Madame my dear sister,

Since my last letters of 6 May I have received several letters, to wit of the 4th and 29th of the same month brought by baron of Montigny and of 21 June and the 7th inst., with a duplicate of the one of the 4th which the marquis of Bergen, who has not yet arrived, was commissioned to bring me. All of them tell me of the great troubles and disturbances stirred up in the Netherlands to my regret, on the pretext of religion, after some confederates presented to you a petition in which they called the inquisition in question and asked to abolish the religious edicts and to draft others in collaboration with the States General, and to suspend the execution of both inquisition and edicts until I shall have made my decision. In these letters you also described to me the great danger and troubles into which the country would otherwise undoubtedly fall, as well as the daily increase in the numbers of the confederates and the boldness which the heretics and the sectarians have lately been displaying.