CHAPTER I

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I WILL MAINTAIN

* * * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE VIPER OF MILAN

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH

GOD AND THE KING

THE QUEST OF GLORY

A KNIGHT OF SPAIN

THE GOVERNOR OF ENGLAND

* * * * * *

I WILL MAINTAIN

by

MARJORIE BOWEN

Author of “The Viper of Milan”

“MOI JE SERA NASSAU, JE MAINTAINDRAI”

Motto of the House of Orange

Ninth Edition

Methuen & Co. Ltd.

36 Essex Street W.C.

London

First Published February 24th 1910

Second Edition March 1910

Third Edition April 1910

Fourth Edition June 1910

Fifth Edition February 1911

Sixth Edition June 1911

Seventh Edition January 1912

Eighth Edition December 1912

Ninth Edition September 1913

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

PART I

I. THE IDEALS OF M. DE WITT 3

II. THE INTRIGUERS 15

III. MASTER AND PUPIL 25

IV. M. DE WITT’S SECRETARY 41

V. THE CHALLENGE 55

VI. MIDDELBURG 66

VII. THE MANIFESTO 79

VIII. M. DE WITT AND HIS HIGHNESS 89

IX. AMALIA OF SOLMS 103

X. AT THE HOUSE OF M. LE MARQUIS DE POMPONNE 112

XI. THE BALL IN THE BINNENHOF 122

XII. THE SPY OF FRANCE 135

PART II

I. THE RETURN OF FLORENT VAN MANDER 153

II. AGNETA DE WITT 169

III. SCHEVENINGEN 183

IV. THE DEFEAT OF M. DE WITT 203

V. THE DECLARATION OF WAR 216

VI. THE CONSPIRATORS 230

VII. THE POLICY OF M. DE WITT 247

VIII. SOLEBAY 259

IX. THE EMBASSY OF M. DE GROOT 283

X. THE VICOMTE DE MONTBAS 298

XI. IN TIME OF WAR 313

XII. AFTER THE DEFEAT 330

XIII. THE FANATICS 347

PART III

I. THE CAMP OF THE CONQUEROR 361

II. THE TEMPTERS 375

III. THE ANSWER 389

IV. THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE 404

V. CORNELIUS DE WITT 417

VI. THE RESTORATION 429

VII. “I WILL MAINTAIN” 439

VIII. THE STADTHOLDER 455

IX. IN THE ASSEMBLY 466

X. THE VICTOR VANQUISHED 474

XI. THE FALLEN STATESMAN 482

XII. AUGUST 20, 1672 499

XIII. WILLIAM OF ORANGE 526

PART I

JOHN DE WITT, REPUBLICAN

“A man of unwearied industry, inflexible constancy, sound, clear, and

deep understanding and untainted integrity; so that whenever he was

blinded, it was by the passion that he had for that which he esteemed

the good and interest of the State.”--SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, _Observations

on the United Provinces_, 1672.

CHAPTER I

THE IDEALS OF M. DE WITT

“There is one subject that we seldom touch upon,” said Sir William.

“And that is one upon which I am curious to hear you speak.”

John de Witt looked up quickly.

“Ah, sir,” he smiled faintly. “You are of a probing disposition--what

is this subject?”

“The Prince.”

“The Prince--” repeated M. de Witt, and an intent expression that might

have been trouble came into his full brown eyes. “What is there to say

of His Highness?” he added.

The English Ambassador laughed in the soft and pleasant way he had; he

was standing by the long window, and, as he answered, glanced out at

the wych elms and pale sunshine that filled the garden of M. de Witt.

“The situation is piquant--between good friends you must allow it----”

The Grand Pensionary rose.

“Between good friends, Sir William, the situation is dangerous. I am

aware of it--but the Prince--the Prince is only a child.”

Sir William moved from the window with a little shiver.

“Your Dutch weather!” he said. “I think the damp has got into my very

bones----”

“But you like the house?” asked de Witt “It hath a large garden for

the children when they stay with me--and since it was not possible to

remain where I was, I thought I could do no better.”

Sir William answered gently, aware of the allusion, veiled under

commonplace words, to the late death of Wendela de Witt. It seemed to

him, composed and close observer as he was, even of his friends, that

the Grand Pensionary had changed more than a little since he had lost

his wife.

“It is a noble mansion,” he said. “I could be selfish enough to wish

this library at Sheen.”

He looked, with the approval of a fine taste, round the lofty apartment

panelled in mellow-hued, carved wood, and lined with shelves filled

with rare and costly volumes; a few handsome portraits hung above the

bookcases, and over the high chimney-piece a rich but sombre picture of

fruit and flowers showed; on the blue-tiled hearth were brass andirons,

and on the table in the centre of the chamber candlesticks were set,

also brass, but polished so that they shone like gold.

At a small desk by the far window sat a secretary in a dark dress,

writing.

“The house hath been a palace,” continued Sir William.

“Therefore should not be the residence of a republican?” smiled John de

Witt. “Nay,” he added simply, “the house is well enough, but I took it

for the garden; and now you look on my one luxury--my books--for the

rest the furnishings are simple--too simple for Cornelia’s taste, as

she will tell you if you stay to dinner,--nay, I doubt not she tells my

lady now.”

Sir William crossed to one of the bookcases, took a volume down and

opened it at random. As John de Witt came up behind him, he spoke in a

low tone, looking at the book.

“Who is the new secretary?”

The Grand Pensionary seemed slightly surprised.

“He?--a young man from Guelders.” He glanced to where the person in

question sat absorbed in writing. “He was recommended to me by de

Groot--he is diligent and silent--I like him.”

Sir William’s white fingers slowly turned the leaves of the volume he

held.

“Then we may talk freely?”

“As always in my house.”

The Englishman glanced up. His face, which was of a dark, soft,

luxurious style of indolent good looks, expressed a watchful yet

friendly kind of amusement and interest; his air was slightly cynical,

wholly pleasant, as if viewing follies that never tempted him to

participate in them he yet found them harmless and tolerated them,

good-humouredly.

“Well, then, of the Prince,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

John de Witt frowned.

“You think I am afraid of His Highness.”

Sir William answered with the ready courtesy that took all appearance

of sincerity from his speech--

“All Europe knows that you are afraid of nothing--yet, for Holland’s

sake, you might tremble a little now.”

The cloud did not lift from the Grand Pensionary’s noble face. He put

out his hand and rested it on the edge of one of the bookshelves, and

his delicate fingers tapped restlessly on the polished wood.

“Diplomacy as well as friendship dictates frankness to me,” he answered

in his slow, stately, yet gentle way,--“nor is there much I could

conceal from such an observer as yourself, Sir William. The Orange

party have wearied me, have thwarted me, have alarmed me; I find them

unreasonable, powerful and dangerous--I speak of the party, not of the

Prince.”

“Why not of him?”

“I have no right. He has ever shown himself quiet, tractable,

obedient,” was the quick reply. “We have never had to complain of his

behaviour.”

“Yet he is the focus for much discontent,” smiled the Englishman, “the

magnet for much ambition.”

The Grand Pensionary smiled also, uplifting his melancholy eyes.

“His Highness is but seventeen, immersed in study, brought up as a

republican--I think he is even ignorant of these agitations in his

name. He could not live more quietly.”

But it did not escape Sir William that the Grand Pensionary spoke like

a man trying to reassure himself.

“The Prince is your pupil--forgive me, but, as I said, the situation

is curious. You, sir, a republican--for seventeen years the head of

a Republic which has been a fine nation, and a wealthy, and a lesson

to all of us--you undertake the education of a Prince who is the heir

of the House on whose ruin you founded your Republic; you bring this

young man up in your ideas, you teach him this, that, as you will; you

are not his master but his friend--he is to regard himself as a mere

citizen of the country that is his heritage--well, it is a curious

experiment, Mynheer de Witt.”

The Grand Pensionary answered quietly--

“I have done all I can--since we speak privately, not as politicians,

I will say that I have no hope to always exclude His Highness from all

power. I think that when he comes of age he will obtain the command of

the army; nor do I regret it--the House of Orange has rendered such

service to Holland that there should be some gratitude, some trust

shown this Prince.”

Sir William closed the book he held and replaced it on the shelf.

“Meanwhile I train him to serve his country,” continued de Witt, with a

faint smile.

“You serve your country well, Mynheer,” remarked the Englishman,

watching him.

“I serve my ideals,” said the Grand Pensionary.

The Englishman very slightly shrugged his shoulders.

“In these days!--you have been successful, but I should watch this

little Prince----”

“We stand firm--The Triple Alliance, the treaty of Breda--the Perpetual

Edict,” quoted de Witt.

The diplomat who had framed the first had never approved of the last.

“There you went too far,” he said.

“There I secured the liberty of Holland,” answered the Grand

Pensionary, still with that faint smile on his full, finely cut mouth,

“and made impossible a recurrence of 1650--this Prince’s father brought

his troops to the gates of Amsterdam, no man shall do that again; by

abolishing the office of Stadtholder I do away with the fear of a king,

and so, sir, secure my Republic.”

“Amen to that,” answered Sir William. “You have the confidence of the

idealist. I love you for it, but I cannot be so sanguine--the Prince,

if he is heir to nothing else, hath the name, the prestige, and that is

a strange spell to work with the people.”

He looked, as he spoke, with the interest of the worldly man at a noble

simplicity he admires but cannot comprehend. John de Witt was his

friend, they had much in common, respected each other’s character and

talents, but Sir William Temple had never ceased to marvel at John de

Witt.

The Grand Pensionary was silent; a deep thoughtfulness came into his

face. The Englishman watched him, smiling a little coldly.

“Do you think that I am not loved in the United Provinces?” asked de

Witt suddenly.

Sir William fingered the ends of his cravat. The other did not wait for

an answer so leisurely composed.

“This young man is popular--it sometimes seems, Sir William, as if he

was heir to the heart of the people----”

“He has the name.”

“The name!--and, with the people, is not that everything? I think

nothing weighs against the name. The Prince does little to make himself

beloved, but there are those who clamour for him as if he owned his

ancestor’s virtues with his ancestor’s titles.” And again M. de Witt

repeated, “the name!”

Then, as if resolute to close the subject, he laid his hand familiarly

on Sir William’s velvet sleeve.

“Will you not come into the garden?--the gardens, I have two that open

into one. But you know too much, my poor trees will be shamed.”

They crossed the room and stepped out of the high window. The young

secretary from Guelders leant back in his chair and watched them

walking under the elms.

Not a word of their conversation had been lost on him, and now that

he could no longer hear what they said he pondered, in his quick yet

laborious way, over their previous speech.

He had been in M. de Witt’s service a week. It was in the course of his

duty to overhear diplomatic talk, to read, and make notes on, political

papers, and, though he had always considered himself well informed, he

began to find that what was knowledge in Guelders was ignorance at the

Hague.

He reviewed, rather sourly, the change in his feelings this week had

brought about. He had been so proud of the post, so grateful for

de Groot’s recommendation, so confident of what his own energy and

industry would do for him; and now he did not feel at all confident.

Not that his trust in himself was diminished; but he had already begun

to doubt if he had taken his services to the best market or pledged

himself to the most profitable of masters.

He bit his quill and fixed his eyes on M. de Witt, who was standing,

not far away, on the gravel path talking to his companion.

The secretary marked with a calculating glance the Grand Pensionary’s

stately figure, clothed sombrely in black, his pale oval face, under

jawed, the full but curiously firm and clean-cut mouth shaded by the

slight moustache, the large, weary brown eyes, the high brow over which

fell the soft dark hair that was just beginning to be touched with

grey, and contrasted his melancholy, noble air with the vivacious ease

of the splendid Englishman whose rich comeliness was enhanced by his

elegant and costly dress.

As he looked, the young man from Guelders wondered. M. de Witt had

been Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces for seventeen years;

the secretary had long taken him for granted as something always

there, immovable as the law he represented, and had no more questioned

the authority than he had the power of this first magistrate of the

Republic.

Only with difficulty and by forcing his mind back to his childhood

could he recall something of the famous _coup d’état_ that had made M.

de Witt head of the State.

He recollected dimly the excitement that had filled the country when

the young Stadtholder, William the Second, had tried to seize Amsterdam

and the absolute power of a king. He remembered going with other boys

of his own age to break the windows of a house that had sported Orange

favours, and being rebuked by the minister, and made to stay longer in

the gaunt white church praying for strength to curb his feelings.

He remembered, too, the news of the sudden death of the Prince who

had threatened their liberties, and how they had thanked God for it

solemnly. After that there had been the Republic, which he had taken

unquestioningly. M. de Witt stood for the United Provinces; as for

the last Prince of Orange, born after his father’s death, the heir of

a fallen House, the secretary had never heard much of him. There had

been quarrels as to his education between M. de Witt and his uncle the

Elector, between his grandmother and his mother the English Princess.…

The secretary remembered hearing, without interest, of the death of

this lady in England, and of how her son, more than ever a State

prisoner, was being educated by M. de Witt.

There seemed no reason why he, Florent Van Mander, of the town of

Arnheim, a prudent, able young Dutchman, honourably and profitably

employed in the service of the Grand Pensionary, should be so

laboriously recalling every detail he had ever heard of William of

Orange.

But two things had taken hold of a nature naturally observant,

cautious, yet energetic and aspiring: the first was the conviction

that M. de Witt held a position by no means as secure as it seemed,

a position that, despite the treaty of Breda, despite the Triple

Alliance, was one that he, the new secretary, must watch carefully

if he would not be entangled in a falling cause; and the second was

the impression that this youth, the son of the late Stadtholder,

was a latent force in Holland that might one day become tremendous,

overwhelming.

“He has the name,” Sir William Temple had said, and the words had

seized Florent Van Mander’s slow but not dull imagination. He thought

that the Englishman had expressed less than he felt, and longed to hear

him again on the subject.

He had only seen Sir William twice, but there was something in his

easy, almost careless, manner, in the slightly disdainful shrewdness

of his remarks, that inspired the secretary with a respect he did not

entertain for John de Witt. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the

Grand Pensionary was a man who might be, without much difficulty,

fooled.

“I serve my ideals,” he had said.

That annoyed Van Mander. He had not a very clear conception of an

idealist, but he was tolerably certain that no man could be one and

still be successful in a practical way, and it had struck him as a

pointless and rather weak thing to say--“I serve my ideals.”

He had noted other remarks, too, of the same trend; a certain loftiness

of outlook, an unworldly tolerance of detraction and malice, that did

not please him. He would have preferred a master more eagerly alive to

his own advantage, more conscious of evil in others and prepared to

fight it on its own grounds.

Sir William had also said other things that remained in the young

secretary’s mind. He had spoken of the curious situation, the

Republican Minister instructing and watching the Prince--at once tutor

and jailer--and Florent Van Mander thought that it was indeed curious,

and a little foolish, too, on the part of John de Witt.

And there were yet other aspects of the situation that the previous

conversation had not touched on, but which were nevertheless present to

the roused mind of the secretary.

This Prince was cousin of the King of France, a figure of dazzling and

alarming greatness, and nephew of the King of England; and both these

were of an aspect menacing to the Republic, true--there was the Triple

Alliance, but----

The young secretary became aware that he had bitten his pen till it was

split and useless, and he laid it down with a vexed look. He greatly

disliked to do anything careless or unmethodical, or even to become

absorbed in reflections not in themselves necessary to present business.

He took out another quill, mended it, and glanced again out of the

window.

The Grand Pensionary and Sir William had been joined by Agneta de

Witt--a pale, graceful, fragile-looking child--and Cornelia Van Bicker,

the mistress of the house.

Looking at these ladies moving under the shifting, pale shadows of the

trees, the young man’s rather hard eyes softened. He had the Dutchman’s

intense respect for domestic affections, and to think of the recent

death of Wendela de Witt moved him. He had never seen her, but he

knew that she had been good and gentle, patient and adoring, like her

daughter Agneta, and he guessed at the great loneliness that her loss

had left in the heart of John de Witt. He thought of it whenever he

saw her sister, Cornelia Van Bicker, or one of her quiet, sweet-voiced

children.

As he watched, the little party turned towards the house, Sir William

in his blue-and-gold velvet ruffled with ribbon, his heavy curls

falling round his handsome face, walking beside the Grand Pensionary,

who had no relief to his black garments save his broad linen collar,

and between them the little figure of Agneta in her white gown and

prim cap, holding herself soberly, while before them moved the sister

of Wendela de Witt, self-contained, plainly dressed, with the fading,

changing, sunlight flickering over her dark dress.

Florent Van Mander returned to the letter he was copying, for he

observed the Grand Pensionary was leaving the others and returning to

the library.

When M. de Witt opened the window and entered, he rose, waiting his

instructions.

“I have finished these documents, Mynheer,” he said, pointing to

some papers given him by another secretary. “Van Ouvenaller thought

they should be copied in case you care to submit them to Their High

Mightinesses.”

“What are they?” asked John de Witt. He always spoke gently and

courteously; to-night Van Mander found himself noticing it.

“Letters from the Provinces, Mynheer,” he answered, “dealing with the

riots in the name of the Prince of Orange----”

“Ah, that.” The Grand Pensionary frowned thoughtfully. “The

burgomasters should be able to deal with it.”

“It seems in Zeeland----”

“You have a letter from Zeeland?”

“From Mynheer Van Teel--one Michael Tichelaer is inciting the people to

violence in Middelburg.”

“Michael Tichelaer,” M. de Witt repeated thoughtfully. “Yes, I remember

the man--I must write to Mynheer Van Teel.” He paused a moment, then

added, “I fear we are too lenient.”

The secretary sorted and neatly arranged the papers. It was not his

place to offer comment, but there were many things that he burned to

say.

Meanwhile the Grand Pensionary was regarding him with a kindly if

remote interest. The young man had been warmly recommended for zeal

and industry, and so far he had found both; he saw too, for himself,

resolution and capacity in the blunt, firm features, in the alert grey

eyes and erect figure.

“You are satisfied with your position, Mynheer Van Mander?” he asked.

“Quite, Mynheer,”--the secretary precisely tied the ribbons of the

portfolio,--“is it not an enviable one?”

“You may make it so,” answered John de Witt quietly, yet with a kind of

glow in his voice, “--because you are in the way to serve your country,

and that is indeed an enviable thing.”

Florent Van Mander was silent. His country was not much in his

thoughts; he meant to serve success.

“I think there is nothing more to-night,” said M. de Witt. “You will be

wishing to get home--have you comfortable lodgings?” he added kindly.

“Yes, Mynheer, in the Kerkestraat.”

“You must dine with us soon. Will you leave out the letter from

Middelburg? I need not remind you to be early in the morning--there is

somewhat to do. Good-night, Mynheer.”

“Good-night, Mynheer.”

M. de Witt smiled in his melancholy, half tender, half distant fashion

and left the room.

Florent Van Mander put away the papers, setting aside in an upper

drawer the letter from Van Teel, locked the desk and placed the key on

his watch-chain.

The sunlight in the garden was taking on a deeper hue and flushing

the walls of the library and the well-filled bookcases to a red-gold

colour; the leaves of the wych elms shook in a trembling, joyous kind

of life and motion in the strong yet gentle breeze that was arising.

The deep, solemn chimes of the Groote Kerk struck six.

It was later than the secretary had supposed; he usually had his dinner

at this hour. He took his eyes from the quiet beauty of the garden and

hastened to leave the house.

The dining-room door was open as he passed down the hall, and he had

a glimpse of the company gathered round the plainly furnished table.

John de Witt at the head of it, saying grace with an earnest composure;

Cornelia Van Bicker standing with folded hands, the bright English

face of Lady Temple above her falling lace collar; and Sir William,

tolerant, good-humouredly amused and placid.

The young secretary passed out into the street. The sunshine was

pleasant down the Kneuterdyk Avenue, bright in the windows of the

houses opposite, and gay in the trees that were just turning a

faint tint of yellow. A saltish breeze touched Van Mander’s face,

it was blowing straight across the flat country, up from the sea at

Scheveningen, and brought with it memories of the dunes, the sand, and

the foam.

An unnamable, an unreal excitement stole into the blood that usually

ran so coolly; just as if the young man had suddenly heard commanding

music or seen a flag flung out against the sky. This feeling had been

with him slightly ever since he had entered the service of John de

Witt; to-night it culminated.

In the Englishman’s words, he thought--

“He has the name.”

Florent Van Mander could not forget that remark nor the tone in which

it was spoken. It seemed to give the clue to his own restlessness, his

curiosity as to the Prince--his discontent with his new master.

The name!

The sense of it, the power, were about him in the keen breeze, in the

sunlit trees, in the whole atmosphere of the royal Hague.

As he turned home he repeated it to himself--

“William of Orange.…”

CHAPTER II

THE INTRIGUERS

Florent Van Mander, comfortable after his dinner, sitting at his

open window smoking, and watching the people pass up and down the

Kerkestraat, was surprised, not disagreeably, by the servant entering

his solitude to announce a visitor owning a foreign name she stumbled

over.

Hyacinthe St. Croix--Van Mander had known him in Arnheim when he

himself was a magistrate’s clerk there, ambitious, with an eye on

the Hague, and the Frenchman a half disavowed agent of the Marquis

de Pomponne, some one who had travelled the Provinces several times

already, observing, noting, making acquaintances and gathering

information where he could.

The young secretary called for candles--he had been sitting in the

dark--and closed the window.

On the heels of the maid with the lights came St. Croix, better

dressed, more self-confident, more assured in manner than formerly.

The two greeted each other formally.

“I did not know that you were at the Hague,” said Van Mander. “How did

you find me?”

The Frenchman laid his hat and gloves on one of the high-backed chairs.

“I was passing through Arnheim the other day--I called upon your uncle

and he told me. You have a good post.”

Florent put a chair for his guest and took one himself the other side

of the small dark table; between them stood the two heavy branch

candlesticks, glimmering each in the light of the other candles that

illuminated the small, neat room with its deep window-seat, polished

wood furniture, plain engravings on the walls and Delft pottery on the

chimney-piece.

Florent refilled his pipe and invited the other to smoke. The two long

clays soon filled the chamber with slow, fragrant smoke.

“So you are in the service of M. de Witt,” remarked St. Croix.

“Yes.”

The Frenchman smiled as he pondered on the best means of getting what

he wanted from the laconic Dutchman; it was astonishingly difficult, he

found, to deal with a nation so blunt and so reserved.

In the silence that followed Florent stared at him stolidly, marking

every detail of his appearance, his short red jacket of the newest

French fashion showing the laced shirt beneath, the cravat and

ruffles of lace, the silk stockings and shoes with ribbon rosettes,

the frizzled, fair hair that framed the small-featured, rather

insignificant face of Hyacinthe St. Croix.

Van Mander had the national contempt of foreign luxury, but these signs

of prosperity annoyed him in a slow kind of way. He knew St. Croix

was of the small gentry, no better born than himself, and not so long

ago no better dressed; now he contrasted this gay attire with his own

serviceable grey and worsted hose, and wished he had been the one to

find such profitable employment.

“How do you like M. de Witt?” asked St. Croix suddenly.

“Very well,” said Florent.

The Frenchman regarded him out of narrowed eyes, and asked again, with

equal abruptness--

“Have you seen the Prince of Orange?”

“No.”

“But you have heard, since you have been at the Hague, a great deal of

him?”

“I have heard of him,” answered Florent.

St. Croix laid down his pipe.

“You have drawn your own conclusions, of course,” he said. “You were

always shrewd.”

Florent was flattered and excited; he managed to show neither feeling.

“I have drawn some conclusions,” was all he admitted.

“On the position of the Prince--and of M. de Witt?”

“I have only been at the Hague a week----”

But Hyacinthe St. Croix knew fairly well the man he dealt with.

“Come,” he said in an intimate tone that swept aside evasion, “you know

as well as I do that this Government must fall.”

The words gave the young secretary a shock. He sat silent, sucking his

pipe, not wishing to admit that he was startled.

The Frenchman leant back calmly in his chair.

“The whole feeling of the country is against M. de Witt,” he continued.

“You must have seen it.”

It occurred to Florent, in a vague, impersonal sort of way, that the

Grand Pensionary’s secretary had no right to be listening to these

things, or even to be speaking at all to a Frenchman intriguing for his

Ambassador; but he told himself that he served success, and success did

not seem to lie with M. de Witt.

“Yet we are at peace at home and abroad,” he remarked, to probe the

other.

St. Croix smiled.

“You think of the Triple Alliance,” he said.

“True--only signed this year,” returned Florent. “Still there is always

France.”

“Also do not be too sure of England,” said St. Croix. “Despite the

Triple Alliance--she stands very well with France--I could tell you

something----”

Florent Van Mander looked him straight in the face.

“Do you mean that France and England might combine for the restoration

of the Prince of Orange?”

The Frenchman lifted his eyebrows.

“Upon conditions--they might. If there were a war what could M. de Witt

do?”

Van Mander thought a moment.

“He beat England in ’56--but now----”

“He could do nothing against France--that is obvious.”

“Yes, it is obvious,” admitted Florent.

“And the prospect is threatening.”

“I know----”

“Well, you see the part the Prince will play?”

There was a little pause, then the Dutchman said slowly--

“He is King Louis’ cousin and King Charles’ nephew----”

“You take me,” replied St. Croix, “the Prince is related to their

Majesties--and he has no cause to love M. de Witt.”

Florent drew a quick breath.

“You think he … would work for France?”

“Can there be a doubt of it?” smiled St. Croix.

There was no answer from Florent. He laid down his pipe and sat still,

considering.

Rumours, whispers, hints were taking at last tangible form: this young

prisoner, pupil of M. de Witt, was to be the instrument to deliver the

country into the rapacious hands of France. Well, there was little

cause to wonder; indeed he had almost guessed it. The Prince had, as

St. Croix said, little cause to love either M. de Witt or his Republic.

He raised his grey eyes and looked into the Frenchman’s face--

“These are strange things to say to a Dutchman and a servant of M. de

Witt.”

St. Croix answered quickly--

“But you serve success.”

At these words, that he did not recall having ever uttered to this

man, Florent was again silent. It was perfectly true; he was at the

beginning of his career and ambitious; he had no desire to follow a

falling cause. The Republic was no more to him than the Prince, he told

himself; and there was no reason that he should not, out of the crisis

that threatened, earn a place and distinction for himself.

St. Croix observed him closely. He was not afraid of having said too

much, for he had read his man, some years before, in Guelders.

“It seems I serve the wrong master now,” said Florent at last, with a

grim set to his mouth. “I must not look out for fortune in the train of

M. de Witt.”

The Frenchman answered slowly and with meaning--

“There is fortune, and great fortune, to be found in the service of M.

de Witt, by men like you who know how to look for it.…”

Once more Florent was silent. He kept his eyes fixed on the dark

surface of the table, where the reflected lights of the candles

glimmered. He thought that he understood.

“The Prince,” continued St. Croix, “and the power behind the Prince,

can be very well served by one in the pay of M. de Witt.”

Florent was now sure that he understood. Not by being loyal to his

master, but by betraying him was he to satisfy his ambitions. The way

of success lay not with the Grand Pensionary--but with the Prince, who

was another name for France.

For the moment his instinct was to resent this calm suggestion that he

was the willing instrument of foreign intrigue, but quick reflection

showed him the folly of it. St. Croix knew him; some time past, in

Guelders, he had taken money for such information of Dutch politics as

he could command. His hesitation took another form.

“How am I to know that this Prince of yours is worth serving--at a

risk?” he said.

“You know that France is worth serving.”

“Buat died,” remarked Florent dryly, “for tampering with France.”

“Buat was a fool,” returned St. Croix; “and we do not want any

knight-errantry from you--one of M. de Witt’s secretaries cannot fail

to be useful--you will see how.”

“Yes, I see how,” answered Florent; “but at present M. de Witt

represents the Government and the law, and the Prince is a powerless

cipher----”

“Not so powerless; we are in touch with him, he commands a section of

the nobles--and he has the name.”

Florent, hearing again the words used by Sir William Temple, started

inwardly. It was curious that the name that owed its prestige and its

weight to the fact that it was the name of the man who had first given

Holland her liberty was to be used now to aid in her downfall.

“He is a boy,” said Van Mander quickly. “He has been brought up by M.

de Witt--educated as a republican----”

St. Croix smiled.

“Is M. de Witt clever enough to train a prince into a commoner? I do

not think so.”

Interest shone in Florent’s grey eyes.

“How far has the Prince gone--with France?”

“He is of an extraordinary caution--he will not commit himself while

he is in the power of M. de Witt, but take it from me that he does not

love him.… Has he cause to?--after the Act of Exclusion?… His only hope

lies in England and France, and he knows it.”

“You confirm what I have ever heard,” answered Florent. “The Prince is

only a figure-head,--a cloak to cover the designs of France.”

St. Croix nodded.

“Put it so if you will. And now,” he instinctively lowered his voice,

“I come to the main object of my visit.”

A little colour flushed Florent’s face. He had wondered from the first

what particular meaning there could be in St. Croix seeking him out.

His position was one of power certainly, if put to a traitorous use,

but De Pomponne must have many agents and spies. He waited.

“You will understand,” continued St. Croix, leaning forward across the

table, “that the Prince is kept very close. His governor, his tutors,

his gentlemen, are all M. de Witt’s men and practically his jailers.

He cannot go abroad unattended nor receive any one alone; his letters

are read--his movements, his speech, watched. It is almost impossible

for us to convey to him any message--M. le Marquis de Pomponne’s

audiences are formal, and always under the eye of some creature of M.

de Witt,--here you can help us.”

Florent still waited. He would not, on the first asking, have betrayed

M. de Witt wholesale, but he was not averse to some service to the

other side.

The Frenchman smoothed down the ruffles at his wrist, keeping his eyes

on his listener.

“M. de Witt visits the Prince almost every day--Tuesday afternoons

he devotes to instructing him in politics, afterwards going to the

assembly in the Binnenhof. It is his practice to take one of his

secretaries with him--it would be possible for this man to convey a

packet to the Prince.”

Florent answered quietly, but his eyes shone--

“You want me to try?”

“Yes.”

