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Updated: June 9, 2025


Maurice was shut in between Nieuport on one side and the archduke's army on the other, planted as it was on the only road of retreat. Had Albert entrenched himself, Maurice must either have attacked at great disadvantage or attempted embarkation in the face of his enemy.

A throng of the great nobles of Belgium with drawn swords and menacing aspect were assembled in the chief apartments, a detachment of the Archduke's mounted body-guard was stationed in the courtyard, and five hundred halberdiers of the burgher guilds kept watch and ward about the palace.

This was the sum and substance of the Archduke's mission to Madrid, so far as its immediate objects were concerned. In the course, however, of the interview between this personage and Philip, the King took occasion to administer a rebuke to his Imperial Majesty for his general negligence in religious matters.

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."

Uncertainty was behind the curtain, as well as in front; but in front it was the uncertainty which is tipped with expectation, hushing the usual noisy chatter, and setting a daylight of eyes forward. Ammiani spied about the house, and caught sight of Laura Piaveni with Colonel Corte by her side. The Lenkensteins were in the Archduke's box.

Being accordingly admitted, and bidden to be covered and sit down, he presented the Archduke's credentials, and then made a speech, which was in substance that his master had ordered him to acquaint the company with a proposal made him by Cardinal Mazarin since the blockade of Paris, which his Catholic Majesty did not think consistent with his safety or honour to accept, when he saw that, on the one hand, it was made with a view to oppress the Parliament, which was held in veneration by all the kingdoms in the world, and, on the other, that all treaties made with a condemned minister would be null and void, forasmuch as they were made without the concurrence of the Parliament, to whom only it belonged to register and verify treaties of peace in order to make them authoritative; that the Catholic King, who proposed to take no advantage from the present state of affairs, had ordered the Archduke to assure the Parliament, whom he knew to be in the true interest of the most Christian King, that he heartily acknowledged them to be the arbiters of peace, that he submitted to their judgment, and that if they thought proper to be judges, he left it to their choice to send a deputation out of their own body to what place they pleased.

That venerable couple being about to wait upon the Archduke's envoy, in compliance with the royal request, Pecquius, out of respect to their advanced age, went to the Constable's residence. Here both the Duchess and Constable, with tears in their eyes, besought that diplomatist to do his utmost to prevent the Princess from the sad fate of any longer sharing her husband's fortunes.

Although it had been the Archduke's intention to have made me his Minister for Foreign Affairs, my appointment to the post by the Emperor Charles had nothing to do with that plan. It was due, above all, to his strong desire to get rid of Count Burian and to the lack of other candidates whom he considered suitable.

But, in spite of all this, he did not lose the archduke's favour, retaining his entire confidence to the end. An incident connected with the jealousy with which the Society guarded its rule of non-interference in politics, is furnished by the same Father Viller, who, in 1599, was appointed to go to Rome on a mission from the Austrian archduke.

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."

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