mediately
turn him out of his country, showing himself justly irritated at finding
his advice disregarded; thirdly, that, sending away the Prince, the
Archduke should forthwith restore the Princess to her father the
Constable and her aunt Angouleme, who had already made their petitions to
Albert and Isabella for that end, to which the King now added his own
most particular prayers.

If the Archduke should refuse consent to these three conditions, Henry
begged that he would abstain from any farther attempt to effect a
reconciliation and not suffer Conde to remain any longer within his
territories.

Pecquius replied that he thought his master might agree to the two first
propositions while demurring to the third, as it would probably not seem
honourable to him to separate man and wife, and as it was doubtful
whether the Princess would return of her own accord.

The King, in reporting the substance of this conversation to Aerssens,
intimated his conviction that they were only wishing in Brussels to gain
time; that they were waiting for letters from Spain, which they were
expecting ever since the return of Conde's secretary from Milan, whither
he had been sent to confer with the Governor, Count Fuentes. He said
farther that he doubted whether the Princess would go to Breda, which he
should now like, but which Conde would not now permit. This he imputed in
part to the Princess of Orange, who had written a letter full of
invectives against himself to the Dowager--Princess of Conde which she
had at once sent to him. Henry expressed at the same time his great
satisfaction with the States-General and with Barneveld in this affair,
repeating his assurances that they were the truest and best friends he
had.

The news of Conde's ceremonious visit to Leopold in Julich could not fail
to exasperate the King almost as much as the pompous manner in which he
was subsequently received at Brussels; Spinola and the Spanish Ambassador
going forth to meet him. At the same moment the secretary of Vaucelles,
Henry's ambassador in Madrid, arrived in Paris, confirming the King's
suspicions that Conde's flight had been concerted with Don Inigo de
Cardenas, and was part of a general plot of Spain against the peace of
the kingdom. The Duc d'Epernon, one of the most dangerous plotters at the
court, and deep in the intimacy of the Queen and of all the secret
adherents of the Spanish policy, had been sojourning a long time at Metz,
under pretence