oftentimes told you that you are naturally eloquent but yet I must confesse you have gotten new graces by being in Ciceroes country and the Aire of Rome seemes to have purged your spirit of all vulgar conceits Monsieur de is in this of my opinion and you have written to us such excellent things that they were able to comfort us for your absence if we loved you but a little but in truth no Copie can be so good as the Originall and if you come not backe very shortly I could finde in 〈◊〉 heart to goe as farre as Navona to have your company Your last Letter renues in me my old loves and makes me with so much pleasure remember the sweetest part of the earth that I even die with longing till I see it againe It is a long time that Italy hath had my heart and that I sigh after that happy cowardice with which the valiant reproach the wise If I could have lived as I would my selfe I had beene a citizen of Rome ever since the yeare 1620. and should now injoy that happinesse in possession which you but onely make mee see in Picture but my ill fortune would not suffer me shee keepes mee in France to be a continuall object of persecution and though it be now foure yeares since I left the world and lost the use of my tongue yet hatred and envie follow me in to the woods to trouble my silence and pursue mee even in Dennes and Caves I must therefore be 〈◊〉 to goe beyond the Alpes to seeke a sâ—…ctuary where I shall be sure to finde at least my old comforter who will be pleased to 〈◊〉 that I am more than any other in the world Sir Your most humble c. At Balzac 10. May. 1635. To Mounsieur de Silhon LETTER XVI SIR I have word sent mee from Paris that you make complaints against me but being well assured you have no just cause I imagine it is not done in earnest but that you take pleasure to give mee a false Alarum Yet I must confesse this cooling word I heare spoken puts me to no little paine for though it make me not doubt of the firmenesse of your affection yet it makes me challenge the malice of my Fortune I have beeue for some time so unfortunate in friendshippe that it seemes there needes nothing but pretences to ridde me of them the sweetest natures grow soure and bitter against mee and if this sit hold I shall have much adoe to keepe my owne brother of my side I would like as well to be a keeper of the Lyons as of such harsh friends for though I were more faithfull than Pylades and Acates put together yet they would finde matter of discontentment and my fidelitie should be called dissimulation I cannot beleeve that you are of this number but if you be it is time for me to go hide my self in the desarts of Thebaiâ—… and never seeke conversation with men any more It is my griefe and indignation that write these last words for my patience is moved with the consideration of the wrong is done me and if you should deale as hardly with me as others have done It were fit I should resolve to live no longer in a world where goodnesse and innocencie are so cruelly persecuted These sixe moneths I have received from you but onely one Letter to which I made no answer because it was delivered me but in Aprill at which time you sent me word you should be in France Since therefore by your owne account you were gone from thence before the time I could write unto you would you I should have written into Italy to Mounsieuâ—… de Silhon that was not there And that I should have directed my Letters to a name without either hands or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 receive and reade them You are too wise to deale so unreasonably with me and I should call your former justice in question if you take it ill that I did not guesse or rather 〈◊〉 of the stay of your voyage yet afâ—… a 〈◊〉 examination of my conscience I can 〈◊〉 no other ground for your complaints 〈◊〉 onely this 〈◊〉 I am ashamed to charge so 〈◊〉 a spirit as yours with 〈◊〉 weake a coÌ„ceitâ—… I must have had a â—…will at command to send of my 〈◊〉 and to deliver you my Letters being so uncertaine 〈◊〉 of the plaâ—… of your 〈◊〉 and in truth if I had had such a messenger I had sooâ—… thanked you then I doe for your excellent 〈◊〉 and should not all thiâ—… while have kept within the secret of my heart the just 〈◊〉 it desâ—…rves It hath taughâ—… mee Sir an 〈◊〉 number of good Maximes the stile pleaseth me exceedingly and I see in it both force and beauty thorough all the passages even that passage which did not so fully please me yet hath as fully satisfied me as the rest of the worke and though of my selfe I be blinde in the knowledge of holy things yet the lustre of your expressing and the facilitie of your method illuminate my â—…ight When my health shall give me leave to goe from hence I will then for your gold bring you copper and will receive your corrections and advise with as much reverence and submission as any Novice but in the meane time I cannot chuse but put my hand to my wound and require you to give a reason of your doing I know not from whence should come this coldnesse in you seeing for my selfe I am all on fire nor how you with your great wisedome should be altered and growne another than seeing I continue still the same with nothing but my common sence Great spirits are above these petty suspitions which move the vulgar and I wonder you could conceive ill of my affection knowing how well you had preserved your owne If it be the jealousse of eloquence that provokes you I am willing with all my heart to leave you all the pretensions I can have to it and if you please I will make you a Surrender before witnesse Consider me therefore rather as your â—…ower who is willing to 〈◊〉 your troope then as your rivall to strive 〈◊〉 preceâ—…ence Give mee leave to live a man that cannot be lost what neligence be used in keeping me and remember that the least respected of all my friends is much dearer to me than all Sciences or all Bookes Yet such is my unhappinesse that few of them returne me the like but seeme rather they would make a benefit of my paines and sorrowes Because they see I am persecuted they will make every the least courtesie they doe me to be of great value and set an excessive price upon their friendshippe because they know I stand in neede of it But I desire them and you also to take notice that my friendship was never grounded upon any interest but my love is ever without any mercenary designe or hope of benefit If they be not willing to embroile themselves in my affaires
is false to say The Gothes and Vandalts could justly bragge they left nothing of any worth behinde them I finde still the full Majestie of the language in your writings and your stile hath in it not onely the Ayre and Garbe of that good time but the very Courage and the Vertue You draw your Opinions from the same Well and I see no cause that any man can have to contradict them It is certaine that to gaine beleefe one must keepe himselfe within the bounds of likelihood and present to posterity examples which it may follow and not Prodigies with which it may be frighted Words that are disproportionable to the matter seeme to savour of that Mountibankes straine who would have it beleeved he could make a statue of a Mountaine and would perswade us that a man were a mile long There are some mens workes not much lesse extravagant than this Mountibanks designe and most men seeme to write with as little seriousnesse and with as little care to be beleeved And though men make a conscience in dealing with particular persons yet when they come to deale with the Publike they seeme to thinke themselves dispensed with and that they owe more respect to one neighbour than to whole Nations and to all Ages to come You know notwithstanding that this is no new vice and not to make a troublesome enumeration of the antient adoters of Favour Is not that base delight of Velleim come even to us and was he not a Bondslave that desired one should know he was in love with his Chaine I could curse the ill fortune of good letters that hath bereft us of the booke which Brutus writ of vertue wherein wee might have seene the infamous profession he makes of unmanlinesse to have more care of the orders of a corrupted Court than of upholding the maine structure of the Latine Philosophie If it had beene his fortune to have outlived Sejanus I doubt not but hee would have taken from him all the praises hee had given him to make a present of them to his successour Macron and if the gappes and breaches of his booke were filled up one should see he had not forgotten so much as a Groome in all Tiberius house of whom he had not written Encomiums Wee live in a Government much more just and therefore much more commendable the raigne of our King is not barren of great examples It is impossible the cariage of M. the Cardinall should bee more dextrous more sage more active than it is yet who knowes not that hee hath found worke enough to doe for many Ages and battailes enow to fight for many Worthies That hee hath met with difficulties worthy of the transcendent forces of himselfe farre exceeding the forces of any other it is necessary that Time it selfe should joyne in labour with excellent Master-workemen to produce the perfection of excellent workes The recovery of a wasted body is not the worke of onely one potion or once opening a veine the reviving a decayed estate requires a reiteration of endeavours and a constancy of labours The salving of desperate cases goes not so swift a pace as Poets descriptions or Figures of Orators Wee must therefore keepe the extension of our subject within certaine bounds and not say that the victory is perfected as long as it leaves us the evills of warre and that there remaines any Monster to bee vanquished seeing even poverty is it selfe one of the greatest Monsters and in comparison whereof those which Hercules subdued were but tame and gentle With time our Redeemer will finish his worke and he that hath given us security will give us also no doubt abundance But seeing the order of the world and the necessity of affaires affoords us not yet to tast this happines it shall bee a joy unto mee to see at least the Image of it in your History to returne and re-enter by your meanes into these three so rich and flourishing yeares after which the peace hath shewed it selfe but by fits and the Sunne it selfe hath beene more reserved of his beames and not ripened our fruits but on one side You shall binde mee infinitely unto you to grant me a sight of this rare Peece and to allow me a key of that Temple which you keepe shut to all the world besides I assure my selfe I shall see nothing there but that which is Stately and Magnificent specially I doubt not but the Pallace it selfe is admirable and that your words doe Parallell the subject when you come to speake of the last Designes of our deceased King and of the undoubted revolution he had brought upon the state of the world if he had lived And though in this there be more of divination then of knowledge and that to speake of such things be to expound Riddles yet in such cases it is not denyed to be Speculative and I do not beleeye that Lyvie recounting the death of Caesar did lightly passe over the Voyage he intended against the Parthians and that he stayed not a little to consider the new face he would have put upon the Common-wealth if death had not prevented him If all my affaires lay here yet I would make a journey to Paris expressely for this and to reade a discourse made after the fashion of this Epitaph which pleased me exceedingly He had a Designe to winne Rhodes and overcome Italy I should have much a doe to hold in my Passion till then but now I stand waiting for your Tertullian that I may learne of him that patience which he teacheth that I faint not in waiting till it Printed and in state to be seene and till he come abroad under your Corrections like to those glorious bodies which being clensed from all impurity of matter doe glister and shine on every side This is an Authour with whom your Preface would have made me friends if I had otherwise beene fallen out and that the hardnesse of his phrase and the vices of his age had given me any distaste from reading him But it is long since that I have held him in account and as sad and thorny as he is hath not beene unpleasing to me Me thinkes I finde in his writings that darke light or light some darkenesse which an ancient Poet speakes off and I looke upon the obscurity of his writing as I should looke upon a peece of Ivory that were well wrought and polished This hath beene ever my opinion of him As the beauties of Africa doe not therefore leave to be Amiable because they are not like to ours and as Sophonis be would have carryed the prize from many Italian faces so the wits of the same Country doe not leave to please though their eloquence be a forreiner and for my part I preferre this man before many that take upon them to be imitators of Cicero Let it be granted to delicate Eares that his stile is of Iron but then let it be granted also that of this Iron many excellent Armours
