It was now Cromwell's turn to send confidential agents to inquire into the state of France. Unlike Scot and the republican fanatics, it is evident that he cared little for the propagation of republican principles. What he cared about was the condition of the French Protestants and the propagation of the Protestant religion.
To Cromwell, as to most of his party, one of the worst sins of Charles I was that he had induced the Huguenots to revolt against Louis XIII, and then left them to be crushed by his forces. Englishmen abroad were accustomed to be taunted with their desertion of their co-religionists. 'I have heard,' wrote John Cook, 'fearful exclamations from the French Protestants against the King and the late Duke of Buckingham for the betraying of Rochelle; and some of the ministers told me ten years ago that God would be revenged of the wicked King of England for betraying Rochelle[10].' One of the arguments which agents of the Huguenots of Guienne used when they appealed to Cromwell was 'that the churches of these parts have endured a very great brunt by the deceitful promises which have been made to them by the former supreme powers of Great Britain[11].' To this argument Cromwell was particularly accessible. He said that England had ruined the Protestant party in France and that England must restore it again[12]. In the twenty-second article of the draft-treaty which he proposed to Mazarin in July, 1654, he demanded the right of superintending the execution of the edicts in favour of the French Protestants and seeing that they were scrupulously observed—a demand which naturally met with a refusal from Mazarin[13]. To obtain information of the condition of the French Protestants and of their political attitude Cromwell despatched to France about the close of 1653, or early in 1654, a Swiss who is often mentioned by Burnet, namely, Jean Baptiste Stouppe. Burnet describes him as 'a Grison by birth, then minister of the French church in the Savoy, and afterwards a brigadier-general in the French armies: a man of intrigue but of no virtue.' Condé, continues Burnet, had sent over 'to offer Cromwell to turn Protestant: and if he would give him a fleet with good troops he would make a descent on Guienne, where he did not doubt he should be assisted by the Protestants; and that he should so distress France, as to obtain such conditions for them and for England as Cromwell himself should dictate. Upon this offer Cromwell sent Stouppe round all France, to talk with their most eminent men, to see into their strength, into their present disposition, the oppressions they lay under, and their inclinations to trust the Prince of Condé. He went from Paris down the Loire, then to Bordeaux, from thence to Montauban, and cross the south of France to Lyons: he was instructed to talk to them only as a traveller, and to assure them of Cromwell's zeal and care for them, which he magnified everywhere. The Protestants were then very much at their ease: for Mazarin, who thought of nothing but to enrich his family, took care to maintain the edicts better than they had been in any time formerly. So Stouppe returned and gave Cromwell an account of the ease they were in, and of their resolution to be quiet. They had a very bad opinion of the Prince of Condé, as a man who sought nothing but his own greatness, to which they believed he was ready to sacrifice all his friends and every cause that he espoused. This settled Cromwell in that particular. He also found that the Cardinal had such spies on that prince, that he knew every message that had passed between them: therefore he would have no further correspondence with him: he said upon that to Stouppe stultus est, et garrulus, et venditur a suis cardinali[14].'
Burnet's account of Stouppe's mission seems tolerably accurate[15]. The attitude of the French Protestants was such as he describes it to have been. The want of secrecy with which Condé's intrigues were conducted was a real obstacle to the negotiations. In his letters to Condé, Barrière himself says as much, and in one dated Aug. 14, 1654, he relates that Cromwell had complained to the Spanish Ambassador that Bordeaux was well acquainted with all his negotiations with Condé's agents.
But the story that Condé offered to become a Protestant can scarcely be true. It was rather Cromwell who suggested that he should convert himself to Protestantism as a step to the political headship of the Huguenots. In a conversation on the affairs of the Protestants in France the Protector, according to Barrière's report, had said: 'A! s'il y avoit moyen que M. le Prince se fist de nostre religion, ce seroit le plus grand bien qui peust jamais arriver a nos eglises, car pour moy je le tiens le plus grand homme et le plus grand capitaine non seulement de nostre siecle, mais qui aye esté depuis longtemps: et il est malheureux d'estre enguagé avecque des gens qui ont si peu de soin de luy tenir les choses qu'ils luy ont promis[16].' Some eighteen months earlier Condé was reported to have spoken in somewhat similar terms of Cromwell, drinking his health openly at Antwerp, 'as the wisest, ablest and greatest commander in Europe[17].' But it may well be that the reports of the views of the French Protestants which Stouppe brought back from France changed Cromwell's views, and that a more intimate knowledge of French politics altered his estimate of the prince's capacity.
The history of Joachim Hane's mission is still more obscure than that of Sexby or Stouppe. One of its objects probably was to communicate with the French Protestants. Slingsby Bethell, the only contemporary who mentions it, in a discussion on the policy of the Long Parliament towards foreign Protestants says that they treated with the deputies of Bordeaux on a plan for the ruin of popery and the advancement of the Protestant religion. But Cromwell, 'usurping the government did not only overthrow the design, but probably betrayed it to the French King with the lives of some engaged in the business; for Mr. Joachim Haines (by birth a German) general engineer to the army, and one of his own emissaries employed in that affair, who after Cromwell and Mazarin were agreed was pursued through France, and escaped miraculously, did believe he was discovered by Oliver, his errand being known only to himself and his confident[18].' Bethell's accusation against Cromwell deserves no credit. There is no trace of this belief in Hane's narrative, or in Hane's later conduct. Oliver and Mazarin did not agree till eighteen months after Hane's return from France. It is simply an example of the vague slanders which the extreme republicans circulated against the ruler they regarded as an apostate. Ludlow tells a similar story about Cromwell betraying Sexby to the French, probably confusing Hane and Sexby, and echoing Bethell's charge[19].
