that if the sovereignty were to be secured for France at all, it could
only be done by observing great caution, and by concealing their desire
to swallow the republic of which they were professing themselves the
friends. The jealousy of England was sure to be awakened if France
appeared too greedy at the beginning. On the other hand, that power
"might be the more easily rocked into a profound sleep if France did not
show its appetite at the very beginning of the banquet." That the policy
of France should be steadily but stealthily directed towards getting
possession of as many strong places as possible in the Netherlands had
long been his opinion. "Since we don't mean to go to war," said he a
year before to Villeroy, "let us at least follow the example of the
English, who have known how to draw a profit out of the necessities of
this state. Why should we not demand, or help ourselves to, a few good
cities. Sluys, for example, would be a security for us, and of great
advantage."

Suspicion was rife on this subject at the court of Spain. Certainly
it would be less humiliating to the Catholic crown to permit the
independence of its rebellious subjects than to see them incorporated
into the realms of either France or England. It is not a very striking
indication of the capacity of great rulers to look far into the future
that both, France and England should now be hankering after the
sovereignty of those very provinces, the solemn offer of which by the
provinces themselves both France and England had peremptorily and almost
contemptuously refused.

In Spain itself the war was growing very wearisome. Three hundred
thousand dollars a month could no longer be relied upon from the royal
exchequer, or from the American voyages, or from the kite-flying
operations of the merchant princes on the Genoa exchange.