THE FLOWER DE LUCE.  
Which containeth the discourse of a Frenchman detained in Paris, upon the impieties and counterfeating contained in the manifest of Spain, published in the month of january. 1593.  
Hitherto did I always hope that shortly we should so open our eyes as we should need no farther provocation to stir up our just displeasure against the ancient and captiall enemies of the Flower de Luce, until being reassembled together under the French banner, we should pass over the Pirinean mountains for the delivery of the poor Navarrean slaves out of captivity, who do stretch forth their arms to that mighty prince to whom God hath vouchsafed these two goodly crowns, the one by descent from his father, the other from his mother. But sith that after so many vain hopes one in an others neck whereinto we have been forced in this town of Paris, for the lulling a sleep of our senses and the deceiving of our extreme misery, we still in the end do see that they from whom we expected our felicity (as sometimes it hath fallen out, that such as have been authors of great mischiefs, have also been ministers of great remedies) sith I say that in lieu of acknowledging their lawful king, they have passed the pikes: and plunged themselves headlong in the horrible gulf of Spanish bondage, I can no longer keep this long silence, for so long as we retain any spark of the humour of our ancient French liberty, we cannot but send forth some speeches, some sighs the testimonies of our intent. Before we give up the ghost we must even with our blood write this our last testament for our posterity, to the end they may know that their ancestors were no such traitors to their Princes, that voluntarily would suffer themselves to be chained up under the locks of this cruel and most barbarous nation.  
O Innocent posterity, who in secret shall read these last lamentations of your dying mother, evermore remember that yourselves are descended of the race of those who time out of mind, have made other nations of the earth to tremble, who have passed the Alps, and the Pirinean mountains, who have sailed over every sea, to make their weapons to glister in the bowels of foreign empires: who never feared any thing except that the sky should fall upon them, as being assured to conquer and tame whatsoever upon the face of the earth durst meddle with them. This only remembrance will so inflame your minds with spite and rage, that in time you shall gather strength, yea albeit all weapons should fail you, even with your hands to stifle these serpents who having once wreathed you within their trains will suck forth the very marrow out of your bones.  
Never think dear children that those shameful covenants whereinto your parents are entered did proceed of their voluntary good will, neither measure the intent of a great nation according to the notable wickedness of a number of mutinous not frenchmen, but bastards here engendered by spaniards: No it is not to be thought that any so infamous or wretched cogitation could ever penetrate the heart of any man descended of a perfect french race. I will not here bring into consideration the horrible cruelties that have dispeopled the Indians, in putting to death more than remaineth upon the rest of the face of the earth: neither will I set before you the insatiable covetise that hath dried up the minds of Peru, and banished the wealthiest houses in Portugal and the Low countries, all this beseemeth those that seek to have a stranger to their master, yet will they have one that is tolerable. France hath no skill in such a choice: France acknowledgeth none but her own children, those whom she hath suckled, nursed and brought up in her bosom, over whom she commandeth, her king only excepted, whom God hath made to be borne the eldest of the most ancient, greatest and most flourishing family in the world, that hath swayed the french sceptre so many years. France giveth ear to that only child whom she cherisheth, and loveth most tenderly, to whom she beareth an extraordinary affection, as accounting nothing difficult or dangerous that may tend to the exalting of him above all other Princes of the earth. In him hath she showed all her contentation: her glory and majesty are shadowed and do wholly glister in her eldest son, whose enterprises may for a while so long as his mother sleepeth be somewhat slacked, but in the end if she waken and that the potion which by her enemies hath been ministered to lull her on sleep, hath lost all force: when she returneth to the knowledge of herself and begins to stir her benumbed arms, in how short space shall we see all these spanish forces cut in pieces? all these garrisons of moors died in their own blood, the woeful countenance of France changed into joy and mirth, and all these storms driven away by the beautiful beams of the son which shall restore unto us the light-some day of contentation and perfect liberty? our churches shall not (as they seek to persuade) be desolate, but contrariwise they shall be replenished with that ancient multitude which usually we have seen among us. We all together shall render praise to God for the felicity unto us granted, when round about us we shall behold not the spanish insolency full of pomp and vanity, but the sweetness of our parents and the delightsome company of those that have been borne in the same town with us. Oh happy day, most prosperous and so long desired of all good men in this poor town, who groan under the burden of foreign dominion with whom we may without fear bewail our passed calamities, rejoice our present felicity, and still hope for a more full accomplishment thereof.  
