The French king made a solemn renunciation of every succession which might accrue to him in right of his consort; a vain formality, too weak to restrain the ungoverned ambition of princes.
The affairs of England were in so great disorder, that it was not possible to comprehend that kingdom in the treaty, or adjust measures with a power which was in such incessant fluctuation.

The king, reduced to despair by the failure of all enterprises for his restoration, was resolved to try the weak resource of foreign succors; and he went to the Pyrenees at the time when the two ministers were in the midst of their negotiations.

Don Louis received him with that generous civility peculiar to his nation; and expressed great inclination, had the low condition of Spain allowed him, to give assistance to the distressed monarch.

The cautious Mazarine, pleading the alliance of France with the English commonwealth, refused even to see him; and though the king offered to marry the cardinal's niece,[*] he could for the present obtain nothing but empty profusions of respect and protestations of services.

The condition of that monarch, to all the world, seemed totally desperate.
* King James's Memoirs.
His friends had been baffled in every attempt for his service: the scaffold had often streamed with the blood of the more active royalists: the spirits of many were broken with tedious imprisonments: the estates of all were burdened by the fines and confiscations which had been levied upon them: no one durst openly avow himself of that party: and so small did their number seem to a superficial view, that, even should the nation recover its liberty, which was deemed nowise probable, it was judged uncertain what form of government it would embrace.