, nor the property; blood, and life of those poor people
who favored the cause."

On the 23rd March, 1573, Schomberg had an interview with Count Louis,
which lasted seven or eight hours. In that interview the enterprises of
the Count, "which," said Schomberg, "are assuredly grand and beautiful,"
were thoroughly discussed, and a series of conditions, drawn up partly in
the hand of one, partly in that of the other negotiator; definitely
agreed upon. These conditions were on the basis of a protectorate over
Holland and Zealand for the King of France, with sovereignty over the
other places to be acquired in the Netherlands. They were in strict
accordance with the articles furnished by the Prince of Orange. Liberty
of worship for those of both religions, sacred preservation of municipal
charters, and stipulation of certain annual subsidies on the part of
France, in case his Majesty should not take the field, were the principal
features.

Ten days later, Schomberg wrote to his master that the Count was willing
to use all the influence of his family to procure for Anjou the crown of
Poland, while Louis, having thus completed his negotiations with the
agent, addressed a long and earnest letter to the royal principal. This
remarkable despatch was stamped throughout with the impress of the
writer's frank and fearless character. "Thus diddest thou" has rarely
been addressed to anointed monarch in such unequivocal tones: The letter
painted the favorable position in which the king had been placed
previously to the fatal summer of 1572. The Queen of England was then
most amicably disposed towards him, and inclined to a yet closer
connexion with his family. The German princes were desirous to elect him
King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had so
fruitlessly contended. The Netherlanders, driven to despair by the
tyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into his
arms. All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification. How
changed the picture now! Who now did reverence to a King so criminal and
so fallen? "Your Majesty to-day," said Louis, earnestly and plainly, "is
near to ruin. The State, crumbling on every side and almost abandoned, is
a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the more so, because your
Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the wars previously made,
endeavoured to force men's consciences, is now so destitute, not only of
nobility and soldiery but of that