From Germany the faithful and far-sighted Schomberg earnestly urged the project and so artfully did he fulfil his mission that the elector palatine, the landgrave, and the archbishop of Cologne all espoused it.[1578] “The repose of the kingdom, the security of the state, the ruin of the great enemy of France, direct and firm alliance with the princes of Germany, the subversion of all the designs of the house of Austria, and the culmination of your desires, is in the hands of your majesty,” he wrote to Catherine on March 23.[1579] At last, after months of deliberation and delay, the threads of these tortuous negotiations were all drawn together at a secret interview of Catherine de Medici with Louis of Nassau at Blamont in Lorraine, in December, 1573.[1580] But there was yet another reason why the crown of France was desirous of closing the conflict at home, which goes far to explain the government’s willingness to compromise with La Rochelle. The throne of Poland had become vacant upon the death of Sigismund Augustus, the last of the Jagiello house, on July 7, 1572. The crown of Poland was an elective one, the suffrage being in the hands of the diet, composed solely of the two privileged orders. In the factional strife that too often ensued, the deadlock was sometimes broken by the election of an outside prince. This vicious and unnational policy triumphed in 1573. The Emperor, the King of Spain, and France had each a candidate. But Poland had no mind to experience the fate of Bohemia and pass under the suzerainty of the Hapsburgs. Spain, too, in the person of her ambassador, was deprived of a hearing and compelled to make overtures in writing. In this wise the way was cleared for French diplomacy. In the autumn of 1572, Charles IX had been sounded by the Poles as to the candidacy of the duke of Anjou and had intimated the conditions to be expected.[1581] On December 19, the secretary of the bishop of Valence, the French agent who had been hastily dispatched to Poland, arrived in Paris, and gave great hope for the election of the duke of Anjou, though the Polish diet had not met yet on account of the plague.[1582]