Albeit our goods be wasted, and that we enjoy but even half a life evil compacted in a weak body, fallen away with extreme famine, yet may we at the least speak bouldier: Our misery shall be at an end: and the affliction of things passed shall never be agmented with fear of such as are to come. We shall no longer see this proud rodomonte's precedents of the counsels of the bastards of France: our ears shall not be filled with their proud threats, & vain brags of their mighty armies that should drive the wars a hundred leagues from us, win so many fields and carry our king into the Bastille.  
Nevertheless sith this day shall be so fortunate unto us, why do not we endeavour to hasten it, even with the hazard of our lives: must the fear of death make us shamefully and cowardly die for hunger, when otherwise we might with weapon be revenged of those that draw us into these extremities, by making us so obstinately to withstand our country and king? and yet doth the superfluity of their expenses evidently declare unto us, that with them this time is as easily overpassed, as to us it is hard and intolerable. The great pensions that they daily receive from their good master, causeth them to acknowledge him, and to term him The mighty king: the universal king: the Catholic king: the king of kings: the great Monarch, victorious both by sea and by land, and whatsoever other flattery may be invented, they will heap upon him in exchange of his ducats. What more assured testimony can we crave to prove that such people are no frenchmen? The achaians bring already entered into acknowledgement of the Roman empire Aristaenetus the Megapolitain a man of great credit amongst them, on a time in open connsaile said that it were good to honour the Romans and not to show any ingratitude toward them, whereupon Philopoemen, a man who justly was by the history-graphers termed the last Grecian, hearing this speech, a while held his peace, but in the end so pressed with impatience and choler that he could no longer keep silence said. Aristaenetus, why makest thou such haste to see the wretched destiny of Greece. For thief thirty years have there been among us a general complaint prosecuted not only by the nobility, but even by all men of courage, for that the king of Spain hath presumed to think to cause his Ambassadors to take the precedence from ours. What frenchman hath not with just indignation complained hereof? and yet now even at once he that entituleth himself the protector and liutenant of the crown, of the mightienesse and majesty of France, hath showed himself such a coward, or rather such a traitor, to term the king of Spain the great king, and in what comparison; but that the king of France must be little  
Why Charles of Lorraine, canst thou find any example that by letters patents sealed with the Flower de Luce the title of Great was ever attributed to any foreign kings, nay but contrariwise many times have the fields flowed with blood for the preservation of the title of Augustus to the kings of France, the first, the ancientest and the most mighty princes in Christiandome, who do enjoy the crown of liberty and glory above all other kings, yet now aloud publicly in letters patents sealed with the Flower de Luce by thee falsified, thou callest the Spaniard, the great king, a title which in our father's days would alone have cost thee thy life. Why Duke of Mayenne, art thou in such haste to advance the wretched destinies of France. He hast, sayest thou, succoured our Catholic religion: nay, say, thy ambitious and the practises of thy family against this estate. To the end to undermine a crown of many years standing, and to lay hold again upon the sundry vain pretences ever since Charlemain, by histories convicted of falsehood, as showing that it is not past six score years since the race of Vaudemont entered into the house of Lorraine, which in less than 460. years have fallen into seven several families: To strike, I say so great a stroke, to extinguish the blood royal, and to step into their place, it is requisite to have great support and a wonderful plausible pretence: this fortress is not to be assaulted with weak battery, considering that in such actions the least errors are so perilous. The support hath been the king of Spain, the ancient enemy to France, and one who by inheritance purposeth to become Monarch over all Christiandome. The only pretence any way to be taken, was for religion, all others being far to weak. Upon this ground have they long since hired those whose tongues have been saleable in the pulpits dedicated to the truth, by whose means they have cast upon the people all those charms that have brought this estate so near to destruction. hereupon likewise have they long since sent the jeswistes, very Spanish Colonies, who have shed forth the poison of their consperacy under the shadow of holiness, and under the colour of confession (O wonderful policy:) have abused the devotion of the French nation, whom by seceret oaths they have bound to their league. Who also in lieu of instructing our people in the Catholic religion, are become trumpets of war, firebrands of sedition, protectors and defenders of murder and robbery, to be brief, who are waxen foreign levine to sour the dough of our France and to alter the fedility into treachery and rebellion, so cunningly conducting their master's affairs that they have filled this realm, before flourishing, with fire and blood, and even with the French swords murdered so much brave and valiant nobility as had been of force and power sufficient to reconquer Naples and Milan which this Gothicke race hath stolen from our fordfathers.  
