trickery was to be expected. The chief good to be hoped for was to
"chill the Queen in her plots, leagues, and alliances," and during the
chill, to carry forward their own great design. To slacken not a whit
in their preparations, to "put the Queen to sleep," and, above all, not
to leave the French for a moment unoccupied with internal dissensions and
civil war; such was the game of the King and the governor, as expounded
between themselves.

President Richardot, at the same time, stated to Cardinal Granvelle that
the English desire for peace was considered certain at Brussels.
Grafigni had informed the Prince of Parma and his counsellors that the
Queen was most amicably disposed, and that there would be no trouble on
the point of religion, her Majesty not wishing to obtain more than she
would herself be willing to grant. "In this," said Richardot, "there is
both hard and soft;" for knowing that the Spanish game was deception,
pure and simple, the excellent President could not bring himself to
suspect a possible grain of good faith in the English intentions. Much
anxiety was perpetually felt in the French quarter, her Majesty's
government being supposed to be secretly preparing an invasion of the
obedient Netherlands across the French frontier, in combination, not with
the Bearnese, but with Henry III. So much in the dark were even the most
astute politicians. "I can't feel satisfied in this French matter," said
the President: "we mustn't tickle ourselves to make ourselves laugh."
Moreover, there was no self-deception nor self-tickling possible as to
the unmitigated misery of the obedient Netherlands. Famine was a more
formidable foe than Frenchmen, Hollanders, and Englishmen combined; so
that Richardot avowed that the "negotiation would be indeed holy," if it
would restore Holland and Zeeland to the King without fighting. The
prospect seemed on the whole rather dismal to loyal Netherlanders like
the old leaguing, intriguing, Hispamolized president of the privy