It was not unnatural that he should feel promptings of ambition and sympathy difficult to avow even to himself, and that he should feel resentment against the man by whom this secret policy was traversed in the well-considered interest of the Republican government.
Aerssens, who, with the keen instinct of self-advancement was already attaching himself to Maurice as to the wheels of the chariot going steadily up the hill, was not indisposed to loosen his hold upon the man through whose friendship he had first risen, and whose power was now perhaps on the decline.

Moreover, events had now caused him to hate the French government with much fervour.

With Henry IV.

he had been all-powerful.

His position had been altogether exceptional, and he had wielded an influence at Paris more than that exerted by any foreign ambassador.