“A servant of the Prince whom we have used,” St. Croix went on, “as a

go-between has lately been suspected, and dismissed by M. de Witt; we

are hard put to it for a means to communicate with the Prince.”

Florent straightened himself in the stiff chair. To-morrow was Tuesday.

“Van Ouvenaller accompanied M. de Witt last week,” he said. “I think it

very likely that M. de Witt will request me to do so this--but I shall

be left in the antechamber.…”

St. Croix shrugged his shoulders.

“As to that--you must find your chance--better wait than risk

detection.… I leave it to your discretion.”

“I am not imprudent,” smiled Florent. “Give me the packet--if I go I

will attempt it; if not I can, as you say, wait.…”

The Frenchman took a thick, folded letter from the inner lining of his

red coat and laid it on the table between them.

“If that reach His Highness safely it will be a service M. de Pomponne

will not forget,” he said impressively.

“I will do my best,” answered Florent, “but I still value my place;

while M. de Witt is Grand Pensionary I think it worth while to be in

his good graces.”

Hyacinthe St. Croix rose.

“France has her heel on Europe,” he said. “With the help of this little

Prince she will have the United Provinces--” he began to pull on his

fringed gloves--“I give this Government two--three years--no more.”

“There is England,” remarked Florent, still thinking of the Triple

Alliance.

“England--like Sweden--may take her price,” returned St. Croix.

Florent rose too.

“The politics of this land are shaken up and down like sand tossed in

the palm,” he said, as if he had suddenly roused himself. “I am in the

employ of the Government, but in no way bound to any master--tell M. le

Marquis de Pomponne so--as M. de Witt’s secretary I know something.…”

“How much?” asked St. Croix, lacing his gloves.

Florent answered steadily--

“I know that M. de Witt is afraid.”

“Of France--of England?”

“Of William of Orange.”

“He hath good cause,” answered St. Croix. He picked up his hat with

the fine buckle, his satin-lined cloak. “I think if His Highness once

gave the signal the whole country would be in arms. There is a strange

revulsion of feeling against this ideal republic, is there not?”

Florent was taciturn again. He raised one of the brass candlesticks.

“The stairs are very dark,” he said, and opened the door. He made no

show of friendliness or hospitality, no attempt to draw the Frenchman.

He wanted to be alone. “When shall I see you again?” he asked.

St. Croix hitched up his sword-belt.

“Better not meet here again, nor at the house of M. le Marquis where

I stay.… There is a small tavern kept by a Frenchman near the Nieuwe

Kerk--the Nieuwe Doelen he calls it--we may meet there--say Wednesday

evening--six of the clock.”

Florent came out on to the landing with his visitor and held the candle

so that a flickering radiance was cast down the sombre stairway.

“I will come if I can,” he answered slowly.

“_Au revoir_,” said St. Croix, and added some laughing commonplace for

the benefit of any maid-servant who might be in hearing.

Florent waited with the light until the gay feather and mantle had

disappeared round the bend of the stairs, then he returned to his room

and took up the letter left by St. Croix. It was sealed in three places

with the Marquis de Pomponne’s signet, and addressed formally to: “His

Highness William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau,” etc., as if the

scribe had enjoyed writing out the fine titles.

Fine titles indeed to belong to an insignificant tool of France--but

Florent at once checked that foolish reflection. The Prince was

behaving prudently, much in his way as he, Florent Van Mander, was,

in following success and securing his own ambitions. He was doing, in

fact, the one thing there was for him to do--a bargain with France or

England was his one means of escape.

Florent turned the letter over. He was curious to know exactly what it

contained; he wished that he had asked St. Croix.

He was curious, also, to see the Prince, to judge him for himself. He

thrilled with unreasonable excitement at the thought of meeting him.

A distant, threatening noise coming from the street below made him

quickly put the letter into his pocket and go to the window.

He was not in much doubt of what it was--another of those noisy,

useless Orange riots, dispersed by the train-bands and always ignored

by M. de Witt; a handful of discontented people headed by boyish

enthusiasts like the young student Jacob Van der Graef. Florent was not

greatly interested in them.

He leant out of the window.

Everything had faded into the heavy grey of a cloudy night; the

straight lines of the houses opposite the great tower of the Groote

Kerk, the poplar tree that rustled so persistently; a new moon, clear

out, hard, shone through the hurrying vapours.

By the street-lamps’ feeble glow Florent could see some people running

up the street towards the scene of the riot; they carried sticks and

swords, and some wore Orange favours.

He smiled cynically to himself, reflecting how little they knew that

the Prince whom they shouted for as an embodiment of all patriotic

virtue was in reality sacrificing them to their greatest enemy,

bargaining away their liberty for his personal advancement.

They are mostly fools, he thought, and shivered back from the sea wind,

closing the window.

For a long while he sat silent in his comfortable room, smoking,

and staring at his own shadow the candlelight cast over the dark

walls. Once or twice he took the letter given by Hyacinthe St. Croix

out of his pocket and fingered and scrutinised it, thinking the

while--thinking.

And from without came the remote sounds of the students fighting,

shouting, tussling with the train-bands in the name of William of

Orange.

Florent Van Mander almost envied men who could be so simple.

CHAPTER III

MASTER AND PUPIL

“Do you accompany M. de Witt to-day?” asked Van Ouvenaller.

Florent replied without looking up--

“Yes.”

“I think he will be out of humour,” remarked the other secretary,--“I

do not mean angry, like other men, but sad.”

The note of admiration in his voice was marked. Florent continued

docketing the papers, letters from England, before him; Van Ouvenaller,

who had just entered the library, stood against the desk looking down

at him.

“It is this pastor,” he continued. “He has very ill repaid M. de Witt’s

courtesy.”

“Mynheer the Pastor Simon Simonides?” inquired Florent. “I saw him--why

did he come here?”

“By the order of Their High Mightinesses,” answered the other, with

some satisfaction, “to ask M. de Witt’s pardon for a sermon he preached

some days ago--before you came to the Hague.”

Florent glanced up.

“A treasonable sermon?”

“He strove to stir the people into sedition by accusing them of

ingratitude to the Prince of Orange, and spoke very burningly against

the Republic.”

“He looked sour and fierce,” said Florent, “but M. de Witt was very

gracious to him.”

“Too gracious,” returned Van Ouvenaller, with some heat. “He said as

sole reproof--‘Mynheer, you have outstepped your duty, which is to

heal, not to create, discord,’ and with that made him stay to dinner.

But the old man was not softened; he left as hot against us as he had

come.”

“Why should M. de Witt care?” asked Florent.

Van Ouvenaller slightly smiled.

“You do not know him; he cannot bear to feel any against him--if he

thinks the people dislike, distrust him, it strikes at his heart. It

is the same with the Prince. I swear that since Mynheer took over His

Highness’ education his one idea has been to gain his friendship.”

The speaker’s worn, plain face lit; it was clear he admired his

master--to a foolish extent Florent thought.

Van Ouvenaller spoke again.

“You have not seen the Prince?”

“No--I am curious.”

The older secretary made no answer. He fixed his eyes on the picture

of the garden seen through the straight window, with the afternoon

sunshine in the trees and the figure of Agneta de Witt seated in the

shade, spinning, her brass-bound Bible beside her.

Florent gazed too.

“This must be dull for M. de Witt’s children.”

Van Ouvenaller answered quickly--

“They do not live here, but with M. de Witt’s sister, at Dordt. This is

a visit.”

“Then without them,” smiled Florent, “this great house must be very

dull indeed.”

“It is quiet,” said Van Ouvenaller simply, “but one is too immersed

in affairs to notice it; and M. de Witt will always live quietly now

Madame de Witt is dead.”

Then he drew out his watch and added, in a changed tone--

“M. de Witt will be waiting for you--have you the papers?”

Florent put them into the red velvet bag that went daily to and fro in

the Hague, containing, as a foreigner remarked, half scornful, half

admiring, “the most important documents in Europe,” took his hat and

cloak from the wall, saluted Van Ouvenaller and stepped into the hall.

He did not need to betake himself to the Grand Pensionary’s private

cabinet, for John de Witt came down the wide, pleasant stairs with his

hat on.

“You are punctual.” He smiled, drawing on his gloves slowly. He was

entirely in black save for his falling lace collar, and looked pale

and tired. “I have been a little delayed to-day. We go first, Mynheer

Van Mander, to His Highness’ house”--he avoided pointedly the word

“palace,”--“afterwards to the Binnenhof.”

Florent ventured on no comment. He half resented the notable simplicity

with which the Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces walked through

the streets of the Hague attended only by himself carrying the famous

red bag. Of what use was power, he thought, if it but meant the taking

up of an enormous weight of cares and anxieties and receiving in return

the treatment of an ordinary burgher citizen?

John de Witt did not speak as they went along, and it was with an

absorbed, though courteous, air that he returned the many salutations

bestowed. Florent wondered what he was reflecting upon, and if the grim

unfriendliness of the old Calvinist pastor still troubled him. Then,

as they reached the low buildings of the Palace, he snatched his own

thoughts to the moment. He must have his wits about him--there was St.

Croix’s letter.

They were received by Mynheer Van Ghent, the Prince’s governor, in a

fine but gloomy chamber with a painted ceiling.

Half the Palace, considered now the property of the State, was locked

up, and the Prince allowed but the use of one wing. To Florent the room

had an air of mournful splendour--built for a palace and used as a

prison--there was a sense of sombre dreariness over the whole building;

the furniture was scant and plain, there were no pictures on the walls,

and the bookcases, plain and austere, held volumes of a severe look and

character, mostly on mathematics or tactics.

A gloomy place for a young man to live in, watched by enemies; a dreary

place for a Prince to be brought up in, surrounded by cold faces, by

suspicion, distrust, and enmity; a cheerless habitation for the heir

to a ruined House, friendless, early orphaned, and forced to guard his

every word and look.

M. de Witt’s policy might be that of conciliation and concession; he

might hold out his hand sincerely, and with his heart in it, but it was

not easy to imagine life as very pleasant for the young Prince in these

stern environments.

Mynheer Van Ghent talked a little with the Grand Pensionary. Florent

had heard that the Prince hated his governor; it was common knowledge

that he had fallen ill of chagrin when forced to part with his former

tutor, his uncle Mynheer de Zuylestein. Florent therefore observed

Mynheer Van Ghent closely, and found in him nothing displeasing, but

rather a kind of melancholy austerity and a gentle demeanour.

He stood a little apart from him and his master, and could not hear

what the two were saying; their voices were low and guarded. He

wondered where the Prince was; if he would see him; if he would,

possibly, be able to convey Pomponne’s letter.…

The heavy door at the end of the room, which was not far from him,

opened quietly; a young man stepped into the apartment and closed the

door after him.

Florent was startled, taken aback, confused. The young man regarded him

out of a pair of remarkable eyes, gave him a slow, mournful, unsmiling

glance, and seemed to hesitate.

Florent was not sure. The youth was plainly, even shabbily dressed, and

looked too grave and tall for seventeen.

But de Witt turned and held out his hand.

“I find Your Highness well?” he inquired.

William of Orange crossed the room.

“I am very well,” he answered respectfully. He bent his head to his

governor and to the Grand Pensionary. “Will you come into the other

room to-day, Mynheer?” he added. “I have desired a fire there.”

Florent Van Mander was studying him greedily now, cursing himself,

too, for a lost chance. That moment when the Prince entered he could

have slipped the package into his very hand if only he had known him at

first sight. He drew the letter out of his pocket, watching the Prince

the while.

M. de Witt had his back to him.

Certainly His Highness was tall for his age, and with none of the

awkwardness of boyhood; he was elegant rather, delicately made, and

carried himself with an air of unnatural, almost dangerous, quiet and

control.

Despite his plain dress and subdued manner, he was not in the least

insignificant, but of a noticeable and princely appearance. To Florent,

even at this first glance, a personality masterful and attractive.

The three came down the room towards the secretary, the Prince a little

in advance.

Florent could note his face, pale and clear complexioned, with a

high-arched nose and curved lips set firmly, wonderful eyes, hazel

green, large and brilliant under dark reddish brows, and a low white

forehead shaded with heavy auburn curls that fell on to his linen

collar,--M. de Witt’s secretary had that swift impression of the Prince

and as swift an inspiration. He stooped as if to pick something up.

“Your Highness dropped this,” he said as the Prince reached him. He

held out his handkerchief, concealed in it the Frenchman’s letter.

William of Orange turned his head. There was a look about his brow and

mouth as if he controlled incessant pain, but neither that nor the

expression of gravity that made him appear old for his years could

destroy the charm of his youth. His eyes fixed on Florent.

“Thank you, Mynheer,” he said, and put out his small, aristocratic hand.

Florent thrilled as their fingers touched. The Prince slipped the

handkerchief into his pocket and passed on.

Now that it was done Florent marvelled that he had had the temerity

to venture it. The Prince, though he must have known that it was

not his handkerchief, and have felt at once the packet inside the

cambric, gave not the slightest sign of discomposure. It was perfectly

done; Florent saw in it the training of one brought up amid spies and

enemies--but he had risked something in taking this youth’s prudence so

for granted.

The Prince did not look at the secretary again, but passed into the

next chamber with M. de Witt.

As he closed the door he gave a sharp glance at the Grand Pensionary,

then crossed to a little table by the window and seated himself there.

They were in a small room, lit by a fire that burnt pleasantly between

the andirons on the blue-tiled hearth. The walls were hung with stamped

leather; in one corner stood a globe, and beside it a desk covered with

maps and plans.

M. de Witt took the chair by the fireplace and turned so that he faced

the Prince. His sad, tender eyes were fixed with an almost yearning

expression on the graceful figure of the young man who, half leaning

against the desk, sat waiting, in an expressionless, quiet attitude.

The Grand Pensionary loosened his heavy cloak.

“We will have no lesson to-day, Highness,” he said. “I have to speak of

practical politics--and am here to talk gravely with you.”

“That is as you wish, Mynheer,” answered William. He had a voice

naturally changeful and musical, but, like his eyes and his movements,

it was controlled to a cold expressionlessness.

“I hope that it will also be your wish,” said M. de Witt, “when I tell

you that it is of the affairs of Holland I desire to speak.”

“I am always at the disposal of Their High Mightinesses,” replied

William, with the slightest inflection of sarcasm.

John de Witt made an open gesture with his fine right hand as if to

sweep aside all formality and convention.

“It must not be like this between us, Highness,” he said, with great

gentle sweetness. “Of late you have met me somewhat coldly. Why?”

William sat up slowly, his eyes were averted.

“I have often assured you, Mynheer,” he answered, “of my duty and

affection. Have Their High Mightinesses anything to complain of?”

Again there was that faint stress on the pompous title.

M. de Witt regarded him steadily.

“I spoke for myself, Highness, thinking that the services I have

rendered you, the affection I have always felt for you might have kept

me some place in your esteem.”

Still the Prince would not answer the appeal in the words, even by

raising his eyes.

“I have always striven,” he said, “to express my gratitude to you,

Mynheer, for your constant care.”

There was a look almost of wonder on the noble face of M. de Witt, as

if he could hardly credit the unmoved composure of this boy.

“I have not come, Highness, to exchange with you the language of

diplomacy,” he said.

William looked up now.

“It is the only language I have had the chance to learn, Mynheer.”

John de Witt gazed at him gently and sadly.

“I have never taught you anything but frankness, Highness--I have

deserved both your trust and your affection. It has been my dearest

wish, my most cherished hope, that I might educate you to become my

friend, my ally in the government of the United Provinces.”

The Prince made the slightest movement and again averted his eyes.

“You are no child now,” continued M. de Witt; “and must fairly well

understand your position … and mine.”

“I understand both, Mynheer,” answered William.

“You have been educated as a citizen of Holland, and it is to the

citizen of Holland that I have come to speak to-day.” M. de Witt paused

a moment. He was slightly flushed, and his voice was full of emotion.

“I have striven to make you worthy of your grandfather and of that

ancestor of yours who secured us our liberty, and it is my wish to

obtain for you those dignities that are the heritage of your House--all

that are compatible with the safety of this Republic.”

William, still looking away, spoke slowly--

“The Republic has nothing to fear from me, Mynheer. I, surely, am of

but little account in the State.”

M. de Witt was observing him very closely.

“You have the name, Highness,” he said; “you must know that. And it is

a power, you must know that also. You are the heir of the family that

once ruled Holland, and you are used as the rallying point of all the

malcontents.”

William glanced up with a curious, intense expression.

“You speak very frankly, Mynheer.”

“I have no object to serve by dissimulation,” answered John de Witt. “I

come to you single-mindedly. I can claim to have always spoken openly

to you, Highness, since you first were of an age to understand these

matters.”

He paused, bending his eyes on the Prince. His manner and speech were

weighty. His entire thought, his entire energy seemed concentrated on

what he said; as if he, the great and lofty statesman, strove by sheer

force of strength of character to overwhelm, rouse, and conquer the

impassive youth before him.

“Openly I spoke to you once before, Highness. When Their High

Mightinesses passed the Perpetual Edict I told you that we abolished

the office of the Stadtholder out of regard for the liberty of the

country. I assured you of my friendship--but I told you plainly that we

would risk no recurrence of 1650.”

The Prince coughed slightly and lowered his eyes.

“I remember, Mynheer, very well.”

“And now, again, I have to speak of the safety of the United Provinces,

Highness.”

William answered without moving--

“What have I to do, Mynheer, with the safety of the State?”

“I will make that clear to you,” said John de Witt gravely. “I cannot

tell how much you know of what this party does in your name; I refuse

to believe that you encourage them----”

“Could I have been more dutiful to the State, more quiet than I have

been?” interrupted William. He gave no sign of any feeling or agitation

save that the wild-rose colour of delicate health had deepened in his

thin cheeks.

“You have been too quiet,” answered the Grand Pensionary. “I want you

to act, Highness.”

He waited a second, but the Prince did not speak.

“I am greatly troubled,” continued M. de Witt, with a stately

simplicity, “by these men who strive to hinder and oppose the

Government. You know their names, Count Frederick William, M.

Beverningh, M. Zuylestein, M. Fagel----”

“None of these are my friends save M. Zuylestein,” returned the Prince;

“and you have good cause to know, Mynheer, that I see nothing of

him----”

“M. Zuylestein left your service because I doubted his loyalty to the

Republic,” said John de Witt sternly; “and now he works discord in

Zeeland. And for the others, whether you know it or not, they traffic

in your name, Highness.”

“In what manner, Mynheer?”

“In what manner?--they meddle with France and England, they sow

dissension in the town councils, in the Assembly itself; they riot in

the street--I think that you must know it, Highness.… Every reasonable

concession hath been made, but no reasonable concession will content

them. It was agreed that the question of the Captain-Generalship, of

the seat in the Council of State, should be postponed until you were

of age; they agitate for these honours now--you must know this also,

Highness.”

The Prince glanced at him sideways, then looked very quickly down again.

“In Zeeland, where you are premier noble, your partisans make the

excuse of your titles of Ter Veere and Flushing to demand your

appearance in their council now they consider you of age.” And for the

third time he added--“You must know this, Highness.”

He paused impressively, and his eyes were dark and ardently commanding

on the Prince.

William put his hand to his brow as if he made a mechanical movement to

ease a constant pain there.

“What do you wish me to do?” he asked quietly.

M. de Witt answered at once--

“I want you to disown this party--they may act without your sanction,

they cannot act in face of your disapproval--I want you as an ally, as

a friend----”

“I am powerless as either, Mynheer,” returned the Prince; “and,” he

suddenly turned his wonderful eyes on the Grand Pensionary, “since you

designate these you speak of as my friends, to what in me do you appeal

to act against them?”

There was a flash of imperiousness in his tone new to M. de Witt.

It was almost the manner of a king to a subject; it gave the Grand

Pensionary the bewildered sense that he, with twenty years’ experience

of affairs and the management of men, was not equal to this boy whom he

had seen grow up, whom he had himself educated.

“I appeal to you as a citizen of the Republic,” he said. “I have not

brought you up to put yourself before your country--” he hesitated a

moment before continuing, “I have always thought you of too great a

nature to prefer the phantom of personal aggrandisement to the good of

the Commonwealth----”

It seemed as if, on an impulse, William was about to speak, but he

checked himself, and M. de Witt went on--

“Will you let yourself, Highness, be used to stir up faction in

the State?--will you be an instrument in the hands of ambitious

place-seekers?”

“I cannot help my birth, Mynheer,” answered the Prince, “nor prevent

the people from using my name.”

He had not lowered his clear, brilliant glance, and the two pairs

of eyes met across the small, firelit room. John de Witt’s met a

fathomless, inscrutable look, and a horrible mistrust of this too

composed youth crept into his mind--a distrust he had known before and

always fought against and dismissed--

But William of Orange was the nephew of Charles of England and the

cousin of Louis of France.

“I believe France meditates the destruction of the United Provinces,”

De Witt said suddenly. “Colbert envies our commerce and King Louis is

mad for conquest.… I do not trust England.”

The Prince, never altering his easy attitude, nor changing the level

tones of his voice, nor in any way taking heed of the feeling that

surged behind de Witt’s words, put his hand slowly to his breast,

where, in the pocket of his black waistcoat, lay the letter wrapped in

Florent Van Mander’s handkerchief.

“What has this to do with the object of your coming, Mynheer?” he asked.

The Grand Pensionary found the almost unnatural composure and control

of this boy agitating him; the colour came into his face.

“France might seize any pretext,” he said. “Any pretext--if we are to

stand we must be united----”

William slightly raised his fine red brows.

“So distinguished a statesman as yourself, Mynheer--will know how to

meet any misfortune that threatens you.”

M. de Witt regarded him earnestly. Had he failed--had the royal breed

been too powerful for all his careful training? He thought he traced

in the commanding eyes and curved mouth of the Prince the arrogance,

the hauteur of regal blood, not so easy to quench or overcome--had he

failed?… Many had foretold he would. Had he undertaken too confidently

the task of making into a staunch, loyal republican the heir of the

oldest House in Europe, the son of a man who had risked all in an

attempt at sovereign power and of a woman too proud to speak to a

commoner.…

“You speak as if with hate of me,” he said, and there was a half sad

confession of failure in the words. “But for Holland--you love Holland?”

William was leaning against the side of his chair, resting his hand on

the arm of it.

“Both you and my country, Mynheer,” he replied, “have my duty and my

affection; my position makes me powerless to help either.…”

M. de Witt gave him a flashing glance.

“You can serve your country, Highness, by withdrawing from all

association with these noisy partisans of yours--by letting it be known

that you do not desire to be regarded as the Prince of Orange, heir to

an extinct office, but as a citizen of the United Provinces.”

The Prince coughed, and again put his hand to his head. The delicate

colour had faded from his face, he was pale to the lips.

“You best qualify yourself for the offices that may one day be yours

by quiet study and severe application,” continued M. de Witt. “Not by

endeavouring to thrust yourself (upon the selfish suggestions of sordid

ambition) into power for which your youth renders you unfit, and into

places from which the law debars you.”

William gave one of his rare, slow smiles; it seemed to rob the Grand

Pensionary’s speech of half its weight and meaning.

“My docility hath not deserved this, Mynheer,” he said. “Half the

people at the Hague would not know me if they saw me, and you accuse me

of endeavouring to win the suffrage of the mob----”

“No,” interrupted De Witt. “No.…”

“You accuse me,” continued William, “of selfish ambition.… I have not

lifted a finger to alter my position--I have always been the humble

servant of yourself, Mynheer, and Their High Mightinesses.”

“This is evasion,” said the Grand Pensionary in a mournful anger. “I

came to Your Highness with an appeal--will you work with me or no?”

“I am always at your service,” answered the Prince.

It seemed that in no way could M. de Witt break through this even,

immovable courtesy. His anger began to rise against a nature that

could turn to him this hard reserve. He recalled his patient services,

his honest attempt to win the Prince, his frankness towards the

Orange party, his loyal endeavour that his young ward should not

suffer for the misfortune of his House, his eagerness to establish a

friendship with the Prince so that one day they might work together

for the good of the land. Now it would seem all this had largely

been in vain. The first time he put it to the issue he found that he

dealt with intractable, unyielding, perhaps treacherous, material …

treacherous--that stinging thought, not to be banished, roused him

almost unbearably.

“You shut me out of your confidence, Highness,” he said. “You will

neither trust me nor be frank with me.… I do not know what policy you

pursue, nor whose advice you follow in refusing to treat me as what I

have ever endeavoured to be--your friend.… I do not know, I say, your

counsellors, but I think they advise you ill.…”

“I follow mine own counsels, Mynheer.”

John de Witt rose; the firelight cast the leaping shadow of his tall,

stately figure upon the wall behind him.

“I have been very patient,”--his voice was strong, full of

emotion,--“but I have the dignity of the Republic to consider … and if

I thought----”

He caught himself up. The Prince raised his eyes, and their expression

goaded de Witt.

“What did Buat die for?” he asked.

William answered calmly--

“For selling the secrets of Holland to France.”

“For betraying his country, Highness; and he was of the Orange party.

Madame Buat is one of their most active agents now. But I have had

enough of it … if you dare----”

The Prince sprang lightly to his feet.

“--If you dare, Highness,” repeated De Witt sternly, “the Republic will

know how to act.”

“Mynheer de Witt,” said William in a stifled voice, “what do you mean?”

“Have you dealings with your uncle Charles Stewart? Are you secretly

tampering with the agents of France?” demanded the Grand Pensionary.

“There is my meaning.”

He paused. The Prince did not alter the hard quiet of his manner,

though his great eyes showed a tumult of feeling.

“What right have you to ask that of me?” he demanded.

The words were a challenge, as such M. de Witt answered them.

“Your father sought foreign aid when he attempted the liberties of

Holland----”

Like a sword swiftly unsheathed the Prince’s passion slipped his

control--

“I will not hear of my father from you, Mynheer,” he cried. “For what

he did I have paid … and for your insults----” His words were checked

in a fit of coughing that shook his frail frame, he had to support

himself against the back of the chair. This evidence of the ill health

that decided many doctors in declaring he could not live long instantly

softened the noble heart of John de Witt, touched also by the Prince’s

quick anger.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I had no right--I ask your pardon, Highness.”

William sank into his chair, pulled out his handkerchief and pressed it

to his lips; he still coughed a little.

“Forgive _me_,” he answered, quiet again, but breathing with

difficulty. “I forgot myself.… I have taken so much,” he added, “I

might well have taken that. But it is not often, Mynheer, that I fail

to recognise your position and … mine.”

The words hurt M. de Witt.

“I would not be your master but your friend,” he said eagerly. “Trust

me and I will do more for you than these ill-judged factions.…”

William looked round; his face was colourless, and he held himself as

if exhausted.

“Mynheer,” he said, speaking with something of an effort, “I do not

know why you think I am occupied in stirring up sedition in the State.

You know how I spend every moment of my time; I have no opportunity

nor--desire. I am your very good friend and the servant of Their Noble

Mightinesses.… I have, obviously, no influence with the party that you

speak of. As for my uncle and my cousin of France, they do not make me

their confidant … not counting me, doubtless, of sufficient importance.”

John de Witt looked him in the eyes with a deep, questioning glance.

“Have I satisfied you, Mynheer?” asked the Prince courteously.

The Grand Pensionary could press no further. He was half baffled, half

angered; yet he found himself remembering that this Prince, who was

behaving so like a veteran diplomat, was in fact only a boy, often ill

and lonely.

“I came with no suspicions,” he said. “Only to put before you,

Highness, something of the state of the Republic and to ask your

help----”

“If I can ever be of service I shall be glad,” answered William.

He looked up, and added abruptly, “Mynheer de Witt, might Mynheer

Cornelius Triglandt come back?--I would rather have him for my chaplain

than any man I know.”

M. de Witt was taken by surprise, but he had his reply ready.

“M. Triglandt was removed from your person for the same reason as M.

Zuylestein,” he said gently. “He hath an unruly tongue and a heart

disloyal to the Republic. Their High Mightinesses could not allow his

return. If you esteemed him, I am sorry.”

William was silent.

The Grand Pensionary glanced at the bronze clock on the mantelshelf.

“I have outstayed my time--I am due, Highness, at the Binnenhof.”

The Prince rose.

“Next time,” continued M. de Witt, “I will examine you in your studies.

Till then I commend what I have said to your consideration.… Think of

them always, Highness, as the words of a sincere friend.”

“I am grateful, Mynheer.”

The Grand Pensionary went to the door, and there hesitated.

“Believe me,” he said, looking back, “in the matter of Mynheer

Triglandt I would gladly pleasure you … it is the will of the States.”

William bent his head.

John de Witt opened the door in silence and was gone.

The Prince remained by the table; a long breath escaped him and a

bright look shone under his heavy lids. He cried to himself in the

words used by the great Philip to his ancestor--

“Not the States, but you! you!”

Then he sank into the chair again, resting his elbow on the table and

his head in his hand, while he drew from his pocket the letter given

him by Florent Van Mander. He looked at the writing and the seals, then

replaced it in his waistcoat.

He coughed slightly and glanced towards the door which had closed on

the Grand Pensionary.

“Not the States,” he repeated, “but you, Mynheer de Witt, you!”

CHAPTER IV

M. DE WITT’S SECRETARY

Florent Van Mander sat at his desk by the open window and looked out on

to the garden of M. de Witt.

The mysterious, damp, and misty days of autumn had set in. Thin sea

vapours blew from morning till night across the Hague; the sunshine was

faint as if it came from a great distance.

No fire burnt in the library, but the secretary had quietly set the

window open, heedless of the chilly air.

For M. de Witt was walking in the garden talking to his brother, M.

Cornelius de Witt, Ruard of Putten, who had come up to-day from Dordt,

and Florent was listening to their conversation as it came clearly

through the tranquil stillness.

“If you do not send more troops, brother,” the Ruard was saying, “I

think Zeeland will get beyond all management. Count Tilly would be the

man to quiet them.”

“I cannot spare Tilly from the Hague,” answered the softer voice of the

Grand Pensionary. “And I have written to the burgomaster of Middelburg.”

