Caesonia yet in the greatest heat of his fire he made love to her in these termes This fayre head shall be chopt off as soone as I but speake the word and told her sometimes that he had a greater minde to put her on the racke to make her tell him why he loved her so much The meaning Madam of all this is that the tamest of all Tygers is a cruell Beast and that it is a most dangerous thing to be wooâ—…d with talons I have seene the Booke you write to me of and finde it not unpleasing particularly where speaking of the makers of Pasquius and of saâ—… tyricall Poets he sayth that besides the golden age the age of silver of brasse and of iron so famous and so much talkt of in their Fables there is yet behinde to come an age of wood of which the ancient Poets never dreamt and in the miseries and calamities whereof they themselves shall have a greater part than any other If I goe abroad to morrow I hope to have the honour to see you In the meane time that I may observe good manners and not be wanting in formalities I will say I am Madam Your c. At Balzae 16. Aug. 1627. To LETTER XLV MY Lord besides the thankes I owe you for my Head I have a speciall charge from Madam de to thanke you from her and to give you a testimonie of your Coach-mans skill He is in truth a great man in his profession one might well trust him and slip from hence to Paris He glides by the brinke of Praecipices and passeth broken bridges with an admirable dexteritie say what you can of his manners otherwise Pardon mee my Lord if I maintaine that they be no vices and that you doe him great wrong to reproach him with them in your Letter Hee doth that by designe which you thinke hee doth by inclination and because he hath heard that a man once overthrew the Common-wealth when he was sober he thinkes that to drinke well is no ill qualitie to well governing Hee takes otherwise no care for going astray seeing he hath a God for his guide and a God that was returned from the Indies before Alexander was come into the world After so long a voyage one may well trust Father Denys with a short walke and hee that hath tamed Tygers may well be allowed to mannage horses Your Coach-man my Lord hath studied thus farre and if they who hold in their hands the reynes of the State to use the phrase of had beene as intelligent and dextrous as he they would have runne their race with a better fortune and our age should not have seene the fall of the Duke of nor of the Earle of it is written to me from the Court that These are the onely Newes I received by the last Post but I send you in their companie the Booke you desired which is as you know the booke of the wickednesse of the world and the ancient originall of all the moderne subtleties The first Christians endevoured to suppresse it and called it Mendacoorum Loquacissemum but men at this day make it their Oracle and their Gospell and seeke in it rather for Sejanus and Tygellinus to corrupt their innocency than for Corbulo or Thraseus to instruct them to vertue at our next meeting wee shall talke more hereof The great Personage I have praysed stands in doubt that his Encomium is at an end and presseth me to conclude that I am My Lord Your c. At Bolzac 4. June 1634. To LETTER XLVI SIR I am sorry to heare of the continuance of your maladie though I hope it be not so great as you make it These are fruits of this unseasonable time and I doubt not but your â—…leame which overflowes with the rivers will also with the fall of the rivers returne againe to its naturall bounds I have had my part in this inundation and it would be no small commoditie to me that things should stay in the state they now are in for by this meanes my house being made an Island I should be lesse troubled than now I am by people of the firme Land But seeing upon the abating of the waters depends the abating of your Rhume I am contented with all my heart they shall abate aâ—… above all things desiring your health yet withall I must tell you there is care to be used you must absteine from all moyst meates forbeare the good cheare of Paris and follow the advise of an ancient sage who counselled a man troubled with your disease to change the rayne into drowth You see how bold I am to send you my praescriptions I entreat you to follow them but not to imitate me for in this matter of Medicines I confesse my selfe a Pharisee I commend a Julippe to others but I drinke my selfe the Sweetest Wines But to speake of something else I cannot imagine why Monsieur de should keepe me languishing so long and having made mee stand waiting three moneths after his time appointed should now require a further prorogation and a longer delay For my part I verily beleeve he spake not in earnest when he made you this untoward answer and that it was rather for a tryall of your patience than for an exercise He hath the reputation of so honest and just