at the price.  La Motte higgled very hard for more, and talked pathetically of his services and his wounds—­for he had been a most distinguished and courageous campaigner—­but Alonzo was implacable.  Moreover, one Robert Bien-Aime, Prior of Renty, was present at all the conferences.  This ecclesiastic was a busy intriguer, but not very adroit.  He was disposed to make himself useful to government, for he had set his heart upon putting the mitre of Saint Omer upon his head, and he had accordingly composed a very ingenious libel upon the Prince of Orange, in which production, “although the Prior did not pretend to be Apelles or Lysippus,” he hoped that the Governor-General would recognize a portrait colored to the life.  This accomplished artist was, however, not so successful as he was picturesque and industrious.  He was inordinately vain of his services, thinking himself, said Alonzo, splenetically, worthy to be carried in a procession like a little saint, and as he had a busy brain, but an unruly tongue, it will be seen that he possessed a remarkable faculty of making himself unpleasant.  This was not the way to earn his bishopric.  La Motte, through the candid communications of the Prior, found himself the subject of mockery in Parma’s camp and cabinet, where treachery to one’s country and party was not, it seemed, regarded as one of the loftier virtues, however convenient it might be at the moment to the royal cause.  The Prior intimated especially that Ottavio Gonzaga had indulged in many sarcastic remarks at La Motte’s expense.  The brave but venal warrior, highly incensed at thus learning the manner in which his conduct was estimated by men of such high rank in the royal service, was near breaking off the bargain.  He was eventually secured, however, by still larger offers—­Don John allowing him three hundred florins a month, presenting him with the two best horses in his stable, and sending him an open form, which he was to fill out in the most stringent language which he could devise, binding the government to the payment of an ample and entirely satisfactory “merced.”  Thus La Motte’s bargain was completed a crime which, if it had only entailed the loss of the troops under his command, and the possession of Gravelines, would have been of no great historic importance.  It was, however, the first blow of a vast and carefully sharpened treason, by which the country was soon to be cut in twain for ever—­the first in a series of bargains by which the noblest names of the Netherlands were to be contaminated with bribery and fraud.

While the negotiations with La Notte were in progress, the government of the states-general at Brussels had sent Saint Aldegonde to Arras.  The states of Artois, then assembled in that city, had made much difficulty in acceding to an assessment of seven thousand florins laid upon them by the central authority.  The occasion was skillfully made use of by the agents of the royal party to weaken the allegiance of the