French by that door making their entry into this Province out of which at last they thrust the English Anno 1450. So desperate a thing is a frighted Coward This Country had once before been in possession of the English and that by a firmer title than the Sword William the Conqueror had conveyed it once over the Seas into England it continued an appendix of that Crown from the year 1067. unto that of 1204. At that time John called Sáns terre third Son unto King Henry the second having usurped the States of England and the English possessions in France upon Arthur heir of Britain and Son unto Geofrey his elder brother was warred on by Phillip Augustus King of France who sided with the said Arthur In the end Arthur was taken and not long after found dead in the ditches of the Castle of Roven Whether this violent death happened unto him by the practises of his Uncle as the French say or that the young Prince came to that unfortunate end in an attempt to escape as the English report is not yet determined For my part considering the other carriages and virulencies of that King I dare be of that opinion that the death of Arthur was not without his contrivement Certainly he that rebelled against his Father and practised the eternal imprisonment and ruine of his Brother would not much stick this being so speedy a way to settle his affairs at the murther of a Nephew Upon the first bruit of this murther Constance Mother to the young Prince complained unto the King and Parliament of France not the Court which now is in force consisting of men only of the long Robe but the Court of Pairrie or twelve Peers whereof himself was one as Duke of Normandy I see not how in justice Philip could do less than summon him an Homager being â—lain and an Homager accused To this summons John refused to yeild himself A counsel rather magnanimous than wise and such as had more in it of an English King than a French Subject Edward the third a prince of a finer mettal than this John obeyed the like warrant and performed a personal homage to Philip of Valoys and it is not reckoned among his disparagements He committed yet a further error or solaecisme in State not so much as sending any of his people to supply his place or plead his cause Upon this none appearance the Peers proceed to sentence Il fur par Arrest la dire Cour saith Du' Chesne condemne pour attaint et convainuc du crime de parricide de felonnie Parricide for the killing of his own Nephew and felony for committing an act so execrable on the person of a French vassal and in France Jhon de Sienes addeth a third cause which was contempt in disobeying the Kings commandement Upon this verdict the Court awarded Que toutes les terres qu' il avoit par deca de mourerient acquises confisques a la corronne c. A proceeding so fair and orderly that I should sooner accuse King John of indiscretion than the French of injustice when my estate or life is in danger I wish it may have no more sinister a trial The English thus outed of Normandy by the weakness of John recovered it again by the puissance of Henry But being held onely by the sword it was after thirty years recovered again as I have told you And now being passed over the Oyse I have at once freed the English and my self of Normandy here ending this Book but not that dayes journey The Second Book or FRANCE CHAP. I. France in what sense so called the bounds of it All old Gallia not possessed by the French Countries follow the name of the most predominant Nation The condition of the present French not different from that of the old Gaules That the Heavens have a constant power upon the same Climate though the Inhabitants be changed The quality of the French in private at the Church and at the Table Their Language Complements Discourse c. IVly the third which was the day we set out of St. Claire having passed through Pontoise and crossed the River we were entred into France France as it is understood in his limitted sense and as a part onely of the whole For when Meroveus the Grandchild of Pharamond first King of the Francones had taken an opportunity to pass the Rhene having also during the warres between the Romans and the Gothes taken Paris he resolved there to set up his rest and to make that the head City of his Empire The Country round about it which was of no large extent he commanded to be called Francia or Terra Francorum after the name of his Francks whom he governed In this bounded and restrained sense we now take it being confined with Normandy on the North Campagne on the East and on the West and South with the little Province of la Beausse It is also called and that more properly to distinguish it from the whole continent the Isle of France and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Isle I know not any thing more like it then the Isle of Elie the Eure on the West the Velle on the East the Oyse on the Northward and a vein riveret of the Seine towards the South are the Rivers which encircle it But the principall environings are made by the Seine and the Marne a river of Champagne which within the main Island make divers Ilets the waters winding up and down as desirous to recreate the earth with the pleasures of its lovely and delicious embraces This Isle this portion of Gaule properly and limitedly stiled France was the seate of the Franks at their first coming hither and hath still continued so The rest of Gallia is in effect rather subdued by the French than inhabited their valour in time having taken in those Countries which they never planted So that if we look apprehensively into Gaule we shall find the other Nations of it to have just cause to take up the complaint of the King of Portugal against Ferdinand of Castile for assuming to himself the title of Catholique King of Spain eius tam non exiguâ parte penes reges alios as Mariana relateth it Certain it is that the least part of old Gallia is in the hands of the French the Normans Britons Biscaines or Gascoynes the Gothes of Languedoc and Provence Burgundians and the ancient Gaules of Poictou retaining in it such fair and ample Provinces But it is the custome shall I say or fate of lesser and weaker Nations to loose their names unto the stronger as Wives do to their Husbands and the smaller Rivers to the greater Thus we see the little Province of Poland to have mastered and given name to the Pruteni Marovy and other Nations of Sarmatia Europaea as that of Moseo hath unto all the Provinces of Asiatica Thus hath Sweden conquered and denominated almost all the great Peninsula of Scandia where it is but
Law to be profest therein Wernir being the first Professor upon whose advice the said Emperour ordained that Bononia should be Legum Juris Schola una sola and here was the first time and place of that study in the Westerne Empire But it was not the fate onely of the Civill Lawes to be thus neglected all other parts of Learning both Arts and Languages were in the same desperate Estates The Poets exclamation O coelum insipiens infacetum never being so appliable as in those times for it is with the knowledge of good Letters as it is in the effects of Nature they have their times of growth alike of perfection and of death like the Sea it hath its ebbs as well as its flouds and like the Earth it hath its Winter wherein the seeds of it are deaded and bound up as well as a Spring wherein it re-flourisheth Thus the learning of the Greeks lay forgotten and lost in Europe for 700 yeares even unto Emanuel Chrysolarus taught it at Venice being driven out of his owne Countrey by the Turks Thus the Philosophy of Aristotle lay hidden in the moath of dust and Libraries Et nominabatur potiùs quam legebatur as Ludovicus Vives observeth in his notes S. Austin untill the time of Alexander Aphrodiseus Thus also lay the elegancies of the Roman tongue obscure till that Erasmus Moor and Reuclyn in the several kingdomes of Germany England and France endeavoured the restauration of it But to return to the Civill Law after the foundation of the Vniversity of Bologne it pleased Philip le Belle King of France to found another here at Orleans for the same purpose Anno 1â—12 which was the first school of that profession on this side the mountaines this is evident by the Bull of Clement the fifth dated at Lyons in the yeare 1367. where he giveth this title Fructiferum Vniversitatis Aurelianum sis inter caetera Citramontana studia prius solennius antiquius tam Civilis quam Canonicae facultatis studium At the first there were instituted eight Professors now they are reduced unto four onely the reason of this decrease being the increase of Vniversities the place in which they read their Lectures is called Les grands Escoles and that part of the City La Vniversitie neither of which attributes it can any way merit Colledges they have none either to lodge the Students or to entertaine the Professors the former sojourning in divers places of the Town these last in their severall houses As for their places of reading which they call Les grands Escoles it is onely an old Barne converted into a School by the addition of five rankes of Formes and a Pew in the middle you never saw any thing so mock its own name Lucus not being of more people called so à non lucendo then this ruinous house is the great School because it is little The present Professors are Mr. Fowrner the Rector at my being there Mr. Tullerie and Mr. Grand the fourth of them named Mr. Angram was newly dead and his place like a dead pay among Soldiers not supplied In which estate was the function also of Mr. Podes whose office it was to read the book of Institutions unto such as come newly to the town They read each of them an houre in their turnes every morning in the week unlesse Holy-dayes and Thursdayes their hearers taking their Lectures of them in their tables Their principall office is that of the Rector which every three