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