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"Thus he is pledged to give me the subsidy, and I am not pledged for the time," said Philip, "and I keep my secret, which is the most important of all." Yet after all, Farnese did not see his way clear towards the consummation of the plan. His army had wofully dwindled, and before he could seriously set about ulterior matters, it would be necessary to take the city of Sluys.
You see, my only excuse for going to the Palazzo Farnese would be to see the ambassador's daughter, and she is in the country." "I think she must have come to town for a day or two, for I met her this afternoon. That is a good reason for going to see her. At the door of the embassy send your maid on an errand that will take an hour, and tell her to wait for you in the cab at the gate.
Never did statesmen know better how not to do that which they were ostensibly occupied in doing than Alexander Farnese and his agents, Champagny, Richardot, Jacob Maas, and Gamier. Doctor Dale had already expressed his desire for Ostend as the place of colloquy.
The prince had failed in his great enterprise of uniting the Netherlands against Spain, and no efforts on his part could have restored the situation. Thanks to the Spanish reinforcements the Confederation had allowed him to receive, Farnese was systematically blockading and besieging every important Flemish town.
Alexander Farnese laughed heartily at the proposition, which he considered an excellent jest. It seemed in truth, a jest, although but a sorry one. Parma replied to the messenger of Maurice of Saxony who had made the proposition, that the Germans must be mad to ask him for money, instead of offering to pay him, a heavy sum for permission to leave the country.
The Belgians now bethought themselves of the expedient their forbears had found effective in the days of William the Silent and Alexander Farnese. The Yser was dammed at Nieuport, the sluices were opened above Dixmude, and slowly the river rose above its banks and spread over the meadow-flats the Germans were striving to cross.
Yet the remembrance of the amazing negotiations between the queen's ministers and the agents of Alexander Farnese, by which the invasion of the Armada had been masked; could not but have left an uneasy feeling in the mind of every Dutch statesman. "I trust in God," said Caron, "that He may never so abandon her as to permit her to do the reverse of what she now protests with so much passion.
However, the circumstance that Antonio had already acquired a name as a person of ability in architecture, and one who had a very good manner in matters of building, was the reason that Alessandro, who was first Cardinal Farnese, and afterwards Pope Paul III, conceived the idea of commissioning him to restore the old palace in the Campo di Fiore, in which he lived with his family; and for that work Antonio, desiring to grow in reputation, made several designs in different manners.
Had Orange proved more active or Farnese less diplomatic, the Union might still have been maintained even at the eleventh hour. For nothing but religious passion, and perhaps, to a certain extent, the fear of mob rule, prompted the Southern provinces to accept the Spanish offers.
If delayed, the obstacles of the following summer a peace in France, a peace between the Turk and Persia, and other contingencies would cause the whole project to fail, and Philip declared, with much iteration, that money; reputation, honour, his own character and that of Farnese, and God's service, were all at stake.
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