At length, it having been agreed to refer the matter to the States-General, Recorder Aerssens waited upon Neyen to demand his credentials for negotiation.  He replied that he had been forbidden to deliver his papers, but that he was willing to exhibit them to the States-General.

He came accordingly to that assembly, and was respectfully received.  All the deputies rose, and he was placed in a seat near the presiding officer.  Olden-Barneveld then in a few words told him why he had been summoned.  The monk begged that a want of courtesy might not be imputed to him, as he had been sent to negotiate with three individuals, not with a great assembly.

Thus already the troublesome effect of publicity upon diplomacy was manifesting itself.  The many-headed, many-tongued republic was a difficult creature to manage, adroit as the negotiator had proved himself to be in gliding through the cabinets and council-chambers of princes and dealing with the important personages found there.

The power was, however, produced, and handed around the assembly, the signature and seals being duly inspected by the members.  Neyen was then asked if he had anything to say in public.  He replied in the negative, adding only a few vague commonplaces about the effusion of blood and the desire of the archdukes for the good of mankind.  He was then dismissed.

A few days afterwards a committee of five from the States-General, of which Barneveld was chairman, conferred with Neyen.  He was informed that the paper exhibited by him was in many respects objectionable, and that they had therefore drawn up a form which he was requested to lay before the archdukes for their guidance in making out a new power.  He was asked also whether the king of Spain was a party to these proposals for negotiation.  The monk answered that he was not informed of the fact, but that he considered it highly probable.

John Neyen then departed for Brussels with the form prescribed by the States-General in his pocket.  Nothing could exceed the indignation with which the royalists and Catholics at the court of the archdukes were inspired by the extreme arrogance and obstinacy thus manifested by the rebellious heretics.  That the offer on the part of their master to negotiate should be received by them with cavils, and almost with contempt, was as great an offence as their original revolt.  That the servant should dare to prescribe a form for the sovereign to copy seemed to prove that the world was coming to an end.  But it was ever thus with the vulgar, said the courtiers and church dignitaries, debating these matters.  The insanity of plebeians was always enormous, and never more so than when fortune for a moment smiled.  Full of arrogance and temerity when affairs were prosperous, plunged in abject cowardice when dangers and reverses came—­such was the People—­such it must ever be.