moneths descendeth down unto the next so that once in a yeare every one of those Professors hath his turne of being Rector The next in dignity unto him is the Chancellor whose office is during life and in whose names all degrees are given and of the Letters Authenticall as they terme them granted The present Chancellor is named Mr. Bouchier Doctor of Divinity and of both the Lawes and Prebend also of the Church of S. Croix his place is in the gift of the Bishop of Orleans and so are the Chancellors places in all France at the bestowing of the Diocesan anciently it was thus also with us of Oxford the Bishop of Lincolne nominating unto us our Chancellors till the yeare 1370. William of Renmington being the first Chancellor elected by the Vniversity In the bestowing of their degrees here they are very liberall and deny no man that is able to pay his fees Legem ponere is with them more powerfull than Legem dicere and he that hath but his gold ready shall have a sooner dispatch than the best Scholar upon the ticket Ipsè licet venias Musis comitatus Homere Si nihil attuleris ibis Homere for as It is the Money that disputeth best with them Money makes the man saith the Greek and English proverb That of one of the Popes I remember not suddenly his name who openly protested that he would give the orders of Priesthood to an Asse should the King of England commend an Asse unto him may be most appositely spoken of them The exercise which is to be performed before the degree taken is very little and as trivially performed When you have chosen the Law which you mean to defend they will conduct you into an old ruinous chamber they call it their Library for my part I should have thought it to have been the Ware-house of some second hand Bookseller those few books which were there were as old as Printing and could hardly make amongst them one cover to resist the violence of a Rat. They stood not up endlong but lay one upon the other and were joyned together with Cobwebs instead of strings he that would ever gesse them to have been looked into since the long reigne of Ignorance might justly have condemned his own charity For my part I was prone to believe that the three last centuries of yeeres had never seen the inside of them or that the poor pâ—per had been troubled with the disease called Noli me tangere In this unlucky room doe they hold their disputations unlesse they be solemn and full of expectation and after two or three arguments urged commend the sufficiency of the Respondent and pronounce him worthy of his degrees That done they cause his Authenticall Letters to be sealed and in them they tell the Reader with what diligence and paines they sifted the Candidate that it is necessary to the Common-wealth of Learning that Industry should be honoured and that on that ground they have thought it fitting Post angustias solamen post vigilias requietem post dolores gaudia for so as I remember goeth the forme to recompence the labours of N. N. with the degree of Doctor or Licentiate with a great deale more of the like formall foolery Et ad hunc modum fiunt Doctores From the Study of the Law proceed we unto that of the Language which is said to be better spoken here then in any part of France and certainly the people hereof spake it more
Julius Caesar at the time of his second expedition into Brittaine this Haven being then Portus Gessorianus This Tower which we now see seemeth to be but the remainder of a greater work and by the height and scituation of it one would guesse it to have been the Key or watch Tower unto the rest it is built of rude and vulgar stone but strongly cemented together the figure of it is six square every square of it being nine paces in length A compass to little for a Fortress and therefore it is long since it was put to that use it now serving onely as a Sea mark by day and a Pharos by night Vbi accensae noctu faces navigantium cursum dirigunt The English men call it the Old man of Boulogue and not improperly for it hath all the signes of age upon it The Sea hath by undermining it taken from it all the earth about two squares of the bottom of it the stones begin to drop out from the top and upon the rising of the wind you would think it were troubled with the Palsie in a word two hard winters seconded with a violent tempest maketh it rubbish what therefore is wanting of present strength to the Haven in this ruine of a Tower the wisdom of this age hath made good in a Garrison And here me thinks I might justly acâ—use the impolitick thrift of our former Kings of England in not laying out some money upon the strength and safety of our Haven Townes not one of them Portsmouth onely excepted being Garrison'd true it is that Henry the eighth did eâ—ect Block-Houses in many of them but what bâ—bles they are and how unable to resist a Flees royally appointed is known to every one I know indeed we were sufficiently Garrison'd by out Naâ—e could it either keep a watch on all particular places or had it noâ— sometimes occasion to be absent I hope our Kings are not of Darius mind in the storie quâ— gloriosius raâ—us est hostem 〈◊〉 quam non admittere neither will I take 〈◊〉 to give counsell onely I could wish that we were not inferiour to our neighbours in the greatness of our care since we are equal to the best of them in the goodness of our Country This Town of Boulogne and the Country about it was taken by Henry the eighth of England Anno 1545. himself being in person at the siege a very costly and chargeable victory The whole list of his Forces did amount to 44000. foot and 3000. horse Field Pieces he drew after him above a hundred besides those of smaller making and for the conveyance of their Ordinance baggage and other provision there were transported into the Continent above 25000. Horses True it is that his designes had a further aim had not Charles the Emperour with whom he was to join left the field and made peace without him So that judging onely by the success of the expedition we cannot but say that the winning of Boulonnois was a dear purchase and indeed in this one particular Sr. Walter Raleigh in the preface to his most excellent History saith not amiss of him namely that in his vain and fruitless expeditions abroad he consumed more treasure than all the rest of our victorious Kings before him did in their several Conquests The other part of his censure of that Prince I know not well what to think of as meerly composed of gall and bitterness Onely I cannot but much marvail that a man of his wisdom being raised from almost nothing by the Daughter could be so severely invective against the Father certainly a most charitable judge cannot but condemn him of want of true affection and duty to his Queen seeing that it is as his late Majesty hath excellently noted in his ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΟΠΔΩΡΟΠa thing monstrous to see a man love the Child and hate the Parents And therefore he may earnestly enjoyn his Son Henry to repress the insolencie of such as under pretence to tax a vice in the person seek craftily to stain the Race Presently after this taking Boulogne the French again endeavoured the regaining of it even during the life of the Conquerour but he was strong enough to keep his gettings After his death the English being engaged in a warr against the Scots and Kit having raised a rebellion in Norfolk they began again the reconquest of it and that more violently than ever Upon news of their preparations an Ambassage was dispatched to Charles the fifth to desire succours of him and to lay before him the infancy and several necessity of the young King who was then about the age of ten years This desire when the Emperour had refused to hearken to they besought him that he would at the least be pleased to take into his hands and keeping the Town of Boulogne and that for no longer time than until King Edward could make an end of the troubles of his Subjects at home An easie request yet did he not onely deny to satisfie the King in this except he would restore the Catholike Religion but he also expresly commanded that neither any of his men or munition should go to the assistance of the English An ingratitude for which I cannot find a fitting Epithite considering what fast friends the Kings of England have alwayes been to the united Houses of Burgundy and Austria what moneys they have helped them with and what sundry warrs they have made for them both in Belgium to maintain their authority and in France to augment their potency from the marriage of Maximilian of the Family of Austria with the Lady Mary of Burgundie which happened in they ear 1478. unto the death of Henry the eighth which fell in the year 1548. are just seventy years in which time onely it is thought by men of knowledge and experience that it cost the Kings of England at the least six millions of pounds in the meer quarrels and defence of the Princes of those Houses An expense which might seem to have earned a greater requital than that now demanded Upon this denial of the unkindful Emperour a Treaty followed between England and France The effect of it was that Boulogne and all the Country of it should be restored to the French by paying to the English at two dayes of payment 800000. Crowns Other Articles there were but this the principal and so the fortune of young Edward was like that of Julius Caesar towards his end Dum clementiam quam praestiterant expectant incauti ab ingratis occupati sunt The CONCLUSION A Generall censure of France and the French A gratulation to England The end of our journey ON wednesday the third of August having stayed in Boulogne three dayes for wind and company and not daring to venture on Calice by reason of the sickness there raging we took ship for England the day fair and the wind fitly serving us we were quickly got out of the harbour into the main And so I take my leave of France
