“For there are many occasions when an army might be ruined for want of twenty thousand crowns.  What a pity if a noble edifice, furnished to the roof-tree, should fall to decay for want of a few tiles.  No doubt your own interests are deeply connected with our own.  Men may say that our proposals should be rejected on the principle that the shirt is nearer to the skin than the coat, but it can be easily proved that our cause is one.  The mere rumour of this army will prevent the Duke of Parma from attacking you.  His forces will be drawn to France.  He will be obliged to intercept the crash of this thunderbolt.  The assistance of this army is worth millions to you, and has cost you nothing.  To bring France into hostility with Spain is the very policy that you have always pursued and always should pursue in order to protect your freedom.  You have always desired a war between France and Spain, and here is a fierce and cruel one in which you have hazarded nothing.  It cannot come to an end without bringing signal advantages to yourselves.

“You have always desired an alliance with a French sovereign, and here is a firm friendship offered you by our king, a natural alliance.

“You know how unstable are most treaties that are founded on shifting interests, and do not concern the freedom of bodies and souls.  The first are written with pen upon paper, and are generally as light as paper.  They have no roots in the heart.  Those founded on mutual assistance on trying occasions have the perpetual strength of nature.  They bring always good and enduring fruit in a rich soil like the heart of our king; that heart which is as beautiful and as pure from all untruth as the lily upon his shield.

“You will derive the first profits from the army thus raised.  From the moment of its mustering under a chief of such experience as Turenne, it will absorb the whole attention of Spain, and will draw her thoughts from the Netherlands to France.”

All this and more in the same earnest manner did the envoy urge upon the consideration of the States-General, concluding with a demand of 100,000 florins as their contribution towards the French campaign.

His eloquence did not fall upon unwilling ears; for the States-General, after taking time to deliberate, replied to the propositions by an expression of the strongest sympathy with, and admiration for, the heroic efforts of the King of France.  Accordingly, notwithstanding their own enormous expenses, past and present, and their strenuous exertions at that very moment to form an army of foot and horse for the campaign, the brilliant results of which have already been narrated, they agreed to furnish the required loan of 100,000 florins to be repaid in a year, besides six or seven good ships of war to co-operate with the fleets of England and France upon the coasts of Normandy.  And the States were even better than their word.