These cursed policies did long lie hidden, but at the last the war begun with all extremity about the year 85. against a most Catholic king, and so acknowledged by those that most hated him, against a king yet in the flower of his age, together with the detestable murder committed upon his person four years after, have too evidently declared this pretence of religion to be utterly false and of no appearance. This cruel and horrible murder of their king having brought them into execration with all courageous persons, now to cover their subtleties used in the compassing thereof, they do in their declarations give out this impression to the people, that the king's death was a blow from heaven. Oh abominable impiety? Oh mighty king, whom all the subtleties of thy enemies, who abusing thy authority and too much lenity were become masters of thy best towns, could never stop from enclosing them in the capital city of thy realm, where they found themselves brought into such extremity, that without that knife forged in hell, the had been already chastised for all their notable treazons, Oh mighty king, who couldst not have any fuller confession of the victory, even at thy enemy's hands then the kind of thy death, is it possible that thy subjects, even thy children who yet do speak the french language should endure this cruel parricide, the like whereof was never seen, neither any thing so detestable? which hath replenished all men with sorrow and tears, to be termed a blow from heaven? O God who never without punishment, sufferest thy holy name to be abused in such and so horrible transgrassions, canst thou permit the invention, even a blow of the devil who tormenteth mankind to be attributed unto thee, and that thou who art protector of kings shouldest be proclaimed their murderer? Suffer not O Lord such blasphemies, but with a stripe of thy mighty arm, even a blow indeed from heaven, break the cursed head of these traitors to their king, of these bloody parricides who seek to cover their detestable conjuration and conspiracy under the veil of thy holy name.  
What an indignity is this, O ye french nation, that they, who impudent and shameless dare yet, though falsey, cause themselves to be called as you, should bewail the death of the Duke of Parma whom they entitle of happy memory, a title never publicly attributed to other but kings, and contrariwise wish us to believe our deceased king to have been such a one: that God who is all good, yea the fountain of all goodness hath caused the throat of his anointed to be cut, even his who upon his head did bear the chief crown of all the nations that are baptised in his name. So that a petty foreign Prince, the usurper of Saint Peter's patrimony, is not only compared with the king of France, with the king of the Flower de Luce, but is also magnified by the same tongue that blasphemeth against the memory of our deceased king. Yet were this tongue spanish in sound as it is in affection, it were the more tolerable, but a french tongue to be polluted with such impure speeches. Oh what an indignity? what a sorrow.  
The reason of these so contrary speeches is very apparent. The death of this Farnese who signed no otherwise but Alexander, have given a great blow at the affairs of this war, as finding no successor that can approach to his reputation, so that for want of all others Don Philip hath been constrained to set in such a Captain as is not otherwise known but only that he hath been the chief executioner of the poor Indians, by him murdered without resistance, whom also the inhabitants of the country will not receive as fearing his extreme cruelty. On the other side the Guysardes imagined that the death of the late king should have brought them to the royalty, and that by their policies they should soon disunite us each from other, making us to believe that no man can be a good Catholic unless he be a spanyard or a Lorraine, unless he wear the red cross or the double cross. They have above two years detained the people in Paris upon an opinion that there was no mass said at Tours and have drowned those that durst testify the contrary. But sith all their purposes are grounded upon falsehood, they be to be excused for the cruel punishment by them inflicted upon those that testify the truth, their capital enemy.  