in effect is all the part I claime in the affaires of the world these are the newes for which I retaine still my whole enquiery I professe unto you the publicke prosperities would be lesse deare unto me if yours were not bound up in one volume with them It doth not trouble me I confesse that our affaires are prospeâ—…ous and that our armies have glorious successe but to thinke that you are one of the instruments of so flourishing a kingdome and that the king makes use of your pen to communicate himselfe to his owne people and to strangers and to distribute both good and evill to all Europe this is that which ravisheth mee with extremitie of joy From your words are framed the Oracles that are at this day given to all Nations you trouble not your braines any more with the petty interests of Tytius and Maevius Italy and Germany are now your clients and the Princes that either feare or suffer oppression expect their destinies from your answers I had the pleasure Sir to see all these things before they were visible I saw the fruit when it was but in the budde I knew the Gold when it was yet in the mine I remember your happy entrance into the world and that you have not needed a time of probation for being perfectly an honest man you sayd things to mee in your infancie which I make use of now in my old age and I keepe for a Monument a letter you once writ to me from Villesavin as a seede of all the dispatches and of all the instructions you shall ever make At that time I was proud of my fortune and you gave me leave to boast of your friendship I dare not now use the privacie of such tearmes it is fit my ambition should be more modest and more moderate I crave now only an acknowledging and a protection and this I hope Sir you will not deny me but take me for one of the charges descended upon you with the inheritance of Mounsieur d' Ayre your deceased Vncle Beare with my passion as a thing of your owne and which you cannot put away since in effect I am and can never bee other Sir Then your c. To Monsieur the Earle of Excester LETTER VI. SIR if I had made a vow of humility you give me here a faire occasion to bee proud for not breaking it yet this should not be an effect of the love of wisedome it should be a marke of aversion from goodnesse if I did not testifie the joy of the Newes I have received I could never expect from your honour a more sweet recompence of my travaile then this which is presented to me by your hands and when I see the sonne of the great Cecile let downe his spirits so low as to mine and make himselfe lesse then hee is by representing me in his Country I cannot forbeare to vow unto you that it hath touched the most sensible part of my soule and that with joy thereof my miseries have given me a comfortable breathing time For your selfe Sir all the â—…aine you can take herein is but this that it may bee sayd you have your sports as well as your businesses and that all the houres of your life are not equally serious but seeing the gods in times past have changed their shapes and disguised themselves in a thousand fashions I conceive it may be justly allowed to you to give us the morall sence of those fables you are able without any wrong to your selfe to shew us that great persons cloyed with their felicitie are glad sometimes to imitate the actions of private men and to put on Maskes to save themselves from the impâ—…rtunity of their greatnesse whatsoever your designe were I cannot but turne to my advantage for by this meanes I am certainly an honester man in England then in France seeing I speake there by your mouth I therefore most humbly thanke you for the favour you have done me in making mee better then I was and I joy in this that by your meanes I am improved in value which inables me to make you the more worthy present in presenting you my affection and the desire I have to be all my life Sir Your c. To Mounsieur de Boyssat LETTER VII SIR what occasion soever it be that brings me your Letters it cannot be but very pleasing I feele a joy at the only sight of your name the honour you doe me to remember me is so deare unto me that though perhaps it be fortune that doth it yet I cannot but thank you for it You are one of those whose least favours are Obligatorie you never cast them from you so carelessely but that they deserve to bee carefully gathered When others beare you affection and hold you deare it is but to be just and to pay debts but when you doe the like to others it is to be liberall and to bestow favours You may then imagine what glory I account it that the meanenesse of my spirit hath the approbation of your judgement and I am not a little glad that my inclination hath so good successe not to be hated of one whom I should love though hee hated mee For a traine to this first favour I require from you a second be pleased Sir that I aske you if it be in truth my selfe whom you exhort to moderation whether you thinke in your conscience that I am fallen into the vice contrary to this vertue It is now foure yeares that I suffer outrages they thinke it not enough to doe me wrongs unlesse they print them too they doe me hurt and would have me thinke my selfe beholding to them for it an infinite Army of enemies are come into the field against mee under the Colours of Philarque it is not two or three private men it is whole Companies whole Troopes that set upon mee I am the Martyr of a thousand Tyrants and if this unhappy influence passe not over or abate not I shall come at last to be the object of persecution for all the world They have painted mee out a publicke sinner amongst honest men a a man that cannot reade amongst Schollers a mad man amongst the sober These good offices they have done mee hitherto without any revenging I am as yet a debtour of these charities to them that have lent them to mee I have taken these blowes with hardinesse in stead of repelling them with force and my patience hath beene such that many have called it want of courage If this bee so you will grant me Sir that you trouble your selfe about that which cannot be that another mans praises should be insupportable to mee when I have not been sensible of my owne Calumnies I am not like to be in hast to hinder by my violence the making of friendship who have by my remissenes as it were consented to my owne hatred There is no colour to thinke that I should complaine of words feigned and such as
declaymers use in sport who have not so much as spoken a word of the most cruell action that ever the most premeditated malice could bring forth Let our friend if hee please make an Epitaph or a deifying of let him imploy all his Morter and all his Art to build him either a Sepulcher or a Temple and to speake after the manner of let him erect him a shrine and place him amongst his houshould saints I say nothing against all this nor condemne his proceeding whether it be that he honour the memory and merit of the dead or that hee stand in awe of the credit and faction of his heires I easily beare with these small spots in my friends and exact no more of them then they can well spare I know that Greeke and Latine make not men valiant nor are things that descend to the bottome of the soule they scarce reach to the outermost superficies they stay commonly in the memory and in the imagination and polish the tongue without fortifying the heart I should therefore desire too much if I should desire at all that these goodly knowledges should get a new vertue for my sake and should worke a greater effect in the spirit of then they wrought in the Poet Lucan whom fearē constrained to accuse his mother and to praise a tyrant If it stay but upon mee that this deare child should see the light after so many sower lookes and so many throwes I am ready my selfe to serve for a Midwife I am content it shall be published to day and to morrow bee translated into all Languages that the Author may not lose a day in his glory and that his glory be not bounded within River or Mountaine Never feare that I will impaire his ill nights or adde the care of one processe to his ordinary watchings if hee have no other u◅quietnesse but what he is like to havē from me he may be sure to enjoy a perpetuall calme and a perfect tranquility if he be not awaked but by the noise you thinke I will make him he may sleepe as long as Epimenides who going to bed a young man was fifty yeares elder when he rose Besides I have too much care of my owne quiet to goe about to trouble his and I love his contentment too well not to procure it being to cost me nothing but the dissembling his weakenesse And this I entreate you Sir to assure him from me But knowing you to be wise and vertuous in the degree you are I doubt not but of your owne head you will tell him that it becomes not a man of his gravity to countenance such petty things and in a point of Schollarship to use as much formality and ceremony as if it were the Negotiation of an Ambassador but much more that it is a base quality to juggle with his friends and after having said a truth which was not for all mens taste to make a Comment upon it of a Sophister I have read Tacitus and the Bookes of and therefore should know the stile of Tyberius and the Art of Equivocation but I should be loath to seeme ingenious to the prejudice of mine honour and to make use of poyson though I had one so subtill that would kill without leaving any marke to be seene I have loved men in affliction and have made use of men in misery Lightning hath not driven me from places which it hath made frightfull I have given testimony of my affection not only where it could not be acknowledged but where it was in danger to be punished I am not now so dealt withall my selfe and yet if the justice of my cause were not as it is to be regarded me thinkes the violence of my adversaries ought to procure me some favour doth not even honour oblige those that have any feeling of it not to joyne with the multitude which casts it selfe upon a single man Oppression hath alwaies beene a sufficient ground for Protection and Noble mindes never seeke better Title for defending the weaker but the neede there is of them and to take part with a stranger it is cause enough that many assault him and few assist him and such also I doubt not is your mind I am not lesse perswaded of the generousnesse of your mind then of the greatnesse of your Spirit and assure my selfe you are not the lesse on my side because I have many persecutors as because also I am firmely Sir Your c. To Mounsieur Huggens Secretary to the Prince of Orange LETTER VIII SIR I complaine no more of fortune shee hath done mee at least some courtesie amongst her many injuries and since shee suffers that you love me it is a signe shee hath care of me amidst her persecutions this good newes I have learned by a Letter of yours to M. the Baron of Saint Surin who will beare me witnesse that after I had read it I desired nothing more for perfecting my joy but that I might be such a one as you make me and be like my picture If this be the coale of Holland with which you make such draughts it surpasseth all the colour that we use here to paint withall and yet the beauty costs you nothing but you shal handly make me beleeve it I know Gold and Azure and can easily distinguish it from coale I see Sir the Ambushes you lay for me The Facilitie of your stile covers the force of it but weakens it not and under a shew of carelesnesse I finde true Art and Ornaments It secures not your turnes to doe better in the place where you are than wee and shutting us out to hold possession of the ancient and solid vertue but you goe about to take from us all that is any way passable to corrupt estates I meane the glory of Language and not suffer us to have this little toy to comfort our selves withall for the losse of all our truer treasures After fifty yeares overcome you will now be talking of a parley and thinke to make your selves masters of men by a more sweet and humane way then the former as much in effect as to bee that you have sometimes beene termed the brothers of the people of Rome and heyres of the old Catoes who made profession of severity and yet not enemies of the graces This is to perfume Iron and Copper and to the libertie and discipline of Sparta to adde the bravery and dainties of Athens M. de Saint Surin hath thereunto made us excellent relations and you have sent him backe to us with his heart wounded and his minde tainted with that he hath seene and he wants not much of being become a bad Frenchman at least he reteines nothing for his country but a dutifull and reverent affection his love your Iland hath gotten possession of and I am much afraid you will find more loadstone to draw him to you then we shall finde chaines to hold him with us He is ful of the objects he hath left
