His resignation was not accepted by the Duchess, who still made efforts to retain the services of a man who was necessary to her administration.  She begged him, notwithstanding the purely defensive and watchful attitude which he had now assumed, to take measures that Brederode should abandon his mischievous courses.  She also reproached the Prince with having furnished that personage with artillery for his fortifications.  Orange answered, somewhat contemptuously, that he was not Brederode’s keeper, and had no occasion to meddle with his affairs.  He had given him three small field-pieces, promised long ago; not that he mentioned that circumstance as an excuse for the donation.  “Thank God,” said he, “we have always had the liberty in this country of making to friends or relatives what presents we liked, and methinks that things have come to a pretty pass when such trifles are scrutinized.”  Certainly, as Suzerain of Viane, and threatened with invasion in his seignorial rights, the Count might think himself justified in strengthening the bulwarks of his little stronghold, and the Prince could hardly be deemed very seriously to endanger the safety of the crown by the insignificant present which had annoyed the Regent.

It is not so agreeable to contemplate the apparent intimacy which the Prince accorded to so disreputable a character, but Orange was now in hostility to the government, was convinced by evidence, whose accuracy time was most signally to establish, that his own head, as well as many others, were already doomed to the block, while the whole country was devoted to abject servitude, and he was therefore disposed to look with more indulgence upon the follies of those who were endeavoring, however weakly and insanely, to avert the horrors which he foresaw.  The time for reasoning had passed.  All that true wisdom and practical statesmanship could suggest, he had already placed at the disposal of a woman who stabbed him in the back even while she leaned upon his arm—­of a king who had already drawn his death warrant, while reproaching his “cousin of Orange” for want of confidence in the royal friendship.  Was he now to attempt the subjugation of his country by interfering with the proceedings of men whom he had no power to command, and who, at least, were attempting to oppose tyranny?  Even if he should do so, he was perfectly aware of the reward, reserved for his loyalty.  He liked not such honors as he foresaw for all those who had ever interposed between the monarch and his vengeance.  For himself he had the liberation of a country, the foundation of a free commonwealth to achieve.  There was much work for those hands before he should fall a victim to the crowned assassin.