and I laboured to second and push on Fortune as much as any man could have done, so long as I perceived that she was favourable. But when I recognised that she was ceasing to favour me, and that she was giving me warnings of her departure and her flight, I resolved to make an honourable retreat and to enjoy in peace, with my wife, the great riches which the liberality of the Queen had bestowed upon us or our own industry had acquired. For which reason, for some months past, I have importuned my wife in vain, and at every blow I receive from Fortune I renew my entreaties. When I saw that a powerful party had arisen in France which had taken me for the pretext for its revolt, and had proclaimed me one of the five tyrants whom it was seeking to destroy;[114] when M. Dolet, who was my creature,[115] my counsellor, my trusted friend, and, I may say, my servant, died; when an infamous shoemaker of Paris put an affront upon me--upon me, a marshal of France!--when I was forced to quit my establishments in Picardy and my citadel of Amiens, and to leave Ancre as a prey to M. de Longueville, my enemy; when I was compelled to retire, or rather to fly, into Normandy, I represented to my wife that amongst the great obligations we owed to God, that of warning us to retreat was not the least. We have seen since then our house sacked, with the loss of more than 200,000 crowns; and we have seen two of our people hanged before our faces for having given, as we ordered them, a beating to that scoundrel of a shoemaker. What had we to wait for but the death of my daughter to warn us that our ruin is at hand, but that there is yet the chance to escape, if we resolve promptly to seek a retreat. For this I have provided by offering the Pope 600,000 crowns for the usufruct during our lives of the duchy of Ferrara, where we might have passed the remainder of our days in peace and have still left two millions in gold to our children. And this I will make apparent to you. We have real property to the value of at least a million livres in France: in the marquisate of Ancre, Lesigny, my house in the Faubourg (Saint-Germain) and this one. I have redeemed our estate at Florence, which was mortgaged, and my share in it is worth 100,000 crowns. I have a million livres besides, even after the pillage of our house, in furniture, jewels, plate and money. My wife and I have also appointments which will sell for a million livres at a fair valuation, in those of Normandy, First Gentleman of the Chamber, Intendant of the Queen’s Household, and _dame d’atours_, retaining my office of marshal of France. I have 600,000 crowns invested with Fedeau,[116] and more than 100,000 pistoles in other concerns. Might we not, Monsieur, be