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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1572
+#19 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
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+Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1572
+
+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4819]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 19, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1572 ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger
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+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
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+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 19.
+
+THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+1855
+
+
+
+1572 [CHAPTER VII.]
+
+     Municipal revolution throughout Holland and Zealand--Characteristics
+     of the movement in various places--Sonoy commissioned by Orange as
+     governor of North Holland--Theory of the provisional government--
+     Instructions of the Prince to his officers--Oath prescribed--Clause
+     of toleration--Surprise of Mons by Count Louis--Exertions of Antony
+     Oliver--Details of the capture--Assembly of the citizens--Speeches
+     of Genlis and of Count Louis--Effect of the various movements upon
+     Alva--Don Frederic ordered to invest Mons--The Duke's impatience to
+     retire--Arrival of Medina Coeli--His narrow escape--Capture of the
+     Lisbon fleet--Affectation of cordiality between Alva and Medina--
+     Concessions by King and Viceroy on the subject of the tenth penny--
+     Estates of Holland assembled, by summons of Orange, at Dort--Appeals
+     from the Prince to this congress for funds to pay his newly levied
+     army--Theory of the provisional States' assembly--Source and nature
+     of its authority--Speech of St. Aldegonde--Liberality of the estates
+     and the provinces--Pledges exchanged between the Prince's
+     representative and the Congress--Commission to De la Marck ratified
+     --Virtual dictatorship of Orange--Limitation of his power by his own
+     act--Count Louis at Mons--Reinforcements led from France by Genlis--
+     Rashness of that officer--His total defeat--Orange again in the
+     field--Rocrmond taken--Excesses of the patriot army--Proclamation of
+     Orange, commanding respect to all personal and religious rights--His
+     reply to the Emperor's summons--His progress in the Netherlands--
+     Hopes entertained from France--Reinforcements under Coligny promised
+     to Orange by Charles IX.--The Massacre of St.  Bartholomew--The
+     event characterized--Effect in England, in Rome, and in other parts
+     of Europe--Excessive hilarity of Philip--Extravagant encomium
+     bestowed by him upon Charles IX.--Order sent by Philip to put all
+     French prisoners in the Netherlands to Death--Secret correspondence
+     of Charles IX. with his envoy in the Netherlands--Exultation of the
+     Spaniards before Mons--Alva urged by the French envoy, according to
+     his master's commands, to put all the Frenchmen in Mons, and those
+     already captured, to death--Effect of the massacre upon the Prince
+     of Orange--Alva and Medina in the camp before Mons--Hopelessness of
+     the Prince's scheme to obtain battle from Alva--Romero's encamisada
+     --Narrow escape of the prince--Mutiny and dissolution of his army--
+     His return to Holland--His steadfastness--Desperate position of
+     Count Louis in Mons--Sentiments of Alva--Capitulation of Mons--
+     Courteous reception of Count Louis by the Spanish generals--
+     Hypocrisy of these demonstrations--Nature of the Mons capitulation--
+     Horrible violation of its terms--Noircarmes at Mons--Establishment
+     of a Blood Council in the city--Wholesale executions--Cruelty and
+     cupidity of Noircarmes--Late discovery of the archives of these
+     crimes--Return of the revolted cities of Brabant and Flanders to
+     obedience--Sack of Mechlin by the Spaniards--Details of that event.
+
+
+The example thus set by Brill and Flushing was rapidly followed.  The
+first half of the year 1572 was distinguished by a series of triumphs
+rendered still more remarkable by the reverses which followed at its
+close.  Of a sudden, almost as it were by accident, a small but important
+sea-port, the object for which the Prince had so long been hoping, was
+secured.  Instantly afterward, half the island of Walcheren renounced the
+yoke of Alva, Next, Enkbuizen, the key to the Zuyder Zee, the principal
+arsenal, and one of the first commercial cities in the Netherlands, rose
+against the Spanish Admiral, and hung out the banner of Orange on its
+ramparts.  The revolution effected here was purely the work of the
+people--of the mariners and burghers of the city.  Moreover, the
+magistracy was set aside and the government of Alva repudiated without
+shedding one drop of blood, without a single wrong to person or property.
+By the same spontaneous movement, nearly all the important cities of
+Holland and Zealand raised the standard of him in whom they recognized
+their deliverer.  The revolution was accomplished under nearly similar
+circumstances everywhere.  With one fierce bound of enthusiasm the nation
+shook off its chain.  Oudewater, Dort, Harlem, Leyden, Gorcum,
+Loewenstein, Gouda, Medenblik, Horn, Alkmaar, Edam, Monnikendam,
+Purmerende, as well as Flushing, Veer, and Enkbuizen, all ranged
+themselves under the government of Orange, as lawful stadholder for the
+King.
+
+Nor was it in Holland and Zealand alone that the beacon fires of freedom
+were lighted.  City after city in Gelderland, Overyssel, and the See of
+Utrecht; all the important towns of Friesland, some sooner, some later,
+some without a struggle, some after a short siege, some with resistance
+by the functionaries of government, some by amicable compromise, accepted
+the garrisons of the Prince, and formally recognized his authority.  Out
+of the chaos which a long and preternatural tyranny had produced, the
+first struggling elements of a new and a better world began to appear.
+It were superfluous to narrate the details which marked the sudden
+restoration of liberty in these various groups of cities.  Traits of
+generosity marked the change of government in some, circumstances of
+ferocity, disfigured the revolution in others.  The island of Walcheren,
+equally divided as it was between the two parties, was the scene of much
+truculent and diabolical warfare.  It is difficult to say whether the
+mutual hatred of race or the animosity of religious difference proved the
+deadlier venom.  The combats were perpetual and sanguinary, the prisoners
+on both sides instantly executed.  On more than one occasion; men were
+seen assisting to hang with their own hands and in cold blood their own
+brothers, who had been taken prisoners in the enemy's ranks.  When the
+captives were too many to be hanged, they were tied back to back, two and
+two, and thus hurled into the sea.  The islanders found a fierce pleasure
+in these acts of cruelty.  A Spaniard had ceased to be human in their
+eyes.  On one occasion, a surgeon at Veer cut the heart from a Spanish
+prisoner, nailed it on a vessel's prow; and invited the townsmen to come
+and fasten their teeth in it, which many did with savage satisfaction.
+
+In other parts of the country the revolution was, on the whole,
+accomplished with comparative calmness.  Even traits of generosity were
+not uncommon.  The burgomaster of Gonda, long the supple slave of Alva
+and the Blood Council, fled for his life as the revolt broke forth in
+that city.  He took refuge in the house of a certain widow, and begged
+for a place of concealment.  The widow led him to a secret closet which
+served as a pantry.  "Shall I be secure there?"  asked the fugitive
+functionary.  "O yes, sir Burgomaster," replied the widow, "'t was in
+that very place that my husband lay concealed when you, accompanied by
+the officers of justice, were searching the house, that you might bring
+him to the scaffold for his religion.  Enter the pantry, your worship; I
+will be responsible for your safety."  Thus faithfully did the humble
+widow of a hunted and murdered Calvinist protect the life of the
+magistrate who had brought desolation to her hearth.
+
+Not all the conquests thus rapidly achieved in the cause of liberty were
+destined to endure, nor were any to be, retained without a struggle.  The
+little northern cluster of republics which had now restored its honor to
+the ancient Batavian name was destined, however, for a long and vigorous
+life.  From that bleak isthmus the light of freedom was to stream through
+many years upon struggling humanity in Europe; a guiding pharos across a
+stormy sea; and Harlem, Leyden, Alkmaar--names hallowed by deeds of
+heroism such as have not often illustrated human annals, still breathe as
+trumpet-tongued and perpetual a defiance to despotism as Marathon,
+Thermopylae, or Salamis.
+
+A new board of magistrates had been chosen in all the redeemed cities, by
+popular election.  They were required to take an oath of fidelity to the
+King of Spain, and to the Prince of Orange as his stadholder; to promise
+resistance to the Duke of Alva, the tenth penny, and the inquisition;
+to support every man's freedom and the welfare of the country; to protect
+widows, orphans, and miserable persons, and to maintain justice and
+truth.
+
+Diedrich Sonoy arrived on the 2nd June at Enkbuizen.  He was provided by
+the Prince with a commission, appointing him Lieutenant-Governor of North
+Holland or Waterland.  Thus, to combat the authority of Alva was set up
+the authority of the King.  The stadholderate over Holland and Zealand,
+to which the Prince had been appointed in 1559, he now reassumed.  Upon
+this fiction reposed the whole provisional polity of the revolted
+Netherlands.  The government, as it gradually unfolded itself, from this
+epoch forward until the declaration of independence and the absolute
+renunciation of the Spanish sovereign power, will be sketched in a future
+chapter.  The people at first claimed not an iota more of freedom than
+was secured by Philip's coronation oath.  There was no pretence that
+Philip was not sovereign, but there was a pretence and a determination to
+worship God according to conscience, and to reclaim the ancient political
+"liberties" of the land.  So long as Alva reigned, the Blood Council, the
+inquisition, and martial law, were the only codes or courts, and every
+charter slept.  To recover this practical liberty and these historical
+rights, and to shake from their shoulders a most sanguinary government,
+was the purpose of William and of the people.  No revolutionary standard
+was displayed.
+
+The written instructions given by the Prince to his Lieutenant Sonoy were
+to "see that the Word of God was preached, without, however, suffering
+any hindrance to the Roman Church in the exercise of its religion; to
+restore fugitives and the banished for conscience sake, and to require of
+all magistrates and officers of guilds and brotherhoods an oath of
+fidelity."  The Prince likewise prescribed the form of that oath,
+repeating therein, to his eternal honor, the same strict prohibition
+of intolerance.  "Likewise," said the formula, "shall those of 'the
+religion' offer no let or hindrance to the Roman churches."
