[223] Interlined.
Sewerall tymes in France persones have suffered because they had discovered some plot or conspiracy against the King or estat and could not prove it. The Law is the same wt us, tho it seimes to carry injustice. On all hands I am in danger: if I do not reveale it I am aequally guilty of the treason as the actors are; if I rewealle it, I am immediatly made prisoner, tortured to show all I know of it, put to prove what I say, in which if I failly I lose my life. What can a man do when he have no proofes? He most tho' reveall it and consequently lose his life; since after the truth sal appear and he sal be held be all to have died gloriously as a weill wisher to his country.
Its was strange of Cardinal Richelieu who know[224] all things that past thorow France as if he had bein present, and 2 of the most intimate sould not have spoken ill of him at Poictiers but he sould have knowen it or 4 dayes at Paris. Some imputed it to a familiar spirit he had, others to his spies he had every wheir. He was toute en toute in France in his tyme.
[224] Lauder's way of spelling knew. Compare p. 98, slow for slew.
The French mock at our sweit sauses and sugared sallades. Their salt is a great deall better and more sawory then ours is. That which we parfait be the fire, which cannot but in some measure consume the strenth of its savorinesse, the sun denieng us it, they parfait be the sun. In Bearn or Navarre they make it be the fire as we do; but they make more cont of that which comes from the Rochel, which the Hollanders, Dans, and others carries in abondance then of their. On the place wheir they make it its sold for a sous marky[225] la livre, which costs at Poictiers 20 sous. In 2 heurs tyme the sun will converte a great ditch full of sea water unto upright salt: that they showle out, fills it again, and so in 3 moneth, May, Juin, July, they make more salt then the fire maks in 2 years in Scotland: and wt lesse cost and lesse pain. That our salt is whitter, its the effect of the fire, since they could render theirs as white but it sould lose so werie much of its savory. Their is a ile neir to that of St Christople which hath montaines of Salt. The sea casts in the water on the dry land and the sun convertes it immediatly, which beats their so violently that no corn can grow; it rises but its brunt or it come to the head. The sugar growes marvelously weill in it.
[225] Sou marqué. Copper coin worth fifteen deniers. That was the value of the sou parisis. The sou tournois was worth twelve deniers.
The day before great fests, as les Roys[226] Toussaints, etc., their fellows that wt white surplices and a pigful[227] of holy water wt a spung in it goes thorow al the Catholick houses be-sprinkling the persons as also the house, and so sanctifieng them that the Dewil dare not enter their; passing by the Protestants houses as infected; or rather, as the Angel who smote the first born of the Egyptians past the Israelits. At Toussaints al are in ther best cloaths.
[226] Epiphany.
[227] Jarful.
Of the fal of our first parents its enquired what might have happened in the case of the women alone sould have fallen, the man keiping his integrity: wheither the children would have bein culpable wt the mother, or innocent wt the father. 2'do if any children had bein born before the fal they sould have bein exempt from the curse or not. 3'o if our parents fell the same day they ware created. 4to who would be Cains wife, ether his mother or a sister.