Meantime it was necessary to fix upon a successor for this most important post.  The war soon after the new year had broken out in France.  Conde, Bouillon, and the other malcontent princes with their followers had taken possession of the fortress of Mezieres, and issued a letter in the name of Conde to the Queen-Regent demanding an assembly of the States-General of the kingdom and rupture of the Spanish marriages.  Both parties, that of the government and that of the rebellion, sought the sympathy and active succour of the States.  Maurice, acting now in perfect accord with the Advocate, sustained the Queen and execrated the rebellion of his relatives with perfect frankness.  Conde, he said, had got his head stuffed full of almanacs whose predictions he wished to see realized.  He vowed he would have shortened by a head the commander of the garrison who betrayed Mezieres, if he had been under his control.  He forbade on pain of death the departure of any officer or private of the French regiments from serving the rebels, and placed the whole French force at the disposal of the Queen, with as many Netherland regiments as could be spared.  One soldier was hanged and three others branded with the mark of a gibbet on the face for attempting desertion.  The legal government was loyally sustained by the authority of the States, notwithstanding all the intrigues of Aerssens with the agents of the princes to procure them assistance.  The mutiny for the time was brief, and was settled on the 15th of May 1614, by the peace of Sainte-Menehould, as much a caricature of a treaty as the rising had been the parody of a war.  Van der Myle, son-in-law of Barneveld, who had been charged with a special and temporary mission to France, brought back the terms, of the convention to the States-General.  On the other hand, Conde and his confederates sent a special agent to the Netherlands to give their account of the war and the negotiation, who refused to confer either with du Maurier or Barneveld, but who held much conference with Aerssens.

It was obvious enough that the mutiny of the princes would become chronic.  In truth, what other condition was possible with two characters like Mary de’ Medici and the Prince of Conde respectively at the head of the government and the revolt?  What had France to hope for but to remain the bloody playground for mischievous idiots, who threw about the firebrands and arrows of reckless civil war in pursuit of the paltriest of personal aims?

Van der Myle had pretensions to the vacant place of Aerssens.  He had some experience in diplomacy.  He had conducted skilfully enough the first mission of the States to Venice, and had subsequently been employed in matters of moment.  But he was son-in-law to Barneveld, and although the Advocate was certainly not free from the charge of nepotism, he shrank from the reproach of having apparently removed Aerssens to make a place for one of his own family.

Van der Myle remained to bear the brunt of the late ambassador’s malice, and to engage at a little later period in hottest controversy with him, personal and political.  “Why should van der Myle strut about, with his arms akimbo like a peacock?” complained Aerssens one day in confused metaphor.  A question not easy to answer satisfactorily.