my

Champaigne, and about Damvilliers; upon which account I have caused certain sums to be restored, of which the Sieur Jasse, treasurer, hath a particular knowledge; and I have passionately desired that it were in my power to sell all my estate, that I might give a more full satisfaction. But having upon this occasion submitted myself to the judgment of many prelates and learned and pious persons, they have judged that I was not obliged to reduce myself altogether to the condition of a private man, but that I ought to serve God in my rank and quality; in which nevertheless I have withdrawn as much as was possible from my household expenses, to the end that, during my life, I may restore every year as much as I can save of my revenues. And I charge my heirs, who shall hereafter be named in this my will, to do the same thing, until the damages that I have caused be fully repaired, according to the instructions which shall be found in the hands of the Sieur Jasse, or in my papers. To this end, I desire the executors of my will, and her who shall be entrusted with the education of my children, to reduce and moderate, as much as may be, their expenses, that the foresaid restitutions may be continued every

year, according to my orders. And if it happen that my heirs and their issue have, either from the bounty of the king, or by any other way, riches enough to maintain them handsomely, I will and order that they sell all the estate which they enjoy as being my successors; and that they distribute the price of it amongst those provinces, and in those places, which have suffered on the account of the said wars, following the orders contained in the said instructions, if the said places or persons have not been already sufficiently repaid by me, or by some other. And if it fall out that my children die without issue, so that my line be extinct, I intend likewise that my estate be sold, for to be wholly employed in the said restitutions, my collateral friends having enough elsewhere.

"I desire that those papers which shall be found, writ or signed with my hand, concerning affairs where I have doubted, if in point of conscience I were obliged to a restitution or not, be very carefully and rigorously examined; the which I pray my executors moreover, if it be found by notes written or signed with my hand, that I have verified or acknowledged myself to be obliged to any restitution or

satisfaction whatever, I desire that they may be executed, as if every particular thing contained in them was expressly ordered by this present will.”, Then he commits the education of his children (whom he makes his heirs) to his wife, and desires the parliament of Paris to confirm her in the tuition of his children; and then names his executors, who upon his decease are to become possessed of all his estate to the purposes aforesaid, and so signs the will with his hand the 4th of May, 1664,

ARMANDE DE Bourbon. His paper of instructions was likewise published with his will, that so the persons concerned might know to whom to repair. The words are these: "The order which I desire may be observed in the restitution which I am obliged to make in Guienne, Xantoinge, la Marche, Berry, Champaigne, and Damvilliers, &c. In the first place, those losses and damages which have been caused by my orders or my troops ought to be repaired before all others, as being of my own doing. In the second place, I am responsible, very justly, for all the mischiefs which the general disorders of the war have produced, although they have been done without my having

any part in them, provided that I have satisfied for the first. I owe no reparation to those who have been of our party, except they can make it appear that I have sought and invited them to it; and in this case, it will be just to restore first of all to those innocent persons who have had no part in my failings, before that any thing can be given to those who have been our confederates: the better to observe this distributive

justice, I desire that my restitutions may be made in such a manner, that they may be spread every where; to the end that it fall not out, that amongst many that have suffered, some be satisfied and others have nothing. But since I have not riches enough for to repay at one time all those corporations and particular persons who have suffered, I desire, &c." and so decreed the method and order the payments should be made in; the whole of which, by his computation, would be discharged in twenty years; but if it so fell out, that the estate should be entirely sold, the whole payment was to be made at once; and it was a marvellous recollection of particular oppres sions, which he conceived might have been put upon his tenants by his officers, some whereof were not remediable by law, by

reason of prescription, which he declared that he would not be defended by, but ap pointed that the original right should be strictly examined; and if his possession was founded in wrong, he disclaimed the prescription, and commanded that satisfaction should be made to those who had been injured, even by his ancestors, and before his own time; and required, that any doubts which might arise upon any of his instructions, or in the cases in which he intended satisfaction should be given, might and should be examined and judged by men of the strictest and most rigid justice, and not by men of loose - principles.

I do not naturally, in discourses of this nature, delight in so large excursions in the mention of particular actions performed by men, how godly and exemplary soever, because the persons who do them are always without any desire that what they do should be made public, and because repentance hath various operations in minds equally virtuous: yet meeting very accidentally with this record, without having scarce

ever

heard it mentioned by any man in the country, where there is room enough for proselytes of the same nature, and cause enough to celebrate the example, as I took great de