Of this credulity it seems to be no inconsiderable testimony, that some affected nicety which James had shown with regard to the ceremonies to be used towards the French ambassador, was highly magnified, and represented to be an indication of the different tone that was to be taken by the present king, in regard to foreign powers, and particularly to the court of Versailles. The king was represented as a prince eminently jealous of the national honour, and determined to preserve the balance of power in Europe, by opposing the ambitious projects of France at the very time when he was supplicating Louis to be his pensioner, and expressing the most extravagant gratitude for having been accepted as such. From the information which we now have, it appears that his applications to Louis for money were incessant, and that the difficulties were all on the side of the French court. Of the historians who wrote prior to the inspection of the papers in the foreign office in France, Burnet is the only one who seems to have known that James's pretensions of independency with respect to the French king were (as he terms them) only a show; but there can now be no reason to doubt the truth of the anecdote which he relates, that Louis soon after told the Duke of Villeroy, that if James showed any apparent uneasiness concerning the balance of power (and there is some reason to suppose he did) in his conversations with the Spanish and other foreign ambassadors, his intention was, probably, to alarm the court of Versailles, and thereby to extort pecuniary assistance to a greater extent; while, on the other hand, Louis, secure in the knowledge that his views of absolute power must continue him in dependence upon France, seems to have refused further supplies, and even in some measure to have withdrawn those which had been stipulated, as a mark of his displeasure with his dependant, for assuming a higher tone than he thought becoming.