in civil contentions
     No synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves
     Philip IV. 
     Priests shall control the state or the state govern the priests
     Schism in the Church had become a public fact
     That cynical commerce in human lives
     The voice of slanderers
     Theological hatred was in full blaze throughout the country
     Theology and politics were one
     To look down upon their inferior and lost fellow creatures
     Whether dead infants were hopelessly damned
     Whether repentance could effect salvation
     Whose mutual hatred was now artfully inflamed by partisans
     Work of the aforesaid Puritans and a few Jesuits

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 of John of Barneveld, 1613-15

CHAPTER IX.

Aerssens remains Two Years longer in France—­Derives many Personal Advantages from his Post—­He visits the States-General—­Aubery du Maurier appointed French Ambassador—­He demands the Recall of Aerssens—­Peace of Sainte-Menehould—­Asperen de Langerac appointed in Aerssens’ Place.

Francis Aerssens had remained longer at his post than had been intended by the resolution of the States of Holland, passed in May 1611.

It is an exemplification of the very loose constitutional framework of the United Provinces that the nomination of the ambassador to France belonged to the States of Holland, by whom his salary was paid, although, of course, he was the servant of the States-General, to whom his public and official correspondence was addressed.  His most important despatches were however written directly to Barneveld so long as he remained in power, who had also the charge of the whole correspondence, public or private, with all the envoys of the States.

Aerssens had, it will be remembered, been authorized to stay one year longer in France if he thought he could be useful there.  He stayed two years, and on the whole was not useful.  He had too many eyes and too many ears.  He had become mischievous by the very activity of his intelligence.  He was too zealous.  There were occasions in France at that moment in which it was as well to be blind and deaf.  It was impossible for the Republic, unless driven to it by dire necessity, to quarrel with its great ally.  It had been calculated by Duplessis-Mornay that France had paid subsidies to the Provinces amounting from first to last to 200 millions of livres.  This was an enormous exaggeration.  It was Barneveld’s estimate that before the truce the States had received from France eleven millions of florins in cash, and during the truce up to the year 1613, 3,600,000 in addition, besides a million still due, making a total