+
+The Prince was still in Germany, engaged in raising troops and providing
+funds.  He directed; however, the affairs of the insurgent provinces in
+their minutest details, by virtue of the dictatorship inevitably forced
+upon him both by circumstances and by the people.  In the meantime; Louis
+of Nassau, the Bayard of the Netherlands, performed a most unexpected and
+brilliant exploit.  He had been long in France, negotiating with the
+leaders of the Huguenots, and, more secretly, with the court.  He was
+supposed by all the world to be still in that kingdom, when the startling
+intelligence arrived that he had surprised and captured the important
+city of Mons.  This town, the capital of Hainault, situate in a fertile,
+undulating, and beautiful country, protected by lofty walls, a triple
+moat, and a strong citadel, was one of the most flourishing and elegant
+places in the Netherlands.  It was, moreover, from its vicinity to the
+frontiers of France; a most important acquisition to the insurgent party.
+The capture was thus accomplished.  A native of Mons, one Antony Oliver,
+a geographical painter, had insinuated himself into the confidence of
+Alva, for whom he had prepared at different times some remarkably well-
+executed maps of the country.  Having occasion to visit France, he was
+employed by the Duke to keep a watch upon the movements of Louis of
+Nassau, and to make a report as to the progress of his intrigues with the
+court of France.  The painter, however, was only a spy in disguise, being
+in reality devoted to the cause of freedom, and a correspondent of Orange
+and his family.  His communications with Louis, in Paris, had therefore a
+far different result from the one anticipated by Alva.  A large number of
+adherents within the city of Mons had already been secured, and a plan
+was now arranged between Count Louis, Genlis, De la Noue, and other
+distinguished Huguenot chiefs, to be carried out with the assistance of
+the brave and energetic artist.
+
+On the 23rd of May, Oliver appeared at the gates of Mons, accompanied by
+three wagons, ostensibly containing merchandise, but in reality laden
+with arquebusses.  These were secretly distributed among his confederates
+in the city.  In the course of the day Count Louis arrived in the
+neighbourhood, accompanied by five hundred horsemen and a thousand foot
+soldiers.  This force he stationed in close concealment within the thick
+forests between Maubeuge and Mons.  Towards evening he sent twelve of the
+most trusty and daring of his followers, disguised as wine merchants,
+into the city.  These individuals proceeded boldly to a public house,
+ordered their supper, and while conversing with the landlord, carelessly
+inquired at what hour next morning the city gates would be opened.  They
+were informed that the usual hour was four in the morning, but that a
+trifling present to the porter would ensure admission, if they desired
+it, at an earlier hour.  They explained their inquiries by a statement
+that they had some casks of wine which they wished to introduce into the
+city before sunrise.  Having obtained all the information which they
+needed, they soon afterwards left the tavern.  The next day they
+presented themselves very early at the gate, which the porter, on promise
+of a handsome "drink-penny," agreed to unlock.  No sooner were the bolts
+withdrawn, however, than he was struck dead, while about fifty dragoons
+rode through the gate.  The Count and his followers now galloped over the
+city in the morning twilight, shouting "France!  liberty!  the town is
+ours!"  "The Prince is coming!"  "Down with the tenth penny; down with
+the murderous Alva!"  So soon as a burgher showed his wondering face at
+the window, they shot at him with their carbines.  They made as much
+noise, and conducted themselves as boldly as if they had been at least a
+thousand strong.
+
+Meantime, however, the streets remained empty; not one of their secret
+confederates showing himself.  Fifty men could surprise, but were too few
+to keep possession of the city.  The Count began to suspect a trap.  As
+daylight approached the alarm spread; the position of the little band was
+critical.  In his impetuosity, Louis had far outstripped his army, but
+they had been directed to follow hard upon his footsteps, and he was
+astonished that their arrival was so long delayed.  The suspense becoming
+intolerable, he rode out of the city in quest of his adherents, and found
+them wandering in the woods, where they had completely lost their way.
+Ordering each horseman to take a foot soldier on the crupper behind him,
+he led them rapidly back to Mons.  On the way they were encountered by La
+Noue, "with the iron arm," and Genlis, who, meantime, had made an
+unsuccessful attack to recover Valenciennes, which within a few hours had
+been won and lost again.  As they reached the gates of Mons, they found
+themselves within a hair's breadth of being too late; their adherents
+had not come forth; the citizens had been aroused; the gates were all
+fast but one--and there the porter was quarrelling with a French soldier
+about an arquebuss.  The drawbridge across the moat was at the moment
+rising; the last entrance was closing, when Guitoy de Chaumont, a French
+officer, mounted on a light Spanish barb, sprang upon the bridge as it
+rose.  His weight caused it to sink again, the gate was forced, and Louis
+with all his men rode triumphantly into the town.
+
+The citizens were forthwith assembled by sound of bell in the market-
+place.  The clergy, the magistracy, and the general council were all
+present.  Genlis made the first speech, in which he disclaimed all
+intention of making conquests in the interest of France.  This pledge
+having been given, Louis of Nassau next addressed the assembly: "The
+magistrates," said he, "have not understoood my intentions.  I protest
+that I am no rebel to the King; I prove it by asking no new oaths
+from any man.  Remain bound by your old oaths of allegiance; let the
+magistrates continue to exercise their functions--to administer justice.
+I imagine that no person will suspect a brother of the Prince of Orange
+capable of any design against the liberties of the country.  As to the
+Catholic religion, I take it under my very particular protection.  You
+will ask why I am in Mons at the head of an armed force: are any of you
+ignorant of Alva's cruelties?  The overthrow of this tyrant is as much
+the interest of the King as of the people, therefore there is nothing in
+my present conduct inconsistent with fidelity to his Majesty.  Against
+Alva alone I have taken up arms; 'tis to protect you against his fury
+that I am here.  It is to prevent the continuance of a general rebellion
+that I make war upon him.  The only proposition which I have to make to
+you is this--I demand that you declare Alva de Toledo a traitor to the
+King, the executioner of the people, an enemy to the country, unworthy of
+the government, and hereby deprived of his authority."
+
+The magistracy did not dare to accept so bold a proposition; the general
+council, composing the more popular branch of the municipal government,
+were comparatively inclined to favor Nassau, and many of its members
+voted for the downfall of the tyrant.  Nevertheless the demands of Count
+Louis were rejected.  His position thus became critical.  The civic
+authorities refused to, pay for his troops, who were, moreover, too few,
+in number to resist the inevitable siege.  The patriotism of the citizens
+was not to be repressed, however, by the authority, of the magistrates;
+many rich proprietors of the great cloth and silk manufactories, for
+which Mons was famous, raised, and armed companies at their own expense;
+many volunteer troops were also speedily organized and drilled, and the
+fortifications were put in order.  No attempt was made to force the
+reformed religion upon the inhabitants, and even Catholics who were
+discovered in secret correspondence with the enemy were treated with such
+extreme gentleness by Nassau as to bring upon him severe reproaches from
+many of his own party.
+
+A large collection of ecclesiastical plate, jewellery, money, and other
+valuables, which had been sent to the city for safe keeping from the
+churches and convents of the provinces, was seized, and thus, with little
+bloodshed and no violence; was the important city secured for the
+insurgents.  Three days afterwards, two thousand infantry, chiefly
+French, arrived in the place.  In the early part of the following month
+Louis was still further strengthened by the arrival of thirteen hundred
+foot and twelve hundred horsemen, under command of Count Montgomery, the
+celebrated officer, whose spear at the tournament had proved fatal to
+Henry the Second.  Thus the Duke of Alva suddenly found himself exposed
+to a tempest of revolution.  One thunderbolt after another seemed
+descending around him in breathless succession.  Brill and Flushing had
+been already lost; Middelburg was so closely invested that its fall
+seemed imminent, and with it would go the whole island of Walcheren, the
+key to all the Netherlands.  In one morning he had heard of the revolt of
+Enkbuizen and of the whole Waterland; two hours later came the news of
+the Valenciennes rebellion, and next day the astonishing capture of Mons.
+One disaster followed hard upon another.  He could have sworn that the
+detested Louis of Nassau, who had dealt this last and most fatal stroke,
+was at that moment in Paris, safely watched by government emissaries; and
+now he had, as it were, suddenly started out of the earth, to deprive him
+of this important city, and to lay bare the whole frontier to the
+treacherous attacks of faithless France.  He refused to believe the
+intelligence when it was first announced to him, and swore that he had
+certain information that Count Louis had been seen playing in the tennis-
+court at Paris, within so short a period as to make his presence in
+Hainault at that moment impossible.  Forced, at last, to admit the truth
+of the disastrous news, he dashed his hat upon the ground in a fury,
+uttering imprecations upon the Queen Dowager of France, to whose
+perfidious intrigues he ascribed the success of the enterprise, and
+pledging himself to send her Spanish thistles, enough in return for the
+Florentine lilies which she had thus bestowed upon him.
+
+In the midst of the perplexities thus thickening around him, the Duke
+preserved his courage, if not his temper.  Blinded, for a brief season,
+by the rapid attacks made upon him, he had been uncertain whither to
+direct his vengeance.  This last blow in so vital a quarter determined
+him at once.  He forthwith despatched Don Frederic to undertake the siege
+of Mons, and earnestly set about raising large reinforcements to his
+army.  Don Frederic took possession, without much opposition, of the
+Bethlehem cloister in the immediate vicinity of the city, and with four
+thousand troops began the investment in due form.
