I Just now receiv’d your’s by a courier, who, had he not been too nimble for me, had been rewarded according to his deserts for his impudent message. But are you such a coxcomb as to imagine that the most ambitious monarch upon earth, whose power puts all the princes and states of Europe into convulsions, can be frighted at the threats of a wretch condemn’d to everlasting punishments? The insolence of your comparison, I must confess, threw me into a rage: and not reflecting at first on the impossibility of the thing, I sent immediately for Boufflers to dragoon you. But, villain! because your malice has been rampant for so many ages, must you now level it at the eldest son of the church, whom the godly Jesuits have already canoniz’d? I am not so ignorant of the history of Asia, tho’ I never read any of the books of the Maccabees; but I know you were both judge and executioner, and that there is not in the universe one monument consecrated to your glory. Thanks to the careful Jesuits, la place des victoris, is a sufficient proof that my reputation is no chimera, and my name, which is to be seen in golden characters over several monasteries, assures me of a glorious immortality. ’Tis true, to keep in favour with the church, I have compell’d a handful of obstinate fools to leave their country and estates, by forcing them to renounce their God, and implicitly take up with mine. Therefore the world has no reason to make such a noise about it. Are you mad to call Pelisson, who has read more volumes than a rabbi, and cou’d give lessons of hypocrisy to the most exquisite sect of the Pharisees, a block-head? Your torments are so great, you know not on whom to spit your venom, and my poor [5] mistress, forsooth, must suffer from your malice: Is she the worse for being born in the reign of my grandfather? Pray ask Boileau, whose sincerity has cost him many a tear, what he thinks of her. All the world knows her virtues, and that she is grown grey in the school of dissimulation and lewdness, which have render’d her so charming in the feats of love, that she pleases me more than the youngest beauty; therefore are her wrinkles the objects of my wonder, and the provocatives of my enervated limbs, instead of being antidotes; and I would not give a saint a wax-candle to make her younger. Tho’ I am seiz’d by a cancer on the shoulder, yet I am under no apprehensions, for I have given a fee to St. Damian, who will cure me of it, as well as of that nauseous malady of Naples: And I have plenipotentiaries now bribing heaven for its friendship, and a new term of years. Then ’tis in vain for Lucifer, or you, ever to expect me; and when I must leave this terrestial paradice, ’twill be with such a convoy of Masses, as will hurry me by the very gate of Purgatory, without touching there. In the mean time correct your saucy liberty, and let a monarch who wou’d scorn to entertain such a pitiful wretch as thou art for his pimp, still huff the world, and sleep quietly in his seraglio.
Versailles, July 14.
Lewis R.
Catharine de Medicis, to the Duchess of Orleans.
Madam,
I Have long bewailed your condition, and tho’ I am in a place of horror, yet I should think myself in some measure happy, if I knew how to deliver you from those anxieties which torment you. We have some body or other arrives here daily from Versailles, and as my curiosity inclines me to enquire after your highness, I have received so advantageous a character of your goodness from all hands, that I think every one ought to pity you. Your life, madam, has been very unhappy, for you were married very young to a jealous ill-natur’d prince, who had no love for you; tho’ no person in the world was fitter either to inspire or receive it than yourself: However, you have had better luck than his former wife, which I take to be owing to your prudence, and not his generosity. The desolations of the Palatine, and persecution of a religion you once approved, must infallibly have given you many uneasy moments, but your misfortunes did not stop here, for even your domestick pleasures have been poison’d by the dishonour and injustice of the court you live in. In short, tho’ I was very unfortunate, yet I think you much more worthy of compassion: When I married Henry II. I was both young and handsome, yet his doting on the haughty duchess of Valentinois, who was a grandmother before Francis II. was born, made me pass many melancholy nights. Notwithstanding the injustice as well as cruelty of keeping a saucy strumpet under my nose, yet with the veil of prudence and religion, I easily covered my inclinations, because the pious cardinal of Lorrain, who had an admirable talent to comfort an afflicted heart, commiserating my condition, gave me wonderful consolation. As the refreshing cordials of the church soon made me forget the king’s ill usage of me; so, madam, it is not so much the infidelity of your husband, as the cruel constraint and jealousy, that makes me think your life to be miserable; for how great soever your occasions are, you dare not I know, accept of those assistances, I daily receive from a plump agreeable prelate, and I am heartily sorry for it. To divert this discourse, which may perhaps aggravate your uneasiness, by renewing your necessities, you’ll tell me, I suppose, that I shou’d have had as much compassion, when France was dy’d with the blood of so many thousand victims, and that I might easily have moderated the fury of my son, and of the house of Guise; but besides, you must consider, I was a zealous Papist; and they, you know, think the cutting of poor hereticks throats is doing heaven good service; so that I beheld the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew with as much satisfaction as ever I did the most glorious and solemn festival. I am not for it at present, madam, and could I have been so sooner, it would have been much more for my ease. All my comfort is, that I am not by myself in a strange and unknown country: for the old duchess, who robbed me of my due benevolence in the other world, continually follows me to upbraid me; the Guises rave, brandishing bloody daggers in their hands; and every hour I meet with numbers of my former acquaintance and nearest relations, but I avoid their company as much as I can, for the love of my dear cardinal, who continues as great a gallant as ever. I ask no masses of you, for the dead are not a farthing the better for them. But, madam, since all the world has not so good an opinion of me at Brantome, let me conjure you not to let my memory be too much insulted. Some may say I was as cunning as Livia, that I was even with my husband, and govern’d my children; but their fate did not answer my care: For Francis liv’d but a little time, Elizabeth found her tomb in the arms of a jealous husband, the queen of Navarre was a wandering star, Charles a cautious coxcomb, that sacrificed all to his safety; and Henry, on whom I had founded all my hopes, a dissolute debauchee, whom the justice of heaven would not spare. You know his history, and if you shou’d see a tragedy, of the like nature acted on your stage, let your constancy, which makes you respected even in hell, support you. Let old [6] Messalina enjoy the famous honour of the royal bed; you need not blush at it, since all the world esteems you as much as they.
