It was a long time before we could get over the difficulty. The King
would accord nothing except promises in order to guarantee to Europe that
the two crowns should never be united upon the same head. His authority
was wounded at the idea of being called upon to admit, as it were, a
rival near it. Absolute without reply, as he had become, he had
extinguished and absorbed even the minutest trace, idea, and recollection
of all other authority, all other power in France except that which
emanated from himself alone. The English, little accustomed to such
maxims, proposed that the States-General should assemble in order to give
weight to the renunciations to be made. They said, and with reason, that
it was not enough that the King of Spain should renounce France unless
France renounced Spain; and that this formality was necessary in order to
break the double bonds which attached Spain to France, as France was
attached to Spain. Accustomed to their parliaments, which are in effect
their States-General, they believed ours preserved the same authority,
and they thought such authority the greatest to be obtained and the best
capable of solidly supporting that of the King.

The effect of this upon the mind of a Prince almost deified in his own
eyes, and habituated to the most unlimited despotism, cannot be
expressed. To show him that the authority of his subjects was thought
necessary in order to confirm his own, wounded him in his most delicate
part. The English were made to understand the weakness and the
uselessness of what they asked; for the powerlessness of our States-
General was explained to them, and they saw at once how vain their help
would be, even if accorded.

For a long time nothing was done; France saying that a treaty of
renunciation and an express confirmatory declaration of the King,