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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Life of John of Barneveld, 1610
+#88 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
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+Title: The Life of John of Barneveld, 1610
+
+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4888]
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+[This file was first posted on April 22, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1610 ***
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+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Volume 88
+
+The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v3, 1610
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Difficult Position of Barneveld--Insurrection at Utrecht subdued by
+     the States' Army--Special Embassies to England and France--Anger of
+     the King with Spain and the Archdukes--Arrangements of Henry for the
+     coming War--Position of Spain--Anxiety of the King for the Presence
+     of Barneveld in Paris--Arrival of the Dutch Commissioners in France
+     and their brilliant Reception--Their Interview with the King and his
+     Ministers--Negotiations--Delicate Position of the Dutch Government--
+     India Trade--Simon Danzer, the Corsair--Conversations of Henry with
+     the Dutch Commissioners--Letter of the King to Archduke Albert--
+     Preparations for the Queen's Coronation, and of Henry to open the
+     Campaign in person--Perplexities of Henry--Forebodings and Warnings
+     --The Murder accomplished--Terrible Change in France--Triumph of
+     Concini and of Spain--Downfall of Sully--Disputes of the Grandees
+     among themselves--Special Mission of Condelence from the Republic--
+     Conference on the great Enterprise--Departure of van der Myle from
+     Paris.
+
+There were reasons enough why the Advocate could not go to Paris at this
+juncture.  It was absurd in Henry to suppose it possible.  Everything
+rested on Barneveld's shoulders.  During the year which had just passed
+he had drawn almost every paper, every instruction in regard to the peace
+negotiations, with his own hand, had assisted at every conference,
+guided and mastered the whole course of a most difficult and intricate
+negotiation, in which he had not only been obliged to make allowance
+for the humbled pride and baffled ambition of the ancient foe of the
+Netherlands, but to steer clear of the innumerable jealousies,
+susceptibilities, cavillings, and insolences of their patronizing
+friends.
+
+It was his brain that worked, his tongue that spoke, his restless pen
+that never paused.  His was not one of those easy posts, not unknown in
+the modern administration of great affairs, where the subordinate
+furnishes the intellect, the industry, the experience, while the bland
+superior, gratifying the world with his sign-manual, appropriates the
+applause.  So long as he lived and worked, the States-General and the
+States of Holland were like a cunningly contrived machine, which seemed
+to be alive because one invisible but mighty mind vitalized the whole.
+
+And there had been enough to do.  It was not until midsummer of 1609 that
+the ratifications of the Treaty of Truce, one of the great triumphs in
+the history of diplomacy, had been exchanged, and scarcely had this
+period been put to the eternal clang of arms when the death of a lunatic
+threw the world once more into confusion.  It was obvious to Barneveld
+that the issue of the Cleve-Julich affair, and of the tremendous
+religious fermentation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria, must sooner or
+later lead to an immense war.  It was inevitable that it would devolve
+upon the States to sustain their great though vacillating, their generous
+though encroaching, their sincere though most irritating, ally.  And
+yet, thoroughly as Barneveld had mastered all the complications and
+perplexities of the religious and political question, carefully as he
+had calculated the value of the opposing forces which were shaking
+Christendom, deeply as he had studied the characters of Matthias and
+Rudolph, of Charles of Denmark and Ferdinand of Graz, of Anhalt and
+Maximilian, of Brandenburg and Neuburg, of James and Philip, of Paul V.
+and Charles Emmanuel, of Sully and Yilleroy, of Salisbury and Bacon, of
+Lerma and Infantado; adroitly as he could measure, weigh, and analyse all
+these elements in the great problem which was forcing itself on the
+attention of Europe--there was one factor with which it was difficult for
+this austere republican, this cold, unsuseeptible statesman, to deal: the
+intense and imperious passion of a greybeard for a woman of sixteen.
+
+For out of the cauldron where the miscellaneous elements of universal
+war were bubbling rose perpetually the fantastic image of Margaret
+Montmorency: the fatal beauty at whose caprice the heroic sword of Ivry
+and Cahors was now uplifted and now sheathed.
+
+Aerssens was baffled, and reported the humours of the court where he
+resided as changing from hour to hour.  To the last he reported that all
+the mighty preparations then nearly completed "might evaporate in smoke"
+if the Princess of Conde should come back.  Every ambassador in Paris was
+baffled.  Peter Pecquius was as much in the dark as Don Inigo de
+Cardenas, as Ubaldini or Edmonds.  No one save Sully, Aerssens,
+Barneveld, and the King knew the extensive arrangements and profound
+combinations which had been made for the war.  Yet not Sully, Aerssens,
+Barneveld, or the King, knew whether or not the war would really be made.
+
+Barneveld had to deal with this perplexing question day by day.  His
+correspondence with his ambassador at Henry's court was enormous, and we
+have seen that the Ambassador was with the King almost daily; sleeping or
+waking; at dinner or the chase; in the cabinet or the courtyard.
+
+But the Advocate was also obliged to carry in his arms, as it were, the
+brood of snarling, bickering, cross-grained German princes, to supply
+them with money, with arms, with counsel, with brains; to keep them awake
+when they went to sleep, to steady them in their track, to teach them to
+go alone.  He had the congress at Hall in Suabia to supervise and direct;
+he had to see that the ambassadors of the new republic, upon which they
+in reality were already half dependent and chafing at their dependence,
+were treated with the consideration due to the proud position which the
+Commonwealth had gained.  Questions of etiquette were at that moment
+questions of vitality.  He instructed his ambassadors to leave the
+congress on the spot if they were ranked after the envoys of princes who
+were only feudatories of the Emperor.  The Dutch ambassadors,
+"recognising and relying upon no superiors but God and their sword,"
+placed themselves according to seniority with the representatives of
+proudest kings.
+
+He had to extemporize a system of free international communication with
+all the powers of the earth--with the Turk at Constantinople, with the
+Czar of Muscovy; with the potentates of the Baltic, with both the Indies.
+The routine of a long established and well organized foreign office in a
+time-honoured state running in grooves; with well-balanced springs and
+well oiled wheels, may be a luxury of civilization; but it was a more
+arduous task to transact the greatest affairs of a state springing
+suddenly into recognized existence and mainly dependent for its primary
+construction and practical working on the hand of one man.
+
+Worse than all, he had to deal on the most dangerous and delicate topics
+of state with a prince who trembled at danger and was incapable of
+delicacy; to show respect for a character that was despicable, to lean on
+a royal word falser than water, to inhale almost daily the effluvia from
+a court compared to which the harem of Henry was a temple of vestals.
+The spectacle of the slobbering James among his Kars and Hays and
+Villiers's and other minions is one at which history covers her eyes and
+is dumb; but the republican envoys, with instructions from a Barneveld,
+were obliged to face him daily, concealing their disgust, and bowing
+reverentially before him as one of the arbiters of their destinies and
+the Solomon of his epoch.
+
+A special embassy was sent early in the year to England to convey the
+solemn thanks of the Republic to the King for his assistance in the truce
+negotiations, and to treat of the important matters then pressing on the
+attention of both powers.  Contemporaneously was to be despatched the
+embassy for which Henry was waiting so impatiently at Paris.
+
+Certainly the Advocate had enough with this and other, important business
+already mentioned to detain him at his post.  Moreover the first year of
+peace had opened disastrously in the Netherlands.  Tremendous tempests
+such as had rarely been recorded even in that land of storms had raged
+all the winter.  The waters everywhere had burst their dykes and
+inundations, which threatened to engulph the whole country, and which had
+caused enormous loss of property and even of life, were alarming the most
+courageous.  It was difficult in many district to collect the taxes for
+the every-day expenses of the community, and yet the Advocate knew that
+the Republic would soon be forced to renew the war on a prodigious scale.
+
+Still more to embarrass the action of the government and perplex its
+statesmen, an alarming and dangerous insurrection broke out in Utrecht.
+
+In that ancient seat of the hard-fighting, imperious, and opulent
+sovereign archbishops of the ancient church an important portion of the
+population had remained Catholic.  Another portion complained of the
+abolition of various privileges which they had formerly enjoyed; among
+others that of a monopoly of beer-brewing for the province.  All the
+population, as is the case with all populations in all countries and all
+epochs, complained of excessive taxation.
+
+A clever politician, Dirk Kanter by name, a gentleman by birth, a scholar
+and philosopher by pursuit and education, and a demagogue by profession,
+saw an opportunity of taking an advantage of this state of things.  More
+than twenty years before he had been burgomaster of the city, and had
+much enjoyed himself in that position.  He was tired of the learned
+leisure to which the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens had condemned
+him.  He seems to have been of easy virtue in the matter of religion, a
+Catholic, an Arminian, an ultra orthodox Contra-Remonstrant by turns.  He
+now persuaded a number of determined partisans that the time had come for
+securing a church for the public worship of the ancient faith, and at the
+same time for restoring the beer brewery, reducing the taxes, recovering
+lost privileges, and many other good things.  Beneath the whole scheme
+lay a deep design to effect the secession of the city and with it of the
+opulent and important province of Utrecht from the Union.  Kanter had
+been heard openly to avow that after all the Netherlands had flourished
+under the benign sway of the House of Burgundy, and that the time would
+soon come for returning to that enviable condition.
+
+By a concerted assault the city hall was taken possession of by main
+force, the magistracy was overpowered, and a new board of senators and
+common council-men appointed, Kanter and a devoted friend of his,
+Heldingen by name, being elected burgomasters.
+
+The States-Provincial of Utrecht, alarmed at these proceedings in the
+city, appealed for protection against violence to the States-General
+under the 3rd Article of the Union, the fundamental pact which bore the
+name of Utrecht itself.  Prince Maurice proceeded to the city at the head
+of a detachment of troops to quell the tumults.  Kanter and his friends
+were plausible enough to persuade him of the legality and propriety of
+the revolution which they had effected, and to procure his formal
+confirmation of the new magistracy.  Intending to turn his military
+genius and the splendour of his name to account, they contrived to keep
+him for a time at least in an amiable enthralment, and induced him to
+contemplate in their interest the possibility of renouncing the oath
+which subjected him to the authority of the States of Utrecht.  But the
+far-seeing eye of Barneveld could not be blind to the danger which at
+this crisis beset the Stadholder and the whole republic.  The Prince was
+induced to return to the Hague, but the city continued by armed revolt to
+maintain the new magistracy.  They proceeded to reduce the taxes, and in
+other respects to carry out the measures on the promise of which they had
+come into power.  Especially the Catholic party sustained Kanter and his
+friends, and promised themselves from him and from his influence over
+Prince Maurice to obtain a power of which they had long been deprived.
+
+The States-General now held an assembly at Woerden, and summoned the
+malcontents of Utrecht to bring before that body a statement of their
+grievances.  This was done, but there was no satisfactory arrangement
+possible, and the deputation returned to Utrecht, the States-General to
+the Hague. The States-Provincial of Utrecht urged more strongly than ever
+upon the assembly of the Union to save the city from the hands of a
+reckless and revolutionary government.  The States-General resolved
+accordingly to interfere by force.  A considerable body of troops was
+ordered to march at once upon Utrecht and besiege the city.  Maurice, in
+his capacity of captain-general and stadholder of the province, was
+summoned to take charge of the army.  He was indisposed to do so, and
+pleaded sickness.  The States, determined that the name of Nassau should
+not be used as an encouragement to disobedience, and rebellion, then
+directed the brother of Maurice, Frederic Henry, youngest son of William
+the Silent, to assume the command.  Maurice insisted that his brother was
+too young, and that it was unjust to allow so grave a responsibility to
+fall upon his shoulders.  The States, not particularly pleased with the
+Prince's attitude at this alarming juncture, and made anxious by the
+glamour which seemed to possess him since his conferences with the
+revolutionary party at Utrecht, determined not to yield.
+
+The army marched forth and laid siege to the city, Prince Frederic Henry
+at its head.  He was sternly instructed by the States-General, under
+whose orders he acted, to take possession of the city at all hazards.
+He was to insist on placing there a garrison of 2000 foot and 300 horse,
+and to permit not another armed man within the walls.  The members of the
+council of state and of the States of Utrecht accompanied the army.  For
+a moment the party in power was disposed to resist the forces of the
+Union.  Dick Kanter and his friends were resolute enough; the Catholic
+priests turned out among the rest with their spades and worked on the
+entrenchments.  The impossibility of holding the city against the
+overwhelming power of the States was soon obvious, and the next day the
+gates were opened, and easy terms were granted.  The new magistracy was
+set aside, the old board that had been deposed by the rebels reinstated.
+The revolution and the counterrevolution were alike bloodless, and it was
+determined that the various grievances of which the discontented party
+had complained should be referred to the States-General, to Prince
+Maurice, to the council of state, and to the ambassadors of France and
+England.  Amnesty was likewise decreed on submission.
+
+The restored government was Arminian in its inclinations, the
+revolutionary one was singularly compounded both of Catholic and of
+ultra-orthodox elements.  Quiet was on the whole restored, but the
+resources of the city were crippled.  The event occurring exactly at the
+crisis of the Clove and Julich expedition angered the King of France.
+
+"The trouble of Utrecht," wrote Aerssens to Barneveld, "has been turned
+to account here marvellously, the Archdukes and Spaniards boasting that
+many more revolts like this may be at once expected.  I have explained to
+his Majesty, who has been very much alarmed about it, both its source and
+the hopes that it will be appeased by the prudence of his Excellency
+Prince Maurice and the deputies of the States.  The King desires that
+everything should be pacified as soon as possible, so that there may be
+no embarrassment to the course of public affairs.  But he fears, he tells
+me, that this may create some new jealousy between Prince Maurice and
+yourself.  I don't comprehend what he means, although he held this
+language to me very expressly and without reserve.  I could only answer
+that you were living on the best of terms together in perfect amity and
+intelligence.  If you know if this talk of his has any other root, please
+to enlighten me, that I may put a stop to false reports, for I know
+nothing of affairs except what you tell me."
+
+King James, on the other hand, thoroughly approved the promptness of the
+States-General in suppressing the tumult.
+
+Nothing very serious of alike nature occurred in Utrecht until the end of
+the year, when a determined and secret conspiracy was discovered, having
+for its object to overpower the garrison and get bodily possession of
+Colonel John Ogle, the military commander of the town.  At the bottom of
+the movement were the indefatigable Dirk Kanter and his friend Heldingen.
+The attempt was easily suppressed, and the two were banished from the
+town.  Kanter died subsequently in North Holland, in the odour of ultra-
+orthodoxy.  Four of the conspirators--a post-master, two shoemakers, and
+a sexton, who had bound themselves by oath to take the lives of two
+eminent Arminian preachers, besides other desperate deeds--were condemned
+to death, but pardoned on the scaffold.  Thus ended the first revolution
+at Utrecht.
+
+Its effect did not cease, however, with the tumults which were its
+original manifestations.  This earliest insurrection in organized shape
+against the central authority of the States-General; this violent though
+abortive effort to dissolve the Union and to nullify its laws; this
+painful necessity for the first time imposed upon the federal government
+to take up arms against misguided citizens of the Republic, in order to
+save itself from disintegration and national death, were destined to be
+followed by far graver convulsions on the self-same spot.  Religious
+differences and religious hatreds were to mingle their poison with
+antagonistic political theories and personal ambitions, and to develop on
+a wide scale the danger ever lurking in a constitution whose fundamental
+law was unstable, ill defined, and liable to contradictory
+interpretations.  For the present it need only be noticed that the
+States-General, guided by Barneveld, most vigorously suppressed the local
+revolt and the incipient secession, while Prince Maurice, the right arm
+of the executive, the stadholder of the province, and the representative
+of the military power of the Commonwealth, was languid in the exertion of
+that power, inclined to listen to the specious arguments of the Utrecht
+rebels, and accused at least of tampering with the fell spirit which the
+Advocate was resolute to destroy.  Yet there was no suspicion of treason,
+no taint of rebellion, no accusation of unpatriotic motives uttered
+against the Stadholder.
+
+There was a doubt as to the true maxims by which the Confederacy was to
+be governed, and at this moment, certainly, the Prince and the Advocate
+represented opposite ideas.  There was a possibility, at a future day,
+when the religious and political parties might develop themselves on a
+wider scale and the struggles grow fiercer, that the two great champions
+in the conflict might exchange swords and inflict mutual and poisoned
+wounds.  At present the party of the Union had triumphed, with Barneveld
+at its head.  At a later but not far distant day, similar scenes might be
+enacted in the ancient city of Utrecht, but with a strange difference and
+change in the cast of parts and with far more tragical results.
+
+For the moment the moderate party in the Church, those more inclined to
+Arminianism and the supremacy of the civil authority in religious
+matters, had asserted their ascendency in the States-General, and had
+prevented the threatened rupture.
+
+Meantime it was doubly necessary to hasten the special embassies to
+France and to England, in both which countries much anxiety as to the
+political health and strength of the new republic had been excited by
+these troubles in Utrecht.  It was important for the States-General to
+show that they were not crippled, and would not shrink from the coming
+conflict, but would justify the reliance placed on them by their allies.
