e most disgraceful
and disastrous one that had ever been ratified by a French monarch; and
surely Henry had now wiped away that disgrace and repaired that disaster.
It was natural enough that he should congratulate himself on the rewards
which he had gathered by deserting his allies.

He had now sufficient occupation for a time in devising ways and means,
with the aid of the indefatigable Bethune, to pay the prodigious sums
with which he had purchased the allegiance of the great nobles and lesser
gentlemen of France. Thirty-two millions of livres were not sufficient to
satisfy the claims of these patriots, most of whom had been drawing
enormous pensions from the King of Spain up to the very moment, or beyond
it, when they consented to acknowledge the sovereign of their own
country. Scarcely a great name in the golden book of France but was
recorded among these bills of sale.

Mayenne, Lorraine, Guise, Nemours, Mercoeur, Montpensier, Joyeuse,
Epernon, Brissac, D'Arlincourt, Balagny, Rochefort, Villeroy, Villars,
Montespan, Leviston, Beauvillars, and countless others, figured in the
great financier's terrible account-book, from Mayenne, set down at the
cool amount of three and a half millions, to Beauvoir or Beauvillars at
the more modest price of a hundred and sixty thousand livres. "I should
appal my readers," said De Bethune, "if I should show to them that this
sum makes but a very small part of the amounts demanded from the royal
treasury, either by Frenchmen or by strangers, as pay and pension, and
yet the total was thirty-two millions's."

And now the most Catholic king, having brought himself at last to
exchange the grasp of friendship with the great ex-heretic, and to
recognize the Prince of Bearne as the legitimate successor of St. Louis,
to prevent which consummation he had squandered so many thousands of
lives, so many millions of treasure, and brought ruin to so many
prosperous countries, prepared himself for another step which he had long
hesitated to take.

He resolved to transfer the Netherlands to his daughter Isabella and to
the Cardinal Archduke Albert, who, as the king had now decided, was to
espouse the Infanta.

The deed of cession was signed at Madrid on the 6th May, 1598. It was
accompanied by a letter of the same date from the Prince Philip, heir
apparent to the crown.

On the 30th May the Infanta executed a procuration by which she gave
absolute authority to her future husband to rule over