er spoke to me of restitution, that the receipts
given were simple ones, and that the money given was spent for the common
benefit of France and the States under direction of the King's
government. But I am expected here to obey M. de Villeroy, who says that
it was the intention of the late king to oblige us to make the payment. I
am not accustomed to obey authority if it be not supported by reason. It
is for my masters to reply and to defend me. The Queen has no reason to
complain. I have maintained the interests of my superiors. But this is
not the cause of the complaints. My misfortune is that all my despatches
have been sent from Holland in copy to this court. Most of them contained
free pictures of the condition and dealings of those who govern here. M.
de Villeroy has found himself depicted often, and now under pretext of a
public negotiation he has found an opportunity of revenging himself. . . .
Besides this cause which Villeroy has found for combing my head, Russy
has given notice here that I have kept my masters in the hopes of being
honourably exempted from the claims of this government. The long letter
which I wrote to M. de Barneveld justifies my proceedings."

It is no wonder that the Ambassador was galled to the quick by the
outrage which those concerned in the government were seeking to put upon
him. How could an honest man fail to be overwhelmed with rage and anguish
at being dishonoured before the world by his masters for scrupulously
doing his duty, and for maintaining the rights and dignity of his own
country? He knew that the charges were but pretexts, that the motives of
his enemies were as base as the intrigues themselves, but he also knew
that the world usually sides with the government against the individual,
and that a man's reputation is rarely strong enough to maintain itself
unsullied in a foreign land when his own government stretches forth its
hand not to, shield, but to stab him.

[See the similarity of Aerssens position to that of Motley 250 years
later, in the biographical sketch of Motley by Oliver Wendell
Holmes. D.W.]

"I know," he said, "that this plot has been woven partly in Holland and
partly here by good correspondence, in order to drive me from my post
with disreputation. To this has tended the communication of my despatches
to make me lose my best friends. This too was the object of the
particular imparting to de Russy of all my propositions, in order to draw
a comp