Many who since the death of our late king never lived in this city of Paris, may perhaps give credit to this declaration by them published, namely that they have laboured to bring his Majesty now reigning into the bosom of the Church: But we who for these four years have continually heard their Sermons do know the contrary, also that they never preached unto us any thing so much, as that albeit he should become as good a Catholic as S. Lewes (these be their very words) the Curate of S. Bennets said in S. Mederickes, as good a Catholic as I take him to be, yet is he by no means to be received, as being a Relapse and impenitent. Such as would seem the mildest, said. that he might be admitted into the Church, but it was requisite, for penance of his fault, that he should resign his crown to those that had reclaimed him. That he might be a Catholic, but no king. Thirty thousand persons not only have heard but do daily hear these speeches from the mouths of Boucher and Comolet the jeswistes, and yet would they feign persuade the rest of all France that they have endeavoured to convert him. O ye hypocrites as you are, know you not in your consciences that you never desired his conversion, but his estate, that you care not whether he have a crown in heaven, so you may get that which he hath upon earth? do not your consciences bear you witness that you could wish that tumulteously at his return from some warlike exploit, he should enter into our church, to the end for ever hereafter he might be though an Atheist, using religion as a cloak to play his parsonage in, and so lose his credit with all Christian people. In your consciences do you not know that of all things in this world, you must fear least in some lawful counsel by the working of the holy ghost, his errors should be laid open before him? If you stand not in wonderful fear thereof, why do you so shrink away? why had you rather see all France on a flame and shortly brought into combustion, and so many miserable persons overwhelmed with the intolerable burden of these tedious wars, and brought into such poverty, that their misery hath far surmounted the misery of their friends deceased? why I say had you not rather try this remedy which only is proper, and hath been practised by the ancient fathers in the cure of such diseazes. A remedy often times reiterated for one self error, for the truth which is always like itself in all places, and at all times, is never tied to one only counsel: A remedy that might serve not him only, but all other of his religion. Why I say had you not rather use this gentle and wholesome medicine, than fire and sword whereto man's conscience is no way subject, weapons do never breed any converts, but rather deniers of their faith. To bodily ulcers bodily matters, and to the wounds of the spirit, spiritual remedies do agree. To seek by main force to pluck up error in religion, is to seek to cure the soul by the body, nay rather to kill then to cure: by darkness to show light, and by cruelty to teach clemency. If ye list to destroy error, it is requisite you should instruct the man, and the way to instruct is in a free counsel to hear his reasons, and to let him understand yours.  
Yet if God by the success of your armies, would declare the same to be acceptable in his sight: If he would grant you great advantages over our king, and minister hope to force so many mighty towns, which do daily increase and fortify with the ruin and spoils of our poor Paris, your heat to prosecute your wars might some way be excusable. But having utterly lost a great and notable battle, even when ye were assisted with the power of Spain, Germany, Switzerland Lorraine, yea & the self same day as it were miraculosly having also lost a second battle in Anuergne. Again this last year the Duke of joieuse one of the principal pillars of the Spanish faction, being defeated and slain in a pitched field with the loss of three thousand men, either drowned or left dead in the field, among whom were found all the Captains of the rebels throughout the whole country, whereupon they were forced to uncoule friar Angel, who in the end shall receive like recompense for breaking his vow solemnly made unto God, as his brother had for violating his faith to his king, who had so highly cherished and exalted his ingrateful family. Likewise in the same month of October the general of the army of Lorraine, having lost both his own life and his master's army, who were overcome by a handful of men, who for 10000 accounted the Duke of Bovillon for their head, of whose good fortune and advancement, I marvel not though the Duke of Lorraine his neighbour maketh so many complaints, considering that in so short space he hath already defeated him of two strong towns & cut in pieces the flower of his men of war, who now might have stood him in some steed for the defence of other his strong holds against 12000 men, and 20 canons that do lay sore to them. After I say so many great losses, and all your great towns so straightly besieged, what hope can there remain, especially this Alexander of Parma being no longer a world's man? True it is that hereafter we may peradventure have some succour from the Savoyan, who will bring his great forces to assist his cunning to be crowned in our city of Paris: for he hath married one of the daughters of Spain: and sith that by the advice of the Doctors of Milan, the Salic law ought to surcease, he hath no doubt a part in the succession: for at Paris there is no prerogative of Eldership among the daughters, and therefore the town may well enough be divided. Let the eldest chose either the Louvre or the Palace, the one shall hold for Savoy, the other for Spain. But I doubt he hath other matters to think upon, he seethe already the french ancients so forward toward the midst of Piedmont, that thirty thousand canon shot will hardly root them out, and yet before he come to that, he must win the field against those that have proffered him battle any time these six months, whom he dare not encounter in the plain field with all his own power and the power of his father in law. This is a very Scipio's policy. Our king hath procured the war to be transported into Africa, and the firebrand thereof into the dominions of the Spaniard and of his son in law, who already entitled himself Earl of Provence, from whence he hath found one of the heirs of Gaston of Foix & of the valeant Nogaret, that shall not only expel him but also proceed further, & evidently give him notice of the old proverb which saith. That France was never so weak but a man might still find some cause of earnest fight, and that either soon or late she will give him to wit that it is dangerous dealing with her.  