the earth its Mother or that it purposed by making it self away into the ground to save the Plow-man his next years labour Thick it groweth and so perfectly void of weeds that no garden can be imagined to be kept cleaner by art than these fields are by nature Pasture ground it hath little and less meadow yet sufficient to nourish those few Cattel they have in it In all the way between Diepe and Pontois I saw but two flocks of Sheep and then not above forty in a flock Kine they have in some measure but not fat nor large without these there were no living for them The Noblest eat the flesh whiles the Farmer feeds on Butter and Cheese and that but sparingly But the miserable states of the Norman paissant we wiil deferre till another opportunity Swine also they have in pretty number and some Pullen in their backsides but of neither an excess The principal Rivers of it is Seine of which more hereafter and besides this I saw two rivulets Robee and Renelâ—e In matter of civil Government this Country is directed by the Court of Parliament established at Roven for matters Military it hath an Officer like the Lieutenants of our Shires in England the Governour they call him The present Governour Mounsieur Duc de Longueville to whom the charge of this province was committed by the present King Lewis the thirteenth Anno 1629. The Laws by which they are governed are the Civil or Imperial augmented by some customes of the French and others more particular which are the Norman One of the principallest is in matters of inheritance the French custom giving to all the Sons an equality in their estate which we in England call Gavel-kind The Norman dividing the estate into three parts and thereof allotting two unto the eldest brother and a third to be divided among the others A Law which the French account not just the younger brothers of England would think the contrary To conclude this general discourse of the Normans I dare say it is as happy a Country as most in Europe were it subject to the same Kings and governed by the same Laws which it gave unto England CHAP. II. Diepeâ— the Town strength and importance of it The policy of Henry the fourth not seconded by his Son The custom of the English Kings in placing Governours in their Forts The breaden God there and strength of their Religion Our passage from Diepe to Roven The Norman Inns Women and Manners The importunity of Servants in hosteries The saucy familiarity of the attendants Ad pileum vocare What it was amongst the Romans and jus pilearum in the Universities of England IVne the 30th at six of the clock in the morning we landed at Diepe one of the Haven Towns of Normandy seated on an arm of the Sea between two hils which imbrace it in the nature of a bag this secureth the Haven from the violence of the weather and is a great strength to the Town against the attempts of any forces which should assault it by Sea the Town lying within these Mountains a quarter of a mile up the channel The Town it self is not uncomely the streets large and well paved the houses of an indifferent height and built upright without any juttings out of one part over the other The Fortifications as they say for we were not permitted to see them are very good and modern without stones within earth On the top of the hill a Castle finely seated both to defend the Town and on occasions to command it The Garrison consisteth of sixty men in pay no more but when need requireth the Captain hath authority to arm the Inhabitants The present Governour is the Duke of Longueville who also is the Governour of the Province intrusted with both those charges by Lewis the thirteenth 1619. An action wherein he swarved somewhat from the ensample of his Father who never committed the military command of a Country which is the Office of a Governour and the custody of a Town of war or a Fortress unto one man The Duke of Biron might have as great a courtesie from that King as the most deserving of his subjects he had stuck close to him in all his adversities received many an honourable fear in his service and indeed was Fabius and Scipio both the sword and buckler of the French Empire In a word he might have said to this Henry what Silius in Tacitus did to Tiberius Suum militem in obsequio mansâ—sse cum alii ad sedetiones prolaberentur neque daraturum Tiberii imperium si iis quoque Legionibus cupido novandi fuisset yet when he became petitioner to the King for the Cittadel of Bourg seated on the confines of his Government of Burgogne the King denied it The reason was because Governours of Provinces which commanded in chief ought not to have the command of places and fortresses within their Government there was also another reason and more enforcing which was that the petitioner was suspected to hold intelligence with the Duke of Savoy whose Town it was The same Henry though he loved the Duke Espernon even to the envy of the Court yet even to him also used he the same caution Therefore when he had made him Governour of Xanictoigne and Angoulmois he put also into his hands the Towns of Mets and Boullogne places so remote from his seat of Government and so distant one from the other that they did rather distract his power than encrease it The Kings of England have been well and for a long time versed in this Maxime of State Let Kent be one of our ensamples and Hampshire the other In Kent at this time the Lieutenant or as the French would call him the Governour is the Earl of Montgomery yet is Dover Castle in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham and yet Quinborough in the custody of Sir Edward Hobby Of which the one commandeth the Sea and the other the Thames and the Medway In Hampshire the Lieutenant is the Earl of Southampton but the Government of the Town and Garrison of Portsmouth is intrusted to the Earl of Pembroke Neither is there any of the best Sconces or Block-houses on the shore side of the Country which is commanded by the Lieutenant But King Lewis now raigning in France minded not his Fathers actions when at the same time also he made his Confident M. Luines Governour of Picardy and of the Town and Cittadel of Amiens The time ensuing gave him an insight of that state-breach for when the Dukes of Espernon Vendosme Longueville Magenne and Nemours the Count of Soisons and others sided with the Queen Mother against the King the Duke of Longueville strengthened this Dieppe and had not peace suddenly followed would have made good maugre the Kings forces A town it is of great importance King Henry the fourth using it as his Asylum or City of Refuge when that League was hottest against him For had he been further distressed
from hence might he have made an escape into England and at this door was the entrance made for the English forces which gave him the first step to his Throne The Town hath been pillaged and taken by our Richard the first in his warrs against Philip Augustus and in the declining of our affairs in France it was a moneth together besieged by the Duke of York but with that success which commonly attendeth a falling Empire The number of the Inhabitants is about 30000. whereof 9000. and upwards are of the Religion and have allowed them for the exercise of their Religion the Church of Argues a Village some two miles distant The Remainder are Papists In this Town I met with the first Idolatry which ever I yet saw more than in my books Quas antea audiebam hodi◠video Deos as a barbarous German in Velleius said to Tiberius The Gods of Rome which before I onely heard of I now see and might have worshipped it was the Hoast as they call it or the Sacrament reserved carried by a couple of Priests under a Canopy ushered by two or three torches and attended by a company of boyes old people which had no other imployment Before it went a bell continually tinckling at the sound whereof all such as are in their houses being warned that then their God goeth by them make some shew of reverence those which meet it in the street with bended knees and elevated heads doing it honour The Protestants of this bell make an use more religious and use it as a warning or a watch-peal to avoid that street through which they hear it coming This invention of the Bell hath somewhat of Turcisme it being the custom there at their Canonical hours when they hear the cryers bawling in the steeples to fall prostrate on the ground wheresoever they are and to kiss it thrice so doing their devotions to Mahomet The carrying it about the streets hath no question in it a touch of the Jew this Ceremony being borrowed from that of the carrying about the Ark upon the shoulders of the Priests The other main part of it which is the adoration is derived from the Heathen there never being a people but they which afforded divine honour to things inanimate But the people indeed I cannot blame for this idolatrous devotion their consciences being perswaded that what they see pass by them is the very body of their Saviour For my part could the like beleif possess my understanding I could meet it with a greater reverence then their charge can enjoyn me The Priests and Doctors of the people are to be condemned onely who impose and inforce this sin upon their bearers and doubtless there is a reward which attendeth them for it Of standing it is so yoūg that I never met with it before the year 1215. Then did Pope Innocent ordain in a Council holden at Rome that there should be a Pixe made to cover the Bread and a Bell bought to be rung before it The adoration of it was enjoyned by Pope Honorius Anno Dom. 1226. Both afterwards encreast by the new solemn Feast of Corpus Christi day by Pope Vrban the fourth Anno 1264. and confirmed for ever with multitudes of pardons in the Council of Vienna by Clement the third Anno 1310. Such a punie is this great God of the Romans Lactantius in his first book of Institutions against