’Twas with much reason you pity me; and tho’ I have said nothing all this while, yet I have not thought the less. If the practice of our court did not teach me to dissemble, I should give myself some ease, by imparting many things to you, which would fill you with horror; and then you would find that the cruelties of your sons were trifles in comparison of these. The most impartial censurers of barbarity maintain that the massacre of St. _Bartholomew_ was milder than the present persecution of the Protestants: Ambition was the chiefest motive of the _Guises_; but now their cruelties are covered with the cloak of religion; for the virtuous favourite [7] _Sultaness_, with the pitious [8] _Mufti_ in waiting, are resolved to cause the christians to be more cruelly persecuted than they were at _Algiers_, and the _Roman church_ is resolved, at any rate, to merit the name of the blood-thirsty beast. They value not exposing the reputation of princes; I blush for my race, and am often obliged to swallow my tears. I believe the efficacy of masses no more than you, therefore I will not offer you any. I am very glad to hear the cardinal of _Lorrain_ proves so constant; for a prelate of his talent and constitution must certainly be a great consolation to a distressed princess. _Brantome_ who has so much flatter’d you, may do it again; and tho’ _Sancy_ has been too sincere, yet he dares not contradict him in your presence. I hope to see the ruins of my country rais’d up again; for tho’ our ambitious monarch huffs and hectors all Christendom, yet his game to me seems very desperate, and I believe he’ll prove the dog in the fable; since he has so depopulated and impoverish’d his dominions by persecutions, that those pious drones the _Monks_, only can support the church’s grandeur in their faces, with three story-chains; the rest of his people being reduc’d to wooden-shoes and garlick. Tho’ our _Gazettes_ are little better than romances, yet they will serve to divert you and your cardinal, when not better employ’d; and I wish I could send them to you weekly. ’Tis true, great numbers set out daily from hence, for your country; and among them, people of the best quality, but I carefully avoid all commerce with them; and tho’ I have a wonderful esteem for you, take it not amiss, madam, if I endeavour never to see you. _Cardinal_ MAZARINE, _to the Marquis_ de BARBASIUX.