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Updated: May 2, 2025
While this indefatigable patriot was busy in relieving his country from its dependence on England, his enemies accused him of the wish to reduce it once more to Spanish tyranny. Francis Aarsens, son to him who proved himself so incorruptible when attempted to be bribed by Neyen, was one of the foremost of the faction who now labored for the downfall of the pensionary.
He was a man of infinite dissimulation; versed in all the intrigues of courts; and so deep in all their tortuous tactics that Cardinal Richelieu, well qualified to prize that species of talent, declared that he knew only three great political geniuses, of whom Francis Aarsens was one.
Neyen presented him, in the name of the archdukes, and as a token of his esteem, with a diamond of great value and a bond for fifty thousand crowns. Aarsens accepted these presents with the approbation of Prince Maurice, to whom he had confided the circumstance, and who was no doubt delighted at what promised a rupture to the negotiations.
But the negotiation for peace was on the point of being completely broken, in consequence of the conduct of Neyen, who justified every doubt of his sincerity by an attempt to corrupt Aarsens the greffier of the states-general, or at least to influence his conduct in the progress of the treaty.
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