+
+Thus there were reasons enough why Barneveld could not himself leave the
+country in the eventful spring of 1610.  It must be admitted, however,
+that he was not backward in placing his nearest relatives in places of
+honour, trust, and profit.
+
+His eldest son Reinier, Seignior of Groeneveld, had been knighted by
+Henry IV.; his youngest, William, afterwards called Seignior of
+Stoutenburg, but at this moment bearing the not very mellifluous title of
+Craimgepolder, was a gentleman-in-waiting at that king's court, with a
+salary of 3000 crowns a year.  He was rather a favourite with the easy-
+going monarch, but he gave infinite trouble to the Dutch ambassador
+Aerssens, who, feeling himself under immense obligations to the Advocate
+and professing for him boundless gratitude, did his best to keep the
+idle, turbulent, extravagant, and pleasure-loving youth up to the strict
+line of his duties.
+
+"Your son is in debt again," wrote Aerssens, on one occasion, "and
+troubled for money.  He is in danger of going to the usurers.  He says he
+cannot keep himself for less than 200 crowns a month.  This is a large
+allowance, but he has spent much more than that.  His life is not
+irregular nor his dress remarkably extravagant.  His difficulty is that
+he will not dine regularly with me nor at court.  He will keep his own
+table and have company to dinner.  That is what is ruining him.  He comes
+sometimes to me, not for the dinner nor the company, but for tennis,
+which he finds better in my faubourg than in town.  His trouble comes
+from the table, and I tell you frankly that you must regulate his
+expenses or they will become very onerous to you.  I am ashamed of them
+and have told him so a hundred times, more than if he had been my own
+brother.  It is all for love of you .  .  .  .  I have been all to him
+that could be expected of a man who is under such vast obligations to
+you; and I so much esteem the honour of your friendship that I should
+always neglect my private affairs in order to do everything for your
+service and meet your desires .  .  .  .  .  If M. de Craimgepolder comes
+back from his visit home, you must restrict him in two things, the table
+and tennis, and you can do this if you require him to follow the King
+assiduously as his service requires."
+
+Something at a future day was to be heard of William of Barneveld, as
+well as of his elder brother Reinier, and it is good, therefore, to have
+these occasional glimpses of him while in the service of the King and
+under the supervision of one who was then his father's devoted friend,
+Francis Aerssens.  There were to be extraordinary and tragical changes in
+the relations of parties and of individuals ere many years should go by.
+
+Besides the sons of the Advocate, his two sons-in-law, Brederode,
+Seignior of Veenhuizep, and Cornelis van der Myle, were constantly
+employed?  in important embassies.  Van der Myle had been the first
+ambassador to the great Venetian republic, and was now placed at the
+head of the embassy to France, an office which it was impossible at that
+moment for the Advocate to discharge.  At the same critical moment
+Barneveld's brother Elias, Pensionary of Rotterdam, was appointed
+one of the special high commissioners to the King of Great Britain.
+
+It is necessary to give an account of this embassy.
+
+They were provided with luminous and minute instructions from the hand of
+the Advocate.
+
+They were, in the first place, and ostensibly, to thank the King for his
+services in bringing about the truce, which, truly, had been of the
+slightest, as was very well known.  They were to explain, on the part of
+the States, their delay in sending this solemn commission, caused by the
+tardiness of the King of Spain in sending his ratification to the treaty,
+and by the many disputations caused by the irresolutions of the Archdukes
+and the obstinacy of their commissioners in regard to their many
+contraventions of the treaty.  After those commissioners had gone,
+further hindrances had been found in the "extraordinary tempests, high
+floods, rising of the waters, both of the ocean and the rivers, and the
+very disastrous inundations throughout nearly all the United Provinces,
+with the immense and exorbitant damage thus inflicted, both on the public
+and on many individuals; in addition to all which were to be mentioned
+the troubles in the city of Utrecht."
+
+They were, in almost hyperbolical language, directed to express the
+eternal gratitude of the States for the constant favours received by
+them from the crown of England, and their readiness to stand forth at
+any moment with sincere affection and to the utmost of their power,
+at all times and seasons, in resistance of any attempts against his
+Majesty's person or crown, or against the Prince of Wales or the royal
+family.  They were to thank him for his "prudent, heroic, and courageous
+resolve to suffer nothing to be done under colour of justice, authority,
+or any other pretext, to the hindrance of the Elector of Brandenburg and
+Palatine of Neuburg, in the maintenance of their lawful rights and
+possession of the principalities of Julich, Cleve, and Berg, and other
+provinces."
+
+By this course his Majesty, so the commissioners were to state, would put
+an end to the imaginations of those who thought they could give the law
+to everybody according to their pleasure.
+
+They were to assure the King that the States-General would exert
+themselves to the utmost to second his heroic resolution, notwithstanding
+the enormous burthens of their everlasting war, the very exorbitant
+damage caused by the inundations, and the sensible diminution in the
+contributions and other embarrassments then existing in the country.
+
+They were to offer 2000 foot and 500 horse for the general purpose under
+Prince Henry of Nassau, besides the succours furnished by the King of
+France and the electors and princes of Germany.  Further assistance in
+men, artillery, and supplies were promised under certain contingencies,
+and the plan of the campaign on the Meuse in conjunction with the King of
+France was duly mapped.
+
+They were to request a corresponding promise of men and money from the
+King of Great Britain, and they were to propose for his approval a closer
+convention for mutual assistance between his Majesty, the United
+Netherlands, the King of France, the electors and princes and other
+powers of Germany; as such close union would be very beneficial to all
+Christendom.  It would put a stop to all unjust occupations, attempts,
+and intrigues, and if the King was thereto inclined, he was requested to
+indicate time and place for making such a convention.
+
+The commissioners were further to point out the various contraventions
+on the part of the Archdukes of the Treaty of Truce, and were to give
+an exposition of the manner in which the States-General had quelled the
+tumults at Utrecht, and reasons why such a course had of necessity been
+adopted.
+
+They were instructed to state that, "over and above the great expenses of
+the late war and the necessary maintenance of military forces to protect
+their frontiers against their suspected new friends or old enemies, the
+Provinces were burthened with the cost of the succour to the Elector of
+Brandenburg and Palatine of Neuburg, and would be therefore incapable of
+furnishing the payments coming due to his Majesty.  They were accordingly
+to sound his Majesty as to whether a good part of the debt might not be
+remitted or at least an arrangement made by which the terms should begin
+to run only after a certain number of years."
+
+They were also directed to open the subject of the fisheries on the
+coasts of Great Britain, and to remonstrate against the order lately
+published by the King forbidding all foreigners from fishing on those
+coasts.  This was to be set forth as an infringement both of natural law
+and of ancient treaties, and as a source of infinite danger to the
+inhabitants of the United Provinces.
+
+The Seignior of Warmond, chief of the commission, died on the 15th April.
+His colleagues met at Brielle on the 16th, ready to take passage to
+England in the ship of war, the Hound.  They were, however, detained
+there six days by head winds and great storms, and it was not until the
+22nd that they were able to put to sea.  The following evening their ship
+cast anchor in Gravesend.  Half an hour before, the Duke of Wurtemberg
+had arrived from Flushing in a ship of war brought from France by the
+Prince of Anhalt.
+
+Sir Lewis Lewkener, master of ceremonies, had been waiting for the
+ambassadors at Gravesend, and informed them that the royal barges were to
+come next morning from London to take them to town.  They remained that
+night on board the Hound, and next morning, the wind blowing up the
+river, they proceeded in their ship as far as Blackwall, where they were
+formally received and bade welcome in the name of the King by Sir Thomas
+Cornwallis and Sir George Carew, late ambassador in France.  Escorted by
+them and Sir Lewis, they were brought in the court barges to Tower Wharf.
+Here the royal coaches were waiting, in which they were taken to lodgings
+provided for them in the city at the house of a Dutch merchant.  Noel de
+Caron, Seignior of Schonewal, resident ambassador of the States in
+London, was likewise there to greet them.  This was Saturday night: On
+the following Tuesday they went by appointment to the Palace of Whitehall
+in royal carriages for their first audience.  Manifestations of as entire
+respect and courtesy had thus been made to the Republican envoys as could
+be shown to the ambassadors of the greatest sovereigns.  They found the
+King seated on his throne in the audience chamber, accompanied by the
+Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Lord High Treasurer and Lord High
+Admiral, the Duke of Lenox, the Earls of Arundel and Northampton, and
+many other great nobles and dignitaries.  James rose from his seat, took
+off his hat, and advanced several paces to meet the ambassadors, and bade
+them courteously and respectfully welcome.  He then expressed his regret
+at the death of the Seignior of Warmond, and after the exchange of a few
+commonplaces listened, still with uncovered head, to the opening address.
+
+The spokesman, after thanking the King for his condolences on the death
+of the chief commissioner, whom, as was stated with whimsical simplicity,
+"the good God had called to Himself after all his luggage had been put on
+board ship," proceeded in the French language to give a somewhat
+abbreviated paraphrase of Barneveld's instructions.
+
+When this was done and intimation made that they would confer more fully
+with his Majesty's council on the subjects committed to their charge,
+the ambassadors were conducted home with the same ceremonies as had
+accompanied their arrival.  They received the same day the first visit
+from the ambassadors of France and Venice, Boderie and Carrero, and had a
+long conference a few days afterwards with the High Treasurer, Lord
+Salisbury.
+
+On the 3rd May they were invited to attend the pompous celebration of the
+festival of St. George in the palace at Westminster, where they were
+placed together with the French ambassador in the King's oratorium; the
+Dukes of Wurtemberg and Brunswick being in that of the Queen.
+
+These details are especially to be noted, and were at the moment of
+considerable importance, for this was the first solemn and extraordinary
+embassy sent by the rebel Netherlanders, since their independent national
+existence had been formally vindicated, to Great Britain, a power which a
+quarter of a century before had refused the proffered sovereignty over
+them.  Placed now on exactly the same level with the representatives of
+emperors and kings, the Republican envoys found themselves looked upon
+by the world with different eyes from those which had regarded their
+predecessors askance, and almost with derision, only seven years before.
+At that epoch the States' commissioners, Barneveld himself at the head of
+them, had gone solemnly to congratulate King James on his accession, had
+scarcely been admitted to audience by king or minister, and had found
+themselves on great festivals unsprinkled with the holy water of the
+court, and of no more account than the crowd of citizens and spectators
+who thronged the streets, gazing with awe at the distant radiance of the
+throne.
+
+But although the ambassadors were treated with every external
+consideration befitting their official rank, they were not likely to
+find themselves in the most genial atmosphere when they should come to
+business details.  If there was one thing in the world that James did not
+intend to do, it was to get himself entangled in war with Spain, the
+power of all others which he most revered and loved.  His "heroic and
+courageous resolve" to defend the princes, on which the commissioners by
+instructions of the Advocate had so highly complimented him, was not
+strong enough to carry him much beyond a vigorous phraseology.  He had
+not awoke from the delusive dream of the Spanish marriage which had
+dexterously been made to flit before him, and he was not inclined, for
+the sake of the Republic which he hated the more because obliged to be
+one of its sponsors, to risk the animosity of a great power which
+entertained the most profound contempt for him.  He was destined to find
+himself involved more closely than he liked, and through family ties,
+with the great Protestant movement in Germany, and the unfortunate
+"Winter King" might one day find his father-in-law as unstable a reed to
+lean upon as the States had found their godfather, or the Brandenburgs
+and Neuburgs at the present juncture their great ally.  Meantime, as the
+Bohemian troubles had not yet reached the period of actual explosion, and
+as Henry's wide-reaching plan against the House of Austria had been
+strangely enough kept an inviolable secret by the few statesmen, like
+Sully and Barneveld, to whom they had been confided, it was necessary for
+the King and his ministers to deal cautiously and plausibly with the
+Dutch ambassadors.  Their conferences were mere dancing among eggs, and
+if no actual mischief were done, it was the best result that could be
+expected.
+
+On the 8th of May, the commissioners met in the council chamber at
+Westminster, and discussed all the matters contained in their
+instructions with the members of the council; the Lord Treasurer
+Salisbury, Earl of Northampton, Privy Seal and Warden of the Cinque
+Ports, Lord Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, Earl of
+Suffolk, Earls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and several others being
+present.
+
+The result was not entirely satisfactory.  In regard to the succour
+demanded for the possessory princes, the commissioners were told that
+they seemed to come with a long narrative of their great burthens during
+the war, damage from inundations, and the like, to excuse themselves from
+doing their share in the succour, and thus the more to overload his
+Majesty, who was not much interested in the matter, and was likewise
+greatly encumbered by various expenses.  The King had already frankly
+declared his intention to assist the princes with the payment of 4000
+men, and to send proportionate artillery and powder from England.  As the
+States had supplies in their magazines enough to move 12,000 men, he
+proposed to draw upon those, reimbursing the States for what was thus
+consumed by his contingent.
+
+With regard to the treaty of close alliance between France, Great
+Britain, the princes, and the Republic, which the ambassadors had
+proposed, the--Lord Treasurer and his colleagues gave a reply far from
+gratifying.  His Majesty had not yet decided on this point, they said.
+The King of France had already proposed to treat for such an alliance,
+but it did not at present seem worth while for all to negotiate together.
+
+This was a not over-courteous hint that the Republic was after all not
+expected to place herself at the council-board of kings on even terms of
+intimacy and fraternal alliance.
+
+What followed was even less flattering.  If his Majesty, it was
+intimated, should decide to treat with the King of France, he would not
+shut the door on their High Mightinesses; but his Majesty was not yet
+exactly informed whether his Majesty had not certain rights over the
+provinces 'in petitorio.'
+
+This was a scarcely veiled insinuation against the sovereignty of the
+States, a sufficiently broad hint that they were to be considered in a
+certain degree as British provinces.  To a soldier like Maurice, to a
+statesman like Barneveld, whose sympathies already were on the side of
+France, such rebuffs and taunts were likely to prove unpalatable.  The
+restiveness of the States at the continual possession by Great Britain of
+those important sea-ports the cautionary towns, a fact which gave colour
+to these innuendoes, was sure to be increased by arrogant language on the
+part of the English ministers.  The determination to be rid of their debt
+to so overbearing an ally, and to shake off the shackles imposed by the
+costly mortgages, grew in strength from that hour.
+
+In regard to the fisheries, the Lord Treasurer and his colleagues
+expressed amazement that the ambassadors should consider the subjects
+of their High Mightinesses to be so much beloved by his Majesty.  Why
+should they of all other people be made an exception of, and be exempt
+from, the action of a general edict?  The reasons for these orders in
+council ought to be closely examined.  It would be very difficult to
+bring the opinions of the English jurists into harmony with those of the
+States.  Meantime it would be well to look up such treaties as might be
+in existence, and have a special joint commission to confer together on
+the subject.  It was very plain, from the course of the conversation,
+that the Netherland fishermen were not to be allowed, without paying
+roundly for a license, to catch herrings on the British coasts as they
+had heretofore done.
+
+Not much more of importance was transacted at this first interview
+between the ambassadors and the Ding's ministers.  Certainly they had
+not yet succeeded in attaining their great object, the formation of an
+alliance offensive and defensive between Great Britain and the Republic
+in accordance with the plan concerted between Henry and Barneveld.  They
+could find but slender encouragement for the warlike plans to which
+France and the States were secretly committed; nor could they obtain
+satisfactory adjustment of affairs more pacific and commercial in their
+tendencies.  The English ministers rather petulantly remarked that, while
+last year everybody was talking of a general peace, and in the present
+conjuncture all seemed to think, or at least to speak, of nothing but a
+general war, they thought best to defer consideration of the various
+subjects connected with duties on the manufactures and products of the
+respective countries, the navigation laws, the "entrecours," and other
+matters of ancient agreement and controversy, until a more convenient
+season.
+
+After the termination of the verbal conference, the ambassadors delivered
+to the King's government, in writing, to be pondered by the council and
+recorded in the archives, a summary of the statements which had been thus
+orally treated.  The document was in French, and in the main a paraphrase
+of the Advocate's instructions, the substance of which has been already
+indicated.  In regard, however, to the far-reaching designs of Spain, and
+the corresponding attitude which it would seem fitting for Great Britain
+to assume, and especially the necessity of that alliance the proposal for
+which had in the conference been received so haughtily, their language
+was far plainer, bolder, and more vehement than that of the instructions.
+
+"Considering that the effects show," they said, "that those who claim
+the monarchy of Christendom, and indeed of the whole world, let slip no
+opportunity which could in any way serve their designs, it is suitable to
+the grandeur of his Majesty the King, and to the station in which by the
+grace of the good God he is placed, to oppose himself thereto for the
+sake of the common liberty of Christendom, to which end, and in order the
+better to prevent all unjust usurpatiops, there could be no better means
+devised than a closer alliance between his Majesty and the Most Christian
+King, My Lords the States-General, and the electors, princes, and states
+of Germany.  Their High Mightinesses would therefore be most glad to
+learn that his Majesty was inclined to such a course, and would be glad
+to discuss the subject when and wherever his Majesty should appoint, or
+would readily enter into such an alliance on reasonable conditions."
