Lerma and Infantado; adroitly as he could measure, weigh, and analyse all
these elements in the great problem which was forcing itself on the
attention of Europe--there was one factor with which it was difficult for
this austere republican, this cold, unsuseeptible statesman, to deal: the
intense and imperious passion of a greybeard for a woman of sixteen.

For out of the cauldron where the miscellaneous elements of universal
war were bubbling rose perpetually the fantastic image of Margaret
Montmorency: the fatal beauty at whose caprice the heroic sword of Ivry
and Cahors was now uplifted and now sheathed.

Aerssens was baffled, and reported the humours of the court where he
resided as changing from hour to hour. To the last he reported that all
the mighty preparations then nearly completed "might evaporate in smoke"
if the Princess of Conde should come back. Every ambassador in Paris was
baffled. Peter Pecquius was as much in the dark as Don Inigo de
Cardenas, as Ubaldini or Edmonds. No one save Sully, Aerssens,
Barneveld, and the King knew the extensive arrangements and profound
combinations which had been made for the war. Yet not Sully, Aerssens,
Barneveld, or the King, knew whether or not the war would really be made.

Barneveld had to deal with this perplexing question day by day. His
correspondence with his ambassador at Henry's court was enormous, and we
have seen that the Ambassador was with the King almost daily; sleeping or
waking; at dinner or the chase; in the cabinet or the courtyard.

But the Advocate was also obliged to carry in his arms, as it were, the
brood of snarling, bickering, cross-grained German princes, to supply
them with money, with arms, with counsel, with brains; to keep them awake
when they went to sleep, to steady them in their track, to teach them to