epublic were rarely dull, but Langerac was a
simpleton. They were renowned for political experience, skill,
familiarity with foreign languages, knowledge of literature, history, and
public law; but he was ignorant, spoke French very imperfectly, at a
court where not a human being could address him in his own tongue, had
never been employed in diplomacy or in high office of any kind, and could
carry but small personal weight at a post where of all others the
representative of the great republic should have commanded deference both
for his own qualities and for the majesty of his government. At a period
when France was left without a master or a guide the Dutch ambassador,
under a becoming show of profound respect, might really have governed the
country so far as regarded at least the all important relations which
bound the two nations together. But Langerac was a mere picker-up of
trifles, a newsmonger who wrote a despatch to-day with information which
a despatch was written on the morrow to contradict, while in itself
conveying additional intelligence absolutely certain to be falsified soon
afterwards. The Emperor of Germany had gone mad; Prince Maurice had been
assassinated in the Hague, a fact which his correspondents, the
States-General, might be supposed already to know, if it were one; there
had been a revolution in the royal bed-chamber; the Spanish cook of the
young queen had arrived from Madrid; the Duke of Nevers was behaving very
oddly at Vienna; such communications, and others equally startling, were
the staple of his correspondence.

Still he was honest enough, very mild, perfectly docile to Barneveld,
dependent upon his guidance, and fervently attached to that statesman so
long as his wheel was going up the hill. Moreover, his industry in
obtaining information and his passion for imparting it made it probable
that nothing very momentous would be neglected should it be laid before
him, but that his masters, and especially the Advocate, would be enabled
to judge for themselves as to the attention due to it.

"With this you will be apprised of some very high and weighty matters,"
he wrote privately and in cipher to Barneveld, "which you will make use
of according to your great wisdom and forethought for the country's
service."

He requested that the matter might also be confided to M. van der Myle,
that he might assist his father-in-law, so overburdened with business, in
the task of deciphering the communica