Mademoiselle,—­My friends know that, from the first moment of our acquaintance, I have destined a copy of my book for you; for I feel that you have done it much honour.  The courtesy of M. Paulmier would deprive me of the pleasure of giving it to you now, for he has obliged me since a great deal beyond the worth of my book.  You will accept it then, if you please, as having been yours before I owed it to you, and will confer on me the favour of loving it, whether for its own sake or for mine; and I will keep my debt to M. Paulmier undischarged, that I may requite him, if I have at some other time the means of serving him.

XIV.

To the king, Henry iv.—­[The original is in the French national library, in the Dupuy collection.  It was first discovered by M. Achille Jubinal, who printed it with a facsimile of the entire autograph, in 1850.  St. John gives the date wrongly as the 1st January 1590.]

Sire, It is to be above the weight and crowd of your great and important affairs, to know, as you do, how to lend yourself, and attend to small matters in their turn, according to the duty of your royal dignity, which exposes you at all times to every description and degree of person and employment.  Yet, that your Majesty should have deigned to consider my letter, and direct a reply to be made to it, I prefer to owe, less to your strong understanding, than to your kindness of heart.  I have always looked forward to your enjoyment of your present fortune, and you may recollect that, even when I had to make confession of itto my cure, I viewed your successes with satisfaction:  now, with the greater propriety and freedom, I embrace them affectionately.  They serve you where you are as positive matters of fact; but they serve us here no less by the fame which they diffuse:  the echo carries as much weight as the blow.  We should not be able to derive from the justice of your cause such powerful arguments for the maintenance and reduction of your subjects, as we do from the reports of the success of your undertaking; and then I have to assure your Majesty, that the recent changes to your advantage, which you observe hereabouts, the prosperous issue of your proceedings at Dieppe, have opportunely seconded the honest zeal and marvellous prudence of M. the Marshal de Matignon, from whom I flatter myself that you do not receive day by day accounts of such good and signal services without remembering my assurances and expectations.  I look to the next summer, not only for fruits which we may eat, but for those to grow out of our common tranquillity, and that it will pass over our heads with the same even tenor of happiness, dissipating, like its predecessors, all the fine promises with which your adversaries sustain the spirits of their followers.  The popular inclinations resemble a tidal wave; if the current once commences in your favour, it will go on of its own force to the end.