he Emperor should aid your subjects in
rebellion. He did not do this in the time of the League, although often
solicited to do so. You should not now sustain the princes in disobeying
the Imperial decree. Kings should unite in maintaining the authority and
majesty of each other." He would then in the Emperor's name urge the
claims of the House of Saxony to the duchies.

Henry was much pleased with this opportune communication by de Colly of
the private instructions to the Emperor's envoy, by which he was enabled
to meet the wild and fierce young man with an arrogance at least equal to
his own.

The interview was a stormy one. The King was alone in the gallery of the
Louvre, not choosing that his words and gestures should be observed. The
Envoy spoke much in the sense which de Colly had indicated; making a long
argument in favour of the Emperor's exclusive right of arbitration, and
assuring the King that the Emperor was resolved on war if interference
between himself and his subjects was persisted in. He loudly pronounced
the proceedings of the possessory princes to be utterly illegal, and
contrary to all precedent. The Emperor would maintain his authority at
all hazards, and one spark of war would set everything in a blaze within
the Empire and without.

Henry replied sternly but in general terms, and referred him for a final
answer to his council.

"What will you do," asked the Envoy, categorically, at a subsequent
interview about a month later, "to protect the princes in case the
Emperor constrains them to leave the provinces which they have unjustly
occupied?"

"There is none but God to compel me to say more than I choose to say,"
replied the King. "It is enough for you to know that I will never abandon
my friends in a just cause. The Emperor can do much for the general
peace. He is not to lend his name to cover this usurpation."

And so the concluding interview terminated in an exchange of threats
rather than with any hope of accommodation.

Hohenzollern used as high language to the ministers as to the monarch,
and received payment in the same coin. He rebuked their course not very
adroitly as being contrary to the interests of Catholicism. They were
placing the provinces in the hands of Protestants, he urged. It required
no envoy from Prague to communicate this startling fact. Friends and
foes, Villeroy and Jeannin, as well as Sully and Duplessis, knew well
enough that Henry was not taking up arms for Rome.