Inigo de Cardenas in Paris. That ambassador declared that his master
would never abandon his only sister the most serene Infanta, such was the
affection he born her, whose dominions were obviously threatened by these
French armies about to move to the frontiers. Henry replied that the
friends for whom he was arming had great need of his assistance; that his
Catholic Majesty was quite right to love his sister, whom he also loved;
but that he did not choose that his own relatives should be so much
beloved in Spain as they were. "What relatives?" asked Don Inigo.
"The Prince of Conde," replied the King, in a rage, "who has been
debauched by the Spaniards just as Marshal Biron was, and the Marchioness
Verneuil, and so many others. There are none left for them to debauch
now but the Dauphin and his brothers." The Ambassador replied that, if
the King had consulted him about the affair of Conde, he could have
devised a happy issue from it. Henry rejoined that he had sent messages
on the subject to his Catholic Majesty, who had not deigned a response,
but that the Duke of Lerma had given a very indiscreet one to his
ambassador. Don Inigo professed ignorance of any such reply. The King
said it was a mockery to affect ignorance of such matters. Thereupon
both grew excited and very violent in their discourses; the more so as
Henry knowing but little Spanish and the Envoy less French they could
only understand from tone and gesture that each was using exceedingly
unpleasant language. At last Don Inigo asked what he should write to his
sovereign. "Whatever you like," replied the King, and so the audience
terminated, each remaining in a towering passion.
Subsequently Villeroy assured the Archduke's ambassador that the King
considered the reception given to the Prince in the Spanish dominions as
one of the greatest insults and injuries that could be done to him.
Nothing could excuse it, said the Secretary of State, and for this reason
it was very difficult for the two kings to remain at peace with each
other, and that it would be wiser to prevent at once the evil designs of
his Catholic Majesty than to leave leisure for the plans to be put into
execution, and the claims of the Dauphin to his father's crown to be
disputed at a convenient season.
He added that war would not be made for the Princess, but for the Prince,
and that even the war in Germany, although Spain took the Emperor's side
and France that of the possessory princes, would not necessarily produce
a rupture between the two kings if it were not for this affair of the
Prince--true cause of the disaster now hanging over Christianity.
Pecquius replied by smooth commonplaces in favour of peace with which
Villeroy warmly concurred; both sadly expressing the conviction however
that the wrath divine had descended on them all on account of their sins.
A few days later, however, the Secretary changed his tone.
"I will speak to you frankly and clearly," he said to Pecquius, "and tell
you as from myself that there is passion, and if one is willing to
arrange the affair of the Princess, everything else can be accommodated
and appeased. Put if the Princess remain where she is, we are on the eve
of a rupture which may set fire to the four corners of Christendom."
Pecquius said he liked to talk roundly, and was glad to find that he had
not been mistaken in his opinion, that all these commotions were only
made for the Princess, and if all the world was going to war, she would
be the principal subject of it. He could not marvel sufficiently, he
said, at this vehement passion which brought in its train so great and
horrible a conflagration; adding many arguments to show that it was no
fault of the Archdukes, but that he who was the cause of all might one
day have reason to repent.
Villeroy replied that "the King believed the Princess to be suffering and
miserable for love of him, and that therefore he felt obliged to have her
sent back to her father." Pecquius asked whether in his conscience the
Secretary of State believed it right or reasonable to make war for such a
cause. Villeroy replied by asking "whether even admitting the negative,
the Ambassador thought it were wisely done for such a trifle, for a
formality, to plunge into extremities and to turn all Christendom upside
down." Pecquius, not considering honour a trifle or a formality, said
that "for nothing in the world would his Highness the Archduke descend to
a cowardly action or to anything that would sully his honour." Villeroy
said that the Prince had compelled his wife, pistol in hand, to follow
him to the Netherlands, and that she was no longer bound to obey a
husband who forsook country and king. Her father demanded her, and she
said "she would rather be strangled than ever to return to the company of
her husband." The Archdukes were not justified in keeping her against
her will in perpetual banishment. He implored the Ambassador in most
pathetic terms to devise some means of sending back the Princess, saying
that he who should find such expedient would do the greatest good that
was ever done to Christianity, and that otherwise there was no guarantee
against a universal war. The first design of the King had been merely to
send a moderate succour to the Princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg, which
could have given no umbrage to the Archdukes, but now the bitterness
growing out of the affairs of the Prince and Princess had caused him to
set on foot a powerful army to do worse. He again implored Pecquius to
invent some means of sending back the Princess, and the Ambassador
besought him ardently to divert the King from his designs. Of this the
Secretary of State left little hope and they parted, both very low and.