Hane himself says nothing of the nature of his mission in his narrative. When he was examined he stoutly denied that he was anything more than a gentleman travelling for his pleasure; but as he justly observes 'to speak the truth in all things did not consist with my safety at that time' (p. 9). Amongst Thurloe's correspondence there are two letters which may have been written by Hane[20]. Both are signed Israell Bernhard; one is dated Paris, October 25, 1653, the other Rochelle, November 15. Hane was at those places on the dates mentioned, and the second letter contains a still more remarkable parallel. The writer says, 'I intend to go two days hence to Bordeaux,' that is presumably on November 17. Now Hane's narrative states that he went from Rochelle to Bordeaux on November 18. It is very improbable that Thurloe had two correspondents in France whose movements tallied so exactly with those of Hane. In each letter the writer assumes the character of a merchant, and begins by giving various details about the state of trade. The first ends with a rather enigmatical reference to the proposed purchase of a house. 'I long to heare whether your neighbour Mr. Smith still hath a mind to buy Mr. Rob. tenement, that layeth towards you from his other house; if he intends to build such a house upon as he talketh, he had need of 6 or 7000 pound to begin withall, and then he may have a habitation to spend 2000 pound a yeare in it; but I am sure he will not perfect the building in so short a time as he was speaking to us, for he will have but a few materialls neere hand, and there is not so much as a hedge about the garden, but he will be forced to make new hedges round about. I would have him take good advise before he medle with the bargaine.' In the letter from Rochelle he says, 'All things hereabouts are pritty quiet; the prince's party being sufficiently silenced, so that we hope they will not rise in hast again. We are perswaded, that the government of our towne is in surer hands than it was three yeare ago, when we were betrayed with a corrupted governor, who kept the two towers next the haven for the prince de Condé, and did much annoyance to the towne from off them; the which after they were reduced, one of them was burned downe, and the other is now repairing againe, so that we hope we shall feare no more such bustling as formerly we have had[21].' The passage from the first letter probably refers to some French port, to the state of its fortifications, and to the cost of repairing them, while the second gives important facts as to the present state of the fortifications of Rochelle. At the moment information on that subject was of some importance to Cromwell. About October, 1651, there had arrived in England a person named Conan, whose object was to negotiate for a due pecuniary consideration to the persons concerned in the reception of an English governor into that town. He is frequently mentioned in Barrière's letters to Condé. In a letter dated October 24, 1653, Barrière relates an interview which he had with Cromwell the previous day. He found him, he said, well disposed to assist the prince. 'Ce à quoy j'ay trouvé plus de disposition s'a esté à l'afaire de La Rochelle; et pour sest effect il me demanda de luy faire voir Conan, qui présentement est avecque luy. A son retour je vous manderay ce qu'il luy aura dit, car en me séparant de luy, il me dit que quant il auroit veu sest homme là, il me diret ce qu'il pourroit faire.' On a later page, after mentioning Conan's intended departure for Spain, he adds: 'Monsieur de Conan vient tout présentement de parler à Cromwel, qui l'a fort questionné sur les moyens de faire réussir l'affaire dont il est question, et a tesmoigné désirer avec passion qu'elle se peut exécuter; mais pourtant luy a dit qu'il ne ce pourroit enguager à rien jusques à ce que l'on eust des nouvelles d'Espagne, et que lorsqu'il auret de l'argent, on fourniroit toutes les choses necessaires, luy a recommendé de revenir le plus tost qu'il pourret, et que peut estre a son retour les afaires auroyent changé de face et, que, sela estant, luy, Cromwel, et tout ce qui gouverne en Angleterre estoyent entièrement portés a sela pour le soulagement du peuple et pour le service de Son Altesse.'
A letter written on November 14 from Madrid by the Comte de Fiesque to the Prince de Condé adds: 'La resolution est prise icy de ligue offensive et deffensive entre l'Angleterre et l'Espagne, pour laquelle il sera porté expressément qu'ils attaqueront ou la Guyenne, ou la Normandie, ou qu'ils descendront a la Rochelle, selon ce qui sera jugé a propos pour le bien du party, et cela dans le mois d'Avril prochain[22].'
The projected league between England and Spain came to nothing, but the existence of these schemes at the time when Hane was sent to France and the indications afforded by Hane's letters explain the objects of his mission.
A minister like Stouppe was an admirable choice when the main object was to learn from Huguenot preachers and Huguenot politicians what their views of the political situation were. If, however, Cromwell was to intervene in France and send an army to Guienne, as he was asked to do, he required also some trustworthy information about the Huguenot strongholds and the coast seaports. The state of the defences of Bordeaux and La Rochelle, and the comparative military value of the different places which Condé's agents and the agents of Bordeaux offered him, were questions on which the opinion of a skilled engineer would be of the greatest value. It is probable that Hane's mission was more military than political, and that he was rather a spy than a political intriguer.
Whether spy or political intriguer his peril was much the same. The tortures with which the hangman of Bordeaux threatened him were employed impartially to extract the truth from either. One of Sexby's four companions had been arrested on suspicion in Languedoc. 'He was put in prison,' says Sexby, 'and after racked to make him confess with whom he had corrispondence, but God inabled him to keep secret what he knew, though the torture and paine he suffered cost him his life[23].' It was only by a miracle that Hane escaped a similar fate. The story of his escapes and his wanderings is so vivid and picturesque that it seemed worth rescuing from entire oblivion, even though it throws little light on the dark places of Cromwell's foreign policy.