o France, should leave
Brussels to be a wanderer about the world following a young prince who
had no fixed purpose in his mind."

Archduke Albert, through his ambassador in Paris, Peter Pecquius,
suggested the possibility of a reconciliation between Henry and his
kinsman, and offered himself as intermediary. He enquired whether the
King would find it agreeable that he should ask for pardon in name of the
Prince. Henry replied that he was willing that the Archduke should accord
to Conde secure residence for the time within his dominions on three
inexorable conditions:--firstly, that the Prince should ask for pardon
without any stipulations, the King refusing to listen to any treaty or to
assign him towns or places of security as had been vaguely suggested, and
holding it utterly unreasonable that a man sueing for pardon should,
instead of deserved punishment, talk of terms and acquisitions; secondly,
that, if Conde should reject the proposition, Albert should immediately
turn him out of his country, showing himself justly irritated at finding
his advice disregarded; thirdly, that, sending away the Prince, the
Archduke should forthwith restore the Princess to her father the
Constable and her aunt Angouleme, who had already made their petitions to
Albert and Isabella for that end, to which the King now added his own
most particular prayers.

If the Archduke should refuse consent to these three conditions, Henry
begged that he would abstain from any farther attempt to effect a
reconciliation and not suffer Conde to remain any longer within his
territories.

Pecquius replied that he thought his master might agree to the two first
propositions while demurring to the third, as it would probably not seem
honourable to him to separate man and wife, and as it was doubtful
whether the Princess would return of her own accord.

The King, in reporting the substance of this conversation to Aerssens,
intimated his conviction that they were only wishing in Brussels to gain
time; that they were waiting for letters from Spain, which they were
expecting ever since the return of Conde's secretary from Milan, whither
he had been sent to confer with the Governor, Count Fuentes. He said
farther that he doubted whether the Princess would go to Breda, which he
should now like, but which Conde would not now permit. This he imputed in
part to the Princess of Orange, who had written a letter full of
invectives against himself to the Dowager--Pr