“You hold the reins too gently,” returned Cornelius de Witt. “I think

the Prince is in touch with these agitators in Zeeland----”

“It is hardly possible … he is kept too close.…”

“You should keep him closer. Are you sure of those about him?”

“They are of mine own choice--even to his gentlemen.”

“Well,” said the Ruard grimly, “he may have corrupted them.”

Florent leant forward cautiously. The brothers had halted close to the

window. The Grand Pensionary’s back was towards him, but he could see

the fine, rugged face of the Ruard, frowning now, and shaded by the

great black beaver he wore.

“I have his assurance of loyalty,” said John de Witt. “I do not think

he is of a nature to be false … he is quiet----”

“Take care he be not as cunning as he is quiet.”

“I have no right to think it,” answered the Grand Pensionary.

There was impatience in his brother’s reply.

“You have always been _too_ just … the time has gone past for

concessions.…”

They moved on slowly; Van Mander could hear their footsteps on the

gravel but not what they said.

He had had his dismissal for the day; probably M. de Witt thought he

had already gone. He locked his desk and put on his hat and cloak, then

softly shut the window.

Before he left the building he went upstairs to M. de Witt’s private

cabinet to return some papers he had copied for M. Van den Bosch, the

head secretary, who, in company with the two confidential clerks, M.

Bacherus and M. Van Ouvenaller, always sat there.

Van Mander returned to the hall with a dislike of these busy, quiet,

dry men so intent on serving their master--machines he called them,

what could they ever hope to rise to?--and they had all the secrets of

M. de Witt in their hands.

There would be a game worth playing supposing that _he_ possessed the

keys of those desks. But they never entrusted him with anything of

importance--save yesterday when he had carried the red velvet bag----

His mind leapt back to the letter he had given the Prince. He stepped

out of John de Witt’s pink brick house into the sea-mist that was

increasing as the sun set, and turned in the direction of the Nieuwe

Kerk which lay towards the gates.

The vapour rested lightly on the water of the Vyver, and clung to the

yellowing chestnut trees that surrounded it; beyond rose the straight

walls of the Binnenhof, dimly seen, looming darkly from the mist.

Florent crossed the empty Plaats. Before him the threatening lines of

the blunt roof of the Gevangenpoort, the prison gate, seemed to spring

from out the fast thickening fog as if they were shaped from dark

clouds and had no foundation on the earth. One barred window showed in

the gloomy structure, and above it the flag of the Republic glimpsed

through the obscurity.

Florent passed under the low, deep arch and came out into the

Buitenhof. The soldiers on duty here, the few passers-by, seemed unreal

and remote, so wrapped about and mysterious were they rendered by the

damp, encroaching mist.

Florent was impressed, subdued by the silent, all-pervading personality

of the town wearing the sea-fog like a veil over her ancient

glories--like a veil of mourning, maybe, for her coming downfall.

All the splendour of the Seven Provinces, all their strength, their

endurance, their simplicity, their heroism were symbolised in these

buildings, rising staunch and heavy through the sad, dripping fog.

The gables and turrets of the Hall of the Knights; the tourelles and

pale brick of the Binnenhof, with the bright painted shutters faintly

showing, and here and there a light gleaming at a window; and above all

the great tower of the Groote Kerk rising through the fog that the sea,

ever beating on the shores and dykes of Holland with a persistent and

sinister purpose, sends rolling drearily over the land it cannot yet

reclaim.

Florent traversed the courts of the Binnenhof, and entered the

Spuistraat, where the street-lamps and the lights in the shops cast

faint haloes on the mist; here he followed the canal that led to the

Nieuwe Kerk.

Crossing the bridge, under which slow barges passed winding along

the grey water, through the grey land towards Ryswysk, he circled

the clumsy, grim church, and discovered behind it, at the corner of

Bezemstraat, the Nieuwe Doelen.

There in the quiet, plain back parlour of the inn he found Hyacinthe

St. Croix.

Florent greeted him with his habitual brevity and went to the fire. He

was chilled, his garments damp; even here the mist had penetrated, and

filled the room with a salt sense of wet and cold.

St. Croix ordered dinner and, leaning back, surveyed his company.

Florent looked up suddenly. The firelight stained his linen collar, his

pale face, to ruddiness.

“I delivered your letter.”

The Frenchman answered, not allowing himself to show any satisfaction--

“I thought you would.”

Florent was silent a while, rubbing his hands together over the blaze.

“How do you hope to receive an answer?” he said at last.

“If the Prince wishes to send one he will contrive it.”

Florent started at that.

“We are quite safe here,” remarked St. Croix easily. “This is M. le

Marquis’ house.”

“Ah!” Florent glanced round the small, neat room, with the herbs

hanging from the beams, the blue-and-white pottery, the shining

brass,--an inn room like a hundred others. “M. le Marquis does it very

well,” he said.

“Naturally,” smiled St. Croix. “What was your opinion of the Prince?”

he added.

Florent ignored the question.

“I was wondering,” he said slowly, “how the Prince could communicate

with any one--he is kept marvellously close.”

St. Croix shrugged his shoulders.

“I said he would contrive,--I think he is as clever as M. de Witt.”

Florent reflected on the words he had heard the Grand Pensionary use

that evening to his brother.

“Those about him are all of M. de Witt’s choosing,” he said.

“The Prince might win some--one of them.”

Florent looked up quickly.

“Do you imagine him the sort of man to win--devotion?”

“I do not know. What is your opinion?”

Florent smiled rather sourly.

“I suppose some would serve him from policy, because they saw a

restoration,” he answered; “but he is greatly beloved in Holland.”

“He has done nothing to win the suffrage of the people.”

“No,” said Florent; “he has done nothing.”

“It is the name,” resumed St. Croix lightly, “and the prestige of the

House of Orange.”

Supper was brought in, and more candles. Florent crossed to the window.

Outside the mist was rolling past like waves, white and curling. The

sound of the struggling, large poles could be heard through it; the

noise of the wet mast striking the wet deck as it was lowered to pass

under the bridge, and the men’s voices, shouting to each other, hoarse,

remote.

Florent glanced askance over his shoulder at St. Croix. A man who was

despising him, no doubt, as one of a fallen race; anticipating the time

when the King of France would be master of Holland--the dictator of

Europe. He began to find that he hated St. Croix, and that he was angry

with himself for being there, playing into the Frenchman’s hands.

He thought of the quiet, worn men in M. de Witt’s Cabinet whom he had,

at the moment, so despised. Now he was ready to wish his hands as clean

as theirs. He resented the look of insolent superiority he thought to

read in the powdered face of Hyacinthe St. Croix.

But the Frenchman spoke pleasantly--

“Will you not come to dinner?”

Florent silently complied. He found that the little inn, supported by

the pay of M. le Marquis de Pomponne, provided of the best; food and

wine were both better than he was accustomed to. This further set him

against St. Croix, who was buying him in this paltry way as surely as

was William of Orange being bought by the power and wealth of France

and England.

“What was in that letter I delivered?” he demanded suddenly.

Hyacinthe St. Croix gave answer with a fine appearance of frankness--

“You have heard of the feeling in Zeeland?--His Highness is its premier

noble, and, now that he is in his eighteenth year, the people consider

him of age--and desire him to take his seat in the Council there----”

“M. de Witt would never allow it.”

“Mon Dieu, no, M. de Witt would never allow it--but it is possible that

Monseigneur the Prince might act without permission.”

“Ah!” said Florent. He leant back, his hand round his wineglass, his

eyes fixed across the candles’ shine on the Frenchman’s face. “And M.

le Marquis would help him in this?”

“Making of it a challenge, the glove thrown down,” assented Hyacinthe

St. Croix. “It would be a bold move for His Highness to make. If he

once outwits M. de Witt he opens his eyes for always, and there can be

no more confidence between them; yet maybe he would hazard it----”

“Under the protection of France,” interrupted Florent.

“You wonder we think it worth while,” returned St. Croix quickly, “but

there are many reasons.… This young man is His Majesty’s cousin, and M.

de Louvois sees how good use may be made of him. He is already of some

influence in the State, and his party grows.”

“M. de Pomponne is ready to help him to raise revolt in Middelburg?”

“Yes.”

“Is M. Temple in this?” asked Florent abruptly.

St. Croix smiled.

“He is like M. de Witt, hopelessly honest.”

Florent emptied his glass slowly.

“We have made overtures to the Princess of Orange, but she is old and

cautious,” continued St. Croix. “Also to M. de Zuylestein and Prince

John Maurice. The letter you passed to Monseigneur the Prince contained

an offer on the part of M. le Marquis to connive at his escape to

Middelburg.”

“How could it be done?” mused Florent.

“M. le Marquis could accomplish it--M. Van Ghent is away----”

Florent looked up sharply.

“Yes, he left on a visit to his estate in Guelders to-day. The Prince

hath then thrown in his lot with you--” he added, “put himself under

the protection of France?”

“Mon Dieu, what else is there for him to do?”

Florent pushed back his chair. He had eaten very little, nor did St.

Croix press it, though he had dined well himself after an indifferent,

easy fashion that nettled his guest.

“Ugh! this mist of yours,” shivered the Frenchman suddenly glancing

about the room. “Nothing will keep it out--how much of it do you have?”

“I am new to the Hague, but there is plenty of it, until we get the

frosts--then too, sometimes.”

St. Croix made a wry face.

“I would the Holy Virgin had placed my talents elsewhere. Here there is

nothing wherewith to amuse one’s self save the contemplation of Dutch

virtue and the effort to avoid rheumatism. How do you endure it, my

friend?”

“By being Dutch,” answered Florent, gazing at him steadily. “You speak

very plainly to me--I am Dutch.”

St. Croix laughed.

“You think me overbold. But I tell you this, my master is more powerful

in the Seven Provinces than any Dutchman--as you are ambitious you had

best not offend him.”

So, they threatened--they felt themselves strong enough for that.

“I have my own interests at heart,” commented Florent dryly, after

a pause. “I see that the Orange party is the one to serve.… I shall

serve it, knowing quite well, M. St. Croix, that it is another name for

France.”

The Frenchman blinked his fair eyes.

“His Highness may be called the lever with which His Majesty will heave

the United Provinces on to the map of France,” he remarked.

“You seem very sure of him,” said Florent, “and I believe that you

are right. But … it is curious in all the discussions concerning this

Prince, whose name we all use alike to serve our ends--among all the

factions that clamour for William of Orange--is there never one to

think of him as other than the tool of France? Does it never enter

the thoughts of any that he might prove as honest as M. de Witt--as

faithful to his country?”

“This is not an age of heroes,” smiled St. Croix; and added, half

insolently, “Do you regret the fact, Monsieur?”

“M. de Witt is a hero.”

“M. de Witt is a saint and a fool,” replied the Frenchman. “And the

Prince of Orange is neither.”

“Some must believe in him.…”

“As an instrument to gratify their ambition. M. Beverningh, M. de

Zuylestein, and Prince John Maurice believe in him certainly--after

that fashion.”

“I do not mean them--but these people in the street--Jacob Van der

Graef----”

“A silly young man,” remarked St. Croix, lighting his pipe. “Yes,

perhaps those people do believe in the glory of the old dynasty. But

things have changed since the days of William the Taciturn; as I say,

there are no heroes nowadays.”

Florent suddenly shrugged his shoulders.

“These are foolish matters for us to be discussing. You know where

my interests lie, Monsieur; and,” he added, with a strange note of

defiance, “you have pointed out that safety also rests with my silence.

You need not fear that I should betray you to M. de Witt, or be over

faithful to him. I, at least, am not a fool.”

“I think you are shrewd enough,” answered St. Croix, “and I have

trusted you with a delicate matter. The way to your fortune is plain:

for the present, stay where you are, keep quiet and docile to M. de

Witt.”

Florent smiled.

“He is not difficult to fool,” he said grimly, “--M. de Witt.”

“No,” assented St. Croix, lazily watching his rings of smoke; “but he

is difficult to lie to.”

Florent was silent; a dusky colour flushed into his cheeks.

“M. le Marquis,” continued the Frenchman, “hath told me that he finds

the Grand Pensionary more troublesome to deal with than any clever

rogue.”

“Yet he is simple, credulous,” said Florent. “See, in this matter of

the Prince, how he trusts him.”

“He hath his own wisdom,” answered St. Croix; “but his day is over.”

He looked shrewdly at the young secretary, and added--

“I must bring you to speech of M. le Marquis.”

Florent made no answer; he rose.

“You are going?” asked St. Croix, leaning indolently on the table.

“I have some work to do--M. de Witt must not find me amiss.”

It was not the truth; the secretary’s duties ended when he quitted the

Grand Pensionary’s house, but St. Croix accepted the excuse.

“You will hear from me again in a day or so,” he said. “The lodgings in

the Kerkestraat will always find you?”

“Yes.”

Florent picked up his hat and cloak from the bench that ran round the

wall and turned to leave.

“I shall keep my eyes and ears alert,” he said. “Good-night.”

“Good-night,” nodded St. Croix. “A sullen brute,” he thought as

the door closed on Florent. “But these Dutchmen,”--he shrugged his

shoulders,--“one must use them as one finds them.…”

Florent Van Mander cared nothing what impression he had made; his one

desire was to get away, to be alone. He welcomed the cold white fog

after the brightly lit parlour and the intolerable Frenchman sitting

there over his wine. He hated it and all it symbolised; hated it so

suddenly and so bitterly that he could not have stayed a second longer

in the company of the man whom, for his own ends, he was serving.

Such emotions were quite new to him; he could not understand them. He

had always despised people who allowed sentiment to interfere with

ambition. One could not be great by following a falling cause.… What

should it matter to him, a diplomat, whether he was paid by England or

France or Holland, so he achieved his aim?

Fortune was not attained by sitting in M. de Witt’s Cabinet, like M.

Van den Bosch; and the Grand Pensionary had not inspired Florent with

any great enthusiasm or admiration. He had judged him coldly, seen

failure ahead of him, and decided not to entangle his fortunes with the

Republican Government. But nevertheless he felt this strange wrath, and

distaste, against himself and what he did. It was as if something had

suddenly touched and aroused feelings that lay so deep he did not know

till now that he possessed them.

The Seven Provinces an appanage of France--they who had been the

richest nation in Europe----

Florent checked his thoughts, wondering what had put into his

mind--this folly.

Almost he imagined that the brief moment in which he had looked

into the eyes of William of Orange had awakened him to this uneasy

questioning. Yet that made double folly, since the Prince himself was

but the tool of France, intriguing with de Pomponne--truckling to

Louis.…

He had walked through the mist, along the Spuistraat, with no thought

of his destination, but when he reached the Binnenhof he pulled himself

up and stopped.

The lamps showing at intervals on their red posts displayed the fog in

great pale circles, but their light did not penetrate far, and Florent

realised that he began to take note of what he was doing in a thick,

hurrying darkness of vapour no moon could pierce. The canal had ceased,

and he knew that he must be by the Binnenhof. No one seemed abroad; the

fog gave the effect of complete isolation.

Keeping close to the stone wall of the building, he made his way

through the black arch of the Gevangenpoort on to the Plaats.

Here the closer-set street lights revealed the railings encircling the

Vyver. Florent followed them a little way, then, gathering his cloak

closely round him, paused and looked down on to the water, an abyss of

fathomless darkness which, where the feeble rays of the lamp struck it,

revealed billows of curling mist, which seemed to be sucked down into

measureless depths of obscurity.

Florent leant against the railing, as completely shut away from the

world as if in a secret chamber. All ordinary sights and sounds

had receded, vanished; he could not even discern the lights in the

Binnenhof or Maritshuis. His hair was wet his hat limp with damp; beads

of moisture clung to his heavy frieze cloak, he could feel the water

trickling under his collar, and there was a salt taste on his lips. He

stood quite still watching the twisting, striving thickness of vapour

disclosed by the beams of the lamp. Then suddenly a light was flashed

over him, and a voice, conveying a slightly foreign accent, spoke in a

low tone close beside him--

“Are you Mynheer Van Mander, clerk to M. de Witt?”

Florent lifted eyes startled from absorbed contemplation. He saw,

through the curtain of the filmy mist, the figure of a man, wearing,

like himself, a heavy mantle, and carrying a lantern.

“I am sure that you are,” the speaker continued. “I have been following

you a considerable time.”

“For what purpose?” asked Florent.

The stranger, who had loomed up so quietly out of the fog, came a

little nearer.

“You were at the Palace yesterday?”

Florent turned to face him.

“Yes.”

The other raised his lantern.

“I am Bromley,” he said simply,--“Matthew Bromley, the Prince’s

gentleman, and I have come to give you the answer to the letter that

you delivered to His Highness.”

Florent bent his brows on him. As far as he could see anything he saw a

tall man with a fair, handsome face showing under the broad-brimmed hat.

“Will you hand this to the person who entrusted you to deliver that

letter?”

Florent took the packet held out to him.

“If His Highness has servants as devoted as you appear, Mynheer,” he

said, “you might have conveyed the letter in the first instance.”

And he remembered how St. Croix had lamented that he had now no ally in

the Prince’s household.

“The paper is unsealed,” answered Matthew Bromley, “and I think it is

His Highness’ wish that you read it.”

“Read it!” echoed Florent.

The mist seemed to be lifting, blowing in long trails, rapidly, to

extinction. The Prince’s gentleman hung his lantern on the fence.

“You can read it here and now,” he said.

Florent glanced up from the still folded paper.

“You are English?”

“Yes, I am English,” answered Bromley.

Florent gazed at him keenly.

“You know something of the Prince’s affairs,--do you know why he wishes

to make a confidant of me? Why I am to read this?”

Their voices were low and guarded; between them hurried the long veils

of fog, blurring the street-lamp and the light of the lantern, in which

their figures loomed indistinctly.

“You were aware what M. de Pomponne’s message contained?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore the Prince wishes you to know his answer.”

The lights in the Binnenhof, in the Maritshuis, began to be visible;

sparks of yellow showed, too, in the windows of the houses in the

Kneuterdyk Avenue; a cold wind was rising. Florent shivered; with

chilled, damp fingers he took the paper from its cover and, bending

towards the light, looked at it. The signature caught his eye first.

“This is M. de Pomponne’s letter!” he cried.

“It is also the Prince’s answer,” returned Mr. Bromley. “You may show

it to M. de Witt--if you will.”

A swift excitement shook Florent.

“Then … what dealings has he--the Prince--with France?”

“You may imagine--he returns M. de Pomponne’s letter.”

“He is subservient to M. de Witt--he will not go to Middelburg----?”

“He will do nothing under the protection of M. de Pomponne.”

The gentle radiance of a young moon conquered the vanishing mist.

Florent saw the shapes of the trees on the Vyverberg, the outlines of

the Binnenhof, and the tourelles of the Gevangenpoort rising against a

clear sky.

“This is a rebuke to me,” he said.

“You may take it so,” replied Mr. Bromley.

“I am not in the pay of the French,” said Florent, instantly aware this

man could ruin him with his master, “though I suppose the Prince thinks

so,--I work for my own ends, serving no party,” he added defiantly.

“The Prince has not thought of you at all, Mynheer, save to desire you

to know he hath no secret dealings with M. de Pomponne. You will return

that letter?”

“Yes,” said Florent, concealing it. He thought, grimly, that he had no

choice.

“Then, good-night, Mynheer.” Mr. Bromley saluted gravely, took his now

useless lantern from the fence and extinguished it.

Florent’s pulses were beating quickly; he was bewildered, confounded.

There were many things he longed to ask the Prince’s gentleman, and not

one that he could bring over his tongue. He stood foolishly watching

Mr. Bromley disappear through the arch of the Gevangenpoort.

What game was the Prince playing? Was this a pose to deceive him,

the secretary of M. de Witt, or did William really prefer the Grand

Pensionary for a master rather than France?

Or perhaps he is merely timid, reflected Florent, crushing scornfully

down the rush of pride and unreasonable exaltation he had sustained at

the wild idea that the Prince was actually spurning M. de Pomponne.

He stared at the dark, tranquil waters of the Vyver, revealed now in

the faint moonshine.

A boy, he sneered to himself, would he possess the wit and courage to

undertake unaided this flight to Middelburg? No, he had always shown

caution--he would remain under the wing of M. de Witt.

Yet Florent found himself pondering over the devotion of Matthew

Bromley to his master--Bromley also had once been M. de Witt’s man.

CHAPTER V

THE CHALLENGE

A bar of sunshine fell across the quiet room in the Binnenhof, but it

did not touch John de Witt, from head to foot he was in shadow.

The French Ambassador had just left him--a duel of words, an exchange

of courtesies; through the formalities one sentence of de Pomponne had

leapt.

“If the Prince of Orange gave the signal for a restoration … what would

rise to answer it?”

“He will never give that signal,” de Witt had answered, and he believed

it.

Yet strange it was for him, First Minister of a Republic almost his

creation, to reflect upon this fact--the people of that Republic

clamoured for the heir of the House that had threatened to set its heel

on them.

He moved half restlessly in his chair. If William were indeed working

secretly to undermine him he might find his labour of twenty years gone

for nothing, and live yet to see his country under foreign dominion.

He rose and went to the window. The Hall of the Knights showed its

painted and pointed shutters against a faint blue sky; the trees in the

courtyard of the Binnenhof were shedding their leaves, caught by the

wind and whirled in eddies that rose a little way then sank again to

the ground.

The sunlight fell now directly on the face of John de Witt. It revealed

how grey he was growing round the temples, how weary and lined were his

eyes.

He was still standing by the window when a tall soldier entered.

“Ah, M. de Montbas!” the Grand Pensionary turned. “I desired to see you

about these riots in Zeeland and Groningen.”

“You wished me to go there, Mynheer, I think your letter said.”

The speaker was a sallow, sickly looking man, with lank hair and dark,

unhappy eyes.

“To Groningen--yes.”

M. de Witt returned to his seat in the shadow.

“I fear that we have been too lenient,” he continued; “the Government

must make some show of strength.”

“That is only wise,” answered the Count de Montbas; “and should,

Mynheer, have been done before.”

“It has never been my policy to use force where persuasion might

prevail,” said M. de Witt. “When one is adamant in great things one may

be careless in little,--these rioters are mostly ignorant people----”

“They are encouraged by the Prince of Orange,” put in de Montbas

quickly.

“There I think you are wrong,” returned the Grand Pensionary quietly.

He knew that ill feeling existed between the House of Orange and M. de

Montbas, whose father, an exiled Frenchman, had offered his services to

the late Stadtholder only to have them refused.

M. de Montbas gave a half-nervous laugh.

“You are too confident, Mynheer.”

The Grand Pensionary ignored the remark and touched a bell upon his

table.

“I will read you the report of the disturbances in Zeeland and Goeree,”

he said.

It was Florent Van Mander who entered with the papers. M. de Witt bade

him stay, and he went quietly to the back of the room and waited,

observing, with cruel precision, the two men before him.

He had heard a good deal of M. de Montbas, one of the staunchest

republicans in the army of the United Provinces, and the man whom the

Grand Pensionary always put forward in opposition to the Prince of

Orange as candidate for the post of Captain General, a position that he

now, at least nominally, held.

Florent saw a dark, gloomy-featured man, stooping in the shoulders

and awkward in bearing, yet with a certain elegance of manner; a man

who talked in a nervous and disjointed fashion, and fidgeted with the

tassels on his military gloves.

His black-and-silver uniform, with the embroidered baldric and

heavy sword, sat badly on him. Florent found him neither attractive

nor calculated to inspire confidence, and wondered at the Grand

Pensionary’s choice of a general. Glancing away, he studied M. de Witt

himself.

Behind the desk where the Grand Pensionary sat hung a dark yet bright

picture of fruit and flowers, and against this the brown hair and pale

face of John de Witt were thrown into relief.

Pale certainly, even above his white, falling collar and black dress,

but of a strength not to be mistaken and a power not to be ignored.

Florent listened to the conversation between these two with an

expressionless face but inward interest, for they had begun to discuss

the Prince of Orange.

“He is not at the Hague to-day,” M. de Witt was saying. “M. Van Ghent

is in Guelders, and His Highness wrote to me requesting permission to

try some hawks and hounds sent him by the King of England--for that

purpose he hath gone to Breda.”

“What quarry does he hunt at Breda?” asked M. de Montbas, and it seemed

to Florent that he spoke like a man afraid.

The Grand Pensionary smiled.

“What should he hunt but herons, Mynheer?--you are too suspicious.”

“By Heaven! I would not have let him go.”

M. de Witt turned over the reports brought him by Florent.

“He hath gone, Count, nor will he return till to-night. To-morrow

I will, as you urge me, again see him on the subject of these

disturbances.”

“And also concerning his party in the Assembly,” added Montbas, “who

hamper us at every step----”

“He has no power with them.”

“I do not know--they use his name----”

“And would do that whether he would or no----”

“And the Princess Amalia,” interrupted M. de Montbas. “Look to her--she

is ever intriguing.”

“I know; yet it is to little purpose,--at heart she is afraid of us.”

“But she will serve her grandson’s cause--and by any means--if she have

but the chance.”

“I might see her also,” mused M. de Witt. “I know she is timid----”

The door was opened, and M. Van Ouvenaller took a few steps into the

room.

“A man hath just ridden up to the Binnenhof, Mynheer, who earnestly

desires to see you,” said the secretary. “His name is Captain Van

Haren, of the garrison at Vlaardingen.”

The Grand Pensionary did not know the name.

“Nay, I cannot see him now,” he answered, “his business must wait; nor

should you have broken in upon us with this, Van Ouvenaller.”

“Mynheer,” answered the secretary, colouring, “this man says he bears a

letter from the Prince of Orange.”

“From the Prince of Orange!” cried de Montbas, rising.

“I beseech you,” breathed John de Witt, giving him a quick look; then

he turned to Van Ouvenaller, “Admit this Captain Van Haren.”

Florent felt his pulses throbbing, his blood stirring. He advanced a

little farther into the room, glancing furtively from the agitated

countenance of the Count de Montbas to the composed features of John de

Witt.

Captain Van Haren entered, a stout and stolid soldier, muddy and wet.

“You are unknown to me, Mynheer,” said the Grand Pensionary quietly.

“I am the commander of the garrison at Vlaardingen on the Maas,

Mynheer. His Highness the Prince of Orange rested there this

morning--he dispatched me with this letter.”

“The Prince at Vlaardingen!” cried M. de Montbas, and rapidly flushed

and rapidly paled again.

For the second time the Grand Pensionary checked him with a look,

holding out his hand for the letter. Without lowering his eyes to it he

spoke--

“What took the Prince to Vlaardingen?”

“He was on his way to Bergen-op-Zoom they said, Mynheer.”

“He goes to Zeeland?” questioned de Witt, and his eyes narrowed.

“I think so, Mynheer.”

A fierce exclamation broke from de Montbas, but John de Witt in silence

tore the seals of the letter.

It was headed--

“VLAARDINGEN ON THE MAAS

“_11th Sept. 1668_

“MYNHEER,” it ran, “as I am now arrived at an age when I

can claim the heritage of my House, I am proceeding, on the

invitation of Zeeland, to Middelburg, there to take my seat

as premier noble of that State. Her Highness the Princess of

Orange, and His Serene Highness the Elector of Brandenburg,

have been pleased to declare me of age. I did not consider it

necessary to request permission of Their High Mightinesses

before I took this journey. Upon my return to the Hague I shall

be desirous of personally conveying to you my affection and

duty,

“WILLIAM, Prince of Orange.”

John de Witt laid the letter down. Florent thought that his face, his

whole bearing, had wonderfully changed.

“His Highness was accompanied?” he asked.

“By his household and a company of young nobles.”

“He hath gone to rouse Zeeland!” cried M. de Montbas.

De Witt handed him the Prince’s letter.

“You should not have allowed His Highness to leave Vlaardingen,” he

said sternly to Captain Van Haren. “Not he, but Their High Mightinesses

are your masters.”

“His Highness told me that he went to join Prince John Maurice,”

answered the soldier. “I did not know that it was against the wishes of

Their High Mightinesses.”

“Against their wishes and mine,” said John de Witt. “This is an act of

rebellion on the Prince’s part--we have been too lenient. Get back to

Vlaardingen, Captain Van Haren, and be careful how ye serve the States.”

To Florent, eagerly watching, was revealed a new phase of the Grand

Pensionary; he saw him moved if composed, roused and dominant. The

gentleness that might have covered weakness was shown to be but the

cloak of undaunted strength. He held his head high, and the prominence

of his jaw was emphasised by the set of the mouth.

“Get back to Vlaardingen,” he repeated; “and remember that Their High

Mightinesses will endure no riots nor disturbances in the name of this

most presumptuous young man.”

The Captain saluted and withdrew. As the door closed on him M. de

Montbas looked up from the letter fluttering in his hand.

“This is a challenge,” he said.

John de Witt’s brows were contracted.

“Yea, I think so.”

“We have been fooled!” cried M. de Montbas bitterly; “fooled by this

docile, sickly boy!” He rose and dashed the letter on to the table.

“Where is your policy of concession now? What of this good citizen you

were making out of a tyrant’s son?”

“I have been deceived,” answered the Grand Pensionary sternly. “As ye

say, fooled!” His eyes expressed an anger that Florent would not have

believed them capable of, so utterly did it contradict their usual look

of stately kindliness. “Who would have thought that there were such

guile and deception in this young man!”

“I have warned you,” said M. de Montbas. “He was over quiet; and

never could I imagine that one of his House would be content with a

subservient position.”

“My eyes are opened now!” De Witt rose. “Perhaps it is better that

he and I should meet without disguise. Since he hath rejected my

friendship it is well that I should know it.”

He drew a quick breath, and for a moment it seemed as if the old hatred

fought against so long, carefully concealed and never acted upon, was

asserting itself,--the hatred of the stern republican for princely

insolence and tyranny; the hatred of the son of Jacob de Witt, the

innocent prisoner of Loevenstein, for the son of the man who had flung

him there.

M. de Montbas saw the expression, and read it by the light of his own

bitter dislike to William of Orange.

“You have been acting on your principles instead of your instincts,” he

said. “In your heart you never trusted him.”

