ghty republic of Venice. The
Franche Comte; Alsace, Tirol, were naturally to be annexed to
Switzerland; Liege and the heritage of the Duke of Cleves and Juliers to
the Dutch commonwealth.

The King of France, who, according to De Rosny's solemn assertions, was
entirely ignorant of the whole scheme, would, however, be sure to embrace
it very heartily when James should propose it to him, and would be far
too disinterested to wish to keep any of the booty for himself. A similar
self-denial was, of course, expected of James, the two great kings
satisfying themselves with the proud consciousness of having saved
society, rescued the world from the sceptre of an Austrian universal
monarchy, and regenerated European civilization for all future time.

The monarch listened with ravished ears, interposed here and there a
question or a doubt, but devoured every detail of the scheme, as the
ambassador slowly placed it before him.

De Rosny showed that the Spanish faction was not in reality so powerful
as the league which would be constructed for its overthrow. It was not so
much a religious as a political frontier which separated the nations. He
undertook to prove this, but, after all, was obliged to demonstrate that
the defection of Henry from the Protestant cause had deprived him of his
natural allies, and given him no true friends in exchange for the old
ones.

Essentially the Catholics were ranged upon one side, and the Protestants
on the other, but both religions were necessary to Henry the Huguenot:
The bold free-thinker adroitly balanced himself upon each creed. In
making use of a stern and conscientious Calvinist, like Maximilian de
Bethune, in his first assault upon the theological professor who now
stood in Elizabeth's place, he showed the exquisite tact which never
failed him. Toleration for the two religions which had political power,
perfect intolerance for all others; despotic forms of polity, except for
two little republics which were to be smothered with protection and never
left out of leading strings, a thorough recasting of governments and
races, a palingenesis of Europe, a nominal partition of its hegemony
between France and England, which was to be in reality absorbed by
France, and the annihilation of Austrian power east and west, these were
the vast ideas with which that teeming Bourbon brain was filled. It is
the instinct both of poetic and of servile minds to associate a sentiment
of grandeur with such f