The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1613-15 | Page 3

and
money bestowed by a foreign monarch upon himself, for Aerssens had
come back from his embassy full of gall and bitterness against
Barneveld. Thenceforth he was to be his evil demon.
"I didn't inherit property," said this diplomatist. "My father and mother,

thank God, are yet living. I have enjoyed the King's liberality. It was
from an ally, not an enemy, of our country. Were every man obliged to
give a reckoning of everything he possesses over and above his
hereditary estates, who in the government would pass muster? Those
who declare that they have served their country in her greatest trouble,
and lived in splendid houses and in service of princes and great
companies and the like on a yearly salary of 4000 florins, may not
approve these maxims."
It should be remembered that Barneveld, if this was a fling at the
Advocate, had acquired a large fortune by marriage, and, although
certainly not averse from gathering gear, had, as will be seen on a
subsequent page, easily explained the manner in which his property had
increased. No proof was ever offered or attempted of the anonymous
calumnies levelled at him in this regard.
"I never had the management of finances," continued Aerssens. "My
profits I have gained in foreign parts. My condition of life is without
excess, and in my opinion every means are good so long as they are
honourable and legal. They say my post was given me by the Advocate.
Ergo, all my fortune comes from the Advocate. Strenuously to have
striven to make myself agreeable to the King and his counsellors, while
fulfilling my office with fidelity and honour, these are the arts by which
I have prospered, so that my splendour dazzles the eyes of the envious.
The greediness of those who believe that the sun should shine for them
alone was excited, and so I was obliged to resign the embassy."
So long as Henry lived, the Dutch ambassador saw him daily, and at all
hours, privately, publicly, when he would. Rarely has a foreign envoy
at any court, at any period of history, enjoyed such privileges of being
useful to his government. And there is no doubt that the services of
Aerssens had been most valuable to his country, notwithstanding his
constant care to increase his private fortune through his public
opportunities. He was always ready to be useful to Henry likewise.
When that monarch same time before the truce, and occasionally during
the preliminary negotiations for it, had formed a design to make
himself sovereign of the Provinces, it was Aerssens who charged
himself with the scheme, and would have furthered it with all his might,
had the project not met with opposition both from the Advocate and the
Stadholder. Subsequently it appeared probable that Maurice would not

object to the sovereignty himself, and the Ambassador in Paris, with
the King's consent, was not likely to prove himself hostile to the
Prince's ambition.
"There is but this means alone," wrote Jeannini to Villeroy, "that can
content him, although hitherto he has done like the rowers, who never
look toward the place whither they wish to go." The attempt of the
Prince to sound Barneveld on this subject through the
Princess-Dowager has already been mentioned, and has much intrinsic
probability. Thenceforward, the republican form of government, the
municipal oligarchies, began to consolidate their power. Yet although
the people as such were not sovereigns, but subjects, and rarely spoken
of by the aristocratic magistrates save with a gentle and patronizing
disdain, they enjoyed a larger liberty than was known anywhere else in
the world. Buzenval was astonished at the "infinite and almost
unbridled freedom" which he witnessed there during his embassy, and
which seemed to him however "without peril to the state."
The extraordinary means possessed by Aerssens to be important and
useful vanished with the King's death. His secret despatches, painting
in sombre and sarcastic colours the actual condition of affairs at the
French court, were sent back in copy to the French court itself. It was
not known who had played the Ambassador this vilest of tricks, but it
was done during an illness of Barneveld, and without his knowledge.
Early in the year 1613 Aerssens resolved, not to take his final departure,
but to go home on leave of absence. His private intention was to look
for some substantial office of honour and profit at home. Failing of this,
he meant to return to Paris. But with an eye to the main chance as usual,
he ingeniously caused it to be understood at court, without making
positive statements to that effect, that his departure was final. On his
leavetaking, accordingly, he received larger presents from the crown
than had been often given to a retiring ambassador. At least 20,000
florins