dismal in mind. Subsequent conversations with the leading councillors of
state convinced Pecquius that these violent menaces were only used to
shake the constancy of the Archduke, but that they almost all highly
disapproved the policy of the King. "If this war goes on, we are all
ruined," said the Duke d'Epernon to the Nuncius.
Thus there had almost ceased to be any grimacing between the two kings,
although it was still a profound mystery where or when hostilities would
begin, and whether they would break out at all. Henry frequently
remarked that the common opinion all over Europe was working in his
favour. Few people in or out of France believed that he meant a rupture,
or that his preparations were serious. Thus should he take his enemies
unawares and unprepared. Even Aerssens, who saw him almost daily, was
sometimes mystified, in spite of Henry's vehement assertions that he was
resolved to make war at all hazards and on all sides, provided My Lords
the States would second him as they ought, their own existence being at
stake.
"For God's sake," cried the King, "let us take the bit into our mouths.
Tell your masters that I am quite resolved, and that I am shrieking
loudly at their delays." He asked if he could depend on the States, if
Barneveld especially would consent to a league with him. The Ambassador
replied that for the affair of Cleve and Julich he had instructions to
promise entire concurrence, that Barneveld was most resolute in the
matter, and had always urged the enterprise and wished information as
to the levies making in France and other military preparations.
"Tell him," said Henry, "that they are going on exactly as often before
stated, but that we are holding everything in suspense until I have
talked with your ambassadors, from whom I wish counsel, safety, and
encouragement for doing much more than the Julich business. That alone
does not require so great a league and such excessive and unnecessary
expense."
The King observed however that the question of the duchies would serve as
just cause and excellent pretext to remove those troublesome fellows for
ever from his borders and those of the States. Thus the princes would be
established safely in their possession and the Republic as well as
himself freed from the perpetual suspicions which the Spaniards excited
by their vile intrigues, and it was on this general subject that he
wished to confer with the special commissioners. It would not be
possible for him to throw succour into Julich without passing through
Luxemburg in arms. The Archdukes would resist this, and thus a cause of
war would arise. His campaign on the Meuse would help the princes more
than if he should only aid them by the contingent he had promised. Nor
could the jealousy of King James be excited since the war would spring
out of the Archdukes' opposition to his passage towards the duchies, as
he obviously could not cut himself off from his supplies, leaving a
hostile province between himself and his kingdom. Nevertheless he could
not stir, he said, without the consent and active support of the States,
on whom he relied as his principal buttress and foundation.
The levies for the Milanese expedition were waiting until Marshal de
Lesdiguieres could confer personally with the Duke of Savoy. The reports
as to the fidelity of that potentate were not to be believed. He was
trifling with the Spanish ambassadors, so Henry was convinced, who were
offering him 300,000 crowns a year besides Piombino, Monaco, and two
places in the Milanese, if he would break his treaty with France. But he
was thought to be only waiting until they should be gone before making
his arrangements with Lesdiguieres. "He knows that he can put no trust
in Spain, and that he can confide in me," said the King. "I have made a
great stroke by thus entangling the King of Spain by the use of a few
troops in Italy. But I assure you that there is none but me and My Lords
the States that can do anything solid. Whether the Duke breaks or holds
fast will make no difference in our first and great designs. For the
honour of God I beg them to lose no more time, but to trust in me. I
will never deceive them, never abandon them."
At last 25,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry were already in marching order,
and indeed had begun to move towards the Luxemburg frontier, ready to co-
operate with the States' army and that of the possessory princes for the
campaign of the Meuse and Rhine.
