ent movement, as Barneveld foresaw, was drawing rapidly to a
close. Langerac arrived in Paris on the 5th of April 1614.

Du Maurier thought the new ambassador likely to "fall a prey to the
specious language and gentle attractions of the Due de Bouillon." He also
described him as very dependent upon Prince Maurice. On the other hand
Langerac professed unbounded and almost childlike reverence for
Barneveld, was devoted to his person, and breathed as it were only
through his inspiration. Time would show whether those sentiments would
outlast every possible storm.

CHAPTER X

Weakness of the Rulers of France and England--The Wisdom of
Barneveld inspires Jealousy--Sir Dudley Carleton succeeds Winwood--
Young Neuburg under the Guidance of Maximilian--Barneveld strives to
have the Treaty of Xanten enforced--Spain and the Emperor wish to
make the States abandon their Position with regard to the Duchies--
The French Government refuses to aid the States--Spain and the
Emperor resolve to hold Wesel--The great Religious War begun--The
Protestant Union and Catholic League both wish to secure the Border
Provinces--Troubles in Turkey--Spanish Fleet seizes La Roche--Spain
places large Armies on a War Footing.

Few things are stranger in history than the apathy with which the wide
designs of the Catholic party were at that moment regarded. The
preparations for the immense struggle which posterity learned to call the
Thirty Years' War, and to shudder when speaking of it, were going forward
on every side. In truth the war had really begun, yet those most deeply
menaced by it at the outset looked on with innocent calmness because
their own roofs were not quite yet in a blaze. The passage of arms in the
duchies, the outlines of which have just been indicated, and which was
the natural sequel of the campaign carried out four years earlier on the
same territory, had been ended by a mockery. In France, reduced almost to
imbecility by the absence of a guiding brain during a long minority,
fallen under the distaff of a dowager both weak and wicked, distracted by
the intrigues and quarrels of a swarm of self-seeking grandees, and with
all its offices, from highest to lowest, of court, state, jurisprudence,
and magistracy, sold as openly and as cynically as the commonest wares,
there were few to comprehend or to grapple with the danger. It should
have seemed obvious to the meanest capacity in the kingdom that