y thank them for it. Is there any who desires to be
sick, that he may see his physician at work? and would not the physician
deserve to be whipped who should wish the plague amongst us, that he
might put his art in practice? I have never been of that wicked humour,
and common enough, to desire that troubles and disorders in this city
should elevate and honour my government; I have ever heartily contributed
all I could to their tranquillity and ease.

He who will not thank me for the order, the sweet and silent calm that
has accompanied my administration, cannot, however, deprive me of the
share that belongs to me by title of my good fortune. And I am of such a
composition, that I would as willingly be lucky as wise, and had rather
owe my successes purely to the favour of Almighty God, than to any
operation of my own. I had sufficiently published to the world my
unfitness for such public offices; but I have something in me yet worse
than incapacity itself; which is, that I am not much displeased at it,
and that I do not much go about to cure it, considering the course of
life that I have proposed to myself.

Neither have I satisfied myself in this employment; but I have very near
arrived at what I expected from my own performance, and have much
surpassed what I promised them with whom I had to do: for I am apt to
promise something less than what I am able to do, and than what I hope to
make good. I assure myself that I have left no offence or hatred behind
me; to leave regret or desire for me amongst them, I at least know very
well that I never much aimed at it:

"Mene huic confidere monstro!
Mene salis placidi vultum, fluctusque quietos
Ignorare?"

["Should I place confidence in this monster? Should I be ignorant
of the dangers of that seeming placid sea, those now quiet waves?"
--Virgil, Aeneid, V. 849.]

CHAPTER XI

OF CRIPPLES

'Tis now two or three years ago that they made the year ten days shorter
in France.--[By the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.]--How many
changes may we expect should follow this reformation! it was really
moving heaven and earth at once. Yet nothing for all that stirs from its
place my neighbours still find their seasons of sowing and reaping, the
opportunities of doing their business, the hurtful and propitious days,
dust at the same time where they had, time out of mind, assigned them;
there was no more error