doe not thinke there are questions enow in the world to put unto him In one day I have heard him discourse with Gentlemen about hunting and husbandry with Iesuits about Divinitie and the Mathematicks with Doctors of lesse austere profession about Rhetoricke and Poetrie without ever borrowing a forreigne terme where the naturall were the fitter and without ever flying to authority where the case in question were to be decided by reason To answer a premeditated oration from point to point upon the suddaine and to send backe our oratours more perswaded by his eloquence then satisfied with their owne this I have seene him oftentimes doe and no man ever came to visit him whose heart hee did not winne with his words or at least left in it such an impression as is wont to bee the first elementing and foundation of love No libertie can be so sweete as so reasonable a subjection such a yoake is more to be valued then the Mayor of Rochels Halberds and when one is once assured of the sufficiencie of his guide it is afterwards but a pleasure to bee led In lesse then one weeke hee hath new made all spirits here hath fortified the weake hath cleared the scrupulous and hath given to all the world a good opinion of the present and a better hope of the time to come I vow unto you I never saw a man that had a more pleasing way of commanding nor better knew how to temper force and perswasion together I have indeede knowne some not unfit to command but it hath beene in a Gally not in a City such might serve for excellent followers but are never good to make Governours they understand not the Art of governing Freemen there are even some beasts of so generous a disposition that it would be rudenesse to carry a hard hand over them much more whom one might leade in his garter to curbe them besides a bridle with a Cavasson They thinke that power cannot subsist but by severity and that it growes weake and scorned vds it be not frightfull and injurious This method and manner of governing is not like to come from the schoole and discipline of M. the Cardinall from whom nothing is ever seene to come that relisheth not of the mildenesse of his countenance and receiveth not some impression from the clearenesse of his eyes All that have the honour to come neare about him are knowne by this Character weare all the same livery though they bee of different deserving There is not so sullen an humorist that is not mollified by his presence nor so dull an understanding that he makes not pregnant with a word of his mouth this you know and I am not ignorant of hee makes powerfull use of weake instruments and his inspirations lift up spirits to such a highth as their owne nature could never carry them Hee needes in a man but a small seede of reason to draw from him exceeding effects of prudence and he instructs so effectually the grossest spirits that what they want in themselves they get by his instructions These are workes which none can doe but he materialls which none but he can put in frame yet I thinke I may say without offence that this is more of his choyse then of his nature To spirits that languished for want of roome to stirre themselves in hee hath given scope and imployment and where he hath found a vertue neglected to make it as bright as it was solid he hath not forborne to crowne it with his friendship There is not a mouth in all his Province that blesseth not his Election and every man beleeves to have received from him that power which he hath procured to him who will not use it but for our good Amongst the showtes of exultation which waite upon him in all places where he goes the joy of the people is not so fixed upon present objects but that it mounts to a higher cause and gives thankes to the first moover of the good influences which the lower heavens powre downe upon us And in effect if Caesar thought hee tooke a sufficient revenge of the Africans for their taking part with the enemy by placing Salust to be their Governour who did them more hurt by his private Family then a Conqueror would have done with all his Army by the contrary reason wee may gather that the true Father of his Country hath had a speciall care of us in advancing M. de Brassac to the government of this Province and meant herein to honour the memory of his abode there and to make happy that Land where perhaps he first conceived those great designes which hee hath since effected I should not have spoken so much in this point if I did not know that you mislike not in mee these kinds of excesse and if it were not the vice of Lovers now adayes to speake of the object of their love without all limits Besides I have beene willing to make you forget the beginning of my Letter by the length of the middle and by a more pleasing second discourse to take from you the ill taste I had given you by the first And so adue Mounsieur Choler never feare that I will provoke you againe it was my evill Angell that cast this temptation upon me to make me unhappy I might have beene wise by the example of whom you handled so hardly in presence of I shall be better advisde hereafter and will never be Sir But your c. From Balzack 16. of Aprill 1633. To Mounsieur de Soubran LETTER XIII SIr if you take mee for a man hungry of Newes you do not know me and if I have asked you for any it is because I had none to tell you and because I must have something to say I have done it against the streame of my resolution quite which is to quit the world both in body and minde but custome is a thing we often fall into by flying it and we sweare sometimes that we will not sweare I desire so little to learne that I know not that I would be glad to forget that I know and to be like those good Hermites who enquired how cities were made and what kind of thing a King or a Commonwealth was I am well assured that Paris will not be removed out of its place that Rochell will not be surprized againe by Guiton that petty Princes will not devest great Kings that favour will never want Panegyricks and Sonnets that the Court will never be without Sharkes and Cheaters that Vertue will ever be the most beautifull and the most unprofitable thing in the world And what can you write in the generall of affaires that hath not relation to one of these points And for my owne particular what can I heare but that either some Booke is written against me or that my Pension is like to be ill paid or that I shall not be made an Abbot unlesse I be my selfe the Founder of the Abby
then those he useth and where proper termes faile shee could never more discreetly borrow forreigne then he doth The Character of his phrase is so noble that by this onely without any other signes I should easily know hee is come of a good house and I see that fortune which hath beene so great an enemy of his blood and hath done so much hurt to his ancestors hath not yet beene able to take from him the marke of their greatnesse nor the manners and language of a Prince At your departure from thence you gave me thankes for loving qualities that are so lovely and that making profession of Letters I am put in passion for him who preserves their honour and who in his country is the Crowne and glory of our Muses as often as there is question for his service I shall neede no second consideration to put mee in heate about it I tell you plainely I shall doe it no whit the more for any love of you I intreate you to provide some occasion apart from all interests of his where you may see the extraordinary account I make of your merits and the desire I have to manifest unto you that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. of Octob 1631. To Mounsieur Ogier LETTER IIII. SIR you could never have fallēn againe to your pen upon better termes then you have done and I have a conceite your silence hath not beene so much a neglect as a meditation The Letter you pleased to write unto me is so full of infinite excellent things that it seemes you have beene making provision three yeares together to make one feast and that your sparing for so long a time had no other meaning but to bee magnificent for one day The dispatch of the Constantinopolitan slave you sent me and the newes of Koppenhagen you writ unto me are so inriched with ornaments of your making that I see plainely whatsoever passeth thorough your hands receiveth an impression of excellencie and that glorious atchievements have neede of you to be their historian It is not strange unto me that M. your brother hath pleaded my cause I am an eternall clyent of your family and as it is my part to honour my benefactor so it is yours to preserve your benefits But verily I could never have thought this last action should have had the Court of Denmarke for a Theater and the King and his daughters the Princesses for Iudges You sent me word I had a famous decree passed on my side and that the assailant was as much hissed at as the defendant was applauded God be praised that grants us justice amongst the Gothes for injuries done us by the French and that raiseth up in an end of the world a soveraigne defender of persecuted innocencie such succour sometimes hee hath extraordinarily afforded when men abandon her the Lyons have become humane rather then leave her without protection in the most frightfull desarts there have beene found Nurses for children whom the crueltie of their mothers had exposed Let us therefore never beleeve that sweetnesse and humanitie are qualities of the earth or of the Ayre they are neither proper goods of the easterlings nor captive vertues of the Grecians They are wandring and passant all climates receive them in their turne and it is not the Cimbricke Chersonesus any longer it is Athens and Achaia that at this day are Barbarians This divine princesse of whom your brother writes such wonders hath no doubt contributed much to this change and though there should shine no other Sunne upon the bankes of the Balticke Sea this one were enough to make vertue bud forth in all hearts and to make Arts and discipline to flourish in all parts This is a second Pallas that shall have her Temples and her suppliants shall be president of Letters and studies as well as the former Even that which you say of the defect of her birth and of the obscuritie of her mother might bee ground enough for a Poet to make an entire worke and to assure us that shee was borne and came out of her fathers head at least Sir if your relations bee true shee is the lively Image of his spirit the interpretour of his thoughts the greatest strength of his estate and who by her eyes and tongue reigneth and ruleth over all objects that either see or heare Why should I dissemble or hide my contentment I must confesse I am proud in the highest degree for the praises shee hath given me Never Prince passed the Rhine more happily then mine hath done seeing so good fortune hath attended him there and that there hee should be crowned by a hand which was able to give wounds to all others What shall I say more I scorne all the antient triumphes when I thinke upon this I hope for no lustre but for her splendour I seeke for no glory but in her recommendation her onely voyce is instead of the suffrages of a whole Diet of all the north and what reason they should not forever be banished the Empire who blame that which she praiseth or that would oppose the soveraignty of her excellent judgement As for our common enemie condemned by her to keepe company with the Hobgoblins of Norway since hee is no longer in the world he is no longer in state to do her obeysance If it be not that God will have that to bee the place of his purgatory which shee would have to be the place of banishment and that this proud spirit is confind to live amongst the tempests other frenticke issues of the North as Varro speakes of Satyres You have read I suppose the Dialogues of Saint Gregorie and therefore must needs know that all soules are not purged after one manner but some passe thorough the fire and others endure the Ice and the extremitie of cold is no lesse an instrument of the divine justice then extremitie of heate But I purpose not to set a broach a question of divinitie for I should then beginne a new Letter and it is now time I should finish this but telling you first that he which shall deliver it to you hath in charge to present you a larger discourse and to let you see that there is both Greeke and Latine in our Village If it were not for my study my solitude would neither have excuse nor comfort and yet shall not have it perfit neither unlesse you bring it to me and be so honest a man as to come and see m◅e as I most hartily intreate you to doe and to beleeve that I passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 7. Feb. 1635. To Mounsieur Sirmond LETTER V. SIR be not scandalized nor take exception at my silence The greatest part of the Letters I writ are but the paiment of my old debts and before I answer one I cast up my reckoning three or foure times I seldome stay upon matter of compliment all I can doe is but to defend my selfe untowardly
one Vowell encounter another nor stands amazed at meeting with an untoward word as if it were a Monster This favour I receive from him and he the like from me we allow all liberty to our thoughts and if in treating together wee should not sometimes violate the lawes of our Art wee should never shew confidence enough in our friendshippe Rhetoricke therefore hath no place in Writings where Truth takes up all There is great difference betweene an Oratour and a Register and my private testimony ought not to passe for your Encomium Yet you will have it to be so you had rather accuse me of being eloquent then confesse your selfe to be vertuous and you avoid presumption by a contrary extremitie It seemes this occasion is dangerous to you and as in a shipwracke where all runne to save the dearest things so you abandon your other vertues to preserve your modesty Shee doth her selfe wrong Sir to stand in opposition to the publike voyce and to reject the testimony of noble fame Shee ought not to contradict the two chiefe Courts of Europe whereof the one honoureth your memory the other makes use of your counsels Aristotle would never approove of this who speakes of a vice with which if a man be tainted he resembles him to one who will not confesse hee hath wonne in the Olympicke games though men come and adjudge him the Garland and calls himselfe still culpable though three degrees of the Areopage pronounce him innocent Be not you of solittle equitie to your selfe and suffer mee to tell you what I thinke seeing I thinke nothing but that which is the common opinion and I deliver not so much my owne particular conceit as the generall beleefe of the whole world They who preferre a Captaine of Carabins before Alexander the Great and know not how to praise the integritie of a Statesman without affronting that of Aristides fall into that excesse which reason requires should be avoided Yet we ought not for all this generally to slight all merit of the present age and fancie to our selves that we are not bound to revere vertue unlesse it be consecrated by Antiquitie For my selfe I judge more favourably of things present and doe not thinke I run any hazard in subscribing to the Popes judgement of you that in serving the King you have beene his governour This would be to be too scrupulous to feare mistaking after him that