a man that I can make no doubt of that he hath promised to Monsieur de and I am perswaded he accounts himselfe more streightly tyed by his word than by his bond Monsieur the beleeves that I have fingred my silver a yeare since and you know it is a summe provided to stoppe three or foure of my Persecutours mouthes who will never leave vexing you with their clamours day and night till they be satisfied It is therefore your part to use all meanes possible to content them at least if you love your libertie and take not a pleasure to be every morning saluted with extreame unpleasing good morrowes I expect hereupon to heare from you and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 17. Jan. 1630. To LETTER XLVII SIR you are too just to desire such duties from a sicke friend as you would exact from one that were in health The reasons I can give of my silence are much juster than I would they were and me thinkes three moneths continuing in a Feaver may well dispense with any obligation whatsoever of a civill life Yet seeing you will needs have me speake I cannot but obey you though I make use of a strangers hand to quarrell with you I cannot endure the dissimulation you shew in doubting of my affection and of the truth of my words I understand no jeasting on that side these are Games that I am uncapable to learne and in matter of friendship I am of that tendernesse that I am even wounded with that which is perhaps intended but for a tickling I perceive I have beene complained upon to you but I entreat you to beleeve it hath been upon very
the League committed the like incongruitie when ita ve the Duke de Maine the title of Lieutenant of the State and crowne of France but this was not without a checke you know what sport the Catholicon makes at it and with what force hee defends at once both the rights of the Kingdome and the lawes of Grammar And where the same Authour in another place calls the Assembly which was held at Paris My Lords the States he did that but to make it rediculous and not with meaning to speake regularly Our deare friends may make of a little citie a great but of a bad word they cannot make a good and though their liberty extend very farre yet it reacheth not to license Barbarisme Mounsieur Huggens will consider of this point and if in propounding to the Counsell so important a matter he shall speede well he shall have the honour to purge his coūtry of a vitious phrase as much in the judgement of Grammarians as to free it from a Hidra or Chymaera and therein shall shew himselfe a Hercules or a Bellerophon This is a way I take with my friends to make my selfe laugh because I am given to pensivenesse when I am alone and I cannot stirre up any joy in me but by the presence at least the representation of some person which is both deere unto me and chosen for the nonce of this number Sir you are and know well that I am Sir Your c. From Paris 3. Aprill 1634. To Mounsieur de Bois Robert LETTER XXXIX SIR in the meane time till I see you be pleased to receive from mee a compliment which shall not be tedious Onely to let mee congratulate with you the recovery of your health God hath now a kinde of interest in preserving it seeing you have consecrated it to him and your life is vowed to a perpetuall meditation of his Mysteries I doubt not of his blessing this your holy desire and looke at my returne to finde a great Preacher under your Cassocke You will shew me as many Homilies as heretofore you have shewed me Sonnets and instead of Parnassus and Permessa you will speake of Sion and of Siloe Yet moderate your selfe a little at first and be reserved in a strange Country I would not have you dive too deepe into the Abysses of Predestination famous for the shipwrackes of so many Pilots or to speake more plainely for the heresies of so many Doctours If you will take my counsell you shall let the Iesuites and the Iacobins fight it out betweene themselves about the Question De Auxilijs and never meddle amongst them nor goe about to part them The often using of Syllogismes is very dangerous for health there is nothing that heates the bloud or enflame's choler more than Disputation Besides though you make your selfe hoarse with speaking for the Truth and make it never so plaine yet you shall never make your adversary to confesse it or ever be able to take hold of him so long as he can slip from you by a distinction Above all Sir let not the love of Divinity make you forget your temporall affaires and the care of your fortune for otherwise It were better I should study with you to halfes and that you should make the Court both for your selfe and me As I am like to acquit my selfe extreme badly so you are likely to grow soone to perfection and I despaire not one of these dayes to salute you by the Title Of Most Reverend Father in God I know you doe not dislike that wee should write to one another in this kind of stile which Cicero and Trebatius made use of before such time as untoward compliments had corrupted friendship and that this base jangling was brought into fashion This Trebatius was a famous Lawyer of whom Cicero made great account and yet is alwayes wrangling with him about his Science and his formall writs the like liberty I am bold to take with you whom I honour infinitely and should not in this sort contribute to our common joy if I were not with a perfect freenesse of heart Sir Your c. From Balzac 11. Novem. 