lowed daily between the ambassadors
and Villeroy, Sully, Jeannin, the Chancellor, and Puysieug.

The King's counsellors, after having read the written paraphrase of
Barneveld's instructions, the communication of which followed their oral
statements, and which, among other specifications, contained a respectful
remonstrance against the projected French East India Company, as likely
to benefit the Spaniards only, while seriously injuring the States,
complained that "the representations were too general, and that the paper
seemed to contain nothing but compliments."

The ambassadors, dilating on the various points and articles, maintained
warmly that there was much more than compliments in their instructions.
The ministers wished to know what the States practically were prepared to
do in the affair of Cleve, which they so warmly and encouragingly
recommended to the King. They asked whether the States' army would march
at once to Dusseldorf to protect the princes at the moment when the King
moved from Mezieres, and they made many enquiries as to what amount of
supplies and munitions they could depend upon from the States' magazines.

The envoys said that they had no specific instructions on these points,
and could give therefore no conclusive replies. More than ever did Henry
regret the absence of the great Advocate at this juncture. If he could
have come, with the bridle on his neck, as Henry had so repeatedly urged
upon the resident ambassador, affairs might have marched more rapidly.
The despotic king could never remember that Barneveld was not the
unlimited sovereign of the United States, but only the seal-keeper of one
of the seven provinces and the deputy of Holland to the General Assembly.
His indirect power, however vast, was only great because it was so
carefully veiled.

It was then proposed by Villeroy and Sully, and agreed to by the
commissioners, that M. de Bethune, a relative of the great financier,
should be sent forthwith to the Hague, to confer privately with Prince
Maurice and Barneveld especially, as to military details of the coming
campaign.

It was also arranged that the envoys should delay their departure until
de Bethune's return. Meantime Henry and the Nuncius had been exchanging
plain and passionate language. Ubaldini reproached the King with
disregarding all the admonitions of his Holiness, and being about to
plunge Christendom into misery and war for the love of the Princess of
Conde. He hel