Memoirs of Philippe de Mornay

his Angels. No doubt he shows himself to have been very outraged: For from where would this new rage come, if not from new pain, from new loss, from new fear of making a greater one in the future. So much venom would not have come out of his tail, if he had not been well pressed and crushed by the head. It is for us to believe that God will draw good from it, not to limit the time for it, but to pray to him that it may please him to give eyes to the blind, to see it, and patience to all to wait for it. I pray you, Monsieur, to preserve for me the honor of your benevolence, believing me extremely desirous to merit it by my very humble service; I offer it to you again, and am forever,

At Sedan, June 22, 1600.

Letter from M. du Plessis to M. de Lomenie, July 24, 1600.

Monsieur; I have received yours from Moulins of the 4th, where I see you still uncertain of the intention of Monsieur of Savoye the Duke of Savoy, then in territorial disputes with France. Not without mystery, and which nonetheless I hold as indifferent. Because, if he executes, we have peace abroad, and if not, that exercise will consolidate us all the better within. I also see that this war puts you all the sooner on the path of the wedding; which may God wish to bless. And you will always greatly oblige me to share with me the progress that these affairs will take. I come to what you write to me of myself: Should you not rather have admired my patience? To have seen for two months all sorts of writings run against me inside and outside the Kingdom? To be still every day cried out against, so much that the ears of all those who love peace ache from it, without my having replied? And could you have believed, let us speak the truth, either that I am so stupid that I feel nothing: or so much an enemy of myself, that I feel it without reacting? Certainly the King's letter printed throughout Christendom the collective world of Christian nations has pierced my heart; the discourses since published, the Te Deum a Latin hymn of praise, "Thee, O God, we praise," often sung for military or political victories sung throughout the Kingdom, have not cured it. Is this what S. M. His Majesty said,