+
+Alva had, for a long time, been most impatient to retire from the
+provinces.  Even he was capable of human emotions.  Through the sevenfold
+panoply of his pride he had been pierced by the sharpness of a nation's
+curse.  He was wearied with the unceasing execrations which assailed his
+ears.  "The hatred which the people bear me," said he, in a letter to
+Philip, "because of the chastisement which it has been necessary for me
+to inflict, although with all the moderation in the world, make all my
+efforts vain.  A successor will meet more sympathy and prove more
+useful."  On the 10th June, the Duke of Medina Coeli; with a fleet of
+more than forty sail, arrived off Blankenburg, intending to enter the
+Scheld.  Julian Romero, with two thousand Spaniards, was also on board
+the fleet.  Nothing, of course, was known to the new comers of the
+altered condition of affairs in the Netherlands, nor of the unwelcome
+reception which they were like to meet in Flushing.  A few of the lighter
+craft having been taken by the patriot cruisers, the alarm was spread
+through all the fleet.  Medina Coeli, with a few transports, was enabled
+to effect his escape to Sluys, whence he hastened to Brussels in a much
+less ceremonious manner than he had originally contemplated.  Twelve
+Biscayan ships stood out to sea, descried a large Lisbon fleet, by a
+singular coincidence, suddenly heaving in sight, changed their course
+again, and with a favoring breeze bore boldly up the Hond; passed
+Flushing in spite of a severe cannonade from the forts, and eventually
+made good their entrance into Rammekens, whence the soldiery, about one-
+half of whom had thus been saved, were transferred at a very critical
+moment to Middelburg.
+
+The great Lisbon fleet followed in the wake of the Biscayans, with much
+inferior success.  Totally ignorant of the revolution which had occurred
+in the Ise of Walclieren, it obeyed the summons of the rebel fort to come
+to anchor, and, with the exception of three or four, the vessels were all
+taken.  It was the richest booty which the insurgents had yet acquired by
+sea or land.  The fleet was laden with spices, money, jewellery, and the
+richest merchandize.  Five hundred thousand crowns of gold were taken,
+and it was calculated that the plunder altogether would suffice to
+maintain the war for two years at least.  One thousand Spanish soldiers,
+and a good amount of ammunition, were also captured.  The unexpected
+condition of affairs made a pause natural and almost necessary, before
+the government could be decorously transferred.  Medina Coeli with
+Spanish grandiloquence, avowed his willingness to serve as a soldier,
+under a general whom he so much venerated, while Alva ordered that, in
+all respects, the same outward marks of respect should be paid to his
+appointed successor as to himself.  Beneath all this external ceremony,
+however, much mutual malice was concealed.
+
+Meantime, the Duke, who was literally "without a single real," was forced
+at last to smother his pride in the matter of the tenth penny.  On the
+24th June, he summoned the estates of Holland to assemble on the 15th of
+the ensuing month.  In the missive issued for this purpose, he formally
+agreed to abolish the whole tax, on condition that the estates-general of
+the Netherlands would furnish him with a yearly supply of two millions of
+florins.  Almost at the same moment the King had dismissed the deputies
+of the estates from Madrid, with the public assurance that the tax was to
+be suspended, and a private intimation that it was not abolished in
+terms, only in order to save the dignity of the Duke.
+
+These healing measures came entirely too late.  The estates of Holland
+met, indeed, on the appointed day of July; but they assembled not in
+obedience to Alva, but in consequence of a summons from William of
+Orange.  They met, too, not at the Hague, but at Dort, to take formal
+measures for renouncing the authority of the Duke.  The first congress of
+the Netherland commonwealth still professed loyalty to the Crown, but was
+determined to accept the policy of Orange without a question.
+
+The Prince had again assembled an army in Germany, consisting of
+fifteen thousand foot and seven thousand horse, besides a number of
+Netherlanders, mostly Walloons, amounting to nearly three thousand more.
+Before taking the field, however, it was necessary that he should
+guarantee at least three months' pay to his troops.  This he could no
+longer do, except by giving bonds endorsed by certain cities of Holland
+as his securities.  He had accordingly addressed letters in his own name
+to all the principal cities, fervently adjuring them to remember, at
+last, what was due to him, to the fatherland, and to their own character.
+"Let not a sum of gold," said he in one of these letters, "be so dear to
+you, that for its sake you will sacrifice your lives, your wives, your
+children, and all your descendants, to the latest generations; that you
+will bring sin and shame upon yourselves, and destruction upon us who
+have so heartily striven to assist you.  Think what scorn you will incur
+from foreign nations, what a crime you will commit against the.  Lord
+God, what a bloody yoke ye will impose forever upon yourselves and your
+children, if you now seek for subterfuges; if you now prevent us from
+taking the field with the troops which we have enlisted.  On the other
+hand, what inexpressible benefits you will confer on your country, if you
+now help us to rescue that fatherland from the power of Spanish vultures
+and wolves."
+
+This and similar missives, circulated throughout the province of Holland,
+produced a deep impression.  In accordance with his suggestions, the
+deputies from the nobility and from twelve cities of that province
+assembled on the 15th July, at Dort.  Strictly speaking, the estates or
+government of Holland, the body which represented the whole people,
+consisted of the nobler and six great cities.  On this occasion, however,
+Amsterdam being still in the power of the King, could send no deputies,
+while, on the other hand, all the small towns were invited to send up
+their representatives to the Congress.  Eight accepted the proposal; the
+rest declined to appoint delegates, partly from motives of economy,
+partly from timidity.'
+
+These estates were the legitimate representatives of the people, but
+they had no legislative powers.  The people had never pretended to
+sovereignty, nor did they claim it now.  The source from which the
+government of the Netherlands was supposed to proceed was still the
+divine mandate.  Even now the estates silently conceded, as they had ever
+done, the supreme legislative and executive functions to the land's
+master.  Upon Philip of Spain, as representative of Count Dirk the First
+of Holland, had descended, through many tortuous channels, the divine
+effluence originally supplied by Charles the Simple of France.  That
+supernatural power was not contested, but it was now ingeniously turned
+against the sovereign.  The King's authority was invoked against himself
+in the person of the Prince of Orange, to whom, thirteen years before,
+a portion of that divine right had been delegated.  The estates of
+Holland met at Dort on the 15th July, as representatives of the people;
+but they were summoned by Orange, royally commissioned in 1559 as
+stadholder, and therefore the supreme legislative and executive officer
+of certain provinces.  This was the theory of the provisional government.
+The Prince represented the royal authority, the nobles represented both
+themselves and the people of the open country, while the twelve cities
+represented the whole body of burghers.  Together, they were supposed to
+embody all authority, both divine and human, which a congress could
+exercise.  Thus the whole movement was directed against Alva and against
+Count Bossu, appointed stadholder by Alva in the place of Orange.
+Philip's name was destined to figure for a long time, at the head
+of documents by which monies were raised, troops levied, and taxes
+collected, all to be used in deadly war against himself.
+
+The estates were convened on the 15th July, when Paul Buys, pensionary of
+Leyden, the tried and confidential friend of Orange, was elected Advocate
+of Holland.  The convention was then adjourned till the 18th, when Saint
+Aldegonde made his appearance, with full powers to act provisionally in
+behalf of his Highness.
+
+The distinguished plenipotentiary delivered before the congress a long
+and very effective harangue.  He recalled the sacrifices and efforts of
+the Prince during previous years.  He adverted to the disastrous campaign
+of 1568, in which the Prince had appeared full of high hope, at the head
+of a gallant army, but had been obliged, after a short period, to retire,
+because not a city had opened its gates nor a Netherlander lifted his
+finger in the cause.  Nevertheless, he had not lost courage nor closed
+his heart; and now that, through the blessing of God, the eyes of men had
+been opened, and so many cities had declared against the tyrant, the
+Prince had found himself exposed to a bitter struggle.  Although his own
+fortunes had been ruined in the cause, he had been unable to resist the
+daily flood of petitions which called upon him to come forward once more.
+He had again importuned his relations and powerful friends; he had at
+last set on foot a new and well-appointed army.  The day of payment had
+arrived.  Over his own head impended perpetual shame, over the fatherland
+perpetual woe, if the congress should now refuse the necessary supplies.
+"Arouse ye, then," cried the orator, with fervor, "awaken your own zeal
+and that of your sister cities.  Seize Opportunity by the locks, who
+never appeared fairer than she does to-day."
+
+The impassioned eloquence of St.  Aldegonde produced a profound
+impression.  The men who had obstinately refused the demands of Alva,
+now unanimously resolved to pour forth their gold and their blood at
+the call of Orange.  "Truly," wrote the Duke, a little later, "it almost
+drives me mad to see the difficulty with which your Majesty's supplies
+are furnished, and the liberality with which the people place their lives
+and fortunes at the disposal of this rebel."  It seemed strange to the
+loyal governor that men should support their liberator with greater
+alacrity than that with which they served their destroyer!  It was
+resolved that the requisite amount should be at once raised, partly
+from the regular imposts and current "requests," partly by loans from
+the rich, from the clergy, from the guilds and brotherhoods, partly from
+superfluous church ornaments and other costly luxuries.  It was directed
+that subscriptions should be immediately opened throughout the land, that
+gold and silver plate, furniture, jewellery, and other expensive articles
+should be received by voluntary contributions, for which inventories and
+receipts should be given by the magistrates of each city, and that upon
+these money should be raised, either by loan or sale.  An enthusiastic
+and liberal spirit prevailed.  All seemed determined rather than pay the
+tenth to Alva to pay the whole to the Prince.
+
+The estates, furthermore, by unanimous resolution, declared that they
+recognized the Prince as the King's lawful stadholder over Holland,
+Zealand, Friesland, and Utrecht, and that they would use their influence
+with the other provinces to procure his appointment as Protector of all
+the Netherlands during the King's absence.  His Highness was requested to
+appoint an Admiral, on whom, with certain deputies from the Water-cities,
+the conduct of the maritime war should devolve.
