Was it surprising that the King's course should seem occasionally
wavering when he found it so difficult to stir up such stagnant waters
into honourable action? Was it strange that the rude and stern Sully
should sometimes lose his patience, knowing so much and suspecting more
of the foul designs by which his master was encompassed, of the web of
conspiracy against his throne, his life, and his honour, which was daily
and hourly spinning?

"We do nothing and you do nothing," he said one day to Aerssens. "You are
too soft, and we are too cowardly. I believe that we shall spoil
everything, after all. I always suspect these sudden determinations of
ours. They are of bad augury. We usually founder at last when we set off
so fiercely at first. There are words enough an every side, but there
will be few deeds. There is nothing to be got out of the King of Great
Britain, and the King of Spain will end by securing these provinces for
himself by a treaty." Sully knew better than this, but he did not care to
let even the Dutch envoy know, as yet, the immense preparations he had
been making for the coming campaign.

The envoys of the possessory princes, the Counts Solms, Colonel Pallandt,
and Dr. Steyntgen, took their departure, after it had been arranged that
final measures should be concerted at the general congress of the German
Protestants to be held early in the ensuing year at Hall, in Suabia.

At that convention de Boississe would make himself heard on the part of
France, and the representatives of the States-General, of Venice, and
Savoy, would also be present.

Meantime the secret conferences between Henry and his superintendent of
finances and virtual prime minister were held almost every day. Scarcely