mbassador avowed his practice of converting his high and sacred office
into merchandise. And these statements of his should be scanned closely,
because at this very moment a cry was distantly rising, which at a later
day was to swell into a roar, that the great Advocate had been bribed and
pensioned. Nothing had occurred to justify such charges, save that at the
period of the truce he had accepted from the King of France a fee of
20,000 florins for extra official and legal services rendered him a dozen
years before, and had permitted his younger son to hold the office of
gentleman-in-waiting at the French court with the usual salary attached
to it. The post, certainly not dishonourable in itself, had been intended
by the King as a kindly compliment to the leading statesman of his great
and good ally the Republic. It would be difficult to say why such a
favour conferred on the young man should be held more discreditable to
the receiver than the Order of the Garter recently bestowed upon the
great soldier of the Republic by another friendly sovereign. It is
instructive however to note the language in which Francis Aerssens spoke
of favours and money bestowed by a foreign monarch upon himself, for
Aerssens had come back from his embassy full of gall and bitterness
against Barneveld. Thenceforth he was to be his evil demon.

"I didn't inherit property," said this diplomatist. "My father and
mother, thank God, are yet living. I have enjoyed the King's liberality.
It was from an ally, not an enemy, of our country. Were every man obliged
to give a reckoning of everything he possesses over and above his
hereditary estates, who in the government would pass muster? Those who
declare that they have served their country in her greatest trouble, and
lived in splendid houses and in service of princes and great companies
and the like on a yearly salary of 4000 florins, may not approve these
maxims."

It should be remembered that Barneveld, if this was a fling at the
Advocate, had acquired a large fortune by marriage, and, although
certainly not averse from gathering gear, had, as will be seen on a
subsequent page, easily explained the manner in which his property had
increased. No proof was ever offered or attempted of the anonymous
calumnies levelled at him in this regard.

"I never had the management of finances," continued Aerssens. "My profits
I have gained in foreign parts. My condition of life is without excess,
and in my opin