VAN HORNE (WILLEM ADRIAAN). Autograph letter... - Lot 25 - Osenat

Lot 25
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300 - 400 EUR
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Result : 455EUR
VAN HORNE (WILLEM ADRIAAN). Autograph letter... - Lot 25 - Osenat
VAN HORNE (WILLEM ADRIAAN). Autograph letter signed, mostly figured, [addressed TO THE CARDINAL OF MAZARIN]. "From the camp before Ipre," September 17 [1658]. 4 pp. in-4. Count Van Horne has indicated in the margin: "Monsieur de Turene has done me the grace of lending me his cipher" ON A MISSION FOR TURENNE AND THE UNITED PROVINCES. France, at war with Spain and allied to Oliver Cromwell's England, had won the important victory of the Dunes in Flanders over Philip IV's troops (June 1658). While negotiations dragged on between the belligerents (the peace of the Pyrenees would not be signed until November 1659), France again proposed to the United Provinces the old project, conceived twenty years earlier by Cardinal de Richelieu, of an independent Republic of the Netherlands under Franco-Dutch control. It was in this context that Count Van Horne, a Dutch officer in the service of France, carried out diplomatic missions to the United Provinces in 1658 at Turenne's request. "I would have gone in person to give account to V[ostre] E[minence] of the things of which She made me the grace to honor me, if it were not that monsr d'Estrade [the count Godefroi d'Estrades, future marshal of France], knowing all the detail of the business, and which will have more soon the honor to see V[ostre] E[minence] that I can have, will inform him entirely and even, believing it necessary not to distance myself from this country since the season is already so far advanced and that one must not lose any time if one wants to make the plan of this campaign succeed, I would have remained [encrypted text :] in Holland to bring the final resolution, but THE ESTATZ [OF THE UNITED PROVINCES] M'ONT FAIT PARTIR EN TOUTE DILIGENCE POUR VENIR TROUVER M. DE TURENNE AND TO INFORM ME FROM HIM IF THE COURT WAS STILL IN THE SAME SENTIMENTS, HAVING REASON TO DOUBT IT CONSIDERING THE DIFFICULTIES THAT THE RESIDENT OF ENGLAND WAS MAKING, SAYING THAT IT WAS IN NO WAY IN THE INTEREST OF THE PROTECTOR [OLIVER CROMWELL], IT BEING NECESSARY FOR HIM TO HAVE A WAR AND THAT HE COULD NOT HAVE ONE THAT WAS MORE CONVENIENT THAN THAT OF FLANDERS IN ORDER TO PURGE HIMSELF OF HIS BAD BLOOD. These Estates concluded that since V[ostre] E[minen]ce had communicated the plan to the Protector, she would not execute it without his approval. The affair was nevertheless conducted to such an extent that they gave us commissioners on the pretext of Sweden and Dannemark to deal with it with all imaginable secrecy, and even charged me with inquiring whether V[ostre] Em[inen]ce was willing to carry out the plan without England's agreement, So much so that if she consents or does not consent, provided that V[ostre] Em[inen]ce sees fit to do so, some vigorous resolution will be taken in these countries. The return of Dom Esteven de Gamarra [the Spanish soldier and diplomat Esteban de Gamarra Contreras y de la Torre] to Holland will be of little use to them, for the good conduct of M. de Thou [Jacques-Auguste de Thou, French ambassador to the United Provinces] and the zeal of his friends in these countries, where they are entirely devoted to him, will easily destroy all these actions. [Unencrypted text:] However, I will stop with Monsieur de Turene until V[ostre] E[minence], or he, will do me the honor of ordering me to meet again in my country to conclude an affair which is so well prepared that it will only be up to V[ostre] E[minence], if it does not succeed... ".
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