FOOTNOTES:

[24] Mem. de Bellievre & de Silleri, T. 2. p. 348.

[25] In Pasch. 1612.


IX. After having been near a year in France, he returned to Holland. He
had the greatest pleasure in his journey: one thing only was wanting to
his satisfaction, a sight of the celebrated M. de Thou, the person among
all the French whom he most esteemed. He had fought to get acquainted
with that great man; but did not succeed. As soon as he returned to
Delft, he wrote him[26] that he had been a year in France; had the
pleasure of seeing a fine kingdom, a great king, very valuable noblemen,
but had the mortification of not seeing him; that he would endeavour to
repair this misfortune by his letters; and that he took the liberty to
present him with a book he had just dedicated to the Prince of Condé.

This Letter was extremely well received by the President; and from that
time to the death of M. de Thou, notwithstanding the disproportion of
their age and fame, a most intimate correspondence subsisted between
them.

Grotius sent him, July 4, 1600,[27] the _Epithalamium_ he had written on
the Marriage of King Henry IV. with Mary of Medicis. Mention was made in
it of the Massacre on St. Bartholomew's day: this was an invidious
subject; but the author, after consulting Scaliger, thought he could not
dispense with recalling the remembrance of that horrid scene. He was in
doubt whether he ought to publish this piece: he asked the President de