1633. Another to him LETTER XL. SIR I pitty your good fortune the court that followes you at your Chamber would be to me an unsupportable honour who would not give my mornings for all the Compliments of Paris It is the flower and prime of the day that is taken from you it is the time of meditation and Prayer which flattery intruds upon There is no Creditour nor Sergeant that you might not deale withall better cheape then with these troublesome friends You are unfortunate to be so beloved and a man of whom so many other have use can be of little or no use to himselfe It is better yet to passe for a clowne then thus to prostitute ones selfe by civilitie and better never to sacrifice to the graces then to make ones selfe the beast for the Sacrifice You would perhaps intermit this course but the time is past for that a breach would draw upon you a warre and you would runne the fortune of that poore Saint who was murthered with pricks of Pen-knives and cut in peeces by his Schollers You would be the object of a Rhetoricall an Historicall a Poeticall persecution and the muses which now court you would grow furies and fall a tearing you so that you have no remedy now but to hold it out if you looke for safety in the place you are in you must ever bee the mediatour betweene Apollo and Poets you must alwayes have a thousand businesses both in Prose and Verse your chamber must be the passage alwayes from the Vniversitie to the Court This backe doore whereof you have sent mee a Platforme is in truth an excellent invention but this will presently bee discovered and you will gaine nothing by it but to be beseiged in more places at once Doe better Sir quit the place that is not tenable and come save your selfe at I am not so poore but I can make you a reasemblance at least of the good cheere of Paris and furnish you with innocent pleasures such as Philososophie and Priesthood will allow of It shall be for as short a time as you please and onely to make an ill custome take another course All the family desires this voyage particularly who is in good hope his sonne cannot prove ill seeing you have no ill opinion of him and for his daughter of whom you write mee so much good I cannot stay my selfe from vowing to you that shee is not altogether unworthy of it and perhaps would have deserved an Ayre with three couplets of your making if shee had appeared in the time when you were the great Chaunter of France But now that you have changed your course of life there is no looking for any thing from you but spirituall discourse and Christian meditations which yet will serve as fitly for a Sex to which devotion belongs no
had of you being yet unknowne There are some men that get more reputation by playing upon advantage but yours is a lawfull acquest and this integritie which hath nothing in it either fierce or fearefull this learning which is neither clownish nor quarrelsome this course which can avoid Precipices without turning out of the right way are none of the qualities with which men use to abuse the world none of the enchantments which you make use of to dazle our eyes And though our eyes were capable of illusion yet having merited the grace favour of a Prince the clearest fighted the heaâ—…ens ever made and whose gift I value lesse than his judgement It is not for us any longer to examine your sufficiencie seeing he hath chosen you for an instrument of managing his affaires You would not beleeve the pleasures that Madam Coâ—…pagnole and my selfe take in the consideration of this matter and what reflection wee receive of all those good successes that accrew unto you I can assure you she forgets you not in her devotions and if God but heare her prayers you neede not make any wishes for your selfe We promised our selves wee should see you in our Desarts but since your honour calls you otherwhere it is reason we rest satisfied with so sweete a necessity and to beare with patience that the publicke hath neede of your service It is farre from me to preferre a short satisfaction of my eyes before the long and durable joyes I expect from the progresse of your reputation and if I should desire that for your comming hither you should put your selfe the farther off from your ends my desires should bee indiscreet and I should not be the man I ought to be Sir my deare Cosin Your c. From Balzac 1. Octob. 