ersion
to the chief design, while Villeroy and his friends chose to consider the
Duke of Savoy as the chief element in the war. Sully thoroughly
distrusted the Duke, whom he deemed to be always put up at auction
between Spain and France and incapable of a sincere or generous policy.
He was entirely convinced that Villeroy and Epernon and Jeannin and other
earnest Papists in France were secretly inclined to the cause of Spain,
that the whole faction of the Queen, in short, were urging this
scattering of the very considerable forces now at Henry's command in the
hope of bringing him into a false position, in which defeat or an
ignominious peace would be the alternative. To concentrate an immense
attack upon the Archdukes in the Spanish Netherlands and the debateable
duchies would have for its immediate effect the expulsion of the
Spaniards out of all those provinces and the establishment of the Dutch
commonwealth on an impregnable basis. That this would be to strengthen
infinitely the Huguenots in France and the cause of Protestantism in
Bohemia, Moravia and Austria, was unquestionable. It was natural,
therefore, that the stern and ardent Huguenot should suspect the plans of
the Catholics with whom he was in daily council. One day he asked the
King plumply in the presence of Villeroy if his Majesty meant anything
serious by all these warlike preparations. Henry was wroth, and
complained bitterly that one who knew him to the bottom of his soul
should doubt him. But Sully could not persuade himself that a great and
serious war would be carried on both in the Netherlands and in Italy.

As much as his sovereign he longed for the personal presence of
Barneveld, and was constantly urging the States' ambassador to induce his
coming to Paris. "You know," said Aerssens, writing to the French
ambassador at the Hague, de Russy, "that it is the Advocate alone that
has the universal knowledge of the outside and the inside of our
commonwealth."

Sully knew his master as well as any man knew him, but it was difficult
to fix the chameleon hues of Henry at this momentous epoch. To the
Ambassador expressing doubts as to the King's sincerity the Duke asserted
that Henry was now seriously piqued with the Spaniard on account of the
Conde business. Otherwise Anhalt and the possessory princes and the
affair of Cleve might have had as little effect in driving him into war
as did the interests of the Netherlands in times past. But the bold
demo