very bad opinion of the Prince of Condé, as a man who sought nothing but his own greatness, to which they believed he was ready to sacrifice all his friends and every cause that he espoused. This settled Cromwell in that particular. He also found that the Cardinal had such spies on that prince, that he knew every message that had passed between them: therefore he would have no further correspondence with him: he said upon that to Stouppe _stultus est, et garrulus, et venditur a suis cardinali_[14].' Burnet's account of Stouppe's mission seems tolerably accurate[15]. The attitude of the French Protestants was such as he describes it to have been. The want of secrecy with which Condé's intrigues were conducted was a real obstacle to the negotiations. In his letters to Condé, Barrière himself says as much, and in one dated Aug. 14, 1654, he relates that Cromwell had complained to the Spanish Ambassador that Bordeaux was well acquainted with all his negotiations with Condé's agents. But the story that Condé offered to become a Protestant can scarcely be true. It was rather Cromwell who suggested that he should convert himself to Protestantism as a step to the political headship of the Huguenots. In a conversation on the affairs of the Protestants in France the Protector, according to Barrière's report, had said: 'A! s'il y avoit moyen que M. le Prince se fist de nostre religion, ce seroit le plus grand bien qui peust jamais arriver a nos eglises, car pour moy je le tiens le plus grand homme et le plus grand capitaine non seulement de nostre siecle, mais qui aye esté depuis longtemps: et il est malheureux d'estre enguagé avecque des gens qui ont si peu de soin de luy tenir les choses qu'ils luy ont promis[16].' Some eighteen months earlier Condé was reported to have spoken in somewhat similar terms of Cromwell, drinking his health openly at Antwerp, 'as the wisest, ablest and greatest commander in Europe[17].' But it may well be that the reports of the views of the French Protestants which Stouppe brought back from France changed Cromwell's views, and that a more intimate knowledge of French politics altered his estimate of the prince's capacity.