Twelve thousand more French troops under Lesdiguieres were to act with
the Duke of Savoy, and an army as large was to assemble in the Pyrenees
and to operate on the Spanish frontier, in hope of exciting and fomenting
an insurrection caused by the expulsion of the Moors. That gigantic act
of madness by which Spain thought good at this juncture to tear herself
to pieces, driving hundreds of thousands of the most industrious, most
intelligent, and most opulent of her population into hopeless exile, had
now been accomplished, and was to stand prominent for ever on the records
of human fatuity.
Twenty-five thousand Moorish families had arrived at Bayonne, and the
Viceroy of Canada had been consulted as to the possibility and expediency
of establishing them in that province, although emigration thither
seemed less tempting to them than to Virginia. Certainly it was not
unreasonable for Henry to suppose that a kingdom thus torn by internal
convulsions might be more open to a well organized attack, than capable
of carrying out at that moment fresh projects of universal dominion.
As before observed, Sully was by no means in favour of this combined
series of movements, although at a later day, when dictating his famous
memoirs to his secretaries, he seems to describe himself as
enthusiastically applauding and almost originating them. But there is no
doubt at all that throughout this eventful spring he did his best to
concentrate the whole attack on Luxemburg and the Meuse districts, and
wished that the movements in the Milanese and in Provence should be
considered merely a slight accessory, as not much more than a diversion
to the chief design, while Villeroy and his friends chose to consider the
Duke of Savoy as the chief element in the war. Sully thoroughly
distrusted the Duke, whom he deemed to be always put up at auction
between Spain and France and incapable of a sincere or generous policy.
He was entirely convinced that Villeroy and Epernon and Jeannin and other
earnest Papists in France were secretly inclined to the cause of Spain,
that the whole faction of the Queen, in short, were urging this
scattering of the very considerable forces now at Henry's command in
the hope of bringing him into a false position, in which defeat or an
ignominious peace would be the alternative. To concentrate an immense
attack upon the Archdukes in the Spanish Netherlands and the debateable
duchies would have for its immediate effect the expulsion of the
Spaniards out of all those provinces and the establishment of the Dutch
commonwealth on an impregnable basis. That this would be to strengthen
infinitely the Huguenots in France and the cause of Protestantism in
Bohemia, Moravia and Austria, was unquestionable. It was natural,
therefore, that the stern and ardent Huguenot should suspect the plans
of the Catholics with whom he was in daily council. One day he asked the
King plumply in the presence of Villeroy if his Majesty meant anything
serious by all these warlike preparations. Henry was wroth, and
complained bitterly that one who knew him to the bottom of his soul
should doubt him. But Sully could not persuade himself that a great
and serious war would be carried on both in the Netherlands and in Italy.
As much as his sovereign he longed for the personal presence of
Barneveld, and was constantly urging the States' ambassador to induce
his coming to Paris. "You know," said Aerssens, writing to the French
ambassador at the Hague, de Russy, "that it is the Advocate alone that
has the universal knowledge of the outside and the inside of our
commonwealth."
Sully knew his master as well as any man knew him, but it was difficult
to fix the chameleon hues of Henry at this momentous epoch. To the
Ambassador expressing doubts as to the King's sincerity the Duke asserted
that Henry was now seriously piqued with the Spaniard on account of the
Conde business. Otherwise Anhalt and the possessory princes and the
affair of Cleve might have had as little effect in driving him into war
as did the interests of the Netherlands in times past. But the bold
demonstration projected would make the "whole Spanish party bleed at the
nose; a good result for the public peace."
Therefore Sully sent word to Barneveld, although he wished his name
concealed, that he ought to come himself, with full powers to do
everything, without referring to any superiors or allowing any secrets to
be divulged. The King was too far committed to withdraw, unless coldness
on part of the States should give him cause. The Advocate must come
prepared to answer all questions; to say how much in men and money the
States would contribute, and whether they would go into the war with the
King as their only ally. He must come with the bridle on his neck. All
that Henry feared was being left in the lurch by the States; otherwise he
was not afraid of Rome. Sully was urgent that the Provinces should now
go vigorously into the war without stumbling at any consideration. Thus
they would confirm their national power for all time, but if the
opportunity were now lost, it would be their ruin, and posterity would
most justly blame them. The King of Spain was so stripped of troops and
resources, so embarrassed by the Moors, that in ten months he would not
be able to send one man to the Netherlands.
