If there were a living politician in Europe capable of dealing with Barneveld on even terms, it was no doubt President Jeannin.  An ancient Leaguer, an especial adherent of the Duke of Mayenne, he had been deep in all the various plots and counter-plots of the Guises, and often employed by the extinct confederacy in various important intrigues.  Being secretly sent to Spain to solicit help for the League after the disasters of Ivry and Arques, he found Philip II. so sincerely imbued with the notion that France was a mere province of Spain, and so entirely bent upon securing the heritage of the Infanta to that large property, as to convince him that the maintenance of the Roman religion was with that monarch only a secondary condition.  Aid and assistance for the confederacy were difficult of attainment, unless coupled with the guarantee of the Infanta’s rights to reign in France.

The Guise faction being inspired solely by religious motives of the loftiest kind, were naturally dissatisfied with the lukewarmness of his most Catholic Majesty.  When therefore the discomfited Mayenne subsequently concluded his bargain with the conqueror of Ivry, it was a matter of course that Jeannin should also make his peace with the successful Huguenot, now become eldest son of the Church.  He was very soon taken into especial favour by Henry, who recognised his sagacity, and who knew his hands to be far cleaner than those of the more exalted Leaguers with whom he had dealt.  The “good old fellow,” as Henry familiarly called him, had not filled his pockets either in serving or when deserting the League.  Placed in control of the exchequer at a later period, he was never accused of robbery or peculation.  He was a hard-working, not overpaid, very intelligent public functionary.  He was made president of the parliament, or supreme tribunal of Burgundy, and minister of state, and was recognised as one of the ablest jurists and most skilful politicians in the kingdom.  An elderly man, with a tall, serene forehead, a large dark eye and a long grey beard, he presented an image of vast wisdom and reverend probity.  He possessed—­an especial treasure for a statesman in that plotting age—­a singularly honest visage.  Never was that face more guileless, never was his heart more completely worn upon his sleeve, than when he was harbouring the deepest or most dangerous designs.  Such was the “good fellow,” whom that skilful reader of men, Henry of France, had sent to represent his interests and his opinions at the approaching conferences.  What were those opinions?  Paul V. and his legates Barberini, Millino, and the rest, were well enough aware of the secret strings of the king’s policy, and knew how to touch them with skill.  Of all things past, Henry perhaps most regretted that not he, but the last and most wretched of the Valois line, was sovereign of France when the States-General came to Paris with that offer of sovereignty which had been so contumaciously refused.