1632. To Mounsieur de Pontac Monplesir LETTER XVII SIR my deare Cosin if the counsaile I have given you did not give me an interest in the resolution you have taken yet I could not chuse but acknowledge it to bee good considering the good successe it hath produced It is true that till now I never liked of long deliberations nor of stayd lovers but seeing your wisedome hath concluded in favour of your love and that it is no longer an idle contemplation of the person you love I seeme to conceive the designe you had in drawing out the lines of your love to such a length in which it cannot be sayd there hath beene time lost but that you would taste all the sweetnesse of hope before you would come to that of possession this is not to be irresolute but subtill and not to make a stoppe of contentments but to husband them This is not to have an apprehension of being happy but to have a desire to be happy twice so that in this point you are fully justified This circumspection which I accused wrongfully and which is equally remooved from Furie and Effeminatenesse puts the passions into a just and durable temper and makes the minde capable of its felicitie by a serious preparation and I vow unto you that the life you have begun was well worthy you should take some time to study it It is not fit to enter the state of marriage rashly and by the conduct of Fortune all the eyes that prudence hath are not too many to serve for a guide in this businesse many men fall into a snare whilst they thinke to finde a treasure and errours are there mortall where repentance is unprofitable but God be thanked you are out of danger and your happinesse is in sanctuary There is no Nectar nor Roses now but for you accept from mee I pray this one word of a wedding Complement and in the estate you are in what are you not Since a Conquerour that is crowned is but the figure of a lover that injoyes the lover receiving that really which the Conqueror but dreames You offend not the peoples eyes with proud inscriptions nor astonish them with the clamour of your conquest you celebrate your triumphs covertly and draw no mans envie upon you you reigne by your selfe alone and all the pompe which greatnesse drawes after it is not comparable to that which you injoy in secret I am not acquainted with lawfull pleasures and ought not to bee with forbidden but I have heard it sayd that in the first there is a certaine peace of spirit a confident contentment which is not found in the other And as the Hony is lesse gathered from the flowers then from the deaw which falls from the stars so these chaste pleasures are seasoned from heaven receive their perfection from the heavenly grace and not from their owne nature I have learned from the antient Sages that there is not a more antient nor a more excellent friendship then this that in this sweet societie greefes are divided and joyes doubled and that a good wife is a catholieon or universall remedy for all the evills that happen in life I doubt not but she whom you have chosen is worthy of this name and though I should hold your testimony in suspition yet I have heard it deposed with so great advantage on her part and by so tender and judicious spirits that I am not onely glad in your behalfe for the good company you have gotten you but give you thankes also in my owne behalfe for the good allyance you have brought me I am exceeding impatient till I see her that I may betweene her hands abjure my wrong opinions and if neede bee make honorable amends before her for all the blasphemies I have heretofore written against marriage I solemnely by this Letter ingage my selfe to doe it and intreate you to dispose her that shee may accept my retractations which proceede from a heart truly penitent and full of passion to testifie to you both that I am Sir my deare Cosin Your c. From Balzac 23. Septem 1633. To Mounsieur Huggens Counsellor and Secretary to my Lord the Prince of Orange LETTER XVIII SIR your Letter hath runne great hazards before it arrived here It wandred about seaven moneths together and that now at last it is come to my hands I ascribe it to the remorse of a man unknowne who being but halfe wicked contented himselfe onely with opening it but would not by any meanes that I should lose it Happy were I if I could as well recover other things I greeve for and that I could say hee were but strayed whom I loved with my heart but I have lost him for ever and you are never able to restore mee that I lent you yet I lay it not to your charge nor to the charge of your innocent Country I am not of that mans humour who spake a thousand villanies against poore Troy and taxed all her Histories and Fables because forsooth his brother dyed there and perhaps of a maladie that he had gotten somewhere else My greefe is wiser then his I should take my losse unkindly at your hands if
