The choice he made of La Varenne, whose real name was Guillaume Fouquet, for this mission was still more offensive to De Bethune.  Fouquet had originally been a cook in the service of Madame Catherine, and was famous for his talent for larding poultry, but he had subsequently entered the household of Henry, where he had been employed in the most degrading service which one man can render to another.

["La Varenne,” said Madame Catherine on one occasion “tu as plus gagne ti porter les poulets de men frere, qu’a piquer les miens.”  Memoires de Sully, Liv. vi. p. 296, note 6.  He accumulated a large fortune in these dignified pursuits—­having, according to Winwood, landed estates to the annual amount of sixty thousand francs a-year —­and gave large dowries to his daughters, whom he married into noblest families; “which is the more remarkable,” adds Winwood, “considering the services wherein he is employed about the king, which is to be the Mezzano for his loves; the place from whence he came, which is out of the kitchen of Madame the king’s sister.”—­ Memorials, i. 380.]

On his appointment to this offce of secret diplomacy he assumed all the airs of an ambassador, while Henry took great pains to contradict the reports which were spread as to the true nature of this mission to Spain.

Duplessis was, in truth, not very far wrong in his conjectures, but, as might be supposed, Henry was most anxious to conceal these secret negotiations with his Catholic Majesty from the Huguenot chiefs whom he had so recently deserted.  “This is all done without the knowledge of the Duke of Bouillon,” said Calvaert, “or at least under a very close disguise, as he, himself keenly feels and confesses to me.”  The envoy of the republic, as well as the leaders of the Protestant party in France, were resolved if possible to break off these dark and dangerous intrigues, the nature of which they so shrewdly suspected, and to substitute for them an open rupture of Henry with the King of Spain, and a formal declaration of war against him.  None of the diplomatists or political personages engaged in these great affairs, in which the whole world was so deeply interested, manifested more sagacity and insight on this occasion than did the Dutch statesmen.  We have seen that even Sir Edward Stafford was deceived up to a very late moment, as to the rumoured intentions of Henry to enter the Catholic Church.  Envoy Edmonds was now equally and completely in the dark as to the mission of Varenne, and informed his Government that the only result of it was that the secret agent to Spain was favoured, through the kindness of Mendoza, with a distant view of Philip II. with his son and daughter at their devotions in the chapel of the Escorial.  This was the tale generally recounted and believed after the agent’s return from Spain, so that Varenne was somewhat laughed at as having gone to Spain on a fool’s errand, and as having got nothing