ret.

As for me, with my love for the scent of orange blossoms, the monarch's
petulance once more affected me extremely. I was obliged for some time
to give it up, like the others, and take to amber, the favourite scent of
my master, which my nerves could not endure.

Before surrendering the town of Orange to the commissioners of the
kinglet of the Dutch, the King of France had the walls thrown down, all
the fortifications razed, and the public buildings, certain convents, and
the library of the town stripped of their works of art. These measures
irritated Prince William, who, on that account alone, wished to
recommence the war; but the Emperor and the allies heard his complaints
with little attention. They even besought him to leave things as they
were. M. d'Orange is a real firebrand; he could not endure the
severities of the King without reprisals, and no sooner was he once more
in possession of his little isolated sovereignty than he annoyed the
Catholics in it, caused all possible alarms to the sisters of mercy and
nuns, imposed enormous taxes on the monks, and drove out the Jesuits with
unheard-of insults.

The King received hospitably all these humiliated or persecuted folk; and
as he was given to understand that the Orange Protestants were secretly
sowing discontent amongst his Calvinists and French Lutherans, he
prepared the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the famous political
measure the abrogation of which took place a short time afterwards.

I saw, in the hands of the King, a document of sixty pages, printed at
Orange, after its restitution, in which it was clearly specified that
Hugh Capet had set himself on the throne irregularly, and in which the
author went to the point of saying that the Catholic religion was only an
idolatry, and that the peoples would only be happy and free after the
general introduction of the Reformation. The Marechal de Vivonne came
and told me, in strict confidence, that the Jesuits, out of resentment,
had forged this document, and printed the pamphlet themselves; but M. de
Louvois, who, through his father, the Chancellor, and his brother, the
Archbishop of Rheims, was associated with them, maintained that the
incendiary libel was really the work of the Protestants.

My residence at the Court having opened my eyes sufficiently to the
wickedness of men, I will not give my opinion, amid these angry charges
and recriminations. I confine myself to relating what I have see