they say cannot erre and you are too courteous to count it a courtesie that I doe my dutie and to give mee thankes that I am not a Schismaticke Concerning the last Article of your Letter I say it gives me not so much as a temptation neither am I indeede capable to receive it It sufficeth me Sir that you protect my repose here for to enter into defence of my interests in the place where you are as you doe me the honour to promise me I would advise you not to undertake it You could never looke for better successe then the prime man of this age had who could not obtaine of the favour he required of him in my behalfe It is much easier to breake downe the Alpes and to bridle the Ocean then to procure the paiment of my Pension and there is nothing that can make a worker of miracles see there is some thing impossible for him to doe but onely my ill fortune There are the bounds of this power which is so much envied The good will hee beares me cannot draw from Spaine the eight thousand pounds which are due unto me and it is Gods will hee should be disobeyed in this that I may be a witnesse against them who say that he is absolute I onely intreate you seeing you desire to oblige me to you to shew him the constancie of my passions which is obdurate against ill successes and preserves it selfe entire amidst the ruines of my hopes It shall be satisfaction enough for me that hee doe me the honour to beleeve I can adore freely and without hope of reward and that I should doe him as great reverence if he were not in so great a height of happinesse I expect this favour from your ordinary goodnesse and promise my selfe that you will alwayes have a little love for me seeing I have a will to be all my life most perfectly Sir Your c. From Balzac 30. May 1633. To Mounsieur de la Nauve Counsellor of the King in his Great Chamber LETTER X. SIR say what you can I am not so indulgent to my passion as you are injurious to your owne merits Amongst all your good qualities you have one that seemes an enemy to all the rest detraction doth you more justice then you doe your selfe and envie it selfe gives you that which your owne modesty takes away from you This is not to handle the truth civilly to respect her then when shee embraceth you This is to render her evill for good to call her fabulous when shee calls you vertuous I finde in this Sir more scruple then Religion The first and most antient charitie is thereby broken and you are faultie in the first principle of your dutie if before doing justice to all the world you deny to doe it to your selfe alone It must bee a great precisenesse of conscience that shall finde in you the evills you accuse your selfe of and a sight more cleare then mine that shall see defaults in the course of your life If you have any that are surely immateriall and such as fall not under sence They come not within the knowledge of any It must bee a secret betweene your confessour and you None is knowne Sir at least not knowne to be revealed and if any were so knowne it would rather be found a proofe of humilitie then a marke of imperfection I am none therefore as you say I am of these charitable lyars who attribute to them they love all that they want nor of these forgers of commonwealths who carry their imagination beyond all possibilitie of things I present not unto you an Idea to make you better then you are but taking you into consideration I propose you as my example to stirre me up to goodnesse I draw your picture for my owne use and not for your glory I intend more the instructing my selfe then the pratling with you The object of so elevated a vertue fills my minde with great desires and if it astonish me sometimes with its heighth it makes mee at least see by experience that an inferiour vertue is possible to be acquired so that to say true I studie you more then I praise you and am in this more swayed with interest then with passion I meane this passion without eyes that riseth onely from the animall part for as for that which is reasonable and works with knowledge I have that for you in the highest degree and by all kinds of obligations and of duties am Sir Your c. At Balzac 6. Febru 1634. To Mounsieur Heinfius Professor of
as it There have strangers beene Marshalls of France but their accent hath alwayes discovered they were not naturall and they have found it more easie to merit the leading of our Armies and to gaine the favour of our King then to learne our language and attaine a true pronouncing But Sir seeing in your person there is seene an Ambassadour of eighteene yeares old and a wisedome without experience there is not so great a wonder in the world as your selfe nor any thing incredible after this It is fit onely that you make more account than you doe of this so rare and admirable a quality and that you should use it according to its merits and not employ it upon base subjects that are not worthy of it Otherwise how good an Artist so ever you be you will be blamed for making no better choise of your Materialls and my selfe who draw so much glory from our fault had yet much rather see you employ your excellent language in treating of Princes interests and the present estate of Europe then in advancing the value of a poore sicke man who prayes you to keepe your valuing for and askes you nothing but pitty or at most but affection if this be to merit it that I passionately am Sir Your c. From Balzac 6. Novem. 1629. To him another LETTER XIX SIR I remember my promise upon condition you forget not yours and that in case you come within sixe miles of Balzac you will allow mee the halfe dayes journey I require It is not any hope I have to send you away well satisfied either with your Hoste or with your lodging that makes mee to make this request but it is Sir for my owne benefit for you know very well we never have commerce together but all the gaine remaines of my side I finde that in your conversation which I seeke for in vaine in my neighbours Libraries and if there fall out any errours in the worke I am about the faults must be attributed to your absence Leave mee not therefore I entreate you to my owne senee and suffer mee to be so proud as to expect one of your Visits if you goe to Santoigne or otherwise to prevent it if you stay at Lymousin There are some friendships that serve onely to passe away the time and to remedy the tediousnesse of solitarinesse but yours Sir besides being pleasant is withall I vow no lesse profitable I never part from you that I bring not away pleasuros that last and profit that doth you no hurt I make my selfe rich of that you have too much and therefore as you ought not to envie me my good fortune which costs you little so you ought to beleeve also that as long as I shall love my selfe I shall be Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Decem. 1629. Another to him LETTER XX. SIR at that time when Mistris parted from hence I was too much out of order to present my selfe before a wise man and I chose rather to be failing in the rules of civilitie then to be importunate upon you with my Compliments Now that I am a little at qulet and can fall to worke indifferent well I must needes tell you that the confidence I have of your love sweetens all the bitternesse of my spirit and that in my most sensible distasts I finde a comfort in thinking of this It is certaine Sir the world is strangely altered and good men now a dayes cannot make a troope This is the cause that seeing you are one of this little flocke which is preserved from infection and one of those that keepe vertue from quite leaving us I therefore blesse incessantly Madam Desloges for the excellent purchase I have made by her meanes and proclaime in all places that shee discovered me a treasure when she brought me first to be acquainted with you If I husband it not and dresse it with all the care and industry it deserves it is not I assure you for want of desire but so sweete and pleasing duties have no place amidst the traverses of a life in perpetuall agitation and your ordinary conversation is reserved for men more happy than I. I waite therefore for this favour from a better fortune than the present as also occasions by which I may testifie that I possionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. Febru 1630. To him another LETTER XXI SIR although I am ravished with your eloquence yet I am not satisfied but you remaine still unjust and I not well pleased I see what the matter is you are so weary of your Pennance at Lymousin that you have no minde to come and continue it in Angoumois You like better to goe in a streight line to the good then to goe to it by the crooked change of evill and preferre a safe harbour before an incommodious creeke Wherein Sir I cannot blame your choise onely I complaine of your proceeding and finde it strange you should disguise your joy for escaping a badde passage and that you are content to be unhappy at Rochell because you will not venture to be unhappy here These high and Theologicall comparisons which you draw from the austeritie of Anchorets concerning workes of supererogation concerning Purgatory and Hell make me know you are a mocker and can make use of Ironies with the skill and dexterity of Socrates Take heede I be not revenged upon this Figure of yours by another and returne your Hyperboles For this once I am resolved to suffer all hereafter perhaps I shall helpe my selfe with my old Armes But howsoever the world goe and in what stile soever I write unto you you may be sure I speake seriously when I say that I very firmely am Sir Your c. At Balzac 9. Septem 1630. To him another LETTER XXII SIR I am exceedingly beholding to you for remembring mee and for the good newes you have so liberally acquainted me withall If the loved Suger as well as they love salt they should have enough of it never to drinke any thing but Hyppocras nor to eate any thing but Comfits Without jeasting I vow these are excellent Rebells and their simplicitie is more subtill than all the Art and Maximes of Florence These Mariners reade Lessons now to the inhabitants of Terra firma and are become the Paedagouges of Princes There is nothing of theirs that troubles mee but the proposition of their Truce They should reject it as a temptation of the devill and I dare sweare it was never set a foote but to gaine time and opportunity The good will the Spaniard makes shew to beare them is the baite they shew upon the hooke they hide hee seekes not after them but to catch them and he makes shew of kindnesse because hee could doe no good with force Though I have not read the Booke you spake to me of yet I doubt not of its worth and goodnesse I know the Authour is a man of great learning and experience and one that hath beene
friend himselfe had writ them if you had been the King and he the Secretary if I be not deceived this stile will bring a cooling upon the joy of and make them see they have at least mistaken one word for another and that the absence of hath not been a discharge of his authoritie but onely a breathing from the labours of his charge I am wrestling still with and preparing you an after-dinners Recreation which I will bring my selfe to Burdeaux if you stay there till the next moneth In the meane time since you desire new assurances of my fidelitie I sweare vnto you with all the Religion of Oathes and with all the libertie and sinceritie of the golden age that I am Sir Your c. To Monsieur de la Nauue Councellour of the King in his first Chamber of Enquests LETTER VIII SIR my deare Cousin your noblenesse is not of these times but you are generous after the old fashion To call the paines I put you to a favour and to thanke a man for persecuting you this is a vertue which Orestes and Pylades perhaps knew but is now no where to be found but either in old fables or in your Letter The offers you make me doe not so much give me a possession as confirme me in it and assure me the durablenes of a happinesse which wants nothing of being perfect but being durable Monsieur de hath stretched his beliefe yet further he hath told mee of your comming into this Province and hath promised me at lest some houres of those Grand daies that bring you hither if they were as long as those of Platoes yeare they should not be too long for me if I might be so happie to spend them in your company I make account to husband the least minutes of it I can take hold of and am about in such sort to deck up my Hermitage that it may not be offensive to your eyes I can present you but with grosse pleasures and Country recreations yet you that are perfectly just will not refuse to take a little contentment where you are perfectly loved and preferre a lively passion and a heart sincere before false semblances and a dead magnificence My complements are short and I am by profession a very bad Courtier but my words carry truth in them and I am with all my soule Sir my deere Cousin Your c. At Balzac 1. June 1634. To Monsieur de la Motte le Voyer LETTER IX SIR I am going from Paris in hast and carry with me the griefe that I cannot stay to tell you in how great account I hold the offer you make me of your friendship If this be the price of so poore a marchandise as that I sent you never was man a greater gainer by traffiking than I and you seeme in this not unlike those Indians who thought to over-reach the Spaniards by giving them Gold for Glasse I have long since knowne your great worth though you would not be knowne to have such worth in you all the care you can take to hide the beautie of your life cannot keepe the lustre of it from dazeling mine eyes and though you make your vertue a secret yet I have pierced into it and discovered it And yet I must confesse unto you my infirmitie I finde it too sublime for me and with my uttermost abilitie am not able to reach it all I can doe is to respect it with reverence and to follow you with my eyes and thoughts The world cannot all rayse it selfe above the pitch of the presentage and be wise in equall rank with Aristides Socrates I am contented to be in a lower forme of vertue for I am a man and they demy Gods I neither aspire to be their equall nor their rivall much lesse Sir to be their judge or accuser Anitus and Melitus would be much mistaken in me if they should thinke I would joyne with them in their accusation as though I thought all opinions to be bad which are not like mine own I had rather thinke that it is I that loose the sight of Orasius Tubero sometimes than thinke that he is strayed or out of the way rather charge my selfe with weaknesse than accuse him of rashnesse Let him leave the middle Region of the ayre below him and mount up above the highest let him take upon him to judge of humane things from Shepheards to Kings from shrubbes to starres provided that he be pleased to hold there and bow his wings and submit his reason to things divine I have not time to tell you how much I value him Monsieur de will at more leisure entertaine you with discourse about it I onely will assure you that what maske soever you put upon your face I finde you alwayes exceeding amiable and that I will ever be Sir Your c. At Paris 6. Septemb. 