At this moment he considered himself, as indeed he was, in full possession of his sovereign’s confidence.  But he was alone in this conviction.  Those about the court, men like Epernon and his creatures, believed the great financier on the brink of perdition.  Henry, always the loosest of talkers even in regard to his best friends, had declared, on some temporary vexation in regard to the affair between Aiguillon and Balagny, that he would deal with the Duke as with the late Marshal de Biron, and make him smaller than he had ever made him great:  goading him on this occasion with importunities, almost amounting to commands, that both he and his son should forthwith change their religion or expect instant ruin.  The blow was so severe that Sully shut himself up, refused to see anyone, and talked of retiring for good to his estates.  But he knew, and Henry knew, how indispensable he was, and the anger of the master was as shortlived as the despair of the minister.

There was no living statesman for whom Henry had a more sincere respect than for the Advocate of Holland.  “His Majesty admires and greatly extols your wisdom, which he judges necessary for the preservation of our State; deeming you one of the rare and sage counsellors of the age.”  It is true that this admiration was in part attributed to the singular coincidence of Barneveld’s views of policy with the King’s own.  Sully, on his part, was a severe critic of that policy.  He believed that better terms might have been exacted from Spain in the late negotiations, and strongly objected to the cavilling and equivocal language of the treaty.  Rude in pen as in speech, he expressed his mind very freely in his conversation and correspondence with Henry in regard to leading personages and great affairs, and made no secret of his opinions to the States’ ambassador.

He showed his letters in which he had informed the King that he ought never to have sanctioned the truce without better securities than existed, and that the States would never have moved in any matter without him.  It would have been better to throw himself into a severe war than to see the Republic perish.  He further expressed the conviction that Henry ought to have such authority over the Netherlands that they would embrace blindly whatever counsel he chose to give them, even if they saw in it their inevitable ruin; and this not so much from remembrance of assistance rendered by him, but from the necessity in which they should always feel of depending totally upon him.

“You may judge, therefore,” concluded Aerssens, “as to how much we can build on such foundations as these.  I have been amazed at these frank communications, for in those letters he spares neither My Lords the States, nor his Excellency Prince Maurice, nor yourself; giving his judgment of each of you with far too much freedom and without sufficient knowledge.”