see him doe wonders in the world you neede wish him no more but matter of imployment Hee hath all the Intendments of an honest man all the Characters of a great Lord by these he gaines mens eyes in present and their hearts in expectation and afterwards brings more goodnesse forth than ever he promised and exceedes expectation with performance And in truth if this Heroick countenance had no wares to vent but vulgar qualities this had beene a tricke put upon us by Nature to deceive us by hanging out a false signe The charge hee exerciseth in the Church is no burden to him hee hath in such sort accōmodated his humour to it that in the most painefull functions of so high a duty there lies nothing upon his shoulders but ease and delight He embraceth generally all that hee beleeves to be of the decencie of his profession and is neither tainted with the heate which accompanies the age wherein he is nor with the varietie which such a birth as his doth commonly bring with it In a word the way he takes goes directly to Rome Hee is in good grace with both the Courts and the Pope would be as willing to receive the Kings commendation of him as the King would be to give it He hath brought from thence a singular approbation and hath left behind him in all the holy Colledge a most sweete odour and that without making faces or making way to reputation by singularitie For in effect what heate soever there be in his zeale hee never suffers it to blaze beyond custome his piety hath nothing either weake or simple it is serious all and manly and he protesteth it is much better to imitate S. Charles than to counterfeit him Concerning his passion of horses which he calls his malady since hee is not extreme in it never counsell him to cure it it is not so bad as either the Sciatica or the ◅out and if he have no other disease but that hee hath not much to doe for a Physitian One may love Horses innocently as well as Flowers and Pictures and it is not the love of such things but the intemperate love that is the vice Of all beasts that have any commerce with men there are none more noble nor better conditioned and of them a great Lord may honestly and without disparagement be curious Hee indeede might well be said to be sicke of them who can sed mangers of Ivory to be made for them and gave them full measures of peeces of gold this was to be sicke of them to bestow the greatest part of his estate upon beautifying his Stable and to make a mocke what men said or thought of chusing a Consull by his horses neighing You shall give me leave to tell you another story to this purpose not unpleasant It is of Theophylact Patriarch of Constantinople who kept ordinarily two thousand horses and fedde them so daintily that in stead of Barley and Oates which to our horses are a feast hee gave them Almonds Dates and Pistache nuts and more than this as Cedrenus reports he watered them long time before in excellent wine and prepared them with all sorts of precious odours One day as hee was solemnizing his Office in the Church of Saint Sophia one came and told him in his eare that his Mare Phorbante had foaled a Colt with which hee was so ravished that instantly without having the patience to finish his Service or to put off his Pontificall Robes hee left the mysteries in the midst and ranne to his Stable to see the good newes hee had heard and after much joy expressed for so happy a birth he at last returned to the Altar and remembred himselfe of his dutie which the heate of his passion had made him to forget See Sir what it is to dote upon horses but to take a pleasure in them and to take a care of them this no doubt may make a man bee said to love them and neverthelesse not the lesse the wiser man Even Saints themselves have their pleasures and their pastimes all their whole life is not one continued miracle they were not every day foure and twentie houres in extasie amidst their Gifts their Illuminations their Raptures their Visions they had alwayes some breathing time of humane delight during all which time they were but like us and the Ecclesiasticall Story tells us that the great Saint Iohn who hath delivered Divinitie in so high a straine yet tooke a pleasure and made it his pastime to play with a Partridge which he had made tame and familiar to him I did not thinke to have gone so farre it is the subject that hath carried me away and this happens very often to mee when I fall into discourse with you My complements are very short and with men that are indifferent to mee I am in a manner dumbe but with those that are deare unto mee I neither observe Rule nor Measure and I hope you doubt not but that I am in the highest degree Sir Your c. At Balzac 5. of Ianuary 1633. To Mounsieur Godeau LETTER XXII SIR there is no more any merit in being devout Devotion is a thing so pleasing in your Booke that