on the spot, to leave his friends in the lurch, to
embrace his enemies, the Archduke first of all, instead of bombarding
Brussels the very next week, as he had been threatening to do, provided
the beautiful Margaret could be restored to his arms through those of her
venerable father.

He suggested to the Nuncius his hope that the Archduke would yet be
willing to wink at her escape, which he was now trying to arrange through
de Preaux at Brussels, while Ubaldini, knowing the Archduke incapable of
anything so dishonourable, felt that the war was inevitable.

At the very same time too, Father Cotton, who was only too ready to
betray the secrets of the confessional when there was an object to gain,
had a long conversation with the Archduke's ambassador, in which the holy
man said that the King had confessed to him that he made the war
expressly to cause the Princess to be sent back to France, so that as
there could be no more doubt on the subject the father-confessor begged
Pecquius, in order to prevent so great an evil, to devise "some prompt
and sudden means to induce his Highness the Archduke to order the
Princess to retire secretly to her own country." The Jesuit had different
notions of honour, reputation, and duty from those which influenced the
Archduke. He added that "at Easter the King had been so well disposed to
seek his salvation that he could easily have forgotten his affection for
the Princess, had she not rekindled the fire by her letters, in which she
caressed him with amorous epithets, calling him 'my heart,' 'my
chevalier,' and similar terms of endearment." Father Cotton also drew up
a paper, which he secretly conveyed to Pecquius, "to prove that the
Archduke, in terms of conscience and honour, might decide to permit this
escape, but he most urgently implored the Ambassador that for the love of
God and the public good he would influence his Serene Highness to prevent
this from ever coming to the knowledge of the world, but to keep the
secret inviolably."

Thus, while Henry was holding high council with his own most trusted
advisers, and with the most profound statesmen of Europe, as to the
opening campaign within a fortnight of a vast and general war, he was
secretly plotting with his father-confessor to effect what he avowed to
be the only purpose of that war, by Jesuitical bird-lime to be applied to
the chief of his antagonists. Certainly Barneveld and his colleagues were
justified in their distrust.