Part 1 — The Duke of Alva to the Clergy of France.

I Believe, worthy gentlemen, you are very well satisfy’d that I am damn’d; and—— indeed there was little likelihood that such a monster as myself should enjoy happiness, after having committed so much wickedness, and taken so much pleasure in it. I took a fancy to acts of cruelty from my very cradle, and with great fidelity serv’d Philip II. The celebrated apostle of the Gentiles never made so many miserable wretches when he was as violent a zealot of the law; I, like him, made use of chains, racks, fire, and all that an ingenious fury cou’d imagine most tormenting; but it was never any part of my destiny to be converted at last like him. Thus I went on in my iniquities, and became the strongest brute that bigottry ever debauch’d; so that at my first arrival to Hell, there was never a Devil of the whole pack but fell a trembling, tho’ he had been never so much accustomed to such company before. But, gentlemen, why are you not become wise by my example? For you must not flatter yourselves, that the difference of our professions makes any in our crimes. You are warriors when you please; for the monastick soldiery follow’d the duke of Mayeney’s standard during the league; crowned themselves with immortal shame at the barbarous triumph of St. Bartholomew; and shoulder’d the musket after they had preached those bloody sermons, which made christians treat their fellow-creatures like beasts of prey. I confess, I never troubled my head about scruples of conscience, and if I have not obeyed that article of the decalogue, Thou shalt not kill, I never roared out with a wide mouth, as the priests of the Roman Church, persecute, imprison, kill, destroy, force them to obey. My fury came only from your brethren, who had so thoroughly corrupted me, that I thought Heaven would be my reward, if I butcher’d all they were pleased to stigmatize with heresy. So I gave a loose to my passions, as you may read in history, where, I think, they have used me but too kindly. To seduce men of weak understandings is no extraordinary matter; but that princes, who ought to have a competent knowledge of every thing, should be cheated by you, is a miracle to me. No age of the world ever saw a greater example of it, than in my master Philip, whose natural sloth, and besotted bigottry, gave so fair a field to these ecclesiastical impostors, so fair an opportunity to manage him as they pleased; and his father’s [19] ashes are a sufficient proof of it. Instead of setting before his eyes the example of that invincible prince, these sanctify’d villains only plunged him deeper in superstition and idolatry. And as a domineering lazy lord of a country village, will never go out of his own parish, so he never travelled farther than from Madrid to the Escurial. His wife, father, son, and brother, felt the effects of their barbarous doctrine. And, to leave behind him a pious idea of his soul, when he was dying, he ordered his crown and coffin to be set before him. This was hypocrisy with a witness, but that is no crime in a zealot. You’ll tell me perhaps, I direct my discourse to improper persons, who know not the history of Philip of Austria, ignorance being common enough in those of your fraternity, yet let me tell you, I am not mistaken; for the diabolical spirit that now possesses you, is the very same that influenced the priests of my time; and I may safely affirm, that France is the theatre of cruelty and iniquity. Your monarch, who is much such another saint as my master, spares the poor Protestants lives, for no other reason, but to make, by his inhuman torments, death more desirable to them. These, and a thousand more unjust actions does he commit, to satiate your hellish vanity, which would for ever domineer in the city built on seven mountains. To this you will answer, What doth it signify if we make him persecute the Protestants, murther their kings, and keep no faith or treaties with them, since it encreases our power, and propagates our religion? But, gentlemen, when you come to be where I am, you will, I’m certain, sing another tune.