The indefatigable exertions of Schomberg, and the almost passionate explanations on the part of the court of France, at length produced their effect. "You will constantly assure the princes," wrote the Duke of Anjou to Schomberg, "that the things written, to you concerning that which had happened in this kingdom are true; that the events occurred suddenly, without having been in any manner premeditated; that neither the King nor myself have ever had any intelligence with, the King of Spain, against those of the religion, and that all is utter imposture which is daily said on this subject to the princes."
Count Louis required peremptorily, however, that the royal repentance should bring forth the fruit of salvation for the remaining victims. Out of the nettles of these dangerous intrigues his fearless hand plucked the "flower of safety" for his down-trodden cause. He demanded not words, but deeds, or at least pledges. He maintained with the agents of Charles and with the monarch himself the same hardy scepticism which was manifested by the Huguenot deputies in their conferences with Catharine de Medicis. "Is the word of a king," said the dowager to the commissioners, who were insisting upon guarantees, "is the word of a king not sufficient?"—"No, madam," replied one of them, "by Saint Bartholomew, no!" Count Louis told Schomberg roundly, and repeated it many times, that he must have in a very few days a categorical response, "not to consist in words alone, but in deeds, and that he could not, and would not, risk for ever the honor of his brother, nor the property; blood, and life of those poor people who favored the cause."
On the 23rd March, 1573, Schomberg had an interview with Count Louis, which lasted seven or eight hours. In that interview the enterprises of the Count, "which," said Schomberg, "are assuredly grand and beautiful," were thoroughly discussed, and a series of conditions, drawn up partly in the hand of one, partly in that of the other negotiator; definitely agreed upon. These conditions were on the basis of a protectorate over Holland and Zealand for the King of France, with sovereignty over the other places to be acquired in the Netherlands. They were in strict accordance with the articles furnished by the Prince of Orange. Liberty of worship for those of both religions, sacred preservation of municipal charters, and stipulation of certain annual subsidies on the part of France, in case his Majesty should not take the field, were the principal features.
Ten days later, Schomberg wrote to his master that the Count was willing to use all the influence of his family to procure for Anjou the crown of Poland, while Louis, having thus completed his negotiations with the agent, addressed a long and earnest letter to the royal principal. This remarkable despatch was stamped throughout with the impress of the writer's frank and fearless character. "Thus diddest thou" has rarely been addressed to anointed monarch in such unequivocal tones: The letter painted the favorable position in which the king had been placed previously to the fatal summer of 1572. The Queen of England was then most amicably disposed towards him, and inclined to a yet closer connexion with his family. The German princes were desirous to elect him King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had so fruitlessly contended. The Netherlanders, driven to despair by the tyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into his arms. All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification. How changed the picture now! Who now did reverence to a King so criminal and so fallen? "Your Majesty to-day," said Louis, earnestly and plainly, "is near to ruin. The State, crumbling on every side and almost abandoned, is a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the more so, because your Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the wars previously made, endeavoured to force men's consciences, is now so destitute, not only of nobility and soldiery but of that which constitutes the strongest column of the throne, the love and good wishes of the lieges, that your Majesty resembles an ancient building propped up, day after, day, with piles, but which it will be impossible long to prevent from falling to the earth." Certainly, here were wholesome truths told in straightforward style.
The Count proceeded to remind the King of the joy which the "Spaniard, his mortal enemy," had conceived from the desolation of his affairs, being assured that he should, by the troubles in France, be enabled to accomplish his own purposes without striking a blow. This, he observed, had been the secret of the courtesy with which the writer himself had been treated by the Duke of Alva at the surrender of Mons. Louis assured the King, in continuation, that if he persevered in these oppressive courses towards his subjects of the new religion, there was no hope for him, and that his two brothers would, to no purpose, take their departure for England, and, for Poland, leaving him with a difficult and dangerous war upon his hands. So long as he maintained a hostile attitude towards the Protestants in his own kingdom, his fair words would produce no effect elsewhere. "We are beginning to be vexed," said the Count, "with the manner of negotiation practised by France. Men do not proceed roundly to business there, but angle with their dissimulation as with a hook."
He bluntly reminded the King of the deceit which he had practised towards the Admiral—a sufficient reason why no reliance could in future be placed upon his word. Signal vengeance on those concerned in the attempted assassination of that great man had been promised, in the royal letters to the Prince of Orange, just before St. Bartholomew. "Two days afterwards," said Louis, "your Majesty took that vengeance, but in rather ill fashion." It was certain that the King was surrounded by men who desired to work his ruin, and who, for their own purposes, would cause him to bathe still deeper than he had done before in the blood of his subjects. This ruin his Majesty could still avert; by making peace in his kingdom, and by ceasing to torment his poor subjects of the religion.
