They took six month from the opening of the congress to decide how the delegates were to sit and who were to go into the rooms first. ... The French ambassadors were not very gifted. Claude de Mesmes, Marquis d'Avaux, ... Intolerably haughty and easily offended... The third French ambassador ... had been sent merely to add lustre to the embassy and to keep him out of mischief in France.
The chief of [Swedish ambassadors] Johan Oxenstierna had no claim to his position at all save that of being the son of Axel Oxenstierna; he was a large, red-faced, rather stupid man, easily rattled, very haughty, too fond of wine and women.
The Spanish ambassador, Count Guzman de Peñaranda, was not remarkable for his intelligence. ... gained reputation for being impulsive and deceitful. He had, strongly marked, the Spanish tendency to strain over details and miss the main issue.
The congress had been sitting for nearly a year when the delegates found that they were still in doubt as to subjecta belligerantia.
The Thirty Years War, Chapter Eleven, Towards Peace
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