“I have ever done him justice,” answered John de Witt, “and treated him

in such a manner that this act of his, this contemptuous blow in the

face of my authority, is base ingratitude.”

“You never loved him,” insisted M. de Montbas in the same kind of

trembling, nervous anger. “Though ye have had the tutoring of him, ye

never loved him.”

The Grand Pensionary looked straightly into the soldier’s face.

“Nay, I never loved him,” he said. “It was not possible.”

“But you trusted him.”

“It is my habit,” returned M. de Witt proudly, “to trust those with

whom I deal.”

M. de Montbas shrugged his shoulders impatiently. To Florent’s covertly

observant eyes he seemed in an agitation bordering on fear.

“To join Prince John Maurice at Breda!” ejaculated the Grand

Pensionary. “It is a scheme concocted with the Princess Dowager--the

Prince was recently at Cleves. Who, besides, would he have with

him?--Heenvliet, Renswoude, and Boreel, I thought that I could have

trusted them; but Bromley and Van Odyk, I had intention of replacing …

they are at the bottom of this----”

“The Prince, and no one but the Prince, is at the bottom of this!”

cried M. de Montbas.

The Grand Pensionary gave a stern smile.

“You think I have been weak; I have only acted as I considered right,

and as I should act again. Maybe even yet I may by persuasion overcome

this youth’s worldly ambition. If not, we, the States and I, are

capable of sterner measures.”

“They should have been used before.” M. de Montbas suppressed his

impatient voice. “Where you have once been so utterly deceived, can you

ever confide again? If William of Orange will do this, what will he not

do?” The speaker’s sallow face flushed with the energy of his feelings.

“France and England, who neglected him when he was nothing in the

State, begin to court him now. Why should he not revenge himself on the

party that deprived him of his inheritance by intriguing for sovereign

power with our enemies----”

“M. de Montbas, you go too far,” interrupted the Grand Pensionary.

“We have neither right nor reason to suspect the Prince of these deep

designs. He is a boy, misled by his ambitions.”

“This is clever work for a boy,” replied the Count, with a sour smile.

“He has outwitted you, Mynheer.”

“That is no shame to me.”

“It may be a danger to the State,” was the swift answer.

“You blame me,” said the Grand Pensionary quietly. “I do not doubt

that, on all sides, I shall receive censure.”

He moved slowly back to his desk, and M. de Montbas sprang from his

chair.

“Ay! You have been wrong from the first! You cannot tame an eagle with

sugar and smiles; if you want to keep him you cage him, otherwise

he will fly as soon as he is able, though he may have taken your

friendliness while his wings were growing.”

“I did what I would do again,” repeated John de Witt firmly, and

without bitterness.

He picked up the Prince’s letter and looked at it again.

“The Princess and the Elector, his guardians, declare him of age--it

follows he will be claiming a seat in the Council of State,” he

remarked.

“Zeeland will demand the restoration of the Stadtholdership,” added M.

de Montbas.

“Maybe.” De Witt spoke thoughtfully. “There will be a fierce fight;

perhaps I could gain the Princess, at least I will see her.”

He glanced at the blue china clock on the mantelshelf.

“The Assembly is now sitting,” he remarked.

“We have not yet decided the question of these riots,” said M. de

Montbas.

“This letter puts a different complexion on the matter.” M. de Witt

folded and placed it in his pocket as he spoke. “I must set the whole

affair before the Assembly.” He turned to the secretary, “Will you lock

up those papers in my desk, Mynheer Van Mander?”

“Yes, Mynheer.”

Without further speech the Grand Pensionary and M. de Montbas left the

room.

Florent did as he had been directed. With a mechanical intelligence of

the hands, leaving free the excited workings of his brain upon what he

had just heard and the meaning of it, he put away the papers, neatly,

in their various drawers.

He was about, in the same absorbed fashion, to lock the desk, when a

sudden, unexpected thought held him still.

What were these papers? Without a doubt valuable to Hyacinthe St.

Croix--to William of Orange.

And they lay there before him, at his mercy to read, to copy--to steal.

Prudence no longer restrained him. In the last half-hour he had decided

to remain not another day in the service of M. de Witt. He had nothing

to gain from the Grand Pensionary.

Yet he stood in the hazy sunlight hesitating, the key in his hand and

the open desk before him.

St. Croix would pay him well, but he was not thinking of St. Croix.

What would the Prince give for the contents of the private desk of M.

de Witt?

Florent did not want money--but he craved to stand for something--to be

of value--to merit consideration in the eyes of this young man who had

suddenly unfurled the Orange standard.

And what had he to offer but the poor services any clerk could give?

Still he hesitated; but that same recollection that filled him with hot

desire to serve William of Orange held him back. Thinking of William of

Orange, he could not do it.

He locked the desk and went into the outer room to give the key to M.

Van den Bosch.

The clerks of M. de Witt were discussing the situation in a subdued

agitation. Florent tendered the key, half defiantly.

“Are you leaving?” asked M. Bacherus, with a look of surprise on his

wrinkled face.

Florent answered briefly, and took his hat and cloak down from a peg.

“What do you think of this news from Zeeland?” asked Van Ouvenaller,

adjusting his spectacles.

“I am sorry for M. de Witt,” returned Florent dryly.

Van Ouvenaller rubbed his chin.

“These are troublesome times,” he remarked gloomily.

Florent left the room and the Binnenhof.

The Hague was already alive with excitement; the streets seethed with

unrest. The daring of the Prince’s exploit made it almost unbelievable;

this and that rumour were spread and contradicted. The burgher

companies were out, and by the time Florent had reached the Plaats

it was announced that M. de Montbas was in council with the States,

and that a message had been sent to Hellevoetsluis, where De Ruyter

lay with the Fleet. These messages, intended to quiet the people’s

fears of a _coup d’état_ on the part of the Prince, were received with

derision. There were more orange favours worn than white ones, and

more satisfaction than anger expressed at the success of the Prince’s

enterprise.

In the Kneuterdyk Avenue, close to M. de Witt’s house, Florent met St.

Croix.

They exchanged hasty greeting in the crowd.

“You have heard the news?” the Frenchman smiled.

“You received the returned packet?” retorted Florent.

“Yes; the Prince is prudent to refuse to enter into negotiations that

are bound to be detected.”

Such was not Florent’s reading of the action.

“Will you come to my lodgings to-night?” he asked. “We cannot talk

here.”

“To-night----? Agreed.”

They parted.

Florent smiled rather grimly to himself. St. Croix would find his new

prey flown, since M. de Witt’s secretary had decided not to remain

another hour in the Hague.

CHAPTER VI

MIDDELBURG

“Crowds came in on all sides, the streets were nearly impassable;

windows, roofs, even masts and trees, black with spectators. The

Abbey was so full of people in carriages and on foot that it was

hardly possible to reach the Prince’s apartments. Nor must I forget

to tell Your Highness that during the two hours the Prince stood at

the window the civic militia fired salutes in his honour,--and they

are still sending up fireworks from the Stadhuis. His Highness reached

here yesterday at three o’clock; his yacht sailed through shipping

dressed with flags, and these vessels answered his salutes with a

triple discharge of their guns. The Magistrates of the town had come

down to the quay to receive him; the burgher companies were under

arms. He entered a coach and six and was conducted to the Abbey, where

the Deputies of the State came to congratulate him. The councillor

pensionary made a speech to him in their name, and the different

representatives of the provincial government followed his example.

To-morrow His Highness is to be conducted to the Hall of Assembly. The

loyalty of the people is beyond a question.

“Prince John Maurice of Nassau hath remained at Bergen-op-Zoom, under

pretence of illness, fearing to compromise himself in the eyes of the

Government by sharing in this dangerous enterprise; but Your Highness

need have no fear, the prudence of the Prince balances his youth,

and he would have reason to complain of me if I did not say that his

management of this affair has shown a wisdom far beyond his years.”

Lange Jan struck, after a prelude of dancing bells, the hour of two,

and Mr. Bromley laid down his pen and looked round.

His own elation and excitement had found pleasurable vent in this

letter to the Princess Dowager, which he wrote, by the Prince’s orders,

to give some account of the reception in Middelburg. He had sat over

it longer than he had thought; it was with some slight shock that he

realised it to be deep into the night.

Middelburg was still at last. The crowds had departed from the

courtyard of the Abbey, the bells had ceased to ring, the military

salutes were hushed; the town lay silent under the September stars.

Mr. Bromley went to the small, pointed, Gothic window of his chamber

and looked out.

Opposite, clear in the moonlight rose the three, pointed towers of the

southern side of the Abbey; the windows projecting from the sloping

roof threw distinct shadows, and the vanes on the three turrets turned

slowly in the wind. Through the low-arched, dark gate, above which

could be seen, carved deep in the stone, the Zeeland Lion rising from

the waves, was the figure of the sentry walking up and down, the

moonlight glittering on his halbert.

The courtyard was filled with trees, now almost bare of their leaves,

that cast a dark tracery of shadow on the ground with their softly

stirring branches.

Again the melancholy little air rang out, and Lange Jan struck a

quarter past the hour. The sound was close and loud, since the Groote

Kerk adjoined the Abbey wing and the tall clock-tower rose immediately

behind Mr. Bromley’s room, a small chamber communicating with the

Prince’s apartments.

These chimes, that at every quarter of an hour were ringing out over

the Seven Provinces day and night, had a curious, almost uncanny

meaning for the Englishman. He had never become used to them. Often,

at the Hague, he would wake up to hear the chimes of the Groote Kerk,

and always with a start; so loud, so insistent, yet so melancholy were

these old bells, ringing out dutifully, as their long-dead makers had

bidden them, as every fifteen minutes passed.

So had they rung here in Middelburg when the Counties of Holland

stepped this Abbey; so did they ring in the sunny spaces of the

afternoon above a silent town; and so in the utter stillness of the

night their mournful carillon played unheeding the notes of warning, of

sadness, of remembrance.

Mr. Bromley took his heavy brass candlestick from the table and placed

it on the mantelshelf, put away his unfinished letter, and was about to

undress when a soft knock upon the door interrupted him.

He opened it. M. Heenvliet, the Prince’s first gentleman-in-waiting,

stood without, holding a candle. He was fully dressed.

“The Messenger from the Hague has arrived. I and M. Van Odyk were not

yet abed, so saw him come up to the Abbey; M. Van Odyk thinks His

Highness should see the letters now.”

“From whom are they?” asked Mr. Bromley.

“The Princess and M. de Witt.”

“They can wait till the morning--the Prince sleeps so ill.”

“M. Van Odyk thought he should have time to consider them before he

makes his speech in the Assembly to-morrow.”

“Is every one else abed?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I will go rouse His Highness,” said Mr. Bromley reluctantly.

“Will you desire M. Van Odyk to come up with the letters?”

M. Heenvliet withdrew, and Mr. Bromley crossed to the adjoining

chamber, a long, low apartment that the fitful light of his single

candle showed hung with tapestries and to be plainly but richly

furnished.

Middelburg Abbey had been the palace of the Prince’s ancestors, and

still retained some of the splendour of those days.

At the farther end of this room was the door leading into the Prince’s

bedroom. Mr. Bromley hesitated; he was inclined to think the letters

might have waited. William slept badly at best, and to-night must need

all that he could get of rest. There was no intermediary whom Mr.

Bromley might consult since the Prince had left both valet and page at

the Hague, having, indeed, no excuse for taking servants on a hunting

expedition.

He knocked gently and received no answer.

Lange Jan shook his chimes into the night again. There was a pause as

his melody died away, then Mr. Bromley opened the door.

The candle revealed a handsome, square room with a painted, beamed

ceiling, walls hung with stamped leather, and two windows, unshuttered

and set open. The moonlight streamed through and lay along the polished

floor.

The bed, with its plain but richly worked hangings, stood fronting the

window.

On a table at the foot were a silver candlestick, a couple of small

books, and a watch lying on a lace handkerchief.

Across the high-backed, wooden chair beside the bed were spread the

Prince’s green velvet riding-coat, his black sash, his gloves and

Mechlin cravat, and hanging on the wall above his beaver with the long

ostrich plume.

Another chair, set in a corner, and covered with a high Gothic canopy,

held across its carved arms the Prince’s sword-belt and the piled up

addresses presented to him yesterday.

Mr. Bromley paused. He could hear the regular, rather laboured,

breathing of the sleeper, and no other sound.

He went up to the bed, and, shading the candle, looked down.

The curtains were gathered back within their cords, and revealed the

Prince lying on his side, his head raised by a pile of pillows, his

hands outside the coverlet.

Any one not knowing him so well as did Mr. Bromley would have been

startled by the extreme pallor of the face, which had an almost

deathlike look in contrast with the tumbled auburn hair. His whole

appearance was more that of one in a swoon than in normal sleep, save

that his lips were closed firmly and his fine nostrils quivered with

his breathing.

“Your Highness,” said Mr. Bromley, and moved his hand so that the

candlelight flashed over the bed.

William gave a little sigh and opened his great eyes.

“Is that you, Bromley?”

“Yes, Sir, it is I.”

The Prince sat up, in a moment alert and composed. It was wonderful how

his eyes gave life and animation to his pale and frail appearance. The

look of great delicacy so noticeable in his sleep seemed hardly there

when his brilliant glance dominated his face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A Messenger from the Hague, Highness, with letters.”

“They could have waited till the morning,” answered William fretfully.

“One is from M. de Witt.”

“Still, it could have stayed. Ye need not have roused me for a message

from M. de Witt.”

“Another is from the Princess Dowager.”

The Prince pushed the heavy hair back from his forehead.

“She is a silly old woman,” he declared, “and a letter from her does

not interest me at all.”

Mr. Bromley, who had an unconfessed liking for the Princess, ventured

to answer--

“Her Highness hath been under great anxiety as to your safety, Sir.”

“Oh, pshaw!” returned William. “She hath made her peace with the

Republic by now. Who suggested waking me?”

“M. Van Odyk, Highness; he is coming up. He thought you would wish to

consider these letters at once.”

“M. Van Odyk sometimes exceeds his duty,” remarked the Prince calmly.

“And nothing any one can write or say will cause me to alter my

intentions. I wish you would put that candle down, Bromley, it is

flickering horribly.”

Mr. Bromley obeyed.

“It is caused by the open windows, Highness,” he answered. “No candle

will burn straight in this draught.”

“Close them,” said the Prince petulantly.

Mr. Bromley again obeyed, forbearing to comment on the fact that the

room was chilled with the night air, for he knew that the Prince could

not sleep, or indeed hardly breathe, with the windows shut.

William leant back against the head of the bed; his lawn shirt, the

sheets, pillows, and his face were turned to the same ivory hue in the

candlelight.

“Why were you not abed, Bromley?” he asked.

“I was writing to the Princess, Highness.”

“Did you say Prince John Maurice had stayed at Bergen-op-Zoom?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“He will have told the Princess himself,” remarked William. “Being by

now recovered of his sickness,” he added dryly.

“Shall I see if M. Van Odyk hath returned?” asked Mr. Bromley.

“Bring him here,” commanded William briefly.

The Englishman returned in the dark to his room, and reached it as M.

Van Odyk appeared at the door.

“The Prince is awake and will see you--but he was not over pleased to

be roused.”

“The matter is important,” answered M. Van Odyk.

Mr. Bromley had no more to say. William Van Odyk, rich, a connection

of the House of Orange, clever, son of the man who was once the most

trusted adviser of the Prince’s mother, had perhaps as much of William

of Orange’s confidence as he ever bestowed on any one; for those placed

about the Prince were not of his own choosing, he had always been too

restricted to be able to find advisers or confidants. His grandmother

he had never forgiven for her overtures to the republican party, and

such men as he had given his rare friendship to, Cornelius Triglandt,

the Lord of Zuylestein, and William Bentinck, had been removed from him

by M. de Witt.

The few who had followed him to Middelburg he tolerated. He had no

great trust in them, but relied on his own genius for command to make

these, or any others, subservient to him.

When Mr. Bromley returned with M. Van Odyk to the Prince’s chamber,

they found him half dressed and seated at the table at the foot of his

bed snuffing the candle.

He looked up as they entered, and smiled with his eyes.

“Bromley,” he said, “I have absolutely no clothes at all--and those we

begged from Prince John Maurice,” he added, with a touch of humour,

“are so utterly too large.”

Mr. Bromley was compunctious.

“I am sorry, Highness--it was forgotten----”

“I can procure you anything you wish in the town to-morrow Highness,”

interrupted M. Van Odyk.

“Nay, it is no matter,” answered the Prince, “only to-night I should

have been grateful to the States of Zeeland for a dressing-gown. Now,

where are these letters, Mynheer?”

M. Van Odyk laid them on the table, and Mr. Bromley withdrew.

The Prince picked up the letter from M. de Witt and opened it, bending

closer to the candle.

William Van Odyk, Lord of Beverwaert, handsome, gay, worldly, a

frivolous youth behind him and no ambitions ahead beyond the pleasure

of an adventure, stood in the window embrasure and observed him

curiously. So slight a boy to have thrown down this bold challenge to

the power whom he regarded as a usurper, thereby destroying at a blow

the policy of conciliation John de Witt had pursued so unflinchingly

for eighteen years. But William of Orange had been pursuing his

policy almost as long. A diplomat from his cradle, he had affected

a resignation to his position that the Grand Pensionary had never

doubted, and that the Lord of Beverwaert himself had been deceived in

until within the last two years.

He recalled now, as he watched the Prince read his letter, with what

interest he had followed William’s behaviour in the hands of the

republican party. How he and other partisans of the House of Orange

had had their hopes half crushed by the Prince’s taciturn gravity and

natural reserve, which made it impossible to guess his real designs.

He had grown up in an atmosphere of adversity, been educated in

a school of distrust; and the constant necessity he was under of

concealing his passions had made him, while yet a child, an adept in

dissimulation.

He had never made the slightest attempt to gain the affection or

confidence of the faction always loyally supporting his House. He had

neither the virtues nor the vices that are loved by the crowd; his life

was austere, his tastes sober, he was rarely seen and always silent.

Van Odyk was thinking now how little he really knew of him. Twice this

boy’s age, and man of the world as he was, he had never drawn more

from the Prince than his now almost public intention to claim the

inheritance of his family.

The Lord of Beverwaert brought energy, talents, and goodwill to the

cause, but little confidence. Of the mighty, almost regal, power that

had once belonged to the House of Orange, nothing remained to this

young man but the renown of his ancestors, and what force, courage, or

strength he might find in himself.

William Van Odyk wondered, and fixed his pleasant blue eyes in such an

intent fashion on the Prince that the latter looked up and glanced at

him keenly.

“M. de Witt writes at length,” he said, and laid the letter down.

“To what purpose does he write?” asked the Lord of Beverwaert.

William motioned to the chair on the other side of the table.

“Will you not sit, Mynheer?”

Van Odyk took his place opposite to the Prince, and the solitary

candle that illuminated them both showed a striking contrast in their

persons: the Lord of Beverwaert, florid, fair, his gallant good looks

displayed to advantage by his handsome red uniform, his gold baldric

and bullion-fringed sash, tall, stoutly built, bearing every sign of

easy, pleasant living, with eyes slightly dissipated, and a mouth a

little full and soft in contour; the Prince, delicate, and even weakly,

in appearance, his green coat flung on carelessly over his laced shirt,

wearing riding-breeches and dusty top-boots, drooping a little as he

sat with an air of weariness and gravity at variance with his years,

yet conveying with every movement the charm of youth and an unconscious

aristocratic grace, a precocious maturity stamped on his proud and

composed features, yet showing in his brilliant eyes the fire of

youthful blood and the energy of a haughty race.

He tore open the other letter, glanced over it and put it down.

“M. de Witt has seen the Princess,” he said. “She is, of course,

frightened----”

“For your safety, Highness?”

“For her own share in this affair; flattered too, I think, by M.

de Witt’s overtures. She never could resist tampering with the

Republic--she has always injured me with her intrigues,” he added, with

feeling.

“And M. de Witt?”

“He bids me take care what I say to the States of Zeeland, warns me

that he withdraws his promise with regard to the Council of State--that

he will, in fact, do all in his power to prevent my election, and that

since I have proved myself his enemy he cannot treat me as his friend.

There is a great deal more, very worthy matter, but that is the pith of

it.”

He took up his grandmother’s letter.

“Her Highness would keep on good terms with M. de Witt. She advises me

to say as little as possible here, and to return as quietly as may be.…”

“What do you think of this advice?” asked M. Van Odyk.

William gave him a quick, keen glance.

“Do you imagine that it could make any difference?”

“To your intentions, Highness?”

“Yes.”

“I think it will not, Highness,” smiled the Lord of Beverwaert.

“I shall speak in the Assembly as I intended to speak,” said the Prince

composedly.

“Yet it would be worth a little prudence to secure the good graces of

M. de Witt.”

The Prince’s eyes flickered over him at this in a manner conveying that

M. Van Odyk had but a small share of William’s confidence or esteem.

“I have never lacked caution,” he said quietly; “and you know, Mynheer,

that I had to forego M. de Witt’s good graces when I undertook this

journey.”

“I know; but now the thing is done, you can excuse yourself----”

William interrupted.

“Mynheer, what use are the good graces of M. de Witt to me?”

The Lord of Beverwaert shrugged his shoulders.

“He represents the United Provinces.”

The Prince pushed back the heavy, reddish curls that gave such a marked

character to his face.

“The United Provinces and I understand each other,” he answered

impatiently, “without the intervention of M. de Witt.”

Then, seeing the look in M. Van Odyk’s face, he blushed with vexation

lest he had been betrayed for once into an expression too outspoken.

“I shall offend M. de Witt no further than I can help,” he added, his

manner instantly restrained again. He looked down at the Princess’s

letter that he still held.

“We will return to the Hague to-morrow, Mynheer, and I will see Her

Highness before she becomes enmeshed in intrigues.”

“You have not much confidence in Her Highness,” remarked the Lord of

Beverwaert.

“What can one expect from a woman?” returned the Prince in a tone

of quiet but boundless contempt. “I thank God I can take my affairs

into my own hands,”--uncontrollable annoyance clouded his face,--“but

for her I had never lost Orange--and my estates have been utterly

mismanaged, it will be a month’s work straightening her accounts; the

land hath been left unsold and I have as many debts as a captain of

cavalry----”

He checked himself with his habitual distrust, as if he repented

already of such a long speech, and rose, taking up the candle.

M. Van Odyk accepted his dismissal.

“I need not have disturbed Your Highness,” he said, rising.

“It is no matter,” answered the Prince, with a little cough.

Lange Jan struck, but neither noticed how his noisy chimes broke the

stillness of the night, for each had heard such peals ringing out over

the Seven Provinces every hour of every day and night since they could

remember anything.

The Lord of Beverwaert took the candle from the Prince and opened the

door.

“I forgot to tell Your Highness, a man came here--from the Hague. He

desired to see you, but the crowd made it impossible. He wished to join

your service. I do not think that it was a matter of any importance.”

“Who was he?” asked William, holding his brow.

“One Florent Van Mander, who has been with M. de Witt.”

“I remember him,” said the Prince.

“I told him to return to-morrow, Highness.”

“He is rather hasty in changing masters,” said William, with a half

malicious smile in his eyes. “I cannot pay as well as M. de Witt--yet.”

“There are those would rather serve you, Highness, nevertheless.”

“Thank you, Mynheer.”

William held out his beautiful, aristocratic hand, and the Lord of

Beverwaert kissed it.

“Good-night, Mynheer.”

“Shall I send Bromley to you, Highness?”

“No--I require nothing.”

But Van Odyk hesitated.

“You look very pale--I am remorseful that I disturbed you.”

“Oh, as to that,” the Prince gave a sudden, brilliant smile, “I have a

damnable headache, which is too ordinary an affair to be remarked on,

is it not? Do not rouse poor Bromley, and get to bed yourself, Mynheer.”

“Shall I not leave the candle, Highness?”

“Nay, I have another. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Highness.”

The Prince closed the door on the Lord of Beverwaert and returned to

the table at the foot of his bed.

He began to strike the flint and tinder, but a sudden cough shook him

so that he had to put the box down in order to hold his head, suddenly

throbbing with acute agony.

For a while he sat quiet, drawing his breath painfully, then, at a

second attempt, lit the candle, and the tall flame sprang up and

mingled with the moonlight.

The Prince thrust the two letters into the pocket of his coat and moved

the candle away from his eyes.

Then he drew towards him the books on the table: one a black-letter

Bible with silver corners and clasps, the other, _Idea or Portrait of a

Christian Prince_, by Cornelius Triglandt, humbly bound in black.

William languidly opened this, then glanced at the watch beside his

elbow.

It was close on four o’clock.

Resting his head in his hand, he lifted his eyes and gazed at the

moonlit square of window. He could see, rising opposite against the

clear sky, the turrets of the Abbey, their weathervanes turning in the

cold sea-wind, and the boughs of the elms decked scantily with their

last leaves.

William glanced again at the book. It lay open at the fly-leaf that

bore his arms, the lion rampant against the billets, and underneath his

motto--

“Je sera Nassau, moi, je maintaindrai.”

The Prince put his hand down on the page and drew a quick but instantly

repressed breath.

Over the sleeping city the old clock chimed again, the little ancient

melody, the jangling strokes.

William leant back in the chair. The candle cast his shadow, moving and

fantastic, on the wall behind him, drew out lines of red gold in his

hair and threw a faint glow over his colourless features.

It was utterly silent save for his labouring breath. M. Triglandt’s

book lay open beside the light that flickered over the motto engraved

between fine flourishes--

“Je sera Nassau, moi, je maintaindrai.”

CHAPTER VII

THE MANIFESTO

The Prince’s gentlemen and the knights and nobles of Zeeland were

gathered in the council chamber of the Abbey, talking together in twos

and threes.

The room was large and light, and barely furnished. On the wall facing

the windows hung the famous blue-and-white tapestries, representing the

Dutch victories over the Spanish; and on the wide-tiled hearth some

logs were burning, for the day was raw and chilly and the trees without

tossed against a grey sky.

Many of the younger men, richly dressed, were laughing, walking about

impatiently, striking their riding-whips on their high boots and

exchanging daring comments on M. de Witt.

It was to curb the impetuousness of these youthful nobles that the

Princess Dowager had summoned the old Prince John Maurice from Cleves,

thinking he would take her grandson under his protection; but seventy

proving more timorous than seventeen William was left to manage alone

the enthusiasm and recklessness of his followers.

In one of the window embrasures the Lord of Zuylestein stood conversing

with M. Van Odyk, M. Heenvliet, the first gentleman-in-waiting, and M.

Renswoude, the first equerry.

The perpetual chimes announced nine o’clock and the Prince entered

accompanied by Mr. Bromley.

He saluted all of them, and advanced with an outstretched hand to M. de

Zuylestein, who had once possessed his entire confidence, and though

the years of separation had weakened the friendship between them,

William was still gracious.

“Did you sleep well, Highness?” asked M. de Zuylestein, who only unbent

his haughty manner to the Prince.

“As usual, Mynheer.” He pulled his gloves from his sword-belt and

slowly drew them on.

It was noticeable that he used no arts to ingratiate himself with his

supporters. His manner was distant and reserved, he hardly glanced at

those about him. Under his heavy black beaver his face showed composed

and inscrutable.

At his entry all had fallen silent, and all, more or less openly, were

observing him.

“I missed the clock.” He took out his watch. “A little after nine. M.

de Zuylestein, I should like to see the church.”

“Will Your Highness go down now?”

“Yes.”

The Prince took his whip from Mr. Bromley and stuck it in his boot.

“M. Van Odyk,” he said, coughing, “tell them I will ride to the

Stadhuis; I am smothered in their coach and six.”

Attended by M. de Zuylestein and Mr. Bromley, and followed by several

of his gentlemen, the Prince descended the narrow, polished stairs and

came out into the courtyard.

It was a cloudy autumn morning, windy and cold. The brown and yellow

leaves circled the tree-trunks in shivering crowds and sank fluttering

from the almost bare branches. The red-brick Abbey buildings, with

their blue and yellow painted shutters, the pointed towers pierced with

irregular windows, rose up distinct and clearly coloured.

Directly behind them Lange Jan towered, his Gothic windows bricked up

or furnished with coloured shutters, his bells visible in his leaden

cupola and crowned with the weathercock. Beside the tower, just above

the line of the Abbey roof, rose the majestic outline of the body of

the church.

One of the Zeeland nobles explained.

“When this was the Abbey church, Highness, it was possible to reach

it from the Palace, through the cloisters, but these have fallen into

disuse and have been built up.”

“It was a pleasant dwelling,” remarked William. It seemed, by the

swift look he swept over the Abbey, as if he remembered that his

ancestors, the counts of Holland, had lived in it.

They passed under the low entrance arch, and almost immediately to

their right was the small side door of the church.

It was open.

William uncovered and entered.

About the door was the square, wooden railing, its gate locked during

service so that the devout might not be disturbed, and the late-comers

be pilloried in the public eye, forced to remain standing like sheep in

a pen; now, however, the gate stood open, and William, resting his hand

on it, looked round.

He was under the tower and the organ, sideways to the length of the

building and facing the pulpit.

Magnificent in line and proportion, and of a noble magnitude, the great

church gave an instant and chilling impression of bareness and coldness.

The Reformation had let the light into this and many another once dim

and gorgeous temple of the old faith. The jewelled colours had gone

from the arched windows, and clear glass took their place. Precious

marbles, gold and silver vessels, tapestries and paintings had gone

also, and walls and roof were whitewashed from top to bottom; in the

daylight glaring in on them from the unshaded windows they gave a

desolate effect of dreary immensity.

The huge pillars set in double rows were whitewashed too; in parts, on

their granite bases, it had worn off and showed the stone beneath.

Monuments, saints, shrines, and carvings had been torn from the walls,

and unbroken panelling of plain wood covered the places that knew them

no more.

There was no altar; where it had been stood a bare and open space.

Heavy, stiff, and narrow pews filled the nave, and under the severe,

high-placed pulpit the seats of the elders rose in tiers, each with a

brass-clasped Bible before it out of which hung a long green marker.

