smaller than he had ever made him great: goading him
on this occasion with importunities, almost amounting to commands, that
both he and his son should forthwith change their religion or expect
instant ruin. The blow was so severe that Sully shut himself up, refused
to see anyone, and talked of retiring for good to his estates. But he
knew, and Henry knew, how indispensable he was, and the anger of the
master was as shortlived as the despair of the minister.

There was no living statesman for whom Henry had a more sincere respect
than for the Advocate of Holland. "His Majesty admires and greatly extols
your wisdom, which he judges necessary for the preservation of our State;
deeming you one of the rare and sage counsellors of the age." It is true
that this admiration was in part attributed to the singular coincidence
of Barneveld's views of policy with the King's own. Sully, on his part,
was a severe critic of that policy. He believed that better terms might
have been exacted from Spain in the late negotiations, and strongly
objected to the cavilling and equivocal language of the treaty. Rude in
pen as in speech, he expressed his mind very freely in his conversation
and correspondence with Henry in regard to leading personages and great
affairs, and made no secret of his opinions to the States' ambassador.

He showed his letters in which he had informed the King that he ought
never to have sanctioned the truce without better securities than
existed, and that the States would never have moved in any matter without
him. It would have been better to throw himself into a severe war than to
see the Republic perish. He further expressed the conviction that Henry
ought to have such authority over the Netherlands that they would embrace
blindly whatever counsel he chose to give them, even if they saw in it
their inevitable ruin; and this not so much from remembrance of
assistance rendered by him, but from the necessity in which they should
always feel of depending totally upon him.

"You may judge, therefore," concluded Aerssens, "as to how much we can
build on such foundations as these. I have been amazed at these frank
communications, for in those letters he spares neither My Lords the
States, nor his Excellency Prince Maurice, nor yourself; giving his
judgment of each of you with far too much freedom and without sufficient
knowledge."

Thus the alliance between the Netherlands and France, notwithstanding
occasional trace