In conclusion, the Count, with a few simple but eloquent phrases, alluded to the impossibility of chaining men's thoughts. The soul, being immortal, was beyond the reach of kings. Conscience was not to be conquered, nor the religious spirit imprisoned. This had been discovered by the Emperor Charles, who had taken all the cities and great personages of Germany captive, but who had nevertheless been unable to take religion captive. "That is a sentiment," said Louis, "deeply rooted in the hearts of men, which is not to be plucked out by force of arms. Let your majesty, therefore not be deceived by the flattery of those who, like bad physicians, keep their patients in ignorance of their disease, whence comes their ruin."
It would be impossible, without insight into these private and most important transactions, to penetrate the heart of the mystery which enwrapped at this period the relations of the great powers with each other. Enough has been seen to silence for ever the plea, often entered in behalf of religious tyranny, that the tyrant acts in obedience to a sincere conviction of duty; that, in performing his deeds of darkness, he believes himself to be accomplishing the will of Heaven. Here we have seen Philip, offering to restore the Prince of Orange, and to establish freedom of religion in the Netherlands, if by such promises he can lay hold of the Imperial diadem. Here also we have Charles IX. and his mother—their hands reeking with the heretic-blood of St. Bartholomew—making formal engagements with heretics to protect heresy everywhere, if by such pledges the crown of the Jagellons and the hand of Elizabeth can be secured.
While Louis was thus busily engaged in Germany, Orange was usually established at Delft. He felt the want of his brother daily, for the solitude of the Prince, in the midst of such fiery trials, amounted almost to desolation. Not often have circumstances invested an individual with so much responsibility and so little power. He was regarded as the protector and father of the country, but from his own brains and his own resources he was to furnish himself with the means of fulfilling those high functions. He was anxious thoroughly to discharge the duties of a dictatorship without grasping any more of its power than was indispensable to his purpose. But he was alone on that little isthmus, in single combat with the great Spanish monarchy. It was to him that all eyes turned, during the infinite horrors of the Harlem sieges and in the more prosperous leaguer of Alkmaar. What he could do he did. He devised every possible means to succor Harlem, and was only restrained from going personally to its rescue by the tears of the whole population of Holland. By his decision and the spirit which he diffused through the country, the people were lifted to a pitch of heroism by which Alkmaar was saved. Yet, during all this harassing period, he had no one to lean upon but himself. "Our affairs are in pretty good; condition in Holland and Zealand," he wrote, "if I only had some aid. 'Tis impossible for me to support alone so many labors, and the weight of such great affairs as come upon me hourly—financial, military, political. I have no one to help me, not a single man, wherefore I leave you to suppose in what trouble I find myself."
For it was not alone the battles and sieges which furnished him with occupation and filled him with anxiety. Alone, he directed in secret the politics of the country, and, powerless and outlawed though he seemed, was in daily correspondence not only with the estates of Holland and Zealand, whose deliberations he guided, but with the principal governments of Europe. The estates of the Netherlands, moreover, had been formally assembled by Alva in September, at Brussels, to devise ways and means for continuing the struggle. It seemed to the Prince a good opportunity to make an appeal to the patriotism of the whole country. He furnished the province of Holland, accordingly, with the outlines of an address which was forthwith despatched in their own and his name, to the general assembly of the Netherlands. The document was a nervous and rapid review of the course of late events in the provinces, with a cogent statement of the reasons which should influence them all to unite in the common cause against the common enemy. It referred to the old affection and true-heartedness with which they had formerly regarded each other, and to the certainty that the inquisition would be for ever established in the land, upon the ruins of all their ancient institutions, unless they now united to overthrow it for ever. It demanded of the people, thus assembled through their representatives, how they could endure the tyranny, murders, and extortions of the Duke of Alva. The princes of Flanders, Burgundy, Brabant, or Holland, had never made war or peace, coined money, or exacted a stiver from the people without the consent of the estates. How could the nation now consent to the daily impositions which were practised? Had Amsterdam and Middelburg remained true; had those important cities not allowed themselves to be seduced from the cause of freedom, the northern provinces would have been impregnable. "'Tis only by the Netherlands that the Netherlands are crushed," said the appeal. "Whence has the Duke of Alva the power of which he boasts, but from yourselves—from Netherland cities? Whence his ships, supplies, money, weapons, soldiers? From the Netherland people. Why has poor Netherland thus become degenerate and bastard? Whither has fled the noble spirit of our brave forefathers, that never brooked the tyranny of foreign nations, nor suffered a stranger even to hold office within our borders? If the little province of Holland can thus hold at bay the power of Spain, what could not all the Netherlands—Brabant, Flanders, Friesland, and the rest united accomplish?" In conclusion, the estates-general were earnestly adjured to come forward like brothers in blood, and join hands with Holland, that together they might rescue the fatherland and restore its ancient prosperity and bloom.