My cellar will soon be empty, for the soldiers whom our lord the Duke of Nevers sent to defend us have tapped my last cask, so there is no time to be lost. I must drink with them. Taken in the right spirit, I do not object to being ruined, and it is not by any means the first time, but God send it may be the last! The soldiers, good fellows that they are, felt worse than I did when I told them that the liquor was running low. Some of my neighbors take such things tragically, but that is not my way. I have been too often to the play in the course of my life to be impressed by clowns. Since I was born into this world, how many of these masqueraders I have seen! Swiss, German, Gascons, Lorrainers; all dogs of war, with harness on their back and arms at their side; victual swallowers, hungry hounds, always ready to devour us fellows. No one can tell for what they are fighting. Today it is for the King; tomorrow for the League; now for the Black-beetles; now for the Protestants; but one side is as good as another. The best of them is not worth the powder it would take to shoot them. What difference does it make to us which robber ruffles it at court? And as for the way they appeal to Heaven, ye gods and little fishes! The Lord is old enough to know what to do. If your hide itches, scratch yourself. God is not left-handed that He should need you, and He acts as He pleases. But the worst of all is when they make it out that I too must try to pull the wool over His eyes! With all due reverence, Lord, I can say without boasting, You and I meet several times in the twenty-four hours; that is, if the good old French saying is true, “He who can good wine afford has a chance to see the Lord!” But these frauds say something else that would never enter my head. They say that I know Thee like a brother; that I am to carry out Thy will; but Thou wilt do me the justice to admit that if I leave Heaven in peace I only ask that it will do as much for me. Each of us has enough to do to keep his own house in order, Thou in Thy big world, and I in my little one. Since Thou hast made me free, Lord, Thou shouldst be free also! But these fools want me to mix myself up in Thy concerns, to speak in Thy name, to decide how men are to take Thy Sacraments, and if they do otherwise, to declare them my enemies and Thine. Mine indeed! By no means; I have none; for all men are my friends. Let them fight, then, if it likes them, I am out of the game;--that is if they will let me alone, but that is just what the rascals will not do. If I will not be the enemy of one of them they will both set on me, so between two fires I must be hit. Here goes then! I will get to fighting myself, for I would rather on the whole be first anvil and then hammer, than anvil all the time. I wish some one would tell me why such brutes came into the world? marauders, politicians, great nobles, who bleed our France while they blow her trumpet and stick their fingers in her pocket. They are not