The shooting of Concini seemed almost to convert the little king into a hero. Everyone in the Netherlands, without distinction of party, was delighted with the achievement. “I cannot represent to the King,” wrote du Maurier to Villeroy, “one thousandth part of the joy of all these people who are exalting him to heaven for having delivered the earth from this miserable burthen. I can’t tell you in what execration this public pest was held. His Majesty has not less won the hearts of this state than if he had gained a great victory over the Spaniards. You would not believe it, and yet it is true, that never were the name and reputation of the late king in greater reverence than those of our reigning king at this moment.”
Truly here was glory cheaply earned. The fame of Henry the Great, after a long career of brilliant deeds of arms, high statesmanship, and twenty years of bountiful friendship for the States, was already equalled by that of Louis XIII., who had tremblingly acquiesced in the summary execution of an odious adventurer—his own possible father—and who never had done anything else but feed his canary birds.
As for Villeroy himself, the Ambassador wrote that he could not find portraits enough of him to furnish those who were asking for them since his return to power.
Barneveld had been right in so often instructing Langerac to “caress the old gentleman.”
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And give advice.
Of that, although always a spendthrift
Casual outbursts of
eternal friendship
Changed his positions
and contradicted himself day by day
Conciliation when war
of extermination was intended
Considered it his special
mission in the world to mediate
Denoungced as an obstacle
to peace
France was mourning
Henry and waiting for Richelieu
Hardly a sound Protestant
policy anywhere but in Holland
History has not too
many really important and emblematic men
I hope and I fear
King who thought it
furious madness to resist the enemy
Mockery of negotiation
in which nothing could be negotiated
More apprehension of
fraud than of force
Opening an abyss between
government and people
Successful in this step,
he is ready for greater ones
That he tries to lay
the fault on us is pure malice
The magnitude of this
wonderful sovereign’s littleness
This wonderful sovereign’s
littleness oppresses the imagination
Wise and honest a man,
although he be somewhat longsome
Yesterday is the preceptor
of To-morrow
THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v8, 1617