onths, but in six days."

Thus ended the conferences, and the imperial commissioners departed.
Nevertheless, Schwartzenburg remained yet a little time at Cologne, while
five of the states' envoys also protracted their stay, in order to make
their private peace with the King. It is hardly necessary to observe that
the chief of these penitents was the Duke of Aerschot. The ultimatum of
the states was deposited by the departing envoys with Schwartzenburg, and
a comparison of its terms with those offered by the imperial mediators,
as the best which could be obtained from Spain, shows the hopelessness of
the pretended negotiation. Departure of the foreign troops, restitution
of all confiscated property, unequivocal recognition of the Ghent treaty
and the perpetual edict, appointment to office of none but natives, oaths
of allegiance to the King and the states-general, exercise of the
Reformed religion and of the Confession of Augsburg in all places where
it was then publicly practised: such were the main demands of the patriot
party.

In the secret instructions furnished by the states to their envoys, they
were told to urge upon his Majesty the absolute necessity, if he wished
to retain the provinces, of winking at the exercise of the Reformed and
the Augsburg creeds. "The new religion had taken too deep root," it was
urged, "ever to be torn forth, save with the destruction of the whole
country."

Thus, after seven dreary months of negotiation, after protocols and
memoranda in ten thousand folia, the august diplomatists had travelled
round to the points from which they had severally started. On the one
side, unlimited prerogative and exclusive Catholicism; on the other,
constitutional liberty, with freedom of conscience for Catholic and
Protestant alike: these were the claims which each party announced at the
commencement, and to which they held with equal firmness at the close of
the conferences.

The congress had been expensive. Though not much had been accomplished
for the political or religious advancement of mankind, there had been
much excellent eating and drinking at Cologne during the seven months.
Those drouthy deliberations had needed moistening. The Bishop of
Wurtzburg had consumed "eighty hogsheads of Rhenish wine and twenty great
casks of beer." The expense of the states' envoys were twenty-four
thousand guldens. The Archbishop of Cologne had expended forty thousand
thalers. The deliberations were, on the wh