410 .-- Count John of Nassau was distrustful and disdainful from the beginning.
Against his brother's loyalty and the straightforward intentions of the estates, he felt that the whole force of the Macchiavelli system of policy would be brought to bear with great effect.

He felt that the object of the King's party was to temporize, to confuse, and to deceive.

He did not believe them capable of conceding the real object in dispute, but he feared lest they might obscure the judgment of the plain and well meaning people with whom they had to deal.

Alluding to the constant attempts made to poison himself and his brother, he likens the pretended negotiations to Venetian drugs, by which eyesight, hearing, feeling, and intellect were destroyed.
Under this pernicious influence, the luckless people would not perceive the fire burning around them, but would shrink at a rustling leaf.

Not comprehending then the tendency of their own acts, they would "lay bare their own backs to the rod, and bring faggots for their own funeral pile."-Archives, etc., v.