DEDICATION
TO MONSEIGNEUR LE DUC D’ALENÇON
OF BRABANT AND COUNT OF FLANDERS
SON AND BROTHER OF OUR FRENCH KINGS[1*]
My Gracious Lord,
Seeing how you have full often done me the honour at Court to converse with me in great privity of sundry jests and merry tales, the which are so familiar and ready with you they may well be said to grow apace before men’s very eyes in your Lordship’s mouth, so great your wit is and so keen and subtile, and your speech the same, and right eloquent to boot,—for this cause have I set me to indite these discourses, such as they be, to the best of my poor ability, to the end that in this wise some of them may please you, making the time to pass lightly and reminding you of me in your conversations, wherewith erstwhile you have honoured me as much as any gentleman of all the Court.
To you then, my Lord, do I dedicate this present book, and do beseech you fortify the same with your name and authority, till that I may find leisure to attend to discourses of a more serious content. Of such I pray you note one in especial, the which I have all but finished, wherein I do deduce a comparison of six great Princes and Captains that be to-day abroad in this our Christendom, to wit: the King Henri III. your brother, Your Highness’ self, the King of Navarre your brother-in-law, the Duc de Guise, the Duc de Maine, and the Prince of Parma, making record for each one of you of your noblest deeds of valour and high emprize, of your excellencies and exploits, the full tale and complement whereof I do resign to others better qualified than I to indite the same.
Meanwhile, My Lord, I do beseech God to bless you always more and more in your greatness, happiness and nobility.
And I am for all time
Your very humble and very obedient subject and very loving servant.
BOURDEILLE.[2]