distress in ten days, in spite of the winter now close at hand;
Philipsburg, which so long held the Rhine captive under our laws,
and whose loss the greatest of kings so gloriously retrieved. Worms,
Spire, Mayence, Landau, twenty other places I might name, open their
portals: Merci is unable to defend them, and no longer faces his
conqueror. It is not enough; he must fall at his feet, a worthy victim
of his valor. Nordlingen will witness his overthrow; it will there
be admitted that it is no more possible to withstand the French in
Germany than in Flanders. And all these benefits we will owe to this
self-same prince. God, the protector of France and of a king whom He
has destined to perform His great works, thus ordains ...

It was not merely for a son nor for his family that he had such tender
sentiments: I have seen him (and do not think that I here speak in
terms of exaggeration), I have seen him deeply moved by the perils of
his friends. Simple and natural as he was, I have seen his features
betray his emotions at the story of their misfortunes, and he was ever
ready to confer with them on the most insignificant details as well as
on affairs of the utmost importance. In the adjustment of quarrels, he
was ever ready to soothe turbulent spirits with a patience and good
nature that one would little have expected from a disposition so
excitable, nor from a character so lofty. What a contrast to heroes
devoid of human sympathy! Well might the latter command respect and
charm the admiration, as do all extraordinary things, but they will
not win the heart. When God fashioned the heart of man and endowed him
with human affection, He first of all inspired him with the quality
of kindness, like unto the essence of the divine nature itself, as a
token of the beneficent hand that fashioned us. Kindness, therefore,
ought to be the mainspring and guide of our heart, and ought at the
same time to be the chief attraction that should, as it were, be