same stamp, I became the richest favourite in the universe. You may as well as I, heap a mighty treasure, and lose it foolishly. Do not be guilty then of murder, for things so uncertain in the possession. Poor _Louvois_! who left you all, who drank more than _Alexander_, and thiev’d better than _Colbert_, or I, has not now water to quench his thirst. You will undoubtedly meet the same destiny; for this is the residence of traitors, murtherers, thieves, and all other notorious villains. ’Tis not altogether so pleasant a place as [15] _Meudon_ and _Chaville_; for we drink nothing but _Aqua-fortis_, and eat burning _charcoal_; all happiness is banish’d, misery only triumphs; and notwithstanding all those lying stories the priests may tell you, yet you’ll be strangly surpriz’d, when you come to judge it by your own experience. _The Answer of Monsieur le Marquis de_ BARBASIEUX, _to Cardinal_ MAZARINE. Your eminence I find, is in a great passion, because my father did not get an estate in your service: Must you therefore abuse him, and turn that as a crime upon me, which has been practis’d ever since there have been kings in the world? If your talent only lay in pillaging and plundering, must it therefore prescribe to mine? And do you think the glory of taking away by dagger or poison the enemies of one’s prince, deserves less immortality, than of ruining of his subjects? You have, I confess, very meritoriously eterniz’d your name by that method, for which reason you ought in conscience to allow me the liberty to find out another. You are much in the wrong on’t, to complain of the duke of _Mazarine_, who did you the honour to think you were only in purgatory, and lavish’d your treasures upon bigots, in hopes to pray you out of it. If he in a holy fit of zeal, dismember’d your fine statues, which perhaps too often recalled to your memory the pious sermons of cardinal _Anthony_, he is severely punish’d in a libel made against him, in vindication of your beauteous niece. If that satire reaches your regions below, you’ll soon be convinced what a coxcomb you were when you chose the worst of men, to couple with the most charming of women. This, with several other passages of your life, makes me not much wonder at your condemning me by your cardinal’s authority, to drink _Aquafortis_, and eat burning charcoal; it may perhaps be a proper diet for _Epicurean_ cardinals and _Italians_, who love hot liquors, and high-season’d ragoos; but the lords of _Chaville_ and _Meudon_ do not desire your entertainments. How do you know, I beseech you, but I may take the cell of the young Marquis _d’Ancré_ at [16] _Mont Valerine_; there, by a long penitence, to purge me of those sins you say I have committed? Therefore if you reckon me in the number of those reprobates, doom’d to people the infernal shades, time will at last make it appear, that your eminence has reckoned without your host. MARY I. _of_ England _to the_ Pope. _Most Holy Father_,