The great political riddle which Holles had to answer was whether France intended to aid Holland in the war with England, which broke out in 1665.

Holland is now a comfortable, prosperous country, where men and women are born and grow old and die; where agriculture and commerce and land and sea faring are carried on as elsewhere; but for world politics she cares little, save in so far as they point to her absorption by Germany. But in the Seventeenth Century her long and heroic fight with Spain for independence had given her a temper of steel: in the same war she had produced a race of sea-men; better banking and a better system of custom dues had given her the largest mercantile marine in the world. Against her was rising the might of England. Already under Cromwell the two nations had grappled; but though the genius of Blake had given England a doubtful victory, the Dutch were still far superior in their mercantile marine, had rebuilt their navy and were eager for another trial of strength. Relations grew steadily worse and worse. "The Mynhers," wrote Holles, "use us very coursely everywhere. . . . The truth is, they would have all the trade, and will try a bloody nose before they quit their pretensions, and that is the quarrel."

As early as 1662 France had made a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Holland, but neither Charles II. nor Holles could discover whether she meant to observe it. When the war broke out in 1665, Louis did, in a half-hearted way, come to the aid of his Dutch allies. A knowledge of his intention to do so would perhaps have prevented, or at least postponed, the war, and Holles has been much blamed for not giving notice to Charles of the intentions of Louis; but after going into the evidence with some thoroughness, I find that the uncertainty was shared by everyone else.

Fanshawe, the English ambassador in Spain, was to the last so well treated by the French ambassador that he wrote to Holles that the French friendship for England was certain.

The Earl of St. Albans was a very Grand Seignior, Lord Chamberlain to Henrietta Maria, Queen Dowager of England, and aunt of Louis XIV. He flattered himself on his knowledge of the French Court, and was eager to send to England such scraps of knowledge as he could pick up. "It is necessary," he

writes to the English Secretary of State on his arrival in Paris, "that a man of my importance should give account of himself to you"; and he lost no opportunity of doing so. Yet in July, 1665, after the war had begun, after the first great English victory at Lowestoft, St. Albans, who was in attendance in France on the Queen Mother, writes that he has had a private interview with Louis, in which the King said that "The difficulties arising out of his treaty with Holland did so perplex him that he knew not yet how to come to any conclusive discourse."

It may be said that Fanshawe was blinded by his vanity and St. Albans by his pomposity. But Madame, Charles' sister, who during the latter part of his embassy had practically superseded Holles as the medium for all private communications between her brother and Louis, gives him no hint that war has been resolved upon. Even if we reject the Court gossip which accused Madame of having taken the best possible means of finding out the secret thoughts of her handsome brother-in-law, she was at least persona grata at the Court and by no means wanting in shrewdness. Yet her ideas are at least as undecided as those of Holles.

Finally, if there was one man who more than any other desired to discover the intentions of Louis, it was DeWitt, the Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces. DeWitt was a wary and skilful politician, yet in Feb. '65, he wrote to Van Beuningen, his ambassador at Paris, that "Our trust is in Heaven alone." It is perhaps not unfair to suppose that a diplomat does not appeal for celestial aid unless he is in some uncertainty as to his earthly ally.

It is doubtful if such secrecy is really attainable in this world, even by the skilled diplomats of Louis XIV. It is much more reasonable to suppose that Louis was unable to make up his mind. "Je ne me trouve pas dans un petit embarras," he writes frankly to d'Estrades at the Hague on Dec. 19, 1664. This continued to be the opinion of Holles, who on Jan. 14, '65, wrote to Arlington, "my opinion is they are not yet come to any resolution at all." A little later, (Feb. 6, N.S.) he writes to Downing, "I do believe they (the Dutch) rely very much upon France, and what France will do we know not yet."

The position of France was indeed extremely complicated. On the one hand a war between England and the United Pro

vinces could not but be of the utmost advantage to the commercial and colonial schemes of Colbert. Already the newlyformed French East India Company had fallen foul of the Dutch. "The French are collecting subscriptions for their East India trade," writes Holles on July 2/June 22, '64, and he shrewdly adds, "the best subscription of all would be a warre between England and Holland." In addition Louis hated the United Provinces with the hatred of a monarch for a Republic, of a XVII. Century Catholic for a Protestant, and of a gentleman for a clod-hopper. On the other hand he had a liking for Charles II. as a member of the same profession as himself, as a sympathizer with Catholicism, and as gentleman of good manners and easy virtue.

