him King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had so
fruitlessly contended. The Netherlanders, driven to despair by the
tyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into his
arms. All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification.
How changed the picture now! Who now did reverence to a King so criminal
and so fallen? "Your Majesty to-day," said Louis, earnestly and plainly,
"is near to ruin. The State, crumbling on every side and almost
abandoned, is a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the more
so, because your Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the wars
previously made, endeavoured to force men's consciences, is now so
destitute, not only of nobility and soldiery but of that which
constitutes the strongest column of the throne, the love and good wishes
of the lieges, that your Majesty resembles an ancient building propped
up, day after, day, with piles, but which it will be impossible long to
prevent from falling to the earth." Certainly, here were wholesome
truths told in straightforward style.

The Count proceeded to remind the King of the joy which the "Spaniard,
his mortal enemy," had conceived from the desolation of his affairs,
being assured that he should, by the troubles in France, be enabled to
accomplish his own purposes without striking a blow. This, he observed,
had been the secret of the courtesy with which the writer himself had
been treated by the Duke of Alva at the surrender of Mons. Louis assured
the King, in continuation, that if he persevered in these oppressive
courses towards his subjects of the new religion, there was no hope for
him, and that his two brothers would, to no purpose, take their departure
for England, and, for Poland, leaving him with a difficult and dangerous
war upon his hands. So long as he maintained a hostile attitude towards
the Protestants in his own kingdom, his fair words would produce no
effect elsewhere. "We are beginning to be vexed," said the Count, "with