better of his adversary, that he needs no longer any oppressive means to ruin him.
Cornelius did not accept of this hypocritical protection, and in a last answer, which he set forth with the noble bearing of a martyr, and the calm serenity of a righteous man, he said:—
“You ask me things, gentlemen, to which I can answer only the exact truth. Hear it. The parcel was put into my hands, in the way I have described; I vow before God, that I was, and am still, ignorant of its contents, and that it was not until my arrest that I learned that this deposit was the correspondence of the Grand Pensionary with the Marquis de Louvois. And, lastly, I vow and protest, that I do not understand how any one should have known that this parcel was in my house; and, above all, how I can be deemed criminal for having received what my illustrious and unfortunate godfather brought to my house.”
This was Van Baerle’s whole defence, after which the judges began to deliberate on the verdict.
They considered that every offshoot of civil discord is mischievous, because it revives the contest which it is the interest of all to put down.
One of them, who bore the character of a profound observer, laid down as his opinion that this young man, so phlegmatic in appearance, must in reality be very dangerous, as, under this icy exterior, he was sure to conceal an ardent desire to revenge his friends the De Wittes.
Another observed, that the love of tulips agreed perfectly well with that of politics, and that it was proved in history that many very dangerous men were engaged in gardening, just as if it had been their profession, whilst really they occupied themselves with perfectly different concerns; witness Tarquin the Elder, who grew poppies at Gabii, and the Great Condé, who watered