1631. To Madam de Villesavin LETTER X. MAdam seeing it is my ill fortune that I cannot finde you when I come to see you I entreat you to let me speake to you by an Interpreter and that I may make this benefit of my being so farre from Paris to have a right of writing to you when I could not have the power of speaking with you Indeed as long as you were taken up with entertaining your deare sonne whom long absence had made as it were new unto you and as long as you were tasting the first joyes which his returne had brought with it It had been a great indiscretion in a stranger to intrude himselfe into your private feast not give you the libertie to make choice of your Guests but now that your extasies of joy are over-passed and that a more calme estate makes you sociable to others abroad Now Madam you may vouchsafe to accept my complement and to heare me say with my Countrey freedome that you want much of that I wish you if you want any thing of absolute felicitie I make no doubt but Monsieur Bouthillier your sonne as he parted from hence a right honest man so he is returned hither an understanding man and that to the lights which are given by Nature he hath added those that are gotten by practise and by conference The ayre of Italie which is so powerfull in ripening of fruits hath not been lesse favourable to the seeds of his spirit and having been at the spring-head of humane prudence I assure my selfe he hath drawn deepe of it and hath filled his minde with so many new and sublime knowledges that even his Father if it were not for the great love he 〈◊〉 him might not unjustly grow jealous at it This Madam is that happinesse I speake to you off and which I have alwayes wished to you and to which there can nothing be added but to see shortly so excellent an instrument set aworke and so able a man employed in great affayres When this shall be I shall then see the successe of my ancient predictions and of
want And indeed to what purpose should I grieve for pleasures that are absent and curiously hunt after all the defects of my Estate If my commerce be onely with dumbe Creatures at least I am not troubled with the importunitie of Courtiers nor with the verses of a paltry Poet nor with the Prose of Messieurs These are the inconveniences of Paris which I count more troublesome than either the dirt or the justling of Coaches and at the worst if by living in the Desart I should become a meere savage yet I am sure to recover the garbe of the world as soone as I shall but see Madam Destoges and make my selfe neat and civill with but one halfe houres conversing with her This is my wish Madam and passionately I am Your c. At Balzac 20. June 1630. To Monsieur de la Nouve Counsellour of the King in his first Chamber of Enquests LETTER XXXIIII SIR My deare Cousin one cannot say you nay in any thing to doe you a second pleasure I am about to commit a second treason and to send you the Verses of which I told you who was the Poet. I was bound by a thousand Oaths to keepe them secret but I must confesse you are a strange corrupter and your perswasions would shake a firmer fidelitie than mine yet to the end we may at least save the apparence and give some colour to my fault you may be pleased to say that it is the translation of an Ode made by Cornelia mother of the Gracchi and that you found it in an ancient Manuscript you may say shee made it for one of her sonnes being in love with a woman whom afterward he married and that seeing him one day looke extreamly pale shee asked him what it was had made him sicke There is nothing more true than this Story and there needs nothing but to change the Names It is not indeed the same person but it is the same merit and I am sure you doubt not but a French Lady is capable of as much as Quintilian spake of a Romans Graccorum eloquentiae multum contuâ—…isse Corneliam matrem cujus doctisâ—…mus sermo in posteros quoque est Epistolis traditus I never heard speake of such an impatience or such an irresolution for I cannot beleeve that it is either feare or effeminatenesse or that the spirit of so great a Prince could be subject to such enormous maladies Whatsoever it be if he had but read Virgill a woman would have sayd unto him with great indignation and is it then such a miserable thing to die And if he had been in the Levant he might have learned of a Turkish Proverbe That it is better to be a Cock for one day than a Henne all ones life Et con questo vi bacio le mani and am Sir my deere Cousin Your c. 〈◊〉 August 1630. L'Amant qui meurt OLympa made me sicke thou hast Thou cause of my Consumption art There needs but one frowne more to wast The whole remainder of my heart Alas undone to Fate I bow my head Ready to die now die and now am dead You looke to have an age of tryuth Are you a Lover will repay And my state brookes no 〈◊〉 de 〈◊〉 I hardly can one minute stay Alas undone to Fate I bow my head Ready to die now die and now am dead I see already Charons boate That comes to ferry me to Hell I heare the Fatall Sisters note That cryes and calls to ring my knell Alas undone to Fate I bow my head Ready to die now die and now am dead Looke in my wound and see how cold How pale and gasping my soule lyes Which Nature strives in vaine to hold Whilst wing'd with fighes away it flyes Alas undone to Fate I bow my head Ready to die now die and now am dead To Madam Desloges LETTER XXXV MAdam I have not dared now a good while to send you any Letters for feare you should conceive they carried an ill ayre about them nor yet to send you any more Melons which yet prove excellent good this yeare for doubt you should suspect them as comming from a Countrey extreamely disparaged but since I understand by your Letter that you are not so much frighted as I was told and since also I can protest unto you most religiously that I write from a place most cleere from any taint of the neighbouring misery and that hath kept sound in the midst of infection I am most glad Madam that I have the libertie to tell you that I value you more than all the ancient Romanes and that I have no comfort to thinke of in the deepest houres of all my solitude but onely you and your incomparable merit What businesse soever I am about I take pleasure to let this thought make me a trewant at my travaile it is a recreation for which I abandon all affayres and there is neither Morall nor Politique Plato nor Aristotle but I presently give him over as soone as you are once presented to my imagination I hope I shall need to use no Oaths to make you beleeve this veritie you are well enough acquainted with my pride and know that this Country swayne would not turne flatteret for an Empresse There are but three persons I am resolved to prayse you Madam are one and if you have the leisure to reade that I send you you will easily guesse who the other two are and so I bâ—…d you Good â—…orrow and perfectly am Madam Your c. At Balzac 9. Septemb. 1630. Another to her LETTER XXXVI MAdam you shall receive from me no premeditated excuses I had rather confesse my fault ingenuously than take the paines to justifie it untowardly Indeed a fatall sluggishnesse cousin german to a Lethargie hath seazed in such sort upon me since my comming hither that I have not so much as written to my owne mother so as having fayled in this first poynt I thought not fit to fayle by halfes and therefore never troubled my selfe much in the rest of my dutie I speake Madam of this exteriour dutie and this affection in picture which is oftentimes but a false representation of the soule for as for the true respect and the passion which hath residence in the heart I assure you I have that in me for you as pure and entyre as ever and that he that calls you his Soveraigne yet honours you not more perfectly than I doe Monsieur de will I doubt not be my witnesse herein and will tell you that what part soever I be forced to play amongst jeasters and merry companions yet under my players cloathes there will alwayes be found an honest man I have beene sensible Madam of the losse which hath had and have not bin sparing to speake of his unfortunate vertue yet I never thought he needed any comforting for it for seeing he sees that God spares not his own Images and that his neerest friends have their disgraces and troubles
false grounds and I require no better justifier than her owne conscience that accuseth mee Within a few dayes I will come my selfe in person and give you an account of all my actions and will trayne my selfe on to Paris in hope to enjoy the happinesse of your companie In the meane time be carefull to cure the maladie you tell me of which brings us forth such goodly Sonnets and makes so well agree the two greatest enemies that are in Nature I meane Passion and Judgement so I bid you Farewell and am with all my heart Your c. At Balzac 25. August 1639. To Monsieur de Coignet LETTER XLVIII SIR I am much bound unto you for your writing to me and for sending me Newes that exceedingly pleaseth mee You may well thinke I have no mind to crosse my own good and to refuse giving my consent to the Earle of Exceters request To have so illustrious an Interpreter in England is morethan a full revenge upon all the petty Scribes that oppose mee in France it is the crowning and triumph of my writings I am not therefore so a Philosopher that I place the honour he doth mee amongst things indifferent but rather to tell you plainly I have perhaps received too sensible a contentment in it and upon the poynt of falling againe into my old desire of glory of which I thought my selfe to have been fully cured I send you a word which I entreat you to deliver to him which shall witnesse for mee how deare and glorious the markes he gives mee of his love and account are unto mee Otherwise Sir I doubt not but I owe a great part of this good fortune to the good opinion you have of me which is to be seene in every lyne of your Letter and that you have confirmed the English in this Error which is so much in my favour Onely I entreat you never to seeke to free them of this errour but so to deale with them that if you convert them from other it may still be with reservation of this The truth in question is of so small importance that it deserves not any curious examination and in which to be in a wrong beliefe makes not a man to be either lesse honest or more unfortunate Never therefore make scruple to oblige me seeing you shall oblige a thankfull man and one who is Sir Your c. At Balzac 12. June 1629. To Monsieur de Neusuic LETTER XLIX SIR If I were onely blind I would try to make some answer to the good words of your Letter but the paine which my ill eyes put me to makes mee uncapable of this pleasing contention and I cannot draw from my head in the state it now is any thing else but Water and Waxe And besides the unhappie blindnesse I speake of I am in such sort overflowed with Rheumes that if it were in the time of the old Metamorphoses I thinke verily I should be turned into a Fountaine and become the subject of some new Fable I have lost as well my smelling as my taste my Nose can make no difference betweene Spanish Leather and an old Cowes hide and I sneeze so continually that all my conversation is but to say I thanke you to them that say God helpe you Being in this estate doe you not wonder I write unto you and have the boldnesse to be sending Letters In truth never complement cost me so deare as this and if I would make use of the priviledge of sicke men I might very justly require a Dispensation but I had not the power to let your servant goe away without telling you that you are a very honest Impostour and that the Perigurain you send is the most refined Frenchman that ever ranne afoote to Paris It must needs be that the people of your Village is a Colonie of the Louver that hath preserved the first puritie of their language amidst the corruption of their Neighbours There never were such fine things written upon the banke of Dordonne at least not since the death of Monsieur de Montaigne yet I esteeme them not so much because they are so fine as because they come from you whose I passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Jan. 1633. To Madam Desloges LETTER L. MAdam I am alwayes of your minde and like not Ladies that would be Cavaliers There are certain bounds that part us and maâ—… us