ne labor, and from the high
regard entertained for him by the noblest spirits among his
contemporaries.

"They tell me," said La Noue, "that the Seigneur de Ste. Aldegonde has
been suspected by the Hollanders and the English. I am deeply grieved,
for 'tis a personage worthy to be employed. I have always known him to be
a zealous friend of his religion and his country, and I will bear him
this testimony, that his hands and his heart are clean. Had it been
otherwise, I must have known it. His example has made me regret the less
the promise I was obliged to make, never to bear arms again in the
Netherlands. For I have thought that since this man, who has so much
credit and authority among your people, after having done his duty well,
has not failed to be calumniated and ejected from service, what would
they have done with me, who am a stranger, had I continued in their
employment? The consul Terentius Varro lost, by his fault, the battle of
Canna; nevertheless, when he returned to Rome, offering the remainder of
his life in the cause of his Republic reduced to extremity, he was not
rejected, but well received, because he hoped well for the country. It is
not to be imputed as blame to Ste. Aldegonde that he lost Antwerp, for he
surrendered when it could not be saved. What I now say is drawn from me
by the compassion I feel when persons of merit suffer without cause at
the hands of their fellow citizens. In these terrible tempests, as it is
a duty rigorously to punish the betrayers of their country, even so it is
an obligation upon us to honor good patriots, and to support them in
venial errors, that we may all encourage each other to do the right."

Strange too as it may now seem to us, a reconciliation of the Netherlands
with Philip was not thought an impossibility by other experienced and
sagacious patriots, besides Marnix. Even Olden-Barneveld, on taking
office as Holland's Advocate, at this period, made it a condition that
his service was to last only until the reunion of the Provinces with
Spain.

There was another illustrious personage in a foreign land who ever
rendered homage to the character of the retired Netherland statesman.
Amid the desolation of France, Duplessis Mornay often solaced himself by
distant communion with that kindred and sympathizing spirit.

"Plunged in public annoyances," he wrote to Sainte Aldegonde, "I find no
consolation, except in conference with the good, and among the good I
hold you f