At last the Spaniards
left the conference-chamber in a rage. Just as they were going, Barneveld
asked them whether he should make a protocol of the session for the
States-General, and whether it was desirable in future to resume the
discussion.

"Let every one do exactly as he likes," replied Spinola, wrathfully, as
he moved to the door.

Friar John, always plausible, whispered a few soothing words in the ear
of the marquis, adding aloud, so that the commissioners might hear,
"Night brings counsel." These words he spoke in Latin.

"He who wishes to get everything is apt to lose everything," cried, out
Maldere, the Zeeland deputy, in Spanish, to the departing commissioners.

"Take that to yourselves," rejoined Richardot, very fiercely; "you may be
sure that it will be your case."'

So ended that interview.

Directly afterwards there was a conference between the States'
commissioners and the French envoys.

Jeannin employed all his powers of argument: and persuasion to influence
the Netherlanders against a rupture of the negotiations because of the
India trade. It would be better to abandon that commerce, so he urged,
than to give up the hope of peace. The commissioners failed to see the
logic or to melt at the eloquence of his discourse. They would have been
still less inclined, if that were possible, to move from their position,
had they known of the secret conferences which Jeannin had just been
holding with Isaac le Maire of Amsterdam, and other merchants practically
familiar with the India trade. Carrying out the French king's plan to rob
the republic of that lucrative traffic, and to transplant it, by means of
experienced Hollanders, into France, the president, while openly siding
with the States, as their most disinterested friend, was secretly doing
all in his power to destroy the very foundation of their commonwealth.

Isaac le Maire came over from Amsterdam in a mysterious manner, almost in
disguise. Had his nocturnal dealings with the French minister been known,
he would have been rudely dealt with by the East India Company. He was a
native of Tournay, not a sincere republican therefore, was very strongly
affected to France, and declared that all his former fellow-townsmen, and
many more, had the fleur-de-lys stamped on their hearts. If peace should
be made without stipulation in favour of the East India Company, he, with
his three brothers, would do what they could to transfer that corporation
to Fra