“is the word of a king not sufficient?”—­“No, madam,” replied one of them, “by Saint Bartholomew, no!” Count Louis told Schomberg roundly, and repeated it many times, that he must have in a very few days a categorical response, “not to consist in words alone, but in deeds, and that he could not, and would not, risk for ever the honor of his brother, nor the property; blood, and life of those poor people who favored the cause.”

On the 23rd March, 1573, Schomberg had an interview with Count Louis, which lasted seven or eight hours.  In that interview the enterprises of the Count, “which,” said Schomberg, “are assuredly grand and beautiful,” were thoroughly discussed, and a series of conditions, drawn up partly in the hand of one, partly in that of the other negotiator; definitely agreed upon.  These conditions were on the basis of a protectorate over Holland and Zealand for the King of France, with sovereignty over the other places to be acquired in the Netherlands.  They were in strict accordance with the articles furnished by the Prince of Orange.  Liberty of worship for those of both religions, sacred preservation of municipal charters, and stipulation of certain annual subsidies on the part of France, in case his Majesty should not take the field, were the principal features.

Ten days later, Schomberg wrote to his master that the Count was willing to use all the influence of his family to procure for Anjou the crown of Poland, while Louis, having thus completed his negotiations with the agent, addressed a long and earnest letter to the royal principal.  This remarkable despatch was stamped throughout with the impress of the writer’s frank and fearless character.  “Thus diddest thou” has rarely been addressed to anointed monarch in such unequivocal tones:  The letter painted the favorable position in which the king had been placed previously to the fatal summer of 1572.  The Queen of England was then most amicably disposed towards him, and inclined to a yet closer connexion with his family.  The German princes were desirous to elect him King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had so fruitlessly contended.  The Netherlanders, driven to despair by the tyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into his arms.  All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification.  How changed the picture now!  Who now did reverence to a King so criminal and so fallen?  “Your Majesty to-day,” said Louis, earnestly and plainly, “is near to ruin.  The State, crumbling on every side and almost abandoned, is a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the more so, because your Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the wars previously made, endeavoured to force men’s consciences, is now so destitute, not only of nobility and soldiery but of that which constitutes the strongest column of the throne, the love and good wishes of the lieges, that your Majesty resembles an ancient building propped up, day after, day, with piles, but which it will be impossible long to prevent from falling to the earth.”  Certainly, here were wholesome truths told in straightforward style.