fallibility of Calvin was as heinous a crime, in
the eyes of his accusers, as to kneel to the host. Peter Titelmann, half
a century earlier, dripping with the blood of a thousand martyrs, seemed
hardly a more loathsome object to all Netherlanders than the Advocate now
appeared to his political enemies, thus daring to preach religious
toleration, and boasting of, humble ignorance as the safest creed. Alas!
we must always have something to persecute, and individual man is never
so convinced of his own wisdom as when dealing with subjects beyond human
comprehension.

Unfortunately, however, while the great Advocate was clear in his
conscience he had scarcely clean hands. He had very recently accepted a
present of twenty thousand florins from the King of France. That this was
a bribe by which his services were to be purchased for a cause not in
harmony with his own convictions it would be unjust to say. We of a later
generation, who have had the advantage of looking through the portfolio
of President Jeannin, and of learning the secret intentions of that
diplomatist and of his master, can fully understand however that there
was more than sufficient cause at the time for suspecting the purity of
the great Advocate's conduct. We are perfectly aware that the secret
instructions of Henry gave his plenipotentiaries almost unlimited power
to buy up as many influential personages in the Netherlands as could be
purchased. So they would assist in making the king master of the United
Provinces at the proper moment there was scarcely any price that he was
not willing to pay.

Especially Prince Maurice, his cousin, and the Advocate of Holland, were
to be secured by life pensions, property, offices, and dignities, all
which Jeannin might offer to an almost unlimited amount, if by such means
those great personages could possibly be induced to perform the king's
work.

There is no record that the president ever held out such baits at this
epoch to the prince. There could never be a doubt however in any one's
mind that if the political chief of the Orange-Nassau house ever wished
to make himself the instrument by which France should supplant Spain in
the tyranny of the Netherlands, he might always name his own price.
Jeannin never insulted him with any such trading propositions. As for
Barneveld, he avowed long years afterwards that he had accepted the
twenty thousand florins, and that the king had expressly exacted secrecy
in regard to