rchduke descend to
a cowardly action or to anything that would sully his honour." Villeroy
said that the Prince had compelled his wife, pistol in hand, to follow
him to the Netherlands, and that she was no longer bound to obey a
husband who forsook country and king. Her father demanded her, and she
said "she would rather be strangled than ever to return to the company of
her husband." The Archdukes were not justified in keeping her against her
will in perpetual banishment. He implored the Ambassador in most pathetic
terms to devise some means of sending back the Princess, saying that he
who should find such expedient would do the greatest good that was ever
done to Christianity, and that otherwise there was no guarantee against a
universal war. The first design of the King had been merely to send a
moderate succour to the Princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg, which could
have given no umbrage to the Archdukes, but now the bitterness growing
out of the affairs of the Prince and Princess had caused him to set on
foot a powerful army to do worse. He again implored Pecquius to invent
some means of sending back the Princess, and the Ambassador besought him
ardently to divert the King from his designs. Of this the Secretary of
State left little hope and they parted, both very low and dismal in
mind. Subsequent conversations with the leading councillors of state
convinced Pecquius that these violent menaces were only used to shake the
constancy of the Archduke, but that they almost all highly disapproved
the policy of the King. "If this war goes on, we are all ruined," said
the Duke d'Epernon to the Nuncius.

Thus there had almost ceased to be any grimacing between the two kings,
although it was still a profound mystery where or when hostilities would
begin, and whether they would break out at all. Henry frequently remarked
that the common opinion all over Europe was working in his favour. Few
people in or out of France believed that he meant a rupture, or that his
preparations were serious. Thus should he take his enemies unawares and
unprepared. Even Aerssens, who saw him almost daily, was sometimes
mystified, in spite of Henry's vehement assertions that he was resolved
to make war at all hazards and on all sides, provided My Lords the States
would second him as they ought, their own existence being at stake.

"For God's sake," cried the King, "let us take the bit into our mouths.
Tell your masters that I am quite resolved, an