out our several duties and conditions which neither you nor we can lawfully passe And the lawes of Decencie are so ancient that they seem to be a part of the ancient religion Moses hath extended the commandements of God even to the distinction of your apparell and ours and you know hee expresly forbids to disguise our selves in one anothers cloathes Women must be altogether women the vertues of our sex are not the vertues of theirs and the more they seeke to imitate men the more they degenerate from their owne kinde We have had some women amongst us that would ride Spanish horses would discharge Pistols and would be parties in maintaining quarrels M. the Marshall Scomberg shewed mee once a letter which he writ to a Gentleman of at the end whereof were these words I kisse the hands of this valiant and pleasing Lady that is your second in the day and your wife at night This Lady might perhaps bee valiant but to my humour she could not be pleasing If she had had abeard she could not have had a greater fault Women that are valiant are as much to blame as men that are cowards And it is as unseemly for Ladies to weare swords by their sides as for Gentlemen to have glasses hanging at their girdles I professe my selfe an enemy Madam to these usurpations of one sex upon another It strikes me with a kinde of horrour when I reade in historie of the ancient women Fencers whom the Romanes beheld with such pleasure in their Amphitheater and I account not Amazons in the number of women but of Monsters and Prodigies Sweetnesse and tendernesse are the qualities that belong to you and will your she Friend give over her claime to these that is to the succession of her mother and the priviledges of her birth will she not be as well content as you with the partition which Nature herselfe hath made I cannot conceive with what face she can goe a hunting amongst such violence tumults and how she can run hallowing all day till shee bee out of breath after a kennell of Hounds and a troope of Huntesmen God made her for the Closet and not for the Field and in truth it is a great sin to distend so handsome a mouth and to disfigure so comely a face with blowing a horne To expose such excellent things to all the boughes of the Forrest and to all the injuries of the weather and to endanger such pretious colours with winde and raine with the sunne and dust And yet Madam to see hunting without being a partie to goe in
to make himselfe obscure there needs no more but to stay upon the first notions wee have of truth which are never eyther wholly pure or purely mingled and which falling from the imagination upon paper leave upon it such a confusion that it resembles rather an informed abortion than a perfect production Besides in the composition of a Historie especially where the Politiques have to doe an Authour is carried and borne out by his matter and the things being all made to his hand which case him of the paines of invention as the order of the time caseth him of the care of disposing he hath little to doe for his part but onely to contribute words which is by some made so small a matter that when Menander was pressed by some friends to publish a worke of his that he had promised He made answere it shall presently come forth for it is in a manner all finished and ready there wants nothing but to make the words But in the perswasive kinde of writing besides that there must be a better choice made and a stricter order used in placing the words than in simple Narrations which for all their lustre and riches of expression require no more but plainnesse and fit termes they which desire to attaine perfection or indeed to doe any thing at all of worth endeavour all they can to put in use and reduce to action the most subtle Idaea's of all Rhetoricke to rayse up their understanding to the highest poynt of things to search out in every matter the verities lesse exposed to view and to make them so familiar that they who perceived them not before may by their relation come as it were to touch them Their designe is to joyne pleasure to profit to mingle daintinesse and plentie together and to fight with Armes not onely firme and strong but also fayre and glittering They endeavour to civilize Learning drawing it from the Colledge and freeing it from the hands of Pedants who marre and sully it in handling and to say the truth adulterate and corrupt it abusing this excellent and delicate thing in the sight of all the world They seeke not to avoyde Rockes by turning aside from them but rather by slyding gently over them and rather to escape places of danger than to shunne them And to make it appeare that nothing is so sowre or bitter but that it may be sweetned and allayed by Discourse Finally they suffer themselves sometimes to be transported with that reasonable fury which Rhetoricians have well knowne though it goe beyond their Rules and Precepts which thrust an Oratour into such strange and uncouth motions that they seeme rather inspired than to be naturall and with which Demosthenes and Cicero were so possessed that the one of them sweares by those that dyed at Marathon and of his owne authoritie makes them Gods the other askes questions of the Hilles and Forrests of Alba as if they had eares and were able to heare him But if I were one that did come any thing neere so noble an end which I neither will nor dare beleeve and that I were able to make strangers see that all things in France are changed for the better since the happie Reigne of our King who no lesse augmenteth our spirits than he encreaseth our courage yet it is not I that should merit the glory of this but I must wholly attribute it to the happinesse of my time and to the force of my object Howsoever my Lord if I cannot be taken into the List of learned and able men at least I cannot be denyed a place amongst honest men and loyall servants and if my abilities be worthy of no consideration with you at least my zeale and affection are better worth than to be rejected With which meditation I am sometimes so ravished that I doubt not but my resentments must needs content you and that it is no unpleasing recreation to you to cast your eye upon a Philosopher in choler And though true love content it selfe with the testimony of its owne Conscience and that I give you many proofes of my most humble service which I assure my selfe will never come to your knowledge yet for your satisfaction I desire you might heare me sometimes in the place where you are and might see with what advantage I maintaine the publike cause in what manner I controll false Newes that runs about and how I stop their mouthes that will be talking in disparagement of our affayres It is certaine that it is not possible our State should be more flourishing than it is or that the successe of the Kings Armes should be more glorious than it is or that the Peace of the People should be more assured than it is or that your Government should be more judicious than it is and yet wee meete with certaine spirits that are troubled with their owne quietnesse are impatient of their owne felicitie cannot be held in any good beliefe but by prosperities that are supernaturall and longer than they see miracles give no credit to any thing If present affayres be in good termes then they cast out feares of those to come and when they see the events prove happie then they fall affrighting us with Presages They take an Oath to esteeme of no persons but forreyners of no things but farre fet They admire Spinola because he is an Italian and their enemie they cannot abide to prayse the King because he is a Frenchman and their Master They will hardly be drawne to confesse that the King hath overcome though they see before their eyes an infinite number of Townes taken of Factions ruinated eternall Monuments of his Victories and more easily the King hath gotten the applause of all Europe than these mens approbation They would perswade us if they could that he had raysed his Siege before Rochell That he had made a shamefull Peace with the Protestants and that the Spaniards had made him run away They doe all they can to exterminate his History and to extinguish the greatest light that shall ever shine to posteritie I doubt not but they cast a malicious eye upon my Booke for presenting an image of those things which offend them so much And they who beleeve Fables and Romances and are in passion for an Hercules or an Achilles who perhaps never were They who reade with extasie of joy the actions of Rowland and of Reinold which were never done but upon Paper These men will finde no rellish in a true History because it gives testimonie to the vertue of their naturall King They can like well enough that against the credit of all Antiquitie Xenophon being a Graecian and no Persian should frame Cyrus a life after his owne fancie and make him die in his bed and amongst his Friends when yet hee dyed in the warres and overcome by a woman and they can like well enough that Plinie should tell a lye in open Senate and prayse Trajan for temperance and chastitie who
now I leave following it my selfe and put it wholly into your hands a place perhaps to which my ill fortune her selfe will beare a respect but if shee shall be opposite to your desire and prevaile above your favour yet at least I shal thereby know the force of destinie to which all other forces give place and which cannot be mastered by any force nor corrected by any industrie but yet it shall not hinder me from resting well satisfied seeing I shall in this receive much more from you then I am denied by him if I hold any part in your grace and favour which is already my comfort against whatsoever ill successe can happen It sufficeth me to bee happy with this kind of happinesse which is more deare to mee than all the happinesse the Court can give me being a man no more ambitious then I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 25. Decemb. 1634. To my Lord the Bishop of Poitiers LETTER XXVII MY Lord although Mounsieur de hath promised me to give you assurance of the continuation of my service yet I cannot forbeare to adde these few lines to his testimony and to tell you that which I tell to all the world that your vertue is a transcendent farre above the abilities and cariage of our age It is a match for antiquitie in its greatest purenesse and severitie When the Camilli and the Scipioes were not in imployment they reposed themselves and tooke their ease as you doe and when I consider sometimes the sweeteÌ„ life you leade at Dissay I conclude that all the imployments of the Pallace and all the intricacies of the Court are not worth one moment of a wise mans idlenesse It is well knowne that from your childhood you have despised vanitie even in her kingdome and that in an ayre where shee had attractives able to draw the oldest and most reluctant spirits All the pompe of Rome hath not so much as given you one temptation and you are so confirmed in a generous contempt that if good Fortune her selfe should come to looke you out you would scarce goe out of your Closet to meete her in your Chamber This is that I make such reckoning of in your Lordship and which I prefer before all your other qualities for those how great soever they be are yet but such as are common with many base and mercenarie Doctors where as this force and courage are things that cannot bee acquired in the noyse and dust of Schooles You found not these excellent qualities in the Vatican Library nor yet got them by reading of old Manuscripts you owe them indeede to Mounsieur your deceased father that true Knight without spot or wrinckle equally skilfull in the art of warre and in affaires of peace and that was the Heros of Muret of Scaliger and of Saint Mart. I propose not a lesse object for my worship then they did neither indeede is it lesse or lesse religious then theirs was and though you did not love mee as you doe and though you should denounce warre against me and become head of a faction to seeke my ruine yet I should not for all that forbeare to revere so rare a vertue as yours is but should stil remaine My Lord Your c. At Balzac 4. May 1630. To Mounsieur Guyet LETTER XXVIII SIR I feare not much to lose a thing I esteem but little but holding your friendship in that account I doe if I should not have it I should never see day of comfort more you must not therefore thinke it strange that I was mooved with the Alarum that was given mee for though I know my selfe to be innocent yet my unfortunatenesse is such that I conceive any bad newes to bee no more then my due Now that Mounsieur de hath quieted the agitation of my minde and hath assured me of your love I cannot forbeare to signifie unto you the joy I take telling you wit tall that so I may preserve a friend of your merit and worth I doe not greatly care for losing him that will leave me There is litle to be seene amongst men but malice weaknesse and even of good men the greatest part is scarce sound there is a cause why a firme and constant spirit as yours is is of wonderfull use in societie ' and it is no small benefit to them that are wearied overtoyled as I am to have a person to rest upon that cannot fall There is neede of courage to maintaine a friendship and indeede of prudence to performe the meanest duty of life t is nothing worth to have a sound will if the understanding bee defective our does a great matter to make vowes and sacrifices Nil veta furentem Nil delubrajuvant hee complaines without cause upon his tax and other inferiour matters this is to accuse innocents the evill no doubt comes from a higher place and it is the braine that is cause of all the disorder The knowledge I have hereof makes mee have compassion of him and excuse in a Doctor of three score yeares old those base shifting tricks that are not pardonable in a Schollar of eighteene Any man but my selfe would call his action a cowardice and a treason but I love to sweeten my griefe as much as I can I cannot become an enemy at an instant and passe from one extremity to another without making a little stay by the way I honour still the memory of our former friendship cannot wish ill to a man to whom I have once wisht well but this is too much I to complaine and you to quarrell doe me this favour I beseâ—… you to make choyse of something in your studie for a consolation of my solitude I have already the 〈◊〉 of Mounsieur the Admirall de la Volet but I would faine have the Epitaph of my Lady the Dutchesse of Esperâ—… and those admirable Elegies you shewed mee once In quibus 〈◊〉 es Tibullo â—…milis quam Tubullus sibi I intreate you to deliver them to Mounsieur who will see them safely delivered to mee if you please we will use him hereafter as our common correspondent who knowing me to the very bottome of my heart will I doubt not most willingly adde his testimony to my protestations that I truly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Septem 1630. To Mounsieur de L'orme Physitian in ordinary to the King and Treasurer of France at Burdeaux LETTER XXIX SIR it is not now onely that I make a benefit of your friendship I have had profit by it a long time and you have often bin my advocate with so great force and so good successe that they who had before condemned me were glad to revoke their sentence as soone as they heard you speake yet all this while you did but onely speake well of me now you begin to doe well for me it is you whom this yeare I may thanke for my pension Without you Sir my warrant would never have perswaded my partner