+
+The conduct of the military operations by land was to be directed by
+Dort, Leyden, and Enkbuizen, in conjunction with the Count de la Marck.
+A pledge was likewise exchanged between the estates and the pleni-
+potentiary, that neither party should enter into any treaty with the
+King, except by full consent and co-operation of the other.  With regard
+to religion, it was firmly established, that the public exercises of
+divine worship should be permitted not only to the Reformed Church, but
+to the Roman Catholic--the clergy of both being protected from all
+molestation.
+
+After these proceedings, Count de la Marck made his appearance before the
+assembly.  His commission from Orange was read to the deputies, and by
+them ratified.  The Prince, in that document, authorized "his dear
+cousin" to enlist troops, to accept the fealty of cities, to furnish them
+with garrisons, to re-establish all the local laws, municipal rights, and
+ancient privileges which had been suppressed.  He was to maintain freedom
+of religion, under penalty of death to those who infringed it; he was to
+restore all confiscated property; he was, with advice of his council, to
+continue in office such city magistrates as were favorable, and to remove
+those adverse to the cause.
+
+The Prince was, in reality, clothed with dictatorial and even regal
+powers.  This authority had been forced upon him by the prayers of the
+people, but he manifested no eagerness as he partly accepted the onerous
+station.  He was provisionally the depositary of the whole sovereignty of
+the northern provinces, but ho cared much less for theories of government
+than for ways and means.  It was his object to release the country from
+the tyrant who, five years long, had been burning and butchering the
+people.  It was his determination to drive out the foreign soldiery.  To
+do this, he must meet his enemy in the field.  So little was he disposed
+to strengthen his own individual power, that he voluntarily imposed
+limits on himself, by an act, supplemental to the proceedings of the
+Congress of Dort.  In this important ordinance made by the Prince of
+Orange, as a provisional form of government, he publicly announced "that
+he would do and ordain nothing except by the advice of the estates, by
+reason that they were best acquainted with the circumstances and the
+humours of the inhabitants."  He directed the estates to appoint
+receivers for all public taxes, and ordained that all military officers
+should make oath of fidelity to him, as stadholder, and to the estates of
+Holland, to be true and obedient, in order to liberate the land from the
+Albanian and Spanish tyranny, for the service of his royal Majesty as
+Count of Holland.  The provisional constitution, thus made by a sovereign
+prince and actual dictator, was certainly as disinterested as it was
+sagacious.
+
+Meanwhile the war had opened vigorously in Hainault.  Louis of Nassau
+had no sooner found himself in possession of Mons than he had despatched
+Genlis to France, for those reinforcements which had been promised by
+royal lips.  On the other hand, Don Frederic held the city closely
+beleaguered; sharp combats before the walls were of almost daily
+occurrence, but it was obvious that Louis would be unable to maintain the
+position into which he had so chivalrously thrown himself unless he
+should soon receive important succor.  The necessary reinforcements were
+soon upon the way.  Genlis had made good speed with his levy, and it was
+soon announced that he was advancing into Hainault, with a force of
+Huguenots, whose numbers report magnified to ten thousand veterans.
+Louis despatched an earnest message to his confederate, to use extreme
+caution in his approach.  Above all things, he urged him, before
+attempting to throw reinforcements into the city, to effect a junction
+with the Prince of Orange, who had already crossed the Rhine with his new
+army.
+
+Genlis, full of overweening confidence, and desirous of acquiring singly
+the whole glory of relieving the city, disregarded this advice.  His
+rashness proved his ruin, and the temporary prostration of the cause of
+freedom.  Pushing rapidly forward across the French frontier, he arrived,
+towards the middle of July, within two leagues of Mons.  The Spaniards
+were aware of his approach, and well prepared to frustrate his project.
+On the 19th, he found himself upon a circular plain of about a league's
+extent, surrounded with coppices and forests, and dotted with farm-houses
+and kitchen gardens.  Here he paused to send out a reconnoitring party.
+The little detachment was, however, soon driven in, with the information
+that Don Frederic of Toledo, with ten thousand men, was coming instantly
+upon them.  The Spanish force, in reality, numbered four thousand
+infantry, and fifteen hundred cavalry; but three thousand half-armed
+boors had been engaged by Don Frederic, to swell his apparent force.  The
+demonstration produced its effect, and no sooner had the first panic of
+the intelligence been spread, than Noircarmes came charging upon them at
+the head of his cavalry.  The infantry arrived directly afterwards, and
+the Huguenots were routed almost as soon as seen.  It was a meeting
+rather than a battle.  The slaughter of the French was very great, while
+but an insignificant number of the Spaniards fell.  Chiappin Vitelli was
+the hero of the day.  It was to his masterly arrangements before the
+combat, and to his animated exertions upon the field, that the victory
+was owing.  Having been severely wounded in the thigh but a few days
+previously, he caused himself to be carried upon a litter in a recumbent
+position in front of his troops, and was everywhere seen, encouraging
+their exertions, and exposing himself, crippled as he was, to the whole
+brunt of the battle.  To him the victory nearly proved fatal; to Don
+Frederic it brought increased renown.  Vitelli's exertions, in his
+precarious condition, brought on severe inflammation, under which he
+nearly succumbed, while the son of Alva reaped extensive fame from the
+total overthrow of the veteran Huguenots, due rather to his lieutenant
+and to Julian Romero.
+
+The number of dead left by the French upon the plain amounted to at least
+twelve hundred, but a much larger number was butchered in detail by the
+peasantry, among whom they attempted to take refuge, and who had not yet
+forgotten the barbarities inflicted by their countrymen in the previous
+war.  Many officers were taken prisoners, among whom was the Commander-
+in-chief, Genlis.
+
+That unfortunate gentleman was destined to atone for his rashness and
+obstinacy with his life.  He was carried to the castle of Antwerp, where,
+sixteen months afterwards, he was secretly strangled by command of Alva,
+who caused the report to be circulated that he had died a natural death.
+About one hundred foot soldiers succeeded in making their entrance into
+Mona, and this was all the succor which Count Louis was destined to
+receive from France, upon which country he had built such lofty and such
+reasonable hopes.
+
+While this unfortunate event was occurring, the Prince had already put
+his army in motion.  On the 7th of July he had crossed the Rhine at
+Duisburg, with fourteen thousand foot, seven thousand horse, enlisted in
+Germany, besides a force of three thousand Walloons.  On the 23rd of
+July, he took the city of Roermond, after a sharp cannonade, at which
+place his troops already began to disgrace the honorable cause in which
+they were engaged, by imitating the cruelties and barbarities of their
+antagonists.  The persons and property of the burghers were, with a very
+few exceptions, respected; but many priests and monks were put to death
+by the soldiery under circumstances of great barbarity.  The Prince,
+incensed at such conduct, but being unable to exercise very stringent
+authority over troops whose wages he was not yet able to pay in full,
+issued a proclamation, denouncing such excesses, and commanding his
+followers, upon pain of death, to respect the rights of all individuals,
+whether Papist or Protestant, and to protect religious exercises both in
+Catholic and Reformed churches.
+
+It was hardly to be expected that the troops enlisted by the Prince in
+the same great magazine of hireling soldiers, Germany, from whence the
+Duke also derived his annual supplies, would be likely to differ very
+much in their propensities from those enrolled under Spanish banners; yet
+there was a vast contrast between the characters of the two commanders.
+One leader inculcated the practice of robbery, rape, and murder, as a
+duty, and issued distinct orders to butcher every mother's son in the
+cities which he captured; the other restrained every excess to, the
+utmost of his ability, protecting not only life and property, but even
+the ancient religion.
+
+The Emperor Maximilian had again issued his injunctions against the
+military operations of Orange.  Bound to the monarch of Spain by so many
+family ties, being at once cousin, brother-in-law, and father-in-law of
+Philip, it was difficult for him to maintain the attitude which became
+him, as chief of that Empire to which the peace of Passau had assured
+religious freedom.  It had, however, been sufficiently proved that
+remonstrances and intercessions addressed to Philip were but idle breath.
+It had therefore become an insult to require pacific conduct from the
+Prince on the ground of any past or future mediation.  It was a still
+grosser mockery to call upon him to discontinue hostilities because the
+Netherlands were included in the Empire, and therefore protected by the
+treaties of Passau and Augsburg.  Well did the Prince reply to his
+Imperial Majesty's summons in a temperate but cogent letter, in which he
+addressed to him from his camp, that all intercessions had proved
+fruitless, and that the only help for the Netherlands was the sword.
+
+The Prince had been delayed for a month at Roermonde, because, as he
+expressed it; "he had not a single sou,"  and because, in consequence,
+the troops refused to advance into the Netherlands.  Having at last been
+furnished with the requisite guarantees from the Holland cities for three
+months' pay, on the 27th of August, the day of the publication of his
+letter to the Emperor, he crossed the Meuse and took his circuitous way
+through Diest, Tirlemont, Sichem, Louvain, Mechlin, Termonde, Oudenarde,
+Nivelles.  Many cities and villages accepted his authority and admitted
+his garrisons.  Of these Mechlin was the most considerable, in which he
+stationed a detachment of his troops.  Its doom was sealed in that
+moment.  Alva could not forgive this act of patriotism on the part of a
+town which had so recently excluded his own troops.  "This is a direct
+permission of God," he wrote, in the spirit of dire and revengeful
+prophecy, "for us to punish her as she deserves, for the image-breaking
+and other misdeeds done there in the time of Madame de Parma, which our
+Lord was not willing to pass over without chastisement."
