Text.Duclo.1590-01.A2r/Translation

To the Most Illustrious Prince, His Lord, Louis de Gonzague, Duke of Nevers and Rethel, Gaston Duclo, the deputy governor of Nevers, wishes health and great happiness.

If there is anything, most illustrious Prince, that can preserve and maintain a city once well-established from downfall, it is indeed the obedience that the people owe to the Prince who rules over them. This is the strongest and most solid foundation upon which cities built will never collapse. This obedience, most illustrious Prince, which we, as your subjects, owe to you not only by the command of the Gospel but even more so because you are and have always been a fervent defender of the Catholic faith and religion. Hence, the same faith and Catholic religion flourish throughout your province, and there is no one who refuses to submit to its laws. But there is another invincible reason for obedience to you, namely your benefits to your people of Nevers, which from the beginning of your most auspicious and fortunate arrival to this very day have been so numerous and great that the same people must acknowledge they owe their lives and all their fortunes to you, whether they wish to or not. As the true father of the country, you have always provided from afar for what pertains to the preservation of the families of your province. Part of preserving them lies in appointing magistrates who preside over justice and administer it equally to everyone and punish the wicked; part lies in averting those things that happen with greater force. Who does not know, most illustrious Prince, that in appointing those magistrates you considered only their integrity, capacity, and experience? You did not establish them with gold, so they would not render justice for sale, not with bribes so they could be swayed in rendering justice, but on your own initiative, having first observed and often personally examined their conscience, knowledge, and experience in affairs. As for the heavy exactions of taxes and the insolent plundering by soldiers, who is unaware that, having been included in the counsel of kings, you truly and steadfastly presented the poverty of your country, and thanks to your grace and favor, your people obtained some moderation in the sudden taxes? And the lasciviousness and plundering by soldiers, which the defenseless farmers and those living in the countryside bear most grievously, your authority and presence, as often as it was possible, restrained as much as possible? These indeed are great benefits, most illustrious Prince, that you have conferred upon your people, which, however, cannot be compared with those conferred on the same people by you after the execrable, albeit lamentable, death of the king. For after you had been called back from the army, which you had been appointed to defend the Catholic religion in Aquitaine, to the royal court, and hence had moved to your province, how much benefit all the inhabitants of your country and your subjects perceived from your presence and authority, is very well known to all of France. Nearly all the people of the other provinces in these calamitous and most miserable times are harassed by constant incursions of soldiers and cannot claim anything as their own. Everything, both in cities and in the countryside, is done by force. Fear, panic, and distrust besiege everyone's hearts at every moment: in cities, the force of garrisons dictates the law to citizens and magistrates, whom the same once feared: Perpetual discord, quarrels, and civil wars, the wicked plunder with impunity, in everything the voice of the judge is silent. Those who preside over and command these cities grant nothing to the citizens, but rather take away what they have. Your singular prudence has freed us from all these evils. Everyone, both at home and in the countryside, goes about their business safely and without fear, everything is done by law, the voice of the judge has not yet fallen silent. But who would dare to complain that you have demanded anything from your subjects, rather than profess that at your own expense and by your generosity you have provided for the safety of all? We would never have enjoyed these benefits and goods if you had not immediately attended to the most serious disease of dissensions and opinions, by which your people were affected and almost overwhelmed, no less than the other provinces: Nor yet did you wish to bring a remedy to this disease with the sword or military force, though you could have, but what in other parts of France could not be obtained with peace and concord, the end of wars, with much slaughter, the same your singular prudence and invincible admonitions and supported by the highest reason, you brought to your people with the safety of all. We would be too fortunate if we recognized that all these goods flowed from your paternal benevolence and returned thanks to your excellence, without which we would now be done for. On the contrary, we would be most miserable and stained with the foul stain of ingratitude, if we did not return grateful thanks for so many goods, and did not readily obey your commands and orders. Even more blind than moles, if we did not perceive the evils that were impending over us, unless your excellence had averted them, when the people of other regions or cities, passing through daily and calling here, acknowledge, who openly profess to have migrated as it were from hell into some Elysium. Besides these benefits mentioned, most illustrious Prince, which were common to your subjects of your metropolis city with the others of your country of Nevers, they also perceived other gifts of your benevolence and liberality. First, considering that both republics and cities flourish by the number of illustrious men, who excel both in the sanctity of life and in singular learning, and that they cannot be perpetually preserved except by succession, you established at your own expense the college of Jesuits. From their schools, many young men instructed have long since emerged prominent and conspicuous in learning, and daily young men of great hope and expectation emerge, who will someday govern the republic. It must be candidly admitted that the men of this society have surpassed our predecessors in the education of youth. Then, most illustrious Prince, to demonstrate the same paternal benevolence to your citizens in every kind of