ly had this
period been put to the eternal clang of arms when the death of a lunatic
threw the world once more into confusion. It was obvious to Barneveld
that the issue of the Cleve-Julich affair, and of the tremendous
religious fermentation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria, must sooner or
later lead to an immense war. It was inevitable that it would devolve
upon the States to sustain their great though vacillating, their generous
though encroaching, their sincere though most irritating, ally. And yet,
thoroughly as Barneveld had mastered all the complications and
perplexities of the religious and political question, carefully as he had
calculated the value of the opposing forces which were shaking
Christendom, deeply as he had studied the characters of Matthias and
Rudolph, of Charles of Denmark and Ferdinand of Graz, of Anhalt and
Maximilian, of Brandenburg and Neuburg, of James and Philip, of Paul V.
and Charles Emmanuel, of Sully and Yilleroy, of Salisbury and Bacon, of
Lerma and Infantado; adroitly as he could measure, weigh, and analyse all
these elements in the great problem which was forcing itself on the
attention of Europe--there was one factor with which it was difficult for
this austere republican, this cold, unsusceptible statesman, to deal: the
intense and imperious passion of a greybeard for a woman of sixteen.

For out of the cauldron where the miscellaneous elements of universal war
were bubbling rose perpetually the fantastic image of Margaret
Montmorency: the fatal beauty at whose caprice the heroic sword of Ivry
and Cahors was now uplifted and now sheathed.

Aerssens was baffled, and reported the humours of the court where he
resided as changing from hour to hour. To the last he reported that all
the mighty preparations then nearly completed "might evaporate in smoke"
if the Princess of Conde should come back. Every ambassador in Paris was
baffled. Peter Pecquius was as much in the dark as Don Inigo de Cardenas,
as Ubaldini or Edmonds. No one save Sully, Aerssens, Barneveld, and the
King knew the extensive arrangements and profound combinations which had
been made for the war. Yet not Sully, Aerssens, Barneveld, or the King,
knew whether or not the war would really be made.

Barneveld had to deal with this perplexing question day by day. His
correspondence with his ambassador at Henry's court was enormous, and we
have seen that the Ambassador was with the King almost daily; sleeping or
waking; at