religious cord be touched, he was to give assurances that no change would
be made in this regard. He was charged with loads of fine presents in
yellow amber, such as ewers, basins, tables, cups, chessboards, for the
King and Queen, the Dauphin, the Chancellor, Villeroy, Sully, Bouillon,
and other eminent personages. Beyond the distribution of these works of
art and the exchange of a few diplomatic commonplaces, nothing serious in
the way of warlike business was transacted, and Henry was a few weeks
later much amused by receiving a letter from the possessory princes
coolly thrown into the post-office, and addressed like an ordinary letter
to a private person, in which he was requested to advance them a loan
of 400,000 crowns. There was a great laugh at court at a demand made
like a bill of exchange at sight upon his Majesty as if he had been a
banker, especially as there happened to be no funds of the drawers in his
hands. It was thought that a proper regard for the King's quality and
the amount of the sum demanded required that the letter should be brought
at least by an express messenger, and Henry was both diverted and
indignant at these proceedings, at the months long delay before the
princes had thought proper to make application for his protection, and
then for this cool demand for alms on a large scale as a proper beginning
of their enterprise.

Such was the languid and extremely nonchalant manner in which the early
preparations for a conflict which seemed likely to set Europe in a blaze,
and of which possibly few living men might witness the termination, were
set on foot by those most interested in the immediate question.

Chessboards in yellow amber and a post-office order for 400,000 crowns
could not go far in settling the question of the duchies in which the
great problem dividing Christendom as by an abyss was involved.