oners, 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 held up to him the enormity of thus converting the King of
Spain and the Archdukes into his deadly enemies, and warned him that he
would by such desperate measures make even the States-General and the
King of Britain his foes, who certainly would never favour such schemes.
The King replied that "he trusted to his own forces, not to those of his
neighbours, and even if the Hollanders should not declare for him still
he would execute his designs. On the 15th of May most certainly he would
put himself at the head of his army, even if he was obliged to put off
the Queen's coronation till October, and he could not consider the King
of Spain nor the Archdukes his friends unless they at once made him some
demonstration of friendship. Being asked by the Nuncius what
demonstration he wished, he answered flatly that he wished the Princess
to be sent back to the Constable her father, in which case the affair of
Julich could be arranged amicably, and, at all events, if the war
continued there, he need not send more than 4000 men."

Thus, in spite of his mighty preparations, vehement demands for
Barneveld, and profound combinations revealed to that statesman, to
Aerssens, and to the Duke of Sully only, this wonderful monarch was ready
to drop his sword on the spot, to leave his friends in the lurch, to
embrace his enemies, the Archduke first of all, instead of bombarding
Brussels the very next week, as he had been threatening to do, provided
the beautiful Margaret could be restored to his arms through those of her
venerable father.

He suggested to the Nuncius his hope that the Archduke would yet be
willing to wink at her escape, which he was now trying to arrange through
de Preaux at Brussels, while Ubaldini, knowing the Archduke incapable of
anything so dishonourable, felt that the war was inevitable.

At the very same time too, Father Cotton, who was only too read