Oh Ingrateful Savoyan, among all earthly people the most unthankful. France restored to thy mother, that which with the sword point and upon good cause she had taken from thy grandfather, and thou in lieu of acknowledging this magnificence, and in all manner of good duty, reverencing the majesty of the french empire, dost by notable treasons endeavour to rent and dismember the same, still conspiring with her Capital enemies. Remember that I do prognosticate unto thee, that a Spanish wife shall procure to thee the loss of that which a French wife brought to thy father, nothing can defend thee. All the cunning speech of the Archbishop of Lions together with the abstract of all the seditious libels and orations, spewed out against our kings, & by these pensioners of Castille, published under the title of a declaration, can no whit prevail with this valeant nobility, whose ears and hearts are stopped against such Mermaids as seek to plunge them in the gulf of all misery. All these latter policies they take as assured arguments that the strength of this detestable conspiracy draweth to decay. Yourselves do now know that this busy and seditious communality is not able to vanquish the French nobility, cannot bear the first push of their horses, neither may any way abide the glims of their glistering armour. What will ye then do, seek some means by fair words to divide these gallant gentlemen among themselves, and in a pitched field procure them to cut each others throats. Oh what a happy day would that be unto you, wherein there should be never a blow strooken in vain: where the loss either of the one or the other should be an equal gain, and like advancement of your drifts, which can have no success so long as there be any gentlemen in France. They are borne to liberty, to glory: They can brook no foreign dominion or commandment. Any speeches of the king of Spain, of the Savoyan, or of the Lorraines, they cannot hear but that needs they must enter into choler, into indignation, into threats, yea and into arms to the end to exalt the name and honour of France above all things in the world. They cannot abide to hear any king but their own, entitled the great king, without overrunning of those that dare give out such servile, Infamous and base speeches. They are not acquainted with this title Universal king, in whatsoever language it be disguise: They know not that old tyrant otherwise then by the name of king of Spain, which no man dare now pronounce in their presence for fear least at that only word they should call to mind that it is the name of their capital enemy, the sworn enemy to their fathers, the same who wrongfully detaineth from France the one half of her provinces: who procured the death of his own son, and of his wife the daughter of king Henry the second, and since holp forward the deaths of his two brother in laws, the late Monsieur and our last king. Likewise to the end ye may the better know him, he was son to Charles the fift, the poisoner of the french Dolphin: who by treasons stole the greatest riches of this realm: who laid the foundations of his tyranny on the city of Rome which his son hath since perfectly established & laid fast, purchasing with coin the voice of the consistory and so bringing into the holy sea his nurcelings and pensioners, according to the degrees of their affection to Spain. Do you then marvel that their bulls forged in Madrlt which took only their edge at Rome, wherewith they endeavour to make France through her division, tributary to them, have been condemned by this imperial and sacred Senate of our king. A senate governed by a Cato, replenished with Photion's, and evermore accustomed to revenge the injuries of the crown.  
