lt--so often the base of military operations
on the part of Spain against France--should begin. Further achievements
on the part of Maurice after the fall of Groningen were therefore
renounced for that year, and his troops went into garrison and
winter-quarters. The States-General, who had also been sending supplies,
troops, and ships to Brittany to assist the king, now, after soundly
rebuking Buzanval for his intemperate language, entrusted their
contingent for the proposed frontier campaign to Count Philip Nassau, who
accordingly took the field toward the end of the year at the head of
twenty-eight companies of foot and five squadrons of cavalry. He made his
junction with Turenne-Bouillon, but the duke, although provided with a
tremendous proclamation, was but indifferently supplied with troops. The
German levies, long-expected, were slow in moving, and on the whole it
seemed that the operations might have been continued by Maurice with more
effect, according to his original plan, than in this rather desultory
fashion. The late winter campaign on the border was feeble and a failure.

The bonds of alliance, however, were becoming very close between Henry
and the republic. Despite the change in religion on the part of the king,
and the pangs which it had occasioned in the hearts of leading
Netherlanders, there was still the traditional attraction between France
and the States, which had been so remarkably manifested during the
administration of William the Silent. The republic was more restive than
ever under the imperious and exacting friendship of Elizabeth, and,
feeling more and more its own strength, was making itself more and more
liable to the charge of ingratitude; so constantly hurled in its face by
the queen. And Henry, now that he felt himself really king of France, was
not slow to manifest a similar ingratitude or an equal love of
independence. Both monarch and republic, chafing under the protection of
Elizabeth, were drawn into so close a union as to excite her anger and
jealousy--sentiments which in succeeding years were to become yet more
apparent. And now; while Henry still retained the chivalrous and flowery
phraseology, so sweet to her ears, in his personal communications to the
queen, his ministers were in the habit of using much plainer language.
"Mr. de Sancy said to me," wrote the Netherland minister in France,
Calvaert, "that his Majesty and your Highnesses (the States-General) must
without long del