A new religious fashion[175] is in vogue among the French. The townsmen and peasants of some place, of all ages and all ranks, quit their homes in a body, and make a pilgrimage of two or three days to some famous shrine. The pilgrims are generally clothed in white linen robes, and carry crosses in their hands. Some people think that this movement had its origin in supernatural warnings, which frightened the people, and led them to take this means of appeasing the Deity, and saving themselves; others think that it is to gratify the King that these pilgrimages are undertaken, and that their object is to ask God to grant him children.
October 6, 1585.
LETTER XXVI.
I have received a letter from the Counsellors of your Imperial Majesty’s chamber, in which they state that the books which I presented to the library some seven years ago, during the lifetime of the Emperor Maximilian, of blessed memory, have been valued at one thousand florins; if your Imperial Majesty regards this sum in the light of a present in return for my present of books, I shall consider it most handsome, and humbly offer my best thanks to your Majesty for the same; but if it is a matter of business and strict account—if this sum, I say, is to be reckoned as the ascertained value of all those precious volumes, the antiquity of which renders them so important an acquisition to the Imperial Library—I must confess that such a price in no way represents their value. The precious character of the books and the high regard I have ever felt for them[176] render it incumbent on me to make this protest. As far as I am personally concerned, I am ready to acquiesce in your Majesty’s decision, whatever it may be.
October 9, 1583.
[LETTER XXVII.]
The King has at last returned. On account of the plague it was determined that he should not enter Paris. It was arranged, as the most convenient plan, that he should stay at Saint-Germain en Laye. On his arrival, his first care was to summon the gentlemen who, as I told your Majesty in a former letter, were sent round the provinces and cities of France to collect money. They are all men of high standing.[177] The King will now receive an account of the steps they took and the reply they got. Their report must needs be that all made answer with one accord, their burden was already so heavy, that if they were to bear it any longer, it must be lightened rather than increased by the addition of a fresh tax.