The french nobility hath sent the Marquis of Pizani, to be assured of the truth. If it appear that Rome is as surely tied to the Spaniard as Seville, and that their declarations can not be well entertained, they will well enough provide remedies necessary. This is not the first time that the holy sea hath been transferred to this side of the mounts, albeit I be very well assured there shall be no such necessity: For the French sword is strong enough yet once again to deliver Rome out of the hands of this Gothik and Sarrazin stock. Neither do we believe that all that is beyond the Alps doth love this universal king, but that contrariwise the clearer that their sight is naturally, the more they do apprehend the effects of his insupportable dominion and the execution of the hereditary purposes of his father Charles. This French Cath. Nobility is of force sufficient to preserve both the Estate and their Religion, neither need they the help of these sovereigns of Spain, of Savoy, or of Lorraine so often mentioned in your declaration, who under pretence of succour do seek to drive them out of the inheritance purchased with their ancestors blood, the like whereof have happened almost to all the nations in the world, as histories do testify. Our holy Cath. Romish Religion is not otherwise assaulted but by your wretched League, which withal breedeth Atheism, defloration of sacred virgins, murder of priests, sacking of Churches in all parts of the Realm: so far is our king from bringing any alteration whatsoever, or from contrarying his oath even in the least title, that contrariwise he is careful of all that concerneth our Religion & the celebration of the holy mysteries as ourselves. Witness all the towns that he hath subdued under his obedience, in the which it can not be found that he hath diminished the least relic, or one only sacred vessel. (yet the most part of yours is either molten, or transported into Arthois) Neither is there any one Religious person or Priest, that contained himself within his habit and his profession, that was ever molested, even with the least word: whereas yours are either dead for hunger, or withdrawn into such towns as rest in his majesties obedience, where they have been received, sustained & found acknowledging those things which they could never have imagined, and which your falsehoods and slanders continually preached forth did debar them the sight of. Upon what occasion, ween you hath God sent you these great afflictions, this want of all things, especially of silver, but even to the end that the people being by little and little slipped from you and retired into such towns as rest in their king's obedience, should confess their fault and simplicity in that they have so long suffered themselves to be abused by these enchantments, which made them see the things that never were, that made them believe that all the Princes, all the Officers of the Crown, so many brave Lords and Gentlemen were no longer Catholics, because they would not stoop to the commandments of this great Catholic king, and the letters patents of Charles of Lorraine. Is it not for this crime of heresy that ye have rob and spoiled the house of Nevers, and given the Duchy of Rethelois to a Spartaque, whom ye have procured to take the title of Duke of Rethelois & Peer of France? or have ye so evil entreated this Duke of Nevers at the express commandment of the king of Spain, who hateth him as much as any Prince upon the earth, because that having more deeply penetrated and more manifestly revealed to all France his pernicious practices, to the end to stop and confounded them under the protection of our king, he daily increaseth in affection bringing of valour, courage, diligence and military discretion so much as may be desired. And besides the matter which I account to fullness of all his commendations is this, that he bringeth up his only son, his majesties cousin german in extreme dislike and hatred of this Spanish League.  
Must we not also as heretics condemn, excommunicate and proscribe Venise, Florence, Mantua, Soleure, Fribourg and other Catholics our faithful confederates, who are so presumptuous as to dare to undertake to stop the increase of your great king's Monarchy, who also will be partakers in the glorious revenge of the murder of the first Prince of Christendom, whereto all Europe standeth bound? Believe me this beautiful and glistering cloak of Religion, wherewith your ambition hath been so long shadowed is now thread bare, full of holes, we may see through it and evidently discern your wretched and pernicious purposes. Now that the incredible felicity that had guided you even to the mark, so as ye were ready to mount unto the flower Royal, hath forsaken you, whom think you to persuade to enter into your ship half broken, when it is upon the point of shipwreck? Whom wee● you to persuade to come starve for hunger among your sixteen robbers, who after the Spanish manner hung up their chief justice in the view of all Paris, in the midst of the confederates of the conspiracy of the halter, whose dagger is at the throats of all those in whose hearts there resteth any sparcke of humanity or clemency? to be brief, among so many fearful tokens of God's wrath, cruelties, divisions, ruins, all sorts of desolations, yea and diseases utterly new and unknown to the French, of whom you are no longer. How I say do you now think to make such poisons to work, considering that in August and September 89. when ye seemed to have achieved your affairs, having murdered our king, and with an army of 30000. men enclosed his successor in Dieppe, after you had published like pardons, like abolitions, yet could you not in all find above three or four remissionaries, and among them but one only Gentleman, whose name will remain infamous among all posterity, unless by some notable service he wash away so shameful a blot of treason