Leaving all these details, the King then frankly observed that the affair of Cleve had a much wider outlook than people thought.  Therefore the States must consider well what was to be done to secure the whole work as soon as the Cleve business had been successfully accomplished.  Upon this subject it was indispensable that he should consult especially with his Excellency (Prince Maurice) and some members of the General Assembly, whom he wished that My Lords the States-General should depute to the army.

“For how much good will it do,” said the King, “if we drive off Archduke Leopold without establishing the princes in security for the future?  Nothing is easier than to put the princes in possession.  Every one will yield or run away before our forces, but two months after we have withdrawn the enemy will return and drive the princes out again.  I cannot always be ready to spring out of my kingdom, nor to assemble such great armies.  I am getting old, and my army moreover costs me 400,000 crowns a month, which is enough to exhaust all the treasures of France, Spain, Venice, and the States-General together.”

He added that, if the present occasion were neglected, the States would afterwards bitterly lament and never recover it.  The Pope was very much excited, and was sending out his ambassadors everywhere.  Only the previous Saturday the new nuncius destined for France had left Rome.  If My Lords the States would send deputies to the camp with full powers, he stood there firm and unchangeable, but if they remained cool in the business, he warned them that they would enrage him.

The States must seize the occasion, he repeated.  It was bald behind, and must be grasped by the forelock.  It was not enough to have begun well.  One must end well.  “Finis coronat opus.”  It was very easy to speak of a league, but a league was not to be made in order to sit with arms tied, but to do good work.  The States ought not to suffer that the Germans should prove themselves more energetic, more courageous, than themselves.

And again the King vehemently urged the necessity of his Excellency and some deputies of the States coming to him “with absolute power” to treat.  He could not doubt in that event of something solid being accomplished.

“There are three things,” he continued, “which cause me to speak freely.  I am talking with my friends whom I hold dear—­yes, dearer, perhaps, than they hold themselves.  I am a great king, and say what I choose to say.  I am old, and know by experience the ways of this world’s affairs.  I tell you, then, that it is most important that you should come to me resolved and firm on all points.”

He then requested the ambassadors to make full report of all that he had said to their masters, to make the journey as rapidly as possible, in order to encourage the States to the great enterprise and to meet his wishes.  He required from them, he said, not only activity of the body, but labour of the intellect.