+
+This language and the position taken up by the ambassadors were highly
+approved by their government, but it was fated that no very great result
+was to be achieved by this embassy.  Very elaborate documents, exhaustive
+in legal lore, on the subject of the herring fisheries, and of the right
+to fish in the ocean and on foreign coasts, fortified by copious
+citations from the 'Pandects' and 'Institutes' of Justinian, were
+presented for the consideration of the British government, and were
+answered as learnedly, exhaustively, and ponderously.  The English
+ministers were also reminded that the curing of herrings had been
+invented in the fifteenth century by a citizen of Biervliet, the
+inscription on whose tombstone recording that faces might still be
+read in the church of that town.
+
+All this did not prevent, however, the Dutch herring fishermen from being
+excluded from the British waters unless they chose to pay for licenses.
+
+The conferences were however for a season interrupted, and a new aspect
+was given to affairs by an unforeseen and terrible event.
+
+Meanwhile it is necessary to glance for a moment at the doings of the
+special embassy to France, the instructions for which were prepared by
+Barneveld almost at the same moment at which he furnished those for the
+commission to England.
+
+The ambassadors were Walraven, Seignior of Brederode, Cornelis van der
+Myle, son-in-law of the Advocate, and Jacob van Maldere.  Remembering how
+impatient the King of France had long been for their coming, and that all
+the preparations and decisions for a great war were kept in suspense
+until the final secret conferences could be held with the representatives
+of the States-General, it seems strange enough to us to observe the
+extreme deliberation with which great affairs of state were then
+conducted and the vast amount of time consumed in movements and
+communications which modern science has either annihilated or abridged
+from days to hours.  While Henry was chafing with anxiety in Paris, the
+ambassadors, having received Barneveld's instructions dated 31st March,
+set forth on the 8th April from the Hague, reached Rotterdam at noon, and
+slept at Dordrecht.  Newt day they went to Breda, where the Prince of
+Orange insisted upon their passing a couple of days with him in his
+castle, Easter-day being 11th April.  He then provided them with a couple
+of coaches and pair in which they set forth on their journey, going by
+way of Antwerp, Ghent, Courtray, Ryssel, to Arras, making easy stages,
+stopping in the middle of the day to bait, and sleeping at each of the
+cities thus mentioned, where they duly received the congratulatory visit
+and hospitalities of their respective magistracies.
+
+While all this time had been leisurely employed in the Netherlands in
+preparing, instructing, and despatching the commissioners, affairs were
+reaching a feverish crisis in France.
+
+The States' ambassador resident thought that it would have been better
+not to take such public offence at the retreat of the Prince of Conde.
+The King had enough of life and vigour in him; he could afford to leave
+the Dauphin to grow up, and when he should one day be established on the
+throne, he would be able to maintain his heritage.  "But," said Aerssens,
+"I fear that our trouble is not where we say it is, and we don't dare to
+say where it is."  Writing to Carew, former English ambassador in Paris,
+whom we have just seen in attendance on the States' commissioners in
+London, he said: "People think that the Princess is wearying herself much
+under the protection of the Infanta, and very impatient at not obtaining
+the dissolution of her marriage, which the Duchess of Angouleme is to go
+to Brussels to facilitate.  This is not our business, but I mention it
+only as the continuation of the Tragedy which you saw begin. Nevertheless
+I don't know if the greater part of our deliberations is not founded on
+this matter."
+
+It had been decided to cause the Queen to be solemnly crowned after
+Easter.  She had set her heart with singular persistency upon the
+ceremony, and it was thought that so public a sacrament would annihilate
+all the wild projects attributed to Spain through the instrumentality of
+Conde to cast doubts on the validity of her marriage and the legitimacy
+of the Dauphin.  The King from the first felt and expressed a singular
+repugnance, a boding apprehension in regard to the coronation, but had
+almost yielded to the Queen's importunity.  He told her he would give his
+consent provided she sent Concini to Brussels to invite in her own name
+the Princess of Conde to be present on the occasion.  Otherwise he
+declared that at least the festival should be postponed till September.
+
+The Marquis de Coeuvres remained in disgrace after the failure of his
+mission, Henry believing that like all the world he had fallen in love
+with the Princess, and had only sought to recommend himself, not to
+further the suit of his sovereign.
+
+Meanwhile Henry had instructed his ambassador in Spain, M. de Vaucelas,
+to tell the King that his reception of Conde within his dominions would
+be considered an infraction of the treaty of Vervins and a direct act of
+hostility.  The Duke of Lerma answered with a sneer that the Most
+Christian King had too greatly obliged his Most Catholic Majesty by
+sustaining his subjects in their rebellion and by aiding them to make
+their truce to hope now that Conde would be sent back.  France had ever
+been the receptacle of Spanish traitors and rebels from Antonio Perez
+down, and the King of Spain would always protect wronged and oppressed
+princes like Conde.  France had just been breaking up the friendly
+relations between Savoy and Spain and goading the Duke into hostilities.
+
+On the other hand the King had more than one stormy interview with Don
+Inigo de Cardenas in Paris.  That ambassador declared that his master
+would never abandon his only sister the most serene Infanta, such was the
+affection he born her, whose dominions were obviously threatened by these
+French armies about to move to the frontiers.  Henry replied that the
+friends for whom he was arming had great need of his assistance; that his
+Catholic Majesty was quite right to love his sister, whom he also loved;
+but that he did not choose that his own relatives should be so much
+beloved in Spain as they were.  "What relatives?" asked Don Inigo.
+"The Prince of Conde," replied the King, in a rage, "who has been
+debauched by the Spaniards just as Marshal Biron was, and the Marchioness
+Verneuil, and so many others.  There are none left for them to debauch
+now but the Dauphin and his brothers."  The Ambassador replied that, if
+the King had consulted him about the affair of Conde, he could have
+devised a happy issue from it.  Henry rejoined that he had sent messages
+on the subject to his Catholic Majesty, who had not deigned a response,
+but that the Duke of Lerma had given a very indiscreet one to his
+ambassador.  Don Inigo professed ignorance of any such reply.  The King
+said it was a mockery to affect ignorance of such matters.  Thereupon
+both grew excited and very violent in their discourses; the more so as
+Henry knowing but little Spanish and the Envoy less French they could
+only understand from tone and gesture that each was using exceedingly
+unpleasant language.  At last Don Inigo asked what he should write to his
+sovereign.  "Whatever you like," replied the King, and so the audience
+terminated, each remaining in a towering passion.
+
+Subsequently Villeroy assured the Archduke's ambassador that the King
+considered the reception given to the Prince in the Spanish dominions as
+one of the greatest insults and injuries that could be done to him.
+Nothing could excuse it, said the Secretary of State, and for this reason
+it was very difficult for the two kings to remain at peace with each
+other, and that it would be wiser to prevent at once the evil designs of
+his Catholic Majesty than to leave leisure for the plans to be put into
+execution, and the claims of the Dauphin to his father's crown to be
+disputed at a convenient season.
+
+He added that war would not be made for the Princess, but for the Prince,
+and that even the war in Germany, although Spain took the Emperor's side
+and France that of the possessory princes, would not necessarily produce
+a rupture between the two kings if it were not for this affair of the
+Prince--true cause of the disaster now hanging over Christianity.
+Pecquius replied by smooth commonplaces in favour of peace with which
+Villeroy warmly concurred; both sadly expressing the conviction however
+that the wrath divine had descended on them all on account of their sins.
+
+A few days later, however, the Secretary changed his tone.
+
+"I will speak to you frankly and clearly," he said to Pecquius, "and tell
+you as from myself that there is passion, and if one is willing to
+arrange the affair of the Princess, everything else can be accommodated
+and appeased.  Put if the Princess remain where she is, we are on the eve
+of a rupture which may set fire to the four corners of Christendom."
+Pecquius said he liked to talk roundly, and was glad to find that he had
+not been mistaken in his opinion, that all these commotions were only
+made for the Princess, and if all the world was going to war, she would
+be the principal subject of it.  He could not marvel sufficiently, he
+said, at this vehement passion which brought in its train so great and
+horrible a conflagration; adding many arguments to show that it was no
+fault of the Archdukes, but that he who was the cause of all might one
+day have reason to repent.
+
+Villeroy replied that "the King believed the Princess to be suffering and
+miserable for love of him, and that therefore he felt obliged to have her
+sent back to her father."  Pecquius asked whether in his conscience the
+Secretary of State believed it right or reasonable to make war for such a
+cause.  Villeroy replied by asking "whether even admitting the negative,
+the Ambassador thought it were wisely done for such a trifle, for a
+formality, to plunge into extremities and to turn all Christendom upside
+down."  Pecquius, not considering honour a trifle or a formality, said
+that "for nothing in the world would his Highness the Archduke descend to
+a cowardly action or to anything that would sully his honour."  Villeroy
+said that the Prince had compelled his wife, pistol in hand, to follow
+him to the Netherlands, and that she was no longer bound to obey a
+husband who forsook country and king.  Her father demanded her, and she
+said "she would rather be strangled than ever to return to the company of
+her husband."  The Archdukes were not justified in keeping her against
+her will in perpetual banishment.  He implored the Ambassador in most
+pathetic terms to devise some means of sending back the Princess, saying
+that he who should find such expedient would do the greatest good that
+was ever done to Christianity, and that otherwise there was no guarantee
+against a universal war.  The first design of the King had been merely to
+send a moderate succour to the Princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg, which
+could have given no umbrage to the Archdukes, but now the bitterness
+growing out of the affairs of the Prince and Princess had caused him to
+set on foot a powerful army to do worse.  He again implored Pecquius to
+invent some means of sending back the Princess, and the Ambassador
+besought him ardently to divert the King from his designs.  Of this the
+Secretary of State left little hope and they parted, both very low and.
+dismal in mind.  Subsequent conversations with the leading councillors of
+state convinced Pecquius that these violent menaces were only used to
+shake the constancy of the Archduke, but that they almost all highly
+disapproved the policy of the King.  "If this war goes on, we are all
+ruined," said the Duke d'Epernon to the Nuncius.
+
+Thus there had almost ceased to be any grimacing between the two kings,
+although it was still a profound mystery where or when hostilities would
+begin, and whether they would break out at all.  Henry frequently
+remarked that the common opinion all over Europe was working in his
+favour.  Few people in or out of France believed that he meant a rupture,
+or that his preparations were serious.  Thus should he take his enemies
+unawares and unprepared.  Even Aerssens, who saw him almost daily, was
+sometimes mystified, in spite of Henry's vehement assertions that he was
+resolved to make war at all hazards and on all sides, provided My Lords
+the States would second him as they ought, their own existence being at
+stake.
+
+"For God's sake," cried the King, "let us take the bit into our mouths.
+Tell your masters that I am quite resolved, and that I am shrieking
+loudly at their delays."  He asked if he could depend on the States, if
+Barneveld especially would consent to a league with him.  The Ambassador
+replied that for the affair of Cleve and Julich he had instructions to
+promise entire concurrence, that Barneveld was most resolute in the
+matter, and had always urged the enterprise and wished information as
+to the levies making in France and other military preparations.
+
+"Tell him," said Henry, "that they are going on exactly as often before
+stated, but that we are holding everything in suspense until I have
+talked with your ambassadors, from whom I wish counsel, safety, and
+encouragement for doing much more than the Julich business.  That alone
+does not require so great a league and such excessive and unnecessary
+expense."
+
+The King observed however that the question of the duchies would serve as
+just cause and excellent pretext to remove those troublesome fellows for
+ever from his borders and those of the States.  Thus the princes would be
+established safely in their possession and the Republic as well as
+himself freed from the perpetual suspicions which the Spaniards excited
+by their vile intrigues, and it was on this general subject that he
+wished to confer with the special commissioners.  It would not be
+possible for him to throw succour into Julich without passing through
+Luxemburg in arms.  The Archdukes would resist this, and thus a cause of
+war would arise.  His campaign on the Meuse would help the princes more
+than if he should only aid them by the contingent he had promised.  Nor
+could the jealousy of King James be excited since the war would spring
+out of the Archdukes' opposition to his passage towards the duchies, as
+he obviously could not cut himself off from his supplies, leaving a
+hostile province between himself and his kingdom.  Nevertheless he could
+not stir, he said, without the consent and active support of the States,
+on whom he relied as his principal buttress and foundation.
+
+The levies for the Milanese expedition were waiting until Marshal de
+Lesdiguieres could confer personally with the Duke of Savoy.  The reports
+as to the fidelity of that potentate were not to be believed.  He was
+trifling with the Spanish ambassadors, so Henry was convinced, who were
+offering him 300,000 crowns a year besides Piombino, Monaco, and two
+places in the Milanese, if he would break his treaty with France.  But he
+was thought to be only waiting until they should be gone before making
+his arrangements with Lesdiguieres.  "He knows that he can put no trust
+in Spain, and that he can confide in me," said the King.  "I have made a
+great stroke by thus entangling the King of Spain by the use of a few
+troops in Italy.  But I assure you that there is none but me and My Lords
+the States that can do anything solid.  Whether the Duke breaks or holds
+fast will make no difference in our first and great designs.  For the
+honour of God I beg them to lose no more time, but to trust in me.  I
+will never deceive them, never abandon them."
+
+At last 25,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry were already in marching order,
+and indeed had begun to move towards the Luxemburg frontier, ready to co-
+operate with the States' army and that of the possessory princes for the
+campaign of the Meuse and Rhine.
+
+Twelve thousand more French troops under Lesdiguieres were to act with
+the Duke of Savoy, and an army as large was to assemble in the Pyrenees
+and to operate on the Spanish frontier, in hope of exciting and fomenting
+an insurrection caused by the expulsion of the Moors.  That gigantic act
+of madness by which Spain thought good at this juncture to tear herself
+to pieces, driving hundreds of thousands of the most industrious, most
+intelligent, and most opulent of her population into hopeless exile, had
+now been accomplished, and was to stand prominent for ever on the records
+of human fatuity.
+
+Twenty-five thousand Moorish families had arrived at Bayonne, and the
+Viceroy of Canada had been consulted as to the possibility and expediency
+of establishing them in that province, although emigration thither
+seemed less tempting to them than to Virginia.  Certainly it was not
+unreasonable for Henry to suppose that a kingdom thus torn by internal
+convulsions might be more open to a well organized attack, than capable
+of carrying out at that moment fresh projects of universal dominion.
+
+As before observed, Sully was by no means in favour of this combined
+series of movements, although at a later day, when dictating his famous
+memoirs to his secretaries, he seems to describe himself as
+enthusiastically applauding and almost originating them.  But there is no
+doubt at all that throughout this eventful spring he did his best to
+concentrate the whole attack on Luxemburg and the Meuse districts, and
+wished that the movements in the Milanese and in Provence should be
+considered merely a slight accessory, as not much more than a diversion
+to the chief design, while Villeroy and his friends chose to consider the
+Duke of Savoy as the chief element in the war.  Sully thoroughly
+distrusted the Duke, whom he deemed to be always put up at auction
+between Spain and France and incapable of a sincere or generous policy.
+He was entirely convinced that Villeroy and Epernon and Jeannin and other
+earnest Papists in France were secretly inclined to the cause of Spain,
+that the whole faction of the Queen, in short, were urging this
+scattering of the very considerable forces now at Henry's command in
+the hope of bringing him into a false position, in which defeat or an
+ignominious peace would be the alternative.  To concentrate an immense
+attack upon the Archdukes in the Spanish Netherlands and the debateable
+duchies would have for its immediate effect the expulsion of the
+Spaniards out of all those provinces and the establishment of the Dutch
+commonwealth on an impregnable basis.  That this would be to strengthen
+infinitely the Huguenots in France and the cause of Protestantism in
+Bohemia, Moravia and Austria, was unquestionable.  It was natural,
+therefore, that the stern and ardent Huguenot should suspect the plans
+of the Catholics with whom he was in daily council.  One day he asked the
+King plumply in the presence of Villeroy if his Majesty meant anything
+serious by all these warlike preparations.  Henry was wroth, and
+complained bitterly that one who knew him to the bottom of his soul
+should doubt him.  But Sully could not persuade himself that a great
+and serious war would be carried on both in the Netherlands and in Italy.
+
+As much as his sovereign he longed for the personal presence of
+Barneveld, and was constantly urging the States' ambassador to induce
+his coming to Paris.  "You know," said Aerssens, writing to the French
+ambassador at the Hague, de Russy, "that it is the Advocate alone that
+has the universal knowledge of the outside and the inside of our
+commonwealth."
+
+Sully knew his master as well as any man knew him, but it was difficult
+to fix the chameleon hues of Henry at this momentous epoch.  To the
+Ambassador expressing doubts as to the King's sincerity the Duke asserted
+that Henry was now seriously piqued with the Spaniard on account of the
+Conde business.  Otherwise Anhalt and the possessory princes and the
+affair of Cleve might have had as little effect in driving him into war
+as did the interests of the Netherlands in times past.  But the bold
+demonstration projected would make the "whole Spanish party bleed at the
+nose; a good result for the public peace."
