NEGOTIATING WITH PRINCES
minister, giving a number of instances in which important services which he had rendered had been passed over and forgotten. The minister having heard him, quietly replied that he had no one to blame but himself, and that if he had been as good a courtier as he was a brilliant diplomatist and faithful subject, he would have received the same advancement as those whose deserts were less, but that his sincerity was an obstacle to his good fortune, for his despatches were always full of distasteful truths which set the King's teeth on edge.The King's Teeth on Edge. For instance, when the French gained a victory he told the story faithfully and without regard for Spanish feelings in his despatches. Or if they set siege to a town, he would predict its certain fall unless help were sent. Or in another case, where an ally had expressed displeasure because the Spanish Court seemed likely not to keep faith with it, he insisted that the King should keep his word in language which was neither diplomatic nor persuasive, and all the while other Spanish negotiators in other parts of France, with better eye to their own interests, were informing the King that the French were decadent, that their armies were undisciplined and quite incapable of effective campaigning, and so on: to which the minister himself added that the King in Council could not too highly reward those who sent such good news, nor
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