committed immediately after the slaughter of his king, his good master and one who had so highly favoured him. Is it possible, Vitry that the tall, pale, and fearful image of this great king, should not continually appear in thy sight or follow thee wheresoever thou goest? dost thou not see him with one hand holding his bloody wound, and with the other the red gore knife, continually following thee to be revendged of thy notable treachery? Is it possible that thou canst without trembling and sighing hear him with a fearful voice object unto thee thy trespass in these words? Oh traitor, while I lived thou didst honour me, but the next day after my death thou hast worshipped my murderers: thou hast bowed thy knee in those places where they deified that monster more cruel than the Tigers: thou hast accompanied those that triumphed and publicly rejoiced in my death? yet do I more marvel how our Lieutenant general of the Spanish crown in France, who seethe that in lieu of so many Gentlemen that have abandoned his rebellion and ranged themselves under the flower de Luce, he could not win past two or three in four years, how I say he is now persuaded that he may divide the Princes of the blood of France, and draw them to his party. O ambitious Lorraine, hast thou dared to think that thou shouldest have such subjects to stoop to thy commandements, or to obey to thy letters patents, as necessarily they must, if they had taken thy side? or wilt thou habandon to them thy lieutenancy, and submit thyself under the laws and Magistrates, over whom thou now dost so proudly command in those towns which thy tyranny doth possess? If thou wilt why hast thou not spoken the word? why hast thou not said that thou wert ready to lay away all thy power and to establish them above thyself, and above all thy stock of Lorraine? Thou hast been wary enough for proceeding so far, not that thou art not assured that they all are too magnanimous & too virtuous Princes to League themselves with those that are yet besprinckeled with the blood of the slaughter of the eldest of their family Royal, who loved them as his children: whose cruel and barbarous death all laws of God and man do bind them to revenge, so long as their valiant souls shall be enclosed within their bodies: but by such offers, though feigned, thou didst fear to provoke the old tyrant of Spain, who abhorreth the whole name of Bourbon. And indeed what appearance is there of division among persons so well united? you Lorrains have long time directed the heads of your spears against the whole race of Bourbon, and with fire and sword do prosecute the rooting out of their family Royal: When fortune most smiled upon you & that you seemed to be upon the highest step to climb to the Royalty, than did they together resist you: And now that all true Frenchmen upon the opening of their eyes do manifestly discern in your drifts with such dexterity conducted that whereas your grandfather came into France weak in goods, poor in honour, naked in dignity, who in the year 1522. following the wars in Picardy under the Duke of Vandosme commanded only over one company of men of arms, you in our age find yourselves among you seized of the most important governments of this Estate, yea and had it not been for the 23. of December 1588. had gone away with the rule of all France, under the commandments of your master the king of Spain. Now I say that every one that is of any calling or courage throughout this Realm, is gathered to his Majesty to chastise your ambition, the cause of so many miseries, what ground can ye take, to imagine that the Princes of the blood should divide themselves, and purchase the ruin and death each of other, to the end to leave their room to the upstartes of Lorraine? Well if you cannot thrust in the spirit of division into Bourbon, yet at the least ye will draw unto you those mighty men who within these four years, have so often put you so shamefully to flight. I think the Duke of Aumale looketh by means of this declaration, that this brave and courageous Longueville, who with less than 1200. Frenchmen, who standing not upon th●ir number, but upon their valour in a pitched field, overthrew him and all his army consisting of 8000. men and 10. canons and pursued him even to S. Denis, shall one of these days send to offer him his service, desiring pardon for his former faults and crave to be reconciled with his high and mighty cousin, Lieutenant general to this great king the Monarch of Spain, France and Italy. Oh miserable Leaguers, into what frenzy are ye entered, when ye think with your goodly figures of Rhetoric to persuade those, who in one month do hear more Masses than you do in a year: who under the king's authority next to the Princes of his blood are the very pillars of the state and of our Religion: to persuade them I say, that they all are heretics, and that none but you only, who are conspired with these new Christians, as yet for the most part in heart jews and Saracens, are true Catholics: to the end that therefore they may yield themselves bound into your hands, so that without labour ye may in short time root out all these great and noble houses, all these families fatal for expulsion of strangers out of France. No, no, if your Spanish remembrances import no other matter, I do well see that this old dotard is at an end with all his sleights, sith that to subdue France to himself he craveth the help of the French Gentlemen, who altogether under one self banner seamed of Flower de Luce's, have so often chased his Spanish troops, and who as brethren of one belly, crowned with like garlands achieved in so many battles, shall for ever be united to maintain their liberties, franchises and pre-eminences, which with such wounds and so many hazards their predecessors have left unto them inseparably conjoined with the preservation of the crown upon the head of the lawful heir.  
