I am surpriz’d to think you have profited so little by your father’s example: as great a beast he was, he govern’d himself better than you; for contenting himself with pillaging all _France_, according to our maxims, he never attempted the life of any man, nor ever set any [9] _Ravillacs_ to work. Is it not a horrible thing to see the [10] servant of a minister of state suffer upon the wheel, and publish the shame of him that set him to work? You were mightily mistaken in the choice of your villain; for whenever you have a king to dispatch, you must employ a _Jesuit_, or some novice inspired by their _religious society_; and had you been so wise, the prince [11] you had a plot against wou’d not be now in the way, to hinder the designs of a [12] king, for whom I have the tenderness of a father, who was always under my subjection, and wou’d have married my niece, if I had pleas’d. I fell into a cold sweat even in the midst of my fire and brimstone, at the news of your conspiracy; because it so severely reflected on his reputation. Ought you to have exposed his credit in so dubious an enterprize? Is it not sufficient that poets set upon him [13] _Mont Pagnotte_, whilst other princes gave glorious examples at the head of their troops? That they reproach him with incest, sodomy, adultery, and an unbridled passion for the relict of a poor [14] poet, who is a turn-spit here below, and who had nothing to keep him from starving when upon earth, but the pension which the charity of _Anne of Austria_ granted to his infirmities, rather than his works, tho’ very diverting. What was your aim in this cowardly design? wou’d you have more servants, and more whores? Or, ought you to effect that, to revive those scenes of cruelty and treachery which we banish’d after the death of the most eminent cardinal _Richlieu_? All the wealth you can raise, will never amount to the treasures I was master of; and how much is there now left, ask the duke of _Mazarine_, and my nephew of _Nevers_; one has been the bubble of the priests, and the other of his pleasures. So that the children of the first will hardly share one year of my revenue. His wife for several years was no charge to him, she for her beauty, being kept by strangers; whilst he fool’d away those vast riches he had by her. In short, you see the praying coxcomb I made choice of, which, I must confess, I did when I was in my cups, has thro’ his zeal and bigotry ruin’d all, even my most beautiful statues; and that there is a curse entail’d upon such estates as begin with a miracle, and end with a prodigy. I was born at _Mazare_, without any other advantage than that of my beauty; but as a young fellow can scarce desire a better portion than that, in _Italy_, so it mov’d cardinal _Anthony_ to lead me lovingly from his chamber to his closet, where on a soft easy couch, he preach’d to me morals after the _Italian_ fashion; by which, and some other virtuous actions of the