+
+Therefore Sully sent word to Barneveld, although he wished his name
+concealed, that he ought to come himself, with full powers to do
+everything, without referring to any superiors or allowing any secrets to
+be divulged.  The King was too far committed to withdraw, unless coldness
+on part of the States should give him cause.  The Advocate must come
+prepared to answer all questions; to say how much in men and money the
+States would contribute, and whether they would go into the war with the
+King as their only ally.  He must come with the bridle on his neck.  All
+that Henry feared was being left in the lurch by the States; otherwise he
+was not afraid of Rome.  Sully was urgent that the Provinces should now
+go vigorously into the war without stumbling at any consideration.  Thus
+they would confirm their national power for all time, but if the
+opportunity were now lost, it would be their ruin, and posterity would
+most justly blame them.  The King of Spain was so stripped of troops and
+resources, so embarrassed by the Moors, that in ten months he would not
+be able to send one man to the Netherlands.
+
+Meantime the Nuncius in Paris was moving heaven and earth; storming,
+intriguing, and denouncing the course of the King in protecting heresy,
+when it would have been so easy to extirpate it, encouraging rebellion
+and disorder throughout Christendom, and embarking in an action against
+the Church and against his conscience.  A new legate was expected daily
+with the Pope's signature to the new league, and a demand upon the King
+to sign it likewise, and to pause in a career of which something was
+suspected, but very little accurately known.  The preachers in Paris and
+throughout the kingdom delivered most vehement sermons against the King,
+the government, and the Protestants, and seemed to the King to be such
+"trumpeters of sedition" that he ordered the seneschals and other
+officers to put a stop to these turbulent discourses, censure their
+authors, and compel them to stick to their texts.
+
+But the preparations were now so far advanced and going on so warmly that
+nothing more was wanting than, in the words of Aerssens, "to uncouple the
+dogs and let them run."  Recruits were pouring steadily to their places
+of rendezvous; their pay having begun to run from the 25th March at the
+rate of eight sous a day for the private foot soldier and ten sous for a
+corporal.  They were moved in small parties of ten, lodged in the wayside
+inns, and ordered, on pain of death, to pay for everything they consumed.
+
+It was growing difficult to wait much longer for the arrival of the
+special ambassadors, when at last they were known to be on their way.
+Aerssens obtained for their use the Hotel Gondy, formerly the residence
+of Don Pedro de Toledo, the most splendid private palace in Paris, and
+recently purchased by the Queen.  It was considered expedient that the
+embassy should make as stately an appearance as that of royal or imperial
+envoys.  He engaged an upholsterer by the King's command to furnish, at
+his Majesty's expense, the apartments, as the Baron de Gondy, he said,
+had long since sold and eaten up all the furniture.  He likewise laid in
+six pieces of wine and as many of beer, "tavern drinks" being in the
+opinion of the thrifty ambassador "both dear and bad."
+
+He bought a carriage lined with velvet for the commissioners, and another
+lined with broadcloth for the principal persons of their suite, and with
+his own coach as a third he proposed to go to Amiens to meet them.  They
+could not get on with fewer than these, he said, and the new carriages
+would serve their purpose in Paris.  He had paid 500 crowns for the two,
+and they could be sold, when done with, at a slight loss.  He bought
+likewise four dapple-grey horses, which would be enough, as nobody had
+more than two horses to a carriage in town, and for which he paid 312
+crowns--a very low price, he thought, at a season when every one was
+purchasing.  He engaged good and experienced coachmen at two crowns a
+month, and; in short, made all necessary arrangements for their comfort
+and the honour of the state.
+
+The King had been growing more and more displeased at the tardiness of
+the commission, petulantly ascribing it to a design on the part of the
+States to "excuse themselves from sharing in his bold conceptions," but
+said that "he could resolve on nothing without My Lords the States, who
+were the only power with which he could contract confidently, as mighty
+enough and experienced enough to execute the designs to be proposed to
+them; so that his army was lying useless on his hands until the
+commissioners arrived," and lamented more loudly than ever that Barneveld
+was not coming with them.  He was now rejoiced, however, to hear that
+they would soon arrive, and went in person to the Hotel Gondy to see that
+everything was prepared in a manner befitting their dignity and comfort.
+
+His anxiety had moreover been increased, as already stated, by the
+alarming reports from Utrecht and by his other private accounts from the
+Netherlands.
+
+De Russy expressed in his despatches grave doubts whether the States
+would join the king in a war against the King of Spain, because they
+feared the disapprobation of the King of Great Britain, "who had already
+manifested but too much jealousy of the power and grandeur of the
+Republic."  Pecquius asserted that the Archdukes had received assurances
+from the States that they would do nothing to violate the truce.  The
+Prince of Anhalt, who, as chief of the army of the confederated princes,
+was warm in his demonstrations for a general war by taking advantage of
+the Cleve expedition, was entirely at cross purposes with the States'
+ambassador in Paris, Aerssens maintaining that the forty-three years'
+experience in their war justified the States in placing no dependence on
+German princes except with express conventions.  They had no such
+conventions now, and if they should be attacked by Spain in consequence
+of their assistance in the Cleve business, what guarantee of aid had they
+from those whom Anhalt represented?  Anhalt was loud in expressions of
+sympathy with Henry's designs against Spain, but said that he and the
+States meant a war of thirty or forty years, while the princes would
+finish what they meant to do in one.
+
+A more erroneous expression of opinion, when viewed in the light of
+subsequent events, could hardly have been hazarded.  Villeroy made as
+good use as he could of these conversations to excite jealousy between
+the princes and the States for the furtherance of his own ends, while
+affecting warm interest in the success of the King's projects.
+
+Meantime Archduke Albert had replied manfully and distinctly to the
+menaces of the King and to the pathetic suggestions made by Villeroy to
+Pecquius as to a device for sending back the Princess.  Her stay at
+Brussels being the chief cause of the impending war, it would be better,
+he said, to procure a divorce or to induce the Constable to obtain the
+consent of the Prince to the return of his wife to her father's house.
+To further either of these expedients, the Archduke would do his best.
+"But if one expects by bravados and threats," he added, "to force us to
+do a thing against our promise, and therefore against reason, our
+reputation, and honour, resolutely we will do nothing of the kind.  And
+if the said Lord King decided on account of this misunderstanding for a
+rupture and to make war upon us, we will do our best to wage war on him.
+In such case, however, we shall be obliged to keep the Princess closer in
+our own house, and probably to send her to such parts as may be most
+convenient in order to remove from us an instrument of the infinite evils
+which this war will produce."
+
+Meantime the special commissioners whom we left at Arras had now entered
+the French kingdom.
+
+On the 17th April, Aerssens with his three coaches met them on their
+entrance into Amiens, having been waiting there for them eight days.  As
+they passed through the gate, they found a guard of soldiers drawn up to
+receive them with military honours, and an official functionary to
+apologize for the necessary absence of the governor, who had gone with
+most of the troops stationed in the town to the rendezvous in Champagne.
+He expressed regret, therefore, that the King's orders for their solemn
+reception could not be literally carried out.  The whole board of
+magistrates, however, in their costumes of ceremony, with sergeants
+bearing silver maces marching before them, came forth to bid the
+ambassadors welcome.  An advocate made a speech in the name of the city
+authorities, saying that they were expressly charged by the King to
+receive them as coming from his very best friends, and to do them all
+honour.  He extolled the sage government of their High Mightinesses and
+the valour of the Republic, which had become known to the whole world
+by the successful conduct of their long and mighty war.
+
+The commissioners replied in words of compliment, and the magistrates
+then offered them, according to ancient usage, several bottles of
+hippocras.
+
+Next day, sending back the carriages of the Prince of Orange, in which
+they had thus far performed the journey, they set forth towards Paris,
+reaching Saint-Denis at noon of the third day.  Here they were met by de
+Bonoeil, introducer of ambassadors, sent thither by the King to give them
+welcome, and to say that they would be received on the road by the Duke
+of Vendome, eldest of the legitimatized children of the King.
+Accordingly before reaching the Saint-Denis gate of Paris, a splendid
+cavalcade of nearly five hundred noblemen met them, the Duke at their
+head, accompanied by two marshals of France, de Brissac and Boisdaulphin.
+The three instantly dismounted, and the ambassadors alighted from their
+coach.  The Duke then gave them solemn and cordial welcome, saying that
+he had been sent by his father the King to receive them as befitted
+envoys of the best and most faithful friends he possessed in the world.
+
+The ambassadors expressed their thanks for the great and extraordinary
+honour thus conferred on them, and they were then requested to get into a
+royal carriage which had been sent out for that purpose.  After much
+ceremonious refusal they at last consented and, together with the Duke of
+Vendome, drove through Paris in that vehicle into the Faubourg Saint
+Germain.  Arriving at the Hotel Gondy, they were, notwithstanding all
+their protestations, escorted up the staircase into the apartments by the
+Duke.
+
+"This honour is notable," said the commissioners in their report to the
+States, "and never shown to anyone before, so that our ill-wishers are
+filled with spite."
+
+And Peter Pecquius was of the same opinion.  "Everyone is grumbling
+here," about the reception of the States' ambassadors, "because such
+honours were never paid to any ambassador whatever, whether from Spain,
+England, or any other country."
+
+And there were many men living and employed in great affairs of State,
+both in France and in the Republic--the King and Villeroy, Barneveld and
+Maurice--who could remember how twenty-six years before a solemn embassy
+from the States had proceeded from the Hague to France to offer the
+sovereignty of their country to Henry's predecessor, had been kept
+ignominiously and almost like prisoners four weeks long in Rouen, and
+had been thrust back into the Netherlands without being admitted even to
+one audience by the monarch.  Truly time, in the course of less than one
+generation of mankind, had worked marvellous changes in the fortunes of
+the Dutch Republic.
+
+President Jeannin came to visit them next day, with friendly proffers of
+service, and likewise the ambassador of Venice and the charge d'affaires
+of Great Britain.
+
+On the 22nd the royal carriages came by appointment to the Hotel Gondy,
+and took them for their first audience to the Louvre.  They were received
+at the gate by a guard of honour, drums beating and arms presented, and
+conducted with the greatest ceremony to an apartment in the palace.  Soon
+afterwards they were ushered into a gallery where the King stood,
+surrounded by a number of princes and distinguished officers of the
+crown.  These withdrew on the approach of the Netherlanders, leaving the
+King standing alone.  They made their reverence, and Henry saluted them
+all with respectful cordiality.  Begging them to put on their hats again,
+he listened attentively to their address.
+
+The language of the discourse now pronounced was similar in tenour to
+that almost contemporaneously held by the States' special envoys in
+London.  Both documents, when offered afterwards in writing, bore the
+unmistakable imprint of the one hand that guided the whole political
+machine.  In various passages the phraseology was identical, and, indeed,
+the Advocate had prepared and signed the instructions for both embassies
+on the same day.
+
+The commissioners acknowledged in the strongest possible terms the great
+and constant affection, quite without example, that Henry had manifested
+to the Netherlands during the whole course of their war.  They were at a
+loss to find language adequately to express their gratitude for that
+friendship, and the assistance subsequently afforded them in the
+negotiations for truce.  They apologized for the tardiness of the States
+in sending this solemn embassy of thanksgiving, partly on the ground of
+the delay in receiving the ratifications from Spain, partly by the
+protracted contraventions by the Archdukes of certain articles in the
+treaty, but principally by the terrible disasters occasioned throughout
+their country by the great inundations, and by the commotions in the city
+of Utrecht, which had now been "so prudently and happily pacified."
+
+They stated that the chief cause of their embassy was to express their
+respectful gratitude, and to say that never had prince or state treasured
+more deeply in memory benefits received than did their republic the
+favours of his Majesty, or could be more disposed to do their utmost to
+defend his Majesty's person, crown, or royal family against all attack.
+They expressed their joy that the King had with prudence, and heroic
+courage undertaken tha defence of the just rights of Brandenburg and
+Neuburg to the duchies of Cleve, Julich, and the other dependent
+provinces.  Thus had he put an end to the presumption of those who
+thought they could give the law to all the world.  They promised the co-
+operation of the States in this most important enterprise of their ally,
+notwithstanding their great losses in the war just concluded, and the
+diminution of revenue occasioned by the inundations by which they had
+been afflicted; for they were willing neither to tolerate so unjust an
+usurpation as that attempted by the Emperor nor to fail to second his
+Majesty in his generous designs.  They observed also that they had been
+instructed to enquire whether his Majesty would not approve the
+contracting of a strict league of mutual assistance between France,
+England, the United Provinces, and the princes of Germany.
+
+The King, having listened with close attention, thanked the envoys in
+words of earnest and vigorous cordiality for their expressions of
+affection to himself.  He begged them to remember that he had always been
+their good friend, and that he never would forsake them; that he had
+always hated the Spaniards, and should ever hate them; and that the
+affairs of Julich must be arranged not only for the present but for the
+future.  He requested them to deliver their propositions in writing to
+him, and to be ready to put themselves into communication with the
+members of his council, in order that they might treat with each
+other roundly and without reserve.  He should always deal with the
+Netherlanders as with his own people, keeping no back-door open, but
+pouring out everything as into the lap of his best and most trusty
+friends.
+
+After this interview conferences followed daily between the ambassadors
+and Villeroy, Sully, Jeannin, the Chancellor, and Puysieug.
+
+The King's counsellors, after having read the written paraphrase of
+Barneveld's instructions, the communication of which followed their oral
+statements, and which, among other specifications, contained a respectful
+remonstrance against the projected French East India Company, as likely
+to benefit the Spaniards only, while seriously injuring the States,
+complained that "the representations were too general, and that the paper
+seemed to contain nothing but compliments."
+
+The ambassadors, dilating on the various points and articles, maintained
+warmly that there was much more than compliments in their instructions.
+The ministers wished to know what the States practically were prepared to
+do in the affair of Cleve, which they so warmly and encouragingly
+recommended to the King.  They asked whether the States' army would march
+at once to Dusseldorf to protect the princes at the moment when the King
+moved from Mezieres, and they made many enquiries as to what amount of
+supplies and munitions they could depend upon from the States' magazines.
+
+The envoys said that they had no specific instructions on these points,
+and could give therefore no conclusive replies.  More than ever did Henry
+regret the absence of the great Advocate at this juncture.  If he could
+have come, with the bridle on his neck, as Henry had so repeatedly urged
+upon the resident ambassador, affairs might have marched more rapidly.
+The despotic king could never remember that Barneveld was not the
+unlimited sovereign of the United States, but only the seal-keeper of one
+of the seven provinces and the deputy of Holland to the General Assembly.
+His indirect power, however vast, was only great because it was so
+carefully veiled.
+
+It was then proposed by Villeroy and Sully, and agreed to by the
+commissioners, that M. de Bethune, a relative of the great financier,
+should be sent forthwith to the Hague, to confer privately with Prince
+Maurice and Barneveld especially, as to military details of the coming
+campaign.
+
+It was also arranged that the envoys should delay their departure until
+de Bethune's return.  Meantime Henry and the Nuncius had been exchanging
+plain and passionate language.  Ubaldini reproached the King with
+disregarding all the admonitions of his Holiness, and being about to
+plunge Christendom into misery and war for the love of the Princess of
+Conde.  He held up to him the enormity of thus converting the King of
+Spain and the Archdukes into his deadly enemies, and warned him that he
+would by such desperate measures make even the States-General and the
+King of Britain his foes, who certainly would never favour such schemes.
+The King replied that "he trusted to his own forces, not to those of his
+neighbours, and even if the Hollanders should not declare for him still
+he would execute his designs.  On the 15th of May most certainly he would
+put himself at the head of his army, even if he was obliged to put off
+the Queen's coronation till October, and he could not consider the King
+of Spain nor the Archdukes his friends unless they at once made him
+some demonstration of friendship.  Being asked by the Nuncius what
+demonstration he wished, he answered flatly that he wished the Princess
+to be sent back to the Constable her father, in which case the affair of
+Julich could be arranged amicably, and, at all events, if the war
+continued there, he need not send more than 4000 men."
+
+Thus, in spite of his mighty preparations, vehement demands for
+Barneveld, and profound combinations revealed to that statesman, to
+Aerssens, and to the Duke of Sully only, this wonderful monarch was ready
+to drop his sword on the spot, to leave his friends in the lurch, to
+embrace his enemies, the Archduke first of all, instead of bombarding
+Brussels the very next week, as he had been threatening to do, provided
+the beautiful Margaret could be restored to his arms through those of her
+venerable father.
+
+He suggested to the Nuncius his hope that the Archduke would yet be
+willing to wink at her escape, which he was now trying to arrange through
+de Preaux at Brussels, while Ubaldini, knowing the Archduke incapable of
+anything so dishonourable, felt that the war was inevitable.