William leant heavily on the gate and gazed at the spot where,

opposite to him, two monuments broke the white expanse of wall. They

were the tablets in black to the memory of William, King of Holland,

and his brother Floris. Above them an inscription told how the latter

had died, and been buried here in Middelburg 1256. The King’s tablet

bore a simple carving of a mantle, a wreath with a sword through it, a

crowned helmet--a globe.

In the niche above the name of Floris were helmet, mantle, and sword

only.

William did not even glance at the only other monument the church

contained, that to the brothers Van Evertzen, which was still in course

of erection. The staunch republican heroes had not so much interest

for the young Prince as the simple record of these long-dead rulers of

Holland.

He stood so still the gentlemen behind him thought that he must be

praying. They could not see his face, only his slight figure leaning

against the railing, the bright hair on his shoulders and his slack

hand holding the beaver whose drooping plume touched the ground.

Suddenly he turned, and there was a faint colour in his face.

“You have a fine church, Mynheer,” he addressed the Zeeland nobleman in

a low voice. “I should wish to be here on Sunday.”

They passed out of the cold light of the church into the sunless grey

of the morning air. M. Van Odyk came to meet them.

The Deputies were waiting to conduct His Highness to the Stadhuis. His

Highness did not hurry himself for this, but came leisurely across the

courtyard.

Among those waiting round the Abbey door was one he recognised.

He stopped.

“M. Van Mander,” he said.

Florent coloured hotly. Those standing near fell back as the Prince

spoke.

“I have come to join Your Highness’ service,” said Van Mander

awkwardly.

The Prince’s compelling eyes fixed themselves on him with a look of

power, of daring and mastery, of half-smiling self-confidence that made

the blood of the man who caught it leap as if in answer to some rousing

summons.

“You may stay if you will,” was all William said as he passed into the

Abbey.

Florent Van Mander flushed with pleasure. His poor offer was at least

not refused; yet he asked himself why he was so elated at changing from

the employ of M. de Witt to the service of a pretender embarked on a

difficult enterprise? He did not know--but he did know that he would

rather be a foot-boy in the Prince’s train than confidential clerk to

M. de Witt, and that that one glance from William was more to him than

all the Grand Pensionary’s gentle goodness.

The courtyard filled with people on horseback and on foot. Most of them

wore orange ribbons in their coats, and most took off their hats when

the Prince came out of the Abbey attended by the burgher councillors in

their robes and chains of office.

William preceded them, covered, as Florent was quick to remark, and

with the same ceremony as if he already held his father’s offices. He

mounted the black horse, waiting for him, and from the saddle looked

round the crowded courtyard.

He was already one of the finest riders in the Netherlands, graceful

and fearless, and able to manage the fiercest horse after a fashion

strange in one of his frail appearance. This was no valueless asset in

the eyes of men such as M. de Zuylestein, who regretted the delicate

health and reserved demeanour of one who must rely on popularity for

his advancement.

His fine horsemanship was the one showy thing about the Prince, and on

the rare occasions when he had displayed himself to the people it had

not failed of its effect.

Mr. Bromley, adding later to his letter to Her Highness the impetuous,

intriguing Princess Dowager, had great things to say of the Prince’s

progress to the Stadhuis that morning.

“He rode through the streets with his hat in his hand,” wrote the

Englishman, “smiling a little, this way and that--all the maids must

wear orange ribbons, and all the men look out their swords. Zeeland at

least is tired of M. de Witt--‘We want a soldier, a Prince,’ I hear on

all sides; they go mad for him. M. de Zuylestein feared that he was not

open enough with the people, but it is not necessary for His Highness

to make himself beloved, since he is so already, and his demeanour hath

pleased every one. I had not believed this city to be so large and

prosperous until I saw the crowds of well-dressed people filling the

streets, the windows, and the roofs----”

Here, however, Mr. Bromley’s information came to a stop, for the

Prince’s suite remained outside the council chamber, only M. de

Zuylestein and M. Van Odyk entering with him.

The representatives of the six towns and the nobles of Zeeland were

assembled to meet him; at his entry they rose as one man.

For a breath or two William remained in the doorway, gazing at them, as

if hesitating what to do.

The chamber was low and hushed, not very large; the walls of stone, the

ceiling of heavy dark wood; the diamond-paned window opposite the door

looked on to the street, and bore in the centre of each lozenge the

Lion of Zeeland, rising rampant from the waves.

A fire burnt on the blue-and-white tiled hearth, and in the centre of

the room was placed the large table, covered with a plain green cloth,

about which the Deputies sat.

At the desks in the window recesses were placed a couple of clerks,

their ink-horns, quills, and folios before them. The sole colour and

brightness in the whole chamber was the effect of the chains of gold

worn over the sombre gowns and white collars of the Councillors.

At the head of the table stood a velvet arm-chair. The Deputies, who

had conducted the Prince, requested him to seat himself there and

assume the presidency of the assembly.

Each member took then his own place.

William sat down, covered, and began to pull off his gloves, loosening

the fingers slowly, one by one, his eyes cast down.

He was younger by twenty years than the youngest there, and despite

his gravity looked but the boy he was in contrast with the weighty men

about him. M. de Zuylestein, glancing at him, felt his heart sink; too

much had been thrust on to the shoulders of seventeen. He looked across

the table at M. Van Odyk and in his eyes saw the same uneasiness.

The Deputy of the city of Middelburg rose in his place and turned

towards the Prince.

He was a grey-haired man, pompous and self-important.

His even, official voice fell on a contained stillness. He offered the

presidency of this meeting to the Prince of Orange; thanked him for

coming to Middelburg in person to accept the dignity of premier noble

of Zeeland, which, the speaker reminded him, was his by right as well

as by the will of the people; professed the greatest loyalty to his

interests, and ended with an only half-veiled allusion to Zeeland’s

readiness to go yet further lengths on his behalf.

He sat down.

There was a pause; every one was looking at the Prince. M. de

Zuylestein felt uneasy. He knew how much William had dared to be

there, and what this enterprise meant to him, and the youth’s perfect

self-control seemed to him unnatural. He did not know what this boy was

going to say, he feared both that it might be too bold and not bold

enough.

William laid his tasselled gloves on the table and rose.

It seemed as if the hushed assembly became yet more utterly still.

The Prince’s face was shaded by his hat, but M. Van Odyk, a sympathetic

observer, saw it was nearly as colourless as the lace round his throat.

He rested his hand on the arm of the chair, and the light was caught in

his square green ring and in the silver buttons on his cuff.

M. de Zuylestein leant back. He could not but feel anxious. This was

the first time that the Prince had in any way expressed his opinions,

or in any way spoken in public; it was the first hint of his own

attitude as yet given to his partisans.

He had neither paper nor note to help him. Even M. Van Odyk had no idea

what he was going to say.

With his low, slow utterance William began, fixing his brilliant eyes

on the faces of the Councillors of Zeeland.

“I thank you for your speech, Mynheer Van Huybert, and you for your

loyalty, my lords and gentlemen of Zeeland, a loyalty which you have

maintained towards me since the day of my birth, and which no evil

example nor evil fortune has caused to falter. You have done more

to-day than honour me within the limits of your own State--you have had

the courage to give the signal that the United Provinces await.”

He paused, as if to let the open daring of his last sentence have its

full effect.

With the effort of speaking his pallor had disappeared under a faint

blush; he was breathing a trifle heavily.

“If I had delayed taking possession of my office, I should have

considered myself lacking in respect to your wishes. It is not in my

nature to consider obstacles nor to wait on circumstance; I consider

that the time has come for me to follow in the footsteps of my

ancestors.”

He paused again and took off his hat, so that the light, streaming in

through the windows at his left, fell full upon his face. His princely

features, framed in the bright waves of his heavy hair, flushed deeper

with the emotion shining in his intense eyes.

“I shall never forget the honour that you have done me to-day. I do not

think that you will find me unworthy of the confidence of Zeeland.

“I look about me on perilous times; I see that there is much to do for

the preservation of the United Provinces and the Reformed Religion. But

it has never been the habit of my House to find any sacrifice too great

in the service of God, and to whatever duty He be pleased to call me I

shall be faithful.”

His glance flashed from one face to another; suddenly he smiled.

“Gentlemen, you know the motto of my House--‘I will maintain.’”

He put on his hat and sat down.

The speech was a manifesto. An old statesman could have framed nothing

that could have pleased the people better. M. Van Odyk, relieved and

satisfied, pictured the effect of His Highness’ words, printed by the

thousand and scattered up and down the country.

The silence seemed to thrill and gather. The Deputies moved, looked at

each other, nodded and smiled with narrowed eyes; hidden excitement

flushed every face.

The burgomaster of Middelburg, M. Van Huybert, again rose.

“In the name of Zeeland we thank Your Highness.”

Behind the words was more than any words or any action could

express,--deep loyalty to the ancient House, blind enthusiasm for the

ancient glories, unquestioning belief in the descendant of the man who

had given the Netherlands their freedom.

William saluted them, recommended the Lord of Beverwaert to their

notice as his deputy, and left the chamber.

When his suite had reached the Markt, and William was remounted, his

gentlemen crowded about him with congratulations.

The men and women who had come from all parts of the Island to see him,

dressed in their neat native costume, black with the gold and coral

ornaments; the burgher companies on horseback, the pikemen on foot, the

shopkeepers in their best, pressed round the cavalcade, almost impeding

its progress in their eagerness to catch sight of William of Orange.

William glanced back at the stately Stadhuis, with its statues of the

Counts of Holland and their ladies, under the delicate carved canopies,

standing between each window; at the pointed roof pierced with little

gabled windows behind blue shutters, painted with white in the shape of

a curtain drawn to a waist; at the Gothic tower with its leaden dome

and clock,--it seemed as if he would fix the place on his mind.

A pale beam of sun broke through the clouds and rested on the building.

“It is done,” said the Lord of Beverwaert in easy elation.

William of Orange gathered up his reins and turned his horse in the

direction of the Abbey of St. Nicolas.

“Mynheer, it is begun,” he answered.

CHAPTER VIII

M. DE WITT AND HIS HIGHNESS

“Where is the Prince now?” asked Cornelius de Witt.

“At Honsholredyck, once his mother’s house. He will not return directly

to the Hague for fear of my authority.”

The Grand Pensionary stood at the window of his residence in the

Kneuterdyk Avenue and looked, as he spoke, out at the colourless

afternoon.

“But this will bring him,” replied the Ruard grimly. He referred to

the skilful measure his brother had taken. On receiving the news

from Zeeland, the Grand Pensionary had forced the Assembly to pass a

law forbidding individual provinces to reinstate the Stadtholdership

without the sanction of the other States, and confirming M. de Montbas

in his appointment as Captain General.

“Maybe. He hath discovered a stubborn disposition that makes it

difficult to know what he will do. He hath sent his valet to Professor

Bornius and M. de Chapuygeau, dispensing with their services.”

“This is impudence,” frowned Cornelius. “He hath no right to dismiss

his tutors when he is under your guardianship.”

“He had no right to go to Zeeland,” returned John de Witt, moving

from the window; “nor any right to deceive me with intent to rouse

dissension in the State,--but since he had the will and the power, what

avails our talk of right?”

Cornelius leant forward from his high-backed chair and stared

thoughtfully into the fire.

The pleasant glow of the burning logs played over his blunt-featured,

well-looking face, his handsome grey silk dress, braided in gold, his

embroidered baldric, his high boots and massive sword-hilt. He was a

large and weighty man, of a demeanour more passionate and impatient

than his brother.

“You must remember I always distrusted this pupil of yours,” he said

slowly. “Have we not had enough difficulty, at home and abroad, that

you must nurse this viper to sting you on your own hearth?”

John de Witt moved to the other side of the fireplace.

“He is very young.”

The Ruard glanced up.

“Ah, still you make excuses for him.”

“I endeavour to be just, brother,” answered the Grand Pensionary. “This

young man hath fooled me, I confess it. I have done all in my power to

prevent this mistake of mine proving of danger to the State----”

“Do not imagine that I reproach you,” put in Cornelius quickly.

His brother faintly smiled.

“It may be that I wish to justify myself … a statesman should not be

so easily deceived--and by a child. I thought I could rely on those I

had placed about him. I did not know he was in communication with M. de

Zuylestein.”

“All which shows that he is cleverer than we. Why do you speak of his

youth, since he has belied it with his wisdom?” asked Cornelius warmly.

“I thought not of wisdom or cleverness,” replied the Grand Pensionary,

half mournfully, “but of what his character might be; what honour,

strength, or nobility he may possess. I have taken some pains with

his teaching, he hath been educated as a Christian, a Dutchman, a

gentleman; I cannot believe my labour has been in vain--not utterly.”

“He seeks his father’s power, and less will not satisfy him,” said the

Ruard. “And as every magistrate in Holland hath sworn to the Perpetual

Edict of the abdication of his House, what is there before us if he

grows in strength?”

“His hopes cannot be so presumptuous,” answered John de Witt sternly.

“If they are we must check them. I have regained the Princess Dowager,

through her fears and her vanity.”

“She hath no influence with him. He owns no counsellor but his

pride--he attended the review of the troops at Breda----”

“Against my will.”

“He went to flaunt us.”

“Still, at the officers’ banquet they placed him below M. de Montbas,

and he would not take his seat nor call upon M. de Montbas; so his

ambition brings humiliation on him. We gained by that show of firmness.”

“No concessions,” said the Ruard, “no concessions. His party become

incredibly bold; we have been driven to order out the train-bands at

Dordt to check the mob.”

“It is a marvellous thing that they should clamour for him,” mused John

de Witt, turning his dark, sad eyes on his brother. “What can they know

of him that they should love him so?”

“The base crowd care not about his qualities,” replied the Ruard, “they

but seek an excuse for disorder and lawlessness. Did you hear Vivien in

the Assembly to-day?”

“No.”

Cornelius de Witt laughed angrily.

“He was cutting a book with a steel knife. I, sitting next him, asked

what he was about. ‘Trying the effect of steel on parchment,’ he

said--meaning that once there was a sword in the Prince of Orange’s

hand there would be an end of the Perpetual Edict.”

John de Witt was silent, and his brother rose.

“If I am to return to Dordt to-night I must take my leave.”

The Grand Pensionary roused himself from absorbed thoughts; he asked

after his brother’s wife and his own children.

“Do you see them often?”

“Almost every day.”

“I have put a Bible for Agneta in your portmantle--it is large print

that she may read it while at her spinning-wheel.”

“She is a good girl.”

A radiant look came into John de Witt’s eyes.

“I can hardly bring myself to do without such precious company, but

they are better with my sister. This house is too quiet, and I so

seldom here.”

Both were silent, thinking of Wendela de Witt. Regrets were not in

their religion; believing, they could not repine.

The firelight, showing more strongly as the grey day faded, warmed

the sombre, dark room into a more cheerful aspect, glittering redly

in the brass fireirons and bellows, the nails in the leather chairs,

the Ruard’s embroidered dress and sword-hilt; showing, too, the Grand

Pensionary’s tall and stately figure in his quiet black with the plain

linen collar tied with silk tassels, and the brown hair falling either

side the melancholy, composed face.

There was a great likeness between the two brothers, though Cornelius

was of a larger make, a freer carriage, haughtier perhaps and more

fiery, but with a glance as dignified and a bearing as noble.

“Since you must go----” John de Witt was saying, when Van Ouvenaller

opened the door.

“Mynheer, His Highness the Prince of Orange.”

The brothers exchanged a quick glance.

“He is here?”

“In the library, Mynheer.”

“Alone?”

“He rode up with one of his gentlemen, Mynheer, who remains with the

horses.”

John de Witt laid his hand on his brother’s sleeve.

“Desire the Prince to come in here if he wishes to see me, Van

Ouvenaller.”

When the secretary had gone, the Ruard spoke.

“You did not know he was at the Hague?”

“No; he must have ridden from Honsholredyck to-day.”

“What does this move mean?”

The Grand Pensionary’s lips were sternly set, his brows slightly

frowning.

“I do not know, Cornelius.”

“He hath heard of what passed in the Assembly yesterday.”

“Will you stay?”

“Nay, he would not speak before me--we never loved one another.”

“He must speak before whomsoever I choose to question him since he is

still under my tutelage,” answered John de Witt sternly.

“Yet I will not remain, lest your patience and his presumption should

anger me.”

M. Van Ouvenaller entered again, announcing the Prince, who followed

him.

The secretary withdrew, closing the door, and William of Orange stood

facing the brothers. He was in riding costume, and wore over it a dark

velvet mantle. His whip was in his boot, he carried his gloves and his

hat in his right hand, purposely to cover the fact that he did not

offer it to M. de Witt.

There was a colour in his face, and his bright hair was tumbled over

his falling lace collar. He had ridden a long way in a keen wind.

“I am glad that Your Highness hath seen fit to return to the Hague,”

said M. de Witt. He also did not offer his hand.

“I was ill at Honsholredyck, Mynheer,” answered William. “Good day,

Mynheer the Ruard.” And he fixed his eyes with a daring expression

of haughty dislike on Cornelius de Witt. He knew perfectly well that

in the Grand Pensionary’s brother there was a staunch and fearless

republican, an enemy of his House, with distrust of him far keener than

John de Witt’s; but more than this, William disliked the Ruard because

he felt in him some one who read him better than any other man. Had

Cornelius been in his brother’s place, William would never have escaped

to Middelburg.

The Ruard returned the Prince’s salute very coldly.

“I hope Your Highness hath recovered your health sufficiently to enable

you to resume your duties.”

“What are my duties?” asked William, looking at him under drooping

lids. “I thought it was my misfortune to have none, Mynheer.”

“Your duties are your studies,” replied Cornelius sternly, “and

obedience to M. de Witt.”

The Prince slightly smiled; his glance flickered from one man to the

other. John de Witt not at all, and Cornelius only partially, guessed

at the implacable resentment hidden behind his impassive exterior, and

neither knew that the Ruard’s remark was one more added to those things

the Prince would never forgive.

“It is with M. de Witt I wish to speak,” he said.

“I shall not disturb Your Highness.”

But John de Witt interposed.

“My brother is in the entire confidence of the States, Highness, and

you may say what you have come to say before him.”

“Mynheer the Ruard may be in your confidence, M. de Witt,” replied

William, still with a slight smile, “but he is not in mine.”

Cornelius took up his plumed hat and bowed proudly to the Prince.

“Good day, Your Highness. Good day, brother.”

William gave him as careless a salute as he dared and turned his back

as the Ruard closed the door.

John de Witt’s just indignation was not softened by this haughtiness.

“What is the object of this visit?” he demanded. “After keeping me

entirely ignorant of your movements, why do you come to my house in

this informal way?”

They both remained standing; the Prince with his hand resting on the

little oak table beside him.

“I wrote to you, Mynheer, from Vlaardingen, to tell you that the

Princess and the Elector had declared me of age--they have notified

this to the Assembly.” William spoke quietly, looking down. “Therefore

I do not consider it necessary to give an account of my actions to any

one.”

“Neither the Princess nor the Elector are your guardians, but the

States,” replied the Grand Pensionary sternly. “And Their High

Mightinesses have fixed your majority in another four years; until

then, I, representing them, am responsible for your education and your

behaviour. It seems, Highness, that you will make my task difficult.”

William moved to the fire and seated himself in the chair the Ruard had

occupied. It was not lost on M. de Witt that he did so easily, without

invitation, as if in his own house.

“By going to Middelburg you have placed yourself at the head of the

Malcontents,” continued M. de Witt, “and taken upon yourself the

dangerous and troublesome part of a pretender.”

“Nay, Mynheer,” William glanced up, “I pretend to nothing; I went to

Middelburg to enter upon an office mine by right.”

“You had not the sanction of the State.”

“Mynheer--I was within the law--the law of the Republic,” answered

the Prince. “The State of Zeeland invited me, and I saw no reason to

refuse. If Their High Mightinesses consider Zeeland did amiss--it is a

matter for the Assembly.”

The Grand Pensionary seated himself the other side of the hearth and

fixed his deep eyes on the Prince’s composed face.

“You did a daring thing, an ill-considered thing, and, I think, a

dishonourable thing,” he said.

William blushed hotly at that last epithet, and for once the effort at

control showed. He was silent because he did not trust himself to speak.

“I put before you,” continued John de Witt, “the state of the country.

I asked you to dissociate yourself from the faction that used your

name. You evaded my frankness, you deceived my trust; while you assumed

docility you were planning to raise the standard of revolt. While I

was teaching you your duty to God and your country you were secretly

nursing selfish, ambitious, and dangerous designs. In a word,” he made

a disdainful gesture with his hand, “you deceived me.”

The Prince made a movement that tossed his violet mantle back from his

shoulders.

“I have never given you my word on any matter on which I have broken

it,” he said in a low voice, “nor used fair speeches. My behaviour has

been what you might have looked for from a State prisoner. I have said

I am grateful to you for your care, M. de Witt; I repeat it, you have

my duty and my friendship.”

“What duty or friendship was it that played this stroke?” asked the

Grand Pensionary.

William raised his brilliant eyes.

“I was within the law, Mynheer. That I went to claim my father’s

private titles has nothing to do with affairs of State.”

“Your visit had a political complexion.”

“Who has so represented it to you? Any lord visiting his fief would

receive the welcome Zeeland gave me. I could not imagine that the

friendliness of people long devoted to my House could cause uneasiness

to the Government.”

Their eyes met, but nothing was expressed in William’s steady glance

that M. de Witt could read his words by.

“Not uneasiness to the Government, Highness,” answered the Grand

Pensionary quietly, “for that is strong enough to quell whatever

dissatisfaction your action may have raised, but uneasiness to me, who

have your welfare at heart. I had hoped to accomplish as your friend

what I may now have to perform as your adversary.”

The Prince looked into the fire. The lace on his breast was rising

and falling quickly with his breathing, and his reddish, arched brows

were raised slightly. John de Witt marvelled in his heart at this

youth’s control; he was a little baffled by it. His desire was to

take William’s manner for sincerity; experience, and the counsels of

Cornelius, warned him that it might very well be diplomacy. Himself,

he was using the one weapon he had used all his life, a noble, simple

honesty of purpose and of speech.

“You have heard what has taken place in the Assembly?” he asked.

“Yes, Mynheer.” William drew out his laced handkerchief and pressed

it to his lips. “It is concerning the measures lately passed in the

Assembly that I wished to speak to you.”

“They could not please you,” said M. de Witt, half mournfully; “but you

forced me.”

The Prince coughed.

“It seems you think me dangerous, Mynheer?”

John de Witt answered him directly--

“I think the position you might assume would be dangerous.”

William lifted suddenly smiling eyes.

“Were not my hopes of dominion effectually foiled by the Perpetual

Edict, Mynheer, that you needed other laws to strengthen your power?”

“Not my power,” replied M. de Witt, “but the safety of the Republic.”

William pushed back the hair from his low forehead.

“Ah, you credit me with ambitions--am I not sufficiently helpless? Do

you think I should intrigue for the mastery of the Seven Provinces,

I--who am heir to nothing?” He gave a little smile, half bitter. “You

need not have taken these precautions, M. de Witt.”

“Of what does Your Highness complain?” asked the Grand Pensionary.

William answered with a flash of repressed feeling--

“Their High Mightinesses engaged to give me the Captain Generalship

when I came of age … and it has been placed in the hands of M. de

Montbas.”

“You are not yet of age, Highness--youth and inexperience must wait and

learn. M. de Montbas is a good soldier, and the States have confidence

in him.”

The Prince’s hand closed tightly on the arm of his chair.

“And I had your promise, Mynheer, to obtain for me a seat in the

Council of State, yet I hear you oppose my election----”

“By your action in Middelburg you have forfeited my favour in this

matter,” replied M. de Witt. “And I am sorry.”

William bit his lip.

“You have seen the Princess Dowager,” he said.

“And won her to my views for you.”

“What are your--views, Mynheer?”

“I have told Her Highness that the States will not be forced. By

premature intrigues you merely endanger the goodwill of the Republic,

on which rest all your hopes.”

The Prince gave him a keen look.

“So--you will oppose me in the Assembly?” he asked, rather breathlessly.

“I shall oppose your election into the Council of State, Highness--at

least till you are of age.”

“And your reason, Mynheer?”

“My reason,” replied the Grand Pensionary gravely, “is that I am the

servant of this Republic and sworn to maintain it in its integrity,

therefore I cannot put so much power into the hands of one who has

nothing save his birth as a qualification. I am not blind to your

abilities, Highness, but you are too young, and have just given proof

you may be too ambitious.”

William made a little movement in his chair.

“And the Captain Generalship?” he asked.

“On that point the States are adamant, it remains in the hands of M. de

Montbas--until you are of age at least.”

There was a second’s pause while William strove to contain himself,

when he spoke it was in a low voice--

“I am sorry to have incurred your enmity, Mynheer.”

“Not my enmity,” returned M. de Witt, with feeling; “there you mistake

me, Highness.”

“You yourself assure me of your opposition to my claims,” said the

Prince. “You yourself tell me that you have withdrawn your promise in

the matter of the Council of State.”

“And I have told you why: because I uphold this Republic, because

I must serve what I have sworn to serve, because I cannot, on my

conscience, sacrifice the liberty of many to the aggrandisement of

one--because I am opposed to princely power. But this does not leave

me, Highness, the less your friend.”

William was silent.

The shadows had so encroached on them that they could hardly see each

other. M. de Witt himself lit the candles and placed them on the

mantelshelf, where they were reflected in the tortoiseshell-framed

mirror.

As the steady light filled the chamber the Grand Pensionary looked down

at the Prince.

“Do you not understand,” he said, “my position, what I must, and what I

shall do?”

“I understand,” answered William, “what I can not do, Mynheer.”

“I have angered you, Highness.” John de Witt spoke gently. “It is

against my will--I would serve you any way I could--I would forget the

unruly spirit you have shown. Is it not possible there might yet be

confidence between us?”

The Prince replied as abruptly as irrelevantly--

“Mynheer, was it by your commands I was slighted at Breda?”

John de Witt’s face hardened.

“I know of no slight, Highness. It was you who treated the officers

with contempt when you refused to sit down to table with them.”

“By your desire I was placed below M. de Montbas?”

“Yes, by my desire,” answered M. de Witt firmly. “Why do you refer to

this incident, Highness? It was against my wish that you went to the

camp, and in the matter of the banquet you behaved foolishly.”

“There was no gentleman there, as there is no gentleman in the United

Provinces, above me in rank,” said the Prince, and a barely contained

pride was in his eyes and voice.

“M. de Montbas is above you as the representative of the Republic and

the head of the Army, Highness.”

Again William bit his lip. With the effort of keeping back the passion

in his soul he flushed and quivered, fixing his eyes, that he knew

often betrayed him, on the fire.

“Very well, Mynheer, I shall remember your wish, or the desire of the

law, whichever I must call it.”

At the slightest touch of submission John de Witt always softened

instantly.

He crossed the hearth, came behind William’s chair and laid his hand

affectionately on the youth’s shoulder.

“It is difficult to be a prince in a Republic. You have, in many ways,

a hard heritage; believe me, I have always understood it. We owe your

House too much … of all things I detest ingratitude.… I have seen

nobility in you, too. You will be worthy of your name.”

The Prince, whose perfect insight and tact had already assured him that

he would obtain no concessions from the Grand Pensionary, controlled

himself to a soft answer.

“This further puts me in your debt, M. de Witt,” he said, and rose,

holding the mantle on his breast. “You will not find me ungrateful … if

I have troubled you … you must forgive me.”

This graceful surrender surprised and touched M. de Witt.

“Indeed I have been ill,” continued William, “or I had written to

you--but since I could not with my own hand, I was loath to send you a

letter by a clerk.”

“I am sorry for your ill health,” said M. de Witt sincerely, “and glad

that you are reasonable.”

“I trust you will never find me otherwise, Mynheer.”

All trace of ill-humour had vanished from the Prince’s manner. He

could, when he chose, be charming; very few could resist him when he

unbent, certainly not John de Witt.

“We will take up our interrupted studies, Highness, and I will overlook

an indiscretion, as you must overlook some necessary harshness,” he

smiled.

“Do not recall M. Bornius and M. de Chapuygeau,” pleaded William

frankly. “Mynheer, I know all they can teach me. M. Huggens, M. Van

Ghent, and yourself are sufficient tutors for me,--nay, you will do me

this favour, not to put over me men whom I dislike.”

John de Witt was still smiling.

“You had no right to dismiss them, Highness, but to show my goodwill I

shall obtain this favour for you.”

“I am greatly obliged to you, Mynheer.”

William was thanking him, flattering him, with his marvellous eyes, his

low voice and grateful carriage.

“Will you honour me with a visit to-morrow, Mynheer?” he asked, with

an air of courteous outspokenness that sat charmingly on his youth. “I

have left M. Van Odyk in Middelburg to exercise those duties that will

be mine when I am out of tutelage--for the rest, I beg you will forgive

them.”

“Highness,” answered John de Witt, gravely and sweetly, “it is my mind

ever to spend as little time as possible in looking backwards, it

will be my very great happiness to forget everything save your good

qualities, and to work side by side with you in the future.”

William fixed his smiling eyes on the Grand Pensionary’s face and held

out his hand--

“Thank you, Mynheer, my actions shall show me not ungrateful.”

M. de Witt clasped the frail fingers warmly.

“Mr. Bromley will be tired of waiting,” said the Prince, “and I fear I

have already trespassed on your kindness.”

He picked up his hat and gloves from the chair by the fire.

“Until to-morrow, Mynheer.”

The Grand Pensionary came to the door with him. The lamps were lit in

the Kneuterdyk Avenue, and the invariable autumn mists were blowing

coldly from the sea.

“There will be skating soon,” said William, with a little shiver.

Mr. Bromley, walking the horses up and down, stopped before the house

at sight of his master.

“Good-night, Highness.”

“Good-night, M. de Witt; and again, thank you.”

The Grand Pensionary closed the door, and the Prince descended the

steps. As he turned his back on M. de Witt’s house his eyes narrowed as

if he looked at something a long way off.

