in Germany by the nomination
of a German Prince to be Generalissimo of the allied army. He declared
that he thought himself obliged to propose his difficulties to the Queen
of Sweden: and besides would send an embassy to Paris on the subject.
This then was the business which Grotius had to manage at the Court of
France. The Commission was the more delicate as Cardinal Richelieu, a
positive man, absolutely required that the treaty made with the Envoys
of the German Princes should have its full effect.

It was to confer on this affair that Grotius made a visit to Boutillier,
Superintendant of the Finances. The Swedish Ambassador represented, that
the Treaty ought not to be in force till Sweden's ratification of it,
which could not be expected, as it made void the Treaty of Hailbron.
This was not what the Cardinal wanted: he commissioned Father Joseph to
employ all his address to bring Grotius into his measures. The Capuchin
was the Cardinal's confident, and it was then thought that he was
destined to succeed him in the Ministry in case of the Cardinal's death.
March 14, the Superintendant sent to acquaint Grotius that he purposed
to make him a visit with Father Joseph; but as the Father was taken ill
he asked him to go with him to the Convent of the Capuchins; that he
ought to have no reluctance to this, since the Cardinal himself had
lately visited Father Joseph there when he was ill. Grotius went to the
convent, and was conducted from thence to the Garden of the Thuilleries,
where he found Boutillier and Father Joseph. After the usual
compliments, the Capuchin shewed that the late treaty at Paris was made
in consequence of a full power given the Ministers of the German
Princes, and concluded and signed without any stipulation concerning
the necessity of ratifying it. Grotius replied, that the High Chancellor
himself had said the contrary; that the towns who approved of the treaty
owned the necessity of its being ratified; that a ratification was so
necessary to give a treaty the force of a law, that that which was
concluded at Ratisbon, in 1630, by Father Joseph himself, had not its
full execution because the King did not think proper to ratify it; that
the Swedes only asked what was just, and would consent that some
addition should be made to the treaty of Hailbron, if that were proper.
Grotius was asked, which article of the late treaty Sweden complained
of? he first mentioned that of the Subsidies, the disposition of