In France, where the Advocate was honoured and beloved, the intelligence excited profound sorrow. A few weeks previously the government of that country had, as we have seen, sent a special ambassador to the States, M. de Boississe, to aid the resident envoy, du Maurier, in his efforts to bring about a reconciliation of parties and a termination of the religious feud. Their exertions were sincere and unceasing. They were as steadily countermined by Francis Aerssens, for the aim of that diplomatist was to bring about a state of bad feeling, even at cost of rupture, between the Republic and France, because France was friendly to the man he most hated and whose ruin he had sworn. During the summer a bitter personal controversy had been going on, sufficiently vulgar in tone, between Aerssens and another diplomatist, Barneveld's son-in-law, Cornelis van der Myle. It related to the recall of Aerssens from the French embassy of which enough has already been laid before the reader. Van der Myle by the production of the secret letters of the Queen-Dowager and her counsellors had proved beyond dispute that it was at the express wish of the French government that the Ambassador had retired, and that indeed they had distinctly refused to receive him, should he return. Foul words resulting in propositions for a hostile meeting on the frontier, which however came to nothing, were interchanged and Aerssens in the course of his altercation with the son-inlaw had found ample opportunity for venting his spleen upon his former patron the now fallen statesman. Four days after the arrest of Barneveld he brought the whole matter before the States-General, and the intention with which he thus raked up the old quarrel with France after the death of Henry, and his charges in regard to the Spanish marriages, was as obvious as it was deliberate. The French ambassadors were furious. Boississe had arrived not simply as friend of the Advocate, but to assure the States of the strong desire entertained by the French government to cultivate warmest relations with them. It had been desired by the Contra-Remonstrant party that deputies from the Protestant churches of France should participate in the Synod, and the French king had been much assailed by the Catholic powers for listening to those suggestions. The Papal nuncius, the Spanish ambassador, the envoy of the Archduke, had made a great disturbance at court concerning the mission of Boississe. They urged with earnestness that his Majesty was acting against the sentiments of Spain, Rome, and the whole Catholic Church, and that he ought not to assist with his counsel those heretics who were quarrelling among themselves over points in their heretical religion and wishing to destroy each other.