+
+At the very same time too, Father Cotton, who was only too ready to
+betray the secrets of the confessional when there was an object to gain,
+had a long conversation with the Archduke's ambassador, in which the holy
+man said that the King had confessed to him that he made the war
+expressly to cause the Princess to be sent back to France, so that as
+there could be no more doubt on the subject the father-confessor begged
+Pecquius, in order to prevent so great an evil, to devise "some prompt
+and sudden means to induce his Highness the Archduke to order the
+Princess to retire secretly to her own country."  The Jesuit had
+different notions of honour, reputation, and duty from those which
+influenced the Archduke.  He added that "at Easter the King had been so
+well disposed to seek his salvation that he could easily have forgotten
+his affection for the Princess, had she not rekindled the fire by her
+letters, in which she caressed him with amorous epithets, calling him 'my
+heart,' 'my chevalier,' and similar terms of endearment."  Father Cotton
+also drew up a paper, which he secretly conveyed to Pecquius, "to prove
+that the Archduke, in terms of conscience and honour, might decide to
+permit this escape, but he most urgently implored the Ambassador that for
+the love of God and the public good he would influence his Serene
+Highness to prevent this from ever coming to the knowledge of the world,
+but to keep the secret inviolably."
+
+Thus, while Henry was holding high council with his own most trusted
+advisers, and with the most profound statesmen of Europe, as to the
+opening campaign within a fortnight of a vast and general war, he was
+secretly plotting with his father-confessor to effect what he avowed to
+be the only purpose of that war, by Jesuitical bird-lime to be applied to
+the chief of his antagonists.  Certainly Barneveld and his colleagues
+were justified in their distrust.  To move one step in advance of their
+potent but slippery ally might be a step off a precipice.
+
+On the 1st of May, Sully made a long visit to the commissioners.  He
+earnestly urged upon them the necessity of making the most of the present
+opportunity.  There were people in plenty, he said, who would gladly see
+the King take another course, for many influential persons about him were
+altogether Spanish in their inclinations.
+
+The King had been scandalized to hear from the Prince of Anhalt, without
+going into details, that on his recent passage through the Netherlands he
+had noticed some change of feeling, some coolness in their High
+Mightinesses.  The Duke advised that they should be very heedful, that
+they should remember how much more closely these matters regarded them
+than anyone else, that they should not deceive themselves, but be firmly
+convinced that unless they were willing to go head foremost into the
+business the French would likewise not commit themselves.  Sully spoke
+with much earnestness and feeling, for it was obvious that both he and
+his master had been disappointed at the cautious and limited nature of
+the instructions given to the ambassadors.
+
+An opinion had indeed prevailed, and, as we have seen, was to a certain
+extent shared in by Aerssens, and even by Sully himself, that the King's
+military preparations were after all but a feint, and that if the Prince
+of Conde, and with him the Princess, could be restored to France, the
+whole war cloud would evaporate in smoke.
+
+It was even asserted that Henry had made a secret treaty with the enemy,
+according to which, while apparently ready to burst upon the House of
+Austria with overwhelming force, he was in reality about to shake hands
+cordially with that power, on condition of being allowed to incorporate
+into his own kingdom the very duchies in dispute, and of receiving the
+Prince of Conde and his wife from Spain.  He was thus suspected of being
+about to betray his friends and allies in the most ignoble manner and for
+the vilest of motives.  The circulation of these infamous reports no
+doubt paralysed for a time the energy of the enemy who had made no
+requisite preparations against the threatened invasion, but it sickened
+his friends with vague apprehensions, while it cut the King himself to
+the heart and infuriated him to madness.
+
+He asked the Nuncius one day what people thought in Rome and Italy of the
+war about to be undertaken.  Ubaldini replied that those best informed
+considered the Princess of Conde as the principal subject of hostilities;
+they thought that he meant to have her back.  "I do mean to have her
+back," cried Henry, with a mighty oath, and foaming with rage, "and I
+shall have her back.  No one shall prevent it, not even the Lieutenant of
+God on earth."
+
+But the imputation of this terrible treason weighed upon his mind and
+embittered every hour.
+
+The commissioners assured Sully that they had no knowledge of any
+coolness or change such as Anhalt had reported on the part of their
+principals, and the Duke took his leave.
+
+It will be remembered that Villeroy had, it was thought, been making
+mischief between Anhalt and the States by reporting and misreporting
+private conversations between that Prince and the Dutch ambassador.
+
+As soon as Sully had gone, van der Myle waited upon Villeroy to ask, in
+name of himself and colleagues, for audience of leave-taking, the object
+of their mission having been accomplished.  The Secretary of State, too,
+like Sully, urged the importance of making the most of the occasion.  The
+affair of Cleve, he said, did not very much concern the King, but his
+Majesty had taken it to heart chiefly on account of the States and for
+their security.  They were bound, therefore, to exert themselves to the
+utmost, but more would not be required of them than it would be possible
+to fulfil.
+
+Van der Myle replied that nothing would be left undone by their High
+Mightinesses to support the King faithfully and according to their
+promise.
+
+On the 5th, Villeroy came to the ambassadors, bringing with him a letter
+from the King for the States-General, and likewise a written reply to the
+declarations made orally and in writing by the ambassadors to his
+Majesty.
+
+The letter of Henry to "his very dear and good friends, allies, and
+confederates," was chiefly a complimentary acknowledgment of the
+expressions of gratitude made to him on part of the States-General, and
+warm approbation of their sage resolve to support the cause of
+Brandenburg and Neuburg.  He referred them for particulars to the
+confidential conferences held between the commissioners and himself.
+They would state how important he thought it that this matter should be
+settled now so thoroughly as to require no second effort at any future
+time when circumstances might not be so propitious; and that he intended
+to risk his person, at the head of his army, to accomplish this result.
+
+To the ambassadors he expressed his high satisfaction at their assurances
+of affection, devotion, and gratitude on the part of the States.  He
+approved and commended their resolution to assist the Elector and the
+Palatine in the affair of the duchies.  He considered this a proof of
+their prudence and good judgment, as showing their conviction that they
+were more interested and bound to render this assistance than any other
+potentates or states, as much from the convenience and security to be
+derived from the neighbourhood of princes who were their friends as from
+dangers to be apprehended from other princes who were seeking to
+appropriate those provinces.  The King therefore begged the States to
+move forward as soon as possible the forces which they offered for this
+enterprise according to his Majesty's suggestion sent through de Bethune.
+The King on his part would do the same with extreme care and diligence,
+from the anxiety he felt to prevent My Lords the States from receiving
+detriment in places so vital to their preservation.
+
+He begged the States likewise to consider that it was meet not only to
+make a first effort to put the princes into entire possession of the
+duchies, but to provide also for the durable success of the enterprise;
+to guard against any invasions that might be made in the future to eject
+those princes.  Otherwise all their present efforts would be useless; and
+his Majesty therefore consented on this occasion to enter into the new
+league proposed by the States with all the princes and states mentioned
+in the memoir of the ambassadors for mutual assistance against all unjust
+occupations, attempts, and baneful intrigues.
+
+Having no special information as to the infractions by the Archdukes of
+the recent treaty of truce, the King declined to discuss that subject for
+the moment, although holding himself bound to all required of him as one
+of the guarantees of that treaty.
+
+In regard to the remonstrance made by the ambassadors concerning the
+trade of the East Indies, his Majesty disclaimed any intention of doing
+injury to the States in permitting his subjects to establish a company in
+his kingdom for that commerce.  He had deferred hitherto taking action in
+the matter only out of respect to the States, but he could no longer
+refuse the just claims of his subjects if they should persist in them as
+urgently as they had thus far been doing.  The right and liberty which
+they demanded was common to all, said the King, and he was certainly
+bound to have as great care for the interests of his subjects as for
+those of his friends and allies.
+
+Here, certainly, was an immense difference in tone and in terms towards
+the Republic adopted respectively by their great and good friends and
+allies the Kings of France and Great Britain.  It was natural enough that
+Henry, having secretly expressed his most earnest hope that the States
+would move at his side in his broad and general assault upon the House of
+Austria, should impress upon them his conviction, which was a just one,
+that no power in the world was more interested in keeping a Spanish and
+Catholic prince out of the duchies than they were themselves.  But while
+thus taking a bond of them as it were for the entire fulfilment of the
+primary enterprise, he accepted with cordiality, and almost with
+gratitude, their proposition of a close alliance of the Republic with
+himself and with the Protestant powers which James had so superciliously
+rejected.
+
+It would have been difficult to inflict a more petty and, more studied
+insult upon the Republic than did the King of Great Britain at that
+supreme moment by his preposterous claim of sovereign rights over the
+Netherlands.  He would make no treaty with them, he said, but should he
+find it worth while to treat with his royal brother of France, he should
+probably not shut the door in their faces.
+
+Certainly Henry's reply to the remonstrances of the ambassadors in regard
+to the India trade was as moderate as that of James had been haughty and
+peremptory in regard to the herring fishery.  It is however sufficiently
+amusing to see those excellent Hollanders nobly claiming that "the sea
+was as free as air" when the right to take Scotch pilchards was in
+question, while at the very same moment they were earnest for excluding
+their best allies and all the world besides from their East India
+monopoly.  But Isaac Le Maire and Jacques Le Roy had not lain so long
+disguised in Zamet's house in Paris for nothing, nor had Aerssens so
+completely "broke the neck of the French East India Company" as he
+supposed.  A certain Dutch freebooter, however, Simon Danzer by name, a
+native of Dordrecht, who had been alternately in the service of Spain,
+France, and the States, but a general marauder upon all powers, was
+exercising at that moment perhaps more influence on the East India trade
+than any potentate or commonwealth.
+
+He kept the seas just then with four swift-sailing and well-armed
+vessels, that potent skimmer of the ocean, and levied tribute upon
+Protestant and Catholic, Turk or Christian, with great impartiality.
+The King of Spain had sent him letters of amnesty and safe-conduct,
+with large pecuniary offers, if he would enter his service.  The King of
+France had outbid his royal brother and enemy, and implored him to sweep
+the seas under the white flag.
+
+The States' ambassador begged his masters to reflect whether this
+"puissant and experienced corsair" should be permitted to serve Spaniard
+or Frenchman, and whether they could devise no expedient for turning him
+into another track.  "He is now with his fine ships at Marseilles," said
+Aerssens.  "He is sought for in all quarters by the Spaniard and by the
+directors of the new French East India Company, private persons who equip
+vessels of war.  If he is not satisfied with this king's offers, he is
+likely to close with the King of Spain, who offers him 1000 crowns a
+month.  Avarice tickles him, but he is neither Spaniard nor Papist, and I
+fear will be induced to serve with his ships the East India Company, and
+so will return to his piracy, the evil of which will always fall on our
+heads.  If My Lords the States will send me letters of abolition for him,
+in imitation of the French king, on condition of his returning to his
+home in Zealand and quitting the sea altogether, something might be done.
+Otherwise he will be off to Marseilles again, and do more harm to us than
+ever.  Isaac Le Maire is doing as much evil as he can, and one holds
+daily council with him here."
+
+Thus the slippery Simon skimmed the seas from Marseilles to the Moluccas,
+from Java to Mexico, never to be held firmly by Philip, or Henry, or
+Barneveld.  A dissolute but very daring ship's captain, born in Zealand,
+and formerly in the service of the States, out of which he had been
+expelled for many evil deeds, Simon Danzer had now become a professional
+pirate, having his head-quarters chiefly at Algiers.  His English
+colleague Warde stationed himself mainly at Tunis, and both acted
+together in connivance with the pachas of the Turkish government.  They
+with their considerable fleet, one vessel of which mounted sixty guns,
+were the terror of the Mediterranean, extorted tribute from the commerce
+of all nations indifferently, and sold licenses to the greatest
+governments of Europe.  After growing rich with his accumulated booty,
+Simon was inclined to become respectable, a recourse which was always
+open to him--France, England, Spain, the United Provinces, vieing with
+each other to secure him by high rank and pay as an honoured member of
+their national marine.  He appears however to have failed in his plan of
+retiring upon his laurels, having been stabbed in Paris by a man whom he
+had formerly robbed and ruined.
+
+Villeroy, having delivered the letters with his own hands to the
+ambassadors, was asked by them when and where it would be convenient for
+the King to arrange the convention of close alliance.  The Secretary of
+State--in his secret heart anything but kindly disposed for this loving
+union with a republic he detested and with heretics whom he would have
+burned--answered briefly that his Majesty was ready at any time, and that
+it might take place then if they were provided with the necessary powers.
+He said in parting that the States should "have an eye to everything, for
+occasions like the present were irrecoverable."  He then departed, saying
+that the King would receive them in final audience on the following day.
+
+Next morning accordingly Marshal de Boisdaulphin and de Bonoeil came
+with royal coaches to the Hotel Gondy and escorted the ambassadors to the
+Louvre.  On the way they met de Bethune, who had returned solo from the
+Hague bringing despatches for the King and for themselves.  While in the
+antechamber, they had opportunity to read their letters from the States-
+General, his Majesty sending word that he was expecting them with
+impatience, but preferred that they should read the despatches before
+the audience.
+
+They found the King somewhat out of humour.  He expressed himself as
+tolerably well satisfied with the general tenour of the despatches
+brought by de Bethune, but complained loudly of the request now made by
+the States, that the maintenance and other expenses of 4000 French in the
+States' service should be paid in the coming campaign out of the royal
+exchequer.  He declared that this proposition was "a small manifestation
+of ingratitude," that my Lords the, States were "little misers," and that
+such proceedings were "little avaricious tricks" such as he had not
+expected of them.
+
+So far as England was concerned, he said there was a great difference.
+The English took away what he was giving.  He did cheerfully a great deal
+for his friends, he said, and was always ready doubly to repay what they
+did for him.  If, however, the States persisted in this course, he should
+call his troops home again.
+
+The King, as he went on, became more and more excited, and showed decided
+dissatisfaction in his language and manner.  It was not to be wondered
+at, for we have seen how persistently he had been urging that the
+Advocate should come in person with "the bridle on his neck," and now he
+had sent his son-in-law and two colleagues tightly tied up by stringent
+instructions.  And over an above all this, while he was contemplating a
+general war with intention to draw upon the States for unlimited
+supplies, behold, they were haggling for the support of a couple of
+regiments which were virtually their own troops.
+
+There were reasons, however, for this cautiousness besides those
+unfounded, although not entirely chimerical, suspicions as to the King's
+good faith, to which we have alluded.  It should not be forgotten that,
+although Henry had conversed secretly with the States' ambassador at full
+length on his far-reaching plans, with instructions that he should
+confidentially inform the Advocate and demand his co-operation, not a
+word of it had been officially propounded to the States-General, nor to
+the special embassy with whom he was now negotiating.  No treaty of
+alliance offensive or defensive existed between the Kingdom and the
+Republic or between the Republic and any power whatever.  It would have
+been culpable carelessness therefore at this moment for the prime
+minister of the States to have committed his government in writing to
+a full participation in a general assault upon the House of Austria; the
+first step in which would have been a breach of the treaty just concluded
+and instant hostilities with the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.
+
+That these things were in the immediate future was as plain as that night
+would follow day, but the hour had not yet struck for the States to throw
+down the gauntlet.
+
+Hardly two months before, the King, in his treaty with the princes at
+Hall, had excluded both the King of Great Britain and the States-General
+from participation in those arrangements, and it was grave matter for
+consideration, therefore, for the States whether they should allow such
+succour as they might choose to grant the princes to be included in the
+French contingent.  The opportunity for treating as a sovereign power
+with the princes and making friends with them was tempting, but it did
+not seem reasonable to the States that France should make use of them
+in this war without a treaty, and should derive great advantage from
+the alliance, but leave the expense to them.
+
+Henry, on the other hand, forgetting, when it was convenient to him, all
+about the Princess of Conde, his hatred of Spain, and his resolution to
+crush the House of Austria, chose to consider the war as made simply for
+the love of the States-General and to secure them for ever from danger.
+
+The ambassadors replied to the King's invectives with great respect,
+and endeavoured to appease his anger.  They had sent a special despatch
+to their government, they said, in regard to all those matters, setting
+forth all the difficulties that had been raised, but had not wished to
+trouble his Majesty with premature discussions of them.  They did not
+doubt, however, that their High Mightinesses would so conduct this great
+affair as to leave the King no ground of complaint.
+
+Henry then began to talk of the intelligence brought by de Bethune from
+the Hague, especially in regard to the sending of States' troops to
+Dusseldorf and the supply of food for the French army.  He did not
+believe, he said, that the Archdukes would refuse him the passage with
+his forces through their territory, inasmuch as the States' army would be
+on the way to meet him.  In case of any resistance, however, he declared
+his resolution to strike his blow and to cause people to talk of him.
+He had sent his quartermaster-general to examine the passes, who had
+reported that it would be impossible to prevent his Majesty's advance.
+He was also distinctly informed that Marquis Spinola, keeping his places
+garrisoned, could not bring more than 8000 men into the field.  The Duke
+of Bouillon, however, was sending advices that his communications were
+liable to be cut off, and that for this purpose Spinola could set on foot
+about 16,000 infantry and 4000 horse.