the Gentiles taxeth the wise men of those times of infinite ridiculousness who worshipped Jupiter as a God Cum eundem tamen Saturno Rhea genitum confiterentur since themselves so perfectly knew his original As much I marvail at the impudency of the Romish Clergy who will needs impose a new God upon their people being so well acquainted with his cradle It is now time to go on in our journey to Roven The Cart stayeth and it is fit we were in it Horses we could get none for money and for love we did not expect them we are now mounted in our Chariot for so we must call it An English man thought it a plain Cart and if it needs will have the honour of being a Chariot let it sure I am it was never ordained for a triumph At one end were fastened three carkasses of Horses and three bodies which had been once Horses and now were worn to dead Images Had the statue of a man been placed on any one of them it might have been hang'd up at an Inn door to represent Saint George on horse-back so liveless they were and so little moving yet at last they began to crawl for go they could not This converted me from my former heresie and made me apprehend life in them but it was so little that it seemed onely enough to carry them to the next pack af Hounds Thus accomodated we bad Farewell to Diepe and proceeded with a pace so slow that we thought our journey to Roven would prove a most perfect Emblem of the motion of the ninth Sphere which was 49000. years in finishing But this was not our greatest misery The rain fell on us through our Tilt which for the many holes in it we would have thought a net The durt brake plentifully in upon us through the rails of our Chariot the unequal and unproportionable pace of it startled almost every bone of us I protest I marvel how a French-man durst adventure in it Thus endured we all the diseases of a journey and the danger of three several deaths drowning choaking with the mire and breaking of the wheel besides a fear of being famished before we came to our Inn which was six French miles from us The mad Duke that in the Play undertook to drive two Snails from Millaine to Musco without staffe whip or goad and in a bravery to match him for an experiment would here have had matter to have tired his patience On the left hand we saw Argues once famous for a siege laid about it by our Richard the first but wasted speedily by the French It is now as before I told you the Parish Church of Diepe Protestants their Preachers were Mr. Courteau and Mr. Mondeme who had each of them an yearly stipend fifty pound or thereabouts A poor pay if the faithful discharge of that duty were not a reward unto it self above the value of gold and siver To instance in none of these beggerly Villages we past through we came at last unto Tostes the place destinate to our Lodging a Town like the worser sort of Market Towns in England There our Charioter brought us to the ruines of an house an Alehouse I would scarce have thought it and yet in spite of my teeth it must be an Inn yea and that an honourable one too as Don Quixot's Host told him Despair of finding there either bedding or victuals made me just like the fellow at the Gallows who when he might have been repreived on condition he would marry a Wench which there sued for him having veiwed
supplied by the multitude of religious houses which are in it These six Churches are called by the names St. Nicholas du' Chardomere 2. St. Estienne at this time in repairing 3. St. Severin 4. St. Bennoist 5. St. Andre and the 6. St. Cosme It hath also eight Gates 1. Porte de Nesse by the water side over against the Louure 2. Porte de Bucy 3. St. Germain 4. St. Michell 5. St. Jacques 6. St. Marcell 7. St. Victor and the 8. Porte de la Tornelle It was not accounted as a distinct member of Paris or as the third part of it until the year 1304. at which time the Scholars having lived formerly dispersed about the City began to settle themselves together in this place and so to become a peculiar Corporation The Vniversity was founded by Charles the great Anno 791. at the perswosion of Al'uine an Oxford man and the Scholar Venerable Bede who brought with him three of his condisciples to be the first Readers there Their names were Rabbanus Maurus John Duns surnamed Scotus Claudus who was also called Clement To these four doth the Vniversity of Paris owe its original and first rudiments Neither was this the first time that England had been the School-master unto France we lent them not onely their first Doctors in Divinity and Philosophy but from us also did they receive the mysteries of their Religion when they were Heathens Disciplina in Britannia reperta saith Julius Caesar Com. 6. atque inde in Galliam translata esse existimatur an authority not to be questioned by any but by a Caesar Learning thus new born at Paris continued not long in any full vigor for almost three hundred years it was fallen into a deadly trance and not here onely but almost through the greatest part of Europe Anno 1160 or thereabouts Peter Lambard Bishop of Paris the first Author of Scholastical Divinity and by his followers called the Master of the Sentences received it here in this by the favour and incouragement of Lewis the seventh In his own house were the Lectures first read and after as the number of Students did encrease in sundry other parts of the Town Colledges they had none till the year 1304. the Schollars sojourning in the houses of the Citizens accordingly as they could bargain for their entertainment But Anno 1304. Joan Queen of Navarre Wife to Philip the fair built that Colledge which then and ever since hath been called the Colledge of Navarre and it is at this day the fairest and largest of all the rest Non ibi consistunt exempla ubi caeperunt sed intenuem accepta tramitem laâ—issima evaganoi viam sibi faciunt as Velleius This good example ended not in twenty it self but invited diverse others of the French Kings and people to the erecting of convenient places of study so that in process of time Paris became enriched with fifty two Colledges so many it still hath though the odd fourty are little serviceable to Learning For in twelve onely of them is there any publike reading either in Divinity or Philosophy These twelve are the Colledges of 1. Harcourte 2. Caillve or the petit Sorbonne 3. Liseuer or Cerovium 4. Boncorrte 5. Montague 6. Les Marche 7. Navarre 8. De le Cardinal de Noyne 9. Le Plessis 10. De Beavis 11. La Sorbonne 12. De Clermont or the Colledge of the Jesuits There are also publike readings in the houses of the four Orders of Mendicant Friers Viz. the Carmelites the Augustines the Franciscans or Cordeliers and the Dominicans The other Colledges are destinate to other uses That of Arras is converted to an house of English Fugitives and there is another of them hard by the gate of Jacques employed for the reception of the Irish in others of them there is Lodging allotted out to Students who for ther instruction have resort to some of the twelve Colledges above mentioned In each of these Colledges there is a Rector most of whose places yeild them but small profit The greatest commodity which accreweth to them is raised from Chamber-rents their Preferments being much of a nature with that of a Principal of an Hall in Oxford or that of a Treasurer in an Inne of Chancery in London At the first erection of their Colledges they were all prohibited marriage though I see little reason for it There can hardly come any inconvenience or damage by it unto the Scholars under their charge by assuming of leases into their own hands for I think few of them have any to be so embezelled Anno 1520. or thereabouts it was permitted to such of them as were Doctors in Physick that they might marry the Cardinal of Toute-ville Legate in France giving to them that indulgence Afterwards in the year 1534. the Doctors of the Laws petitioned the Vniversity for the like priviledge which in fine was granted to them and confirmed by the Court of Parliament The Doctors of Divinity are the onely Academicals now barred from it and that not as Rectors but as Preists These Colledges for their building are very inelegant and generally little beholding to the curiosity of the Artificer So confused and so ill proportioned in respect of our Colledges in England as Exeter in Oxford was some twelve years since in comparison of the rest or as the two Temples in London now are in reference to Lincolns Inne The Revenues of them are sutable to the Fabricks as mean and curtailed I could not learn of any Colledge that hath greater allowances than that of the Sorbonne and how small a trifle that is we shall tell you presently But this is not the poverty of the Vniversity of Paris onely all France is troubled with the same want of encouragements in learning Neither are the Academies of Germany in any happier estate which occasioned Erasmus that great light of his times having been here in England and seen Cambridge to write thus to one of his Dutch acquaintance Vnum Collegium Cantabrigiense confidenter dicam superat vel decem nostra It holdeth good in the neatness and graces of the buildings in which sense he spake it but it had been more undeniable had he intended it of the Revenues Yet I was given to understand that at Tholoza there was amongst twenty Colledges one of an especial quality and so indeed it is if rightly considered There are said to be in it twenty Students places or Fellowships as we call them The Students at their entrance are to lay down in deposito six thousand F lorens or Liures to stay there onely six years in the mean time to enjoy the profits of the House at the 6 years end to have his 6000. Liures paid unto him by Successor Vendere jure potest emerat ille prius A pretty Market The Colledge of Sorbonni which indeed is the glory of this Vniversity Was built by one Robert de Sorbonne of the Chamber to Lewit the ninth of whom he was very well beloved It