even prophane persons find a rellish in it and you have found out a way how to save mens soules with pleasure I never found it so much as within this weeke that you have fedde mee with the dainties of the antient Church and feasted me with the Agapes of your Saint Paul This man was not altogether unknowne to me before but I vow unto you I knew him not before but onely by sight though I had sometimes beene neare unto him yet I could never marke any more of him than his countenance and his outside your Paraphrase hath made me of his counsell and given me a part in his secrets and where I was before but one of the Hall I am now one of the Closet and see clearely and distinctly what I saw before but in cloudes and under shadowes You are to say true an admirable Decipherer of Letters in some passages to interpret your subtilty is a kinde of Devotion thoroughout the manner of your expressing is a very charme I am too proud to flatter you but I am just enough to be a witnesse of the truth and I vow unto you it never perswades me more that when it borrowes your style There reflects from it a certaine flash which pleaseth instantly as beauty doth and makes things to be lovely before one knowes they are to be loved Your words are no way unworthy of your Authour they neither weaken his conceits by stretching them out at length nor scatter the sence by spreading it out in breadth But contrariwise the powerfull spirit which was streightened within the bounds of a concise stile seemes to breath at ease in this new libertie and to encrease it selfe as much as it spreads it selfe hee seemes to passe from his fetters into triumph and to goe
braine is drie in any other Argument and wordes are drawne from me one by one but when there is occasion to speake of you then I overflow in words upon this onely Text I take a pleasure to be Preaching and Monsieur de to whom I am alwayes before a harkener as soone as I beginne discourse of you becomes my auditour I can assure you Madam he honours you exceedingly and neither his ambassage to Rome from whence Gentlemen returne not commonly without a certaine conceit of soveraigntie nor the imployments of the State which make particular men thinke themselves the Publike have beene able to make him take upon him this ungratefull gravitie which makes Greatnesse ridiculous and even vertue it selfe odious He hath protested here before good companie that hee will never be found other and that Fortune should have an ill match in hand to thinke to corrupt him I used my ordinary rudenesse and intreated him to be mindfull of his word and to be one of our first examples of so rare a moderation You shall see Madam in a Letter I send you that which hereupon I am bound to say of him and I intreat you to maintaine for me that I am no common prayser and that if I were not perswaded of what I say it is not all the Canons of the Towne should make mee to say it It is onely the worth of things or at least the opinion I have of their worth that drawes from mee the prayses I give them If Monsieur de should returne to be a private person I should not respect him a jot lesse than now I doe and if you should be made Governesse of the Kings house I should not be a whit more than I am Madam Your c. At Balzac 30. Aprill 1633. Another to her LETTER XL. MAdam never trust me any more I promise that I cannot performe but though I be a deceiver I am an honest one my promises are alwayes true in my intention though oftentimes false in the Event I know not what to say of this unfortunatenesse nor to what knowne cause to attribute this long trayne of mischiefes It must needs be there is some Devill imployed to hinder voyages to Lymousin and that will not suffer me to goe thither to see you sometimes he rayseth up suites in Law against me sometimes puts me into a quarrell and when these be composed and that I am ready to take horse either he sends mee companie to divert mee or prickes my horse in shooing or puts a legge out of joynt for all these crosses have befallen mee as he that delivers you this Letter can be my witnesse But withall Madam he shall assure you that though I flie away by night and be carried in a chayre it shall not be long ere I will have the honour to come and see you In the meane time vouchsafe to accept from me the amusement of halfe an houre and be pleased to reade an Inscription which was lately found and taken forth of the ruines of an old Building It is engraven in Letters of Gold upon a Table of blacke Marble and seemes Prophetically to speake of you and mee If I were a man could make Verses you might doubt it were some tricke put upon you but my ignorance justifies mee and seeing as you know Poets are not made it were a strange thing I should be borne at the age of seaven and thirtie yeares I expect from you a Comment upon the whole Mystery and remaine Madam Your c. At