The Various and Ingenious Machines

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have bound me to Your Most Christian Majesty with living love and perpetual faith, so they have filled me with a profound desire to discover for you in part, as best I can, the intimate gratitude of my soul. Thus, almost forgetting how much I owe to you, I have taken the boldness to present to you these few labors of mine (such as they are), from which you may derive great light and service in all your occasions. I assure myself that Your Majesty, by the same conformity that holds you to the supreme Monarch of Heaven, will be satisfied (as I most humbly beseech you) with my most devoted and most sincere mind, and with the usual benignity of your royal soul, will accept them as willingly as I willingly consecrate and give them to you. In the meantime, with most ardent affection, I wish you a long and happy life from the Lord God, whom I also pray that He may render Your Most Christian Majesty no less formidable and terrible to enemies than most gracious and always amiable to all your friends and faithful servants.