sovereignty." Few would have anything to say to them. "No one listens
to us, no one replies to us," said du Maurier, "everyone visiting us is
observed, and it is conceived a reproach here to speak to the ambassadors
of France."

Certainly the days were changed since Henry IV. leaned on the arm of
Barneveld, and consulted with him, and with him only, among all the
statesmen of Europe on his great schemes for regenerating Christendom
and averting that general war which, now that the great king had been
murdered and the Advocate imprisoned, had already begun to ravage Europe.

Van der Myle had gone to Paris to make such exertions as he could among
the leading members of the council in favour of his father-in-law.
Langerac, the States' ambassador there, who but yesterday had been
turning at every moment to the Advocate for light and warmth as to the
sun, now hastened to disavow all respect or regard for him. He scoffed
at the slender sympathy van der Myle was finding in the bleak political
atmosphere. He had done his best to find out what he had been
negotiating with the members of the council and was glad to say that it
was so inconsiderable as to be not worth reporting. He had not spoken
with or seen the King. Jeannin, his own and his father-in-law's
principal and most confidential friend, had only spoken with him half an
hour and then departed for Burgundy, although promising to confer with
him sympathetically on his return. "I am very displeased at his coming
here," said Langerac, " . . . . . but he has found little friendship
or confidence, and is full of woe and apprehension."

The Ambassador's labours were now confined to personally soliciting the
King's permission for deputations from the Reformed churches of France
to go to the Synod, now opened (13th November) at Dordtrecht, and to