Meantime the Nuncius in Paris was moving heaven and earth; storming,
intriguing, and denouncing the course of the King in protecting heresy,
when it would have been so easy to extirpate it, encouraging rebellion
and disorder throughout Christendom, and embarking in an action against
the Church and against his conscience. A new legate was expected daily
with the Pope's signature to the new league, and a demand upon the King
to sign it likewise, and to pause in a career of which something was
suspected, but very little accurately known. The preachers in Paris and
throughout the kingdom delivered most vehement sermons against the King,
the government, and the Protestants, and seemed to the King to be such
"trumpeters of sedition" that he ordered the seneschals and other
officers to put a stop to these turbulent discourses, censure their
authors, and compel them to stick to their texts.
But the preparations were now so far advanced and going on so warmly that
nothing more was wanting than, in the words of Aerssens, "to uncouple the
dogs and let them run." Recruits were pouring steadily to their places
of rendezvous; their pay having begun to run from the 25th March at the
rate of eight sous a day for the private foot soldier and ten sous for a
corporal. They were moved in small parties of ten, lodged in the wayside
inns, and ordered, on pain of death, to pay for everything they consumed.
It was growing difficult to wait much longer for the arrival of the
special ambassadors, when at last they were known to be on their way.
Aerssens obtained for their use the Hotel Gondy, formerly the residence
of Don Pedro de Toledo, the most splendid private palace in Paris, and
recently purchased by the Queen. It was considered expedient that the
embassy should make as stately an appearance as that of royal or imperial
envoys. He engaged an upholsterer by the King's command to furnish, at
his Majesty's expense, the apartments, as the Baron de Gondy, he said,
had long since sold and eaten up all the furniture. He likewise laid in
six pieces of wine and as many of beer, "tavern drinks" being in the
opinion of the thrifty ambassador "both dear and bad."
He bought a carriage lined with velvet for the commissioners, and another
lined with broadcloth for the principal persons of their suite, and with
his own coach as a third he proposed to go to Amiens to meet them. They
could not get on with fewer than these, he said, and the new carriages
would serve their purpose in Paris. He had paid 500 crowns for the two,
and they could be sold, when done with, at a slight loss. He bought
likewise four dapple-grey horses, which would be enough, as nobody had
more than two horses to a carriage in town, and for which he paid 312
crowns--a very low price, he thought, at a season when every one was
purchasing. He engaged good and experienced coachmen at two crowns a
month, and; in short, made all necessary arrangements for their comfort
and the honour of the state.
The King had been growing more and more displeased at the tardiness of
the commission, petulantly ascribing it to a design on the part of the
States to "excuse themselves from sharing in his bold conceptions," but
said that "he could resolve on nothing without My Lords the States, who
were the only power with which he could contract confidently, as mighty
enough and experienced enough to execute the designs to be proposed to
them; so that his army was lying useless on his hands until the
commissioners arrived," and lamented more loudly than ever that Barneveld
was not coming with them. He was now rejoiced, however, to hear that
they would soon arrive, and went in person to the Hotel Gondy to see that
everything was prepared in a manner befitting their dignity and comfort.
His anxiety had moreover been increased, as already stated, by the
alarming reports from Utrecht and by his other private accounts from the
Netherlands.
De Russy expressed in his despatches grave doubts whether the States
would join the king in a war against the King of Spain, because they
feared the disapprobation of the King of Great Britain, "who had already
manifested but too much jealousy of the power and grandeur of the
Republic." Pecquius asserted that the Archdukes had received assurances
from the States that they would do nothing to violate the truce. The
Prince of Anhalt, who, as chief of the army of the confederated princes,
was warm in his demonstrations for a general war by taking advantage of
the Cleve expedition, was entirely at cross purposes with the States'
ambassador in Paris, Aerssens maintaining that the forty-three years'
experience in their war justified the States in placing no dependence on
German princes except with express conventions. They had no such
conventions now, and if they should be attacked by Spain in consequence
of their assistance in the Cleve business, what guarantee of aid had they
from those whom Anhalt represented? Anhalt was loud in expressions of
sympathy with Henry's designs against Spain, but said that he and the
States meant a war of thirty or forty years, while the princes would
finish what they meant to do in one.
