Those who think that one may lay forcible hands upon a sovereign who has broken his word will easily persuade themselves that in a similar case no international law can protect the person of a mere minister; but those who are really well instructed in the law of nations and in the question of sovereign rights are of opinion that a foreign envoy being subject to the laws of the country where he lives it is not possible to put into motion against him the machinery of domestic justice, that the only redress for wrongs done by him is an appeal to his master, and that if his master refuses reparation the responsibility must lie with him and not on his minister abroad who merely executes his order. This privilege, be it remembered, extends not merely to the ambassadors themselves but often to their servants, as is illustrated in the following example. [Sidenote: _The Merargue Conspiracy._] King Henry IV., whom one may take as a model for princes, was warned by the Duke de Guise of the Merargue Conspiracy in which a Provençal squire named Merargue had entered into an arrangement with Dom Balthazar de Zuniga, the Spanish ambassador, to hand over the city of Marseilles to the Spaniards at a moment of profound peace. The King arrested not only Merargue, but also the private secretary to the Spanish ambassador, a man named Bruneau. Both were convicted of conspiracy. Merargue was executed, and the King handed over the private secretary to his own ambassador, saying that he would be glad to see Bruneau sent across the frontier, though he himself reserved the right to demand satisfaction from the Spanish King for Bruneau’s misdemeanour. [Sidenote: _Immunity a Function of Sovereignty._]