+
+Meantime the Prince continued his advance.  Louvain purchased its
+neutrality for the time with sixteen thousand ducats; Brussels
+obstinately refused to listen to him, and was too powerful to be forcibly
+attacked at that juncture; other important cities, convinced by the
+arguments and won by the eloquence of the various proclamations which he
+scattered as he advanced, ranged themselves spontaneously and even
+enthusiastically upon his side.  How different world have been the result
+of his campaign but for the unexpected earthquake which at that instant
+was to appal Christendom, and to scatter all his well-matured plans and
+legitimate hopes.  His chief reliance, under Providence and his own
+strong heart, had been upon French assistance.  Although Genlis, by his
+misconduct, had sacrificed his army and himself, yet the Prince as still
+justly sanguine as to the policy of the French court.  The papers which
+had been found in the possession of Genlis by his conquerors all spoke
+one language.  "You would be struck with stupor," wrote Alva's secretary,
+"could you see a letter which is now in my power, addressed by the King
+of France to Louis of Nassau."  In that letter the King had declared his
+determination to employ all the forces which God had placed in his hands
+to rescue the Netherlands from the oppression under which they were
+groaning.  In accordance with the whole spirit and language of the French
+government, was the tone of Coligny in his correspondence with Orange.
+The Admiral assured the Prince that there was no doubt as to the
+earnestness of the royal intentions in behalf of the Netherlands, and
+recommending extreme caution, announced his hope within a few days to
+effect a junction with him at the head of twelve thousand French
+arquebusiers, and at least three thousand cavalry.  Well might the
+Prince of Orange, strong, and soon to be strengthened, boast that the
+Netherlands were free, and that Alva was in his power.  He had a right
+to be sanguine, for nothing less than a miracle could now destroy his
+generous hopes--and, alas!  the miracle took place; a miracle of perfidy
+and bloodshed such as the world, familiar as it had ever been and was
+still to be with massacre, had not yet witnessed.  On the 11th of August,
+Coligny had written thus hopefully of his movements towards the
+Netherlands, sanctioned and aided by his King.  A fortnight from that
+day occurred the "Paris-wedding;" and the Admiral, with thousands of his
+religious confederates, invited to confidence by superhuman treachery,
+and lulled into security by the music of august marriage bells, was
+suddenly butchered in the streets of Paris by royal and noble hands.
+
+The Prince proceeded on his march, during which the heavy news had been
+brought to him, but he felt convinced that, with the very arrival of the
+awful tidings, the fate of that campaign was sealed, and the fall of Mons
+inevitable.  In his own language, he had been struck to the earth "with
+the blow of a sledge-hammer,"--nor did the enemy draw a different augury
+from the great event.
+
+The crime was not committed with the connivance of the Spanish
+government.  On the contrary, the two courts were at the moment bitterly
+hostile to each other.  In the beginning of the summer, Charles IX. and
+his advisers were as false to Philip, as at the end of it they were
+treacherous to Coligny and Orange.  The massacre of the Huguenots had
+not even the merit of being a well-contrived and intelligently executed
+scheme.  We have seen how steadily, seven years before, Catharine de
+Medici had rejected the advances of Alva towards the arrangement of a
+general plan for the extermination of all heretics within France and the
+Netherlands at the same moment.  We have seen the disgust with which Alva
+turned from the wretched young King at Bayonne, when he expressed the
+opinion that to take arms against his own subjects was wholly out of the
+question, and could only be followed by general ruin.  "'Tis easy to see
+that he has been tutored," wrote Alva to his master.  Unfortunately,
+the same mother; who had then instilled those lessons of hypocritical
+benevolence, had now wrought upon her son's cowardly but ferocious nature
+with a far different intent.  The incomplete assassination of Coligny,
+the dread of signal vengeance at the hands of the Huguenots, the
+necessity of taking the lead in the internecine snuggle; were employed
+with Medicean art, and with entire success.  The King was lashed into a
+frenzy.  Starting to his feet, with a howl of rage and terror, "I agree
+to the scheme," he cried, "provided not one Huguenot be left alive in
+France to reproach me with the deed."
+
+That night the slaughter commenced.  The long premeditated crime was
+executed in a panic, but the work was thoroughly done.  The King,
+who a few days before had written with his own hand to Louis of Nassau,
+expressing his firm determination to sustain the Protestant cause both in
+France and the Netherlands, who had employed the counsels of Coligny in
+the arrangement, of his plans, and who had sent French troops, under
+Genlis and La None, to assist their Calvinist brethren in Flanders, now
+gave the signal for the general massacre of the Protestants, and with his
+own hands, from his own palace windows, shot his subjects with his
+arquebuss as if they had been wild beasts.
+
+Between Sunday and Tuesday, according to one of the most moderate
+calculations, five thousand Parisians of all ranks were murdered.  Within
+the whole kingdom, the number of victims was variously estimated at from
+twenty-five thousand to one hundred thousand.  The heart of Protestant
+Europe, for an instant, stood still with horror.  The Queen of England
+put on mourning weeds, and spurned the apologies of the French envoy with
+contempt.  At Rome, on the contrary, the news of the massacre created a
+joy beyond description.  The Pope, accompanied by his cardinals, went
+solemnly to the church of Saint Mark to render thanks to God for the
+grace thus singularly vouchsafed to the Holy See and to all Christendom;
+and a Te Deum was performed in presence of the same august assemblage.
+
+But nothing could exceed the satisfaction which the event occasioned in
+the mind of Philip the Second.  There was an end now of all assistance
+from the French government to the Netherland Protestants.  "The news of
+the events upon Saint Bartholomew's day," wrote the French envoy at
+Madrid, Saint Goard, to Charles IX., "arrived on the 7th September.  The
+King, on receiving the intelligence, showed, contrary to his natural
+custom, so much gaiety, that he seemed more delighted than with all the
+good fortune or happy incidents which had ever before occurred to him.
+He called all his familiars about him in order to assure them that your
+Majesty was his good brother, and that no one else deserved the title of
+Most Christian.  He sent his secretary Cayas to me with his felicitations
+upon the event, and with the information that he was just going to Saint
+Jerome to render thanks to God, and to offer his prayers that your
+Majesty might receive Divine support in this great affair.  I went to
+see him next morning, and as soon as I came into his presence he began
+to laugh, and with demonstrations of extreme contentment, to praise your
+Majesty as deserving your title of Most Christian, telling me there was
+no King worthy to be your Majesty's companion, either for valor or
+prudence.  He praised the steadfast resolution and the long dissimulation
+of so great an enterprise, which all the world would not be able to
+comprehend."
+
+"I thanked him," continued the embassador, "and I said that I thanked
+God for enabling your Majesty to prove to his Master that his apprentice
+had learned his trade, and deserved his title of most Christian King.
+I added, that he ought to confess that he owed the preservation of the
+Netherlands to your Majesty."
+
+Nothing certainly could, in Philip's apprehension, be more delightful
+than this most unexpected and most opportune intelligence.  Charles IX.,
+whose intrigues in the Netherlands he had long known, had now been
+suddenly converted by this stupendous crime into his most powerful ally,
+while at the same time the Protestants of Europe would learn that there
+was still another crowned head in Christendom more deserving of
+abhorrence than himself.  He wrote immediately to Alva, expressing his
+satisfaction that the King of France had disembarrassed himself of such
+pernicious men, because he would now be obliged to cultivate the
+friendship of Spain, neither the English Queen nor the German Protestants
+being thenceforth capable of trusting him.  He informed the Duke,
+moreover, that the French envoy, Saint Goard, had been urging him to
+command the immediate execution of Genlis and his companions, who had
+been made prisoners, as well as all the Frenchmen who would be captured
+in Mons; and that he fully concurred in the propriety of the measure.
+"The sooner," said Philip, "these noxious plants are extirpated from the
+earth, the less fear there is that a fresh crop will spring up."  The
+monarch therefore added, with his own hand, to the letter, "I desire that
+if you have not already disembarrassed the world of them, you will do it
+immediately, and inform me thereof, for I see no reason why it should be
+deferred."
+
+This is the demoniacal picture painted by the French ambassador, and by
+Philip's own hand, of the Spanish monarch's joy that his "Most Christian"
+brother had just murdered twenty-five thousand of his own subjects.  In
+this cold-blooded way, too, did his Catholic Majesty order the execution
+of some thousand Huguenots additionally, in order more fully to carry out
+his royal brother's plans; yet Philip could write of himself, "that all
+the world recognized the gentleness of his nature and the mildness of his
+intentions."
+
+In truth, the advice thus given by Saint Goard on the subject of the
+French prisoners in Alva's possessions, was a natural result of the Saint
+Bartholomew.  Here were officers and soldiers whom Charles IX. had
+himself sent into the Netherlands to fight for the Protestant cause
+against Philip and Alva.  Already, the papers found upon them had placed
+him in some embarrassment, and exposed his duplicity to the Spanish
+government, before the great massacre had made such signal reparation for
+his delinquency.  He had ordered Mondoucet, his envoy in the Netherlands,
+to use dissimulation to an unstinted amount, to continue his intrigues
+with the Protestants, and to deny stoutly all proofs of such connivance.
+"I see that the papers found upon Genlis;" he wrote twelve days before
+the massacre, "have been put into the hands of Assonleville, and that
+they know everything done by Genlis to have been committed with my
+consent."
+
+     [These remarkable letters exchanged between Charles IX. and
+     Mondoucet have recently been published by M. Emile Gachet (chef du
+     bureau paleographique aux Archives de Belgique) from a manuscript
+     discovered by him in the library at Rheims.--Compte Rendu de la Com.
+     Roy. d'Hist., iv. 340, sqq.]
+
+"Nevertheless, you will tell the Duke of Alva that these are lies invented
+to excite suspicion against me.  You will also give him occasional
+information of the enemy's affairs, in order to make him believe in your
+integrity.  Even if he does not believe you, my purpose will be answered,
+provided you do it dexterously.  At the same time you must keep up a
+constant communication with the Prince of Orange, taking great care to
+prevent discovery of your intelligence with King."
