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Updated: June 11, 2025
There could be as little doubt that to mediate the difference was simply to settle an account which they did not owe. The whole object of the Minister at this first interview was to induce the States to take the whole Cleve enterprise upon their own shoulders, and to let France off altogether. The Queen-Regent as then advised meant to wash her hands of the possessory princes once and for ever.
France was to renounce all her old alliances and publicly to enter into treaties offensive and defensive with Spain. A league like that of Bayonne made by the former Medicean Queen-Regent of France was now, at Villeroy's instigation, to be signed by Mary de' Medici.
But Aerssens did not think so. He liked his position, changed as it was. He was deep in the plottings of Bouillon and Conde and the other malcontents against the Queen-Regent. These schemes, being entirely personal, the rank growth of the corruption and apparent disintegration of France, were perpetually changing, and could be reduced to no principle.
Before the Queen-Regent there was nothing but vituperation of the Parliament, but the Duke of Orleans hates the Cardinal quite as much as the Parisians did; and his daughter, Mademoiselle, wanted him to lead the Frondeuse, and chatted to me of her plan of leading the party, together with the Prince of Conde, whom she eagerly desired to marry if his poor wife could be divorced.
She stood aghast, as well she might, thinking how little dignity her aunt, the Queen of England, had to be acting as mistress of deportment to a little homely widow. The Prince turned at once. 'There is my cousin, said he, 'standing amazed to see how we have caught a barbarous islander of our own, and are trying to train her to civilization. Here let her represent the Queen-Regent.
Anne was appointed regent for her son, not yet five years old, and, to the surprise of everyone, immediately called to her aid as her adviser not a Frenchman, as was expected, but an Italian, Cardinal Mazarin. So the fate of the kingdom was in the hands of two foreigners, a Spanish queen-regent and an Italian minister. Richelieu's and Mazarin's methods were the opposite of each other.
In general he was directed to be friendly and respectful to every one, to the Queen-Regent and her counsellors especially, and, within the limits of becoming reverence for her, to cultivate the good graces of the Prince of Conde and the other great nobles still malcontent and rebellious, but whose present movement, as Barneveld foresaw, was drawing rapidly to a close.
He made a parade of the official letters from the Queen-Regent and her ministers, in which he was spoken of in terms of conventional compliment.
He rebuked the vacillations, the shortcomings, the imbecility, of the Queen's government in offensive terms. He consorted openly with the princes who were on the point of making war upon the Queen-Regent. He made a boast to the Secretary of State Villeroy that he had unravelled all his secret plots against the Netherlands.
The Queen-Regent was afraid of offending Spain, although her government had induced the citizens of the place to make the treaty now violated by that country. The Dutch ambassador had been instructed categorically to enquire whether their Majesties meant to assist Aachen and the princes if attacked by the Archdukes. "No," said Villeroy; "we are not interested in Aachen, 'tis too far off.
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