e paymaster,
looking at the affair purely as a money transaction--which in truth it
was--had been disposed to drive rather too hard a bargain. He offered
only fifty thousand crowns for La Motte and his friend Baron Montigny,
and assured his government that those gentlemen, with the soldiers under
their command, were very dear at the price. La Motte higgled very hard
for more, and talked pathetically of his services and his wounds--for he
had been a most distinguished and courageous campaigner--but Alonzo was
implacable. Moreover, one Robert Bien-Aime, Prior of Renty, was present
at all the conferences. This ecclesiastic was a busy intriguer, but not
very adroit. He was disposed to make himself useful to government, for he
had set his heart upon putting the mitre of Saint Omer upon his head, and
he had accordingly composed a very ingenious libel upon the Prince of
Orange, in which production, "although the Prior did not pretend to be
Apelles or Lysippus," he hoped that the Governor-General would recognize
a portrait colored to the life. This accomplished artist was, however,
not so successful as he was picturesque and industrious. He was
inordinately vain of his services, thinking himself, said Alonzo,
splenetically, worthy to be carried in a procession like a little saint,
and as he had a busy brain, but an unruly tongue, it will be seen that he
possessed a remarkable faculty of making himself unpleasant. This was not
the way to earn his bishopric. La Motte, through the candid
communications of the Prior, found himself the subject of mockery in
Parma's camp and cabinet, where treachery to one's country and party was
not, it seemed, regarded as one of the loftier virtues, however
convenient it might be at the moment to the royal cause. The Prior
intimated especially that Ottavio Gonzaga had indulged in many sarcastic
remarks at La Motte's expense. The brave but venal warrior, highly
incensed at thus learning the manner in which his conduct was estimated
by men of such high rank in the royal service, was near breaking off the
bargain. He was eventually secured, however, by still larger offers--Don
John allowing him three hundred florins a month, presenting him with the
two best horses in his stable, and sending him an open form, which he was
to fill out in the most stringent language which he could devise, binding
the government to the payment of an ample and entirely satisfactory
"merced." Thus La Motte's bargain was compl