+
+Were not these masterstrokes of diplomacy worthy of a King whom his
+mother, from boyhood upwards, had caused to study Macchiavelli's
+"Prince," and who had thoroughly taken to heart the maxim, often repeated
+in those days, that the "Science of reigning was the science of lying"?
+
+The joy in the Spanish camp before Mons was unbounded.  It was as if the
+only bulwark between the Netherland rebels and total destruction had been
+suddenly withdrawn.  With anthems in Saint Gudule, with bonfires, festive
+illuminations, roaring artillery, with trumpets also, and with shawms,
+was the glorious holiday celebrated in court and camp, in honor of the
+vast murder committed by the Most Christian King upon his Christian
+subjects; nor was a moment lost in apprising the Huguenot soldiers shut
+up with Louis of Nassau in the beleaguered city of the great catastrophe
+which was to render all their valor fruitless.  "'T was a punishment,"
+said a Spanish soldier, who fought most courageously before Mons, and who
+elaborately described the siege afterwards, "well worthy of a king whose
+title is 'The Most Christian,' and it was still more honorable to inflict
+it with his own hands as he did."  Nor was the observation a pithy
+sarcasm, but a frank expression of opinion, from a man celebrated alike
+for the skill with which he handled both his sword and his pen.
+
+The, French envoy in the Netherlands was, of course, immediately informed
+by his sovereign of the great event: Charles IX. gave a very pithy
+account of the transaction.  "To prevent the success of the enterprise
+planned by the Admiral," wrote the King on the 26th of August, with hands
+yet reeking, and while the havoc throughout France was at its height,
+"I have been obliged to permit the said Guises to rush upon the said
+Admiral,--which they have done, the said Admiral having been killed and
+all his adherents.  A very great number of those belonging to the new
+religion have also been massacred and cut to pieces.  It is probable that
+the fire thus kindled will spread through all the cities of my kingdom,
+and that all those of the said religion will be made sure of." Not
+often, certainly, in history, has a Christian king spoken thus calmly
+of butchering his subjects while the work was proceeding all around
+him.  It is to be observed, moreover, that the usual excuse for such
+enormities, religious fanaticism, can not be even suggested on this
+occasion.  Catharine, in times past had favored Huguenots as much as
+Catholics, while Charles had been, up to the very moment of the crime,
+in strict alliance with the heretics of both France and Flanders, and
+furthering the schemes of Orange and Nassau.  Nay, even at this very
+moment, and in this very letter in which he gave the news of the
+massacre, he charged his envoy still to maintain the closest but most
+secret intelligence with the Prince of Orange; taking great care that
+the Duke of Alva should not discover these relations.  His motives were,
+of course, to prevent the Prince from abandoning his designs, and from
+coming to make a disturbance in France.  The King, now that the deed was
+done, was most anxious to reap all the fruits of his crime.  "Now, M. de
+Mondoucet, it is necessary in such affairs," he continued, "to have an
+eye to every possible contingency.  I know that this news will be most
+agreeable to the Duke of Alva, for it is most favorable to his designs.
+At the same time, I don't desire that he alone should gather the fruit.
+I don't choose that he should, according to his excellent custom, conduct
+his affairs in such wise as to throw the Prince of Orange upon my hands,
+besides sending back to France Genlis and the other prisoners, as well
+as the French now shut up in Mons."
+
+This was a sufficiently plain hint, which Mondoucet could not well
+misunderstand.  "Observe the Duke's countenance carefully when you
+give him this message," added the King, "and let me know his reply."
+In order, however, that there might be no mistake about the matter,
+Charles wrote again to his ambassador, five days afterwards, distinctly
+stating the regret which he should feel if Alva should not take the city
+of Mons, or if he should take it by composition.  "Tell the Duke," said
+he, "that it is most important for the service of his master and of God
+that those Frenchmen and others in Mons should be cut in pieces."  He
+wrote another letter upon the name day, such was his anxiety upon the
+subject, instructing the envoy to urge upon Alva the necessity of
+chastising those rebels to the French crown.  "If he tells you,"
+continued Charles, "that this is tacitly requiring him to put to death
+all the French prisoners now in hand as well to cut in pieces every man
+in Mons, you will say to him that this is exactly what he ought to do,
+and that he will be guilty of a great wrong to Christianity if he does
+otherwise."  Certainly, the Duke, having been thus distinctly ordered,
+both by his own master and by his Christian Majesty, to put every
+one of these Frenchmen to death, had a sufficiency of royal warrant.
+Nevertheless, he was not able to execute entirely these ferocious
+instructions.  The prisoners already in his power were not destined to
+escape, but the city of Mons, in his own language, "proved to have
+sharper teeth than he supposed."
+
+Mondoucet lost no time in placing before Alva the urgent necessity of
+accomplishing the extensive and cold-blooded massacre thus proposed.
+"The Duke has replied," wrote the envoy to his sovereign, "that he is
+executing his prisoners every day, and that he has but a few left.
+Nevertheless, for some reason which he does not mention, he is reserving
+the principal noblemen and chiefs."  He afterwards informed his master
+that Genlis, Jumelles, and the other leaders, had engaged, if Alva would
+grant them a reasonable ransom, to induce the French in Mons to leave
+the city, but that the Duke, although his language was growing less
+confident, still hoped to take the town by assault.  "I have urged him,"
+he added, "to put them all to death, assuring him that he would be
+responsible for the consequences of a contrary course."--"Why does not
+your Most Christian master," asked Alva, "order these Frenchmen in Mons
+to come to him under oath to make no disturbance?  Then my prisoners will
+be at my discretion and I shall get my city."--"Because," answered the
+envoy, "they will not trust his Most Christian Majesty, and will prefer
+to die in Mons."--[Mondoucet to Charles IX., 15th September, 1572.]
+
+This certainly was a most sensible reply, but it is instructive to
+witness the cynicism with which the envoy accepts this position for his
+master, while coldly recording the results of all these sanguinary
+conversations.
+
+Such was the condition of affairs when the Prince of Orange arrived at
+Peronne, between Binche and the Duke of Alva's entrenchments.  The
+besieging army was rich in notabilities of elevated rank.  Don Frederic
+of Toledo had hitherto commanded, but on the 27th of August, the Dukes of
+Medina Coeli and of Alva had arrived in the camp.  Directly afterwards
+came the warlike Archbishop of Cologne, at the head of two thousand
+cavalry.  There was but one chance for the Prince of Orange, and
+experience had taught him, four years before, its slenderness.  He might
+still provoke his adversary into a pitched battle, and he relied upon God
+for the result.  In his own words, "he trusted ever that the great God of
+armies was with him, and would fight in the midst of his forces."  If so
+long as Alva remained in his impregnable camp, it was impossible to
+attack him, or to throw reinforcements into Mons.  The Prince soon found,
+too, that Alva was far too wise to hazard his position by a superfluous
+combat.  The Duke knew that the cavalry of the Prince was superior to his
+own.  He expressed himself entirely unwilling to play into the Prince's
+hands, instead of winning the game which was no longer doubtful.  The
+Huguenot soldiers within Mons were in despair and mutiny; Louis of Nassau
+lay in his bed consuming with a dangerous fever; Genlis was a prisoner,
+and his army cut to pieces; Coligny was murdered, and Protestant France
+paralyzed; the troops of Orange, enlisted but for three months, were
+already rebellious, and sure to break into open insubordination when the
+consequences of the Paris massacre should become entirely clear to them;
+and there were, therefore, even more cogent reasons than in 1568, why
+Alva should remain perfectly still, and see his enemy's cause founder
+before his eyes.  The valiant Archbishop of Cologne was most eager for
+the fray.  He rode daily at the Duke's side, with harness on his back and
+pistols in his holsters, armed and attired like one of his own troopers,
+and urging the Duke, with vehemence, to a pitched battle with the Prince.
+The Duke commended, but did not yield to, the prelate's enthusiasm.
+"'Tis a fine figure of a man, with his corslet and pistols," he wrote to
+Philip, "and he shows great affection for your Majesty's service."
+
+The issue of the campaign was inevitable.  On the 11th September, Don
+Frederic, with a force of four thousand picked men, established himself
+at Saint Florian, a village near the Havre gate of the city, while the
+Prince had encamped at Hermigny, within half a league of the same place,
+whence he attempted to introduce reinforcements into the town.  On the
+night of the 11th and 12th, Don Frederic hazarded an encamisada upon the
+enemy's camp, which proved eminently successful, and had nearly resulted
+in the capture of the Prince himself.  A chosen band of six hundred
+arquebussers, attired, as was customary in these nocturnal expeditions,
+with their shirts outside their armor, that they might recognize each
+other in the darkness, were led by Julian Romero, within the lines of the
+enemy.  The sentinels were cut down, the whole army surprised, and for a
+moment powerless, while, for two hours long, from one o'clock in the
+morning until three, the Spaniards butchered their foes, hardly aroused
+from their sleep, ignorant by how small a force they had been thus
+suddenly surprised, and unable in the confusion to distinguish between
+friend and foe.  The boldest, led by Julian in person, made at once for
+the Prince's tent.  His guards and himself were in profound sleep, but a
+small spaniel, who always passed the night upon his bed, was a more
+faithful sentinel.  The creature sprang forward, barking furiously at the
+sound of hostile footsteps, and scratching his master's face with his
+paws.--There was but just time for the Prince to mount a horse which was
+ready saddled, and to effect his escape through the darkness, before his
+enemies sprang into the tent.  His servants were cut down, his master of
+the horse and two of his secretaries, who gained their saddles a moment
+later, all lost their lives, and but for the little dog's watchfulness,
+William of Orange, upon whose shoulders the whole weight of his country's
+fortunes depended, would have been led within a week to an ignominious
+death.  To his dying day, the Prince ever afterwards kept a spaniel of
+the same race in his bed-chamber.  The midnight slaughter still
+continued, but the Spaniards in their fury, set fire to the tents.  The
+glare of the conflagration showed the Orangists by how paltry a force
+they had been surprised.  Before they could rally, however, Romero led
+off his arquebusiers, every one of whom had at least killed his man.