“Well, Your Highness?” asked Mr. Bromley, who was rather cold but still

good-humoured.

William mounted without touching the stirrup, and gathered up the reins.

“He is iron,” he said; “I could not do anything nor even attempt it.

How much longer?” he added in a sombre passion, “how much longer?”

They trotted the horses briskly through the cobbled streets.

“M. de Chapuygeau and M. Bornius are not coming back; I have at least

two masters the less,” remarked the Prince, with a gloomy satisfaction.

“I am glad, Highness,” answered Mr. Bromley, who hated these two. “And

M. Van Ghent?”

“He stays--I could not speak against him.”

“Did M. de Witt mention his secretary who came to join you at

Middelburg?”

“No. I cannot keep him in my service, Bromley--yet he might be useful,”

added the Prince, with the statesman’s dislike to waste good material.

“Well, we will talk of it to M. de Zuylestein.”

He lapsed into silence, but as they passed the Stadhuis Mr. Bromley

roused him.

“Then you are still on bad terms with M. de Witt?” he suggested;

wondering what this interview had amounted to, and whether the Prince’s

cause had been advanced or no by this flight to Middelburg and its

results.

“I am very good friends with M. de Witt,” answered William grimly, from

out the depths of his riding-cloak collar, “and he hath forgiven me.

But I had to fawn on him--fawn on him, Bromley!… It is a thing not to

be forgotten.”

CHAPTER IX

AMALIA OF SOLMS

Her Highness the Dowager Princess of Orange coloured with pleasure,

hastily put aside the letter she was writing, and went down to the

chamber where, as she had just been told, her grandson awaited her.

It was a pouring wet day, and she had not been able to leave her

elegant little residence to go into the garden which was, even at

this time of the year, her delight. This had added to the weariness

and monotony of her ordinary quiet life, and made the rare favour

of a voluntary visit from the Prince, the only member of her family

left her, and the person that she held dearest in the world, the more

grateful.

The Princess was still comely, vivacious, and bright as when Prince

Frederick Henry had married her, forty years ago. She was dressed with

a richness and surrounded with a comfort that her straitened means

made a marvel. To prevent economy from becoming meanness, and to keep

luxury this side of extravagance, were her constant, almost her only,

employments.

She opened the door softly and gazed at the Prince before he saw her.

The room looked on the front of the house, and was sumptuously

furnished, with Persian carpets, Chinese cabinets, porcelain ornaments,

carved settees and chairs, gilt and richly cushioned with stamped

leather and satin.

Near the dark red silk window-curtains hung a brightly coloured parrot

in an ebony ring, in front of the fire slept a white cat, on a chair

near were a tambour frame and a basket of silks.

There was only one picture, a half-length portrait of William II., in

armour, holding his helmet; this hung above the mantelpiece.

Cut deep into the heavy oak frame showed the motto of the house of

Nassau.--

“Je sera Nassau, moi, je maintaindrai.”

Standing by the delicate-hued harpsichord that filled one corner of the

room, the Prince waited. He held his whip in his hand and was frowning

thoughtfully.

The Princess stepped into the chamber and closed the door with a little

sound that made him turn.

“Ah, Madame, I disturb you----”

“Disturb me!” she interrupted, smiling, “it is good of you to come and

see a lonely old woman.”

He came forward and would have saluted her hand, but she caught him

by the shoulders and kissed him on the brow--a caress he did her the

honour of enduring in silence.

“How cold you are!” she exclaimed. “Have you ridden here in this rain?”

It had been pouring all day; the question seemed to William too foolish

to answer.

“And on horseback!” cried the Princess, catching sight of his whip, and

wet mantle over a chair.

“You know I cannot endure a carriage, Madame.”

The Princess rang the little silver bell on her work-table.

“It is very imprudent, my dear--allow old age its liberty in saying

so--you need a woman to look after you. These men would let you kill

yourself and never notice it. Come to the fire,” she finished, with a

pretty air of command.

William obeyed, coughing a little, which caused her to raise still

further her brows and shake her head.

A servant made his appearance.

“Remove His Highness’ mantle and dry it--and--whom have you brought

with you, William?”

“Mr. Bromley and a groom.”

“See His Highness’ gentleman is made comfortable, and let the horses be

looked to,” said the Princess.

The man bowed low as he withdrew. The subtle air of a Court still clung

round Amalia of Solms; in her own house, at least, she was treated as

a sovereign Princess. William respected her for that. He found the

atmosphere of her pleasant residence congenial; it was the nearest

approach to home that he had ever known, and, compared with his dreary

Palace at the Hague, ease, luxury, and comfort combined.

The Princess settled herself in her chair.

“I have not seen you since your visit to Middelburg. Come nearer the

fire; sit down and tell me all that happened.”

She was a handsome old lady; had been of the pretty, imperious style of

beauty, dark and flashing. As she leant back on her cushions now, in

her yellow silk gown, with her brown eyes under her white hair and the

fine lace round her head and fastened under her chin, she was a beauty

still.

“You know what occurred at Middelburg, Madame,” answered William, not

very warmly.

“I have had reports--letters from Mr. Bromley, to whom I am eternally

grateful!--but from you nothing!”

William leant on the arm of his chair, coughed, and pushed back his

curls.

His expression told the Princess that he was displeased with her. She

had half expected it. Certainly she had helped concoct her grandson’s

journey to Middelburg, but she had immediately thereafter been

frightened and had allowed herself easily to be won by M. de Witt again

to prudence--and William knew it.

Unfurling a black and glittering fan, she held it between her face and

the fire, while she gave her grandson an anxious glance.

“You are angry with me, William,” she said plaintively. “You only came

to see me because you wanted to scold me.”

The Prince still looked into the fire.

“Ah, me,” sighed Amalia of Solms, “I can never please you. You have

no more devoted friend than I, and you do not repay me with the least

regard or affection.”

The Prince answered now, in his soft voice and slow utterance--

“These reproaches, Madame, are foolish--it is I who have the grievance.

Had you stood firm once I found myself in Middelburg I should find

myself in a different position now.”

The Princess sat up with a helpless, appealing gesture, clasping her

white hands over her heart.

“I did all I could--I solemnly notified to the Assembly that I had

declared you of age--I wrote to Prince John Maurice begging him to join

you----”

“He had not the courage to respond further than Bergen-op-Zoom,”

interrupted William dryly.

“I know--it was not my fault--I thought that he would be a valuable

ally for you----”

Again the Prince broke in--

“I think of M. de Witt, Madame--he came to you?”

“The moment he learned you were at Middelburg,” answered the Princess,

with a shiver.

“What to find out or say?”

“I do not know,” the fan fluttered nervously. “It was dreadful----”

“And you were frightened--you made concessions.”

“Not one, my dear, not one!”

“M. de Witt warned you we were going too far.” William turned on her

his masterful eyes.

“He was angry, of course,” said the Princess evasively.

“He told you my action had imperilled those favours already promised

me--in a word, he threatened you.”

“Maybe he did--he was certainly angry,” repeated the Princess.

“And you gave way, Madame.”

“Not an inch!”

William smiled rather bitterly.

“I wish I could believe it----”

“Indeed, it is the truth.”

“It is the truth, Madame,” asserted the Prince impatiently, “that M. de

Witt frightened you into losing all the ground we had gained. Of what

use to me are a few plaudits in Middelburg if I lose the seat in the

Council of State and the Captain Generalship?”

“You must not blame me for that,” protested the Princess. “I could not

defy M. de Witt, who is, after all, our master.”

“You could have evaded him,” said William. “But no, you must meet him

half-way; and, after declaring me of age, render us both foolish by

waiving all discussion as to my future until I am twenty-two, the age

the State appointed from the first … M. de Witt promises his friendship

in four years time--and for that you retract everything----”

“Indeed no----”

But the Prince swept aside her protestations.

“You gave your consent to my remaining under the guardianship of M. de

Witt, just as you put my education into the hands of the States, when

they made overtures to you.”

“You have never forgiven it,” sighed Amalia of Solms, “but it was

always for your good that I acted. The States took you under their

protection … I could do nothing for you.”

William fixed his intense gaze on her.

“I would rather have been brought up by any poor pastor at a florin a

week than by M. de Witt. You delivered me into a prison, Madame; and

now, when I force the gates open, you close them on me again.”

The Princess furled her fan with a rattle of the ebony sticks.

“Indeed you wrong me--and hurt me, William.” She was flushed,

distressed. “I did not dare offend M. de Witt--for your sake--it is

better for you to have him as a friend than as an enemy. Where do we

stand if he turns on us? The States----”

The Prince rose and leant against the mantelpiece, silencing the old

lady with the manifest displeasure in his manner.

“Do not talk of the States, Madame, nor of the Republic,” he said, with

a disdainful accent; “the first are not in my way, and the second is

only a name. It is M. de Witt--always and only M. de Witt.”

“He is but a servant of the Government----”

“He _is_ the Government,” retorted William, “and the one man who

upholds it. Has he the suffrage of the country?--or even of the

Assembly?--but they agree with him and obey him because they are not

strong enough to resist. I tell you, Madame, it is that one man.”

“You dislike him,” sighed the Princess, as if she found it a matter for

regret.

“Dislike him!” repeated William, with a peculiar intonation. “He hath

kept me out of my birthright all my life; he, and he alone, prevents me

from regaining it now. He--a burgher’s son!”

The passion he put into these last words startled his grandmother. She

gazed at him mutely, opening and shutting her fan in her lap.

The Prince advanced across the room, twisting his handkerchief in his

fingers.

“It becomes almost more than I can endure,” he said, breathing

hard. “The other day I had to bring myself to speak him fair, and

he must put his hand on my shoulder--and say he pitied me--and

understood--understood--me!”

“He is a good man,” said the Princess, “and of a noble intelligence. I

think that he desires to do his duty by you.”

The Prince was looking, not at her, but at the portrait of his father,

whose dark eyes seemed to hold a melancholy yet fiery expression.

“I think M. de Witt does his duty very well,” he answered, “but I am

not a republican to second him in it. By what right does he think to

bend me into a tool to aid him in his usurped dominion?”

The Princess’ eyes followed her grandson’s gaze.

“It was this spirit in your father cost our House its heritage,” she

said, half fearfully.

“It was M. de Witt!” William’s eyes gleamed fiercely, “His plebeian

insolence!… It becomes very difficult for me to contain myself.… My

father had _his_ father jailed--into Loevenstein; I would I had _him_

there--and his stiff brother too----”

Amalia of Solms made a startled movement.

“Hush! we must wait before we can speak in such fashion.”

“I have been waiting all my life,” returned William bitterly.

“You are young enough, you can afford to bide your time.”

The Prince gave her a strange, half sad look.

“Can I so afford to wait, Madame? There is very much for me to do …

perhaps not many years in which to do it.”

“What do you mean?” cried the Princess, frightened.

“Why, it is of no matter,” he answered, as if he already regretted

having said so much, and he turned away abruptly and looked out of the

window at the rain, the grey sky, and the dripping trees.

Amalia of Solms watched him, the old fear catching at her heart.

She had been told that it would be a miracle if he grew to manhood,

as she had been assured that he would never survive his infancy. She

trusted one prediction would prove as false as the other, but as she

considered his frail appearance, his eyes shadowed with pain, his

colourless face, his languid movements; as she recalled his incessant

cough, his perpetual headaches, the horrible conviction struck her that

it was impossible for him to live long. She had a vague, disquieting

sense, too, of some vast, ambitious, and proud spirit contained in the

delicate body. Her grandson had never made a confidant of her, but she

felt he cherished designs of she knew not what magnitude, and she was

troubled for the loneliness he would not allow her to share.

The tears came to her eyes as she looked at him.

He stood leaning against the window frame, one hand on his hip, his

proud and commanding profile towards her; the low brow shaded by

the dark hair, the pale mouth firmly set. He wore his green velvet

riding-dress and a plain cravat of Frisian needlework. He had no sword,

for M. de Witt held that none save a soldier should go armed.

There was recalled to the Princess Amalia the image of another young

man as she had seen him in his hunting dress, eighteen years ago, the

last Stadtholder, not much older than his son was now, like him in

features and in pride, on the eve, he believed, of absolute power.

The Princess could remember how he had bent his whip in his hand and

spoken of “these presumptuous burghers!”

A week afterwards he lay dead of the smallpox in Guelders, and the

triumphant States were casting a medal to celebrate their deliverance;

representing the Stadtholder as Phæton, with the motto: “_Magnis

excidit ausis_.”

“By his great designs he destroyed himself.”

The Princess repeated the words to herself with a shiver, and the tears

ran down her cheeks.

The parrot, turning himself in his ring, suddenly gave a loud and

hoarse cry, as if tired of the silence.

William glanced up at him, then round at the Princess, who was hastily

drying her eyes.

“I must be returning,” he said.

“So soon?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Such a little while, and we

have talked nothing but politics--will you not stay to dinner?”

“Madame, I cannot--I am forbidden to be long abroad without M. Van

Ghent,” answered William sombrely. “And since I do not choose to ask a

favour or incur the suspicions of M. de Witt I am as restricted as a

prisoner.”

The Princess rose, raising moist and appealing eyes.

“You only came to tell me I had angered you!” she complained.

“I came to discover what M. de Witt had said, Madame. I do not blame

you; there is no use in thinking of it any more, only, I entreat you,

do not see him again.”

“Since he is more than a match for me?” sighed the Princess. “Ah, you

know a great deal for your age.”

She was a gracious and charming lady, she adored him, and she was his

father’s mother, but she had delivered his town of Orange to the French

and she had delivered him to the States General. William could not

forgive these things. He had against her, also, her quarrels with the

proud young mother he had worshipped, and her constant coquettings with

the republican party. But he constrained himself to forbear with her

now, endured her anxieties over his health, promised to write to her

and send Mr. Bromley with messages; even took her caresses, let her

fold her perfumed arms about him and again kiss his forehead.

She went to the window and watched him ride off through the rain; Mr.

Bromley, blonde and fresh-faced, waving his hat to her. She had been

told that Oliver Cromwell had said: “This William, son of the late

King’s daughter, will, if he lives, be heard of.”

The words occurred to her now, with a mingling of pride and pain. She

also was often lonely.

M. Simon Simonides, one of the clergy who made the pulpit the platform

of opposition to the Government of John de Witt, arrived at the “Huis

ten bosch” almost before the Prince had ridden out of sight under the

dripping trees. He was a favourite with the Princess. Amalia of Solms,

who was always served on gold plate, and the Calvinist pastor who lived

on a hundred gulden a year, had much in common. She greeted him warmly,

telling him that her grandson had just left.

“I would I had met him, Your Highness,” answered the pastor, deeply

disappointed.

“You do not know him, of course,” she remarked.

“I know of him, Madame. M. Triglandt, at present exiled in Utrecht,

hath spoken to me of him.” The old man’s countenance flushed. “I have

seen His Highness’ letters, I have seen his face in church. I know him

a prince in a thousand; a nature as strong, as deep, as constant as any

the Lord God ever made.”

CHAPTER X

AT THE HOUSE OF M. LE MARQUIS DE POMPONNE

Hyacinthe St. Croix, awaiting the pleasure of his employer, was

agreeably diverted by the view he had of an inner room furnished in

white and gold and occupied by two ladies.

The house of M. de Pomponne was situated in the outskirts of the Hague,

and transformed into as much resemblance to a French château as taste

and money could accomplish.

The chamber in which St. Croix found himself was hung with fine Flemish

tapestry, representing the legend of St. Ursula, and divided from the

other apartment by carved doors that stood open, revealing an elegant

room furnished in Spanish leather and tulip wood, and lit by the soft

radiance of a crystal lamp.

Seated by the bright fire was a dark-haired lady in a brown velvet

gown, engaged in making lace. St. Croix knew her for the Marquise de

Pomponne; the interest of his gaze was all for her companion.

She sat by the tapestry-covered window, a Chinese table before her, on

which stood a chess-board set with scarlet and ivory pieces.

Her profile, face and figure were towards St. Croix. She seemed

absorbed in some problem that she had set herself, for she did not

raise her eyes from the chess-board, and her only movement came when

she lifted her slender hand to change one of the white or red men.

Her delicate features, the knot of her golden hair, the slender lines

of her figure in its tight blue gown were shown up distinctly by the

dark background.

St. Croix, under cover of the space between them, stared at her boldly.

She was known to him by reputation, and he had seen her once before

riding with de Pomponne on the Voorhout.

Glad was he of the chance to scrutinise her curiously at his ease, for

she had a name powerful at Versailles. She was a woman he might be glad

to have a word from, but he was well aware that her profession was

nevertheless the same as his own, and that if she were more successful

it was largely because she was less scrupulous.

He had heard her history, more than once, for it made a piquant

story,--one not in the least to her credit, and containing incidents

that it had needed a clever woman to get the better of, even at the

Court of France.

He wondered what use de Pomponne could have for this lady at the Hague.

The United Provinces seemed a field where her talents could find but

little scope.

The entrance of M. de Pomponne disturbed both his reflections and his

study of the slender lady with the chessmen.

The Marquis was not in the best of humours. He nodded to his visitor

and flung himself into a chair, biting his glove.

His first remark was to complain that the candles were in need of

snuffing. A servant was summoned and this remedied, then he deigned to

look at St. Croix.

“This tool of yours, this Van Mander, has turned out very ill.”

St. Croix flushed.

“There has been no harm, Monsieur,” he said, secretly nettled.

“I am not so sure--first he returns you my letter to the Prince----”

St. Croix was surprised.

“You said, Monseigneur, that His Highness had explained he must avoid

even the appearance of an intrigue.”

“Well, well,” the Marquis brought his hand down impatiently on the

table,--“now I hear he has entered the Prince’s service.”

“But he is not to remain at the Hague,” replied St. Croix eagerly. “No,

Monseigneur, that could not be under the very eyes of M. de Witt--he is

to be sent to Brandenburg to join M. Bentinck at the Elector’s court.”

“Who told you so?”

“The man himself, Monsieur.”

“Then he is still in communication with you?”

“I see him occasionally.”

“But he is of no use to us?”

St. Croix shrugged his shoulders.

“I cannot tell.”

“It is your business to find out,” answered de Pomponne arrogantly.

“Only I ask you, Monseigneur, what can one do with these Hollanders? I

have had this man in play for years, but----” he shrugged his shoulders.

“He is too much for you--which is a pity, for if you could have managed

him he would have been very useful.”

“He was inclined to deal with us once, certainly; now, however----”

“Well, what has happened to him now?” demanded the Marquis sharply.

“He appears to be infatuated with the Prince of Orange.”

M. de Pomponne considered a moment.

“The Prince is friendly with us,” he said at length, narrowing his fine

dark eyes.

“Many of his followers do not know _how_ friendly, Monseigneur.”

The Marquis smiled.

“Mon Dieu, that is what I would like to know myself,” he said,--“_how_

friendly.”

“A matter you cannot discover, Monseigneur, I cannot hope to.”

M. de Pomponne leant on the table, the candlelight full on his

handsome, florid face, his glittering, splendid clothes.

“It must be discovered,” he said, and took his chin in his hand

thoughtfully.

St. Croix glanced past him, through the open door, at the distant lady

in blue.

“His Highness hath not shown himself unfriendly.”

The Marquis shrugged his shoulders.

“He is politic, extraordinarily prudent for his age. I saw him the

other day. He was courteous, protested his duty to His Majesty; still,

he refuses our help?”

“He fears to compromise himself in the eyes of M. de Witt,” said

Hyacinthe St. Croix instantly.

“You have gained nothing from this Van Mander as to the Prince’s actual

thoughts?”

“No, he is no way in his intimacy; the Prince has hardly spoken to him.”

“What we need is to gain some one in his confidence.”

“I fear it is impossible, Monseigneur,” answered St. Croix. “I believe

his best friends are M. Triglandt, a fanatical Calvinist----”

“His former tutor.”

“--whom it would be folly to approach----”

“Naturally--and the other?”

“M. Bentinck, at Brandenburg.”

“It would be no use meddling with him----”

“There is the Princess.”

“She knows no more than I, neither does M. Zuylestein.” The Marquis

frowned thoughtfully. “I am baffled at every turn; I have nothing to

send to His Majesty, nothing, and I know not how to act. Before I help

place the Orange party in power I must be assured that they will serve

me when they have arrived at it.”

“The Prince could never stand alone, and where else should he find

support?” returned St. Croix.

“I do not know--but he plays a deep game, this last move shows it.”

“Some say he has but damaged himself, since he provoked such severity

from M. de Witt.”

“That very severity works to his ends since it further estranges the

people from M. de Witt,” answered the Marquis. “We may look out for a

revolution, it is very plain.… That is not the point. The question is,

what will this youth do when he obtains the power?”

St Croix lowered his voice--

“If any can discover, you have one in this house----”

The Marquis glanced at him.

“You mean Madame Lavalette?”

“Yes, Monseigneur.”

“She is leaving for Spain in another week.” M. de Pomponne tapped his

fine fingers on the table. “Besides--Mon Dieu, one has no chance.”

“There is the ball at the Binnenhof, on Friday, Monsieur.”

“It is not known if the Prince goes.”

“Van Mander told me--yes.”

“I wonder why?--I think he does nothing without a reason.”

“To show himself--to speak to the Deputies.”

The Marquis looked over his shoulder at the impassive figure of Madame

Lavalette over her chess problem.

“He is a boy, Monsieur; in some things utterly untried.”

“I confess it had occurred to me--but,” de Pomponne shrugged his

shoulders, “these Hollanders!--and the Prince is secretive--even for a

Hollander.”

“Still, Monsieur, you can try.”

“You mean Madame Lavalette can try,” answered the Marquis.

“It would be my advice, Monseigneur.”

“Take most men--she would get more in five minutes than I in

a fortnight,” de Pomponne admitted; “but whether this little

Calvinist----”

“He is seventeen, Monsieur--it is not possible he should possess the

wisdom of thrice his age.”

“Well, we will put him to the test;” the Marquis gave his indolent

smile and pushed back his chair.

Hyacinthe St. Croix rose.

“I will send you a ticket for the ball,” said the Marquis. “You had

better be there.”

“Thank you, Monseigneur.”

St. Croix bowed till his yellow, frizzled hair fell over his face.

De Pomponne gave him a nod and a wave of a plump hand, which careless

dismissal was all that he deigned.

When St. Croix had gone he leant forward and looked into the inner room.

His wife had left it, Madame Lavalette sat alone, fingering the red and

white pieces. The Marquis de Pomponne rose and walked slowly over to

her.

She turned on him large, deep blue and languishing eyes.

“I have just solved my problem,” she said in a low and pretty voice.

“And I, Madame, want you to help me solve mine.”

“Ah?” She sank back in her stiff chair, and taking up the red king

turned him about in her fingers.

The Marquis leant carelessly against the carved window frame.

“You overheard, perhaps, what I was saying to Monsieur St. Croix?”

“No, Monsieur.”

She glanced up. Her fair and shining hair was waved simply round her

oval face and caught on her neck with a pearl comb; a few long ringlets

fell on to her deep lace collar. Her face had a soft, almost plaintive

expression, her mouth was small and wistful.

“Well,” said the Marquis, “I will desire you to attend the ball at the

Binnenhof.”

“Monsieur,” she answered, “I have M. de Louvois’ commands to go to

Spain.”

“But you may do me this service first, Madame la Duchesse.”

“What is the problem and the service, Monsieur?”

The Marquis, looking down at her indolently, frowned now discontentedly.

“The problem is the Prince of Orange, Madame--and the service----”

She interrupted with the slightest sparkle of malice in her tone--

“You call me in when you have failed--what would M. de Louvois say?”

M. de Pomponne answered in a vexed tone--

“I wish M. de Louvois was here doing my work and I at Versailles doing

his, for, Mon Dieu! one might as well be sent on an embassy to the

fishes as be asked to come into exile here where one’s health is ruined

by damp, one’s temper by Leyden Logic--where the only amusement is the

contemplation of Dutch virtue.”

“It is the virtue that is the difficulty,” smiled Madame Lavalette.

“They are a quite impossible people--that is why, Monsieur, I am going

to Spain--but you----?”

“I!” he answered impatiently. “It is like trying to negotiate with

a lot of frogs, cold and stupid. When you have got through their

formalities they start on their religion, and when they have finished

with that they freeze into a silence----”

“That you want me to endeavour to break?”

“I should be your debtor for life, Madame.”

She raised her brows.

“But, my friend, what do you think I can do?”

The Marquis knew that she had already failed to obtain even an audience

of M. de Witt, though she had come to the Hague with the object of

persuading him to the concessions required by M. de Louvois with regard

to the herring fisheries; her question was, therefore, pertinent enough.

“I am thinking of the Prince.”

Madame Lavalette showed some impatience.

“I am tired of the whole country, its psalm-singing burghers and its

frogs--I wish to get away.”

“Madame, the ball is on Friday, it would not detain you--and the Prince

is different from these others.”

“He does not interest me.”

“Have you seen him?”

She shook her fair head--

“He is kept too close.”

“Well, when you see him, and speak to him, you will be interested,

Madame.”

She replaced the red king on the board.

“Why?”

“He is an enigma.”

Madame looked up. De Pomponne had piqued her curiosity and her vanity,

as he intended.

“You think I can solve this enigma?”

The Marquis smiled.

“If any one can, Madame.”

“I wonder?” she mused languidly, then she rose with a soft sound of

silks.

“What do you want me to do?”

“To draw from the Prince something of his designs, something of his

feelings towards France. In a word, Madame, to discover that which

I have failed to discern--what manner of stuff we have there. If he

worked with us, he would, as His Majesty’s cousin, be of immense

use; he could, without much difficulty, be placed at the head of the

State----”

“Oh, I know the position quite well,” she interrupted. “Considering

that you have talked nothing else since I have been at the Hague, I

should have it by heart; but, Mon Dieu, whether I care to meddle is

another matter.”

She crossed to the fireplace and rested the tip of her blue shoe on the

brass curb.

“It will be very little trouble to you, Madame, and a vast service to

me.”

The Duchess looked at him over her shoulder with a little laugh.

“My good de Pomponne, this country is unnerving you!”

The Marquis did not deny it.

“I always protested against the appointment, as you must remember,

Madame.”

“But M. de Louvois was obdurate.”

“As he always is,” grumbled de Pomponne.

Madame Lavalette tapped her chin with the tips of her feather fan.

“The Prince hates women, I think,” she said, “and all manner of

frivolities----”

“He is as austere as John de Witt … but a great deal younger.”

“And not so confirmed in severity?” She smiled and raised a face that

was glowing a golden rose-colour in the radiance of the fire. “Maybe he

hath lacked opportunity,” she added. “Had he even the nature of a rake

he could hardly have shown it under M. de Witt’s guardianship.”

“Mon Dieu, no!”

The Duchess looked thoughtfully into the clear flames.

She was angry with M. de Witt for having refused her an opportunity to

execute her mission. Did she succeed in drawing the Prince of Orange

she might avenge herself on the severe Grand Pensionary, and not wholly

fail towards M. de Louvois. She foresaw that let M. de Witt once see

her even speaking to William, he would take care no other chance would

be given for the continuance of her intrigues, for he knew both her

character and her mission.

But Madame Lavalette decided she might be careless there, for she was

leaving Holland. She could also rely on accomplishing much in a short

time.

She was not generally unsuccessful.

The thought of a youthful and royal Scipio was not displeasing to her

vanity; and to play Cleopatra to an Augustus of seventeen seemed to

the Duchess both safe and amusing.

She turned her languishing eyes on de Pomponne’s handsome, indolent

face.

“Get me a ticket for the ball at the Binnenhof, Monseigneur,” she said.

CHAPTER XI

THE BALL IN THE BINNENHOF

“You are disappointed?” inquired Mr. Bromley.

Florent Van Mander answered slowly--

“I should have liked to stay in the Hague.”

“But you see it is impossible,” the Englishman assured him, with frank

friendliness. “M. de Witt hath already spoken to His Highness about the

harbouring of any who forsake his service,--and, indeed, the Prince is

scarcely free to choose his household.”

Florent was silent. His desire was to serve the Prince personally, to

have some chance of winning his favour, to be in the thick of events at

the Hague, the seat of action.

Brandenburg seemed far away, and he had no interest in M. Bentinck. It

was not for this that he had left John de Witt; but, having burnt his

bridges behind him, there was nothing to do save to go on.

Mr. Bromley saw by his face he was not pleased.

“It shows His Highness thinks something of you, M. Mander,” he

remarked, “that he puts himself to this trouble; and M. Bentinck is his

best friend.”

They stood in one of the bare ante-chambers of the Prince’s Palace. M.

Van Ghent had allowed William to see the secretary he was sending to

the Elector’s court, and Florent awaited his audience.

He would rather have been alone or silent; but Matthew Bromley’s

pleasant manners would not tolerate pauses. He snuffed the candles,

pulled the dark curtains closer, and remarked that it was cold.

“And the night of the ball at the Binnenhof.”

“The Prince is going?” asked Florent.

“Yes,” Bromley answered, with some reserve.

The ball was in honour of the wedding of one of M. de Witt’s cousins;

William’s invitation had been a command.

Florent looked at the Englishman keenly.

“You are very devoted to His Highness, are you not?” he asked curiously.

“I am,” said Matthew Bromley simply.

“But you were in M. de Witt’s employ----”

“Only before I knew the Prince.”

“That is what I mean,”--Florent spoke quickly,--“before you knew the

Prince. He cannot do for you what M. de Witt could, indeed he can do

nothing at all; why are you devoted to him?”

Mr. Bromley’s fair face took on a puzzled expression, he reflected,

hesitated.

“I do not know,” he said at last.

Florent drew a deep breath.

“Neither do I.… I also have left M. de Witt, and, in a way, ruined

myself, and I do not know why.”

“I like His Highness,” went on Mr. Bromley, still trying to honestly

answer the question. “Why are _you_ devoted to him? But every one who

comes near him would serve him to the death,” again he reflected; again

he added, “I do not know why.”

He glanced up at Florent’s grave face and laughed.

“I have no interest in your politics, you see, Mynheer; for me one is

like another. I think M. de Witt is a great and good man, and I really

know nothing about the Prince’s character or designs--but, well, I just

serve him.… I would follow him anywhere.”

