[123] Fullions, Feuillants, 'Nom de religieux réformés de l'ordre de Citeaux, appelés en France feuillants, et en Italie réformés de St. Bernard… Etym., Notre-Dame de Feuillans, devenue en 1573 le chef de la congrégation de la plus étroite observation de Citeaux … en Latin, Beata Maria fuliensis, fulium dicta a nemore cognomine, aujourd'hui Bastide des Feuillants, Haute Garonne.'— Littré, Dict. s.v.
Tho the French are knowen and celebrated throwghout the world for the civility, especially to strangers, yet I thought wonderfull to perceive the inbreed antipathy they carry against the Spaniard. That I have heard it many a tyme, not only from Mr. Daillé, but from persons of more refined judgements then his, yea even from religious persones, that they had not no civility for a Spaniard, that not one of a 1000 of them is welcoome. I pressing whence this might come to passe that they so courteously receaving all sortes of strangers, be they Scots, English, Germans, Hollanders, or Italians, and that they had none of this courtoisie to spare for a Spaniard, they replied that it came to pass from the contrariety of their humeurs; that the French ware franck (whence they would derive the name of their nation), galliard, pleasant, and pliable to all company; the Spaniard quite contrary retired, austere, rigid, proud. And indeed their are something of truth in it; for who knows not the pride of the Castilian: if a Castilian then a Demigod. He thinks himselfe ex meliore luto natus then the rest of the world is.
Its a fine drollery to sie a Frenchman conterfit the Castilian as he marches on his streets of Castile wt his castilian bever cockt, his hand in his syde, his march and paw[124] speaking pride it selfe. Who knows not also that mortell feud that the Castilian carries to the Portugueze and the Portuegueze reciprocally to them, and whence this I beseich you if not from the conceit they have of themselfe. This minds me of a pretty story I have heard them tell of a Castilian who at Lisbon came into a widows chop to buy something. She was sitting wt her daughter; the lass observing his habit crys to her mother, do not sell him nothing, mother, hees a Castilian, the mother chiding her daughter replied, whow dare you call the honest man a Castilian; on that tenet they hold that a Castilian cannot be a honest man. I leive you to ghesse whether the daughters wipe or the mothers was tartest.
[124] paw = pas.
Howell (as I remember) in a letter (its in the first volume, letter 43) he writes from Lyons, he findes the 2 rivers on which that brave city (for its situation yeelding to none in Europe, not to London tho' on lovely Thames) standes on, to wit the Rhosne and the Sosne, to be a pretty embleme of the diversity thats betuixt the humeurs of thess 2 mighty nations (France and Spain), who deservedly may be termed the 2 axletrees or poles on which the Microcosme of Europe turnes. Its theirfor wery much in the concernement of the rest of Europe to hold their 2 poles at a even balance, lest the one chancing at lenth to wieght doune the other there be no resisting of him, and we find ourselfes wise behind the hand.
Looking again on the Rhosne, which runes impetuously and wiolently, it mindes him of the French galliardness and lightness, or even inconstancy. Looking again on the Sosne, and finding it glid smoothly and calmly in its channel, its mindes him (he sayes) of the rigid gravity the Spaniard affected. And to speak the truth, this pride and selfe conceetedness is more legible in the Spaniard than in the French, yet if our experience abuse us not, we have discovered a great tincture of it in the French. That its not so palpable amongs them as in the Spaniard we impute to that naturall courtoisie and civility they are given to, that tempers it or hides it a little, being of the mind that if the Spaniard had a litle grain of the French pleasantness, the pride for which we tax them sould not be so apparent.
Yet we discovered a beastly proud principle that we have observed the French from the hiest to the lowest (let him be never so base or so ignorant) to carry about wt them, to wit, that they are born to teach all the rest of the world knowledge and manners. What may be the mater and nutrix of this proud thought is not difficult to ghess; since wtout doubt its occasioned by the great confluence of strangers of all sorts (excepting only the Italian and Spaniard, who think they have to good breeding at home to come and seik it of the French) who are drawen wt the sweitness of the country, and the common civility of the inhabitants. Let this we have sayd of the French pass for a definition of him till we be able to give a better.
About the beginning of September at Poictiers, we had the newes of a horrid murder that had bein perpetrat at Paris, on a Judge criminell by tuo desperat rascalls, who did it to revenge themselfes of him for a sentence of death he had passed against their brother for some crime he had committed. His wife also, as she came in to rescue hir husband, they pistoled. The assassinats ware taken and broken on the wheell. He left 5 million in money behind him, a terrible summe for a single privat man, speaking much the richness of Paris.
The palais at Poictiers (which with us we call the session) raises the 1
Saturday of September, and sittes doune again at Martimess.
We remember that in our observations at Orleans we marked that the violent beats heir procures terrible thunders and lightnening, and because they are several tymes of bad consequence, the thunder lighting sometymes on the houses, sometymes on the steeples and bells, levelling all to the ground, that they may evite the danger as much as they can they sett all the bells of the city on work gin goon.[125]