The States had gone as far as possible in concession.

To go farther would be to wreck the great cause upon the very quicksands which he had so ceaselessly pointed out.
"We hope that nothing further will be asked of us, no scruples be felt as to our good intentions," he said, "and that if Spain and the Archdukes are not ready now to fulfil the treaty, their Majesties will know how to resent this trifling with their authority and dignity, and how to set matters to rights with their own hands in the duchies.

A new treaty, still less a sequestration, is not to be thought of for a moment." Yet the month of August came and still the names of the mediating kings were not on the treaty, and still the spectre of sequestration had not been laid.

On the contrary, the peace of Asti, huddled up between Spain and Savoy, to be soon broken again, had caused new and painful apprehensions of an attempt at sequestration, for it was established by several articles in that treaty that all questions between Savoy and Mantua should be referred to the Emperor's decision.

This precedent was sure to be followed in the duchies if not resisted by force, as it had been so successfully resisted five years before by the armies of the States associated with those of France.