Note 126 — Chapter II · 1635 to 1642.
Frederick W. (Frederick William) Ricord translation
I do not know where M. Rœderer got the idea that Madame de Rambouillet wrote so simply. Here is one of her billets, which could not have led the person to whom it is addressed to speak of simplicity, as M. Rœderer does of the letters of Madame de Rambouillet, and of her daughter to Voiture; we speak from conjecture, for these letters have not been seen by us. The one we give here was found among the manuscripts of Conrart, in the Library of the Arsenal, vol. xiv., in-4ᵒ, p. 53; it is addressed to Godeau, by turns Bishop of Grasse and of Vence:
“Sir:—If my carabineer-poet or poetic carabineer (Arnault, Colonel of Carabineers, a distinguished warrior, a man of great wit, but a satirist, and a person enough like Bussy) was in Paris, I would reply to you in verse, and not in prose; but for myself I have no familiarity with the muses. I return a million thanks for your kind wishes; and in recompense, I wish every moment that you were in a lodge, where I am sure you would sleep better than you do at Vence. It is supported by columns of transparent marble, and was built above the mid-region of the air by Queen Zirfée. The sky there is always serene; clouds darken neither the sight nor the understanding, and thence quite at my ease I have considered the downfall of the terrestrial Angel. It seems to me that on this occasion fortune has shown that it is a slander to say that she favors only the young. And because I am no more the subject of change than my lodge, you may rest assured that I shall continue so as long as I live.
“Sir,
“Your very humble servant,
ↃC (Catherine) de Vivonne.”
June 26, 1642.