it would presently have beene rejected and he still have continued einexorable But it must bee confessed there is no wilde beast but you can tame no matter so bad but you can make good as you heale maladies that are incurable so you prevaile in causes that are desperate and if you finde never so little life and common sence in a man you are able to restore him to perfect health make him become a reasonable man I desire not to have the matter in any better termes then you have set it I am glad I shall not need to invocate M. the Cardinall for my dispatch and that Mounsieur hath promised not to faile to pay me in September If he should pay it sooner I should bee faine to desire you this favour to keepe it for mee till that time Now I onely intreat you to draw from him a valuable assurance of it and for so many favour 's and courtesies done me I shall present you with something not altogether so bad as those I have already shewed you and seeing one cannot bee called valiant for having the better of a coward neither can I bee accused of vanitie for saying I have exceeded my selfe I am therefore bold to let my Letter tell you thus much that if my false Pearles and my counterfeit Diamonds have heretofore deceived you I doe not thinke that the shew I shall make you of my new wares will use you any better Yet my meaning is not to preoccupate your judgement who neither of my felfe not of my writings will have any other opinion then what you shall please to allow me Since the time I have wanted the honour of seeing you I have made a great progresse in the vertue of humilitie for I am now proud of nothing but of my friends affections Let mee therefore never want yours I entreate you as you may beleeve I will all my life most passionately be Sir Your c. At Balzac 8. Decem. 1629. To my Lord LETTER XXX MY Lord I hope you will not take it ill that I put you in minde of a man to whom you have heretofore made demonstration of your love and that after a long intermission of these petty duties which are then troublesome when they are frequent you will give mee leave to tell you that I have indeede omitted them but more by discretion than by negligence I know Sir you have no time to lose and to put you to the reading of unprofitable words what were it but to shew an ignorance how much the King imployes you and how much the State needes you It is therefore the respect I beare to your continuall imployments that hath caused my â—…lence and I should be very absurd if in the assiduitie of your cares I should present you with little pleasing amusements and should looke for an answer to some poore compliment when you have so many commandements of importance and so many orders of necessitie to deliver forth It is enough for me that you doe me the honour to cast your eyes upon the protestation I make you that in all the extent of your command there is not a soule more submisse nor more desirous to beare your yoake then mine is and that as much as any in the world I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 10. Aug. 1630. To Mounsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XXXI SIR you neede not wonder to see your name in the Booke I fond you Lovers you know leave markes of their passion and if they were able would fill the whole earth with their Cyphers and devises It is a custome as ancient as the world for with that beganne writing also 〈◊〉 and at first for want of paper men graved the names of those they loved upon the baâ—… of treeâ—… If any man wonder I should be in love with a Preacher why wonders hee not at that Romane of whom a Grecian said that he was not onely in love with Cato but was enchanted with him You have done as much to otherâ—… in this country and I have as many Rivalls as you have auditors Yet there is not the same Object of all our affections they runne after your words and hang at your mouth but I goe further and discover in your heart that which is better than your eloquence I could easily resist your Figures and your Arguments but your goodnesse and your freenesse take me captive presently I therefere give you the title of a perfect friend in your Encomium because I account this a more worthy qualitie than to be a perfect Oratour and because I make most reckoning of that vertue in a man which humane societie hath most neeede of For other matters Remember your selfe in what termes I speake of the businesse you write of and that onely to obey you I have beene contented to alter my opinion I was well assured the enterprise would never take effect but I thought it better to faile by consenting than by obstiâ—…acie and rather to take a repulse than not to take your counsell I have known along time that fortune meanes me no good and the experience I have of her hath cured me of the malady of hope and ambition Make mee not fall into a relapse of these troublesome diseases I beseech you but come and confirme my health you Sir that are a soveraigne Physition of soules and who are able to see in mine that I perfectly am Your c. At Balzac 10. Febr. 1635. To Mounsieur de Piles Cleremont LETTER XXXII SIR having heard of the favourable words you used of me at the Court I cannot any longer forbeare to give you thanks nor stay till our next meeting from telling you how highly I esteeme this favour I cannot but confesse I did not looke to finde so great a graciousnesse in the country of maliciousnesse and seeing that the greatest part eveu of honest men have so much love for themselves that they have but little or none left for strangers I thought with my selfe that the infection of the world had but lightly touched you and that either you had no passions in you at all or at least but very coole and moderate but I see nâ—…w that you have more generousnesse in you than is fit to have amongst men that are interessed and that you put in practise the Maximes of our Ancestours and the Rules of your Epictetus It is I that am for this exceedingly bound unto you seeing it is I that receive the benefit of it that am the Object of your vertue You may then beleeve I have not so unworthy a heart as not to feele a resentment answerable to so great an Obligation at least Sir I hope to shew you that the Picture mine enemies have made of me is not drawne after the life and that their colours disfigure me rather then represent me I have nothing in me Heroicall and great I confesse but I have something that is humane and indifferent If I
be not of the number of the vertuous I am at least of their side I applaud them whom I cannot follow and admire that I cannot imitate I am glad if I can be praised not onely of the judicious and wise such as you and our Mounsieur de Boissat are but even of the simpler sort that are honestly minded such as I know Sir how to love in perfection and when you shall know me better you shall confesse there is none that can be more than I Your c. At Paris 2. Aprill 1635. To Mounsieur de Uoyture LETTER XXXIII SIR If I did not rely upon your goodnesse I should take more care than I doe in preserving your favour and I should not let a messenger goe from hence by whom I should not persecute you with my Letters But knowing you are no rigorous exactor of that which is your due much lesse expect I should give you more I have conceived I might be negligent without offence and that having an absolute power over mee as you have you would use it upon me with the moderation of good Soveraignes And I should still continue to follow mine owne inclination which findes a sweetenesse in idlenesse if I did not thinke it necessary to advertise you that I am in the world least you should thinke all your courtesies lost that you have done me I would have beene glad I could have loved you all my life long without any kinde of interest or temporall consideration yet it troubles me not to give honour to my friend by giving him matter for his vertue to worke upon I am content you shall hold the higher part in our friendship which is to doe good but then I looke to hold the lover and lesse noble part which is to acknowledge and this is so setled in my heart that a greator cannot be desired from a man exceedingly sensibly and exceedingly obliged But though it were so that you had no tie upon me and that without ungratefulnesse I might forbeare to love you yet I intreate you to beleeve that the knowledge I have of your worth and merit would never give me leave to do it but that the naturall respect we owe to things that are perfect would alwayes binde me infinitely to honour you and to be with all my soule as I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 15. Iuly 1630. Another to him LETTER XXXIV SIR you are welcome from Flanders from England and from Spaine I am not onely glad for your returne but I refresh my selfe after your voyages For if you know it not I must tell you that my spirit hath gone these voyages with you you never passed the sea that I was not neare a shipwracke They that knew what it is to love will not mislike the noveltie of this compliment I have borne my part in all the fits of your Feavour I have drunke part of all your potions I have accompanied you in all your strange adventures It is therefore great reason I should give you thankes for giving my friendship rest and that by fiuishing your travell you have finished my unquietnesse It is better Sir to be a private man at home where there is courtesie and freenesse than to be a Lord Ambassadour among publique enemies and if the Iewes said well that the Graves of Judea were more beautifull than the Pallaces of Babylon why may not we be bold to say that the Dirt of Paris is better than the Marble of Madrill It is a juster thing to adore M. the Cardinall than to put off ones hat to the President Rose or to the Marquesse of Aitona and it would have beene a newes no lesse shamefull than lamentable if we had come to reade in the Gazets these pittifull words A Sonne of France was waiting for the King of Spaines rising up Atque ibi magnus Mirandusque Cheus sedet ad Praetoria regis Donec Hesperio libâ—… Uigilare Tyrâ—…no Thankes be to God the face of things is changed and a great Princes libertie hath cost but the life of a good Horse At our next meeting you shall tell me all the fortunes you have passed and in requitall thereof I will tell you newes out of the Wildernesse and it shall be at Mounsieur de Châ—… Chamber that our conference shall be at least if you care any thing for it and that I be in his favour still How soever this I am sure he can never love any man that honours him more perfectly than I doe or that hath a greater opinion of the beautie and noblenesse of his minde Hee is alwayes one of the deere objects of my thoughts and I still take him for one of those true Knights which are no where to be found now but in the History of France I want such an example before my eyes tostirre up the faintnesse I feele in my duty and to thrust me forward in the love of Vertue The least of his words makes my spirit but higher and greater the onely sound of his voyce gives the both life and strength and I doubt not but I should be twice as good as I am if I could but see him once a moneth and make a third in your excellent conferences But this is a happinesse which is at home with you but farre off from mee though I have a designe to come nearer to it you injoy it to the full and leave to others onely a desire of it and a jealousie and jealous indeede I should be if I did not love you more then I love my selfe and if being bound to you for a thousand favours I did not acknowledge my selfe more bound to take a contentment in your good fortune Enjoy then your happinesse sir and never feare I will oppose it seeing I shall alwayes preferre your contentments before my owne and shall be all my life Your c. At Balzac 5. Novemb. 1634. To Mounsieur Mestivier Physitian to my Lord the Duke D'Espernon LETTER XXXV SIR I am a thirst for the waters of Uya ever since I heard you thinke them to be wholesome the reputation you give them hath made me to send for them to try whether this Drug will do me any more good then others I am apt to beleeve for the satisfaction of my taste that there are no better medicines then those that are least compounded and which come ready made from the bosome of our common mother but specially I have a confidence in nature when shee comes authorized by your judgement and hath the warrant of so esteemed a name as yours and by this meanes Sir you have saved mee a voyage into Italy For so but for you I was taking a journey of two hundred and fifty Leagues upon the word of an antient Poet to the end I might be of those happy ones of whom he writes these verses Non ven 〈◊〉 relecant nec vulnere vulnera sanant Pocula nec tristi gramine mist a bibunt Amissum lymphis reparant impune vigorem
