Le Thresor des Divines et Celestes Consolations

The manuscript materialLe Thresor des Divines et Celestes Consolations'(London, 1643) was bound by 'Lord Herbert's Binder'. It contains 21 chapters on the nature and benefits of Afflictions. A rough translation of the introduction gives the flavour: 'Friendly Reader, this book, to which I have given light, shows how tribulations tear us away from sin, which is the source and origin of all pain; it brings us to virtue, to good, and to God, who is the means, the Principle, indeed who is in Himself all the Sovereign good. And afterwards it produces the means to keep always on the right path of virtue, eases our path towards Heaven, and forces us through a secret violence and voluntary constraints, despising that which is of the world (holding its voluptuousness, its delights and vanities against one's will and in disgust) and to breathe towards Heaven, with tears in the eyes, sighs on the lips and sobs in the heart.'

The volume is dedicated to Edward Montagu, 2nd. Earl of Manchester (1602-1671), the Presbyterian and a Parliamentary leader. Manchester had succeeded his father as 2nd. Earl of Manchester in November 1642. In August 1643 he was appointed Sergeant-Major-General of the Associated Counties of East Anglia.

The name David de Hasteville, in London, first appears in theCalendar of State Papers, Domestic series, of the reign of Charles I. 1640-41., p.377, in the 'Petition of David de Hasteville, formerly called Father Archange de Hasteville, Abbé du Val de Sainte Croix and General of the Order of St. Romuald to [Sec. Windebank]'. De Hasteville had recently become a Protestant and was seeking 'some sort of entertainment or pension'. He had also petitioned the House of Commons in 1648, describing himself as a Protestant who had recently left his native France and 'a plentiful estate'. Apparently in 1643 he had been appointed general of artillery under Sir William Waller, and had raised three hundred and fourteen men at his own cost, not receiving any government cash, and was then in danger of arrest for money owed for the billetting of his soldiers.

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