benefit, you obtained from former kings immunity from taxes, by which this your metropolis city was formerly unburdened, and you voluntarily took it upon yourself, and annually you paid the same taxes out of your own treasury at your own expense, and by paying them off made your people free. There are also among those things that make illustrious cities, ingenious craftsmen of many arts. Hence, glassmakers, potters, and craftsmen of the encaustic art, outstanding by your command, summoned and enticed by immunity from taxes, provide your citizens with excellent works, convenient and more admirable to foreigners. But in these last days, you have also ordered a printer and ingenious engravers to be called here at great expense to you. Thus, you wanted your city to be adorned with illustrious men and also polished with buildings, especially since there was an abundance of wood, stone, lime, and sand, which are necessary for their construction. But some heavy feudal yoke, less than rightfully imposed on our fathers' buildings, stood in the way. This burden deterred those who had property from building, either lest by ceasing to pay the tax for three years they should fall into committal, or lest urban estates should pass to heirs unless both were partners. Therefore, you also provided in this matter: And lest in the future they be deterred from building by this occasion, you obtained from the King's council that by edict that heavy and as it were tyrannical and barbarous tax burden be changed into another kind of milder dominion, namely a census. For all these things, most illustrious Prince, you demand nothing from us, but the obedience due to you by right, and the unanimous consent of all, by which you have often publicly declared yourself to be more fortified than by many thousands of men. As far as I am concerned, most Illustrious Prince, I would not wish to be considered the last of all your citizens and subjects who desire to obey your commands, not only because I am generally one of those who are bound both by divine and natural law and by your liberality, but also because there is another special reason why I owe the same. For in the year 1584, when I, one of the decurions of this your metropolis city, had gone to Paris, and had rendered an account of public affairs to you, you ordered me to carry out the office of deputy governor. When I was thinking least of all about this and was conscious of being unequal to the burden and recognized myself as unworthy, you nevertheless thought I could suffice, and after taking an oath, you conferred this title on me. I know, most Illustrious Prince, that for so many and such great benefits of yours towards me, you want nothing else from me than that I perform this office as befits an upright man, and render justice to everyone without injury, whom you wanted to preside over the rendering of justice. These, if not as I ought, at least as I could, I have provided: But whether there was something else in which I could demonstrate my desire to obey you more, I considered. Indeed, the forces of my mind are so weak and feeble that they can less respond to the duty owed to your excellence: But we must want what we can, not dare to be able to do whatever we want. I thought therefore that your excellence would not altogether disdain if, what I thought about Argyropoeia and Chrysopoeia, I dedicated to your name, and brought to light. I am not unaware that this art has long been hateful to many, and the same discussing it, to be laughed at, and especially by the German doctor Erastus, against whom I defend this art, many probable arguments have given occasion to attack it. But if the art is true, there is no reason it should be hateful or laughable. If more probable arguments are brought against Erastus, and they are confirmed by experience itself, there is no reason why Erastus can disapprove of this Apology. For as many a probable reason persuades us that things are true, which experience itself proves to be false, so also on the contrary many a probable reason persuades us that things are impossible, which experience itself finds to be true. The end of things, or Aristotle, is not knowledge, but practice. Indeed, I am not unaware that this my undertaking transcends the bounds of my profession, and that, as is commonly the case, it could be objected to me. Let the cobbler not go beyond his last. But I am so constituted by nature that I have diligently investigated things that are abstruse and far removed from the senses of the common people. Nor have I ever thus far neglected or will neglect the parts and duties proper to my profession. The hours that most people usually spend on ball games, cards, and other kinds of games, I have spent the same in investigating the secrets of nature. Most people also intermix other kinds of studies with their own studies. Thus I, as if driven by nature from early youth, and also as age progressed, when leisure allowed, now it does not allow, investigated whether anything true and sincere could be accomplished by this art: not with the desire of acquiring wealth, which the Justinian law usually provides sufficient for necessary things, but for learning. Just as we take food to live, not however live to fatten like beasts, so this art is not to be sought in order to become richer, but so that we are not without those things without which many arts cannot be learned. But if not all the things handed down about this art are most true, at least those things which I have found to be true by experience, no one can rightly accuse of falsehood. It will be enough for me, most Illustrious Prince, who usually judges wisely and gravely about all things, if this Apology dedicated to your name, will come to light by your authority. For it alone will not be able to defend itself. Therefore, under the auspices of your excellence, I send it forth to the public, while I take a break from more serious studies. Nor will your excellence disdain, if it pleases you, to refuse what is offered by your most humble servant for the sake of obeying you. I beseech God, the best and greatest, most illustrious Prince, and my Lord, to keep you safe and extend your life into long and happy years, and grant me this favor, that I may spend whatever days of my life remain in carrying out and executing your commands. From your metropolis city of Nevers, on the Kalends of April, 1590.