to Isabella.

"The father and aunt have been talking to Pecquius," said Henry very
dismally; "but they give me much pain. They are even colder than the
season, but my fire thaws them as soon as I approach."

"P. S.--I am so pining away in my anguish that I am nothing but skin and
bones. Nothing gives me pleasure. I fly from company, and if in order to
comply with the law of nations I go into some assembly or other, instead
of enlivening, it nearly kills me."--[Lettres missives de Henri vii.
834].

And the King took to his bed. Whether from gout, fever, or the pangs of
disappointed love, he became seriously ill. Furious with every one, with
Conde, the Constable, de Coeuvres, the Queen, Spinola, with the Prince of
Orange, whose councillor Keeremans had been encouraging Conde in his
rebellion and in going to Spain with Spinola, he was now resolved that
tho war should go on. Aerssens, cautious of saying too much on paper of
this very delicate affair, always intimated to Barneveld that, if the
Princess could be restored, peace was still possible, and that by moving
an inch ahead of the King in the Cleve matter the States at the last
moment might be left in the lurch. He distinctly told the Advocate, on
his expressing a hope that Henry might consent to the Prince's residence
in some neutral place until a reconciliation could be effected, that the
pinch of the matter was not there, and that van der Myle, who knew all
about it, could easily explain it.

Alluding to the project of reviving the process against the Dowager, and
of divorcing the Prince and Princess, he said these steps would do much
harm, as they would too much justify the true cause of the retreat of the
Prince, who was not believed when he merely talked of his right of
primogeniture: "The matter weighs upon us very heavily," he said, "but
the trouble is that we don't search for the true remedies. The matter is
so delicate that I don't dare to discuss it to the very bottom."

The Ambassador had a long interview with the King as he lay in his bed
feverish and excited. He was more impatient than ever for the arrival of
the States' special embassy, reluctantly acquiesced in the reasons
assigned for the delay, but trusted that it would arrive soon with
Barneveld at the head, and with Count Lewis William as a member for "the
sword part of it."

He railed at the Prince of Orange, not believing that Keeremans would
have dared to do what he had done but with the ord