Florent walked up and down the chamber. He wore his dark travelling

clothes, for he was impatient, since he must go, to be off at once. The

place had become intolerable of late, since he was always afraid of

meeting some of his old companions, or even M. de Witt himself.

Mr. Bromley rubbed his hands together. The large, princely, but bare,

room was certainly both dreary and cold, scantily furnished, and ill

lit by the two-branched candlesticks on the mantelshelf.

The pause was broken by the quick opening of the door.

Both the men looked round.

It was the Prince, though Florent did not instantly know him.

He wore a long dark mantle and a plumed hat. He did not uncover; he

exacted as if by instinct the privileges of royalty, and his household

conceded them. Despite M. de Witt he was surrounded by a court.

“Mynheer Van Mander,” he said, with his usual slowness.

Florent flushed and bowed--over low for a good republican.

The Prince came down the long chamber.

“Are you prepared to go to Brandenburg?” he asked.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

William made no answer, and Florent glanced, half covertly, at his face.

The Prince was looking thoughtfully at the floor, his features almost

concealed by the shadow of his hat. Under his mantle could be seen the

soft colour of his pale violet coat; one of his bare hands rested on

his cravat, in the other he held a letter.

He spoke without looking up--

“I do not know that you gain much by the change of masters, Mynheer

Van Mander. It is very quiet at my uncle the Elector’s court, and M.

Bentinck can only pay you moderately.”

“I have decided to accept the post, Your Highness.”

The Prince slowly raised the eyes he knew so well how to use, and let

them rest a moment on Florent’s face.

“I can promise nothing to any one,” he said. “So if this is to worship

the rising sun--think a little.”

Under William’s glance Florent’s first flush deepened.

“I shall be glad in any way to serve Your Highness,” he answered

awkwardly.

William faintly smiled, and, half mockingly, put to him the question he

had put to Matthew Bromley--

“Why?”

Florent faced the compelling gaze fixed on him, and found, this time,

an answer.

“Your Highness makes me feel as I have never felt till now.”

“That is curious,” said the Prince, “for I have seen very little of

you, Mynheer Van Mander.”

“But I have seen enough of Your Highness,” replied Florent.

The Prince was silent. His bearing seemed, if anything, to repel this

homage, but Florent was sufficiently pleased that it was not utterly

refused.

His annoyance at being sent to Brandenburg, his regrets for M. de

Witt’s comfortable service, had vanished when he found himself in the

presence of the Prince.

William’s subtle but amazingly powerful personal influence outweighed

all considerations.

He awaited his instructions. He also had caught the trick of the Court;

he followed Mr. Bromley’s example and waited for the Prince to address

him.

William looked down again and coughed, then handed Florent the letter.

“This is for M. Bentinck, it is your introduction and your credentials.

If you wish to serve me you will serve M. Bentinck--it is the same

thing.”

Florent bent his head and placed the letter inside his breast pocket.

“M. Renswoude will meet you downstairs and give you the money for your

journey,” continued the Prince. “Good-bye, Mynheer Van Mander.”

That was all.

William uttered none of those things that Florent, up to the last even,

might have been expecting. Neither thanks nor caution did the Prince

give him; did not bid him be faithful or discreet, yet expressed no

trust in him; gave no explanation of, and passed no comment on, his

choice of him for this service.

He walked slowly towards the door, and Florent, in leaving the room,

must pass him.

The Prince suddenly held out his hand and smiled. Florent felt the

blood glow in his face. He went on one knee and raised the soft, white,

and beautiful hand to his lips.

William wore a diamond ring, and the lace round his wrist was faintly

perfumed. Florent noticed this; it was part of the appeal of rank and

tradition, the fascination of royalty.

When he rose the Prince was no longer smiling, but Florent was amply

repaid for any sacrifice he had made in joining his service.

William turned away as he left the room and walked back to where Mr.

Bromley waited.

“That man can be faithful,” he said as the door closed on Florent.

Mr. Bromley made a little grimace.

“He has not been faithful to M. de Witt, Highness.”

“But he will be loyal to me,” answered the Prince carelessly.

“You have the trick of it, Highness,” admitted Matthew Bromley.

William frowned. Mr. Bromley guessed him to be in an exceeding

ill-humour and ventured on no more.

M. Van Ghent sent up to say he was waiting for His Highness. The Prince

discovered that he had forgotten his gloves, and Mr. Bromley went for

them.

When he returned the Prince was still in his anteroom and M. Van Ghent

still waiting below.

William took the gloves leisurely.

“What are these?” he asked.

They were a pair of white doeskin which Mr. Bromley had from the

Prince’s valet; he said so.

William turned them over, then put one on.

“They are a misfit and of paltry quality,” he remarked. “Who bought

them?”

M. Heenvliet, who had been sent by the Prince’s tutor, entering at the

moment, interrupted--

“The coach is ready, Your Highness, and M. Van Ghent is waiting.”

William gave him a half glance.

“Why, so you said.” He turned to Mr. Bromley. “Fetch La Motte.”

Matthew Bromley hesitated; but there was a set to the Prince’s cleft

chin intimating to those who knew him that his mood was to override

opposition.

Mr. Bromley obeyed.

William pulled off the white glove, and when the valet entered the room

turned to him angrily--

“Who bought these?”

“Mynheer Heenvliet, Highness.”

“How much was given for them?”

La Motte looked at M. Heenvliet.

“The gloves cost six gulden a pair, Highness,” said that gentleman,

“and they are such as Your Highness hath often worn before.”

“My faith, no!” replied William. “I have never worn such gauntlets. Six

gulden a pair! I do not know what is the motive of this economy but I

will not endure it, Mynheer.”

Kerckhove Lord of Heenvliet flushed.

“Your clothes are bought under the approval of M. Van Ghent, Highness,

and the authority of Mynheer de Witt.”

The Prince’s eyes were dangerously bright.

“All of which makes no difference, Mynheer; my income is sufficient to

dress me better than a German count.”

Mr. Bromley held his peace. It seemed to him that the gloves were well

enough, and that the Prince wished to provoke his hated tutor, since

His Highness lost no possible opportunity for annoying M. Van Ghent.

“This is merely vexatious, Highness,” said M. Heenvliet, “and I must

again remind you that for a trifling affair you keep M. Van Ghent

waiting.”

“It is no trifling affair, Mynheer,” answered William, “to find myself

on every hand ill served.”

“That is not just, Highness.”

The Lord of Heenvliet was forcing back his temper.

William flung the gloves down on a chair.

“I do not intend to wear them, Mynheer, either to-night or any other

time.”

M. Heenvliet bit his lip and turned to the valet. “Bring His Highness

another pair of gloves.” He pulled out his watch impatiently, “We are

already late.”

The Prince gave him a malicious look, and half smiled; to arrive late

would be to solve the ugly question of precedence and would also mean a

slight to M. de Witt.

“It is your place, Mynheer,” he answered, “to see that I am better

furnished.”

He had never liked M. Heenvliet, who leant to the side of the Grand

Pensionary.

“La Motte is a wearisome time,” remarked the first gentleman-in-waiting

to cover a somewhat heavy pause.

“He finds it difficult to discover anything wearable, Mynheer,”

answered the Prince calmly.

And to point his dislike of M. Heenvliet he approached Mr. Bromley,

turning his back on the other.

“Are not you cold, Bromley? There should have been a fire here.”

“Indeed I think so, Highness,” answered the Englishman, who was not

cold in the least, but who would have seconded the Prince in anything,

even at the risk of his own disgrace.

It seemed that M. Heenvliet was about to answer this thrust at the

management of the Palace, when M. Van Ghent entered with a vexed and

flushed countenance.

“What is the cause of this delay?” he demanded, looking about him.

The Prince was coldly silent.

“His Highness complains of the gloves brought him,” answered M.

Heenvliet, “and takes this occasion to complain of the way in which he

is served.”

M. Van Ghent fixed his eyes on the Prince.

“Have I been kept waiting for this?”

“For this, Mynheer,” replied William.

The Prince’s governor appeared both angered and agitated. William’s

dislike made his post a burden.

“M. de Witt will be displeased at our late arrival--and what excuse

shall I make?”

William gave him a haughty look.

“Tell him I will not wear gloves at six gulden a pair, Mynheer; and

that till I have a voice in the choice of my personal appointments I

shall continue to be dissatisfied with them.”

M. Van Ghent, goaded, turned, with a weakness that further earned

William’s contempt, on M. Heenvliet.

“Why is not His Highness consulted?”

“His Highness is shown the accounts,” answered the unfortunate

gentleman-in-waiting.

“The accounts!” repeated His Highness sardonically. “’Tis the

difference between them and what I am served with that I complain of.”

M. Heenvliet with difficulty controlled a hot answer.

M. Van Ghent picked up the gloves.

“What does Your Highness find fault with?” he asked.

“No gentleman in the Hague would wear them,” replied the Prince; “and I

complain, Mynheer, of the insult offered me in providing them.”

“The gloves were bought after the pattern of others that have been to

His Highness’ liking,” protested M. Heenvliet.

La Motte entered with another pair, white, trimmed with silver, that

the Prince deigned to approve.

As he drew them on, his glance travelled from one to another with a

malicious pleasure in the general discomfiture.

M. Van Ghent reprimanded M. Heenvliet, who in turn blamed the valet;

Mr. Bromley looked uncomfortable.

William was the one unmoved; he even slightly smiled to see how red and

annoyed was M. Van Ghent, and when he reflected how late they would be

at the Binnenhof his smile deepened.

He would have refused to attend the ball at all had he dared; but the

humiliation of his forced appearance was softened by the thought of a

late arrival that would annoy M. de Witt, and cheat M. de Montbas and

M. de Pomponne of the triumph of precedence.

“It is a pity to keep the horses waiting in the wet, Mynheer,” he

remarked as he finished lacing his gloves. “I am ready.”

M. Van Ghent had to make the best of this, as he had to make the best

of numerous encounters in which His Highness was invariably victorious.

The Prince made another difficulty about the coach, wishing to ride

alone with Mr. Bromley. But here M. Van Ghent was firm; he trusted

neither William nor Matthew Bromley, and himself accompanied His

Highness.

It was a foggy night, a little rain falling, and the Prince avenged

himself on his tutor by insisting on having both the coach windows

down. He declared he could not breathe with them closed, and M. Van

Ghent had to submit and allow the damp and the mist to enter, to his

great discomfort. He shivered in his mantle; and William coughed in a

way that seemed to show he did not greatly benefit by the arrangement

himself, but he remained resolutely by the window, looking out at the

streets of the Hague, his back towards his tutor and the mist gathering

in drops of moisture on his velvet coat.

M. Van Ghent, who by no means enjoyed thrusting his company where it

was so obviously resented, was greatly pleased when they reached the

Binnenhof.

They had some difficulty in making their way through the coaches that

blocked the courtyard. William noted with satisfaction, and M. Van

Ghent with annoyance, that theirs was the last arrival.

It was on Mr. Bromley’s arm that the Prince leant in entering.

M. Van Ghent had no choice but to follow.

The Binnenhof was brilliantly lit, and decorated with an air of solid,

unpretentious wealth characteristic of the United Provinces.

The Truce Saloon, built by the last Stadtholder, had been arranged as a

ballroom.

This was a pleasant chamber. A row of handsome windows overlooked the

Vyver, giving in summer a charming view over the water and as far as M.

de Witt’s house in the Kneuterdyk Avenue; in autumn only the dim shapes

of trees and the swans on the island were visible through the almost

perpetual mist.

Now red velvet curtains screened the night, and a hundred wax candles

gave a soft and lovely light.

It was an historic chamber also, and one that commemorated the dearly

bought freedom of the Republic.

The pride of the Assembly and the fantasy of the artist had designed

a symbolic decoration: circular ceiling paintings represented the

different nations gazing down at the spectacle of the regained liberty

of the United Provinces. A fine, warmly flushed picture of “Peace”

faced the door, and above the deep fireplace its companion “War.”

In the centre of the ceiling “England” looked down, and appeared to be

coming down too, since the foremost cavalier of the group had placed

a red-stockinged leg outside his frame; which was good painting and

better symbolism, said some sourly. Twenty years had passed, and there

had begun to be reason to doubt the friendly “onlooking” of England.

Her regard appeared of late to be filled with coldness and envy.

France, represented by an effeminate cavalier, had its place above the

picture of “Peace.”

Every one agreed that as for symbolism this was not so good.

In the antechamber of the Truce Saloon, a fine apartment in panelled

wood, the Prince found the Grand Pensionary.

With M. de Witt were M. Vivien, his brother-in-law and Pensionary of

Dordt, Sir William Temple, and M. de Montbas.

M. Van Ghent stepped up to these gentlemen; but William’s hand

tightened on Matthew Bromley’s arm and held him back.

The Englishman was quick to understand. His Highness’ gaze was resting

on M. de Montbas, who wore the splendid uniform of the Captain General

and was girded with the sword that meant command of all the forces of

the United Provinces.

A shiver went through the Prince’s slender body; after a moment he left

his gentleman and came forward.

M. de Witt greeted him quietly.

“I am sorry you are late, Highness,” he added quietly.

William gave his reply with perfect composure--

“It was greatly against my wish, Mynheer,” he said, and he spoke softly

and even smiled.

“I will believe you, Highness.”

The Prince glanced at M. de Witt’s companions. He did not dislike Sir

William Temple, but the others were his avowed opponents.

Several members of the Assembly advanced to greet him. He had to put a

strain on himself and speak to them graciously, but when he came to M.

de Montbas it seemed that his control would fail him.

This man had been in his father’s employ, had deserted him for the

republican party. He had been one of those who held the gates of

Amsterdam against the late Stadtholder, one of those who had spoken

most hotly against him.

Later M. de Montbas had made overtures to the widowed Princess; they

had been haughtily spurned, though Amalia of Solms remained inclined to

encourage a person of so much influence.

To complete the bitter hatred in which William held him, de Montbas was

a man of wealth and abilities, and now in possession of those offices

that were his birthright--the birthright of the heir of Nassau.

As de Montbas approached him the Prince perceptibly drew back, and his

pallor disappeared under a slow blush.

He straightened himself, pressed his handkerchief to his lips, and eyed

the Count with an expression of scorn and dislike not to be concealed

nor mistaken.

No one there could guess what throbbing rage filled his proud soul

that he had to stand thus, swordless, before his father’s enemies--a

show for those who were both his inferiors and his masters; but all

could see the sudden expression that sprang into his eyes, and all were

startled.

M. de Montbas, ill at ease, made a mistake. He resorted to a courtesy

not untouched by cringing; it was the one thing above all others to

rouse William’s fiercest scorn.

“I am glad to have this opportunity of paying my duty to Your

Highness,” he said, and bowed like a courtier.

William smiled bitterly.

“Your duty!” he repeated. “Your duty, M. le Comte!”

Then he turned on his heel and passed into the ballroom.

M. de Montbas, flushing hotly, looked at M. de Witt, and the Grand

Pensionary frowned.

It fell to Sir William’s easy tact to break the pause.

“I think the dance has come to an end, sir; are we too grave to attend

the ladies?”

Secretly he admired the Prince; and his admiration grew with his

observation. His eyes twinkled now with enjoyment of M. de Montbas’

discomfiture. M. de Witt was quick enough to see where his sympathies

lay, but he accepted the diversion of Sir William’s remark, for the

Prince’s daring could not be publicly noticed.

M. de Witt, composed in mien but with a troubled heart, followed into

the ballroom.

Most noticeable as he entered was the figure of the young man in the

long violet coat, his bright, heavy hair glittering like copper in the

candlelight.

He was speaking to the Princess Dowager; above them glowed the picture

of “Peace.”

“Your charge troubles you, Mynheer?” said Sir William in his soft, lazy

voice, after watching de Witt a moment.

“In so far that I do not understand him, yes,” answered the Grand

Pensionary.

The company, walking to and fro in their velvet and satin dresses, shut

out the long violet coat and William’s slender figure.

“He is a remarkable young man.” The Englishman spoke reflectively.

“He is like his father,” responded John de Witt.

“With a difference.” Sir William smiled. “The late Stadtholder

failed--this Prince, I think, would not.”

CHAPTER XII

THE SPY OF FRANCE

The Princess beckoned her grandson with her long gold fan.

“You have been talking to Madame Van Decken the whole evening,” she

said.

William, having advanced beside her chair, waited, without any show of

interest, for the Princess to enlarge on her remark.

“Madame Van Decken is quite the plainest lady in the room.”

“Is she?”

Amalia of Solms half laughed.

“Why, she squints!”

“Yes, I noticed that,” answered William; “but she is very intelligent.”

The Princess looked at him in a half troubled way.

“At your age!” she exclaimed. “There are half a hundred ladies awaiting

your request for a dance----”

“I shall not dance at all,” he interrupted. “What are we here for,

Madame? Merely to grace M. de Witt’s triumph.”

The Princess gave a sigh that flashed the diamonds on her purple bodice.

“I wish you would not take it so bitterly.… M. de Witt means to be

courteous.”

“What courtesy was it that forced me and M. de Montbas to meet?”

“He wishes to reconcile you.”

William smiled scornfully.

The fiddles were tuning up and the dancers taking their places on the

polished floor.

“You make a mistake,” said Amalia of Solms. “These women have some

influence--they have a right to feel slighted. You should take more

pains to please.”

The Prince made no reply. Amalia of Solms cast a half timid glance at

his composed profile, and the fan fluttered nervously on her velvet lap.

“You think that I am a silly old woman, no doubt, William, but believe

me I am right. M. de Pomponne said the same to me--that you kept

yourself too close.”

The violins struck up a French sarabande, and the dancers began to move

slowly to the stately melody.

The Prince looked across the ballroom to where M. de Witt, noticeable

in black velvet, stood in the doorway talking to a little group of

gentlemen, and so absorbed was he in his scrutiny that he did not hear

the Princess rise.

She had to touch him on the arm to attract his attention.

“M. de Pomponne, William.”

He turned quickly.

The Princess swept a courtesy before she sank again into her gilt

chair, and the Marquis, gorgeously dressed in crimson satin, bowed till

his long love-locks hid his face.

“Is not the Prince dancing, Highness?” he asked.

William’s intent gaze was now fixed on the Frenchman; he said nothing.

The Princess shrugged her shoulders, half vexed.

“You must ask him, Monsieur.”

The Marquis smiled.

“There is a lady present whom I have promised to present to His

Highness----”

“One of your countrywomen, Monsieur?” asked the Princess.

“Yes, Madame.”

“I shall be honoured, Monsieur.” The Prince’s tone was quiet.

“I refer to the Duchesse de Lavalette--will Your Highness accompany me?”

Something to his grandmother’s surprise William went instantly. The

Princess watched the two figures turn out of the ballroom with some

satisfaction. She had always considered the French alliance her

grandson’s best hope.

The antechamber was full of the music of the sarabande that came

through the open doors, the music and the sound of the ladies’ dresses

as they swept the polished floor.

M. de Pomponne stepped quickly up to one of them who sat alone on a

carved settee.

“Madame la Duchesse, I present to you His Highness the Prince of

Orange--Monseigneur, Madame Lavalette.”

She rose, and each took a swift look at the other.

William saw a woman of a dazzling fairness of hair and complexion, and

bright blue eyes, wearing a low-cut and rich gown of green velvet;

and Madame Lavalette beheld a slight youth owning a remarkable face,

plainly dressed, and of a haughty demeanour.

She gave him a glance of pretty hesitation.

“Alas, I have not your language, Monseigneur!”

“I can speak yours, Madame,” he answered in French.

“Ah, I have heard that Your Highness is an accomplished linguist.”

“It is not an accomplishment, Madame, but a necessity.”

“Many princes do not think so.”

Her eyes flattered him though her lips were unsmiling.

“I do not speak as a prince, Madame.”

He was absolutely grave, and in no way discomposed by her splendid

presence.

“As a diplomat, then?”

“As one training to be of service to his country, Madame.”

Her delicate eyebrows slightly arched.

“Do you wish your gifts to be of service to the Republic, Prince?”

“The United Provinces are the Republic, Madame, and the United

Provinces are my country.”

Madame Lavalette unfurled her fan.

“It is generous of you, Monseigneur, to be patriotic under the present

form of government----”

“Why, Madame?”

She found him at once more difficult than she had expected and it

roused her.

“Oh, perhaps it is not generous, but politic,” she said, with a change

of tone. Then she laughed and looked at him straightly. “Personally I

do not like M. de Witt,” she declared, with a charming air of frankness.

William raised his expressive eyes slowly.

“He is my best friend, Madame.”

The Duchess, gazing at him intently, read in his eyes the contradiction

of his words.

“I see what you mean me to believe, Prince,” she murmured.

The second measure of the sarabande had begun; Madame Lavalette beat

time to it with her fan on her delicate hand.

“It is a pretty melody--do you like music, Monseigneur?”

“I think it can be made useful, Madame.”

“That is a curious thing to say--you mean----?”

“In war,” he said.

She gave her rare, effective smile.

“And in peace?”

“It is not necessary, Madame.”

Now the Duchess sighed.

“You can say as much of all the arts--but Your Highness is not always

so stern?”

“I am very ignorant on these matters, Madame,” he answered.

“You like gardening?” she asked, knowing he did.

“It is a pleasant recreation--and I think the building of houses a fair

pastime for a gentleman.”

She flushed into enthusiasm.

“You should see Meudon, Marli, Versailles!” she cried. “You would

appreciate them--palaces----”

He interrupted her.

“Such as I shall never achieve, Madame. My father built these modest

rooms, nor am I like to build anything finer.”

She glanced at his grave young face.

“Now why?” she asked, her voice falling softly.

“Because I think to have other things to do, Madame.”

The sarabande had come to an end.

The Prince turned to his companion with a composed air of courtliness--

“May I lead you out for the next measure, Madame?”

“I shall be honoured, Monsieur.”

Her eyes added more. There was something in the very carriage of her

body, as she bent towards him, her head slightly drooping, that was

subtly flattering--the more so that it came from a beautiful woman to a

youth. She was more deferential and charming than she had meant to be,

for his grave coldness forced her to use her weapons.

“Seventeen!” she said to herself. “Mon Dieu, seventeen!”

The next dance was a minuet.

“The music by Lulli,” she informed the Prince, “and called ‘Le Temple

de la Paix’--take me to represent France, Monseigneur, and the title as

an omen----”

“Of peace, Madame?”

“Do you not care to think of peace, Monsieur?”

“I am, Madame, in no position to think of war.”

As they passed into the ballroom she shot a look at M. de Pomponne. The

Prince was at least dancing with her, her eyes bid the Marquis take

note of it.

He was not the only one to observe them. The Princess marked with

satisfaction, and M. de Witt with uneasiness, the Prince’s partner for

the minuet.

Happily la Lavalette was below the middle height, and William tall for

his age, so she was able to rest lightly on his arm and look up to him

with blue, languishing eyes that held a very flattering deference.

M. de Pomponne turned away to hide his smile; M. de Witt looked on

sternly.

The Duchess glanced at the paintings round the ceiling.

“Your Highness likes history?” she asked. “You like to read it?”

“I would prefer to make it, Madame.”

She looked at him quickly.

“Your House has made it, Prince.”

He smiled.

“Madame, it is through my House that we are here now,--it is through my

ancestors, and by what they have done, that the United Provinces are a

kingdom.”

“The country hath been ungrateful, Prince.”

His smile made her air of sympathy seem foolish.

“You think so?” he said.

She was piqued by his sovereign manner.

“Do not you, Monseigneur?” she retaliated with meaning.

“I think it remains to be proved, Madame la Duchesse.”

They stood by the open hearth, waiting for the dance to begin. She was

very well aware of the curious eyes upon them, and of the cold regard

of the Grand Pensionary.

The Prince appeared absolutely unconscious.

“M. de Witt does not dance, I see,” she remarked.

“He hath other things to think of, Madame.”

She gave him a grave but ardent look.

“Such as--revolutions?” she breathed.

“Maybe, Madame; the most securely placed will sometimes think of

revolutions.”

Madame Lavalette was silent. De Pomponne had not prepared her for

a youth so haughtily self-possessed, so (seemingly) impervious to

flattery and enticements.

She knew of his upbringing in austere surroundings, she knew something

of the Dutch stateliness of manner; but this perfect composure and

gravity on the part of a Prince of seventeen were, nevertheless, a

surprise.

Madame Lavalette was familiar with most of the Courts of Europe, and

had considered herself equally familiar with most types of men--even

men like John de Witt; such were rare, but she had met them.

But in William of Orange she found what she could not place or label.

She went cautiously, a little bewildered, a little piqued, and more

impressed by this boy’s personality than she would have cared to admit.

The musicians played the prelude; the couples took their places.

Madame Lavalette glanced again at the Marquis, who danced with Lady

Temple, and he raised his brows and slightly shrugged his shoulders as

if he commiserated her on an impossible task.

Sully’s lilting melody began.

The Prince danced as he rode, with consummate excellence, but, unlike

his horsemanship, his dancing was without animation. It seemed to

his partner that he was not listening to the music in the least nor

thinking of her at all.

Once or twice he looked distinctly away from her, in a mournful,

absent manner down the room; as if he looked through the dancers and

saw something else beyond. When their hands touched she felt his cool

fingers resting on hers as lightly as they might have rested on his

gentleman’s shoulder.

She was silent until the elaborate figures had come to an end; then she

laughed.

“Your Highness does not like dancing.”

He turned his great eyes on her.

“I have been clumsy, Madame?”

“No--you have it in your head--perfectly--Prince, not, I think, in the

least in your heart.”

“That is probably true,” he replied gravely.

“It is a pity, Prince--for the ladies.” She suddenly laid her hand on

his sleeve. “Whom will Your Highness dance with now?”

“I shall dance no more, Madame.”

“You are very severe, Monseigneur--or are you proud?”

“I am tired,” said William simply.

They returned slowly to the antechamber and reseated themselves on the

carved seat where he had first found her.

Behind them a crescent of candles in a silver sconce lit her fair hair,

her white shoulders, and the voluminous folds of her green velvet gown.

She unfurled her fan and gazed at herself in the little heart-shaped

mirror in the centre of curling feathers.

“I think you are somewhat heartless,” she remarked. “Every lady in the

ballroom wishes to dance with Your Highness--and I dare swear half of

them are your admirers already.”

Glancing at him furtively she perceived that, in utter absence of

vanity, he did not even colour.

“There are other cavaliers here, Madame.”

Madame Lavalette beat her little silver shoe on the gleaming floor.

“And so M. de Witt is your best friend?”

The sudden change of attack did not confuse him.

“I said so, Madame.”

“I know a better.”

She fixed her eyes boldly on his face and leant forward a little,

holding the open fan.

William did not answer. He was looking away from her, through the

doorway into the ballroom, where, under the picture of “War,” the Grand

Pensionary conversed with M. de Pomponne.

“Your Highness can guess whom I mean,” breathed Madame Lavalette.

“Why, no, Madame.”

The fan fluttered and the mirror in the centre gave out golden rays as

it caught the candlelight.

“Your cousin Louis, Highness,” she said under her breath.

Now he turned his head and fixed on her his compelling gaze.

“The King of France,” she repeated.

“I have always hoped to deserve His Majesty’s friendship,” said William

formally.

Madame Lavalette fixed his eyes with her glance.

“Will you not be more frank with me, Prince?” she said in a low voice.

“In what manner, Madame?”

“Ah, you know,” she leant towards him, “I speak of the King of

France--you know what he can do for you.…”

William moved his head so that the heavy auburn hair concealed his

face. She thought that he still looked at M. de Witt.

For a moment she hesitated. But, after all, she might be fairly sure of

him; it was boldness that was needed in dealing with such reserve, and

boldness that M. de Pomponne lacked.

“His Majesty hath much influence in the United Provinces, Prince;” she

raised her fan to her lips.

They were alone in the antechamber; from the ballroom they could be

observed but not heard.

The Prince did not answer.

“More influence than you imagine, Highness, believe me.”

He moved, but did not look at her. Her eager scrutiny could gain

nothing from his pale young face.

“I can credit it, Madame,” he said.

She ventured further.

“His Majesty is the most powerful king in the world, Highness, and if

he wished a thing done no one could successfully oppose him.”

“It may very well be, Madame.”

“His Majesty is your very good friend, Highness.”

The Prince kept his eyes lowered, his head slightly turned from her

scrutiny.

The Duchess continued--

“If the King willed your restoration, Prince, he could accomplish it.”

William answered calmly--

“Sometimes M. de Witt talks to me of politics, Madame--and from him

I learn that the King of France is not friendly towards the United

Provinces.”

“Not towards them or M. de Witt,” she answered swiftly, “but towards

you--does not Your Highness understand?”

William looked up now.

“Scarcely, Madame.”

She was spurred to go further than ever de Pomponne had ventured.

“The King finds the United Provinces in his way, as you do, Highness;

he finds, as you do, that M. de Witt must go. Your cause is one with

His Majesty’s--say so, and the thing is done.”

She thought, but could not be sure, that he slightly drew himself away

from her into the corner of the settee.

“His Majesty,” she continued, “has the power to put you where your

father was----”

“And afterwards, Madame?” asked the Prince. “How should I repay His

Majesty?”

Madame Lavalette began to be more sure of her ground.

“Your Highness,” she said softly, “would have the help of France in

subduing an impudent and ungrateful country--Your Highness would be

master of Holland----”

“Under King Louis,” added the Prince.

“Under the protection of France, Highness; His Majesty is already the

dictator of Europe.”

It was a prospect calculated to dazzle one powerless and ambitious.

Madame Lavalette was pleased to see her words take effect. The Prince

slowly coloured, and put his hand in an agitated manner to the lace on

his breast.

“I understand you now, Madame.”

He gave her an extraordinary look, the meaning of which was beyond her.

“I never doubted your intelligence, Prince--and you did right to be

cautious; but now I think we may speak more plainly.”

“M. de Pomponne hath hinted at this, Madame.”

“I do more than hint.”

