completely worn upon his sleeve, than when he was harbouring the deepest
or most dangerous designs. Such was the "good fellow," whom that skilful
reader of men, Henry of France, had sent to represent his interests and
his opinions at the approaching conferences. What were those opinions?
Paul V. and his legates Barberini, Millino, and the rest, were well
enough aware of the secret strings of the king's policy, and knew how to
touch them with skill. Of all things past, Henry perhaps most regretted
that not he, but the last and most wretched of the Valois line, was
sovereign of France when the States-General came to Paris with that
offer of sovereignty which had been so contumaciously refused.

If the object were attainable, the ex-chief of the Huguenots still
meant to be king of the Netherlands as sincerely as Philip II. had
ever intended to be monarch of France. But Henry was too accurate
a calculator of chances, and had bustled too much in the world of
realities, to exhaust his strength in striving, year after year, for
a manifest impossibility. The enthusiast, who had passed away at last
from the dreams of the Escorial into the land of shadows, had spent a
lifetime, and melted the wealth of an empire; but universal monarchy had
never come forth from his crucible. The French king, although possessed
likewise of an almost boundless faculty for ambitious visions, was
capable of distinguishing cloud-land from substantial empire.
Jeannin, as his envoy, would at any rate not reveal his master's secret
aspirations to those with whom he came to deal, as openly as Philip had
once unveiled himself to Jeannin.

There could be no doubt that peace at this epoch was the real interest of
France. That kingdom was beginning to flourish again, owing to the very
considerable administrative genius of Bethune, an accomplished financier
according to the lights of the age, and still more by reason of the