in these later they onely consummate strength so say the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquid ad perfectionem partium sed ad perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this Profession is the eleventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth of Papyrius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confest him to be born in the thirteenth month And Avicen a Moor of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a Child born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of Women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernatural causes Vt extra ordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the furthest understand ten moneths compleat the Child is born And Vlpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a Child born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of its pretended Father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived taking it in the most favourable construction after the conception of the Mother and by no meanes after the death of the Father and so can it no way if I were first President advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extreamly sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken Anno 1552. to be little prone to Women in the general They therefore that would seem to know more than the vulgar reckon him as one of the by-blows of Henry the fourth but this under the Rose yet by way of conjecture we may argue thus First from the Kings care of his education assigning him for his Tutor Nicholas de Februe whom he also designed for his Son King Lewis Secondly from his care to work the Prince then young Mollis aptus agi to become a Catholike Thirdly the age of the old Henry of Conde and the privacy of this King with his Lady being then King of Navarre in the prime of his strength and in discontent with the Lady Margaret of Valoys his first Wife Adde to this that Kings love to fair Ladies in the general and we may see this probability to be no miracle For besides the Dutchess of Beaufort the Marchioness of Verneville and the Countess of Morret already mentioned he is beleived to have been the Father of Mr. Luines the great Favorite of King Lewis And certain it is that the very year before his death when he was even in the winter of his dayes he took such an amorous liking to the Prince of Conde s Wife a very beautiful Lady and Daughter to the Constable Duke of Montmorencie that the Prince to save his honour was compelled to flie together with his Princess into the Arch-Dukes Country whence he returned not till long after the death of King Henry If Marie de Medices in her Husbands life time paid his debts for him which I cannot say she onely made good that of vindicate· And yet perhaps a consciousness of some injuries not onely moved her to back the Count of Soison's and his faction against the Prince and his but also to resolve upon him for the Husband of her Daughter From the Princes of the bloud descend we to the Princes of the Court and therein the first place we meet with Mr. Barradas the Kings present Favourite a young Gentleman of a fresh and lively hew little bearded and one whom the people as yet cannot accuse for any oppression or misgovernment Honours the King hath conferred none upon him but onely Pensions and Offices He is the Governour of the Kings Children of Honour Pages we call them in England a place of more trouble than wealth or credit He is also the Master of the Horse or le grand Escuire the esteem of which place recompenceth the emptiness of the other for by vertue of this Office he carryeth the Kings Sword sheathed before him at his entrance into Paris the Cloth of Estate carryed over the King by the Provosts and Eschevins is his Fee No man can be the Kings Spur maker his Smith or have any place in the Kings Stables but from him and the like This place to note so much by the way was taken out of the Constables Office Comes stabuli is the true name to whom it properly belonged in the time of Charles the seventh Besides this he hath a pension of 500000. Crowns yearly and had an Office given him which he sold for 100000. Crownes in ready money A good fortune for one who the other day was but the Kings Page And to say truth he is as yet but a little better being onely removed from his Servant to his play-fellow with the affairs of State he intermeddleth not if he should he might expect the Queene Mother should say to him what Apollo in Ovid did to Cupid Tibi quia cum fortibus armis Mi puer ista decent humeros gestamina nostros For indeed first during her Sons minority and after since her redentigration with him she hath made her self so absolute a Mistress of her mind that he hath entrusted to her the entire conduct of all his most weighty affairs for her Assistant in the managing of her greatest business she hath pieced her self to the strongest side of the State the Church having principally since the death of the Marshall D' Anere Joneane assumed to her Counsails the Cardinal of Richileiu a man of no great birth were Nobility the greatest Parentage but otherwise to be ranked among the Noblest Of a sound reach he is and of a close brain one exceedingly well mixt of a Lay Vnderstanding and a Church Habit one that is compleatly skilled in the art of men and a perfect Master of his own mind and affections Him the Queene useth as her Counseller to keep out frailty and the Kings name as her countenance to keep off envy She is of a Florentine wit and hath in her all the vertues of Katherine de Medices her Ancestor in the Regencie and some also of her vices only her designes tend not to the ruine of her Kingdome and her Children John de Seirres telleth us in his Inventaire of France how the Queene Katherine suffered her Son Henry the third a devout and simple Prince to spend his most dangerous times even uncontrolled upon his Beades whiles in the meantime she usurped the Government of the Realm Like it is that Queene Mary hath
Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
live happily if they can be content to live obediently that which is taken from them being matter of strength onely not priviledge Let us now look upon them in their Churches which we shall find as empty of magnificence as ceremony to talk amongst them of Common prayers were to fright them with a second coming of the Mass and to mention Prayers at the burial of the dead were to perswade them of a Purgatory Painted glass in a Church window is accounted for the flag and ensign of Antichrist and for Organs no question but they are deemed the Devils Bap pipes Shew them a Surplice and they cry out a rag of the Whore of Babylon yet a Sheet upon a Woman when she is in childâ—bed is a greater abomination than the other A strange people that could never think the Mass-book sufficiently reformed till they had taken away Prayers nor that their Churches could ever be handsome until they were ragged This foolish opposition of their first Reformers hath drawn the Protestants of these parts into a world of dislike and envy and been no small disadvantage to their side whereas the Church of England though it dissent as much from the Papists in point of doctrine is yet not uncharitably thought on by the moderatest Catholikes by reason it retained such an excellency of discipline When the Liturgie of our Church was translated into Latine by Doctor Mocket once Warden of All-Souls Colledge in Oxford it was with great approof and applause received here in France by those whom they call Catholikes Royal as marvelling to see such order and regular devotion in them whom they were taught to condemn for heretical An allowance which with some little help might have been raised higher from the practise of our Church to some points of our judgement And it is very worthy of our observation that which the Marquess of Rhosney spake of Canterbury when he came as extraordinary Embassadour from King Henry the fourth to welcome King James into England for upon the view of our solemn Service and Ceremonies he openly said unto his fellows that if the reformed Churches in France had kept the same orders amongst them which we have he was assured that there would have been many thousands more of Protestants than now there are But the Marquess of Rhosney was not the last that said so I have heard divers French Papists who were here at the Queens coming over and ventured so far upon an excommunication as to be present at our Church solemn Services extolling them and us for their sakes even almost unto Hyperboles So graciously is our temper entertained amongst them As are their Churches such is their discipline naked of all antiquity and almost as modern as the men which embraced it The power and calling of Bishops they abrogated with the Mass upon no other cause then that Geneva had done it As if that excellent man Mr. Calvin had been the Pythagoras of our age and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Ipse dixit had stood for Oracle The Hierarchi of Bishops thus cast out they have brought in their places Lay-Elders a kind of Monsters never heard of in the Scriptures or first times of the Gospel These men leap from the stall to the Bench and partly sleeping and partly stroaking their beard they enact Laws of government for the Church So that we may justly take up the complaint of the Satyrist saying Surgunt nobis e Sterquitineo magistratus nec dum tot is manibus publica tractant negotia yet to these very men composed equally of ignorance and a Trade are the most weighty matters of the Church committed In them is the power of ordaining Priests of conferring places of Charge and even of the severest censure of the Church Excommunication When any business which concerneth the good of the Congregation is befallen they must be called to counsel and you shall