intention is to hold Wesel and all the other places until the conclusion
of the Italian affair, and then to strike a great blow."

Certainly were never words more full of sound statesmanship, and of
prophecy too soon to be fulfilled, than these simple but pregnant
warnings. They awakened but little response from the English government
save cavils and teasing reminders that Wesel had been the cradle of
German Calvinism, the Rhenish Geneva, and that it was sinful to leave
it longer in the hands of Spain. As if the Advocate had not proved to
demonstration that to stock hands for a new deal at that moment was to
give up the game altogether.

His influence in France was always greater than in England, and this had
likewise been the case with William the Silent. And even now that the
Spanish matrimonial alliance was almost a settled matter at the French
court, while with the English king it was but a perpetual will-o'the-wisp
conducting to quagmires ineffable, the government at Paris sustained the
policy of the Advocate with tolerable fidelity, while it was constantly
and most capriciously traversed by James.

Barneveld sighed over these approaching nuptials, but did not yet
despair. "We hope that the Spanish-French marriages," he said, "may be
broken up of themselves; but we fear that if we should attempt to delay
or prevent them authoritatively, or in conjunction with others, the
effort would have the contrary effect."

In this certainly he was doomed to disappointment.

He had already notified the French court of the absolute necessity of the
great points to be insisted upon in the treaty, and there he found more