Lord untill nâ—…ght I conceived there was some necessity to deliver him your Letter with all speede and therefore I exposed my person to all the injuries of an incensed sky and ventured to make a voyage that would have frighted a stouter man then my selfe By this you may know that I count nothing difficult which reflects upon any interest of yours or which concernes your contentment and I love you so much that I should not say so much if I had more craft in me then I have But my good Nature exceedes al other considerations of vulgar Prudence and I would not keepe you from knowing what great power you have over me though I knew before hand you would abuse this power For other things I am very glad to heare you beginne to grow sensible of the charmes of musicke and that Consorts are in reputation with you Yet I have seene the time when your eares were no learneder then mine and when you made no great difference betweene the sound of Lutes and the noyse of Bells See what it is to frequent good company and to live in a Country of neatenesse I that stirre not from the Village know no other musicke but that of Birds and if sometimes I heare a more silver sound it comes from those noble Animals which Mounsieur Heinsius praiseth so much and which by Lucians saying serve for Trumpets in the Kingdome of the Moone I give you a thousand thankes for your newes but specially for the last it is certaine that the choice of Mounsieur de Belieure to be Ambassadour for Italy is a thing will be generally well liked men talke wonders already of his beginnings of the readinesse and Vivacitie of his Spirit of the force and stayâ—…dnesse of his Iudgement besides some other excellent qualities of his Age from which we may hope for much And for my selfe who am one that love my Countrie exceedingly I cannot but exceedingly rejoyce in this new fruitefulnesse which comes upon him at the latter end of his old age It doth me good to see famous deceased men to live againe in their excellent posteritie and I doubt not of the good successe of a Negotiation where a Belieure a Thou or a Sillery is imployed These were our Heroes of the long Robe and the Princes of our Senate and now their children that I may continue to speake Latine in French are the Princes of our youth at least they are names more happy and that portend more good to France then the name of and no doubt she will have cause to thanke M. the Cardinall for respecting races that are so deere unto her and for stirring up in the Kings the old inclinations of the Deceased King his Father I fall a sleepe alwaies when I am talking with you and am rather in case to make ill dreames then good discourses and so I take my leave of you my deare and perfect friend as I also am to you as much as possibly can be Your c. At Balzac 4. Octo. 1634. To Mounsieur Talon Secretary to my Lord the Cardinall De la Ualette LETTER XLII SIR I tooke infinite pleasure to see my selfe in one of your Letters and Mounsieur who imparted it to mee can witnesse for me with what greedinesse I read that passage which concerned me I cannot say that he is here though it be true that he is not in Gascognie for we enjoy nothing of him here but his Image he is so married that he would thinke it a disloyalty to his wife if hee should dare to laugh when shee is not by All his sociable humour he hath left with her and hath brought nothing to us but his Melancholy When I would make him merry he tels me I goe about to corrupt him All visites he makes in her absence though it be to covents and Hospitals yet he calls them De bauches So as Sir you never saw man better satisfied with his present estate nor a greater enemy to single life He is not contented to pitty you and me and to lament our solitude but he reproacheth us outragiously and cals us unprofitable members of the Common-wealth and such as are fit to be cut off As for me I make no defence for my selfe but your example I tell him let him perswade you to it first and he shall soone finde me ready to follow his counsell I hope we shall meete together ere long and then we shall not neede to feare his being too strong for us in our conferences when we two shall be against him alone Provide therefore Solutions for his Arguments but withall deny me not your assistance in other encounters where it may stand me instead You can never doe courtesies to a man more capable of acknowledgement nor that is more truely then I Sir Your c. At Balzac 12. Febru 1633. Another to him LETTER XLIII SIR I am exceedingly well satisfied with the newes you send me and with the assurance you give me by your Letter of the continuation of your Friendship Not that I was afraid I should lose it but because it is a pleasure to heare ones selfe called happy and that one cannot have too many titles for a possession which can never be too much valued I take not upon me to contend with you in Compliments or to dispute of civility with you who live in the light of the world and have whole Magasins of good words For besides that I never had any skill of the Couâ—… it is now so long I have beene a countriman that it were a miracle if I had not cleane forgot it all Pardon therefore a rudenesse which I cannot avoide and seeing I am not able to answer you give me leave to assaile you and require you to give a reason of the present state of things What can you say Sir of these wretched Flemmins who shut their Gates against good Fortune when she would come in to them and are in love with their Fetters and their Keepers I doe not thinke there be truer slaves in all Asia and I doe not wonder our Armes can doe no good in their Country seeing it is a hard matter to take a yoake from mens heads who preferre it before a Crowne and Soveraigntie when it is offered them Sicke men are then to be despaired of when they throw their medicines on the ground and account of Potions as of Poysonings It is not therefore our fault if they be not cured wee have active power enough to worke but it must upon a matter that is apt and disposed I expect hereupon a Decree from your politician and remaine Your c. At Balzac 1. Iuly 1635. To Mounsieur D'Espernon Marshall of the Kings Armies LETTER XLIV SIR my compliments are very rare and I take no great care for preserving your friendship I account you so true of your word that I cannot doubt of having your love seeing you have done me the honour to let mee have your promise It is to
no purpose to sollicite Judges that cannot be corrupted It is enough for procuring their favour that the cause be good You see therefore I doe not much trouble my selfe to commend mine unto you and I present my selfe so seldome before you that if you had not an excellent memory you had certainely forgot mee long agoe I pray you not to doe me good offices for knowing that you let slippe no occasion of doing good I may be sure to have my part of your good deedes though you have none of my prayers Your new Acquests at the Court make you not leave that you have on this side the Loyre your friends that are alwayes with you take not up all your heart there is some place left for your friends farther of of which number I am one and more in love Sir with the comtemplative life than ever I am alwayes under ground and buried with my trees and they must be very strong cords and very violent coÌ„mandements that should remove me yet I am contented to give my thoughts a libertie and my spirit is often in the place where you are and my absence is not so idly bestowed but that I can make you a reckoning of it I speake to you in this manner because I know you are no hater of delightfull knowledges and have an excellent taste to judge of things Though by profession you be a Souldier yet I refuse you not for a judge in our peaceable difference being well assured there are not many Doctours more accomplisht or of a founder judgement than your selfe This qualitie is no opposite to true valour the Romanes whose discipline you seeke to reestablish used to leade with them the Muses to warre and in the tumult of their Armies left alwayes place for these quiet exercises Brutus read Polybius the night before the battell at Philippi and his Vncle was at his Booke the very houre before he meant to die Never therefore feare doing ill when you follow the example of such excellent Authours none will ever blame you for imitating the Romanes unlesse perhappes the Crabates or other enemies as well of Humanitie as of France But to be thus blamed by Barbarians is an infallible marke of merit for they know no points of vertue but such as are wilde and savage and imagine that roaring and being furious are farre more noble things than speaking and reasoning I leave them to their goodly imaginations and come to tell you that though your Letter to my Sister be dated from the Army in Germany yet it is eloquent enough to come from the Academy of M. the Cardinall it neither smells of Gunpowder nor of Le pais de adieu pas I know by certain markes I have observed in it that your Bookes are part of your Baggage and I finde nothing in it that is worthy of blame but onely the excessive praises you bestow upon mee and if you were not a stout champion and able to maintaine it with your sword you would certainely ere this have had the lie given you a thousand times for praising me so I should be verry sorry to be a cause of so many petty quarrells and so unworthy of your courage a forraigne warre hath neede of your spirit make not therefore any Civill for my sake I desire no such violent proofes of your affection it serves my turne that you love me quietly and if you so please secretly too to the end that our friendshippe being hidden may lie in covert from injuries and that possessing it without pompe I may enjoy it without envie I reckon it alwayes amongst my solidest goods and will be sure never to lose it if perfit faithfulnesse will serve to keepe it and if it will suffice to be as I most passionately am Sir Your c. At Balzac 4. Ianu 1635. To Mounsieur de Roussines LETTER XLV MY deare brother I have upon this last occasion received nothing from you but the offices I expected I know you to be just and generous and one that will alwayes religiously pay whatsoever you owe either to Bloud or friendship yet this hinders me not from being obliged to you and to your good Birth for it This hath bestowed a friend upon me which I never tooke paines either to looke out or to make It is a present of Nature which I should have taken if shee had given me my choise I desire you to beleeve that I never stood lesse in neede of comfort than now Loppose nothing against the rage of a thousand adversaries but my scorne I am Armour of proofe against all the tales from the Suburbs St. Honoré and from all the Libells of the streete St. Iaques They encrease daily in sight and if the heate of their spirits doe not abate there will shortly be a little Library of follies written against me But you never yet heard of such a gravitie as I haue nor of a mind that could take such rest in the midst of stormes and tempests as I do and this I owe to Philosophie under whose covert I shelter my selfe it is not onely higher than mountaines where we see it raine and haile below us but it is stronger also than a Fortresse where wee may stand out of danger and make mouthes at our enemies All that hurts me in the warre of is that which concernes the interest of others it grieves me extremely that his crueltie should leave me and fall upon my friends I wish I could have bought out the three lives that touch the honour of with a third Volume of injuries done to my selfe and where no body else should have any part and I may truely say that this is the onely blow which that perfidious enemie hath given mee that goes to my heart and the onely of all his offenses that I have felt I intreate you to let my friend know of my griefe and to make sure unto me this rare personage by all the cares and good offices your courtesie can devise His Vertue ought to be inviolable to de traction but drtraction will not spare Vertue it selfe but takes a delight in violating the best things I have reason to place him in this ranke and considering him as one of the most accomplisht worke of Nature I must needes consider withall that Nature it selfe is sometimes calumniated Madame de enquires often after you and hath a great opinion of your heart and spirit You may be sure I say nothing in opposition to the account she holds you in but am rather glad to see my judgement confirmed by so infallible an authoritie see you be alwayes good and alwayes lay hold upon our antient Maximes and be assured I am and alwayes will be My deare brother Your c. At Paris 15. Ianu. 1628. To Mounsieur Breton LETTER XLVI SIR you are a man of yourword and something more You promiseâ—… lesse than you performe having undertaken to furnish me but with Gazets you extend your largesse to large volumes of Bookes This