Bouillon, who at that moment hated Sully as much as the most vehement Catholic could do, assured the Dutch envoy that the government was, under specious appearances, attempting to deceive the States; a proposition which it needed not the evidence of that most intriguing duke to make manifest to so astute a politician; particularly as there was none more bent on playing the most deceptive game than Bouillon.  There would be no troops to send, he said, and even if there were, there would be no possibility of agreeing on a chief.  The question of religion would at once arise.  As for himself, the Duke protested that he would not accept the command if offered him.  He would not agree to serve under the Prince of Anhalt, nor would he for any consideration in the world leave the court at that moment.  At the same time Aerssens was well aware that Bouillon, in his quality of first marshal of France, a Protestant and a prince having great possessions on the frontier, and the brother-in-law of Prince Maurice, considered himself entitled to the command of the troops should they really be sent, and was very indignant at the idea of its being offered to any one else.

[Aerssens worked assiduously, two hours long on one occasion, to effect a reconciliation between the two great Protestant chiefs, but found Bouillon’s demands “so shameful and unreasonable” that he felt obliged to renounce all further attempts.  In losing Sully from the royal councils, the States’ envoy acknowledged that the Republic had lost everything that could be depended on at the French court.  “All the others are time-serving friends,” he said, “or saints without miracles.”—­Aerssens to Barneveld, 11 June, 1610. ]

He advised earnestly therefore that the States should make a firm demand for money instead of men, specifying the amount that might be considered the equivalent of the number of troops originally stipulated.

It is one of the most singular spectacles in history; France sinking into the background of total obscurity in an instant of time, at one blow of a knife, while the Republic, which she had been patronizing, protecting, but keeping always in a subordinate position while relying implicitly upon its potent aid, now came to the front, and held up on its strong shoulders an almost desperate cause.  Henry had been wont to call the States-General “his courage and his right arm,” but he had always strictly forbidden them to move an inch in advance of him, but ever to follow his lead, and to take their directions from himself.  They were a part, and an essential one, in his vast designs; but France, or he who embodied France, was the great providence, the destiny, the all-directing, all-absorbing spirit, that was to remodel and control the whole world.  He was dead, and France and her policy were already in a state of rapid decomposition.