he same Andrada to murder the King of France with a nosegay of roses;
and they alluded further to the revelations of Michael Renichon, who was
to murder Maurice of Nassau and kidnap Frederic William, even as their
father and brother had been already murdered and kidnapped.

For such reasons the archduke might understand by what persons and what
means the good people of the Netherlands were deceived, and how difficult
it was for the States to forget such lessons, or to imagine anything
honest in the present propositions.

The States declared themselves, on the contrary, more called upon than
ever before to be upon the watch against the stealthy proceedings of the
Spanish council of state--bearing in mind the late execrable attempts at
assassination, and the open war which was still carried on against the
King of France.

And although it was said that his Highness was displeased with such
murderous and hostile proceedings, still it was necessary for the States
to beware of the nefarious projects of the King of Spain and his council.

After the conversion of Henry IV. to the Roman Church had been duly
accomplished that monarch had sent a secret envoy to Spain. The mission
of this agent--De Varenne by name--excited intense anxiety and suspicion
in England and Holland and among the Protestants of France and Germany.
It was believed that Henry had not only made a proposition of a separate
peace with Philip, but that he had formally but mysteriously demanded the
hand of the Infanta in marriage. Such a catastrophe as this seemed to the
heated imaginations of the great body of Calvinists throughout Europe,
who had so faithfully supported the King of Navarre up to the moment of
his great apostasy, the most cruel and deadly treachery of all. That the
princess with the many suitors should come to reign over France after
all--not as the bride of her own father, not as the queen-consort of
Ernest the Habsburger or of Guise the Lorrainer, but as the lawful wife
of Henry the Huguenot--seemed almost too astounding for belief, even amid
the chances and changes of that astonishing epoch. Yet Duplessis Mornay
avowed that the project was entertained, and that he had it from the very
lips of the secret envoy who was to negotiate the marriage. "La Varenne
is on his way to Spain," wrote Duplessis to the Duke of Bouillon, "in
company with a gentleman of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who brought the
first overtures. He is to bring back the portra