Courage therefore oh Frenchmen, the victory is yours, Parma is dead, joyeuse and all his power are laid along, the Lorraine & the Savoyan shut up in their capital towns in lieu of giving do crave succour at the Leaguers in France. The horrible conspiracy against Rennes is discovered, the traitors are punished, & the ducats of such purchase of towns are converted to our use. Behold Montmorencie marching with a brave army & the sword of France in his hand: let us set on which like courage, a power divided yieldeth no fruit: let every man endeavour himself: common interest craveth it & calleth you thereto: your country inviteth you: all the veins of Paris are stopped, it must dry up, unless ourselves will nourish the rebellion, that is, kindle the fire which consumeth this Estate. Let the king remember the throughout the whole triumph of Silla the fortunate, there was nothing made so goodly a show as the train of that most noble and rich of the City of Rome, returning through his victory from exile whether the dregs of the people had driven them, & them crowned with garlands of flowers did accompany his triumphant chariot, calling him their father & saviour, because that by his means they returned into their country and recovered their goods, their wives & their children. The joy of so many good Frenchmen, who shall re-enter into Paris will be no less and the honour infinite times greater, made firm and assured to a lawful king.  
Let then all the public treasure be employed to this effect: let every one particularly let himself blood to cure this burning fever: let all these Iesuistes speeches, the only procurers of a million of Frenchmen to slay each other, be stopped: let all those that build their particular purposes upon the public calamities (which they hope for hereafter) be razed from among the number of Frenchmen: let all those, who having no feeling of the grief of the body, do not help to relieve it be cut of as rotten members & the great goods that they enjoy with express charge to secure the state in such & so urgent necessities (a charge by solemn oath renewed at every change) be taken from them & themselves declared unworthy of nobility, & those goodly inheritances given to those brave Gentlemen, who for these four years have continually had the cuyrace on their backs, without whose help together with the conduct of this great king, the true French Alexander, we all should be most miserable bondinem to the Spaniard, & this we must confess: their names ought to be written in golden letters & so consecrate to the posterity, and the names of the others withered with perpetual ignominy to them & all their posterity. You Magistrates who in your hands do hold the justice of France, come in with such virtue, with such courage, acknowledging the affectionate & severely chastising the traitors & trechours to their country, that you may participate in the honour of the restoration of the Estate. Army's can not be but in certain places, neither do they terrify any but those whom they draw near unto: the force of justice at one self time penetrateth into all places, yea even into the most inaccessible: her scars & wounds are far more sharp & of longer continuance than those of Bellona. To be brief, at this time let all those that list to live and die Frenchmen, set their hands earnestly to this work, so excellent, & so necessary for the re-establishment of this great crown in her first eminency & ancient glory. Let us no longer flatter the disease, & we shall soon see the wound purged & cured, we shall speedily see the end of all these rebels. We shall behold the chariot with the body of our late king brought from Compiegne even into Paris by these rebels even in their shirts to the wonderful consolation of all good men. You Sir whose memory we moisten with our tears, appease your just wrath against this poor people, against your City of Paris, sometime of you so well-beloved, so favoured and so enriched: she hath committed the most notable ingratitude & treachery that ever was or shallbe in the world, but already she hath felt such a punishment that the scars will remain for ever: cast the rest of your indignation, of your just vengeance upon the guilty, pardon the innocent: comfort yourself in that God hath given you such a successor as after your decease will make you to be acknowledged even of all those, who in your life time did disavow you: who in your Lowre will restore your defaced arms and garlands that were pulled down, and will exalt your memory into the highest degree of honour and glory. Help us also by your prayers to obtain for him at God's hand so long life, that after the ending of his own he may accomplish the course of your years that were cut of.  
FINIS.