find them there as soon as ever they can put off their aprons Having blotted out there a little classical non-sense and passed their consents rather by nodding of their heads than any other sensible articulation they hasten to their Shops as Quinctius the Dictator in Florus did to his Plow Vt adopus relictum festinasse videatur Such a platform though it be as needeth no further confutation then to know it yet had it been the more tolerable if the Contrivers of it had not endeavoured to impose it on all the reformation by which meanes what troubles have been raised by the great Zealots here in England there is none so young but hath heard some tragical relations God be magnified and our late King praised by whom this weed hath been snatched up out of the garden of this our Israel As for their Ministery it is indeed very learned in their study and exceeding painful in their calling by the first they confute the ignorant of the Romish Clergy by the second their laziness And questionless it behoveth them so to be for living in a Country full of opposition they are forced to a necessity of book-learning to maintain the Cause and being continually as it were beset with spies did therefore frequent the Pulpits to hold up their credits The maintenance which is alotted them scarce amounteth to a competency though by that name they please to call it With receiving of tythes they never meddle and therefore in their Systematical Tractats of Divinity they do hardly allow of paying of them Some of them hold that they are Jewish and abrogated with the Law Others think them meerly to be Jure Humano and yet that they may be lawfully accepted where they are tendered It is well yet that there are some amongst theÌ„ which will commend grapes though they cannot reach them This Competency may come to forty or fifty pound yearly or a little more Beza that great and famous Preacher of Geneva had but eighty pound a year and about that rate was Peter du Moulins pension when he preached at Clarenton These stipends are partly paid by the King and partly raised by way of Collection So the Ministers of those Churches are much of the nature of the English Lecturers As for the Tythes they belong to the several Parish Priests in whose precincts they are due and those I warrant you according to the little learning which they have will hold them to be Jure Divino The Sermons of the French are very plain home-spun little in them of the Fathers and less of humane learning it being concluded in the Synode of Sappe that onely the Scriptures should be used in their Pulpits they consist much of exhortation and use and of nothing in a manner which concerneth knowledge A ready way to raise up and edifie the will and affections but withall to starve the understanding For the education of them being Children they have private Schools when they are better grown they may have free recourse unto any of the French Academies besides the new Vniversity of Saumus which
stubborn and churlish people very impatient of a rigorous yoak and such as inherit a full measure of the Beiseains liberty and spirit from whom they are descended Le Droit de fonage the priviledge of levying of a certain peice of money upon every Chimney in an house that smoaked was in times not long since one of the Jura Regalia of the French Lords and the people paid it without grumbling yet when Edward the black Prince returned from his unhappy journey into Spain and for the paying of his Souldiers to whoÌ„ he was indebted laid this fonage upon the people being then English they all presently revolted to the French and brought great prejudice to our affairs in those quarters Next unto the Gabel of Salt we may place the Taille and the Taillon which are much of a nature with the Subsidies in England being granted by the people and the sum of that certain shall please to impose them Anciently the Tailles were onely levied by way of extraordinary subsidie and that upon four occasions which were the Knighting of the Kings Son the Marriage of his Daughters a Voyage of the Kings beyond Sea and his Ransome in case he were taken Prisoner Les Tailles ne sont point deves de devoyer ordicmer saith Rayneau ains ont este accorded durant la necessite des Affaires Semblement Afterward they were continually levied in times of warr and at length Charles the first made them ordinary neither is it extended equally all of it would amount to a very fair revenue For supposing this that the Kingdom of France contained two hundred millions of acres as it doth and that from every one there were raised to the King two Sols yeerly which is little in respect of the taxes imposed on them that income alone besides that which levied on goods personal would amount to two millions of pounds in a year But this payment also lyeth all on the Paisant The greater Towns the Officers of the Kings House the Officers of Warrs the Presidents Counsellors and Officers of the Court of Parliament the Nobility the Clergy and the Schollars of the Vniversity being freed from it That which they call the Taillon was intended for the ease of the Country though now it prove one of the greatest burdens unto it In former times the Kings Souldiers lay all upon the charge of the Villages the poor people being fain to find them diet lodging and all necessaries for themselves their horses and their harlots which they brought with them If they were not well pleased with their entertainment they used commonly to beat their Host abuse his family and rob him of that small provision which he had laid up for his Children and all this Cum privilegio Thus did they move from one Village to another and at the last returned unto them from whence they came Ita ut non sit ibi villula una expers calamitatis istius quae non semel aut bis in anno hac nefandâ pressurâ depiletur as Sir John Fâ—rtescue observed in his time To redress this mischeif King Henry the second Anno 1549. raised his Imposition called the Taillon issuing out of the lands and goods of the poor Country man whereby he was at the first somewhat eased but now all is again out of order the miserable Paisant being oppressed by the Souldier as much as ever and yet he still payeth both taxes the Taille and the Taillon The Pancarte comprehendeth in it divers particular imposts but especially the Sol upon the Liure that is the twentieth penny of all things bought or sold corn sallets and the like onely excepted Upon wine besides the Sol upon the Liure he hath his several customs at the entrance of it into any of his Cities passages by Land Sea or River To these Charles the ninth Anno 1561. added a tax of five Sols upon every Maid which is the third part of a Tun and yet when all this is done the poor Vintner payeth unto the King the eighth penny he takes for that wine which he selleth In this Pancart is also contained the bant passage which are the tols paid unto the King for passage of men and cattel over his bridges and his City gates as also for all such Commodities which they bring with them A good and round sum considering the largeness of the Kingdom the thorough-fare of Lyons being farmed yearly of the King for 100000. Crowns Hereunto belong also the Aides which are a taxe also of the Sol on the Liure upon all sorts of fruits provision wares and Merchandize granted first unto Charles Duke of Normandy when John his Father was prisoner in England and since made perpetual For such is the lamentable fate of that Country that their kindnesses are made duties and those moneys which they once grant out of love are alwayes after exacted of them and paid out of necessity The bedrolle of all these impositions and taxes is called the Paneart because it was hanged up in a frame like as the Officers Fees are in our Bishops Diocesan Courts the word Pan signifying a frame or pane of wainscot These impositions time and custom hath now made tolerable though at first day they seemed very burdensome and moved many Cities to murmuring some to rebellion Amongst others the City of Paris proud of her ancient liberties and immunities refused to admit of it This indignity so incensed Charles the sixth their King then young and in hot bloud that he seized into his hands all their priviledges took from their Provost des Merchants and the Eschevins as also the key of their gates and the chains of their streets and making through the whole Town such a face of mourning that one might justly have said Haec facies Troiae cum caperetur erat This happened in the year 1383. and was for five years together continued which time being expired and other Cities warned by that example the imposition was established and the priviledges restored For the better regulating of the profits arising from these imposts the French King erected a Court Le Cour des Aides It consisted at the first of the general of the Aides and of any four of the Lords of the Councel whom they would call to their assistance Afterwards Charles the fifth Anno 1380. or thereabouts settled it in Paris and caused it to be numbred as one of the Soveraign Courts Lewis the eleventh dissolved it and committed the managing of his Aids to his Household servants as loath to have any publike Officers take notice how he fleeced his people Anno 1464. it was restored again And finally Henry the second Anno 1551. added to it a second Chamber composed of two Presidens and eight Counsellors One of which Presidents Mr. Cavilayer is said to be the best moneyed man of all France There are also others of these Courts in the Country as one at Roven one at Montferrant in Averyne one at Bourdeaux and another at Montpellier
