Conferences began on 22 April. The treaty of alliance and confederation was concluded at Compiegne on 10 June 1624. French commissioners: Constable Lesdiguieres, the Marquis de La Vieuville, superintendent of finances, and Bullion. Ambassadors of the States General: Hendrik van Essen, Nicolaes de Bouchorst, Adriaen Pauw, Gedeon de Boetzelaer. Frederick Henry did not sign the protocol; ratification came from the States General on 12 July, at The Hague, and from Louis XIII on 4 September. Richelieu, in the council since April, was the architect of the policy: isolate Spain without open war.

Three years, so long as the war lasts. A loan from the king to the States, to be repaid after a peace or truce with Spain, and only with the king's advice. If the king needed money or went to war, the Dutch would give him half the sum, or men and ships. First payment: 480,000 thalers. Within six months the States would guarantee the western Mediterranean against the corsairs of Algiers and Tunis, and restore French ships and goods found in Dutch ports. Admiralty commissioners, with no interest in the prizes, would judge French claims within three months. A special article: Catholic worship, in the house of the French ambassador in the Netherlands.

Article 5, from the ratification kept at The Hague: traffic of the East and West Indies shall be treated on the spot by His Majesty's ambassador, according to the memoirs and instructions given him. The Dutch West India Company dates from 1621; the French wanted the East as well. After Amboyna, 1623, the States refused. Richelieu writes in his Memoires, wrongly, that the Dutch promised assistance to French merchants in the Indies; the Mercure Francois repeats the same false account.

The Anglo-Dutch alliance, 5 June, three days earlier: James I, 6,000 men, two years. In 1625 the mutual-defence clause was used at La Rochelle: the twenty ships allocated for Genoa, against the Huguenots. Willem Haultain de Zoete received secret orders in December to withdraw; he left in February 1626. France bought six ships, the right in the treaty.

This is not the Treaty of Compiegne of 1635, with Sweden, and not 867. The cover is Richelieu, by Philippe de Champaigne.

Sources: Treaty of Compiègne (1624); Treaty between the United Netherlands and France, concluded at Compiegne, June 10, 1624.