Barillon was active on the other side. The instructions which he
received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be
studied; for they furnish a key to the policy systematically
pursued by his master towards England during the twenty years
which preceded our revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis
wrote, were alarming. Strong hopes were entertained there that
James would ally himself closely with the House of Austria, as
soon as he should be assured that his Parliament would give him
no trouble. In these circumstances, it was evidently the interest
of France that the Parliament should prove refractory. Barillon
was therefore directed to act, with all possible precautions
against detection, the part of a makebate. At court he was to
omit no opportunity of stimulating the religious zeal and the
kingly pride of James; but at the same time it might be
desirable to have some secret communication with the
malecontents. Such communication would indeed be hazardous and
would require the utmost adroitness; yet it might perhaps be in
the power of the Ambassador, without committing himself or his
government, to animate the zeal of the opposition for the laws
and liberties of England, and to let it be understood that those
laws and liberties were not regarded by his master with an
unfriendly eye.19

Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not foresee how
speedily and how completely his uneasiness would be removed by
the obstinacy and stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November
the House of Commons, resolved itself into a committee on the
royal speech. The Solicitor General Heneage Finch, was in the
chair. The debate was conducted by the chiefs of the new country