eneral. He was to thank the King
for his declarations in favour of the possessory princes, and against all
usurpation on the part of the Spanish party. Should the religious cord be
touched, he was to give assurances that no change would be made in this
regard. He was charged with loads of fine presents in yellow amber, such
as ewers, basins, tables, cups, chessboards, for the King and Queen, the
Dauphin, the Chancellor, Villeroy, Sully, Bouillon, and other eminent
personages. Beyond the distribution of these works of art and the
exchange of a few diplomatic commonplaces, nothing serious in the way of
warlike business was transacted, and Henry was a few weeks later much
amused by receiving a letter from the possessory princes coolly thrown
into the post-office, and addressed like an ordinary letter to a private
person, in which he was requested to advance them a loan of 400,000
crowns. There was a great laugh at court at a demand made like a bill of
exchange at sight upon his Majesty as if he had been a banker, especially
as there happened to be no funds of the drawers in his hands. It was
thought that a proper regard for the King's quality and the amount of the
sum demanded required that the letter should be brought at least by an
express messenger, and Henry was both diverted and indignant at these
proceedings, at the months long delay before the princes had thought
proper to make application for his protection, and then for this cool
demand for alms on a large scale as a proper beginning of their
enterprise.

Such was the languid and extremely nonchalant manner in which the early
preparations for a conflict which seemed likely to set Europe in a blaze,
and of which possibly few living men might witness the termination, were
set on foot by those most interested in the immediate question.

Chessboards in yellow amber and a post-office order for 400,000 crowns
could not go far in settling the question of the duchies in which the
great problem dividing Christendom as by an abyss was involved.

Meantime, while such were the diplomatic beginnings of the possessory
princes, the League was leaving no stone unturned to awaken Henry to a
sense of his true duty to the Church of which he was Eldest Son.

Don Pedro de Toledo's mission in regard to the Spanish marriages had
failed because Henry had spurned the condition which was unequivocally
attached to them on the part of Spain, the king's renunciation of his
alliance with th