in Christendom to make us desire life? Divisions in the
Church, bloody wars, men slaughtered, women violated, cruel murders, and
multitudes reduced to beggary; Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia pillaged;
the heirs of the most noble families reduced to the necessity of living
on alms, if it can be called living to drag out their days in misery,
wishing for death, which alone can put an end to it."

Cornelia, the eldest of Grotius's daughters, who survived her father,
married John Barthon, Viscount of Mombas, a Gentleman of Poitou, who was
obliged to quit France for having displeased Lewis XIV. He went to
Holland, from whence he was also forced to fly, having been involved in
the misfortunes wherein the De Wits perished, and which gave Peter
Grotius, his brother-in-law, so much uneasiness.

Grotius had a brother named William, with whom he kept up the greatest
intimacy during his whole life, and made him the confident of his
studies and designs. It appears by his letters that they lived in the
strictest friendship. Hugo, who was the eldest, contributed to his
brother's education, and directed his studies. We have a letter from
Grotius to his brother, dated at Rotterdam September 28, 1614,
containing a plan of study. "I am of opinion, says he, that in order to
acquire the knowledge of Law, before you touch upon law tracts you
should read with attention Aristotle's second and fifth book of Ethics,
to Nicomachus, or the excellent paraphrase of them published by
Heinsius; then Aristotle's Rhetoric, with the learned commentary on it;
afterwards Cicero's _Offices_, the _Paradoxes_, _De Finibus_, _Of Laws_,
the _Topica_, and _De Inventiene_. I could wish that whilst reading you
would make extracts, or at least mark in the margin of your book
whatever has relation to the Law of Nature and of Nations, to the origin
of Laws and Magistrates, to _Jus publicum et privatum_. When you have
done this, we shall think of the rest." It was Grotius who corrected his
brother's Law Theses.

William Grotius came to France in 1617 to learn the language; and
retiring to Senlis made great progress in it: he purposed to go to
Tours, and Grotius approved of his journey, because the air was pure,
and they spoke good French there.

William Grotius, as well as his brother, had a turn for theological
studies: he wrote something in verse on the Decalogue, which Grotius
mentions in a letter dated from his prison at Louvestein, November 1,
1620. "I have r