nt of what was due to Sweden. He found there a courier from the
Marquis de St. Chaumont, who delivered to him some letters he had
brought with him from the High Chancellor. Grotius suspected that they
had been opened, for besides their being dirty, the Courier had been
arrived near a month; and he gave very bad reasons both for the
condition of the letters, and his not delivering them sooner; he said
they had fallen into the sea; that he had been at Paris, but could not
find Grotius's house; and that he had been since kept at Ruel. What made
Grotius easy, was that these letters were written with so much
circumspection, had they been intercepted, the reading of them would
rather have been advantageous than hurtful to Sweden. The French Court's
fears lest the Swedes should conclude a separate peace made the
Ministers promise him speedy payment of the arrears of the subsidies:
Bullion assured him that he would without delay advance three hundred
thousand Francs at several small payments (which Grotius disliked) and
that he had already given orders for paying other two hundred thousand
Francs: Servien promised that France would make greater efforts next
campaign, if Sweden would continue the war.

In the beginning of 1636[265] Grotius went to see the Cardinal, who
complained bitterly that Grotius had written to Holland that the affairs
of France were in a deplorable situation, and the French still on the
point of making their peace. Grotius assured him it was a pure calumny:
the Cardinal pretended that it was known to the French Ambassadors at
the Hague. Grotius assured him these false reports owed their rise to
the artifices of Pau and Aersens his declared enemies, that Camerarius
the Swedish Ambassador in Holland, with whom he corresponded by letters,
would attest the contrary; that this report was probably occasioned by
an article inserted in the Brussels Gazette, that his letters had been
intercepted, representing France as in the greatest declension, of which
he had never had a thought; and that this was done with design to make
him lose the friendship of his patrons. He added, that he had forgot his
Country; that indeed he wished its preservation on account of the
friends and the small estate he had in it; but that he had given himself
entirely to Sweden, and was not so ignorant, not to know how much it
imported Sweden that whilst she was in arms the Dutch should continue
the war; nor so dishonest, to give counsels con