“Be it so,” said the King.

“You are right,” said the President, “for you are a great and puissant monarch, having all the advantages that could be desired, and in case of rupture I fear that all this immense power will be poured out over us who are but little princes.”

“Cause Leopold to retire then and leave the princes in their right,” was the reply.  “You will then have nothing to fear.  Are you not very unhappy to live under those poor weak archdukes?  Don’t you foresee that as soon as they die you will lose all the little you have acquired in the obedient Netherlands during the last fifty years?”

The President had nothing to reply to this save that he had never approved of Leopold’s expedition, and that when Spaniards make mistakes they always had recourse to their servants to repair their faults.  He had accepted this mission inconsiderately, he said, inspired by a hope to conjure the rising storms mingled with fears as to the result which were now justified.  He regretted having come, he said.

The King shrugged his shoulders.

Richardot then suggested that Leopold might be recognized in Julich, and the princes at Dusseldorf, or that all parties might retire until the Emperor should give his decision.

All these combinations were flatly refused by the King, who swore that no one of the House of Austria should ever perch in any part of those provinces.  If Leopold did not withdraw at once, war was inevitable.

He declared that he would break up everything and dare everything, whether the possessory princes formally applied to him or not.  He would not see his friends oppressed nor allow the Spaniard by this usurpation to put his foot on the throat of the States-General, for it was against them that this whole scheme was directed.

To the President’s complaints that the States-General had been moving troops in Gelderland, Henry replied at once that it was done by his command, and that they were his troops.

With this answer Richardot was fain to retire crestfallen, mortified, and unhappy.  He expressed repentance and astonishment at the result, and protested that those peoples were happy whose princes understood affairs.  His princes were good, he said, but did not give themselves the trouble to learn their business.

Richardot then took his departure from Paris, and very soon afterwards from the world.  He died at Arras early in September, as many thought of chagrin at the ill success of his mission, while others ascribed it to a surfeit of melons and peaches.

“Senectus edam maorbus est,” said Aerssens with Seneca.

Henry said he could not sufficiently wonder at these last proceedings at his court, of a man he had deemed capable and sagacious, but who had been committing an irreparable blunder.  He had never known two such impertinent ambassadors as Don Pedro de Toledo and Richardot on this occasion.  The one had been entirely ignorant of the object of his mission; the other had shown a vain presumption in thinking he could drive him from his fixed purpose by a flood of words.  He had accordingly answered him on the spot without consulting his council, at which poor Richardot had been much amazed.