Secretary of State Villeroy held the same language, but it was easy to trace beneath his plausible exterior a secret determination to traverse the plans of his sovereign.  “The Cleve affair must lead to war,” he said.  “The Spaniard, considering how necessary it is for him to have a prince there at his devotion, can never quietly suffer Brandenburg and Neuburg to establish themselves in those territories.  The support thus gained by the States-General would cause the loss of the Spanish Netherlands.”

This was the view of Henry, too, but the Secretary of State, secretly devoted to the cause of Spain, looked upon the impending war with much aversion.

“All that can come to his Majesty from war,” he said, “is the glory of having protected the right.  Counterbalance this with the fatigue, the expense, and the peril of a great conflict, after our long repose, and you will find this to be buying glory too dearly.”

When a Frenchman talked of buying glory too dearly, it seemed probable that the particular kind of glory was not to his taste.

Henry had already ordered the officers, then in France, of the 4000 French infantry kept in the States’ service at his expense to depart at once to Holland, and he privately announced his intention of moving to the frontier at the head of 30,000 men.

’Yet not only Villeroy, but the Chancellor and the Constable, while professing opposition to the designs of Austria and friendliness to those of Brandenburg and Neuburg, deprecated this precipitate plunge into war.  “Those most interested,” they said, “refuse to move; fearing Austria, distrusting France.  They leave us the burden and danger, and hope for the spoils themselves.  We cannot play cat to their monkey.  The King must hold himself in readiness to join in the game when the real players have shuffled and dealt the cards.  It is no matter to us whether the Spaniard or Brandenburg or anyone else gets the duchies.  The States-General require a friendly sovereign there, and ought to say how much they will do for that result.”

The Constable laughed at the whole business.  Coming straight from the Louvre, he said “there would be no serious military movement, and that all those fine freaks would evaporate in air.”

But Sully never laughed.  He was quietly preparing the ways and means for the war, and he did not intend, so far as he had influence, that France should content herself with freaks and let Spain win the game.  Alone in the council he maintained that “France had gone too far to recede without sacrifice of reputation.”—­“The King’s word is engaged both within and without,” he said.  “Not to follow it with deeds would be dangerous to the kingdom.  The Spaniard will think France afraid of war.  We must strike a sudden blow, either to drive the enemy away or to crush him at once.  There is no time for delay.  The Netherlands must prevent the aggrandizement of Austria or consent to their own ruin.”