retences. He had been charged by his master to represent
Henry's childish scheme, which he thought so gigantic, for the
regeneration of Europe, as a project of his own, which he was determined
to bring to execution, even at the risk of infidelity to his sovereign,
and the first element in that whole policy was to carry on war underhand
against a power with which his master had just sworn to preserve peace.
In that age at least it was not safe for politicians to call each other
hard names.

The very next day De Rosny had a long private interview with James at
Greenwich. Being urged to speak without reserve, the ambassador depicted
the privy counsellors to the king as false to his instructions, traitors
to the best interests of their country, the humble servants of Spain, and
most desirous to make their royal master the slave of that power, under
the name of its ally. He expressed the opinion, accordingly, that James
would do better in obeying only the promptings of his own superior
wisdom, rather than the suggestions of the intriguers about him. The
adroit De Rosny thus softly insinuated to the flattered monarch that the
designs of France were the fresh emanations of his own royal intellect.
It was the whim of James to imagine himself extremely like Henry of
Bourbon in character, and he affected to take the wittiest, bravest, most
adventurous, and most adroit knight-errant that ever won and wore a crown
as his perpetual model.

It was delightful, therefore, to find himself in company with his royal
brother; making and unmaking kings; destroying empires, altering the
whole face of Christendom, and, better than all, settling then and for
ever the theology of the whole world, without the trouble of moving from
his easy chair, or of incurring any personal danger.

He entered at once, with the natural tendency to suspicion of a timid
man, into the views presented by De Rosny as to the perfidy of his
counsellors. He changed colour; and was visibly moved, as the ambassador
gave his version of the recent conference with Cecil and the other
ministers, and, being thus artfully stimulated, he was, prepared to
receive with much eagerness the portentous communications now to be made.

The ambassador, however, caused him to season his admiration until he had
taken a most solemn oath, by the sacrament of the Eucharist, never to
reveal a syllable of what he was about to hear. This done, and the royal
curiosity excited almost beyond e