Balzac 6. Jan. 1631. In Effigiem D. D. praestantissimae laudatissimae faeminae Hac est sequanico veniens à littore Nympha Hospite quâ Lemovix jure superbit ager Quis de fiderium Dominae mihi durius urbis Mitigat per quam non fera turba sumus Vindicat hāc sibi Thusca charis sibi musa latina Nec minus esse suam Graius Apollo velit Hanc sophiae Gens sancta colit dat jura disertis Princeps Grāmaticas temperat una Tribus Scilicet ut distent specioso sana tumore Vnascit fractis verba sonora modis Judicat urbano quid sit sale tingere ludos Et quid inhumano figere dente notas Novit ab agresti secernere plectra cicuta Vosque sacri vates non sociare malis Ergo quid infidi petitis suffragia vulgi Qui dve Palatinus quaeritur arte favor Quae canitis vivent si docta probaverit auris Et dabitur vestris versibus esse bonos At si quando canat taceas vel mascula Sappho Te meliùs salvo nostra pudore canit Another to her LETTER XLI MAdam my eyes are yet dazeled with the brightnesse of your Cabinet and I vow unto you the Night was never so fayre nor so delicately trimmed up as lately at your House Not when the Moone accomplishing her way Vpon her silver wayne beset with starres Within the gloomy world presents the day I have shewed our Ladies the Description of this proud and stately Night and of the rest of your magnificence which if it were in a severer Common-wealth than ours would be called a Profusive Wast they admire you in your house as well as in your Verses and agree with mee in this that Wisedome hath a hand in every thing and that after shee hath discoursed of Princes and matters of State shee descends to take care of her Hosts and lookes what is done in the Kitchin But from a vertue of their own they alwayes come to that of yours asking me continually for Newes of your entertainment and for Copies of your Letters and by this meanes the happinesse which I have from you is instantly made common to all the neighbourhood and yet stayes not there neither but spreads it selfe both farre and neere that when you thinke you write but to one particular man you write indeed to a whole Province This is not to write Letters but rather to set forth Declarations and Edicts I know Madam you were able to acquit your selfe perfectly in so noble an Imployment complements are below the dignitie of your style and if King Elisabett should come againe into the world you know of whom this is spoken no question but he would make you his chiefe Secretary of State Monsieuer de extolls you yet in a higher strayne and is infinitely desirous to see you in this Country Yesterday of his own accord he made himselfe your Tributary and hath bound himselfe to send you every yeare a reasonable number of his Loaves if you shall like them they will grow into more request than the Gloves of the Frangipani but because your people of Lymousin may take occasion to Equivocate here I entreat you to advertize them that this Perfumer hath thirtie thousand pound rent a yeare and holds the supremest dignitie of our Province and that this Glover is a Romane Lord Marshall of the Campe of the Kings Armies cousin to St. Gregory the Great and that which I value more than
make that hatefull to her which is not in it selfe lovely to confirme her in the principles which you have taught her and to draw her out some rules from her own actions she is I know naturally good but the best natures have need of some method to guide them and direction doth never any hurt to vertue she is able to keepe herselfe in termes extreamly obliging without ever falling into the basenesse of flatterie She is able to please without colloguing and though shee call not every thingby the right name nor bee so very curious to speake in proper termes yet her stile shall not for that bee the lesse liked nor her companie the lesse desired She may call them wise that want the reputation of beeing valiant and women that are sad she may say they are serious If a man bee not of a quicke spirit she may say he is of a good judgement and if one bee unfortunate in his actions she may say he hath a good meaning in his counsails But yet in this there is a measure to bee held and a choyce must bee made in laying her colours that shee seeke not to disguise all sorts of subjects for there are some indeed that are not capable of disguising Those that are pale she may praise for their whitenesse but those that have a dropsie she must not praise for their fatnesse shee may say that scruple is a bud of pietie But shee must not say that prophanenesse is an effect of Philosophie Shee may make a favourable construction of things doubtfull and sweeten the rigour of particular judgements but shee must not contend against common sence nor bee opposite to verities that are publicke and manifest Shee must make a difference betweene errours and crimes betweene a docible simplicitie and a presumptuous