e Envoy saw Villeroy after the audience, who told him not to mind the
King's ill-temper, but to bear it as patiently as he could. His Majesty
could not digest, he said, his infinite displeasure at the obstinacy of
the Prince; but they must nevertheless strive for a reconciliation. The
King was quick in words, but slow in deeds, as the Ambassador might have
observed before, and they must all try to maintain peace, to which he
would himself lend his best efforts.

As the Secretary of State was thoroughly aware that the King was making
vast preparations for war, and had given in his own adhesion to the
project, it is refreshing to observe the candour with which he assured
the representative of the adverse party of his determination that
friendliest relations should be preserved.

It is still more refreshing to find Villeroy, the same afternoon, warmly
uniting with Sully, Lesdiguieres, and the Chancellor, in the decision
that war should begin forthwith.

For the King held a council at the Arsenal immediately after this
interview with Pecquius, in which he had become convinced that Conde
would never return. He took the Queen with him, and there was not a
dissentient voice as to the necessity of beginning hostilities at once.

Sully, however, was alone in urging that the main force of the attack
should be in the north, upon the Rhine and Meuse. Villeroy and those who
were secretly in the Spanish interest were for beginning it with the
southern combination and against Milan. Sully believed the Duke of Savoy
to be variable and attached in his heart to Spain, and he thought it
contrary to the interests of France to permit an Italian prince to grow
so great on her frontier. He therefore thoroughly disapproved the plan,
and explained to the Dutch ambassador that all this urgency to carry on
the war in the south came from hatred to the United Provinces, jealousy
of their aggrandizement, detestation of the Reformed religion, and hope
to engage Henry in a campaign which he could not carry on successfully.
But he assured Aerssens that he had the means of counteracting these
designs and of bringing on an invasion for obtaining possession of the
Meuse. If the possessory princes found Henry making war in the Milanese
only, they would feel themselves ruined, and might throw up the game. He
begged that Barneveld would come on to Paris at once, as now or never was
the moment to assure the Republic for all time.

The King had acted with