“Don Bernardino,” said the Queen-Mother on the same day, “has been keeping us up to this hour in hopes of a good offer, but ’tis to be feared, for the good of Christendom, that ’twill be too late.  The deputies are come, bringing carte blanche.  Nevertheless, if the King of Spain is willing to be reasonable, and that instantly, it will be well, and it would seem as if God had been pleased to place this means in our hands.”

After the conferences had been fairly got under way between the French government and the envoys, the demands upon Philip for a good bargain and a handsome offer became still more pressing.

“I have given audience to the deputies from the Provinces,” wrote Henry, “and the Queen-Mother has done the same.  Chancellor Chiverny, Villequier, Bellievre, and Brulart, will now confer with them from day today.  I now tell you that it will be well, before things go any farther, for the King of Spain to come to reason about the pretensions of madam mother.  This will be a means of establishing the repose of Christendom.  I shall be very willing to concur in such an arrangement, if I saw any approximation to it on the part of the King or his ministers.  But I fear they will delay too long, and so you had better tell them.  Push them to the point as much as possible, without letting them suspect that I have been writing about it, for that would make them rather draw back than come forward.”

At the same time, during this alternate threatening and coaxing between the French and the Spanish court, and in the midst of all the solemn and tedious protocolling of the ministry and the Dutch envoys, there was a most sincere and affectionate intercourse maintained between Henry iii. and the Prince of Parma.  The Spanish Governor-General was assured that nothing but the warmest regard was entertained for him and his master on the part of the French court.  Parma had replied, however, that so many French troops had in times past crossed the frontier to assist the rebels, that he hardly knew what to think.  He expressed the hope, now that the Duke of Anjou was dead, that his Christian Majesty would not countenance the rebellion, but manifest his good-will.

“How can your Highness doubt it,” said Malpierre, Henry’s envoy, “for his Majesty has given proof enough of his good will, having prevented all enterprises in this regard, and preferred to have his own subjects cut into pieces rather than that they should carry out their designs.  Had his Majesty been willing merely to connive at these undertakings, ’tis probable that the affairs of your highness would not have succeeded so well as they have done.”