distinctly then the rest I cannot say more elegantly yet partly for this reason partly because of the study of the Law and partly because of the sweetnesse of the aire the Town is never without abundance of strangers of all Nations which are in correspondency with the French but in the greatest measure it is replenished with those of Germany who have here a Corporation indeed do make among themselves a better Vniversity then the Vniversity This Corporation consisteth of a Procurator a Questor an Assessor two Bibliothecaries and twelve Counsellors they have all of them their distinct jurisdictions and are solemnly elected by the rest of the company every third moneth The Consulship of Rome was never so welcome unto Cicero as the office of Procurator is to a Dutch Gentleman he for the time of his command ordering the affaires of all his Nation and to say truth being much respected by those of the Towne it is his office to admit of the young comers to receive the moneyes due at their admission and to receive an account of the dispending of it of the Questor and the expiring of his charge The office of an Assessor is like that of a Clerk of the Councell and the Secretary mixt fot he registreth the Acts of their Counsells writeth Letters in the name of the House to each of the French Kings at their new coming to the Crown and if any Prince or extraordinary Ambassadour cometh to the town he entertaineth him with a Speech The Bibliothecaries look to the Library in which they are bound to remain three houres a day in their severall tuâ—nes a pretty room it is very plentifully furnished with choyce books and that at small charge for that it is here the custome that every one of the Nation at his departure must leave with them one of what kinde or price it best pleaseth him besides each of the Officers at the resigning of his charge giveth unto the new Questor a piece of gold about the value of a Pistolet to be expended according as the necessities of their state require which most an end is bestowed upon the increase of their Library Next unto this Cite des Littres as one of the French writers calleth Paris is their Counsell-house an handsome squire Chamber and well furnished In this they hold their consultations and in this preserve their Records and Priviledges the keeping of the one and summoning the other being meerly in the hands of the Procurator About the Table they have five Chaires for the five principall Officers those of the Councell sitting round the Chamber on Stools the arms of the Empire being placed directly over every of the Seats If it happen that any of them dye there they all accompany him to his Grave in a manner mixt so orderly of Griefe and State that you would think the obsequies of some great Potentate were solemnizing and to say truth of them they are a hearty and loving Nation not to one another onely but to strangers and especially to us of England Onely I could wish that in their Speech and Complement they would not use the Latine tongue or else speak it more congruously You shall hardly finde a man amongst them which can make a shift to expresse himselfe in that language nor one amongst an hundred that can doe it Latinely Galleriam Compaginem Gardinum and the like are as usuall in their common discourse as to drinke at three of the clock and as familiar as their sleep Had they bent their study that way I perswade my self they would have been excellent good at the Common Lawes their tongues so naturally falling on these words which are necessary to a Declaration but amongst the rest I took especiall notice of one Mr. Gebour a man of that various mixture of words that you would have thought his tongue to have been a very Amsterdam of Languages Cras mane 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non irous ad magnam Galleriam was one of his remarkable speeches when we were at Paris but here at Orleans we had them of him thick and threefold If ever he should chance to dye in a strange place where his Countrey could not be knowne but by his tongue it could not possibly be but that more Nations would strive for him than ever did for Homer I had before read of the confusion of Babel in him I came acquainted with it yet this use might be made of him and his hotch-potch of Languages that a good Chymicall Physitian would make an excellent medicine of it against the stone In a word to goe no more upon the particulars I never knew a people that spake more words and lesse Latine Of these ingredients is the Vniversity of Orleans compounded if at least it be lawfull to call it an Vniversity as I thinke it be not the name of Academie would beseem it better and God grant as Zancho Panca said of his wife it be able to discharge that calling I know that these names are indifferently used but not properly for an Academie the name is derived from a place neer Athens called Academia where Plato first taught Philosophie in its strict and proper sense is such a study wherein one or two Arts are professed as Law at Orleans and Bononia and Physick at Montpelleir and Padua An Vniversity is so called quòd Vniversae ibi traduntur disciplinae as the name importeth where Learning is professed in the Generality and in the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it The first the Germans call Schola illustris the latter Generale studium very opposite titles and in which there is little of a German CHAP. IV. Orleans not an University till the coming of the Jesuits Their Colledge there by whom built The Jesuits not Singers Their laudable and exact Method of teaching Their Policy in it Received not without great difficulty into Paris Their houses in that University Their strictnesse unto the Rules of their order Much maliced by the other Priests and Friers Why not sent into England with the Queen And of what order they were that came with her Our returne to Paris THe difference between an Vniversity and an Academy standing thus those which lived in our Fathers dayes could hardly have called Orleans an Vniversity a Shoole of Law being the name most fit for it At this time since the coming of the Jesuits that appellation may not misbecome it they having brought with them those parts of Learning which before were wanting in it but that hath not been of any long standing their Colledge being yet not fully finished By an Inscription over the gate it seemeth to be the work of Mr. Cagliery one of the Advocates in the Parliament of Paris a man of large practise and by the consequence of greatâ— possessions and who having no child but this Colledge is said to intend the fastening of his estate upon it In this house doe those of this order apply themsevles to the study of good Letters in
1594. John Chastell of Novice of this order having wounded King Henry the fourth in the mouth occasioned the banishment of this Society out of all France Into which they were not againe received till the yeare 1604. and then also upon limitations more strict than ever Into Paris they were not re-admitted untill Anno 1606. neither had they the liberty of reading Lectures and instructing the Youth confirmed unto them untill Anno 1621. which also was compassed not without great trouble and vexation Per varios casus tot discrimina rerum as Aeneas and his companions came into Latium In this Vniversity they have at this instant three Houses one of Novices a second of Institutors which they call the Colledge and a third of professed Jesuits which they stile their Monastery or the professed House of St. Lewis In their house of Novices they traine up all those whom they have called out of their Schooles to be of their order and therein imitate them in the art of Jesuitisme and their mysteries of iniquity There they teach them not Grammaticall construction or composition but instruct them in the paths of Vertue Courage and Obedience according to such examples as their Authors afford them But he that made the Funerall Oration for Henry the fourth Anno 1610. reported otherwise Latini Sermonis obtentu saith he impurissime Gallicae juventutis mores ingenuos foedant Bonarum artium praetextu pessimas edocent artes Dum ingenia excolunt animas perdunt c. In their College they have the same method of teaching which the others of their company use in Orleans A Colledge first given unto them by Mr. William Prat Bishop of Clermont whose House it was but much beautified by themselves after his decease for with the money which he gave unto them by his Will which amounteth as it was thought to 60000. Crowns they added to it the Court called de Langres in S. James's street An. 1582. Their Monastery or house of prayer or profession is that unto which they retire themselves after they have discharged their duties in the College by reading and studying publickly in their severall Classes when they are here their study both for time and quality is ad placitum though generally their onely study in it is Policy and the advancing of their cause And indeed out of this Trojan Horse it is that those firebrands and incendiaries are let out to disturb and set in combustion the affaires of Christendome Out of this Forge come all those Stratagems and tricks of Machiavillianisme which tend to the ruine of the Protestants the desolation of their Countries I speak not this of their house of Profession here in Paris either onely or principally wheresoever they settle they have a House of this nature out of which they issue to overthrow the Gospel Being once sent by their superiours a necessity is laid upon them of obedience be the imployment never so dangerous and certainly this nation doth most strictly obey the rules of their order of any whosoever not excepting the Capuchins nor the Carthusians This I am witnesse unto that whereas the Divinity Lecture is to end at the tolling of a Bell one of the Society in the College of Clermont reading about the fall of the Angells ended his Lecture with these words Denique in quibuscunque for then was the warning given and he durst not so farre trespasse upon his rule as to speak out his sentence But it is not the fate of these Jesuites to have great persons onely and Vniversities to