The greediness of those who believe that the sun should shine for them alone was excited, and so I was obliged to resign the embassy." So long as Henry lived, the Dutch ambassador saw him daily, and at all hours, privately, publicly, when he would.

Rarely has a foreign envoy at any court, at any period of history, enjoyed such privileges of being useful to his government.

And there is no doubt that the services of Aerssens had been most valuable to his country, notwithstanding his constant care to increase his private fortune through his public opportunities.

He was always ready to be useful to Henry likewise.

When that monarch same time before the truce, and occasionally during the preliminary negotiations for it, had formed a design to make himself sovereign of the Provinces, it was Aerssens who charged himself with the scheme, and would have furthered it with all his might, had the project not met with opposition both from the Advocate and the Stadholder.
Subsequently it appeared probable that Maurice would not object to the sovereignty himself, and the Ambassador in Paris, with the King's consent, was not likely to prove himself hostile to the Prince's ambition.
"There is but this means alone," wrote Jeannini to Villeroy, "that can content him, although hitherto he has done like the rowers, who never look toward the place whither they wish to go." The attempt of the Prince to sound Barneveld on this subject through the Princess-Dowager has already been mentioned, and has much intrinsic probability.
Thenceforward, the republican form of government, the municipal oligarchies, began to consolidate their power.