Sir,
I bless God with all my heart for the good news you give me of your happy marriage and of the complete recovery of my son. Indeed, I am allied to your honourable family by so many obligations and so close an affection that I cannot but share in a large measure all the good and evil fortune that befalls you; therefore have I every reason, seeing you so happy in this marriage, to rejoice with you and to congratulate your family. Thanking God, as I do with all my heart, for this great blessing, I beg of Him in His infinite goodness to spread an abundance of graces upon your union and to give you many prosperous years. Such, Sir, are the wishes of my heart for you and for your wife, whom I pray to believe me to be her very humble servant.
Always your very
humble and affectionate servant.
LXX.
To the Countess de Toulonjon.
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Annecy, 1627.
My dearest Daughter,
May God in His infinite goodness recompense you by an abundance of spiritual and temporal blessings for the loss you have sustained in the death of a son,[A] tidings of which have reached me. I know that you will have received this visitation of God with a patient and loving submission to His good pleasure, for in this valley of tears we must expect many afflictions and but few consolations. Keep lifting up your thoughts to Eternal Life, where alone is to be found true repose. Into it cast all your heart and all your hopes, and teach the little one (Gabrielle[B]) this lesson while she is still young.
[A] Madame de Toulonjon unhappily lost several of her children at birth.