+Six hundred of the Prince's troops had been put to the sword, while many
+others were burned in their beds, or drowned in the little rivulet which
+flowed outside their camp.  Only sixty Spaniards lost their lives.
+
+This disaster did not alter the plans of the Prince, for those plans had
+already been frustrated.  The whole marrow of his enterprise had been
+destroyed in an instant by the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.  He
+retreated to Wronne and Nivelles, an assassin, named Heist, a German,
+by birth, but a French chevalier, following him secretly in his camp,
+pledged to take his life for a large reward promised by Alva--an
+enterprise not destined, however, to be successful.  The soldiers flatly
+refused to remain an hour longer in the field, or even to furnish an
+escort for Count Louis, if, by chance, he could be brought out of the
+town.  The Prince was obliged to inform his brother of the desperate
+state of his affairs, and to advise him to capitulate on the best terms
+which he could make.  With a heavy heart, he left the chivalrous Louis
+besieged in the city which he had so gallantly captured, and took his way
+across the Meuse towards the Rhine.  A furious mutiny broke out among his
+troops.  His life was, with difficulty, saved from the brutal soldiery--
+infuriated at his inability to pay them, except in the over-due
+securities of the Holland cities--by the exertions of the officers who
+still regarded him with veneration and affection.  Crossing the Rhine at
+Orsoy, he disbanded his army and betook himself, almost alone, to
+Holland.
+
+Yet even in this hour of distress and defeat, the Prince seemed more
+heroic than many a conqueror in his day of triumph.  With all his hopes
+blasted, with the whole fabric of his country's fortunes shattered by the
+colossal crime of his royal ally, he never lost his confidence in himself
+nor his unfaltering trust in God.  All the cities which, but a few weeks
+before, had so eagerly raised his standard, now fell off at once.  He
+went to Holland, the only province which remained true, and which still
+looked up to him as its saviour, but he went thither expecting and
+prepared to perish.  "There I will make my sepulchre," was his simple and
+sublime expression in a private letter to his brother.
+
+He had advanced to the rescue of Louis, with city after city opening its
+arms to receive him.  He had expected to be joined on the march by
+Coligny, at the head of a chosen army, and he was now obliged to leave
+his brother to his fate, having the massacre of the Admiral and his
+confederates substituted for their expected army of assistance, and with
+every city and every province forsaking his cause as eagerly as they had
+so lately embraced it.  "It has pleased God," he said, "to take away
+every hope which we could have founded upon man; the King has published
+that the massacre was by his orders, and has forbidden all his subjects,
+upon pain of death, to assist me; he has, moreover, sent succor to Alva.
+Had it not been for this, we had been masters of the Duke, and should
+have made him capitulate at our pleasure."  Yet even then he was not cast
+down.
+
+Nor was his political sagacity liable to impeachment by the extent to
+which he had been thus deceived by the French court.  "So far from being
+reprehensible that I did not suspect such a crime," he said, "I should
+rather be chargeable with malignity had I been capable of so sinister a
+suspicion.  'Tis not an ordinary thing to conceal such enormous
+deliberations under the plausible cover of a marriage festival."
+
+Meanwhile, Count Louis lay confined to his couch with a burning fever.
+His soldiers refused any longer to hold the city, now that the altered
+intentions of Charles IX. were known and the forces of Orange withdrawn.
+Alva offered the most honorable conditions, and it was therefore
+impossible for the Count to make longer resistance.  The city was so
+important, and time was at that moment so valuable that the Duke was
+willing to forego his vengeance upon the rebel whom he so cordially
+detested, and to be satisfied with depriving, him of the prize which he
+had seized with such audacity.  "It would have afforded me sincere
+pleasure," wrote the Duke, "over and above the benefit to God and your
+Majesty, to have had the Count of Nassau in my power.  I would overleap
+every obstacle to seize him, such is the particular hatred which I bear
+the man."  Under, the circumstances, however, he acknowledged that the
+result of the council of war could only be to grant liberal terms.
+
+On the 19th September, accordingly, articles of capitulation were signed
+between the distinguished De la None with three others on the one part,
+and the Seigneur de Noircarmes and three others on the side of Spain.
+The town was given over to Alva, but all the soldiers were to go out with
+their weapons and property.  Those of the townspeople who had borne arms
+against his Majesty, and all who still held to the Reformed religion,
+were to retire with the soldiery.  The troops were to pledge themselves
+not to serve in future against the Kings of France or Spain, but from
+this provision Louis, with his English and German soldiers, was expressly
+excepted, the Count indignantly repudiating the idea of such a pledge, or
+of discontinuing his hostilities for an instant.  It was also agreed that
+convoys should be furnished, and hostages exchanged, for the due
+observance of the terms of the treaty.  The preliminaries having been
+thus settled, the patriot forces abandoned the town.
+
+Count Louis, rising from his sick bed, paid his respects in person to the
+victorious generals, at their request.  He was received in Alva's camp
+with an extraordinary show of admiration and esteem.  The Duke of Medina
+Coeli overwhelmed him with courtesies and "basolomanos," while Don
+Frederic assured him, in the high-flown language of Spanish compliment,
+that there was nothing which he would not do to serve him, and that he
+would take a greater pleasure in executing his slightest wish than if he
+had been his next of kin.
+
+As the Count next day, still suffering with fever, and attired in his
+long dressing-gown, was taking his departure from the city, he ordered
+his carriage to stop at the entrance to Don Frederic's quarters.  That
+general, who had been standing incognito near the door, gazing with
+honest admiration at the hero of so many a hard-fought field, withdrew
+as he approached, that he might not give the invalid the trouble of
+alighting.  Louis, however, recognising him, addressed him with the
+Spanish salutation, "Perdone vuestra Senoria la pesedumbre," and paused
+at the gate.  Don Frederic, from politeness to his condition, did not
+present himself, but sent an aid-de-camp to express his compliments and
+good wishes.  Having exchanged these courtesies, Louis left the city,
+conveyed, as had been agreed upon, by a guard of Spanish troops.  There
+was a deep meaning in the respect with which the Spanish generals had
+treated the rebel chieftain.  Although the massacre of Saint Bartholomew
+met with Alva's entire approbation, yet it was his cue to affect a holy
+horror at the event, and he avowed that he would "rather cut off both his
+hands than be guilty of such a deed"--as if those hangman's hands had the
+right to protest against any murder, however wholesale.  Count Louis
+suspected at once, and soon afterwards thoroughly understood; the real
+motives of the chivalrous treatment which he had received.  He well knew
+that these very men would have sent him to the scaffold; had he fallen
+into their power, and he therefore estimated their courtesy at its proper
+value.
+
+It was distinctly stated, in the capitulation of the city, that all the
+soldiers, as well as such of the inhabitants as had borne arms, should be
+allowed to leave the city, with all their property.  The rest of the
+people, it was agreed, might remain without molestation to their persons
+or estates.  It has been the general opinion of historians that the
+articles of this convention were maintained by the conquerors in good
+faith.  Never was a more signal error.  The capitulation was made late
+at night, on the 20th September, without the provision which Charles IX.
+had hoped for: the massacre, namely, of De la None and his companions.
+As for Genlis and those who had been taken prisoners at his defeat,
+their doom had already been sealed.  The city was evacuated on the 21st
+September: Alva entered it upon the 24th.  Most of the volunteers
+departed with the garrison, but many who had, most unfortunately,
+prolonged their farewells to their families, trusting to the word of the
+Spanish Captain Molinos, were thrown into prison.  Noircarmes the butcher
+of Valenciennes, now made his appearance in Mons.  As grand bailiff of
+Hainault, he came to the place as one in authority, and his deeds were
+now to complete the infamy which must for ever surround his name.
+In brutal violation of the terms upon which the town had surrendered,
+he now set about the work of massacre and pillage.  A Commission of
+Troubles, in close imitation of the famous Blood Council at Brussels, was
+established, the members of the tribunal being appointed by Noircarmes,
+and all being inhabitants of the town.  The council commenced proceedings
+by condemning all the volunteers, although expressly included .in the
+capitulation.  Their wives and children were all banished; their property
+all confiscated.  On the 15th December, the executions commenced.  The
+intrepid De Leste, silk manufacturer, who had commanded a band of
+volunteers, and sustained during the siege the assaults of Alva's troops
+with remarkable courage at a very critical moment, was one of the
+earliest victims.  In consideration "that he was a gentleman, and not
+among the most malicious," he was executed by sword.  "In respect that he
+heard the mass, and made a sweet and Catholic end," it was allowed that
+he should be "buried in consecrated earth."  Many others followed in
+quick succession.  Some were beheaded, some were hanged, some were burned
+alive.  All who had borne arms or worked at the fortifications were,
+of course, put to death.  Such as refused to confess and receive the
+Catholic sacraments perished by fire.  A poor wretch, accused of having
+ridiculed these mysteries, had his tongue torn out before being beheaded.