+
+If the passage should be allowed by the Archdukes, the King stated his
+intention of establishing magazines for his troops along the whole line
+of march through the Spanish Netherlands and neighbouring districts, and
+to establish and fortify himself everywhere in order to protect his
+supplies and cover his possible retreat.  He was still in doubt, he said,
+whether to demand the passage at once or to wait until he had began to
+move his army.  He was rather inclined to make the request instantly in
+order to gain time, being persuaded that he should receive no answer
+either of consent or refusal.
+
+Leaving all these details, the King then frankly observed that the affair
+of Cleve had a much wider outlook than people thought.  Therefore the
+States must consider well what was to be done to secure the whole work as
+soon as the Cleve business had been successfully accomplished.  Upon this
+subject it was indispensable that he should consult especially with his
+Excellency (Prince Maurice) and some members of the General Assembly,
+whom he wished that My Lords the States-General should depute to the
+army.
+
+"For how much good will it do," said the King, "if we drive off Archduke
+Leopold without establishing the princes in security for the future?
+Nothing is easier than to put the princes in possession.  Every one will
+yield or run away before our forces, but two months after we have
+withdrawn the enemy will return and drive the princes out again.  I
+cannot always be ready to spring out of my kingdom, nor to assemble such
+great armies.  I am getting old, and my army moreover costs me 400,000
+crowns a month, which is enough to exhaust all the treasures of France,
+Spain, Venice, and the States-General together."
+
+He added that, if the present occasion were neglected, the States would
+afterwards bitterly lament and never recover it.  The Pope was very much
+excited, and was sending out his ambassadors everywhere.  Only the
+previous Saturday the new nuncius destined for France had left Rome.
+If My Lords the States would send deputies to the camp with full powers,
+he stood there firm and unchangeable, but if they remained cool in the
+business, he warned them that they would enrage him.
+
+The States must seize the occasion, he repeated.  It was bald behind, and
+must be grasped by the forelock.  It was not enough to have begun well.
+One must end well.  "Finis coronat opus."  It was very easy to speak of a
+league, but a league was not to be made in order to sit with arms tied,
+but to do good work.  The States ought not to suffer that the Germans
+should prove themselves more energetic, more courageous, than themselves.
+
+And again the King vehemently urged the necessity of his Excellency and
+some deputies of the States coming to him "with absolute power" to treat.
+He could not doubt in that event of something solid being accomplished.
+
+"There are three things," he continued, "which cause me to speak freely.
+I am talking with my friends whom I hold dear--yes, dearer, perhaps, than
+they hold themselves.  I am a great king, and say what I choose to say.
+I am old, and know by experience the ways of this world's affairs.  I
+tell you, then, that it is most important that you should come to me
+resolved and firm on all points."
+
+He then requested the ambassadors to make full report of all that he had
+said to their masters, to make the journey as rapidly as possible, in
+order to encourage the States to the great enterprise and to meet his
+wishes.  He required from them, he said, not only activity of the body,
+but labour of the intellect.
+
+He was silent for a few moments, and then spoke again.  "I shall not
+always be here," he said, "nor will you always have Prince Maurice, and a
+few others whose knowledge of your commonwealth is perfect.  My Lords the
+States must be up and doing while they still possess them.  Nest Tuesday
+I shall cause the Queen to be crowned at Saint-Denis; the following
+Thursday she will make her entry into Paris.  Next day, Friday, I shall
+take my departure.  At the end of this month I shall cross the Meuse at
+Mezieres or in that neighbourhood."
+
+He added that he should write immediately to Holland, to urge upon his
+Excellency and the States to be ready to make the junction of their army
+with his forces without delay.  He charged the ambassadors to assure
+their High Mightinesses that he was and should remain their truest
+friend, their dearest neighbour.  He then said a few gracious and cordial
+words to each of them, warmly embraced each, and bade them all farewell.
+
+The next day was passed by the ambassadors in paying and receiving
+farewell visits, and on Saturday, the 8th, they departed from Paris,
+being escorted out of the gate by the Marshal de Boisdaulphin, with a
+cavalcade of noblemen.  They slept that night at Saint Denis, and then
+returned to Holland by the way of  Calais and Rotterdam, reaching the
+Hague on the 16th of May.
+
+I make no apology for the minute details thus given of the proceedings of
+this embassy, and especially of the conversations of Henry.
+
+The very words of those conversations were taken down on the spot by the
+commissioners who heard them, and were carefully embodied in their report
+made to the States-General on their return, from which I have transcribed
+them.
+
+It was a memorable occasion.  The great king--for great he was, despite
+his numerous vices and follies--stood there upon the threshold of a vast
+undertaking, at which the world, still half incredulous, stood gazing,
+half sick with anxiety.  He relied on his own genius and valour chiefly,
+and after these on the brain of Barneveld and the sword of Maurice.  Nor
+was his confidence misplaced.
+
+But let the reader observe the date of the day when those striking
+utterances were made, and which have never before been made public.  It
+was Thursday, the 6th May.  "I shall not always be here," said the King
+.  .  .  .  .  "I cannot be ready at any moment to spring out of my
+kingdom."  .  .  .  "Friday of next week I take my departure."
+
+How much of heroic pathos in Henry's attitude at this supreme moment!
+How mournfully ring those closing words of his address to the
+ambassadors!
+
+The die was cast.  A letter drawn up by the Duc de Sully was sent to
+Archduke Albert by the King.
+
+"My brother," he said; "Not being able to refuse my best allies and
+confederates the help which they have asked of me against those who wish
+to trouble them in the succession to the duchies and counties of Cleve,
+Julich, Mark, Berg, Ravensberg, and Ravenstein, I am advancing towards
+them with my army.  As my road leads me through your country, I desire to
+notify you thereof, and to know whether or not I am to enter as a friend
+or enemy."
+
+Such was the draft as delivered to the Secretary of State; "and as such
+it was sent," said Sully, "unless Villeroy changed it, as he had a great
+desire to do."
+
+Henry was mistaken in supposing that the Archduke would leave the letter
+without an answer.  A reply was sent in due time, and the permission
+demanded was not refused.  For although France was now full of military
+movement, and the regiments everywhere were hurrying hourly to the places
+of rendezvous, though the great storm at last was ready to burst, the
+Archdukes made no preparations for resistance, and lapped themselves in
+fatal security that nothing was intended but an empty demonstration.
+
+Six thousand Swiss newly levied, with 20,000 French infantry and 6000
+horse, were waiting for Henry to place himself at their head at Mezieres.
+Twelve thousand foot and 2000 cavalry, including the French and English
+contingents--a splendid army, led by Prince Maurice--were ready to march
+from Holland to Dusseldorf.  The army of the princes under Prince
+Christian of Anhalt numbered 10,000 men.  The last scruples of the
+usually unscrupulous Charles Emmanuel had been overcome, and the Duke was
+quite ready to act, 25,000 strong, with Marshal de Lesdiguieres, in the
+Milanese; while Marshal de la Force was already at the head of his forces
+in the Pyrenees, amounting to 12,000 foot and 2000 horse.
+
+Sully had already despatched his splendid trains of artillery to the
+frontier.  "Never was seen in France, and perhaps never will be seen
+there again, artillery more complete and better furnished,"  said the
+Duke, thinking probably that artillery had reached the climax of perfect
+destructiveness in the first decade of the seventeenth century.
+
+His son, the Marquis de Rosny, had received the post of grand master of
+artillery, and placed himself at its head.  His father was to follow as
+its chief, carrying with him as superintendent of finance a cash-box of
+eight millions.
+
+The King had appointed his wife, Mary de' Medici, regent, with an eminent
+council.
+
+The new nuncius had been requested to present himself with his letters
+of credence in the camp.  Henry was unwilling that he should enter Paris,
+being convinced that he came to do his best, by declamation, persuasion,
+and intrigue, to paralyse the enterprise.  Sully's promises to Ubaldini,
+the former nuncius, that his Holiness should be made king, however
+flattering to Paul V., had not prevented his representatives from
+vigorously denouncing Henry's monstrous scheme to foment heresy and
+encourage rebellion.
+
+The King's chagrin at the cautious limitations imposed upon the States'
+special embassy was, so he hoped, to be removed by full conferences in
+the camp.  Certainly he had shown in the most striking manner the respect
+he felt for the States, and the confidence he reposed in them.
+
+"In the reception of your embassy," wrote Aerssens to the Advocate,
+"certainly the King has so loosened the strap of his affection that he
+has reserved nothing by which he could put the greatest king in the world
+above your level."
+
+He warned the States, however, that Henry had not found as much in their
+propositions as the common interest had caused him to promise himself.
+"Nevertheless he informs me in confidence," said Aerssens, "that he will
+engage himself in nothing without you; nay, more, he has expressly told
+me that he could hardly accomplish his task without your assistance, and
+it was for our sakes alone that he has put himself into this position and
+incurred this great expense."
+
+Some days later he informed Barneveld that he would leave to van der Myle
+and his colleagues the task of describing the great dissatisfaction of
+the King at the letters brought by de Bethune.  He told him in confidence
+that the States must equip the French regiments and put them in marching
+order if they wished to preserve Henry's friendship.  He added that since
+the departure of the special embassy the King had been vehemently and
+seriously urging that Prince Maurice, Count Lewis William, Barneveld, and
+three or four of the most qualified deputies of the States-General,
+entirely authorized to treat for the common safety, should meet with him
+in the territory of Julich on a fixed day.
+
+The crisis was reached.  The King stood fully armed, thoroughly prepared,
+with trustworthy allies at his side, disposing of overwhelming forces
+ready to sweep down with irresistible strength upon the House of Austria,
+which, as he said and the States said, aspired to give the law to the
+whole world.  Nothing was left to do save, as the Ambassador said, to
+"uncouple the dogs of war and let them run."
+
+What preparations had Spain and the Empire, the Pope and the League,
+set on foot to beat back even for a moment the overwhelming onset?
+None whatever.  Spinola in the Netherlands, Fuentes in Milan, Bucquoy and
+Lobkowitz and Lichtenstein in Prague, had hardly the forces of a moderate
+peace establishment at their disposal, and all the powers save France and
+the States were on the verge of bankruptcy.
+
+Even James of Great Britain--shuddering at the vast thundercloud which
+had stretched itself over Christendom growing blacker and blacker,
+precisely at this moment, in which he had proved to his own satisfaction
+that the peace just made would perpetually endure--even James did not
+dare to traverse the designs of the king whom he feared, and the republic
+which he hated, in favour of his dearly loved Spain.  Sweden, Denmark,
+the Hanse Towns, were in harmony with France, Holland, Savoy, and the
+whole Protestant force of Germany--a majority both in population and
+resources of the whole empire.  What army, what combination, what device,
+what talisman, could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy, from
+the impending ruin?
+
+A sudden, rapid, conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
+a result as anything could be in the future of human affairs.
+
+On the 14th or 15th day of May, as he had just been informing the States'
+ambassadors, Henry meant to place himself at the head of his army.  That
+was the moment fixed by himself for "taking his departure."
+
+And now the ides of May had come--but not gone.
+
+In the midst of all the military preparations with which Paris had been
+resounding, the arrangements for the Queen's coronation had been
+simultaneously going forward.  Partly to give check in advance to the
+intrigues which would probably at a later date be made by Conde,
+supported by the power of Spain, to invalidate the legitimacy of the
+Dauphin, but more especially perhaps to further and to conceal what the
+faithful Sully called the "damnable artifices" of the Queen's intimate
+councillors--sinister designs too dark to be even whispered at that
+epoch, and of which history, during the lapse of more than two centuries
+and a half, has scarcely dared to speak above its breath--it was deemed
+all important that the coronation should take place.
+
+A certain astrologer, Thomassin by name, was said to have bidden the King
+to beware the middle of the next month of May.  Henry had tweaked the
+soothsayer by the beard and made him dance twice or thrice about the
+room.  To the Duc de Vendome expressing great anxiety in regard to
+Thomassin, Henry replied, "The astrologer is an old fool, and you are a
+young fool."  A certain prophetess called Pasithea had informed the Queen
+that the King could not survive his fifty-seventh year.  She was much in
+the confidence of Mary de' Medici, who had insisted this year on her
+returning to Paris.  Henry, who was ever chafing and struggling to escape
+the invisible and dangerous net which he felt closing about him, and who
+connected the sorceress with all whom he most loathed among the intimate
+associates of the Queen, swore a mighty oath that she should not show her
+face again at court.  "My heart presages that some signal disaster will
+befall me on this coronation.  Concini and his wife are urging the Queen
+obstinately to send for this fanatic.  If she should come, there is no
+doubt that my wife and I shall squabble well about her.  If I discover
+more about these private plots of hers with Spain, I shall be in a mighty
+passion."  And the King then assured the faithful minister of his
+conviction that all the jealousy affected by the Queen in regard to the
+Princess of Conde was but a veil to cover dark designs.  It was necessary
+in the opinion of those who governed her, the vile Concini and his wife,
+that there should be some apparent and flagrant cause of quarrel.  The
+public were to receive payment in these pretexts for want of better coin.
+Henry complained that even Sully and all the world besides attributed to
+jealousy that which was really the effect of a most refined malice.
+
+And the minister sometimes pauses in the midst of these revelations made
+in his old age, and with self-imposed and shuddering silence intimates
+that there are things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful to
+be breathed.
+
+Henry had an invincible repugnance to that coronation on which the Queen
+had set her heart.  Nothing could be more pathetic than the isolated
+position in which he found himself, standing thus as he did on the
+threshold of a mighty undertaking in which he was the central figure,
+an object for the world to gaze upon with palpitating interest.  At his
+hearth in the Louvre were no household gods.  Danger lurked behind every
+tapestry in that magnificent old palace.  A nameless dread dogged his
+footsteps through those resounding corridors.
+
+And by an exquisite refinement in torture the possible father of several
+of his children not only dictated to the Queen perpetual outbreaks of
+frantic jealousy against her husband, but moved her to refuse with
+suspicion any food and drink offered her by his hands.  The Concini's
+would even with unparalleled and ingenious effrontery induce her to make
+use of the kitchen arrangements in their apartments for the preparation
+of her daily meals?
+
+Driven from house and home, Henry almost lived at the Arsenal.  There he
+would walk for hours in the long alleys of the garden, discussing with
+the great financier and soldier his vast, dreamy, impracticable plans.
+Strange combination of the hero, the warrior, the voluptuary, the sage,
+and the schoolboy--it would be difficult to find in the whole range of
+history a more human, a more attractive, a more provoking, a less
+venerable character.
+
+Haunted by omens, dire presentiments, dark suspicions with and without
+cause, he was especially averse from the coronation to which in a moment
+of weakness he had given his consent.
+
+Sitting in Sully's cabinet, in a low chair which the Duke had expressly
+provided for his use, tapping and drumming on his spectacle case, or
+starting up and smiting himself on the thigh, he would pour out his soul
+hours long to his one confidential minister.  "Ah, my friend, how this
+sacrament displeases me," he said; "I know not why it is, but my heart
+tells me that some misfortune is to befall me.  By God I shall die in
+this city, I shall never go out of it; I see very well that they are
+finding their last resource in my death.  Ah, accursed coronation!  thou
+wilt be the, cause of my death."
+
+So many times did he give utterance to these sinister forebodings that
+Sully implored him at last for leave to countermand the whole ceremony
+notwithstanding the great preparations which had been made for the
+splendid festival.  "Yes, yes," replied the King, "break up this
+coronation at once.  Let me hear no more of it.  Then I shall have my
+mind cured of all these impressions.  I shall leave the town and fear
+nothing."
+
+He then informed his friend that he had received intimations that he
+should lose his life at the first magnificent festival he should give,
+and that he should die in a carriage.  Sully admitted that he had often,
+when in a carriage with him, been amazed at his starting and crying out
+at the slightest shock, having so often seen him intrepid among guns and
+cannon, pikes and naked swords.
+
+The Duke went to the Queen three days in succession, and with passionate
+solicitations and arguments and almost upon his knees implored her to
+yield to the King's earnest desire, and renounce for the time at least
+the coronation.  In vain.  Mary de' Medici was obdurate as marble to his
+prayers.
+
+The coronation was fixed for Thursday, the 13th May, two days later than
+the time originally appointed when the King conversed with the States'
+ambassadors.  On the following Sunday was to be the splendid and solemn
+entrance of the crowned Queen.  On the Monday, Henry, postponing likewise
+for two days his original plan of departure, would leave for the army.
+
+Meantime there were petty annoyances connected with the details of the
+coronation.  Henry had set his heart on having his legitimatized
+children, the offspring of the fair Gabrielle, take their part in the
+ceremony on an equal footing with the princes of the blood.  They were
+not entitled to wear the lilies of France upon their garments, and the
+King was solicitous that "the Count"--as Soissons, brother of Prince
+Conti and uncle of Conde, was always called--should dispense with those
+ensigns for his wife upon this solemn occasion, and that the other
+princesses of the blood should do the same.  Thus there would be no
+appearance of inferiority on the part of the Duchess of Vendome.
+
+The Count protested that he would have his eyes torn out of his head
+rather than submit to an arrangement which would do him so much shame.
