“This is intolerable!… Your Highness, in what way do you not trust him?”
“He is a Frenchman.”
“But a Protestant—and since many years in our service.”
“Still, Mynheer, a subject of the King of France,” answered William. “I do not trust, I repeat, the Vicomte de Montbas—and since I am not empowered to choose my own officers, I have come to you to procure his dismissal, Mynheer de Witt.”
With that the Captain General looked steadily at the Grand Pensionary, who was both angered and taken aback.
The Prince’s request seemed to him both bold and insolent, though it was proffered with an almost disdainful quiet.
He curbed the anger that rose to his lips, and kept his glance averted from William’s cool and slightly mocking face.
“M. de Montbas is my friend,” he said sternly, “and in the confidence of Their High Mightinesses.… I will listen to nothing against him—no, nothing,” he repeated in some agitation.
Somewhat to his surprise the Prince replied at once—
“Very well—it is not my affair—I have made my request and been refused.” He lifted his brows. “Well, you will take the responsibility—as you do for every other action of the civil Government.”