Let Spain guarantee the Treaty of Xanten, he said, and then she cannot come back.
All else is illusion.

Moreover, the Emperor had given positive orders that Wesel should not be given up.

He was assured by Villeroy that France would never put on her harness for Aachen, that cradle of Protestantism.
That was for the States-General to do, whom it so much more nearly concerned.

The whole aim of Barneveld was not to destroy the Treaty of Xanten, but to enforce it in the only way in which it could be enforced, by the guarantee of Spain.

So secured, it would be a barrier in the universal war of religion which he foresaw was soon to break out.