oppose their fortunes they have also the most accomplisht malice that either the Secular Priests or their friends amongst whom they live can fasten upon them Some envy them for the greatnesse of their possessions some because of the excellency of their Learning some hate them for their power some for the shrewdnesse of their braines all together making good that saying of Paterculus that Semper eminentis fortunae comes est invidia True indeed it is that the Jesuites have in a manner deserved all this clamor and stomack by their own insolencies for they have not onely drawne into their owne hands all the principall affaires of Court and State but upon occasions cast all the storme and contempt they can upon those of the other Orders The Janizaries of the Turke never more neglectfully speak of the Asapi than these doe of the rest of the Clergie A great crime in those men who desire to be accounted such excellent Masters of their owne affections Neither is the affection borne to them abroad greater then that at home amongst those I mean of the opposite party who being so often troubled and frumped by them have little cause to afford them a liking and much lesse a welcome Upon this reason they were not sent into England with the Queen although at the first they were destinate to that purpose It was well known how odious that name was among us and so little countenance the Court or Countrey would have afforded them They therefore that had the governance of that businesse sent hither in their places the Oratorians or Fratres Congregationis Oratorii were a race of men never as yet offensive to the English further than the generall defence of the Romish cause and so lesse subject to envie and exception They were first entituled by Philip Nerius not long after the Jesuits and advanced and dignified by Pope Sixtus the fifth principally for this end that by their incessant Sermons to the People of the lives of Saints and other Ecclesiasticall antiquitie they might get a new reputation and so divert a little the torrent of the peoples affections from the Jesuits Baronius that great and excellent Historian and Bozius that deadly enemy to the soveraignty of Princes were of the first foundation of this new order I have now done with Orleans and the Jesuits and must prepare for my returne to Paris which journey I began the 13. of July and ended the day following We went back the same way that we came though we were not so fortunate as to enjoy the same company we came in formerly Instead of the good and acceptable society of one of the French Noblesse some Gentlemen of Germany and two Friers of the Order of S. Austin we had the perpetuall vexation of foure Tradesmen of Paris two Fulles de Joy and an old Woman The Artizans so slovenly attired and greazy in their apparell that a most modest apprehension could have conceived no better of them than that they had been newly raked out of the Scullery one of them by an inkhorne that hung by his side wouâ—d have made us believe that he had been â— Notary buâ— by the thread of his discourse we found out that hâ— was a Sumner so full of Ribaldry was it and so rankly did it savour of the French Bawdy court The rest of them talked according to their skill concerning the price of Commodities and whâ— was the most likely man
which this Town is famous in the writers of both Nations is an enterviewe there given between our Edward the fourth and their Lewis the eleventh upon the concluding of their nine years truce a circumstance of no great moment in it self had not Phillip de Comminees made it such by one of his own observations Upon this meeting the Chancellor of England being Bishop of Ely made an oration to both Kings beginning with a prophesie which said that in this place of Pignigni an honourable peace should be concluded between both the Kingdomes On this ground which himself also is the onely man that related he hath built two observations the one I have not the original by me that the English men are never unfurnished with Prophesies the other that they ground every thing which they speak upon Prophesies How far those times were guilty of that humor I cannot say though sure I am we are not the onely men that were so affected Paulus Jovius in some place of his Histories I remember not the particular hath vindicated that quarrel for us and fastned the same imitation upon the French So true is that of the Fragaedian Quod quisque fecit patitur authorem scelus Reperit And now being past Pignigni I have lost the sight of the Church of Amiens The fairest fabrick and most rich to see That ere was guilty of mortalitie No present structure like it nor can Fame In all its bead rolles boast an equal name Let then the barbarous Egyptians cease So to extol their huge Pyramides Let them grow silent of their Pharus and Conceale the other triumphs of their Land And let the Charians henceforth leave to raise Their Mausolaea with such endless praise This Church alone doth them as much excell As they the lowest Cottages where dwell The least of men as they those urnes which keep The smallest ashes which are laid to sleep Nor be thou vext thou glorious Queen of night Nor let a cloud of darkness mask thy light That renown'd Temple which the Greeks did call The Worlds seventh wonder and the fair'st of all That Pile so famous that the World did see Two onely great and high thy Fame and Thee Is neither burnt nor perisht Ephesus Survives the follies of Herostratus Onely thy name in Europe to advance It was transported to the Realm of France And here it stands not robb'd of any grace Which there it had not altered save in place Cast thy Beams on it and t' will soon be proud Thy Temple was not ruin'd but remov'd Nor are thy Rights so chang'd but thou 'lt averre Ibis Christian is thy old Idolater But oh great God how long shall thy Decree permit this Temple to Idolatrie How long shall they profane this Church and make Those sacred Walls and Pavements to partake Of their loud sins and here that doctrine teach ' Gainst which the very stones do seem to preach Reduce them Lord unto thee make them see How ill this building and their Rites agree Or make them know though they be still the same This House was purpos'd onely to thy Name The next place of note which the water conveyed us to was the Town and Castle of Pont d' Armie a place now scarce vissible in the auines and belonging to one Mr. Queran it took name as they said from a Bridge here built for the transpoâ—tation of an Armie but this I cannot justifie Three Leagues down the River is the Town of Abbeville a Town conveniently seated on the Some which runneth through it It is of greater circuit within the walls than the Citie of Amiens and hath four parish Churches more in it but is not so beautifull nor so populous for the houses here are of an older stamp and there is within the Town no scarcity of wast ground I went round about the walls and observed the thinness of the houses and the largeness of the fields which are of that capacity and extent that for ought I could apprehend the Town needs never to be compelled by famine if those fields were husbanded to the best advantages the walls are of earth within and stone without of an unequal bredth and in some places ruiâ—ous A Castle it once had of which there is now scarce any thing remaining instead of which and in places more convenient they have built out three bastions very large and capacious and such which well manned needs not yeeld up on a summons There are also a couple of Mounts raised nigh unto the Wall at that place where the Country is most plain upon which good Ordinance would have good command but at this time there were none upon it without the walâ—s it is diversly strengthened having in some places a deep ditch without water in some a shallower ditch but well filled with the benefit of the benefit of the River the others only a marish and fennie levell more dangerous to the enemie and service to the Town than either of the rest and therefore never guarded by the Souldiers of the Garrison but the chief strength of it is five Companies of Swisses 100. men in a Company proper tall felâ—owes in appearance and such as one would imagine fit for the service It was my chance to see them begin their watch to which employment they advanced with so good order and such shew or stomack as if they had not gone to guard a sown but possess one Their watch was at Port de Boys and Port St. Valery the first thing â—ear unto Hesden a frontier Town of Artoys the other five Leagues only from the See and Haven of St. Valery from these places most danger was feared and therefore there kept most of their Souldiers and all their Ordinance The Captain is named Mr. Aille a Grison by birth and reported for a good Souldier besides him they have no Military Commander the Mayor of the Town contrary to the common nature of Towns of warre being there in highest authority A priviledge granted unto the Mayors hereof not long since as a reward due to one of their Integrities who understanding that the Governour of the Town held intelligence with the Arch Duke apprehended him and sent him to the Court where he receceived his punishment This Abbeville and so I leave it and in it the berry of French Lasses is so called quasi Abbatis Villa as formerly belonging to some Abbot July the last we took post-horse for Boulogne if at least we may call those Post-horses which we rode on As lean they were as Envis is in the Poet Macies in corporatota being most true of them Neither were they onely lean enough to have their ribs numbred but the very spur-gals had made such casements through their skins that it had been no greater difficulty to have surveyed their entrails A strange kind of Cattel in mine opinion and such as had neither flesh on their bones nor skin on their flesh nor hair on their skin Sure I am they were not so