Memoirs of Philippe de Mornay

upon that, that I am disturbing spirits to lead to trouble. Two reasons can make it believable. One, that they know in their conscience that they have given me cause enough to pass over all human respect. But they do not feel what restrains mine. The fear of God, more powerful in me than the insults of men; The other, that they want to guess my intentions by their actions, which certainly I will never take for a Patron a model or pattern. And it shall not be said that disfavor makes me decline toward an unjust thing; just as little as favor makes me depart from a just thing. This is what my friends could answer for me; And I know that you and some men of honor have done so; But I do not find it strange that there are few in that world; because truth engenders hatred, because it is said, that the world which lies entirely in darkness, will be contrary to it; For this very reason, to come closer, that the profession of virtue was never without envy; My consolation finally is that if I still have some day to serve God near the King, he has his heart in his hand, to turn it as he pleases. And if it is not expressly for his glory, I do not desire it; That if he does not touch him to this end, I take it as said, that I must possess my soul in this silence, waiting patiently for what it will please him to ordain for me for his service. In any case, I can say that in his conscience, in the eyes of all France, and in the judgment of all Christendom, I have served him well; And that no one will inquire why he will have done this or that for me, but rather many will ask why not more. Shall I say one more word to you, since you write to me so freely. I do not see that in the cause of Luther Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation the Emperor Charles Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor held this procedure; which was nonetheless odious then, if ever there was one, and entirely new, and not supported by any published Edit Edict: And notwithstanding he was heard kindly and received to confer without trickery. Someone, nonetheless, who would not have served the Emperor, and who seemed on the contrary to disserve him greatly: Whereas in the fifty years I have reached, I have given the twenty-five best to the King, and in those twenty-five, fifty lives. This I say to you because I know that all this is not considered, and that the vogue of the Court the royal court circles has no eyes or ears for