The Answer of the Duchess of Orleans to Catharine de Medicis.
’TWAS with much reason you pity me; and tho’ I have said nothing all this while, yet I have not thought the less. If the practice of our court did not teach me to dissemble, I should give myself some ease, by imparting many things to you, which would fill you with horror; and then you would find that the cruelties of your sons were trifles in comparison of these. The most impartial censurers of barbarity maintain that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was milder than the present persecution of the Protestants: Ambition was the chiefest motive of the Guises; but now their cruelties are covered with the cloak of religion; for the virtuous favourite [7] Sultaness, with the pitious [8] Mufti in waiting, are resolved to cause the christians to be more cruelly persecuted than they were at Algiers, and the Roman church is resolved, at any rate, to merit the name of the blood-thirsty beast. They value not exposing the reputation of princes; I blush for my race, and am often obliged to swallow my tears. I believe the efficacy of masses no more than you, therefore I will not offer you any. I am very glad to hear the cardinal of Lorrain proves so constant; for a prelate of his talent and constitution must certainly be a great consolation to a distressed princess. Brantome who has so much flatter’d you, may do it again; and tho’ Sancy has been too sincere, yet he dares not contradict him in your presence. I hope to see the ruins of my country rais’d up again; for tho’ our ambitious monarch huffs and hectors all Christendom, yet his game to me seems very desperate, and I believe he’ll prove the dog in the fable; since he has so depopulated and impoverish’d his dominions by persecutions, that those pious drones the Monks, only can support the church’s grandeur in their faces, with three story-chains; the rest of his people being reduc’d to wooden-shoes and garlick. Tho’ our Gazettes are little better than romances, yet they will serve to divert you and your cardinal, when not better employ’d; and I wish I could send them to you weekly. ’Tis true, great numbers set out daily from hence, for your country; and among them, people of the best quality, but I carefully avoid all commerce with them; and tho’ I have a wonderful esteem for you, take it not amiss, madam, if I endeavour never to see you.
Cardinal Mazarine, to the Marquis de Barbasiux.
I Am surpriz’d to think you have profited so little by your father’s example: as great a beast he was, he govern’d himself better than you; for contenting himself with pillaging all France, according to our maxims, he never attempted the life of any man, nor ever set any [9] Ravillacs to work. Is it not a horrible thing to see the [10] servant of a minister of state suffer upon the wheel, and publish the shame of him that set him to work? You were mightily mistaken in the choice of your villain; for whenever you have a king to dispatch, you must employ a Jesuit, or some novice inspired by their religious society; and had you been so wise, the prince [11] you had a plot against wou’d not be now in the way, to hinder the designs of a [12] king, for whom I have the tenderness of a father, who was always under my subjection, and wou’d have married my niece, if I had pleas’d. I fell into a cold sweat even in the midst of my fire and brimstone, at the news of your conspiracy; because it so severely reflected on his reputation. Ought you to have exposed his credit in so dubious an enterprize? Is it not sufficient that poets set upon him [13] Mont Pagnotte, whilst other princes gave glorious examples at the head of their troops? That they reproach him with incest, sodomy, adultery, and an unbridled passion for the relict of a poor [14] poet, who is a turn-spit here below, and who had nothing to keep him from starving when upon earth, but the pension which the charity of Anne of Austria granted to his infirmities, rather than his works, tho’ very diverting. What was your aim in this cowardly design? wou’d you have more servants, and more whores? Or, ought you to effect that, to revive those scenes of cruelty and treachery which we banish’d after the death of the most eminent cardinal Richlieu? All the wealth you can raise, will never amount to the treasures I was master of; and how much is there now left, ask the duke of Mazarine, and my nephew of Nevers; one has been the bubble of the priests, and the other of his pleasures. So that the children of the first will hardly share one year of my revenue. His wife for several years was no charge to him, she for her beauty, being kept by strangers; whilst he fool’d away those vast riches he had by her. In short, you see the praying coxcomb I made choice of, which, I must confess, I did when I was in my cups, has thro’ his zeal and bigotry ruin’d all, even my most beautiful statues; and that there is a curse entail’d upon such estates as begin with a miracle, and end with a prodigy. I was born at Mazare, without any other advantage than that of my beauty; but as a young fellow can scarce desire a better portion than that, in Italy, so it mov’d cardinal Anthony to lead me lovingly from his chamber to his closet, where on a soft easy couch, he preach’d to me morals after the Italian fashion; by which, and some other virtuous actions of the same stamp, I became the richest favourite in the universe. You may as well as I, heap a mighty treasure, and lose it foolishly. Do not be guilty then of murder, for things so uncertain in the possession. Poor Louvois! who left you all, who drank more than Alexander, and thiev’d better than Colbert, or I, has not now water to quench his thirst. You will undoubtedly meet the same destiny; for this is the residence of traitors, murtherers, thieves, and all other notorious villains. ’Tis not altogether so pleasant a place as [15] Meudon and Chaville; for we drink nothing but Aqua-fortis, and eat burning charcoal; all happiness is banish’d, misery only triumphs; and notwithstanding all those lying stories the priests may tell you, yet you’ll be strangly surpriz’d, when you come to judge it by your own experience.