam neque scintillam video fulgere neque umbram Quae meriâ—ò nostri radios fuscarit amoris E levet afflâ—ctam sapitus sententia mentem Quam fluxisse reor magni de fonte Platonis Ille inter Superos solum accensebat Amorem Jnfantem vetulum causas qui rideat omnes Vt pote qui causas etiam praecesserat aevo Jllarumque putet rigide se jure solutum Et puto si quisquâ—m recte describat Amorem Rem male non capiet si dicat Anaition esse Non quod ego gravibus causis Balzace carerem Cum Genio cogente meo te primus amavi Nam primum ut tenerae gemmas aetatis biantes Et clausum ingenij calicem primoribus annis Caepâ—sti referare mihi nec cornea vena Marmoreo sub corde fuit nec amare negavi Scis etenim haud alium testem volo temporis acti Vt tecum crevêre anni spes crevit ipsa Et cum maturos licuit mihi carpire fructus Arboris optatae ramis quaem rore sciebam Este saginatam bibulo coelique saliva Jure meo accessi propius dectraque voraci Pendulus attraxiramum sed inania veta Delusi agricolae durus soedavit Hydaspes Qui molles aditus speranti mustea pema Excussit