o it all, which would be quite out of the question. France
had a strong army, they said, and it would be better to use it than to
efface herself so pitiably. The proposition of abstention on the part of
the Archduke was a delusion intended only to keep France out of the
field.

Villeroy replied by referring to English affairs. King James, he said,
was treating them perfidiously. His first letters after the murder had
been good, but by the following ones England seemed to wish to put her
foot on France's throat, in order to compel her to sue for an alliance.
The British ministers had declared their resolve not to carry out that
convention of alliance, although it had been nearly concluded in the
lifetime of the late king, unless the Queen would bind herself to make
good to the King of Great Britain that third part of the subsidies
advanced by France to the States which had been furnished on English
account!

This was the first announcement of a grievance devised by the politicians
now governing France to make trouble for the States with that kingdom and
with Great Britain likewise. According to a treaty made at Hampton Court
by Sully during his mission to England at the accession of James, it had
been agreed that one-third of the moneys advanced by France in aid of the
United Provinces should be credited to the account of Great Britain, in
diminution of the debt for similar assistance rendered by Elizabeth to
Henry. In regard to this treaty the States had not been at all consulted,
nor did they acknowledge the slightest obligation in regard to it. The
subsidies in men and in money provided for them both by France and by
England in their struggle for national existence had always been most
gratefully acknowledged by the Republic, but it had always been perfectly
understood that these expenses had been incurred by each kingdom out of
an intelligent and thrifty regard for its own interest. Nothing could be
more ridiculous than to suppose France and England actuated by
disinterested sympathy and benevolence when assisting the Netherland
people in its life-and-death struggle against the dire and deadly enemy
of both crowns. Henry protested that, while adhering to Rome in spiritual
matters, his true alliances and strength had been found in the United
Provinces, in Germany, and in Great Britain. As for the States, he had
spent sixteen millions of livres, he said, in acquiring a perfect
benevolence on the part of the States to