+He went to the Queen and urged upon her that to do this would likewise be
+an injury to her children, the Dukes of Orleans and of Anjou.  He refused
+flatly to appear or allow his wife to appear except in the costume
+befitting their station.  The King on his part was determined not to
+abandon his purpose.  He tried to gain over the Count by the most
+splendid proposals, offering him the command of the advance-guard of the
+army, or the lieutenancy-general of France in the absence of the King,
+30,000 crowns for his equipment and an increase of his pension if he
+would cause his wife to give up the fleurs-de-lys on this occasion.
+The alternative was to be that, if she insisted upon wearing them,
+his Majesty would never look upon him again with favourable eyes.
+
+The Count never hesitated, but left Paris, refusing to appear at the
+ceremony.  The King was in a towering passion, for to lose the presence
+of this great prince of the blood at a solemnity expressly intended as a
+demonstration against the designs hatching by the first of all the
+princes of the blood under patronage of Spain was a severe blow to his
+pride and a check to his policy.'
+
+Yet it was inconceivable that he could at such a moment commit so
+superfluous and unmeaning a blunder.  He had forced Conde into exile,
+intrigue with the enemy, and rebellion, by open and audacious efforts to
+destroy his domestic peace, and now he was willing to alienate one of his
+most powerful subjects in order to place his bastards on a level with
+royalty.  While it is sufficiently amusing to contemplate this proposed
+barter of a chief command in a great army or the lieutenancy-general of a
+mighty kingdom at the outbreak of a general European war against a bit of
+embroidery on the court dress of a lady, yet it is impossible not to
+recognize something ideal and chivalrous from his own point of view in
+the refusal of Soissons to renounce those emblems of pure and high
+descent, those haughty lilies of St. Louis, against any bribes of place
+and pelf however dazzling.
+
+The coronation took place on Thursday, 13th May, with the pomp and
+glitter becoming great court festivals; the more pompous and glittering
+the more the monarch's heart was wrapped in gloom.  The representatives
+of the great powers were conspicuous in the procession; Aerssens, the
+Dutch ambassador, holding a foremost place.  The ambassadors of Spain and
+Venice as usual squabbled about precedence and many other things, and
+actually came to fisticuffs, the fight lasting a long time and ending
+somewhat to the advantage of the Venetian.  But the sacrament was over,
+and Mary de' Medici was crowned Queen of France and Regent of the Kingdom
+during the absence of the sovereign with his army.
+
+Meantime there had been mysterious warnings darker and more distinct than
+the babble of the soothsayer Thomassin or the ravings of the lunatic
+Pasithea.  Count Schomberg, dining at the Arsenal with Sully, had been
+called out to converse with Mademoiselle de Gournay, who implored that a
+certain Madame d'Escomans might be admitted to audience of the King.
+That person, once in direct relations with the Marchioness of Verneuil,
+the one of Henry's mistresses who most hated him, affirmed that a man
+from the Duke of Epernon's country was in Paris, agent of a conspiracy
+seeking the King's life.
+
+The woman not enjoying a very reputable character found it impossible to
+obtain a hearing, although almost frantic with her desire to save her
+sovereign's life.  The Queen observed that it was a wicked woman, who was
+accusing all the world, and perhaps would accuse her too.
+
+The fatal Friday came.  Henry drove out, in his carriage to see the
+preparations making for the triumphal entrance of the Queen into Paris on
+the following Sunday.  What need to repeat the tragic, familiar tale?
+The coach was stopped by apparent accident in the narrow street de la
+Feronniere, and Francis Ravaillac, standing on the wheel, drove his knife
+through the monarch's heart.  The Duke of Epernon, sitting at his side,
+threw his cloak over the body and ordered the carriage back to the
+Louvre.
+
+"They have killed him, 'e ammazato,'" cried Concini (so says tradition),
+thrusting his head into the Queen's bedchamber.
+
+     [Michelet, 197.  It is not probable that the documents concerning
+     the trial, having been so carefully suppressed from the beginning,
+     especially the confession dictated to Voisin--who wrote it kneeling
+     on the ground, and was perhaps so appalled at its purport that he
+     was afraid to write it legibly--will ever see the light.  I add in
+     the Appendix some contemporary letters of persons, as likely as any
+     one to know what could be known, which show how dreadful were the
+     suspicions which men entertained, and which they hardly ventured to
+     whisper to each other].
+
+That blow had accomplished more than a great army could have done, and
+Spain now reigned in Paris.  The House of Austria, without making any
+military preparations, had conquered, and the great war of religion and
+politics was postponed for half a dozen years.
+
+This history has no immediate concern with solving the mysteries of that
+stupendous crime.  The woman who had sought to save the King's life now
+denounced Epernon as the chief murderer, and was arrested, examined,
+accused of lunacy, proved to be perfectly sane, and, persisting in her
+statements with perfect coherency, was imprisoned for life for her pains;
+the Duke furiously demanding her instant execution.
+
+The documents connected with the process were carefully suppressed.  The
+assassin, tortured and torn by four horses, was supposed to have revealed
+nothing and to have denied the existence of accomplices.
+
+The great accused were too omnipotent to be dealt with by humble accusers
+or by convinced but powerless tribunals.  The trial was all mystery,
+hugger-mugger, horror.  Yet the murderer is known to have dictated to the
+Greflier Voisin, just before expiring on the Greve, a declaration which
+that functionary took down in a handwriting perhaps purposely illegible.
+
+Two centuries and a half have passed away, yet the illegible original
+record is said to exist, to have been plainly read, and to contain the
+names of the Queen and the Duke of Epernon.
+
+Twenty-six years before, the pistol of Balthasar Gerard had destroyed the
+foremost man in Europe and the chief of a commonwealth just struggling
+into existence.  Yet Spain and Rome, the instigators and perpetrators of
+the crime, had not reaped the victory which they had the right to expect.
+The young republic, guided by Barneveld and loyal to the son of the
+murdered stadholder, was equal to the burthen suddenly descending upon
+its shoulders.  Instead of despair there had been constancy.  Instead of
+distracted counsels there had been heroic union of heart and hand.
+Rather than bend to Rome and grovel to Philip, it had taken its
+sovereignty in its hands, offered it successively, without a thought of
+self-aggrandizement on the part of its children, to the crowns of France
+and Great Britain, and, having been repulsed by both, had learned after
+fiery trials and incredible exertions to assert its own high and foremost
+place among the independent powers of the world.
+
+And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic, the wretched but
+unflinching instrument of a great conspiracy, had at a blow decapitated
+France.  No political revolution could be much more thorough than that
+which had been accomplished in a moment of time by Francis Ravaillac.
+
+On the 14th of May, France, while in spiritual matters obedient to the
+Pope, stood at the head of the forces of Protestantism throughout Europe,
+banded together to effect the downfall of the proud house of Austria,
+whose fortunes and fate were synonymous with Catholicism.  The Baltic
+powers, the majority of the Teutonic races, the Kingdom of Britain, the
+great Republic of the Netherlands, the northernmost and most warlike
+governments of Italy, all stood at the disposition of the warrior-king.
+Venice, who had hitherto, in the words of a veteran diplomatist, "shunned
+to look a league or a confederation in the face, if there was any
+Protestant element in it, as if it had been the head of Medusa," had
+formally forbidden the passage of troops northwards to the relief of the
+assailed power.  Savoy, after direful hesitations, had committed herself
+body and soul to the great enterprise.  Even the Pope, who feared the
+overshadowing personality of Henry, and was beginning to believe his
+house's private interests more likely to flourish under the protection of
+the French than the Spanish king, was wavering in his fidelity to Spain
+and tempted by French promises: If he should prove himself incapable of
+effecting a pause in the great crusade, it was doubtful on which side he
+would ultimately range himself; for it was at least certain that the new
+Catholic League, under the chieftainship of Maximilian of Bavaria, was
+resolved not to entangle its fortunes inextricably with those of the
+Austrian house.
+
+The great enterprise, first unfolding itself with the episode of Cleve
+and Berg and whimsically surrounding itself with the fantastic idyl of
+the Princess of Conde, had attained vast and misty proportions in the
+brain of its originator.  Few political visions are better known in
+history than the "grand design" of Henry for rearranging the map of the
+world at the moment when, in the middle of May, he was about to draw his
+sword.  Spain reduced to the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, but
+presented with both the Indies, with all America and the whole Orient in
+fee; the Empire taken from Austria and given to Bavaria; a constellation
+of States in Italy, with the Pope for president-king; throughout the rest
+of Christendom a certain number of republics, of kingdoms, of religions--
+a great confederation of the world, in short--with the most Christian
+king for its dictator and protector, and a great Amphictyonic council to
+regulate all disputes by solemn arbitration, and to make war in the
+future impossible, such in little was his great design.
+
+Nothing could be more humane, more majestic, more elaborate, more
+utterly preposterous.  And all this gigantic fabric had passed away
+in an instant--at one stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a
+carriage wheel.
+
+Most pitiful was the condition of France on the day after, and for years
+after, the murder of the King.  Not only was the kingdom for the, time
+being effaced from the roll of nations, so far as external relations were
+concerned, but it almost ceased to be a kingdom.  The ancient monarchy
+of Hugh Capet, of Saint-Louis, of Henry of France and Navarre, was
+transformed into a turbulent, self-seeking, quarrelsome, pillaging,
+pilfering democracy of grandees.  The Queen-Regent was tossed hither and
+thither at the sport of the winds and waves which shifted every hour in
+that tempestuous court.
+
+No man pretended to think of the State.  Every man thought only of
+himself.  The royal exchequer was plundered with a celerity and cynical
+recklessness such as have been rarely seen in any age or country.  The
+millions so carefully hoarded by Sully, and exhibited so dramatically
+by that great minister to the enraptured eyes of his sovereign; that
+treasure in the Bastille on which Henry relied for payment of the armies
+with which he was to transform the world, all disappeared in a few weeks
+to feed the voracious maw of courtiers, paramours, and partisans!
+
+The Queen showered gold like water upon her beloved Concini that he might
+purchase his Marquisate of Ancre, and the charge of first gentleman of
+the court from Bouillon; that he might fit himself for the government of
+Picardy; that he might elevate his marquisate into a dukedom.  Conde,
+having no further reason to remain in exile, received as a gift from the
+trembling Mary de' Medici the magnificent Hotel Gondy, where the Dutch
+ambassadors had so recently been lodged, for which she paid 65,000
+crowns, together with 25,000 crowns to furnish it, 50,000 crowns to pay
+his debts, 50,000 more as yearly pension.
+
+He claimed double, and was soon at sword's point with the Queen in spite
+of her lavish bounty.
+
+Epernon, the true murderer of Henry, trampled on courts of justice and
+councils of ministers, frightened the court by threatening to convert
+his possession of Metz into an independent sovereignty, as Balagny had
+formerly seized upon Cambray, smothered for ever the process of
+Ravaillac, caused those to be put to death or immured for life in
+dungeons who dared to testify to his complicity in the great crime,
+and strode triumphantly over friends and enemies throughout France,
+although so crippled by the gout that he could scarcely walk up stairs.
+
+There was an end to the triumvirate.  Sully's influence was gone for
+ever.  The other two dropped the mask.  The Chancellor and Villeroy
+revealed themselves to be what they secretly had always been--humble
+servants and stipendiaries of Spain.  The formal meetings of the council
+were of little importance, and were solemn, tearful, and stately; draped
+in woe for the great national loss.  In the private cabinet meetings in
+the entresol of the Louvre, where the Nuncius and the Spanish ambassador
+held counsel with Epernon and Villeroy and Jeannin and Sillery, the tone
+was merry and loud; the double Spanish marriage and confusion to the
+Dutch being the chief topics of consultation.
+
+But the anarchy grew day by day into almost hopeless chaos.  There was no
+satisfying the princes of the blood nor the other grandees.  Conde, whose
+reconciliation with the Princess followed not long after the death of
+Henry and his own return to France, was insatiable in his demands for
+money, power, and citadels of security.  Soissons, who might formerly
+have received the lieutenancy-general of the kingdom by sacrificing the
+lilies on his wife's gown, now disputed for that office with his elder
+brother Conti, the Prince claiming it by right of seniority, the Count
+denouncing Conti as deaf, dumb, and imbecile, till they drew poniards on
+each other in the very presence of the Queen;  while Conde on one
+occasion, having been refused the citadels which he claimed, Blaye and
+Chateau Trompette, threw his cloak over his nose and put on his hat while
+the Queen was speaking, and left the council in a fury, declaring that
+Villeroy and the chancellor were traitors, and that he would have them
+both soundly cudgelled.  Guise, Lorraine, Epernon, Bouillon, and other
+great lords always appeared in the streets of Paris at the head of three,
+four, or five hundred mounted and armed retainers; while the Queen in her
+distraction gave orders to arm the Paris mob to the number of fifty
+thousand, and to throw chains across the streets to protect herself and
+her son against the turbulent nobles.
+
+Sully, hardly knowing to what saint to burn his candle, being forced to
+resign his great posts, was found for a time in strange political
+combination with the most ancient foes of his party and himself.  The
+kaleidoscope whirling with exasperating quickness showed ancient Leaguers
+and Lorrainers banded with and protecting Huguenots against the Crown,
+while princes of the blood, hereditary patrons and chiefs of the
+Huguenots, became partisans and stipendiaries of Spain.
+
+It is easy to see that circumstances like these rendered the position of
+the Dutch commonwealth delicate and perilous.
+
+Sully informed Aerssens and van der Myle, who had been sent back to Paris
+on special mission very soon after the death of the King, that it took a
+hundred hours now to accomplish a single affair, whereas under Henry a
+hundred affairs were transacted in a single hour.  But Sully's sun had
+set, and he had few business conferences now with the ambassadors.
+
+Villeroy and the Chancellor had fed fat their ancient grudge to the once
+omnipotent minister, and had sworn his political ruin.  The old secretary
+of state had held now complete control of the foreign alliances and
+combinations of France, and the Dutch ambassadors could be under no
+delusion as to the completeness of the revolution.
+
+"You will find a passion among the advisers of the Queen," said Villeroy
+to Aerssens and van der Myle, "to move in diametrical opposition to the
+plans of the late king."  And well might the ancient Leaguer and present
+pensionary of Spain reveal this foremost fact in a policy of which he was
+in secret the soul.  He wept profusely when he first received Francis
+Aerssens, but after these "useless tears," as the Envoy called them, he
+soon made it manifest that there was no more to be expected of France, in
+the great project which its government had so elaborately set on foot.
+
+Villeroy was now sixty-six years of age, and had been secretary of state
+during forty-two years and under four kings.  A man of delicate health,
+frail body, methodical habits, capacity for routine, experience in
+political intrigue, he was not personally as greedy of money as many of
+his contemporaries, and was not without generosity; but he loved power,
+the Pope, and the House of Austria.  He was singularly reserved in
+public, practised successfully the talent of silence, and had at last
+arrived at the position he most coveted, the virtual presidency of the
+council, and saw the men he most hated beneath his feet.
+
+At the first interview of Aerssens with the Queen-Regent she was drowned
+in tears, and could scarcely articulate an intelligible sentence.  So far
+as could be understood she expressed her intention of carrying out the
+King's plans, of maintaining the old alliances, of protecting both
+religions.  Nothing, however, could be more preposterous than such
+phrases.  Villeroy, who now entirely directed the foreign affairs of the
+kingdom, assured the Ambassador that France was much more likely to apply
+to the States for assistance than render them aid in any enterprise
+whatever.  "There is no doubt," said Aerssens, "that the Queen is
+entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests."  Villeroy, whom Henry
+was wont to call the pedagogue of the council, went about sighing
+dismally, wishing himself dead, and perpetually ejaculating, "Ho! poor
+France, how much hast thou still to suffer!"  In public he spoke of
+nothing but of union, and of the necessity of carrying out the designs of
+the King, instructing the docile Queen to hold the same language.  In
+private he was quite determined to crush those designs for ever, and
+calmly advised the Dutch government to make an amicable agreement with
+the Emperor in regard to the Cleve affair as soon as possible; a treaty
+which would have been shameful for France and the possessory princes, and
+dangerous, if not disastrous, for the States-General.  "Nothing but
+feverish and sick counsels," he said, "could be expected from France,
+which had now lost its vigour and could do nothing but groan."
+
+Not only did the French council distinctly repudiate the idea of doing
+anything more for the princes than had been stipulated by the treaty of
+Hall--that is to say, a contingent of 8000 foot and 2000 horse--but many
+of them vehemently maintained that the treaty, being a personal one of
+the late king, was dead with him?  The duty of France was now in their
+opinion to withdraw from these mad schemes as soon as possible, to make
+peace with the House of Austria without delay, and to cement the
+friendship by the double marriages.
