buleuse
. . . Ce sont des histoires autant veritables que tristes et funestes.
Les noms de la pluspart des personnages sont seulement desguisez en ce
Theatre, a fin de n'affliger pas tant les familles de ceux qui en ont
donne le suject, puis qu'elles en sont assez affligees." We thus find
that the outlines of the story of "Lysis" tally with what we know about
Bussy from other sources, and Rosset not improbably preserves details
omitted by the historians of the period.

Lysis, Rosset tells us, was sprung from one of the most noble and
renowned Houses of France. At seventeen he had acquired an extraordinary
reputation for bravery, which increased till "jamais la France depuis le
valeureux Roland, ne porta un tel Palladin." Afterwards "il vint a la
cour du Prince qui venoit de quiter une Couronne estrangere, pour
recevoir celle qui luy appartenoit par les droits de la loy Salique, [i.
e. Henry III, who gave up the throne of Poland on succeeding to that of
France.] . . . Les rares dons dont il estoit accomply luy acquirent tant
de part aux bonnes graces du premier Prince du sang Royal, qu'il estoit
tousiours aupres de luy. . . . Mais l'envie . . . tous les jours . . .
faisait de mauvais rapports a sa Maieste de Lysis, de sorte qu'elle le
voyoit d'aussi mauvais oeil, que l'autre Prince, son proche parent,
faisoit conte de sa prouesse."

He had never been the victim of love, but he was instantly captivated by
the beautiful eyes of a lady whom he met at an assembly at the house of
a Judge in one of the towns of which he was Governor.

"Ceste beaute, pour le respect que je dois a ceux a qui elle
appartenoit, sera nommee Sylvie. . . . Cette dame . . . estoit mariee
avec un grand Seigneur, jeune, vaillan, sage, discret et courtois." She
would not at first gratify her lover's passion, though she granted him
"de petites privautez," which only fanned the flame. He wrote her a
letter in which he declared that if she refused him her favour, it meant
his sentence of death. She replied in a temporising manner that when he
had given proofs of his fidelity, she would decide as to what she ought
to do. Rosset asserts that these two letters are not invented, but that
he obtained them from a friend who had made a collection of such
epistles, and who "a este curieux de scavoir le nom des personnes qui
les ont escrites."

Meanwhile, he continues, "elle donne le vray moyen a Lysis de la voir,
sans le souciet qu'on en parle, pourveu que sa c