“After talking with the ministers,” said Aerssens, “I had an interview with the Queen.  I knew that she had been taught her lesson, to insist on the payment of the Third.  So I did not speak at all of the matter, but talked exclusively and at length of the French regiments in the States’ service.  She was embarrassed, and did not know exactly what to say.  At last, without replying a single word to what I had been saying, she became very red in the face, and asked me if I were not instructed to speak of the money due to England.  Whereupon I spoke in the sense already indicated.  She interrupted me by saying she had a perfect recollection that the late king intended and understood that we were to pay the Third to England, and had talked with her very seriously on the subject.  If he were living, he would think it very strange, she said, that we refused; and so on.

“Soissons, too, pretends to remember perfectly that such were the King’s intentions.  ’Tis a very strange thing, Sir.  Every one knows now the secrets of the late king, if you are willing to listen.  Yet he was not in the habit of taking all the world into his confidence.  The Queen takes her opinions as they give them to her.  ’Tis a very good princess, but I am sorry she is so ignorant of affairs.  As she says she remembers, one is obliged to say one believes her.  But I, who knew the King so intimately, and saw him so constantly, know that he could only have said that the Third was paid in acquittal of his debts to and for account of the King of England, and not that we were to make restitution thereof.  The Chancellor tells me my refusal has been taken as an affront by the Queen, and Puysieux says it is a contempt which she can’t swallow.”

Aerssens on his part remained firm; his pertinacity being the greater as he thoroughly understood the subject which he was talking about, an advantage which was rarely shared in by those with whom he conversed.  The Queen, highly scandalized by his demeanour, became from that time forth his bitter enemy, and, as already stated, was resolved to be rid of him.

Nor was the Envoy at first desirous of remaining.  He had felt after Henry’s death and Sully’s disgrace, and the complete transformation of the France which he had known, that his power of usefulness was gone.  “Our enemies,” he said, “have got the advantage which I used to have in times past, and I recognize a great coldness towards us, which is increasing every day.”  Nevertheless, he yielded reluctantly to Barneveld’s request that he should for the time at least remain at his post.  Later on, as the intrigues against him began to unfold themselves, and his faithful services were made use of at home to blacken his character and procure his removal, he refused to resign, as to do so would be to play into the hands of his enemies, and by inference at least to accuse himself of infidelity to his trust.

But his concealed rage and his rancor grew more deadly every day.  He was fully aware of the plots against him, although he found it difficult to trace them to their source.