The dance music floated in from the Truce Saloon, and the Duchess’

waving fan kept time to the slow melody.

“You have but to let His Majesty know your sentiments,” she urged.

William sat still, leaning against the arm of the settee, his right

hand resting lightly on his breast.

His grey-green eyes were dark with feeling, and the flush still

lingered in his cheeks. She was satisfied that she had touched him, and

touched him deeply.

With some curiosity she waited for him to speak; he interested her. A

smile touched her lips as she thought of the gravity of their converse

and the twenty years between them.

He accepted her with amazing good faith; in some things he must be very

simple. It was not displeasing to her to reflect that she was the same

to him as the irreproachable dames of his own country, whose velvets

swept the floor in the ballroom.

“Shall not M. de Pomponne convey some message of duty from Your

Highness to His Majesty?” she asked to probe his silence.

The colour deepened in his face. Madame Lavalette wondered why.

“His Majesty would not value the duty of one as unimportant as myself,

Madame.”

“You are His Majesty’s cousin, Prince, and he would restore you to

those offices M. de Witt has usurped. Do I now speak open enough?”

“His Majesty would do this--on conditions.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“On easy ones.”

“Perhaps, Madame--I should find them outside my power to fulfil.”

Madame Lavalette laughed.

“Ah no! His Majesty thinks of a French match for you,”--she sought to

still further dazzle him,--“he will restore the town of Orange----”

“In exchange for the liberty of the United Provinces,” interrupted

William calmly. “Is not that, Madame, the price?”

“If you will put it so bluntly, Your Highness, then yes.”

The Prince was breathing rather quickly.

“There is one difficulty.”

“It can be overcome,” she answered, smiling.

“I do not think so.”

“What is it?”

He raised his beautiful eyes, they were almost unnaturally dark and

bright--

“I am a Calvinist, Madame,” he said gravely.

Madame Lavalette dropped her fan on to her lap.

“Well?” she questioned.

“His Majesty is of the Romish faith.”

She bent her head.

“It is not a religion, Madame, beloved in the United Provinces.”

She made an effort to meet him in this new position.

“We do not talk of religions, Prince.”

His eyes narrowed; again he gave her that inscrutable glance.

“I talk of mine, Madame.”

“What has it to do with the matter in hand, Your Highness?”

To her further bewilderment he smiled, with composure, and, she

thought, a touch of scorn.

“I believe, Madame, in predestination.”

“Your Highness is confusing me with Leyden Logic,” she answered; “it is

not this we are speaking of----”

“It affects what we speak of, Madame.”

She bit her lip.

“How, Highness?”

“Because I do not believe, Madame, that I am predestined to be the tool

of the King of France. The Princes of my House have left behind them

records that teach me different aims and higher ambitions.”

With that he rose.

The pride and daring of this speech confounded her as if he had used

sudden violence. The colour gathered in her cheeks and her blue eyes

became bright and hard.

“You think, Madame, that I am impolitic,” said the Prince, who had now

easily the mastery of the situation, “but while I am the subject of

the Republic it is you who are impolitic to broach to me my cousin’s

designs.”

She rallied herself as best she might from his unlooked-for defiance.

“Your Highness surprises me. Are you wise--are you in a position to

take this tone to the King of France?”

William put his hand to his side where his sword should have been--

“I am grateful for his Majesty’s private friendship--but he mistakes my

importance in the State. You should go, Madame, to M. de Witt.”

He gave her a glance that brought a flame into her blood, bent his

head, and turned away.

Madame Lavalette sat as he had left her, her hands either side of her,

on the settee, and the angry red in her face.

In a few moments M. de Pomponne came up. Seeing him she rose angrily.

“Ah, Madame,” said the Marquis softly, “you have been no more

successful than I.”

She bit her full under-lip.

“He will not burn his fingers in any intrigue, that boy,” she answered;

“and you are a fool, M. le Marquis, to meddle with him. What use is he

to us?”

“He is too prudent.”

“Or too honest. A Calvinist--and tells me so--here. Quoted his House,

Mon Dieu!… He might have been seventy--the other side of things.… His

company hath frozen me--and heated me too.… I hate him. Take me home,

Marquis.”

M. de Pomponne saw she was unusually angered; he pursed up his lips and

shrugged his shoulders.

“The Prince will be glad of the offers he rejects now--in a while,” he

answered.

She swung her fan to and fro.

“I would give something to be the one to master him.”

Then she laughed.

“If you do not get me out of this puritanical country, de Pomponne, I

shall die of spleen.”

The Prince had returned to Amalia of Solms, who was conversing with

Lady Temple.

“Good-night, Madame,” he said abruptly. “I am leaving.”

“So soon?” Her voice was touched with dismay.

Lady Temple moved away.

“Why should I stay?” asked William wearily.

The Princess changed the subject.

“What of Madame Lavalette?--I saw you dance with her. She is very

beautiful and--influential.”

The Prince answered, still in that tired, absent way--

“She is old--a spy of Louis and stale at the game.”

The Princess was startled, both at his clear vision and his calm

statement.

“Oh, be careful!” she whispered.

“I know no other word for spy, Madame.”

The Princess rose and touched her grandson’s shoulder.

“You frighten me, William.… Madame Lavalette represents France.”

The Prince put his hand to his forehead and answered in a low but moved

tone--

“I listened to what she had to say.… She insulted me … like every one.”

His eyes flashed bitterly. “Even Bromley thinks he serves the puppet of

France.… And you, Madame----” He checked himself scornfully,--“But let

it go.”

“I do not understand,” faltered the Princess.

“No one understands … save M. Triglandt.” He kissed her hand.

“Good-night, Madame.”

She made confused protest, but he left her without further ceremony.

In the antechamber the Prince met the Grand Pensionary, his

leave-taking was brief; M. de Witt received it coldly.

“The ball was in honour of my cousin, I should have been pleased if

Your Highness could have danced with her----”

“Mynheer, I was in no mood for gaiety.”

M. de Witt, too proud to remind him that he had danced with Madame

Lavalette, made no answer, and the Prince left the Binnenhof with an

aristocratic slowness and an air of sombrely contained haughtiness.

Gaily the music rose over the splendid company. Mingled with it was the

sound of laughter, the swish of silks.

The Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces was standing apart from

the dancers.

Madame de Lavalette passed him with a deep courtesy.

“Old--the spy of Louis and stale at the game.…”

She was summing herself up in words much like those the Prince had

used; her smile was cynical.

“I have been at it twenty years--I had better leave youth alone.…”

She passed down the stairs William had just descended, the candlelight

on her white shoulders, her gleaming fair hair, and the long pearls in

her ears.

Behind her went M. de Pomponne, smiling.

M. de Witt looked after them with a foreboding expression in his sad

eyes. The Count de Montbas in his resplendent uniform, hitching at his

great sword, joined him.

“What is the matter, Mynheer?” he asked in a tense voice.

M. de Witt gave a start.

“I?--what do you mean?”

The Count smiled uneasily.

“You are disturbed, Mynheer.”

“Read you so much in my face?”

And John de Witt caught the other by the arm and walked with him across

the chamber. For awhile he did not speak for there had fallen on him a

bitter sense of chilly fear; it seemed that the music had stopped and

the candles gone out.

He shuddered.

“The Prince,” he said. “Did you mark him … and the Frenchwoman?” his

fingers tightened on M. de Montbas’ arm. “My Republic.… God help me!…

God help me, Count! … for I am afraid.…”

PART II

THE PRINCE

“I challenge all our histories to produce a Prince in all respects his

equal; I call the differing humours, interests and religions of the

world to witness whether they ever found a man to centre in, like him.…

“He might have raised his seat upon his native country’s liberty,

his very enemies would have supported him in those pretences; but

he affected no honours but what were freely offered him, there or

elsewhere.…

“And his ambition, that was only useful, knew how to wear, as well

as how to deserve them.”--WILLIAM FLEETWOOD, Bishop of St. Asaph,

_Sermon_.

CHAPTER I

THE RETURN OF FLORENT VAN MANDER

Mr. Bromley was watering his flowers and feeding his pigeons, and

singing to himself a snatch of an English song, as he moved to and fro

in the pale spring sunshine that filled his little room in the Palace.

Being disturbed by the entry of a servant, he turned his watering-can

in his hand and ceased his singing.

“Pardon, Mynheer, it is M. Bentinck’s secretary who hath arrived at the

Palace, and, His Highness being abroad, he wishes to see you.”

Matthew Bromley reflected.

“M. Bentinck’s secretary, by name Florent Van Mander, is it not so?”

“Yes, Mynheer.”

“Then bring him here.”

Florent Van Mander, entering immediately, had a pleasant picture of

the Englishman standing by the open window with a row of tulips and

narcissi showing behind him on the sill, and the grey and white pigeons

circling above the gaudy flowers.

Mr. Bromley was cordial.

“We have not forgotten each other, Mynheer!--but it is not so long----”

Van Mander closed the door.

“Three years. It is three years since I was last at the Hague,” he said

jealously.

“And three years of big events,” conceded Mr. Bromley. “But where is M.

Bentinck?”

“He fell ill at Hertogenbosch;” Florent spoke briefly. “And I left him

there, in his cousin’s house--he sent me on to acquaint the Prince of

this delay----”

Mr. Bromley emptied his can, threw the last handful of grain to the

greedy pigeons and closed the window.

“His Highness will be disappointed,” he remarked. He looked cheerfully

at Florent. “Are you glad to have left Berlin?”

“I am glad to return to the Hague.”

Mr. Bromley leant against the window frame and observed him.

He could find no change whatever in him. Florent Van Mander appeared,

as formerly, an alert, reserved, grave young man--a dull fellow Mr.

Bromley called him inwardly.

“The Prince was expecting M. Bentinck to-night,” he said.

“M. Bentinck is furious at the mischance that keeps him----”

“He was glad to be recalled?”

“Naturally--does it not show the altered position of the Prince that he

can recall him?”

Mr. Bromley moved to the oak overmantel and took from it a blue pot of

deep red tulips that he placed on the table by the window.

“M. de Witt is still Grand Pensionary,” he remarked, “and this country

is still a Republic,--but, as you say, the Prince’s position has

altered.”

“Since he obtained the seat in the Council of State?”

“That was two years ago.” Mr. Bromley was removing the dead flowers

from among the vivid blooms. “He hath taken a good many steps since

then.”

“The whole country shouts for him,” said Florent. “It seemed to me that

in every village I passed through they execrated the name of M. de

Witt. But will you obtain me an audience of His Highness? I bear him a

letter from M. Bentinck.”

The Englishman raised his fair face from the flowers.

“The Prince will be back at any moment, I think,” and he glanced at the

clock. “He hath gone to the ‘Huis ten bosch.’”

“M. Van Ghent is no longer governor here?” asked Florent suddenly.

Mr. Bromley smiled.

“The Prince so wearied him with marks of his dislike he petitioned to

be released from his post; so, consulting their own dignity, Their High

Mightinesses declared His Highness free from tutelage. I’m glad of

it----”

“M. de Witt opposed it--of course.”

“Of course,” repeated Mr. Bromley, carrying the tulips back to the

mantelshelf. “He opposed his election to the Council--he opposed his

journey to England----”

“On what grounds?”

Mr. Bromley shrugged his shoulders in a good-humoured manner.

“Doubtless he feared King Charles would win the Prince over to his

designs,--and certainly if flattery and gaiety, and the temptations of

a gorgeous Court----”

“Did you accompany him?” interrupted Florent enviously.

“Yes. We were fêted for three months, but the King and the courtiers

did not take to the Prince, he was too austere--he was the idol of the

people though,” added Mr. Bromley, who had a light, indifferent, and

vague way of referring to political matters. But he saw that Van Mander

was interested deeply in what had occurred during his three years’

absence from the Hague--so it was right he should be--and so Bromley

strove, honestly, and with some difficulty to himself, to satisfy his

curiosity.

“M. de Witt thought the Prince would be dazzled,” he explained,

thrusting his hands into his pockets,--“so there was bad feeling over

that; and then there was the seat in the Council of State, and His

Highness’ salary--and the affairs abroad----”

“Do you think there will be war?” again Florent broke in.

“The French are in Lorraine already,--M. de Witt hath passed the war

budget and is striving for an increase of the Army,--yes, every one

says that there will be war.”

Florent coloured.

“France provokes it wantonly, on the thinnest pretexts,” he said hotly.

“Umph!” Mr. Bromley slightly grimaced. “England is in it too; you

heard, of course, of the treaty of Dover?--the counter stroke to the

Triple Alliance----”

“Sir William Temple, I hear, hath been recalled----”

“And de Pomponne--Downing is the English Ambassador now.”

Florent rose.

“What does the Prince think of all this?”

“The Prince is striving for the Captain Generalship.”

“Will he get it?”

“I cannot tell. M. de Witt opposes it with all his power--he sees in

it the first step towards the restoration of the Stadtholdership; yet

nothing less will content the Army and the people.”

Florent was silent. He did not like Mr. Bromley, shallow he thought

him--he was, too, a foreigner.

His own eager reflections lay too deep for any expression. He saw the

terrible shadow of France falling over his country, distracted by the

agony of internal conflict.…

Nothing could save them … they would be subjects of Louis. John de Witt

had no more power to prevent it.… Well, the Prince would get what price

he could from France once he was Captain General, and he, Florent Van

Mander, must follow the example. He had served the Prince in the person

of M. Bentinck, faithfully, for three years--it would be remembered to

his credit.

Out of the certain ruin facing his country those who followed the

Prince alone could make easy terms with France.…

He was startled from his sombre reverie by a message from His Highness.

The Prince had returned, and would see the messenger from M. Bentinck

immediately.

Mr. Bromley, still busy with his flowers, nodded carelessly and

pleasantly, and Florent was led to the apartment where the Prince

awaited him.

It was with an unreasonable sense of agitation that he came into

William’s presence, with an unnamable feeling of excitement that he

looked across the chamber.

It was in this same room he had taken leave of the Prince three years

ago. It seemed in every detail unchanged.

Florent recalled the precise and sombre furniture, the dark walls, the

portrait of Mary Stewart, Princess of Orange, above the mantelshelf,

the table between the windows covered with books and papers, the

shining brass fireirons and the blue-tiled hearth.

To-day the room was filled with the hazy February sunshine, and on the

black lacquer cabinet inside the door stood, unexpectedly, a bowl of

white and yellow narcissi.

The Prince was standing in the far window embrasure, with his back

towards the door.

He wore a velvet suit of a colour he affected, a clear violet. He held

his riding-whip behind his back, and the sunlight picked out bright

threads in the long hair that fell between his shoulders.

Florent closed the door.

Slowly the Prince turned and shot him a keen glance.

“Ah, the messenger from M. Bentinck.”

He held out his hand for the letter, and by his manner it seemed that

he had forgotten he had ever seen Van Mander before.

“M. Bentinck is ill at Hertogenbosch, Highness, otherwise he would be

here in person.”

William took the letter and broke it open. M. Bentinck’s secretary

stood with his hat in his hand, eagerly observing the master whom he

admired blindly and did not understand.

His first impression was that William had changed considerably. He

was of the same stature, having come early to his full height, but of

a more robust appearance, though his face still retained a look of

delicacy. His air of assured self-containment, his expression of calm

gravity had deepened. He had always been sure of himself, now he wore

the air of a man sure no less of others, sure of his own influence to

sway whom he would to his will.

He had lost some of his repression, it seemed; was no longer equally on

his guard as to what he said or how he looked.

As he stood quietly reading his letter he conveyed a personality

startlingly masterful and daring. Florent felt as if some one touched

him, gripped him, so strong was the influence of the slim and silent

figure.

William at length looked up.

His face had slightly altered. He was not so pale, the curved lips were

set firmly in an expression of half scorn that seemed habitual, his

brilliant eyes were controlled to an unfathomable austerity, and the

peculiar cleft in his chin was more noticeable.

He wore slight moustaches in the French style that added to his age,

and was dressed for riding even more simply than Florent.

“M. Bentinck is not seriously ill?” he asked.

“No, Highness, a chill--a slight fever----”

“When will he be able to come to the Hague?”

“In a day or so, I think, Highness.”

William looked again at the letter.

Florent did not know how to face the disappointment of the Prince’s

total forgetfulness of himself; his three years’ exile were ill repaid

by this.…

Again the Prince raised his eyes.

“Are you pleased to return to the Hague, Mynheer Van Mander?”

A hot flush swept across Florent’s face.

“I thought Your Highness did not recall me.”

“I recall you very well, Mynheer--M. Bentinck speaks highly of you; if

you choose to remain in my service, it is open to you--here.”

Florent found himself foolishly unable to frame an answer. He had felt

himself slighted, and now he was over-rewarded; shame silenced him.

“I imagine you will care to stay,” said William, eyeing him.

“It has been my ambition, Highness.”

The Prince put the letter away in his pocket.

“You will see M. Renswoude, who is now head of my household; I need

another secretary. I will speak with you again. Meanwhile, Mynheer, I

thank you for your fidelity to M. Bentinck.”

Florent, quivering with pleasure, bowed low.

The Prince turned to the table between the windows.

“First I will request you to return to Hertogenbosch, Mynheer, with a

letter for M. Bentinck.”

He sat down, wrote hastily, in a large, flowing hand, a few lines, and

sealed them in a cover with the signet on his thumb.

As he rose again the door was opened.

“Highness, the Grand Pensionary is below and requests an immediate

interview.”

It seemed to Florent’s acute observation that a malicious and

triumphant expression flashed for an instant in William’s eyes, but he

answered quietly--

“I will see him here.”

As the servant withdrew, William seated himself before his papers

again, handing Florent the packet for M. Bentinck.

“Return as soon as you may and--an easy journey,” he said.

Florent bowed himself out as he would have done from a king’s presence,

flushed, with a high beating heart, and well repaid for those tedious

three years in Berlin.

William watched the door close, then leant back in his chair.

Papers, drawings, plans and maps were scattered before him. Some of the

drawers of the cabinet were pulled open, and the long, fuchsia-shaped,

brass handles glittered, where the sun caught them, in stars of gold.

Several books, on mathematics and geometry, were piled together, and

upon them was placed a vase in the shape of a Chinese monster holding a

single crimson tulip.

The sun, slanting in through the long window, caught this flower and

picked it out, like a bell of blood against the dusky background, then

fell full on the thoughtful figure of the Prince, outlining it in a

misty radiance.

The rest of the room was golden dark, for the heavy curtains were half

across the windows, and the light filtered through them in a subdued

hue, so that M. de Witt, entering the chamber, had his attention fixed

at once by the Prince and the tulip, the objects upon which all the

sunshine fell.

With every day now de Witt and this young man he gazed on drifted

farther apart. They had not met privately for months.

William turned slowly in his chair and rose.

“I am grateful for this, Mynheer,” he said, and it was the manner of a

king with a subject, “for I wished to speak to you.”

The Grand Pensionary advanced into the room. He was splendidly dressed,

for he had been attending the second reception of Sir George Downing

by the States General, and, though still in mourning for his wife,

his black was put aside on this occasion. He wore a crimson mantle

embroidered in gold, and a coat laced and beribboned.

“There is much to say, on both sides, Highness,” he answered gravely.

The Prince remained erect, with his hand on the back of his chair.

“Will you be seated, M. de Witt?”

The Grand Pensionary came slowly down the room, holding his velvet

mantle across his breast. His demeanour was stately to haughtiness, his

lips unsmiling and his eyes severe.

“It is a long time since you and I have spoken together,” he said.

“You have been much occupied, Mynheer,” replied the Prince.

He continued to stand. Mynheer de Witt seated himself in a deep,

Spanish leather chair facing the window, but enveloped in the hazy,

golden, dusky shadows.

“It is not preoccupation hath kept me away,” said the Grand Pensionary,

“but distaste to broach with you matters on which we cannot agree.

Since we cannot meet as friends, Highness, it is painful to me that we

must meet at all.”

“Why not as friends, Mynheer?” asked William quietly.

John de Witt looked at him steadily and mournfully.

“Because there is no friendship in your heart for me, Prince.”

“I can assure you that you mistake me--I am capable of separating the

man and his office, Mynheer.”

“I am one with my office,” answered the Grand Pensionary proudly. “What

I say publicly I do not abate one jot in private. Whilst this Republic

chooses me as its representative I shall serve openly, and with all

my power, the liberty and independence of the United Provinces--both

against foreign tyranny and native ambition.”

“Is this a threat?” asked William.

“I do not use those weapons, Prince.… I have come here because I have

had rumour of many things thrust upon me.… I wish to hear from your own

lips what you intend to do.”

“What have you heard of me from others?” questioned William. He looked

down at the floor.

John de Witt raised his head a little.

“M. Fagel, M. Beverningh, M. Asperon are your friends or followers,

their party is powerful in the Assembly; at this time, when we should

be most united, they harass and thwart the Government at every turn----”

William glanced up, the sunlight full across his face.

“You can easily silence this faction in the State, Mynheer.”

“Only by concession, Highness.”

The Prince’s fair hand moved slightly on the carved back of his chair.

“You have come to accuse me of causing sedition in the Assembly,”

he said calmly. “You always regarded me as troublesome,” he smiled

faintly. “However … what I have to say to you touches this same

subject, Mynheer.”

“The welfare of the State, Highness?”

“Yes.”

“What has Your Highness to say to me?”

“You know, Mynheer, what question it is that agitates the Assembly--I

put it to you three years ago and you refused----”

“Then I refuse it now,” answered John de Witt.

“The times have changed,” remarked William laconically.

“But I have not,” replied the Grand Pensionary gravely.

“Still, I will again ask you, Mynheer, to consent to my appointment to

the Captain Generalship.”

The Prince picked up his whip from among the papers and looked at it as

he spoke.

The angry colour rushed into John de Witt’s worn face.

“My answer is no,” he replied sternly; “and I am surprised at these

presumptuous pretensions.”

The whip shook a little in William’s hands.

“Why?” he asked, speaking slowly by reason of the control he was

exercising. He kept his eyes still on the whip.

“Because it hath been decreed by law--a law that I have sworn to--that

all discussion even of your election to this office be deferred till

you are twenty-two.”

“Are you going to stand to that, Mynheer? I am twenty-one.”

“I hold,” answered John de Witt, “to the letter of the law.”

William raised his wonderful eyes.

“And yet you speak of friendship.… You have always opposed me …

always,” he pressed his handkerchief to his lips and coughed. “You

opposed my election to the Council of State.”

“I should again oppose the election of a Prince of eighteen to the

Assembly of the Republic.”

“You opposed my journey to England,” continued the Prince, “because

you thought my uncle would seduce me into furthering his designs.” He

drew a quick breath and looked away from M. de Witt,--“Is it because

you still have such suspicions of me that you withhold the Captain

Generalship?”

There was an instant’s pause before the Grand Pensionary answered--

“No--no!” Some agitation showed in his voice. “I would not dishonour

myself with such unworthy thoughts, but there is too much at stake.”

“There is everything at stake,” said the Prince. “The very existence of

the United Provinces is at stake.”

“You are too young to have this tremendous responsibility--too

inexperienced----”

“The Stadtholder Maurice was only eighteen when he took command of the

Army,” flashed the Prince.

“You quote an unhappy example, Highness. Prince Maurice took advantage

of his position to become the tyrant of the people.”

William looked at him under lowered lids.

“You speak as the admirer of John Van Olden Barnenveldt,” he said

slowly.

It was a bold and dangerous allusion, since the Grand Pensionary

Barnenveldt had perished on the scaffold for _his_ opposition to the

power of the Stadtholder Maurice.

“I do.” John de Witt’s voice was cold.

“And as an enemy of my House.”

“As an enemy of sovereign power in your House, Prince.”

William laid down the whip.

“You, Mynheer, will urge the Assembly to refuse me the Captain

Generalship?”

“With all my power.”

The Prince bit his lip, and his lids drooped farther over his brilliant

eyes.

“To whom does the Assembly intend to entrust the Army?”

“Your Highness knows--Major General Wurtz, the Prince of Tarentum, the

Viscount de Montbas.”

“Those are your men?”

“They are the tried and experienced soldiers to whom I am prepared to

entrust our defences--if God refuse us the peace which I still hope

for.”

William half turned towards him.

“Peace! You still hope for peace--after the treaty of Dover, after the

invasion of Lorraine, of Munster and Cologne; after Downing’s audience

of the States, his insolent demands, his frivolous complaints. Peace!

You should open the campaign to-morrow, Mynheer.”

John de Witt replied firmly--

“Still do I hope to avert the war----”

“You have been hoping that these last two years, Mynheer.”

“Almighty God helping me I shall succeed in it yet.”

The Prince’s eyes flashed impatiently.

“I would sooner pray Almighty God to help me drive out the French.”

“That is the talk of selfish ambition,” answered the Grand Pensionary.

“If once we embark on a war with France and England only a miracle can

save us--” he gave a half sigh, and repeated--“can save us.”

“To that end--the end of peace--you make concessions.”

“I have been forced to. I have conceded the supremacy of the seas to

England, Downing had his answer to-day----”

William coloured swiftly.

“That acknowledges this country subject to the King of England,” he

remarked quickly.

“It gives us, Prince, some chance.”

“Our deliverance lies in the sword,” said William shortly.

“Untried enthusiasm speaks there,” answered John de Witt not unkindly.

“We are a people whose prosperity depends on peace. Our commerce is our

glory and our wealth. We have shed enough blood in the past to defend

it.… Now we are prosperous, rich, free, and powerful … to twenty-five

years of peace we owe this.… A war would be disastrous … disastrous.”

“It is, I think, inevitable,” struck in the other.

John de Witt half smiled sadly.

“Does Your Highness question my statesmanship?”

William was silent a moment, evidently considering how he should shape

his reply.

The sun had moved, so that it fell across the centre of the floor in a

heavy beam of gold, leaving the Prince in shadow.

“I think that, the war budget having been passed a year ago, the

country should be in a better condition to resist invasion,” he said

at length. “The people are taxed almost beyond endurance; two forced

loans have been raised, and both the land and sea forces are wretchedly

inadequate. I do not know who is responsible for these things, Mynheer.”

He coughed, and looked sideways at the red tulip.

“You take something on yourself, Highness,” returned John de Witt, “to

say this to my face; it is an indictment.”

“I am not in a position to criticise you, Mynheer,” answered the

Prince, and the scornful curve to his mouth was now noticeable beyond

mistake. “Since I have no share in the government, these things are no

affair of mine--but M. Fagel brought me your book----”

M. de Witt was betrayed into hot speech--

“Gaspard Fagel fawns on you.…”

“I think he wishes to serve me,” returned William quietly. “You taught

me finance--and some other things--and I have applied your lessons to

your practice--for my own instruction, Mynheer.”

John de Witt looked at him curiously.

“I do not quite understand Your Highness.”

“No? There is little need--as you say. What have I to do with the

government of the United Provinces?--I asked your influence in the

matter of the Captain Generalship----”

The Grand Pensionary interrupted haughtily--

“Prince, I can no longer discuss that subject; under no conditions will

I be party to giving you this position. You must serve before you can

command; know something of war before you can be put over men like

Wurtz and Prince John Maurice, Montbas and the Prince of Tarentum.”

William answered, keeping his glance upon the papers scattered over his

desk--

“I know enough to tell you, Mynheer, that if you do not strengthen

the frontier the French will cross the Rhine--and once the Rhine is

crossed, Utrecht falls … and half the Republic is lost.”

“You speak as if judging me remiss in my duty to the State.”

“I speak from my conviction, Mynheer.”

“It hath not been wholly in my hands,” answered John de Witt, with a

stately control. “What hath been done hath been done by much reflection

and varied advice. How would Your Highness have it different?”

“It were very idle to talk of what I cannot perform,” said William.

“Put me in command of the Army and I will show you what I will do.”

The Grand Pensionary rose with a glimmer of red and gold.

“Never!” he said firmly, “never.…”

The Prince was still standing, his hand resting on the back of his

chair and his eyes cast down. His very quiet conveyed a passion and a

determination that John de Witt felt meeting his own firm resolve, iron

striking iron, the unyielding strength of two opposed natures brought

into contest.

“Mynheer,” said William, “there are those desirous of obtaining me this

appointment--I have, as you say, some friends in the Assembly----”

Between them fell the gold bar of sunshine, dancing with a million

motes. Each saw the other beyond it, in a haze of dusky shadow.

“You intend to push the matter to extremes?” asked John de Witt.

Their eyes met.

“Have you come to request me not to?” returned William, with meaning.

John de Witt coloured at the tone.

“No, Highness,” he answered proudly. “I will request of you nothing.”

“Their High Mightinesses will decide between us,” said William, with

a stress of mockery on the title. “I am sorry that you will not help

me----”

“And I, Prince, am sorry that you should have asked it of me,” replied

the Grand Pensionary with a mournful dignity; “it makes weightier my

almost intolerable burdens, my almost crushing duties more difficult,

that you, and at this crisis, should distract the State with your

pretensions and adopt this position towards me.”

William again lowered his eyes; he seemed to be considering. After a

second he smiled.

“I also grieve that you should refuse me, Mynheer.”

His eyes flashed an upward glance.

“Perhaps it is not wise!”

“It is right,” answered M. de Witt. “Your friendship would mean much to

me--but I cannot purchase it at any such price----”

“We are both too obstinate,” said William, almost insolently; “there is

no need for more talk on the matter.”

M. de Witt gathered up his mantle.

“Good even to Your Highness.”

“Good even, Mynheer.”

The Grand Pensionary regarded him with a touch of wistfulness and

hesitated a moment; but William stood motionless, obviously waiting for

him to leave, and John de Witt turned away.

Again it was the manner of a sovereign with the subject; the Prince

seated himself before the Grand Pensionary had closed the door.

The smile still lingered on his lips, he took a letter from the pocket

of his coat and slowly unfolded it.

It was from Fagel.

William re-read the last sentences--

“Your Highness’ affair goes well in the Assembly. M. de Witt hath but

little influence now. In a few days you will be Captain General, since

both General Wurtz and Prince Charles have promised to refuse should

the office be offered to them, and since the clamour of the people is

no longer to be withstood.…”