The officers of the French regiments at the Hague danced for joy on the Vyverberg when the news arrived there.  The States were relieved from an immense embarrassment, and the Advocate was rewarded for having pursued what was after all the only practicable policy.  “Do your best,” said he to Langerac, “to accommodate differences so far as consistent with the conservation of the King’s authority.  We hope the princes will submit themselves now that the ‘lapis offensionis,’ according to their pretence, is got rid of.  We received a letter from them to-day sealed with the King’s arms, with the circumscription ’Periclitante Regno, Regis vita et Regia familia.”

The shooting of Concini seemed almost to convert the little king into a hero.  Everyone in the Netherlands, without distinction of party, was delighted with the achievement.  “I cannot represent to the King,” wrote du Maurier to Villeroy, “one thousandth part of the joy of all these people who are exalting him to heaven for having delivered the earth from this miserable burthen.  I can’t tell you in what execration this public pest was held.  His Majesty has not less won the hearts of this state than if he had gained a great victory over the Spaniards.  You would not believe it, and yet it is true, that never were the name and reputation of the late king in greater reverence than those of our reigning king at this moment.”

Truly here was glory cheaply earned.  The fame of Henry the Great, after a long career of brilliant deeds of arms, high statesmanship, and twenty years of bountiful friendship for the States, was already equalled by that of Louis XIII., who had tremblingly acquiesced in the summary execution of an odious adventurer—­his own possible father—­and who never had done anything else but feed his canary birds.

As for Villeroy himself, the Ambassador wrote that he could not find portraits enough of him to furnish those who were asking for them since his return to power.

Barneveld had been right in so often instructing Langerac to “caress the old gentleman.”

     Etext editor’s bookmarks: 

     And give advice.  Of that, although always a spendthrift
     Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
     Changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day
     Conciliation when war of extermination was intended
     Considered it his special mission in the world to mediate
     Denoungced as an obstacle to peace
     France was mourning Henry and waiting for Richelieu
     Hardly a sound Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland
     History has not too many really important and emblematic men
     I hope and I fear
     King who thought it furious madness to resist the enemy
     Mockery of negotiation in which nothing could be negotiated
     More apprehension of fraud than of force
     Opening an abyss between government and people