Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War — Complete (1609-15) by John Lothrop Motley
page 96 of 251 (38%)
page 96 of 251 (38%)
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peace. He is not to lend his name to cover this usurpation."
And so the concluding interview terminated in an exchange of threats rather than with any hope of accommodation. Hohenzollern used as high language to the ministers as to the monarch, and received payment in the same coin. He rebuked their course not very adroitly as being contrary to the interests of Catholicism. They were placing the provinces in the hands of Protestants, he urged. It required no envoy from Prague to communicate this startling fact. Friends and foes, Villeroy and Jeannin, as well as Sully and Duplessis, knew well enough that Henry was not taking up arms for Rome. "Sir! do you look at the matter in that way?" cried Sully, indignantly. "The Huguenots are as good as the Catholics. They fight like the devil!" "The Emperor will never permit the, princes to remain nor Leopold to withdraw," said the Envoy to Jeannin. Jeannin replied that the King was always ready to listen to reason, but there was no use in holding language of authority to him. It was money he would not accept. "Fiat justitia pereat mundus," said the haggard Hohenzollern. "Your world may perish," replied Jeannin, "but not ours. It is much better put together." A formal letter was then written by the King to the Emperor, in which Henry expressed his desire to maintain peace and fraternal relations, but notified him that if, under any pretext whatever, he should trouble the |
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