Such were the splendid diplomatic processions often received by the stately Advocate in his plain civic garb, when grave international questions were to be publicly discussed.
There was much murmuring in France when the appointment of a personage comparatively so humble to a position so important was known.

It was considered as a blow aimed directly at the malcontent princes of the blood, who were at that moment plotting their first levy of arms against the Queen.

Du Maurier had been ill-treated by the Due de Bouillon, who naturally therefore now denounced the man whom he had injured to the government to which he was accredited.

Being the agent of Mary de' Medici, he was, of course, described as a tool of the court and a secret pensioner of Spain.

He was to plot with the arch traitor Barneveld as to the best means for distracting the Provinces and bringing them back into Spanish subjection.