contribute, and whether they would go into the war with the King as their only ally.  He must come with the bridle on his neck.  All that Henry feared was being left in the lurch by the States; otherwise he was not afraid of Rome.  Sully was urgent that the Provinces should now go vigorously into the war without stumbling at any consideration.  Thus they would confirm their national power for all time, but if the opportunity were now lost, it would be their ruin, and posterity would most justly blame them.  The King of Spain was so stripped of troops and resources, so embarrassed by the Moors, that in ten months he would not be able to send one man to the Netherlands.

Meantime the Nuncius in Paris was moving heaven and earth; storming, intriguing, and denouncing the course of the King in protecting heresy, when it would have been so easy to extirpate it, encouraging rebellion and disorder throughout Christendom, and embarking in an action against the Church and against his conscience.  A new legate was expected daily with the Pope’s signature to the new league, and a demand upon the King to sign it likewise, and to pause in a career of which something was suspected, but very little accurately known.  The preachers in Paris and throughout the kingdom delivered most vehement sermons against the King, the government, and the Protestants, and seemed to the King to be such “trumpeters of sedition” that he ordered the seneschals and other officers to put a stop to these turbulent discourses, censure their authors, and compel them to stick to their texts.

But the preparations were now so far advanced and going on so warmly that nothing more was wanting than, in the words of Aerssens, “to uncouple the dogs and let them run.”  Recruits were pouring steadily to their places of rendezvous; their pay having begun to run from the 25th March at the rate of eight sous a day for the private foot soldier and ten sous for a corporal.  They were moved in small parties of ten, lodged in the wayside inns, and ordered, on pain of death, to pay for everything they consumed.

It was growing difficult to wait much longer for the arrival of the special ambassadors, when at last they were known to be on their way.  Aerssens obtained for their use the Hotel Gondy, formerly the residence of Don Pedro de Toledo, the most splendid private palace in Paris, and recently purchased by the Queen.  It was considered expedient that the embassy should make as stately an appearance as that of royal or imperial envoys.  He engaged an upholsterer by the King’s command to furnish, at his Majesty’s expense, the apartments, as the Baron de Gondy, he said, had long since sold and eaten up all the furniture.  He likewise laid in six pieces of wine and as many of beer, “tavern drinks” being in the opinion of the thrifty ambassador “both dear and bad.”