A more erroneous expression of opinion, when viewed in the light of
subsequent events, could hardly have been hazarded. Villeroy made as
good use as he could of these conversations to excite jealousy between
the princes and the States for the furtherance of his own ends, while
affecting warm interest in the success of the King's projects.
Meantime Archduke Albert had replied manfully and distinctly to the
menaces of the King and to the pathetic suggestions made by Villeroy to
Pecquius as to a device for sending back the Princess. Her stay at
Brussels being the chief cause of the impending war, it would be better,
he said, to procure a divorce or to induce the Constable to obtain the
consent of the Prince to the return of his wife to her father's house.
To further either of these expedients, the Archduke would do his best.
"But if one expects by bravados and threats," he added, "to force us to
do a thing against our promise, and therefore against reason, our
reputation, and honour, resolutely we will do nothing of the kind. And
if the said Lord King decided on account of this misunderstanding for a
rupture and to make war upon us, we will do our best to wage war on him.
In such case, however, we shall be obliged to keep the Princess closer in
our own house, and probably to send her to such parts as may be most
convenient in order to remove from us an instrument of the infinite evils
which this war will produce."
Meantime the special commissioners whom we left at Arras had now entered
the French kingdom.
On the 17th April, Aerssens with his three coaches met them on their
entrance into Amiens, having been waiting there for them eight days. As
they passed through the gate, they found a guard of soldiers drawn up to
receive them with military honours, and an official functionary to
apologize for the necessary absence of the governor, who had gone with
most of the troops stationed in the town to the rendezvous in Champagne.
He expressed regret, therefore, that the King's orders for their solemn
reception could not be literally carried out. The whole board of
magistrates, however, in their costumes of ceremony, with sergeants
bearing silver maces marching before them, came forth to bid the
ambassadors welcome. An advocate made a speech in the name of the city
authorities, saying that they were expressly charged by the King to
receive them as coming from his very best friends, and to do them all
honour. He extolled the sage government of their High Mightinesses and
the valour of the Republic, which had become known to the whole world
by the successful conduct of their long and mighty war.
The commissioners replied in words of compliment, and the magistrates
then offered them, according to ancient usage, several bottles of
hippocras.
Next day, sending back the carriages of the Prince of Orange, in which
they had thus far performed the journey, they set forth towards Paris,
reaching Saint-Denis at noon of the third day. Here they were met by de
Bonoeil, introducer of ambassadors, sent thither by the King to give them
welcome, and to say that they would be received on the road by the Duke
of Vendome, eldest of the legitimatized children of the King.
Accordingly before reaching the Saint-Denis gate of Paris, a splendid
cavalcade of nearly five hundred noblemen met them, the Duke at their
head, accompanied by two marshals of France, de Brissac and Boisdaulphin.
The three instantly dismounted, and the ambassadors alighted from their
coach. The Duke then gave them solemn and cordial welcome, saying that
he had been sent by his father the King to receive them as befitted
envoys of the best and most faithful friends he possessed in the world.
The ambassadors expressed their thanks for the great and extraordinary
honour thus conferred on them, and they were then requested to get into a
royal carriage which had been sent out for that purpose. After much
ceremonious refusal they at last consented and, together with the Duke of
Vendome, drove through Paris in that vehicle into the Faubourg Saint
Germain. Arriving at the Hotel Gondy, they were, notwithstanding all
their protestations, escorted up the staircase into the apartments by the
Duke.
"This honour is notable," said the commissioners in their report to the
States, "and never shown to anyone before, so that our ill-wishers are
filled with spite."
And Peter Pecquius was of the same opinion. "Everyone is grumbling
here," about the reception of the States' ambassadors, "because such
honours were never paid to any ambassador whatever, whether from Spain,
England, or any other country."