And this Barneveld knew.

Still it was better, so he thought, for the Netherlands that France should exist than that it should fall into utter decomposition.

France, though under the influence of Spain, and doubly allied by marriage contracts to Spain, was better than Spain itself in the place of France.

This seemed to be the only choice between two evils.
Should the whole weight of the States-General be thrown into the scale of the malcontent and mutinous princes against the established but tottering government of France, it was difficult to say how soon Spain might literally, as well as inferentially, reign in Paris.
Between the rebellion and the legitimate government, therefore, Barneveld did not hesitate.

France, corporate France, with which the Republic had bean so long in close and mutually advantageous alliance, and from whose late monarch she had received such constant and valuable benefits, was in the Advocate's opinion the only power to be recognised, Papal and Spanish though it was.