The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1610a | Page 8

to Brussels. He was to propose that Conde and his wife should
return with the Prince and Princess of Orange to Breda, the King
pledging himself that for three or four months nothing should be
undertaken against him. Here was a sudden change of determination fit
to surprise the States-General, but the King's resolution veered and
whirled about hourly in the tempests of his wrath and love.
That excellent old couple, the Constable and the Duchess of
Angouleme, did their best to assist their sovereign in his fierce attempts
to get their daughter and niece into his power.
The Constable procured a piteous letter to be written to Archduke
Albert, signed "Montmorency his mark," imploring him not to "suffer
that his daughter, since the Prince refused to return to France, should
leave Brussels to be a wanderer about the world following a young
prince who had no fixed purpose in his mind."
Archduke Albert, through his ambassador in Paris, Peter Pecquius,
suggested the possibility of a reconciliation between Henry and his
kinsman, and offered himself as intermediary. He enquired whether the
King would find it agreeable that he should ask for pardon in name of
the Prince. Henry replied that he was willing that the Archduke should
accord to Conde secure residence for the time within his dominions on

three inexorable conditions:--firstly, that the Prince should ask for
pardon without any stipulations, the King refusing to listen to any
treaty or to assign him towns or places of security as had been vaguely
suggested, and holding it utterly unreasonable that a man sueing for
pardon should, instead of deserved punishment, talk of terms and
acquisitions; secondly, that, if Conde should reject the proposition,
Albert should immediately turn him out of his country, showing
himself justly irritated at finding his advice disregarded; thirdly, that,
sending away the Prince, the Archduke should forthwith restore the
Princess to her father the Constable and her aunt Angouleme, who had
already made their petitions to Albert and Isabella for that end, to
which the King now added his own most particular prayers.
If the Archduke should refuse consent to these three conditions, Henry
begged that he would abstain from any farther attempt to effect a
reconciliation and not suffer Conde to remain any longer within his
territories.
Pecquius replied that he thought his master might agree to the two first
propositions while demurring to the third, as it would probably not
seem honourable to him to separate man and wife, and as it was
doubtful whether the Princess would return of her own accord.
The King, in reporting the substance of this conversation to Aerssens,
intimated his conviction that they were only wishing in Brussels to gain
time; that they were waiting for letters from Spain, which they were
expecting ever since the return of Conde's secretary from Milan,
whither he had been sent to confer with the Governor, Count Fuentes.
He said farther that he doubted whether the Princess would go to Breda,
which he should now like, but which Conde would not now permit.
This he imputed in part to the Princess of Orange, who had written a
letter full of invectives against himself to the Dowager--Princess of
Conde which she had at once sent to him. Henry expressed at the same
time his great satisfaction with the States-General and with Barneveld
in this affair, repeating his assurances that they were the truest and best
friends he had.
The news of Conde's ceremonious visit to Leopold in Julich could not
fail to exasperate the King almost as much as the pompous manner in
which he was subsequently received at Brussels; Spinola and the
Spanish Ambassador going forth to meet him. At the same moment the

secretary of Vaucelles, Henry's ambassador in Madrid, arrived in Paris,
confirming the King's suspicions that Conde's flight had been concerted
with Don Inigo de Cardenas, and was part of a general plot of Spain
against the peace of the kingdom. The Duc d'Epernon, one of the most
dangerous plotters at the court, and deep in the intimacy of the Queen
and of all the secret adherents of the Spanish policy, had been
sojourning a long time at Metz, under pretence of attending to his
health, had sent his children to Spain, as hostages according to Henry's
belief, had made himself master of the citadel, and was turning a deaf
ear to all the commands of the King.
The supporters of Conde in France were openly changing their note and
proclaiming by the Prince's command that he had left the kingdom in
order to preserve his quality of first prince of the blood, and that he
meant to make good his right of primogeniture against the Dauphin and
all competitors.
Such bold language and such open reliance on the support of