art for his pimp, still huff the world, and sleep quietly in his _seraglio_. _Versailles_, July 14. LEWIS R. CATHARINE de Medicis, _to the Duchess of_ ORLEANS. _Madam_, I have long bewailed your condition, and tho’ I am in a place of horror, yet I should think myself in some measure happy, if I knew how to deliver you from those anxieties which torment you. We have some body or other arrives here daily from _Versailles_, and as my curiosity inclines me to enquire after your highness, I have received so advantageous a character of your goodness from all hands, that I think every one ought to pity you. Your life, madam, has been very unhappy, for you were married very young to a jealous ill-natur’d prince, who had no love for you; tho’ no person in the world was fitter either to inspire or receive it than yourself: However, you have had better luck than his former wife, which I take to be owing to your prudence, and not his generosity. The desolations of the _Palatine_, and persecution of a religion you once approved, must infallibly have given you many uneasy moments, but your misfortunes did not stop here, for even your domestick pleasures have been poison’d by the dishonour and injustice of the court you live in. In short, tho’ I was very unfortunate, yet I think you much more worthy of compassion: When I married _Henry_ II. I was both young and handsome, yet his doting on the haughty duchess of _Valentinois_, who was a grandmother before _Francis_ II. was born, made me pass many melancholy nights. Notwithstanding the injustice as well as cruelty of keeping a saucy strumpet under my nose, yet with the veil of prudence and religion, I easily covered my inclinations, because the pious cardinal of _Lorrain_, who had an admirable talent to comfort an afflicted heart, commiserating my condition, gave me wonderful consolation. As the refreshing cordials of the church soon made me forget the king’s ill usage of me; so, madam, it is not so much the infidelity of your husband, as the cruel constraint and jealousy, that makes me think your life to be miserable; for how great soever your occasions are, you dare not I know, accept of those assistances, I daily receive from a plump agreeable prelate, and I am heartily sorry for it. To divert this discourse, which may perhaps aggravate your uneasiness, by renewing your necessities, you’ll tell me, I suppose, that I shou’d have had as much compassion, when _France_ was dy’d with the blood of so many thousand victims, and that I might easily have moderated the fury of my son, and of the house of _Guise_; but besides, you must consider, I was a zealous Papist; and they, you know, think the cutting of poor hereticks throats is doing heaven good service; so that I beheld the dreadful massacre of St. _Bartholomew_ with as much satisfaction as ever I did the most glorious and solemn festival. I am not for it at present, madam, and could I have been so sooner, it would have been much more for my ease.