To that he clings with a passion so unbridled, if I may dare so to speak, that the visible injury it does his constitution is not capable of detaching him from it.
Sees he anything useful to the king's service, he goes at it without looking to one side or the other.

Obstacles tempt him, resistance piques him, and nothing that is put in his way diverts him; the disregard he shows of self, and of all that touches himself, as if he knew no sort of health or disease but the health or disease of the state, causes all good men to fear that his life will not be long enough for him to see the fruit of what he plants; and moreover, it is quite evident that what he leaves undone can never be completed by any man that holds his place.
Why, man, he does a thing because it has to be done! The space between the Rhine and the Pyrenees seems to him not field enough for the lilies of France.

He would have them occupy the two shores of the Mediterranean, and waft their odors thence to the extremest countries of the Orient.

Measure by the extent of his designs the extent of his courage." [Letters to Racan and to M.de Mentin.

_OEuvres de Malherbe,_ t.