These are worthy the author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Cæsar's lines on Terence are written with rather more spirit and taste; they breathe Roman urbanity. In those of Francis I. and Charles IX. we find the barbarism of the Celts. Would to God that Charles IX. had written more verses, even though bad ones! For constant application to the fine arts softens the manners and dispels ferocity:
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.
Besides, the French languages scarcely began to take any form until long after Charles IX. See such of Francis I.'s letters as have been preserved: "Tout est perdu hors l'honneur"—"All is lost save honor"—was worthy of a chevalier. But the following is neither in the style of Cicero nor in that of Cæsar:
The Bartholomew massacre—The death of Coligny.
"Tout a fleure ynsi que je me volois mettre o lit est arrivé Laval qui m'a aporté la serteneté du lévement du siege."
"All was going so well that, when I was going to bed Laval arrived, and brought me the certainty of the siege being raised."
We have letters from the hand of Louis XIII., which are no better written. It is not required of a king to write letters like Pliny, or verses like Virgil; but no one can be excused from expressing himself with propriety in his own tongue. Every prince that writes like a lady's maid has been ill educated.