to the upright zeal which I thought I could see
in him for the service of My high and puissant Lords the States-General
and of your princely Grace."

Greater humbleness could be expected of no ambassador. Most nobly did the
devoted friend and pupil of the great statesman remember his duty to the
illustrious Prince and their High Mightinesses. Most promptly did he
abjure his patron now that he had fallen into the abyss.

"Nor will it be found," he continued, "that I have had any sympathy or
communication with the said Advocate except alone in things concerning my
service. The great trust I had in him as the foremost and oldest
counsellor of the state, as the one who so confidentially instructed me
on my departure for France, and who had obtained for himself so great
authority that all the most important affairs of the country were
entrusted to him, was the cause that I simply and sincerely wrote to him
all that people were in the habit of saying at this court.

"If I had known in the least or suspected that he was not what he ought
to be in the service of My Lords the States and of your princely Grace
and for the welfare and tranquillity of the land, I should have been well
on my guard against letting myself in the least into any kind of
communication with him whatever."

The reader has seen how steadily and frankly the Advocate had kept
Langerac as well as Caron informed of passing events, and how little
concealment he made of his views in regard to the Synod, the
Waartgelders, and the respective authority of the States-General and
States-Provincial. Not only had Langerac no reason to suspect that
Barneveld was not what he ought to be, but he absolutely knew the
contrary from that most confidential correspondence with him which he was
now so abjectly repudiating. The Advocate, in a protracted constitutional
controversy, had made no secret of his views either officially or
privately. Whether his positions were tenable or flimsy, they had been
openly taken.

"What is more," proceeded the Ambassador, "had I thought that any account
ought to be made of what I wrote to him concerning the sovereignty of the
Provinces, I should for a certainty not have failed to advise your Grace
of it above all."

He then, after profuse and maudlin protestations of his most dutiful zeal
all the days of his life for "the service, honour, reputation, and
contentment of your princely Grace," observed that he had not thought it
necessary