Yet even at this time Louis was probably more intent on sharing the heritage of the dying King of Spain, and in special on securing the Spanish Netherlands, than in building up the colonial and commercial prosperity of his kingdom. To such a policy the undue preponderance of either England or Holland would have been, if not fatal, at least extremely inconvenient; hardly less dangerous would have been the alliance of one or other with the House of Austria. His best policy was thus to hold off as long as he could, and to give fair words to both parties. For not discovering the mind of the French King previous to its being made up, Holles is not to be blamed. His fault was rather that he took no advantage of these embarrassments of Louis, stood on his dignity on every possible occasion, and by one final insult hastened the declaration of war.

On Aug. 29/19, '65, Holles had the last, and in some respects the bitterest of his quarrels. Lady Holles was on her way to Court, in the ambassadorial coach, following Madame, on whom she was in more or less official attendance. At the street corner they met the carriage of the Princess de Carignan, a haughty personage proud of her royal blood, widow of the soldier whose regiment played so important a part in the early days of New France. A squabble promptly arose among the lackeys. Those of the Princess were the more numerous and the better armed, and those of Holles were forced to retreat in disorder. Louis compelled the Princess to give a somewhat perfunctory apology to Lady Holles, but Holles chose to insist that the injury had been done not by one woman to an

other, but by a Princess of the blood royal to his wife in what might be called her ambassadorial capacity, as attendant on Madame, and demanded a more official apology. This both the Princess and the King flatly declined to give. Even Madame, who was fond of the surly old precisian, and who had more than once helped him out of his scrapes, refused on this occasion to become mixed up in it, and Holles, considering the Majesty of England involved in this trifling question de jupons, retired from the Court, announcing his determination not to return till a satisfactory apology had been vouchsafed. Thus all through this most critical period, when the two countries. were drifting into war, and when a strong but tactful ambassador might have saved the situation, Holles was sulking in his tent.

Meanwhile the wrath against England of the French commercial classes was rising, owing to the large quantity of French goods seized in the Dutch ships by English privateers. The privateers had then as later on small regard for courtesy, and the captains of the King's ships were often little better. Holles again and again complains of the ill-will caused by these depredations, and very sensibly argues: "We are well now; let us keep ourselves so," Finally, in October, '65, the French hanged one De Bailleul, a Frenchman who had been preying upon Dutch commerce under a commission from the Duke of York.

By this time the United Provinces were at their last gasp. Monk had won his great victory over Opdam, and England's continental ally, the warlike Bishop of Munster, had defeated scattered detachments of their troops, and overrun the greater part of the provinces of Guelders, Overyssel, Friesland, and Groningen. Louis now played his game with great skill. Refusing any aid to the Dutch fleet, he sent a detachment against the Prince Bishop, and stopped the episcopal visitation till the turbulent priest was compelled to withdraw his troops into winter quarters. This gave DeWitt a breathing space; during February the offer of subsidies won over to his side the King of Denmark and the Elector of Brandenburg, and in April, '66, the bishop was glad to restore his transitory gains and to make peace.

Meanwhile the French ambassadors had returned from London, and were loud in their praises of the generosity of

Charles II., and of the handsome presents with which, after the fashion of the time, he had loaded them. Louis had no mind to be outdone in generosity and sent to Holles his miniature set in precious stones. Holles returned it with the curt message that he desired no presents from a monarch who could not procure him a suitable apology from one of his subjects. One cannot refuse a tribute of admiration to the simple country gentleman who thus in the discharge of what he considered his duty flung back his presents in the face of the proudest monarch in Christendom. The circumstances must have made such an insult extremely galling to Louis. When Sir Leoline Jenkins some years later did the same thing after the peace of Nimwegen, it was to mark his displeasure at the duplicity of the French during the negotiations. This was bad enough, and Colbert pled with Jenkins to the point of importunity; but this refusal of Holles must have been still more galling, not only because Louis was at the time younger and more fiery, but also because it was done not as a protest against his statecraft, but as an insult to what Louis held especially dear, his private honour. On the very next day war was declared. For some time this had been practically inevitable, but all were greatly surprised at its suddenness, such things being usually conducted with the stateliness of a minuet. To pass so suddenly from the Retort courteous to the Counter-check quarrelsome was contrary to all the rules of established etiquette. On Feb. 3/Jan. 24 Compton writes: "They say the occasion of soe suddain a declaration was an assurance from Madrid that we were already concluded with Spain." To me it seems much more likely that Louis applied the declaration as a plaster to his injured dignity.

Holles would fain have left France with the honours of this last exploit still thick upon him, but early in February his wife died, and before he could arrange the necessary formalities for the removal of her body to England, which she had desired and which in any case Holles would have preferred, he fell violently lame with the gout and had to take to his bed. Just as he was recovering, the good offices of Madame and of the Queen Mother of England brought about an attempt at negotiation, and on March 13/3 Holles received "a lettre from Madame telling me to be lame still a little longer." Van Beuningen and he were indeed brought together but Holles stood very stiff, and refused to accept either the status quo ante or