queen know "that he would take
pains to recover his strength in order to return to his post, if and when
it should be the king's and the queen's pleasure." From his rural home
he wrote to his friends, "I am not downhearted because the violence of
the wicked has snatched from me the seals of the kingdom. I have not
done as sluggards and cowards do, who hide themselves at the first show
of danger, and obey the first impulses of fear. As long as I was strong
enough, I held my own. Deprived of all support, even that of the king
and the queen, who dared no longer defend me, I retired, deploring the
unhappy condition of France. Now I have other cares; I return to my
interrupted studies and to my children, the props of my old age and my
sweetest delight. I cultivate my fields. The estate of Vignay seems to
me a little kingdom, if any man may consider himself master of anything
here below. . . . I will tell you more; this retreat, which satisfies
my heart, also flatters my vanity; I like to imagine myself in the wake
of those famous exiles of Athens or Rome whom their virtues rendered
formidable to their fellow-citizens. Not that I dare compare myself with
those great men, but I say to myself that our fortunes are similar. I
live in the midst of a numerous family whom I love; I have books; I read,
write, and meditate; I take pleasure in the games of my children; the
most frivolous occupations interest me. In fine, all my time is filled
up, and nothing would be wanting to my happiness if it were not for the
awful apparition hard by which sometimes comes, bringing trouble and
desolation to my heart."

This "apparition hard by" was war, everywhere present or imminent in the
centre and south-west of France, accompanied by all those passions of
personal hatred and vengeance which are characteristic of religious wars,
and which add so much of the moral sufferings to the physical calamities
of life. L'Hospital, when sending the seals to the queen-mother, who
demanded them of him, considered it his bounden duty to give her without
any mincing, and the king whom she governed, a piece of patriotic advice.
"At my departure," he says in his will and testament, "I prayed of the
king and queen this thing, that, as they had determined to break the
peace, and proceed by war against those with whom they had previously
made peace, and as they were driving me from the court because they had
heard it said that I was opposed to and i