GAULMINI DEDICATION.

To the most noble and most illustrious man, Sir Nicolas Verdun, knight and prince of a most distinguished order 1, Gilbert Gaulminus sends greetings.

Most illustrious of men,

The most ancient discussion about demons is, if you exclude the first one about God, the second. Certainly the first mortals, who knew the authors of their own wickedness, could not have been ignorant of them. Thus, taught other frauds by that one crime, and having gradually attained the knowledge that they would transmit to posterity, they finally avenged the wickedness of impostors by discovering the truth. But they, content with a simple and bare knowledge of the truth, despised words. We, while seeking eloquence for the truth, have neither found eloquence nor preserved the truth.

1) Nicolas Verdun, to use a less Latin and more accessible style of speech, was the first president of the Parliament of Toulouse, and later of Paris. He was highly praised by Seglaus, a Councilor of Toulouse, in his Tragic History, pp. 7, 92, 98, 99, 372. See also Patiniana, p. 71, and Borboniana, p. 276. He died in 1627. Gaulminus also dedicated his edition of Eumathius to Verdun.