The condition precedent to those marriages had long been known.

It was the renunciation of the alliance between France and Holland.

It was the condemnation to death, so far as France had the power to condemn her to death, of the young Republic.

Had not Don Pedro de Toledo pompously announced this condition a year and a half before?
Had not Henry spurned the bribe with scorn?
And now had not Francis Aerssens been the first to communicate to his masters the fruit which had already ripened upon Henry's grave?
As we have seen, he had revealed these intrigues long before they were known to the world, and the French court knew that he had revealed them.

His position had become untenable.