"This has given a bad suspicion to the people," wrote the burgomaster to Richardot, "so much so that I fear to have trouble.

The broad council has been in session, but I don't know what has taken place there, and I do not dare to ask." Sainte Aldegonde's motive, as avowed by himself, for seeking a private interview, was because he had received no answer to the main point in his first letter, as to the proposition for a general accord.

In order therefore to make the deliberations more rapid, he had been disposed to discuss that preliminary question in secret.

"But now," said he to Richardot, "as the affair had been too much divulged, as well by diverse reports and writings sown about, very inopportunely, as by the arrival of M.Van Werne, I have not found it practicable to set out upon my road, without communication with the members of the government.

This has been done, however, not in the way of consultation, but as the announcement of a thing already resolved upon." He proceeded to state, that great difficulties had arisen, exactly as he had foreseen.