+
+Bouillon, who at that moment hated Sully as much as the most vehement
+Catholic could do, assured the Dutch envoy that the government was, under
+specious appearances, attempting to deceive the States; a proposition
+which it needed not the evidence of that most intriguing duke to make
+manifest to so astute a politician; particularly as there was none more
+bent on playing the most deceptive game than Bouillon.  There would be no
+troops to send, he said, and even if there were, there would be no
+possibility of agreeing on a chief.  The question of religion would at
+once arise.  As for himself, the Duke protested that he would not accept
+the command if offered him.  He would not agree to serve under the Prince
+of Anhalt, nor would he for any consideration in the world leave the
+court at that moment.  At the same time Aerssens was well aware that
+Bouillon, in his quality of first marshal of France, a Protestant and a
+prince having great possessions on the frontier, and the brother-in-law
+of Prince Maurice, considered himself entitled to the command of the
+troops should they really be sent, and was very indignant at the idea of
+its being offered to any one else.
+
+     [Aerssens worked assiduously, two hours long on one occasion, to
+     effect a reconciliation between the two great Protestant chiefs, but
+     found Bouillon's demands "so shameful and unreasonable" that he
+     felt obliged to renounce all further attempts.  In losing Sully from
+     the royal councils, the States' envoy acknowledged that the Republic
+     had lost everything that could be depended on at the French court.
+     "All the others are time-serving friends," he said, "or saints
+     without miracles."--Aerssens to Barneveld, 11 June, 1610. ]
+
+He advised earnestly therefore that the States should make a firm demand
+for money instead of men, specifying the amount that might be considered
+the equivalent of the number of troops originally stipulated.
+
+It is one of the most singular spectacles in history; France sinking into
+the background of total obscurity in an instant of time, at one blow of a
+knife, while the Republic, which she had been patronizing, protecting,
+but keeping always in a subordinate position while relying implicitly
+upon its potent aid, now came to the front, and held up on its strong
+shoulders an almost desperate cause.  Henry had been wont to call the
+States-General "his courage and his right arm," but he had always
+strictly forbidden them to move an inch in advance of him, but ever to
+follow his lead, and to take their directions from himself.  They were
+a part, and an essential one, in his vast designs; but France, or he
+who embodied France, was the great providence, the destiny, the all-
+directing, all-absorbing spirit, that was to remodel and control the
+whole world.  He was dead, and France and her policy were already in a
+state of rapid decomposition.
+
+Barneveld wrote to encourage and sustain the sinking state.  "Our courage
+is rising in spite and in consequence of the great misfortune," he said.
+He exhorted the Queen to keep her kingdom united, and assured her that My
+Lords the States would maintain themselves against all who dared to
+assail them.  He offered in their name the whole force of the Republic to
+take vengeance on those who had procured the assassination, and to defend
+the young king and the Queen-Mother against all who might make any
+attempt against their authority.  He further declared, in language not to
+be mistaken, that the States would never abandon the princes and their
+cause.
+
+This was the earliest indication on the part of the Advocate of the
+intention of the Republic--so long as it should be directed by his
+counsels--to support the cause of the young king, helpless and incapable
+as he was, and directed for the time being by a weak and wicked mother,
+against the reckless and depraved grandees, who were doing their best to
+destroy the unity and the independence of France, Cornelis van der Myle
+was sent back to Paris on special mission of condolence and comfort from
+the States-General to the sorely afflicted kingdom.
+
+On the 7th of June, accompanied by Aerssens, he had a long interview with
+Villeroy.  That minister, as usual, wept profusely, and said that in
+regard to Cleve it was impossible for France to carry out the designs of
+the late king.  He then listened to what the ambassadors had to urge, and
+continued to express his melancholy by weeping.  Drying his tears for a
+time, he sought by a long discourse to prove that France during this
+tender minority of the King would be incapable of pursuing the policy of
+his father.  It would be even too burthensome to fulfil the Treaty of
+Hall.  The friends of the crown, he said, had no occasion to further it,
+and it would be much better to listen to propositions for a treaty.
+Archduke Albert was content not to interfere in the quarrel if the Queen
+would likewise abstain; Leopold's forces were altogether too weak to make
+head against the army of the princes, backed by the power of My Lords the
+States, and Julich was neither strong nor well garrisoned.  He concluded
+by calmly proposing that the States should take the matter in hand by
+themselves alone, in order to lighten the burthen of France, whose vigour
+had been cut in two by that accursed knife.
+
+A more sneaking and shameful policy was never announced by the minister
+of a great kingdom.  Surely it might seem that Ravaillac had cut in twain
+not the vigour only but the honour and the conscience of France.  But the
+envoys, knowing in their hearts that they were talking not with a French
+but a Spanish secretary of state, were not disposed to be the dupes of
+his tears or his blandishments.
+
+They reminded him that the Queen-Regent and her ministers since the
+murder of the King had assured the States-General and the princes of
+their firm intention to carry out the Treaty of Hall, and they observed
+that they had no authority to talk of any negotiation.  The affair of the
+duchies was not especially the business of the States, and the Secretary
+was well aware that they had promised their succour on the express
+condition that his Majesty and his army should lead the way, and that
+they should follow.  This was very far from the plan now suggested, that
+they should do it all, which would be quite out of the question.  France
+had a strong army, they said, and it would be better to use it than to
+efface herself so pitiably.  The proposition of abstention on the part of
+the Archduke was a delusion intended only to keep France out of the
+field.
+
+Villeroy replied by referring to English affairs.  King James, he said,
+was treating them perfidiously.  His first letters after the murder had
+been good, but by the following ones England seemed to wish to put her
+foot on France's throat, in order to compel her to sue for an alliance.
+The British ministers had declared their resolve not to carry out that
+convention of alliance, although it had been nearly concluded in the
+lifetime of the late king, unless the Queen would bind herself to make
+good to the King of Great Britain that third part of the subsidies
+advanced by France to the States which had been furnished on English
+account!
+
+This was the first announcement of a grievance devised by the politicians
+now governing France to make trouble for the States with that kingdom and
+with Great Britain likewise.  According to a treaty made at Hampton Court
+by Sully during his mission to England at the accession of James, it had
+been agreed that one-third of the moneys advanced by France in aid of the
+United Provinces should be credited to the account of Great Britain, in
+diminution of the debt for similar assistance rendered by Elizabeth to
+Henry.  In regard to this treaty the States had not been at all
+consulted, nor did they acknowledge the slightest obligation in regard to
+it.  The subsidies in men and in money provided for them both by France
+and by England in their struggle for national existence had always been
+most gratefully acknowledged by the Republic, but it had always been
+perfectly understood that these expenses had been incurred by each
+kingdom out of an intelligent and thrifty regard for its own interest.
+Nothing could be more ridiculous than to suppose France and England
+actuated by disinterested sympathy and benevolence when assisting the
+Netherland people in its life-and-death struggle against the dire and
+deadly enemy of both crowns.  Henry protested that, while adhering to
+Rome in spiritual matters, his true alliances and strength had been found
+in the United Provinces, in Germany, and in Great Britain.  As for the
+States, he had spent sixteen millions of livres, he said, in acquiring a
+perfect benevolence on the part of the States to his person.  It was the
+best bargain he had ever made, and he should take care to preserve it at
+any cost whatever, for he considered himself able, when closely united
+with them, to bid defiance to all the kings in Europe together.
+
+Yet it was now the settled policy of the Queen-Regent's council,
+so far as the knot of politicians guided by the Nuncius and the Spanish
+ambassador in the entresols of the Louvre could be called a council, to
+force the States to refund that third, estimated at something between
+three and four million livres, which France had advanced them on account
+of Great Britain.
+
+Villeroy told the two ambassadors at this interview that, if Great
+Britain continued to treat the Queen-Regent in such fashion, she would be
+obliged to look about for other allies.  There could hardly be doubt as
+to the quarter in which Mary de' Medici was likely to look.  Meantime,
+the Secretary of State urged the envoys "to intervene at once to-mediate
+the difference."  There could be as little doubt that to mediate the
+difference was simply to settle an account which they did not owe.
+
+The whole object of the Minister at this first interview was to induce
+the States to take the whole Cleve enterprise upon their own shoulders,
+and to let France off altogether.  The Queen-Regent as then advised meant
+to wash her hands of the possessory princes once and for ever.  The
+envoys cut the matter short by assuring Villeroy that they would do
+nothing of the kind.  He begged them piteously not to leave the princes
+in the lurch, and at the same time not to add to the burthens of France
+at so disastrous a moment.
+
+So they parted.  Next day, however, they visited the Secretary again, and
+found him more dismal and flaccid than ever.
+
+He spoke feebly and drearily about the succour for the great enterprise,
+recounted all the difficulties in the way, and, having thrown down
+everything that the day before had been left standing, he tried to
+excuse an entire change of policy by the one miserable crime.
+
+He painted a forlorn picture of the council and of France.  "I can
+myself do nothing as I wish," added the undisputed controller of that
+government's policy, and then with a few more tears he concluded by
+requesting the envoys to address their demands to the Queen in writing.
+
+This was done with the customary formalities and fine speeches on both
+sides; a dull comedy by which no one was amused.
+
+Then Bouillon came again, and assured them that there had been a chance
+that the engagements of Henry, followed up by the promise of the Queen-
+Regent, would be carried out, but now the fact was not to be concealed
+that the continued battery of the Nuncius, of the ambassadors of Spain
+and of the Archdukes, had been so effective that nothing sure or solid
+was thenceforth to be expected; the council being resolved to accept the
+overtures of the Archduke for mutual engagement to abstain from the
+Julich enterprise.
+
+Nothing in truth could be more pitiable than the helpless drifting of the
+once mighty kingdom, whenever the men who governed it withdrew their
+attention for an instant from their private schemes of advancement and
+plunder to cast a glance at affairs of State.  In their secret heart they
+could not doubt that France was rushing on its ruin, and that in the
+alliance of the Dutch commonwealth, Britain, and the German Protestants,
+was its only safety.  But they trembled before the Pope, grown bold and
+formidable since the death of the dreaded Henry.  To offend his Holiness,
+the King of Spain, the Emperor, and the great Catholics of France, was to
+make a crusade against the Church.  Garnier, the Jesuit, preached from
+his pulpit that "to strike a blow in the Cleve enterprise was no less a
+sin than to inflict a stab in the body of our Lord."  The Parliament of
+Paris having ordered the famous treatise of the Jesuit Mariana--
+justifying the killing of excommunicated kings by their subjects--to be
+publicly burned before Notre Dame, the Bishop opposed the execution of
+the decree.  The Parliament of Paris, although crushed by Epernon in its
+attempts to fix the murder of the King upon himself as the true culprit,
+was at least strong enough to carry out this sentence upon a printed,
+volume recommending the deed, and the Queen's council could only do its
+best to mitigate the awakened wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of
+legal authority.--At the same time, it found on the whole so many more
+difficulties in a cynical and shameless withdrawal from the Treaty of
+Hall than in a nominal and tardy fulfilment of its conditions that it
+resolved at last to furnish the 8000 foot and 2000 horse promised to the
+possessory princes.  The next best thing to abandoning entirely even this
+little shred, this pitiful remnant, of the splendid designs of Henry was
+to so arrange matters that the contingent should be feebly commanded, and
+set on foot in so dilatory a manner that the petty enterprise should on
+the part of France be purely perfunctory.  The grandees of the kingdom
+had something more important to do than to go crusading in Germany, with
+the help of a heretic republic, to set up the possessory princes.  They
+were fighting over the prostrate dying form of their common mother for
+their share of the spoils, stripping France before she was dead, and
+casting lots for her vesture.
+
+Soissons was on the whole in favour of the Cleve expedition.  Epernon was
+desperately opposed to it, and maltreated Villeroy in full council when
+he affected to say a word, insincere as the Duke knew it to be, in favour
+of executing agreements signed by the monarch, and sealed with the great
+seal of France.  The Duke of Guise, finding himself abandoned by the
+Queen, and bitterly opposed and hated by Soissons, took sides with his
+deaf and dumb and imbecile brother, and for a brief interval the Duke of
+Sully joined this strange combination of the House of Lorraine and chiefs
+of ancient Leaguers, who welcomed him with transport, and promised him
+security.
+
+Then Bouillon, potent by his rank, his possessions, and his authority
+among the Protestants, publicly swore that he would ruin Sully and change
+the whole order of the government.  What more lamentable spectacle, what
+more desolate future for the cause of religious equality, which for a
+moment had been achieved in France, than this furious alienation of the
+trusted leaders of the Huguenots, while their adversaries were carrying
+everything before them?  At the council board Bouillon quarrelled
+ostentatiously with Sully, shook his fist in his face, and but for the
+Queen's presence would have struck him.  Next day he found that the Queen
+was intriguing against himself as well as against Sully, was making a
+cat's-paw of him, and was holding secret councils daily from which he as
+well as Sully was excluded.  At once he made overtures of friendship to
+Sully, and went about proclaiming to the world that all Huguenots were to
+be removed from participation in affairs of state.  His vows of vengeance
+were for a moment hushed by the unanimous resolution of the council that,
+as first marshal of France, having his principality on the frontier, and
+being of the Reformed religion, he was the fittest of all to command the
+expedition.  Surely it might be said that the winds and tides were not
+more changeful than the politics of the Queen's government.  The Dutch
+ambassador was secretly requested by Villeroy to negotiate with Bouillon
+and offer him the command of the Julich expedition.  The Duke affected
+to make difficulties, although burning to obtain the post, but at last
+consented.  All was settled.  Aerssens communicated at once with
+Villeroy, and notice of Bouillon's acceptance was given to the Queen,
+when, behold, the very next day Marshal de la Chatre was appointed to
+the command expressly because he was a Catholic.  Of course the Duke
+of Bouillon, furious with Soissons and Epernon and the rest of the
+government, was more enraged than ever against the Queen.  His only hope
+was now in Conde, but Conde at the outset, on arriving at the Louvre,
+offered his heart to the Queen as a sheet of white paper.  Epernon and
+Soissons received him with delight, and exchanged vows of an eternal
+friendship of several weeks' duration.  And thus all the princes of the
+blood, all the cousins of Henry of Navarre, except the imbecile Conti,
+were ranged on the side of Spain, Rome, Mary de' Medici, and Concino
+Concini, while the son of the Balafre, the Duke of Mayenne, and all their
+adherents were making common cause with the Huguenots.  What better
+example had been seen before, even in that country of pantomimic changes,
+of the effrontery with which Religion was made the strumpet of Political
+Ambition?
+
+All that day and the next Paris was rife with rumours that there was to
+be a general massacre of the Huguenots to seal the new-born friendship of
+a Conde with a Medici.  France was to renounce all her old alliances and
+publicly to enter into treaties offensive and defensive with Spain.  A
+league like that of Bayonne made by the former Medicean Queen-Regent of
+France was now, at Villeroy's instigation, to be signed by Mary de'
+Medici.  Meantime, Marshal de la Chatre, an honest soldier and fervent
+Papist, seventy-three years of age, ignorant of the language, the
+geography, the politics of the country to which he was sent, and knowing
+the road thither about as well, according to Aerssens, who was requested
+to give him a little preliminary instruction, as he did the road to
+India, was to co-operate with Barneveld and Maurice of Nassau in the
+enterprise against the duchies.
+
+These were the cheerful circumstances amid which the first step in the
+dead Henry's grand design against the House of Austria and in support of
+Protestantism in half Europe and of religious equality throughout
+Christendom, was now to be ventured.
+
+Cornelis van der Myle took leave of the Queen on terminating his brief
+special embassy, and was fain to content himself with languid assurances
+from that corpulent Tuscan dame of her cordial friendship for the United
+Provinces.  Villeroy repeated that the contingent to be sent was
+furnished out of pure love to the Netherlands, the present government
+being in no wise bound by the late king's promises.  He evaded the
+proposition of the States for renewing the treaty of close alliance by
+saying that he was then negotiating with the British government on the
+subject, who insisted as a preliminary step on the repayment of the third
+part of the sums advanced to the States by the late king.
+
+He exchanged affectionate farewell greetings and good wishes with Jeannin
+and with the dropsical Duke of Mayenne, who was brought in his chair to
+his old fellow Leaguer's apartments at the moment of the Ambassador's
+parting interview.
+
+There was abundant supply of smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any
+substantial nutriment, from the representatives of each busy faction into
+which the Medicean court was divided.  Even Epernon tried to say a
+gracious word to the retiring envoy, assuring him that he would do as
+much for the cause as a good Frenchman and lover of his fatherland could
+do.  He added, in rather a surly way, that he knew very well how foully
+he had been described to the States, but that the devil was not as black
+as he was painted.  It was necessary, he said, to take care of one's own
+house first of all, and he knew very well that the States and all prudent
+persons would do the same thing.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic
+As with his own people, keeping no back-door open
+At a blow decapitated France
+Conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
+Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
+Father Cotton, who was only too ready to betray the secrets
+Great war of religion and politics was postponed
+Jesuit Mariana--justifying the killing of excommunicated kings
+No man pretended to think of the State
+Practised successfully the talent of silence
+Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests
+Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition
+Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any substantial
+Stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel
+The assassin, tortured and torn by four horses
+They have killed him, 'e ammazato,' cried Concini
+Things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful
+Uncouple the dogs and let them run
+Vows of an eternal friendship of several weeks' duration
+What could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy
+Wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of legal authority
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1610 ***
+
+********** This file should be named 4888.txt or 4888.zip **********
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