stupiditie betweene sots that are honest and those that are wicked And if shee happen to bee in companie where some weake spirit is oppressed as the world is full of such that will triumph over the weake and take no pittie of any shee must then by all meanes bee a protectresse of such a one and make herselfe a Sanctuarie for all those whom stronger adversaries would otherwise ruine This onely is to bee observed that shee so undertake the maintaining of weake causes that it may appeare by the tune of her voyce that it proceedes from excesse of goodnesse and not from want of knowledge and that shee compassionates humane infirmities by an act of charitie makes not herselfe a partie by false perswasion I am now at the end of my paper and should have beene a good while since at the end of my letter but I alwayes forget my selfe when I am with you and never thinke howres shorter than those I bestow upon your memorie And so my deare sister I bid you farewell not without great longing to see you and if you and all your company come not hither the next week I proclaime it to you that I am no longer Your c. At Balzac 10. Iuly 1634. THE SECOND PART of the third Volume of the Letters of Monsieur DE BALZAC To my Lord the Cardinall Duke of Richelieu LETTER I. MY Lord being stayed here by some occasions I suffer this hard necessitie with a great deale of paine and account my selfe banished from my Countrey being so long a time deprived of your presence I deny not but the victorious and triumphant Newes that comes continually from the Armie gives me some resentment of joy and that the brute of your Name in all quarters toucheth me very sensibly but it is no perfect satisfaction to me to learne that by others relating which I ought to know as an eye-witnesse and I conceive so great a pleasure to consist in the sight of your glory that there is not a common Souldier under your Command whose happinesse and good fortune I doe not envie But my Lord though I cannot serve you with my bodily actions yet I revere you day and night with the thoughts of my minde and in this so worthy an imployment I never thinke the noblest part of my selfe can doe service enough Your Lordship next to the King is the eternall object of my spirit I never turne my eyes from the course of your life and if perhaps you have Courtiers more officious than my selfe and such as doe their duties with greater oftentation and shew yet I am most sure you have no servant that is more faithfull and whose affection comes more truely from his heart and is fuller of life and vigour But to the end my words may not be thought vaine and without ground I send you now a proofe of that I say by which you shall perceive that a man that is himselfe perswaded hath a great disposition to perswade others and that a Discourse founded upon the things themselves and â—…ated with the truth both stirres mens spirits with greater force and also begets a firmer beliefe than that which is but feigned and comes but in the nature of Declayming This my Lord is a part drawne out from the whole bodie and a piece which I have taken most paines to polysh which I freely vow unto you that all the houres of a calmer leisure than mine and all the powers of a more elevated spirit than ordinary would have found worke enough to bring to perfection In it there is handled Of the vertue and victories of the King Of the Justice of his Armes Of Royaltie and Tyrannie Of usurpers and lawfull Princes Of Rebellion chastened and libertie mainteined but because the Prince I speake of is a stirrer and makes no stay any where and that in following him I should imbarque my selfe in a world of severall subjects I have therefore prescribed to my selfe certaine bounds which in his actions I should never have met with and after the example of Homer who finished his Ilias with the death of Hector though that were not the end of the warre I have thought fit not to goe further than the taking of Suze though this were but the beginning of the wonders wee have seene of his You know my Lord that this kinde of writing which I propose to my selfe is without comparison the most painfull of all other and that it is a hard matter to continue long in an action that must be violent and to be violent in an action that must continue long This prayse belongs properly to Oratours I meane such as know how to perswade how to please in profiting and can make the people capable of the secrets of Governning a Common-wealth For as for Philosophers that have written of this argument their discourse is commonly so drie and meager that it appeares their intention was rather to instruct than to reconcile and besides their style is so thornie and cumbersome that it seemes they meant to teach none but the learned And in this there is no more difficultie than there is in healing of men that be in health And for a man