+A cobbler, named Blaise Bouzet, was hanged for having eaten meat-soup
+upon Friday.  He was also accused of going to the Protestant preachings
+for the sake of participating in the alms distributed an these occasions,
+a crime for which many other paupers were executed.  An old man of sixty-
+two was sent to the scaffold for having permitted his son to bear arms
+among the volunteers.  At last, when all pretexts were wanting to justify
+executions; the council assigned as motives for its decrees an adhesion
+of heart on the part of the victims to the cause of the insurgents,
+or to the doctrines of the Reformed Church.  Ten, twelve, twenty persons,
+were often hanged, burned, or beheaded in a single day.  Gibbets laden
+with mutilated bodies lined the public highways,--while Noircarmes, by
+frightful expressions of approbation, excited without ceasing the fury of
+his satellites.  This monster would perhaps, be less worthy of execration
+had he been governed in these foul proceedings by fanatical bigotry or by
+political hatred; but his motives were of the most sordid description.
+It was mainly to acquire gold for himself that he ordained all this
+carnage.  With the same pen which signed the death-sentences of the
+richest victims, he drew orders to his own benefit on their confiscated
+property.  The lion's share of the plunder was appropriated by himself.
+He desired the estate; of Francois de Glarges, Seigneur d'Eslesmes.  The
+gentleman had committed no offence of any kind, and, moreover, lived.
+beyond the French frontier.  Nevertheless, in contempt of international
+law, the neighbouring territory was invaded, and d'Eslesmes dragged
+before the blood tribunal of Mons.  Noircarmes had drawn up beforehand,
+in his own handwriting, both the terms of the accusation and of the
+sentence.  The victim was innocent and a Catholic, but he was rich.
+He confessed to have been twice at the preaching, from curiosity, and
+to have omitted taking the sacrament at the previous Easter.  For these
+offences he was beheaded, and his confiscated estate adjudged at an
+almost nominal price to the secretary of Noircarmes, bidding for his
+master.  "You can do me no greater pleasure," wrote Noircarmes to the
+council, "than to make quick work with all these rebels, and to proceed
+with the confiscation of their estates, real and personal.  Don't fail to
+put all those to the torture out of whom anything can be got."
+
+Notwithstanding the unexampled docility of the commissioners, they found
+it difficult to extract from their redoubted chief a reasonable share in
+the wages of blood.  They did not scruple, therefore, to display their,
+own infamy, and to enumerate their own crimes, in order to justify their
+demand for higher salaries.  "Consider," they said, in a petition to this
+end, "consider closely, all that is odious in our office, and the great
+number of banishments and of executions which we have pronounced among
+all our own relations and friends."
+
+It may be added, moreover, as a slight palliation for the enormous crimes
+committed by these men, that, becoming at last weary of their business,
+they urged Noircarmes to desist from the work of proscription.
+Longehaye, one of the commissioners, even waited upon him personally,
+with a plea for mercy in favor of "the poor people, even beggars, who,
+although having borne arms during the siege, might then be pardoned."
+Noircarmes, in a rage at the proposition, said that "if he did not know
+the commissioners to be honest men, he should believe that their palms
+had been oiled," and forbade any farther words on the subject.  When
+Longehaye still ventured to speak in favor of certain persons "who were
+very poor and simple, not charged with duplicity, and good Catholics
+besides," he fared no better.  "Away with you!" cried Noircarmes in a
+great fury, adding that he had already written to have execution done
+upon the whole of them.  "Whereupon," said poor blood-councillor
+Longehaye, in his letter to his colleagues, "I retired, I leave you to
+guess how."
+
+Thus the work went on day after day, month after month.  Till the 27th
+August of the following year (1573) the executioner never rested, and
+when Requesens, successor to Alva, caused the prisons of Mons to be
+opened, there were found still seventy-five individuals condemned to the
+block, and awaiting their fate.
+
+It is the most dreadful commentary upon the times in which these
+transactions occurred, that they could sink so soon into oblivion.
+The culprits took care to hide the records of their guilt, while
+succeeding horrors, on a more extensive scale, at other places, effaced
+the memory of all these comparatively obscure murders and spoliations.
+The prosperity of Mons, one of the most flourishing and wealthy
+manufacturing towns in the Netherlands, was annihilated, but there were
+so many cities in the same condition that its misery was hardly
+remarkable.  Nevertheless, in our own days, the fall of a mouldering
+tower in the ruined Chateau de Naast at last revealed the archives of all
+these crimes.  How the documents came to be placed there remains a
+mystery, but they have at last been brought to light.
+
+The Spaniards had thus recovered Mons, by which event the temporary
+revolution throughout the whole Southern Netherlands was at an end.
+The keys of that city unlocked the gates of every other in Brabant and
+Flanders.  The towns which had so lately embraced the authority of Orange
+now hastened to disavow the Prince, and to return to their ancient,
+hypocritical, and cowardly allegiance.  The new oaths of fidelity were
+in general accepted by Alva, but the beautiful archiepiscopal city of
+Mechlin was selected for an example and a sacrifice.
+
+There were heavy arrears due to the Spanish troops.  To indemnify them,
+and to make good his blasphemous prophecy of Divine chastisement for
+its past misdeeds, Alva now abandoned this town to the licence of his
+soldiery.  By his command Don Frederic advanced to the gates and demanded
+its surrender.  He was answered by a few shots from the garrison.  Those
+cowardly troops, however, having thus plunged the city still more deeply
+into the disgrace which, in Alva's eyes, they had incurred by receiving
+rebels within their walls after having but just before refused admittance
+to the Spanish forces, decamped during the night, and left the place
+defenceless.
+
+Early next morning there issued from the gates a solemn procession of
+priests, with banner and crozier, followed by a long and suppliant throng
+of citizens, who attempted by this demonstration to avert the wrath of
+the victor.  While the penitent psalms were resounding, the soldiers were
+busily engaged in heaping dried branches and rubbish into the moat.
+Before the religious exercises were concluded, thousands had forced the
+gates or climbed the walls; and entered the city with a celerity which
+only the hope of rapine could inspire.  The sack instantly commenced.
+The property of friend and foe, of Papist and Calvinist, was
+indiscriminately rifled.  Everything was dismantled and destroyed.
+"Hardly a nail," said a Spaniard, writing soon afterwards from Brussels,
+"was left standing in the walls."  The troops seemed to imagine
+themselves in a Turkish town, and wreaked the Divine vengeance which
+Alva had denounced upon the city with an energy which met with his
+fervent applause.
+
+Three days long the horrible scene continued, one day for the benefit of
+the Spaniards, two more for that of the Walloons and Germans.  All the
+churches, monasteries, religious houses of every kind, were completely
+sacked.  Every valuable article which they contained, the ornaments of
+altars, the reliquaries, chalices, embroidered curtains, and carpets of
+velvet or damask, the golden robes of the priests, the repositories of
+the host, the precious vessels of chrism and extreme unction, the rich
+clothing and jewellery adorning the effigies of the Holy Virgin, all were
+indiscriminately rifled by the Spanish soldiers.  The holy wafers were
+trampled underfoot, the sacramental wine was poured upon the ground, and,
+in brief, all the horrors which had been committed by the iconoclasts in
+their wildest moments, and for a thousandth part of which enormities
+heretics had been burned in droves, were now repeated in Mechlin by the
+especial soldiers of Christ, by Roman Catholics who had been sent to the
+Netherlands to avenge the insults offered to the Roman Catholic faith.
+The motive, too, which inspired the sacrilegious crew was not fanaticism,
+but the, desire of plunder.  The property of Romanists was taken as
+freely as that of Calvinists, of which sect there were; indeed, but few
+in the archiepiscopal city.  Cardinal Granvelle's house was rifled.  The
+pauper funds deposited in the convents were not respected.  The beds were
+taken from beneath sick and dying women, whether lady abbess or hospital
+patient, that the sacking might be torn to pieces in search of hidden
+treasure.
+
+The iconoclasts of 1566 had destroyed millions of property for the sake
+of an idea, but they had appropriated nothing.  Moreover, they had
+scarcely injured a human being; confining their wrath to graven images.
+The Spaniards at Mechlin spared neither man nor woman.  The murders and
+outrages would be incredible, were they not attested by most respectable
+Catholic witnesses.  Men were butchered in their houses, in the streets,
+at the altars.  Women were violated by hundreds in churches and in grave-
+yards.  Moreover, the deed had been as deliberately arranged as it was
+thoroughly performed.  It was sanctioned by the highest authority.  Don
+Frederic, Son of Alva, and General Noircarmes were both present at the
+scene, and applications were in vain made to them that the havoc might be
+stayed.  "They were seen whispering to each other in the ear on their
+arrival," says an eye-witness and a Catholic, "and it is well known that
+the affair had been resolved upon the preceding day.  The two continued
+together as long as they remained in the city."  The work was, in truth,
+fully accomplished.  The ultra-Catholic, Jean Richardot, member of the
+Grand Council, and nephew of the Bishop of Arras, informed the State
+Council that the sack of Mechlin had been so horrible that the poor and
+unfortunate mothers had not a single morsel of bread to put in the mouths
+of their children, who were dying before their eyes--so insane and cruel
+had been the avarice of the plunderers.  "He could say more," he added,
+"if his hair did not stand on end, not only at recounting, but even at
+remembering the scene."
+
+Three days long the city was abandoned to that trinity of furies which
+ever wait upon War's footsteps--Murder, Lust, and Rapine--under whose
+promptings human beings become so much more terrible than the most
+ferocious beasts.  In his letter to his master, the Duke congratulated
+him upon these foul proceedings as upon a pious deed well accomplished.
+He thought it necessary, however; to excuse himself before the public in
+a document, which justified the sack of Mechlin by its refusal to accept
+his garrison a few months before, and by the shots which had been
+discharged at his troops as they approached the city.  For these
+offences, and by his express order, the deed was done.  Upon his
+head must the guilt for ever rest.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Hanged for having eaten meat-soup upon Friday
+Provided not one Huguenot be left alive in France
+Put all those to the torture out of whom anything can be got
+Saint Bartholomew's day
+Science of reigning was the science of lying
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1572 ***
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